From Certainty to Faith: Deconstruction, Assurance & the Love of God - Episode 96

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:16]across our world. He came [music] for [singing] us.

[00:00:22]>> And we're back. [laughter] You need to do an entire episode with your Lowe's voice. That's right. Yeah.

[00:00:30]It's good that you're here today.

[00:00:33]We're glad you're here. Glory, >> man. I love doing this.

[00:00:38]>> It's fun.

[00:00:39]>> It's beautiful thing.

[00:00:40]>> It's inspiring is what it is, man. I hope it's inspiring to the folks.

[00:00:44]>> I I've said to you that I learn through conversation. So, I feel like I've been like in school for several years and in all the best ways, Baxter. [laughter] We do love doing this. This is uh lifegiving for me and I and I we've heard incredible feedback from folks that are watching. I mean we are I think 90 some episodes in. That's hard to believe.

[00:01:10]>> Well, we're we we have long colons.

[00:01:13][laughter] >> We We've barely scratched the surface. We barely scratched the surface.

[00:01:22]We do take bathroom breaks though. We do. Yeah.

[00:01:26]>> [laughter] >> And I don't know that that's going to go in the commercial.

[00:01:29]>> Oh, it is.

[00:01:30]>> It is.

[00:01:30]>> Oh, it [laughter] definitely is.

[00:01:33]>> As you can tell, this is our last episode uh for the day and the three-day week that we've been.

[00:01:42][laughter] And David's saying second last, but I promise you it's the last.

[00:01:46]>> Yeah. You really? [laughter] >> All right. Here we go. You ready?

[00:01:51]>> Are you ready?

[00:01:52]>> What are we talking about, brother?

[00:01:53]>> All right.

[00:01:54]from from certainty to faith. Pete ends has a book called the sin of certainty and he's running it at uh some of that western evangelical uh mindset that we have that has made certainty uh the foundation of all things for us that make and we're we're picking up on the conversation of deconstruction. and this was the last conversation we had.

[00:02:19]And so there's this this shift that's taking place where folks are looking for an authent expression of their faith.

[00:02:27]Um, but it's coming through a rethinking of who God is. I want to put it in a little bit more of a context because this is not something that's just now starting to happen. This is the fruit of the enlightenment and its impact upon western Christian theology. And it's the fruit. You could trace this back to Daycart when he famously went inside his little oven and he said, "I am going to find something that I cannot doubt and I'll build my theology from there."

[00:02:58]>> Yeah.

[00:02:59]>> Well, he he came to realize that he couldn't doubt the fact that he was doubting. I think, therefore, I am.

[00:03:05]Right.

[00:03:05]>> So, he's going to reason into a vision of God that he thinks is reasonable for his times and will win the day. But it's like wait wait wait wait wait he is reasoning only in his own mind. So this is only ideas.

[00:03:21]>> Yeah.

[00:03:22]>> And so if you ask what is certainty it's intellectual uh inherency.

[00:03:29]>> Right.

[00:03:29]>> But that may not have anything to do with reality.

[00:03:32]>> Right. So part of the deconstruction movement is the the long inheritance and the way in which from the enlightenment uh rises liberalism because you've now got these ideas, these philosophical thoughts coupled with Newton's framework in science in the 1600s. You've got this this suddenly understanding of of what can be true and what cannot be true and you have a deconstruction or dethologizing as Bolman put it of of these things here because we know because of Newton that there is no such thing as a miracle because that would be God breaking his own laws and we know and therefore that the in this idea of incarnation can't be real because it breaks the law of God. So there's no incarnation, there's no resurrection. If there's no incarnation, we're never going to come to the doctrine of the trinity in any kind of full expression. So there's all kind of deconstruction and oh by the way, this is all in your head. So we're just going to argue about this backwards and forwards. So part of the deconstruction movement coming from younger people is just frustration with I don't care about your ideas.

[00:04:38]>> Yeah.

[00:04:39]>> Which is really beautiful because that's Jesus himself coming to expression in them. I don't care about your religious institutions and your ideas. I want to know the life of the father, son, spirit in us. And then that's just looked at as you know radical subjectivism is no objective reality in that. So objective knowledge is is intellectual certainty and it's not even um how would I put it?

[00:05:05]Objective knowledge is we're seeking a certainty outside of communion in our heads that can ne and we're detaching that from our hearts.

[00:05:16]>> So our hearts yearn and we give we're trying to give an answer of uh intellectual uh biblical theological certainty which there that's not how it works. That's not paracia. Paracia is is confidence, boldness, freedom. I call it unearly assurance. That's what lit the apostles up is they had encountered Jesus in their own soul. So they're not battling merely ideas. Although fully capable, Paul was fully capable like on on Mars Hill, but it's not battling ideas as much as it is learning to live um in the paracia in the confidence and in freedom of knowing that you are both known by and loved by uh the father, son, and spirit and that you can feel and experience that that will then inform new not new ideas. It will it it's really a revisitation of the early church, but it gives expression to ideas and concepts that are flowing out of that unspeakable communion. That's what we're after. And we're trapped in trying to do that in a I mean, you can see the pattern uh after the enlightenment. We we go in full uh headnowledge mode and and then we tried to make that work. So really Christianity to a large degree after the enlightenment became one big theological argument. So so what you're trying to do is find scripture and somebody write a theological argument based on scripture that will win the intellectual argument and therefore win the day. And even when you have masterful theological expression, it doesn't do anything to the human heart if it's not singing the song of the human heart.

[00:06:57]>> And then it begins. So you look at the impact of the shack. You look at the impact of the shack and 30 million copies sold worldwide movies now. New a new uh book coming out return to the shack or I'm not sure the title is that is that the final title?

[00:07:12]>> Yeah, >> be out next year. Uh get ready. But you see what the Holy Spirit was doing in that book was the Holy Spirit was very quietly and and this is so beautiful to me very quietly changing the question.

[00:07:27]The question is not who can produce the best theological statement with the most scripture proof and win the day. The question is now who can lead us to experience the life that Jesus Christ promised us. That's a different question. When you ask that question now you're ready to do some deconstructing.

[00:07:47]And that's way better than intellectual certainty. Listen, uh you guys can partner with us uh to continue having these conversations by giving at at crossallorlds.com and we're grateful uh when you do that.

[00:08:03]None of this happens well to be to be honest. We we've made this happen uh because we believe in it. We [music] believe in this conversation.

[00:08:10]>> Yeah.

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[00:08:14]>> We hadn't made a dime.

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[00:08:16]>> Uh the the point is to get the conversation out to the most people we can and we're loving it.

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[00:08:31]>> Yeah. My journey is one and and is one in which I was only interested in this other centered self-giving love. This was the thing that I could put my weight down on. And I I've told this story enough times that I'll just quickly tell it. Eve is sitting right over there. But you know, we're playing the measurement game and I love you to the trees and back and back and forth. You've heard the story many, many times.

[00:08:56]>> That's a great story. Tell it again.

[00:08:58]>> We get all the way till I >> I want to ask her if it really true.

[00:09:00]It's really true. You just made She's made me >> It is at this point. She was five. So she heard it so many times. It's This is the story. But we get to the end. I've given her this measurless measurless litany of my love trying to measure something that's measurless. And and she looks at me all clever and says, "Daddy times two." And I hear my heavenly father say, "That's the gospel." And to me, and and and and maybe the word's wrong, but I I always wrestled with the idea that there is no uh sense of and maybe the word's wrong, certainty. But for me, I needed a certainty, but my certainty is a love.

[00:09:40]>> That's far a seal. That's >> parisia paria.

[00:09:43]>> And so you know I I have this message stubborn in love's direction like I will not be moved from this other centered self-giving love this co-suffering love that is measurless and thus I couldn't get my arms around it in the first place. It is a measureless discovery upon which I can put my weight down because when we're talking about deconstruction and reconstruction you got to have a cornerstone. There has to be there has to be a foundation that I can put all my weight down on. There has to be a certainty that that or a basket I could put all my eggs in if you will.

[00:10:16]And this is the one that that that has become the most transformative in my life is that for me love is my certainty. And love is not the kind of certainty that can be intellectualized because a 2-year-old can blow it up with the smallest multiplier she can imagine times two. It's it's what what uh David was talking about when we talk about Ephesians and Paul's saying, I want you to be filled, you know, the love that's wide, deep, high, and and and long. Now, I want you to be filled to the measure of the fullness of God. He's using these measurement words. I want you to be filled measurement full to to the fullness of God. Now, to him, it's like he's he it's like he says times two.

[00:10:52]Now, to him who was able to do immeasurably beyond, which by the way, what's immeasurably is enough, but he had has to add beyond all we can ask or imagine. And that for me is the foundational cornerstone or the the the foundational certainty upon which I can I can ground my faith and then from there I get to live as a as an expression of of the growing measurless awareness. That's a beautiful verse.

[00:11:20]>> It is a beautiful verse.

[00:11:22]I'm just as you talk about your own journey and I'm looking and listening to the uh the enlightenment impact on the the rise of what we call liberal theology, the conservative reaction, both of which are st still in your head.

[00:11:38]Um, I'm thinking about Hillary and his like, you know, we we live in a world that's been so detached. There's it's there's no um supernatural uh component in our Christianity for the most part. We think God can, you know, tangentially touch down every now and then. That's one issue. other issues in the head as opposed to um the early church which was they encountered something that blew their minds.

[00:12:09]Jesus.

[00:12:10]>> Yeah.

[00:12:10]>> A love. You calling it love. You came you came to be certain of the love of the father. That's right.

[00:12:15]>> Well, that's not an intellectual uh that's not a deduction from your mind.

[00:12:19]That's an encounter with something here in your heart that you've come to understand as the love of the father.

[00:12:24]That's the cornerstone. That's the hermeneutic.

[00:12:27]>> Right? You know that it that that's the way we go forward. My language for that is the encounter with the father, son, and spirits. It's an unspeakable community. It's the eternal life of God.

[00:12:37]And Hillary's like, "Guys, just quit talking. Why you just Because when people came together, they experienced it." And then you have people that that are not experiencing that are arguing with it, trying to drag the early church into an intellectual argument, which they were fully capable of, but the whole reason they got into it was because they were protecting the encounter.

[00:12:59]>> Yes.

[00:12:59]>> The mystery.

[00:13:00]>> Yes.

[00:13:01]>> So it's it's just history has repeated itself in the rise of the enlightenment [snorts] and uh and then what's happened to us without even knowing it. Right.

[00:13:09]But for me personally, it's like I didn't know you you could encounter Jesus like this. And I had those encounters early on. And that's been my my uh cornerstone, if you want to call it. I encountered joy. I I called it joy. It was Jesus. It was just the love that he has with his father. I didn't know that, right?

[00:13:27]>> But I just knew that that was better than anything else I was eating.

[00:13:30]>> Yeah. Yeah. And then in time I realized the reason I had been given that and told that repeatedly this is what this is about was because of all the damage done by the enlightenment how we living in our head. So for for me and and this is where uh when I'm helping people deconstruct uh you know the idea of tearing everything down. I'm like well you can't tear everything down because then you're left I think I said that nihilistic numbness like you're >> you're left with yourself. You're left with yourself >> dayart >> and and a big old mess.

[00:14:04]>> Yeah. Daycart all over again.

[00:14:06]>> Yeah. No shelter, nothing. And and instead there's this invitation to go, no, there's a love there's, you know, there's a a revel this other centered self-giving co-suffering love that can be trusted and can be trusted with all things.

[00:14:20]>> And it's in involved in all of this.

[00:14:22]>> It's involved in all of it. And then you have because it's such a discombobulating, disorienting thing to step away from your certainties. You re reality is we have certainty because to some extent it it feels like it's false but it feels like our lives are in control like somehow we can we can make it you know we trust our inst the institutions and we tr all the all the things that we put our trust in try to put our weight down and to make sense of our world and the moment someone like you or me comes along and says uh it's better than that I often say sometimes someone asked me recently why why why people think I'm a heretic and I said well I >> who thinks you're a heretic Yeah. Well, you know, >> no, I mean, >> well, there's a few >> there's a bunch of folks I know in history that don't think you're irritated.

[00:15:06]>> Thank you, brother. But there's a few in present time that do.

[00:15:10]>> Anyway, I was asked that I was, you know, I know I was asked that question >> and I said, well, I could get into probably ultimately what we're running at in the cross that there is no separation. I said, but ultimately what's what's happening in the room because I don't always teach on that. I mean, it's there, but I may not get to that message exactly. I said, 'The real issue is that I come in and I tell them about a goodness uh about the goodness of God, and it is offensively good >> and it's it's better than they they can understand. And and and what it's doing is it's poking at the flawed foundations. It's it's highlighting >> not to destroy for destruction's sake, no, >> but to free.

[00:15:51]>> To free. But it's disorienting and discombobulating because they've actually built on some flawed, you know, some sinking sand. They built on some some places that are sand that that aren't rock. And so when I come in, especially if they're older, what they're hearing is they've built an entire life on this structure that I just >> they've given themselves to participate in this >> and I've just exposed the faulty the faulty foundation. And so I'm I'm saying something that's that's better than their their best understanding of who God is. And it's offensive, >> but it's scary.

[00:16:26]>> It's scary.

[00:16:27]>> What What do you do? John says in the Patmas story to Aiden. He says, "What do you do when you do not see what is?"

[00:16:37]He says, he says, "You create something that you can see."

[00:16:41]>> Right?

[00:16:42]>> And you defend it with a vengeance because it's all you think you have, >> right?

[00:16:47]And when you were saying that about some of the older people, that's been the beautiful surprise to me in 30 years.

[00:16:53]>> Yeah.

[00:16:54]>> I have had older pe people older than me.

[00:16:57]>> Yeah.

[00:16:57]>> Come up in tears. One guy, I'll never forget, his name was John Jennings. He was a retired Irish immigrant retired Presbyterian pastor in in um I met him in Vancouver and he and three of his buddies were sitting on the front row and I was in a Presbyterian church thinking man I knew I was supposed to be there.

[00:17:19]That was that was I knew I was supposed to be there but I was like >> and they're sitting on the front row with their Bibles open.

[00:17:26]>> Yeah. And I I you know I was saying what I say about the Trinity and inclusion and what Jesus has done. And he jumped up at the end. And we he ran up on the stage and I I still wasn't sure.

[00:17:41][laughter] And he said, "I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it." He said, "I've been trying to preach this my whole life and I didn't have the vocabulary." And I said, "Well, you you may not have had the right words, but you've been preaching it because it's coming out of your soul."

[00:17:54]>> That's right. Everybody can feel it.

[00:17:57]That's the the tacet knowing. Yeah. That we I spoke of earlier from Michael Plan's way in the uh TF Torren calls it theological intuition. Now, but you're in a system that's not allowing you to put it out there, right? But it's coming out of your being.

[00:18:13]>> Yeah.

[00:18:14]>> And that's a foundation, especially when that's in community.

[00:18:17]>> That's a foundation that we can go forward on christoologgically Christc centered community. We don't want to do anything that Jesus is not doing. We don't want to say anything that Jesus is not saying >> and his witness of of his apostles.

[00:18:31]>> So it's not sticking strictly to the script >> because Jesus is the inspiration of the script, right?

[00:18:38]>> He's bigger than the script. He's alive.

[00:18:40]>> Yeah.

[00:18:40]>> This is a book.

[00:18:41]>> Yeah.

[00:18:42]>> But we it's not one without the other.

[00:18:44]It's just that that is a the ecclesia.

[00:18:47]>> That's it. I I agree that the audience.

[00:18:51]Funny when I go look at uh the analytics of who's watching uh this show or Rethinking God with Tacos, you know, the largest audience is my age, but the second largest audience are those in their 60s and 70s. So, you're >> old people like me. [laughter] >> I'm 51. So, some it all it's all perspective. Eva thinks we're both old.

[00:19:13]>> A mere child. [laughter] >> But I appreciate that you think I'm a I'm young. I like that. I I I'll stick with that. The uh but but there is uh and I think because because they have they have known but as you said I always knew I always knew and suddenly there's language for it. My I mean I'm I'm editing my dad's memoir right now and and uh it's it's almost finished. It's it's going to the life I always dreamed of. It's going to come out in a couple months.

[00:19:42]>> You telling it. I said I bet it's short.

[00:19:45]It's [laughter] it's not 70,000 words.

[00:19:48]He's he's 75. So, but it's it's about the discovery of being enough. This the union message that he got in his, >> you know, in his mid to late 60s that I was getting in my 30s that my kids are getting in their in their formative years and that we were going to pass along to our grandkids. Right? This is this is the beautiful thing about it too is it's it's it's a generational message that's awakening up >> and it's already resonating inside the soul of every human being.

[00:20:16]>> Yeah.

[00:20:17]>> And it's resonating inside a framework.

[00:20:19]Yeah. That it's it's made us thought it was only about ideas. And when people got tired of the ar the intellectual argument we went in in America anyway we moved into entertainment and we moved into dazzling special effects. So, we don't know how to keep people drawn into the system. That doesn't work. Uh, intellectual discussion, right? Only ideas, only concepts, right? So, let's entertain them. Let's put programs out there.

[00:20:47]Let's >> um dazzle them because it's it's a concession that we don't have anything to say that can do something inside of you.

[00:20:58]>> Yeah.

[00:20:58]>> Which is not true. It's just that we haven't seen that and that's what's being recovered.

[00:21:02]>> Right. So that really the the deconstruction movement in in that sense is a move from a certainty to realizing that what we're certain of is the love of the father, son, and spirit. And when that clashes with received ideas, we wrestle with them.

[00:21:20]And but the permission to let them go comes from within. Not not just you, but it is the paracia of Jesus. Walk with me.

[00:21:28]>> Yeah.

[00:21:29]>> And I'm going to lead you into an experience of life. that you can't cannot conceive of at the moment.

[00:21:35]>> Yeah.

[00:21:35]>> And it's good. And I'm going to lead you there. I am leading you there. That's right.

[00:21:39]>> It's not something that you then reconstruct in words and hand on uh what you do in talking about this >> is you're bearing witness to what is >> that's other people.

[00:21:52]>> That's why I I I I love that Emmas Road uh journey because it is it is this I I believe this is what we're talking about. This is the journey that every one of us is on that Jesus is he's walking with us and and some of us are very familiar with him and maybe some of us aren't.

[00:22:10]But either way, he's going to hide himself so that he can reintroduce himself in a way that that speaks first to the burning within us that that deep knowing. And then eventually we invite him into the house. And on that story, they get them in the house. And when they get him in the house, breaks the bread and then their eyes are open for a moment. I always say that uh he disappears from their sight. I always say why did you disappear from their sight? And I asked my heavenly father once. He said I said why would you disappear from their sight? I'd had so many questions. And he said exactly. He said I disappeared from their sight because I wanted them to recognize that that the inner knowing they said next.

[00:22:50]We we knew in our hearts their hearts burned within us. We knew on in our hearts that he that this resurrection was the reality. I'm I'm I'm >> No, I get that. That's a be that's a hard passage to deal with. But your answer to that uh is I don't want you clinging to uh this. I want you to commune with me. Same thing we talked about earlier in episode about John 20 uh and the resurrection and the shifting between Jesus appeared uh in their fear in the unholy trinity of their fear and shame and guilt. But by the time the chapter ends, he's leading you to realize that this Jesus, this Jesus that appeared in our upper room with us physically appears inside of you. And that's a source of your assurance.

[00:23:34]>> Yes, >> that's a source of and and and to link this back to earlier discussions about about darkness is that evil, whatever it is, wherever it came from, uh it's not it's not a um competitor with Jesus. Um, even if if Lucifer was a fallen angel, he he wasn't he wasn't Jesus. He wasn't on that level. But [clears throat] the goal of that is to uh cloud over the heart of the gospel so that your assurance you're not experiencing. So now you have to seek it somewhere else outside of you. Maybe it is I go to the biggest church, >> right?

[00:24:12]>> Maybe it is that I I don't go to church, I'm out over here with another group.

[00:24:16]Maybe it is intellectual certainty, but looking and asking Jesus and grounding it in an experience of him. He's the only one that has assurance.

[00:24:25]>> That's it.

[00:24:25]>> He's sharing it with us. Yeah.

[00:24:27]>> We're trying to find it somewhere outside.

[00:24:29]>> Uh whether it's in a husband or a wife or a a pocketbook or a new whatever it is, we're searching for assurance. In fact, when I wrote uh The Great Dance, there's a sequence in there of discussion where I said I asked a group of guys that were around us, if you could have one thing, what would it be?

[00:24:48]>> Ah, that's a good question.

[00:24:50]>> What would it be? And we we talked about it. Various people had different answers and then they asked me, "What would you say?"

[00:24:57]And I I said, "If I could have one thing, it would be assurance."

[00:25:02]>> Yeah.

[00:25:03]And I I mean I had no idea what you know I did know that but but it's like that boy >> when you when you have assurance that's not certainty. No >> not intellectual theological certainty.

[00:25:15]That's an encounter with you call the love of God. I call it you know Jesus the father son and spirit are in me.

[00:25:21]>> Yes.

[00:25:21]>> Now that gives me assurance.

[00:25:22]>> That's it.

[00:25:23]>> I don't create that assurance. That is the fruit of encounter with Jesus. And that's what we guard. We don't want to lose that.

[00:25:31]>> Yes. and get lost in the distractions.

[00:25:33]>> That's at 51. And I' we've talked about it before. That's that assurance that Jesus has in a boat in the middle of a storm that he has the authority to calm.

[00:25:43]And yet the father's taking a nap.

[00:25:45]That's always fascinated me. As I was younger, it was his authority to calm the storm. But but as I've gotten older, it is the f it is the piece to take a nap in the middle of a storm because that's the assurance that you're talking about that I realize is the thing that is most burning in me. In fact, I get emotional like if I it's the thing that most burns in me that we would know that assurance. But I think we've run out of time. Um I'm going to say that I love every second of this. I'm so grateful for you and and uh we've got >> Well, I I love being here with you, brother. This is inspiring.

[00:26:20]>> Yeah, >> it's inspiring. You do this in community. Yeah. You get taken places >> experientially that you can't get to right by yourself. And that's what Paul says. You comprehend with all the saints, >> right?

[00:26:31]>> Not not us sitting on the island, you know, thinking about this. It's the whole history of the brothers and sisters >> uh informing us, leading us.

[00:26:39]>> Yeah. Love you. Father, we bless you all. We bless you in Jesus name. You want to pray a blessing over them as we leave?

[00:26:46]Father, show them uh reveal Jesus like you did to Peter.

[00:26:53]Reveal Jesus in them and let that become their uh conscious assurance >> so that they're not beholding to seek elsewhere >> and then move together in community to uh remove things that are uh keeping us from finding that assurance and experiencing and live from it.

[00:27:12]>> Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Love you guys.

[00:27:24]>> [music] >> across [music] our world. He came for us with father's passion burning with strength unknown spirits