About This Video
In his teaching, Shawn draws on imagery from the 1960s to explain that believers in Christ should embody faith and love, using faith to please God and love to guide their actions despite challenges. He discusses these qualities in the context of broader ideals like knowledge, humility, liberty, and hope, which can be threatened by metaphorical fallout, symbolizing the dangers that can undermine a faithful and loving way of life.
Faith and love, when practiced with liberty, humility, and kindness, lead to hope and a harmonious community, while focusing on doctrine, judgment, and control results in fear, bondage, and unrest. Emphasizing the practice and tradition of these virtues fosters positive outcomes, contrasting the negative end results from rigid adherence to authority and judgment.
Understanding Signs and Warnings
In the year that I was born, 1961, in response to the cold war, the Army Corps of Engineers, assigned by President Kennedy, sought out suitable buildings that could be deemed a fallout shelter in the event of nuclear attack. These buildings could be identified, back in the day, by an ominous black and yellow symbol that was posted on any building they deemed fit to resist radiation. The symbol looked like this and can still be found on older buildings from that era.
When you saw them, I suppose that they were supposed to give you a sigh of relief because you knew a place deemed safe from nuclear attack was nearby. But from my perspective, the sign—which looked like this—was a sign of deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. and danger and of, as its name implies, fallout—nuclear fallout. So I personally never related to the black and yellow signs as something safe or good but as something sinister and dark.
Lessons from the 1960s
At the same time, there was a television show called Lost in Space, which was loosely based on the novel, The Swiss Family Robinson. In that show, there was a robot (always called Robot but whose real name was B-9), but whenever danger was present, Robot would warn the young character, Will, by saying over and over, “Danger, Will Robinson!” Warnings and signs of warning. I am going to borrow from these two situations of the 1960s to teach a principle today I wish all people who love God through Christ would come to understand and embrace. And I am going to use the whiteboard to do it.
After decades of studying and teaching the Word, if I was asked to summarize what a gathering of believers in Christ should look like, live by, and walk by as believers, I would list the following characteristics:
Characteristics of Believers
First, people who walk by FAITH. That would be the first premise because that is what pleases God, that is what shows our hearts, and that is what leads us to love. God says forgive, we place our faith in that command, and we forgive!
Which leads me to the second trait of following Christ, and that is LOVE. Agape love—the action we evidence in the face of human difficulty.
WHAT SHOULD BE
- Liberty
- Knowledge
- Humility
- Faith
- Hope
- Love
DREADED SIGN OF A FALL OUT
ALL WHAT SHOULD BE IS BOXED OFF AND LIMITED BY THE ELEMENTS OF CERTAIN FALLOUT
Faith and Its Implications
Faith
Doctrine Love Hope Practice Tradition Liberty Humility Kindness
THE END RESULT?
Authority
Doctrine
Judgment Control
Praxis Traditions
Fear Bondage Unrest
