Greg Laurie
speaker
159 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Greg Laurie’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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I had the opportunity today to sit down with Greg Laurie, and many of you will be familiar with Mr. Laurie as a consequence of the movie Jesus Revolution, which is really the place where he came to
Mm-hmm.
Hmm. You know, it seems to me that this young generation, so many of them raised in broken homes and often fatherless homes, which really is at the root of so many social ills. I'm sure you know a lot more about this than I do, but I've done a little research on it and you can almost trace everything in culture from
people getting into crime, drug use, girls getting pregnant outside of wedlock, to broken homes, specifically the lack of a father. So I think one of the reasons that you have connected with younger people, and especially younger men, is you're a father figure. And they're looking for an authoritative voice.
And I think sometimes parents are trying to be a friend to their children when they need to be parents to their children. And so I think that there's something about coming to a church and hearing someone say without apology, here's the Bible, here's truth, here's what God says, and here's the way that you should live. And I think that there's an appeal to that that is just lacking in our culture.
You know, we push so hard against these values and against these absolutes that there is, you know, a reaction. There's always an action and a reaction. So my generation, You know, the baby boomers were the children of the people that came out of World War II, you know, building families, rebuilding America. And so many of us maybe didn't get the affirmation or attention we thought we should get.
So maybe we overindulged our children. Then there's a reaction to that. And it just goes on from generation to generation. But I think this is a generation that to me, having lived through a few decades, is in many ways parallel to my youth generation. I see more of a connection between the late 60s and the early 70s and today than they do in any other decade.
I don't see that with the 80s necessarily or the 90s, but today I see young people, they're looking for a cause, they're looking for meaning. I was talking to some Gen Z kids recently. I said, why do you think so many kids of your generation are out there protesting against Israel? was slogans like, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
I don't even think they know what the river or the sea are, but they're involved in it. And they said, they're looking for a cause. They're looking for something to speak up for, something to believe in. So I think that when you come to the church and you come to the Bible, If we offer theology without apology and make it understandable to people, I think there's a great appeal in that.
And that's probably part of the reason that young men in particular, but I think people of all, young women too, are looking for that.
Yeah.
You know, I think the thing to start with is just that God spoke to Abraham. He's coming from a completely pagan background. And God establishes a relationship with him. And then he has a tension with his nephew Lot. And you can compare the two of them because it's like Lot was drawn to the bright lights of the big city, if you will, to Sodom. Yeah, he pitches his tent towards Sodom.
And progressively goes downhill from there. And Abraham is looking elsewhere. In the New Testament it says he was looking for a city that had foundations whose builder and maker is God. So I think there's this longing in Abraham for God. But you know, him and his wife never have a child, and they finally have Isaac in their old age. And Isaac means laughter, he's the joy of their life.
And then the Lord asks for the ultimate sacrifice from Abraham, take your son, your only son, whom you love, and offer him as a sacrifice to me. And kind of a common misconception, I think, about Isaac in some religious art is you see him portrayed as a young child, when in reality he was probably a young man.
And therefore, it wasn't just a father sacrificing a son, but it was a son fully cognizant of what he was being asked to do, willing to sacrifice himself. But the Lord intervened, said the angel, and it was never God's intention for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but it became a perfect picture of what would happen later at the cross.
And I think one of the best summations of it all is the story that Jesus told. We call it the parable of the prodigal son. But we wonder, what is God like? Is God austere? Is God harsh? Is God distant? Does God have an interest in us? And if Jesus had not suggested this, it might even seem somewhat irreverent. Jesus portrays God as a father who loves his son, who misses his son.
And when his son is gone, he longs for his return. And not only that, but when the son is a long ways off and comes to his senses and returns, the father runs to him and kisses him. And a better translation would be he smothers him with kisses. So this is an affectionate father. And, you know, you think this is a boy who came from an affluent home. He came from a loving home. But yet he went away.
But that's God. Like, what is God like? God is like a father that misses us and longs for fellowship with us. And then, of course, the son is restored to sonship. So I think we're all longing for that. Just to go to my own personal story, Jordan, you know, my mother was married and divorced seven times. And she was a beautiful woman, literally a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe.
And she had a bunch of boyfriends in between. She was a raging alcoholic. So I never had a father growing up. And I was searching for a father myself. And so I saw my mother's lifestyle that was sometimes affluent, primarily alcoholic. She would drink to excess and pass out. in a stupor every night, and suddenly I became the parent in the relationship.
Even though I was a little boy, I did make sure my mom didn't die, right? So get her in bed, make sure she eats something, and care for her. So I can understand young people searching, young men searching. I was searching too, but I didn't know what I was searching for. I just knew out there there was something better than the life I was living. And
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