A New Creation

Beckett Cook's life is been a journey that took him into some deep valleys and onto some high mountains, a journey where he experienced profound darkness before coming to a place of incredible light at a very early age I ice started to sense that I was attracted to the same sex and that was kind of an sensation because it was very much from abundance of I kind of had this like secret life. I was going to clubs and bars and I just remember going to a gay bar for the first time and just feeling like wow, these are my people when I moved to LA it was this very liberating experience for me because I immediately fell into this group of friends and they were suddenly becoming famous overnight. Now looking back I see that God was protecting me from like that kind of success. I was with my best friend and we got his coffee shop and we would hang out there and like it was a beautiful egg is always sunny and beautiful and and suddenly we look over. We notice there's a table next to us and that's like five young people with Bibles on the table like physical Bibles and so we talked about their faith and I Horse got to the $64,000 question and I said what is your church in Hollywood. Believe about homosexuality and I loved how Frank and just one thing and they said well we believe the following Sunday morning I woke up and just going to church today so I got to this auditorium. I walked in and sat near the front by myself. The pastor came out, he just started preaching for an hour and it was a slight full gospel and I just remember thinking while it was happening. It just every word he was saying was resonating is truth in my mind and my heart and I didn't know why. Like well like everything he was saying I'd be like, that's true, and I didn't know why I was sitting there processing everything and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit was like and just God overwhelmed me and revealed himself to me as I in that moment I was like in my mind. God was like I'm God. Jesus is my son. Heavens real hell zero. The Bible is true. Welcome to my kingdom started bawling and bawling involving an is crying over my sin, but also the fact that I am just not thinking of the universe. This is family life today hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine you can find us online@familylifetoday.com will hear more today about Beckett Cook's change of affection stay with us and welcome to family life to. Thanks for joining us. I think one of the first Bible verses. I may have memorized was second Corinthians 517 and and and I'm not sure where that came on my radar spiritually, but it's one of those verses that I learned early if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation the old has passed away behold all things have become new have been made new. And that's the reality of of our story. All each of our stories that the moment that we become new creatures is different for all of us as we purred this week, but the reality of what goes on passing from death to life.

That's true for every person who is in Christ, and who becomes them a part of God's family. A child of God. Yeah, you know Bob, it's gotta be probably adverse if not all Christian's most Christians, we just love it. But I also I'm staggered so frustrated because I'm brand-new in Christ and yet there's a soul stuff hangs around sometimes. Isn't that frustrated leg of the Holy Spirit of the living God of all creation lives in this temple. Why in the world would I ever sin, but I am brand-new and I do have the resurrected power Christ in me and I want to live that life in him. Do you guys remember being brand-new now. I mean all of us. Yeah, I mean I remember thinking you cricket I was so excited. Everywhere I went. I told everyone I saw obnoxiously with my parents a row going to hell and we needed all give our lives to Jesus. I read the Bible. I remembered reading the Bible opening at and for the first time I got it.

I remember reading the gospel. Speaking yeah and you just are on fire. Wait, we been hearing a story this week. A great story. In fact, I just want to encourage your listers if you missed any part of the story, go to our website and listen to what you missed or get a copy of the book we been talking about, which is called a change of affection.

Beckett Cook is joining us and he's the author of the book Beckett welcome back. Thank you. Beckett's story from death to life to becoming a new creation is a story that took you from growing up in Dallas realizing as a teenager you were attracted to other guys that became your reality, your identity, you moved up to Hollywood. You are in the entertainment industry. You had a series of ongoing relationships with men and one day you're in a coffee shop and guys are a Bible study the next table and you say what is it you believe and they tell you about Jesus and invite you to church and God meet you at that church and you become a new creation in Christ. And as you told us you you went home flooded with this sense that God is real and I'm now his child and understanding that that has implications for every aspect of your life. I mean, I don't think you fully understood it in that moment, but you knew enough to know I can't just go on and say oh I go to church again next Sunday.

Now back to the old Beckett yeah so how did you start the process that I mean you just had a revolution happening your life in the day to what happens. Well, mean fortunately I had such a strong community at my church that just really rallied around me and supported me and prayed for me and I immediately got plugged into you know community groups in small groups and Bible studies and prayer nights and did you go to the church people inside I'm new and I need help or did you just look for whatever activities were on the schedule and Sam go to that.

I think the next Sunday when I showed up again. They all realize that I did. That's a guy who was a mess left you go back to church.

So, do you tell them that I've been living on a gay lifestyle. I think they know they all sort of knew because I did explain that to them at the coffee shop before okay yeah you're seeing the same people that you'd seen at the coffee shop. They know God's doing the work in this guys left and they came around you and said were here to help. Yeah, and my pastor ended up becoming a really close friend.

We would meet once a week for coffee and he would really pour into me and people just get text all day just from random people I didn't know like hey praying for you today like what and then I immediately started reading the Bible and it will again it was like what you said. It's like every word jumped off the page at me and I'm even in like Deuteronomy in Genesis.

It was like the Bible was like it was like it was a foreign language before I was saved and then after I was saved I find I could speak that language in every word was like oh I can't believe this is true like this is like I am part of this whole plan of God's reduction so I read the Bible voraciously and I listen to like five sermons a day from Tim Keller and others to John Stott and a bunch of other pastors. I would just listen and describing every time I listen to a sermon I would by the end I would break down in tears because I like. I can't believe this is true it I'm part of it. It was like kind of self-education but also like people supported me so the people used to go shopping with on Sunday mornings and your old friend group. Are they aware that Beckett just had a nervous breakdown that was that was a huge task to tell all my friends that did you want to tell already know I wanted. I was excited. Tell them, but I I would sit them down one at a time.

It took me like three weeks to do this and I would say you know I have something really crazy to tell you. And there was a wide like are you moving you did you Munich a new guy and I'm like well it kind of they were stunned they were all stunned and it was it was a hard process to go through and a couple of there were a few people who were hostile about it but most of them were very kind and loving about it and it was kind of like that. The thing of like, I'm glad you found your past sort of thing. What shocked me the most about it because I just assume like I tell them my story and there to become Christians like that. Just like I did and what shocked me is they didn't want to know more like they heard my story, but they didn't want to know, like will will so what's it like to know God like what to how can I know God. What I do and no one really did that now is a huge surprise to me, and a disappointment. Many of them try to talk you out of it.

Yeah a couple people dead and a friend to went to an Ivy League school. I told my whole story and he said back. I studied theology in college in this is not you know he try to talk me out of it and I was just like you don't understand like you revere this kind of college.

He went to so much and yet such big deal to you in your life and and I was like Joe it means nothing and that was kind of a weird moment, but were still friends were still good friends. What about mom and dad and the siblings hi guy had to roll it out slowly because it was so overwhelming to tell everyone. And so I just slowly started emailing my siblings and they were just like they could not believe it. They were blown away. They were crying.

They would call me crying my mother was super happy for me.

My dad was kind of weird that he was a little bit distant about it. We never talked about it because he heard it through my mother and so I think he was under this misapprehension that I was like going to like a gay church or something. So like a year later I was home for Christmas and my dad was saying. Having these pains in like that is not in the courthouse and I fell down in the courthouse and bubble housing and I've never done this before and I was like, let me pray for you and I mean I was sincere and I just I laid hands on my dad. I prayed for him and after I finished praying for him.

He looks at me and he was like back. You have the Holy Spirit in you. Like I know baby was so he was like that's when it really hit him.

He was like, I am so happy for you. I'm so happy for you and he finally got it did this jeopardize your career as you're in the entertainment business where to be gay is to be celebrated to be a Christian is to be suspect. Yeah, I thought it was going to impact my career because when I got saved. I was working on a shoe photo shoot. I mean, I told everyone on the set about my conversion. I told everyone about Faith and every time I thought there never to hire me again, but they I just kept getting more more jobs and more more jobs. I was on the chute and we were shooting in Malibu and the owner of the.

The ad agency and she knew I was a Christian and she's at how we got to get the shot right now the sun going down the lights perfect would be a sin not to get the shot and she's like oh Beckett you know all about sin don't like yes actually I do what I said that the entire crew turned and looked at me and I said what are the wages of sin right now all of you are dead in your trespasses. But I'm alive in Christ that I would like to explain the gospel and after I finished, they were just like all stunned. She just was like to get a coffee to be given again and again and again like after that it only affected me and when the book came out a year ago, Hollywood slandered store and blacklisted in Hollywood now so they close the doors on me. I was there ever a time as you and your new face your new walk Christ your new creature that you try to hold onto.

This is who I am among sexual it's okay with God. He loves me. I can still do this or was it he immediately boom no see this is what the culture doesn't get a lot because it's so celebrated. No one here is the dark side of that life. It's a very dark world. I mean if I told you stories of what I've seen and what goes on behind closed doors and what goes on at parties.

What goes on is so dark, even to someone who is living that life is just so dark that something that never gets talked about, so I never I never want to go back to the darkness that life. I mean I once I was in the light and like none, and now I'm not ever going back about for sure. What about same-sex attraction. So what I say always say this when I the day before I got saved my attraction would say was at hundred percent and then God had so much grace on me when I got saved a kind of like slam down to like 10% or less 5% and it's something where before was a Christian. It dominated my thought life dominated everything I did. Sexuality good.

Now I die rarely think about it and so did something I don't really think about. I I'm I'm happy to be single and celibate like Paul and Jesus because it's like I got have eternal life. I have a relationship with the King of the universe are eternal life like I can live under a bridge for the rest. I don't care because I have this incredible relationship and so I never feel cheated out of something people always asking like isn't it unfair that you have to be single for the rest of your life isn't fair that you can't be in a relationship. I'm like I'm in a relationship with you.

What Jesus had to be be crucified and killed because of my sin. That's unfair. I guy my life is like nothing but gravy now I get to be with Jesus for the rest of my eternity. So when you read the evangelical voices that are saying that same-sex attraction and following Jesus are compatible and we misunderstood the Bible all these years. Look living is people since day one for millennia have tried to justify sin, and in whatever way and those people who were saying that that you can be engage in home sexual behavior and be a Christian. There I mean five for lack of a better word. The deceased is a deception and it's so incompatible with not just like that of the six kind of clobber" passages in the Bible that deal with it directly, but with the whole story of God's God created sex and he created sex to be expressed within this covenant, that is safe and secure between a man one man one woman in there is a reason he did that he knows what's good for us and he knows how we flourish and what whenever we go outside the covenant. It's destruction.

It's like unwanted pregnancies.

It's STDs which like for years. I was terrified of and I mean praise God like I there are so many times I could've gotten HIV but I didn't die protecting anything from that. And not only just the diseases and the pregnancies, but also the emotional scarring of multiple partners and all that stuff and being exposed to somebody like spiritually, physically, emotionally, and then just being like a cut off after one night, or whatever. One year that has major Amaya takes on emotional toll on a person and we don't even like to talk about that or recognize any work to recognizing it in the me to movement, but it's like okay there wouldn't be a meeting movement if we actually lived in God's design for covenantal marriage. There would be no meeting there would be no diseases there would be no STDs at all and that's what it is is missing from the conversation and you know for us.

This is at the heart of what we are all about is a ministry practical biblical help and hope around marriage and family trying to help people think this relationship these family relationships are gender our sexuality, how we interact with one another first in the home. In the covenant of marriage and then beyond that, in the broader culture. This is God's purpose for us in life is to receive from him the love he has for us and then to be gutters of that love in the lives of other people in a way that reflects the kind of love that he has not.

I'm going to preach in here, but it's just it's what you're illustrating with your life and with the passion that you're expressing it is so close to the heart of what this ministry is all about that to be able to share your story with our listers was a real privilege really is and when I listen to you Beckett I think you are hundred percent in it and say Jesus have half of my life. Three quarters of my life.

You are all in and I think that even for all of us as listeners to it when we give him everything. When we step out on the water and we just say I'm yours. That's when he really has a chance to work in our lives yeah and then the thing about obedience to God. Is it such a joy to be you because before. As I said, living in a postmodern world. You don't know anything you don't know what's good or bad.

It's like you know when your parents give you boundaries. It's loving it feels good as a child and now that I understand the boundaries of life and of what God wants.

I feel safe and I feel loved by my father. I have so much joy in obedient thoughts.

It's obvious you can you exude live in you think and you know it's funny that you asked your counselor why am I here and he could answer yeah and you just told us in your book tells the world and every listener. Your story tells why you're here and it's one of the family life and crew foundational statements to know Christ and to make him known.

Yeah, and you just menu the passion of you talk about knowing Christ and then you are living your life in a way to make him known everywhere you go. Others on a set lore to writer Brooke as you did it wherever you go, you can make Christ known that your purpose and I hope every listener goes. If I give him everything. I'll know I am here he's gonna he can reveal it to me and if I will step into using emails using unity will you are writing and speaking you in the seminary, got a Masters in theology from Talbot seminary and out speaking and places all across the country were just grateful you stop by here grateful for the book. Thank you for the time you guys. It is such a pleasure to be here. Beckett's book is called a change of affection again man's incredible story of redemption.

You can get a copy. In fact, I'd encourage you to get a copy of such a great story of God's redeeming work in Beckett's life and just reminds us of God's grace. Again, the title of the book a change of affection again man's incredible story of redemption.

Get your copy online@familylifetoa.com or call to order one 800 FL today. Again, our website family life to the a.com order the book a change of affection when you call one 803 586-329-1800 F as in family L as in life, and then the word today. You know II love the opportunity we have here to wrestle with significant issues in our culture today.

Issues that have an impact on marriages and on families. Family life. Today's mission is to effectively develop godly marriages and families. We are committed to providing practical biblical help and hope for marriages and families. We believe transform families can change the world. There are so critical to the ongoing health of any culture any civilization and you as a listener help make that happen when first of all, you tell other people about family life today to be pass on a link to the podcast that you listen to today and then secondly when you help support this ministry. The cost of producing and syndicating family life today is a cost that is covered by friends of this ministry who donate so that family life today can be heard by more people more often if you're able to help with the donation today. We'd love to say thank you for your support by sending you a copy of a new book I've written called love like you mean it. It's a book about marriage. We actually look at first Corinthians 13 the characteristics of love that are outlined there in Scripture and talk about what a marriage would look like if husbands and wives were patient and kind not self-seeking, not insisting on their own way.

All of these character qualities apply to the marriage relationship and that's what we talk about in this book. The book is our thank you gift to you when you go online today to family life to a.com to make a donation or call one 800 FL today and donate over the phone. Thanks in advance for whatever you're able to do to support this program and I hope you enjoy the book. Love, like you mean. I also hope you can join us back again tomorrow when we talk with author and speaker Shelby Abbott about how we should respond when we're wrestling with doubt instead of feeding your doubts and allowing your faith to starve one. If you feed your faith and allow your doubts to starve. It seems a little bit counterintuitive to think and feel that way. But it's obviously the way that we should be going. Putting the weight of our faith into Jesus.

During the process of the fact that we were not sure he can prop us up will talk about the right way to respond when we start to have questions about whether God exists whether he loves us his word is true and will talk about what we do as parents when our children are doing with those kinds of doubts. Hope you can tune in for all of that, I will think our engineer today. Keith Lynch along with our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our house. Steven and Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine.

See you back next time for another edition of family life today. Family life to a is a production of family life of Little Rock, Arkansas. Accrue ministry help for today hope for tomorrow