Truth Unites - Sharing the Gospel in 2024 vs. 2014

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

Gavin Ortlund shares four ways evangelism, apologetics, and Christian witness have changed from 2014 to 2024. Learn about Trinity Evangelical Divinity School: https://www.tiu.edu/divinity/lp/truthunites/ Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/  

In this video, I want to lay out four ways that evangelism and apologetics and public theology in any sort of way has changed over the last 10 years. It's harder today. I'm filming this in 2024. We'll go back to 2014. We'll lay out four differences and then stay to the end because at the end I'll give three suggestions for how we can meet those challenges. In 1936, Leslie Newbigin left Great Britain and spent four decades as a missionary in India. I'll put up a picture of him. He's kind of an underutilized resource, I think, for us.

Amazing man and miscellologist. When he came back home in 1974, he discovered that his home country of England was now more of a mission field than India had been when he left. So from the 30s to the 70s, Western culture had completely changed, and he argued that it had not become a secular society that has no gods and no religion. Newbigin said, basically, it's become a pagan society with false gods. And he said, other than Islam, this is the most resistance kind of culture to the gospel. He has a lot to say about misiology that can help us. One of the things he noticed is churches were not responding well to these changes. Most churches were hugely underresponsive

and underprepared for the new scene, for the challenges. And obviously, this is very relevant to us today. He talked about, Newbigin talked a lot about the role of community for mission, something that we often undervalue, I think. The role, you know, calling people into a community because there's so much loneliness in the world right now. But he talked about this. I'll put up this quote for this simple language here, for helping the gospel make sense to people. I love that. It's so simple, but it's so good. I, this is what, this is why I'm alive. This is why truth unites exists. This is why I do what I do. This is why I've pursued the calling that I feel God is placed upon my life. And it gives me great peace and joy to do so. I love that I get to do this. But I have such a burning passion in my

heart that the gospel would make sense to people today, especially young people. The kinds of people watch my videos. I'm so honored, especially for people who are atheists or not believers in God or Christianity who watch or maybe you're deconstructing. You watch, please know how honored I am that you would watch my videos. I really hope they help and serve people. My great passion is that basically all these anxieties and struggles that people are having today about Christianity, that basically the resources I put out would help the gospel make sense, you know, and that more people would say, oh, that's who Jesus is. That's how good and joyful this message is.

I want to give my life to that. And that's what I hope my videos are serving. So I mentioned this about New Begin because just as Western culture has changed radically from 1936 to 1974, So it has changed from 1974 to today. Dare I try to do the math? Is that 50 years? Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

The decades roll by. It's not just the years roll by, the decades roll by. And even in the last 10 years, from 2014 to today, the rate of change is increasing. Social media, the internet, cable news, everything is changing. And so the world is now changing more rapidly. And so there's this huge miscellological challenge we face today. The number of people alive today, over 8 billion people in the world, the number of young people, there are so many people in the world who need the gospel right now.

It's just like this unique, unprecedented moment that we have. And the challenges we face are unique. In some respects, they're not totally unique. I mean, the same basic dynamics are at play, but there are unique challenges we face today that even 10 years ago we didn't face. And so we're going to need the Holy Spirit's help a lot. So let's talk through four examples, and then we'll talk about what do we do about this. If you, like me, have a passion for bringing the gospel today, whether through apologetics, evangelism or something else, we're all going to be involved in some way. And all of us should

have that aching heart for people to encounter the God who made us all. I'll give four changes, and then three strategies. Before I dive in, I want to just mention again, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I've mentioned them twice before. This video is being sponsored by them again. Put up a picture of their beautiful campus. I love Trinity. I did a postdoc there, postdoctoral fellowship there for a year. Love my time there. It's a very academically rigorous institution, world-class faculty. But, and they're committed to the inerrancy and authority of scripture, but you also get diversity. You know, you'll get a broad range of evangelical perspectives of things. They also have these particular points of passion and

emphasis, like bioethics, the idea of a pastor theologian. They've got lots of particular strong points there. A lot of people who watch my videos want to study more theology, and maybe they haven't thought about formal education enough. I decided early on, I want Truth Unites to be not only pro local church, but also pro seminary and Christian college and Christian university and all of that. Social media should never replace those things. I wanted to encourage those things. When I pray for a revival in the church today, one of the things I would love to see is seminaries flourishing again because so many are not right now. At any rate, I just want to encourage people to consider getting formal theological training. It's not just for pastors.

It's not just for academics. It's for anybody who wants to be more thoroughly equipped for life and ministry following Jesus. I've never regretted the investment that I've made in formal education. It's a good investment. So check out the video description for more information, how to apply. they're flexible. You can study online, you can study in person, and they have different start dates. They have different kinds of classes, so you can kind of tailor it to your schedule. So, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, check out the video description. All right, let's dive in.

What has changed from 2014 to today? Number one, scandal and abuse. This is not just in the church. It's all throughout society, but unfortunately, it's also in the church. I'm not even going to I thought about, you know, should I go through these examples? And I'm like, no, partly because it's too depressing and disturbing. And partly because we all know it, you know, you can just Google it. We all know this has happened. And it happens at the, at the big level, you can see it, but also happens at local levels with non-famous people. So we should never underestimate the amount that is happening. Hold on one second. My kids are knocking on the door. All right, I am back. I'm not a negligent father. It's just my wife is also home, so they can get help from her. I love my kids.

It was a very important crisis of which TV show to watch next. So anyways, back to the show here. So we're talking about scandals and abuses, and I was saying I'm not going to give examples. We all see this. It's big. But what I will articulate, as someone, my wife and I consider ourselves to have been not in the worst ways, but pretty severely wounded in a local church context. And I will say, it is, especially if you've never been through that, don't underestimate how painful it is for people, when someone that you look to as a spiritual authority mistreats you, that is profoundly disillusioning. And it's almost impossible to convey the amount of damage that results from that. And one of the biggest consequences is a lack of trust.

Anybody in any form of public persuasion right now starts off from a trust deficit. We're trying to regain trust that has already been lost. We're not starting from a neutral standpoint. We're starting from a negative standpoint. And this is a big problem because trust is the single most important factor in any act of communication and also in institutional health. So this is a major societal problem. There's a leadership skills coach who he holds seminars. I think he's in the UK to teach people leadership skills.

And he talked about this recently, how basically, Basically, it feels different now than even five years ago, he said. This was about a year ago, he said this. And someone asked him, I mean, of course, COVID's been a big game changer in so many ways, but someone said why, and he said the biggest thing is, he talked about mental health challenges and so forth. The biggest thing he said is the loss of trust. It's harder than ever to get people to trust you. And this is a major problem for basically every sector of society,

but this is now the environment for leadership. If you're a leader, you're a lightning rod. That's how the world is in 2024. But this is now the environment in which we have to communicate the gospel. So it's really tough. So think about this, you know, related to this. I think this is related to the differing questions we get. I've talked about this a lot how the biggest questions for apologetics,

20 years ago, 30 years ago, were more truth questions like, does God exist? Is Christianity true? today's more goodness questions like is the church intolerant are Christians homophobic etc and it really is true I've felt this more recently you realize a lot of people are persuaded that the god of the Bible not only does he not exist but he's a kind of monster and this is really how people feel and I you know I get these sometimes sometimes I'll get criticism I'm laughing because it's been refreshing lately to get attacked by atheists rather than by other Christians that's like it's just Like, that's more how it should be. But, you know, different attacks and criticism, some is nastier than

others. But there's a lot of this mentality of, well, he's an apologist, and he wants to defend Christianity, therefore he's biased, unlike an academic approach. He's blinded to the truth because he's now. I don't think that this is a fair criticism. Just the very fact that you're defending something doesn't necessarily mean you're more biased than the person who might be criticizing something. I mean, just, you know, think of any metaphor. Like if one of your friends, think of a document you like that you might want to defend, think of Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from a Birmingham jail. Very eloquent, powerful, wonderful document. Suppose somebody is criticizing that and saying it's Marxist, and then suppose you want to defend it and say, no, it isn't Marxist,

the fact that you're defending it doesn't necessarily mean you're closed off to the truth and biased it might just be your conviction about what it is that itself informs and motivates your defense, right? So you're defending it because of what you think is true. So I don't think these criticisms are accurate or fair, but at the same time, I have to kind of humble myself under them and say, this is the environment. This is how, what it means to be a Christian apologist. You will be distrusted, you know, and the fact is there's some reasons why, and that it's not all unfair. Christian apologists have sometimes given reasons, I'm thinking of some right now, who turned out to be not good people.

And so sometimes we've given people reasons to distrust us. And so that's the environment we're in. And so we shouldn't just dismiss all of that. That's a factor we've got to face, something we have to kind of live with and think about how do we respond to that. All right, number two, I'll go fast on these next three. The cultural and political polarization on both the conservative and the liberal side, the extreme voices are winning out. The moderate voices are thinning out. And the contempt and hatred and anger in both directions is more extreme. And this is a real problem.

I talk about this a lot as well. I won't go on and on here. But we're basically losing our capacity for civil disagreement, which is really a problem in a democracy, you know, to try to survive. I'm talking about the United States here. I think this is true of other places

in the modern West as well. But increasingly there's this assumption that the people on the other side of any given issue, they're not just wrong, they're evil. And so we just have to attack them and scorn them. And my dad said this the other day. I thought it was so profound. The great problem in our society is fighting evil with evil rather than fighting evil with good. I really think that's true. We say, look how evil that thing is over there. Therefore, we can cut a little corners and so forth because the times are so desperate, we can respond. And it's like Boromir wanting to use the ring rather than destroy the ring and the

the Lord of the Rings. We can never compromise, but that's a huge issue in our culture right now. Jonathan Haidt is a wonderful social psychologist who has taught us a lot about what's happening in our society and what's driving the polarization. One interview I was reading, he talked about the significance of 2009 as a watershed year. Why is that? Because that's when Facebook added the like button and Twitter added the retweet function. It literally was that simple. And I, you know, you might think of that as an exaggeration. I don't think so. Social media really is accelerating tribalism, and it's a real problem. So, once again, this is the environment in which we have to communicate the gospel. We are going to have to work so hard to make it clear that we don't

have some other agenda that we're kind of using the gospel for, because so much of that is floating around right now. We're going to have to work hard to sort of distinguish ourselves from being just one more angry voice in the crowd and show the gospel itself is our agenda. This is what I hope people feel through truth unites. This is why I very rarely try to ask for you for too much. I try to organize my videos and make them, you know, accessible and useful. It's because I don't have, we don't have an agenda. We who want to promote Christ, we just, the only agenda is we want people to know Christ.

It's really that simple. That's why I want to give my life to. Third change. We live in a time of distraction and noise. People are busier than ever. We have more vying for our attention than ever before. I'll never forget going back to visit University of Georgia where I was an undergrad student. I was walking around. I'm thinking, this was in 2021, three years ago from recording this. I was walking around and I'm noticing, what is so different? Everything feels different. People feel different. Why is it feels so different right now? Well, one thing is everyone looks so young. I'm like, I've gotten older, man, these college students look like teenagers, like kids, you know.

But that's just a reflection because I'm older. But the other thing is, finally it hit me. Everybody's on their phone. Nobody's talking to each other, you know. I think it's like the frog getting hotter in the kettle, this kind of thing. You don't notice it. It's gradual. We don't notice how much things have changed.

In pre-modern times, before technology, human beings would see the stars every night. today, many of us never see the stars. We live in the city, you know, we sleep indoors. We look at screens every night. So going from looking at stars every night, which remind you how big the world is, to looking at screens every night, which make the world seem very small and interconnected. I do think that plays into a lot of the anxiety that a lot of us feel. And actually, it's a really healthy practice sometimes just to go look at the stars. Simple thing. It's good for your soul and for your mental health too. But the point for now is this profoundly influences the way we communicate and specifically communicate the gospel. So many people are so distracted and so busy that they just

don't think about deep and spiritual questions as much today. There's the constant clicks, constant entertainment. Anytime you're bored, you can pull out your phone and watch something. Pascal famously said the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. I used to think that was just kind of an interesting. You know, an interest pithy little statement, but kind of exaggerated. But I think I know what he means. He's saying we avoid facing these ultimate questions because we fill our lives with diversions. I'll never forget, sharing the gospel with someone in Ohio one time. There's a light bulb moment for me. And the question came up. I asked him, well, what do you believe about Jesus? Who do you think Jesus was? Because I've

often found that's a useful question for moving conversations forward. And his response was, I don't know, I've never thought about it. And in that moment, I had a light bulb. moment of realizing this is the context in which we communicate the gospel. It's not so much resistance. A lot of times it's just the complete distraction from spiritual questions all the time. Another issue is loneliness. There's so much loneliness right now. So I have another video on loneliness actually that might be of use if you're interested in that. Last thing is we live in a time of disillusionment and disenchantment. And some of my writing on this, I'll put up a picture of an article I wrote. I even use the word despair, you know, communicating the

gospel in a time of despair. 20 years ago, it felt a little different. We had rival belief systems more than we have just cynicism about belief systems. There's so much apathy, there's so much disenchantment, and just generalized despair. A lot of people, they just have this intuitive sense. The world is kind of going downhill. I just saw on X the other day somebody talking about AI. They're like dead set convinced.

AI is going to destroy the world. We've got about 15 years left to live. And, you know, they were convinced. But what was interesting about that is just how commonly I'll hear things like that. Like a lot of people are just sure that the ship is going down. You know, human civilization is in its last throes and so forth. It's kind of interesting. But also at a personal level, so many people don't have any sense of transcendence that organizes life.

They're just kind of bump it along from day to day. and it feels very gray, very flat. Charles Taylor, his wonderful book, A Secular Age, has a chapter called The Maleses of Modernity. He talks about this feeling. He says, our actions, goals, achievements, and the like, have a lack of weight, gravity, thickness, substance. That gets at this.

There's this sense of disenchantment all the time through everything. So these are four characteristics. I think all of those are negative things. I think all of them are pretty pronounced difference from even 10 years ago. and I won't even think about 10 years from now, let's not go there yet. Here's the good news, is not all of that is just bad, it does create new opportunities. Okay?

And so I'll share three strategies. I think we can try to think about to meet some of the needs. Number one is we need to draw attention to the beauty of the gospel. This is a classic approach. The Greek philosophers spoke of the three transcendentals, the good, the true, the beautiful. I have a whole YouTube video from a talk. I gave it Palm Beach, Atlantic University, wonderful school in, I think my video probably came out summer of 2003.

You could search for it as to do. The title is about apologetics needing beauty. But basically, this is a historic way of approaching apologetics. Historically, Christians have always done apologetics. If you don't call it that, that's fine, but just defending the faith. Defending and commending the faith. And they've always situated the gospel in relation to all three. It's not just, in other words, it's not just true.

It's also good and beautiful. And as we've noticed, that's especially the need right now. and I think we've got great resources to try to show that because the truth is that Christianity really is good news for the world, profoundly good news. Blaise Pascal talked about how the first need is to show that religion, by which he means Christianity, is desirable. And then you show that it's worthy of respect and that, or actually that's the first step, show people that it's worthy of respect so they don't just dismiss it.

Then you show that it's desirable and attractive, you make people wish it was true, and then you show that it is true. That's kind of an intriguing little comment there. But basically what is psychologically shrewd about that is it factors in human resistance. If people don't want the gospel to be true, it's really hard to convince them. They'll find a way to push back. And so we have to think about this, not just at the level of truth, not just arguments for what is true, but also arguments about what is good and beautiful.

And the gospel has that transcendent beauty. I have known so many people who become a Christian from reading the Lord of the Rings, from reading CS Lewis's fiction. By the way, very soon, probably next week I'll have videos coming out on Paralondra and out of the Silent Planet. I didn't mention that previously in my schedule that I posted, but I'm going to do two videos on each of those books. CS Lewis is fiction, other fiction, you know, I think part of the reason that's so relevant

to modern people is there's this sense of beauty and transcendence that comes out through fiction, also through the arts. Music can have a role in this as well. But beauty is needed right now because it can cut through the distraction, it can cut through the disenchantment. There are so many people around us who simply, that they've never heard the simple gospel message of forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the body and so forth, that there's actually infinite joy that is available to you through knowing the God who made everything because of what he's done in Jesus Christ, message of incredible goodness, incredible beauty, and it's good for the world, you know. And we have the privilege of sharing that, but we have to emphasize and help people see,

this is good. This is going to bring shalom and flourishing wherever it is truly believed and sincerely embraced, and it's done that throughout history. I'm going to do more on that topic in months ahead, talking about the relationship between Christianity and science, and basically want to make the case. Christianity's actually been good for science. So that's something we have to emphasize today, I think. A second strategy is a second thing we need to factor in is the role of kindness and love and

charity. I think our culture is actually aching for kindness right now. Think of the way Mr. Rogers. Remember Mr. Rogers? Think of the movie that came out with him and documentaries that have come out. People are interested in that. People are interested in people who are kind. and I think in a time of scandal and outrage, kindness is especially needed.

And some Christians see, this is actually controversial, what I'm saying right now. Some Christians see kindness as a weakness or as a compromise because the times are so desperate. You know, we just have to remember the first century was a brutal time, and yet kindness was a part of what the apostles mandated. First Peter 3.15, the words, gentleness and respect. we have to take into account. Or you think about in Paul's writings, he speaks of perfect courtesy to all men, gracious speech, seasoned with salt. He says, the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone. By the way, that one, 2 Timothy 2.24, I've put it on my mirror. I see it every time before I come in to record a video, and I need it. It's really easy to become quarrelsome

online. I am tempted toward it. It's, it's, it's, It's taxing at times, but we just have to be absolutely committed to this aspect of the apostolic teaching. And the reason is, now, let me leave some complexity on this. Kindness is not simple and formulaic, okay? It's not at odds with rebuke. It's not at odds with indignation. It's not at odds with accountability.

I want to leave room for all of that. I'm just simply saying people need to know we genuinely care about them. That's a real opportunity right now. underneath all of the fear and the anger of the modern world, deep down, people are aching to be loved. And that's, you know, a lot of people, I think, are weary with the ugly tendencies of the culture, wars, and everything that feels less humane. And at the street level, simple, simple practices of kindness can go a long way. As a pastor, for example, one of the things I discovered, one of the things you experience as a pastor

is you feel overwhelmed by the amount of suffering in people's lives. people suffer in this world. And sometimes the pain is like, wow, I've never been through that. How can I possibly help? One of the things I've practices I've implemented is to just offer prayer for people. When you feel overwhelmed, you're like, I don't have any words. I don't have any ways I can fix what you're going through. One thing I can do is offer prayer. And even in street evangelism, talking with people, sometimes just, hey, is there any way I can pray for you? It's amazing. In fact, I'll say this. I've been doing this for a long time offering prayer for people. And not once has anyone ever been offended by the offer. Now, now that might happen. I'm not saying that that would never

happened. You might have had that happen. But just in my own experience, I've never had someone to be offended. I've never had someone decline. You know, sometimes it might be a situation where I'll say, well, I'll pray for you later. If I'm like on the subway or something, it's not the right best moment. but the simple offer to, can I pray about these things for you? I've never had someone decline. I think that often creates open doors for the gospel. And when someone's suffering profoundly, the genius of praying for people is that God can touch them. We don't need.

Ministry is not about us. We don't need to be sufficient. We're commending them to the Lord. And he can heal and comfort in ways we cannot. I remember one time at our last church, there was a tree. one of the church's trees was shedding leaves into one of the neighbor's yards, and she was upset, and she would call and be angry. And I'll never forget. I was in conversation with her. I'm on the phone, and I just didn't know what to say. For some reason, I mean, I don't know. Maybe if I had more

wisdom, I would have known exactly how to negotiate the conversation. I was just sort of at a loss for words. I wasn't super angry or not. I was just sort of, I'm just not sure how to handle this right now. and for whatever reason, I just paused and I said, you know, I apologized. And then I said, is there any way that I can pray for you? Now, that might feel spiritually manipulative, depending on how you do it. It felt okay in this conversation. And it was amazing the way she softened and the whole conversation changed. And I don't know, I'm not trying to say that that's a universal answer for every conversation, but it's amazing how often it helps. When I'm doing dialogues with people, I try to genuinely humble myself to try to be kind, to try to sincerely

wish well upon them, to not come from, you can tell when people are coming from a place of anger or ill will, you can tell. That's the reality is there is simply no fake kindness. If you fake it, if you try to be fake kind, it always becomes apparent over time. People always eventually be able to say, like, that's not real. But if you sincerely are wishing well upon the soul of the other person, people can tell, and it opens up doors for communicating the gospel and for all communication. It actually leads to more clear communication as well as just more open. The last thing I think we need right now is courage. Kindness and courage often are both needed. And courage is important right now in a time of scandal and polarization, because if you speak

out for the gospel, you will get suspicion and backlash. If you stand up for something, you can become a lightning rod, and there's a lot of anger floating around right now, and there's a huge leadership gap right now. A lot of younger people don't want to be pastors. They're not going to seminary anymore. And in general, a lot of people are shying away from positions of leadership, and I kind of understand why a lot of people are. It's a brutal time to be a leader right now.

You face a lot of criticism, but we need courage. There's a lot of fake courage. Courage is not denouncing people on social media, okay? Courage is vulnerable. True courage. Sometimes it'll take more courage. to disagree with your friend than with your enemy. True courage is vulnerable.

The model of courage is, of course, Christ going to the cross. And I love the scene in The Hobbit when Bilbo is getting close. He's journeying down to smog to face the dragon, and he hears the rumbling noise of the dragon snoring. And this is going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterward were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait. This is so often how courage, how it will happen. It'll be a quiet battle that

no one else is watching. It won't feel grandiose. It won't feel awesome. It'll just be between you in that intimate place of your conscience. It'll be between you and God. But we have to steal ourselves to say, I am going to do what I can, what God calls me to do for the gospel no matter what. And that's not, you know, denouncing people loudly in a macho way. That's not courage. but it'll feel vulnerable, but what better way to live, you know? And there's even a joy in that. If you, like Queen Esther saying, if I perish, I perish, this sense of abandonment unto the cause of Christ. I feel great joy. I mean, it's been a vulnerable step for me, just moving to Tennessee and focusing on Truth Unites. I often feel vulnerable about it. It's a weird thing. People might think, oh, it's so easy to have that.

No, it's the two things I will say about being a YouTuber, which I never thought, I didn't even know what a YouTuber was till well into, after YouTube, created and I never thought I'd be doing this, but I love it. It's a lot of fun. But the two things I'll say is it's not easy. It's hard work. And it's also not illegitimate. It's a valid form of ministry, you know? And I'm doing this because I see fruit in it, and I feel this is what God's calling me to do. But there is this sense of vulnerability of like you're really putting yourself out there. And there's people who don't appreciate the fact that I'm defending Protestantism or whatever. And, you know, you face in a mild way compared to what a lot of people go through. You face harassment and things like this.

Some people, there's some troubled people who just, they target you. But you who are watching this video, you'll face something like this where it's like, you know, some resistance. And you have to stand your ground. And the joy, I love Acts 24, there's this sense of joy of giving yourself. these verses, this verse, these words come to me a lot, and I think about this. He says, I don't consider my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

It's like Paul is saying, I don't care about anything as long as this happens, you know. And if you get to a point where you hone and shape your sense of calling, you're like, okay, I think I know now what God's calling me to do. the way I can be most fruitful for the gospel. And you say, I don't care about anything but that. There is such joy in living your life like that. Why not do the same thing? Why not identify what your sense of mission is

and then say the same thing about it that Paul says in this verse? I don't care about anything. This is what a human life is for. It's not meant to absorb and to take. That doesn't lead to joy. It's meant to be spent on a cause. the human heart was designed to be given over to some greater cause, to spend itself on something. For me, it's renewal and revival in the church. That's why Truth Unites exist. It's why I'm alive.

It's what I want to give myself to. I just want to take care of my family and serve that end. What is it for you? What do you say Acts 24 about? You're going to need courage, but there's freedom and joy in that. It's like, what other way would we want to live, you know? I'll leave you with this final image. We're talking about how the needs of the times have changed, and yet it is also helpful to remember that the ultimate need in the human heart doesn't change. The ultimate need is for God, and therefore for reconciliation to God, and therefore for

forgiveness of sins. And there's a great passage in Charles Taylor's secular age where he's describing how he's going on page after page about how modernity discourages faith. in so many ways, and yet then he pauses and says, all this is true, and yet the sense that there is something more presses in. Great numbers of people feel it in moments of reflection about their life, in moments of relaxation and nature, in moments of bereavement and loss, and quite wildly and unpredictably, our age is very far from settling into a comfortable unbelief. The unrest continues to surface. I think that's where a lot of people are at. There is so much unrest in heart.

Sometimes you have to work hard to see it. Sometimes that's true what he says, that it's wild and unpredictable. You can't always tell when a religious question will pop up, and you can't always say, why is this coming up now? But that unrest is there. The human heart was made for God. And until it finds its rest in Him, it will have an unrest. And so what I want to give my life to is serving the re-Christianization of our time.

That's, to me, my Acts 24. And I hope you would join me in praying for that. Because for all the negative changes over the last 10 years, there's also opportunity for revival because a lot of people feel the instability and they're looking for answers. So I just pray with all of my heart that God would send a fresh revival, a fresh renewal,

especially for younger people. Frankly, evangelical institutions are all kind of fraying at the edges at best. most of them, you know, some of them are like, it's like a demolition. There's buildings falling down, you know, church, a lot of pain in the world, a lot of problems. But among younger people, there's also a deep spiritual unrest and thirst. So what I've decided to sort of focus my life on is trying to pray for and serve revival, especially among younger people. That's why I want to give myself to you. I would invite you to join me if that resonates with your heart as well.

Hope this video has been helpful. Let me know what you think in the comments. And I will be putting out more videos this month. I'm filming this in July on issues of apologetics and how we commend the gospel to our culture right now. So if that's of interest to you, keep your eyes peeled. All right, thanks for watching, everybody. We will see you next time.