help to reinforce what we've covered already, but give you some practical and biblical counsel on how we can engage constructively with people who don't believe the things that we do. Well, we've already covered what is a worldview, and why we should think in terms of worldviews and what are the basic ingredients of a worldview. Yesterday morning we looked at the biblical Christian worldview in terms of those five categories of theology, anthropology, knowledge, ethics, and salvation, and then we looked at these two anti-Christian worldviews. Well, my topic this morning, in this fourth session, is worldview evangelism. Worldview evangelism. I want to talk about how we can use worldviews and worldview thinking in evangelism, in sharing our faith with unbelievers. But before I get to that specific issue of evangelism, I need to say something first about how we evaluate worldviews. So actually this session is in two parts. Worldview evaluation and then worldview evangelism. So I want to talk first about worldview evaluation. Here's a question. Why should anyone prefer the Christian worldview over any other worldview, like naturalism or postmodernism or the Islamic worldview or the Buddhist worldview? Why should we prefer the Christian worldview? Why should any unbeliever switch to a Christian worldview. Why should they embrace a Christian worldview? And why, if you are a Christian, should you stick with a Christian worldview? Suppose you're a young person heading off to college, and you've been raised in a Christian home, and then when you get to college, you encounter lots of people with different worldviews. Well, why should you stick with your worldview, your Christian worldview, when there are many alternatives out there? Well, our immediate answer to that question is, perhaps, because it's true. You should prefer the Christian worldview because it is true and the other worldviews are not true. But of course that's not going to get you very far in a discussion. If you're speaking with an unbeliever and they say, why should I accept a Christian worldview? And you say, because it's true. I don't think they're going to say, oh well, in that case, yeah, I'll become a Christian right now. They're going to come back with another question, why should I think that the Christian worldview is true? Why should I believe that claim that the Christian worldview is true? And it's at that point that we have to give reasons. We want to say, because there are good reasons to believe that the Christian worldview is true and that these other worldviews are false. And that's where apologetics comes in. Apologetics is about giving a reason for the hope that you have, for the faith that you have, for believing the Bible and everything that it teaches us about God and salvation and everything else. Well, What reasons can we give? How do we give reasons? Well, what I want to give you this morning, or what I want to talk about, are some tools. Some tools for evaluating worldviews. that can show why some worldviews are more reasonable than other worldviews. And ultimately, if we apply these tools effectively, we can show that the Christian worldview is true and reasonable, and that it is the only true and reasonable worldview. Generally speaking, These tools that I have in mind come in two kinds. There are what I call theoretical tools that deal with worldviews in theory, and practical tools that evaluate worldviews about whether you can actually apply them in practice. Theoretical tools, we might say, deal with head issues. They deal with things like, does this worldview actually fit together in theory? Is it consistent? Is it coherent? Is it logical? Does it follow, observe principles of reason? Does it explain things in theory? The other kind of tools would be practical tools that we might say deal with heart issues, matters of the heart, asking questions like, well, does this actually work in practice? Does this world view provide satisfaction? Does it provide fulfillment? Does it give us hope in the world? Is it livable in the sense that you can actually live it out consistently in practice? So there are different kinds of tools that we can apply to worldviews to show people why their worldviews, their non-Christian worldviews, are very problematic, and the Christian worldview makes much more sense. Now we only have limited time this morning, so I'm just going to talk about three tools. three tools of evaluation for worldviews, and in each case I'm going to apply it, illustrate it, by applying it to one of the two anti-Christian worldviews that we talked about yesterday, okay? And if you weren't here yesterday, that's okay, you should still be able to get something out of it. Okay, the first tool, tool number one I want to talk about is consistency. Consistency. This would be on the theoretical tools side. And when we apply this tool, we're asking the question, is this worldview consistent? Is it consistent with itself? Do the things that it claims actually harmonize with one another? And also, is it consistent with the other beliefs a person may have? Because a person may have a worldview, and then they have various ordinary beliefs about the world, and there's no consistency between those. We're asking, does it lead to some kind of self-contradiction or contradiction with other beliefs a person holds? Well, we can apply this We can apply this tool to any worldview, but it's particularly effective against the postmodernist worldview that we talked about yesterday. The postmodernist worldview is inconsistent with itself at many points, and it's also very inconsistent with the ordinary everyday beliefs that people hold and sort of assumptions that they make. Let me give you just two examples. First, the postmodernist idea of truth. We talked about this a little bit yesterday, but according to postmodernism, there are no objective truths. There are no objective truths. There's truth for you, there's truth for me, there's truth for one community, there's truth for another community, but there are no universal, transcendent, objective, absolute truths. Okay. Well, what about that statement itself? There are no objective truths. Is that statement itself an objective truth? If you say, no, it isn't an objective truth, then why should anyone accept it? Why should anyone be a postmodernist if that claim itself isn't an objective truth that everyone should accept? On the other hand, if it is an objective truth, if it's making some universal statement about the nature of truth, that truth is an objective, well then, obviously it's self-refuting, because there you have an objective truth expressing the objective truth that there are no objective truths. It's very self-defeating. And this is one example of many tenets of the postmodernist worldview that turn out to be self-defeating or self-refuting. Now, often postmodernists don't come out quite this explicitly and say this, but if you press them, they will make these sort of statements, and you have to be very aware, very alert to trying to detect these claims that when you apply them to themselves, they're self-defeating. Like nobody can really know anything. Really? How do you know that? Do you know that? If you don't, then what are you talking about? If you do, then you're contradicting yourself. Okay. Here's a second example and it focuses on the ethical side of postmodernism. Remember we said that postmodernism holds to a kind of relativistic ethics. But if there's any moral absolute in postmodernism, it's the absolute of tolerance, that we have to tolerate other people's beliefs, other people's ideas, other people's lifestyles. So, we saw that the one ethical or moral absolute of postmodernism is tolerance, and the one unforgivable sin, of course, is intolerance. And we've seen a number of examples of this, but one particularly topical one comes from my state, or at least the state where I live now, North Carolina. You've probably heard about this house bill that was introduced that required people to use the public restroom associated with their birth gender. So if you were born a man, you had to use the male restroom. If you were born a woman, would seem to be utterly reasonable, common sense. And yet there's this push for transgender rights that should allow people to use the bathroom associated with their gender identity, and the state government has come under great pressure from businesses, from lobbying organizations, from sports associations, because they say this bill is intolerant. It is intolerance. You get statements that we will not tolerate any form of discrimination, because this is a discriminatory law. And on and on it goes. And we're seeing more and more of this. Opposition to any kind of perceived intolerance. If postmodernism insists upon universal tolerance, well, is that even possible? Is universal tolerance possible even in principle? Is it possible to tolerate everything? Well, what about intolerance? Are you going to tolerate intolerance? Well, you can't. You can't consistently tolerate intolerance. You have to be intolerant towards intolerance if you're going to be tolerant to everything. If you tolerate intolerance, then you're not promoting tolerance after all. You're promoting intolerance. Round and round it goes. A number of years ago, my wife was driving around Charlotte and she saw this bumper sticker on the back of a car in front of her. Notice, intolerance will not be tolerated. And I managed to track down the company that sells this bumper sticker and I pulled the image off their website where they were selling it. And I suppose that people who put this bumper sticker on their car actually think it's kind of clever. They think it's witty. Apparently the fact though that it's nonsensical, that it's self-refuting is lost on them. Maybe they think it's sort of quirky and paradoxical and that's a good thing. But if you care anything for logical consistency and harmonious thoughts, then this should be nonsensical to you and an embarrassment to have it on your car. Now, unfortunately, many postmodernists really don't care about matters of consistency and self-refutation, except, of course, when it affects them. When they want you to be consistent, that's when all bets are off and suddenly the rules change. The same problem comes with this objection to discrimination as well. I saw a statement from one sports body about this HB2 bill saying, we will not tolerate, there you go again, we will not tolerate any form of discrimination. But, of course, those who criticize discrimination are practicing discrimination. They're discriminating between those who don't discriminate and those who do discriminate. They're discriminating between the supporters of the bill and the opponents of the bill. And, in general, those who promote this kind of sexual liberty that we're seeing in our day are discriminating against those who don't support it and those who value religious liberty. So again, it's a nonsensical idea that you can't discriminate at all, and all kinds of discrimination are wrong. It's self-defeating. Okay, so the first tool is consistency. Then... The second tool that we can apply to worldviews is the tool of explanation. When we apply this tool, we're asking, how much can this worldview actually explain? Does this worldview explain things about the world that we take for granted? Does it explain things about ourselves that we take for granted? Does it explain things at all? And if it does try to explain them, does it explain them well? Does it explain why there is a world at all? Why this world is orderly? Why human beings are rational, moral beings? with the capacity for language, for personal relationships? Can it explain human dignity? Can it explain beauty in the world and our ability to appreciate beauty? And on and on. Can this worldview actually explain all the things that we take for granted every day? Well, let's apply this tool of explanation to the worldview of naturalism, the first one that we looked at yesterday morning, naturalism. And we can apply it to the question of the cosmos in general, the physical, natural universe. Remember, naturalism claims that the cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever will be. The natural universe is all there is. Well, one of the most fundamental philosophical questions that has ever been asked since the beginning of human history is this. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there anything at all? Why does anything at all exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Because, theoretically, there could have been nothing, but we don't have nothing, we have something. So, why is there something rather than nothing? And we can ask that particularly to the cosmos. Why does the cosmos exist? What explains the existence of the cosmos? Why there is a cosmos rather than just nothing? After all, the universe didn't have to exist, so what explains its existence? Well, if you have a Christian worldview, of course, you have a very ready and satisfying and coherent explanation for that. God is an omnipotent being. He also is a self-existent, self-sufficient being. He has always existed. And God, having unlimited power, can bring other things into existence. Creation out of nothing may be a mysterious thing, but there's nothing inconsistent or incoherent about it. And so we believe that God, having unlimited power, freely chose to bring a universe into existence. And so the universe exists. God didn't have to create it, but he did. and he exercised his power in so doing, and that explains why the universe exists. So you have a cause and effect explanation. Sufficient cause, God, who's able to do these things, brings the universe into existence. And then the question often gets put back, well, what explains God's existence? Well, if you understand the nature of God, then God is an eternal, self-existent being. What we say, in effect, is that God exists by definition. God's existence is part of his very nature, and that's just standard Christian theology. But compare the naturalist worldview. What answer could the naturalist give to the question, why does the cosmos exist at all? Because it didn't have to exist. What explanation is it? Well, the problem for the naturalist is that no explanation is possible even in principle. Because, for the naturalist, the cosmos is all there is. There's nothing beyond the cosmos that could explain its existence. By definition, the natural universe is all there is. So there's nothing there. by definition on the naturalist worldview, to explain it. So the naturalist has to say, in effect, there is no explanation. It's just a sort of a brute fact. Here it is. There's nothing that explains it. But of course, that's abandoning one of the basic principles of science, which the naturalist is supposedly committed to, that everything, there's an explanation why things happen. There's an explanation, there's an account of why things are the way they are. But when it comes to the universe, suddenly, no, There's no explanation. It's just there, nothing more to be said, no cause. There have actually been some recent attempts to argue that science can actually show that something can come out of nothing. You may have come across this. Stephen Hawking, a famous physicist, wrote a book a number of years ago trying to argue that something can come from nothing and there have been a couple other books since then. Atheist scientists trying to explain that something can come from nothing. Do you know how they do it? They redefine nothing. They redefine nothing so that it's actually something. But showing that something can come from something isn't nearly as impressive as showing that something can come from nothing. And you've got to keep your eyes out for this sort of trick, redefining terms so that you can answer questions in a way that you think they should be answered. But the naturalist has a real problem in explaining how the cosmos came out of literally nothing. And then thirdly, we have the tool of fulfillment. This is more on the practical side of things. The tools of consistency and explanation are more theoretical tools, dealing with big questions, somewhat general abstract questions. Whereas fulfillment, when we apply this tool, we're asking, does this worldview satisfy our deepest desires and instincts about life, about who we are and about why we're here. Does this worldview provide intellectual fulfillment, answering our basic questions? Does it provide emotional fulfillment? We have certain needs, desires, things that we're driven towards, that we're going to make us happy and satisfied in life. Does it provide spiritual fulfillment? We sense that we are spiritual beings and we have certain needs. Above all, we need to find, as Augustine famously put it, we need to find our rest, our hearts need to find their rest in God, in some transcendent creator. So there are various desires and instincts and needs that we have and the question is whether a worldview satisfies these. Well let's apply this tool again to naturalism, naturalism and to the question of the meaning of life. everyone needs to believe that their life is worth living, that their life and their actions have some value, they're not just meaningless and worthless. At a minimum, everyone needs to have a good reason just to get up in the morning. And so we naturally ask, Do our lives and our actions have any real value? Do they have any real value? Are they actually contributing to anything positive? Can we look at our actions and say, yes, they're worthwhile, our life is actually serving some purpose? Well, we can only answer that question in the affirmative, that yes, our lives and our actions do have value, if first, it's possible for us to make meaningful choices to actually have some sort of volition, meaningful volition and choice in life to choose certain courses as personal beings. And also, it needs to be possible for us to make this a better world. We have to have some concept of this kind of world would be a better kind of world than that kind of world, and we can act in such a way, and maybe just in some small way, to make this a better world. It has to be possible. and principle for this to become a better world. But that presupposes, of course, that there is an objective standard of goodness, an objective standard of value. So you can look at the world and say, well, it is this way, but this would be better. This would be a more valuable, more good world. And you need some standard by which to judge whether a world would be better or worse if it were a certain way. So we need these positive things in order for our lives and our actions to have real value. And if life isn't worth living, if our lives have no real value, then really, suicide is the most logical option. Why not just terminate our lives? There's no better, no worse. There's nothing to be said for it, and life is often painful, so why not just end your life now? And many people, of course, without a worldview that gives them hope, will take exactly that course. Here's a telling quotation from the atheist existentialist novelist, Albert Camus. Maybe some of you have been asked to read his books to illustrate a certain worldview, the existentialist atheist worldview. But this is what Camus said, there is only one really serious philosophical question and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that. I don't think Camus got invited to very many parties. But nevertheless, that is, from his perspective, a sensible question to ask. Well, on the question of whether the naturalist worldview can give us meaning, can give us value in life, What we can do is we simply quote from the horse's mouth. We can actually go to naturalists who are consistent with their worldview and see what they say. And I can give you many, many examples, but I'm going to give you just one from arch-naturalist Richard Dawkins. This is from his book, River Out of Eden, where he's setting forth an evolutionary, naturalistic, atheistic worldview. And he says this, in a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is a bottom. No design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. Now, I disagree with him. This universe does not look like the kind of universe that is purposeless and designless and has no meaning, quite the opposite. But he's right in the implications of his worldview. If his worldview is right, then there is no design, no purpose. Notice, no evil, no good. He accepts there's no real distinction between the two, no justice, just, blind, pitiless indifference. How do you rise above that, if you're a naturalist, and say, and yet my life still has meaning, my life still has value? Of course, there are various attempts to do that. They usually involve ascribing value and meaning to your own life. But how can a meaningless life ascribe meaning to itself? How can a purposeless organism suddenly generate purpose out of nothing? It can't be done. So, we can see a number of different... tool number seven, I'm sorry about that, that should be tool number three there. You can tell this was borrowed from a longer presentation that I gave, and now you're all wondering, what are these other tools? Well, invite me back next year, maybe you'll find out. But now let's move to the topic of evangelism. Evangelism, applying this to evangelism. In the first session, in our first session, I pointed out that changing your entire worldview pretty much amounts to a religious conversion. That's what it takes for someone to change their worldview. And certainly becoming a Christian today involves that in our post-Christian, very secularized culture. For someone to become a Christian requires a change of worldview. Now, We cannot bring about a conversion. We cannot bring about a religious conversion in the biblical sense. Only the Spirit of God can do that. But we do have a role to play. There is something that we can do. We can preach the gospel, proclaim the gospel, and we can try to persuade people to turn to Christ in faith and repentance. That's what the Apostle Paul did. He preached the gospel and he tried to persuade people to abandon their current dead-end beliefs, worldviews, their hopeless outlook on the world and embrace Christ. So we can try and persuade and persuasion involves in part giving reasons, giving reasons for change of worldview and again that's what the Apostle Paul did and I will share something with you on that topic during the service this morning. But the tools that I've given you just now, the tools of consistency, of explanation, of fulfillment, these are the sort of tools that we can use to give people reasons to doubt their current worldviews and to look more seriously at the Christian worldview. However, in our evangelism today, we face a major challenge, a major challenge in persuading people, and that is the problem of indifference. You maybe found this yourself in talking with people. It's a consequence of our postmodern shrug of the shoulders, culture that we live in. People are just indifferent to talking about these ultimate issues. They're quite comfortable with their lives. They've got their new iPhone 7s. They've got their cable TV. They've got everything they need, they think, to make them happy. And they're not bothered with these deeper questions. So part of the reason for this indifference is that, for the most part, people are quite comfortable as they are, at least they think they are. You remember that I said that changing worldviews is like changing home, like moving house. You get comfortable in your home. It's your home, after all. You might want to rearrange the furniture a little bit now and again, but you can move it back. But to actually move home altogether, would be quite traumatic. People are going to resist that. Imagine I came to your house one day. I knocked on your front door and I said, you've got to move home. You've got to up and relocate and I've got this other house for you and you need to move into it. Well, I think you'd be very skeptical. You'd be very reluctant to do that. You might just sort of make your excuses and try and be polite but shut the door in my face as quickly as you could. But suppose I showed you that your house isn't all that you thought it was. Suppose I showed you that your roof is actually leaking very badly, that your walls have dry rot, that your attic is infested with insects, that the foundations of your house are crumbling and collapsing under you, all unaware to you. In fact, this is your house. This is your house, and you didn't even realize it. Well, if I showed you that, then you might be more interested in taking up my invitation to consider this other house that I'm offering you. So the point is that no one moves unless there's good reason to. That's true for houses, for homes. It's also true for worldviews. And what we can do is we can show people that the worldviews that they're in are actually highly unsatisfying, inconsistent. They don't make sense of the things that they take for granted. They can't account for the things that they really value in life. And in fact, we can show people that in a sense, they're already squatting in another home. they're already squatting, illegitimately, without admitting it, in a biblical worldview, and they haven't realized it, because they're depending on things that only a biblical worldview can make sense of. So bringing this together, how can we use these sort of insights in evangelism? Well, what I want to present for you are three steps for worldview evangelism. Some of you will remember the song Three Steps to Heaven. Well, this isn't quite Three Steps to Heaven, but something in that direction, perhaps. Three steps, a three-step approach to using your concept of worldview, some of the tools that I've talked about this morning, to pique people's interests and to overcome this problem of indifference that we face today. Okay, so what are these three steps? Step number one, worldview awareness, worldview awareness. What we want to do is to introduce people to the idea of a worldview and start a conversation about worldviews. Now the trick is to do this in a natural way that doesn't make you come across like a weirdo. Don't just go up to someone and say, hey I'm James, what's your worldview? That's, by the way, the title of the book that I wrote, but that's not the leading question that I think you should ask when you meet a stranger. You have to come at it in a more subtle and a more indirect way, rather just to confront someone maybe at a party and say, okay, tell me about your worldview, okay? That's gonna, you know, it's not really going to be engaging people. Rather, we want to use the natural conversations that we already have, the topics that come up in life, to introduce this concept of a worldview and get people to think about their worldview. So, perhaps you have shared with someone that you are a Christian, they know that you go to church, that you have certain convictions, and they may say to you, well, you know, I'm not really interested in religion. I'm not a religious person, I'm not interested in religion. Well, what you might say is, well, you know, Christianity isn't really a religion, it's an entire worldview. Oh? What do you mean by that? What's the difference between a religion and a worldview? Well, right there, you've got an open door to go in there and explain what it means for Christianity to be an all-encompassing worldview. And then you can say, and you have a worldview, even if you haven't realized it. This is what a worldview is. What kind of a worldview do you think you have, and where does it come from, and why do you see the world in that way? Or perhaps there's a news item, some terrorist atrocity committed by Islamic radicals, and you're talking about this with a work colleague, you might say something like this, well of course, these acts of terrorism are utterly wicked and deplorable, but if you have their worldview, they actually make sense. What? What do you mean? Well, there you've got an in to talk about the difference between an Islamic worldview and a Christian worldview, and the worldview of the person that you're talking to, because you might want to say, and we judge that these acts are wicked, are evil, my worldview can actually make sense of a distinction between good and evil, but you, as an atheist, Bob, I'm wondering how your worldview even makes sense of a claim that these acts are evil and wicked. What does that mean in that worldview? And there are various other things that we could talk about. People debate abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, transgender bathrooms, and all the rest of it. And what we want to do is to say, well, the reason that we disagree about these things is not because some of us are bigots and some of us aren't, or some of us are dumb and some of us are smart. The reason we disagree about this is because we have fundamentally different worldviews. Oh? What do you mean by that? Okay, there you have an in. Instead of talking about these surface issues, to talk about the deeper underlying worldviews that people have. So step one is worldview awareness. Have you ever thought about such and such? How worldviews affect the way that we see the world and why we disagree about some fundamental issues? Raising the concept of a worldview and bringing people to a more conscious awareness that they have a worldview and they interpret the world through that worldview. Step two, I call worldview analysis. Worldview analysis. In step two, what we want to do is to identify another person's worldview through conversation. And there are various ways that we can do that. One is to just ask questions. What do you think about? What is the meaning of life? How do you make judgments between what's good and what's evil? Between what's right and what's wrong? Is there life after death? Do you think this world was created or, you know? These are the sort of questions that we'd ask and we may be in our minds using the T-A-K-E-S acronym scheme. to identify a person's worldview or just observe how they live. You can tell a lot about a person's worldview just from observing how they live, what they say, the sort of priorities, the sort of things that they consider important in life. So we identify the person's worldview and then we analyze it. We analyze it using the sort of tools that I've talked about and we share our analysis with that person. We don't do it in a sort of disrespectful or belligerent way, but We ask questions. This is often the best way to get people to rethink their worldviews, just to ask them some pointed questions. You might say, well, if I had your worldview, I'd find it problematic or unsatisfying because... Because it seems that on that way of thinking, a human being is no more valuable than a gopher or one man's moral code would be just as good as another man's moral code. We wouldn't be able to judge that tribes who practice female circumcision are wrong to do that. It seems like your worldview can't make sense of how we can make those kind of judgments. Your worldview can't explain where the universe came from and why it's an orderly, moral, rational place. So these are the sort of questions we would ask. How do you make sense of that in terms of your worldview? You seem to be committed to these things in life, but your own worldview doesn't fit with those things. It doesn't make sense of them. What you're saying in effect is, let me stand in your shoes for a moment. I'm going to try on your worldview for size and I'm going to see whether it really fits, whether it makes sense, whether it's comfortable, whether it's coherent. And then we share this with the other person and see what they say, because they probably never thought critically about their worldview before. They've never actually had someone challenge their basic assumptions about the world and the way that they see the world. They've just inherited it from their parents, from their schooling, from the TV shows that they watch, and they haven't thought critically about it. So step two, worldview analysis. And then step three, is what I call worldview alternative, worldview alternative. Here, we explain the Christian worldview as an alternative, as a superior, more satisfying, more coherent alternative to the worldview that they have. And of course, if we're explaining the Christian worldview, we should also be sharing the gospel, because at the very center of the Christian worldview is Jesus Christ, who he is and what he has done. You cannot, in fact, explain a Christian worldview without talking about the gospel. If you don't, you're not really talking about a Christian worldview, because you've got that S, that salvation part of the worldview. So, not only are we sharing the gospel, we're sharing the gospel in the broader context of a biblical understanding of who God is, where the universe came from, what human beings are, what is right, what is wrong, how we know what we know, and all that. And we want to explain as well how our worldview does not suffer from the kind of problems that their worldview does. Our worldview is consistent. It's coherent. It explains where the universe came from, why it's an orderly place. It explains why we have a conscience that tells us the difference between right and wrong. It explains why we treat human beings with the kind of dignity and preciousness that we don't treat cockroaches. We want to show that our worldview makes far better sense of the things that they take for granted in life than their worldview does. So in effect, now we're saying, well, I stood in your shoes. to try on your worldview, why don't you now try and stand in my shoes? Try and see the world through the lens of a Christian worldview. Try that on for size. Imagine how the world would look if you shared my Christian worldview. Isn't it actually much more consistent than your worldview? It doesn't make these kind of self-defeating, self-reputing claims. Doesn't it make much more sense of the things that we experience in this world, like morality, reason, beauty, apparent design in nature, our sense that our lives have purpose and meaning, that there's something beyond this world of sense experience. Can you see how this worldview offers real fulfillment for every aspect of our being? Can you see how it offers real hope, both for the present, with how we deal with the trials of life, and also the future, as we face the ultimate trial of death? Can you see how this worldview answers the big questions in a coherent and satisfying way? And that at least will lead to a productive conversation. You won't be just talking about the weather or the sports, making small talk. You'll be getting to the heart of the issues. And things don't always go to plan. Sometimes you have to break off, sometimes people get a little defensive, you have to come back later. It takes some skill, some practice to talk about these issues in a way that will lead to an ongoing conversation. But there are a number of tools that you can use for this, and one of them would be the book I mentioned earlier, What's Your Worldview?, which I wrote a number of years ago. And you can just give to someone. It's not preachy. It's not patronizing towards an unbeliever. It just asks them to think a bit more deeply about their worldview, and that hopefully will lead to some more productive conversations. Now, note I'm not saying that getting someone to change their worldview is evangelism. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that all this, if you do all this, that's basically evangelism, okay? What I am saying is that talking constructively about worldviews, and you don't even need to use the word worldview, you can use, you know, perspective, outlook, there are different ways you can talk about it, but talking about the concept of worldviews can be a very fruitful approach to evangelism in our culture today, where people are not coming from a Christian background. the capital of Christian civilization is being constantly eroded. And so there are a multitude of different worldviews out there, and also there's a consumerism that deadens people's consciences to matters of ultimate significance, so they become comfortable with their lives and their entertainment. And that's exactly what Satan wants. He wants people to be distracted from ultimate issues by just pleasing them with gadgets. and shows and entertainment. And we've got to somehow break into that. We can actually even use the TV shows, the movies, to talk about the worldviews that lie behind them. Well, what did you think of that movie? Well, yeah, I mean it was quite an entertaining movie, but actually the worldview that was behind it was pretty incoherent. Well, there, you can use a movie to talk about worldviews. There are many ways we can get into these conversations. So, my challenge to you is why not try this? Why not try this next week? A conversation with an unbelieving friend, family member, work colleague. See if you can raise a conversation about worldviews and apply something that you have learned, I hope, over the course of this weekend. Well, that's all I have to say. Are there any questions? I think we've got a little bit, maybe five minutes for some questions, if there are any. If you need to get up and make some preparations for the service, that's fine, of course. Any questions? Okay, I'll take that as a good thing that everything I said was sufficiently clear that you don't need to ask for clarification. Well, thank you again so much for being here. It's been encouragement to me to have people who are interested in these topics. I really hope and pray that what you've heard will be useful and you can put it into practice. In your remarks, Dr. Anderson teaches at the Reform Theological Seminary in Charlottesville, Carolina. I know you've been there. So if you're interested in seminary education, I'd be glad to talk to you about what Reform Seminary in Charlottesville has to offer. There's a student that RTS insured his last semester and has had an undergraduate semester. The professor, he also gave me information about that. If you know of someone who's typically receiving about that. Also, we had two of his books here with us, but we only had 10 copies of each. We sold them in about 10 minutes. But if you'd like to have a copy of that, that you don't want in the RRKF website? Yeah, I think the RRKF is called Minded Arts.com. That's sort of the front end for Amazon. I'm not supposed to tell you that. You might find it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course. Any good booksellers you should go to. The name of the book? Yeah. Now, What's Your Worldview is a short book that has an interactive format. It's designed to give away, to promote good conversations. And then, well, it's just connected to why should I believe Christianity, which is a longer explanation and defense of the Christian worldview. All right, let's pray. Thank you for this presentation. We thank you for the work of your Holy Spirit that takes your truth and brings it into our hearts. We thank you for the Holy Spirit that brings conviction of sin and judgment of righteousness. So we thank you, Lord, that we go out and speak about these matters, that we know it's not all dependent upon us, that you will be able to work and be pleased to use our feeble efforts to bring people to Christ. Thank you, Father, for Dr. Anderson's ministry. We pray you bless us richly in his continued labors at RDS and Charlotte, and Lord, ease him greatly to help with the ongoing growth of your kingdom. Now prepare our hearts that we might worship you and extol your greatness as we gather to worship you. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.