Q & A with Francis Chan and Ravi Zacharias

I really don't just overwhelmed by that I just really don't know it's hard it's hard to transition out of that Thank You brothers when you don't forgive you stop moving one line we've been called as pastors and we will die here group of pastors the gospel is worth living for and it's worth dying for Scripture came to mind blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those when others were value and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven so they persecuted the prophets who were before you I think we saw that here in this interview as we transition to the next interview to other men who've you've read their stories if you followed them you know that they in their own way have counted the cost in various ways as well I love hearing from all these people who've counted the cost for the gospel in various ways so this is the one part of our conference that is going to be like free live streamed and soapy anyone that you know can watch so be a good opportunity to take them out and say Shawn Hart is live now nobody's gonna click ok it might be better to tell them that they're about to hear from Francis Chan and Ravi Zacharias that's that's I think that's a better game plan I'm the three men I'm about to invite to stage Vince Ravi and Francis they of all like I told you about others have had a profound impact on my life I'm very thankful for them so I'm really really looking forward to what you guys are going to share and hear from you I've already introduced Ravi Francis and Vince I'll give a further and a duck introduction before you guys speak but I just want to say to all three of you that your character is what continues to push me on and continues to draw me closer to Jesus Jesus so thank you for the way you all lead would you guys please come and share with us well I would have a very hard time picking two people that I would prefer to ask questions to so this is a real privilege and we're gonna be taking questions live from the audience here and we have questions that have come in online as well and are being voted on but we have a very serious question that's been posed to you Robby first to start and that question is dear respected Ravi was the Indian restaurant across the street and answer to a specific prayer request that you made well and we get to heaven we'll find out but for here it's a little bit of heaven on earth that's great okay well we'll start with one of the questions which has been most voted for by the online audience and then we'll go to a live question after that if you do have a live question and feel free it's a head just to the microphone here in the middle of the room so the first question for you both feel free to answer whoever would like to American Christianity seems like a faith dulled by affluence and comfort is it possible for us in the u.s. to experience God in a similar way to the other stories that we heard today and how could we do that I'm sure friends would want to add to this a lot of his travel I think there are two ways to look at it Vince that would be my initial take as I've just heard the question on the one hand it's easy to come down hard you know on something like this it's sort of a easy game and an easy target but there are two sides to that the fact of the matter is it is easy to get too comfortable and what we have is not just because it's American Christianity but it's the way we live in America things are more accessible and actually in many ways more affordable peer talking about restaurants talking about automobiles talking about homes and accessibility to all of the gadgets of our time yes it is possible but that's not just America that's possible many parts of Europe as well so it's easy to start climbing up the wrong tree and looking for the fruit on that tree and thinking you have all that you need let me switch the metaphor a bit first and then get back to this on the other hand very few parts of the world today would really have heard the gospel the way they have it for America and generosity as well that's really an often forgotten thing I'm one of those who was blessed by the giving in Canada and the United States I came to know the Lord in India but there were missionaries from Canada and the United States there who reached my parents who reached us and that's because the people here have grown up with an attitude of giving that's one of America's greatest gifts in fact sometimes a gift that's almost abuse we don't even think to what it is we are giving me just see a need and start giving without demanding accountability at the same time so it's been a generous heart if you look at the work for example in Indochina Vietnam Cambodia Laos and all of those countries where the missionaries went from here again from North America the seeds that were sown I was in Vietnam in in March in Ho Chi Minh City and marg in died that was the first time she was there I was in the 70s during the war and there was a gentleman showing us around and he was talking about how tough life is for someone the city how alright it is for the others and so I looked at him and I said are you familiar with inland then London Lit tried not sure I'm pronouncing it correctly with the kind of accents they have and so on but it means good news and I'm belong to the Christian Russia Alliance and the CNMI churches they were called ten lon they were the major of angelical Protestant Church of Vietnam so I just said to him I you familiar with Timlin and he looked at me rather shocked he said my grandfather used to attend a thin line church my father attended and I grew up in a thin line Church just a person out of the blue you know and there are graves in Vietnam because of American missionaries I've seen them there on the DMZ and Yi Lin Quan tree and so on they were the ones that were the last ones to leave they were airlifted out of the embassy there the work in Cambodia great to work and then can Canadian missionaries as well so they have done a lot across the decades our role may be changing now our role may not be so much in doing evangelism as enabling evangelism because there are a lot of fine crop of Nationals and other possibilities so yes it is possible for us to get too comfortable but I also want to say a big thank you for the way this country has supported the cause of World Missions all over the globe and we cannot gain say that side of it also great prayer warriors here wherever I go I see people who say we're praying for you so it could become an easy target to say yes but the risk is they're always there whenever you have been too full in supply we just have to take it as from the hand of God and not see it as a license to get free of any responsibility yeah I think of I think it's Deuteronomy 8 when you know God's telling is we're gonna go into this land you can get all this stuff and here's what's gonna happen you're gonna start enjoying it then after a period of time you're gonna start thinking that you earned it and you did this for yourself and you're gonna forget your need for me it was gonna forget about there's something about it's not I can't say it's our fault I mean we live in this country and and there are just a lot of comforts that come our way and I think scripture warns against some of those riches and how they can deaden you and place your heart to where suddenly you treasure your life here more than the one to come I mean honestly when our our brothers from Nigeria were just speaking up here part of my concerns I gosh you live such an amazing amazing life what God's done through I almost was fearful of them being in a position like this sitting in an air-conditioned room with their suits on answering questions being applauded because it's it's not the world you come from and I go oh lord please don't let this weaken because it can and so I prayed for you brothers gone please please Lord keep that passion we need need that and and there is something about our culture that that can soften us we know that and yet what can we do about it does that mean we just resolve and go well I live in America we can only go so far in our walk with the Lord because we're not persecuted absolutely not but but there are things we need to do just even in our own prayer lives when scripture says you know to be sober minded and self-controlled for the sake of your prayers now that that thought of being clear minded rather than filling your mind with with mindless texts and Facebook posts and videos and movies and so where it's time to pray and we have all these comforts and all these things we can enjoy and now it's time to pray and to be sober-minded we're like our mind is going everywhere and we lose touch with reality and that's that's the problem that's what keeps us from some of this depth and this time with the Lord I see it I feel it slipping away and again it's it's I love what you said about thinking about everything the country has done in a good way and I I personally - I want to apologize if I ever come across like I'm just mad you know like gosh we're so messed up but and but it's hard sometimes when you go other countries and and what I've learned is oK we've been privileged to see a lot of that and meet people Saints dear Saints around the world that have suffered so much for the gospel that it just gets us so excited to be to want to be like them and not everyone has that privilege to see that experience that and to feel their pain and see their intimacy with Christ and and so sometimes in coming back here I just wanted to let people know what is possible and I really believe it is possible here it's but but our our comforts and our riches really do fight against us and in our quest for that thank you guys so much that's uh if that's mad you're welcome to get mad at me anytime I have a t-shirt which with Robbie's daughter bought for me actually oh no it was Mark II it was Robbie's wife Margie bought for me and says I'm not yelling I'm just Italian know what I like about Frances his passion makes me feel like I'm sliding into oblivion he is like a conductor and the whole world is as Orchestra love it absolutely love it I used to be like that then I got older yes can I say one more thing on that just so that we don't lose the ideals for all of us there are parts of the world that don't have too much vents as you all know and we travel but they have their own issues they really have their own issues there are so many pockets of division in some parts of the world and the church they are so divided everybody you know they say when the tide is low every shrimp has its own bottle and you've got all these little puddles all over the place and we are so divided maybe the greatest need for the hour is that we be one in our belief and in our passion and in our propagation the parts of the world you go you go to the Middle East I mean the tensions within the Christian community there are pretty bad all little pockets of critiques and criticisms and all of that Satan works in different ways you know here he may use our well-being in order to mitigate the force of the gospel there he may use that sense of autonomy to drive a wedge into somebody else the enemy of our souls is pretty shrewd and knows what to use which to attack a local setting of the gospel yep thanks thanks to you both do we have a live question that we can go to here okay anyone who has a lot of questionable crazies coming up yeah cook yeah will do one more question here but go ahead and go ahead and talk with Ruth and anyone else who has a live question you can just head right here and talk with walk with Ruth and we'll we'll get to those questions soon one more from the pigeon hall guys this question says the Gospel of John says we will be known by our love yet our culture has redefined love to be something we can't tolerate how do we discuss the definition of love with love and that may be the challenge of the hour for us because we have you know a persecution here is of a different kind it's not so much so often where our homes may be surrounded by physical threat but there's a lot of emotional pressure put on our children and or our families and on our values the way culture is weighing in on almost every issue seems to be contra Christian faith anything but the Christian faith but I think this lends itself to the expression of love and grace as you well know Vince and rest of my colleagues and of course Francis does this so much in his preaching and in his pastoral work and in his books we have no option the option is really either to communicate the gospel effectively or lose the impact of the gospel the option for us for us should just be one and you and I well know so often questions are asked in a very intimidating way or a counter worldview way and if the temptation is to fly off the handle and to fly a fight back and to resist and we have two very pay I I tell my colleagues we're not answering a question we are answering a questionnaire and we remind ourselves that when you're answering a person you're literally and figuratively are putting their their arms are your arms around them you have to draw them close you have to make them feel you really care about them that this is not just a mechanistic response you're giving but your interest is that in their hearing they hear how much you really care about them once upon a time the questions were rather theoretical you could get away with theoretical answers but a lot of questions do they have very many practical implications they are much more existentially driven and experienced so our challenge is to make them realize that while our worldview may be different the imperative of our worldview is to love those who oppose and love those who stand against us so love has to extend itself and the way you answer and love has to extend itself and the availability you have for the person to a continued dialogue on the same issue so that you can demonstrate that love over a period of patience and over a period of time that's the way I would see it you know when I look at what what is written in John you know Jesus says a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you you also are to love one another by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another and so at the love in that passage anyway is talking about this about it's it's it's true that like the people in the world if I confront any type of sin in their life they would see that as unloving there's there's nothing you could there's nothing we can do about that that's just the way they have redefined love but what we can control is in the church that we are honest with one another but he says the way that they're going to know that that you're my disciples is is this and this is where we're losing it you know you talk about the other countries that are you know dividing and in their different denominations and believers at each other's throats which I've seen also but gosh are we known for our love for one another and what are what are we doing right now to pursue this oneness that Christ wants of us I said this at the luncheon earlier man I love this man the first time we met I don't even remember when it was but I remember just maybe it wasn't the very first time but I remember just one time because okay I'm not an apologist at most you guys know that okay I'm just I've tried you know it's like my mind goes so far in and so I need brothers like this so badly you know it used to be back in the 90s when a pastor felt like he just had to be everything I got to know more than everyone else but but now it's just like okay I just can't I can't do it I'm not gonna be the best Bible teacher or the best scholar and the best counselor and the best leader and the best apologist so I need this but a lot of times when I when I encounter someone who is a scholar I get intimidated I think a lot of us do we just feel stupid right and and usually they'll tell us why we are stupid you know and I knew it I knew it you just proved it to me I already knew that tell me something I don't know and so but I remember you know one of the times Ravi you know I might have been our first time meeting and that we were both gonna speak in an event and he just comes up to me and just hugs me and tells me how much he loves me and thanks God I think he just started praying God it is such an honor to share the stage with this man Francis I am so honored to be on the same and do you know what that does for a person who's already feeling insecure and everything else and then him saying no I'm honored to be with you your contribution to the body of Christ like a father like love it was so foreign to me to be loved by a scholar seriously and valued by one now the fact that that feels so foreign is an indictment of where we're at and I get it and I want to be the first to apologize like I can get so fired up about my thing that it may seem like I'm mad at you I'm not okay I just get fired up about stuff and I I get bothered when I know how much people are suffering around the world and I think about people who've never heard the gospel and and sometimes in my zeal for something I forget that my number one call is to love you deeply like for this oneness and and the Bible saying when that happens in the church that's when the world's gonna know that we're his disciples and that's all we need to fight for we've got a nice line of questions here live so let's go and focus there for a bit we're 56% of Christians in America in my generation and above believe that Jesus is God the other the rest of it they believed that Jesus existed historically and they believed that he was a good moral teacher but they didn't believe he was God and then as I read further in the article the generations below us only about 38 percent believe that Jesus is God they believed he existed historically it was a good moral teacher and so when I when I read that I kind of look at where we are in America today and maybe why we are the way we are because we're not seeing Jesus from who he is as God and as a pastor hopefully pastoring many more years here in the future what am I going to do to convince the generations that are up and coming the divinity of Jesus Christ which I think will help us get back to where we need to be as a country and thank you did you just fix the country Robbie then I'll be fine I didn't get that for the first the first the first statistic was did I hear 56 okay and now it's far below that you know actually even that surprises me I wonder whether those that higher percentage have thought through of what they're really saying the Divine Son of God the authority that that title would give to him and therefore the imperatives that necessarily follow you know the when people talk about him as being a good moral teacher that's always the most puzzling description of all you wonder whether they have I think who who was at was at Becky that said this morning what people would never even read the gospel but commenting on it and making taking implications from that if they really believe if even 56% at that time believed that Jesus son of God then we didn't do a very good job of spreading that message and defending that message but if they talk about him being a good moral teacher then maybe his good moral teachings they actually consider bad because they don't like to abide by the by the moral teachings that Jesus had I would say that it tells you and me more and more that in our preaching one way or the other we have to be bringing in the teachings of Jesus and why those teachings are true and why he is indeed who he claims to be so that apologetic becomes very important at a time like this often times I find when you're for example in the prayer now in the presidential prayer breakfast and all there's more and more of this move of having a pluralistic type of prayer and people from other places having equal voice at the prayer breakfast which doesn't often uphold the Christian faith and Christian values so I would say that it is important my voice gave me trouble here it is important for us I think I saw some water here give me a moment it is important in our speaking teaching and writing to defend who Jesus is and why he is so so oftentimes I will say to people when they are attacking Christendom or Christianity and there's a lot to attack historically I'll say tell me what you think of Jesus you know what is it you really think of Jesus and when they start pondering that it opens up an awful lot of possibilities for a genuine witness for the birth life death and resurrection it is interesting in Matthew 16 when Jesus has spoken to Peter and Peter has finally recognized thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God Jesus said flesh and blood has not revealed that to you but my father who is in heaven as soon as he makes that recognition the Bible says from that moment on Jesus began to teach about the manner of death that he should die and Peter resisted that so he just accepted who Jesus was then begins to challenge the path that Jesus was actually about to take and Jesus from taking that compliment flesh and blood has not revealed that to you but my father was in heaven and then he turns around and now says to him get thee behind me Satan you're not minding the things of God but you're minding the things of man so even those who recognize his deity had a difficulty in understanding the total message and the mission so you move on to the next chapter okay 17 there in Matthew if I'm not mistaken so at the end of 16 JB Jesus says there are some who are standing here who will not death till they see the glory of the Son of God coming in glory and the very next chapter is amount of the Transfiguration so he takes them up to the mountain and Peter and James and John are stymied by this glimpse of a transfigured Lord and Elijah and Moses and after all of that exhilarating experience Peter said let's stay right here Peter the fisherman wanted to become Peter the Builder he said I'll build three Tabernacles here for all of you and Jesus basically says we've got to go down this work to be done this Peter this Peter who experienced probably one of the most exhilarating encounters the human eye could ever have accommodated imagine being present at the Transfiguration of our Lord he has seen this the most exhilarating thing and to see Moses and Elijah at the same time this Peter tells us in in in his epistles to set apart Christ in your heart as Lord and always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is within you to any one of us and do that with gentleness and respect he gives us the definitive statement of what apologetics is meaning any experience has a shelf life because he says for now we have the word of the prophets made more certain we were eyewitnesses to his majesty but now we have the word of the prophets made more certain and you'll do well to pay heed to it as to a light in a dark place so all of the experiences were given a secondary place the propositional truth of Christ was given the primary place because it is eternal and the presentation of Christ as the centerpiece in answering all of the questions became the mission I think of Peter himself so I would say as wonderful as our experiences are we have to go back to the shore word of prophecy for thy word abides forever expository preaching is the most powerful way to present who Jesus Christ really is yeah all right obviously echo that but I was gonna say the same thing but I actually was thinking that the same line of like we have to be so careful with understanding what the Holy Spirit of God does and only he has that power to do you know Peter's confession was like okay I didn't convince you of that that came from heaven that was a miracle that you believe that I am the Son of God so we just have to be so careful not to think that's where apologetics has its place and then there's a there's a stopping point to it and we go oh god please please because it's the spirits the natural man's not going to get that Jesus is the Son of God it just doesn't happen that way heaven has to reveal it and so we're on her faces begging God please please because then when the Holy Spirit does that thing in your heart then it's like my sheep will hear my voice they'll listen to truth they'll actually accept the truth of who Jesus is but on top of that - I think there's almost a casual attitude about Jesus because of maybe not necessarily false teaching in the church but incomplete teaching in the church where we we may overemphasize certain things about Christ because we want to get people interested in him but in in many ways it it can create like a casual attitude toward his deity you know I was I was thinking about in in John 5 verse 27 when I'm sort of twenty-two the father judges no one but he's given all judgment to the son that all may honor the son just as they honor the father whoever does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent him - just read the Word of God to someone who's casual well maybe Jesus maybe like okay let me explain something I grew up in a church where I just assumed odd she's so sweet and God the Father oh man it's it's hit or miss Old Testament right and and to read no no one read verses like this that do you realize that you're all judgment is from the Sun I remember reading revelation 6 when in verse 15 the kings of the earth and the great ones the generals the rich the powerful and everyone slave and free hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains calling to the mountains and rocks fall on us hide us from the face of him who has seated on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb for the day of their wrath has come and who can stand like it was it was me reading this book oh this is Jesus he's the judge the whoever talks about the wrath of the Lamb and yet here's everyone on the planet terrified just wishing they could be hidden because they can't it's it's because we're not being complete and that that I think sometimes we can have a casual attitude about the deity of Christ and who Jesus is because we see him as so you know it's almost like a side note to God and absolutely that's not the way the Scriptures teach about him and I I'm still a guy who believes that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and it's when you fear Jesus the coming judge that suddenly you recognize why but he's also full of mercy wait how could that such a terrifying god of justice and wrath also be a God of mercy and you just your mind just starts spinning and you're an all of him all over again thank you guys is so good and as I was thinking about your question and what you guys have shared and and Francis just what you're saying about how apologetics can only go so far but the Holy Spirit has to be the one that brings someone to believe in the divinity of Christ it's just so true and I was just you know you spoke about the younger generation I just had in my mind a picture of this young woman who came to faith on a mission that we did and there wasn't necessarily some big obstacle in her way we asked her a few days later we said you know what why didn't you say yes to Jesus sooner and she was very thoughtful about it and she just sort of leaned back in her chair and she said I think I just needed an invitation and that line has always stuck with me so we see those percentages dropping from 56% to 30-something percent let's turn the question around to ourselves as well and let's make sure that the percentage of people were actually inviting to believe in the divinity of Jesus is very very high because if we believe Romans 1 and we believe that people genuinely know God they do know him that truth is just suppressed it's in there every single person could be just one invitation away from giving their life to Christ so let's make sure that the reason that percentage is so low whatever the reason is it's not because that's the percentage of people that were inviting to believe that truth let's go to another question life thank you post-modernism seems to have produced a political system that's based on identity politics which is based off of oppressed versus oppressor and it seems that and there's a large part of our culture that views Christian faith as the oppressor and our American church seems that in some ways that is compromise itself to avoid the label of being the oppressor and my question is how do we unify the church in our culture when our culture views our beliefs as oppressive without compromising our convictions how do we unify the church when our culture views our beliefs as oppressive without compromising our convictions you know it's interesting when you look at the flow of I'll - I'll leave the closing words for you on this run so let me take the first poll you're looking at the word is epistemology in philosophy the word epistemology means you know how do you it still is the subject of dealing with how do you know something is true so if you're dealing with the historian he has a different epistemological grid a historian will look for various documentation in order to see whether his philosophy of history and his facts of history are right you talked to a scientist he or she works with a different series of tests for truth and so on so that's a historian or a philosopher or a scientist they have their own grid of truth testing the Lord also tells us to test the truth you know to prove it to be right look at where secular philosophy has gone from rationalism reason alone to empiricism science sort of being the ultimate arbiter of everything - existentialism your experience is the final test so you move from rationalism to empiricism to existentialism and then what was left post-modernism post-modernism repudiated all of those no truth no meaning no certainty and fascinatingly by the way all of these had their seedbeds in the continent in in Europe coming from there from the rationalistic view and so on America had a different starting point as did the United Kingdom the starting point was not reason the starting point was moral reasoning this had been pointed out by Gertrude Himmelfarb in her book roads to modernity prefer America professor emeritus from Columbia University so while Europe went from rationalism all the way down to post-modernism America starting point was moral reasoning that's why we talked about being endowed by our creator with inalienable rights the problem is now we have an America that deals with rights without ever defining what is right we have no more the moral reasoning on which to awry at all of this so I think the last bastion of this that is left as far as I'm concerned you can go to scientific proofs you can go to design proofs you can go to so many other things but the average person who really opens up their eyes and is listening to you recognizes there has to be a moral framework with which I do my thinking what is it that makes me a person or a creature of value so in that essential nature is the image of God the image of God gives to me moral reasoning we cannot communicate truth while compromising the implications of truth so I would say how you communicate in this society is conviction with compassion convictions are very different to opinions opinions are something that you hold to convictions are those which hold you you can change an opinion one time you might like blue next year you might like green it's okay but you cannot change your convictions about the sacredness of life or the sacredness of sexuality or love and those that you put into this category the challenge for the Christian is how to communicate conviction with compassion my mother used to say once you have cut off a person's nose there's no point giving them a rose to smell so we have these issues come up on the university floor all the time if they know you really care about them and they know you're authentic in what you are saying you can you can't often go directly to the answer but you can circle and form an arc and come into it when Billy Graham was in his heyday the invitation was given to the masses but now we've got the hard picking to do not everybody is ready in that kind of setting so we have to find ways of dialogical thinking ways of rational discourse and I could say much more but I don't want to go need up the clock here let me give it to Francis too last year yeah let me complete your thoughts for you so that when he quotes people we're on like Gertrude to have a little farm or whatever like wow look over at my daughter she's just like laughing over there giggling my dad there's nobody's talking about and I do know the word epistemology though I do you probably think I didn't it comes from the word pista for faith thank you that's all I have to say but I would like to take one more question I do have a okay it because okay here's here's where I feel like I can contribute okay you know it's it's this wards I mean you describe it for viele it's we this whole idea of we're all fighting for our rights and and these are real things real pain real real things that we feel it's it's so close to home and and I and I love how the church has been so compassionate towards people this has been a new move into this this this really trying to understand people here where they're coming from but it really does come down to this this worldview at the core I've been I've been saying recently that I I think one of the most important passages for our generation is Isaiah 55 starting in verse 8 where God says my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts so we've kind of a lot of our reasoning comes from and I read a lot of moderate when I live write a couple of modern books where the they'll just say well why would God do this I wouldn't do it that's not the way I think you know well I wouldn't flood the earth either I wouldn't do this either but it's it's it's coming from this this this mindset where you know what or not that you believe your mind is the ultimate and what God's saying is I don't think like you you know so I read the Old Testament and so many times I wanted and I wouldn't done that I wouldn't done that exactly he says there's a reason because you don't think like I do and so in this compassion for people we've lost this understanding that yes I feel I feel you're hurt by my biggest concern is you're not seeing the center of it all and you're not seeing this being who's so far beyond you that you have to answer to and that's bigger than the hurt that you're currently facing and his thoughts are so far beyond ours and and and there needs to be a way in which the church and no longer apologizes for the way that God thinks and acts and what he says is right and wrong and I want to say you know I meant to say earlier to to the gentleman to raise the question secularism going through all of those isms that I mentioned ended up with post-modernism what the mistake is there in each one of those cases I wanted really carefully now in grabbing the finger of one discipline they thought they had grabbed the fists of reality there is a place for rationalism there is a place for the existentialist thought there is a place for the empirical there is a place for post-modernism one thing in defense of postmodern thinking they believe in community which is precisely what the church is really all about it is only the Christian worldview that distributes its authority between all of these methods because they all have a place but the fists of reality ultimately is precisely the reasoning of God himself who has the rational aspect who has the existential aspect who has the community aspect who has the investigative empirical aspect so while secularism was going to one ism at a time God's probably sitting there saying you know you just got one little sliver of truth here I've got all of these in my orb and when you put it together it has a cohesiveness of a composite and a worldview that fits together with all of these having their legitimate place that's good that's some good epistemology one final question we're just about out of time but please do go ahead so I come from a immigrant background from Russian Ukrainian churches and so what we have is the older generation who sees America unlike the brothers here that we're sharing they see America as synonymous with the world and then we have the younger generation who is seeing all of the value in everything that American churches can bring as I'm seeing here as well and how kind of stuck in the middle between those generations and so for me the question is how can I be a peacemaker between those two generations because that is a problem that we are having in our churches is a separation of those generations misunderstanding between them what better man to answer that question than with a man who's bridged the West and the East Francis Chan [Laughter] i I you know when you look at Scripture you know sometimes I I can almost get paralyzed by that right as you probably do you go how in the world am I gonna bring this together because there's so many things that fight against that and there'll be so much criticism as you try to pursue that and try to bring these two sides together and this is my opinion I think there's biblical basis on this I'm not sure I can defend it right now but I almost feel like the answer to that is the reason why it's not coming to get you you almost need to create it's almost like if we were the church right here just the three of us right now and I understand this bigger problem is out there but what I'm called to do is to love you Vince like in a way that the world is like how could Francis sacrifice that much for that guy and and and and for you to love me in that same way and for us I understand there's big problems out but right now the three of us let's just have this insane bond like crisis we could be perfectly won and when we do that like the that's where the supernatural begins to happen and God does things that that we don't even understand they don't even make sense logically but scripture says it'll happen that when we become perfectly one then the world will know so there's something about taking our eyes off of these big giant problems and for the church to really be such an incredible Church that then everyone starts looking to this one focal point of this unified church in and and it's almost like as we jump to these other ends which I we still need to try it you know the problem is we're not building that base that everyone's looking at going wow that's amazing and really being that light that attracts people and so I kinda I don't know if that answers your question but my approach from my understanding of Scripture is that some of these things are just over our heads that are such extreme difficult things but the core of the problem is the church is not being that beautiful bride that Christ wanted it to be and so we start with those who who get it at that point and let's just build on that and I feel like the fringes just start growing further and further through that a track into something so beautiful well praise God for all that's been shared and let's say thank you to Ravi and Francis [Applause]

Channel: undefined

Views: 24,062

Rating: 4.9038463 out of 5

Keywords: Francis Chan, Crazy Love, GOD, JESUS, CHURCH, Ravi Zacharias

Id: SQ9SvaCX8yc

Length: 50min 2sec (3002 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 13 2019