Skip to content How the Christian Worldview Inspires Uncommon Hope for Believers with John Stonestreet Jan 30 · 39 min ...more
How the Christian Worldview Inspires Uncommon Hope for Believers with John Stonestreet
January 30, 2026 · 39 min
Series Focus On The Family Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Support this leader
Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Give
Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
81.2K followers
Your trusted guide for overcoming the unique challenges faced by today’s families, with Biblically-sound marriage and parenting help that’s relatable, practical, and engaging!
81.2K followers
Comments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
Recognizing the Civilizational Crisis 0:03 And when you put those 2 things together that we're in this critical moment in the history of our civilization and that we're not here by accident, that God's called us here, man, that that is the ultimate way of0:15 creating that, well, how then shall I live crisis that I think the church is in. What is God calling us to be and to do in this time and in this place?0:34 John, welcome back to Focus on the Family.0:36 Hey. Thanks so much. It's great to be with you. It's been great0:39 to work on this project. Yeah.0:40 Great to have you here on the campus and the great work you're doing. It seems to be on full display now, this conflict. Of course, Chuck Colson wrote Kingdoms in Conflict, which is so apropos now. And again, these these0:52 people that had a a foretaste, a foreshadowing of what was gonna come. In fact, Francis Schaeffer, you know, yeah, he was the quirky Christian philosopher who who ran his1:04 ministry there in in Switzerland and said things like in 19 73 with Roe v Wade, this will lead to euthanasia.1:12 Mhmm.1:12 It'll lead to a death culture. He was already there, and slowly but surely, his pronouncements all those years ago, decades ago, have come to pass where we now accept1:25 culturally the killing of elderly people. Canada is suffering from that. But, you know, this idea that there's linkage to these things. When you legalize1:36 abortion, you are denigrating human beings, and people become desensitized to death.1:43 Yeah. I mean, listen, we live in a profoundly dehumanizing cultural moment. And I think we see that in terms of policies like the embrace of death both at the beginning of life and at the end of1:54 life, but also the crisis of meaning, the crisis of identity formation, particularly for young people kind of chasing identities and thinking that identities are these fluid things2:06 and that they're gonna eventually find happiness through, quote, unquote, being themselves. But what we're seeing now is that that that they're not. And and and so listen. This2:18 is kind of the proof of what a lot of these guys said. Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas upstream in the culture lead to the consequences that we see downstream. And and they're not just2:30 disembodied consequences. They're consequences for real people. We often say at the Colson Center, ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. And I think we're in a unique cultural moment. Our friend, Oz2:41 Guinness, calls it a civilizational moment where a lot of these things are coming to a head. And, then the question is, you know, to follow-up on both Francis Schaeffer and Chuck Colson, how should we2:53 live? Mhmm. What's our call to this moment? And that's really the crux of this project. Right. How can the church be the church in this time, in this place?3:03 Well, then there's so much stuff flying. I mean, now it's like everybody's got their own truth. Mhmm. You know, your truth isn't my truth. Well, the reality is, like gravity, truth3:15 is truth. There is 1 set that we would call truth, and we as Christians squarely believe the Bible is full of God's truth for the universe, its creation, how human beings3:27 operate, etcetera. And the world just is in this weird place. Describe that idea of Christian worldview, its formation, what it is we believe. Man, we3:39 could just spin off of that and talk about the offense it is to people. But why do we need to help our children have that formulation of a Christian worldview? A lot of people say, oh, Christian worldview. That's so3:50 ancient. Mhmm. But speak to the the wisdom of ancient truth.3:56 Well, it is mainly because it gives us a map it gives us a a fixed reference point think about the importance of the magnetic North Pole to the compass you4:08 know if we dropped you off in the wilderness of of Colorado here and gave you a compass to find yourself to find your way out, it really matters that that compass works. Yeah. Imagine,4:20 like, if you were kind of in the middle of nowhere and you started to realize, oh, the compass is always pointing at me. No matter where you turn, you're the center of reality. Well, in the context of a wilderness,4:30 you're gonna be lost, and there's gonna be huge consequences. A compass gives us that fixed reference 0.1 biblical worldview or a Christian worldview is just basically orienting our life to truth. That4:41 is that fixed reference point. It doesn't mean we have all the answers to all the questions. It doesn't mean that the Bible prescribes exactly what we ought to do in each and every situation. What it does is it orients4:51 our hearts and our minds, our families, our communities, our cultures to something fixed and unchanging no matter how rocky the cultural moment is. And that's why it's essential.5:03 Think about then how damaging this, lie is that we told a whole generation of young people, look inside, look inside, look inside, look inside. Where They need to look is up. Where they need to look is5:15 out. They need a fixed reference point, but by removing truth, we've removed that from them. Yeah.5:20 And then we wonder why there's so much evidence of how lost they are. You share the baton in this documentary collaboration between Focus on the Family, the Colson Center, with Oz5:32 Guinness. Right. Oz is a great friend of both of ours, and he is in his eighties. He has been around. He has an incredible life being born in China, going through Mao's takeover of China,5:44 and it's an incredible story. And that's in the documentary where Oz shares that. But Oz talks about civilizational moments, and he says, you know, you either see it in museums,5:56 you see it as part of history, or you see a revitalization. His hope, and I think all of our hope as Christians, is for the West particularly to rediscover its core. Yeah. Now6:07 in the US, like in places in Europe and Canada, I mean, those things aren't really taught anymore. The foundations of our country at least and the idea that people are created equal and that we're created6:19 in the image of God and to create an environment of opportunity for people to lift everyone's boat, which I think, again, this United States has been phenomenal at raising6:31 the boat for everybody. Right? Mhmm. But but people are just so, I don't know. The there's just such a lack of gratefulness for what God6:43 has given us. What's happening there, and how do we reorient people to say the good things of culture can be restored, and we can find our hope again. How6:55 do we do that?6:56 Well, listen. I think Oz is as close as6:58 we have right now to a Gandalf for the church. Right.7:01 We get that. We get that. You know,7:02 kind of the the the wise guru. And there's 2 things in particular that I think I've learned from Oz that are extremely important right now. The the first is what you just mentioned that we're7:14 living in a civilizational moment. We think about civilizations in history books and museums because that's where most civilizations are. What that means is is that civilizations don't last forever. You know,7:26 once dominant civilizations are now reduced to ruins because civilizations rise and fall, and there's actual rules to7:40 Us thinks that the West, which has been the dominant civilization on the planet for hundreds of years.7:48 Because of its Christian roots.7:49 Be because of its roots, its strong roots that led the flourishing, roots like fixed a fixed understanding of truth, the Judeo Christian notion of God, and certainly of the image of God, which grounded things like8:01 human dignity and value, that we're at it now a moment of of of of decline. He calls it being a cut flower civilization. So think about cutting a flower from its roots. You can put8:13 it in the water, and for a while, it'll still be beautiful. It'll still have shine. It'll still have its petals. But, eventually, if it's cut off from the thing that gave it life, it will wither and die. And8:24 civilizations do the same thing. So, historically, what we know is that when a civilization is cut off from the source that gave it vitality and life and flourishing, that, it either8:36 has to be reattached to that source, attached to a different source, which may be better or worse, or it's gonna wither and die, and we're in that moment. It's hard to, know what it's like to be in that moment.8:48 I mean, museums and history books can tell us that civilizations die. Sociologists can even tell us why civilizations die, and we can see some of the parallels today. But But what's it like to be in this moment?9:00 What's our responsibility and calling as Christians? And that brings up the second thing, really, that Oz has helped me understand is the understanding of time that comes from holy scripture.9:13 The Bible describes God as being precise. In Galatians 4, just the right time, just the right place, he he sends them the Messiah. Acts 17, that God chooses the exact times that9:25 people live in the boundaries of their dwelling place. In other words, we think about our calling as Christians as being called to maybe the mission field or called to the pulpit or maybe being called to our particular9:37 job, our work, you know, being called to charity. All that's true. But the Bible also talks about us being called to an hour, called to a moment. And when you put those 2 things together9:49 that we're in this critical moment in the history of our civilization and that we're not here by accident, that God's called us here, Man, that is the ultimate way of creating that, well, how then shall IThe Christian Worldview as Fixed Truth 10:00 live crisis that I think the church is in. What is God calling us to be and to do in this time and in this place?10:10 Hey. Allow me to interrupt for just a moment here to say how much we appreciate you watching. Now if you find value in this content, subscribe by clicking below. It'll be a big help to us. Let's go ahead and return to10:22 the show.10:23 We just released a marriage study, and it showed something so critical in this area that convictional Christian, and the way that most, sociologists would define that10:35 as somebody who goes to church regularly, prays regularly, That group of people have better marriages than anybody else. They have, less10:47 chaos and crisis in their marriages, and their divorce rate is the lowest. Now we in the Christian community would say, of course. But people that live a more nominal Christian life, meaning, you know,10:58 they go to church occasionally, they pray occasionally, some of the highest divorce rates rest there. So it's this idea that actually the proof in the pudding is when you put your faith11:10 into action. And we're talking at a cultural level here, but it's true at the level of marriage. You want the happiest, most fulfilling marriage you can have? Commit your life to11:22 the Lord and then live the faith. Be kind to 1 another. Love 1 another. And what happens is you have less chaos and more love in your family. I mean,11:34 again, this is what we can do with the culture as well.11:38 Yeah. That's right. And I think this is gets us to the job description, really, of what the church is to be in this moment, is to be the kind of place that helps people understand what is true and attach11:50 their lives to it in profound and meaningful ways. A time of civilizational crisis like we're in is a time of reflection for individual Christians. Because if it's true that God put us in this time and place,12:02 and it's true that our actions really have meaning and purpose. Listen, we are not just victims of civilizational forces we can't control. We're not just to be swept along with the tide of history.12:14 God uses the faithfulness of his people to accomplish amazing redemptive things. And we know this is true, not because of the chaos of the moment, but because of the12:26 biblical story. And this story gives meaning to our moment. What do we know from the story? That God created this world, that this world has fallen, and that in Christ, we have the potential for12:38 redemption, and the story is headed to the new heavens and new earth. So a time of civilizational crisis does not mean a time of biblical crisis. That truth is secure, and that's the12:49 fixed reference point that we wanna attach our lives to. In other words, I think a lot of Christians tend to use Christian stuff for benefit. And you know what?13:01 It is beneficial. It does work, but it's not true because it works. It works because it's true. The Bible gives us the actual description of reality as it actually is.13:13 It describes who we are as made in the image of God, and it describes the the how we can live out this faith even in a moment like this. And that's really what this whole project has been about from13:25 the beginning. Will the church be the church? Will we live into this calling to this moment right now? And we've got to do it personally. We've got to do it individually. We've got to do it in our own13:37 marriages to your point, certainly in our own families with our kids, but also in our communities. And then that will have a civilizational impact.13:46 John, I wanna come back to something that you mentioned, but I wanna drill a little deeper on it, and that is the disagreement over marriage, the definition of marriage, love, sexuality, and where the13:58 culture is tearing itself apart. I think 1 of the prime ministers from Australia made this point, that the engines of democracy still work, but we're putting14:09 alternative fuel in that is choking them. I thought what a beautiful illustration. He said if we can get back to the Judeo Christian values of the fuel for the engines of democracy,14:22 the engine will purr. And he related that to putting the wrong gasoline in his diesel truck, and it choked and sputtered. He went to the side of the road, had to empty and drain the gas tank, and then put the right fuel14:33 in to get that truck moving again. That does feel like where we're at. All the stuff we're trying and, failing at, it's not the way humanity was built or14:45 designed to work by God. So we need the fuel. Right. How do we how do we do that successfully? How do we combat these newer ways of defining marriage and14:57 love and identity? How do we say that is not gonna be the fuel that's gonna lead us to success?15:05 Well, first of all, we have to know the truth. Right? I mean and I think that's a very important thing. And not only knowing the truth, but knowing what truth itself is. I mean, to your point, we embraced a definition of15:15 truth that was true for you, but not for me, or truth changes and evolves. I mean, these are all things that that weren't just kind of said by individuals. These were kind of ideas about truth that were put15:27 into the highest levels of our society and civilization, and now we're seeing the fruit of these ideas. But it's not just enough to know the truth. We have to love the truth. If you love the truth, you're willing15:39 to stand for it and orient yourself to it despite the cultural pressure.15:45 You know, John, I'm the parent of 20 somethings. There's many parents listening that are parents of teens. And, you know, the question is in watching this and hopefully doing this study,15:57 how do we, absorb that and then share that with our teens or 20 somethings?16:03 Well, I'm I'm the parent of both. I have a 1 20 something and a handful of teens, and I think this is a a very helpful project for that because I think the world seems like a place that's too16:15 big to comprehend. It's too hard to understand it. And so then, and there, of course, there are so many different voices saying so many different things to these young people. And many of them are saying things like, you16:27 know, you be you. Just follow your heart. You can be whoever you wanna be. So it's lying to them about who they are as an individual. And this film, I think, accurately describes how that bad idea about what it means16:39 to be human has led to so much civilizational chaos. It's not just that it's not true. It's that that we've tried it and it's brought disaster. And the various experts that are interviewed in this documentary, as you16:51 mentioned earlier, many of them not Christians. They're coming at it just looking at the evidence going, hey, guys. This isn't working. We need to rethink this. And then it also points back to the ideas that did make17:03 Western civilization flourish, especially the idea of the image of God and the existence of truth. So I think 1 of the things that this film can do as you talk to your teens and 20 somethings17:15 is help them understand what we mean by the notion of truth, and that it's bigger than just do you believe it or not believe it, but look at what corresponds to reality, and we have to orient our lives to that17:27 even if there are voices saying different things.17:30 Yeah. And again, hitting that identity issue and then their confidence in that identity.17:35 Yeah. Yeah, I think it can build confidence in that the truth is actually true. The end is not up for grabs. Chuck Colson used to put it this way, Despair is a sin because Christ is17:47 risen from the dead. When you stand confidently on quote, unquote, the right side of history like that, then you're not threatened in the same way as17:59 if you think it all depends on you, it all rests on your shoulders and your ability to talk somebody else into your point of view. We should share truth as a beggar shares with another beggar that bread is available.18:11 We should share truth as if we are communicating the hope about this crazy cultural moment because it's the hope of reality. That's what the Bible actually gives us. It gives us not18:23 just truths about various things. It gives us the truth about everything.18:28 Allow me to interrupt for a moment to say how much I appreciate you watching. If you find value in this content, please subscribe subscribe by clicking below. It'll be a big help. Now let's get back to the show.18:40 I love this stuff. I I think all Christians should love thinking about the culture we're in, the fact that we're placed here for this moment, And, 1 of the scriptures that really helps us put this into perspective is18:52 John 15 19, which says, from Christ saying, you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world. Now some John might say, well, if that's the case, just put the switch on and19:04 let's go. And if the Lord's gonna wrap this up, He's gonna wrap it up. Is that what He expects of us as the church, or do we continue to try to bring the kingdom of God to this earth through,19:16 you know, expressing and telling people about who Jesus is and what this is all about.19:22 Yeah. You know, there's a way that the Bible talks about the world as a system, as a way of thinking, really as a worldview that tries to explain reality without God, or or tries to19:33 explain reality with the false god. And we are to be called out of that. And we know from the beginning that God created humans to bear his image, to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. But think about19:46 what really should be called, I think, the greatest prayer in the Bible, Jesus in Gethsemane. It's in John chapter 17. And Jesus prays something there that seems to contradict the verse you read in19:58 John 15. He says, father, do not take them out of the world, but protect them from the evil 1. Isn't that interesting? I think it's because the story that20:10 the Bible tells of reality that begins with creation and goes to new creation, that begins with the heaven and earth and goes to the new heavens and new earth, is the story of God using the people that20:21 he redeems and reconciles, as Paul says in second Corinthians chapter 5, To be agents of reconciliation, to be agents of renewal. That's how we need to think about this idea of the world. We20:33 have been called to it. We have a place to play and a role to play in it, but we can't do that if we're not oriented fundamentally to what is true.20:42 You asked that question, which is, what are we saved for? What's that answer?20:48 Well, I think it's exactly what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5. You know, the gospel tells us what we're saved from. We're saved from sin. And praise God, He saves us from sin. It tells us what we're21:00 saved to, that we're saved to eternal life and eternal relationship with God through Christ. And if that's all there was to the gospel, what we're saved from and what we're saved to, it's still really, really good news,21:11 and we need to tell that good news. But we're also given in Holy Scripture what we're saved for. You know, and as a kid growing up in the church, I sometimes wondered if the whole point of this whole21:23 thing is just to go to heaven. Why doesn't God just take us to heaven the moment we're saved? You know? And then I read in second Corinthians chapter 5 that those who have been reconciled through Christ have been21:35 entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. Now that word reconciliation is all about relationships. The relationships that God put us in and the relationships that have been broken by the false. Sometimes, like inShow more In this video 0:00 Recognizing the Civilizational Crisis10:00 The Christian Worldview as Fixed Truth21:40 Faithful Response: Reconciliation and Calling
Comments
Keep it kind. Comments are public.