The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 69 – Michael Sherrard

Episode 69: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

In this episode, Dr. Jeff interviews Michael Sherrard, president of the C.S. Lewis Society. Sherrard discusses his role as faculty in residence at Summit Ministries, highlighting the fundamental questions young people are asking about faith, particularly regarding the trustworthiness and authority of the Bible. He explains the historical basis for trusting Scripture and the importance of Jesus’s authority.

Sherrard then details the work of the C.S. Lewis Society, focusing on its use of cultural apologetics, which appeals to reason, conscience, and imagination. He also addresses the crisis of meaning and identity among Gen Z, contrasting the secular view of self-created purpose with the Christian worldview’s foundation of intrinsic value and objective purpose as image-bearers of God.

Episode Transcript

Ryan Dobson (00:00):
Hi everyone. Ryan Dobson here for the Dr. Jeff Show. Summit camps are in full swing and kids are having a blast. In fact, my own son Lincoln is attending right now. There are so many kids who want to go to camp at Summit, but they just need a little help. A generous donor has agreed to match every donation to the Summit Summer programs. Will you help a child learn the foundations of a Christian worldview at Summit? Donate online at summit.org/match and every tax-free donation will be doubled. Again, you can find that at summit.org/match. God bless, and let’s join the Dr. Jeff Show.

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:40):
Hey everyone. It’s Dr. Jeff welcoming you to the Dr. Jeff Show podcast. This show is available on Apple, Google, Spotify. Also, the platforms Edifi and Liftable that you may not be that familiar with, but you should become familiar, because they’re growing in popularity and very cool. Wherever you get your podcasts though, please take a few minutes to review the show there. Giving a positive review helps more people find out about it.

And that’s important because this is the show where I interview major thought leaders to show that worldview changes everything. In this episode, meeting in my office, we’re kind of in between studios here as Summit Ministries prepares a brand new studio named after our late faculty member, Mike S. Adams. And I’m interviewing today Mike Sherrard in my office. And we are sitting together just holding microphones and talking about the C.S. Lewis Society.

(01:38):
This is the organization that Mike is president of. And this is an organization that focuses on cultural apologetics ministry to make disciples and show the world the truth, goodness, and beauty of Jesus Christ. Among other things, we’re going to talk about Mike’s book, Why You Matter, and the issue of identity, and what young adults are asking these days about the faith and how to answer those questions. So lots and lots to talk about. Thank you for coming to the show. Mike Sherrard, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show.

Michael Sherrard (02:09):
Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me, man.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:11):
Well, I’m glad to have you in here. And here is always different these days because we’re getting ready to open our new studio, the Mike S. Adams Studio at Summit Ministries.

Michael Sherrard (02:19):
But it’s not quite ready yet.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:19):
For podcasting.

Michael Sherrard (02:21):
It looks really good even in its unfinished state.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:23):
It is beautiful. And I can’t wait for all of our podcast viewers and listeners to be able to participate in that. And if you’re a listener, you’re definitely going to want to look at the show once we get into that studio because it’s going to be really, really cool. And the backdrop is the Rocky Mountains right in Manitou Springs. Don’t get any better than that.

Well, you and your family are here for the two weeks of Summit during the time we’re recording this and you are the faculty in residence. Tell us briefly what you do as part of doing that at Summit Ministries before we dig into everything else.

Michael Sherrard (02:59):
Yeah. I love the role. Summit, you bring in world-class speakers and they’re in and they’re out, experts in their field. But you know students, it takes time to process. Sometimes what you hear one day, another lecturer says something, and even if the topic isn’t related, there’s a trigger, there’s a connection, there’s something. And so me and my family are able to be here to help fill in the gaps, answer those questions.

But more than just from an intellectual side, one of the things that we love about Summit is the emphasis on truth and the context of relationship, that when students come here, they don’t only have intellectual questions. They’ve got questions about everything. Some of them experience all kinds of hardship in life. And so with my pastoral background, a lot of what we’re here for is just to bring a safe place for students to land with whatever question they have, be it intellectual, family, or whatever.

Dr. Jeff Myers (03:57):
Yeah. I want to ask you in a minute what some of those questions are without revealing any confidences. I know people who are listening and watching right now are going to want to know, where is this generation? But you come at this as a pastor. You were a pastor for many years. You were involved with Rotzio Christie, which is a campus ministry. I think you and I had met at some point, but I was in Oxford in Blackwell’s bookstore.

And here is your book, Relational Apologetics, on the shelf in what I think is the world’s most famous bookstore. I just thought that was funny. I thought maybe you’d been there actually taking the book and sticking it on the shelf.

Michael Sherrard (04:38):
Well, what’s funny about that, that’s one of my favorite stories right here because one of our friends, fellow Summit guy, Scott Klusendorf, so his second home is Oxford. So he goes into the store to look to see if his book, The Case for Life, is there, and it’s not. So he finds my book and buries it just out of spite.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:58):
So you can’t even find it anymore.That’s really fun. But that title is so great, Relational Apologetics. And you wrote another book, which I hope we get a chance to talk about, Why You Matter, focusing on identity. But talk briefly, Mike, about some of the questions that students are asking. When they feel safe and they’re prepared to really dig in and face what they’re going through, what is it that they’re going through in this post- COVID time?

Michael Sherrard (05:31):
So talking just a little bit even before the show, I’ve been doing this 20 years or so in some capacity. And you would think at this point, you would stop being surprised by the kinds of questions students have. And it’s students, their questions are ever changing. And sometimes what you think is the obvious question that you think they’re asking isn’t. Like today you’d be easy to go to. They must be focused solely on like LGBTQ issues or racial issues. And certainly they have those questions.

One of the challenges though in discipleship and youth ministry is to remember that not only, it’s not only the headlines that have captivated the minds of students, it’s simple things like the lecture I gave literally right before this was just on the Bible. What is it? Do we have an accurate copy of it and how do I read it?

(06:22):
And that lecture got sidetracked in a good way from question, question, question, question, question. Just over the doctrine of inerrancy and inspiration, why should we believe that the Bible contains the authoritative word of God? And in a world that seemingly is blowing up over social issues, we can’t forget that students, some of their basic questions still remain unanswered and it’s important for us to engage them there, not just with headlines.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:54):
Yeah. So that’s really good to remember. Some of these questions are basic, but most Christians would have a difficult time with that, I think. I brought up an errancy and an inspiration with them this morning. I spent about three minutes on it and I wondered if they would come back around when you brought up.

Michael Sherrard (07:14):
So you poisoned the well for me. That’s what it was.

Dr. Jeff Myers (07:18):
Yeah, that’s amazing.

Michael Sherrard (07:21):
But it’s the right kind of questions, right? It’s the right kind of questions for students to have. So even just coming back to that idea, what kind of questions do students have? They have the right kind of questions. And in many environments, their questions are looked down upon, whether it’s in the home, just whether it’s in church, just have faith. And one of the best things about Summit is just the recognition of your question, you should be asking that question. The answer is important. Don’t settle until you get an answer for that question.

Dr. Jeff Myers (07:52):
What’s the question behind the question when somebody’s asking about the inerrancy of scripture or the inspiration of scripture?

Michael Sherrard (07:59):
It’s trust. It just really boils down to trust. And in a world of fake news, broken relationships, one leader falling after the next, I think the question behind that question ultimately is, okay, you claim the Bible has authority and not just any kind of authority, the authority of God. How do I know that it does because it relates to whether or not I can trust it? Am I going to give my life to this?

Dr. Jeff Myers (08:24):
Yes. Right. So that question of authority is what the Bible says authoritative for my life, not just in church or what have you. What response do you give? Let’s say you just had a few minutes to talk with a student about that question. I’m thinking of maybe somebody who’s watching or listening to this right now who’s a parent thinking, “Oh yeah, we have that conversation and what would I say?”

Michael Sherrard (08:58):
Well, the starting place is just, I think, to recognize what the actual Bible is, that it is 66 books written by around 40 different authors who came from relatively different, I mean, somewhat different lifestyles. You had kings, you had philosophers, you had fishermen written in three different languages over the course of 1500 years in different literary genres.

And just understanding that the Bible is a collection of writings that Christians believe contain the inspired word of God, meaning God used human authors and spoke to them using them, using even the time in which they were living, to communicate to human beings God’s will that can’t really be discerned just through general revelation.

And so one of the common misunderstandings, like even what the students have is, well, you can’t, that’s circular reasoning to say the Bible is the word of God. Well, how do you know that?

(09:53):
Well, because the Bible says it. Well, yeah, it sounds like circular reasoning, but this is why understanding basic Bible facts is not because specifically what we are saying is no, the Apostle Paul writing in 2 Timothy is making a claim that all scripture is God breathed. What reason do we have to trust that the apostle Paul was right? And that’s not circular reasoning. The Bible contains, the question is whether it’s accurate or not, it contains history. It records the teachings of Jesus. It has the writings of Paul.

So the question is, does Paul have any kind of authority? And what’s really cool to me is in the first century, that’s when, well, prior to that, you have the Old Testament where Jesus gave his stamp of approval on. So at the time of Jesus, all of the books that we have in our Old Testament were canonized and Jesus called it the word of God.

(10:48):
He used it as proof texts. And so we, for me, the reason I can trust in the inspiration and the authority of the Old Testament goes, I can trust Jesus because the New Testament contains an accurate copy, it accurately contains the teachings of Jesus. And here’s the point that’s pretty cool.

You often will hear things from atheists that say, “We trust in science because science, unlike religion, is subject to correction, that you don’t just dogmatically follow the scientific findings of something from a previous century, you’re always under revision.” Well, what’s just not known is that’s actually the way the Bible came to be in the first century.

Why did these books become recognized as writings that contain the authoritative word of God? It’s because of a couple of things. One is a connection to the apostles whom Jesus chose, trained, promised the Holy Spirit would be given to them, which would lead them and guide them in truth.

(11:50):
There was also the criteria of orthodoxy. So before the written word of God was being circulated by the writings of Paul, the oral teachings of Jesus were spreading. So there was already a standard to judge these books by, and whether or not they were in line with the teaching they already knew to be true, coming from Jesus and the apostles, that’s how these books then were evaluated.

And then there was this Catholicity, not Roman Catholicism, but like the universal church. And if there was wide acceptance and agreement, that’s how the New Testament, the books that we have, came to be trusted as containing the authoritative, inspired word of God, which I think just lends a lot of credibility and increases the trust factor if you were in this because it wasn’t like one guy wrote one religious book that someone like Constantine 400 years later said, “Okay, Rome, this is what we’re going to believe.”

No, it was the people of God coming together recognizing these writings contain the authoritative, inspired word of God. And I think that provides a sufficient basis to trust in something like the doctrine of inerrancy and inspiration.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:59):
And they had a credible set of standards against which they were measuring the various books that could have been part of scripture. Right, right. Yeah. We ask a lot of questions about, if I’m reading a book, I can tell whether the plot is coherent. And I don’t go outside of the book to tell whether the plot is coherent. I just have a sense of what a coherent plot is and I can use that standard to figure out whether the plot of the book I’m reading is coherent.

So you have this internal coherence that’s not circular reasoning, it’s just, does this all come together to communicate a consistent narrative, which is the amazing thing about scripture. You mentioned the 66 books written over 1500 years by 40 different authors who are from all walks of life, yet telling one narrative that coheres from the beginning to the end.

Michael Sherrard (13:51):
Yeah. The unity of scripture is a powerful reason to trust it. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (13:55):
One of the things I didn’t get to this morning and talking with the students seems like you always run so short of time when you’re at Summit Ministries. They got 56 hours of instruction and manual grammar in everything every minute. But it is just how if you start with Jesus, if we say, “All right, let’s start with Jesus as the authority.” He is the living word of God.

Jesus went back and gave authority to the Old Testament. He didn’t say it used to be said or it was written. He said, “It is written that the word of God is living.” And then he commissioned the apostles and their words. So if you just start with Jesus, you can see a case for the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture.

Michael Sherrard (14:41):
Yeah. And on so many different issues too. So whether it is about the authority of scripture, I have a hard time disagreeing with Jesus.

Dr. Jeff Myers (14:53):
Yes.

Michael Sherrard (14:53):
And I think that also applies to things like some of the other questions students have regarding sexual ethics. It’s often said that, well, the Bible doesn’t really condemn, doesn’t really speak about homosexuality. Jesus really didn’t make a deal about it, which is just not the case.

Jesus speaks very directly to the issue of marriage and sexuality. And in Matthew 19, Jesus roots his argument in God’s creative intent. And so often what I’ll do on an issue like that is I’ll ask questions like, “Do you genuinely trust in Jesus that he got things right?” And if he did, how do you account with his view of marriage and human sexuality?

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:36):
God made them male and female.

Michael Sherrard (15:38):
Right. Because to me, that’s just powerful. If we do have an accurate copy of Jesus’ teaching, which New Testament scholarship demonstrates that we do. Even people like Bard Airmen, notorious skeptic, will say, “No, we have a historical, it’s historically factual what we have about Jesus’ teachings.” And if Jesus taught this, I have a hard time not trusting Jesus on these issues.

Dr. Jeff Myers (16:03):
Hey, Mike, I want to switch topics here for a minute and talk about the C.S. Lewis Society, this new work that you are involved with. Of course, a lot of people who are listening to the show, watching the show love C.S. Lewis, but tell us what the C.S. Lewis Society does because this is an interesting new chapter in your work.

Michael Sherrard (16:23):
Yeah. Interesting is a word. I probably got some others that I would use. Yeah, I pastored for 11 years and pastoring is noble work. I never viewed pastoring as a stepping stone to anything else. And fortunately over the last 10 years, I’ve been privileged to write a couple books and speak. And in many ways, I almost felt like that was playtime, that the real work is done in the local church where you’re seeing people deal with the brokenness of sin, and that’s of course not to diminish the work of authors and speakers, which I am a part of.

Dr. Jeff Myers (17:03):
But you’re facing things every day of real life of what people are going through at work and at home and with a spouse and with their children.

Michael Sherrard (17:15):
For this week at Summit. Now, of course, I’ll be here for two weeks, so this isn’t the perfect example, but I’m going to give a talk on pornography and then I’m going to be gone and the kids are going to go home. Someone’s going to have to help them navigate this. So like in the church, when a pastor brings up this topic or even if they’re just teaching on something unrelated to that and someone confesses of their sin, man, walking people through repentance is no joke. And so just, hey, any pastors listening? Man, we’ve got your respect.

Dr. Jeff Myers (17:47):
We’ve got your back. Yeah.

Michael Sherrard (17:49):
Absolutely. The Lord though did give us another opportunity here. And about a year ago, Terry and I started to confide in some close friends just to be praying for us because we had the thought that maybe a meaningful change was coming. Never put out my resume, but just started to ask a couple of friends, one of whom was Summit faculty, Sean McDowell, who’s become a good friend.

And his meddling led to my eventual accepting of the job at the C.S. Lewis Society, which is an apologetics organization. It produces content, writings, the Universe Nextdoor podcast, lectures and things like that. It does outreach. And I don’t know that we have time to get into it, but a pretty novel approach to outreach. And then it’s also involved in discipleship, particularly youth discipleship, which, this is what really got me because it’s very similar to the work at Summit.

(18:40):
And they developed a program called Seven by Seven Conversations, which is a discipleship curriculum, apologetic worldview, theologically sound, but it’s designed to be done in the home because what do we know about Summit? They come with questions and they need a place to ask those questions and engage in real conversation, which a lot of the programming that we have in youth ministry within the church, it just doesn’t allow for that. You’ve got music, you’ve got speaking, both of which are fine. That’s not the issue.

But where do students have an opportunity to sit weekly with somebody who’s going to commit to help them follow Jesus Christ, answer their questions? So that’s what Seven by Seven Conversation is designed to do. It’s to help just moms and dads or lay leaders within the church, open up their home, invite students in, take them through some questions that allow them to explore their faith.

(19:30):
So the other thing about the C. S. Lewis Society is it’s undergirded by a cultural apologetics methodology, Apollo Gould, another summit faculty and a cultural apologetics methodology would recognize like C. S. Lewis that human beings aren’t simply rational, but that we’re imaginative. We have a conscience. And Peter Kreeft, I think the theologian or philosopher had said that all human beings desire, truth, goodness, and beauty, and the Lord has equipped us with the faculties of reason, conscience, and imagination to pursue these truths.

So the cultural apologists would show how Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of those longings. So you can use argumentation, you can use appeals to conscience and morality, but also the key thing is imagination and storytelling. And this is part of scripture. Not everything is just absorbed rationally. Some things are absorbed best through story.

And of course, again, going back to the C. S. Lewis, I think some could say he was the prime example of the cultural apologist who had sound argumentation could show why this matters through an appeal to conscience, but also through storytelling allow you to imagine a world built from a Christian worldview. And so that’s what we as an organization are trying to do.

Dr. Jeff Myers (20:58):
Wow. That’s a huge mission. I’m trying to think of this as a parent. I had so many times where my kids came to me and asked questions. Super grateful for that. I had other times where with other of my kids, I wanted to get the conversation going and they just weren’t having it. “Oh yeah, Papa, I don’t really want to talk about that right now or I’m so tired. This is just not a good conversation right now or I don’t really have any thoughts on that or something like that. “What can parents do to help inspire those conversations that move toward a better understanding of a biblical worldview in rationality, in the culture, but also in the imagination?

Michael Sherrard (21:44):
Yeah. Well, for parents, step one is your own personal holiness and that often for not just parents, but those of us in ministry, sometimes we can get so focused on the job that we neglect our character. So whether you’re a parent, you’re a minister, step one is always just the self-evaluation. Am I pursuing Jesus? Am I repenting of my sin? Am I actually living what I believe to be true?That does go a long way.

I mean, I grew up in that environment. And then my parents, I always praise them for this and they’re always quick to say, “You have no idea. We were just praying y’all didn’t end up in an insane asylum or prison or something like that.” But I did see the faithfulness of my parents and that matters. When you see a Bible that you can tell has been read, that matters.

(22:39):
And so whenever the conversation happens, whether it’s infrequent or not, because yeah, there’s going to be some relationships you have with your kids where it’s just like, it just doesn’t ever, it just feels like you’re hitting your head against a brick wall.

(22:51):
That context that you give your students by allowing them to see that your faith actually matters is key. But just to keep the conversation open by asking questions, not being overbearing, and pressure is good. But I think this is the other key thing, just it stresses the importance of living as the family of God. You need other people in your life. And this isn’t the whole Hillary Clinton.

It takes a village kind of nonsense or whatnot, but there’s going to be other men and women who are faithful followers of Jesus Christ, who at some point will be able to show, for example, my daughter, perhaps better than me or my wife can, what it looks like to follow Jesus Christ in line with who Caden is and her personality and her giftings. And so for those parents that are out there and trying to have these conversations with your kids, you’ve got to do this in the context of community. Church is so important in that sense.

Dr. Jeff Myers (23:48):
That is a lot of credibility with me because I can see, Mike, how even let’s have dinner with somebody. “Hey, there’s somebody I want to have a conversation with and I just would love to have you along or let’s just have coffee. “Or it can be people whose lives are faithful and we just want to meet them. We want to learn from them. And then your child is sort of an observer in what’s going on.

And I’ll tell you, I mean, my kids are, they’re older now, we’re empty nesters and we’re looking at, back at the times we had, the times they really remember are the times of traveling and meeting other people together, having dinner with somebody, going to a conference and having a conversation with someone while they’re standing there, getting on an airplane and doing this or that. Those times seem to have been extra powerful.

Michael Sherrard (24:39):
And I do think that’s the story that scripture tells about what discipleship looks like in the home. It’s more as you’re going than sit down and let’s study. Now that’s not to say that having formal times of whether it’s devotional readings or Bible study, that’s not to say that’s not important, but there’s certainly this as you’re going mentality that Deuteronomy six captures that your kids know what you believe. In what ways are they seeing that?

And again, this goes back to the imagination factor of the world. How do we conceive the world to be comes not just through a study, it comes through experience and relationships. And someone who comes from an apologetic background, you almost feel like you’re going to shake when you say things like that, right? But it is true.

And this is why in the home, that kind of loving and safe environment where your kids see how you live out the teachings of Jesus Christ, not in isolation, but also with other people, they start to develop an imaginative framework for what the world is like, what the world is like in terms of God’s existence and what it means to follow him and live it out.

(25:46):
And that experience is, gosh, it’s so powerful. I almost want to say, more powerful than the actual conversation. And you’ve got to be careful about avoiding extremes. It’s, both are really important, but often we just focus on what’s the answer to the question, what’s the devotional I need to be doing? Man, live it out. Let your kids develop this imagination of what the world looks like because God has made it that way and within that, continue to find ways to ask questions and have conversations.

Dr. Jeff Myers (26:14):
One of the conversations that parents are having with their kids or want to have with their kids is about identity. And you wrote a book a year and a half ago now for Summit Ministries called Why You Matter, and it’s about finding meaning. I just want to give you a statistic real quickly and see what you think about this. George Barna last December did a survey of young adults, Gen Z, and he found that 75% of young adults in this Gen Z said they do not have a sense of purpose that gives them meaning in life. When you hear that statistic, what are some of the thoughts that come to your mind?

Michael Sherrard (26:59):
It’s the world they’re growing up in. They’re given what seems to be freedom, be anything you want. Construct whatever meaning you want. No one can judge you for that. That’s a decidedly secularist understanding of the world because all that exists is matter and there’s no God. There’s no meaning to life. There’s no inherent purpose to life. This is presented to young adults as this is a gift. There’s no constraints. Construct your own meaning, be whatever you want. That’s one way to look at it.

The other way to look at it is without a standard, how do you ever know whether you’ve lived up to what is a meaningful life? I had a young lady come up to me after one of my lectures on this topic of contrasting the world, right? If God exists, there is actual purpose. Life is imbued with meaning in an objective way and the joy of Christianity is the ability to live out that meaning in a myriad of ways, but within certain confines and moral confines that are rooted in God’s holy nature.

(28:12):
Contrasting that with an atheistic worldview, a secularist worldview that says, “There is no God, there is no purpose, build whatever world you want.” She comes up to me afterwards and she says, “I’m tracking with you. On one hand, the thought of,” and she was not a follower of Jesus. She said, “On one hand, I really like the idea that there’s no meaning because life can be so stressful.” She said, “The thought of no standard means I cannot fail.” Wow, wow. Which was a really interesting observation, wasn’t it?

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:44):
Yeah, that’s so good. So it was about letting herself off the hook a little bit.

Michael Sherrard (28:49):
Yes. And it wasn’t even for her, it wasn’t the freedom to do whatever she wanted, it was the peace of knowing I can’t fail. And one of the things we do know about this generation is that anxiety is increasing. So there was that appeal to her. Again, it wasn’t that I can just live however I want. She had somewhat, even if she’s borrowing from Christianity, it’s sense of what is right and what is wrong and what I should do, but it alleviated the stress of life.

But here’s what the next thing she said. She said, “But on the other hand, it would be kind of nice to know that my decisions and my choices actually mattered in a way of greater significance than simply how I felt about it.” So that’s just living in the tension of a godless universe, right? The freedom and the futility of having no objective standard to guide your life.

(29:34):
And that’s this generation, right? That the degree that the secularist idea has permeated our culture crept in even to the church, students lack, I don’t know what my purpose is, the very notion things… So why did I ride my bike, write my book, was just driven by this whole idea of what Genesis teaches has been lost.

What are humans? We’re beings made in the image of God, therefore we have intrinsic value. We are beings made in the image of God, given by God dominion over this earth. And it’s hard to think of a more noble purpose. So what does it mean to glorify God? It means to live in right relationship with him doing the work he has given us to do. There’s a right and the wrong way to do this, but there’s a myriad. There’s a number of ways we can do that.

(30:21):
I’m stewarding my calling to have dominion over this earth. When I write books, when I love my kids, when I’m a good citizen, when I get a job as the president of the C. S. Lewis Society, and the world I grew up in had this lack of, the Christian imagination from my time was, you can have a calling which is religious in nature and be a pastor or you can have a secular calling, but that’s not what Genesis teaches.

The one who studies calculus to be able to predict radioactive decay is fulfilling his calling to have dominion over the earth. And when he does this in honor of God and love for his neighbor, it’s as noble as it gets. I had to Google what you use calculus for. I didn’t know that. But that’s what this generation means.

Dr. Jeff Myers (31:05):
You use calculus for graduating from high school. Yeah.

Michael Sherrard (31:07):
That’s right. So this generation, that’s what they need. They need a clear understanding. Okay, your purpose in life, glorify God. Great. What does that mean? Well, it means to live as an image bearer, having dominion over this earth, using your creativity to subcreate, as Tolkien would say, right? We can’t make something from nothing, but within the world God has made, we have the God given authority to shape it and bring forth order and do this to honor God and love our neighbor.

And there’s meaning and joy in that. And there’s an objective standard to see, am I doing this better or worse? But at the end of the day, here’s the peace. Even if I failed, even if I failed to live out my meaningful life well, like I’ve squandered opportunities, I’ve made bad choices, that does not diminish the value that I have as an image bearer of God.

(31:59):
So I’m still one worth being loved, particularly by God and others. And I’m still one that is worthy of redemption. And so this is just where, again, the story of Christianity just is filled with hope. You have purpose, you have value, you have something to strive for. And you do this all in the context of a loving relationship where the God who made everything and has seen everything, including the things that we have done, still has made a way for us to have a life-giving relationship with him.

Dr. Jeff Myers (32:31):
Yeah. This is not the experience of most people who are religious in the world. They would not have the comfort and the confidence that you just expressed because their religion might be just a set of performance standards. So this is really great. This is great news. Well, thank you for everything that you’re doing on behalf of this generation, Mike. Thank you for what you’re doing at the C.S. Lewis Society. Thank you for what you’re doing at Summit Ministries.

And I love the fact that you’re here during these two weeks, your family is here, your kids are running around. It’s like a family reunion. And it’s really comforting for the students to know that there’s going to be somebody here who, if I have bigger questions and I feel safe and I’m ready to pursue transformation in my life, I’m ready to knock down those barriers that would stop me from living a life that’s fully committed to Jesus, that there’s somebody here who will cheer for me and walk alongside of me. And you’ve been that guy for Summit Ministries, so thank you for everything you do.

Michael Sherrard (33:37):
Yeah, man. Thank you. And thanks for letting us be a part of this, Terry and I. It means a ton. We’re glad to be a part of this work and help kids grasp a vision for what life is like as a follower of Jesus. Summit does great work. Seriously. Thanks.

Dr. Jeff Myers (33:56):
Yeah, you bet. Thank you to my guest today, Mike Sherrard, for joining me on the Dr. Jeff Show podcast. You can find Mike’s apologetics resources and his new book, Why You Matter, at MichaelCSherrard.com. Sherrard is spelled S-H-E-R-R-A-R-D. So MichaelCSherrardcom. You can also find him on Twitter @MikeSherrard.

C. S. Lewis once said, Christianity, if false is of no importance and if true, it is of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. I encourage you to visit our resources on the podcast notes to help you live a life that is full of meaning and purpose. Thank you. And we’ll see you next week.

Ryan Dobson (34:44):
Thanks for listening to the Dr. Jeff Show. And don’t forget, you can help a child attend Summit summer session by going to summit.org/match. All your donations that are tax deductible will be doubled. God bless, have a great week, and we’ll see you next time for another Dr. Jeff Show.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:02):
Listeners, I want you to know that our podcast is on Edifi, which is a truly powerful app that brings together thousands of the best Christian podcasts in one place for your listening enjoyment. You can download it at edifi.app. Be sure to share this show if you have enjoyed listening to it and leave a review, if you would, on the site where you download the show, that helps more people know about the Dr. Jeff Show, and I’ll look forward to seeing you next week.