Like most of you, I've spent even more time than normal perusing the news on the internet. In a recent trip through the news feed, I stumbled across an article on a tech website that I follow. The headline reads as follows: "Google searches for 'good news' are at an all-time high.”
Turns out people are searching for the phrase "good news" more than any time since Google began publishing its trends in 2004. For those of us with a gospel message to share, that kind of lay-up is just too good to pass up.
People are interested in the gospel, even if they don't know it.
Of course, just because people are typing those two words into their search bar does it mean they're hoping to find a gospel tract on the results page, much less know that “good news” is what gospel means. Nevertheless, it reveals something deeply profound. People are in need of the gospel, and they are looking around for the good news it provides, even if they don't know it.
In the book of Acts, Luke records a sermon from the Apostle Paul given in Athens. During that sermon to a completely pagan audience, Paul makes the following claim:
For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed: "To an Unknown God.” Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live.
He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. (Acts 17:23-27)
To his audience on Mars Hill, Paul is clear. God is completely sovereign over the affairs of men, and he orchestrates those affairs so that mankind might seek God. Furthermore, This was in a sermon to a bunch of people worshipping a god they did not know. Luke tells us these people continually spent their time looking for some new idea (Acts 17:21).
“People are literally searching for “good news” now that the illusion of control is gone.”
As Paul tells us elsewhere, humanity traded the truth of God for a lie (Romans 1) and that no one is righteous (Romans 3). Paul is not suggesting in his sermon at Mars Hill that these people, in all their searching, will figure out their own righteousness. Far from it. However, it is the human condition that we are looking for that good news we so desperately need.
In times of uncertainty, people are looking for good news.
Humanity is always searching for saviors. False gospels abound. Some people place their hope in the good news of economic stability. Other people place their hope in the good news of health. For others, perhaps they find their joy in the good news of friends and family. These are all good things, but none is the good news in which to place our ultimate hope.
The empty nature of these faux gospels is revealed in times of uncertainty. Simply put, in a moment of crisis like this, economic stability and physical health are outed as the illusions they are. Right now we find ourselves in a moment where God is orchestrating the affairs of humanity in such a way as to reveal those narratives to be false.
People are literally searching for "good news" now that the illusion of control is gone. In fact, they're typing that phrase into that search bar more than any other time in the last 15 years.
If people are searching, let's give them the good news.
When Paul entered Athens, he saw the spiritual condition of the city and was distressed (Acts 17:16). His response to that distress was to give them the good news they were searching for and didn't know they needed.
Right now is our moment to do the same.
Chances are you have a neighbor, friend, coworker, or family member searching for good news. You may have convinced yourself that they are not interested in your message, but now is the time to second guess that assumption. Uncertainty has increased, and perhaps for the first time in a long time, many people are feeling that their hope has been misplaced.
“ Uncertainty has increased, and perhaps for the first time in a long time, many people are feeling that their hope has been misplaced.”
For the love of God and those people, let's present them with the only hope that can anchor our souls, firm and secure (Heb. 6:19).
"But even if you should suffer for righteousness, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear or be intimidated but in your heart regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you." (I Peter 3:14-15)
Keelan Cook is the Associate Director of the Center for Great Commission Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and former Associate Director of UBA. His primary areas of ministry focus include urban missiology, church planting, church revitalization, and unreached people groups.
