In the 1939 classic, “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tinman enter the Haunted Forest while famously chanting, “Lions, and tigers, and bears–oh my!” to push through their fear. Like God’s people in the time of Judges who had disobeyed God because they feared the world (Judges 6:7-10), God’s people today must not keep the gospel within the walls of our church buildings because we fear the hostile culture around us. Continue reading “You Shall Not Fear”
If the World Hates You
Why do many Christians choose to live their lives in Christ different than the world only in degree but not by nature? A stranger meeting them for the first time would see them as another predator, not the man escaping uphill on the bike. Cutting through all the excuses and justifications, the real reason is that the one who died with his Savior in baptism to live for his Savior in new life doesn’t want to be hated like Jesus was (John 15:18-21).
I. Philippians 2:5-8. Just before the cross, Jesus tells His followers that because He was hated they will be too. Why? Because their very nature will no longer be like the world’s but be like His. Because we obeyed the gospel, we died with Christ to live our new lives for Christ (Romans 6:4, 2 Corinthians 5:17). Set apart from the world, we will face persecution (Matthew 5:11-12) for living sanctified, just like the prophets (Hebrews 11:37-38). The world is not worthy of us, yet we often live like we’re not worthy of it.
II. John 13:12-15. But, can we blend in with the world and still be Christians? Jesus told the servants to serve as we saw the Master do. When persecuted, early Christians rejoiced because they were considered worthy to suffer for Jesus’ name (Acts 5:40-42). Yet, often we strive to avoid persecution at all costs that we might somehow be spared the world’s rejection and scorn. We change the church to become more like the world rather than shining the light of the gospel to change the world (John 3:19-21).
III. Matthew 5:43-48. The apostle speaks of an upward spiral in John 14:15 and 1 John 2:3-5. If we love, we’ll obey; if we obey, we’ll know God; if we know God, our love will be perfected. But, while seeking to live the minimum to still be considered Christians (although God has spoken about those who are lukewarm in Revelation 3:16), these chameleons are really in a downward spiral: they don’t obey His words, so don’t love; they don’t love, so they don’t know God; they don’t know God, so they don’t obey Him.
One popular slogan today says, “Stop trying to fit in when you were born to stand out.” From a spiritual perspective, we should stop trying to blend in with the world to avoid being hated when we were born again at a terrible cost to our Savior to live sanctified.
Behold, The New Has Come
For me to get to acceptance in the grieving process after my wife of almost three decades passed last year, I had to keep a forward focus or risk getting mired in memories. Any move from an old life to a new one is like that. If we are focused too much on what we have lost, we will miss what we have gained. Becoming a new creation in baptism is like that as well. If we do not die to sin and work through the transformation process, then we can never embrace the new and abundant (John 10:10) that God has called us to live.
I. 2 Corinthians 5:17-18. If in Christ, you are a new creation, but how do you life differently if all you know is your old life with its old habits and sinful way of living? Sadly, many people obey the gospel but then only live differently in degree, not in character, than those in the world. Paul spoke of this spiritual war that raged within him (Romans 7:21-23) that was still a transformative process that began at his baptism when he rose out of the water to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-5). But, he was working hard to become like Jesus in His death, so He might attain to Jesus’ resurrection in His new life (Philippians 3:10-12).
II. Romans 12:1-2. As a new creation, the old has passed away … but has it? We are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, not being conformed to the world but transformed by the renewing of our minds. Then when the old has truly been put to death, then we can test what is a good way of living this new life in Christ. We must die to sin first (Romans 6:6-8). The problem with being a living sacrifice is that the offering keeps crawling off the altar. To do this we must forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead. By keeping this forward focus, Paul says, is how he presses on to the goal of heaven (Philippians 3:13-16).
III. 2 Corinthians 5:19-20. Without Jesus’ reconciling work at the cross and at the grave, we could not have new life, and with this new life comes new work that we also aren’t familiar with. We are to be “ministers of reconciliation” or “ambassadors for Christ” who speak on behalf of God about this new life–even though we have just taken hold of it ourselves. Just as Jesus died to sin and rose to life, we must press on to take hold of this new life that has now come to us (Romans 6:9-11). Instead of looking back at our old life and regressing into those old habits and behaviors, we must hold true to what we have already attained.
Rather than focusing on what I have lost when my old life died with my wife, I am riveted on taking hold of what God has given me as a widower for His Kingdom in this new life. We must all do the same thing with the new life He has given us in Jesus.
From the Beginning
Since God is eternal without time, then what we know of time from creation to consummation is the smallest speck of dust on forever. And yet, the humanists of our culture have cancelled creation to rid our existence of sin and consummation to rid us of judgment. In their arrogance, they have declared themselves gods over a never-ending present time when we can all “do what feels good” without repercussions. Anyone who disagrees with them is cancelled or persecuted in other ways.
I. Matthew 19:3-9. When the Pharisees tested Jesus on the subject of divorce, He gave us a strategy of how to deal with the humanists in our culture today. Twice, He referred them back to how God intended for things to be “from the beginning.” For all of their insistence that their legalistic righteousness and standards they had established were the ones to follow (Romans 10:1-4), Jesus let them and the Jews who had believed Him know that slavery was found in sin and freedom in truth (how our culture has this backwards!). Though they insisted that God was their Father, Jesus told them that their works and their inability to bear His words revealed their true parentage (John 8:31-47).
II. Matthew 24:36-39. The One who is from eternity confirms in these few verses the attitude of the culture before Noah and how similar it is to the attitude of the culture before He comes again. He confirms the judgment on Noah’s world by a global flood by comparing the judgment to come on this present world. Thus, Jesus confirms the salvation and covenant God made with Noah and his family we read about in Genesis 6-9 by comparing it with the salvation and covenant He makes with us through the water of baptism into Christ (1 Peter 3:18-22). And yet through Peter, God also tells us that scoffers–mockers, humanists, evolutionists–will cancel us in the last days (2 Peter 3:3-7).
III. John 1:1-3. The eternal Christ is in the perfect position to tell us how things were “from the beginning.” After all, He is God while being with God, and it is through Him that all things were made. He was there “from the beginning” because He was “in the beginning.” Here’s where the Pharisees or certain Jews of Jesus’ time on earth in the flesh are so like the humanists of our culture today. Although they are finite in their limited existence, they nevertheless shake their fists at God when they declare themselves to be gods. In their arrogant attitudes, they make earthly standards and then insist that all others adhere to them–or else (Romans 10:1-4). It will not go well for them in the end.
Still, we need to know that the everlasting God (Psalm 90:2) is in control of our seemingly out of control world. And we need to let Him and His Word control our attitudes more than the culture does.
Sought Him with Their Whole Desire
After the moral decline of Solomon’s reign and Reheboam’s unwise decision that split God’s people, his grandson, Asa, made a courageous move to rid Judah of its idolatry and return them to God (2 Chronicles 14). What will God do for His people when a good leader gets those in his sphere of influence to seek Him with their whole desire?
I. 2 Chronicles 15:1-15. Asa was given an ‘if’ by God, but unlike Solomon (1 Kings 3:14), Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:38), and Reheboam (1 Kings 12:7), he rose to the challenge. He entered into a covenant with the people he led to seek God with their whole desire, and because they did, God gave them rest, peace, and possession of the land.
II. Hebrews 13:7-17. We are to examine our leaders and imitate their faith. This would include Jesus, who suffered–meaning that we may need to suffer as well. Knowing their difficult position, we should make their job easier by obeying them. Jesus seeks us (Luke 19:10). But, do we want to be found (Luke 15:4-5)? We must also seek God (Matthew 7:7-8), who promises that we will find Him. Yet, we all are leaders in our sphere of influence (Matthew 25:20-27). Let us love God fully (Luke 10:25-28), seeking Him with our whole desire.
III. Ephesians 6:10-13. To seek God with our whole desire and get others to do so as well, we must take a stand by donning the armor of God. At the time of captivity, God searched for someone who would stand in the breach but found none (Ezekiel 22:30). God needs good leaders like Asa who will help a whole generation find Him. The church is not a club that does some good in the world. It is the spiritual vehicle to lead us to eternity (Hebrews 12:22-29). It is where we seek Him with our whole desire here, to spend eternity with Him there.
Are you seeking Him with your whole desire?
When in Rome, DON’T Do …
For much of our nation’s history, Christians could float with the current of culture as it was going generally in the same direction we wanted to go. Christianity was ‘mainstream’–literally! But, several decades ago, while complacency and compromise with things in the culture that didn’t fit with the Bible let us drift asleep, the current swept us down the wider branch that leads to destruction instead of the narrow creek off to the side that few find (Matthew 7:13-14). Many are just now waking up to our danger and wanting to fight upstream but don’t know how.
I. 1 Peter 4:12-19. We must know the current. In the first century, Christians were persecuted because the paganism of ancient Rome insisted that they worship the emperor as a deity. Terrible things occurred to those who trusted in no other God and wouldn’t bow to the affairs of the state. Today, humanism that tolerates no god but man himself, seeks the state as man’s savior and demands fealty to doctrines contrary to biblical teaching, such as gender identity, homosexual marriage, abortion until birth, etc. It’s no wonder that Christians today find themselves in the rapids and up against the rocks of persecution like those twenty centuries before (Philippians 3:10-11; Hebrews 2:10-11).
II. 2 Corinthians 10:2-6. We must know our equipment. To fight upstream in this spiritual battle, we must know that we will lose if we wage war as the world does. We have spiritual weapons that can demolish strongholds. Among many methods mentioned in Colossians 3:12-17, love is foremost to bind all these efforts together and should be used while leaning on God’s understanding (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). The full armor of God with all of its various functions is essential as a true “life” preserver in determination to regain the narrow fork. We must recognize the attitudes, beliefs, values, and practices of the world that we’ve accepted into our lives and put in the hard effort of paddling upstream to return to God’s Word in all things for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3-11).
III. 1 John 3:1-3. We must know our destination. As individual Christians we must know to avoid the world (2 Timothy 3:1-5), but we must help others keep the focus of walking as children of light (Ephesians 5:8-11). Fixing our eyes on Jesus, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, we won’t grow weary and lose heart in the hard work that will be required to set ourselves back on the narrow fork (Hebrews 12:1-4). Jesus is that hope through the temporary trials of the rapids and rocks (1 Peter 1:3-7) until we reach our goal. It will take great determination to purify ourselves and encouragement of others to fight our way upstream.
The pull of the humanistic current of culture is strong and hard to resist. Awakening to the spiritual battle, we must understand the danger, equip ourselves with the weapons God has provided for us, and fight upstream to the destination promised to us. Who can you get to fight against the current with you?
DON’T Lean on Me, When …
For many generations, the church in the West has been able to float lazily along on an inner tube because the current of culture was flowing in roughly the same direction. And so, we fell asleep, not realizing that in the past few decades the current has reversed its course. Like the frog in the pot that tolerates each increased degree of heat until it boils, Christians need to recognize what is happening to us and why.
I. John 8:31-47. Jesus addresses “the Jews who had believed him” and yet contrasts them with true disciples who abide in His word, know the truth, and do the works of God. It wasn’t enough for them to be descended from Abraham if the shriveled and wormy fruit they were showing was that of their father, the devil. The same goes for those who point to their baptism into Jesus for the forgiveness of sins but who are blinded by complacency in their faith or whose hearts are hardened by compromising with the culture. These love the world more than they love God (John 12:37-43).
II. 1 John 2:15-17. As we float along on the wide river that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14), we can take too much confidence that we differ from those drowning around us in degree but not in character. What Eve reasoned in her mind to justify disobedience to God (Genesis 3:2-6) is exactly that which describes those who love the world. The current of culture affects the love we have for God, which should be with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength (Luke 10:27-28), and therefore our obedience (John 14:15) and the seeking of His kingdom and righteousness (Matthew 6:33).
III. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25. We’ve all heard Bill Withers’ song, “Lean on Me” that, if promoted, can be a false comfort from one not aware of himself floating with the current of culture. Rather, we must stick to Paul’s model of comforting and demonstrating of the Christian life (1 Corinthians 11:1). Our understanding before we became Christians was not to be trusted (Proverbs 3:5-6), so should it not be leaned on if we are complacent or compromised Christians. Rather, we must lean on God’s wisdom as found in His Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Avoiding the world’s wisdom (2 Timothy 3:1-5), we must walk in the light and awaken (Ephesians 5:7-14).
We must all jump out of the pot that is almost at boiling. We must all sit up on our tubes and paddle furiously upstream. How much have you let tolerance of the world affect you?
Bad Company Corrupts Good Morals
The struggles of this year have certainly tested Christians! Like tea bags diffusing into the water around them, are we influencing the world for the gospel? Or are we like sponges instead, soaking up the culture we’re immersed in?
I. Matthew 5:13-16. In this world, Christians are called to be salt and light. Both reach outward into the world around them to change the experience for the person eating or interacting in the world. So we must flavor, preserve, and shine. If we don’t, if we hide the truth with which we’ve been entrusted, we are good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled. If Christians took this charge to influence the world around us for Christ seriously, then others would see and give God glory.
II. Luke 16:1-13. Christians must make friends for ourselves by the means of unrighteous wealth. What? This parable troubles many because the subject is a dishonest manager who doesn’t change or face judgment for his dishonesty. Rather, he is commended. But what is he commended for? It is for being shrewd in using the things or ways of this world for his advantage. The key comes in the last few verses when Jesus tells his followers that they can be wise about using their generation’s things for the Kingdom. Do we do this? Are we known as some weird folks sequestered within the walls of our church buildings? Or are we a peculiar people using the technology and campuses–even our time and connectedness–to take to gospel to a lost world?
III. 1 Corinthians 15:17-34. What separates the saved from the lost is the hope we have in the resurrection. It is because of this hope that Christians make eternal choices unlike the world that makes temporal choices. With the unceasing bombardment we get from the world, it is too easy for Christians to want to live like the lost around us Monday through Saturday and then attend church on Sunday–all the while believing that God accepts us in this compromised state. We must wake up from our slumber, church, and look for the tea we’re diffusing. Because if we can’t easily see Christ influencing the culture around us, then we are more likely sponges soaking up the world.
If you have died with Christ
By John Henson, Dibrell church, McMinnville TN
Colossians 2:20-23
- Then Why Are Some Worldly (verses 20-22)?
- Then Why Do Some Engage in Self-Made Religion (verse 23a)?
- Then Why Are So Many Engaged in Things That Have No Value (verse 23b)?