Navigating the Culture

Welcome to Babylon

Go Serve

There's no reason to stand at a distance anymore

You're not far from home

End of song

Now, baby, you're almost home now

Please, don't quit now

You're almost all to me,

Our home is not this earth

Hebrews 13:14 NLT

14 For this world is not our home; we are looking forward to our everlasting home in heaven.

Culture- the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.

We are to be in the world but not OF the world

1 Peter 2:9–11 NASB95

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.

If we are Aliens and Strangers to this world as Peter suggests, then let’s look at the commands that God gave Judah when they were to become Aliens and Strangers in Babylon.

Jeremiah 29:4–7 NASB95

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. ‘Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not decrease. ‘Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.’

The big idea of today's message is

In good times or bad: stay the course

In one of the Bible passages we read, Peter gives us both our identity and our purpose.

Disciples of Jesus are those who have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

Salvation immigrates us

Upon repenting of our sin and placing our trust in Jesus Christ, we we’re transformed and are now new creations.

We've been born again we have a new heart and new nature, a new way of thinking, and God the Holy Spirit lives in us.

1 Peter 2:10 (NASB95)

for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

We are God's people

That's our identity. We are now aliens, strangers in the world. We no longer live like locals, but as people who aren't from around here.

The transformation that has taken place through Christ is so extensive. So complete, our hometown has changed.

What was normal is now foreign. We no longer fit naturally into the thinking around us. What's more, we're not supposed to try to fit in

why not?

Because that will sidetrack us from our purpose which is

for those without Christ to witness our behavior, coupled with our declarations of Jesus, which in turn will cause them to look to God.

So, I'll say it again. In the good times or bad stay the course.

It's a whole new world

As Aladdin and Jasmine once sang, soaring on the magic carpet ride in the Disney classic.

[ALADDIN] I can show you the world Shining, shimmering, splendid Tell me, Princess Now, when did you last let your heart decide?

I can open your eyes Take you wonder by wonder Over, sideways and under On a magic carpet ride A whole new world A new fantastic point of view No one to tell us no Or where to go Or say we're only dreaming [JASMINE] A whole new world...

But instead of a love story filled with wonder and excitement,

Christians find themselves in a whole new world that for many is vastly different than the one in which they grew up.

America is losing much of the general religious character that was the cultural norm for hundreds of years.

The culture is becoming increasingly polarized,

as the world around us becomes more comfortable admitting that the secular things, which had been an undercurrent, is now mainstream.

The question:

How will Christians effectively interact where we have lost the home field advantage and we find ourselves increasingly marginalized in popular culture?

The church has always lived in tension with the world.

The prophets in the Bible experienced extreme persecution from God's own chosen people.

Jesus was rejected in both the public and religious theatre.

The apostle Paul wrote two long letters to the Corinthian Christians to help them navigate the mixture of religious paganism wanting to invade the purity of Christianity surrounding them in their culture.

So, let's get it right.

We are now faced with new challenges and cultural changes that will test the

resolve,

dedication and

conviction of true Christians living in America.

How will we live, and walk through, and minister effectively at a time when the culture is continually propagating lies regarding

life,

human sexuality

and identity.

How will we reach people who have accepted the lies as fact and defend them as truth?

How do we bring the message of Jesus in a spirit of love without drifting into very troubling waters ourselves?

How will we navigate the culture?

That's the question we'll grapple with in this series.

Jesus loves his people whom he died to redeem

Jesus who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth has made available to us All that we need

not merely to survive, but to thrive in this season. of growing darkness.

Friends, we do not go into the future unprepared.

Provided we are willing to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

Welcome to Babylon

In looking for a biblical example which might serve as a parallel to our present state of affairs.

We find ourselves in a similar place as the Old Testament narrative of the Jewish exiles in Babylon.

Welcome to Babylon.

When I Mention the name Babylon

several images come to mind

occultism

immorality and

violence

sounds similar to our present culture.

The scriptures introduce us to Babylon in the book of Genesis.

There we read about the Tower of Babel,

which was built to oppose God's explicit command to populate the earth.

The name Babylon appears in the Bible approximately 200 times

we read about the Babylon of the past,

and in Revelations we have a prediction and description of the fall of the future Babylon.

When Jeremiah the prophet was preaching, ancient Babylon had long passed

but a new Babylonian Empire had emerged.

It was that empire that sacked Judah,

leveled Jerusalem

and took the inhabitants of judah back to Babylon.

The Jews were now servants and slaves to these Babylonians,

they had to learn a new language,

earn a living

buy food

and as much as possible, live peacefully with their neighbors,

and God expected them to do it while maintaining a God honoring lifestyle.

We believers are the minority in an increasingly hostile culture.

We too are exiles

not geographically but morally and spiritually.

We are to be strong,

courageous

and gracious,

but also uncompromising witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Like Israel in Babylon.

Our challenge is to influence the culture without being spiritually destroyed by it.

So… how do we do this?

gratefully, the exiles in Babylon left us a pattern to follow.

According to the Prophet Jeremiah the Jews were subject to “affliction and hard servitude” Lamentations 1:3

Lamentations 1:3 NASB95

Judah has gone into exile under affliction And under harsh servitude; She dwells among the nations, But she has found no rest; All her pursuers have overtaken her In the midst of distress.

How would they react?

Discouragement,

despondency

and depression were common. Just like today.

They had three options, The options are the same for us.

Angry Isolation

Assimilation

Engagement

The option of Angry Isolation.

The first option for the Jews was to angrily isolate themselves from the Babylonian culture… who could blame them?

Their anger would be justified because of the harsh treatment they and their families had received at the hands of these ruthless murderers.

You could hear it:

You killed our children.

We're waiting for our day of payback.

With that attitude, they were probably those Jews who withdrew from social involvement.

They exercised their faith quietly in their homes and in their minds.

They said nothing of the Babylonian gods.

They were silent about their own faith.

If they did speak, they would preach judgment without mercy.

There are Christians today who angrily shake their finger pronouncing doom and offending sinners.

Yes, we may have righteous anger as we see our culture destroyed.

But if our anger spills over and affects our Christian witness,

it only fuels the stereotype the world already has of us.

Yes, we are called to expose the sins of the world,

but we are to do so with redemption

in humility and with compassion.

We only expose sin to emphasize the hope of Christ

Anger and rebuke change nothing.

Anger, vengeance and retaliation are not the ways of Jesus, but neither are silence and cowardice.

The Option of Assimilation

A second extreme was assimilation.

In other words, some of the Jews just drifted with the culture,

go with the flow, not making waves…

living lives that were indistinguishable from those around them.

Spiritual assimilation is always the path of least resistance.

It is the most natural

and the most cowardly way.

In our culture, those who assimilate choose to embrace the high virtue of tolerance.

The problem comes in that the word tolerance no longer means

that I respect someone's differences;

now it means that I must embrace someone's differences.

Not to embrace them, not to celebrate them, is to be intolerant.

Here's the reality.

Those who claim to be tolerant in this world actually seek to be dominant.

Think about how tolerant the culture is when it comes to true disciples of Jesus Christ.

Assimilation says:

we need to go along to get along.

I don't see that in Christ's message nor in His lifestyle.

Some Christians need to have this conversation with themselves

“So, pal, what do I do when I disagree with the Bible?

“I change my thinking.”

Neither of the preceding options is biblical.

Those who assimilate, lose the sharp edge of truth.

When tolerance is displayed, by its new definition,

behaviors that were called sin a generation ago become acceptable topics on sitcoms.

Those who isolate… lose their God-given opportunities to represent him in a lost and confused world.

For Christians, there should be only one option.

The Option of Engagement

For the Jewish exiles, God's call was infiltration without contamination.

Let me again read from the Jeremiah passage.

Jeremiah 29:4–7 NASB95

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. ‘Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not decrease. ‘Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.’

Did you catch it? God says He sent the Jews to Babylon.

Think about it: The Jews were in Babylon as a judgment for their own depravity,

but now that they were there…

they were to take advantage of their situation and be witnesses of God's grace to the Babylonians.

Listen friends, though seemingly outnumbered and marginalized by the culture,

the Church is still sent into the world to represent Christ.

We are still the best witnesses of hope this cursed planet has.

So, we engage with a powerful blend of

truth,

grace

and purpose.

We interact with people with truth and grace.

We follow the example of Jesus.

He moved towards the outcast and the marginalized

and he touched lepers

and delivered those held captive by demons.

Jesus wept with those who lost loved ones,

and He felt genuine sorrow when others chose a different path.

He stood up against injustice,

and he boldly faced religious leaders,

who despised him for loving the unlovely.

Back to our example of Babylon

Daniel and his friends changed culture by sticking to their beliefs

Engaging the culture may mean being repulsed by the messiness we find,

and we will most likely face opposition.

But… God wants us to keep moving toward people not standing above them,

and surely not running from them.

We must always keep at the forefront of our minds

Jesus came out of the splendor of heaven and became one of us.

He now calls us the (step to step) out of our arenas of comfort, and to reach out to

the hurting

the hopeless,

the disagreeable,

and the confused.

We can't waver or compromise. Truth is truth. We must focus on Christ.

When we hold tightly to Jesus and His purposes,

we will not react in anger, to oppose those who disagree with us,

nor will we withdraw out of hopelessness and despair,

nor will we quietly assimilate and accept the destructive currents of the culture into our lives

Instead, we will trust in the matchless love, wisdom and strength of our Lord Jesus Christ,

to engage the people around us while Shining in the Darkness and not lose our way.

in good times or bad…Stay the Course!

As I close let me talk to you about the differences between a map and a compass.

Maps are helpful, but they have to be updated.

GPS in the car vs the phone

A compass on the other hand, always points due north, no matter where you are, the needle shows you magnetic north in that moment.

Another difference between a map and a compass;

a map offers several routes to get to the same destination.

A compass doesn't offer alternate directions to magnetic north.

It's constant and immovable.

Jesus is our “true north”.

He will guide us without fail.