THE CULTURE WE BUILD

Text: Romans 5:6–11

Big Idea: More than our programs, the next generation needs us to let the gospel shape the culture of this church and our families.

INTRODUCTION

Please, turn to 2 places. Eph 6 and Rom 5

A. Read to Thatcher

I wrote about what I hoped this church would be for him

Question about Bobsledding.

What I hoped it would shape in him

B. It is personal to us.

I have had the privilege of watching this congregation raise a generation

What I am watching is not an accident — it is a culture that was built

(Picture of Chuck — acknowledge what faithful presence looks like over time)

C. Two things I learned watching parents raise their kids here.

You cannot manufacture influence in the teenage years

You can only spend what you deposited in the earlier ones — the car ride, the late night, the unexpected question at the wrong time that turns out to be exactly the right time

That is where discipleship actually happens

Culture always wins over intention

I have watched families with the right theology and the wrong culture lose their kids to the culture they accidentally built

What a people love will always overpower what a people plan

The Two Instruments that Shape every Culture

Ephesians 6:4 “4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

The Two Instruments that Shape every Culture

Nurture

Admonition

A. Paul opens with a a caution be given a command.

A performance-based culture provokes —

It demands without equipping

Corrects without loving

Expects without preparing

Stop provoking, then start forming

Everything that follows is impossible in the wrong culture.

B. Nurture describes the whole system of formation surrounding a person — not a program

The rhythms, the habits, the table, the daily routines of life

Deuteronomy 6:7 — "Thou shalt teach them diligently...

when thou sittest...

when thou walkest...

when thou liest down...

when thou risest up."

The environment is always teaching whether you direct it or not

What gets celebrated

What we are willing to ignore

What causes us to mourn

What does it take to be considered an adult around here

C. Admonition often contains confrontation.

Three elements must all be present

concern

confrontation

a call to change

Our heart matters in this

Concern without confrontation is apathy

Confrontation without concern is harshness

Admonition requires two things held together

enough relationship to see what is happening

enough courage to say it out loud

How we say what we say matters.

Acts 20:31 “31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.”

Tears tell the person the correction serves them, not you

E. The gospel must motivate both instruments or they become law.

Nurture without the gospel produces moral formation (children who know how to behave but not why)

Admonition without the gospel produces condemnation (correction that wounds without healing)

The nurture and admonition of the Lord.

It belongs to him

It is made possible by Him (the Gospel)

Points toward him

"Every day you are either drawing your children toward the gospel or pushing them away from it." — Paul Tripp

Diagnostic: Is the culture you are building around the people in your home and your church shaped primarily by the gospel — or by your expectations, your preferences, and your comfort with the way things are going?

ROMANS 5:6–11 — READ THE PASSAGE

FOUR MARKS OF A GOSPEL-SHAPED CULTURE

The gospel shapes a culture of reconciliation.

The gospel shapes a culture that commendeth God's love.

The gospel shapes a culture of acceptance because of what he has done, not our performance.

The gospel shapes a culture that joys in God himself.

1. The gospel shapes a culture of reconciliation.

Romans 5:6, 8, 10 — "Without strength...yet sinners...when we were enemies."

A. Paul opens with a diagnosis before he offers a cure.

Without strength — v. 6 — helpless, contributing nothing toward rescue

Sinners — v. 8 — morally guilty, not merely confused or struggling

Enemies — v. 10 — actively opposing God, not neutral bystanders

Each word is more severe than the last — this is not rhetoric, it is precision

By verse 10 there is nothing left to contribute — God did all of it

B. Paul is removing every possible human contribution.

Sinners removes the excuse of innocence — you were guilty before a holy God

Enemies removes the excuse of neutrality — you were actively on the wrong side

The magnitude of the grace in verse 8 depends entirely on the accuracy of this diagnosis

C. A culture of reconciliation is built by people who know they were the enemies God reconciled.

You cannot carry a grudge against a fellow church member while holding Romans 5:10

Reconciliation is not just a doctrine you believe — it is a practice you demonstrate

The church that preaches while we were yet sinners on Sunday and ghosts people who fail on Monday has not let this text shape its culture

D. This should shape our lives so much that we become ambassadors for the cause

The point does not stop at personal application — reconciliation received creates an obligation to carry it

Every person in this room who has been reconciled now carries the ministry of reconciliation

2 Corinthians 5:18 “18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;”

"Your children do not need a perfect parent. They need a parent who is honest about their need for grace." — Paul Tripp

Diagnostic: Does the way we interact with others demonstrate we remember we also are in need of grace?

2. The gospel shapes a culture that commendeth God's love.

Romans 5:8 “8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

A. Commendeth is the key.

It means to prove publicly, to put on display, to demonstrate for all to see God did not merely feel love — he proved it at the cross as a historical event anyone can examine

The cross is not a sentiment — it is evidence

The while carries the entire argument — not after we cleaned up, not after we showed potential, while we were still sinners

B. The gospel's destination — to get people to God himself.

"The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God."

What God was demonstrating in verse 8 was not a transaction — it was an invitation into relationship with himself

God commendeth his love toward us — the demonstration was personal, not merely legal

A culture that demonstrates God's love is a culture that points people toward God himself, not toward a destination or a behavior

The Aesop fable of the wind and the sun.

C. The culture either draws or pushes.

"Every day you are either drawing your children toward the gospel or pushing them away from it." — Paul Tripp

That is not a guilt statement — it is a stewardship statement

The way you demonstrate love in every ordinary moment is forming the next generation's picture of who God is

Application

CHURCH

Stop giving people the polished version of yourself

Give them the honest version, that is commending love

FAMILY

The hard conversation you keep postponing is not the loving thing to avoid — it is the loving thing to have

Are you the wind or the sun in the lives of the people closest to you — because one of them actually works

Diagnostic: Does the love in your home or church move toward people before they earn it — or does it wait until conditions are right?

3. The gospel shapes a culture of acceptance because of what he has done, not our performance.

Romans 5:9–10 “9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

A. Paul says much more twice in two verses.

If God did the hard thing he will certainly do the easy thing

The hard thing — reconciling enemies at the cost of his Son's death

The easy thing — keeping the people he already reconciled

He states it twice because the human heart defaults back to performance the moment it stops rehearsing the gospel

The double much more is Paul's direct pastoral answer to anxiety about standing before God

B. They are making two distinct claims.

First much more — verse 9 — being now justified, past tense, completed, irrevocable — future wrath already settled

Second much more — verse 10 — saved by his life — the living Christ actively sustaining right now

Reconciled by his death is the past act at the cross

Saved by his life is the present reality — the risen Christ keeping what the cross secured

C. The Ephesians 6:4 connection — accepted people can receive nurture.

Nurture only works when the people receiving it know their belonging is secure

You cannot form someone who is constantly anxious about their standing

Their energy is spent managing approval, not growing

The much more argument is the theological ground for the nurture command in Ephesians 6

"Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort." — Dallas Willard

Diagnostic: When someone in your home or our church fails — what does the culture communicate?

4. The gospel shapes a culture that joys in God Himself.

Romans 5:11 “11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”

A. Paul lands the entire argument on one word — joy

Not relief — that is what you feel when a threat passes

Not gratitude — that is what you feel when you receive a benefit

Joy in God himself — not in what he gave but in who he is

Paul says we also joy — this is a community action, not a “party-for-one”

Gratitude rises and falls with circumstances — joy in God does not

B. Atonement — Last for a reason.

The atonement means the covering of sin, the satisfaction of justice, the restoration of relationship

By whom we have now received the atonement — past tense, settled, complete

Paul closes the passage with the most comprehensive word for what Christ accomplished

Received — not earned, not maintained, not conditional — received

The joy of verse 11 is the overflow of people who understand what the atonement actually is

You cannot joy in God himself without first understanding what it cost Him to make that joy possible

C. Back to Ephesians 6:4 connection — joyful communities equip children

The goal of nurture is not well-behaved children — it is children who joy in God

The goal of admonition is not corrected behavior — it is people drawn back toward the God who is all-satisfying

A culture that joys in God himself produces the next generation's understanding of what Christianity actually feels like from the inside

D. It all builds toward joy in God.

The reconciliation of makes this joy credible — it is not manufactured

The love commended makes it possible — God moved first

The acceptance gives it room to breathe — knowing belonging is not at stake

E. The wilderness feasts — God commanded celebration before the people were comfortable.

Three times a year every family stopped working and traveled to Jerusalem

The Feast of Tabernacles — tents, fire, family, food, a week of worship in the wilderness

Egypt measured Israel by output — God built a world that said stop, rest, you are mine, and that is worth celebrating

Celebration was not a reward for good behavior — it was a declaration about identity

A gospel-shaped culture does not wait for circumstances to be favorable before it celebrates

It celebrates because of who God is, not because of how things are going

Application

The most formative thing you can give your children is watching you actually enjoy God — not perform Christianity, live in it

Build rhythms of celebration into the home — stop and name who God is, not just what God has done

The church that baptizes someone and goes quietly home has missed verse 11 entirely

Diagnostic: When did you last genuinely joy in God — not perform it, not manufacture it — but actually live in the reality of what the Gospel says is true of you?

CONCLUSION — REVIEW

We need to bring the kids in before we review.

As we bring in the kids and sing lets review our commitment to doing our part to make sure the Gospel is shaping the culture of this church and our homes.

The commitment:

We commit today to allowing this place to be shaped by the gospel

So that those kids will be equipped by knowing the gospel really changes lives

Not just what we say we believe — what they watch us live

What we build around the next generation right now determines what they carry when they leave

BRING GREG FORWARD & Pray

Celebration

We have been reconciled to God

We want to help others know Him

Vote on missions projects

Baptism is the most visible picture of everything we studied this morning.

RECONCILIATION — I was without strength, a sinner, an enemy

DEMONSTRATED LOVE — God moved toward me while I was all three

ACCEPTANCE — I belong because of what he did, not what I produced

JOY — we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ

Baptism

(Play video)