Cultural Engagement and the Church

In 313 AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, where he announced that Christianity was to be a tolerated and protected religion under the Roman government. Prior to this date, for the first 300 years of the church, Christians were largely outcasts at best, and persecuted at worst. It was not a convenient time to be a Christian, and converting to Christianity often meant that you would be giving up your family, maybe your job, your way of life, your community, all to follow this crucified carpenter from Nazareth.

During these first few hundred years of the church, people often converted to Christianity not only because of the gospel message that they heard with their ears, but also the gospel mercy and compassion that they saw in the church communities all around them. Christians are known to have cared for orphans when no one else would, to have taken in widows when Roman society said those women were no longer of use, and to have taken babies that were discarded in the trash heaps home and raised them as their own children.

They pushed back against the immorality of their day not through boycotts and public protest, but by displaying a positive Christian ethic in their homes and communities. For example, sexual slavery and prostitution was at the center of ancient Greco-Roman culture. One church historian says that the most reliable way to tell when a local region had become Christianized is when they decided that sexual slavery was unjust. Christianity was at its best when it showed people a better way to find satisfaction, by turning from their idols and following Jesus.

In these first few hundred years of the church, at least two major epidemics claimed up to a third of the population of the Roman empire. In the face of these terrible conditions, the pagan elites and the pagan priests from the cult temples fled the cities. They abandoned the people. The only functioning social network left behind was the church, which provided physical care to Christians and non-Christians alike, risking their lives to care for those who were facing death. In the midst of their illnesses, these early Christians communicated by both word and deed a hope that looked beyond death and toward eternal life in Jesus.

One early church pastor wrote this, “Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead. The best of our brothers and sisters lost their lives in this manner.” The result was that after these epidemics had swept through the city, most of the people remaining would either have been Christians, or non-Christians who had been nursed through their sickness by Christians. It is no wonder that many of these non-Christians converted to the Christian faith. The church grew not only because of their gospel proclamation but also because their preaching was attached to their compassion to the sick and dying, a willingness to care for others even at the risk of death.

It was incredibly unpopular to be a Christian, and yet the church not only grew, it exploded and thrived until eventually, shortly after the Edict of Milan, it became the state religion of Rome.

The times that we are living in are becoming more and more like the culture that Christianity was born into in its infancy. The morals and values of our culture today nearly parallel those of the Greco-Roman world, and it is becoming less and less popular or convenient to be a Christian.

Your generation is the future of the church. Sitting in front of me are the future men and women who will lead the church and pass on the faith to your children, and to your children’s children. In light of all the cultural challenges facing you, what is your response going to be?

Will you retreat from the culture, and build a little bubble to protect yourself from the outside world?

Will you become apathetic and lazy about your faith by giving in to the culture and losing everything that makes Christians unique and distinct from the world?

Or will you be strengthened with courage and the faith needed to shape the church to compassionately and intentionally engage the culture and the world around us?

This evening I want to encourage you and motivate you to take the difficult path, the road less traveled, and to take up the call as the future of the church to bring Christ to bear on the culture. So there’s three lessons I want us to learn from our texts this evening: 1) Watch your conduct. 2) Be a family, 3) Stay Salty

Watch Your Conduct ()

I’m looking at our text from here, and I want you to understand now how verses 11-12 are so counter-cultural to the times that they were written in.

Remember how we said that the culture when the New Testament was written in had a very low view of the body, to the point that it didn’t matter what you did with your body. This is why sexual immorality was so widely accepted and normal, because your body was made up of matter, matter is less spiritual and therefore it isn’t important. Do what you will with it.

So in verse 11, what the author is saying here is very similar to what Paul said in last night. You’re a sojourner and an exile. In other words, you’re a traveler, living in a place that is not your home. Why? Because if you’re a follower of Jesus, that means you’re a citizen of the kingdom now. So live like it.

After reminding the audience of their new identity, the author says, therefore you must abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Wage war against sin, learn to control your what you do with your bodies, because it matters. What you do with your body matters to your soul.

So think about how radical this was for the first century Greco-Roman audience. Men in particular could do whatever they wanted to their wives, or to sex slaves. But what does Peter say? Nope. You can’t do that anymore. Control the passions of your flesh. Which for men, that meant, Sex belongs in marriage, and your body belongs to your wife now. Christianity put the sexual genie back in the bottle of marriage. Treat your wife with honor and respect, and devote yourself to her.

Imagine how attractive Christianity was to women in the first century. They were so used to being ignored by their husbands, being treated as objects. Along comes the Apostle Peter and says, you belong to a new kingdom now. Control your passions. Devote yourselves in love and service to your wife. This was a message which honored women and totally revolutionized how mean learned to see their wives.

But Peter doesn’t stop here. Peter says there is a purpose of our obedience to God, beyond just our relationship with God. Our obedience and our good deeds will be observed by others. Our good deeds and obedience back up our gospel message which, Peter says, will lead to many people becoming followers of Jesus and glorifying God.

The point is this, if the church is going to engage the culture, then we must not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. Why should people trust us about the gospel, if our lives don’t have any marked change in the way we live from the people all around us?

This is something that every generation of the church has had to struggle with. There will always be those who claim to follow Jesus, but whose lives show no real change, and thus they become a poor witness to the truth of our faith.

It’s kind of like this. Imagine going to a doctor because your right knee hurts. You show up in the office, describe your pain to her, and after you tell her all the symptoms of your pain, she starts examining your elbow. You’d be a little confused right? So you tell her, uh, doc, its my knee that hurts. And she looks at you and says, “I’m a doctor, don’t you think I know what a knee is?” This would be a doctor who is not to be trusted!

In the same way, when we invite other people to follow Jesus, but show no evidence that we ourselves are following him, why should we be trusted?

Here’s an example of this. According to all the studies, Christian men and women watch pornography at the same rate as those who do not claim to be Christian. If this is the case, if people in our churches do not have a sexual ethic that is different from those outside the church, then why should we be trusted when we try to engage the culture on issues of sex and sexuality? You see? So the urgency of our obedience and conduct goes beyond just our personal relationship with God, but it also has a huge impact on the public witness of the church in culture.

Or, another example, thinking about the issues surrounding life and abortion. If we want to be trusted on the value of life in the womb, then we have to go beyond our votes and actually tackle the issues in our society which cause so many people to turn to abortion. Our churches must become places that labor hard in our communities to alleviate needs that single mothers and lower-income families have. We need to seek out women who are pregnant and fleeing abusive relationships or situations and pledge ourselves to them, to assist them in keeping and caring for their child. We should labor hard in our churches to create a culture of adoption, where families are eager to adopt, and know they will be supported by other members in the church. Why should anyone trust us on the issue of being pro-life if we aren’t sacrificing ourselves to make life possible for others?

So, watch your conduct, because people are watching you. Will they be attracted to Jesus by your conduct, or turned away from him?

Be a Family

The church is a family, and that means all of you are brothers and sisters. The Bible speaks over and over again about this, and calls us to commit our lives to each other just as if we were biological brothers and sisters living under the same roof.

How we live together is of immense importance. Not only because God commanded it, not only because we need each other’s love and care, not only because we are necessary to help each other grow to become more like Christ. Jesus takes this one step further, because he promises to all those who follow him that they will receive a family. It’s important for us to be a family so that we can be the gift Jesus promises to all those who follow him.

Look at what Jesus says in . Anyone who leaves everything to follow him – even if that means leaving their family – will receive a hundredfold more now from him – mothers, houses, children. They’ll receive a new family, and a better family. Jesus promises a new family to those who follow him. Therefore, we must labor to become the family that Jesus promises.

Rosaria Butterfield, who I had mentioned earlier as a woman who was a lesbian, then became a Christian and left the LGBT life behind her. One of the things I’ve heard her say repeatedly is that in the LGBT community, it is the friendship and presence of others in that community who often make all the difference in the world. Depression and suicide is so prevalent in the LGBT community, that often it is care and love you receive from others that prevents even more people from taking their life. And so, Rosaria says, if we want to attract people out of the LGBT community and see them come to Jesus, we need to have an even better family ready to receive and love them than the one they already have. If we ask people to leave their family and way of life behind, we better be prepared to catch them, receive them, and bring them into our family.

Or, think about our Muslim neighbors, I’m sure many of you have friends who are Muslims. In many Muslim families, to leave Islam means you will be disowned by your family. So if we want to see our Muslim neighbors and friends follow Jesus, we must be prepared to offer them a new family, one that will love them unconditionally.

I’ve seen this first hand over the last 2 years. I attend an atheist group regularly that is made up of people who have made a firm commitment that there is no God. One of the goals of that group is to create community and a place of belonging for those who share their atheist beliefs. This group is really an amazing group of people who I have seen grow to really love each other well. They eat regular meals together, do activities together, help each other with physical needs such as moving, or when one of them is in the hospital. And when I look at this community I really think, man, this is beautiful. And then I’m reminded that if I want to see these people turn and follow Jesus, it would mean giving this group up. I’m reminded that it is my responsibility to create a family in my church that is just as – if not more loving than the one they are already in.

Stay Salty ()

Now normally, the phrase “stay salty” isn’t a good one, right? A salty person is someone who is bitter or upset about something, so we can kind of sarcastically say, alright bro, stay salty.

But that’s not what I mean here!

Salt had several uses in Jesus’ day: for preserving and flavoring meat, for fertilizer, and several other things. The point of this parable is that Christians are of use to the earth only so long as they remain salty, that is, distinct from the world. Salt is only useful in preserving meat so long as the salt is – you guessed it – salty. But if the salt were to somehow become diluted, or impure, it is no longer distinct, it can no longer serve its purpose, and it is no longer good to the earth.

In the same way, Christians are only of good to this world so long as we remain distinct from this world. If we become too much like the world and our surrounding culture, then not only are we no longer of use, but chances are we’ll no longer really be Christians at all.

There have been attempts in the past – especially in the last 100 years – to make Christianity more “appealing” to our culture. Some said that people will stop coming to church because they can’t accept miracles, they can’t accept certain parts of the Scriptures, they can’t accept Jesus’ divinity, they can’t accept the idea that God would ever punish anyone for sin. So, this group said, let’s just abandon all that, let’s get rid of people’s obstacles, and then more people will become Christian.

Well, first of all, let it be said that you can’t have Christianity without miracles and the divinity of Jesus and all those other things. But here’s the thing: this plan totally backfired. One older pastor who had been trained in all of these ideas has now said, “Everything that we are told to do that would bring people to church has actually caused them to stay away from church.” Because as soon as we become just like the world around us, there’s no reason to sacrifice yourself for God or neighbor anymore. If the world can offer the same things as the church for less cost, then why go to church, you see?

What draws people to Jesus is not how similar we are to the culture, but how distinct we are from the culture. Jesus continues in this parable to compare the church to the light of the world. In a very similar message to what we read in , Jesus said that if we are really a light, people will see our good works and give glory to God.

This is only going to happen if we and our churches stay salty. In order to stay salty, we must keep Jesus at the center of everything. His life, his sacrificial death, his resurrection, his promises, his Lordship, his rule over our lives – we must keep his entire person at the center of everything. This is why, by the way, the author of Hebrews exhorts us to keep our eyes on Jesus. When he is the target, our lives, and our churches, will be transformed.

What does this look like for you, future generation of the church? Well, I suspect it may not be quite as complicated as you might think.

Jen Liu Story…

Staying salty means obeying the very ordinary commands of Jesus for your life as an individual, within your immediately family, within the family of God in our churches, and with others who do not yet know Jesus.

It means offering true forgiveness to someone when they don’t deserve it. It means being quick to ask for forgiveness and reconcile with others. It means being gracious in your speech, and compassionate with your actions. It means engaging and listening to others well, always seeking to represent others fairly. It means being disciplined, and making the best use of your time. It means extending mercy to people in your community, and seeking the good of the people in your local area. It means remembering your value in Jesus, who died for you, who made you new, and has now given you new life and purpose.

And where are we going to find the strength and the courage to do this?

I want you just to listen to the words of the Apostle Paul in :

Philippians 2:1–11 ESV

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

How will we successfully engage the culture? By Keeping Jesus at the center. When we consider that he considered us ahead of himself, and how deep he stooped even to the dust for our sake. Although he was rich, he became poor for our sake, that we might become rich. How could we receive this kind of gift and then be unwilling to stoop for others? To humble ourselves to the dust, so that others might know Christ’s mercy and grace?

But all of this is only going to be possible if we keep Jesus at the center. He has promised to do all of this and more through us if we follow him. And this is going to be extremely difficult, it won’t be easy. Very ordinary obedience to Christ often costs us the most. In order to be distinct from the world, we must be willing to give up the things of this world. And we’re only going to be able to do that if Jesus is at the center, who gave up everything, for our sake. Who, Paul says in , gave up everything, humbling himself to the point of death and shame for you.

If the church of your generation is going to see the church thrive, then we need you to help us get back the power of the Christian in a culture that not only sees us as irrelevant, but potentially dangerous. Much like the Christians of the first few centuries of the church, we are going to need to learn how to love outsiders, even when it comes at great cost to us.

It is common for two people to love each other, but for the God of the universe to love us? This is amazing! Christ is called the king of glory, the Lord of glory, the brightness of the glory of his Father, the head over all things, the prince of life, the creator of all things, the upholder of all things, the disposer of all things, and the only beloved of the Father. Those whom he loves are called transgressors, sinners, enemies, dust and ashes, fleas, worms, shadows, vapours, vile, filthy, unclean, ungodly fools and madmen. Should we wonder in amazement that he set his heart upon us? Our love is weak, disordered, and it fails and miscarries. But the love of Christ is essential to his being, for God is love. Christ is love naturally. He may as well cease to be, as to cease to love! There is no uncertainty in his love. His love acts by and from itself. It was shown when he laid down his life for us, and the love of Christ appears wonderful in such a death that he died! It is strange, according to the culture of the world, that he was moved to die for us. He laid down his life for his enemies. They railed on him, degraded him, and called him a devil. They said he was mad, a deceiver, a blasphemer, and a rebel. A disciple sold him, one denied him, and they all forsook him. They beat him with fists, spat on him, mocked him, crowned him with thorns, scourged him and hung him on a tree. Yet all this could not take his heart off the work of redemption. To die he came, and die he did for our sins, that we might live through him! Oh what infinite love!

We are going to need to learn to watch our conduct and keep it distinct from the world, not in a self-righteous way but in a way that shows Jesus is really better than all of our idols.

We are going to need to become a family that is genuinely committed to one another in love, so that we can be the family Jesus promises to all those who will turn and follow him.

We are going to need to learn how to engage our culture by staying salty, by being faithful to others in the very ordinary moments of life, and the very ordinary commands of Scripture.

We are going to need you to find creative ways to bring Christ to bear on every sphere of our culture.

Has that love descended into the depths of your heart? If so, will you now let it so move you to bring his mercy and grace to the world? Will you be the salt of the earth? Will you commit yourself to the church that Christ’s love may be spread through you?