Culture

We are entering into a new series, one that will last a few weeks. We have spent some time looking at where we’ve been. Now we are going to look at where we are going. We are going to spend a couple weeks talking about the culture we are in and then we will talk about our specific place in that culture at FAC.

Each generation has had to contend how the church will engage with the culture. We have our marching orders, those things that will not change, we are called to make disciples and called to love others but how that happens matters. How we as a church do that matters.

And I have noticed that while we may have agreement on the Gospel and agreement on the church, we don’t always know how to make our way in the culture.

And we are, whether or not we want to believe it, being discipled by what we listen to and watch.

For this series I want to take some time to look at where we are and then at

the same time look at how we can live in Gospel faithfulness in today’s world.

Ok let’s get into our message this morning. We are going to be looking at a passage where Paul talks to Athenians and eventually preaches and does so in a way that enters into their culture first. He understands them and then he communicates how the Gospel is everything they have been looking for.

How do we understand the culture where we find ourselves? It can feel like we are wading through new issues and new thinking and new practices everyday. I can’t tell you how many memes I’ve come across about just escaping a pandemic to enter into this global strife with Russia and the Ukraine. Things move to quick and there is too much information to sort and make sense.

My daughter and I went to an escape room a couple months ago. Each room had different levels of difficulty and she wanted to do the hard one so we did. They lock you in the room and you have an hour to find the key to get out. There are clues and locks and combinations and trunks and dressers and so on that you have to comb through to not only find the clues but find them in order.

We picked a Sherlock Holmes themed room because she loved sherlock holmes and the timer started and we began with one clue.

It was frustrating. We kept looking at things and trying to get answers to our questions.. We kept searching and searching. And the problem that we were having wasn’t that we didn’t have everything we needed it was that there were a lot of red herrings.

That’s what made searching for what mattered so tough. The red herrings.

A red herring is a clue that doesn’t have anything to do with the final solution, it is meant to distract you. It may sound like or feel like or be related to the quest but in the end it doesn’t have anything to do with what you are searchign for.

We ran into a lot of red herrings and wasted a lot of time trying to figure them out.

So much so that the red herrings ran out the clock for us and here is our picture after not having solved our clue.

Using one word answers, how would you define the culture we live in?

This is what it can feel like. If feels like we have all these clues and we are trying to make sense of what is happening around us and we aren’t sure what is a real clue and what is a red herring.

And it’s not just you and me, it is our friends and neighbors. And we will see how Paul expertly interacts with those around him in this passage.

Everything we are searching for is found in Christ Jesus.

Everyone is searching for meaning

English Standard Version Chapter 17

16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him.

Paul is waiting for Silas and Timothy in Athens. At this point Paul doesn’t have anything lined up except for to wait. So he tours the city.

And as he does he notices something. The city is full of idols.

Now when we see idols in the Bible we are meant to take that literally. Paul sees statues that represent a god of the Roman world, a point of worship for the Athenian people. These idols represented places where people trusted gods to support their lives and livelihood.

And the passage states that Paul’s spirit was provoked within him.

He was alarmed.

He noticed.

I wonder if any of us feel the same way.

We are provoked.

I think we live in a culture where we are walking around provoked.

We walk around like Paul and our spirits are provoked within us.

As we enter into the other side of the Pandemic and we wake up in a world that doesn’t always look like the one in 2019 we have to decide how we will deal with it.

Have you noticed more people in our culture “provoked”?

How have you noticed your own spirit being “provoked”?

We are all provoked about something and how we deal with it matters.

That said we are talking about a specific Christian perspective this morning

vv 16 and 17 is our world. We are in a culture full of idols and one hungry to make more and as many as possible.

“We’re witnessing the phenomenon that Harvard Divinity scholars Casper Kuile and Angie Thurston have called “unbundling”: the rise of bespoke religious identities. The more individualized our religious identities become, the more willing we are to mix and match ideas and practices outside our primary religious affiliation.” Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World by Tara Isabella Burton

Everyone is searching frantically

English Standard Version Chapter 17

And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

The people are interested. Stoics, and epicurians and devout Jews all want to hear more.

They call these these strange things, and Jesus a foreign divinity but they are still wanting to hear.

This passage is incredibly helpful for us today because we live in a culture where Jesus and the resurrection is strange in people’s ears.

This passage to me is telling in our culture today about how people approach Christ.

IN Athens, where Paul was, was a hotbed for idol activity and philosophic transmission of ideas.

Look at verse 21.

- Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

This was their lives, exchanging new ideas.

VErse 21 is a diagnostic to our culture.

We live in a world where every idea is changing rapidly and all there is is a rapid exchange of ideas. It is constant and it is always evolving and it is impossible to keep up.

We no longer share a story of how our lives and morals are constructed so there is a fragmentation of belief and lack of agreement.

Because we live in a provoked culture our initial response is to react. But reacting doesn’t always get us to where God desires us to be.

The Gospel is not a reaction to a disagreement, it is an answer to a question.

It is important to see Paul’s engagement here. Because it will bear fruit in the upcoming passages.

Paul Doesn’t fight

He doesn’t flee

He reasons. HE finds the middle ground.

In our post modern age, in this culture, we are going to have to learn how to find our apologetic and our witness between the fight and the flight.

Flight is too easy

Fight is way too easy.

We have to remember that people are frantically searching for something.

So our conversations with people are not about who is right or wrong, they are really conversations about meaning and what really matters in life.

Where have you noticed Christians fighting?

Where have you noticed Christians fleeing?

Often our conversations with people are like yelling to someone in second story window while the house is on fire. And we are arguing over which room is actually on fire. They are calling for help and we are arguing over the nature of the fire.

We need another approach that helps people find the meaning they are looking for.

People are not listening to the church. They are not listening to Christians.

We need to develop new language and life skills in this new culture.

“The Remixed hunger for the same things human beings have always longed for: a sense of meaning in the world and personal purpose within that meaning, a community to share that experience with, and rituals to bring the power of that experience into achievable, everyday life. Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World by Tara Isabella Burton

Everyone's search is only satisfied in Christ

English Standard Version Chapter 17

22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

I love this line.

Paul sees something true about the culture and tells them, “see, you see it too.”

He admits that they are on a search.

That they are searching for meaning. They are searching for certainty.

They wanted to make sure they got all the gods.

And Paul takes the middle ground. HE doesn’t run, He doesn’t fight. He tells them that He has found what it is they are looking for.

Humanity is on a frantic search and Paul tells them that they have come to the end of their searching.

Paul recognizes that they are seeking, they are asking questions of which the Gospel is the answer. They are looking for something.

If we are looking into the future, if we are looking into how we will live out the vision and mission of the Gospel, we have to see our culture as one of seekers.

And we have to see the church as one with an answer.

We are called at the ready to share with people our hope. 1 Peter 3:15-16

English Standard Version Chapter 3

15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

How are you prepared to answer for the hope that you have?

What specifically would you share regarding the hope you have? What would you tell someone?

We are standing right now on the good news of JEsus Christ. We are being upheld, supported, moved, willed forward by the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Because we have an answer we don’t have to fear. But we do have to figure it out.

Our role is to run forward with incredible news that God is with us, and that He loves us enough to die for us.

Everyone in this culture is living out a story and we have the best one.

JRR Tolkien wrote, amongst many other things, The Lord of the Rings. He was a soldier in WWI and wrote the LOTR triology after WWII. So he knows a thing or two about being provoked. In fact WH Auden calls the period after WWII “the AGe of Anxiety.”

As People were navigating their lives after the war, they were recreating meaning. They had to. Within their lifetimes they had seen 2 of them. And it was, as you can imagine, difficult to find new ground

And people were, in the aftermath of the war, questioning Christianity. And shedding it entirely.

And it was in the middle of the Age of Anxiety that the LOTR came out. And there was a reason. There was a group of authors that wanted to infuse this confused culture with hope. They wanted people to see Christ for who he was. So authors like Lewis, and WH Auden and TS Eliot and Tolkien began to write to inject hope into the culture.

In Joseph Locontes book, A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18, talks about what the intent of some of these authors were:

“Part of the achievement of Tolkien and Lewis was to reintroduce into the popular imagination a Christian vision of hope in a world tortured by doubt and disillusionment.”

Joseph Loconte, A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18

I think this is the quote of our generation as well.

We need to recover a new apologetic of Christian hope in the world. Because I think people are tortured by doubt and disillusionment.

springtide research 57 percent

Maybe you are here this morning and you are experiencing doubt and disolusionment. I want you to know that there is hope for you. IT is found in Christ. You have questions and God has revealed Himself in the person of Jesus. YOu can trust HIm to find hope.

And maybe you know Him but have lost hope. It’s misplaced. Don’t leave this morning without letting us pray for you. We will be up here after service. I know it can be intimidating to walk up here but even walking up here is an act of faith. You are respoinding to God in coming up for prayer.

And for our response this week: we know people who are searching. They desire to be validated. Allow them to see Christ, who is the end of our searching.

Tell about a time where you experienced doubt or disillusionment. How has God met with you in that area? How have you seen the hope of Christ within it?

Pray for each other to know the hope of Christ.