God Has Become Counter Cultural

by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: Matthew 5-7

May 23, 2010

We now live in an age when living up to the moral standards God set down for us flies in the face of the culture of the society in which we live. God has become counter cultural; Christ is counter cultural; following the leading of the Holy Spirit will run us smack dab into offending someone around us. For we have kicked God out of our legislature, our schools, out of the business of prayer before a football game, removing crosses from federal cemeteries, and even some churches want to preach to you about your personal success and fortune, not forgiveness of sins.

Stop America's slide away from God.

Be the Christian Counter Culture.

Let this Pentecost Sunday be the start of a fired up Christian life, a life that mirrors the lives of those early Christians who knew the touch of the Holy Spirit.

Center yourself on Jesus Christ.

Allow the Holy Spirit to work through you and begin to peel away the layers of this world that pull you away and hide you from God, that bar you from doing what you know He wants from you, that cause you to fear trusting in Him for what comes next, causes you to be fearful of those who threaten the body but cannot touch the soul, make you unsure of who Christ is and what is said of Him. Draw near to Jesus Christ and become the Christian Counter Culture that stops this nation's slide away from God.

No, you don't need to sell your house and everyone move to a communal farm. You don't need to go live on a mountain and become a hermit. Yes, Christ did say come out from among them, but he also told us to be the salt and light; Matt. 5:13-16.

Being salt and light in an unsavory and sin-dark culture, being the life that follows Jesus Christ is different, but we need to stay within society and be that difference. We need to say "NO!" out loud to that which is counter to the teachings of Christ. We need to say yes to what our God-given freedoms give us the responsibility to carry out.

Most of the educational institutes in this nation started out as Christian institutions because Christ tells us to share knowledge, share wisdom, share righteousness.

Most court houses in this nation have somewhere a representation of the Ten Commandments as examples of right and wrong. Moses got those from God and shares them down through the ages with us.

Most Americans know this nation began based on the principles of God's nature and personality. In fact, they were fleeing those who would repress freedom of religion. God told the Jews long ago it was not good to have a king, but He would give them one if that's what they wanted. And the framers of the U.S. Constitution knew by experience that God knew what He was talking about. No kings for America. We would place our trust in God and represent all the people, not a group of rich and royalty.

In the 19th century, political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, after visiting America, wrote, "The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other."

And yet, almost a century later, that great Christian writer, observer and preacher A. W. Tozer noted, "Religion today is not transforming people; rather it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society; it is descending to society's own level, and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smilingly accepting its surrender."

More recently Dr. Charles Stanley declared, "The church by its very nature will offend. We will either be offending the world or Almighty God. The church must make a decision whom she is going to offend."

God's people in America are being co-opted and are becoming offensive to Almighty God through our words, our actions, our inactions; our passive acceptance of evil among us.

Where did we go wrong?

That would take an entirely different, and long, sermon, so let's just move on to what do we do now. And right there we come back to where I began ... be the Christian counter culture.

Actually, what we are experiencing right now, in terms of morality, legalism, economic disaster, that is a culture counter to what America's founders originally intended. The present is the counter culture. But if we are going to stop the slide of America into moral, social and economic oblivion, we will have to become the Christian counter culture in order to obey God's intentions for us.

That's the mission, where do we find the tools to accomplish this?

We find them in Ephesians 6:12-18 and we find them in prayer. In fact, rarely will you find more specific direction for the Christian life than in Ephesians 4. And Ephesians 5 tells us how to arm ourselves against evil. In addition, prayer is an important tool, our weapon, of choice. For those of you on Facebook, there is a prayer group page on at http://www.facebook.com/OurPrayer where you can read example after example of answered prayer. You can post your prayers, your own needs, your own praise to God. You can learn more about prayer, about God's commitment to prayer, about how prayer to the Throne of Grace is such an effective weapon to those who belong to Christ.

Therein lies the first step, the first requirement, and the first qualifying question. Do you belong to Jesus Christ? Have you put your life in His hands, recognized His gift of eternal life to you, His authority over your life? This is the Son of Almighty God who left sweet heaven to be among us through the pains of physical birth, grew up among us with all the dangers and ill-will as well as the joys and the precious moments of life on earth. He agreed with the Father to take upon Himself all the sins of humanity in order to reconcile the creation to the Creator, to bring us home to the Father, to restore love between ourselves and Almighty God. Having no righteousness of our own, we walk clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and He presents us to the Father as His own.

Through the birth, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ we have the ground to stand upon, the right to Christian life, and the promise of life eternal. In this day and age in which we live, we know by experience that no one keeps promises like God, and on that basis we have the right to live as the Christian counter culture. In God we find peace in the troubled day.

We do not accept the changing mores of society when they run counter to God's Word.

We do not accept the desirous but foul promises of physical gratification that Satan uses to clothe us in a guilt that pushes us away from God.

We do not accept that it is every man for himself and if our neighbor can't make it on his own, tough luck.

We do not accept that it's okay to raise ourselves up by pushing others down.

We do not accept that might makes right, and that we as adults have the right to ignore the well-being of children to feed our own desires.

We do not accept that those outside of Christ have the only truth about what is fair, what is acceptable, and what is wise.

We do not accept that we must be legalists, pointing the finger of offense, hanging signs of guilt about the necks of those prisoners to sin, refusing to love, refusing to help, refusing to be Christ to them.

We do not accept that human goodness can equate to God's righteousness. We do not accept that if our neighbor has something nicer than we have, we have a right to wish we had it, and make plans to steal it.

We do not accept that our position in society is built upon how much we have, have much we earn, or how much power we have over others.

We do not accept that our well-being, meeting our desires for earthly happiness justifies harming the lives of others, stealing the love of others, serving ourselves before others.

We do not accept that such things as love, caring, humility, and a servant attitude set us up as losers. On the contrary, such life attitudes make us winners in the eyes of the only one who counts, Almighty God. As the children of royalty we can afford to give of ourselves, to give of what we have to raise up others, to lower ourselves to lift others out of the muck and the mire of foul desires and covetousness in order to look Jesus and the eye, and belong to Him.

We do not accept ... anything but Jesus Christ, and the counter culture beliefs that He has lived out, and taught to us.

Begin by standing out. Begin by saying "No!" to what His Word tells us is wrong, and even "No!" in our own lives to what may not be wrong, but which could impair our brother's or sister's Christian experience.

Begin by standing up for the walking wounded about us who do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and their Savior. Stand up! Be the image, the mind, the hands of Jesus Christ to those around you.

Begin by being that model of Christian change we want to see in others.

Begin by meeting hatred and abuse with love and the other cheek, by answering requests for your coat, with your coat, your hat, your umbrella, with all of whatever you can of decency provide. It will astonish. It is counter-cultural.

Begin by sacrificing what we want in order to reach out to those without the basic necessities of life.

Begin with a life that reflects the truth of Galatians 5:22-23 -- "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Verses 24 goes on to point out that, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires," and verse 25 urges, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

Begin by astonishing people with your Christian conduct in the same way Jesus astonished the crowds he taught with authority in His sermon on the mount. For His words, and His observed conduct, exhibited substance and quality, and He spoke with the authority of one who knows God.

We have good news for this generation, and for every generation; good news we can live as well as speak, even though it runs counter to the current culture. We have God's authority to do that.

Christian writer James Denny wrote that Jesus' teachings had a "practical sovereignty over man’s conscience, will and affections" with a "supreme moral authority,
legislating without misgiving, and demanding implicit obedience."

When you promote that today you will be "counter-cultural." Steadfast reliance upon the teachings of Jesus Christ, upon the Word of Almighty God, without running it through an awareness group for political correctness, without taking into account that it might run counter to some other group's opinions and practice, without leaving room for those who don't even believe there is a God who is the great "I Am," that is counter cultural. That runs against the grain of those who decided ad hoc what societal mores should be.

Tough. God said it. Jesus Christ affirmed it. I'm going to live it.

The reason the crowds in our scripture lesson today were astonished at his teaching was because He taught them with authority. He came to them first and foremost as a teacher, and He amazed His listeners by the substance, the quality and the manner of His instruction.

Then, as now, He assumes the right to t4eavchj absoloute truth. He was a Jew, but His message was not Jewish. He was interpreting Moses' law, but in such a way as to show it was god's. What He had to say was not culturally conditioned in the sense it was limited to a specific people such as the Jews, or to a particular place such as their Palestine. Being absolute, it was and is universal.

In different context in John 3:11, Jesus said, "We speak of what we know."

Christian writer A. B. Bruce noted that other teachers spoke "by authority," but Jesus spoke "with" authority. That was the difference that thrilled those who heard Him speak.

In a commentary on Matthew, the Rev. John Stott wrote, "With complete self-confidence He declared who would inherit the kingdom of heaven, who would inherit the earth, who would obtain mercy, who would see God be fit to be called God's children.

Yes, what Jesus taught then and teaches now runs counter to today's cultural. But it just might be the salvation of this nation we all love. It will certainly be the salvation of millions of people we will never personally know. It will stop in its tracks the evil running rampant through society, and call to account those who call evil good, and good evil.

And it will be opposed. Make no mistake. Obeying God is a dangerous, violent idea ... to those who don't want to do that. And they will oppose it with the pseudo righteousness of men, labeling it unfair, racist, profiling, anti- this and anti- that. And yes, they will seek to crucify in public the messengers. But those who stand for Christ already know, from His testimony, this will happen. In Matthew 10:24, in John 15:20, in Acts 17:11 we find this message, represented by Matt. 10:24, "A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!"

Maybe, if you think you are living for Christ, and no one is challenging you, maybe you better check yourself. As human beings, we are easily moved into the channel where we "go along to get along." We don't like pressure, we don't like opposition, we don't like not being liked. It's natural for us to seek the peaceful way, the way without any opposition. But Satan has no reason to challenge those who offer him no opposition. We see again the truth of those verses in Matt. 7:13-14 from God that tell us to "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

That which promotes the Word of God, of its nature, challenges evil, challenges those in opposition to the Christian way of life. Those who do not serve Christ, who serve themselves and their own agendas, they will see such "counter culture" as threatening and will react accordingly. Count on it.

However, our Lord tells us, in effect, that a good offense is the best defense. In Matt. 10:26 we are assured, "So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."

Why should we believe that our God will fight for us? Well, the Bible is full of exactly those assurances. But more basically, it is the very character of God that gives us that rock solid assurance. In Matt. 10:29 we read, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

Moreover, in Matt. 10:32-33, Jesus Christ, Himself, assures us, "Whoever acknowledges Me before men, I will also acknowledge him before My Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before My Father in heaven."

We have every reason in this world, and the next, to be counter cultural. And in truth, in being counter cultural we may be the last great hope of this grand experiment we call the United States of America. More importantly, however, we may be the last great hope of thousands, perhaps millions of souls over whom the angels in heaven will rejoice when the good news of Jesus Christ is heard and acted upon. And Satan will grind his teeth in angry desperation.

Turn this cultural around. Know what the Word of God says, and then speak out when confronted with wrong, with injustice, with unmet need. But don't stop there, do something about it. Don't walk away. Change the culture, one person of Christ at a time. For in the end we will realize the truth that the Psalmist wrote for us in Psalm 73:25, "Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Those who are far from You will perish; You destroy all who are unfaithful to You. But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all Your deeds."

No one loves us more than our God. There is no power in the universe mightier than the God who created us, and this earth where we live. How is it that we have allowed this culture of God-given freedom and liberty, in which we live, to stray so far from God?

The challenge that the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche threw out in the nineteenth-century is still relevant today: "Show me that you are redeemed, and I will believe in your Redeemer."

India's Mahatma Gandhi, that great man of peace, once said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

I urge you to live the words of Francis of Assisi, founder of the Catholic Franciscan Order, and renown lover of animals in God's name. He urges us, "Always preach the gospel, when necessary use words." Let us be the counter culture, living out, day in and day out, before all men and women, the teachings of God, in the name of Him who loved us first, our Lord and our Savior, Jesus who is the Christ.

Be the Christian counter culture.

Amen.