Christ. Community. Culture. - "Christ's Community Shaping Culture"
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Transforming Truth: Jesus' church is meant to shape culture as it acts to reflect God's heavenly rule on earth.
We have been going through a three week series defining the vision of Second City Church. We began with the preeminence of Jesus, the Messiah, and last week spoke about how He cares for and develops His people within His community, the church. This week we will see how Jesus has shaped civilization, and how Jesus' community now has a mandate to shape culture (Matthew 5:13-15).
How Jesus Has Shaped Civilization
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo”
- Karl Marx, from Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Jesus revealed God to be a righteous, fully engaged, benevolent King who is wholly participatory with His creation. We would wholeheartedly disagree with Marx's assessment of Christ-centered religion, because Jesus has said and history has recorded the veracity of the following:
Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.” (Mark 4:30-32 NIV)
Those who have done some of the most to alleviate the suffering of the world and put systems and values that are awry into the right order have been those who have known and loved Jesus. It was because of His transforming work in their lives and His revealed design for creation that these followers of Jesus worked so tirelessly, at much cost to themselves, to serve societies with the love and truth of God, thereby actively shaping culture.
How Christianity Changed the World is an excellent tome chronicling this.
The book categorizes where Jesus used the Church to change culture and gives examples of those who put into practice His principles in each of these following areas:
1) The Sanctification of Human Life Infanticide, child abandonment, human sacrifices and suicide were diminished through Christian influence.
2) The Elevation of Sexual Morality
3) Women's Rights - Freedom and Dignity
4) The Origin of Much of Western Charity and Compassion was derived from Christian ethics and teachings.
5) The Development of Hospitals and Modern Health Care
6) Education for the Masses - (i.e. Martin Luther and the catechism schools)
7) The Dignity of Labor, Economic Freedom and the Judeo-Christian work ethic (i.e. Tom's founder motivated by Christian convictions)
God will give you ideas that will be both profitable to your bank account and the community and nations.
8) The Development of Scientific Inquiry was based on the idea of God being an orderly Creator with discoverable laws that govern the physical universe.
9) The Equanimity of Liberty and Justice - Democracy and Civil Liberties had their inspiration from the throne of God whose foundation is justice and righteousness (Psalm 89:14).
10) The Abolition of Slavery, as well as the Civil Rights movements, had their catalyst within the Church.
As opposed to Karl Marx's opinion, we remember that William Wilberforce, whose mentor was John Newton, a former slave trader and author of the hymn Amazing Grace, was one who fought tirelessly against the injustice of his time.
11) Christianity's influence on Art and Architecture
12) Music - (i.e. Bono and the RED campaign)
13) Literature and Western themes
14) Holidays, Words, Symbols and Expressions
We are not saying that these people are Jesus or even fully represent the convictions by which Jesus will ultimately judge. However, they are examples of undeniable manners in which Jesus, His gospel, life, and teachings are causing people to work for the betterment of society.
These cultural transformations are concepts and categories which people in Western cultures take for granted today. However, before we assume that these values were always our own, it would be good to remember their roots and history. This is where the gospel and the cross of Jesus Christ come in, because man has not proven to be inherently good, but bent towards evil when given the opportunity. There are at least two reasons for any of the good that has been done:
1) People are made in the image of God and have a remnant of His law in their hearts, despite suppressing the truth (Romans 1 and 2). 2) The prevailing influence of the gospel in society has transformed cultures.
Humanity's disconnection from God has led to the massive greed, tyranny, poverty, selfish living, destruction of the family, and death that mark our world. On the cross, Jesus paid for our rebellion against God and His ways. Jesus died as your substitute, was buried, and restored to life as a picture of the restoration that God wants to bring to the earth through our repentance. He became a curse to break the curse handed down to us (Galatians 3:10-14) and will one day bring the rejuvenation of all things (Isaiah 65).
Jesus wants to transform culture for the better by first transforming your heart and mind (Romans 12:1-3) by reconnecting you to God today.
Today's Cultural Mandate
Why we must reach our culture for Jesus:
The Muppets spoof commentary: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wXfLrt90CHM. This is what society is focused on today.
What drove men and women like Wilberforce was prevailing prayer.
Jesus said: “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. ’ (Matthew 6:9-13 NIV)
When Jesus spoke about prayer, it began with the worship of God who is above all and greater than all. As Creator, our Father in Heaven, he has the master plan for the world as we know it. The term "hallowed be your name" had the meaning of making His name and treating His name as holy. It was to understand God as the reference point for all things. Because of His holiness, you are to be holy (I Peter 1:15,16), striving for your life to be separate from ordinary or common usage, turned instead to devotion to divine service. It is having your life centered around God and lived for His glory. Worship begets Christ-centered ambition, motivating faithful action which results in transformed cultures.
What was Matthew's, a Jewish writer's, understanding of the kingdom of Heaven for which Jesus' followers were to pray?
They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. Strangers will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards. And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God. You will feed on the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast. Instead of your shame you will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace you will rejoice in your inheritance. And so you will inherit a double portion in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours. “For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.” I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. (Isaiah 61:4-11 NIV)
This speaks of the cultural mandate that we have as the church to serve the world for the flourishing of all people in all cities in all nations.
The question is: "What was God's intended design for each aspect of culture, industry, and influence?" The mission then becomes: "To bring God's kingdom on earth in each of these areas as it is in Heaven." This must be the governing thought for your work day and where the majority of your life is spent. We are able to do this as we remain faithful to God's Word and prayer. As we do so, we are able to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:52 NIV) We pray this continually for you.
Different than the lightweight character that defines our culture (Pastor Rollan referenced the Russian police choir singing Get Lucky at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics), by following Jesus as a part of His community, we hope to be bring the gravitas of such reproducible, concentrated involvement in the nations:
Orphanages and Recovery Centers for victims of human trafficking
James 1 model of widows caring for orphans
Marketplace ministry training center
Transform culture with things like urban farming
Entrepreneur Center linked to the gospel for church planting in this nation and for closed nation entry
Job Training and creation all with biblical principles
This can all begin now, like the mustard seed. We encourage college students to stay for the summer months and participate in the first freshman outreach, first Second City Church sports camp, the hosting of a youth mission trip to the city, the work with the Jessie White Tumblers, etc. If you have a God-given vision to shape an arena of culture with the kingdom of God, begin to prayerfully make plans, baby-step action points, with those in our community of faith. Never forget that these love revolutions began as a seed (John 12:24).
“Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is about.” ― N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
This is another reason why Christ's community is important. As we come together as the church, the greater the number of committed disciples are on mission with Jesus, the greater our service to the city, its people and its issues, and the greater the ability to see God's kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven, here and in the nation and in the nations.
Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox come abundant harvests. (Proverbs 14:4 NIV)
When the oxen don't gather in the manger, their efforts are scattered, diminished, and there is no tangible direction. We must remain in the community of Jesus, the church, if we are together to achieve Jesus' cultural initiatives.
In the following quote, you have this designation of characters:
The speaker: Screwtape, a devil The recipient: Wormwood, another devil "He": God The man: a Christian
"I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention not ours. He made pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures with which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. ...
You have only to keep him (the Christian) out of the way of experienced Christians (an easy task now-adays), to direct his attention to the appropriate passages in scripture, and then to set him to work on the desperate design of recovering his old feelings by sheer will-power, and the game is ours. If he is of the more hopeful type your job is to make him acquiece in the present low temperature of his spirit and gradually become content with it, persuading himself that it is not so low after all. In a week or two you will be making him doubt whether the first days of his Christianity were not, perhaps, a little excessive. Talk to him about 'moderation in all things'. If you can once get him to the point of thinking that 'religion is all very well up to a point', you can feel quite happy about his soul. A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all - and more amusing." -C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters - Letter 9
This is what drives us at Second City and is what paints the picture for the vision God has given us for the church: Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 NIV)
This is how the biography of Jesus Christ, the gospel written by the apostle Matthew, ended. You can tell a lot about what is important to a person based on the final words that they speak. These words are what summarize the heart, motivation, and drive behind Second City Church. In a nutshell: "We exist to love Jesus and fulfill His Great Commission."
The question is, "how do we practically plan to do it, and what will it look like when we do?" God willing, it will include the things that follow and so much more.
At Second City Church:
We envision being a house of prayer for all the nations to the glory of God.
We envision sharing the Good News of Christ's death and resurrection with thousands of unchurched friends and people in the greater Chicagoland area, many of whom will accept Him as Lord and Savior.
We envision developing people - new believers as well as established believers - into fully functioning followers of Christ through Bible study, worship services, community groups, special events, and leadership training.
We envision being a church that lives and models biblical community: a safe place where we are accepted, loved, shepherded, encouraged, forgiven, and are built into disciples of Jesus Christ.
We envision helping all our people - youth as well as adults - to discover their divine designs so that they are equipped to serve Christ effectively in some ministry within and outside our church.
We envision welcoming numerous members into our body who are excited about Christ, experience healing in their family, relationships, and marriages, and grow together in love.
We envision being a people who care for the orphan, the widow, the victim, and the poor through practical means that help to rebuild lives.
We envision training and sending out missionaries, church planters, and church workers all over the world. We also see a number of our people pursuing short-term missions service domestically and abroad. We see our people ministering to unreached people groups and serving the least Christianized cities of the world.
We envision training marketplace Christians to be fully devoted followers of Christ who help transform culture by bringing the kingdom of God to every sphere of industry and influence.
We envision being a generous people. We see the people of God giving radically to the advance of the gospel in the city and the nations because of the love of God in their hearts.
We envision being a beacon of God's truth and hope to the people of Chicago and to the nations of the earth.
To say all of this in three memorable words, we are about Christ. Community. and Culture. Come be a part of God's unveiling story!
Second City Church- Christ. Community. Culture. Sermon Series 2014