The Christian's Role in a Wicked Generation #3 The Christian's Role Identified

Q: What does the Bible say about the Christian's role in a wicked generation?

The Bible teaches that Christians must resist being shaped by the wickedness of their generation while actively pursuing transformation according to God's standards. The essence of a Christian's role in a wicked generation includes two major aspects: a negative stance of not conforming to the patterns and behaviors of the world, and a positive pursuit of transformation in alignment with God's standards. This is supported by Romans 12:2, which encourages believers to 'not be conformed to this world.' Instead, they are called to present themselves as living sacrifices to God. Additionally, Philippians 2:15 speaks of shining as lights in a crooked generation, emphasizing the need for believers to embody holiness and integrity in every aspect of their lives.

Q: Why is it important for Christians not to conform to the world?

It's crucial for Christians to avoid conformity to maintain their witness and reflect Christ's character in a morally declining culture. Christians are called to be distinct from the world to appropriately reflect the character of Christ. Romans 12:2 warns not to be fashioned according to this world, which is filled with intellectual and moral depravity. By avoiding conformity, believers uphold the truths of the gospel and serve as examples of godliness in a society characterized by disorder. Non-conformity serves as a powerful witness to God's transformative work in their lives, showing that they are new creations in Christ, as evidenced by the fruit of their lives.

Q: How can Christians pursue holiness in a wicked generation?

Christians can pursue holiness by being transformed in their thinking and behaviors to align with God's standards of righteousness. The pursuit of holiness involves a commitment to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, as stated in Romans 12:2. This transformation takes place as believers immerse themselves in Scripture, allowing God’s word to shape their thoughts, actions, and relationships. Passages like 1 Peter 1:15-16 emphasize the call to be holy as God is holy, guiding Christians to conform their lives to the teachings of Christ, even in a society that promotes sin. Holiness in everyday life reflects obedience to God and testifies to His character, inviting others to see the light of Christ.

Q: How do Christians deal with the challenges of living in a wicked society?

Christians can face the challenges of a wicked society by relying on God's strength to live righteously and express love towards others. Living in a wicked society proves to be challenging for Christians as they encounter pressures to conform to sinful behaviors and beliefs. Philippians 4:13 reassures believers that they can do all things through Christ who strengthens them. This reliance is essential for overcoming obstacles and maintaining integrity. Furthermore, as believers work out their salvation with a serious commitment, they manifest God's grace in their lives, serving as beacons of hope and truth amid moral chaos. Christians can also draw upon the power of prayer and fellowship within the church to find encouragement and support.

Q: How does the call to be blameless relate to the Christian's role in society?

Being blameless is essential for Christians as it enhances their testimony and reflects God's holiness in a corrupt society. Ephesians 5:27 emphasizes the significance of being blameless, as Christ presents His church as holy and without blemish. This call affects how Christians conduct themselves in their daily interactions, demonstrating integrity and righteousness. In a corrupt society, being blameless helps believers stand out as effective witnesses to the transformative power of the gospel, encouraging others to seek God. By striving for blamelessness in their lives, Christians not only obey God's call but also fulfill their role as light in darkness, as highlighted in Philippians 2:15.

You. You. so so a a I owe the rest of you an explanation. I had fully intended to spend
more time there and to get acquainted with more of you. I'm thankful
for the many that I was able to meet and speak to during the
eating time. And then I was especially desirous
to go down with the children and to fix the ball to them and
then engage in an innocent little game of softball for several
reasons. Many of these children, all they
know about Pastor Martin is that man that booms over mommy and
daddy's cassette recorder. And I'm desirous that I should
get to know them in the light of what I am as a man, as a grandpa
who likes to play with his grandchildren and the father who loves his
children and has a special relationship with all the little ones in our
own congregation, some of whom literally will cry to mommy and
daddy. They take them to the parking
lot if they haven't had their hug and their kiss from pastor
for the day. And yet, for reasons that God alone knows, and I've
embraced Romans 8.28, for some reason, a little movement that
I'm not used to making, even though I exercise regularly and
I have torn a muscle deep in my right calf, It hurts like
a toothache, and I didn't want to scare the kids by hollering
and hobbling off the field, so I tried to go off rather quietly
and slink away like a silent hero. But I want you kids to
know that Pastor didn't run away from you because I didn't enjoy
being with you. I wish I could have spent more
time with you as well as time in getting better acquainted
with some of the others of you. And so I felt I owed you that
word of explanation. It's so vital that children have
a realistic view of what true Christianity is and what a man
of God is, above all, what our Lord Jesus Christ is like. And
he ought to be mirrored in every Christian man and woman but particularly
in the servants of Christ. And if anything was true of our
Lord, it was that children not only tolerated Him, they loved
Him and they felt at ease around Him. And frankly, I have little
use for any man that claims to be spiritual or a man of God
with whom children do not feel comfortable. There's something
grossly lacking in likeness to Christ. So though it may sound
very unspiritual to some of you, I glory in what you may regard
unspiritual, that I was seeking to give my time to the children
to get better acquainted with them. Well, with that explanation
behind us, and I hope you children will be understanding, and it's
nothing that won't heal in time, God willing. It'll just be an
irritant over the next few weeks and greatly curtail my regular
exercise program. But apart from that, we'll come
through it as we have many other similar pulled muscles. With
the passing of the years, we're reminded that the outward man
does indeed decay, but thank God the inward man is renewed
day by day. Well, let's pray and ask God
to help us. I'm sure many of us, expending
physical energy and having a full day, could naturally be weary.
Let's ask the Lord, who knows our frame and remembers that
we are dust, to quicken our minds and hearts, that we may give
careful attention to the word of God. Let us pray. Our Father, our hearts are indeed
full this night. As we reflect back on the hours
of this day in which you gave us such a bright, clear, sunny,
dry day, and our eyes were able to drink in the brightness of
the sun and the blueness of the sky and the greenness of the
grass and the trees, we thank you for the great variety and
tastiness of the food we've been able to eat together for the
joy of speaking one to another about your dealings with us and
our common joys in the Lord Jesus. Thank you for the opportunity
to exercise, to laugh, to play. Oh, Lord, surely you have given
us all things richly to enjoy. And we return thanks for these
mercies. But we are reminded of the words
of our Lord Jesus, who said, Man shall not live by bread alone. And while bodily exercise is
profitable for a little, it is your Word upon which we must
feed, and we must exercise ourselves unto godliness that has promise
not only in this life, but in the life which is to come. Help
us then, our Father, as we would gird up our minds and hearts. Give us the strength of your
Spirit that we may profit from the preaching and teaching of
the Word of God this night. Hear our cry and bless us with
your presence, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Now we come this evening to what
is the third in our series of studies in the announced theme
of this conference, which is the Christians' role in a wicked
generation. And in the opening two messages,
I attempted to do just two things. In the first message, I sought
to establish from the Word of God that our generation is indeed
one that is worthy of the designation a wicked generation. And it is worthy of that dishonorable
description because of its intellectual perversity, its moral degeneracy,
its social anarchy, and its religious apostasy. And then last night
I sought to demonstrate what a biblical Christian is. If we're to talk about the Christian's
role in a wicked generation, Not only must we be convinced
from the Word of God that ours is a wicked generation, but we
must be convinced as to what a real Christian is. And so we took the Word of God
in hand, and we saw that a real Christian, one worthy of that
name first given to disciples at Antioch, as recorded in Acts
11 and verse 26, used again by Peter in 1 Peter 4 and verse
15, that a Christian is one who's been made painfully aware of
the fact that he's a hell-deserving sinner. Secondly, a Christian
is one who has heard and received as true the facts concerning
God's only way of rescuing sinners. a way that centers in a unique
person, the God-man Christ Jesus, and focuses upon His substitutionary
work, living the life we did not live, dying the death we
dare not die. Thirdly, a biblical Christian
is one who has experienced God-wrought repentance and faith. Acts 20 and verse 21, And a biblical
Christian is one who can validate his professed faith and repentance
by the fruit of his life. For the scripture tells us, if
any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed
and the new has come. Now, tonight, we take up the
subject proper. What is the essence, the heart,
or as it's in vogue to say in our day, what is the bottom line
of a Christian's role in the midst of a wicked generation? Well, as I've tried to gather
the Bible's answer to that question, I want to propose that the answer
of the Word of God can be ranged under two major headings. One of them is negative, and
one of them is positive. And let me say in passing, I'm
never ashamed to preach negative things. God's revelation comes
in both negative and positive statements. Take the Ten Commandments,
for example. They begin negatively. Thou shalt
have no other gods before me. God could have said you shall
have me as your only God, but he chose to state it negatively.
Thou shalt not make any graven images. And it isn't till the
third commandment that we go positive. Or that's still negative,
isn't it? Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain. Fourth commandment, positive,
remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Fifth commandment, honor
thy father and thy mother. Then God goes back to the negative.
Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness.
Thou shalt not covet. If anyone has a problem with
negative preaching, they've got a problem with God. For no one
can be true to the word of God who does not traffic in a due
proportion of the negative. Now, anyone who's all negative
is ignoring large portions of God's word. But I want to suggest
that in answer to this question, a question of deep concern to
every true Christian, what is my role in the midst of a wicked
generation that the answer of Scripture is negative and positive? Negatively, the Christian must
not allow the wickedness of this generation to shape his thinking
or his patterns of life in any area. The Christian must not
allow the wickedness of this generation to shape his thinking
or his pattern of life, or if you like, the inward lifestyle
in any area. And I want you to study with
me tonight three texts of scripture which clearly teach this principle. At the mouth of two or three
witnesses, God says, let every word be established. Well, we're
going to look at three witnesses under the negative and then subsequently
three under the positive. Turn, please, to Romans chapter
12. And I trust that the familiarity
of the words will not be a block to fresh light and understanding. Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and
2a. I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service, and
be not fashioned according to this world or this age. Now, Paul has opened up in the
first eleven chapters of the book of Romans, in a very systematic
and comprehensive way, the riches of God's grace to needy sinners
in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The closest
thing we have in the Bible to a systematic theology is the
book of Romans. For after some general words
of introduction, it starts out with man's need of God's salvation. and then God's provision of salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ, producing justification, sanctification,
glorification, and then God's administration of that salvation
in human history to the Jew first, and then now to the Gentile nations,
summed up in that marvelous conclusion of chapter 11, Of him and through
him and unto him are all things to whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. And then it's as though
someone says, well, Paul, that's a marvelous exposition in a systematic
and comprehensive way of the riches of God's grace. So what? What is my response to this to
be? And his answer is, I beseech
you. I entreat you therefore, brethren,
in the light of this dazzling panorama of God's amazing grace,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God, which is your spiritual service. In the light of your
augmented understanding of the salvation you Romans already
possess, Now that you stand on higher ground and you see the
farther reaches of that salvation, this should cause a fresh response
of joyful abandonment of the totality of your redeemed humanity
to God, present your bodies a living sacrifice, mixing concepts that
seem on the surface to be contradictory. A sacrifice was always slain
and offered to God. He says, no, let your life, this
new redeemed life in Christ, be offered up with renewed, intelligent
devotion to God, which is your spiritual and your rational service. And then the first thing he says,
if you're going to work out a life consistent with that devotion
to God, which is the response of your appreciation for His
grace. You see the connection? Grace
revealed. Then the response to grace. What's the first thing we must
settle? Look at the text. And be not fashioned according
to this age. If you are going to work out
an appropriate response of gratitude to the grace of God in Christ,
you must determine that you will not be fashioned according to
this world. Now, this verb, be not fashioned,
for some of you who know a little Greek and a little English, it
is a present passive imperative, and the verb itself is the kind
of verb you would use if you were describing what an artist
were doing if he or she had placed a few apples and pears on a table
And then a beautifully colored vase or vase, whatever you say
out here on the West Coast. We ordinary people back in Connecticut,
we said vase. It was the uppities in New York
that said vase. So whether it's vase or vase,
there on the table you have a couple of apples and pears and a vase
or vase. And now as an artist, you want
to paint a still life painting. Now what does the artist seek
to do? The artist continually glances
to the objects on the table, and then on the canvas, he or
she seeks to fashion on the canvas that which is conformed to the
realities on the table. And if you were describing what
the artist was doing, the artist was fashioning on canvas the
images of those realities on the table, this is the word you
would use. Paul says, do not allow yourself
to be fashioned according to the standards, to the mindset,
to the perspectives, the goals, and everything that pertains
to this present evil and wicked age. Don't let this wicked generation
reproduce in you its thoughts leading to action. Actions that
will be characterized by the very things that make this a
peculiarly wicked generation, intellectual perversity, don't
be fashioned according to this age that is filled with the wine
of its own arrogance and drunk with it, and thinks that it can
understand God's world without God Himself being factored in. can understand God's special
creature, man, without regarding him as having been made in the
image of God. Don't let this world fashion
you. Don't let it reproduce its own
perverse mental activities in you. Don't let it reproduce in
you its moral degeneracy. Don't absorb its loose and low
views of the dignity and the sanctity of human sexuality. the fixed and irreversible roles
of male and female in identity, in sexual function, in domestic
responsibility, in ecclesiastical function and position and office. Don't let this present age reproduce
itself on the canvas of your heart and on the canvas of your
life. Don't be fashioned according
to this present age. Don't let its social anarchy
that despises authority, whether in the home, in the school, on
the street, with reference to duly constituted law enforcement
officers with all of their own faults and problems, or the military,
or the government instituted by God. Don't allow this age
to paint you into its picture of religious apostasy, in which
no longer is there confidence in every word of God, no longer
a respect for the undiminished and irreconcilable warfare between
truth and error, between salvation by grace and salvation by works. You see, the implication is this
present age will seek to reproduce itself in you, and Paul says,
don't let it do it. Be not fashioned. Do not allow
this present age, as someone has paraphrased this very verse,
don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. It will if you
let it. And my role as a Christian in
this wicked generation is one in which I must be determined
that the wickedness of this generation will not shape my thinking or
my lifestyle in any area. The first text which clearly
teaches it is Romans 12, 2, verse A, or 2, part A. Now, second text, 1 Peter, chapter
1. And tonight I do want you to
turn to the passages. I quoted verbatim about 40 passages
last night, but tonight we're going to park for a little while
longer on fewer passages. 1 Peter 1. Remember now what we're
doing. We're not just having a Bible study willy-nilly. We're
answering the question, what's my role in a wicked generation? We've stated my role is negatively. I must not allow the wickedness
of this generation to shape my thinking or my lifestyle in any
area. Witness number one, Romans 12,
2a. Witness number two, 1 Peter 1,
13 and 14. Wherefore, girding up the loins
of your mind, be sober, and set your hope perfectly on the grace
that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ,
as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according
to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance." And we stop
the reading there. Now again, briefly, just a word
about the setting. Peter has written in the opening
verses of this letter concerning the great privileges of the people
of God. privileges that will come to
consummation at the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Verse 5 of
chapter 1, "...who by the power of God are guarded through faith
unto a salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." The
end of verse 7, "...at the revelation of Jesus Christ." He has been
speaking of the marvelous privileges of the people of God, and he
has said that those privileges will come to their fullest expression
and glorious consummation at the return of the Lord Jesus. In other words, all the glorious
things we have now, the best is yet to come. And that being
true, now he says, wherefore, girding up the loins of your
mind, and he's using a figure of speech. If you and I were
living in Palestinian days and went out to have a ball game
this afternoon, we wouldn't have put on shorts or put on our putter
pants. We would have had on our long
robe. But what we would have done is,
we would have taken the loose flowing ends of the robes and
modestly pulled them up high enough so we wouldn't stumble
over them when we ran to first base, and we would have tied
them up around our sash, around our middle. That would have been
called a girding up of the loins. So when someone called us to
a ball game, they would have come and said, Line up! While
you're lining up, Gird up your loins!" So all the men would
have taken the long, flowing robes, and they would have pulled
them up and tied them up. Well, Peter says, take all the
loose ends of your mind. He recognized that every Christian,
by nature, because of remaining sin, is a scatterbrain. Yeah,
we're all scatterbrains because of remaining sin. He says, gird
up the loins of your mind, be sober. Doesn't mean be somber
in a sad sack. To be sober means you're in touch
with reality. A man is drunk, he can think
he's Napoleon riding on a horse going out to conquer the world.
And all he's doing is lying in the back seat of his car snoring.
To be sober doesn't mean somber, sad sack. It means be in touch
with reality. So, gird up the loose ends of
your mind, stay in touch with reality, notice now, and set
your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you
at the revelation of Jesus Christ. He says, because the best is
yet to come, Constantly pull in your scatterbrained perspectives. Keep in touch with reality, no
matter what sufferings you may face. And this is particularly
a letter to suffering Christians. It doesn't change the fact that
suffering is only for a little time. The best is yet to come. That's reality. Pull in the loose
ends of the garment of your mind and tie them up. and fix your
mind perfectly. That is, fix it with steadiness. Fix it with constancy on the
hope that is to be realized when the Lord Jesus Christ will come
again. Now, in that posture, what are
we to do? Go find the nearest mountain,
sit down and look up? Wait for the Lord to come? No.
Look at the next verse. As children of obedience, assuming
that every true Christian can be described as a child of obedience,
God bears no perpetually disobedient children. Never. He bears children who, when they
are disobedient, He will chastise them. For whom the Lord loves,
He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives. But the
basic pattern of all God's true children is they are obedient. So He says, as obedient children... Now look at the negative. Not
fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time
of your ignorance. Whatever else you're gonna do.
While your heart is set upon the glorious consummation of
redemption at the second coming of the Lord Jesus, this you must
do as children of obedience determine that you will not fashion yourselves
according to the standards and dictates and pressures of your
former lusts in the time of your ignorance And if you have an
older version, you'll notice the words, the time, are in italics. They're not in the original.
A more literal rendering would be, your former lost in your
ignorance. He says, what was your past life
all about? He said, you lived a life according
to your lusts, your appetites, your passions, your desires.
And those desires were shaped by your ignorance of where it
would take you to hell. Your ignorance of the bitterness
for the way of the transgressor is hard. your ignorance of the
wonder of God's grace and salvation in the Lord Jesus, your ignorance
of the joy of a life of communion with the living God through His
Son and by the Holy Spirit. Your former life was marked by
a life lived under the influence of lust, lust that themselves
were the outgrowth of spiritual ignorance. Now, he says, While
your heart is fixed on the coming of Christ, yearning for the consummation
of your salvation as children of obedience, deliberately refuse
to fashion yourself according to those former lusts. Now, it's
the same root verb as you have in Romans 12, too. Be not conformed. Same root word, but in a different
form. Don't fashion yourself according
to your former lusts, in your ignorance. And what were those
lusts? Well, John answers us, doesn't
he, in the book of 1 John. All that is in the world, the
lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, And the pride of life
is not of the Father, but is of the world. He said you can
sum up the trinity of the world's desires. Lust of the flesh, the
desire to enjoy things, particularly sensual things. The lust of the
eyes, the desire to have things. And the pride of life, the desire
to be somebody. That's the world's trinity. Before
that trinity, the world vows and worships the trinity of pleasure,
things, and influence, and name, popularity. And he says, that
was your lifestyle. But now, he said, As new creatures
in Christ, as children of obedience, you do not fashion yourself according
to the dictates and directives of those lusts which were connected
with the days of your spiritual ignorance. You and I, in thought and action,
must refuse consciously and deliberately to let our thinking or our lifestyle
be molded by our former lusts, connected with our days of spiritual
ignorance. Witness number three, Ephesians
chapter four. Remember now what we're doing?
We're answering the question, what is the Christian's role
in a wicked generation? Be not conformed to this age.
not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust of your ignorance,
Ephesians chapter 4. Now again, just a word about
the setting. In the opening three chapters,
Paul gives one of the most wonderful treatments of the doctrines of
salvation, and then the doctrine of the Church, bringing together,
in theological language, soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, and
ecclesiology, the doctrine of the Church, and he brings the
two into the most intimate connection. And hear me now by an aside.
It's not enough that by God's grace we come to appreciate biblical
soteriology, that God saves. God does all the saving, and
he does a good job when he saves. When people ask, are you Calvinists? I ask, what do you mean, am I
a Calvinist? I want to know what they mean
by the term, and if you mean by a Calvinist that I believe
God does the saving, He does it on purpose, and He does a
good job, then I'm a Calvinist. That's the Bible doctrine of
salvation. God saves, He does all the saving,
He does it on purpose, and He does a good job. What He starts,
He completes. That's it. Well, Paul, you see,
moves from teaching those wonderful things in chapter 1 and in chapter
2 through verse 10, and then he moves right on into the fact
that in doing this, God is forming something glorious called The
church, His living temple, made up of Jews and Gentiles, brought
together in one body, so that those who are the recipients
of this sovereign salvation are found in God's living temple,
indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And then he opens up how this
was a peculiar stewardship given to him in chapter 3, verses 1
to 13, and then the prayer that he prays for the people of God.
Then he turns in chapter 4, in verse 1, to exhorting. Up until now, he's not been telling
the Ephesians to do anything but to worship with him. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who hath blessed
us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus,
according as he chose us in him. And he goes from election to
redemption to the indwelling of the Spirit. Marvelous truth. But now he turns from what we
have in Christ to what we ought to be and do in the light of
what we have. He turns from the great indicatives
that we heard last night to the imperatives. This is what God
has done, the great indicatives. Now the imperatives. Chapter
4, verse 1, I therefore the prisoner in the Lord beseech you to walk
worthily of the calling wherewith you were called. He says, now
since God has done this marvelous work of calling you from spiritual
death to life in sovereign, free, efficacious grace, called you
into his one body where there is no middle wall of partition
between Jew and Gentile, and God who broke it down in the
cross will never erect it again in human history. It's broken
down forever, never to be raised again. He says, now in the light
of such a calling, walk worthily of that calling. Let your walk,
your day-by-day experience in the home, behind the sink, in
the shop, on the highway, driving to work, in the school, on your
date, in your courtship, in the intimacy of your married life,
in every facet of your life, let your lifestyle answer to
the magnitude and wonder of your calling as a Christian." Then
he gets specific. He doesn't just throw it out
and say, now work it out on your own. And the first area he addresses
is Christian unity. That's the first thing he addresses
is unity. And so he says, if you're going
to have that, you need the graces of loneliness, meekness, longsuffering,
forbearing one another, giving, diligence to keep the unity of
the Spirit in the bond of peace. And then in that theme of unity,
he opens up several other strands of marvelous truth, but we'll
not look into them. But then notice in verse 17,
in the light of all of that call to unity in the midst of diversity,
unity in the midst of God's blessing the church with pastors and teachers
for the perfecting of the saints, etc. I say therefore and testify
in the Lord, and here's a negative, that you no longer walk as the
Gentiles also walk. You are not to walk. Your lifestyle
is not in any way to parallel those who are strangers to the
grace of God. He calls even these who are Gentiles
by origin. No longer are they Gentiles.
He's already said, you are now part of the commonwealth of Israel.
You are the new Israel of God. You are partakers of the promises
of God in Christ Jesus. Don't walk like the pagans would
be a synonym for Gentiles. Don't walk as the pagans walk. And now I want you to notice
carefully what he highlights about what governs the walk of
pagans. What governs the lifestyle of
the wicked generation in which we live. Notice what's emphasized. Look at your Bibles. No longer
walk as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. The word vanity literally means
futility, something that's futile, good for nothing. I made a futile
effort to catch the 737. When I got to the train station,
it had already left. My effort was for naught. He
says, no longer walk as the Gentiles in the futility of their mind.
Whatever they set their mind to, because they rule out God,
all of their efforts are futile. And their life is shaped by a
mind whose efforts are futile. Further, being darkened in their
understanding. They have a futile mind. They have a darkened understanding. Their lifestyle is framed by
an understanding that's shrouded in darkness. And when they look
for the path of right, it's shrouded in darkness. The path of wisdom,
it's shrouded in darkness. What a horrible picture, but
that's the picture. Read on. Alienated from the life
of God because, the cause of their alienation from the life
of God, because of the ignorance that is in them. They're ignorant. of who God really is, and who
they are, and how they can know God, and how their sins can be
forgiven, and how they can be given the grace to please God,
alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that
is in them. But look, it's culpable ignorance because of the hardening
of their heart. There is not only intellectual
ignorance, there is moral perversity, the hardness of the heart. And then they have a frighteningly
seared sensitivity. Look at the next part. Who, being
past feeling, gave themselves up to work lasciviousness, lewdness,
to work all uncleanness with greediness. Now that's the picture,
he says, of the pagan. You were once such pagans, Now,
he says, no longer walk as they walked. Let nothing about you
be characterized by their lifestyle. No longer walk as the Gentiles
walk in the vanity, in the futility of their minds. with their darkened
understanding, with their ignorance, with their hard heart and their
insensitive conscience, because he says in verse 20, you did
not so learn Christ. He said, if you have been taught
by Christ and of Christ with the teaching of the Holy Spirit
unto salvation, Christ never taught you, come to me and get
saved and then still live like a pagan. Christ says, come to
me and be saved, and now learn of me, how every area of your
life is to be lived according to my standard, so that you will
be salt and light to the pagan. You will not blend in, you will
stand out like a sparkling diamond against the black velvet backdrop
of a wicked generation. What is our role? In a wicked
generation, our role is not to be conformed to this age. Our
role, as we have seen, is no longer to walk according to the
former lust in our ignorance, 1 Peter. It is no longer to walk
as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their minds. Now, in summary,
let me say that this is the broad category under which many other
portions of the New Testament and Old can be placed. Remember
all those calls to put to death the deeds of the flesh, Romans
8.13, Colossians 3.5? Those calls from our Lord Jesus,
if thine eye offend thee, cut it out. If thy hand offend thee,
cut it off, cast it from thee. All of those calls to mortify,
to put off, to excise those members that offend, they all fit under
this general heading, that if we are to live as we ought in
a wicked generation, we must determine by the grace of God
that we will not allow the wickedness of this generation to shape our
thinking or our lifestyle in any area. We're prepared to be
radically and pervasively different in every facet of thought and
life. That's why Paul could say in
2 Corinthians 7, 1, Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved,
let us cleanse ourselves of all defilement, of the flesh, the
outward life, and the spirit, the inner life, perfecting holiness
in the fear of God. Now, that's our role. Negatively
stated. Now, secondly, positively stated. How is this role stated positively? Well, let me put it this way.
The Christian is to seek to be transformed in all of his thinking
and patterns of life in conformity with the standards of God. The
Christian is to seek to be transformed in all of his thinking and patterns
of life in conformity with the standards of God. It's the flip
side of the negative. Now let's go back to Romans chapter
12, and we'll see exactly how the apostle approached it this
way. He started with the negative. I won't go back and give the
context. I already did that. But now notice, once he says
in verse 2 of Romans 12, be not fashioned according to this world,
that's not enough. It's not enough that you refuse
to let this world dictate what you're going to be and reproduce
you on the canvas. That is not enough. There is
a positive dimension. But be ye transformed. How? By going to meetings and
getting tinglies up and down your spine. That is in what my
Bible says. It says, be transformed by the
renewing of your mind. See how much place is given to
this matter of ignorance, darkened understanding? Now in the positive
area, we are to be transformed, how? By the renewing of our minds,
that we may prove, and we'll show that that verse again brings
in our mental, intellectual faculties, that we may prove what is the
good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Assuming a man is
committed to the active resistance of conformity to this present
age, Paul moves from the negative to the positive, and he uses
another present imperative passive. Let yourselves be transformed. Now, you know what this word
means? This word means to be changed
as to form. And the best way I know to illustrate
it is this, and you kids know this, you've either seen it or
you've learned it in school, that that cocoon that holds a
caterpillar, when that caterpillar changes to a moth or to a butterfly,
it is metamorphosized, metamorphosized, however you would pronounce it.
That's the Greek word. be transformed, changed in form
from one thing to another. And as the caterpillar changes
in form to the moth, so we are to change in form from that which
was held in by the standards, the goals, the perspectives,
the ambitions, the ideals of the world. We break out of that
cocoon. we fly in the air of the will
of God, the good, the acceptable, and the perfect. Now that's what
he calls us to, to be transformed. And how is this to be done? By
the renewing of our minds. That is, our thinking about all
of life must be, by degrees, wrenched away from the patterns
in which they thought when we were sinners, and must be locked
in to the patterns of thought in which we think God's thoughts
after Him. If we are to be transformed,
it starts in the Christian's mind. When something he did in
his unconverted days, he says, wait a minute, that is not a
God-centered activity. I could not ask God's blessing
upon that activity. I would not want the Lord Jesus
at my elbow in that transaction of business when I know I've
not been perfectly honest with my client. I wouldn't want the
Lord Jesus looking in the window of the car on that date in terms
of what I'm doing with my girlfriend or my boyfriend. It starts in
the mind. You begin to think that God's
concerned with what I do on my date. God's concerned with how
I conduct my business transactions. God is there at my elbow when
I make out my 1040 income tax form and sign it saying, to the
best of my knowledge, this represents the facts of my financial dealings. It starts in your head. When
you begin to think that in every single area, whether I eat or
drink or whatsoever I do, I am to do all to the glory of God,
I am to be transformed in my life, beginning with the renewing
of my mind. My mind must be renewed in its
thoughts about life. and death and the use of time
and money and things and boy-girl relationships and goals and business
standards and relationships, what I am as a woman, as a wife,
as a mother, what I am as a son, a daughter, brother, sister,
every area of life, my mind must be transformed. And what will be the result?
Look at the text. In order that You may prove what
is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And this
word prove means to prove by testing and then approve of it
when it tests out positively. I recently had a new experience
in our little local post office. I went down to buy some stamps
and I handed the man a $20 bill and rather than just put it in
the drawer, He stuck it in a little machine and then he pulled it
out again. And that little machine is a
money tester to see whether it's counterfeit or genuine. What
he did with my $20 bill is he put it to the test. And when
it was approved, I don't know what happened if it was a bogus
thing, whether it would have shot a pellet at me or whether
it would have screamed at me, counterfeiter, I don't know.
I don't know. I'd like to take in a counterfeit
if I could do it and not get in trouble to see what the little
machine would do. But I imagine it buzzes or bleeps or lights
up or is connected with the local police station. And I don't know
what it would do, but he put it in there and put it to the
test. And when it came out approved, then he showed his approval by
putting it in the cash drawer and handing me my stamps. Now
that's how you would have described what that man did if you were
living in Paul's day. That you may approve, after putting
something to the test and proving it, He said, you will in this
way prove in your experience, as your mind weighs and evaluates
what you're doing, why you're doing it, how you're doing it,
and you say, yes, that is according to God's will as revealed in
the Scriptures, and approving it, then you do. Putting it to
the test and proving it, then you approve it and incorporate
it in your life. And what is the result? Your
life becomes marked as a life of doing the will of God, and
it's described in three ways. It is the good, the acceptable,
and the perfect. The will of God is the good.
It is the morally right. It is the acceptable. It is acceptable
to God. And it is the perfect. It is
the complete. It is that to which God has called
us, not sinless perfection, but it means wholeness. My actions
then have a wholeness to them because I'm now doing what I
was made to do, to glorify God. What a marvelous thing to think
that here and now, with sin around me and a wicked generation pressuring
me that I, as a man, a woman, a boy or girl, can do the will
of God in my generation. And there's not enough wickedness
to stop me. And even if the generation should
become so wicked as to throw me into a prison like they threw
Paul, I can do the will of God with my hands in stocks For what
is the will of God in everything? Give thanks, pray without ceasing. And there Paul and Silas were
praying and praising God at midnight, doing the will of God in jail,
caked with their own blood in their hands and their feet in
stocks. And it's as though God looked
down out of heaven and said, you know, this makes me so pleased. I'm going to shake the place
up. God shook the place up. And you know the subsequent story.
Here is the positive. The Christian is to seek to be
transformed in all of his thinking and patterns of life in conformity
with the standards of God. That's the first witness. Second
witness, Philippians chapter 2. I hope you don't find this tedious,
rooting around in the Word of God like this. If you do, I'm
sorry, I've got nothing else to give you. I've got no tricks. I've got no band in the back
room waiting to come out and entertain you with Christian
rock or anything else. You're not getting blessed, I
am anyway. All right, Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter
2. Here's the context of our verses. Verse 12, So then, my beloved,
he has just given them a call to unity again, unity after the
pattern of Christ, who didn't seek his own, but sought the
things of others. Whenever there's disunity in
any church, somebody has been seeking to have his own way.
Only by pride cometh contention, says Solomon. Paul understood
that, and he said, if you're going to have unity there, at
Philippi, do nothing through faction or vainglory, but in
lowliness of mind, each count other better than himself, not
looking each of you on his own things, but on the things of
others. And then he gives Christ as the great example. Now he's
going to come with another general exhortation. So then, my beloved,
even as you've obeyed not only in my presence only, but now
much more in my absence. Those who say, ah, your religion
only works when that hotshot preaches around, he said, prove
them wrong. Sure you obeyed when I was there,
encouraging you, praying for you, setting an example for you. Shut the mouths of your enemies
who say you're following a man. You've got a man's religion.
Your attachment to a man, he said, prove him wrong. As you
obeyed when I was with you, much more now in my absence, continue
to obey. Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling, with dead seriousness about the issues
at stake. But don't be discouraged, for
it's God who works in you, both to will and to work, for His
good pleasure. There's the general call to a life of obedience,
a life of serious, earnest application to living the Christian life,
in the confidence that the strength and the motivation and power
to live the Christian life come from God. You see that in the
text? You work it out, but all the while you work it out, be
convinced God is working in you to will and to work. You see,
but Paul doesn't like to deal in generalities. That could float
by us and just look so pretty, you know, sort of like a banner
floating by. Oop, didn't that night. Paul
said, now I want to get specific. So he gets specific. Verse 14. Do all things, listen to this
children, all things, do all things, everything you are called
upon to do that is within the will of God, do all things without
murmurings and questionings. The word murmurings, a good contemporary
synonym would be grousing. It's the word used of ancient
Israel. They murmured, this guy Moses
brought us out of the desert and he's going to kill us. This
guy Moses, all he does is give us manna. Oh yeah, it's got all
the vitamins and minerals you need to keep you alive in the
wilderness and God sends it down out of heaven every day but we're
sick and tired of this stuff. And they murmured, we want flesh. And God gave them flesh till
it came out their nostrils. Sometimes people say, Pastor,
you preach, your preaching is coarse at times. Well, I hope
no more coarse than God. God says if flesh came out their
nostrils. That's gross, you kids say. That's
right, it is gross. But that's what God gave them
for their grousing. God gave them gross numbers of quail for
their grousing. So don't grouse. Don't grouse. Do all things without grousing,
and this word questionings, disputings, means primarily without a cynical
spirit, particularly questioning God. You're out there on a ball
field, trying as a Christian man to relate to some kids, and
you pull a muscle. First thing you must not do,
you don't question. Why, God? You just say, all things
come from God. I don't have a clue, Lord, why
you did it, but I know you did it, hallelujah. That's what he's
talking about. I had to apply that text to me
today. Take your torn calf muscle without
questioning. God got a right to tear your
calf muscle? Sure He does. He got a right to break my leg.
He got a right to let my head get bashed in. Take me home to
heaven. God's got a right to do anything He wants with me,
are you? Shall the creature form say to the thing that formed
it, what are you doing with me, God? God doesn't answer to you
or me. Do everything, then, in the will
of God, without grousing and grumbling, I got it so hard,
I got it so difficult, or why God this or why God that. Do
everything without murmuring and questioning. Do everything
in your life as one who is living out what you profess to believe.
that God is on His throne. He's working all things after
the counsel of His own will. He's working all things together
for my good, that I may be made like Christ. That's your theology,
isn't it? Isn't that what you profess to
believe? Well, let's just start living that way. So do all things
without murmurings and disputing. But what's the purpose? Look
at this. In order, in order that you may become blameless
and harmless children of God without blemish in the midst
of a crooked and perverse generation among whom, and a better rendering
would be, not whom ye are seeing, passive, for you Greek students,
it's a middle voice, but that verb in the middle has an active
sense, among whom ye shine as lights in the world. This is
an amazing passage. He says he wants to know your
role in a crooked and perverse generation. And here he uses
that word scholios, from which we get scholiosis, crooked. And
then he uses a verb which means twisted to the point of breaking.
He says that generation was crooked and twisted to the point of breaking. That's our generation. Everything's
breaking, crumbling all around us. And he says, do you want
to fulfill your role in a wicked generation? This is how you do
it, in the day-by-day nitty-gritty details of everyday life, in
the home, in the school, on the shop, in your social relationships
with the lady across the back fence, with the man above you
in the office who's a sour, crotchety, unreasonable old goat. In everything,
do all things without murmurings and questionings, that you may
become children of God without blemish." No large zit on the
face of your spiritual image. That's what he's saying. You
see someone with a boil on his ear or a boil on his elbow, Or
as I remember as a kid having a serious case of acne, I'd get
some unusually large pimples and I felt everywhere I went
the whole world looking at my pimples. That's why I never make
fun or... and careless with a teenager
who's got a bad case of acne. I know the pain of it, the social
pain of it. I was convinced when I went out
of the house, everybody in the world was looking at my latest
big zip. Paul says that you may be blameless, harmless children
of God without spiritual zits. That's what he wants you to be.
He wants you to be blameless. No just cause to say, if that's
Christianity, why bother? He laughs at the double-meaning
jokes like the rest of us. I've gone in the locker and seen
him thumbing through the Playboy magazine like the rest of the
guys. It's a blemish, and you don't
shine as a light. You blend in with the dark, crooked,
and perverse generation. If you can gossip on the phone
and pass on the neighborhood trash like everyone else, You
are not a child of God without blemish. It doesn't mean sinless,
but it means with no pronounced, discernible, ugly contradiction
of what you claim to be as a child of God. Blameless, harmless. That's the word used by our Lord
in Matthew 10. Be wise as serpents, harmless
as doves. People will sense your goodwill
and your gentleness, blameless and harmless, without blemish,
in the midst of this skolios, this crooked and this twisted
to the point of breaking generation. Now notice, among whom not you
ought to shine, among whom you may shine, among whom You shine
literally as luminaries in the dark sky, as the burning stars
at night. You cannot help but shine against
the dark backdrop of a crooked and a twisted to the point of
breaking generation. Now what are you and I to do?
What's our role? Is it to band together and march
on Washington and tell the president what to do? No, that's not our
role. No apostle ever sent a letter
to the churches telling the Christians to get together and organize
a march on Rome to the imperial palace and tell the reigning
Caesar to stop slavery, stop abortion, stop infanticide, Stop
temple prostitution. The ills of the first century
Roman world make some of our ills look like kid stuff. There's not one indication that
one apostle ever tried to organize the Christians to make a frontal
attack upon any specific evil. What they told them was, where
you are in the will of God, do everything without murmuring. and disputing, that you may become
children of God with no large, disfiguring spiritual fits, no
just cause for people to point the finger and say, if that's
Christianity, why bother? Blameless, harmless, people of
goodwill. People may take advantage of
you. People may run roughshod over you. And because you love,
you're vulnerable and they'll hurt. That's all right. You're
going to be gentle as a dove. And such a person, whether people
will acknowledge it or not, that person shines forth as the brilliant,
dazzling luminary of a star in a dark night, fifty miles from
the nearest city. And you can see the stars down
to the horizon. What a privilege to be a Christian.
The darker the night, the more brilliant does the star sparkle
and burn and shine. That's my role. That's my role. That's my role. Let me give you
a little example of how it works. You get on an airplane. You've
got a long trip all the way from London to Karachi. For those of you who don't know,
Karachi is in Pakistan. It's a long plane ride. And you've got a companion that
you're going to be laboring with who's going to be your translator.
You have a lot of material you want to go over. And as you're
getting on the plane, it's near Christmas time in Manchester,
and there are a lot of Pakistanis going back to visit their relatives,
so they're coming on by the droves. Families of four, five, six,
seven, eight. And as they're packing them in,
packing them in, and packing them in, it's evident one family
is going to be broken up. So my friend and I are sitting
there, and we said, look, it'd be a shame if that family be
broken up. Probably a Muslim family would
spit on us if they knew we were Christians. So we said, would
you like to be able to keep your seats together as a family? He
said, oh, we'd love that. I said, we'll speak to the stewardess.
So I went to the stewardess and said, look, we're traveling together,
but we're not family. We'll have time to talk later.
Let that family take our seats. She looked at us, wondered if
we came from another planet. Oh, that's so kind of you. No,
no, it's fine. Let them do it. Now, it doesn't
always happen this way, but them that honor me will I honor. You
know what God did? We stood around, we waited, everybody
got seated. Still no seats for us. We're
just about to take off, and the stewardess says, we got room
up here in the business class section. So we took the long
plane ride in the luxury of business section. nice wide seats, real
linen cloths spread over our tables. Now, you see, we didn't
do it hoping to get bumped to business class. Just trying to
be a Christian and receiving the plague. Salt and light. All these notions of grandiose
schemes to change the world. It's nonsense. If everyone who
says and is a child of God would say, I am determined by the grace
of God to take seriously what the Holy Spirit says, I'm going
to do all that I know to be the will of God. If the will of God
for me today is, my kids' poopy diapers get washed at eight,
and all the ironing gets done at nine, and then the dirty floors
get scrubbed at ten. And the world tells me I'm a
fool for giving my life to this, but I believe herein I honor
God. And I go to the poopy diapers
and to the messy clothes and to the other tasks. This is the
will of God for me. Christ died that I might do my
kids' poopy diapers with joy. Iron my hubby's shirts with joy. go to my other task with joy
i tell you such a woman is a bright shining sparkling star in the
firmament of this crooked and perverse genesis she shines when she has a husband who's
seeking to love her as christ loves the church and nurture
her it's his delight to call her at lunchtime and say honey
how did your morning chores go How was your quiet time? I'm
thinking of you, I miss you, I love you, appreciate you."
And, oh, she says, Lord, what a privilege to be a Christian
wife. And happy marriages? When I tell
people, most of my opportunities to witness on airplanes in particular
come when I tell people I've been married for going on for
36 years, and it gets better and better all the time. And
they look at me. I had one stewardess, she got cynical. She said, ah,
come off it, man. People don't live that way anymore.
I said, lady, I said, in your world they may not, but in mine
they do. I said, there's been one woman in my heart, in my
arms, and in my bed. At that time, it was twenty-some-odd
years, and I said, you think what you will, but that's reality.
And I said, God's been good to me. Shine His light. What would happen if all of us
as Christians, by the grace of God, said, I'm determined to
be transformed in all my thinking and patterns of life in conformity
with the standards of God? Well, one other text very quickly.
Because I do want to bring two very simple words of application
in closing. Go to 1 Peter 1 again, where
Peter not only gave the negative, but he gave the positive as well.
Look at it. 1 Peter 1. After he says to these
believers, set your hope perfectly on the grace to be brought to
you as children of obedience, verse 14, not, there's the negative,
not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust in the time
of your ignorance, but here's the positive, but like as he
who called you is holy, Be ye yourselves holy in all manner
of living, because it is written, Ye shall be holy, for I am holy. See what he is saying? He's saying,
Don't be fashioned by your former lust, but be utterly committed
to a life of holiness. And what's the standard of that
holiness? Notice, God himself. Be ye yourselves
holy like as he who called you is holy. How holy is God? He is the essence of holiness.
Every part of his being is holiness. When we speak of God, it's so
difficult, but some have said that holiness is the very heart
of all of the attributes of God. He is a God of holy love and
holy wrath and holy mercy, holy omnipotence, holy omniscience. All that He is, He is a God of
light and in Him is no darkness. And what is to be our standard
In seeking to be conformed to God, it is to be God Himself. That's why Jesus said in Matthew
5, 48, Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Can we attain that in this life? No! But it is to be our goal
nonetheless. You say, well, if you can't attain
it, why have it as your goal? Isn't that playing games? No.
My goal is to love my wife with the love wherewith Christ loved
the church. You think I've attained it? If you don't believe me,
ask her. She'll tell you. But that's my
goal! So I know I'll never attain it.
I know I'll come far closer to it, having it as my goal than
if I accepted a lesser goal. There's the standard. What's
the extent of it? Look at the text. Be holy as
he is holy? Is that just some kind of a general
notion? No, look what it says. Be ye
yourselves holy in all manner of living, in every facet of
your life. You are to ask yourself, if God
is the standard of holiness in this area, what reflects the
character of God? What will reflect likeness to
God? Is He the God of truth? Then
I must not lie or tell half the truth in a business deal to gain
a buck. I'm to be holy in all my business
dealings. I'm to be holy in all of my personal
dealings. I'm never to twist the truth
to put myself in a better light before the eyes of another. In
every relationship, God is holy. I am to be holy in all manner
of living. All manner of conversation does
not mean just speech, but all manner of living, if you have
the older version which says conversation. And what's the
rationale for it? Verse 16, because it is written,
you shall be holy, for I am holy. The God whose children we are
calls us to bear the family likeness in every single relationship
and circumstance. Unless by an accident or by surgery
I should have the basic features of my face changed, from my infancy
to my grave I bear the likeness of my parents. Now, I bore it
in a different way when I was younger, and they called me Sonny.
My name was Sonny till I was 21. And I used to be amazed how
perfect strangers could walk up and know my name. They'd say,
Hi, Sonny, how you doing? How'd that guy know my name?
Well, I was a little older, and I realized that they didn't know
my name, but they called all little boys Sonny. I bear those
features differently now. They tell me, and from pictures,
the older I get, the more my features become more and more
like my father's, though when I was younger, I looked more
like my mother. But it's only right that I should
bear the family likeness, because I have their genes determining
the shape of my nose and the facial structure. God says all
my children bear my likeness, and I want them to bear it in
every single relationship. Be holy! in all manner of living. And the reason is, I am holy,
and you're my children, and I want you to reflect my likeness. In
that crooked and perverse generation, I want men to know what I'm like.
Though they put down the knowledge that they have of me through
general revelation, and though they won't read their Bibles,
they can't avoid you in the supermarket. So when you get extra change
that didn't come to you, You reflect the God of truth by saying,
I'm sorry, ma'am, you gave me $3.23 too much. And they look at you like you're
crazy. And they say, why did you do that? And you say, because
I'm a Christian. And my God and my father is an
honest God. And I want to be like him. That's
what he's talking about. You see, this is why you can't
have a three-day seminar on how to impact all of the Northwest
with the gospel. It's nonsense. God will impact this area of
your country with the gospel when the group of people sitting
here, to a new degree, say, we are determined. We are determined,
by the grace of God, to be holy as God is holy, and to be holy
because He is holy. and to shine as lights in the
midst of a crooked and perverse generation, and in every relationship
be determined to be like God, no matter what the cost is. Well,
I hope I've proved from the Scriptures that the basis, or the basic,
response to the question, what is the Christian's role in a
wicked society, is, negatively, he's not to be conformed in thought
or practice to the ways of this wicked generation. We must consciously,
constantly, deliberately, resolutely refuse to be conformed to this
age, refuse to be fashioned by the former lust in our ignorance.
Refuse it. But positively, we must seek
to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. We must seek to
be blameless, harmless, without blemish. shining as luminaries
in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, we must
seek to be holy as He is holy. And what are my two very brief
closing words of application? They are just these. Response
to this call to the Christian's role is not optional. Response to this call to the
Christian's role is not optional. You can't sit here tonight and
say, well, I'm a Christian. I've been listening. But I mean,
really, that's for super saints. I'm just content to be sort of
an ordinary plain-Jane saint. I'm just content to be an ordinary
Joe saint. No, no, my friend, listen. If
your heart's response to what you've heard tonight has not
been, oh, God, by your grace, help me to be that, you have
reason to question whether you're a Christian. For my Bible says
in Hebrews 12, 14, follow after peace with all men and the holiness
without which no man shall see the Lord. And in the structure
of that text, the emphasis, without which, the which refers not to
both the peace and the holiness, but in number and gender, that
relative pronoun refers to the holiness. Follow after peace
with all men, yes, and the holiness, the sanctification, without which,
sanctification being diligently pursued, no man shall see the
Lord. My friend, if you want to go
to heaven and treat this as optional, I get news for you. You're on
your way to hell. For only the pure in heart shall
see God. This standard is not optional. This is what we are called to
as children of obedience. Peter assumes that when they
hear this, they're going to obey because they are children of
obedience through the new birth. And that's my first point of
application. Response to this call to the
Christian's role is not optional. And my second is this. Compliance
with this call is not impossible. Compliance with this call is
not impossible. Why? Philippians 4.13, I can
do all things. Wait a minute, Paul. You sound
like a braggart. You can do all things. Yes. all things in the will of God,
demanded by the Word of God. And before you accuse me, let
me finish my statement. Paul would say, I can do all
things through Christ who strengthens me. I can do through Him who
strengthens me. You say, Pastor Martin, that
standard is so high. I ask you one question. Have
I made it higher than the Bible? Have I gone beyond the Scripture,
or have I handled the Word of God responsibly? Have I carried
your conscience in opening up these passages that I wasn't
reading something into them, but extracting out of them what
God put into them? Though we cannot attain this
standard perfectly, we can attain it really. by the power of the
Holy Spirit, because I can do all things through Christ who
strengthens me. Philippians 2, the passage we
looked at earlier, it is God who works in you to will and
to work. And you'll never know the measure
of his willing and working until you say, oh, God, I take that
standard seriously, but it seems so far beyond me. Oh, God, work
in me as never before to will and to work. And you'll be amazed
how much more grace God will give. And then you have a marvelous
passage like Hebrews 13, 20 and 21. And with this passage, we
close tonight as I read it and make but one or two comments
upon it. Hebrews 13, 20 and 21. Now the God of peace who brought
again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the
blood of an eternal covenant. Even our Lord Jesus make you
perfect, complete, whole, in every good thing, to do His will,
working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ,
to whom be the glory forever and ever. The writer to the Hebrews
had called these believers to some very, very difficult things. But now He says at the end, pointing
them to their great provision, the God of peace, whose power
raised up Christ, that God, make you complete in every good thing
to do His will, working by His own grace and power in us the
very thing that pleases Him, And he does it through the Lord
Jesus Christ, and he gets all the glory. I am what I am by the grace of
God. What is the Christian's role
in a wicked society? I know if we would have hung
out a shingle and advertised, that we were going to talk about
some grandiose scheme to get Christians organized from the
Pacific over to the Mississippi River, and we're going to march
on something, and we're going to protest about something. It's
amazing how Christians get all stirred up, because it's a lot
easier to go and organize a march than to go before the pile of
dirty clothes and unironed shirts and fussy kids after being up
half the night with a kid with a croup and say, oh God, help
me today to do these things without murmuring and disputing. A lot easier to organize a march
than attack that pile of iron without murmuring and disputing.
Lot easier be secretary or treasurer of some organized effort for
some grandiose Christian scheme to change things. And to be a
man that goes home and sits down with his son and says, son, you
come into that age where girls are no longer yuck. They're beginning
to be mmm, and before long they're going to be yummy. And son, you
and your daddy need to have a good talk about what's happening.
You're beginning to feel things in your body, beginning to notice
things with your eyes. You become a faithful father
who takes the book of Proverbs and gives your son a biblical
sex education so he doesn't pick up smut in the street. It's a lot easier to go off with
your briefcase, be the hot shot, secretary, treasurer of the big
organizations, going to march on Washington. Nonsense. Paul and Peter and John never
called the people of God to that. What's your role? Your role is
to say, by the grace of God, I'm not going to let this world
mold me. I'm not going to let this world
paint my life on the canvas. It's going to be the brush of
God's grace. by the power of the Holy Ghost
that paints on the canvas a life transformed by the renewing of
the mind, a life that shines as light in the midst of darkness,
that pursues holiness as He is holy at any cost. Will you pray? Tomorrow I want
to apply these things to three very specific areas where I feel
they're crucially needed. Pray that God will help us, guide
me in my preparation, If I've mistaken what ought to be emphasized,
God will deal with me between now and tomorrow, and I'll change
my messages. Dear people, I'm not here just
to fill up the time. Life's too short. And I believe
God has been with us and guided us. May He give us ears to hear
what the Spirit is saying to us in these days. Let's pray. Our Father, we're so thankful
that once again you've answered our prayers. We've pleaded with
you that your Spirit would come and bless us in our gathering
tonight. Thank you for these dear people
who after a long day have come, and the little ones have sat
and listened. O God, how we pray that you would
even now be drawing many of these dear boys and girls to yourself,
giving them such a hunger for the pure teaching of the Word,
that they'll never, never, never have a taste for the claptrap
and the shallow nonsense that goes forth in the name of youth
evangelism. Oh God, give them a hunger that
they may be like a Samuel who early says, speak Lord for thy
servant here. Make them like young Josiah who
discovered the book of your law. and love it and share it with
others. Make them like Timothy, who from
a babe, knowing the scriptures, grew up to be a mighty man of
God. Lord, raise up such from these
dear boys and girls. Bless these young mothers and
fathers who are bullied and pummeled by the world into thinking they're
fools for even having children. Oh, Lord, bless them in their
noble task of seeking to rear a godly seed in this wicked and
perverse generation. Give them, we pray, the grace
and the fortitude needed to stand against all the pressure of the
world and to be molded by the scriptures in all of their thinking. Thank you for the gray-haired
men and women among us who have walked with you for many years.
May they become increasingly like the Lord Jesus and set a
standard for the younger among us that it is possible to grow
old gracefully in Christ, not to become cynical and sour and
bitter and narrow-spirited. O Lord, give this assembly and
the other assemblies represented here monuments of old age grace,
people who ripen beautifully before you pluck them and transplant
them in the court above. Oh God, hear our prayer. Receive
our thanks for your presence with us. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Why? so so I. The.

The Christian's Role in a Wicked Generation #3 The Christian's Role Identified

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about the Christian's role in a wicked generation?

Why is it important for Christians not to conform to the world?

How can Christians pursue holiness in a wicked generation?

How do Christians deal with the challenges of living in a wicked society?

How does the call to be blameless relate to the Christian's role in society?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

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The Christian's Role in a Wicked Generation #3 The Christian's Role Identified

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about the Christian's role in a wicked generation?

Why is it important for Christians not to conform to the world?

How can Christians pursue holiness in a wicked generation?

How do Christians deal with the challenges of living in a wicked society?

How does the call to be blameless relate to the Christian's role in society?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

Comments

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