Sunday English Service – 28 AUG 22

Transcript

Please turn with me to the book of Romans. Keep it there, I’m going to take a bit of time to introduce what I’m getting into today. We’ve been talking about redemption. We showed through this great epistle, all the epistles to the Romans, which is the finest presentation of the Gospel. I showed you something about redemption here. We showed you that redemption happens in different stages.

The first stage is called salvation. That is the forgiveness of sin. And that happens the moment you put your faith in Christ. It is done. It is done and finished on that day, so it’s in the past. Then after that we saw when we came to the 6^th chapter,that not only have we been forgiven our sins and delivered from the penalty of our sins, but God gives us the grace to have power over sins. So,He gives us the power over sins on a daily basis.As we walk with God, we experience the victory over sins. That is in the 6^th chapter. And that is something that is a continuous process that is happening right now. The first salvation is a finished thing. The moment you put your faith in Christ, you have been made righteous, not because you became so good, but because He is good, He is righteous, His righteousness is given to you. That’s what happened at salvation.

But now, He gives you the power to walk in holiness and sanctification. That is chapter 6 and that is something ongoing in the present. It happens every day as we trust in Jesus, as we trust in His Word and walk with Him. We experience victory and power over sin.

And then, we came to the 8^th chapter and we talked about glorification. Justification, sanctification, and glorification. The glorification is something that is going to happen when Jesus comes, where we will receive our undying bodies, immortality and even the creation will be redeemed because the creation also fell with man’s sin. Creation was made for man, so when man fell into sin, the creation fell with him and was subjected to the curse.So, it is waiting for man’s redemption to be complete. It is waiting for when man will receive his new body, so that the creation also can be redeemed. So, we saw that in chapter 8.

Today, I want to go into something that I’ve really never spoken about here. So, this is kind of a new subject I think we need to cover this and I think you can take this. I’m going to talk about the redemption of our culture, today. Many times, this is not even mentioned or not even spoken about. But this is a very big topic right now, in the Christian circles. Redemption of our culture has been the topic for a long time, but usually that is not preached about.What is redemption of our culture?You see, when sin came into man’s life, it ruined everything. So, the doctrine of the fall of man puts it this way. It calls it the doctrine of human depravity, the fall of man caused depravity. What is the extent of the depravity? How much was he depraved? The Christian doctrine says total depravity.

Now,“total” is a word that you should not misunderstand. Total means does not mean that he has become as depraved as anybody could ever be. It doesn’t mean that he completely and totally got depraved, 100% depraved. No. That is not what it is referring to. The word “total” is not referring to that. The word “total” is referring to the extent of the deprivation that is the fact that sin has touched every aspect of his life, leaving out no aspect of his life. Every area of his life has been touched so that everything is affected, but not totally affected, so that the image of God and man that God originally made him in is not completely destroyed. It is marred. The image has been marred. There is a difference between being marred and being destroyed. To give you a picture, you can completely destroy the picture so that you don’t even know that there was a picture before, a photograph before. You can completely destroy that so that you won’t even know. There is a photograph and there is a man’s face on the photograph. You don’t even know that. But you can mar a picture by scratching it, by defacing it, disfiguring it, so that people look at it and they wonder what it is. You know, they can’t even tell who it is because it’s so badly marred.

What happened in the fall is that the image of God and man is not totally destroyed. It’s been marred. When we say,“marred,” we mean to say that in every aspect of man’s being, every area of his life, in some way, he has been affected. It does not mean that he has become as bad as anybody could become. No, he’s not become totally bad. That’s why you see some people being very good, even in a fallen state. Have you ever seen good people? I’ve seen a lot of good people. That doesn’t mean that they have not fallen.All are fallen in Adam but still, there are a lot of people having some good qualities. There is some goodness about them. There is some good nature in them, even in the fallen state and condition,which tells us that they’re not completely gone. It’s not that the image of God is completely destroyed in them. When marred, there are areas that are affected and so on. But you can still see the glory of God in so many ways in man.You can still see that he’s made in the image and likeness of God.

So, what the redemption of our culture says is this: that while we’re waiting for the redemption of our body to happen in the future, while we’re waiting for the redemption of all creation to happen. In the meanwhile, right now, since we are saved, we have received Jesus as Lord and Saviour and we are walking with him right now. God is using us. We believe the Gospel; we have accepted the Gospel and we are in this world. God has kept us in this world; God is using us and through us impacting our world, impacting our surroundings through us, so that through us, the world becomes a little better place, more live able place, more tolerable. The level of evil is not as bad as it used to be before because of what the Gospel is doing through some of us. Now, that is what is called redemption of culture. That means culture has been marred just like man’s other nature has been marred, man’s mind has been marred, man’s spirit has been marred, his body has been marred, so the sickness and all of the things have set in. His thoughts, his desires, his passions, they’re all affected by the fall. But not only that, his family life is affected, his friendships with other people, that is affected, his relationships in society are affected because basic qualities of truthfulness, goodness and all of that is lost now and marred in the fall, so the relationship cannot be straight. You know, the relationships are not able to be sustained. So, there’s a lot of problem in man, culturally suffering.

See, God made the world; man makes the culture. God made the world and put man in it but he makes a family. God has given him a wife but now, he’s got to have children, he’s got to raise them, they’ve got to work, they’ve got to earn, they’ve got to take care of their children, they’ve got to get married, in turn and they’ve got to have children, take care of their children, and so on. So, culture is created like that, through man’s work, through man’s labour, through man’s profession, through the gifts and abilities that God has given to man and the exercise of those gifts. Culture is created like that. And that culture is marred also, just like the mind is marred and emotions are marred,the body is marred, even man’s culture is marred, so that he is suffering on all areas of his life.

So, what God is doing right now is that currently and, in the present, God is redeeming our culture. Redemption of our culture is happening now itself. Not completed now. It is happening more and more and more, using us as instrument, it’s happening. But one day, Jesus will come and He will reign and He will rule and He will establish His reign on this earth and so on. At that time, entire culture will be redone also. It will be completely restored to its original condition. So, this is what is called redemption of our culture. It is happening right now through us and we are the instruments through which God is carrying it out in this world. So, that’s what we’re going to talk about. Redemption of our culture, through our life and in our society, in every aspect of our lives. What God is doing through the Gospel results in what is called the redemption of our culture.

Now, to think through this, we must begin with a foundational question. The question is: what is the relationship between Gospel and culture? We, as Christians, we believe in the Gospel. And all of a sudden, here we are talking about culture. What does Gospel have to do with culture? How can Gospel impact culture? I can imagine Gospel impacting a person. I can very well understand that man needs forgiveness of sin; man need salvation; man needs healing; man needs restoration. But you’re talking about culture. So, what is the relationship between Gospel and the culture? How does the Gospel impact our culture?

Now, there was a man named Richard Niebuhr, a very famous man, many years ago, who wrote what is called,‘Christ and Culture.’ In that, he talks about various approaches

to making an impact upon the culture; how the Gospel makes an impact upon the culture and various attitudes towards how that must be done. Various beliefs or views or attitudes about how that must be done. He gave five different views but I don’t want to go through this now because that’s too much. But I will compress it to three to make it simpler. I won’t even use the titles that he used, you know, he called his views:‘Christ Against Culture’;‘Christ of Culture’;‘Christ Above Culture’; ‘Christ and Culture in Paradox’ and ‘Christ the Transformer of Culture’. Those are the five views that he talked about but let’s compress it into three views to make it short and I think this is good enough.

The first view I will make it even simpler in title, we’ll call it ‘isolation view’, the isolation view.What the isolation view says is this: that Gospel and culture do not mix at all. All the culture belongs to the world. It’s a worldly thing. Now, don’t bring the culture into the Gospel, they say. And this comes as a result of the belief that Christians must be separate from the world; that the world should not come into the church;that culture is inherently evil, since the god of the world is the devil but the Gospel is the Good News. So, why do you want the things that the god of the world is doing in the world to come into the church? And the culture is always seeking to infiltrate the church, enter the church and ruin the church, so that the church should become worldly, they say. So, Christians must be vigilant, ward off culture’s influence over the church and over our life. And the eternal truths of the Gospel must be safeguarded, from generation to generation, from the clutches of culture in order to keep the church pure, for the glory of God. This is the isolation view. It means keep away from culture; culture belongs to the world. When you get into culture and start dealing with the culture, you’re dealing with the world. You have nothing to do with the world. The world will ruin you.Don’t let it come near anywhere near the church. The church should be free from the world’s influence. You have nothing to do with the world. Leave it alone!The Gospel has nothing to do with the world.

Now, for some, it may sound right and I can understand their concern and I can understand what they’re trying to say. They say the world is a bad place. Why do you want to deal with the world?Leave it alone. Let’s go separate. Let’s be holy. Let’s not have anything to do with the world. But remember in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 13 — I don’t want to go there because it’ll save some time —Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 13, in those Parables of the Kingdom, Jesus says that the Kingdom of heaven is like unto the woman who took a small amount of leaven and hid it in a lot of dough, so that the entire lump became leavened after a few hours.The Kingdom works like that, Jesus said, but what was He saying? He was saying the Kingdom of Heaven has this kind of influence.We live in a big world but we are a small group. But the small group is enough because we have like leaven. God puts us here in this world. The Gospel is working all of its power in our lives. And as we live out the Gospel in this world, the leaven of the power of the Gospel will spread everywhere and leaven the whole lump. And this is how the Gospel will spread. This is how the Gospel will impact the world. This is how the Gospel will make a difference in the world. That’s what Jesus said.

Now, if that is so, now how can you accomplish this by being separate from the world? Being separate from the world, you cannot envision doing that. Plus, Jesus said, you are the light of the world, you are the salt of the earth. When he went to heaven. He said, “I’m going to the Father, but I’m leaving you here. I want you to go all over the world, preach the Gospel, make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son of the Holy Spirit.” There’s a whole big world around us, and He kept us here to do a job and you can’t escape from this world. He has put you here. He has told you to stay here;He has told you to go to every nook and corner to tell every creature the Gospel. How can you try to escape from that world? What are the reasons why people hate the world is because, I think, Christians have a misunderstanding about this term,“world” and they mix it up with culture also. Culture is world and world is culture, they say. And the word “world”in the Bible comes from two different Greek words, one is “cosmos” and another is “a on”. Both these words are used negatively sometimes, for example, in James chapter 4, verse 4:Friendship with the world is enmity against God. Friendship with the world is enmity. It’s a verse that’s speaking bad about the world.Don’t have anything to do with the world, it’s enmity against God, it says. And such kinds of verses are there and people always refer to such verses. It’s a negative way it is presented.

Then, there are verses where you see the same word “world,” coming from one of those two Greek words, presenting it in a neutral manner. For example, a blind man, born blind gets healed. Remember, Jesus heals him, in John, chapter 9? And the people that looked at this, they said, “Since the beginning of the world, we have never seen anyone that is born blind to being healed. They’re not talking about the world being good or bad. They’re just talking about something else. And there, the word “world” comes. And it’s used neutrally. It is not used this way or that neutral. Then there are positive ways in which the word “world” is used. For example, in John chapter 3, verse 16, that famous verse:For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. God so loved the world — loved the world — very positive. God so loved the world.

If you go to Hebrews, chapter 1, verse 2, there it says that He made the worlds. No wonder He loves the world because He made the world.And when you go back to Genesis, chapter 1, where you read about how He made the world, the most repetitious word there is the word “good”. Seven times He uses the word “good” and the seventh time, He says, “It’s very good.” Good, good, good, good, good, good, very good. This is the way He used it. The first chapter is an amazing chapter. What is good?The world is good. The man that He made is good. Everything that God made is good. But now, if you preached saying that the world is good, they look at you funny.They think you’re a false preacher. Where did he come from? They’re supposed to be against the world. We need to get out of the world and we need to put away the world from us. We have nothing to do with this world and this preacher is saying the world is good. Well, I’m not saying that the world is good. The first chapter of Genesis is saying the world is a good world. The world made by God is good and in fact, very good. Some people have preached so hard saying that it’s bad that today, when I preach it saying that it’s good, everybody is suspicious of me. What can I do? Seven times it says, it’s good. But they’ve preached it 700 times, saying it’s bad. So now, I have to preach it 7000 times saying it’s good, to change the mentality. The world is a good world. God made this world. Yeah, and a few places, it is mentioned that the world has something evil in it, and we need to get away from it and so on. For heaven’s sake, don’t throw the baby with the bathwater. Throw out the stuff that you want to throw out. Don’t have anything with the kind of things that the world brings that are evil. Get rid of the evil that comes from the world but don’t get through the whole world. God loves the world! Jesus came into the world. And second time when Jesus is going to come, He’s going to come into the world and He’s going to make a new earth and a new Heaven.

Some people are always ready to fly away. You’re going to be right back here. You’re going to find yourself right back in here. God is going to restore everything and put us in here to rule and reign with Him. That’s the way the Bible presents it. God is not trying to get you away from the world. He has left you and me here for a purpose, to do a job here because He loves the world. It is a world that He made and sin has come and ruined certain things about this world. There are certain aspects of this world that has become very evil. But God loves the world. It’s a good world. It’s meant to be a good world. So,the isolation view is not a very good view. Looks like a holy view, that we should keep ourselves holy and keep away from the world. But that’s not the view that the Bible preaches and teaches.

The second view is the accommodation view. The simpler term: accommodation view. Accommodation view says,“Well, we need to accommodate people from the culture in which we live in. Not just accommodate the people, accommodate the Gospel to the ethos of the culture”. They even quote Bible verses.Everybody’s got a Bible verse for everything. But the problem is, does it mean what they’re saying it means? They quote a Bible verse from Paul, where he said that he becomes all things to all men. So, they say we need to get into the world, mix with the world and have a lot to do with the world. Become one with the world so that we can reach the world. Not just accommodate the world, accommodate the Gospel to the world. That’s where you run into the problem. So, what if your world doesn’t want to believe in Jesus? What if the world laughs at the preaching of the Gospel? The Gospel says that Jesus died,He rose again. But the world in which you live, the culture in which you live, maybe they don’t believe that Jesus rose again. It sounds funny to them when you say that He rose again. So, you know what these people do? This is what accommodation view does. What they do is, see, those people will laugh at you, if you talk about literal resurrection. So, don’t talk about literal resurrection. There is another way to talk about resurrection. Say,“Yes, Jesus is risen!” You will hear this in some churches on Easter Sunday. Jesus is risen; He’s risen in my heart. The love for my neighbour has risen in my heart, has come alive in my heart. In that way, Jesus has risen and everybody thinks that’s a wonderful sermon. But they will never talk about Jesus coming out of the grave with His body showing Thomas’s hands, telling him to touch Him and see and all that.They will never talk about the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus because they think the world will laugh at it,the world won’t believe it. So, water down the Gospel, in other words, to accommodate the Gospel to the world in which you live, to the culture in which you live. That’s the problem with that view. Water down the Gospel, so that there are no hurdles because there is no solid teaching sometimes in churches. People will go to the churches and they sit there and say, “Wow, wonderful sermon. Jesus has risen in my heart. It doesn’t matter whether He came out of the grave or anything. Maybe He’s still there, in the grave, but in my heart, He is living.”

It’s like one fellow said to me the other day, I went to a funeral, he says, “You know, my grandfather died. I believe he’s still with me.” That’s the way he put it!“I believe my grandfather is still with me.”“So, I believe my Father is still with me; you believe your grandfather is still with you. Does that mean they’re all risen from the dead?” No! Their graves are still there but we make it all metaphorical and sounding nice. When I hear people say things like that, I immediately know where they studied, if they studied in India. If they studied in India, which place they studied and where they come from, which place produces this kind of people. I know. One man was asking me why churches are like this. You know, why it’s lifeless, why there’s no joy, why there is nobody getting saved, why there’s nobody coming in. I said that’s because of where your preachers come from, where they’re produced. They’re produced from places where they don’t even believe the Bible. They want to water down the Gospel and they don’t even believe that Jesus rose again. They’re even ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s the problem. When you’re ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, other people also will be ashamed because you’re ashamed. All right. So, that’s the problem with the accommodation view. They accommodate too much and they water down the Gospel.

The third view is the transformation view. This is the right view: transformation view. The transformation view of the Gospel says the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The Gospel has power in it to save anybody. It can save the violent sinner; it can save the worst person in the world. It’s the power of God to salvation. So, as we live faithfully for God, and as we present the Gospel and serve in this world, the Gospel’s transforming power begins to work in our culture because we all are people who are culturally oriented. We are a culture inhabiting world.And as we live for Christ, as you work, as you live the Gospel out,the transforming part of the Gospel will some way touch the hearts of those people and bring about a transformation.Now, that is the right view because that is the view that fulfils God’s vision of going and preaching the Gospel to all creatures and so on. That is the view that fulfils what the vision is that Jesus laid down for us. Alright.

Let’s look at the biblical basis for the transformation view. Where does it come from? Does it come from the Bible? Let me read a few verses. Look at this. Romans, chapter 1, verse 16. Romans,1:16. Many, many years ago as I was a student, having completed only one year in Bible college, I was staying in a friend’s house. They happened to hear a series of teaching by a great teacher on school tapes, in those days, that made a terrific impact upon my life. And I heard him preach on Romans, chapter 1, verse 16, three times on that day, and most unexpectedly, I’ve never preached in my life at the time, only sang, never preached. Most unexpectedly, we went somewhere and we went to a lady’s meeting. Believe me, that’s where I first preached. I went to a lady’s meeting, along with an American friend of mine and the lady of the house simply looked at me and didn’t know who I was, and where I’m from, nothing. She just looked at me and said, “Sam, you preach today.” And before I can explain to her to say, “I don’t know how to preach. I’ve never preached. Do you still want me to preach?”She went off inside and came out and said, “All right, let’s pray and let Sam preach.”

So, I’ve been listening to this sermon three times on that day. I was so thrilled; I’ve never heard a preaching like that about the Gospel. So, I didn’t know what to preach. I stood there and opened my Bible, opened to Romans chapter 1 because I kept it open all day to that chapter. It opened straight to that and I said, “All right, I’ll preach what he preached”. I didn’t know what to preach. What do you preach to these ladies? There’s about a dozen ladies sitting there and I preached the sermon. And the verse says,For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.In other words, Paul is saying, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Jew or Greek. I am not ashamed of the Gospel. I am called to preach the Gospel to the entire world, not just to the Jewish world, to the four corners of the earth. I’m called to preach. I’ve never been to Rome. I want to come to Rome. And maybe some of the people, Christians in Rome that he’s writing to were ashamed of the Gospel in Rome, because Rome was the most modern city of that day. The Emperor from there ruled the world. The great military headquarters was there, the great administrative headquarters was there, all the officials were there, people of power were there, people were living in great luxury and pomp there. A very impressive society Rome was and suddenly, Christians might have been afraid or may have been ashamed because what is the Gospel?

The Gospel says that Jesus hung on a cross. And immediately, they’re going to say,“You mean to say that you’re going to worship a Man who hung on a cross, almost naked, as Lord? The Man who couldn’t even save Himself; the Man who cried, saying, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” You’re going to worship Him as Lord and Saviour.”Certainly, they’ll be ashamed. So, he wants to assure them. He says, “I am no ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus”. Why? Because, these men may rule the world,they may have so much power and they may have everything. They may rule the world but they’re not able to rule their own hearts. Read the history of the Roman emperors and the people that ruled. Some of them were crazy madmenthat did unbelievable things. Went really crazy with power. their passions were running wild. They could not even control their hearts’ passions. They ruled the world but they couldn’t rule their hearts. They ruled the world but they could not rule their desires and their passions. They were slaves of sin. And sin was ruling over them and ruining them. I’m sure it was making them unhappy. And Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the Gospel—Jew or Greek—I don’t care whoever it is; I don’t care. I’m going to preach the Gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation. It has got the power to save any man; it can save an emperor, can save a beggar, doesn’t matter who it is; anyone in between also.It’s the power of God to save, he says. So, that is one verse that talks about “for everyone who believes, it is the power of God to salvation.” So, any individual who believes can be saved. So, individual transformation.How Gospel can change an individual.

Now, turn with me to the 13^th chapter and I’ll show you societal transformation because we’re talking about culture.An entire society being impacted. Look at chapter 13,in verse 1 onwards: Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities.Talking about the rulers in this world, governing people.For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. So, he’s saying that the authorities that exist in this world are appointed by God. God is for governments; God is for officials; God is for people that rule and govern well. God wants a very orderly world, a good world, a liveable world. So, he says,Be subject to the governing authorities. All authority comes from God; except from God, there is no authority. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God —now, listen to this: if you resist authority, you’re resisting God’s law, he says.And those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. “You’ll be punished,” he says, “if you resist and not obey”. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. The rulers are not a terror to good works. So, if you’re doing good, you don’t have to be afraid of the authorities. “If you’re doing evil, you better be afraid,”he says.Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. So, if you’re a good doer, no problem; the authorities won’t trouble you. For he is God’s minister to you for good.Look at that. He’s talking about worldly authorities. Some of you may say, “Well, you must be a saved person because he’s God’s minister.” No, no, no, no. He’s talking about worldly authorities. He says,“Is God’s minister to you for good. It’s good to have these rulers,” he says. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister.Again, he says that.An avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore, you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. Don’t be just afraid and just obey the law.Obey it because of your conscience, he says.For because of this, you also pay taxes. Ah! Some of you are looking at me saying,“I come to church Sunday. You’re telling me to pay taxes?” Tithes and offerings, yes, but not taxes. But I’m just reading the Bible. I’m not saying anything. He says, “Pay your taxes.”Taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour. So, income tax, customs, everything comes here. “Everything,” he says. Now, that’s a pain, paying these things. But you’ve got to pay because it’s the law.

Now, just imagine the church, the Christian church, what kind of potential it had.A society that is based on Christian principles is a society that consists of people that are law abiding, that pay their taxes, that pay whatever is due to their governments, and they obey the authorities. What kind of culture it creates. Christianity creates an amazing, good culture. The world it will become a liveable place if these teachings are followed. It says, Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour. Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. All right.So, there, the society itself is impacted by Christian teaching.Christian teaching is such that if you just live by it, you will be a law-abiding citizen. And suppose you are running an organization or company or something, everything follows suit and they all follow your policies. And like this, you impact the larger society that is around you, that is with you, and your influences ever growing and you make an impact upon the people that are then around you. All right.

So, this is how cultural redemption happens. Culture has been marred by sin and God wants to redeem it back. Culture is not supposed to be what it is today. But God wants to redeem it. God wants to make it good. God wants to make the world a liveable place. God wants to make society a wonderful place. God is the one who invented marriage. God is the one that desired that the earth must be filled with families. God is the one that established life as it is,and He wants it good. God is interested in it and God is going to set everything right, one day.When He comes, all evil will completely be done away with.He will rule and reign and there will be no place for evil, but He doesn’t want to wait until then. Already, through us, He wants to impact the culture and bring about changes in the culture here. So, in that context, let me just give you some framework for what it means to make a culture Christian.

Now, I want to use an example and just illustrate it to you so that we can understand it very simply. When I say,“framework for a Christian culture”, what I’m saying is suppose you’re watching TV and you’re watching something. Back in my days, they told us not to watch TV. That solves the problem immediately. But I found that the priests don’t watch TV but everybody was watching TV. I went with a friend of mine to a house where they were strict, very, very strict Pentecostal Christians. We walked in there, this guy’s uncle’s house, you know? And he went in with his uncle into the room and his uncle open the cartridge thing that he had or something and there was a big TV, colour TV sitting there inside. And he had given cable connection also. They’re not supposed to have TV there. He said, “No, no, no, we keep it inside because when the Pastor comes then he won’t see this.” Another man told me, “I watch you every day on TV;I never sleep without watching you every day”. I said,“I know you’re not supposed to watch TV”, because he went to his place where you’re not supposed to watch TV at all. I said,“You’re not supposed to watch TV. What are you doing with TV?”He said, “No no, no, we have it in the bedroom.” So, why be a hypocrite? Act like you never see a TV.

Let’s talk about when you see a TV show, something like that. How do you decide that something is worth watching because it has Christian values. It may not be a Christian show, but it is a show that has values that are Christian, values that are admirable, values that you are not afraid to show your children, values that you’re not afraid for your children to learn. How do you decide what is good for you and your family? What is edifying for you and your family? How do you decide that? There must be some kind of framework? And let me suggest a framework for you. One is, let’s take music as an example. Let’s forget TV. Let’s take music and you can apply it to TV or anything. Anything that you’re watching or involved in.The general example but let’s talk about music because a lot of people are talking about music. A lot of people are upset with the way Christian music is going. agitated because they want music to be the way that it was 100 years ago, back in the Netherlands somewhere, in their village. They want to sing like this in church and nowadays all these young people are coming and they’re coming in jeans and guitars are played and this modern music is played here and some people hate it. They say, “Ah, what an awful thing this is. Terrible. The world is coming into the church. Church is getting ruined. Church is becoming worldly.” That’s the big complaint and the biggest complaint, I think.So,are churches getting worldly by introducing music like this?Is this bad?

Now, let’s look at it. Three things. One is, if you hear any music, if you are a part of a worship service and there is music going on, how should you judge that music? How should you know that whether this music is good for you or not, good for your children, whether you want to take your children there and be there so on? How do you judge it? The first thing is, in the framework, the intention of the one who made that song and who made the music and who’s singing that song and the people that are playing the music. The intention. What is the intention? Now, with music, there are certain questions, relevant questions that you can ask. For example, does it edify people? Does it beautify creation? Or even, does it simply depict the human condition as it is today, truthfully?Or is it speaking about the creation and the creator in a factual way? Or is it intended to dehumanize or put down the created order or invert the created order? What is the purpose? What does it look like? Does it do something to you, edifies you, beautify creation? Does it at least tell the truth about what’s happening in this world? Is the creation depicted accurately? Is the Creator depicted accurately or is it intended to dehumanize man and laugh at God, literally?

Now, in Philippians, chapter 4, you have a list there. I like that list in chapter 4, verse 8:Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. Look at all the stuff that is mentioned here: things that are noble, just, pure, lovely, good report, anything of virtue, anything praiseworthy. Do you see anything like that in that song? What are they singing about? Is it true? Is it honourable? Is it just? Is it pure? Is it lovely? Is it commendable? Is it excellent? Is it praiseworthy? Or is it false? Is it dishonourable? Is it unjust? Is it impure? Is it perverted? Is it degrading? Is the intention of the music and the song to glorify the Creator, God? There are three things that must be found in anything that is good and that is:one is goodness; the other is truth; and the other is beauty. These three qualities they say, wherever you find it, sometimes you find it outside the Christian circles.

You may have gone somewhere and somebody is speaking about something, just because that man is not a Christian, doesn’t mean that everything that he says is wrong. No, we don’t think like that. There are people that speak and there is some truth in what they’re saying. And this has been established by great teachers of the Bible and they say it, again and again, about these three things: truth,goodness, and beauty. They say,wherever you find truth if it’s truth, it must be God’s truth only. It may come from a man who doesn’t even know God. It may come from a man who doesn’t even recognize Jesus as his Saviour. But if it’s truth, he may know it even without knowing where it comes from? It has come from God, it is our God, the one true and living God is the One from Whom this truth has come. So, truth found anywhere is from God. Goodness, our God is the inventor of goodness. First chapter is all about goodness, it’s good, good, good. Seven times good. Our God is a good God. That’s why I named my television shows,‘God is Good.’ If you see goodness, goodness is from God, wherever you see it. You may see it in non-Christian circles, but goodness is from God. Goodness shows that it comes from God.Beauty. I say beauty, it contains within it,order, harmony, and all of those things. When you see beauty, when something is beautiful, it must be God because God makes everything beautiful. So, truth, goodness, and beauty. Found in music or anything, shows that it is something good, it’s something valuable. There is something in it for you.Okay

So, the first test is the intention test. The second is the integrity test. The integrity of the song or whatever artifact that is. Integrity. What do we mean by integrity? When it comes to music? I’d say,are the lyrics intending to communicate to what is true? Is it beautifully written? Is there musical excellence in it? Is the music itself beautiful? Is it well arranged? Does it sound good? Does it captivate you? Is it soul-captivating? Is it pleasant to your senses? Does it do something to you in a positive way?Then that is good because if it is beautiful, if it is good, if it is the truth, then that’s good. How many of you have heard some symphony orchestra or something? That’s not even Christian music but how many of you heard some symphony orchestra beautifully playing and your hair just about stood up? You enjoyed it so much and you wanted to listen and listen and listen because it’s so wonderful. It does something to you. Maybe you don’t play music, maybe you don’t even understand but you know it’s doing something good to you.And after you hear it, you feel all so wonderful. That’s what I’m talking about.

Thirdly, the impact of the whole thing, the song or music or whatever.The impact is the last thing. What do we mean by impact? Is its impact something that contributes to human and social flourishing? Human and social flourishing. That means, does it cause people to flourish?Does it impact them in a very positive way,in a good way?Does it minister to them in that way? That matters very much.The impact. Now, regarding impact, I want to use an illustration. I thought much about whether to use this illustration or not because it’s the heart of an illustration, really but it’s something that happened and it came out in all papers and everything, so I think it’s not bad to use in. In 1987, there was a photographer, an artist photographer, his profession is that and he’s quite famous for that. He photographed something that became very controversial and he named it in a very controversial way also.The name, the title, I don’t even want to mention in a church because that’s very ugly.

1987,Andres Serrano is the guy. He put up a picture,the posters were printed and put-up all-over New York and became a big controversial issue. It went all the way to the Congress. They even spoke in the Congress, the congressman in the US Congress spoke about it. People were really agitated, very furious. People came out against him en masse, really. And finally, a reporter got to him and he asked him a question in an interview. He said,“Is there a message? Why did you do something like that?” You know what he did or what the picture was? In a bottle, he put across but the bottle was filled with his own urine —a terrible thing — and he made across and put across and took a picture and blew it up and the posters were all over the place. No wonder people were so furious, angry at him. And the interviewer asked him, “Is there a message that this photograph is trying to convey? And how are you going to deal with all the backlash that you’re facing as a result of this release of this photograph?” And the man replied like this, listen to the reply. It came out in the newspaper. “The only message is that I’m a Christian artist, making a religious work of art, based on my relationship with Christ and the church.”He’s a Christian artist, did this based on his relationship with Christ and the church, he says.The crucifix is a symbol that has lost its true meaning, the horror of what occurred. It represents the crucifixion of a Man who was tortured, humiliated, and left to die on a Cross for several hours.In that time, Christ not only bled to death, but He also probably saw all his bodily functions and fluids come out of Him. So, if this upsets people, maybe this is so because it is bringing the symbol closer to its original meaning.

What he’s basically saying is, if people have made the cross a nice, fine-looking thing, you know, everywhere they hang it and it looks so beautiful and you feel like you want to keep looking at it but the original Cross was not like that. Jesus suffered on it. It was a gruesome suffering. It was an unbearable suffering. It is something that was so ugly. All the bodily fluids would have come out. It would have been a nasty thing to look at. Nobody would want to stand there and look at it as He died on the Cross. That’s how ugly it would have been. That’s how bad it would have been but people have today made the cross a beautiful thing. It’s nothing like what it originally was. And I wanted to remind the people how horrible the cross was, how unfair His death was and how great the suffering was. “I wanted to remind the people, I’m a Christian and I took this photograph out of my own inspiration,” he says, You know what the problem is? The impact that it created, went haywire. Maybe his intention was right. The way he talks, it looks like his intention was okay but he didn’t think it through.He didn’t watch what he was doing. He didn’t imagine what kind of reaction this would cause. I don’t know if he thought it through or not.

Now, I don’t mean to say that every time you do something, you have to do in such a way that you please everybody. Even Jesus didn’t do that. You know, one time He spit on the ground, made clay, took that, and put it on a man’s eye and healed him. And even today, they’re all confused about it. I had some friends come from overseas, and we all were preaching together in another town and I had to leave to come Sunday, and the man preached there Sunday, and he did this to someone. So, after I left, those people called me and said, “Look, the man you brought did this”. And I was talking to him and he said,“Jesus did it.What’s wrong with me doing it?” But the thing is, Jesus did it, not because, you know, some people some commentaries say that the Earth had some medicinal stuff in it, so that He made instant medicine by spitting on the ground, making clay, and putting on the man’s eyes, the man who never saw before, God healed, you know. I don’t think such medicinal stuff is there in the ground. The reason He did it was this.If you read the passage in John, chapter 9, ‘The Healing of the Blind Man’,it’s all about the Jews being there and He did this to provoke the Jews. Sometimes, you have the jolt some people to tell them the truth. And I’ve done it many times. It’s just sometimes you literally have to jolt some people, in order to awaken them to the truth, awaken the sleeping church to the truth.You have to do something very drastically, sometimes.

I have realized that and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think he went too overboard. Jesus did it many times.In fact, the controversy over the Sabbath law was there throughout Jesus’ life. Every time He was accused for not keeping the Sabbath. Remember, one time,He went into a synagogue and there was a man with a withered hand? He told the man to stretch out his hand and everybody objected to it. And said, “We have six days to heal. And You come on the Sabbath day and You make the man stretch out his hand. That’s working.”Stretching out his hand is working. You went to another synagogue where there was a woman, 18 years sick,bent over.Just try bending over and being there five minutes like that, just bent over. This the woman was 18 years bent over. Jesus goes over there and heals and everybody objects the Sabbath day. Why did He heal? They didn’t understand Sabbath. This must have irritated Jesus really, that they did not understand Sabbath. They were fighting with Him over observance of the Sabbath law. But the point that Jesus was making is, look, I am the only One truly observing the Sabbath. You are not observing it. Just because you didn’t work, it doesn’t mean that you have observed Sabbath. Sabbath is about rest.This woman, a daughter of Abraham for 18 years had no rest because she was so sick, bent over.Try bending over 10 minutes, see how hard it is? And now, since I straightenedher out, she has rest, truly celebrating Sabbath. Not only I’m celebrating Sabbath, but she’s also celebrating Sabbath. This is the point He was trying to get across.So, sometimes you have to jolt the church to tell the truth but I think this guy went too much. Putting a cross in a jar of this stuff was not good. He didn’t think about it very much.As Christians, I think we need to think about the redemption of our culture, and what kind of impact we make. There are things that we do and there are things that we don’t do, just because we want to make an impact in this world. We don’t do certain things, it’s because we think it’d be too wrong in a certain context to do it. We do certain things, you know, that also has meaning and we hope that it will impact the world in a positive way. One little thing I’ll say and close.

There was a man named C.S. Lewis. I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with C.S. Lewis, a great writer and thinker and so on. He wrote this children’s story series called ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ and when he wrote that, somebody came and asked him, it seems, “Why didn’t you write a Christian children’s storybook? A series of stories for Christian children or Christian stories.” And he looked at them and said, “Look, I deliberately wrote it like this. But this is full of things about good and evil. The battle between the two.When a kid of six or seven years old reads it and grows up reading this and when he’s 25 years old, and going somewhere and hearing the Gospel, the Gospel will sound like 100% right for him, because I have prepared his mind to receive the Gospel by writing this story”, he said. His heart has been prepared to receive the Gospel. See, that is the kind of thing that redemption of our culture does. Immediately, nothing happens but the impact is made. Heart is open. Something happens in the heart of a person. It gets prepared to receive Jesus one day when he hears the Gospel, because all the things that the Bible talks about is already put into the story, except we didn’t mention Jesus. He didn’t mention salvation and all of those things. But he mentions all the biblical things that go with the work of salvation.

Now, we live in a world and sometimes it’s very difficult to preach the Gospel. Sometimes it’s very difficult to go straight and hold the mic and preach the Gospel. In a church, we can preach but in other places, it has become difficult. How are you going to do it? I’ll tell you something. We do it in so many different ways. There are so many different activities.C.S. Lewis wrote, another person sings, and another person does something else. Every talent, every ability that is used, that God has given and is used goes towards cultural transformation. When musicians play and play beautifully. Well. You know, some people think, well, this is vain. Why are you playing that guitar thing? You want to show off how well you play? No.When a person is talented, when a person is gifted and he plays his heart out with an instrument and plays it wonderfully well, I think God is glorified. And when we clap our hands, we’re not clapping just for the guy.We know God is the Giver of that gift, and we’re praising God for the gift that’s given to him. And when he plays that,he’s literally living out his life for Christ, because he’s using the gift that God has given to Him. Amen.

So, we should open our minds to all of these things and begin to think about these things. There are so many ways that we can make an impact in this world and praise God for the wonderful opportunities that God has given us. We are all culturally oriented people. We’re part of a culture and I’ll tell you; the Gospel works in the midst of that culture in so many ways.

Let’s all stand up together. Let’s pray.