Culture: What is it?

There are people who rise to the top of the conference circuit with meteoric success, and Thabiti Anyabwile is one of those people! He is a young, energetic, passionate, pastor/theologian who engages the audience with his obvious sense of the weightiness of Scripture. I was impressed with his confidence in light of the men he would share the stage with at this conference. Anyone would be easily intimidated with a panel of the greatest preachers of our generation, but Thabiti spoke with clear and unshakable confidence because of his obvious confidence in the Word of God. The subject of his talk was intriguing to me. "Culture" is one of those buzz words in evangelical circles today. Everyone knows that culture exists, but none of us seems to understand how it changes or even if changing the culture is preferable. Thabiti used this opportunity to challenge pastors and Christian men to engage the church not the culture! Culture is slippery and ever changing. Although it is tempting to turn our focus to the culture, the Bible is clear that our influence in the culture should be faithful presence as true believers. We are not to crusade against or for the culture. We are to crusade for the gospel of Jesus Christ! The following is the outline to the sermon. Again, I would challenge each of you to take the time to listen to Thabiti's sermon at www.t4g.org.

Paul's Pastoral Purpose: Colossians 1:24-2:5

• Paul's over arching design and purpose was to preach, teach, and disciple every member of the church so that they might be presented mature and spotless to Christ
• Before we engage the culture we need to see the beauty of the purpose of pastoring.
• There is great danger in making "plausible" arguments. We must always be aware of the danger of drifting away from the mission of the church. There may be many "good" things but there is only one "great" purpose for the church. We must live to present the truth of the gospel!!
• We must be ruthless in our commitment to the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the foundation and power of ministry.
• Thabiti reminded us that Paul had the culturally relevant topic of slavery during his work as a pastor. Paul did not ignore the issue. He engaged the church with the issue. Paul proclaimed that slavery is contrary to the gospel, and because slavery is contrary to the gospel, Paul pushed to the logical and radical conclusion that slavery should not be named among the people of the church! He did not engage the culture, but he did engage the church with the radical implications of the gospel. This is our place in the shaping of culture. Live the gospel while we preach the gospel so that the world may see the power of the gospel.

Paul's Pastoral Philosophy: Colossians 2:6-14

• We must teach the church to walk in Christ (6)
• We must be captive to Christ (8)
• We must teach the people of the church to live and act in the gospel (9-14). This means we must emphasize a high Christology (9) and we must teach them the promise and benefits of the gospel (10-14).
• Paul sees the danger in verse 8 that the people will be caught in worldly philosophy. We must remember that Christ cannot be blended with the culture. Christ is the antithesis of the worldly culture and its worldly philosophy.

Paul's Pastoral Practice: Colossians 2:16-23

• Warning #1 - Do not let others judge you based on the standards of "religion" (16).
• Warning #2 - Do not let anyone disqualify you based on asceticism (18).
• This was the highlight of the talk!!! We must push people to shed ethnic cultural skin. We must push people to put on the skin of the gospel culture. Even the culture of the Jews in Israel was a shadow but Christ is the substance.
• When we say church, we must think multi-ethnic but mono culture, Gospel Culture!!!

Paul's Pastoral Perspective: Colossians 3:1-4

• The only way to be any earthly good is to be heavenly minded.
• Other worldly perspective makes us strive toward Christ likeness!
• Christ must be our focus that will make us truly effective.

The highlight of this sermon was Thabiti's challenge to make sure the church remains multi-ethnic but not multi-cultural. We are all under the culture of the gospel. That is why Paul writes in Galatians 3:27-29, "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." We are the culture of Christ which gives us the position to bring true and eternal change to the culture of this world by the power of the unadjusted gospel! Talk to you soon... CW