©2004 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

12/12/04

Communicating To The Culture Pt.2

12/12/04 Communicating To The Culture Pt. 2

This will be the last in a three-part series we began two weeks ago,

a series in which we are looking at the culture in which we live

and at what it means for us to live effective Christian lives within this culture.

We began two weeks ago

by looking at the way in which our culture no longer accepts the concept

of an absolute moral standard to which each person is held accountable.

We saw that we now live in a world

in which moral good is defined in terms of absolute tolerance

of every individual’s personal value system and life style,

a world in which even the suggestion of all people being held accountable

to one divinely revealed standard

is considered divisive

and destructive to the greater good of society as a whole.

We then saw the way in which

the void created within us through the loss of this absolute standard

has caused us to develop a layered approach to our lives,

an approach in which we think and live in terms

of numerous distinct layers of life,

each one isolated from the others,

each one lived on the basis of a different set of governing principles.

We have our public lives,

and then we have our private lives.

We have our business and work ethics,

and then we have our family layer,

and our government layer,

and our entertainment layer,

and our internet layer,

and on and on.

And then last week we spent most of our time

talking about the first great step our Lord seeks to lead each of us through

as He rebuilds our lives in Christ,

returning us to the discovery of

and then personal commitment to

that universal protective moral framework revealed to us in His Word.

True freedom of spirit and soul

does not come from having the freedom to live any way we want.

It comes from knowing how life

and especially how human relationships are designed by God to operate,

and then having the ability

to choose to live our own lives on the basis of that revealed pattern.

God’s first step in preparing each of His children

to relate effectively to this culture in which we live

is to create within us

an unshakeable trust in and commitment to a life lived within His revealed moral framework.

And our preparation for life in this culture

begins by our recognizing and then laying aside

our own personal layered approach to life.

And then we ended last week

by looking briefly at the threefold calling

our Lord gives the Christian in this culture.

First, we are to understand and build our lives upon

an unshakable commitment to moral purity as defined by our God.

Second, we are to make a clear distinction between what is moral and what is merely cultural.

We are the voice of our God to this generation.

And there are two things we can do

that will destroy our credibility

with equal effectiveness.

The first is for us to fail to live a life of true moral integrity before our world,

the second is for us to attempt to turn cultural issues

into moral ones.

And then, the third part of our calling

is for us to reach out to the lost, hurting, hopeless people in the culture around us

and love them,

and through that love

show them the true heart of our Lord Jesus Christ for them.

OK, that’s where we ended last week,

and that’s where I want us to pick up our study today.

And I want to use what time we have left

offering some suggestions

about how we can most effectively equip and prepare the next generation

for effective Christian living in the years ahead.

As I thought this past week

about what I want to do this morning

I came up with a number of possible approaches.

In the end

what I have chosen

is the presentation of four essential attitudes

that I believe we are called to live out before this world,

attitudes that, if they are evident in our lives,

will reproduce themselves in the lives of those children and young people entrusted into our care.

Obviously the most direct application of what we will be doing

will be found in the parent/child relationship,

and with those who are directly involved in teaching children.

But it is by no means limited to that.

Nearly all of us have children and young people

who have been entrusted into our care at some level,

through our extended families,

and through our Church family.

And they watch us far more closely than we would ever imagine.

I have chosen this approach for us today

because of one of the most fundamental truths there is

whenever it comes to our involvement in the lives of children -

they will receive from us

not what we try to teach them,

but what we model for them with our own lives.

No matter what we attempt to communicate with our words,

even if we say almost nothing with our words,

the children in our lives

will know and reproduce our basic attitudes toward God.

If we believe our own relationship with God is based on our performance,

if we believe God loves us and accepts us when we perform well

and scowls at us and turns away from us when we fail,

no matter how much we may attempt to teach grace,

our children will hear and reproduce a performance-based approach to God.

If we live out a life of fear before our children,

if our life is filled with anxiety over money,

anxiety over our health,

anxiety over the future,

no matter how much we may attempt to teach our children

about an all powerful, loving God,

what we will reproduce in them

is the concept of a very tiny God,

a God who is either powerless to hold our lives in His hands and keep His promises to us,

or who simply doesn’t care.

Of course I realize that there are crisis times in all of our lives,

times of unusual financial or health-related stress,

times that generate intense anxiety within us.

I’m not talking about those brief periods in our lives

when we must actively fight our way through to a new discovery of our God’s love for us.

What I’m talking about

is that basic attitude toward our God

we bring to each new day.

I will be the first to acknowledge

that none of us begin with faith,

and that a great deal of what we learn about our God

is learned during those years when we are parenting our children.

But even here we can help our children

by growing honestly before them

and by allowing them to see in us

those areas in which we are struggling,

and where we have failed.

Honest growth struggles lived out before our children will never turn them away from our God.

It will give them hope

and permission to be honest themselves about their own growth areas.

And then, just one more comment before I share with you

those four attitudes that I believe to be the heart

of what we are called to pass on to the next generation.

Last week I made the comment

that, even though we sometimes wish we could do it,

there is no way we can create for ourselves or for our families

a protective bubble that can keep out the culture in which we live.

In saying that

I certainly didn’t mean

that we should not do everything within our power

to guard our children against exposure to forms of evil they are not yet ready to deal with.

But Sandee and I learned very early in Joni’s life

that there simply is no way to seal off a family unit

in a way that prevents our children from being exposed to the culture around us

virtually from the day they’re born.

And in truth,

even if we could,

it’s not what we really want.

We don’t want to seal them off from it,

we want to prepare them for it

and equip them with the tools

that will allow them to live effectively within it.

When Joni was just two years old

we moved to Texas for a year.

It would have been hard to find

two parents who were more committed to understanding

how we could most effectively fulfill our God-given roles in Joni’s life.

At that age

we did nearly everything together as a family.

We were living in a large apartment complex at the time,

but Sandee was home with Joni all day, every day,

and then I was always there in the evenings and on the weekends.

There were a few other children in the complex,

and Joni played with them a little during the days,

but even then Sandee was right there with them.

One of our favorite things to do on the weekends

was to go out for fast food on Saturday afternoons,

and I remember one Saturday

we went out for fish and chips.

The three of us were sitting in the restaurant

and Joni had just started in on her little plate of food

when a piece of fish fell off the plate and onto the table.

She looked at it laying there on the table for a few seconds

and then bellowed out, “OH MY GOD!!!”

Folks, in her entire two years of life,

she’d never heard those words

coming out of the mouths of either her mother or her father.

I knew right then

that protecting our children

from the influences of the culture in which we live

was just a game of illusion we parents play with ourselves

to keep the terror of parenting at a manageable level.

If we do our jobs well,

we can create home environments

that are morally safe places for our children.

But we cannot isolate them from the culture in which we live,

nor should we want to.

Our goal should be

to equip them with the tools they will need

to live effective lives within this culture

once they leave our homes.

So, with that as background,

let me share with you

what I believe to be the four critical attitudes

that we want to model for and then reproduce in the next generation

in order to equip them for life in this culture.

First, we need to develop in ourselves and then model for the next generation

an offensive, NOT a defensive attitude toward life with our God.

This has always been true throughout all cultures, of course,

but it has become especially crucial

in today’s cultural environment.

One of the key messages our culture will communicate to our children

is the belief that people who hold to the idea

that there really is a living, personal Creator God

who has revealed to us the only pattern for life that really works

are both stupid and dangerous to the progress of our society.

Given the fact that our society now believes

that true good comes from encouraging each person

to live by any standard they choose, in any lifestyle they choose,

Christians, and those who still recognize Christian moral values

are portrayed as judgmental, non-thinking fools

who don’t have a clue as to what’s really going on in the world.

But the truth is

to the degree that our lives depart from the pattern outlined to us by our God,

to that degree we create for ourselves

added stress,

added pain,

added agony to our lives.

We are not trying to cram our values down the throats of those around us.

We are attempting to share with them

the only pattern for life that really works.

I can remember well

that period in my own life

when I finally began to realize the logical absurdity

of ever being defensive about the truth revealed to us by our God,

and realized at the same time

that whenever I am with a person

whose life is not based on God’s pattern for life

I know I am with a person whose life is simply not working well in some major areas.

Every step toward greater freedom of spirit and soul I have ever taken

has been a step toward closer conformity to the principles given to us by our God.

Every step I’ve ever taken

that has brought about greater stress,

greater bondage,

greater inner slavery

has been a step away from those principles.

Now, as never before in our nation’s history,

we want our children armed with that kind of confidence, that kind of offensive approach to life

that can only come from knowing they possess the truth,

and from knowing that it is only that truth that has the power to make us free.

I love the way Paul described our role in the world to the Philippians.

He called us to,  PHI 2:15 ... prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world...

We are not the enemies of social progress,

we are the lights that pierce the darkness,

lights that show the way and give hope.

Second, now as never before we must equip our children

with a clear understanding of the difference between God’s universal moral absolutes

and the Spirit’s personal and cultural applications of those absolutes in our lives.

This principe becomes especially crucial

as our children enter the teen years.

God’s design for His people in this area is remarkable

both for its effectiveness and for its simplicity.

He doesn’t hand us pages and pages of intricate rules to govern our lives.

What He does do is to give us the broad protective moral principles of life,

principles that are applicable to every person,

every culture,

every time.

There aren’t many of them -

submission to the human authorities He has placed over us,

keeping sexual relations exclusively within marriage,

not seeking to deceive others,

not allowing our lusts for things or for people to drive our lives,

always using our speech, both spoken and written, to build up those who hear,

recognizing that relationships are always of far greater value than our rights, our things, or our ideas...

there are a few others,

but that covers most of that universal protective moral framework right there.

And then He places His Spirit within each of us

and through His Spirit

shows us step by step, moment by moment,

how to apply each of those principles to the countless unique situations we encounter each day.

GAL 2:20 “...and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me...”

And if we are ever to prepare the next generation

for effective, truly Christian living in this culture in the years ahead,

we must equip them with a clear understanding

of the difference between what is universal

and what is personal.

If we fail to give them those principles that are universal we will destroy them,

if we attempt to take what is personal and make it universal we will loose them.

That doesn’t mean we cannot or should not establish within our homes

those rules of life within that home

that we believe are right.

“You need to be home by 10:00, or 11:00, or midnight.”

“You must finish your homework before you go over to your friend’s house.”

“When small rodents can be seen in your room, you must clean it.”

But even here we need to continually reinforce the principle.

“These are not universal moral rules of life.

They are simply rules I have chosen for our home.

In just two years (or three, or four) you will have both the right and the responsibility

to make all of these choices for yourself.

But for now, for the sake of our life together in this house, this is the way it works.”

Which brings me to my third principle,

during the adolescent years

actively trust the life of God in our children

through turning over to them

the right to find and follow the Spirit’s leadership in their own lives wherever possible.

We do not want to try to create a next generation of people who follow our rules.

We want to create a next generation of men and women

who understand how to hear and follow the voice of their God in their own lives

step by step, moment by moment.

I don’t know what the next generation of God’s people will look like,

but I do know for certain

that they will not look like us

and if they do

then we’ve done something wrong.

Our children are being prepared by God

to communicate to a world

and to a cultural environment that we will never see.

And we can best prepare them for that role

by actively, aggressively reinforcing in them

their ability to hear and follow the voice of their God in their own lives

as they move into the teen years.

When they enter our homes as infants

we hold the responsibility of making every single decision for them,

throughout every minute of the day.

When they leave our homes,

if we have done our job well,

we will have turned over to them

both the right and the responsibility to make every single decision for themselves.

In that transition

the words they need to hear from us again and again

are the words, “My son, my daughter, I trust God’s life in you, and your ability hear and follow His leading.”

And then, when they don’t make the choice we would have made,

unless there is a clear universal moral issue involved,

we reaffirm to them

our confidence in their ability to find and follow the Spirit’s leading in their own life.

And then, very quickly,

my last principle.

Fourth, we want to give the next generation a warfare mentality, not a list mentality.

There is no religion

or religious system in existence

that can ever equip our children for the world they will face in the future.

Religion will give them a set of rules they must fulfill in order to be good Christians.

A good Christian will wear these types of clothes,

and listen to this type of music,

and be involved in these types of causes, and groups, and organizations,

and on and on.

What we want to give the next generation

is not a system,

not a set of rules that define the lines between holy and unholy, Christian and pagan,

but what we want to give them

is a correct warfare understanding

of what’s really going on.

And maybe I could best illustrate what I’m trying to say here

with just one specific illustration.

When our boys get into their early teens

and their sex drive begins to kick into gear

they will discover the dark side of the internet -

a never ending world of pornographic sewage being pumped into the human race.

Now let me say first of all

that I am a strong believer

in parents’ giving their children a fair battle ground

by using whatever internet filtering systems they have access to.

Even the most diligent house cleaners will have problems

if they must face having a pipeline of filth pumped into their homes every day.

But beyond that,

what we want to give our young men

is not a list, but a warfare mentality.

Rather than saying to them,

“You can go to this site, but not that site, or that one or that one...”,

we want to tell them what’s really going on.

“Son, there are forces in this world that want to own you.

They want to lodge deep hooks into you and possess your mind and soul for themselves.

There is a war being waged over you for your very freedom of spirit.

Those who seek to own you

know that their greatest chance of claiming you for themselves

will come during the next three or four years.

But I want you to know

that they have no right to you.

You are private property,

the property of your Creator, your God.

You have been bought with a price,

with the very blood of Christ Himself.

Your sexuality is such an incredible gift from your God,

a deep, pure, strong river of life within you.

They want to turn it into a sewer - dirty, and twisted, and corrupted.

That isn’t who you are, my son,

that isn’t who your God designed you to be.

Don’t let them do it, don’t let them win.”

What we want most of all

is not to isolate our children from the world,

what we want to do

is to prepare them for it.

How we do that will differ with every family,

and with every child within that family.

For some it will mean choosing to home school, or to place your children in a Christian school,

not because the world around us is so evil that we dare not allow our children near it,

but because we have decided

that the home school or Christian school environment

will give us the best opportunity to develop within our children

the discernment they will need to recognize truth and lies,

and the discernment to recognize the difference between religious systems

and the living reality of Christ in us,

equipping them for confident, effective living in this culture in the years ahead.

And others will choose the public school setting,

using it as an age-appropriate cultural laboratory,

listening carefully to our children each step of the way,

helping them to understand how to recognize truth and how to recognize lies,

and then how to deal with the lies where and when they encounter them.

And always we pray for wisdom,

trusting our God to show us how to equip our children

to stand strong on the absolutes,

while giving them freedom to hear the voice of their God

in the ever changing cultural applications of those absolutes

that they will encounter throughout their lives.

John said it so much better

and so much more clearly than I ever could.

1JO 4:4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome (the spirit of the antichrist); because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

They have stolen the slogan that rightfully belongs to us – NO FEAR!, my friends, NO FEAR!