When Jesus came to earth as our Lord and Savior, he
literally divided history. Sociologically speaking he brought a new culture to
earth, centrally focusing our lives on the gospel. While originally called “The Way” it later
became Christianity and it shifted peoples thinking so that works, or the law,
no longer became the central focus of life, death or salvation. And although
works is still a display of faith in that we so love God we do good works in
his name, our central focus is now the gospel, so much so that it becomes our
culture. Today we as the church need a paradigm shift back to this reality. Too
many of Christians simply try to add religion to part of their current
lifestyle (or culture) instead of letting it utterly change their lives by
surrendering to it and letting the gospel direct every aspect of their lives.
First we must, ask what is “culture”? I think a commonly
accepted definition would be, as Kim Ann Zimmerman said on LiveScience.com “Culture is the characteristics of a
particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion,
cuisine, social habits, music and arts.” And also perhaps a more academic
definition from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Advanced Research on
Language Acquisition, which is “culture
is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive
constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of
socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group
while also distinguishing those of another group.”
With these definitions in mind who do you consider yourself
to be culturally as first, a man? A woman? A citizen of America? Or citizen of your town? Or do you see
yourself as a Christian first? Someone who solely belongs to God? What defines
this culture of Christianity? How do we as Christians distinguish ourselves
from other groups?
I think Tim Keller rightly points out in his book “Center
Church” that we must contextualize the Gospel when presenting it to varying
cultures, while at the same time not losing the heart of the Gospel. However
once the Gospel has been accepted as truth, it has to become the center of our
culture, it simply must affect our behaviors and interactions, cognitive
constructs, and affecting understanding in ways that we would not otherwise
know if we were not immersed in the culture of the Gospel.
What is Gospel immersion? It is the baptism into your
rebirth as a Christian, not figuratively, but literally as you were immersed
into water and raised out of the water a reborn person in Christ, you remain
immersed in Christ; you remain fully engulfed in the Gospel. We are now
culturally immersed into the Gospel, how do we now react and grow in this new
culture? A good place to look is to see how the early Christians grew into the
new culture that Jesus brought to them. Acts 2:44 “And all who believed were
together and had all things in common”
This “new culture” calls us that in everything we as the
church do; need to be asking "what would glorify God?" Not just in
church, or in prayer, or mission or deeds; but in everything we do; from waking
in the morning until we lay our heads on the pillow once more. In doing this we
shift our focus from ourselves to God. Eventually
our walk with Jesus through the gospel does not just become part of our
culture, but defines our culture as Christians. Some may say that this sounds
like legalism, and they'd be right if for two things. If we did these things
hoping to be saved, or in order to make God indebted to us then yes it would be
legalism, but if we do these things in love and because we know our God, then
no this is not legalism, it is simply our grateful response to our Holy God.
How do we glorify God? Thankfully God sent His Word to us,
literally, in that we have the Bible and the teachings, stories, examples and
the Gospel of the Word, Jesus Christ. He teaches us the great commission, to
love God with all your heart, and to love one another as you would love
yourself. He teaches us to pray, he shows us grace filled love, and on the
Cross he finishes his redemptive plan. God abandons himself on the cross, that
He might not abandon us for eternity. This requires a response, one of humility
and of thanks, of awe and gratitude and most importantly Holy worship of the
Triune God.
