In my previous posts, I’ve concluded that there can be no doubt anymore at this point of what is brewing in our culture and what we are facing. The one true God is Lord over history, and He has now called Christians in this generation into the storm.
The secular age has its consequences for every sphere of society.
The severing off of a biblical worldview has done everything from dehumanized certain groups of people both alive and unborn, created harmful ideologies, characterized people solely by their immutable characteristics, fractured the family unit, redefined that which God has instituted, and promoted a radical sexual revolution, which fundamentally alters not only the way human beings live but even our very understanding of what it means to be human.
I think it’s important that Christians must realize that the more enduring contest going on in the culture is not one of political parties, nor leaders, but between rival world-views.
Previously, I noted that three massive Christian virtues mark our way forward.
As the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three….” (1 Cor. 13:13)
The three virtues – the most important qualities that we possess as Christians – are what we must carry on into the whirlwind of culture. If I had to put together a short description of the culmination of all the things that I have learned as a Christian in my journey of the last several years, I would begin here:
FAITH
Christ’s people are a people of faith – most centrally, faith in Christ.
Without this virtue, the church stumbles and falls before any challenge.
In a secular age like ours, faith is confused. Even some secular people will talk of “having faith”, but Christians do not have faith in faith itself, but faith in Christ. That’s quite different.
Where you find failing churches and denominations, you find a loss of faith. Where you find courage, conviction, and steadfastness, you find the people of God with vibrant faith in Christ and his promises.
In this secular age, Christians must display faith in at least THREE ways:
1) Faith in God’s DESIGN
2) Faith in God’s WORD
3) Faith in the Gospel’s POWER
Faith in God’s Design
Churches and Christian ministries are on the front lines of the cultural challenges, those that we fully expect from a culture that is secular and moving away from its Christian moral worldview. But Christians who hold to and teach a biblical vision of everything from marriage to sexuality, they present a threat to the secular forces seeking to redefine civilization.
Christians, however, must have faith in the creational order of our God and his design for human life. Faith that God’s design is not only true and good but the only pathway to human flourishing.
Faith in God’s creational mandate is the very foundation of our worldview and orders all our thinking.
Christians, therefore, reveal their faith in God by living out that truth.
Faith in God’s Word
Where you find faithful churches, you find people committed to the Bible – the infallible, inspired, inerrant Word of God.
So many churches and denominations crumble to the spirit of the age. Why? Mostly because they’ve lost faith in the holy scriptures.
The secular worldview eventually displaced a biblical worldview because in the current secular moment, which I’ve heard it before described, we are in “a battle between revolution and revelation.”
What this means is that there is an ever-increasing hostility to any claim of ‘revelation’ from an authority figure like God.
Simply, it’s a choice – does the revelation of the meaning, value, and purpose of life come from God or from man?
We know that the Bible is God’s Word written. Without it’s inspiration, the church has nothing.
The Bible is also truthful – it contains no error.
And thirdly, it is sufficient. We are not waiting for some updated knowledge on matters to which the Bible speaks.
If we take our stand upon the revelation of God, then no revolution can come along and confuse us or engulf us.
Faith in the Gospel’s Power
First of all, we have faith that Jesus saves. This, put simply, is the most basic fact of Christianity.
The gospel is the great news that God saves sinners, and that is another aspect of biblical truth that we must always keep in mind.
Human beings face many problems, but the most basic human problems are things we cannot fix.
This is crucial for Christians to keep in mind. This keeps us from any cultural or political confusion of turning to things that which can never save.
The Christian worldview is rooted in the sovereignty of God and the command to love our neighbour. But the biblical worldview also puts everything else in its proper place.
We engage with the world – in its culture, in its political processes, and all the other dimensions of it, because they’re under our stewardship – but our ultimate and only hope is in Jesus.
Remember what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”
There it is, as clear as can be.
In the fourth and final part, we’ll look at the other two – Hope and Love.
~ Brendan Olenick ~