We are living in a cultural moment where “everything is political” and where “sex has become politicized”. How do Christians respond? In this sermon, I propose a framework for a winsome and wise cultural engagement that goes beyond modern divisive politics.

How did Jesus engage the various political parties of his day? How does the “Genesis Blueprint” of God creating male and female in his image (Gen. 1:26-28) speak to our cultural moment where transgenderism is being celebrated?

What were the unique identifying features of the Early Church that wooed and wowed the entire Mediterranean world for the Cause of Christ? Considering that the Roman Empire was hostile to Christianity and propagated moral and sexual ethics that were vastly different than the church, the Early Church’s countercultural stance was nonetheless attractive to the masses.

Moderns tend to think that relevance makes Christianity attractive. What the Early Church experienced was that being counter-cultural, especially over and against a culture that was deeply flawed and deeply fallen, was itself supremely attractive.

There is always an offense to the gospel. To a fallen world, the ethics downstream from the cross is always offensive.

To read the sermon in its entirety, click here: THIS CULTURAL MOMENT.

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Suffice it to say, Most of my sermons are not heavily footnoted. Yet, because of the complex nature of the discussion, I happily leaned on several scholars. I not only cite those in the footnotes out of customary acknowledgement of the source but also to give you a chance to follow up and do your own reading, if so desired.

How did the sentence "I am a woman trapped in a man's body" become such an integral part of the social fabric and cultural vernacular of the 21st century so that the sentence makes perfect sense to ordinary people in the Western world?

Carl Trueman's The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution has been called the best cultural analysis from a Protestant in 50 years.

I put together a 5-Session Discussion guide on Carl Trueman's book entitled "God’s Design, Our Bodies, and this Cultural Moment”. (Sessions #3 & #4 can be combined in one group discussion.)

If you don't have time to read Trueman (400+ pages), the 5-Session Discussion Guide will give you a good idea of some of the key components (Freudian Marxism, Emotivism, Death Works, Critical Theory) and my own thoughts on a winsome cultural engagement with transgenderism.

How did we arrive at this cultural moment where biology can be viewed as a form of tyranny to one’s psychologized identity? The intellectual trajectory which allowed our culture to arrive at “The Triumph of the T” can be summarized thus:

1. Psychologize the Self: "I am what I feel."

2. Sexualize the Psychology: "I am what I feel sexually."

3. Politicize the Sexuality: "I will cancel you if you don't celebrate my sexualized identity."

Download the 5-Session Discussion Guide here: "God’s Design, Our Bodies, and this Cultural Moment”.

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed[a] thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)

Food for Thought:

One common misunderstanding of this very familiar parable is that Jesus is primarily talking about prayer. After all, Jesus simply describes two men and their prayers!  Yet, it is interesting to notice what Jesus does not say after the Tax Collector’s prayer. Jesus does not say, “I tell you the truth, this man went home, rather than the other, with his prayer answered.”

Rather, Jesus says, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.” (vs. 14a). This is a parable of salvation. Luke gives you the clue right off the bat: Jesus told the parable because some “trusted in themselves that they were righteous” (vs. 9). The language of justification and righteousness means that Jesus’ parable is playing ball in the proverbial ballfield of Salvation Park.

What does Jesus want to say about salvation? 

The parable hinges on highlighting an enormous contrast. In the first century religious world, it would be hard for a Jewish person to imagine a bigger contrast religiously than between a Pharisee and a Tax Collector. A Pharisee was the first century religious equivalent of Superman – able to leap religious buildings in a single bound. Nobody would have doubted the Pharisee’s words. Everyone would have nodded their heads in agreement: “Of course, he fasts twice a week. Of course, he gives the tithe. Of course, he’s not like all other men and the rest of us sinners. He’s God’s favorite. Just look at his life!”

And yet, the contrast is a big part of the entire point of the parable: the nature of God’s salvation is that everyone is included. Even the Tax Collector. Even the person (seemingly) furthest from the Kingdom of God is graciously invited in. That’s the nature of salvation that Jesus brings, and that’s incredibly good news to everyone who can’t possibly trust in their own righteousness or have given up (a long time ago) ever trying to be a Religious Superhero because they can point to all kinds of failures and flaws. Even the Tax Collector can go home justified.  That’s gloriously good news for broken sinners. Even the Tax Collector.

The Tax Collector prays simply. In fact, his prayer is one of the shortest prayers in the entire Bible. The entire prayer is a mere 6 words in the Greek, and 7 words in most English translations: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Simple yet Profound. The Tax Collector stands in a long-line of biblical characters who recognize two great truths: the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.

• Isaiah responds to the vision of God’s holiness thus: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5)

• Job responds to a vision of Yahweh by uttering “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6).

• Simon Peter falls at Jesus’ feet: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8)

• John’s heavenly vision makes him tremble: “I fell at his feet as though dead.” (Rev. 1:17).

So too the Tax Collector.  James Montgomery Boice notices that “the Pharisees began his prayer with ‘God’. But he was not praying to God because he did not see himself as a sinner.” You can never really pray without knowing yourself to be a sinner. And that’s what Jesus wanted to say about salvation, too. You can never be saved until you recognize some really bad news: I am a sinner in need of a Savior.

Thus, the beginning and end of the Tax Collector’s prayer is instructive: the Tax Collector recognizes who he is (“a sinner”) and he recognizes who God is (“standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven”).

Yet the meat of his prayer is equally profound and magnificent: “be merciful to me”. The word translated “be merciful” is the Greek word hilastheti which is the verb form of “mercy seat” on the ark of the covenant in the Jewish temple (hilsterion) which occurs only in two places in the entire New Testament:

• Romans 3:25: whom God put forward as a propitiation (hilsterion) by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (1 John 2:2, 4:10 use a closely related word.)

• Hebrews 9:5: Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat (hilsterion). Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

Modern English versions of the Bible would never translate the metaphor so literally because it would butcher the English language, but the tax collector’s prayer could awkwardly be translated, “be mercy-seated towards me” or “treat me as one who comes on the basis of the blood shed on the mercy seat as an offering for my sins”.[1] James Boice explains the significance:

“The ark of the covenant was a wooden box about a yard long, covered with gold, and containing the stone tablets of the law of Moses. The lid of that box was the mercy seat, constructed of pure gold and having on each end of it angels whose outstretched wings went backward and upward, almost meeting over the center of the mercy seat. Between those outstretched wings God was imagined to dwell symbolically. As it stands, the ark is a picture of judgment intended to produce dread in the worshipper through a knowledge of his or her sin. For what does God see as He looks down from between the wings of the angels? He sees the law of Moses that we have broken. He sees that he must act toward us as Judge.

But here is where the mercy seat comes in, and here is why it is called the mercy seat. Upon that covering of the ark, once a year on the Day of Atonement the high priest sprinkled blood from an animal that had been killed moments before in the courtyard of the temple. That animal was a substitute. It was an innocent victim dying in the place of the sinful people who deserved to die. Now, when God looks down from between the outstretched wings of the angels, He sees, not the law of Moses that we have broken, but the blood of the innocent victim. He sees that punishment has been meted out. Now His loves goes out in mercy to save the one who comes to Him through faith in that sacrifice.

…Not only did [the tax collector’s prayer] embody his faith in the way of salvation by sacrifice, it actually expressed the idea by its form.” 

The tax collector understood that between “God” and “me, a sinner” comes the mercy seat! Salvation always rests on God’s grace to “be mercy-seated” towards sinners. Only the mercy seat of God can atone for my sin. The apostle Paul tells you that God put forward Christ as your mercy seat which alone atones for your sins by his blood (Rom. 3:25).

What a great parable, and what an even better salvation!

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[1] Shout out to James Mongomery Boice.

Read this blog post on the Reformation 21 website.

Originally Published on this website in August 2019.

Tim Wright here and Jonathan Aigner here have significant ideas which are worth our attention in thinking through our “theology of the church” with respect to the participation of children and students in the life of the church. 

During the last 40 years, the Western Church has experimented with a gigantic paradigm shift which sought to pass along the Christian faith in age-specific programs. Unfortunately, one of the unintended consequences of this increasingly ubiquitous model of the church in North America is that many young people are losing — and have forever lost — any meaningful touch points with the rest of the congregation. Tim Wright argues that by segregating our kids out of worship, we never fully assimilated them into the life of the congregation: “They had no touch points.  They had no experience. They had no connection with the main worship service—its liturgy, its music, its space, its environment, and its adults. It was a foreign place to them.”[1] 

Not coincidentally, once kids finished with the children or student ministries departments of the church….many simply left the church as young adults.  Former youth group kids, now in their 20s and 30s, figured, “Hey, my parents dropped me off at sports. My parents dropped me off at piano.  My parents dropped me off at church.”

But now?  Young adults can easily connect the dots:  “Now, I don’t play sports; I don’t play piano; I don’t do theatre. I guess church was in the same category – a passing fancy of my childhood, an age-appropriate activity to eventually out-grow.” 

Over the last 40 years, children and students have enjoyed tailor-made programs suited to engage them, persuade them, and woo (and wow) them to become Christians. Yet we didn’t raise them, teach them, show them, or disciple them to become Churched Christians. Perhaps that reason, in part, is why so few of the next generation attend church today; they’ve graduated out of the church we gave them.  As Tim Wright expresses it, “We’ve essentially ‘Sunday-Schooled’ them out of church—because we never assimilated them into church.  We never ‘church-broke’ them.”

 Five Guiding Thoughts for Parents

(1)   A Foreign Language of Worship?  If “worship services” are a foreign language to our kids by the time they turn 12 (and even more so by 18)…“Houston, we have a problem”.  Kids are more likely never to come back to participate meaningfully in a congregation if their discipleship is forever and only “age appropriate”.    

(2)   Discipleship Untethered to Congregational Life?  In trying to raise disciples of Christ, we must remember that disciples untethered to congregational life is an oxymoron both scripturally (as we read the Old & New Testaments) and historically (as we look back on the history of the church).  In fact, I’d argue that any Christian who is growing in his love of Jesus, will also be growing in his love for the body of Christ (for whom Christ died). 

(3)   What’s the Real Problem?  The main problem why children or teens fight their parents about church is not the church, nor the preaching, nor the style of music, nor the architecture.  Nor is it helpful for the parent to shift the blame onto the institutional church (i.e. “the church doesn’t meet our children or teenagers where they are”).  The real problem is a combination of: 

• (a)   the foolishness and hardness of heart of our children or teenagers.  Simply put, many are not mature enough to recognize what they really need spiritually.  In this sense, children and teenagers are like all of us – rebellious sinners in need of grace.  AND/OR

• (b)  our parenting which capitulates to the desires and whims of our children.  Parents often (too easily) give up the fight which occurs in the heart of the family for producing mature disciples of Jesus Christ.  AND/OR

• (c)   parents effectively communicate through their actions that church is marginal to life.  Often, the church becomes a secondary or tertiary “thing we do” after football or soccer, band or scouts.  Parents effectively communicate to their children: everything else is more important for your life – school, homework, sports, instruments – than you attending both the worship service (1 hour) with your family and receiving age-appropriate teaching in Sunday school (1 hour) on a Sunday morning.   

 (4)   Disciplined Faithfulness Reaps Great Rewards:  What if kids and parents attended church together 40 times over the course of the next year?  (Think:  200 times from ages 8 – 12.)

As a parent, you’d have frequent congregational touch-points to talk about faith in the home.  Your kids would frequently see the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the ordination of elders, the welcome of new members, and the laying on of hands (in prayer).  They would pray for the health of the sick and comfort for families experiencing loss. Their ears would tingle at the exciting missionary reports from India or Africa about the growth of the Gospel. Slowly, they’d begin to develop a theological and spiritual vocabulary consisting of words like Trinity and Tithing, Grace and Gospel, Sacraments and Salvation.

These experiences of worship intersect in vital ways in the home. Precious points of doctrine can be explained. “Congregational memories” can be imprinted on the soul of your child. Slowly, your child’s congregational muscles begin to be formed — muscles which, when fully grown and developed — are some of the strongest muscles in our body for establishing and anchoring our life of discipleship.

By God’s grace, your child just might develop the attitude that participating in congregational worship is simply “something that we always do as a family,” which just might yield fruit into young adulthood and beyond. 

(5) Good Things are often Hard Things (at first).  In high school, I did not much enjoy reading Shakespeare or Homer, but I did so because it was good for me.  It forced me to stretch my imagination, my poetry, my reading level, and my general appreciation and enjoyment of literature. But now? I’d love an afternoon at the beach reading Shakespeare if such a time were gifted to me!

I also remember pounding my fists in anger on our family’s piano countless times growing up when I was age 8, 10, and 12 when my mom “forced” me to play piano.  But now?  I often sit down and play the piano for 45 minutes just for fun.

What if we parents had the same resolve for church that we did for soccer, drama, school, and music? We give countless hours to sports or music, but often fail to display the same resolve or commitment to church. It would be profitable for us, as parents, to simply ask: Why? (While…gulp…remembering that eternity is at stake.)

Final Story

I remember when our oldest son Kenyon was seven years old.  One day, after the worship service in Edinburgh, he remarked:  “Why does the pastor talk about ‘The Gospel’ all the time?”  (I was a student at the University of Edinburgh and not a pastor at this time.)  He didn’t understand everything from the church service at his young age, but that day (and many more like it) were moments that we had to shepherd our child’s heart, explain Christian truths, and bring the truths of Christ further into our home.  Congregational life was reinforcing home life in a way that was deepening and awakening spiritual truths in our young boy.

Is this challenging?  You bet. 

Is it hard?  Sometimes. 

Is it worth it?  You bet!

Let me encourage you to continue to fight the good fight that exists in the home to form disciples of Jesus Christ.

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[1] See Tim Wright, “Sunday Schooling our Kids out of Church”, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/searchingfortomsawyer/2014/08/sunday-schooling-our-kids-out-of-church/.

After blogging for four years, I thought that I’d do a recap rundown of this “Gospel-Centered Shepherding Blog”. Here are some of the highlights over the last few years:

MOST POPULAR POSTS (Top 3):

1. The Netflix Movie Every Christian Should Watch

   You can still watch American Gospel: Christ Alone on Netflix through October, 2021.

2. Parents, Stop Sunday Schooling your Kids out of Church

   The Gospel Coalition linked to this blog post in August of 2019.

3. The Messianic Character of Contemporary American Politics: The Rise of Politics as Religion

   The Gospel Coalition linked to this blog post in September 2020.

NATIONAL BLOG POSTS:

1. When to Speak Out? A Pastor’s Engagement with Current Issues

   Reformation 21, August 26, 2019

2. A Plea for Meekness: A Modest Proposal in 2020 for Social Media and Politics

   Reformation 21, January 24, 2020

3. The Enduring Value of a Long Sermon Series

   Reformation 21, June 14, 2020

4. The Dark Side for the Church during its Online Hiatus

   Reformation 21, April 27, 2020

5. A Tribute to Andrew F. Walls (1928-2021)

   Reformation 21, August 16, 2021

6. Two Temptations for the Post-Covid Church

   Reformation 21, May 11, 2022

7. You (Yes, You!) Should Consider Global Missions

   Kevin DeYoung’s Blog on The Gospel Coalition, December 30, 2014

Long-Form Essay:

Jesus as the New Israel: The Reconstitution of the People of God around the Person of Jesus

Where It All Began:

My first blog post was entitled “Pastor: Preach, Pray, & Be with People”. It was a succinct expression of what I believe pastoral ministry is all about as I began my pastoral journey with the beautiful people of Trinity Wellsprings Church.

Soli Deo Gloria. To God alone be the glory.