Be the Salt, and Light in Darkness

It seems many of the conversations I have nationally, regionally and locally, always get around to the idea of how bad our culture has gotten.

Sin is celebrated, and What God has called good is mocked. Just when you think it won’t get any worse, you are shown how mistaken you are. Just turn on your tv, read your paper, listen to the radio, scroll your newsfeed, the farther we get from creation the deeper human depravity goes. In fact, this has even influenced our churches.

If I may be so bold as to say, the culture has shaped our Christianity, not our Christianity shaping the culture. Here is the thing, if we are students of God’s Word, we know that our culture is going to be increasingly godless.   

I am reminded of Paul as he writes his last letter to Timothy, a young Pastor:  2 Timothy 4: 1-5 “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound[a]teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

As I write to you today, my writing is for the Christian, the follower of Jesus and not of culture. We can sit around and wring our hands at how bad things are and how godless they have become, or we can be salt and light where we do have influence.  The number one place we can do that is in our homes. We are told in Proverbs 22:6 “ Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Deuteronomy 6:4-9. 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[b] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 

It is imperative that we disciple our children, they are our children.  It is not a work of the churches, or the schools, or programs, but of parents to disciple and lead their families well. If my child accomplishes great worldly accolades, but fails to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the only way of salvation, I have failed.

I feel that this has been the shortcoming of the church and has led us to where we are today. We have not equipped families to lead their own households well in worship and discipleship. We have not taught biblical truths to our children, equipped them to stand in their own faith. I don’t have any say over anyone else’s household, But I am reminded of the Scripture of Joshua 24:15  And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

There it is, my answer to a godless culture, chose this day who you will serve, but for my house we will serve the Lord! 

Yours in Christ,

Justin Brown

Pastor/ Planter

The Well Church of Sidney