How to Engage with a Hostile Culture: Part Two (Titus 3:3)

Week 12 of our sermon series on on the Book of Titus.

And this week we find ourselves at just doing one verse.

And there's a really specific reason why we're just doing one

verse this morning. It's because this verse, in my

opinion, deserves all of our attention and it we can't really

make sense of exactly what Paul is trying to say unless we try

to dig into the very bottom of a verse 3 together.

So this is also Part 2 of a sermon on how to engage the

culture as Christians. So last week we looked at Titus

3 verses one through 2 and we concluded that the Christian

posture towards a hostile culture is gentleness.

So that was the conclusion that we, we drew last week when we

talked about how do Christians engage with culture?

What do we do when we experience pushback?

What do we do when we experience hostility?

What do we do when my neighbor says something mean to me?

What do I do if somebody puts up a yard sign that I, I don't

love? And the biblical answer for that

is we respond with gentleness. But it had me thinking, how much

hostility do Christians really experience today in, in, in the

here and now? And so I gave myself a little

homework assignment. This was just for me, I was

like, OK, what I'm going to do this next week is I'm going to

do a personal audit of cultural hostility.

So I was like for, for one week, every kind of little bit of

pushback and hostility that I experienced this week, I'm going

to write it down. And so I did 7 days of that and

there were five things that happened to me that were like,

OK, yeah, that's some hostility towards Christianity.

Here's #1 I listened to a song by a musician that I liked, and

the song derided Christianity as foolishness.

I was like, ah, shoot, I like that artist.

Point #2 was a stranger on Instagram, commented on one one

video of me preaching, and he told me that I was a religiously

white supremacist because I was a Christian.

He told me that I was a grifter in the attention economy.

I was like, oh wow, coffee's on me if you're ever coming through

to the moment. So I was #2 stranger #3 was a

fiction book I was reading, criticized Christianity as

oppressive through a character in the book who was a malicious

religious leader. It was still a pretty good book,

though #4 Is the Seattle Mariners lost now?

That doesn't that doesn't count as hostility towards culture.

It broke my heart, actually. I was this week my my daughter.

I didn't tell you this, Della, she wanted me to grab her snack.

So I was like, OK, who's the best, though?

And Della goes, God, it's like, OK, that's pretty good.

And I was like, yeah, OK. But what I meant was who's the

best human? And she goes, well, Jesus became

human. So God, I was like, oh, gosh

Dang it, you're right again. And so I was like, OK, who's

who's, who is the the best human, who's not God?

And she said, Ken Griffey junior.

I was like, close enough. We'll count that.

I was actually pretty proud of her.

But actually there was a street preacher outside of the Mariners

Arena this last week who was assaulted because it was

preaching. So maybe we'll talk that up as

#4 and #5 is that a loved one who was near to me?

Didn't say it to me, but she said something really mean about

Christians online. So that was my week and those

five points, I look at those five points and I think, you

know, not, not a lot of hostility.

It's not a lot. I didn't lose my job, right?

My wife didn't leave me because I was a Christian.

Nothing like that happened. I didn't take a pay cut because

of it. I wasn't arrested, but also it

wasn't nothing. And So what is the proper

response to those five things from a Christian worldview?

Which, what should I do in response to that pushback?

Well, the options are #1 I can go on a serious rage Bender and

type a bunch of angry sentences defending my view.

Or #2 well, is there another option?

If it's not retaliating with religious hostility, what is my

other option for responding to the hostility of culture?

Let's have the Word of God answer that for us.

If you're able, let's go ahead and stand up for the reading of

God's Word. I preached on verses one through

2 last week. So if you want the sermon on

these first 2 verses, you're going to have to go back in and

watch that. I still want you to hear the

flow of God's Word because it works together here.

So Paul says in chapter 3, he says remind them that's you,

that's the church. Remind them to be submissive to

rulers and authorities. And so these are the political

rulers and authority authorities who in that culture were not

Christian. And they are creating the

political and also the popular culture on the island of Crete

that this is going to. That's why I say that this is

Paul's instructions for responding to a hostile culture.

He says remind them to be submissive to rulers and

authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to

speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and to

show perfect courtesy toward all people.

That was our sermon last week. The question is OK.

My posture shorts towards culture should be 1 of

gentleness. How do I do that?

Where do I get that from verse 3-4?

Or because for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, LED

astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing

our days and malice and envy, hated by others and hating one

another. That's past tense.

I hope it's past tense for you. But that's in the Word of God,

the strategy for producing gentleness in your life.

Heavenly Father, I pray that you would.

Would you do that in US? Would you produce in USA?

A a Christ like gentleness, not a gentleness that lacks courage.

Not a gentleness that lacks bravery, not a gentleness that's

accomplished by undermining the truth.

That's not gentleness. That's cowardice.

This. But nevertheless, would you

produce a real gentleness in us that people could look at and

say, you know, I responded aggressively and with hostility

towards that person, and I just couldn't believe what she did in

response to that. I experienced gentleness.

What was that? Oh God, would you help us live

that way? Only through the power of Jesus.

So it's in his precious name that all God's people prayed.

Yeah, you can have a seat. Again, I'm not going to re

preach verses one through 2, but Apollo is essentially saying be

known for your gentleness. Maybe we could say it as don't

retaliate, Don't be hyper reactive.

Be known for your gentleness. That word gentleness, right

there is a Greek word that's used a handful of times

throughout the the the New Testament 11 translation of it

is meekness. That's a perfectly solid

translation of it. It's also paired in first Peter

with a quiet spirit. First Peter compels us and tells

us that we should be gentle and have a quiet spirit.

That also gives you a picture for the type of tenderness that

God is demanding when he uses the word gentleness.

Often times in the New Testament it's used with the antonym of

proud and haughty. So to have to have gentleness is

to be the opposite of having pride and and haughtiness.

And so when you kind of tie that all together, the gentleness

that Paul is coaching this church to have, that God's

coaching us to have one is 1 that you would call a truthful

tenderness. Or maybe you want to flip that.

Maybe it's a tender truthfulness, right?

It's the opposite of pride. It's the opposite of haughty.

It's non retaliatory. It would be compatible with when

Jesus says, hey, somebody hits you on the cheek, give them the

other one. That's the type of gentleness

that God is commanding from us. How do we get that though?

And that's where we turn the corner in verse 3.

It flows from be gentle to look at verse 3.

In verse 3, Paul gives us a strategy that can actually

produce in us the gentleness that he's demanding from us.

He essentially says, be gentle because you were the same way.

He says. He describes the hostility of

the world, and he says, hey, before you knew Jesus, you're

doing the same stuff. Or look at the actual language

here in verse three. Look at it, for we ourselves

were once foolish. You didn't have the wisdom of

God, disobedient, you didn't have the power to obey God.

Slaves to various passions and pleasures.

You just followed your flesh in whichever way it desired.

Passing our days and nalice and envy.

Hated by others and hating one another.

Post essentially saying that before you knew Jesus you were

doing the same stuff. But I want you to make one

massive textual observation about verse three.

If you have it in front of you, get your eyeballs on it.

I want you to notice this. This is really important.

Paul actually did not in fact say, hey, you were doing the

same stuff. It's close.

That's not what he says. close. Put no cigar.

What you would expect Paul to say is you would expect Paul to

say this. You know, we were once living in

a foolish way. That's not what he says.

Or we were once saying foolish stuff.

That's not what he says. Or we were once making foolish

decisions. That's that's not what he says,

though, is it? Look at the verb in verse 3 for

we ourselves were once foolish were that's the past tense verb

for to be. Why am I making such a deal out

of this? Why am I?

Why am I zooming in right here? Because Paul actually doesn't

say that we were doing the same stuff as them.

This is actually not operating on a behavioral level.

Paul saying you were the same way or to use technical language

before you knew Jesus, you had the exact same nature.

What I need you to see right here is that this is not just a

statement on behavior. This is a statement on human

nature. Paul is saying before you knew

Jesus, you had the exact same nature.

So we should ask ourselves the question, what nature was that?

And what the Bible argues and what Christians have

historically argued historically, emphatically and

biblically, is that the default operating system of human beings

apart from the grace of God is a sinful nature.

They've always argued that human beings are born with a sinful

nature. In other words, apart from the

saving grace of God, all human beings have the capacity to do

is sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin.

Now, of course, that doesn't mean that our non Christian

friends can't make good decisions.

John Calvin, a pretty solid theologian, he once famously

noted that having a sinful nature doesn't mean that every

decision we make apart from God is necessarily a bad decision,

or it doesn't mean that every motive that we have is a bad

motive. What it means is that even our

best decisions and even our best motives are still tainted by at

least the presence of some sin. And so our non Christian friends

and our non Christian brothers and sisters, they can do good

things in the world and they can make good choices in the world,

right? There's more than a handful of

examples in the Bible where non Christians live well or rule

well or make really good decisions.

So you don't need to be a Christian to make a good choice.

But without the grace of God, even our good choices are still

tainted by sin. This is why Christians cannot

earn their salvation. This is why there are no good

works that could earn salvation. Because every good work you

could do if you have a sinful nature is still tainted by sin

and unacceptable before a holy God.

That's why the Bible says that apart from God, our good works

are filthy rags. The problem isn't just a a

problem of behavior. The problem is a a problem of

nature. Cornelius Vantel, also a solid

20th century Reformed theologian, he likened when he

talked about the sinful nature of human beings, he likened it

to a glass of water. He said if you take this glass

of water and you just do one drop of poison in it, is the

water as poisoned as it could be?

No, you could put more poison in it.

But is the whole thing poisoned? Yeah, it works itself throughout

the entire thing. That's precisely what we see

with Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. When sin enters the world, a

drop of poison enters the human condition, and the human

condition becomes a default operating system of a sinful

nature. There's poison everywhere in the

cup. You can see this argument in the

text of the Bible. There's more than just these two

verses. I'll give you 2 really clear

ones though. In Psalm 51 verse 5, David says,

Psalms 51:5

behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my

mother conceive me? What's David saying?

He's saying from conception I had a sinful nature.

And if that's not clear enough, look at Romans chapter 3 verse

Romans 3:10

10. Romans chapter 3 verse 10 says

Romans 3:10

there is no one righteous, not even one.

There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away. All have together become

worthless. There is no one who does good,

not even one. Pretty clear, pretty clear.

So I'm not going to bore you with the details about this.

I'm not going to bore you to death here.

But the view that human beings are born with an essentially

good nature or a neutral nature is not taught in scripture.

And it was officially condemned as a heresy in AD 14 at the

Council of Carthage. If you just want to have like a

fun afternoon, go Google the Pelagian controversy, OK, You

can study more about it. It's super fascinating.

But it's condemned as a heresy that human beings were just born

with an essentially good nature. But Are you ready for this?

You guys with me? OK, you ready for this?

This is crazy. There's a Christian ministry

called Ligonier, pretty solid stuff.

And they do something every year called the state of theology

where they do a massive survey among thousands of US Christians

just to have some fun and see what Christians actually believe

in America and check this out. The results are jaw-dropping.

They what they do is they they put a statement and they say, is

that true or false? So here's here's statement #15

statement #15 is everyone is born innocent in the eyes of

God. Do you know how many US

Christians agree with that 64%? So that means that by the

historical standard of biblical orthodoxy, 64% of US Christians

embrace what the historical church would call a heretical

view of human nature. Statement #12 Everyone sins a

little, but people are good by nature. 53% of American

Christians believe that 53%. That's This is why.

OK, take that statement. American Christians people are

good by nature. The Bible there is no one

righteous, not even 1 US Christians people are pretty

good the Bible at sinning. That's what they're good at.

And yet they're fearfully and wonderfully made and loved by

God. But our nature is one that is a

default operating system of sin. So let's chat here.

The we got, I want to say this. This is really important.

OK, you read verse 3. Paul says, hey, we ourselves, we

were once foolish, disobedient, LED astray, slaves to various

passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy,

hated by others and hating one another.

Paul's not saying that because he feels like being He doesn't.

He's not saying that because he feels like being mean.

This is really important, OK, The Christian doctrine of the

sinful nature, It's like medicine.

It tastes bitter, but it actually produces health in you.

It's actually really humanizing and produces humility and

gentleness and you. It has a ton of explanatory

power in answering the question, why the heck am I the way that I

am? Like, have you ever asked that

question? Have you ever just like, have

you ever just made a boneheaded decision and then looked at

yourself in the mirror and been like, why am I the way that I

am? What is broken?

Not unlike the tertiary part of who I am, But like at the very

center of me, like even if you consider it through a dietary

lens, it's there. Like, why do I hunger for fast

food when I know it's bad for me?

And why can I not train myself to hunger for kale?

Because I know it's good for me. Why?

Why is my nature like this? There's something profoundly off

in the very center of our nature.

We we long for things that will destroy us.

And then we have to train our natures to enjoy the things that

are beneficial for us. What is that like?

I have never heard anybody say like, you know, I just really

had to discipline myself to eat that third bag of nerd clusters.

Speaking from experience, no, you don't have to discipline

yourself to do that. What do you have to do?

Just follow your nature? Have you guys had nerve

clusters? Dude, they're the best candy

ever. Ask.

Ask your buddy who's who's experienced A substance

addiction. Guarantee you your sister who's

experienced an addiction to a substance.

I guarantee you she won't say, you know, I just had to

discipline myself to go back and back to that substance.

No, all it required was a following, a going of the flow

along with the very grain of human nature.

And this is not just true in from a dietary lens.

This is true spiritually. Paul says be gentle, not angry.

OK. Why does anger feel so good that

isn't there like a dark pleasure to it?

You don't have to. You don't have to discipline

your nature to be more angry. What do you have to discipline

your nature to be? You have to discipline your

nature to be more gentle. Anger feels good in the moment.

Our nature loves it, but it slowly erodes our character over

time. And yes, there is such a thing

as righteous anger, but it probably constitutes 1% of your

anger. Righteous anger.

There is such a thing as righteous anger, it's just a lot

of Christians use that to justify 99% of their anger,

whereas it probably only constitutes like 1% of their

anger. So that's a thing.

But for the most part, anger feels good in the moment, but it

slowly erodes our character over time.

Gentleness feels like death in the moment, but it slowly builds

up our character over time. Why, why, why are we this way?

And at the bottom of these paradoxes, why don't this, not

that? Why do I not do the things that

I want to do and then I do the things I don't want to do?

At the bottom of all these paradoxes is not a giant

question mark. Who can know such things?

No, no, no. At the bottom of these paradoxes

is a biblical fact that we have a sinful nature.

And this sinful nature, you could explain it in a lot of

ways, but it's constituted, it's composed of primarily two

ingredients. Here's the first one.

The first ingredient of a sinful nature is we overestimate how

much happiness or how much joy sin will bring, right?

Eating a doughnut is not sinful. I love it.

But just as an example, when we see a doughnut sitting there,

all we have the capacity to do is imagine how intensely good

that flavor will be. What we don't have the capacity

to imagine is how the sugar crash is going to feel.

What we don't seem to have the capacity to do is recognize the

fact that after we eat that all it's going to produce in US is a

desire for another doughnut. And again, this is true

spiritually. When it comes to anger, all we

can think about is how good that angry e-mail will feel, right?

All, all we have the capacity to imagine is, dude, it's going to

feel so good to dish out this sick burn on Insta, right?

But what you can't imagine is what you can't imagine is the

embarrassment of somebody from your church reading that comment

and being like, oh, hey, cool. Not that that's happened.

I actually made it. I decided I'm not going to argue

about spiritual stuff on social media.

You do you do you whatever you want.

But I will argue about wrestling.

So that's where I get into trouble.

But that's part of the component of a simple nature is that we

vastly overestimate how much happiness sin will bring.

And the other component, and this is really just a second way

of saying the same thing, the second ingredient of a simple

nature is we underestimate how much happiness.

We underestimate how much joy God will bring.

We underestimate how happy it will make us to obey God's word,

even if it results in pain. And because we and because we

don't have the ability to imagine how happy obedience will

make us, we end up building idols for ourselves and we seek

our happiness and sin, or we even seek our happiness, our

ultimate happiness and things that are good but just don't

have the capacity to bring about everlasting happiness that it

promises. Like we have a tendency to say,

well, I'll, I'll be happy whenever I'm done with this

diet. You won't.

I'll be happy whenever I get the promotion.

You won't. I'll be happy whenever I find

the next church that really understands me.

You won't. I'll be happy whenever I get

married, right? All of these, these things, some

of these things are good, but they just do not deliver the

everlasting happiness that they seem to promise.

Why? Because we have a sinful nature

that overestimates how much happiness the world will bring

and underestimates how much happiness God will bring.

We. This is the way.

We were right. We were foolish, disobedient

slaves to our various passions. You know how people say stop and

smell the roses? I think that's good advice.

I think it's good advice stop and smell the roses.

We also need the opposite statement once in a while too,

especially in our Western 21st culture.

Like we need to start saying stop and smell the feces doesn't

look good on a sweatshirt or a mug or a Pinterest post.

But there are massive benefits from meditating on our crappy

nature and recognizing that apart from the grace of God, we

were that exact same way. It's one of the healthiest

things we can do as Christians. That's why Paul is reminding

them of this. It's where the gentleness comes

from. A humility that recognize I'm

the same way, right? Like, and you got to hear me on

this. Remembering our sinful nature or

contemplating our sinful nature. It's not about self loathing.

It's about self knowledge. There's a massive difference

there. Self loathing says I'm

worthless, I suck, nobody loves me.

That's not where contemplation of the sinful nature leads you.

It leads you to self-awareness of your nature.

And it doesn't say I'm worthless and I saw it says, you know, I'm

limited, I'm conflicted, I'm sinful, I'm self-centered and so

is everyone else. Doesn't that feel freeing?

That's actually where the humility that produces

gentleness comes from. This is what Paul's doing.

Paul's saying. Paul's saying stop and smell the

feces. You're not better than the

hostile culture around you. You can't read this text and

draw a different conclusion. Paul's like, hey, avoid

quarreling, be gentle, show perfect courtesy towards all

people because you were yourself once foolish, disobedient, LED

astray, slave to various passions and pleasures.

You were the same way. Paul's saying.

They're not different than you. They're made of the same stuff.

They're made of the same clay. They're made of the same matter.

They are acting like you acted before you knew Jesus.

They were acting like every human being ever has acted who

has not yet tasted the grace of God.

They're sinning because they have sinful natures.

Paul is saying, remember, you had this.

We were our we were the same way.

We were once foolish. We were once disobedient.

We once hated others and were hating one another.

All of us were this way. We've we've all descended from

the same Adam and Eve. If you think of yourself as like

a glass of wine, we're all poured from the same picture as

Adam and Eve. That's where our nature came

from, poured out of the same picture.

We recognize that because some Christians just think that their

crap don't stank, right? The moral superiority of some

Christians in the way that they engage the unbelieving culture

suggests that they think that they fart butterflies you don't

like. Sometimes you listen to

Christians and you would think that honestly, you you would

think that they thought that God made their unbelieving neighbors

out of clay, but when God made them, he used 24 karat gold.

Believer, bring back the phrase from the 90s.

You're not all that in a bag of potato chips.

Wasn't just true in the 90s, it's still true.

You, you can't listen to me. You can't point at any of the

billions of human lives that have ever existed on planet

Earth and say thank God I'm not like that person.

You can't do that because you are.

You had the same nature. You can't even point at Adolf

Hitler and say, oh, thank God, I'm not like that.

You are. Hitler wasn't made of different

stuff. He was made of the same stuff as

you. The difference between you and

Hitler is circumstances and the grace of God.

That's it. If you could see the world, if

you could see reality clearly, the difference between you and

Hitler is nothing compared to the difference between you and

God. You're much more like him than

you are like God, made of the same stuff, right?

On the bright side, that's like, here's a here's a great way of

phrasing it. On the bright side, we're all

poured out of the same picture of human nature as Mother Teresa

and Gandhi and King David. But on the dark side, we're all

poured out of the same picture as Stall and Hitler and King

David. You are you.

You are like every other human being who has ever existed on

planet Earth. That's what you're like when you

remember this. It produces in you a humility

that recognize. But by the grace of God, that's

exactly what I'd be doing. And the recognition of this

helps you engage with culture, with gentleness when they act in

Pagan ways, when the culture bumps your cup and you

recognize, hey man, I got the same.

I would have done that if not by the grace of God.

You spill wine, not water. You spill gentleness and not

hostility when people post things or say mean things to you

or put up yard signs you don't like or put up billboards that

you don't like. When you recognize that you're

made of the same stuff, you won't respond with hyper

reactivity. You'll respond with gentleness,

but it's like, OK, cool, got it. That's in the text.

Avoid quarreling. Be gentle.

We were exactly that same way. The big unanswered question that

I'm not bringing clarity to right now, I know what it is.

The big unanswered question is what exact form should the

gentleness take in response to the culture?

I got the gentle posture down, but what should I do when crap

actually hits the fan? When the rubber actually meets

the road? And the answer to that is, it

depends, right? So maybe, maybe if you've

experienced hostility from the culture in the last month, just

bring that to mind for a second. Again, something means somebody

said, maybe just something you disagreed with.

Whatever it was, the culture bumped you and you're like, I

don't like that. What's what's the what form

should the gentleness take? It might be a gentle answer.

This is Proverbs 15 verse one quote.

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up

anger. So it might be gently responding

with the correct answer. There's biblical precedent for

that, but it might also be simply absorbing the hostility

of the culture without retaliating.

We see that demonstrated in Jesus before Pilate.

Pilate before crucifying Jesus is mocking him and saying what

is truth? And Jesus just looks at him and

absorbs it. So there's biblical merit to

just absorbing the hostility and not retaliating also.

So it might be that might be, it might be absorbing the hostility

of a friend or family member while choosing to hold on to the

relationship knowing that the future will afford you an

opportunity to speak the truth. I don't know, let's say, OK,

well, what's the Bible say? Here's what it says.

Proverbs 26, verses four and five.

Are you ready for this? Proverbs 26 verse 4 answer not a

Proverbs 26:4

fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.

OK, so don't respond to foolishness with an answer,

because then I'll just look foolish, right?

Maybe Proverbs 26 verse 5 answer a fool according to his folly,

Proverbs 26:5

less TP wise in his own eyes. They're purposefully

back-to-back right there. What is it?

Do I not answer them or do I answer them?

And the question or the answer to that is maybe have fun with

that. But here, here's the point

underneath that. The point underneath that is

that there's not A1 size fits all response to a hostile

culture. You are actually going to have

to wrestle with God, and He wants it that way.

You are actually going to have to wrestle with God to know what

the exact right response is. It's just the way it is.

It's a relationship with God. But this sermon does come with a

massive surgeon general's warning.

OK, this does not invalidate everything I just said, but it

comes with a surgeon general's warning.

And here's the surgeon general's warning.

You need to know that building a life around avoiding cultural

pushback is a waste of time. Notice this Paul is not giving

instructions on how to avoid the hostility of the world.

He's assuming you're experiencing it.

So somebody might misinterpret my sermon or last week's sermon

by saying it sounds Cole like, like the point is to just not be

offensive. No, no, you are offensive by

merit of what you believe and what you are.

You're a piece of new creation working yourself through the old

creation. By the very of nature of what

you are, you will be offensive. It assumes hostility.

So the instructions aren't, hey, here's how you don't ever

provoke any hostility from the culture.

The instructions are make sure that when the hostility comes,

you're gentle in response. Does that make sense?

This is this is super, super important because you will be

tempted to organize and curate your life around what makes the

world least likely to lash out at you.

Can I just say that's a bad idea?

It's it's a bad idea to organize and curate your life around.

What can I say and do that's going to make the culture not

get mad at me? It's a bad idea.

Like I would even say it this way over the last year or two I

have actually, this is super interesting.

I have learned almost the exact dynamics of the hardwood floor

that's on our upstairs level in our 100 year old house.

I I know almost exactly which boards creak and which ones

don't. Do you know why?

Because every morning when Chloe and I wake up, if we want to go

downstairs, we have to walk by one of our children's rooms.

And it's the room of a child who we don't want to wake up before

he needs to wake up. I can let you draw your own

conclusions on which of our three children that is.

I'll give you a hint. He's the only Diking kid to get

kicked out of Frontier Roots and the the gym childcare in the

same week, and deservedly so. Now I'm messing, but in response

to that, I've learned, OK, if I, if I step there, that one's

going to creak. And if I step there, it's not

going to creak. And so like when I walk past his

room, I'm like, it's almost like I'm like, I can see it like it's

a football play on the hardwood floor.

I'm like, you know, I take a couple steps here, a couple

steps there. If I make it past his room and I

and I get to the stairs, then I start to gently tip toe right

down into the basement, right. And the reason why I'm bringing

this up is because you should not live your life that way.

You will be tempted to live that way.

If I step right there, the culture is going to squeak.

If I step on that thing that the culture is going to creak.

So I better avoid that. And I'm going to run over here

and then I'm going to tiptoe throughout life.

Just don't, don't be mean to me. Do you know what that is?

That is slavery. You're organizing your life not

around the lordship of Jesus, but around whatever I can do to

not poke the sleeping bear. Those 10 seconds of me walking

by Jack's room, they're, they are 10 anxious seconds.

If you live your life that way, your life will be dominated by

the anxiety of what's the world going to say?

What's the world going to do? If you build your life around

not offending the world, then who is really the functional

Lord of your life? The world.

Now be gentle, be gentle, but the world's going to bark at you

no matter what. Just reckon with that.

It's OK. Once you get that, you can just

read your Bible, believe your Bible and pattern your life

around Jesus and say the hell with what comes.

Whatever the consequences are, I'm going to take them because

I'm like Jesus. And that is a life of freedom.

It is. It's a life of freedom.

Ask your your Christian friends around you about a time that

they endured persecution. You would be amazed at the

stories of some people in this room, the things that they have

endured and held onto their faith with.

They will make you think. There's no amount of persecution

I can experience that's going to peel my grip off of Jesus.

And that will embolden you and it will embolden you to not

retaliate when the world is mean to you because gentleness, it is

how you win the world. I've never seen a person one to

Jesus because you were the loudest, more religious arguer.

Is that how Jesus won you? No, Jesus won you with his

gentleness. Does Jesus have a sword?

Yes, he does. Is that how he convinced you?

No, He won you with His cross. He won you by being gentle and

lowly, by being crucified publicly for you, by willingly

being betrayed for you, by enduring slaps to the face for

you, by paying the penalty for your sin, by forgiving you, by

covering you in His very own righteousness, by faith and

grace alone. That's how Jesus won you.

And if you don't know Jesus, I don't want you to see the tip of

that sword. Repent and turn to Jesus this

morning. Don't wait.

Do it right now. But for those who know Jesus,

for those of you who have embraced the gospel, 1

theologian said it this way. I love this one theologian said.

Jesus's gentleness towards you isn't just one of many things he

does towards you, it's who he is.

He cannot UN gentle himself towards you any more than you

can change your eye color. It's the very nature of Jesus

towards you, and it should be the nature of our posture

towards the world. I was hanging out with my little

nephew a little over a year ago. He's my little homie.

I love this dude. We hang out in the same room.

I can't remember. We were playing dodgeball or

basketball or whatever, and then I got a text message.

So I had to walk across the room.

And that's important to the way that you understand the story.

I walked across the room. I was on the other side of the

room and I sat down and I got my phone out and I was responding

to the text message. So, so my little nephew, he's on

the other side of the room. I'm on the exact opposite side

of the room. Just respond to some text

messages between you and me. Maybe I fell into a little doom

scrolling too, right? I'm doing a little scrolling on

the other side of the room, and while I'm scrolling on my phone,

all of a sudden I hear there's a little pop.

I look up and my nephew is crying and rubbing his head

because you know what he did? He ran into a shelf, his head on

a shelf. I don't even know how the kid

did it. I wasn't.

I wasn't playing with him. I was scrolling on the phone.

I shouldn't have been, but I was going on my phone, kid.

Kid popped his head right into the shelf.

Maybe he ran into it, maybe he he tripped after it.

I know the kid. So maybe he just head butted it.

I don't know. All those are valid options.

No blood, no bruise, no nothing like that.

But nevertheless he's crying and it's enough that I look at him

and I say, hey big dog, how you doing?

He looks at me with fire in his eyes.

Me, I didn't do anything. Looks at me with fire in his

eyes and he points a finger at me and he says you he screams at

me and I'm like, so I didn't do anything.

I didn't even I wasn't even playing with you, man.

Like, wow, what are you mad at me for?

And it got so bad that my sister came down in the basement.

She's like, what's going on? I'm like Brooke sister, I swear

I didn't do anything. I didn't hit your I didn't hit

your son. I didn't push him.

I didn't trip him or anything like that.

He just hit his head over there on on that shelf or whatever.

And now he's mad at me. I swear I didn't do anything.

And my sister goes and no, no, bro, it's, it's OK, dude.

It's OK. He's he does this thing.

He does this thing where whenever he hurts himself, he

just gets mad at the person who's closest to him in the

room. Whenever he hurts himself, he

just gets mad and lashes out at the person who's closest to him

in the room. I just need you to know that's

why you're experiencing hostility from culture as a

Christian. That's what's at the root of it.

This will, this will change you. If you reckon with human nature,

biblical human nature, it will change you.

All the anger in the world, all the noise in the world, all the

vitriol, all the destructive hot takes, all the relentless finger

pointing, that thing that your siblings said that had claws in

it that you can't get out of your mind, that bad take that

got that reporter fired. All of the passive

aggressiveness on social media that just makes you scratch your

head. It's all coming from the same

source. Nobody has ever woken up one

morning with a pretty good human nature, looked at themselves in

the mirror and said, today I'm going to start being mean.

It's not a consciousness I used to justify.

I went through a season where I I was, I was just in a cage

stage season for a couple of years where I was mad at

everybody if they didn't agree with exactly what I believe.

And a lot of times what I would do is I would justify it with

personality types. I'd be like, well, you know, at

the end of the day, I'm just an ENTJ.

It's like, no, dude, you are a PRICK and you need to REPENT.

It's not because you're an ENTJ, right?

Nobody has ever looked at the toes in the mirror and said,

today, I'm going to start acting like an angry, hostile person.

No, all of the anger, it all comes from the same source.

Wounds. People are hurt and they're

hurting. They have a sinful human nature

and they've been sinned against and they're sinning and they

need to take responsibility for their own nature.

But because they're separated from God, they feel

insignificant. They feel insecure.

And so the next time culture lashes out at you, like whatever

it might be, maybe it's just a mean text from a friend, or

maybe it's a song that mocks Christianity on the radio.

Whatever the most natural thing to do, what your flesh will want

to do, is respond with equal opposing hostility.

You were the same way, though. I'll just respond with more

anger, more vitriol. I'll fight fire with fire.

No, no, no. What I'm suggesting the next

time it happens, and this is what Titus chapter 3 is

Titus 3 · chapter mention

suggesting, is the next time culture lashes out at you, you

should see past the hostility. Or maybe the better way to

phrase it is through or underneath the hostility.

As Christians, we must see through the avatars that people

create for themselves. People are not who they present

themselves as to you, the angry comment.

They're just projecting, and it's not what people are.

People are not what they project themselves to be.

What you see is a mask. What you see is a wound that's

bleeding onto you. People are constantly performing

their method, acting. There's an image they're

crafting. There's a brand that they're

crafting, and our job, when that comes our way, when we're on the

receiving end of that, our job as Christians engaging with the

culture is to see the human being underneath the charade.

It's just a charade out there. And what we must do as

Christians is see the human being underneath the charade.

And that means that underneath the hostility, and you see in

them, you see in the person just a child who bumped their head

and is just lashing out at the person closest to them.

And that just happens to be you at the moment.

And when you recognize that that's just what people do when

they're operating out of woundedness, that's what people

do when they have a sinful nature as they sin.

And you were the same way and I was the same way.

And when you recognize that, then you can effectively be the

gentleness that ends the cycle of hostility.

When you recognize that you can be the one who stands in the gap

and say, this ends right here. I'm going to absorb it and walk

away. Or maybe I'm going to absorb it

and give a gentle response or whatever it looks like.

But you can be the person who absorbs that hostility rather

than passes it on. You can do that.

You can have that humility. You can do that because you know

what? Because you know what?

You were without Jesus. And you can do that because you

have the Holy Spirit, right? You have the Spirit of the

living God in you. You're a new creation, you

working your way through the old creation and remembering that.

Remembering that you were the same way.

But the grace of God has made you what you are today.

That is the secret sauce to gentleness in the face of a

hostile culture.