Never before in the history of the Christian faith have we seen so many churches working so hard to fit in with the surrounding culture, rather than stand out for Christ. Not to be outdone by the culture, we’ve entered into competition with it, and by the looks of the scoreboard, we are losing. The divorce rates are the same both in and out of the church. Materialism has a choke hold on the Christian as much as it does on the culture.
The culture is changing the church. We have been entrusted with the eternal and we have turned it into entertainment. Our seeker-sensitive services entertain the senses but do not satisfy the soul. Preaching to the felt needs of the “customers” we have wooed into the pews, we have watered down the whole counsel of God to the exclusion of sin, judgment, holiness, and the wrath of Almighty God. More than twenty-five years ago, Francis Schaeffer rightly warned, “The evangelical church has accommodated itself to the world around it.” In doing so, we have become more “market-driven” than Master-directed.
The Christian community is being shaped more by Hollywood than by God’s Holy Word. We hear more and more Christians saying, “God’s desire for me is to be happy,” rather than “God’s desire for me is to be holy.” Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist minister, aptly observed, “He who marries today’s fashion is tomorrow’s widow.”
Today’s church desperately needs countercultural Christians who refuse to be seduced, swerved, and shaped by Hollywood. Pastor Tullian Tchividjian wrote in Unfashionable, “Faithfulness to Christ requires foreignness to the world’s trendy diversions.” To be sure, there is a lot this world has to offer in the way of diversions―which are some of Satan’s sharpest darts.
Let me ask you: Is the confession of your life being shaped more by Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?
“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12). We live in this world, but we are not to live like this world because we have received the Spirit of Christ. We are to make an eternal difference in this world because we have been made eternally different.
The world doesn’t need more of this world; it needs more of the next! No one will understand the things freely given us through the “teaching” of Hollywood, but only through the Holy Word of God―both professed and practiced by the people of God. That is the teaching that will give this world get what it needs most: a Savior who is ready, willing, and able to save sinners. This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 