Thriving as Christians in a Complex Culture

1) "The question we're really asking over the next sort of five or six months through everything that we're teaching through, we're looking around us, we're acknowledging the complexities of the culture that we are a part of and we are trying to understand how we can build a framework through which we are able to live in this culture as Christians not on the one hand sort of ducking out of any conversation that we feel like might be controversial but on the other hand not needlessly making enemies by the way that we act we are trying to understand what it looks like to be a Christ centered representative in every sphere which we operate in which is much easier said than done." [01:03:54] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "We promised at the beginning of this series when we threw up that picture of the Last Supper from the Olympics that we don't want to shy away from the fact that we're going to have a lot of tough questions and big issues. And I think there's a lot in the Bible as well that we actually need to think about because it's going to be very hard to be a voice in our culture if we don't even know what we believe about our own scriptures. So that's why we've been getting into Esther because we know it's a little bit interesting and problematic in places, and we want to know what to do with that." [01:14:01] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "In the context of the Old Testament, I think it's a reassuring ending. Esther is a story within a far bigger story. And we should never be looking at it all by itself. Debbie made a quote in the first week. And I just want to read it again because I thought it was quite punchy and interesting. And it's from the ESV commentary that says, Esther is part of a much larger story that runs all the way from Abraham to Christ and through him to the church. If Haman. Had succeeded, the Jewish people as a whole would have been destroyed. And the story of God's saving work in and through Abraham's descendants would have come to an end. There would have been no fulfillment in Christ and no Christian church. Nothing less than that was at stake. And this is why Christians should read the book of Esther. Not just as a story about the Jews, but as a part of their own heritage." [01:17:49] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "We cannot be blind to the culture around us. If you're interested in going deeper on that, Tim Keller wrote a book shortly before he died called How to Reach the West Again. How to Reach the West Again. And I found it so helpful for me as Tim Keller goes through it. He basically is saying the same thing. We need to learn the culture we're within so we can preach the gospel effectively within it. Our culture is not neutral. Much of it is actively designed to entertain us and distract us to death. And our battle, we must always remember, is not against flesh and blood, but it's about the powers and principalities that war against God and his people. They are still out there, and they are still at war against God and his people and us, and we need to know what's going on and understand it if we're going to be effective within it." [01:29:50] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Have confidence in God's providence. God's stunning faithfulness to his covenant in Esther was as true then as it is now. Despite the moral compromise of his people. As one author writes, we learn that the triumph of God's kingdom is not dependent on the faithfulness of God's people, thankfully. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be faithful, but God is at work over and above it all, and no power leveled against God's purposes can or will ultimately prevail, not even as Jesus confirms the gates of hell. Esther in microcosm tells the story of the cosmos. Just as Harmon ended up hanging on, his own gallows, so the devil, the enemy of God, has been defeated at his own game. Where the enemy wielded fear and death, Jesus Christ went through death to turn the tables once and for all. And so death has been defeated. And death, where is your sting?" [01:30:29] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "Don't duck responsibility. Just because God is in control and sovereign, we learn in the book of Esther that that doesn't mean that we can do nothing. Human responsibility, I don't believe, is not diminished just because of God's providence, but we have to hold the two in tension. Just like Esther and Mordecai, we need to live with courage and integrity. We need to carry out our responsibilities to the best of our ability. We need to stand up for God and his people and his word. And within all of that, we need to trust God to protect and provide. Through the story, we've seen Esther and Mordecai praying, fasting, and praying. Acting with bravery, even when dying was a very real possibility. They did not sit back. They were proactive. They did not duck their responsibilities." [01:32:21] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "Our reminder, especially in stories like this, is that Jesus, not Mordecai, not Esther, is our perfect example. He is our perfect example of how to live in a hostile, oppressive, aggressive culture because Jesus did it himself. We must always look to him first. It is through Christ that we interpret the rest of the scriptures, and it is through Christ that we understand our own lives. The gospel is always our foundation and our response. Redemption and reconciliation is our pursuit and is always our primary strategy. Go back to Paul's words. Go back to Paul's words. As far as you are able, live peaceably with all. And we must be reminded as we go about our daily lives that vengeance is the Lord's and not ours. It takes a lot of courage to trust that justice will be done. We, though, need to live in truth and in love. We need to preach and live the message of Jesus. We need to love our enemies as best we can, blessing those who persecute us, and live as peaceably as we can." [01:34:09] (67 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)