How to Engage Culture and Swim Against It
00:00:00.000 | We close out the week on the Ask Pastor John podcast with a question from a female listener
00:00:09.140 | who writes in and asks this, "Good morning Pastor John.
00:00:12.920 | I'm reading your powerful book, Don't Waste Your Life.
00:00:16.800 | In chapter seven, living to prove he is more precious than life, under the section titled
00:00:22.200 | Consumed with Clothes, you write this, "My plea is that you be more like a dolphin and
00:00:28.400 | less like a jellyfish in the sea of fashion and of contra-fashion, which is just as tyrannizing."
00:00:37.240 | Could you explain more of what you are saying in this sentence?
00:00:41.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:00:42.000 | Well, let's do it in two parts, the dolphin part and the fashion, contra-fashion part.
00:00:51.160 | First, I love the dolphin, jellyfish analogy.
00:00:55.960 | The assumption is that oceans of culture have very powerful tides, and these cultural tides
00:01:05.480 | almost always pull us away from deep allegiance to Jesus.
00:01:12.800 | So if you're going to swim in the cultural oceans and be a Christian, you better be a
00:01:19.520 | dolphin, not a jellyfish, because a jellyfish just goes with the flow, and dolphins can
00:01:25.000 | cut through the tidal currents and swim toward the truth and swim toward holiness and toward
00:01:32.040 | heaven in spite of cultural tides.
00:01:35.160 | And of course, there's no if about it.
00:01:37.280 | If we're going to live in these cultural tides, no, there's no if about it.
00:01:41.100 | We don't have any choice.
00:01:43.200 | We do swim in the cultural oceans of this planet.
00:01:49.000 | To be alive is to be in a culture shaped by the world.
00:01:55.040 | So Jesus prayed in John 17, 15, "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but
00:02:00.400 | that you keep them from the evil one."
00:02:02.800 | So he was very aware, "My disciples are stuck there, and they need help.
00:02:08.200 | They need protection.
00:02:09.760 | They need to be able to swim like a dolphin."
00:02:13.440 | The New Testament calls us to dolphin-like countercultural efforts over and over again.
00:02:20.720 | Here are a few examples.
00:02:21.720 | Romans 12, 2, "Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing
00:02:26.040 | of your mind."
00:02:27.040 | Ephesians 4, 17, "You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their
00:02:32.440 | minds."
00:02:33.520 | James 4, 4, "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
00:02:39.480 | For whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."
00:02:45.960 | First Peter 1, 18, "You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers."
00:02:52.600 | First John 2, 15, "Do not love the world or the things that are in the world.
00:02:57.080 | If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
00:03:00.620 | And so on.
00:03:01.620 | So that's what I mean by being a dolphin, being so full of Holy Spirit joy, Holy Spirit
00:03:07.680 | courage, Holy Spirit wisdom, that you have the strength and the wherewithal to swim against
00:03:14.800 | the current of the culture.
00:03:17.800 | That's what it takes to be a Christian.
00:03:20.920 | Another name for dolphin in the New Testament is exile and sojourner.
00:03:28.320 | Beloved, this is First Peter 2, 11, "Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles, dolphins,
00:03:36.180 | to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul."
00:03:41.120 | That tide is taking you down there to be eaten by the sharks if you don't swim against this
00:03:47.020 | tide heavenward.
00:03:49.100 | We have a homing device within us called new birth and the Holy Spirit against these cultural
00:03:56.780 | tides taking us home.
00:03:59.600 | Now there is another side to this, namely Christianity does not destroy earthly culture
00:04:09.000 | even when it is rightly being embedded in it.
00:04:12.920 | It transforms it but doesn't destroy it.
00:04:16.620 | So it adapts to a hundred things in the culture.
00:04:20.240 | Most real Christians in the West drive cars, use cell phones, live in houses, wear the
00:04:26.880 | clothes that look more or less like everybody else around them, and so on.
00:04:31.100 | We fit in in that sense.
00:04:34.860 | And the New Testament makes clear that this is so, and this is right, and it does it in
00:04:40.080 | several ways.
00:04:41.120 | One is the great battle over circumcision.
00:04:45.140 | Is circumcision going to be required as these Gentiles with their pagan uncircumcision going
00:04:51.960 | to fit into this largely Jewish church?
00:04:55.820 | Has the decision was finally made?
00:04:57.960 | No.
00:04:58.960 | That cultural demand is not going to be made.
00:05:04.200 | Paul said, "I become all things to all people that I might save some."
00:05:08.400 | So those are a couple of pointers.
00:05:10.960 | The fact that we are a people who always have two impulses at work, like Andrew Wall says.
00:05:16.920 | There's the pilgrim principle, that's like exiles and aliens here, and indigenous principle,
00:05:23.440 | which means we do adapt.
00:05:25.440 | We don't require neutral things to be shifted around in order to be a part of the Christian
00:05:31.040 | community.
00:05:32.040 | Now, the other part that this listener may have been talking about is what I meant by
00:05:40.400 | fashion and contra-fashion.
00:05:43.040 | And I'm not sure that's what they wanted me to talk about, or whether it was just the
00:05:49.320 | dolphin.
00:05:50.320 | I don't know, but I'm going to make a go at it anyway.
00:05:52.800 | They said, "My plea is that you," they're quoting me, "My plea is that you would be
00:05:57.440 | more like a dolphin, less like a jellyfish in the sea of fashion and of contra-fashion,"
00:06:04.680 | which is just as tyrannizing.
00:06:06.280 | And they want to know, "What do you mean by that?"
00:06:08.600 | I think.
00:06:10.400 | And I simply mean both men and women today are pressured in dozens of ways to conform
00:06:19.880 | to the way the world dresses and thinks about dressing or about makeup or about hair.
00:06:27.200 | It's becoming even stronger and stronger for men.
00:06:30.280 | I was jogging this morning on Washington Avenue at five o'clock in the morning, and I passed
00:06:36.360 | this big glass front of the new building called Men's Spa.
00:06:42.040 | And the title is "Ultimate Male Grooming."
00:06:46.160 | I thought, "Really?
00:06:47.480 | Sounds like a dog."
00:06:50.200 | I'm just saying that to say we usually think about women when it's pressured to dress a
00:06:53.920 | certain way, but more and more I think male grooming is a pressured thing.
00:07:02.240 | So can a woman find, here's the kind of pressure she might be under.
00:07:08.080 | Can a woman find a fashion in stores that she feels comfortable with on some items?
00:07:15.160 | I've talked to mothers who find it difficult shopping with their young daughters because
00:07:19.520 | there's scarcely a choice out there for one that she or the mom or both would feel good
00:07:26.680 | about in terms of modesty.
00:07:29.600 | And what I mean by contra-fashion is that a person can be driven by what is so popular
00:07:36.320 | or can be driven by what is not popular.
00:07:40.640 | There's a whole culture luring people to conform to non-conformity.
00:07:46.840 | How else can you explain the manufacture of jeans with holes in them?
00:07:50.040 | I mean, the manufacture of jeans that are tattered with holes.
00:07:54.140 | What is that?
00:07:55.280 | This is the mainstreaming of contra-fashion, which of course will lead to a contra-contra
00:08:01.080 | fashion and so on.
00:08:04.220 | The point that I was trying to get at was you can be a jellyfish by craving to look
00:08:09.940 | preppy or you can be a jellyfish by craving to look anti-preppy.
00:08:14.340 | Either way, I mean, you're not free when you conform to all your grunge friends.
00:08:22.460 | It's not freedom.
00:08:23.460 | It's just rebellion in a new conformity.
00:08:27.060 | So thumbing your nose at culture may feel like a dolphin, but you may wake up and find
00:08:33.420 | you're just a jellyfish like all the others floating with a million others not so radical
00:08:39.300 | grunge lovers.
00:08:41.420 | So I think the best text for men and women, men and women, even though it's written for
00:08:46.820 | women in the New Testament is 1 Peter 3, 4, and 5.
00:08:49.940 | I've been memorizing 1 Peter and this is really powerful for men, for me, as well as women.
00:08:55.900 | It says, "Do not let your adorning," these men can say grooming, "Do not let your grooming
00:09:01.340 | or your adorning be external.
00:09:05.120 | The braiding of hair, the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear."
00:09:09.380 | Now pause there and note, he cannot mean braids per se are wrong, jewelry per se is wrong
00:09:16.660 | because if he did, he'd have to mean clothing per se is wrong because the last one is just
00:09:20.740 | clothing.
00:09:21.740 | Don't let your adorning be clothing.
00:09:23.340 | Oh, really?
00:09:24.340 | Well, what do you mean by that?
00:09:25.720 | It means what he says in the next line.
00:09:29.220 | He says, "But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable
00:09:36.860 | beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious."
00:09:43.900 | In other words, for men and women, the focus and the drive and the craving shouldn't be,
00:09:49.180 | "I want to look a certain way, I want to look a certain way, but I want to be a certain
00:09:53.300 | way.
00:09:54.300 | I want to be beautiful in my spirit of humility and kindness and love and gentleness and meekness
00:10:00.860 | and self-control."
00:10:02.580 | So for men and women, put your energy, let's put our energy into becoming a holy, wise,
00:10:11.820 | loving, courageous, Christ-exalting people on the inside, a dolphin from the inside.
00:10:20.140 | And the fashion, I think, will take its appropriate secondary place.
00:10:27.180 | Wonderful Pastor John, thank you.
00:10:28.700 | And the book mentioned earlier, Don't Waste Your Life, can be downloaded free of charge
00:10:32.740 | online right now at DesiringGod.org/books.
00:10:36.260 | Look for the title, Don't Waste Your Life.
00:10:39.220 | We were talking about what is written in that book on page 126, if you want to find it.
00:10:43.940 | Well, this is another great week of questions from you.
00:10:47.020 | Please continue to send me your questions via email at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org,
00:10:52.740 | or you can send your questions to us through our podcast landing page at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:11:00.140 | And there at the landing page, you can also catch up on episodes from the week that you
00:11:03.660 | may have missed.
00:11:04.660 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:11:06.580 | Have a wonderful weekend.
00:11:07.580 | I'll see you on Monday.
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