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Even with Disconcerting World Headlines, We Don’t Have to Fear

Ongoing war in Ukraine. Israel at war with Hamas. Political division. Our world is experiencing the tumult of wickedness and sin. And one of the realities of our lived experience is trying to make sense of the world around us. What is real? What matters? How do we understand and make sense of the chaos around us?

For several hundred years since the age of the Enlightenment, philosophical, political, scientific, and religious thinkers alike have tried to make sense of reality apart from a biblical worldview. But as we are witnessing, when we interpret geopolitical events, human nature, and reality apart from God, we end up with chaos, uncertainty, fear, and turmoil. 

Maybe you’ve become so jaded with cultural tensions that you ignore the news headlines and fear-baiting. Maybe you’re so busy with your own world and chaos in your own life, you don’t have a lot of time to worry about everything going on everywhere else. Maybe you don’t stop too often to consider what’s going on because you’re afraid you’ll lose it emotionally or that you will retreat into your own mind and lose yourself to indifference and apathy. We’re not the first persons to be afraid, emotional, or challenged by our surrounding circumstances. In John’s vision of heaven in Revelation 5, when “no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look into it,” John wept loudly. 

But we don’t have to weep. There is One who is Worthy. 

5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” 6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 

Revelation 5:5-8

For several weeks now, we’ve been in a sermon series at Wilkesboro Baptist Church entitled, “Good News from Green Pastures.” We began the series as a study of Psalm 23. You can find our podcasts here or wherever you listen to podcasts. Our worship services are on Vimeo and Youtube as well. Our study has encouraged us to know and follow Jesus, our Shepherd.

We’re concluding the series with a reflection on Jesus as the Lion and the Lamb from Revelation 5. This text helps us make sense of history, our current situation in the world, and the hope that can only be found in Jesus Christ. We would love to have you join us for worship this Sunday as we celebrate Jesus who took our sin and rules from Heaven’s throne.

Let me also encourage you to pick up and read the book of Revelation. It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ (Rev. 1:1). I realize the book can be intimidating, but there is a way to read it that will be encouraging. Take time to read through all 22 chapters highlighting or underlining all the verses that reference Jesus Christ. Then go back and just read the highlighted/underlined verses. I realize the book of Revelation contains more than pictures of Jesus and some of the apocalyptic imagery is challenging and difficult. But Jesus is the primary focus of the book, and the pictures of Jesus encourage and strengthen us. We we will see this in chapter 5.

Jesus our Shepherd is the Lamb slain for the redemption of our neighbors and the nations and is also the Lion who reigns and rules. This is how we can make sense of current reality. This is why we can have hope today and tomorrow. This is why we don’t have to fear.

Photo by Iván Díaz on Unsplash

Worship and Worldview: the Intersection of Church and Culture

Our summer sermon series is titled “Worship and Worldview: the Intersection of Church and Culture.” Like you, I’ve watched with concern the speed and trajectory of our current cultural values and morals. What was presented politically and societally just a few years ago in terms equality and acceptance has become a demand from cultural progressives. Increasingly, the Christian worldview and its accompanying values are becoming marginalized in our nation. As Christians, we grieve the trajectory of our nation’s morality. We grieve the loss of values and morality that we held dear. But what do we do about it? How do we as Christians live in a spiritually foreign land? How do we prepare our children and grandchildren to not only live with biblical values, but uphold them against the torrent of progressive ideology? 

I’m going to try to address these questions and others from the Bible during this summer sermon series. 

In recent years, I’ve read a variety of books around these themes:The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher, Pagans and Christians in the City by Stephen D. Smith, The Gathering Storm by Albert Mohler, Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman, and Desiring the Kingdom by James K. A. Smith. I’m currently working through several other books in preparation for this series: Soul Searching by Christian Smith, We Will Not Be Silenced by Erwin Lutzer, The Gospel of the Kingdom by George Eldon Ladd, Prepared to Give an Answer by Timothy Sanders, Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas, Handing Down the Faith by Christian Smith and Amy Adamcyk, and You Are What You Love by James K. A. Smith (among others). Desiring the Kingdom is one of my more interesting reads this year and provided some terminology that has been helpful in developing this sermon series. If you would like to join me in workin through these issues, I would encourage you to read one or more of these books this summer. 

We are living in a pivotal time as Christ-followers. The Bible offers us guidance, understanding, and help as we navigate these tension-filled issues because we are not the first generation of God’s people facing marginalization and challenge to our worldview and worship. We need a biblical framework to help us address contemporary challenges and practices. What the Bible says about these topics is important, and we need to faithfully understand (worldview) and practice (worship) what the Bible teaches. 

I invite you to join us for these topics. Plan to attend whenever you are in town. Watch/listen online when you are not able to join in person. Moms and dads, please note the subject material for the July 23 sermon from Leviticus 18 on “A Biblical Worldivew in a Culture of Pagan Sexuality.” This sermon will not be explicit, but it will deal with subject material that is aimed at explaining pagan sexuality in contrast with God’s expectations for his people. 

If you’d like to follow along with our sermons, you can join us in person at Wilkesboro Baptist on Sundays 8:00 AM, 9:30 AM or 11:00 AM. If you can’t make it in person, you can follow along for videos of our worship services on Vimeo, YouTube, or FaceBook. Wilkesboro Baptist also has a podcast channel where you can catch our sermons each week. You can find them here or subscribe to Wilkesboro Baptist Church on iTunes.

  • June 25 Text: Daniel 1. Title: “What it Means to be Christian in a Spiritually Foreign Land.”Theme: Daniel models what it means to think and live biblically in a pagan and wicked culture.
  • July 2  Mission Trip Report from our student trip to New York City. 
  • July 9 Text: Daniel 2:31-49. Title: “Developing a Kingdom Mindset in a Society of Ungodly Leaders.” Theme: Daniel and his three friends develop a heavenly, kingdom-oriented perspective in a pagan land. 
  • July 16 Text: Daniel 12:1-4. Title:  “Technology and a Christian Worldview.” Theme: Daniel prophesies about the increase of knowledge in the time of the Gentiles. 
  • July 23 Text: Leviticus 18 . Title: “A Biblical Worldview in a Culture of Pagan Sexuality.” Theme: Applying a Christian worldview in a society of contemporary sexual immorality requires understanding holiness and sexuality from God’s perspective. 
  • July 30 Text: Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. Title: “Vanity and The Best a Man Can Do.” Theme: Since we live in a society full of vanity, how do we manage to think and live biblically? 
  • Aug 6 Associate Pastor Tad Craig 
  • Aug 13 Text: Philippians 4:4-9. Title: “Memorization, Mind, Community and Christian Thinking.” Theme: Christians have the privilege and resource of the inner life and their mind under the direction of God. 
  • Aug 20 Text: Acts 17:22-34. Title: “Gospel, Apologetics, and a Pluralistic Culture.” Theme: Learning to discern religious, cultural, and philosophical patterns aids Christian thinking and witness. 
  • Aug 27 Text: Psalm 67. Title: “Christian Worldview and Mission.” Theme:Ultimately, Christian thinking recognizes and lives by God’s purpose in the world: fear, worship, and salvation through us to the nations. 

Here are a few overarching interpretive observations that should help us navigate this series and these topics: 

  • The United States is not Israel, nor does the United States represent people of God today. The United States would be more accurately described as Babylon or Rome in terms of values and morality. We should keep this in mind as we reflect on what it means to live in a sinful society as the people of God. 
  • Christ-followers are the people of God. The people of God make up the kingdom of Christ. The kingdom of God is an overarching theme in this series and helpful for how we see our role as the church in the culture today. 
  • We need both worldview (thinking) and worship (liturgies) to shape us cognitively and formatively as God’s people. Our orthodoxy (what we believe) and orthopraxy (what we do) must be informed and formed by Scripture. It will not be enough to think rightly about these issues. We need to be formed by biblical liturgies and spiritual disciplines to live faithfully as God’s people today. 
  • We must be active and intentional to know and articulate our worldview and practice Christian worship (liturgies). If we remain passive regarding the biblical worldview and worship, the secular and pagan liturgies driven by media, politics, education, entertainment, and social media will form us and our children/grandchildren to the prevailing values around us. Our recourse must be a commitment to thinking biblically and worshiping faithfully. 
  • The church must function as a place where the people of God can be rooted and fruitful. We must pray for sinners, share the gospel, speak up on these issues, vote, and engage society with our voices and actions. But we need to be aware that we may not be able to bring our values back from the immoral brink we’ve already crossed. We are watching the collision between unfettered sexual freedom and religions freedom. Whether or not we are able to affect change in our society, the church must remain a community of the King: Christ followers and Jesus worshipers. 
  • As the people of the Kingdom of Christ, we should have courage and confidence. The angel in Revelation 15 announces: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). We should be courageous for our King is the King. We should have confidence because no matter what happens in our culture and in our world, the kingdom of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord. 

Join us in prayer and participation during this summer sermon series. May we remain faithful as the people of God in the Kingdom of Christ.