Well, it's our privilege tonight to sit under the word brought to us by our brother Mark Chansky. And I think many of us probably know that he has been some time now at Harbor Reform Baptist Church in Holland, Michigan. Where is Mark? There he is. How many years now, Mark? 22. 22. What a lot of you may not know is that Mark actually pastored Kemp Road Baptist Church long before I ever got there. I think it was around 85 to 88, if I remember correctly. Um, so tonight we have, uh, God's blessing on Mark's travels. He was delayed, but he came in this afternoon. So brother, come and preach the word to us. Well, for me, it's been, uh, what, 38 years since I've been to Boulder, Colorado. I graduated from high school in 1977 and on the night of the graduation of friend, John and I 22 hour trip to Boulder. Many exciting things we did as an 18 year old, there wouldn't want to tell you all of them. But one of them was we tried to climb Long's Peak in Converse All-Star tennis shoes. Doesn't work well when you're a quarter of a mile from the peak and you realize that you're on an icy cliff and other guys are coming down with crampons and ropes and saying, what are you guys doing up here? Very dangerous. When I left from Holland this morning, my wife had her hands on her hips and she said, I don't want you climbing Longs Peak. That was one. The other one was basically, I don't want you inhaling there in Colorado. So you're my witness. So far, I've been a good boy. God has been merciful to us just as even Baruch Maoz, 27 years since I last saw him at Kemp Road Baptist Church, through many dangers, toils and snares, we have already come. Our God is a merciful God. Let's open up the word of God back to Acts chapter 17, Steve read 16 through 34. Just to open it up now, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, His spirit was being provoked within him as he was beholding a city full of idols. Let's pray together. Heavenly father, we thank you for your kind providence that brings us together again for some of us after many, many years. And we pray that your spirit would be with us. We ask that this would be a Bethlehem and the Lord Jesus would profoundly be here. and may you speak to us. Words in season. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Al Mohler, the briefing, September 29. This is his first topic, America's future culture reshaping by the surging immigration trends. Moeller says this, the headline of the Wall Street Journal reads this, Asians to surpass Hispanics as largest foreign-born group in US by 2055. The demographic composition of America is changing right before our eyes. A revolution of the population of the US, not just over a period of a century, but of a single generation. We're talking here by 2055. A radical Change, he quotes from the journal. Fueled by arrivals from Asia, immigrants and their children will account for the lion's share of the U.S. population growth over the next 50 years. Between 2015 and 2065, the U.S. population is expected to increase 36%. In terms of an international perspective, that's remarkable. An astounding population growth at a time when many leading nations are facing severe population implosion. We're growing here. in a cosmopolitan way in the U.S. The journal article goes on. The U.S. population is expected to increase 36% to 441 million. Immigrants and their offspring will make up 88% of the increase or 103 million people. The Hispanic share of the immigrant population, 47% in 2015, will drop to 31% by 2065. Asians will rise to 38% of the total compared to about 25% today. Bolstered by Asian arrivals, the U.S. is on course to have no racial ethnic majority group by 2055. That year, the country is expected to be only 46% white. 24% Hispanic, with Asians representing 14% of the population, surpassing blacks who will account for 13%. Today, the U.S. population is 62% white and 18% Hispanic. Moeller says this then, Christians must keep in mind that this new data indicates a massively transformed mission field right before our eyes. Right here in the US, we're looking at the very good news that the world is coming to us. They're coming to us. and for a great commission perspective this is very good news good news but also represents a challenge to our churches to be ready for the mission field that is now taking shape before us and ponder even the bigger global implications of this we all know of the syrian migration crisis New York Times, October 31. There are more displaced people and refugees now than at any other time in recorded history. Sixty million in all. And they are on the march in numbers seen not since World War II. They're coming not just from Syria, but from an array of countries and regions including Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, even Haiti, as well as any of a dozen or other nations in the Sub-Saharan and North African area. They are unofficial ambassadors of failed states, unending wars, and untractable conflicts. Hal Mohler, gentlemen and ladies, Hal Mohler is so right. There's a new mission field that's taking shape right before our eyes, and we need to be ready to take the gospel to it. Not so long ago, in London, I had a lunch with a pastor of a Pakistani congregation. And he mused with me about his vision for Pakistanis in the London area going back to Islamabad, there in Pakistan, back to their own hometowns and home cities, going as businessmen, going as missionaries, taking the gospel back to their own homes. What a powerful and potent plan for taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. If they're among us, They can go back to their own home nations. Just ponder the impact of this. Syrians flowing from Detroit. I'm from Michigan. Back to their home nations of Damascus, how effectively they can network among their own. Iranians, where's our brother Robert Elliott? Iranians from Riverside, California. There are 72,000 Iranians in the LA area going back to Tehran. Contemplate that. Or Iraqis from Denver. You have a big Iraqi population here going back to Baghdad or Briggs. What about Russians? You sending Russians back to St. Petersburg in the USSR. That's a glorious plan for world missions. They're coming to us. And they can go back to them. So our churches right now face at our doorstep a multicultural mission field. And the question is, how do we then bridge the cultural gap? How do we reach out to people who aren't our white, Anglo, Trinity hymnal only, Puritan lingo wavelength? And so this leads us to ask other hard questions about what measures we should practically take in our ministries to become all things to all men, so that by all possible means, some may be saved. It's a multicultural mission field. But you know what? Also our churches are facing at our doorsteps a multi-generational mission field. How do we bridge the generational gap? Baby boomers like me are seeking to save generation Xers like Paul Ryan, the new speaker of our house, age 45. Angelina Jolie, who's 41. And also, how do we reach millennials like LeBron James, who's 30, and Justin Bieber, who's 20. One, I'm reminded of a city park scene back in 1990-ish Grand Rapids, and there I am. at this park scene. It's Briggs Park, and there is a band. It's a Salvation Army band with eight band members and a conductor leading individuals playing the tuba, the clarinet, the piccolo, the slide trombone, the snare drum, and the flute. And the conductor, after the playing, stops and preaches a resounding evangelistic message to all of the hearers in the park. That audience is comprised of eight individuals, the band members. You see, they were using a ministry technique that fit well with the culture of the 1940s when people would come out from their houses to the city park to hear a band playing. But you know what? In the early 1990s with cable TV and internet, that method of ministry just wasn't cutting it. Beloved, we need wisdom to seize the day regarding both our cross-cultural ministry challenge and our cross-generational ministry challenge. We must biblically and prayerfully strive to bridge the cultural and generational gap. Simply doing ministry the way that we've always done it since the 1970s and the 1980s holding the line tenaciously to dated traditional models and thinking ourselves godly and faithful for stubbornly and maybe even pridefully refusing to change because we have an allergy to change. You know what? It may be a sad way to waste a glorious kingdom opportunity. And if our churches shrink into tiny little remnants because of our taking a stand for biblical truth, then we should be willing to endure it and praise God for it. But if our churches shrink into tiny remnants because of our taking a stand only for mere human traditions and personal preferences, we should be ashamed of ourselves. for it. We'd be wasteful servants bearing a valuable talent of historical opportunity. And by the way, beloved, you think of global missions. If our home churches aren't strong and growing and vibrant, then there's nobody there to hold the ropes for those who are missionaries overseas. Now, now, We can learn a lot about gospel bridge-building from the Apostle Paul and his cross-cultural ministry. He didn't have an allergy to change. No, he didn't. He brilliantly bridged the gap between his own Jewish-Palestinian culture and the fast-paced, first-century Greco-Roman Empire culture. And the gap there was a yawning gap. And we see it no more strikingly than his ministry there in Athens on Mars Hill in Acts chapter 17. And we see how the Apostle Paul strove to get on their wavelength. You know of his ministry in Athens. He adapted the manner of his message to best connect with his hearers. He adjusted his method to match the context. That's called contextualization. Contextualization is important when we think of overseas ministries to Zambia or to Malawi or the Philippines or in China, but you know it's just as important in our local gospel work in Holland, in Riverside, in Sacramento, in Miami. You see, we are to contextualize in that sense of David Heselgrave, he's the author, of mission works defined contextualization years ago. Listen, contextualization is communicating the gospel in a more understandable, culturally relevant form without changing the message. Don't change the message. And that's our goal. Now, let's just go to Mars Hill, Act 17, And consider four main headings that we'll look at while we're still together here about building bridges for the gospel. We'll look first at adaptation in our method, preservation of our message, provocation with immorality, and tradition as idolatry. So come on with me first to adaptation in our method. adaptation in our method. In 1718 of Acts, it says Paul is preaching to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. And you realize in that sermon, he adapts his sermon to make it culturally relevant. In verse 22, he says, men of Athens, you see him there upon the hill, the Areopagus, the court scene. You realize really the entire book of Acts is a handbook for contextualization. You just walk through with me. Acts chapter 10, God tells Peter with a sheet vision that he is to adapt his behavior toward his Gentile audience when he arrives at Caesarea at the household of Cornelius. Eat with them, Peter. Don't require circumcision of them, Peter. Then on to Acts 10, we see Barnabas and Paul. They go up to Gentile Antioch, and notice how they sent the flexible son of encouragement, Barnabas, and not some nitpicking Judaizer up there. There was a conflict. Galatians chapter 2, Peter was not contextualizing well. at all with his eating with the Jews but not with the Gentiles. So move ahead to Acts chapter 13. There we see Paul ministering in Pisidian Antioch to whom? The Yarmulke wearing synagogue Jews. And what kind of a message does he bring? One emphasizing what? Old Testament prophecy. It's matching with the Jewish audience. But then, Acts chapter 14, the next chapter, there he's speaking to the blue-collar bubba pagans in Lystra. And there, does he go back to the Old Testament prophets and the Torah? No, not at all. He argues from general revelation, from the Creator, from the One who brings the rains to you and the harvests. He contextualized. And then we go to Acts chapter 17 here. Now he's dealing with the white-collar intellectual philosophers in Athens. Does he argue from creation? Not that way. Does he go to the Old Testament prophets? No way. We see he refers to the unknown God in their religious mall. He speaks of Epimenides, who is the contemporary poet, along with Aratus, who is also the contemporary writer. And he does this, look, verse 16, after having engaged in a beholding of the city. So he walked around and he studied his context and he matched his ministry. We also see his, Jay Adams has an interesting book published back in 1976. Listen, audience adaptations in the sermons and in the speeches of Paul. It's an interesting read. Act 16, there's the, there's listen, the circumcision of Timothy. When you talk about a guy going out of his comfort zone, For the good of the gospel. And see all this contextualizing, I believe echoes the ultimate contextualizer. Who would that be? That's the Lord Jesus, the creator from another world, another region. He became a man, a Jew, a working class Jew wearing sandals, wearing a tunic. Wearing a beard, getting circumcised. He spoke Aramaic. He went to a wedding. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, so much so in Matthew 11, they called him, what, a glutton and a drunkard. And he taught them, he put it on the bottom shelf so they could grasp it in their own culture. He spoke, gentlemen, I know we're Reformed, but listen, he spoke in stories. Graspable parables. And he amazed them because he didn't speak like the Sadducees and the Pharisees who shot over the head. He hit them right where they lived. And Hudson Taylor images the Lord Jesus, that proper Englishman who we find goes to China and becomes one with them. He wears a smock. He shaves his head. except for a long ponytail in the back of his head. Why did he do this? He loved them, engaged in their culture, but he didn't compromise his message. Acts 16.3, it says, Paul took Timothy, circumcised him. Why? Because of the Jews in those parts. Again, Timothy was willing to be pained, to love them, to get a hearing with them. Acts chapter 18, 18, Paul takes a Nazarite vow, shaving his head. Baruch, imagine that. Shaving his head for the sake of the Jews. It says he did this for the purpose of loving these individuals. 1 Corinthians 9, I became all things to all men, so that by all possible means, some may be saved. FF Bruce comments, it was a simple expediency with a view to his greater usefulness in the ministry of the gospel. Even John MacArthur. Far from lapsing into legalism, Paul is being consistent with a principle he'd later express in 1 Corinthians 9, be giving all things to all men of all possible means. Some may be saved. John MacArthur says, missionaries must be sensitive to the unique traits of the culture in which they work. We must accommodate, but not compromise. One writer says this, if you're going to reach unsaved motorcycle gangs, You don't wear a three-piece suit and drive a BMW. You might, but you'd be communicating on their radio frequency in AM when they're turned into FM. Hudson Taylor, think of. Now Paul, back to Athens, we have no indication that Paul changed his appearance on Mars Hill, but he sure adapted his methods we talked about. He referred to their poets. He highlighted their icons. He even alluded to their bigotry, where he says in verse 26, look, you think you're superior, you Athenians, but you all came from one man. And so how do we do this? How do we adapt? We do, don't we? If I'm preaching in Grand Rapids, Michigan at Puritan Reform Seminary, I may quote Spurgeon and make an allusion to Pilgrim's Progress. But if I'm off at the Woodside Bible Club, which is our elementary school in the area, I might refer to Buzz Lightyear and recess. But then if I'm at the public school, Zeeland West High School, I may refer to Taylor Swift, a song that she sang in an album. I may refer to their state championship run that they made to Ford Field because we want to hit them where they're at. Not where they're not at. Now, I know there may be an objection here to this contextualization thing and becoming all things to all men. You may say, come on Mark, that's on Mars Hill, but that's for evangelism out there. That's not for worship in here, in our churches where we're worshiping God. And okay, that's a point well taken. We don't structure our worship to chiefly appeal to the unbelievers, but You know what? Everything we do is evangelizing. Everything we do is taking the gospel to the lost. In fact, I just quote Briggs here. He says, we're always preaching ourselves the gospel. That's right. In Romans 1.15, Paul says, I long to come to you, to preach you in the Roman church, the gospel. You realize that even when we're gathered together as a church, we're evangelizing one another. And even in doing so, we should become all things to all men in our churches. We've got children, we've got friends, we've got neighbors. And just the question I want to ask ourselves is, are we creating any unnecessary obstacles of the gospel's free course? I'm looking at myself now, my ministry. Maybe, maybe I have issues that I need to deal with. You guys may be all set to go. But humor me. Are there habits that I have? Are there words that I speak? Are there tones that I bring? What about my appearance? What about my style? What about my presentation? You see, contextualization, I believe, is relevant inside the church because there's a whole wide variety of listeners in a church. You think of your church. Think of my church. We've got seasoned saints. We've got long-term members, we've got newborn Christians, we've got disinterested teens, we've got easily distracted children, we've got first-time visitors, some from no church, some from a different church, some from, even just recently in our church, Uganda, South Africa, even somebody on Sunday night from South Korea, people from the Philippines may be there, or There, row four, I've got a prodigal soul who just wandered in. I've got a PhD from the Walkazoo Woods, or somebody who just has a GED from the trailer park. Somebody from Hope College. Somebody from Lady of the Lake, Roman Catholic Church. And so, how am I coming across? What am I saying? What kind of words am I using? I may have a tendency, because I read the Puritans, to use a word like mortification. Is that really a good word? How about this phrase that I heard recently in a sermon? Ejaculatory prayer. Is that a good word? Gentlemen, we need to be empathetic in the use of our vocabulary, our illustrations, our quotations. My wife chides me about words that I use. And she's a helpmate. to me, to better me. You see, we've got to do some generational contextualization here. As we saw, Acts 13, 36, it says, David served his own generation well, and then he fell asleep. And it ain't going to be long before I fall asleep, and I, and I hope you too want to serve your generation well. Just consider this, gentlemen, you preachers out there, we preachers, Good preaching in 2015 will differ in style from good preaching back in the 1980s and the 1990s. When I last saw you, Baruch, lots changed in our culture in America. Our computerized, blogged, Facebooked, Twitterized, YouTubed, iPadded, Pinterested, Googled, iPhone, Apple-watched generation communicates in categories different from those of two or three decades back, don't they? Quick articles and images and clips combined with rapid sensory intake compel the speaker to ponder the implications for his audience and the way they take in information. What do you think? Baruch, it's different from when I was at Kemp Road Baptist Church. Are attention spans shorter now? What about how frequently should I bring illustrations? How long can I go along with logical explanations without putting in something visual? What about my sermon length? Do they pay attention as long as they used to? Maybe why I used to always first do a exposition and we work through with pick an ax, the text and shovel out. And then after maybe, who knows, a half an hour of, or 45 minutes of exposition now by way of application. But you know what I have learned years back intersperse that stuff in there because they ain't going to pay attention all the way through. It's, it's, it's 2015 gentlemen. We need to be shrewd as serpent and innocent as doves. What about our vocabulary, our Puritan Elizabethan? What about our illustrations? Do they resonate? I read a book about a guy who talks about a passive purple four ball, a billiard ball. And billiard table? And then I was in China and they don't play billiards in China. So, you talk about a ping-pong ball and it's being passive and beaten up by paddles and tables. You've got to hit them where they are. If you're in Pakistan, you talk about a soccer ball that gets kicked around. I still remember back when I was in seminary, I got a speaker I thought was a great one and he came and he preached at our seminary chapel and one of my favorite teachers, an apologetic teacher, Professor Steve, I said, what did you think about him? And Steve's response was this, You know what? A guy who's a thundering yeller, it just turns me right off. That's the way my dad was, he said. And I wonder about the way that I speak myself in our own cultures. You speak differently. If this was a ladies' retreat, my tone would be a little bit different. They're the men's retreat. It's kind of locker room style, right? Or if you're, if you're speaking at a youth retreat, you talk differently, even the tone. I gentlemen, we need to circumcise, take a knife to our natural propensities in order to reach the 2015 wavelength. So help us God becoming all things to all men so that by all possible means, some may be saved. What about in our church life? We have a generation, okay? They may like to sit and sip coffee. Do we create a building climate where people can do that? Or is that compromising? I'm going to tell you, in our church, our Sunday school hour has been changed to a small group hour. You may think less of me for that. I wonder why. Our small groups where people communicate together, focusing on the word of God have become rich times of mutual edification. Pastoral contact. There was a pastor I was talking with him recently about, you know, having an iPhone or having a cell phone. I was chiding him. He doesn't have a cell phone. I said, man, if I want to communicate with the young people in my church, if I email them, they may read it a month from now. but if I text message them or if I send them something on Facebook or if I Twitter them, oh, I get the instant response back. I'm not saying anything's right and wrong, but those are the things that make me think about adapting. There are some uneasy people who are uneasy about adaptations. Pratt says this, if we've grown accustomed to one or two strategies and we're satisfied as long as we follow those well-worn paths, Yet the paths of the past may not be the most effective paths for reaching people today. Go back to the Salvation Army at Briggs Park in Grand Rapids in the 1990s. And is that what I look like? I wonder sometimes. There's a dear pastor friend of mine who labored in a suburban Detroit bedroom community for two and a half decades, and now he's going to plant a church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, among the millennials. He's asking all kinds of questions about how are we going to hit them where they're at? What's my preaching going to be like? What kind of music are we going to have? How long are we going to preach? How are we going to put together our weekly church calendar? Those are good questions. We had, speaking at our church a short while back, a pastor from the delray baptist church which was a church plant of capitol hill baptist church in one of their pastors at delray in virginia was shilin you know shilin is he's a gospel rapper and i want to confess to you i thought that's just wrong i was wrong because i think that when you want to take the truth of the gospel to the black urban culture rap music can be a glorious vehicle And you listen to Shia Lin's atonement. That's a systematic theology in thumbnail sketch form. And I believe Shia Lin, now moving from Virginia, he's going into Philadelphia. He's working in one of those big bad cities like Nineveh. And he's going to minister to them in a way that he believes hits them where they're at. Even at Capitol Baptist Church, the Beatty Anyabwili is there and his purpose is to reinvigorate black churches and to adapt to the terrain of the target, both culturally and generationally. some of you ladies, because there are Arab people in this community. You want to seek outreach to, say, a Pakistani community in the Boulder area, you'd be wise to avoid exposing your shoulders and your knees, lest you undermine your credibility, think you are impure. Or there's a pastor I know whose church recently changed their Wednesday night. Well, isn't it biblical that the cadence of a church weekly needs to be Sunday school, AM, PM, and Wednesday night. It's biblical, isn't it? Well, this pastor changed it from Wednesday night. Now they have no prayer meeting on Wednesday night, but prayer meeting on Sunday night. Is that wrong? Someone told him that he was compromising. You know the Revolutionary War? The Redcoats came to a new terrain. And what'd they do, you Brits? What'd they do? You lost, by the way. You marched in squares. when the revolutionary soldiers were guerrilla warriors matching the terrain and they cleaned your socks. That's what they did. They were wise. They were shrewd. So, so there's that theme, the adaptation in our method. Come on me secondly to The preservation of our message, the preservation of our message. Okay. We can change. It's legitimate. We shouldn't have an allergy to change, but consider now the preservation of our method. 1718 Paul declares there. He was being called an idle babbler. Why? Because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. That was the heart of his message. Or look at verse 30, he preached that men should repent. Or look at verse 31, he was proving that Jesus rose from the dead. So he was given the essential ingredients of the gospel menu. He didn't change it. You think of in Malaysia, McDonald's has gone to Malaysia and they have the same menu. in malaysia but you know the girls at the counters with the paper hats well they have head coverings under the paper hats and they don't call them hamburgers there in malaysia because that would be filthy food but they call them beef burgers in malaysia because that doesn't offend them they come in and eat them you see they have adapted their marketing but they haven't changed the ingredients of their menu at all. McDonald's has stood their ground. And likewise, so it should be with us. Same ingredients. There's a problem here regarding the preservation of our methods because there are some authors and pastors and church planters who compromise biblical truth and their turn away from the gospel essentials in order to make the message pleasant to the culture. It's not post-modernism anymore, it's post-post-modernism now. And folks have this view about rejecting in our society and our culture, rejecting of absolute truth and absolute certainty. And the idea that we would think that salvation is exclusively in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is inconceivable to the millennial mind. that such narrow-mindedness would be tolerable. So in our society, to match with the millennials, we need to accept pluralism. If there is someone who is a sincere Muslim or a sincere Taoist or a sincere Buddhist, as long as they're sincere and seeking God, they're going to be okay because heaven is the meeting place of all the sincere. That's very politically correct, isn't it? But my Lord Jesus says in John 14, six, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the father apart from me. And Peter says in X four 12, there is no name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Then by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those are the essentials of the gospel. We don't repaint Christianity to match our generation or the culture that we live in. You've heard people say substitutionary atonement to the mind of the post-modernists. Substitutionary atonement, a son dying on a cross, absorbing wrath for sinners, that is nothing but Divine child abuse. Disgusting! Toss it out! Won't be received by our generation. But look, look at this. Paul on Mars Hill among these philosophers. These guys are very sophisticated. Paul didn't present Jesus Christ in any other way. He didn't come and say, look, I am going to have Jesus be added to your Erechtheion Pantheon, this religious mall here. I have one more God for you to come to worship. No, that's not what he said. He says, there's one way. Look, verse 31, there is one man who is the judge of all the world. and the resurrection. They spit when they heard there on Mars Hill of the resurrection. It was despised and a discredited concept in Athens, but Paul didn't discard it. He uncompromisingly declared it. In fact, he made it the centerpiece of his message. Peter says this, this is a legitimate and a non-legitimate contextualization. A biblical and a non-biblical contextualization. The non-legitimate liberal contextualization changes the message of the gospel. Changes the message on homosexuality. Changes the message on complementarianism to egalitarianism. Changes the message on hell. You see, beloved, if we over-adapt and we compromise, then we adopt the idols of the target culture. And that's what Paul refused to do. Keller says this, I do not judge the scriptures by my culture. I judged my culture by the scriptures. That's what the apostle did. And so when you think of contextualization, we got to contextualize, but I think there are some who, who try to make contextualization like rocket science. And so they begin to tailor the gospel by amending its essentials away. Listen to what Piper says. Our job is to spread the gospel to all people, groups of the world who need the gospel. But so many people make missions just too complicated. There are endless over the top discussions on contextualization. Understand the gospel is universally relevant to all peoples and cultures with barely any contextualization. God is a holy and righteous judge. You are a guilty and condemned criminal. Jesus is the only perfect redeeming substitute who can save you. And you must repent and believe. That is universally understandable. And that's the gospel, says Piper. It may be offensive and contrary to many folks' way of thinking, but we're to declare it and we're not to be ashamed of it. It may be a stumbling block to the Jew. It may be foolishness to the Gentiles. But that gospel must be told everywhere, without the need for barely any contextualizing. And you know what? Piper says when you declare it, it'll blow people's worldview out of the water. On all seven continents. On ours, on theirs. And by the way, he says the Bible is not a hat that well fits the American mindset. It blows white Anglo-Saxons out of the water and black Africans out of the water and yellow Asians out of the water. That's why it's so good for the upcoming decades. Isn't it? The gospel isn't complicated. Piper says it's just mind blowing and we're to declare it and not tailor it so that pleasantly fits our hearers mindsets. And when we do it, you know what? We may get stoned doing it. We may get beheaded doing it. If we're in Paris, we may get blown to bits doing it. But so be it. Because our Savior whom we declare is worthy. Chris Andrews says this, contextualization, run amok, leads to another gospel, run amok. The gospel doesn't need to be updated. We don't need any gospel 2.0. God's message is still the crucified and risen Christ. God's method is still the clear and authoritative communication of the gospel. God's threat is still eternal judgment. God's commandment is still that men should repent, that all men should repent everywhere. So as we think of this preservation of the message, gentlemen, ladies, we must be faithful and then be content with the sovereign results. We do it this way. We do it Paul's way. There is no guarantee that we're going to have statistical success or revival just because we use the Pauline formula. Look at Acts 17, 32 and 33, after he preached on Mars Hill, some responded, they were sneers. 32a, it says, some began to sneer. Others were procrastinators. 32b, we'll hear you again, Paul. But at least two were believers. Dionysus and Damaris, they believed. And that's our hope, that by the Spirit of God, they'll believe as we present the true gospel. that is the power of God unto salvation. It's like a plastic explosive you put to that impenetrable, rusty safe, declaring the gospel. It can blow it to bits! Even that hardened teen who is hooked on drugs, it can blow him to bits. Even that hardened retiree, that wealthy man who wants nothing to do with the gospel. If it's the true biblical stuff, it can blow him to bits into the kingdom. And if they die that night, they'll be with Jesus in paradise. That's got to be our conviction. That's the message that we've got to preserve. But come on with me, thirdly, to provocation with immorality. We've seen adaptation in our method, preservation of our message, but provocation with immorality. Look at 17.6. It says, Paul was provoked within him, beholding the city full of idols. He strolled through Athens while waiting. He was provoked. The Greek word is paroxuno. It's the word for, we get paroxysm, which means somebody gets a coughing fit. You've got to get it out. He was so upset. So vexed with what he saw with the immorality of that culture. He was willing to make no treaty with the idols of that culture. And I'm after this theme of provocation with immorality, because some over contextualized by adopting not only to a culturally appreciated communication method. but also to a style of living that is immoral. Because, you know, we've got to be relevant, right? So one might say, I don't just listen to an occasional Taylor Swift song. By the way, I'll tell you, just this last summer, there was a college student who was listening to Taylor Swift. She had a new album that came out. I listened to the whole Taylor Swift album, and I had one of the best conversations. with a young person talking about the anthropology and the theology of Taylor Swift. You laugh, but I'm telling you, I had this young person's conscience as we worked through what Ms. Swift was saying. But some not only listen to an occasional Taylor Swift pop song, but also watch pop movies with porn scenes. Because, hey, I got to be culturally relevant. But look at Paul. He didn't approve of the Athenian culture. He was repulsed by the immorality of it. You see, he considered that their religion and their philosophy were futile and worthy of punishment. That's what he declares. This is a far cry from devouring contemporary movies and TV shows in the name of relevance. Okay, so I talk about being relevant, and I say, okay, use an illustration that's relevant for your culture. Don't go quoting Desperate Housewives. Some will do that, saying, you know, I need to connect with the people of my culture, that show which shows the salacious lives of a handful of unfaithful men and women, so says Wayne Mack. There's a skull and crossbones on that. Don't mess around with that stuff. Well, there may be stuff in our culture that's debatable. Downton Abbey? You want to quote Downton Abbey? David Murray had an interesting blog on Downton Abbey. And is it relevant to our culture? What about, can we use Shakespeare? There's a lot of racy stuff in Shakespeare. What about country music? You ever read Russell Moore, Southern Baptist? Russell Moore is a good guy. I think Russell is a brilliant... speaker and thinker. But you know Russell Moore listens to country music and he quotes country music. He's a guy from Louisiana in the south. He believes that music that speaks about drinking and loving and cheating and despairing and looking for meaning. He said that's kind of like putting a stethoscope to the chest of the southern mindset. You better know what the southerner is thinking to minister to him. Okay Russell, okay. Don't need to be shrewd as serpents, innocent as doves. Sure, it's important to understand what's going on in a culture, but sometimes to discredit it, it's not to approve of it. Even Ephesians 5 says, don't even mention what the disobedient do in secret. Paul knew of the immorality of the Corinthian culture. He knew of what was going on in those temples with those temple prostitutes. What does he say in 1 Corinthians 6? Mess around with it. Go on, take a look and understand. Flee! Flee! immorality, don't immerse yourself in it. And so, so certainly we're not to use contextualization as an excuse to imbibe in the idols of any culture. We should be provoked by it. And just all of you gentlemen, the enemy prowls about like a roaring lion seeking to devour us with the use of our. information exploratory tools, let us be very careful that we would flee immorality. There are some things about, say, women wearing pants that may be neutral, men wearing facial hair stubble, the grunge look, you know, I used to tell my kids, can't do it. I shouldn't have died on that hill. It's not that big a deal. But women dressing immodestly and men telling impure jokes, those things aren't neutral. Just to conclude this section about provocation with immorality, Scott O'Neill writes this, we have to maintain a proper balance between changing with culture on neutral things and shunning culture when it's sinful. And that was Paul's model here. He spoke in the language of the people to whom he was witnessing. He referenced subjects that they were familiar with in their culture, but he also shunned the sinful elements of their culture. And he showed them how certain elements of their culture were futile, worthless. And that is biblical contextualization being provoked with immorality. But just with what we have left, just the last point, consider with me tradition as idolatry. tradition as idolatry. 1722, Paul says, men of Athens, I see that you are very religious, that they bound themselves to certain idols. You realize, ladies and gentlemen, that Athenians have no corner on the market when it comes to fashioning religious idols. We can do the same thing ourselves. Tim Keller writes this, so we've seen that if we over-adapt to a culture we're trying to reach, it means we've bought into that culture's idols. But on the other hand, if we under-adapt to a culture, it could mean that we have accepted our own culture's idols. And I ask me, do I have any? Have I had in my Reformed Baptist provincial perspective any idols? How about, is Trevor Johnson here? Trevor, are you here? Okay, I'm going to quote him. How about a white shirt and a tie? Could that ever be an idol? In fact, he speaks about Africans feeling holy because they're dressed like a proper Englishman. Have you ever seen that? You go to Zambia or Malawi or Kenya and have they been Christianized or have they been Britishized? You wonder sometimes. Trevor wrote this regarding Christian fashions and religious tradition and idols. Listen to what he wrote. He says, I labor in a jungle area where the people have very ratty and ragged clothes, and the churches all throughout the province have a tendency to stress external over the internal. In fact, several of my Donny Evangelist co-workers have brought suits and ties down to their jungle villages. Being dirt poor themselves, they all, at great expense, have bought these formal clothes, and on Sundays, they put them on and preach to their people. The churches are all dirt floored, and the people again just have plain shorts and ratty shirts. But the preacher has a suit and a tie. I purposely preach in these churches wearing the best of my everyday wear, which consists of a clean pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and barefoot. This is an intentional choice, Trevor says. It's hard to gain indigenous ownership of the gospel. Local people owning the true God as their God when they believe that, in order to approach that God, they must adhere to a standard of dress. Dressing like the preacher gets equated with personal holiness. I've met and dissuaded several of these Donny preachers for wearing these suits and ties while preaching to jungle tribes because one of them, in a sermon, too closely tied his manner of clothing to the effects that the gospel brings. Judges 8, Gideon's ephod proved to be a snare. Are there Gideon's ephod elements that we have as Reformed Baptists? Is it I, Lord? Is it I? Trevor says this, the gospel is not designed to make African, to make the African Christian. but into, no, I'm sorry, he says the gospel is not designed to make the African Christian into an American or an Englishman, but it's to make him a better African. And let me say this, nor is the gospel designed to make a millennial into a boomer. And sometimes I think that's what I've wanted to do. I want my sons, who are 20 years old, to act like a 45 year old. or when they're 30 years old, act like a 52-year-old. Really, Mark? What are you thinking, man? And to my shame, to my shame, I can say it was about a decade ago. I'm going to confess this publicly. There was someone who had come to our church. You know, here we are, parents. It was 12 years ago. A member of our church came wearing jeans. We would wear ties and suits, and parents were saying, you know, we're trying to keep our kids on the reservation. We're trying to keep them dressed reverently to the Lord. And I endorse as a pastor recommending to a deacon to go speak to that brother and say, hey, could you maybe not wear jeans because you're weakening our hand. Shame on me! Shame on me! for having done such a thing. Communicating in some way that it's more reverent or more God-honoring. Wearing a suit and a tie. You realize for some people coming to the house of God isn't necessarily to present a dignified front, but to present a humble front. And if for a guy coming, jeans and a t-shirt or a pair of shorts and sandals, humility, then that's between them and the Lord. And we leave people in the custody of our conscience. And there is no biblically sanctioned wardrobe or attire, even in Dutch saturated West Michigan. Think we need to think these things through. There was a moment, Robert, Sacramento, California. I'm at Robert Briggs' church, and I'm doing a Sunday school class, and I'm speaking on some theme, and there's this kid in the second row. He's a youngster, probably maybe 21 years old. He's got a stocking head on, down almost to his eyebrows. He's got two earrings. He's got jeans with holes in it, and sandals. He's asking me a deep question, displaying a hunger and thirst after righteousness. It's blown my mind because, you see, the thought would be, you know, if a kid was really right with God, he'd have an Oxford shirt, a blue blazer, a khaki pair of pants and penny loafers on. That would really be someone who is sanctified. What are you thinking, Mark? What are we thinking? Beloved, when we Think of this idea of tradition as idolatry. I'm thankful that in our church, we've got a spectrum. Some people come in ties, and some people come in business casual, and some people come in a golf shirt, and some people come in a pair of jeans, and yeah, they even come in a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, and a pair of sandals. And praise God. That they're all within the orbit of the preaching of the word of God and praise God. That if somebody comes off the street from a different culture than my boomer perspective, they can say, Oh, there's a place for people like me here in this congregation, becoming all things to all men. So that by all possible means, some may be saved. There's a very well-respected pastor in a church in North Carolina who said to me, you know, Mark. Now I'm not preaching on a Sunday night. I come purposely dressed in a golf shirt. Now don't be shocked by this. A golf shirt. He says, I do it so that people will realize that it's not holy to be wearing a shirt and a tie. There's nothing wrong with wearing a shirt and tie. You come to my church on a Sunday morning, you know what? I wear a shirt and a tie. No. But there's nothing holy and sanctified necessarily about that. Do we have idols in our own Christian culture? Has tradition become an obligation? You know, Peter, who was schooled in Christian liberty himself with the whole sheet vision thing, had problems in Galatians chapter 2 and Paul had to take him to the woodshed. and God has taken me to the woodshed many times. So what idols do we have? Just think through, what idols do we have? We even in our church is thinking about, okay, we used to say, to be a member of our church, it is a requirement, it says in our constitution, a requirement to attend, I may make you guys unhappy with me now, but okay. It is a requirement to attend Sunday school, a.m., p.m., and Wednesday night. We changed that a few years ago. We took out the word requirement. We did not strongly recommend it. Let it be a priority. But are we really wise to say those who won't come Sunday at school a.m. and p.m. and Wednesday night need not apply to this congregation? Brian Boardman did a papery. He warned us about just wearing powdered wigs and expecting puritanical patterns And shouldn't we have Matthew 28 baptizing them and then teach them along the way? Should we not have an atmosphere where we allow people to breathe and grow among us? So people come in from different perspectives. I don't know about you guys, but you dial it back to when I became a pastor 30 years ago. A.M. and P.M. was just like a normal cadence, even in Holland, Michigan. But you know what? Remember one of the few churches in Holland, Michigan that have a P.M. worship service? And when I tell some people even to come to our church, we have a PM worship service, they look at me like saying, what planet are you from? Well, how do we deal? How do we deal with that? How do we, how do we minister? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the PM. We're going to keep our PM service. We are, it's a glorious, it's a wonderful time. Listen, just because a church doesn't have the same attendance in the PM as they have in the AM doesn't mean they're a backslidden church. Kevin D. Young, University Reformed Church in Lansing, Michigan has 17% attendance in the PM worship in comparison to what they have in the AM worship. And they ain't backslidden. God is with them. But we need to have a sense of realism in our ministering. What about music? What about music? I love those Trinity hymns we sang. I love those hymns. They're rich. They're glorious. They're delightful. But you know, I want to be honest with you. I'm 56 years old, Gordon, and I'm going to admit there are other hymns that delight me, that move me. Some of those Getty hymns, some of those Coughlin hymns, they move me in a way that Watts and Cooper don't move me. I admit it. There you are. I admit it. And we're ministering in 2015. Gary Hendricks did a series a while back about music and how Like it or not, we're kind of wired emotionally and musically by our upbringing. I mean, here's Gary Hendricks, he's raised in the time of the Beatles and the Carpenters and Elvis. Okay, so he has a certain... I was raised with Kansas, Boston, ELO, Fleetwood Mac, John Denver, James Taylor. Somewhere there are certain musical tunes that impact me that maybe don't impact somebody who's a little bit older. I think it's good for us in our church to say to the young people, you know young people, it's not all about you. What kind of music? It's not all about you. Because if there's an older hymn that makes that 68-year-old person weep, then that'll make your heart fill with joy. But then you know what else to do? Turn to those old people and say, it's not all about you either. Because there are tunes that make that 19-year-old weep, and it'll fill you with joy as well. You know those hymns? Watt's hymns. Watt's didn't like the old hymns back then. And when Watt's wrote new hymns, they called them Watt's Whims. And they said, even when John Wesley wrote Jesus Thy Blood and Righteousness, it was written, many resisted these new styles. There was a war. We're not singing any of that rubbish, they said. Also it was said, it is a sure lack of vital religion. Do we have idols, beloved? Do we have idols? I really think that we do. So may God give us wisdom. May God enable us to not be like the Pharisees who have a tradition tendency. There are certain shibboleths that we may have. I have no answer for you. I'm asking questions. How do we apply it in Riverside, in Sacramento, in Holland, in Boulder? May God enable us to bridge the gulf between us and our target culture and draw a distinction between preference and precept. So may the Lord help us to follow Paul's example in Athens. He built bridges culturally and generationally so we could access the wavelength of souls. Mohler was right, ladies and gentlemen. There was a massively transformed Mitch and field right before our eyes. The world is coming to us. Maybe not be foolish. Maybe not bury this opportunity. May we use it to the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Let's pray together. Our heavenly father, you've raised us up for a time such as this. And we pray that you would give to us the wisdom that we need. We thank you for the precious faith that we hold together. We thank you for this precious perspective on the truth of the word. We pray we wouldn't squander it to our shame, but enable us to use it and invest it to your glory. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.