Can Our Culture Be Redeemed? | Kirk Cameron

I so appreciate our last guest and all that she shared for us and I just want to offer a a note of Hope and optimism for you uh not everyone out in California is is woke uh I certainly am not afraid of my food in fact I am a proud carnivore and I just want to show you that I have taken dominion over the pigs and the chickens because I have bacon and eggs on my feet W all hope is not lost we're talking about culture and Christianity and I can't think of anybody that I I would rather be listening to about that than Pastor Alan Jackson because he has such wisdom such fatherly grandfatherly wisdom that I benefit from he is wind in my sales he is he is Hope he is fuel in my tank because he puts his faith in the word of God not in personalities not in strategies or tactics as important as these things are the power is in the gospel to transform the hearts of men and women and children and people with transformed Hearts transform their culture as I was thinking about this morning and and this a position between Christianity and culture culture and Christianity we often pit them against one another and we think of culture is bad Christianity is good who do you want raising your children culture or Christianity we think of the two as mutually exclusive or incompatible or at odds with one another and indeed they can be in fact I'm working with a a wonderful company called Brave books we've been writing these children's books and in one of their books uh they created a a character which is a vulture named culture and it seems perfect right and there's this story of of the vulture coming up to this elephant named Kevin and Kevin is a wonderful elephant who loves to sing and he's got this beautiful voice and he says Kevin look at you he says you've got a beautiful voice have you ever thought that maybe you shouldn't be an elephant but you were meant to be a bird and Kevin says I never thought about that but but maybe you're right elephants don't typically sing the birds are the ones with the beautiful voices and so culture the vulture straps on this prosthetic beak and wings and gets Kevin to go hang out with the birds and he tries to climb up in the branches of the trees and he breaks the branches Falls and hurts himself and everything collapses in Kevin's world the story turns out great in the end but culture is characterized by a vulture culture and when we think of culture and Christianity with a term like cultural Christianity that's sort of dismissed as weak and anemic and a watered down version of the potent stuff oh it's cultural Christianity you know a church on every corner hi say blow bless your heart God bless you you know like that's not something that we aspire to just cultural Christianity and we think of culture as being such a massive force of Darkness like a tsunami wave that's about to drown all of us and our children and their future I think we've got to rethink all of this but it's tough to when we see the culture turning in the direction that it is I want you to watch this video that my son just sent me two days ago of a man in the UK so specifically here because I say Christians need to take a stand is there anything else that's been said reported from what I'm being what else has been said know that's what was being said so just for witness right cuz this is going to my solicitor I've now got two police officers and a mental health nurse coming to see me because I went to the church and spoke to my local priest about what happened to the bishop in Australia and said are we Christians supposed to take a stand I'm not calling for violence or anything like that never once said there's no allegation now look again just for the benefit of everyone that's going to see this this is discrimination against Christians right now because if I was Islamic and I said anything along them lines you wouldn't care you allow hate preachers in this country to preach the killing of homosexuals and that and now you're on my door because I said Christians need to take a stand I don't call you for violence I'm just call you to take a you think that you would be different because I've got a mental health nurse and two PCS not pcso come to my house that's why so if you don't think this is discrimination in any way I'd like to hear your explanation of this not being discriminat I don't think we we would necessarily agree on on that but I I'm just saying that from so this this is why I went to see the priest because of this okay because this has happened to us we Christians can't even voice an opinion without having Poli it's difficult to have a positive optimistic view of the future when we're looking at things like this happening in our culture and we know that America is potentially right on the following in the footsteps and on the heels of what we see happening in Europe but I was reading a story this week and it was about President Ronald Reagan who in the 1980s was in a very difficult and challenging pressure cooker politically and militarily when the Soviet Union was a massive force militarily in the United States during those years of the Cold War we were amassing nuclear weapons and we had enough weapons to blow the world up seven uh several times over and the strategy of the day that was embraced by most here in the United States was something we call dayon and it was the shrinking of military arsenals one by one you get rid of a bomb we get rid of a bomb you get rid of a nuclear warhead we'll get and it was it would ensure a longlasting stalemate between the two superpowers but at least it was better than the risk of an allout War but President Reagan had a different idea his motto was we win they lose and what he proposed that they do that we do is that we magnify our military might to the point that the people in the Soviet Union would understand that it would be uh foolishness to go up against the United States and its power and they would lose their confidence in the propaganda and the lies being given to them by the Communist party and many here in the United States thought that Reagan was uh foolish that he was Reckless and dangerous for wanting to go down this route but guess what it worked it worked the Soviet Union ultimately collapsed and they enjoyed a level of Freedom that they never thought was possible in their lifetime largely because of one man and a group of a small group of supporters who believed it was possible he he had a vision of Victory Alfred the Great I told the story the last time I was here in the 9th century ad was up against the Vikings in the Kingdom of wessix butchering and plundering everything in his kingdom until he waged battle because he saw that Victory Belongs to the Lord and as a faithful man with a small group of men he was able to defeat them and rebuild the kingdom in the image of God according to the word of God the pilgrims who who came across the the ocean suffered poverty arrests storms sickness government tyranny and yet they somehow maintained the belief that it was possible to begin a civilization that would one day become a city on a hill and a light to the entire world you're going to hear a lot this this weekend this conference that is going to get under your skin that's going to fill you with concern and agitation about those who want to win our culture away from our children and control their Futures but we as the family of of faith can learn a lot by looking back into history to some of these Heroes of the faith and we learn that their Victory started with a belief it started with a faith in God and a belief that victory was possible I meet too many Christians who have already conceded defeat they say the enemy is too big the forces against us are too big do you know how much money Bill Gates has do you know how much military might China has combined with Russia do you could you imagine if Iran and Russia and China do you know what's going on on our on our border and and and the crisis of fentanyl that's coming across not to mention the cell groups of terrorists who were coming across do look what's going on inside of our schools it's too big big government big business big Tech it's too big you know what that reminds me of it reminds me of the story of the Israelites about to enter the promised land of Canaan and they sent the spies in there and the spies come back and they say they're too big there's Giants in the land there's no way we can beat them they're too big stand down and then Caleb remembers the words that God gave to Moses in Deuteronomy and he said you're going to be tempted to think that these nations are too big and too strong for you to drive out remember what I did to pharaoh and to Egypt but the naysayers won the day and kept the children of God out of the promised land for another gener generation or the Israelites up against the Philistines the two armies are posed for battle and the Philistines send out their biggest guy they send out the champion Goliath the Giant and the Israelites are shaken in their boots nobody wants to take him on except a young boy named David who has a vision of victory because he comes in the name of the god of Israel Stone gets launched connects with forehead end of story then The Bravery in the boy's heart spreads to the Army's heart and the whole host of Israel is on the attack big Tech is not the giant David understood something that his brothers behind him didn't understand he knew that Goliath was not the giant there was a bigger giant standing behind Goliath that made him look like a tiny little person big Tech big government big whatever is always going to be a next to our big God so instead of conceding defeat let's claim victory in His Name by faith working itself out in love with courage and bravery I left pessimism behind years ago I think there's two major reasons why many Christians are pessimistic and defeatist complacent and apathetic with regard to the culture it's either baked into their end times theology or they've swallowed the cultural propaganda and lies that we have crossed the line and we've gone too far morally and there's no turning back it's just to it's just too bad see if you recognize your thinking in any of the following as I travel around I often talk to people about what they're feeling how they're how they're uh dealing with the cultural meltdown that we see in our schools in our libraries um uh everywhere that they go and uh they say it's it's it's it depresses them and I say what should be our response and they say well we should do everything we can but uh I mean gosh I don't know I mean I'm I'm not sure but hey look you know it is the end times right I mean we know how this whole thing ends it's not really maybe it's not falling apart maybe it's it's really just falling right into place things are only going to get darker and darker they're going to get worse until it ends but the good news is Jesus is coming and we're going to go to heaven so let's just save as many Souls as we can and I say yeah but what about Redeeming the culture I've got kids in this world so do you what about our grandkids I mean people have been talking about the return of of Jesus for 2,000 years what happens when we're here for another thousand years what about redeeming it yeah well you know but let's not have any false hopes I mean I mean that's a good idea but look my pastor told me we don't win down here we lose we win up there but we lose down here now listen I'm not judging anybody's motives or sincerity about their faith I'm not even really judging end times theology paradigms but I am saying that if your belief about the future impacts the way you're living today and tomorrow by sending you into apathy complacency fear and discouragement I want you to rethink that if we are simply pessimistic about the future we will create a self-fulfilling prophecy and of course things will get worse if I think the only option is for things to get darker why would I try why would I polish brass on a sinking ship and that's exactly what will happen if I don't think I can take care of my house or my marriage and therefore I think you know what she's going to leave me my house is just going to fall down the bugs and the termites and the snakes and everything is too much therefore what's the point of wasting my energy well of course my house is going to fall down of course my marriage is going to deteriorate and you take Salt and Light out of the culture of course it's going to get more corrupt rot and get darker a self-fulfilling prophecy but if instead we focus on the faithfulness of God the power of God the victory of the Gospel then we have ample Reason for Hope and for courage but maybe there's a different reason that you may feel pessimistic and feeling like giving up maybe you say we've just gone too far we have crossed the line morally it's gotten so bad we are in a postchristian era not just in Europe but here in America we used to have in 1970 a population that was 90% identifying as Christian today it's less than half we've crossed the line I'm sorry I think the only line that matters is the one that was crossed when Jesus passed from Death To Life Jesus said he has all authority both in heaven and on Earth and he sent his disciples and through their message to us to go and to disciple All Nations and teaching them to obey all that he's commanded leading to their blessing and human flourishing and he will be with us to the End of the Age my summary of that is go change the world on three Jesus is ruling and reigning in heaven and he is influencing this world through us as his ambassadors of heaven with this message of reconciliation our job from the garden was to create the culture not to complain about the culture we are to fill the Earth and replenish it and subdue it and take dominion over it for the glory of God and the blessing of all people we've become com professional winers as conservatives or as Christians we ought to have the vision of being humble winners of the culture for the glory of Jesus Christ and for the future of our children so who will separate us from the love of Christ shall Supreme Court decisions or loudmouth celebrities with their anti-christian bias or a graph of religious affiliation that isn't looking good for us right now or an unbiblical Morality enshrined In Law no in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us if we look in Psalm chapter 2 we see those who are against God and His anointed saying let's throw off these chains and these bonds that restrict us we're going to become a standard unto ourselves we're going to be our own God and they're Wicked and they're dangerous and the reaction of the almighty is to laugh he laughs in heaven because he understands the fate of the wicked I love how my my friend Ray Comfort says a blind anemic weak need flee on crutches has a better chance of defeating a herd of a thousand wild stampeding elephants than the enemy has of defeating [Applause] God when you think of the stock market there are times when you buy and there are times when you sell there's times when you are feeling great and there's times when you are just going holy cow what I got to sell sell everything look look at this graph here of um the Great Depression down 83% oh no sell everything we're going to lose it we're going to lose it all until you step back and you look at the graph of the S&P 500 over the course of the last 100 years it's all up and to the right and that downturn is a mere data point on a much larger graph when we look at the cultural setback that we are seeing today it is a mere data point on a much larger graph of the tsunami of the victory of the kingdom of God on Earth for the last 2,000 years washing over the whole Earth [Applause] the social Improvement since Jesus Christ died on the cross and Rose from the grave is phenomenal you think things are bad now with everything we're dealing with here in America how about being in America in 1941 about to be plunged unknowingly into perhaps the largest War the world has ever known you think this election is critically important I agree it is but is it as important as the election in 1860 that would determine if the Civil War would begin abortion is wicked Millions dying but think of the time when the god of moak was being worshiped and babies were thrown regularly into the arms of a molten RedHot go God and seared and and and burnt to death immorality is wickedness but in the ancient world Greece adult child sex was commonplace and all the rage we have pressure on Christians now in the UK in America and around the world but then Nero was lighting Christians and using them as torches to illuminate gladiatorial games child trafficking human trafficking is evil but back in the day institutional slavery was the norm and smart business on every continent in the globe and no one thought anything of it did you know that the life expectancy of human beings has risen from 1800 it was 31 years old to 2017 72 years old because of modern medicine and it's even higher now did you know that extreme poverty has dropped 50% since 1993 and death by natural disasters has plummeted we recognize corruption today only because our moral standards have improved so much back then we wouldn't have been saying anything about this because it would have been normal and most all of this is to be credited to the church to the Christian faith and those in the family of faith that is not to say that everything done in the name of Christianity has been good or that those outside the church have not contributed to positive social Improvement but by and large these things we're talking about are the result of the family of Faith living out the power of the Gospel within them in their culture and restoring it redeeming it look it was Christians who scoured the dumps in the Roman Empire to save babies who elevated the status of women ended ended gladiatorial games it was Christians who inspired hospitals and universities the fathers of modern science and representative government and modern charitable giving it was Christians who abolished slavery stopped cannibalism in places like Fiji and ended the Su the Indian practice of throwing female widows onto the funeral PES of their deceased husbands hundreds of languages would never have been put into writing if it weren't for the Translating of the Bible into those languages did you know that the growth of global Christianity according to Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary is exploding in 1970 when I was born the number of Born Again Bible believing Spirit-filled Christians in the west and America outnumbered the rest of the world 4 to1 the number of Christians in a America and Europe outnumbered the rest of the world 4 to1 today the number of Bible believing Spirit-filled Born Again Christians in the rest of the world outnumber America and Europe 7 to1 there has been a global shift to the global South and the center of gravity for the gospel and the kingdom of God has shifted but if we've got this myopic view through a straw all we're seeing is that tiny little blip on the graph we've got to widen our view and see not just what's going on in America but what's going on in the whole world and not just what's happening in our lifetime but what has happened over the Millennia then we get a totally different picture could God be training us to be brave and faithful in our day could he be bringing that which will wake up his children and turn their hearts back to him that they would say oh God tear open the heavens and come down God we we are like an army that is on the verge of being a corpse with dry bones oh God refresh us revive us stand us up put us back together so that we can March and push back the evil and make inroads of light for the kingdom of God [Applause] could all of this that we are hearing this weekend with regard to social irritations be a Divine setup for a spiritual comeback led by the family of faith I believe that it is and I can see these Rumblings of Revival in people All Around Me by the way Revival starts with a personal Revival in the heart of a man in the heart of a woman I know Riley gains the Collegiate swimmer who who is now doing great things to restore and redeem the culture in women's sports Jonathan Isaac the basketball player who refused to kneel during the national anthem and wear the BLM t-shirt and now because he was de dethroned and he was uh desp spored by Nike and others he has started his own sports wear line called unite us unite us he believes that the gospel is what will unite us not these protests and and and other types of things and he is engaging with the culture and he is heaven ising the culture the Irwin Brothers right here in Middle Tennessee and in Franklin are making movies there's one out right now that you probably ought to see and so many others like the Jesus Revolution and I can only imagine and the Kendrick Brothers with war room and uh courageous and all of these movies they're Redeeming the Hollywood culture and using those disciplines to bring a message of Hope the World Outreach Church all that you have here right in your backyard to redeem culture to have the word of God saturate your mind and work itself out through love within your community I just visited the Dream City Church in Phoenix Arizona and in Los Angeles where they have the Dream Center buying hotels churches buying hotels refurbishing them to use as houses for prostitutes and women and children who have been trafficked to rehabilitate them and incorporate them into the church and give them positions of leadership within the community rather than just complaining about government problems start a Civics Ministry in your house if this is something you're passionate about and it's getting under your skin and keeping you up at night don't just be relevant as a Christian and talk about it be a revolutionary as a Christian and fix it do what you can do where you are with the resources that you have my friend started a Men's Ministry called red truck men creating a culture of Honor for fathers and husbands who don't have examples in their own lives to even know what that looks like my wife Chelsea with her boldness and her courage and her self-sacrificing hard work has done an amazing job first in her home with her own family and then within her church coming up alongside and teaching and supporting and caring for other young moms and wives Brave books who has been writing books to replace the filth that's coming out of Scholastic and now children's television programming uh to replace what's coming out from Nickelodeon and Disney don't be complainers be creators of the culture this is what we are made for and then you you are people with vision it may have been constricted by all of the bad things that you're hearing that's coming in through your phone and your and and and news and the things that you see around you but if God has placed his resurrection Spirit within you he has given you a vision of Victory feed it learn about history learn about the power of God understand that that you are his his walking worship center right here on the earth you are a a Power Center that has the ability to transform everything that you touch through humility repentance Faith courage and you know people in your world that I'm not even aware of that would encourage me if I heard what they're doing and it starts with their belief that greater is he who is in them than he who is in the world if you're here to this morning and you're saying you know what I am not giving up on my children I am not giving up on my marriage I am not giving up on my grandchildren I don't just have Rapture fever sticking my head between my knees crying in my Chick-fil-A soup asking why the Lord is taking so long I am not giving up on this I have a vision of Victory and I have Jesus with me and he's given me an assignment I'm going to do everything that I can while I am here to bring him honor and glory and to care for for those around me and transform my culture let me ask you do you believe that a cultural win for Christianity is possible do you believe that Christianity can characterize not only your heart and your home but also the works of your hands and civil government that governs your land I believe that it's possible in fact I believe that it's Unstoppable if the family of faith will get a hold of a victory of vision and take the word of God and apply it to every aspect of your life my friend Marshall Foster who's since gone to be with the Lord says 2,000 years ago God unleashed the most powerful world changing force the world has ever known the self-governing Christian a nuclear power reactor of of the Holy Spirit transformed in his heart you've become a new creation with a new heart and new desires armed with the only weapon powerful enough to subdue men and their passions and their institutions and this self-governing body of men and women on the Earth formed the bul workk of a movement that was started by the Son of God himself against which he said the Gates of Hell shall not Prevail and they will not be dominated by culture they will shape culture according to the word of God do you believe that's possible I know that's possible I want you to join me in a victory chant right now I want you to sing this and sing it with such passion and such Gusto and with such volume that it sends Holy Spirit Shivers up the spine and goosebumps on the skin of Governor Bill Lee in Nashville and he says oh I'm just feeling full of the full of the Lord this morning I want it to be so loud and so full of of of passion that it makes the governor and all of his so his minions in California shaking his boots I'm going to put the lyrics up on the screen hey Jesus you're my king okay let's try that again I want you to think of Jesus himself is who we are singing this to I want you to picture that he has just arrived on a white horse thank you ma'am for standing up and he has flames of fire in his eyes he has crowns on his head he is a robe on his back that is dipped in blood a sharp sword coming out of his mouth and on his robe and on his thigh is written the name the King of Kings and the Lord of lords hail Jesus you're my king hail Jesus you're my king your life frees me to sing I pra to sing and I will praise you all my days I will praise you all my perfect in all your ways perfect in all your ways hailes Jesus You're My Lord tell Jesus You're My Lord and I will obey your word I will obey your word I want to see your kingdom come want to see your kingdom come not my will but yours be done not my will be glory glory to the lamb glory glory to the lamb you take me into the land you take me into the land We Will Conquer in your name We Will Conquer in your name and Proclaim that Jesus Reigns and Proclaim that Jesus hail hail line of Judah ha ha line of Judah how powerful you are powerful you are hail hail line of Judah line of Judah how wonderful you are how wonderful you are how powerful you are how powerful you are one more time how wonderful you are how Wonder amen there has never been a time in our lives for more of a need for we as the family of Faith to reclaim our Christian identity our culture with a vision of victory for our families our institution and our nation are you with me God bless you

Channel: Culture & Christianity Conference

Views: 7,000

Keywords: cultureandchristianity, cultureandchristianity2024, leadwithfaith, leadwithyourfaith, cultureandchristianityconference2024, pastorallen, pastorallenjackson, allenjacksonministries, church, christian, culture, Can Our Culture Be Redeemed? | Kirk Cameron, Can Our Culture Be Redeemed?

Id: tMFiXKMJx6s

Length: 35min 20sec (2120 seconds)

Published: Fri May 10 2024