Tim Keller - Humble Cultural Engagement

I'm going to just get right to what they asked me to do I'm here to talk about how a gospel changed heart makes a difference how a gospel change heart is crucial for cultural renewal and in the last couple of years some of the books I've been reading on cultural renewal have I think very happily at least from my point of view been moving towards something of a consensus three three writers all of whom I know personally one a New Testament scholar Don Carson wrote a book called Christ and culture revisited one a sociologist James Hunter wrote to change the world most recently Miroslav Volf a theologian wrote public faith there's a kind of consensus developing and I'm really excited about it actually and the consensus goes something like this it's an oversimplification but when it comes to how do Christians relate to the culture on the one hand you've got a withdrawal mentality that says Christianity is not really here to mend the world there's a liberal version of that that basically is so accommodated culture it just looks out there and says you know why would Christians want to change things there's a conservative version of that that says what Christians really to be doing is just building of the church evangelizing a disciple and in other words there's a withdrawal mentality that says it's not the job of Christians to try to mend the world on the other hand there's another extreme which you could call triumphalism and again there's a kind of liberal and a conservative version of that the liberal version would be what you call liberation theology which is really a kind of a form of Marxism a conservative version is the idea that Christians ought to take power and make society the way Christians think it should be in both cases there's talk of a triumphal istic kind of talk of transforming culture we're going to make culture the way it be all these writers are saying that doesn't really fit in with what the Bible says or even what the gospel is if you think about this the gospel itself is a third way between legalism and what you might call licensed or the theological term is antinomianism legalism says we can change ourselves with our own power and own strength we can be what we ought to be by our own strength antinomianism or that's the theological term license there's another extreme that says we're just fine the way we are once as we can change in our own power the other says we're fine that we are the gospel is you're saved by grace through faith you're not saved by your own efforts and power but at the same time once you're saved it changes you that's the reason why we talk about why Martin Luther said you're saved by faith alone not by your good works but you're not saved by a faith that remains alone true faith issues and change and therefore the gospel itself is a kind of Third Way between saying we can change our own strength or a change isn't necessary now and that's the reason why for example Miroslav Volf says instead of talking about transformation of culture or withdrawal from culture we ought to talk about engaging culture James Hunter says instead of talking about triumphalism or withdrawal we ought to talk about faithful presence they have their own words but there is a kind of consensus developing that humble faith work integration engaging culture as Christians but still working together with others for the common good a kind of a cultural engagement that voids these sorts of extremes is the way we ought to go and it's analogous to the gospel itself but I'm here to say it's not just that this this sort of this Third Way when it comes to Christ cultural renewal that's emerging I'm not here to say it's only analogous to the gospel I'm here to say that if you are going to engage this Third Way the gospel has to change your heart the gospel itself actually has to prepare your heart for it and I'd like to show you three ways in which that happens just from the you know the top level overview before I get into them is on the one hand the gospel actually gives your heart the humility to appreciate the contributions of everyone out there in the field Christians and non-christians it enables you to humbly cooperate with others who aren't Christians to work for the common good on the other hand number two the gospel gives you courage and insight to humbly and respectfully provoke the culture and say there's a lot of ways in which work needs to be done in a different way and and and the in public life needs to be conducted in a different way there needs to be humble cooperation the same time respectful provocation and then last of all I think the gospel actually shapes the way in which you actually lead in your vocation the rules of the gospel shape the way in which you lead so it not only makes you humble about other people's work and not only shapes your work but it actually also changes the way in which you relate to other people in your profession the way in which you lead the way in which you do relationships so let's go through these three things the gospel creates transformational leadership so number one the gospel humbly it creates a humility to help you appreciate what to work with others for the common good one of the problems with many groups that talk about Christian cultural engagement is that they are triumph allistic there is a rhetoric that says Christians need to go out there and take back the culture and very often what the critique of that view is that it's not appreciating the fact that that the world is filled with the glory of God that God is at work out there and through all kinds of people's work people whether they're Christians are not that he's doing his work if any of you were at the talk I did last year in the Krait and in the series that Center Phaethon work did on Sundays I talked about Martin Luther Martin Luther has some fascinating stuff to say about this but Martin Luther goes points this out he says when you pray give us this day our daily bread for God to answer that he instead of just having the bread appear on the table what he's actually doing for example is he's working through the Baker's he's working through the the merchants he's working through the people who transport the flour is it in other words what God does is he actually answers your request and he gives you food through the work of other people and so Luther says now we don't have these folks anymore he says the simplest milk made no milk made men the girl that went out and and milked the cow and then brought that you know then the milk comes to market and it comes to you he says God is giving you milk through her and so at one point he says if I remember correctly yeah he looks he looks at all the various jobs that people are doing out there in the world he says these are the masks of God behind which he wants to remain concealed and do all things now this approaches it means this Christians have to be profoundly appreciative of good work done by absolutely everything everyone you need to be looking out there and seeing God working in all kinds of people and actually there's a certain you know some of you have heard that this is often called common grace common grace means that God gives good gifts and he works through people whether they're Christians or not it's common grace it's not just given a Christians not special grace it's common grace but but the fact the fact is if you know you're saved by grace alone if you're a Christian then you know you're you know God is at work in your life in spite of the fact that you're not great in a lot of ways he didn't say because you're a better father or mother he didn't save you because you're a better businessman or businesswoman he saved you just by grace and he knows you know that God works in people's lives even though they're flawed and that means that that God really does do everything by grace and out there there are people who maybe don't believe what we believe yet God has given them gifts of wisdom and of beauty and of skill and of excellence and and through their work the human races life is better than it would have been otherwise and we have to realize that those are real gifts the world Christians buy through through the gospel Christians should be humbled enough to see that God always works through grace and always works through gifts and when you look out there you you see the whole society in since the whole world aflame with the glory and grace of God all over the place there's a tendency for Christians to be so negative about Society so negative about culture and and there's a self-righteousness in that that it does not behoove people who understand they're sinners saved by grace so you know the Christian gospel teaches you to enjoy God's gifts wherever they are and make you humbly cooperate with other people for the common good and so at the one end of the spectrum staying away from the triumphalism the gospel humbles you so that you don't fall into that pit you don't fall into that extreme you're not triumph allistic you see at you you see God working for everybody now point to however having said that Christians now that all work is done for some reason it's either done for God's glory or it's done for something else and when work is not done for God's glory it's distorted when work is done for your glory or for your status or for your success or for your particular tribe status and success rather than for everyone else or for God I mean there's all sorts of ways in which work is distorted in this world it's distorted by sin and therefore secondly the gospel gives you both the courage and the insight to move out of the world and say that there's a way to work that is shaped by what we know is the character of God you have to go out there so respectfully because we already talked about the you have to be humble it has to be respectful but the same time you move out saying no no you have to have the courage and you also have the insight to know that there that that the gospel actually shapes the way in which you work because the glory of God shapes the way in which you work just give you a couple of interesting examples very important in Marisol Volt's new book public faith he talks about something pretty intriguing you know there's there's a tiny little book it's more significant than you then you know it's one chapter it's in the New Testament it's the book of Philemon it's Paul's letter to a human being a man an individual Philemon many Christians to actually find the book a little bit of discomforting because Philemon was a slave owner and he owned a slave named an esse mmus an esse --mess had run away and he'd been with Paul and Paul was now sending him back now of course this is a situation in which obviously slavery I got to keep in mind that greco-roman slavery wasn't exactly what you and I think of it wasn't this it wasn't slavery as it came to be in the African slave trade of the 18th 19th century slavery was not based on race slavery was not for life it was kind of indentured servant hood but it was still pretty brutal so here's what Paul does you know that we're talking about you might call it case theology it's a real-life theology Paul is not obviously in a position to say well let's talk about should we have slavery in the world or not that's actually a great question but he had an issue he had a friend named a Nesmith who had run away from somebody else that he knew and he was sending him back an SMS couldn't stay away here's here's what he does he says in the book of Philemon very interesting so this very interesting he's writing it back and he's sending him back and he says I I don't want to do anything without your consent Paul says to Philemon so that any favor you do which should not seem force but needs to be voluntary he says no longer I want him to come back to you no longer as a slave but better than a slave as a dear brother because Philemon was a Christian and now an SMS was a Christian and he says he's very dear to me but even dearer to you both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord now Miroslav Volf points something out that's pretty intriguing he says when you send somebody back obviously you know Paul the institution is still there the institution of indentured servant hood what does that mean it means an estimate cannot just quit he can't go out and and there's no free market for his his his job skills he has to work for Philemon until his time of servitude is up but when Paul says Philemon you're a Christian he's a Christian I want you to treat him as a brother in the Lord and as a fellow human being Miroslav Volf in his book just has a paragraph on this and he says what is Paul doing he's radically changing the institution from the inside he's saying okay here you are here's to Christians Philemon an SMS and they're in there in the economy you've got there in the public policy you've got there in the culture you've got and of course as many of you know that in the long run it was Christians who decided slavery has to go but in the short run what did Paul do he actually he utterly transformed the way power was exercised inside the master-servant relationship why he's her brother in the Lord you're both sinner saved by grace there's a kind of equality there I mean that train there's still power there's still a master still a servant but the exercise of power has been transformed by the gospel bill stunts a friend of many people at the center faith at work in New York City just died in last year Harvard Law Professor in its specialists in the area of criminal law died tragically of cancer too young he was in his 50s but I got a I've got a fascinating article somebody gave me it was a lecture at a at University of Virginia law school a couple years ago it's being right now prepared for publication you'll probably see it at some point it's a kind of learning article but it's fascinating it's called law and grace and he's he points out that throughout history when Christians got involved in working on criminal law they always made criminal law more humane it said early American colonial criminal law British criminal law was always there was a balance between you might say judgment and mercy in the Christians understanding of criminal law he even goes so far well anyway I can't go into it because I don't have it right in front of me I didn't read it today which I probably should have reread it but what he actually does is he says here's how Christianity if you think about we have a savior who was the victim of injustice we believe you are that there's law but there's also grace that on the cross both law and love were equally honored by God Jesus the law had to be honored so our sins that we paid for but God also wanted to rehabilitate us and he wanted to be merciful to us and as a result he went he sent his son to the cross to die he says when you have that as part of your worldview how do you go at criminal law he says Christianity should always respect the law at the same time move it away from the more punitive versions of it what's he doing I hate criminal well you gotta have criminal law but he said he realizes he says everybody works for some reason everybody works out of a particular worldview everybody works out of some account of human nature of right and wrong of what of human meaning of what we're here for and when Christians move out into the world because they believe the gospel they think gospel wise they just think a gospel wise they've got the courage and they've got the insight to change the way work is done from the inside not in a triumphal istic way taking over not failing to appreciate the fact that all kinds of people who are not Christians they don't have your worldview might be doing a better job in your in your work than you then you are because of the way God it tends to operate because the way which God gives us gifts of grace all over the place you see the balance that's happening though I mean you know you're a sinner saved by grace you know you're complete sinfully you're completely loved there's there's a there's a paradoxical balance in the way Christians think the longer you're a Christian and the more and more you learn to think in a kind of gospel wise way and therefore not only does it humble you so you appreciate what other people do it actually emboldened you and gives you insight to get out and say no we've got to change the way things are there's plenty of places where the way work is done and the way public life is ordered changes need to be made so it's more in line with justice so it's more in line with you know the common good was more in line with what human nature really is now lastly I've already said for example perhaps if you're a Christian the way in which you think about and work as a business owner the way in which you think and work about as a lawyer the way in which you think about and work as an artist will be different but and of course the artist is applying the gospel in a particular way and the lawyer in a particular way and so on but the third thing I want to point out is the gospel doesn't only humble you appreciate embolden you to provoke but thirdly it changes the way in which you relate to people inside your profession there's a place in one of Jonathan Edwards sermons where he talks over and over about the rules of the gospel when I first heard that term it sounded kind of weird you know the gospel doesn't have rules the whole point is you're saved not because you obey the rules but because of the grace of God but the more I read the more I saw what he meant is this if you actually do have a Savior who saved you by taking the blame for what you did if you have a savior who saved you by putting your needs ahead of his own if you have a savior who saved you through subsidary substitutionary sacrifice and on and on he says look at how you were saved and then how does that affect the way in which you actually relate to people now some of you heard the story but I'll just say it's I think was 1992 when the church was very very new Redeemer I'm ever talking to a woman after church who was not a believer but had been coming for several weeks and I asked her hey I'm glad you're here how did you get here how did you find out about us by the way back in those days nobody knew of Redeemer unless a friend brought you you know we had no building we had no name or anything what weren't famous and that sort of thing and then she told me she worked for one of the TV networks and then she gave an example and she said that it wasn't that long ago that she'd done a really stupid thing she should have probably lost her job or she could have but her boss went to his boss and basically took the blame and said it wasn't her fault I should have trained her I should have done this or that and kind of took the blame now he had a pretty good standing he had a fair amount of personal capital and he spent some of it by taking the blame for it but it saved her job and when she found out about it she came in and she said look I've been in this it you know dog-eat-dog new york world for a long time and she says i've constantly had people above me take credit for what I've done that happens all the time I've never had anybody be willing to take the blame for what I've done I usually take the blame for what my superiors done and he said no no don't think about it that's a ride and but and she pressed and pressed and finally he said look he said I'm only going to tell you this because you're pressing me I'm only going to tell you this because you asked I'm a Christian and the reason I am as far as I know the reason I have a relationship with God is because somebody took the blame for me for what I did and I'm just letting it shape the way in which I operate and she said where you go to church now the point there is what seeing that place the gospel isn't just I don't know the gospel wasn't wasn't shaping the way in which this person thought about entertainment though maybe it does or maybe it should it wasn't in is something else going on here and that is the gospel creates a kind of transformational leadership pattern in which you give credit instead of always taking it in which you bear blame instead of always you know making other people bare the way in which you lift up rather rather than trample on people so you can get up to ladder you lift up other people instead you don't think people notice that oh they do you could call it the ethical side of work you know gospel wise not so much the shaping of the work through the worldview just the ethical side put all that together put all that together if Christians if you see the implications of the gospel if your hearts really been affected by the gospel so you have this this humility that you wouldn't have had unless you knew you're a sinner and a boldness that you wouldn't have unless you knew you were completely affirmed by God and therefore what really matters is not your status and not your success and not how much money you make but just a do good job I do a good job I'm if the gospel is shaped you so your relationships are such that you know how to serve instead of use people everywhere you'll engage the culture gospel shaped heart will create culturally engaged Christians that really will change the world let me pray for a second and then we're going to move on to our next section it's the next part of our conference let me pray our Father I I thank you that we have hundreds of people in this room here because they they intuitively know what we just talked about the gospel doesn't just though it does pardon our sins relate us to you and give us a guaranteed reception into your arms the day we die it's not just a salvation it that takes us out of this world but it's a salvation that shapes the way in which we live in the world and in the end Lord we know because you made this world and you love this world you are going to mend and renew the world through your salvation as well we thank you that you have put us in a place where just like you use the the simplest most menial labor at this right now to give your gifts good gifts to other people we believe that you're going to use your children's of work in mending the universe and we pray that you would help us do it better because we spent this time together and because more and more we've taken the gospel down into our hearts so that we're changed more into the likeness of your son whose name we pray amen you

Channel: Center for Faith & Work

Views: 92,095

Rating: 4.8565021 out of 5

Keywords: Tim Keller, CFW, Redeemer, Center for Faith & Work, Faith & Work, faith and work, Redeemer NYC

Id: xMgsZKzZp-g

Length: 25min 2sec (1502 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 27 2012