What Are We Saved For? (Part 1)

Not say to accommodate weekly radio show and podcast and encourage you to be forces of persuasion for family values in your community. Today we bring you part one of a speech delivered by John Stonestreet in our annual major speakers dinner event in reaping North Carolina on March 11 John Stonestreet as president of the Colson Center for Christian and the voice of breakpoint radio.

The nationally syndicated commentary on faith and culture. We hope you enjoy this week's program on the Colson Center is one of the two legacy organizations of chuckles and think I remember I had the privilege of traveling and speaking with Chuck the last three or four years of his life and he would talk about how when he was imprisoned.

There were 200,000 people, and in prison and today submitted 2010 and 2012 sit today. There are 2.2 million and that led Chuck to go, what we call upstream from the prisons and that led and asked two questions see what he understood was that prison was downstream from the culture.

In other words, if the brokenness was filling up the prisons.

It was coming from a brokenness that was happening in the culture as that was the first question he had is what was breaking in the culture. Where was the brokenness, but he realized that what was breaking in the culture was much more fundamental than just the lack of money and just education.

It was the brokenness in the family. It was the devaluing of life.

It was the consistent ostracization of religion in the public square, and that this was leading to a brokenness that was filling the present and then he wanted to ask the second question she Chuck was a student of history, especially church history and had some heroes guys like William Wilberforce ever heard of that guy Wilberforce said that God had set before him to great aims. The abolition of the slave trade and he actually led Britain away from slavery. The second thing was the Reformation of manners that he wasn't talking about table manners. You know that everyone had their elbows on the table at dinner know he meant the Reformation of virtue. This was the world that Wilberforce worked in and he saw his culture spiral from the debt, basically from the pit and come back to life picture what Chuck wanted to know not only was what was breaking in the culture that was leading to the brokenness that he was seen filling the prisons, but also here's the second question, where was the church she Chuck understood something that's very very important for us to understand is that the God that God doesn't call the church to run away from the brokenness and culture God calls his people to run into the brokenness of culture with the message of truth in the message of hope.

Amen. This is what God calls the church to do that we gotta be honest the church in the culture right now are missing each other pretty dramatic that fair enough potatoes story to illustrate fifth and I live in Colorado Springs have been there since 2007, the first year that I was there. There was a pastor of a very large church in that town that had a big moral failure and it made national and international news. Will the next pastor came into this church, the biggest church in Colorado Springs and said that his goal was to get that church out of the media spotlight which he was able to do, but only for a few months and then something happened on a Sunday morning.

That was just dreadful effect that only been there about a month and my wife and I were driving around town looking for a church that we were going to visit had the radio on in the minivan and suddenly there's an announcement that comes across the radio.

There's been a shooting at new life Church. What happened was, there was a twentysomething, a young man who'd been kicked out of the why when mission group. He drove up to a Y Wam base outside of Denver. If you know that group knocked on the door to people came to the door.

He shot and killed them in the middle of the night. Then he loaded up with ammunition and drove to new life Church, the biggest church in Colorado Springs and as the church was leading out of its 11 o'clock service. He opened fire killed two people in the parking lot and went to the front door of the church with everybody was coming out and shot two more people but a security guard who said that she heard from the Lord that morning that she was gonna see some action shot and killed right there in the doorway. The church now I'm listening to the news reports come through. I just moved to Colorado Springs about a month earlier and so they're trying to report on this and of course you've ever been hurt news reports in the early minutes after shooting. There's chaos and people know if there's one shooter or two. If it's over.

Whatever. So just chaos, but suddenly that on the radio station that I'm listening to the news reporter says that somebody on the phone that saw some of the shooting take place in the news reporters trying to get information from the guy and so she asked him a question she said with mass still going on when the shooting took place and he said all she said. With mass still going on when the shooting took place and he said that she said was mass still going on.

I promise this went back and forth eight times this shooting to put in place at the largest evangelical church in town. Everybody knows this woman is a news reporter in Colorado Springs and has a news reporter she didn't know being enemy. We joked that we live in Colorado Springs in the mecca of evangelicalism in owning my computer to be a real evangelical you have to take a pilgrimage once in your life to our town. This woman is a news reporter in our town.

She doesn't know enough about Christianity to know that evangelicals don't have mass. This guy didn't know enough about it even know what mass was and there was just this ridiculous exchange really one of the comes of the church in the culture we find ourselves in this this kind of place where we mutually misunderstand each of them. There's lots of ways we could point our fingers to the culture and say don't do this don't do that. So, I'm tempted. Trust me, I'm really tempted to talk about how the culture misunderstands us as Christian. But let's let's let's be clear, I don't want to talk about that I want to talk about how we as the church should properly understand the culture and I think a lot of times, as Christians, we kind of look at culture and and we we don't ask the right questions about culture someone to give you a question that I wanted that I want us to ask when it comes to how we think about living in this cultural moment that we find ourselves what is our salvation for now. If you're on the church like I am a lot. We talk a lot about what our salvation is from it's from sin. It's from death. It's from hell is from the wrath of God. And if that's all there was.

The salvation is what were saved from you. Still better take that deal possess the best deal you will be offered, but praise God that's not it were also told in the Bible whole lot of things that were saved to were saved to eternal life were saved to life more abundant.

I used to think as I got the impression that being a Christian was being saved from hell and being saved to go to heaven I thought, well, that's the whole point.

Why doesn't God just take us to have in the moment that were saved, if he did that, then I wouldn't have to worry about sin, I wouldn't have to worry about that guy that makes me sin. But here's the answer. The answer is found in the middle of the high priestly prayer that Jesus prayed before he went to the cross. You can find it in John chapter 17 in the middle of the prayer. Here's one of the things that he prays he says father do not take them out of the world to protect them from the evil one boy that was something when I realize the answer to my question. Why doesn't God just take us to heaven.

The moment that were saved is it's Jesus's fault. He prayed against it. Somehow he wants us in this world. Everything else that Jesus praise serves that ultimate purpose that we would know him, and by knowing him we would have eternal life, and by having eternal life we would glorify the sun which would glorify God, which is the whole purpose of the entire universe anyway that somehow us being here in this world, protected from the evil one serves the ultimate purposes that God had for his people from the beginning of time that's why the question is just what are we saved to for whatever safe from it's also what are we saved for why are we here. Well let me just say this were not safe for escape. There are escapist religions. If you want escapist religion. There's a lot on the offer for you.

For example, Buddhism is an escapist religion.

I'm not being disparaging to Buddhists. This is actually the point of Buddhism is to escape mentally in a place of contentment and when you escape into that place of contentment.

Then you can eliminate suffering from your life. That's the whole point of Buddhism is a mental escape (-ism is an escapist religion. That's just my name for all the kind of the happy clapping sort of thing that passes for religious experience in America, which is you know what religion is to make you feel better, it's to make you happy and it's the make you ignore all the bad stuff. Focus on all the good stuff. And if you do that than the universe will listen to you and reward you with really good things like good parking spots at Christmas things like that. So there are escapist religions. I'm just saying. Christianity is not an escapist religion.

Christianity is not an escapist religion because at the center of Christianity is the God who became flesh and dwelt among the sort of religion Christianity is reveals to us the trajectory of God to his world right John chapter 1 verse one in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Jump to verse 14 and and and what is essay and the word became what flesh and that's not just a proof text John's trying to unlock how God has revealed himself in the world and if you started Genesis and go all the way to the maps. Here's what you'll see you'll see from the beginning to the end that what God does is he. Instead of trying to pull his people out of trouble.

He comes and walks with them through the world. He walks with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day he comes and deals with cane.

He walks with the neck he comes and deals personally with no way he comes in the heat walks with the Israelites out of Egypt as a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud we know he really comes down in Jesus Christ right. That's what Paul says that the fullness of the Godhead was revealed in bodily form, but even Jesus when he said it's good that I go away, because I go away. I will send you the holy spirits of God comes down again. You see what happens.comes down God comes down backwards down the only time by the way that God stops coming down is in the new heavens and new earth, because it tells us he moves says he makes his dwelling among men if that's what our entire faith is revealed as centered around Jesus Christ and he's not trying to escape our posture should be his posture. We follow that example.

So Christianity is not escapist were not safe for escape. Gotta be honest for a lot of Christians these days there's an idol of our generation. It's an idol that we see in the larger culture it's typified by a time magazine cover a couple years ago with a little kid that was bubble wrapped but this is one of the things that we see in the church to am convinced that one of the idols of our generation is the idle safety.

God doesn't call his followers to safety because the life he calls into eternal life. That's more abundant, but not to safety were not safe for escape me also say this, and I need to be really clear were not saved to accommodate to the spirit of the age. Jesus Christ did not come and die on the cross for the sins of the world, only to have the church say that some things are no longer sins because were now smarter, more lying to the 21st century. The church does this, and sometimes the church does a set of good intentions like we don't want to be unnecessarily offensive yet don't be unnecessarily offensive, but don't pretend like the Scripture is no longer clear.

I'll say this, it's actually even if it's well intended, it's cruel because the cruelest thing you can say to a world that's not okay is that they are. It's cruel right now we have folks that say well if you don't, you know, get on would come, especially in the area of sexuality right you don't change your mind on this unit you're going to be on the wrong side of history we just say two things. Number one, there's no such thing as the wrong side of history.

People who pretend to know where history is going are just arrogant because we don't know where history is there's a whole lot of things that seemed inevitable. Historically, that then warrant. We don't know where history is going.

So let's not be concern ourselves with being on the right side of history. Let's concern ourselves with being on the right side of right, and here's the other thing if we say that somehow God's morality gets in the way of God's gospel that the devil's bargain is my friend Owen strand says that the devil's bargain. God's morality makes us realize our need for God's gospel. One of the worst things the church can do in this generation to advance the gospel. One of the worst things we can do to advance the gospel is to now somehow compromised on the clear moral instruction that God gives in the word that's based by the way on how he created us as human beings. This can't be happening. Listening to family policy. The radio show and podcast of the North Carolina family policy account. This is part one of the speech delivered by John Stonestreet at NC families annual major speakers dinner event in Greenville, North Carolina.

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