The following is a production of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. For more information about the seminary, visit us online at gpts.edu. Does anyone have a copy of the handout? I should have that as the speaker. And, uh, also the, uh, the screen that has been put behind us won't be useful this morning because of my, uh, technological ineptitude. I had intended to show you a graphic, uh, by way of application, but, uh, I think I can describe it visually so that, uh, or verbally, I should, I should say so that you'll be able to enjoy it. Uh, nonetheless, I'm going to begin, um, my presentation this morning by, um, reading my title and, uh, the abstract I submitted to, uh, to the organizers of the conference so that you have an idea of what it is that I'll be talking about this morning. The title is The Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission, an Integrationist Model. And on my handout, I printed the abstract or summary. cultural mandate and the great commission and integrationist model. How are Genesis 1, 26 to 31 and Matthew 28, 18 to 20 related. This message will open up a perspective on the Noahic covenant that can help us understand the integration of the cultural mandate and the great commission of nature and grace, the integration of creation and redemption and of time and eternity. All of which can be expressed as the church's calling to missional cultural obedience. Amen. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, I want to begin by application this morning. This is an unusual approach in terms of, um, preaching and speaking in a Christian context. I begin with two stories and they illustrate why I'm impassioned about this subject. concerning what has come to be known as the two-kingdom theology. There are various abbreviations given to this movement within the Reformed and Presbyterian world. R2K, meaning radical two kingdoms, my preferred and used abbreviation is NL2K, natural law and two kingdoms, because the construal in this theological position of the natural law and its usefulness within Christian ethics and within public ethics is combined with another construal of two kingdom idea, all of which designed to help Christians, you, know how to navigate and live in this world, in our society. Here are the two stories. There was an intern. a seminary graduate who was serving a church with which I was personally, intimately familiar in California. And he and his wife had upon, at a certain moment, decided to enroll their children in the local Christian school. And at a certain point, subsequent to that, without seeking counsel, apparently, or advice from his elders, given their response to his actions, These parents, this intern, took their children out of the Christian school and put them in the public school. And when he was asked by his elders, why did you do that? He said, because there's no such thing as a Christian school. They said, where did you learn that? He said, at the seminary I graduated from. It wasn't GPTS. That's story number one. The second story is one that I encountered within the last two weeks of a conversation between a man, a church member and a seminary graduate who was preparing for ordination exams. And they began talking about this subject of two kingdoms and this seminary graduate admitted that he would feel uncomfortable on the pulpit saying that abortion was wrong. Because his seminary teaching had trained him with, with regard to two kingdoms that, um, the pulpit is for spiritual things and for, uh, life in God's kingdom, which is the church. And that's where God's word is clear, is explicit and authoritative. And as for what happens in the other kingdom, well, that's where natural law apparently obtains and human reason. I'm not telling you these stories to gossip. I'm telling you these stories to indicate to you how serious I think this debate within the Reformed and Presbyterian world is. And I've been writing about this and I've been speaking about this for more than three years. I have reviewed books written by authors such as Daryl Hart, A Secular Faith, David Van Druenen, A Biblical Case for Natural Law, and the book that I think has expressed and explained most clearly the position of the two kingdoms, and that is David van Drunen's book, Living in God's Two Kingdoms. I'm sorry, very sorry, that as Reformed and Presbyterian folk, we continue to move from controversy to controversy. If it's not controversies involving paedo-communion and federal vision or justification, it's now this kind of controversy. I regret that, but I believe that among all the controversies I've mentioned, this is as important and fundamental because it involves the use, the authority, the validity, the perspicuity, that is the clarity of the Bible for all of life, for all of God's people in God's world. So I want to describe the issue today using as the hooks or the handles the Cultural Mandate, and the Great Commission. Believe me, I will not be able to unfold for you all the intricacies of this innovative approach to natural law and to kingdoms that we're being confronted with today. I don't have the time, and it probably wouldn't be all that edifying at the moment. But I think you can relate to this issue in terms of the cultural mandate and the Great Commission. I'm borrowing some categories from H. Richard Niebuhr, who in 1951 published a very important book that has served to shape the thinking of many, many collegians in evangelical colleges, including colleges like Covenant College, Calvin College, Dort College. And that book by Niebuhr was Christ and Culture, in which he presented five models of that relationship. I won't go into that book. I'll just borrow his technique. And here are five options for relating the cultural mandate and the Great Commission. The first one is that they are in opposition, that they simply are incompatible, and that, therefore, one chooses one or the other. Just as Niebuhr identified Christ against culture, and he tried to pin that kind of a position, for example, on Tertullian, where Christians simply abstained from culture, retreated from culture, and avoided culture, so this position is represented by those who have no interest, no interest at all, in the cultural mandate and see it as incompatible with the Great Commission. The second position is that the cultural mandate and the Great Commission are identical. Perhaps you've heard the phrase, which is a scare phrase, a scare phrase, the social gospel. What I mean by scare phrase is that it has, in its life and utility, that phrase social gospel has served to scare well-meaning people away from what I consider to be legitimate, careful, social implications and applications of the gospel. But the social gospel movement led by Walter Rauschenbusch in the early part of the 20th century did indeed identify the cultural mandate and the Great Commission in the sense that To give a cup of cold water was to proclaim the gospel. To dig a well and to cure disease and to assist a village in a local remote area was to preach the gospel. Well, that social gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch is certainly defective biblically and confessionally and in many, many other ways. Unfortunately, as I say, the fray social gospel gets pinned then on other perhaps legitimate approaches to the combination and application of the gospel to life. The third approach is the cultural mandate over the Great Commission. And this is where cultural involvement is more important really than evangelism. And for our college graduates, our young people, what we need to do is we need to train them as Christians to go out into all areas of life in order to redeem culture. And the most important thing is that you see yourself as a kingdom worker, that you are an agent of Jesus Christ, and that you redeem theater, and you redeem the dance, and you redeem business, and you redeem all of culture. It elevates the cultural mandate to the status of a redemptive program. We come to number four. Number four, and that has to do with replacement. I'm going to expand on this one because The Great Commission, sorry, the cultural mandate being replaced by the Great Commission seems to be the position of the current advocates of two kingdom. I'm going to read some quotes. I'm doing this in order to be fair. I'm doing this in order to be, uh, to be truthful in setting up the problem as I see it. In his book, living in God's two kingdoms, David Van Drunen writes the following. Redemption does not consist in restoring people to fulfill Adam's original task, but consists in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself fulfilling Adam's original task once and for all on our behalf. Thus, redemption is not creation regained, but recreation gained. That's the bumper sticker. that advocates of this position have come to be using now online, on blogs, on internet discussions, that when Jesus came, he came to fulfill Adam's original task on our behalf so that we are not called to fulfill Adam's original task. Redemption in Christ, he continues, does not place Christians back in the Garden of Eden and does not impose Adam's original cultural obligation upon them. God originally commissioned Adam to image him by being fruitful, multiplying, exercising dominion with a goal of attaining a new creation, a new heaven, and a new earth if he obeyed the commission. God's work of salvation did not restore us to Adam's original position and give us a second chance. to fulfill Adam's task. Instead, such words, as you read theology, such words become very, very important. Instead, God sent his only son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that's the second and last Adam, who passed a test like him, like the one Adam failed, and has thus, he, Christ, has thus entered the new creation. Those who trust in Christ have already become citizens of heaven and are assured that they will one day enter the new heaven and the new earth solely on account of the last Adam's work. It sounds pretty good. Here's the conclusion. Christians therefore are in no way bringing in the new creation by their cultural activities. We'll have more to say about that in a moment. Pursuing the new heaven and the new earth then constituted the original, these are my words, constituted the original goal of humanity, became impossible for humanity after the fall, has been achieved by Jesus Christ, and awaits Christ's return. As such, the original cultural mandate consisting of pursuing the new heaven and the new earth bears no normative, real, integrative relationship to Christian cultural obedience of believers today. If I were to summarize this section, the problem or the summary statement of the cultural mandate being replaced by the Great Commission is this, that the creational cultural mandate given to Adam and Eve, we've read it numerous times this week, the creational cultural mandate is one thing, given, failed. Fulfilled, await. But you already may be thinking ahead of me this morning and saying, what about Noah? Didn't we read something in Genesis 9 about being fruitful and multiplying and so on? That's the lapsarian cultural mandate. And the lapsarian, lapsus is the Latin word for sin. The lapsarian or post-lapsarian, it's a Latin word for fall actually. The, the, the post-fall cultural mandate of Noah. is what we now receive together with all humanity in the common kingdom of the world. So believers and unbelievers now receive the post-lapsarian cultural mandate, which is to guide and govern our life in the public sphere. The fifth, the fifth approach is the approach I'm going to be recommending. That the cultural mandate is transformed by the gospel that is by the great commission. Let me be clear. The target of some of this debate is the rhetoric that's associated with neo-Calvinism, which talks about how we need to redeem culture, how we need to redeem and bring in and build the kingdom of God. I reject that language. Secondly, that language is not inherent. to neo-Calvinism. It's not the language of Abram Kuyper. It's not the language of Hermann Bavink. It is the language of those who appeal to Kuyper and Bavink. But now we need to discern, don't we? And we need to distinguish between those who have written the founding documents, you might say, or the constitutional documents, from those who have used them or abused them. So to critique the rhetoric of redeeming culture is not yet to have done with the premises and the proposals of neo-Calvinism as we find them in Kuiper and Bobbink. But I'm not going to use Kuiper and Bobbink this morning. I'm going to use Palmer Robertson. Palmer Robertson. who writes, the total life involvement of the covenant relationship provides the framework for considering the connection between the Great Commission and the cultural mandate. He writes this long before this debate ever erupted. Entrance into God's kingdom may occur only by repentance and faith, which requires the preaching of the gospel. However, this gospel must not be conceived in the narrowest possible sense. It is the gospel of the kingdom. It involves discipling men to Jesus Christ. Integral to this discipling process is the awakening of an awareness to the obligations of man in the totality of God's creation. Redeemed man, redeemed man, remade in God's image, must fulfill, even surpass, the role originally determined for the first man. In such a manner, writes Robertson, the mandate to preach the gospel, and the mandate to form a culture glorifying to God merge with one another. That's my speech today. But I've got to defend it. I've got to defend this claim today in the face of these writers who are arguing they don't merge. that Christians have no business talking about building a culture. The difference between the cultural mandate and the Great Commission, admittedly, is that the former precedes the fall and the work of Christ. The latter follows these. Otherwise, they're very much the same. But this is Robertson's contribution to our thinking this morning. It is not possible for people to subdue the earth. for God until their hearts are changed by the Holy Spirit. So taking dominion following the resurrection begins with evangelism, begins with baptism, begins with the church. But baptism is not the end. Evangelism is not simply bringing people to an initial profession of faith. It is making disciples and teaching them to observe everything that Jesus commanded us with the assurance of Jesus' continuing presence. But Jesus' commands, brothers and sisters, involve far more than repentance and worship and faith. Not less than, but more than. They also concern our treatment of the poor. Jesus commands also involve our sexual desire. They involve fasting, anxiety, hypocrisy, and many, many other subjects. John frame, John frame comes to our assistance with this regard. He says, he says very, very importantly, the great commission is the republication of the cultural mandate for the semi eschatological age. Big word, semi-eschatological. It means that Jesus has come and has begun. He has begun the new age in him. So that if... Doesn't Paul say something about this new creation? If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. You see, the position that's being advocated is the original cultural mandate was fulfilled in Christ and taken up with him to heaven, and that someday when he returns, the new heavens and the new earth will descend, and then we can talk about Christian culture. Frame observes the Great Commission is the republication of the cultural mandate for the semi-eschatological age. That's for today. Unlike the original cultural mandate, The Great Commission presupposes the existence of sin and accomplishment of redemption. But both together now recognize that if the world is to be filled with worshipers of God subduing the earth as his vassal kings, they must first be converted to Christ through the preaching of the gospel. Well, that's the position in summary form that I wish to advocate this morning under number five, the cultural mandate transformed by the Great Commission. Well, let me explain then some assumptions undergirding the replacement option. I've already intimated to you that with regard to this discussion of two kingdoms, the creational, the creational cultural mandate is now directed exclusively to the new heavens and the new earth. Quote, God's work of salvation did not restore us to Adam's original position and give us a second chance to fulfill Adam's task. Instead, God sent his only son, our Lord Jesus Christ, As the second and last Adam who passed the test like the one Adam failed and thus entered the new creation. Those who trust in Christ have already become citizens of heaven are assured they will one day enter the new heaven and the new earth solely on account of the last Adams work Christians. And here's the conclusion. I read it to you earlier. Christians are therefore in no way bringing the new creation by their cultural activities. Couple of observations, if you read a little more deeply in the book, you'll discover that the creational cultural mandate is being viewed in this discussion as part of the covenant of works. That is to say, we all know that Adam was placed before the law requiring perfect and personal obedience in the garden. We know that he failed. But what we're being told today is that this creational cultural mandate was part of that probation, part of the covenant of works. So that now the creational cultural mandate awaited Christ's obedience. Christ alone obeyed this creational cultural mandate. Christ alone entered into the new creation and we await the return of Christ when we will one day enter the new heavens and new earth solely on account of the last Adam's work. But it's the conclusion that troubles me. I don't have a problem with a lot of this that's being said. It's the inference and it's the conclusion. Therefore, Christians in no way bring about the new creation. Let's, let's break this apart logically. Let's set out the argument in terms of logical premises in order to see that the conclusion, which is correct, Christians don't bring about the new heavens and the new earth, but the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. It doesn't prove the claim being made. The major premise, sorry to do a little logic this early in the morning, but the major premise is the creational cultural mandate belongs to the covenant of works. Well, I have to confess I've not read that very widely in classic reform theology. I've read about the probationary command. You shall not eat of this tree. I I've read that. Adam's relationship in the garden was in total a relationship based on the covenant of works. Okay, fine. Let's just leave that as it is. The major premise, the creational cultural mandate belongs to the covenant of works. Minor premise, Christ alone fulfills the covenant of works. Conclusion, no human being, no fallen human being can fulfill the creational cultural mandate. But I ask the question, What if obedience, and this is a very subtle, very important, and very slippery point, what if obedience to the creational cultural mandate were now made possible, not on the basis of the covenant of works, but as part of the covenant of grace? We'll return to this in a moment. That's the question. It has to do with the law of God. Is the law of God, which we all understand was placed before Adam and Eve in the garden, the full law, the total law. I know the fruit on the tree was pars pro toto part for the whole. We all know that it was the heart issue that was at stake in the garden. The question really is, does the law which served to structure the covenant of works, does that law and required obedience to it now come over into the covenant of grace? Such that we now, we don't have to obey the law in order to attain the new heavens and the new earth, but we must obey the law because Christ has attained the new heavens and the new earth. Fundamentally, folks, if you're familiar with reformed theology, it comes down to the third use of the law with respect to the covenant of grace. And Drunen writes, as we have seen, we are not little Adams. We still have many cultural responsibilities here and now, however. God does not call Christians to take up the original cultural mandate of Genesis 1, but calls them to obey the cultural mandate as given in modified form to Noah in Genesis 9. Through the Noahic covenant, God formally established the common kingdom and commissioned all people, believers and unbelievers alike, to be fruitful and multiply. The goal of this commission, the post-lapsarian cultural mandate, is not to provide a way to earn or attain new creation, but to foster the temporary preservation of life and social order until the end of the present world. I want you to see something. What's being placed over against each other now is the original cultural mandate and the post-lapsarian Noahic, Noahic cultural mandate as given in modified form to Noah. So that's an assumption undergirding the replacement option. Here's a second. And that is that the Noahic covenant is universal and the Abrahamic covenant is particular. Now think about this a minute. This sounds so right. Until you come to think about the fact that God made the Noahic covenant with the church. With the church. Oh, I know, there's all living beings, there's all flesh, there's the animals, etc. He made the covenant with Noah and his sons. Who at that point were the church? I'll say more about that in a moment. So that's as particular, so to speak as the Abrahamic covenant. Moreover, the Abrahamic covenant, if we've, we've got to get this as reformed Christians, that God had worldwide intentions with the Abrahamic covenant through you. I will bless the nations. All the families of the earth will be blessed. You tell me that the Noahic is universal and the Abrahamic is particular. I'm sorry. I think that's a false dilemma, a false dilemma. How about this one? that the Noahic covenant is temporal and provisional, the Abrahamic covenant is eternal. I don't know if you caught that word in the Genesis 9 narrative, that the Lord God said to Noah and his family, I am making with you an everlasting covenant, an everlasting covenant. Oh, now our heads can be spinning and we got all kinds of puzzles about this. What's going to happen when Jesus comes back? What's going to happen with the earth and the heavens and culture and all of that? All those questions are, I think an everlasting covenant means that it's enduring, it's perpetual, it's eternal. That's a word for everlasting. So I, again, a false dilemma or another assumption is that the Noahic covenant is the basis of the common kingdom. And here's where, here's where the debate warms up because it's Abrahamic covenant is the basis for the church. It's the basis of redemption. It's the basis of the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ. The Noahic covenant is the basis of the common kingdom, the basis of public life. So in the common kingdom, we have courts and we have government and we have execution of criminals, et cetera, et cetera. And that's how we get two kingdoms. Well, now in the second major point of my address, I want to provide a response to the replacement proposal. I put analysis on my outline, I've changed that word to response. Here's the first response. The Noahic covenant is an administration of the covenant of grace. O Palmer Robertson writes, the covenant with Noah emphasizes the close interrelation of the creative and redemptive covenants. The explicit repetition of these creation mandates in the context of the covenant of redemption expands the vistas of redemption's horizons. Follow me here. Redeemed man must not internalize his salvation so he thinks narrowly in terms of soul-saving deliverance. To the contrary, redemption involves his total lifestyle as a social cultural creature. Rather than withdrawing narrowly into a restricted form of spiritual existence, a.k.a. the church, redeemed man must move out with a total world and life perspective. And by the way, that notion, world and life perspective, worldview, worldview Christianity, is anathema. It's anathema to this school of thought. In a review of a book on Abram Kuyper back in the early part of this decade, David Van Drunen concluded the review by alerting the reader to the fact that though the book under review was good, it was solid and helpful. The book has yet to be written. He writes, the book has yet to be written to deliver the church, to deliver us from the Kuyperian captivity of the church. He wrote that in modern reformation and his agenda and project has put legs and feet under that hope. to deliver us from the Kuyperian captivity of the church. Robertson writes, a second distinctive of the covenant with Noah relates particularly to God's redemptive grace. I have a lot of information here. I don't think it's all that helpful to recite it to you except simply to declare to you this point, the Noahic covenant Isn't is a phase, a stage, a part of the administration of the covenant of grace. I, when I came upon this reading, interacting, I thought this is gospel. This is good news. And then I go in and I review classic covenantal theologians like Palmer Robertson. And I say, I read and I say, yes, amen. Where is this in the discussion? This isn't new stuff. The Noahic covenant as an administration of the covenant of grace is the key to integrating the cultural mandate and the great commission. Listen to what Abram Kuyper writes in volume one of his book on common grace. He says, and he's introducing a distinction here that's very important, we may not identify the content of the Noahic covenant as spiritual since it deals with temporal and not eternal goods. David Van Drunen is right on that score. The content deals with animals and rainbows and harvests and snow and rain. We may not identify the content as spiritual. Since it applies to temporal, not eternal goods and applies to unbelievers, just as much as it does those who fear God. That's true. That's true. But Kuyper says without question, the Noahic covenant has a spiritual significance as well, and therefore occupies a place in the course of redemptive revelation. It may not be assigned a less holy domain. Listen, I'll say that one again. If you're familiar with the two kingdoms debate, it may not be assigned a less holy domain, the Noahic covenant provided that you distinguish sharply between the content and the purpose of this covenant. That content lies entirely within the sphere of natural life. However. The content of this covenant is simply and plainly until the end of the world, the surface of our globe will not be in a position to be disturbed, but will remain as it is now. You reach the spiritual significance of the Noahic covenant only when you look past its content, its special promise and its subjects to which the promise extends. You look past all of that and you approach the subject from a completely different angle and ask for what purpose was this covenant established? Then it will become obvious the purpose of this work of God's grace. The purpose of this work of God's grace cannot lie with the lost, but with the elect. Consequently, the purpose of the Noahic covenant is to be found in Christ, says Kuyper, in His people and their future. and through Christ in the glorification of the Lord's decree and the Lord's name. So there is, he writes, a strong connection between the covenant of grace and the Noahic covenant. I don't have time this morning to rehearse to you, but I commend to your reading Arthur W. Pink. Now Arthur W. Pink, I think, uh, that was unusual, um, was a reformed Baptist. But I'm sure you can be edified and benefited from his scriptural exposition and exegesis. And he has written a book entitled the divine covenants, the divine covenants. And in chapter three or part three of that book, it's available online. Incidentally, you can, you can get the text of the book online. He has quote after quote, after quote about how the covenant with Noah and his sons was the covenant made with the church made with the church for the sake of the world. And this is what he says. I'm just going to read one snippet here. He says, the difference between pre-fall and post-fall cultural mandate is indeed radical and fundamental. Adam was placed as Lord over the earth on the ground of the covenant of works. His tenure was a conditional one. His retention depended wholly on his own conduct. Consequently, when he sinned, he not only forfeited the blessing and favor, but lost dominion. And as a discrowned monarch sent forth to play the part of a common laborer in the earth by being excluded from the garden. But here in Noah, we see man reinstated over the lost inheritance. Listen, not on the basis of creature responsibility and human merits, but on the basis of divine grace. For those of you pastors here, when, not if, when you tackle Genesis 8, Nine in your preaching series. You've got to preach the gospel. The gospel from these passages. There's gospel in this covenant made with Noah because it's made on the basis of divine grace. Noah's sons were the figure of the church, writes A.W. Pink. So far, my analysis of the replacement proposal. I'm going to conclude my remarks for the next 15 minutes with a proposal for integrating cultural mandate and the Great Commission. A proposal that runs directly contrary and in a different direction than this book. A proposal that I think improves upon, remedies some of the dilemmas and defects of neo-Calvinism in the past 30 to 40 years. My proposal is the church's missional cultural obedience. Let me explain what I mean by that by referring you to Matthew 5, 13 through 16. Matthew 5, 13 through 16, where Jesus gives us two metaphors, salt and light. Metaphors for engagement. Let me read the passage and then I'm going to offer you some exegesis. You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. I'm going to go quickly through this, so stay with me. First, the interpretation of salt as preservative. Christians have to go out in the world to preserve the world in the face of sin and decay and corruption. That interpretation usually given to this metaphor is unpersuasive to me because I think there's a preferable textually supported interpretation. Namely, the salt has not a preservative function. but a flavoring function. That's what the text says. Jesus' warning to his listeners involves salt losing its taste or literally becoming foolish. If you study the Greek, the Greek verb there is related to the English word moron. Moron or fool. How can salt become moronic? In the Bible, foolishness is identified with refusing to keep God's commandments. The Bible's description of a fool has less to do with Bill Engvall's, here's your sign, kind of stupidity, and more with a hard-hearted person who keeps cracking his shins against divine principles of artful living. Foolish living, disobedient living, leaves food flavorless. Second, The principle of light as metaphor or the people, rather people as light metaphor is richly old Testament. Since Israel and the servant of the Lord were called to be light to the nations and to illumine their surroundings, the higher the light is elevated, the wider it's arc of illumination. Here's the point. I'm going to risk something here. Salt and light do not exist for themselves. but for the benefit of their surroundings. Have you ever met anybody who saves up salt or munches on salt candy? Nobody hoards light, stores it in jars in the cupboard for when you need it. Salt and light have no value in themselves whatsoever. Their value lies in their usefulness for their surroundings. Salt for food, light for a room. Let me sharpen the point a bit. In the context of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is addressing the Jewish multitudes, including His disciples and others, including some Pharisees, all who are members of Israel of His day. And in pronouncing the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is determining the qualifications for membership in his kingdom. The new Israel he is creating with himself at the center. More than that, he declares himself to be the source of beatitudinous living. Jesus is poor in spirit. Jesus is meek. He's the peacemaker par excellence and so on. Now to be the kind of people described in the Beatitudes, to be flavorful salt and illuminating light requires faith and loyalty to this Jesus. No other Joshua, no other Yeshua, no other Jesus, but this Jesus. And if not, if not, the salt will lose its flavor. and be crushed and trampled underfoot, and the light will be extinguished." Can you say A.D. 70? The destruction of Jerusalem? Ah, but here's a point. Did you ever realize something about the English language which is so unfortunate? It's that we can't distinguish between you and you. Oh, down here in the south you can. It's, it's you and y'all, right? It's you and y'all or all y'all or something like that, right? Well, I wish we can incorporate that in the Bible because the you here in the, in Jesus words is y'all. So try this out. Y'all are the salt of the earth. And if salt has lost its, y'all are the light of the world. In the same way, let y'all's light shine before others. So that they may see all his good works and give glory to y'all's father in heaven. I hope I haven't butchered that too bad, but I've made the point that don't teach your children this little light of mine. That's not what the Bible is saying. It's not this little light of mine. It's this light of ours, one light, our light. It's the Christian community that Jesus is talking about here. So in connection with God's call on an establishment of a covenant with Abraham and with Israel, I think it's fundamentally mistaken to suppose that whereas the covenant with Noah is thought to be universal and cosmic, the covenant with Abraham is thought to be particular and nationalistic. Neither supposition is accurate. If we are the salt, not I, not you, we, if we are the light, And if the law of salt and light is that we exist for the sake of our surroundings, I'll say something very liberal this morning. The church exists for the world. The church exists for the sake of the world. Oh, we can misconstrue that a hundred ways. But that's what Jesus is saying here when He says, you are the salt flavoring the food. You are the light illuminating the room. The church falls under the law of salt and light. In the New Covenant, sometimes the church has acted as if it had intrinsic importance. We're here. Any other questions? We exist on the corner of Maine and Washington. What else do you need? We are here to serve the world, to serve the world with the gospel. Here are some implications. Here are some implications. Number one, and I'm exhorting you here, okay? We need to move from fear to faith. I told you yesterday that the most frequent prohibition in the Bible is fear not. The opposite of fear is faith. And what is faith? It's living under the sovereign justice and reconciling mercy of God. And if we live under that justice and mercy of God, we have no reason to be afraid of the city. No reason to be afraid of culture. No reason to be afraid of unbelievers. We may trust in our creator father because we've been united to his son, our savior, Jesus Christ. So if fear locks the doors, faith opens the windows. If it's true that God's people exist for the benefit of the nation so that through the faithful administration of the divinely ordained means of grace, God's program might move through world history, conquering sin and sanctifying life, then personal Christian courage to look the world in the face is the need of our generation. I think that in part, our fear of engagement may be born out of our fear of rejection. And our teacher spoke extensively about this prospect. In terms of cultural engagement with the prospect of rejection, the disciples are not above their master. That's my first exhortation. Fear not. Believe. Here's my second. Let your cultural engagement involve both worship and witness. I don't have the room this morning, the time this morning to explain why each of these words is important, worship and witness. Cult and culture, if you will. But just trust me, it's a dangerous thing for a speaker to say. The key word is the word and, and, and. It's not worship or witness. It's not cult or culture. It's the and. It's the integration. Number three, walk before the world. If the others, in Jesus' words in Matthew 5, if the others are to give glory to our Father in heaven who see your good works, they need to see those good works in order to do that. Untastable salt and invisible light don't exist. But notice the nugget of the text. You can apply this to John 3.16 too. You know John 3.16. What's the most important word in John 3.16? God. Loved. World. Son. Believe? No. The most important word in John 3.16 is the word, so. God so loved the world that he gave his own. This is how God loved the world. Jesus says, so let your light shine before men. Let your light shine before men in such a way that. Calculate your light shining. Think ahead about shining your light. Let it shine in such a way that people may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Let me tell you a story of a woman I talked to in Hamilton, Ontario when I was giving a conference. And I was talking about this kind of subject, turning the church inside out, turning the church inside out. And I was trying to use stories and analogies and She came up to me and she said, you know, when I get gasoline in my car, I never use a credit card. Never. I always go to the same filling station near my home. And because I don't use a credit card, I'm obligated to walk inside and I'm obligated to confront, that is to engage the clerk who happens to be a Muslim woman who wears a burqa. And we have established a relationship. I know her name and she knows my name. We are at such a level that she knows I'm a Christian. And I know that, of course, she's a Muslim. And we talk about religion. We talk about our children. We talk about our fears. It's all because I don't use a credit card to pay for my gasoline. One more story. I'm sitting in a restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, after a conference. with a bunch of ministers. Now, I've got to tell you, ministers are a special group. They're a special crowd. Because, you know, they've got such great peripheral vision. They're always watching what the other guy's going to do, you know? Is he going to order a beer? You know? Okay. So we've got a whole group of ministers, and this waitress comes along. I'll call her Kelly. Kelly comes along and she starts taking orders. Well, Kelly, it's in the middle of the summer, and she is tattooed from the top of her shoulder to her fingertip on both arms. She's got tattoos. And I'm watching these guys, and they're kind of looking. Kelly says, can I take your order? And they sort of, yeah, okay. Wondering, is that food going to come out okay? Kelly comes to my spot at the table, and I look at her name tag. And I've, I've learned this from a dear godly friend of mine. I always address servers by their name and I thank them in the gas station bank restaurant. Kelly, Kelly, tell me about your tattoos. And I'm watching these guys and they are, they're kind of looking at their shoes, looking at their place. Tell me, she says, well, I got this tattoo when I graduated from high school and I got this tattoo when I had my first child and my second child is this tattoo. Oh, and then when I got married, I got this tattoo. And then she went down the other arm and started telling, she told me her life story. And I said, thank you for telling me, Kelly. I appreciate that. You know, and she, by that time she had discerned we were different kind of people. And I said to her, I'll pray for you. Gentlemen, ministers do not underestimate, even in a restaurant, the opportunity to take a server's hand and pray just for 15 seconds after they bring the order. Don't get them in trouble, but you wouldn't believe the kind of conversations you can have. I'm talking about a walk before the world, how we shine ourselves within the single room house. Think of Jesus day, a single room house known as the cosmos, a house shared with unbelievers ought to be a matter of communal calculation, conversation, and commitment rather than a matter of accident, happenstance, or inherited assumptions. I hope, and I conclude with this, I'm sorry to have gone over a little bit. I had more to share with you. If this gets printed and published in a book, you'll see the more. You've got to live to be a 1 Peter 3.15 Christian. 1 Peter 3.15 says, always be prepared to give an answer or a reason for the hope that is in you to those who ask. Folks, they're not going to ask. If you don't live in such a provocative way, that arrests them and says, why do you do what you do? Or why don't you do? Whether it's Monday morning at the water cooler in the office, whether it's on the school bus, whether it's, whether it's in your neighborhood, why are you the way you are? Wow. What a gift from God, but be ready, be ready to integrate your faith with your works. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for this beautiful day. Thank you for this beautiful morning when we can enjoy this time together, a time separate, a time set aside, a time to retreat, to think about your word, your will, and your program. Oh, Father, we pray that you'll spare us from any pride and arrogance. Spare us from the kind of activism that functions as though it's all up to us. humble us by our Savior's example and words, confident that He is the Lord of the universe, not we, and that under His Lordship, faithful to His direction, we may bear witness in ways, with words, gestures, glances, with lifestyles that reflect the beatitudes, that reflect the commandments, that reflect the gospel. To that end, bless these words this morning, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.