Speaking the Truth in Love: Navigating the Waves of the Culture

By Paul Matte

As Christians, we are to be the salt and light to this world but are dangerously becoming a hybrid form of Scripture and culture. We are conforming to the pressure making us more culturally centered in our teachings and practices. This mixture of church and culture is seen as we drift from biblical truth in determining what we believe and how we live.

It is not enough to resist the cultural pressures. We must be transformed by the renewing of our mind. This is not a mental, positive-thinking exercise as some suggest. It is listening to God’s Word as our source of truth to understand all issues of life. By speaking the truth in love we mature in Christ so that we are not tossed by the waves of the culture but are firmly anchored in Jesus so that we live in a manner that pleases Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9781664293809

Paul Matte

Paul Matte has been a pastor since 1992. He has served in churches on the West Coast, Mid-West, and Gulf South regions of the United States. He has traveled on short-term mission trips to the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Guatemala. Paul’s experience includes working in the areas of social concerns, ministerial credentialing, church leadership and conflict resolution. He is a graduate of McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana (B.S., College of Business) and Mid-America Christian University in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (B.S., Behavioral Science & Biblical Studies). He is currently a pastor in the Laurel, Mississippi area where he lives with his wife, Tammy, and their two children. Through the years, Paul has learned the valuable lesson that God will never turn away from the atoning work of Jesus. In Christ, the promises are "yes".

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-9379-3 (sc)

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2023904071

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/30/2023

Contents

The Premise

Introduction

Chapter 1 Heal Our Land

Chapter 2 Self god

Chapter 3 The Altar of Pride

Chapter 4 Aligning Ourselves with God

Chapter 5 With All Our Heart

Chapter 6 Set Free from the Law of Sin and Death

Chapter 7 The Way of Repentance

Chapter 8 The Other Half of the Promise

Chapter 9 We Reap What We Sow

Chapter 10 A Place Only For Jesus

Chapter 11 The Real Jesus

Chapter 12 Chase the Right Dream

Chapter 13 Cultural Pressure on Sexual Choices

Chapter 14 Drawn Into Their Fight

Chapter 15 The Kingdom of God in Politics

Chapter 16 The Need of Sound Biblical Teaching

Chapter 17 To Deceive the Nations

Epilogue Heal Our Land

The Premise

We want to reach this world for Jesus while not being of the world. We are instructed to be all things to all people so that we might win some (1 Corinthians 9:22). We are to be wise among unbelievers so that we make the most of every opportunity (Colossians 4:5). And we are to resist the pressure to conform to this world through the transformation of the renewed mind so that we will know God’s will and please Him (Romans 12:2).

These are not contradicting statements. The key is who is influencing who. Applying these, and others passages like them, begins with the Romans 12:2 instruction. It is not enough to resist the cultural pressures as we engage in the Great Commission. We also experience spiritual transformation that comes from the renewed mind. This is not a positive-thinking exercise as some propose. It is yielding to God’s Word, the source of truth, to understand all issues of life. We form our understanding of all things, not by what the culture wants us to believe, but by the mind trained by Scripture with the help of the Holy Spirit as we are transformed into the image of Christ.

Over the last generation or so the church has experienced changes in an attempt to reach more people for Christ. Some of the changes were in response to reasons people did not attend church. Irrelevant preaching, boring services, mysterious practices, uncomfortable environment, poor child care, and so on were things we learned from listening to others. This in itself is not a bad thing. We were trying to be wise among unbelievers and be all things to all people that we might win some. We addressed these issues and new people began attending church. We hope and trust a goodly number came to Christ.

The flipside is that we began a mode of change primarily driven by the culture instead of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. Now, we are seeing things that, if we are honest, have little connection to biblical Christianity. In our zeal for growth we change and change and change with seemingly little biblical considerations except that we want to see more people in church. By relying upon the Lord’s guidance we can be confident the renewed mind, in discerning change, will possess an evangelistic focus to save souls. We are then able to discern our identity as God’s people and conduct ourselves in the Great Commission in a manner that honors the Lord.

Jesus warned us to watch out for false prophets who will produce false disciples (Matthew 7:15-23). The Apostle Paul writes about the terrible times in the last days where people will be lovers of self, money, and pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:1-5). This warning follows his instructions about the dangers of false teachers (2 Timothy 2:14-26). It is reasonable to conclude that the vices prevalent in the church in last days are caused by people listening to wrong voices.

The culture presses upon us issues and values that get meshed into the life of the church. Our intentions may be good as we seek to be all things to all people but without the transforming work of the renewed mind we are dangerously becoming a hybrid form of Scripture and culture. We are conforming to the pressures making us more and more human-centered in our teachings and practices.

This is what we see in the message to the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-22. Their lukewarm condition was caused by mixing with the culture that pressed against them. Laodicea thought they were doing very well as they measured themselves. The Lord knew differently. We may think we are doing well but what does the Lord know of us? What would He say to us today?

For instance, the Bible teaches that we need to experience godly sorrow leading to repentance. Our modern attempts to entice people to live God’s way so they will reach their full potential instead of warning them of the judgment that sin brings shows that we are afraid they will reject biblical instruction, correction, and warning. Falling short of the glory of God is not the same as falling short of our potential. We are omitting the real and eternal consequence of sin which is death. We are not teaching why sin is offensive to God. We have sinned against our holy God. The more we know the purity of His holiness the more we see the impurity of disobedience as utterly sinful.

Enjoying the best life has to offer is certainly enticing, and may elicit more responses; but are those responses true repentance? The idea of missing out on some opportunity fits more into the temptation in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:5) than an appeal to receive Christ. What if a person is fine with less than God’s best? Are we inadvertently leading them to believe they can determine what sins are acceptable and which they find destructive? More problematically, we do very little warning of God’s judgment upon the unrepentant.

We preach pursue your dreams which is difficult to connect to Scripture when we should preach above all else pursue God’s kingdom and righteousness. We preach believe in yourself because you have what it takes instead of trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. Themes such as our happiness, fulfillment, and prosperity are superimposed over our responsibility, duty, and sacrifice. We are trained in a convenient, self-oriented religion that makes dying to self seem radical or extreme.

The terrible times when the church possesses traits akin to the culture are upon us because we are inundated with false teachers. We have abandoned sound biblical preaching for so long that we do not tolerate the corrections and warnings of Scripture. We prefer a Christianity that appeals to our fleshly senses rather than the sound teachings designed to correct, rebuke, warn, and encourage us. We are tossed by every wind of teaching and the cunning craftiness of deceitful people. The biblical response to this deception is to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). It must be truth from the Bible and spoken with the love of Jesus so that people will repent and be saved.

This book is written to the whole church whether you consider yourself denominational, nondenominational, independent, contemporary, traditional, evangelical, mainline, or any other identity. I shy away from using these labels because the Bible does not use these to describe who we are or what we should do. These are cultural identities that tend to divide us. Division is disobedient to biblical unity. The church consists of the redeemed in Christ. We are either saved or we are not. And if we are saved we are not to conform to the pattern of this world. We are to be transformed by the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.

My emphasis is on our spiritual bond rather than our personal differences. Our biblical identity is one body united in Jesus Christ our Lord who is the Head of us all. We are to be in one mind as we walk in His truth. I do not have a truth. You do not have a truth. All truth comes from God and is given to us through His Word, the Holy Bible, and illuminated by the Holy Spirit. We cannot possess differing or various truth. On points where Christians disagree we should humbly seek our heavenly Father to bring clarity according to His Word through the Holy Spirit.

Introduction

In 2020 a series of events took place that sent the world into a tailspin. We found ourselves in uncharted territory. Without experience we flailed about trying to navigate a course to manage the Covid-19 pandemic. Our flapping about revealed confusion and division as we were exposed to misinformation by the media, politicians, church leaders, fellow Christians, and the general public that worsened an already difficult situation.

Anxiety and fear motivated people into practicing safety at all cost for the good of the public. Emotional tensions ran high. Mental health issues arose. As I write these words, we are going through historically high inflation, shortages, financial decline, economic strain, political turmoil, and global strife. These problems are still growing. People are on edge. Many churches admit their ministries have flattened since the pandemic. Discouragement is common.

Then riots, racial tensions, and accusations added to an already difficult trial. The political and social upheaval of the presidential election and subsequent events put us on the breaking point. In all of these issues, Christians contentiously debated one another. Civil discussions became impossible as we were intolerant of disagreements. The divide among Christians widened.

We proved we are not equipped to handle these problems with bold faith or biblical truth. We are shrinking in fear and timidity under the pressure of political correctness and the culture’s pressure to partner with them in their socio-political agenda. We may be well-intentioned and trying hard but we seem to be mystified, lacking biblical clarity of what we should be and do.

It seemed, almost overnight, the waves of the culture came crashing over the hull of our ship. But it really was not that spontaneous. This has been our course for a generation or more. The church in America needs to navigate these waves by the truth of God’s Word or we will continue to be tossed about by the deceitful schemes coming from the culture. We cannot just set our sails to these winds hoping we can ride them out. We are off course and drifting. We have to navigate back to the Lord’s way.

To be honest, our ship has been taking in water for a while now. Christianity in America has been slowly sinking for nearly a half century. As a pastor, I can say this is a topic that has sparked the church growth movement which actually may be another wave crashing over our hull as our decline over the last twenty to thirty years has increased more rapidly than before.

This book is a reminder of the Apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:11-16. We need to practice the model of pastors and teachers, along with other leadership roles, to equip the body of Christ for the work of the ministry so that we are built up, united in faith and mature in the fullness of Christ so that we are not infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by