I wanted to follow up yesterday’s reflection from our time at the L.E.C. with a portion of a sermon from Mark Driscoll, that he preached a couple of weeks ago. If you haven’t been listening to his sermons you should start, click here to get to Mars Hill’s site.
On another note, I missed work for the second day in row. This morning my boss, Matt Hardy, took me to an Urgent Care Office, because my car was in the shop. Dr. Shaw diagnosed me with strep throat. So now I’m feeling a lot better once the meds worked their way through my system. Pray that I would get over this quick and be able to hang with our students as we close up shop for this school year. Alright, I have to resume the rest that the doc prescribed! I pray that the words from Pastor Mark that are below inspire you to turn your world upside down with the love of Christ!
Some of you are so much influenced by culture that you are barely even Christian. You’ll say, ‘Why does this matter?’ Because the church is to be a counter-culture a holy people that does things differently – money, sex, marriage, family, self-identity. Different! Not just, ‘What do they think, well that’s what we think and that’s what we do. We just parrot what the culture says because we want to be loving, accepting and tolerant.’ They murdered our God! The culture murdered Christ! Because He said they were wrong. You and I must not allow the culture to convert us. We must be about converting culture. It doesn’t mean we hate the world but we love the world and we stand against the world for the sake of the world.
Tell me if this a great place? Tell me if the addiction, compulsion, suicide, death… It’s not a culture of life, grace, freedom and joy. It’s not! So here is the deal – WE ARE AN ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE CHURCH! Right, you want to be alternative getting naked, being gay, getting drunk. That’s not the alternative that’s the majority.
You want to be counter-culture?
You want to be a total rebel?
Get a job! You want to be counter-culture, totally alternative, radical? Be a virgin, get married, to a person of the opposite gender! And then stay married and pump out some kids and pay your taxes and read the Bible. YOU FREAK, YOU WILL BE TOTALLY THE REBEL!
They interviewed me for Blender magazine and the said, ‘How do you coexist in alternative punk rock culture?’ I said, ‘The only thing alternative in punk rock left is to not be high, to keep your pants on, get married, make kids, read the Bible, mow your lawn, pay your taxes. That’s the only freakish thing left to rebel against the system.’
So were all a bunch of rebels. And God’s people are supposed to be radical idealist that say, ‘One person is all I want to have a relationship with intimately.’ Want to live a counter-cultural lifestyle trusting that God will give me the grace to do so and I will have a clear conscience and I will one day see Him face to face. And one day I will hear Him say, ‘Well done good and faithful servant.’
So welcome to Mar’s Hill. We have a great city, a great mission and a great opportunity. It comes down to you and I saying, ‘We will live repentantly. We will call sin, sin. AND WE WILL FIRST CALL OUR SIN, SIN. And we will be accountable and we will deal with sin and we will have humble hearts that are willing to change.’ For the sake of the reputation of Christ. For the sake of the city to which we have been called. For the sake of our eternal destiny and for the sake of the quality of our church.â€