When we look around at the culture we currently live in it’s only natural to ask, “what happened?” Men and women pretending to be what they aren’t, increasing lawlessness, mass murder of children, the list goes on. The world around us is truly calling evil good and good evil. How have we gotten to this point of depravity that seems to be only spiraling further down?
While there are many factors that have contributed to the decrease of sanity in the West, I believe that there is one specific party to blame—the Christian Church. We live in a culture of soft-bellied Christians. As one pastor likes to put it, “evanjelly-fish.” At the time of writing this I am twenty years old and completing my last year of college education at a popular Christian university. It saddens me to see so many young people who claim to follow Christ display very little or no true passion for the gospel. Apathy runs rampant. That’s not to say that none of them are true Christians—but many of us are still babies in our faith. God does not intend for us to remain “newborn babes,” but we are supposed to mature in our faith as 1 Peter 2:2 tells us. Many of the Christians that I personally know claim to “believe,” but the problem lies in that they often do not know what they actually believe, nor why they believe it.
Have we really taken the time to study deeply what the scripture says about sin, a righteous God, and Jesus Christ? Have we taken seriously Peter’s admonition to “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Pet. 3:15)? We can’t expect God to use us very deeply in the world if we don’t have a solid grounding in our faith. If someone asked you right now to explain the gospel to them, could you do it in a way that explains it clearly and definitively? If someone told you that they don’t believe in God and science proves that we’re all helpless matter with no purpose, would you be able to give a solid defense or would you crumble under the pressure because you have no foundation? If we as the church (the hands and feet of Christ in the world) don’t know what we actually believe, we should not be surprised as we see the culture sinking further down into the mire of sin and wickedness.
The Western church in 2022 is asleep. We have fallen into an easy believe-ism full of emotional talk and no substance. We go to church once, maybe (if we’re extra spiritual) twice a week, pray the prayers, sing the songs, halfway listen to the scripture, and then go out and live our real lives completely separate from the gospel we say we believe. The gospel has no impact on how we live in the day to day, how we interact with others, or what we do in our spare time. Those we interact with every day would never know we were Christians because we look and act exactly like unbelievers. We are too scared to speak up against sin because we don’t truly believe that anything can be done. Jesus Christ begs to differ.
Jesus told His disciples in Luke 9:23-27 that those who want to follow Him must take up their cross daily and follow Him. Not once a week on Sunday morning. Daily. He goes on to say in the same passage that He will be ashamed of those who are ashamed of Him and His words. There is clear teaching all throughout the Scripture that the church is not supposed to be comprised of squishy people who cower in fear in the face of the opposition. The church is supposed to be driving forward and conquering Christ’s enemies. Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 16:18 that He is building His church and the gates of Hell will not be able to stand against it. The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 14:25 That Christ “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
If the church will wake up, the culture will change. Christ left His church with a final command: to go into all the world and preach the gospel to all nations because of his all-encompassing authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18-20). May those of us that have gotten too comfortable living like the world heed Christ’s warning in Matthew 10:33: “but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.” May those of us who have fallen into a mentality of defeat take courage at scripture’s admonition that Christ is ruling and reigning now, and he will have the victory. We are called to be a small part of that. May we as His followers be rekindled to dive deep into scripture, grow deeper in our love for God, and take that love to a world that is desperately in need. Wake the church, transform the world.