But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. | 1 Peter 2:9–12
Over the last few weeks we have been talking about priorities, living God’s way, and going against the flow of culture. It reminded me of the t-shirt someone in my Youth Group back in High School had (pictured above). That was a while ago and the world has changed quite a bit since then. While there have been some positive changes, the current trajectory of morality and values seems to be moving further and further from the Christian ethic.
In the history of the world, this is the norm. Very seldom has a society held to a Judeo-Christian worldview as closely as the United States has since its founding. As we move further away from an understanding of God as Creator and the implications for: the value of life, responsibility toward others, and the evil we should abstain from, it makes faithfulness seem more and more AGAINST the flow. The currents in the other direction are getting stronger and it is becoming harder to keep going.
We tend to think of this as a bad thing, and there are certainly negative implications for us as a society, but it isn’t all gloomy. As you read through the New Testament, you find letters written to people who were living against the flow of culture. Much of the content is about holding strong in the midst of persecution and enduring in the truth. The encouragement is to obey God and trust that He will bless counter-cultural faithfulness.
For this to make sense, we actually have to be able to discern a difference between God’s way and the way of the world. When life is easy and the culture bears a resemblance to Christianity, it is very easy to blur the lines and to get entangled in civilian pursuits (2 Tim. 2:4). As Americans, we live in a culture that is very tangled. Without some conflict, it is easy for us to go with the flow and to live as if there is no tension.
In these moments, struggle (and even suffering) are a gift from God to wake us up! It gives us the opportunity to stop and ask: how different would my life look if I started with God and built out all of my values and priorities from there? We tend to build a system from culture and then we ask God what He is going to force us to give up. The word abstain becomes this negative word, representing what God tells us to set aside for His sake. When we start with God and His Way, the places where God says NO are things that keep us from our ultimate good. Going against the flow is not about proving ourselves or taking the moral high ground, but submitting to God so that we can receive His best.
When the current against Him is stronger, God’s truth becomes more evident as it presents a greater contrast to what the world is offering. It gives us a clearer picture of the two roads we have to choose between. This is an amazing time to do the work of untangling all of the places where the earthly and the eternal have blended together.
I want to end by giving some motivation to do this. It is easy to feel despair watching the culture move away from God morally and ethically. The history of the church reminds us that these ‘low’ points don’t stay there. The trajectories of today turn into sweeping movements in the other direction a generation (or a few) later. Those in persecution in the first century, struggling to stay faithful in response to Paul’s letters, could not have imagined that a few hundred years later Christianity would be the dominant religion. Those who suffered in India and China just a generation ago would be overwhelmed by what the church in Asia looks like today. These things happen because people live faithfully against the flow when the current is strong. We can’t necessarily change the current, but we can be a remnant that holds to truth in the midst of it.
You may not want to be a person who has to go against the flow, but we don’t get to decide the situation we find ourselves in, but only how to glorify God in the midst of it. This reminds me of one of my favorite lines from the Lord of the Rings:
I wish it need not have happened in my time, said Frodo.
So do I, said Gandalf, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
I pray that God gives us the wisdom to see His Way and the courage to act on it!