On an innocent visit to Gold’s a few weeks ago, a mobile billboard caught my eye. I don’t know that an economical sedan has ever captured the spirit of the age before but this one did. This driver simultaneously endorsed (1) State Farm (?), (2) Longhorns (three separate stickers), (3) the Dallas Cowboys (surrounding license plate), (4) the United States, (5)Texas State Parks, (6) Kerry and Edwards, (7) tattoos, cursing, and violence (single bumper sticker), and (8) Jesus. Postmoderns like her have rightly rejected the Enlightenment idea that logic is the key to all that is true and right and good. I am not the first to point out that Nazi Germany’s concentration camps and modes of extermination, models of industrial efficiency and means/end rationality, marked the official demise of this eighteenth century nonsense. 

As this car’s ornamentation clearly communicates, many have now embraced a pragmatic approach that values individual perspective and emotion more highly than verifiable truth even to the point of simultaneously affirming various incompatible beliefs. Hence, this tattooed sports fan proclaims her love for Jesus while proclaiming herself both cool (-er than you) and ready to “kick your *&*!”

Our call as we reach out to this culture with the message of Christ is to help them reunite heart and mind.

Our call as we reach out to this culture with the message of Christ is to help them reunite heart and mind. They recognize that scientific discoveries and economic progress do not save. They know that more education does not produce happiness (and may not even result in a better job). They are hungry for something to be truly passionate about but they have not found it. They are looking for something worthy of their lives. That’s why a sluggish economy, terrorist threats, even finals don’t slow down business on 6th street. It’s why the words to U2’s “Discotheque” ring with tragic reality, “You take what you can get ‘cause it’s all that you can find. You know there’s something more but tonight—tonight—tonight, you don’t mind...”

Often, even those who know the Gospel and who call themselves Christians continue the same sort of search. How many ministers have been caught in adultery? How many Christian students get drunk every weekend and never think twice about it? How many Christian men go to worship on Sunday after sleeping with their girlfriends or looking at pornography the night before? How many Christian women starve themselves attempting to achieve an impossible ideal of beauty? How many believers can recite movie and song lyrics ad infinitum but have no idea what the Word of God says? In a recent sermon Brad stated -- correctly – that the answer to the question ‘who is Jesus’ is found in the lives of believers. To our shame, the answer we sometimes give is weak, mindless, and lacking in self-control. Why??? It is because we do not know the whole truth of God. Some of us have received a watered down, convenient, half-Gospel. Some of us have not been effectively challenged to pursue holiness, to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Some of us choose to remain double-minded with one foot in the world and one in the things of God (see Psalm 119:113, James 1:8 and 4:8). It is time to begin living fully for the Saviour.

Some of us have received a watered down, convenient, half-Gospel. Some of us have not been effectively challenged to pursue holiness, to 'work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Your privilege and your call is to invite this church body, this city, and this culture to beautiful clarity and wholeness. We have to start telling the whole Truth of a God who gave everything to restore our broken relationship with Him yet demands that we honor Him as a Holy and righteous Father. You must make sure those truths are reflected in every part of your life. We must live compassionately while continuing to engage the mind. We must show the world that our God is the greatest Lover of all and the architect of the atom, stars, and silk worms. He is the one who causes heart and mind to be united. “Lovingkindness and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs from the earth; and righteousness look down from heaven” (Psalm 85:10-11). So be it.

For further study, read Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Psalm 7:9, I Corinthians 8, and Acts 17:10-12, 16-34. What are the Bereans commended for? Notice that in speaking to a group of philosophers, Paul is acquainted with their culture enough to quote their own poets back to them. Note that he compassionately appeals to logic without compromising the truth of God.