Cultural Expression

Subjects, I noticed sometimes this week we had our brother's meeting that two more were added. So I think what we'll do is we'll finish with these and have no more. And then we'll jump into the to the book of Acts.

So we're going to look at this one here that's a cultural expression, self-expression and Christ expression. I'm going to try to address that here this morning. And I did talk with the individual who put that up there and I kind of feel, although I can't say that I'm going to hit it on the head here.

But I'm going to only go as far as I can go in this subject of Christ expression, self-expression and cultural expression. And these are some of them are biblical concepts. And so we'll learn a few things from the Bible.

But this last one, cultural expression, I did have in my mind a message that I was hoping to bring sometime in the future on culture. And so I've kind of wove that somewhat into this this morning. So let's pray and bless the Lord to help us.

And he's already helped us with the testimonies this morning so we can be encouraged and edified also with the message. Heavenly Father, we acknowledge you again this morning in all of our ways. We acknowledge that you're sitting upon the throne of everything and that you're the King of kings and Lord of lords.

And Lord, that everything here, even us as individuals, are made for your pleasure. Lord, may we have the testimony of Jesus who said, I do always those things that please my father. And Lord, certainly your word, the authority of your word is something that we ought to exalt and to lift up.

We acknowledge it's the truth in the world, in this world of lies. And so we come to it again this morning. And may you use the truth to teach us, to instruct us, to edify us and to encourage our hearts.

Lord, we pray your blessing now upon this time. Use me as a vessel unto honor in Jesus' name. Amen.

Alright, so we have these things, these three things here this morning. Christ, expression, self-expression, and cultural expression. Each of these, each of these three are found in probably most of us here.

You do have a cultural expression. You do have a self-expression. And if you're born again, you will have a Christ expression that is in you.

Now these three expressions actually are associated with the three parts of our being. Spirit, soul, and body. And so in the spirit of man, his inner man, he ought to have, if he's converted, a Christ expression.

Christ in you. The Holy Spirit of God in you, expressing Jesus Christ out of you. Boy, what a convict.

I was convicted this morning. Sister Lori, you know when my children ask for water at night, I say, I get upset at them. That's not a good thing.

And so that was good for me here. So a Christ expression is an example of that. An expression of the Lord Jesus Christ in our spirit.

We also have a personality. Every one of us has a different personality. And that's the soul of man.

His personality. We're all different in that regard. And then we also have a culture.

Every one of us has a culture all over the world. We're all a part of a different culture. And so all three of these, if you're a Christian, you're going to face a Christ expression, a self-expression, and a cultural expression.

Now I'd like to go through each of these. We're going to spend most of our time on the Christ expression and the cultural expression because the Bible talks about those. But the self-expression, the personality, we'll leave that to the psychologist, although I will just pass a few comments and mention a little bit about personality.

Christ expression, I want to start there. So turn, if you would, to 2 Corinthians 4. All of us who are children of God ought to have an expression of the Lord Jesus Christ in our life. And this was a very blessed verse to me when I was a young man as a Christian.

I guess I should go back and really make it a blessed verse again because there's so much in here. But in 2 Corinthians 4, starting in verse number 8, Paul writes, We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair.

Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. These things are not real.

We don't like these things in many ways. But then verse 10, Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. That's a real challenge for Christians who like to live and enjoy life and the comforts of life.

Paul says, My life is a life of always bearing about in this body the dying of the Lord Jesus. I am troubled. I am distressed.

I am persecuted. I am forsaken. I am cast down by this world.

And I am bearing in my body the dying. It's a good way to live. It's just to bear in your body the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Just to give you an example, I'm sure Laurie's father, he died to himself when he went and got that water. It's just, you know, we choose to always take the easy route. The easy way.

But Paul says, To bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. And there's a purpose for it. That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

There's a principle in nature that the seed has to go into the ground and die. If it doesn't die, it abides alone. There is no fruit that comes out of it.

And so our life needs to first die. Jesus said, If you come after me, you must first deny yourself. That's up front.

Deny yourself. You are going to have to die. Last couple of weeks we've been up to the river.

We've been baptizing. That's a picture of, I'm going to die to me. I'm dead.

And I'm going to give my life for the purposes of the Lord Jesus. Verse 11, For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. And notice these two verses at the end of them.

That the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal body. This is the heart of God. That the expression of Christ can be seen in us.

There is no greater compliment that I or you can receive in this world than the compliment that you remind me of Jesus. That's the best compliment you'll ever receive. Not your good looking or your pretty or I like your dress.

But you have an expression in your life that reminds me of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are showing or manifesting the Lord Jesus Christ. And I know some of you, and Valerie is one that uses this phrase a lot.

She's not here this morning. But people talk about so and so is manifesting. And usually when we think about manifesting, we think about spiritual demonic manifest.

You know, someone's foaming at the mouth. Or someone is rolling around on the floor. People are manifesting.

But we ought to be manifesting also. It talks about here manifesting in our body the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I think we ought to manifest.

We ought to say, hey, sister so and so is manifesting. Oh really? Yeah, she's manifesting the life of Jesus. The Spirit of God is coming out of her and she is manifesting.

And so this idea of Christ being expressed out of our life. 2 Timothy 3.16 says God was manifested in the flesh. Same thing.

God manifested Himself. He is the eternal Spirit. And He manifested Himself out of a human body.

So that Jesus could honestly say, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. The Father is manifesting Himself out of my physical body. How many of us can say, if you've seen me, you've seen Jesus Christ.

Wouldn't that be something? Yeah, if you've seen me. That's where the testimony ought to be. If you've seen me, you've seen the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, Hebrews 1 says Jesus is the express image of God. That's where we get this word expression. He is the express image of God.

So we have this idea of Christ expressing Himself. If you're a Christian this morning, you have in your inner man, in your spirit, the Holy Spirit of God is called the Spirit of Christ. And so there ought to be a Christ expression coming out of us.

Amen. We ought to manifest in a good way. And that Christ expression ought to be similar for every Christian.

By the way, it's the same Christ that's in you and you and you and you and you. Same Christ. And that expression is similar coming out of each one of us.

And one of the major parts of that expression is holiness. A life of holiness. A life of obedience.

Jesus said, I do always those things that please Him. So maybe next week we'll talk about obedience and the commands of Christ. But you can't say that Christ is in me and yet go off and live a disobedient life.

That's not the expression of Christ. Jesus said, be ye holy for I am holy. God the Father is holy.

The beasts around the throne say, holy, holy, holy day and night. And God manifests Himself in Jesus Christ and Jesus lived a holy life. Now Christ wants to manifest Himself in you and you're to live a holy life.

So we ought not to say that Christ is in me and then we go off and live in sin. That's not possible. And so the fruits of the Spirit are an expression of Christ in all of us.

It's the same all the way around. We ought to all express love. We ought to all express joy.

We ought to all express peace. All of these things are the fruits of the Holy Spirit of God within us. In John 15, the Lord talked about the vine and the branches.

Nobody has ever gone out to the vine. We have some vines at our place. Go out to that long vine and you see there's a nice grape, then there's a strawberry, there's a banana hanging there, there's an apricot, and there's some other cherries.

No, that's not the case. The vine, the same Spirit flows through the whole vine and there's grapes, grapes, grapes, grapes, grapes. And you're not a strawberry, and someone's a banana.

I only express long-suffering in the fruits of the Spirit. The love thing is not for me. No, the expression of Christ in us covers the whole gamut of the fruits of the Spirit.

And so with regards to the character and nature of the Lord Jesus, we're all the same. Now there is some differences, and the reason why God made it this way, I believe, is individually, you ought to be Christ. Individually, people look at you and say, you remind me of Jesus.

Your character, your nature, your morality. There's an expression out of you empowered by the Spirit of God and I see Jesus. But there's the idea of gifts.

And you know, one of the ways the Lord wants to express Himself is in the body. The body. And the body at large, this body at large, if we take all the gifts and combine them together, then we can express the person of Jesus in totality.

And so individually, I express Jesus, His character, His nature, His morality. As a body of Christ, we express Jesus and all the gifts functioning together bring out the entirety of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, each of us, as a child of God, ought to have an expression of Christ.

And I guess there's no better place to find out whether you have an expression of Christ than just ask your husband or your wife. Or just ask your children. I mean, at home probably is the best place.

We can come here and we can put on a good show and make an expression of Christ. But really, where the rubber meets the road is at home. And in the grind where, you know, husband and wife are back and forth and children are back and forth and there's some of the things going on there and just being an expression of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So each one of us ought to have that, a Christ expression. The next one is self-expression. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that.

It's in large part our personality. There's not much spoken of it in the Bible. God gives us different personalities.

And I don't believe the Lord is desiring to change that. I think some of you are more bubbly. You're more energetic.

Others, like myself, are a little more... What's that word they use? Is it sanguine? Not sober is a bit of a word, but... What's that? Laid-back. Yeah, that's a good one there. A little more laid-back.

There's different personalities. And no two humans are alike in that regard. And I think of a snowflake that has the same water makeup, yet God made things different.

And so each one of us have different personalities. I read in the Bible, John the Apostle and Peter, these two individuals were different. They had different personalities.

And I think personality is a good thing. What a boring place this world would be if everybody had the same personality as I did. Very boring place.

And so personality, a self-expression, we all have our own personality and we express ourselves that way. And so I'm going to let that lay. I can't go any further biblically.

Maybe some of you can add some things a little bit later on. But I want to spend our time here on the idea of culture. And I received a book from the individual who asked me to preach on this subject.

And it had to do with Christ. And I think it's Iran. And the expression of Christ in different cultures.

But I'd like to talk about culture expression also. We ought to have a Christ expression. We ought to have a self-expression.

But every one of us also has a cultural expression. We grow up in a culture. We live in America.

And Americans do things certain ways. And we're finding out more and more with our neighbors, John and Praise, that they come over and they talk about how they do things in Africa. And a lot of it is just way different.

And it's not wrong. But it's just a different expression from a different culture. And so as we live in America, we tend to do the things, the ways that Americans do.

You heard this phrase, when in Rome, do as the Romans. We tend to adapt to the culture that we live in. In Africa, and I come to think that in Africa, throughout history, people don't keep track of time because they don't have enough money to buy a watch.

They don't have enough money to put clocks on the walls. And when I was in Africa and Ghana a number of years ago, you know, church service started around 12 o'clock. I got there.

Ross Ulrich was sitting there. There was one or two other people. And I came.

Maybe four of us. I say, Ross, it's supposed to start where? Oh, that's no problem. We'll just wait.

We'll be full. And probably 250 people were there in about an hour. It took them an hour, but they'd slowly come.

And I come to realize, even with John and praise, that different cultures respond to time, to appointments. You know, if I say, John, I'll meet you at 1 o'clock, it's not going to probably happen at 1. Maybe 1.30. 2 o'clock. And so that's just as a perspective that he has.

Because of his culture, that's how he grew up. That was the environment that he was in. Just like many animals.

Some of you young people followed some of the nature things. God made animals, many of them that adapt to their culture or to their environment. And when they're in a dark place, they change colors.

When they're in a light place, they change colors. So culture. We all have a cultural expression.

Our diet, whether you know it or not, is cultural. Your diet, burgers and fries. Your diet is cultural.

We eat American food, generally. So they come over, John and praise, and they cook us African food. It is totally different food.

And sometimes it's hard to stomach. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's real good.

But it's not what we eat because we grew up, I grew up eating burgers and fries. My dad, American, it's steak. Someone mentioned it today.

Apple pie. You know, and that's America. I went over to Africa and took Joe Tindall.

He and I went over together. And Joe Tindall, I don't know, he wasn't thinking probably culturally. He filled up a suitcase full of apples.

Get over there, and they're like, what's this? Apple, what's that? I don't think they liked them. I said, why wouldn't anybody like an apple? All Americans like apples. Yeah, but they're African.

And so culture has a lot to do with our diet. And so what we eat. I was in the Philippines many years ago, and I'm on a bus, and the bus stops at these different places, and I'm pretty ignorant to what's going on.

And outside, these women with these baskets on the top of their head, they're like, balut, balut, balut. I still hear them on my head. Balut, balut, balut.

And they're handing into the bus these things. And I asked someone, well, what is this? And they said, oh, it's good. It's a duck egg.

They put a duck egg, and they put it in the ground and let it heat up for a week or so and pull it out. And it's kind of like a half-grown duck in an egg. It's just kind of an embryo.

And they eat it raw. Eat it raw. It's just, boom, balut, it's called.

So, they like it. I don't like it. I never tried it.

Culture. Our dress is cultural. Our dress is cultural.

You know, this is American clothes right here. I've got an American shirt, American pants, I wear American shoes. John in Praise, and John specifically, thought it would be a good thing for him to make me an African shirt.

And he made me an African shirt. It's in my closet. I've never worn it yet.

My wife has a beautiful, I was going to bring them this morning to show them, but I forgot. A beautiful African dress. Have you worn it, honey? No, she hasn't worn it.

She hasn't worn it one time. She would literally be embarrassed to wear it to church here, wouldn't she? It's not immodest. It's not immodest, is it? Oh, it is.

Okay. But it's flamboyant. I think it's a brown, it's the same as my shirt, large, yellow flowers or whatever's on it.

And you put it on, it just isn't American. It's just not. And so, you know, you go to a different country and they dress differently.

They dress according to their culture. Right or wrong? It's not right or wrong. It's just we all have a cultural expression.

Our manners, and there's many things we could talk about here, but our manners are cultural. I never forget Brother Stevens. Some of you remember him.

Brother Stevens, old man from India. He was here many years. Godly man.

He used to sit right up front here. And he told me, he said, in India, if you go to someone's house for a meal, you sit down, you fill up your stomach, you ask for more, and at the end, it's custom, it's cultural to let out a loud belch. And that means to the cook and to the servers, it was good.

If you didn't belch, they'd think you didn't like the meal. And so in America, that doesn't work well. And different culture, different manners, and giving you many different things here.

One of the things Americans face, we don't even think about it. But boy, my eyes were open when I went to Guatemala, but we don't think about how we, in our minds, have been culturally trained to think of things through the eyes of affluence and wealth. And we don't even think about it.

And it's just a part of, we have so much money, and money is easy, we have jobs, we make money, and so we think, all our life, we've fought affluence. And so we go to another country. I was sitting there in Guatemala with a teacher.

She was teaching me Spanish. And I sat down the first day, and I started to talk to her in English. I said, how are we going to do this? And I was there for three weeks before we went to Colombia, South America.

We got a little Spanish school. She looked at me and said, no English. I said, well, how are we going to do this? You're teaching me, and you're going to speak my language.

No English. And so she started with simple Spanish words, and we started from point one. And we went on, and about a week or two, I started to be able to converse with her a little bit.

And here's this woman, she's teaching me Spanish, and I ask her in our conversation, as we're getting better at it, I ask her about travel. I said, where have you been traveling? Where do you travel? I've been to the Philippines. I've been to Africa.

I've been to Canada. I've been to all these countries I've been to. And I said, where have you been? Canada.

Where have you been? Travel. And in Spanish she says, no travel. I don't know how to say that in Spanish.

No travel. I said, well, where have you been in Guatemala? No, only in this city. So I thought maybe there's a communication barrier here or something.

No, no, no. Where have you gone? I mean, in Guatemala. No, only city here.

Only Guatemala City. Then she explained, no money. They're just trying to survive.

I have no money to travel. I have no money to go anywhere. I'm just trying to get by day by day.

You know, we don't think that way at all. You know, we think about moving, taking vacation. We just do it.

And many people around the world, they're in a culture where they cannot function like that. And so there is a cultural expression also pertaining to those things that are outward. We desire to blend into our surroundings.

Now, this is not talking about 1 John 3. Do not be conformed to this world. The Bible says the world is talking about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That's about sin.

It's about temptation. Here, we're talking about blending in or conforming to a culture. There's nothing wrong with that.

We're all a part of a culture. The Bible doesn't say be not conformed to your culture or be not conformed to a culture. It says be not conformed to the world.

I think a lot of people get that confused. Especially you. Many of you have grown up in a plain setting.

You were taught that that American culture is sinful. And we are the godly people. And so America and its culture has been looked upon as sinful.

But the culture in America is not sinful. Any more than the culture in China or the culture in Russia. Now, some things people do in America are sinful.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. But culture is not sinful. And I'm going to get to this here in a little bit.

The thrust of the message when you encourage people to be more like Americans. There's a tendency for people to push back and say, wait a minute. America is a sinful place.

How are you going to encourage me to be more like Americans? But Paul is going to talk about that here in just a little bit. We'll get to that. Let's go ahead and turn there right now.

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. Paul mentions culture here. And culture is not mentioned much in the Bible. The Bible is full of Christ's expression.

But we can learn some things about culture. By the way, let me just give you a few truths about culture. Culture doesn't change the commandments of God.

And I like to think of it this way. The Bible was written, God wrote the Bible for humans. God wrote the Bible for humanity.

The Word of God is a book that was written for humanity. It was not written for individual cultures. The Bible was written for the inward man.

The commandments are universal and it's written for all of humanity. That's why when the Bible says thou shalt not steal, it doesn't matter whether you live in the Russian culture, the Chinese culture, the Guatemalan culture, the Amish culture, the American culture. Stealing is wrong in every culture.

Lying is wrong in every culture. And so God wrote the Bible to transcend culture. So that's why when Jesus said go into all the world and preach the Word.

Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you. Someone could say, but wait a minute, what about the Russian culture? Should they obey all your commands? Yep. What about the Africans over there in the jungle? Should they obey all the commands? Yep.

What about those Americans over there? Should they obey all your commands? Yes, teach them all my commands. And so the commandments transcend culture. And you know there's been many people down through the years who try to say like, for example, the head covering.

Well, that's a cultural issue. Or modesty or some of these things are cultural. You've heard that argument.

This is all cultural. It's all cultural. We don't have to deal with it today.

I faced it on the college campus. Listen, that was back then. Those cultures, they were against homosexuality, but we're in a different culture.

This is the American culture. And God wants us to conform to our culture. No, homosexuality is wrong in any culture.

Adultery is wrong in any culture throughout history. So the Bible will transcend all cultures. So when you read this book here, and this is another reason why I think, I know this is the Word of God, because when men wrote this inspired by the Spirit of God, if it were men who wrote this, there would be a lot of culture in here.

There would be a lot of culture. But there's not culture. And so we have truth.

Culture. Something else I want to bring out before we read this passage here in 1 Corinthians, that unity, this is important here, unity in the church is not based upon culture. Unity is based upon the expression of Christ.

It's called the unity of the Spirit, not the unity of the culture. You say, well, in our culture, we dress a certain way. And I grew up, my parents said, this is the godly way to dress.

Sometimes we think, well, what I've been trained is this is the godly way. In my culture, this is godliness. Therefore, when I turn to this culture, you've got to do it my way, or it's not godly.

You understand how that works? Culture. Unity is based not on culture. It's based on the expression of Christ.

It's the unity of the Spirit. Now let's read here in 1 Corinthians 9 because this is kind of the lesson I'd like to challenge you all this morning about cultural expression. I think we all can agree on Christ's expression.

We ought to be filled with the Spirit of God and Christ ought to be seen in us. We probably can all agree on a personal expression, our own personalities. But this cultural thing is sometimes a challenge for individuals.

So let's look at what Paul has to say here. In 1 Corinthians 9, I'm going to jump down to verse 19. For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all that I might gain the more.

I want you to note that word gain. I have it written down in my Bible. It's mentioned many times in this passage.

And unto the Jews I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews. To them that are under the law as under the law that I might gain them that are under the law. To them that are without law as without law not being without law to God, but under the law to Christ that I might gain them that are without the law.

To the weak became I as weak that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some. Now the idea of gaining some is salvation.

Paul is talking about the context here as the gospel, preaching the gospel, and he's trying to gain. And I've shared this with you before, and I'll share it with you again. When it comes down to the end, let's just pretend we're there in Noah's day, and it comes down to the door closing in the boat.

All that matters when that door closed in the boat was whether I'm in the boat or out of the boat. That's all that mattered at that point. Am I in the boat or am I out of the boat? And when Jesus appears, as we talked about the last two weeks, all that will matter is, am I in Christ or am I out? I'm going to spend an eternity in heaven or hell based upon whether or not I'm in Christ or out.

And so Paul says here, my heart is to gain. I want to gain the more. Whether Jew, whether Gentile, whether those under the law, whether those who are heathen, whether those who are weak, I am here so that I can gain them.

And he explains in verse 22 what it means to gain. Look at verse 22. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak.

I have made all things to all men that I might by all means save some. Now, Paul's heart, if he were here today, he'd say, listen, my thrust in my entire life is to save souls. I want to save some.

I want to get people in the boat. I want to get people in Christ. And here's what I'm going to do.

If I have to be a Jew, a Gentile, if I have to be without the law, with the law, if I have to be weak, I'll be anything. You can just hear him. I'll be anything.

I'll become whatever it takes in order to gain some. Now, I realize that this may not make any sense as we go down through this. If your heart is not to gain souls, if your heart is not like Paul's here to win souls, what I'm going to share with you won't make any sense.

If you're wanting to hold on to a culture, what I'm going to share with you is not going to make any sense. But Paul has a bigger vision. And his vision is to save some.

He says, I'm willing to do... He says, I'll become all things to all men. That's pretty broad, isn't it? I'll do whatever it takes in order to save some. So it's that heart that we want to talk about.

That heart to save people's souls. He says, I will blend into any situation if it may help in the saving of a soul, even to the weak. Became I as weak.

And we can talk about that. You know, Rolands talks about the weak, the one who doesn't want to eat meat. Hey, Paul says, if I... I love meat.

I won't eat meat so that I can get this person saved. I mean, I won't drink wine. I won't drink anything if I can get this person saved.

I'll become whatever it takes. We need more people with that heart. Amen.

I'll do whatever it takes. Now, I want to throw this out because people will criticize, and this is just common as someone who's teaching. I want to make sure that you understand this.

And Paul does the very same thing in verse 21. Look what he says. To them that are without law, as without law, being not without law to God.

Notice that. Being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ. I am not in any way encouraging that you disobey any commandment of the Lord.

We're not talking about that at all. But we're talking about culturally today being whatever you have to be to save some. To save some.

Now, this is a real challenge. I know too many. But Paul says as long as it does not come to sin, cause me to sin, I will be whatever I need to be.

Now, Brother Cleat taught this a number of years ago. Some of you are familiar with the Perspectives course. Charity put it out, or was teaching it many years ago.

And Brother Cleat went to those classes. But then he came here and he taught us in Sunday afternoon a series of about five or six of messages of what he learned. But Paul is mentioning here, I want to bring people to the cross.

And I don't want any hurdles. He's preaching the Gospel. He even says a little bit earlier in the chapter, he says, listen, I'm not going to take any money.

I'm taking no money. Because if I take any money for my preaching, that's going to put a hindrance out here. And somebody's going to say, Paul, you're doing it for the money.

And that's going to hinder the Gospels. He says, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to take anything.

Lest it's going to hinder people coming to Jesus Christ. And then he goes on and he talks about, did the Jew become I a Jew? And he mentions culture here. And that's what I want to bring up.

Culture. He says, listen, oftentimes culture is a hindrance. You know, it's one thing for me to say, hey, to a lost person, you need to come to Jesus.

And you need to humble yourself and repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But there's something else you need to do. You need to become Amish.

You need to become Russian. You need to become a culture. You need to not only come to Jesus, but you also need to accept a new culture.

And yes, I understand that Christianity ought to be a new culture. We're not talking about that. We're talking about culture.

And so, this is what Paul is trying to eliminate here. I don't want any hindrances when I preach the Gospel to bring people to Christ. Repentance and faith.

And it matters not what culture you're of. And if my culture is a problem for you, if you're not going to come to Christ because of my culture, I'll be like your culture. To the Jew, I became a Jew to try to keep any hindrances.

You know, there's a couple of examples in the Bible. Paul was preaching, and he had Timothy with him, and Timothy wasn't circumcised. And Paul thought, you know, Timothy, listen, they're not going to hear us.

They're going to hear our message, because you're an uncircumcised Gentile. Timothy, you get circumcised, so they'll hear the message. I want them to hear the message.

We'll do whatever we have to. Romans talks about circumcision. It's nothing, whether you're circumcised or whether you're not.

However, if you get circumcised in order to be saved, that's a different subject altogether. And Galatians talks about that. I need to be circumcised in order to be saved.

And so this idea of being however, whoever, we need to be in order to bring people to Christ. And so we don't want to set something out here that's a hindrance. You know, and I think sometimes, I know you know what I mean here, but sometimes people, they look at us, maybe they look at the Amish and the Mennonite, and they say, I would like to come to Christ, but I don't want to have to also come to a culture.

I don't want to have to step over a culture and come to Christ. And that's a hindrance. And I know it's going to bring them into a biblical reality, and that's a new culture, obedience to Christ.

But we ought not to encourage or ask people to embrace also a new culture. We need to simply encourage them to embrace the Lord Jesus and the way of salvation. Now, I've told this story here before.

Some of you are new, and you haven't heard this story, but it was really an eye-opener for me. We were in Columbia, South America, my family, back in 2007 and 2008, and we were helping an orphanage there, and I was kind of providing spiritual teaching and oversight there. And we had like 70 or so, 80 children, and 40 of them are girls from the age of like babies to 18.

And so a good motive we had, we wanted to get the girls dressed up modestly, you know how that is. And so we sent back word to America that we'd like to have all the girls have dresses made for them. And so churches back here, there's a number of churches, I forget how many, started working on 40 or so dresses, all the right sizes.

We got the measurements. We worked it out perfectly. I think everybody got one dress.

And so we made these dresses, and then we decided we would stand them all up together and take a big picture of the whole group of girls and send it back, you know, and thank the people that made the dresses. Well, we took a picture, and I looked at that picture, and it just hit like a ton of bricks. I looked at it, and I said, oh, no.

It didn't dawn on me, but I said, we just made, we just made 40 little Amish Mennonite children. We just made, we just made. We took our understanding of culture and Christianity, this is modesty, in our culture, and we transferred that down to South America and imposed it upon them there.

And I thought, you know, what we should have done, we should have figured out a way to make them dresses that would fit in their culture and make them modest in a Colombian culture, and they could have fit in much better in that culture. You know, there's a tendency for us, and I know this is something we have to think through, but there's a tendency for us to think that our culture is the godly way. Would you agree with that? Our culture is the way you do it.

The only problem is, other cultures feel that way too. They feel the very same way. They were brought up a certain way, and in their church, they always did it this way, and this is how modesty is in our culture, and so every one of us think that way.

Our culture is the expression of godliness. So when we go to another culture, we tend to bring our culture with us and encourage people. Now, I'm all for, and I'm going to just mention these two because we talk about them a lot, but I'm all for modesty.

But modesty can show itself different in many cultures. I mean, some of the most modest people, dresses, I see in India, and beautiful modesty. So modesty is not in a cape dress, a certain pattern.

Modesty is in covering loose, in clothing. And it can be expressed in many different ways in many different cultures. One of the dangers that we face is imposing our culture upon people.

And it's very easy to do because this is the way we do it. And this is godliness in our culture, so we say it must be godliness in every other culture. But it's actually not godliness.

I mean, it is godliness, but it's not the best way to express it in other cultures. And so we could have there in Colombia, we could have made modest clothing, and we could have had them Colombians and not Mennonites. We could have had them fit in to their culture.

And I believe that's one of the reasons why God gives us these commandments in a very general way. The Bible says that a woman should dress in modest attire. He doesn't say modest attire, and he brings out the American culture as the exact right way to do it.

He makes a general statement, modest attire, and then each culture can bring in that modesty in their own expression, in their own culture. A head covering. Oftentimes we think it's got to be this one.

It's not godly unless it's a white one and like this pattern. I know you don't think that, but oftentimes people do, and we impose on people these regulations and rules to fit people in to this culture. Then we have someone from the outside come in and say, you mean I've got to cover myself the very same way you do and fit in to this culture? So there's a lot of challenges there.

And I've seen, and you've seen this too, groups going to foreign countries and converting people, but they don't convert them just to Christ. They convert them to a culture. And that's something that Paul was not interested in doing.

So Paul says here as he's writing that we are preaching Christ. We are not preaching a culture. So I think all of us, Brother Wolf, you probably experienced this when you went to Germany I believe it was.

You were probably encouraged. Maybe not. I don't know.

You were encouraged to blend in to the culture there. When in China, you want to blend in to their culture as best as you can. When in Russia or when in South America, blend in to the culture.

I don't want to go to another culture and be an American. I want to blend in to the culture that I'm a part of. And especially if I begin a church or start a church, I don't want to have an American church in another culture.

And I want to be sensitive to those things. The Bible transcends culture. And so I think as God wrote His Word and He brought out these principles, He realized that in each culture, those principles will be upheld in a little different way.

There's some variance. And there is no quote, perfect example of modesty only in the American culture or only in the plain culture. So the beautiful thing about the Bible is I can go anywhere in the world in any culture, and I can open this Bible up, and I can preach it, and it fits everywhere.

The commandments of Christ will fit everywhere. I don't have to worry about, well, this culture. The Bible's not written for this culture or that culture.

And so if we have Brother Cleat and his family, and Brother Cleat has gone through some of these trainings, but when they go, if they go to the Middle East, if they go to... maybe going to Serbia, if they go to another culture, I mean, they may have to sit down at the meal, and when they finish their meal, they have to let out a loud belch. Now, their children may say, Dad, Dad, that's rude. Oh, no, not in this culture.

In this culture, it's very gracious and kind. Now, I don't know, is belching against any Bible commandment? Probably some of you mothers would say it is. But I don't see that you're going to violate any scriptural command in following culture.

So if I go to the Middle East, I need to seek to blend into the culture. Not blend into the sin in the culture. I mean, if the culture accepts homosexuality, I don't blend into the culture in that way.

But if I can externally, my dress, my diet, my manner, blend into the culture, I should do that. Paul recognized that in doing so, he would hinder, or he would not give a stumbling block to individuals. So if I want to reach the Amish, am I going to reach the Amish by driving a Mercedes Benz and wearing a suit and tie? Maybe I will.

But a good chance I'll reach them if I get a horse and buggy, fit into their program. By the way, it's not a sin to have a horse and buggy. It's not a sin to only use certain colors of paint on your house.

It's not a sin to do those things. And so if I want to reach them, I need to be like them. So I think if Paul would have known the Amish, he said, under the Amish, I became as an Amishman.

Then I might gain the Amish. If I go to try to minister to Muslims, I try to be like the Muslim, Paul says. Now, Muslim is a religion also, but so is a Jewish religion.

But the Muslim has a culture. Now, I think all of you, let me see it, raising of hands. If I go to India, how many of you think we ought to be like the Indian? I'm not getting very far on this message here.

Raising of hands. I ought to be like an Indian culture. If I go to Russia, should I be like the Russian culture? If I'm trying to minister to the Amish, should I be like the Amish culture? Now here's our challenge right here.

If I want to reach the American, should I be like the American culture? If I want to reach Americans. Somehow we think of Americans as just sinful. And we're not talking about sin.

We're talking about a culture. And one of the things, I'll just throw this out to you to think about it, but one of the things I think the plain people, the charity groups over the years have I think missed out on is that they seem, and this is my perspective, they seem to want to hold on to a certain culture. And in doing so, they seem to put a stumbling block before people that, oh, if I get to come to Christ and join your church, I've got to change my culture.

I've got to be in a different culture. Some people embrace that. They do it.

And so something to think about. Who are we trying to reach? Now if the Apostle Paul were here, he'd say to the American, became I as an American. I want to desperately reach those people out there, and I don't want culture to get in the way.

I think he'd say that to us if he were here. And it's not him saying it. Obviously, this is inspired by the Spirit of God.

So when I go out to minister at the college campus, I want to look, I want to dress like an American. I want people, I want to fit in with my society. I don't want them to look at me and say, oh boy, if I receive his message, I have to be like that.

I have to also accept a different culture. My feeling is this. I think we fail to reach America because we're unwilling to be like the culture in America.

Now that doesn't mean we shouldn't cover our heads. That doesn't mean we shouldn't dress modestly. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have our mannerisms, have all the things that we do, but we should make an attempt, like with these little Colombian girls, to fit into the culture that we're trying to reach.

Now if you're trying to reach the Amish, there was a young couple that my wife and I ministered to a number of years ago, and they're actually up in an Amish community north of us about an hour, and he's an elder of a church. He was converted. My wife and I had Bible studies with them, and he was converted.

And after his conversion, he told me this. He said, you know, I'd really like to stay with horse and buggy and stay with my dress because I want to reach these Amish people. You know what I told him? God bless you.

And he's doing that right now. God bless you. You don't have to leave that horse and buggy.

You don't have to leave the way you dress. You be whatever you have to be. If you're trying to reach these people, you reach them, and you fit in.

So I guess the question for us is, who are we trying to reach? If I go to Iraq, Iran, and I desperately want to reach these people, I should probably try to be like them in any way I can. Eat their food. Dress the way they dress.

Modestly. And there may not be too many examples of modest dress. Oh yeah, in Iraq and Iran there would be.

But I realize in America there's not a lot of examples of modesty today. But I know that we can... I know this. I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but I know that we can go to Walmart as men and women, and we can be in Walmart, and people can look at us and not say, oh, there's some Amish men and women.

Can't they just say, there's some modestly dressed people that are fitting into this culture in America. And they're just like us, but they're modest. And I know some people may not be comfortable with that.

But there is a different... there is a form of modesty that in every culture can fit into culture and yet be a biblical, obedient form of modesty. And I don't like to pick on the ladies, but we men also, we can be more and more like the American culture. No, I'm not preaching to be like the world at all.

Love not the world. But that's something to consider. I know that head covering is something that really causes people to label you.

How many times have I been asked, are you Amish? Are you Mennonite? Of course, we always say no, we're Christian. But just throw that out. How can we as a congregation reach? Are we trying to reach America? Are we trying to reach Mount Vernon? Frederictown, Utica, and the people that are here, these Americans, red-blooded Americans, apple pie, baseball, and grandma and lemonade.

These people, are we trying to reach them? Then, should we not try to fit into that culture? Well, that will probably stir up some conversation today. So let's close. We'll have a word of prayer.

By the way, let me just encourage you to have a...