Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey, podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress.

And right now, your generous gift will have twice the impact, thanks to the Salt and Light Matching Challenge, active now through July 6th. To give a special matching challenge gift, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes.

Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's word with every day on this Bible teaching program on today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 3

You know, God left us here not to isolate ourselves from the culture, not to identify with the culture, but to influence the culture.

And yet, I think you'd have to agree with me on the whole, Christians aren't doing that great of a job of influencing the culture. Aren't we?

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. As Christians, it's natural to want to protect ourselves and our families from the negative influences of culture.

But history shows that those who lead significant lives strive to influence the world, not isolate themselves from it. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shares why we ought to love and care for the people around us.

Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message. Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 2

Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. The United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom seem to have common forces working against them. Have you noticed that even the most civilized countries are besieged with moral darkness? Well, the battle isn't a political one. Actually, the battle we're watching around the world is a spiritual battle. And it's no time for the church to retreat from battle. It's time for Christians to become salt and light, just as our Lord commanded.

To that end, very good friends of Pathway to Victory have established the Salt and Light Matching Challenge in the amount of $1 million. Because of this wonderful arrangement, we stand to amass a staggering $2 million for the sole purpose of shining the bright light of the gospel far and wide. Let me urge you to participate in this amazing opportunity to multiply the size and impact of your generous gift. Between now and July 6, a gift of $50 would become $100. A generous gift of $500 would become $1,000. A $10,000 gift would become $20,000. There's no limit to the amount you can give that will be matched between now and July 6th.

To say thanks for your investment in the Salt and Light Matching Challenge, I'm going to send you my brand new book, Shine the Light. My book will inspire you to express courageous acts of kindness so that others are drawn into the light of God's truth. David and I will provide more details about my book and the matching challenge later in the program. But right now, I want to present an important message about engaging in the battle. It's titled "Determined to Influence Your Culture."

Speaker 3

Billy Graham was on the cutting edge of the culture for more than 50 years. Yes, he was known for preaching the gospel in crusades all across the world, where millions came to know Christ as Savior. But even though preaching the gospel was his primary function, it wasn't his only function. Billy Graham never shrank away from addressing the spiritual and moral decay of our culture. Way back in 1965, in his book *World Aflame*, Billy Graham hit upon a persistent problem confronting our culture. He wrote that in a declining culture, one of its characteristics is that ordinary people are unaware of what is happening. Modern man has become a spectator of world events, observing on his television screen without becoming involved. He watches the ominous events while he sips his beer in a comfortable chair. He does not understand that his world is on fire and that he is about to be burned with it.

That ordinary man was me early in my ministry. No, I wasn't at home sipping beer, I can assure you of that. But I would come home from working at the church, sit in my chair, turn on the television news, and just cluck my tongue over the sad situation we were living in. I actually believed that as long as I preached the Gospel every Sunday and did that faithfully, that neither I nor my church had to worry about being engulfed in the flames of the culture. I soon discovered how wrong I was about that. My awakening occurred in 1998. I was pastoring the First Baptist Church in Wichita Falls. One day, one of our members came into my office. She happened to work at the local library, and she had two children's books with her—two children's books that had been in the library. They were children's books written to extol the virtues of homosexuality to children.

The books, which are infamous now, were titled *Daddy's Roommate* and *Heather Has Two Mommies*. The books were written from a child's point of view, trying to normalize homosexual behavior. One book, *Daddy's Roommate*, was told by a little boy who explains in the book that his father left his mother in order to be with his friend named Frank. In this children's book, there were illustrations where the little boy is telling what his daddy and his new friend Frank did together. On one page, it says, "Daddy and Frank eat together." Then the next page, "Daddy and Frank play together." And then the next page, "Daddy and Frank sleep together." There was a children's illustration of two men in bed with one another while the boy is talking about what his dad and his new friend do.

Well, the librarian, the person who worked at the library, brought those books to me, dropped them on my desk, and said, "Now, Pastor, what are you gonna do about these books?" I thought to myself, "What do you mean what am I gonna do with these books? I'm busy preparing my sermon for Sunday. I don't have time to get involved with that." But it just happened that I was preaching through the book of Genesis in a year-long series, and that upcoming Sunday, my text was Genesis 19 about God's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. That happened to be the sermon that week, and I had already prepared most of my message. One of the application points was, as Christians, we cannot condone what God has condemned. I said to myself, "Self, how am I going to stand up and preach that with a straight face and not do something about this?"

Now, I didn't want to cause any kind of ruckus at all. I thought I could just have an amicable discussion with the local librarian about it. So I was driving home on Thursday afternoon, and I called her on my mobile phone and explained to her the situation. I said, "Now, I know you're probably not aware that these books are in the children's section of your library, but this one book, especially *Two Men in Bed Together*—I mean, given the fact that homosexual behavior is illegal in the state of Texas, and it was at that time, given the fact that homosexual behavior is responsible largely for one of the greatest epidemics in mankind, AIDS, and given the fact that homosexuality is condemned by all three major world religions—Christianity, Judaism, Islam—I'm sure you'd like to remove these books now that you know they're there." And she basically said, "Not on your life. I'm not removing those books," and accused me of everything under the sun.

Well, I knew we had a problem at that point, so I thought about what I was going to do. The next Sunday morning, I took those books with me in the pulpit and gave that point: "We cannot condone what God has condemned." I explained my dilemma, and I hadn't planned to do this, but the more I thought about it, the more worked up I got, and I held those library books up. We were on live TV at the time, and I said, "Therefore, I'm not returning these books to the library. You're going to have to come and get them if you want them." Well, that set off a firestorm you cannot imagine, not just in our local community, but in the nation as well. The pastor who stole the library books—that's what I became known as.

The local newspaper, which hated me already, said in their next editorial that because of what I had done, I ought to be thrown into jail immediately and incarcerated. There was a lawsuit, a federal lawsuit filed against our city. For the next two years, I received nothing but scathing letters denouncing me in our church and in our local newspaper. In fact, the debate got so serious that PBS actually came from New York and filmed a one-hour documentary about this controversy that a pastor had caused in a small West Texas town. You know, that was my baptism with fire. I was aware of what Romans 12:18 says: "As far as is possible with you, live at peace with all men." But I discovered through that experience that it is difficult to live at peace with a culture that is at odds with God. Christians who want to make a significant difference in this world are going to learn that lesson.

And that brings us to what we're talking about in this series on Elijah choosing an extraordinary life. We're discovering from the life of Elijah his seven secrets for living a spiritually significant life, even though he was just an ordinary person. Last time, we looked at the secret of discovering your life purpose. But today, we're going to begin looking at the second secret of spiritual significance, and that is determining to impact your culture—determining to influence your culture for God.

Let's first of all look at God's mandate to actually even care for our culture. You know, some people actually believe that God has no interest in what is happening in the world. Yet from the very beginning, God gave man the mandate to take care of the world in which he placed him. In Genesis 2:15, the Bible says, "The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it." God's interest—listen to this—God's interest extends beyond the four walls of the church. God is not only interested in religious institutions; he's interested in the whole world. And that's why God says, "I want you to cultivate the earth and to keep it."

That leads me to a definition of culture. Write this down: Culture is what human beings make of the world. When we talk about culture, we're talking about what human beings make of the world. Now, to be honest, human beings have done some good things for this world. They have made some improvements in this world. For example, walking is good, but if you're in an emergency and you need to get to the hospital, driving is better, isn't it? Writing a letter—that's a good thing. But if you have a pressing problem at your business that you need input from others on, email is even better, isn't it? Who today would want to trade laser surgery for surgery 150 years ago that basically consisted of a sharp knife and no anesthetic? I mean, we have improved things. We have cultivated the earth that God has planted us in. That is a good thing.

But if we are honest, we would also say that there has been a deterioration of our world as well in the last hundred years, the last 150 years. Look at the changes you've seen in our own country. 150 years ago, there was no doubt that this was a nation built on the Judeo-Christian ethic. That doesn't mean everybody subscribed to it, but the foundation of our law and society was the Judeo-Christian ethic. Today, our country is being guided by moral relativism and by postmodernism. What is our place in that culture that seems to be unraveling more day after day?

Well, in Ephesians 2:10, Paul gives us an interesting word picture of what we are to be in this deteriorating culture. He said, "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." He said, "God has created us as his workmanship." That word "workmanship" is the Greek word *poema*. We get our word "poem" from it. Last time, we talked about the story that God is writing in your life right now. Your story is like a poem. God is writing through your life, not to be put on the shelf somewhere, but to be read by those around you. God wants others you come in contact with to see your life story, to see your stand for God.

Of course, the key word is "come in contact with." To influence our culture, we have to come in contact with our culture. More about that in just a moment. But let's expand this idea of culture and talk about what it means for ordinary people to cultivate their culture. Perhaps you're like this. Perhaps you're thinking to yourself, "I can't have any influence on the culture." When you think about the culture, you think about what's happening in Washington D.C. or in Hollywood, California, and you think, "That's the culture. I'm powerless to have any influence over it." But remember, culture is what you make of the world—specifically, the world God has placed you in. You are in a particular culture—in your home, in your workplace, in your neighborhood. And your job is to influence that culture.

Perhaps you're a stay-at-home mom, and you think, "I couldn't have any influence on the culture of our nation." But look, God has given you a great influence over those children in your home. Think about Hannah in the Old Testament. For years, she prayed that God would give her a child. Finally, he answered her prayer and gave her Samuel. She faithfully taught Samuel the fear of the Lord, the word of God, and then she delivered him to Eli, who trained him further. Samuel became a mighty prophet of God who greatly influenced the nation for good. Did Hannah influence her culture? Of course she did.

Maybe you're a student right now in junior high, high school, or college. For you, your culture is that school where God has placed you. You know, I'm so proud of our teenagers. They started an effort this last year, "Tell the World," an evangelism emphasis to tell those around them about Christ. Teenagers listening, don't underestimate the impact you can make right where you are—your culture, your school. When I was in the ninth grade, I attended this church and had been here all of my life. I wasn't a particularly spiritual person; I just kind of came to church like everybody else did. But one day, when I was at West Junior High School in Richardson, Texas, one of my teachers asked me if I would stay behind school and visit with her. I didn't feel like I had any choice, so I said yes, I'd be happy to meet with you.

She was a Christian, even though we were in a secular high school. I'll never forget where we were seated in that classroom. She said, "Robert, have you ever thought about the fact that God has placed you in this school with 3,000 people for a reason, and that reason is to lead other students to Christ?" Honestly, that thought had never crossed my mind. She said, "I want to give you a challenge, and that is to make a list of five of your classmates who aren't Christians and to commit to pray for their salvation and commit that sometime during this year you're gonna share your faith with them." Honestly, I don't know why I agreed to do that, but there was something about that that kind of captivated my interest—the idea that maybe God had a bigger purpose for my life than simply going to school every day.

So I went home that night and made a list of five people I knew who weren't Christians. I made a commitment to the Lord that I would pray for them and witness to them. The first guy on my list was a student named Nick. Nick is what we used to call back then a "hood." He wore the black leather jacket and would hang out during the breaks in the smoking area of the school. Can you believe we had smoking areas where students actually went to smoke? But we did, and that's where Nick hung out. I mean, he looked like he was straight out of the cast of *West Side Story*, you know? Everybody was afraid of Nick because of his reputation. But one day, I screwed up the courage and said, "Nick, could I meet with you after school today?"

He said, "What for? What do you want to meet with me for?" I said, "Well, I just want to talk to you about something." He agreed, so we sat in our history class in a vacant classroom, and I shared with him the Four Spiritual Laws. I remember closing by saying, "Nick, is there any reason you wouldn't want to become a Christian today?" He said, "No, there's no reason. In fact, I think that's something I would like to do." He prayed with me to trust in Christ as his Savior. Little did I know—little did he know—that he had a brain tumor growing in his brain, and within nine months, he was dead.

That was the first person that year I saw—every one of those students I had committed to pray for and share with—come to faith in Christ. Now, I'll be the first to admit my five converts did not match Billy Graham's hundreds of thousands of converts. He preached in football stadiums; he influenced Hollywood luminaries and presidents. He had a worldwide impact. But that was the culture God had placed him in. My culture was that little corner of the world—West Junior High School in Richardson, Texas. What I'm saying to you is don't ever underestimate your ability to change your culture. Wherever God has placed you—your home, your workplace, your neighborhood, your family—God has placed you there for a reason.

And you know what? When you're faithful to be that representative for Christ wherever you are, don't be surprised if God doesn't expand your territory and your influence beyond that. That's exactly what happened with Elijah. You know, God left us here not to isolate ourselves from the culture, not to identify with the culture, but to influence the culture. Yet, I think you'd have to agree with me that, on the whole, Christians aren't doing that great of a job of influencing the culture, are we? I mean, look at what's happening. It's amazing when you see our culture unraveling with as many Christians as there are in this country, supposedly.

One survey says that one-fourth of the U.S. population claims to be evangelical Christians. One-fourth of 300 million would be 75 million people claiming to be Christians. Somebody put that in perspective pretty well. You know, a pound of meat would probably be influenced by a quarter pound of salt, don't you think? It doesn't take much salt to impact meat. If you had a quarter pound of salt, you could really flavor a pound of meat. If a quarter of our population are Christians, why are we having zero influence on this culture? I think there are two reasons that I want to mention to you today.

One reason is some Christians have become what I call "silo saints." Instead of being salt that penetrates the meat, flavors the meat, preserves the meat, these Christians remain in the salt shaker, totally isolated from the meat. They become silo saints, and they actually pride themselves on that. They say, "Well, I don't want to get involved in the culture; I could pollute myself or I could pollute my family if I do that." In fact, some Christians have even come up with a theological justification for what they're doing. A popular book right now is called *The Benedict Option*. I hate even giving the book a plug because it is so insidious, but it's written by a Christian. He claims that Christians ought to follow the example of that monastic church leader, St. Benedict, who basically said to his followers, "Let's just get in our holy huddle and try to encourage one another in these dark days and pray that bad people don't do anything evil to us."

Is that what God has called us to do? No, but there are many Christians who fall for that and even justify that. The idea that we can just remain cloistered together and not try to impact our culture for good is an idea that is absolutely foreign to Christianity. The fact is, spiritual silo people are isolating themselves from the culture. That's why they have no impact on the culture—they live in their silos. They are silo saints.

Speaker 2

Having heard the first part of my message, I wonder, is God stirring in your heart to begin making a difference in our culture for Him? As your radio pastor and Bible teacher, I believe God is telling you to step outside your comfort zone in order to become salt and light for Him.

So let me suggest that you begin taking your first steps right now by contacting Pathway to Victory. I've written a brand new book called *Shine the Light*. My book is inspirational at the core, providing clearer illustrations on how you can become salt and light with your friends, family, and neighbors. I'm going to send this book to your home when you participate in the Salt and Light Matching Challenge that's active between now and July 6th.

We're asking God to help us reach the million-dollar goal through the generous gifts from friends just like you today. Every dollar you're able to give will automatically be matched and therefore doubled in size and impact, and every dollar we receive will be deployed as light in the darkness. Specifically, we will leverage your gift to broadcast Pathway to Victory on radio, television, the Internet, and on every digital platform at our disposal.

As we close out today's program, I'd like to affirm your partnership with this daily Bible teaching ministry. In the last few years, Pathway to Victory has experienced unparalleled growth all across America and around the world, and it's because people like you have shared our passion for becoming salt and light, just as Jesus told us to be.

So thanks for doing your part so that more and more people begin to discover their sweet spot and make an impact in our culture and for the glory of God.

Speaker 3

David Thanks Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 1

Today, when you give a generous gift to support Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request a copy of the brand new book by Dr. Jeffress called *Shine the Light*. You can give online at ptv.org or call 866-999-2965. Now, when you give $100 or more, you'll also receive the complete collection of audio and video discs for this month's teaching series, *Shine the Light*. And because of our Salt and Light Matching Challenge, any gift you give right now will be doubled in impact.

One more time, here's our phone number: 866-999-2965. You can also give online at ptv.org or send your request by mail. If you'd like, write to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins inviting you to join us again next time when Dr. Jeffress wraps up this message on determining to influence your culture. That's Friday here on Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible.

Right now, your ministry gift will be matched and therefore doubled in impact thanks to the Salt and Light Matching Challenge. Take advantage of this opportunity to double your impact before the deadline on July 6th. To give toward the matching challenge, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.