True Knowledge of Self

Cultural Expressions -part 1

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Dwayne Lemon, Lance Wilbur

Home

Series Code: TKS

Program Code: TKS000040A


00:29 Hello, I'm Lance.
00:30 And I'm Dwayne, and welcome to another episode of TKS,
00:34 A True Knowledge of Self,
00:36 where we get to know ourselves from a biblical perspective.
00:39 We have been going through several studies
00:41 where we were looking at,
00:42 not only the cornerstones of hip-hop culture
00:45 and looking at it in comparison
00:47 to the principles of the Christian culture.
00:50 But today we're going to be talking a lot
00:52 about culture in its, in and of itself,
00:54 because there's another dynamic in hip-hop culture
00:57 that we would do well to consider,
00:58 because it is a very, very forceful emphasis
01:02 or set of elements
01:04 as stated by its thought leaders
01:05 as it relates to what constitutes
01:07 hip-hop culture in its expression.
01:10 We're going to talk about that today
01:11 because there is a place for this,
01:13 because at the end of the day
01:14 everybody has feelings, everybody has thoughts.
01:17 We come from different parts of the world.
01:19 We come from different circumstances,
01:21 and as a result of that
01:23 it does produce certain thought processes, feelings
01:26 and ultimately expressions of those thoughts and feelings,
01:29 so we're going to take a look at that today
01:31 because I believe that the Word of God
01:33 has instruction for us
01:35 even as it relates to expression,
01:37 as it relates to what we express,
01:39 how we express it
01:41 and then even answering the question "Should we?"
01:43 express everything
01:44 that is on our minds and on our hearts.
01:46 Sometimes people have a way of, you know, kind of saying,
01:49 "Well, it's on my mind, I wear my feelings on my shirt,"
01:51 meaning I'm going to tell you what I think
01:52 and I'm gonna tell you like it is and it is what it is.
01:55 It's who I am and it's what I'm about.
01:56 Like it or love it.
01:58 And this is kind of an attitude
01:59 that you can see happen in various points of society
02:02 as well as in hip-hop culture,
02:03 and we're going to talk about this today
02:05 because there are some elements in hip-hop culture
02:08 that we need to consider
02:09 and, Lance, we know that some of these elements
02:12 are things that we ourselves participated in.
02:15 An example, break in or break dancing.
02:18 Of course, MCing which is where you get into the rapping.
02:21 Then you have DJing, then, of course,
02:23 you have your expression through graffiti artwork
02:26 and from that you have,
02:28 you know, these would be the first four elements
02:31 and then as Afrika Bambaataa
02:32 would often say the fifth element
02:34 which is the knowledge, the wisdom
02:36 and the under or over standing,
02:37 and from that there were other expressions
02:41 that would come out of that everything from,
02:43 you know, street fashion to street style dancing
02:47 or even street style entrepreneurship
02:50 which is very interesting, you know.
02:51 So there's lots of elements that make up hip-hop culture
02:56 which ultimately is expression.
02:58 It boils down to expression.
03:01 Things is happening
03:02 within a certain group of class of people
03:04 and from that this is the way
03:06 that they're expressing themselves.
03:08 And I remember when I used to study martial arts
03:11 and when I studied it,
03:12 I looked at many different disciplines.
03:14 I took taekwondo, I took shuriken
03:16 and a lot of these other things.
03:18 And as I stated before for clarity, you know,
03:20 especially for our viewers, these are things today
03:23 that I would not advocate
03:25 because I see them adverse to Christian principle,
03:28 so I'm not an advocate of the practice of martial arts
03:32 as it is being demonstrated in our world today.
03:34 Nevertheless in my past these were real experiences,
03:37 and I was doing studies
03:39 because I remember there was a martial art form
03:41 that really caught my attention
03:43 and it was a amalgamation of martial arts and dancing.
03:47 It was called Capoeira
03:49 which was birthed out of Brazil,
03:51 and what was interesting is that
03:53 because the people did not want to be identified
03:58 by what was happening in that time
04:00 as it relates to the military
04:01 and being looked upon as possible revolutionaries,
04:05 you know, if they see you practicing martial arts,
04:07 then this would suddenly become
04:10 a potential danger to the government at that time.
04:13 Then they started to disguise their martial art practices
04:16 in the form of dancing.
04:18 And lo and behold, this is how the Capoeira style was birthed,
04:21 you know, this dancing martial art form.
04:23 Well, today, that's even been engrafted now
04:25 even into the various forms of expression in hip-hop culture,
04:28 where there's a lot of jumping and flipping and etcetera
04:31 which fits very much with the breaking.
04:33 And these things are considered to be cultural.
04:36 They are considered to be forms of expression
04:38 and no one wants to be suppressed,
04:42 no one wants to feel like, "Why can't I express myself?
04:44 I have a right to express myself."
04:46 And the way we've been talking about hip-hop culture
04:49 over the past several episodes,
04:51 it would seem
04:52 that we are probably saying to people,
04:55 hip-hop culture is something
04:57 that is adverse to Christianity,
04:58 adverse to the Bible,
05:00 and as a result of that, it should be suppressed,
05:02 and it is possible that somebody may say,
05:05 "Well, then wait a minute.
05:06 If you're saying that this culture
05:09 should not be allowed to express themselves,
05:12 then how would you explain something
05:13 like 1 Corinthians 9.
05:15 You know, this happens sometimes.
05:16 You know, you talk about principles,
05:18 and you make certain standards,
05:19 and then people kind of throw it back at you.
05:21 So I'm going to take us to 1 Corinthians 9
05:24 and we're going to consider it,
05:25 and I'm going to ask you to give us a comment on it
05:27 because I believe that
05:29 individuals very well may use this text to say,
05:32 "Hey, well, what about this and how do we apply it?"
05:34 So I'm going to ask you to help us out with that, right?
05:36 So we're gonna look at 1 Corinthians 9,
05:39 and we're going to consider what the Bible says
05:41 as we look at verses 19-22,
05:44 and here's what the Bible says,
05:45 the Apostle Paul was talking about soul winning,
05:48 and he says in verse 19,
05:51 "For though I be free from all men,
05:53 yet have I made myself servant unto all,
05:56 that I might gain the more.
05:58 And unto the Jews
05:59 I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews,
06:04 to then that are under the law as under the law,
06:07 that I might game them that are under the law.
06:09 To them that are without law, as without law,
06:13 being not without law to God,
06:14 but under the law to Christ
06:15 that I might gain them that are without law.
06:18 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak.
06:21 I am made all things to all men
06:24 that I might by all means save some."
06:27 So here goes Paul, you know, really expressing his love
06:30 and his desire to win souls to Jesus,
06:33 and he is expressing it to such a point that he says,
06:36 "Listen, if I need to become like the Jew
06:39 so that I can reach the Jew, I'm willing to do it.
06:42 If I need to become like the Gentile,
06:44 I'm going to be like the Gentile
06:45 that I can win them.
06:47 He's willing to become whatever it takes
06:48 to win others.
06:49 Well, this may be a rationale that's used
06:51 even in hip-hop culture to say,
06:53 "Listen, the hip-hop culture deals
06:55 with a lot of what was happening in the streets
06:57 and therefore to those in the street,
06:59 we have to become like those in the street.
07:02 So what is wrong with us
07:03 being able to practice certain things
07:06 as it relates to the culture of the street
07:08 and being able to reach those in the streets.
07:10 This is something that I'm sure one would ask
07:12 or at least think of when we're talking
07:14 about the art forms of expression
07:16 in hip-hop culture and should it be done,
07:19 should it not be done?
07:20 Where is it permissible, where is it not permissible?
07:22 If you can, share some light with us on this?
07:24 Yeah, I mean, the same principle applies
07:26 as we've been going through all these things
07:28 like we're talking about recreation
07:30 and what is acceptable,
07:32 what is really genuine having fun, you know,
07:36 from a biblical perspective,
07:37 and the bottom line is the principles are there,
07:40 so for example,
07:41 if we look at the principle of 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
07:47 that showed us that our bodies are not our own,
07:51 they're the temple of God, the temple of the Holy Ghost,
07:55 and that we are to glorify God in our body
07:57 and in our spirit which are God's,
07:59 so we highlighted the fact
08:00 that we're not at liberty to do what we want,
08:02 whatever we want with our bodies
08:05 or with our spiritual preferences
08:06 or what have you.
08:07 We're not, we're not able,
08:09 we don't have the right to live the way we want to live,
08:12 because God has created us,
08:14 and because God has redeemed us through the death of Christ,
08:18 in the resurrection of Christ, in the ministry of Christ,
08:20 we are obligated,
08:22 we are bound eternally to this service to God.
08:27 He owns us if you will,
08:29 and we have to be okay with that.
08:31 We become His possession,
08:32 we become His child if you will.
08:35 We become his spouse if you will,
08:36 it's a full relationship.
08:39 So when we think of that
08:41 and we're talking about reaching others.
08:44 And we want to say, "All right, we want to become like them
08:47 to get close to them."
08:49 So I remember I had a friend once
08:51 who came from, you know, the inner city in New York
08:55 and he grew up kind of in the bar culture and know...
08:58 Right.
08:59 It's another little subculture, you know,
09:01 the people that literally almost live
09:03 at these local bars
09:05 and he was alcoholic obviously
09:07 and he left that to become a Christian,
09:10 and he had a desire to go and reach those people
09:13 that he kind of left behind, you know, in that same culture.
09:17 And he had the idea that he was going to go
09:19 and gauge in like a bar ministry,
09:21 he was going to go in ministry to visit these bars,
09:25 to try to win the alcoholics
09:28 and the people that he hung around with
09:29 at these bars
09:31 and we, you know, for many, many reasons,
09:33 this is not a good idea
09:34 because you are telling God
09:37 how you're going to reach the people
09:38 that you desire to reach
09:40 instead of consulting with God to figure out
09:42 how He wants you to reach those people,
09:44 and thinking that I have to go into a bar, sit at a bar,
09:49 you know, hang out at a bar when, you know,
09:51 maybe six months or less than a year ago,
09:54 I was sitting at the bar drinking
09:56 and I was an alcoholic,
09:58 and now I'm going to put myself in the situation
10:00 where all of that temptation and all of those triggers
10:03 and psychological triggers are going to be there,
10:05 and I'm just going to demand that God protects me.
10:07 Now somebody might say, "Well, wait a minute,
10:09 didn't Christ mingle with sinners?
10:11 Didn't Christ sit down with sinners?
10:13 So why can't I go in a bar and sit down with sinners?
10:15 I'm following the example of Christ."
10:17 How would we help an individual
10:18 if they were to use that interpretation?
10:20 Well, the key is this.
10:21 The key is that we are never allowed,
10:25 never authorized to compromise truth
10:28 for the sake of reaching a soul,
10:30 so, you know, it's like the idea of a white lie.
10:34 There is no such thing. Lying is a sin.
10:37 It is a violation of the covenant with God.
10:40 So I can't tell a lie in order to escape, you know,
10:44 there are all these role playing scenarios
10:46 sometimes they doing like,
10:47 you know, churches and youth groups
10:48 and say what would you do
10:50 if such and such and such and such.
10:51 The bottom line is, in any situation
10:54 it is never permissible,
10:56 it's never safe to violate your commitment to God,
11:00 to commit sin, to compromise truth
11:03 in order to reach an individual.
11:04 So when you say,
11:06 "Oh, well, Jesus went to all these places."
11:07 Well that's a situation
11:08 where He got invited to somebody's house
11:11 to eat dinner.
11:12 Jesus is not, you know, in this scenario
11:16 is not going to reject an invitation
11:18 to eat dinner at somebody's house
11:20 because, you know, there might be people,
11:22 you know, drinking wine at the table, at the dinner table.
11:25 Right.
11:26 You know, that, that wasn't the issue,
11:28 the issue that the Jews had
11:29 is they thought that you were spiritually defiled literally
11:33 if you even shared space with a "sinner".
11:36 If you shook the hand of a sinner,
11:38 and if you engaged in this level of intimacy
11:41 and sharing a meal with a sinner,
11:43 it was considered socially taboo.
11:46 So this is the critique that they had with Jesus.
11:48 He wasn't going, necessarily going to a bar
11:50 and ministering to people,
11:52 He was going to somebody's house to eat dinner
11:53 as an invited guest, as an honored guest,
11:56 and immediately what you always notice with Christ is,
11:58 as soon as He entered into the scene,
12:01 He always directed all of the audience
12:04 to the kingdom of God.
12:06 He used it as a deliberate means
12:08 to direct people to the kingdom,
12:10 not as some means
12:11 just to hang out at a party or hang out somewhere
12:13 and hopefully people might become friendly
12:16 and somehow He might be able to do something later.
12:19 It wasn't, you know, friendship evangelism.
12:22 He was designed to be their friend,
12:24 but He was deliberately overtly directing them
12:27 to the kingdom of heaven.
12:29 So let's make an application.
12:30 So when Christ would go into an environment
12:32 with the worst sinners,
12:34 He would go to where they are and meet them.
12:36 Yes.
12:38 And when He went there,
12:39 what He did was always create a forum
12:44 that He can have a holy influence to the people.
12:47 Yes.
12:49 This is what Christ did
12:50 when He ate and drank with sinners.
12:52 What Christ did not do was simply go there
12:55 and just indulge in their conversation,
12:57 indulge in their music, indulge in their food,
13:00 and indulge in this and indulge in that,
13:02 and just think that because His presence was there
13:05 that somehow this is going to have
13:06 a witnessing effect to the people.
13:07 Right. This is what He did not do.
13:10 All right, well, this is important then
13:11 because I can remember in my experience
13:13 when I was trying to evangelize a friend of mine,
13:16 and he and I used to love playing video games,
13:19 and I started getting convicted on several levels
13:21 about my video game times.
13:22 Number one, it was a waste of time.
13:24 I mean, I wasn't developing, growing,
13:25 I wasn't getting any better in any area of life really,
13:28 so I had a problem with that
13:29 because I believe in development.
13:31 Nevertheless, I also felt that the games we were playing
13:35 was not good for my mind,
13:36 because we would play martial art game,
13:38 Tekken and Mortal Combat and these type of games
13:42 where you're pulling people's heads out of their bodies
13:45 and this horrible gory stuff.
13:47 So I got convicted about it.
13:49 I said, you know, I can't do this anymore.
13:50 I don't think this is right.
13:51 How can I say thou shalt not kill,
13:53 and I'm entertaining myself killing people?
13:54 So it didn't make sense.
13:56 Well, I wanted to win my buddy,
13:58 so I would go to his house and just say,
14:00 "Hey, you know, let's hang out, let's talk."
14:03 And I tried to witness to him by just being present.
14:07 He knew I was a Christian
14:08 and I try to be present but he would always say,
14:10 "Come on, man, let's play the game."
14:11 And, you know, after a while I was like,
14:13 "No, I don't want to play," and then he was like,
14:14 "Come on, man, let's play the game.
14:16 And before you know it, I was like,
14:17 all right, all right, all right and before you know,
14:19 I'm ripping people's heads off and everything else,
14:20 and I have literally damaged my witness,
14:22 because how am I going to go to him later on and say,
14:24 "Hey, that's wrong,"
14:25 and the first thing he's going to say is,
14:27 "You were doing it with me,"
14:28 you know, so it damaged my witness,
14:30 so instead of me evangelizing him,
14:32 I got evangelized...
14:33 That's right.
14:35 And that's another thing we have to be careful of.
14:36 The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10:12,
14:38 "Let a man take heed
14:40 when he thinks he stands lest he falls."
14:43 Galatians 6:1 says, you know,
14:45 "Ye which are spiritual restore individuals
14:47 back to the Lord," but it says
14:49 but consider yourself lest you also be tempted,
14:52 so this is something important when we're thinking about.
14:55 "I'm going to go in the streets
14:56 to reach the people in the streets
14:57 and I'll become like those in the streets
14:59 that I can win them.
15:01 There are some serious limitations
15:03 that we have to watch out for
15:05 but what are the things that are permissible?
15:07 What would be a practical example of 1 Corinthians 9
15:11 and ministering to those that are in the streets
15:13 and meeting them where they are in their culture
15:16 and not violating principle.
15:18 Yeah, I mean, you depending whether or not
15:21 you're a member of that community,
15:23 you go, you can go to where the people are.
15:25 It is absurd, you know, as a Christian church to think
15:31 that all of the sinners
15:32 are going to just come to your church.
15:33 They're going to just come to where you are
15:35 and come to your services,
15:37 however many times that might be once a week,
15:39 two times, three times a week, every day,
15:41 so that is not the role of the church,
15:43 the role of the church is to go and to make disciples
15:46 of all nations, right?
15:48 Rich, poor, free, bond, male, female, everyone is deserving,
15:53 and I wouldn't say deserving in the sense that God owes them
15:57 but God is love and He has made provision
16:00 for everyone to be saved and God desires,
16:03 deeply desires beyond our comprehension
16:04 for every single person,
16:06 every human being that He has created to be saved,
16:08 no matter what their present condition,
16:10 no matter what things they have done.
16:12 So God has chosen those individuals
16:14 who have come to Him and accepted Him
16:16 to then go out and to reach others,
16:19 so we ought to go and make disciples
16:22 and in order to do that,
16:23 we have to go to where they are,
16:24 whether that be in the inner city,
16:26 whether that be in the suburb,
16:28 whether that be in a rich neighborhood,
16:29 poor neighborhood, bad neighborhood,
16:30 whether that be homeless people wherever,
16:32 so we have to find ways
16:34 in which God minister to people,
16:36 I mean, that's the best example.
16:37 You look at what Jesus did.
16:38 What did Jesus do?
16:40 Matthew 4:23 says that Jesus went about all Galilee,
16:43 teaching in their synagogues
16:45 and preaching the gospel of the kingdom
16:46 and healing all manner of sickness
16:48 and all manner of disease among the people,
16:50 so that's the kind of a guy, that's a practical guideline
16:52 where we're supposed to go everywhere...
16:54 Right.
16:55 ..preaching, teaching, and healing.
16:57 Well, how do you do that, you know, so it goes on and on
16:59 because the questions will keep coming
17:01 as we identify new,
17:02 you know, practical measures to take,
17:04 but we need to go and ministers to the people as Christ did.
17:08 He was constantly present with those that were in need.
17:10 As He said many, many times,
17:12 the well, those that are well or healthy
17:15 are not in need of a physician,
17:17 but those that are sick
17:18 and you could try to keep telling
17:19 the Jewish leadership
17:21 that's why I'm here with these people
17:23 that you call sinners because they need help.
17:25 That's right.
17:26 You guys are sinners just like them and even worse
17:29 because you don't even think you need help.
17:31 So the idea that Jesus says like in Matthew 11,
17:36 "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden
17:39 and I will give you rest," right?
17:42 He's not looking for you to make all these changes
17:44 and then come to Him.
17:46 With the invitation that the gospel offers
17:48 is for you to come to Him as you are,
17:51 but you have to be willing to accept the change
17:54 that He is going to provide once you come to Him,
17:56 so there is going to be a change
17:58 but you can come as you are.
18:00 So in order to walk into church,
18:01 you don't need to come off the street,
18:03 you're not a Christian, you don't know,
18:05 you don't need to dress this way or that,
18:07 you can come in as you are,
18:09 but understand that as you come in
18:10 and accept the gospel,
18:12 it's going to, Christ is offering change.
18:13 He's offering something better,
18:15 so number one,
18:16 you're letting people come to you as they are.
18:19 You're not sitting there and trying to change people
18:21 and make people, you know,
18:23 have some kind of compulsory attitude
18:25 towards religious, you know, observance
18:27 or some intellectual assent to knowledge,
18:29 but it's a relationship
18:31 so you don't just walk up to a person and say,
18:33 "We're going to get married," you know,
18:35 there's a relationship that's involved,
18:36 so you treat it the same way
18:38 so I'm going to come and develop.
18:40 There's a book that I like,
18:43 you know, it's one of my favorites,
18:45 it's called the Ministry of Healing
18:47 and on page 143,
18:50 it talks about Christ's methods
18:52 and it's just articulating what the Bible says...
18:54 Sure.
18:56 ..like we just read in Matthew 4
18:57 but it says that Christ method alone
18:59 will bring true success in reaching the people.
19:01 That's right.
19:02 It says that the Savior mingled with men
19:04 as one who desired their good
19:06 is that He showed sympathy to them,
19:08 ministered to their needs and won their confidence,
19:11 then He bade them follow me,
19:13 so even Jesus understood that there are barriers,
19:16 that sin has separated man from God,
19:20 so in order for man to come back,
19:22 there's things that need to take place
19:23 that we've talked about but it is a process.
19:26 It is a process of growth and development
19:28 and there is a willingness that the person has to have,
19:30 so I can't make them do anything,
19:31 so I need to go to where they are
19:33 and minister to their needs.
19:34 I need to show sympathy,
19:36 I need to win their confidence before I say,
19:38 "Hey, you know, get baptized, become a Christian.
19:40 Study your Bible, do all these things,
19:42 " I have to treat them as I would treat a child
19:46 who I'm trying to teach a lesson
19:48 and not in a demeaning sense, not literally like a child,
19:51 but the same way that you would try
19:53 to educate a person in any line
19:55 with care and consideration and He want them to understand.
19:58 He want them to grow and develop.
20:01 He want them to, you know, do something better and change.
20:04 Make a change.
20:05 Then I am going to make every effort possible
20:07 without compromising the truth.
20:10 I am not gonna drink...
20:11 As a matter of fact, that reminds me.
20:14 When I was first beginning in my study of the Bible after,
20:19 you know, reading, you know, over 50 books
20:21 and different religions and, you know,
20:23 passing through all of this confusion,
20:25 I started to kind of get settled in the truth
20:29 and I had already made decisions in my mind
20:31 that I was going to no longer drink,
20:32 no longer smoke, no longer do this.
20:34 I changed my diet
20:35 because I saw in all religions to this health emphasis,
20:38 no pork, and no red meat and all this stuff,
20:41 so when I started actually visiting churches,
20:44 you know, before I was baptized
20:45 and before I made an official decision,
20:46 but I was kind of settling into the truth,
20:49 I would still go and hang out with my old crew
20:52 and they understood the changes I was making,
20:55 so, you know, how it gets,
20:56 you know, some people that understand,
20:58 "Oh, now, you're a Christian," so, you know,
20:59 they curse around you and they'd be like,
21:01 "Oh, oh, sorry," you know, you don't care for,
21:03 his brother is a Christian now, we can't do these things.
21:06 But I remember what we used to do when we get together.
21:08 We always smoke.
21:10 We're always, you know, smoking weed,
21:11 we were always drinking just in passing, you know,
21:13 just to pass the time and so lo and behold,
21:17 I'm at a friend's house
21:19 and they're getting ready to do,
21:20 you know, their ritual
21:22 and they almost get to the point
21:24 where we're about to light up
21:25 and then I'm sitting there on the couch and they're like,
21:27 "Oh, no, no, no," you know, let's not, you know,
21:29 Lance doesn't smoke anymore,
21:31 let's not smoke in front of him,
21:32 and so they all went in another room
21:34 to do what they are doing,
21:35 I just sat on the couch like there by myself,
21:37 you know, wondering,
21:39 and obviously I started to realize
21:41 that I'm not really making any impact whatsoever
21:46 and this whole idea that,
21:48 you know, they smoke over there and I'm over here,
21:50 I'm like, what am I doing right now.
21:51 Right, right.
21:52 It even got so bad that at for many, many like months,
21:55 if I think of it right, I used to actually prepare.
21:58 I used to take the weed, break it up, roll it and then,
22:02 you know, you know, give it to them to smoke,
22:05 so I was still part and, you know,
22:06 still engaging in half in and half out in that area.
22:11 You know my friend used to...
22:13 that same group we used to be in his,
22:17 you know, room and smoking
22:18 and he was dating a Muslim girl and he wanted to marry.
22:22 He was this girl for a long time.
22:23 He wanted to marry her but the problem
22:25 is the parents wouldn't have any of it,
22:26 you know, they demanded that he become a Muslim
22:29 before he even approached the subject so he,
22:32 you know, he was studying Islam,
22:33 he had a Quran and he had in his room and anybody knows,
22:36 you know, proper Islam, you know,
22:38 you put the Quran in a sacred place.
22:41 It has to go in a prominent place
22:42 and so normally they will have stands,
22:44 there's all kinds of, you know,
22:45 things that and so he had his Quran
22:47 on the stand in his bookcase in his room, right?
22:49 And it was leaning there and I didn't see it.
22:52 I didn't know what it was because it had a veil over it.
22:55 It had like a white like veil covering it and I'm like,
22:58 "Man, what's that thing under there?"
22:59 And at this time we were smoking,
23:01 we are sitting in the room smoking
23:02 and my friend said,
23:04 "You know that's my Quran,
23:06 I had to cover it because we're smoking.
23:08 You know so he understood.
23:10 He didn't want to violate the sacredness of the book
23:13 so he veiled it so the smokers won't hit it.
23:16 I mean, are all of these concepts,
23:18 you know, he's not helping me accept Islam in that situation,
23:23 I'm not helping them by, you know,
23:25 refraining from smoking weed
23:27 but rolling and sitting in the other room
23:29 while they go in another room and smoke.
23:30 I'm completely disconnected so that's not effective.
23:33 It's not effective.
23:34 They understand the changes I've made.
23:35 They understand that God has made changes in my life
23:37 'cause they see it, they know who I was
23:39 and they know who I am now,
23:40 so the idea that we have to go out and reach people
23:44 where they are in their communities,
23:46 whether they're rich, poor, homeless and as I said
23:48 we've got to go and do it in the way that God is giving.
23:51 So when God says, go make disciples,
23:53 He doesn't just say go make disciples,
23:54 you guys figure it out.
23:56 He says, go make disciples and here are the guidelines,
23:58 here are the principles
24:00 that are going to govern your engagement,
24:03 the rules of engagement if you will.
24:05 There's rules of engagement for war
24:06 and all kinds of other things.
24:07 There's rules of engagement in this going out to reach people
24:11 or bringing people into your church
24:13 or bringing people into your home or your fellowship
24:15 so what is, you know,
24:18 to make it real simple and plain
24:20 even though God respects culture,
24:23 essentially God is created culture.
24:24 That's right.
24:26 But culture became perverted through sin
24:28 and rejection of the knowledge of the truth.
24:30 As that culture degraded
24:32 and man went further and further away from God
24:34 and began to invent cultural practices
24:37 influenced by Satan
24:39 God doesn't respect that.
24:41 God doesn't love that. He hates that.
24:43 And so when God bring somebody, He doesn't say,
24:45 "Oh, well, in order to be a Christian,
24:46 you need to change your language,
24:48 in order to be a Christian," and when I mean language,
24:51 I mean like French, Spanish, Italian.
24:52 Okay.
24:54 You know, God doesn't, you don't have to speak Latin
24:55 to read the Bible,
24:57 you know, like some other religions,
24:58 you can't even study the sacred text
25:00 without learning a certain language
25:02 and that becomes a real problematic,
25:05 so God doesn't say, oh, well, you're Italian,
25:07 I'm rejecting that or you're this,
25:09 I'm rejecting that.
25:10 He'll respect culture
25:12 but the culture has to be subservient
25:15 to the superior culture
25:17 which is Christian biblical culture.
25:18 No violation, no compromise
25:21 and your engagement in receiving individuals
25:23 are going out to minister to them.
25:25 So then expression of a culture is not in and of itself wrong,
25:31 it depends on what you're expressing
25:33 and how you're expressing it.
25:34 Exactly.
25:36 Things that are not conflicting with the Word of God,
25:38 things that are not conflicting with God's truth
25:41 and can be in harmony with God and His truth,
25:43 we are totally allowed to continue
25:45 to express those things without a problem,
25:48 but the things that we can see
25:49 that's encased within our culture
25:51 that we can go ahead and express and do whatever,
25:54 but we can look back and say,
25:55 hey, wait a minute as we search the Scriptures,
25:57 we see these things are countering and conflicting
25:59 with the Word of God.
26:01 These are the things that must be surrendered
26:03 to this superior culture which is called Christianity.
26:06 That is right.
26:07 This is the point of what Paul was bringing out
26:08 in 1 Corinthians 9
26:10 when Paul became like the Jew to win the Jew,
26:12 and these are the points that God wants us to understand
26:14 when we're going to come to those in hip-hop culture,
26:16 we're not going to use hip-hop necessarily to win those
26:20 that are in hip-hop and otherwise
26:22 we're going to be building on this thought real strong
26:24 because we've been setting a very profound foundation
26:27 as we get ready to bring some final points to a close,
26:30 so I'm excited about this and I hope you are too
26:33 and that you've been enjoying these points
26:35 that we've been studying together.
26:36 We're going to build on this even more
26:37 because we're going to bring some specifications
26:39 of particular expressions in hip-hop culture
26:43 that we're going to be able to look at
26:44 and let the Word of God be a guide to us.
26:47 So we want you to go ahead
26:49 and prepare your hearts for that
26:50 and continue to study
26:51 and invite a friend to come back
26:53 and take a look with us.
26:54 And until we meet again,
26:56 just remember those words of Proverbs 2:6
26:58 that tells us
27:00 it is the Lord that gives wisdom
27:02 and out of His mouth
27:03 comes knowledge and understanding.
27:06 God bless you.


Home

Revised 2017-04-03