The mission statement of my church, Christian Cultural Center in New York City, is
kristos kai kosmos, which means Christ and culture. Not counter-culture, not above culture, not anti-culture. It is the conviction that the presence of God has the power to transform human society although the world that we live in is so often anti-God.
Our society has no concept of the true and living God because they have not experienced the specific revelation of God which can only come through Jesus Christ. General revelation is God revealing Himself through creation, but specific revelation is God incarnating Himself within the context of human society.
The Bible speaks of the four areas of man: the natural man, the unlearned man, the carnal man and the spiritual man.
The box above is what I've called the discipleship matrix. The progression begins with the natural man, who is often the atheistic materialist that doesn't believe in God. Conversion moves him from the natural into the unlearned, as he becomes a believer in Christ. At this stage, he has not been taught the Word of God and has yet to know about the wisdom and character of God. The objective is to take him from the unlearned into the spiritual. But there is a potential detour when the believer—who knows the Word, wisdom, character of God—does not progress into spiritual maturity and continues to live a life of carnality. He is a carnal man.
Just because a person is born again, he will not know God in depth. He must now be taught the Word, wisdom and character of God which will make him a spiritual man. However, if our behavior is not consistent with our knowledge, we get stuck at the first stage and stop experiencing growth, development and the kingdom of God that Jesus wants us to have.
SPECIFIC REVELATION VERSUS GENERAL REVELATION
The discipleship matrix also applies to a society who has no concept of the true and living God because they have yet to experience the revelation of God—the specific, special revelation that can only come through Jesus Christ. While man is constantly exposed to the general revelation of God through His creation, God's ultimate desire is to move us into specific revelation.
Specificity is the basis for cooperation. The more specific you are, the more cooperation you will get from those you are trying to relate to. So God could not solicit the total cooperation of man as long as he only has a general revelation of Him. But once God gives a specific revelation of Himself to man, He could then begin to place greater demands upon human society.
For example, if you are a leader and you have a pool of staff members, the more specific you are with your staff in terms of what you want them to do, the more empowered they are to do it. But if you are general with your instruction, then you leave it open to them for interpretation. Ultimately, they will not do what you have in mind. And when there is a problem, you cannot get upset with them as you were too general when you should have been specific.
If you have a vision that you cannot clearly articulate, no one will support it. That's why the prophet said, "Write the vision and make it plain, so that he who reads it may run with it" (Hab. 2:2). You cannot run with something that you cannot read. It is not enough to receive a vision from God, you must have the ability to articulate that vision in a specific way. Remember, specificity is the basis for cooperation. Generalities always degenerate into venalities.
That is true in leadership, and that is also true with God. Israel was chosen by God to be a people through whom He would reveal Himself to the rest of the world. But they struggled in that relationship because they only saw Him as the cloud by day and as the pillar of fire by night. Their revelation of God was cloaked in mystery. God was present, but He was also hidden from them.
In the fullness of time, Jesus came as God incarnate. The cloud and the fire were removed and He stepped from the hidden and said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father" (John 14:9). Because of Jesus Christ, the Church has now become the primary agent to reveal God to the world. But the problem arises because the Church doesn't know how to do that. If the agency that was designed to reveal God doesn't know how to do it, then it leaves the natural man to come up with his own ideas. Up to this point, we in the body of Christ have not really done a good job in representing Jesus. The Church must now re-present Jesus to the whole world.
God's vision to present Himself to the world through His people remains the same, but His methods have changed. And vision always determines method. Method does not determine vision. When methods determine the vision, you will be stuck in dead tradition. You will be dead and yet not know it.
PROSPERING IN CAPTIVITY
In Jeremiah 29, there is a very familiar passage which says, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope" (29:11). Many of us quote this verse without looking at the context of the entire chapter of what Israel was facing at that time. The Jews were in captivity in Babylon. Not only was God telling Israel that He was giving them a future, He was telling them that He was giving them a future filled with great hope. Israel was to be a model of the people of God in captivity. A model for us throughout the ages to learn from.
There are two ways we can look at the future: with apprehension or anticipation. When we face the future with apprehension, it is because we are dominated by fear. When we face the future with anticipation, it is because we have been empowered by faith.
God had to tell Israel that He was giving them a future, something that they could look forward to which was not in the far distance. He was speaking into the context of where they were at—in captivity in the Babylonian empire, in a society that was diametrically opposed to what they believed in. Bight in the middle of their captivity, God said to them, "I know the thoughts that I think toward you. I am going to do you good, not evil. I'm going to give you a future. I'm going to give you hope."
Too often, we think we need to escape Babylon in order for God to work in us, but that is not true. God will work and demonstrate His power, wisdom and purposes in us in spite of our environment. The more important thing is what God is doing in the society through His people. We may be in captivity, in a culture that is anti-God, and still thrive and flourish.
So why should we sit around, cry, feel isolated and hopeless? We don't have to wait for the rapture to happen because today, we can experience the dynamic presence of God. This is where God is needed the most—in our contemporary society and culture. Not in the future, not in the past, but right here right now.
