Before reading this article, read Daniel 1-2.
The first two chapters of Daniel teach us a lot about how we can live differently in a culture that may be hostile to our faith. In the midst of a national crisis with an angry, irrational king, Daniel sought the Lord and stood in the gap for the people of God. Daniel was deeply God-centered and was able to shine in the midst of a life-or-death situation. He dared to believe with dependent faith.
What can we learn from these two chapters and the lives of Daniel and his three friends? How should we think about our own culture? How do we preserve the integrity of the gospel without retreating from our culture?
Let me give you a few suggestions about what we need to believe in order to do this. We must be daring.
1. Dare to believe that God is in control.
The Bible is very clear that God is the one who “changes times and seasons . . . He removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:21). This truth means that you can rest knowing that God controls who owns your company, who moves in next door, who becomes your boss, which employees report to you, who will fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, and who will be our next president. God is never out of control. He is always working.
Therefore, Christians ought to be the most calm, faith-filled, and joyful people on the planet, regardless of our circumstances.
2. Dare to resolve to live a godly life.
The Bible calls us to be a people who are marked by godliness and good works. 1 Peter 2:11-12 says, “I urge you as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh . . . keep your conduct honorable among the Gentiles.”
Each of us has to work this out differently before the Lord. Are there areas of your life marked by resolve, where you have to abstain from the passions of your flesh? Or have you just allowed the thinking, affections, and way of the culture to shape you? Is there anything unique about your life that would mark you as a genuine follower of Jesus?
3. Dare to be wise and tactful.
The message of the gospel has often been hindered because of how God’s people were unwise, foolish, or unprepared for critical moments when they were called to give an answer or to speak on behalf of the body of Christ. Pray and prepare—be wise and tactful.
Pray that God would give you wisdom to know which battles to fight, where to draw the line, and how to be gracious and kind in what you say and do. Our culture needs to see winsome and gracious conviction on the part of God’s people.
4. Dare to be a person of gospel influence.
Why has God placed you where you are? What situations or circumstances do you find yourself in? What seat at which table have you been given? What crisis has God allowed you to witness?
Don’t miss the opportunity to embrace the divinely given opportunity to share the gospel, provide your input, or give wise and biblical counsel. And then, strive and pray for favor so that you might continue to have even more influence while keeping your pride in check.
5. Dare to be an engaged alien.
The gospel message, that Jesus died for our sins, is strange to the world. What is amazing grace to us is incredibly strange to them. To live according to the morality of the Bible and allow the teachings of Scripture to define our thinking in the 21st century is odd to many. And yet, that should not make us retreat, dig a moat around our homes, or be silent. We are strangers and aliens, and yet we are called to be engaged. Our mission is to go into the world and herald the good news.
Russell Moore tells the story of engaging in a conversation with a woman who had never before talked with a person who truly believed in heterosexual marriage and sexual expression as being reserved only for those in marriage. After her shock wore off regarding his belief in a biblical morality and after she stopped laughing at his views, she said “Seriously, do you know how strange this sounds to me?” And to that response, Moore said, “Yes, I do. It sounds strange to me too. But what you should know is, we believe even stranger things than that. We believe a previously dead man is going to show up in the sky, on a horse.”[1] The gospel and its ethic has always been strange to the world, but that does not let us off the hook of engaging.
Let us dare to believe. Let us dare to live differently.
[1] Russell Moore, Onward – Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel, (Nashville: B&H Books, 2015)
