Written by Grant R. Castleberry |
Sunday, October 3, 2021
We must make every effort to serve transcendently. By this I mean that we must be God-centered. Our ultimate goal is His honor. Our greatest work is to obey Him. Our ultimate joy is to know Him. We might serve under hostile authorities, but our greatest authority is our kind and merciful Father. 

Increasingly, in a post-Christian world, Christians will serve in positions of influence under leaders who outright reject the Christian faith. Though our culture rejects the Lord Jesus, I believe that God will continue to providentially place Christians in positions of influence. The question that we all must be able to answer is, What is the Christian strategy for work in a post-Christian world? Let me offer three principles that form a biblical strategy for serving under hostile authorities.

Serve Virtuously
First, we must strive to serve virtuously. The Apostle Paul makes a fascinating statement at the end of his list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:23. He says, “Against such things there is no law.” In other words, virtue is not contraband. No society, regardless of its immorality and godlessness, has banned the greatest of all virtues: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (vv. 22–23). In a world dead-set on moral decadence, Christians possess both the spiritual ability and the moral mandate to display true godliness. In many instances, we will be the only Bible people will ever read. So, our lives must attest to the holy God we worship. As Jesus commands us, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). In Luke’s gospel, John the Baptist is asked by some new disciples how they can continue serving in their current secular positions:
Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” (3:12–14)
It is telling that John the Baptist’s imperatives are all moral. His disciples were not to resign their positions. Rather, they were to serve virtuously.

Christian education rests on the assumption that every person is made in the image of God, created by God for a purpose, called by God to live in the world He created, and specifically called to live for Christ in this cultural moment. Christian education equips and prepares students to understand reality and to live with the clarity, confidence, and courage they need to face the challenges of this broken world.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, since the start of the pandemic, more than 1.5 million students have left traditional public schooling. Parents and students, it seems, are looking for something different.
Many parents and students are looking elsewhere because students struggled to learn online or have even fallen behind. Others feel helpless to respond to how school districts and states have handled, and sometimes mishandled, the pandemic. Others are worried about their students learning bad habits with technology, or suffering from loneliness and despair.
And many parents have finally seen what their students are actually being taught. During the pandemic, various forms of anti-Americanism, sexual indoctrinations, and critical theory, that are being passed in the name of education, have streamed into homes through online Zoom classrooms. Many parents realized, some for the first time, that their students weren’t learning what the parents thought they were learning. As one former college professor noted, if you haven’t been in education in the past three years, it’s almost unrecognizable to what you experienced growing up.
All of which has led to incredible growth in the number of homeschooling families and record enrollments for virtually every Christian school I know.
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Holiness is the substance of which happiness is the product. If we chase happiness by pursuing self-gratification we miss it. However, if we pursue holiness through the grace of Christ, happiness of spirit comes unasked. This is joy and it is our strength to continue in the journey, cleaving fast unto Christ and unto those promises which God hath made us for his sake which is our wisdom.

1 Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. 2 For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. 8 So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you. 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 (NASB) 
Holiness is commanded by God. He wills it. Our Lord Jesus Christ requires it and the Word of God calls for it. The goal of our redemption is that we become Holy as God is Holy. Our Lord died on the cross in order that all of His people would be justified. This justification is God’s declaration that we are righteous having Christ’s righteousness imputed to our account. This had to come first in order that we may be sanctified and made Holy.
“To be a saint means to be separated. But it means more than that. The saint also is to be involved in a vital process of sanctification. We are to be purified daily in the growing pursuit of holiness. If we are justified, we must also be sanctified.
Luther used a wonderful Latin phrase to describe the status of the justified sinner: simul justus et peccator. Let’s look at the phrase a word at a time to discern its meaning for us. Simul is the Latin word from which our English word simultaneous is derived; it means “at one and the same time.” Justus is the Latin from which our word just comes, and et is the Latin word for “and.” The word peccator is probably least familiar to us. We derive the English words impeccable and peccadillo from it. It is the Latin word for “sinner.” Putting the words together, we get simul justus et peccator: “at the same time just and sinner.” That is what saints are, people who are at one and the same time just, yet sinful.
That saints are still sinners is obvious. How then can they be just? Saints are just because they have been justified. In and of themselves they are not just. they are made just in God’s sight by the righteousness of Christ. This is what justification by faith is about.
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As with so many of our favorite hymns, “The Love of God” was born in adversity. Frederick Lehman (1868–1953), who wrote the hymn with his daughter, had experienced the failure of his once-profitable business, which left him packing crates of oranges and lemons in Pasadena, California, to make ends meet. Again and again throughout history, deep and enduring trials seem to have a strange and beautiful way of swelling the waves of worship.

You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. (Psalm 40:5)
As with so many of our favorite hymns, “The Love of God” was born in adversity. Frederick Lehman (1868–1953), who wrote the hymn with his daughter, had experienced the failure of his once-profitable business, which left him packing crates of oranges and lemons in Pasadena, California, to make ends meet. Again and again throughout history, deep and enduring trials seem to have a strange and beautiful way of swelling the waves of worship.
Perhaps the most memorable lines in the hymn, however, were not Lehman’s, but words someone had found scribbled on the walls of an insane asylum a couple hundred years earlier, words that had been passed along to Lehman and held profound meaning for him.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,And were the skies of parchment made;Were every tree on earth a quill,And every man a scribe by trade;To write the love of God aboveWould drain the ocean dry,Nor could the scroll contain the whole,Though stretched from sky to sky.
The lyrics, it turns out, were a translation of an old Aramaic poem (now almost a thousand years old). And while no one knows the name of the insane asylum patient, the circumstances of his suffering, or how he came across the poem, the lines sparkle with surprising clarity, hope, and, well, sanity. A kind of spiritual sanity that often eludes us.
More Than Can Be Told
That Lehman treasured the lyrics is hardly surprising. Living just a handful of miles from the Pacific Ocean, he would have known, with acute awareness, the roaring vastness of the sea, the tall and swaying elegance of palm trees, and the bursts and hues of California sunsets. Day by day, he held the brilliant orangeness of its oranges and smelled the lively tartness of its lemons. The ocean, the trees, the sky, the earth were enormous and familiar friends of his — and yet each so small next to the love he had come to know in Christ.
When Lehman looked at the sky, he saw a hint of something wider still.
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And with that I fear there is a bigger problem. The problem is that the church—or, at the very least, those who profess to be a part of it—is neglecting the spiritual benefits of the locally gathered body.
Grow in Knowledge
The primary function of the local church is the shepherding of God’s people. One of the most important ways God’s people are led is by the preaching and teaching of his Word. Simply put, if you neglect the local church, you in turn neglect the opportunity to grow “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18).
Many Christians don’t fully understand the necessity of the local church. Because of this, they are neglecting to get back into church and are therefore fumbling the opportunity to grow more in Christ. Can a Christian grow in knowledge outside of the local church? Of course, but we lose a vital instrument of our growth when we neglect the body of believers God intends to place around us.
Part of this may reveal we never truly appreciated the local church in the first place. But it also shows we don’t think we need the church.
I can listen to sermons online, some may say. Why do I need to go to a church building when I can pull up my favorite preacher on YouTube?
I’m glad you asked.
Sanctification is a Community Project
Friends, we will not grow into the Christians God intends us to be if we neglect the means he intends to use, that is, if we neglect vibrant participation in a local church. Period. Our sanctification does not happen in a vacuum. Our sanctification is a community project.

It’s possible your greatest need in prayer is not to know more about it, but rather to know how to use the most foundational and comprehensive tool given to us in Scripture. As with any tool, its purpose is found not by focusing on the tool, but rather on setting our eyes on our praiseworthy Father, King, Provider, Pardoner, and Protector—and to shape our lives by his sovereign rule and care.

The reason there are so many books on prayer is that even after reading them, we still struggle to pray. Some reasons are intellectual—we don’t know how or why to pray in a particular situation. Some are volitional—our hearts are distracted or apathetic. Still other reasons are due to lacking proper practical tools.
As I’ve pondered how to grow in prayer, one simple solution has stood out as a versatile tool for overcoming our struggles: the Lord’s Prayer. This should come as no surprise, since this is the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray (Matt. 6:9–13).
Here’s how the Lord’s Prayer helps us overcome six common prayer struggles.
1. We forget why prayer matters.
Perhaps the most foundational reason we struggle to pray is that we forget prayer’s purpose. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us. We pray in order to glorify our heavenly Father. We pray in order to unify our hearts with his kingdom vision for the world and to align ourselves with his will. We pray for provision, pardon, and protection from the evil that comes from both inside and outside us.
2. We aren’t sure God hears us.
This suspicion leads many to neglect prayer, which is the only guaranteed way for God not to hear our prayers. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that we pray to God our Father. A good father hears the cries and requests of his children. God, our perfect Father, always hears us and always answers us in his way and his timing (not always in the way we want, however).
3. We don’t know what to pray.
Sometimes believers don’t know what to pray, or they pray the same thing over and over and stop praying due to the monotony. The Lord’s Prayer gives us a Spirit-inspired path for knowing what to say in prayer. You might take a general approach to saying the Lord’s Prayer, using its petitions as a template and filling them in with specific praises and requests.
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