Pastor Gail – Announcements and Reading the Word
1. It’s Really cheap. You can’t even hardly buy souvlaki anymore and fries. But 13 Euros and we’re going to be able to go to Acro-Corinth where the fortress is overlooking all of the valley, so you’ve got to come. You don’t want to miss it. And the fourth thing, Mateus, the team isn’t all here.
2. You’re welcome. Friday night, it will be an evening of praise, where the youth will gather. But the people that are a little older than 25, we could come and dance, too. It’s going to be a wonderful praise God. Just really quickly, Eric, if you’ll hit the slide for the men’s breakfast really quickly, and the announcements are on the board.
3. Next, on Saturday the 25th, men, you have breakfast together, yay! And while the men are having breakfast, ladies, we’re going to be here for coffee time. All right. We’re not going to let the men beat us out. No, no, no.
4. So, we praise the Lord. Okay. Praise God. We want to receive our tithes and offering for the Lord. What a privilege. It’s so exciting to do these things together with the body of Christ. I will ask the Stavros to pray for our offering today. Thank you. Receiving the offering is a time of worship. And as we give our offering today, I’d like us to take a moment just to look at the Word of God. There’s a Bible on the back of your chair if you’d like one. Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10:23-25. Hebrews is towards the back of the Bible. “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” Verse 24. “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good works.” And 25. “Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. But let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching.” Lord, we’re here to worship you. We’re here to worship you.
5. You may be seated. We’re getting ready for the Word. You may find this strange, but when we were singing ‘All creation worships You,’ I thought about my devotion very, very early this morning. Reading in Revelation where it talks about, ‘The lion shall lie down with the lamb and the snake, the adder won’t bite.’
6. I think I’ve read this for years, but let me look a little closer. For those of us that love animals, all creation worships him. And the general belief is that we will become vegetarians again, like in the garden, because the animals will love us so much and we’ll love them so much. I like that we’ll all be friends in that New Heaven and New Earth where all creation worships him. We’ll not want to eat meat; we’ll want to pet the meat too.
7. What the things God has prepared for us. We cannot begin to imagine or understand His ways are holy, He’s worthy of all our praise. He is God and we praise Him. We praise Him. Amen. Hallelujah. He is holy. Amen. Pastor Brian, praise God. It’s so good to be in the presence of the Lord today.
 
Pastor Brian Main Message
8. Lord, we just come to you now with your time in the Word. We truly pray that you would make this your time. That Lord, anything that goes from this pulpit, Lord, that it would be ordained by you. Lord, I pray that you give us hearts and ears to hear. I pray that you give us soft soil in our spirits. Lord, I pray that those of our family who are not here today, that Lord, you would touch them with the spirit of what we do here today. Holy Spirit, we ask that you speak to us because we need to hear from you and only from you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
9. You’ll have to forgive my voice today. It was getting bad yesterday, and then this morning when I woke up, it seemed fine, and now it’s starting to leave me again, but we’ll try to make this work. If you can stand the sound of my voice, I can stand you. How’s that? Go ahead to the first slide.
10. We’re going to be talking today about Christian living versus cultural relevance. I’m going to apologize ahead of time. Leto sent me a few corrections in some spellings and stuff for the Greek, and I didn’t have time to get it in there. But I think most of it’s good. We just had a couple of corrections, so Greeks overlooked that a little bit.
11. Every generation faces the same question. Should the church shape the culture, or should culture shape the church? It’s a profound question, and it’s one that a lot of people are struggling with today.
12. The word relevance has taken on particular meanings. We have to be relevant to the culture. We have to be relevant to the people we’re trying to reach. And that’s a good word, until we take it too far. And what’s happening in a lot of the church world today, and we see it through all of the things that are unfolding in the news over the past couple of years, and we see too many believers, and therefore too many churches, because we remember churches are not buildings or programs, the church is people.
13. And when we start becoming too close to the culture in improper ways, that means that the church is coming too close in improper ways. We all know that the forms through which we communicate change. We’re doing things today to try to communicate I would have never thought of twenty years ago.
14. So, methods change, but the message that those methods are taking never changes. The message of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, does not change. The church is called to be culturally aware, but biblically anchored. Tell your neighbor, biblically anchored. We’re to be compassionate but uncompromised. And we’re supposed to be spirit-led rather than opinion-driven.
15. And Jesus Christ perfectly demonstrated this balance. He walked among ordinary people. He attended weddings. He ate in the home of tax collectors. He touched lepers, and he welcomed people who were rejected by society. Jesus understood the culture in which he lived. But he never allowed that culture to determine truth. When he was confronted with the sin of people. He always extended grace while also saying, go now and leave your life of sin.
16. In our old language, go and sin no more. Jesus was accessible without becoming acceptable to the world’s standards. Let me say that again. Jesus was accessible to anybody. Prostitutes, vulgar people, Pharisees, hypocrites, everybody had access to him. But he never became acceptable to the world’s standards.
17. The Apostle Paul provides another powerful example. When he arrived into the city of Athens, he observed all of the city’s idols. And he even quoted the Greek prophets. You can read it in Acts 17. Paul was careful to understand the thinking of his audience. But he refused to dilute the Gospel.
18. He brought in all kinds of elements of their culture, but then he used that to declare a pure truth. When we take groups down to the Acropolis, and to the Areopagus, and we stand and we look up at those magnificent structures, and this huge temple, the Parthenon. It was built so specially that using the same tools and materials, we couldn’t do it today.
19. We don’t know how they sculptured such a magnificent thing. All of this huge area on the Acropolis that was built by the hands of slaves. And chiseled to be perfect by the best artisans from the empire. Yet, Paul points their attention to all of these things. And he doesn’t just preach against stuff, he uses the things they understand.
20. But then he hits them with the truth. God does not live, in buildings made by human hands. Nor does he have need of us to do anything. Paul became all things to all people. 1 Corinthians 9:22. In his methods he became all things to all people. But he remained unwavering in his message.
21. Throughout history, culture has continually changed. Philosophies rise and fall. Political systems come and go. Social values are constantly refined. I’m standing in this pulpit today in shirt and slacks. Twenty years ago, I had to be in a suit and tie. Culture has changed. If I’d come to church in shorts when I was a young person, the deacon would have escorted me right out the door. Times have changed. Pastor Gail asks that you only don’t come in a bathing suit.
22. Modesty is a good thing. Values change. What one generation celebrates; another one often rejects. Every older generation thinks the music of the young generation is corrupt. Forgetting that their parents thought the same of them, yet God’s truth remains constant.
23. Hebrews 13:8. You know the verse. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” And he is the good news. He is the Gospel. So, we can replace, the good news, the Gospel, is the same yesterday, today and forever. The authority of Scripture is not subject to public opinion.
24. We do not get to vote on what parts of this are right and what parts of them are wrong. The authority of Scripture is not subject to cultural trends.
25. One of the phrases that hurts my ears the most makes my spirit cringe. It’s okay, everybody is doing it now. And that means what? If it’s right, it’s right, OK. If it’s wrong, it doesn’t matter if everybody in the world is doing it. It’s still wrong. And God’s Word, by the way, doesn’t need any updating because it proceeds from the very mouth of God.
26. One of the greatest dangers facing the modern church is confusing relevance with acceptance. We can be relevant without accepting everything that is done around us. A church can become popular by softening biblical convictions. We can become popular by softening, by toning down biblical convictions.
27. We can become more popular by avoiding difficult truths. We can become more popular by redefining sin to match society’s preferences. Let me make sure everybody is following me here.
28. We can be more popular. Angelo, if we look at sin and say it’s okay, it’s not really sin, that’s just a little mistake. Don’t worry about that. If we tone it down, people are far more comfortable. If we tone it down, people are far more accepting.
29. But when you dare to stand on the truth of the Gospel, the Bible warned us up front. It will become an offense to some people. People will be offended when truth is guarded. But popularity is not the measure of faithfulness.
30. Think of the early church. At the very beginning, we have a wonderful Scripture in the book of Acts. It says, oh, they were meeting in the synagogues every day for prayer. And they were going house to house and breaking bread. And they were taking care of the needs of one another. And the Bible then says, and they found favor in the sight of everyone.
31. You know how long that lasted? Just long enough for them to all be driven out of the city. It was popular until the apostles stood in the courts of the temple and preached repentance to the people. It was popular until they stood before the government and preached the Gospel.
32. And as soon as those things started happening, persecution started, and pretty soon they were spreading out all over the empire. Sometimes we have a very naive vision of what the early church was. They were anything but culturally accepted. They were misunderstood. They were persecuted. They were often marginalized.
33. But still, because they preached Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel spread throughout the entire empire. And yet today, most churches can’t even get the Gospel out to three blocks within their church. They spread to the whole known world.
34. I’m just trying to get to a Ellinico. So, from the perspective of a living faith, say living faith. That’s not religion. That’s not doctrine. Those things are included. We have this saying, we say, I’m not religious, I’m a Christian. Nonsense. I say it sometimes, too, when I want people to realize I’m not trying to just be religious.
35. But I will guarantee you I practice religion. Or I wouldn’t be here every Sunday at 9 a.m. I wouldn’t be singing worship songs. I wouldn’t be reading Bible Scriptures. I wouldn’t be preaching or listening to preaching if I wasn’t religious. I’ve got religion. I’ve got that old-time religion, they say, deep in my soul. I practice religion.
36. But I am not religious. I’m not simply a label. I am not just a Christian. But I am a born-again person with a living faith. And from the perspective of living faith, true relevance doesn’t come through marketing techniques. We’re not going to have a good enough brand to get people into heaven. And don’t get me wrong, I want to have a good brand. I want the church to look good. I want to have a nice logo. I want to put it on lots of nice materials for people. Billy, I want to have a good brand.
37. But we are not going to brand anybody into heaven. No matter how good we are at marketing or at entertainment. Which sometimes is what we fall prey to. We become victims of it. Sometimes we find ourselves listening and enjoying the great worship band instead of participating. That’s just entertainment.
38. If Pastor Gail and I had the perfect building, we would always do church with seats all the way around. Put the stage in the middle. Because then people have to see each other. And not just stare at the person who is leading worship or preaching the sermon. If you spend more time looking at the back of somebody’s head than you do looking up.
39. I have a friend who is a Coptic Orthodox priest. He said something interesting to me. He said, have you ever noticed that we do our liturgy facing the altar? And he said, you know why we do that? It’s to show that the focus is on God, not on the person delivering whatever it is.
40. What an interesting concept. Now they may take it a little far in terms of where the presence of God actually is or isn’t at a given point in time. But there’s something to be said for non-spectator participation. It helps usher the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
41. On the day of Pentecost, people from many nations heard the wonderful words of God in their own language. The Spirit made the message understandable, but did not change the content. The miracle is not when the Gospel becomes culturally fashionable. The miracle comes when God’s eternal truth reaches the heart in a language they can understand.
42. If we went through the streets of Athens, we could find many different kinds of groups of people. And they may all speak the same common language in terms of Greek. But even within that, they’re going to have a language all their own. You’re probably going to communicate to people in Exarchia differently than to people in Marusi.
43. You’re going to speak to politicians differently than to business people. Making the Gospel understandable is admirable. But changing the message is unacceptable. This remains our calling today. Somehow, and I haven’t found the key yet, but somehow, we have to learn to speak the language of our generation.
44. And by the way, we’re doing away with this old generation, young generation, blah, blah, blah. If you’re still breathing, this is your generation. And we have to learn to speak the language. I’m sure if I went out with Manoli’s friends, I probably wouldn’t understand 30% of what they say. Even if they said it in the King’s English. And if I wanted to reach them, I’d have to learn the language.
45. But the message does not change. Victor hangs out with musicians. I got a lot of musician friends. They speak a strange language. And to reach them, I’d have to know it. Football players. I’m watching the World Cup. It’s a different kind of thing. I’m so sad that Norway lost last night. So, for all you UK people, it’s a sin to gloat.
46. We need to learn the language. We need to learn how to use modern technology. We need to be able to engage with new and contemporary questions. We have to learn how to show compassion to people who genuinely struggle. And we have to learn to genuinely love people from every background.
47. But take note of this. Love without truth becomes sentimentality. But truth without love becomes harsh legalism. We are not called to be all mushy-gushy about people. But we’re also not called to push them away. The Bible says, speak the truth. But speak the truth in love. The Holy Spirit empowers us to hold both of those things together. And it’s hard sometimes. I have some very, very, very good friends that live very immoral lifestyles. And often still call themselves believers.
48. And over time I’m learning how to hold truth and love together in the same place. How can I genuinely love this person without compromising what I know to be true?
49. We all know it from Matthew 5. The Church is called to be salt and light. Salt gives flavor and preservation. Light gives the ability to see. We are to be both of those. Light exposes darkness. And it provides direction. Neither salt nor light accomplish its purpose when it becomes impossible to separate them from what it is they touch.
50. If they are the same as what surrounds them, then they have no purpose. In the same way believers influence society not by blending into it, but by displaying lives that are transformed through the power of Jesus Christ.
51. There is no unbeliever around you. If you’re going to carry a message of salvation, they don’t want to see you as just like them. They want you to be relatable. But they’re not going to be attracted to anything if you’re just in the same place that they are.
52. Believers are destined to suffer the same things that unbelievers do. We’re going to experience sickness. Some of us are going to experience financial problems, even devastation. Some of us are going to experience family problems and even divorce. Some of us are going to have jobs that make us miserable.
53. Some of us are going to have neighbors that make us miserable. Some of us are going to have pastors that make us miserable. I wasn’t talking about Pastor Gail. We live in the same world. So, people want us to be relatable in that way. But if we’re going to call people to Christ, they have to see something different in us. That becomes attractive to them. So, I experience the same things, but I do not experience them in the same ways. Fernando was diagnosed with some real problems health-wise. And he could panic. He could get depressed. Be scared.
54. And not that those things don’t creep in sometimes. But I watched him face it with faith. With belief. With even a joy. In knowing that he was going to be healed by the Lord somehow, someday.
55. We face the same things, but not in the same way. Our world desperately needs authenticity. This world has heard countless opinions. And it still is yearning for truth. We’ve experienced temporary solutions. But people need eternal hope. The world has embraced tolerance. But tolerance is not peace. You hear me? We can tolerate something. But that doesn’t bring any conclusion.
56. And the Scripture says, but we have this ministry of reconciliation. We’re supposed to bring people back to God and back to one another. The answer is not for the church to become more like the world. But it is for the church to be more like Christ. Let’s read it again. The answer is not for the church, the people, to become more like the world. It is for the church to become more like Christ.
57. And on this path called life, at times those two roads are going to become very far apart. Sometimes they’ll reconverge, but they’re guaranteed to split ways again because the spirit of this world is not our friend. The spirit of this world has no design for you to be successful unless what you think success, will separate you from God.
58. I’m always amazed when people look at somebody who has experienced great blessings and they say, Oh, God’s hands is on them. Be careful. It might just be a trap. How do I know? Because we’ve all known people who were in the altar week after week after week when it was bad.
59. And when it got good, they could not be found. If it will separate you from God, the devil will help you succeed. If it will separate you from God, he will help you look good. If it will separate you from God, he will make you popular. He’ll give you a name. He’ll lift you up until he’s grabbed your spirit and then he’ll drop you like a brick.
60. The Holy Spirit still convicts hearts. He still changes lives. He still heals broken people. He still empowers people to stand faithfully. As the Psalmist said, through all generations. So as the church, the people, we must remain rooted in Scripture.
61. We must be dependent on the Holy Spirit. And we must be able to offer the world something that it can’t manufacture by itself. We have to be committed to be faithful to the whole counsel of God.
62. We can embrace new opportunities and we can embrace them in new ways. But we must never surrender the purity of the Gospel. Don’t you ever tell somebody, come to Jesus. He’ll give you a better life. Don’t just say, come to Jesus and you’ll find purpose. Come to Jesus and he’ll wash all your cares away.
63. He might. Probably not. That’s not the Gospel. Jesus is a better way. Is not the Gospel. Jesus is the way. The truth. The Life, and no man comes to the Father except through him. This is Gospel. Will he bless you? Yes, he will. Sometimes in ways you expect and sometimes in ways you don’t. Sometimes he has taken things away from me and that was the blessing.
64. Our greatest relevance is found not in reflecting the culture. But in revealing Christ. The world around us, the culture we live in, does not need a church that echoes their own voice. It needs a compassionate church. It needs a caring church. But it needs a church anointed by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the eternal Word of God. And that is true Biblical relevance.
65. Guard your lives in Christ Jesus. Don’t just try to slide closer to the people around you. It’s always been one of my greatest disappointments. That I have more often seen unbelievers draw believers away from the Lord, than I have seen believers draw people toward Christ. Around the world more people disappear from churches, than come to them through the people they’re a part of.
66. I don’t know what the statistics would be in Greece, but I was reading some things about North America, a couple of weeks ago, and it was a poll that was done with people who were regular church attenders, and it started getting my attention, because they defined regular church attenders as people that go to church at least two times a month.
67. And of that group of people, less than 2 out of 10, less than 20%, had invited anybody to church in a year or more. I wonder what the statistic would be to how many people stopped going to church because of the influence of their friends.
68. The church is losing the relationship battle, because we’re striving too hard to be relevant. True Biblical relevance, is bringing the truth to the world. That’s your call. That’s my call. That’s our call. Can God’s people say Amen? Would you just bow your heads?

Pastor Gail – Closeout
69. Lord, we thank You. You are always the same.