You know it is the in the world of basketball the playoff seasons are going on and uh in basketball um there are different teams that when they win championships in successive years they have a term where they call them as dynasties and um growing up u I was watching the rise of the uh Chicago Bulls dynasty which was mainly um by the meteoric rise of Michael Jordan and um you know the Bulls captured six titles in eight seasons. Um they had a very special offense and then you have um one of the other respected so-called dynasties are the San Antonio Spurs. They reigned from 1999 to 2014. They won five titles over 15 years. They had a great coach. Um, Pops as he's called, Greg Pop Witch. Um, then we now have what, uh, we all get to experience in the Bay Area is the Warriors Dynasty, right? And though our friends down south would like to call themselves as also a dynasty, um, they only can do showtimes and not close to being a dynasty. But the thing about um the Chicago Bulls was uh unlike the San Antonio Spurs and there are a few in the East Coast, uh after Michael Jordan left, there was a huge culture shift and a change and they just plunged into mediocrity and they could never bounce back to the level of winning major titles. And that happens not just in sports teams but also especially here in Silicon Valley. Um when we look at tech companies there was one uh startup in 2010 was called we work u it it had a meteoric rise it had a fantastic culture and environment and went to be a$10 billion startup by uh the mid2010s and as they grew um they brought in so many employees and somewhere along the line the culture shifted um what Greer calls is as the mission drift that happened which then plunged the startup and they collapsed the IPO in 2019 and and the shares uh dropped uh in the last uh from 2021 to 2023 from close to $500 a share to 89 cents less than a dollar in two years. Same thing a mission drift that made the culture to change and this just doesn't happen. We see this you know from sports teams to tech companies. But what happens when a whole nation experiences a mission drift and when what fuels that for that nation and what can be the implications of that not just at the national level but also for families and and places of work and even in our own individual lives. That is what we are going to look at today in our sermon I have titled as covenant to chaos cultural drift parental rift and god's gracious gift. I love how they rhyme together. So let's begin by looking at cultural drift. You know the book of judges marks a new genre. God is doing something new in redemptive history. I will talk about that towards the end. But what happens is we read um in verses um 6 to 10 where it talks about how when Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. And then down in verse 10, it says, "And in all that generation also were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel." What we are witnessing is a huge cultural drift that's happening to the covenantal people of God and going through three eras. There are three eras that we see in these few verses. There was the era of Joshua the leader through whom Israel went and had some great victories. And in Joshua's era, everyone remembered who God was and what he had done. Then there was the era after Joshua died, which is the era of the elders who outlived Joshua. They also remembered what God had done in the past and God gave them victories. But then came the third era which is the next generation after the death of Joshua and after the death of all the elders who lived with Joshua who sadly did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Now what happens is when when this generation is now left by themselves, they suddenly find themselves in a culture that is very very different. And what happens to them is very very sad. from being a covenantal people who enjoyed God's blessings, obtained great victories, they are suddenly plunged into chaos where anywhere they turn, anything they touch doesn't work. In fact, God actually intentionally goes and frustrates and even works against them. And we have to dig a little deeper to understand how did this happen? Why did this happen? Why did this cultural drift happen? And we look at that. To understand that, you just have to go a few verses before in the previous chapter. And you see in the first chapter of Judges, Joshua describes what each tribe did when they went into the promised land. But there are six tribes that are mentioned. They have one phrase that keeps repeating and the phrase is they did not drive out the inhabitants. Verse 27, Manasse did not drive out the inhabitants. Verse 29, Ephraim did not drive out the inhabitants. Verse 30, Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kiron. Verse 31, Asher did not drive out the inhabitants. Verse 33, Nahali did not drive out the inhabitants. In verse 34, it goes worse. Rather than them not driving out the inhabitants, uh the Amorites drove Dan back into the hill country from the plains. You see, when half of the nation of Israel decide to do something different than what God wants them to do and they allow these other force uh other um cultures to plant themselves inside them and they use them as forced labor to begin with. very soon. It's only a matter of time before which the tables turn and the culture is now so very different. And now they have a choice. They have a culture they've inherited as God's covenant people. They see a culture that's emerging and bioning and blooming around them that is so different from the covenantal culture that they are expected to live. And now they have a choice of how to live in this culture. You know, I asked each of you a question of what was your biggest culture shock. I'll tell you mine. Might have told it before. You know, um my culture shock was not when I was moving from India to Germany or Germany to US or US to Singapore. My biggest culture shock was when I moved from where I grew up, Chennai to Bombay because the pace of life was incredibly crazy. When I first stood on a overbridgeidge and saw the trains and how people packed themselves in, which I think is still true today, I would just shake my hands. I will catch myself walking and I was the slowest person to walk. Everybody walks so fast. And that's a shock that we might experience not just when we move from one place to another or as immigrants into a country. You can experience the culture shock if you're someone who is in a middle school and you're going to a high school. All of a sudden there's a brand new culture. Or if you're someone who's in high school and you're going to college in a different city or a different place, you can experience culture shock. Or if you're someone who is moving from college to work, um you can experience the same culture shock especially when you see that the culture which is basically the way of life of people around you are so different than what you're used to or what you know. I want to digress a little bit um and talk about culture. Um, you know, Richard Neber wrote a classic book called Christ and Culture. And he talks about how Christians have five different views on culture. And as you as I explain to this, I want you to think about what you see is the culture of the place where you are right now. If you're a homemaker, you can ask yourself, what is the culture in my home from this perspective? If you're a parent, ask yourself, what is the culture that my children are being exposed to in their schools? Or if you're in a school, ask yourselves, what is the culture of everyone around me? Right? Or if you're someone at work, ask yourself, what's the work culture in my company? Or perhaps you moved from one company to the other and have experienced different cultures. So I'll just make it very short. Uh stay with me and follow this. It's very important so you can try to do a selfanalysis and reflection of yourself. So Neber calls five classes. The first class is Christ against culture which basically says culture is bad. So the response isolate, hunker down, get into your bubble, raise up your walls, demark yourself. Christ against culture. I'll ask you to repeat at the end. The second one is Christ of culture which basically says hey culture is actually very good. It's not as bad as what everybody's saying. So just blend in and integrate and syncretize Christ of culture. The third one is Christ above culture which says hey culture is something that has both good stuff and bad stuff. So you you just engage uh with the good stuff and u just try to enhance it. You know that's Christ about culture. Then there is a fourth paradigm which is Christ and culture are in a paradox where it says same thing culture is both good and bad. We agree most of these views agree. So just take in the good and leave the bad. Inhale the good, exhale the bad. And then there's the last uh paradigm which is Christ the transformer of culture which talks of how culture does have both good and bad as most views agree and it talks of how we have a responsibility to transform the bad through the power of Christ. So what are those five views? Christ against culture, Christ of culture, Christ above culture, Christ culture in paradox. So for me, all right, the first branches are always good. I'm impressed. Those are basically Richard's very helpful tools. You know, it's not the Bible or anything to make it that big, but it's a response to each of these that matters. So you all we all have one of these and we operate in this paradigm in all those different spheres of life. So how does the gospel how is it expected to transform us? You know for the Israelites what view did you think they took eventually that led this led to this cultural drift? Which word view do you think they embraced? the Christ of culture. Jesus, let's just blend in. Hey, it's not that bad. You know, I'll talk about that in a second. Um, we read that what happened to them in those places. You know, it says that they started serving the bales and the other gods of that place. Therein began the problem. It says in verse 12, "And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, they went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord." Verse 13, "And served the Baales and the Asharoth." You know the bael, it's a Hebrew name. It's not specifically talking about a particular god. When it is translated in popular culture, it's translated as master or lord or in a personal way even a husband. So it's basically someone or something who's very dear and has power over you. And in in in Canaanite religion, Baal was a god of weather because the weather was very important for agriculture for for for getting rich. If they wanted to make money that year, the weather gods had to be pleased. And the other god that they talk about, Asteroth, is a goddess of uh fertility. And it is very ironic or rather it's very interesting to see most of the oriental religions have the similar expressions. You know the the the idol for Baal is is is a monolithical stone that emerges from the ground. You have corolleries of that in Hinduism uh in India. It's called Lord Shiva. And there is always a fertility god or goddess who has uh in in archaeology they they say how this god this god or goddess uh is has a figure with exaggerated physical features uh more with an emphasis on sensuality and pleasure. So basically what these two gods were offering to the Canaanites was one was off offering prosperity and the other was offering pleasure. and it's a lowhanging fruit. So as soon as the Israelites go in these six out of 12 tribes, they did not remember or know who was making them prosperous. God who actually made them a nation, did all those powerful things and brought them around. They looked at the culture around them and said, "Hey, you want prosperity here? Here here is a God just easy. You can come and worship and he'll make you prosperous. You want pleasure? Hey, we have this God. Rather than finding their pleasure in the presence of God whom they had experienced all along since they did not know they had a culture drift and became a Christ of culture people. You know we may think that wow yeah that's terrible what happened to the Israelites. How could they do this? But you and I face the same challenge everywhere. We face the same challenge when we go to work. We face the same challenge in our schools. Our children face the same challenges in our schools. So how does Christ expect us to do? And and how do we respond? And and and I don't know what each of you hold. You know, some of us may want to hold to the Christ against culture principle. U I'm hoping none of us want to be a Christ of culture. We don't want to blend in. But sadly sometimes you're coerced or forced to just blend in. Can happen in a simple um Friday evening team meeting which involves heavy drinking and partying which is kind of the norm sometimes in Silicon Valley. And if you're not the one being part of it, you will probably be indirectly targeted, right? Uh happens in work culture. Same thing with school. You know, you could uh be u a validictorian in school, but then if you want to be famous, uh you're expected to do certain things or or have certain gadgets or devices or be in social media and have this many influential presence. Um and what do you do as a Christian? You could very much think I want to be against culture or I'm going to blend in, you know. So, and as parents, I'm going to talk more about that in a little later. How do you how do you run your family um in those situations? But here's something uh we could think about, you know, and and God calls us to be like covenant people in our workplaces uh or even as those who are going in schools to be the same. You know, if you're someone who has a Christ against culture mentality, uh there is a tendency to form Christian bubbles with just um close friends in your workplaces and you know have your uh 30 minute Sunday after I mean once a week um fellowship u but then you don't want to engage with the others. Well, God wants us to engage in others with grace and truth. Or or you could think in school, oh, I'm going to withdraw um and not engage. But we want to engage uh critically and biblically with every influence that is thrown at us. And and at work, if you're creating technology, we're not just talking about going to a place of work and living. Right now there is this disruptive technological breakthrough going on with AI um and and and big data and all of that. People are only more focused on on on the practical benefits of these technologies. But if you are a Christian in that space, you could be the only one to bring up the ethical significance of using those technologies. uh giving creators their fair share for example how do we integrate that which nobody cares. So these are very very practical implications for us uh as we are navigating this space especially here in the Bay Area. But how did this all began begin? To answer that question, we see that phrase. We have to zoom in on that phrase which talks about how this generation did not remember what the Lord had done. They did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And that brings us to our second point was a parental rift. They did not know who their God was. Somewhere along the way, there was a systemic failure in parenting. As parents, as God had just told them in the last book of Deuteronomy, we saw that where Moses told them, "Hey, you have to teach God's law. when you stand up, when you sit down, write it between your foreheads, have it in your hands, all of that stuff never got practiced in their homes. And it was sad that it just lasted one generation. And in the second generation, when parents did not parent the way God intended to parent, they lost it. They completely lost it. So for us today as we are living here in Silicon Valley, how do we deal with this? You know, first of all, what God does in response to this is something of a revelatory nature. Because he is a covenantal God, he still does not leave them. He wants to go after them. And this is what he does in verse 14. He says, "So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Wherever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm as the Lord had warned and as the Lord had sworn to them. and they were in terrible distress. Though hard to believe, here is another glimpse of God's covenantal love that is expressed through his anger. Anger, not all anger, but genuine godly anger always comes out of love. Especially those of you who are parents, you know this. When your children are doing something that is harmful, you do get upset. You know, several years ago, James Dobson and Focus on the Family came up with this book called Tough Love on Parenting Tips. He talked about how love has to be tough and not always soft by letting our children do whatever they want to do. You know, God's covenantal love is a tough love. You know, he cares for these people whom he has created. He wants to redeem them, but they would not listen because they did not even remember because they weren't taught what God had shown. And so the phrases are alarming. It says he gave them over to plunderers, sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, and they marched out. The hand of the Lord was against them. All these three things God did so that he can draw them back. that they may be stopped in their tracks and they may come back to him. It says the result was they were in terrible distress. You know those are situations sometimes God allows in our life when we encounter crisis after crisis because he's wanting us to come back to him as a covenantal father as a loving father and and when we are parents and we feel like maybe there is something uh is there anything I can do to help uh my children and I have some parenting applications for us based on how you view your culture around or how your children view their culture around them. It is true that this culture that we live is hostile to us. So at home instead of going hard on our children all the time and throwing a bunch of laws at them you know don't do this or don't do this it is essential to teach our children to have cultural discernment just like how we exe the Bible we teach them how to read the Bible we need to teach them how to read your culture because culture is never neutral and we need to help them and equip them and give them life skills to execute their life culture and not to be afraid but and and if our children are going to be facing this tendency of wanting to blend in and that is where our family devotions and God's word comes in of emphasizing the unchangeable truths of God's word that applies in all cultures at all times. Sadly, most of the times in parenting situations, we tend to bring our cultural baggage and impose that on our children than scriptural distinctives which are timeless and not culture bound. So one way to help children who are facing this in their environments in the world around them is you have a shot every day to bring God's word to them. And that's why I keep pounding it till you're going to hate me and I don't care if you do is read your scriptures for yourself first and men fathers be the spiritual head of your home. You have a golden opportunity every day to reinforce vital biblical principles that will help them in being able to execute their cultures better and to guard against blending in. and and also help our children as they wrestle with cultural tensions, especially if our cultures are different, and understand their world. what is their challenge? If it's screen time or performance pressure or peer pressure, you can speak into those and bring the gospel to bear on that one onone with your children. And lastly, as a family, you can model to your children of creating a family culture that reflects God's kingdom. Culture is more caught than taught. And when your children see you who are displaying a culture of hospitality, grace, service, stewardship, I can guarantee you if you're a parent who who does that, absolutely your children will do that. They don't even have to be taught. And these are some very practical ways in which you can avoid the parental drift that has h had happened to the Israelites. Now, how that works in each one of your homes is something you have to dig in and flesh out. But you see, God is now trying to intervene because they just embrace the um blending culture and synchretatized and he allows all these things that creates distress. But here is where you see another aspect of God's covenantal love. He does just leave them there with their enemies pillaging them and attacking them. And he's not a killjoy who is looking at their suffering and being joyful. But he intervenes. We read that and we move to our final point. God's gracious gift. And that's what this this is the next three verses are like a summary of the whole book of Judges. It says in verse 16, "Then the Lord raised up judges who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they wared after other gods, and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so." Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. You know what is so beautiful about this passage? Something you can miss when you're not reading between the lines. It doesn't say here, oh, and the Israelites now repented and then God gave them judges. No, it says God pied them by their groaning because of their oppression. as a father, as he's watching these covenantal people go in a path that is self-destructive, he he he shows some tough love and throws all these things and yet when they feel the weight and pain and and and they cry out in pain, just pain, they're still not saying, "We messed up. We're sorry. We're turning around." He shows compassion and love and he gives them a judge. There's no mention of repentance. Verse 16. And yet what they still do, the proof of that there was no repentance is in verse 17. It says, "Still they wared after other gods and bow down to them." You know, this reveals our human heart's tendency not just for Israel as a covenant people, even for you and me as covenant people. Left to ourselves, we always drift back. We get carried back because of the principle of sin that is at work in us. And the and the reason they do this is not just inside their nature drawing them. It's also very affordable and visible and accessible the alternatives. And so the vicious cycle of covenantal obedience to chaos or chaotic disobedience continues. until God gives them a judge and shows grace till the judge was there because of this judge he gives them a ruler. So you see if we just zoom out now as we are looking at this series as a walk through the Bible what are we understanding about God? What is God trying to show as we moving from Genesis uh to Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua and now Judges? A a theme is beginning to emerge here, isn't it? The theme that is emerging here is God is saying you need someone who is like you but who is better than you. He's a better version of us who will lead us back to God. That is the role the judges filled. You know, we have several judges, but there are few that stand out. If you read to the rest of the book of judges, you have Gideon, you have Deborah, you have um the Barack, the judge who worked with her. There are other judges who really failed or not that successful. But there are these three good judges and among these three one and Samson of course is the dubious one. There was very something very remarkable about these judges that God gave them. All of them had certain things that in a human fashion we all can relate to. They were like us. They were just like you and me in some ways. And we are also expected to be like them in some ways. Gideon, it says he was from the weakest clan among all the clans. And we can all relate to that. Uh you know we've seen this theme also repetitive. God is not always picking the greatest and mightiest and ordinary guy. But he was a hardworking guy. You know he was threshing wheat secretly. That is a job that is usually taken by 12 oxen. What 12 oxes do? Gideon was just killing it by himself. And he says he was a great mighty man of valor. And that's the other worldly aspect that we see of him. And then we look at Deborah, an ordinary person say she's the wife of Lapidoth. We don't even know who that guy Lapidoth is. He's not a famous dude. You know the top 10 people in the Bible. You probably won't find anything. He kind of becomes a reluctant judge because the judge Barak who she tells the rule a role of the judge was also to fight for the Israelites and he's hesitant to fight. She has a prophetic gift. So there is something that is like us and then there is something that is a a little supernatural godlike in all of them. And then we see Samson and what is Samson like? He's a guy who just falls all the time like you and me. We fail and we fall. But also when he is spiritfilled, oh he does things inhuman even more than what Superman could do. So all these judges, God graciously gives them. And as long as the judges whether he blesses them were people who had some superhuman god-like characteristics and some human characteristics like you and me. So God is now introducing to them that they always need someone who can lead them to him. A new theme emergent in the Bible by by themselves they will only fall and fail. And that's where the theme is coming out clearly you know in the progressive historic redemptive arc that we are tracing that God is introducing us through real world people. what characteristics this new mediator or servant of the Lord is as he's called needs to have. And that's an ultimate act of God's grace. This this emerging person, the mediator person that's slowly coming up, bubbling up, is someone, it says, who has to be a strong mighty man of valor like Gideon, who needs to have a prophetic office like Deborah, who is spiritfilled from the womb like Samson, who can overthrow great and mighty powers. You see where this is heading? This trajectory, this progressive arc just keeps shining brighter and brighter and brighter. We know where it goes, isn't it? And that's what God is showing in history. You know in Genesis as a creator theme of creating everything from nothing and as a redeemer establishing covenants to win back his people and the rest of the pentatuk it's about how God chooses one man Abraham makes a nation out of him a people he wants to call his own he did not have to choose Abraham you know it's a question that people ask why does God only choose some people and not the others um every time a president of the United States. His term ends, they get to use what is called as the presidential pardon. And the presidential pardon is where the president randomly or in some form or fashion chooses to pardon people who are in prison. Now, can the people who didn't get pardoned by the president say, "Why did you not pick me, president?" Well, all of them were criminals. The president has no need to choose anybody but out of his gracious happiness. I don't want to go into the political side of it. There are big big debates around how it is being used or misused. But God does. He picks Abraham, a guy who was a pagan worshipper, creates a nation out of him. In Deuteronomy to Exodus to Deuteronomy, he shows to them and to the whole world how powerful he is, how mighty he is, shows his holiness. and he shows them how to live life. And then after Deuteronomy and and and and from these books he he tells them, "Hey, there I'm giving you Moses." But then after Moses, he gives them Joshua. And as long as they have this mediator person, this ruler, this leader, he blesses that nation, positively and negatively, too. It's it's like building up a suspense plot. God is slowly revealing how he operates. And you know, if we have to bring it down to earth, to your life and my life, it is on the one hand encouraging to see that you and I will fail. You and I will fall every day, every time by ourself. It is impossible for anyone to live that perfect life. And but we all you and I need someone who understands us, someone who is like us, someone who will get us. You know, one of the things um in grief recovery, you know, as we were dealing with grief over the past several years since CO, we were using different resources. One thing that came out is grief is so unique. You know you you can never go and tell someone who is in grief, I know what you're feeling. No, you don't. Everyone's grief is so unique. But it is true. If you have gone through the exact same grief, if you have lost your brother and you know someone who has lost their brother and those two people meet, man, that connection is powerful. They don't even have to speak a lot. You just know how that feels. So you see we need we know we need to have someone who knows why we do what we do, why we fail, why we fall, how fragile we are. But that alone is not enough. That person also needs to have this other superhuman capacities. He needs to get us. He needs to have powers like Gideon's valor, Deborah's prophecy to know what's going to come. and Samson's supernatural spiritful strength through which he could destroy the powers and principalities. We know where this leads us to, isn't it? These judges could only part-time help the Israelites cuz once the judge died, they went back. But God has given us someone who is better than Joshua, better than Deborah, better than Samson, better than Gideon, and that is Jesus. He gets us. Jesus Christ gets us. He's one like us. He's 100% human as we read in our catechism question today. Go and reread it in the light of this and it will light up for you beautifully. But he's also 100% man and he's 100% God. Has all the divine characteristics in him. He had all these combined characteristics that these judges displayed in bits and pieces in small parts. And because of these this Christ as our mediator gives us hope. God shows grace and mercy to you and me. Just like he showed grace and mercy to the nation of Israel through the judges, he shows grace and mercy to you and me in Christ and through Christ. And he didn't do it or doesn't do it because we we are we're perfect or holy. It says even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He died for the ungodly. You know, I recently uh learned um diving because I love water. I love ocean. I love being under the water. And there you have to have a device when you get into diving. The first time I got it on, it's called the BCD buoyancy control device. It has two regulators through which you breathe. And I was intrigued why I just need only one regulator which is attached to my attached to the tank. Why do I have two? and and one is painted yellow and the other is just painted gray. And then we had an instructor and he was explaining to us, hey, when you're down in the dark, deep ocean pit and when you run out of oxygen, you will have your instructor and when you sign to him that you don't have any more oxygen, that really is the sign underwater because you cannot see. the instructor will look at you and he will say I am coming to you to give you oxygen. And as we went down as a team, it did happen. One of us had our oxygen levels very low in the regulator and and that one of us was me and the instructor came to me and uh and he and he asked my you know they'll tap and you have to tell them what's the pressure and he looked at me and this is what he said and you know the feeling I got he said uh he asked me to tell and I said I'm done I'm dead I have no more oxygen you know and he said I'm going to come I'm going to let you breathe. So take this. And he took his yellow lifegiving, it's called a secondary regulator, put it in my mouth and helped me to come down from the pit all the way up till I could see sunlight. That is what Jesus does when you and I run out of spiritual oxygen and we can't breathe and and our life only takes us deeper and deeper down into the pits of deep dark ocean and more darker than that. When we cry out to God and say, "God, I need help." He sends his son who breathes. He literally gives his spirit to breathe new life in us and brings us up because he is he gives us that divine power. 2 Peter once says God he's divine power has granted to us all things pertaining to life and godliness. And you know with that what God wants us to do he doesn't just want us to be in any of these five categories. You know, Christ against culture or off culture or above culture or paradoxed with culture or transform culture. He wants us to create culture. You know, Andy Crouch has this fascinating book called Culture Making. I'd recommend you to read. It's it's a beautiful book. He defines culture and he says we don't have to always have this different disposition to culture. God wants us to create culture. And that's what Romans 12:2 talks about. It says, "Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." You know, the word renewing of your mind is called metamorphosis. And that's one of my favorite words in the Bible. And those of you who have been part of the disciplehip program know early on was called metamorpho. This was the inspiration. Says, as as the Holy Spirit, we have this new air breathing into our spiritual lungs. As he breathes his new life, he wants us to have a renewed mind with which we create good culture. And this culture that we create in our homes, in our workplaces, is going to be part of the new heaven and the new earth that is going to happen when Christ comes again. You know, most people think in esquetology or end times, new heaven and new earth is just going to be tada. Some magical god is going to be wand and it's just going to descend from uh heaven like you watch in science fiction movies. The new heavens and new earth are just the heavens and the earth glorified in its form. And and if you read in Isaiah, it is going to have within with it goods that are created for the glory of God. it will have the culture we create. So as parents can raise your kids by telling and reminding them of who God is and what God expects them to do and how his power alone can help them to create a different culture. They can create a Christian culture that is attractive in their schools. And you can create a culture that is attractive to your colleagues in your work just not just by your presence but also by the products you build. Now this is a I'll close with this quote uh by Andy Crouch says it is not enough to condemn culture nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture or to copy culture. Most of the time we just consume culture. But the only way to change culture is to create culture. For too long Christians have had an insufficient view of culture and have waged misguided culture wars. But we must reclaim the cultural mandate to be creative cultivators that God designed us to be. Culture is what we make of the world. both in creating cultural artifacts as well as in making sense of the world around us. And listen to this last line. Simple but elegant and spectacular and beautiful. Says by making chairs and omelets, languages and laws we participate in the good work of culture making. And that is what Christ is calling you and me to do my dear friends. So as we leave this morning, I want to encourage you to reflect on this and and ask God to show you what culture are you going to create that is so attractive to the world around that the world wants it and God can be glorified. Shall we pray?