Jesus prayed the following words, in the presence of his disciples, before his sacrificial death:  “While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and  not one of them has been lost except  the son of destruction,  that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.  I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world,  just as I am not of the world.  I  do not ask that you  take them out of the world, but that you  keep them from  the evil one.  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  Sanctify them  in the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.  And  for their sake  I consecrate myself,  that they also  may be sanctified  in truth.”  -John 17:11-19 (ESV)

This prayer of Jesus forces us to consider the relationship between Christ and culture.  How is the Church to preach Christ and to live as Christ followers among the different times and peoples of the earth?  Jesus instructs the Church that she is to be in the world,  and not of the world, but for the world.  

Last week, we spoke of the incarnation of Christ.  Jesus came into the world and dwelt among us (John 1:14).  This grand and supreme condescending of God into the world proves the role of the Church being in the world like Christ was upon the earth (Philip. 2:5ff).  He came into the world from heaven, so we must go into the world as his followers unto heaven.  Our only struggle in being in the world, is becoming just like the world, both in its thinking and rebellion against God.   We are often like that frog, which is placed in pot of water set to boil on a stove.  As the frog, we never sense the gradual change in the water temperature until its too late- we are boiled! The same is true for Christians who forget they are not be of the world.  They are to be the salt of the earth, a people who preserve the world from it own self-destruction. Recall the words of Jesus,  “You are the salt of the earth,  but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.  In others words, Christians who become like the world, will be consumed by the world.  

In this generation, Christians want to be cool, accepted, and influential.  We want to get in and fit in with the world.  But Jesus reminds the church that she will not just be disliked, she will be hated. You could say, we cannot have the world and Jesus too.  We are called to love the world as Jesus loved the world, and be hated for it (John 3:16). For this kind of love is pure, righteous, and undefiled, because it comes from the heavenly Father.  John reminds us of our struggle when he wrote in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  

At Christ Covenant, we are regularly seeking to ask the following questions:  Who are we as a people? What kind of place is Hernando and DeSoto County?   What kinds of programs will best serve the people of Hernando?  These are all questions which are concerned with incarnational ministry.  Christ Covenant seeks to be in the world, so that we may have joy fulfilled in us by the Lord Jesus Christ (Jn. 17:13).

 We will consider this prayer of Christ for the Church over the next couple of weeks.

Here is a book review on topic for further consideration:
 
http://exiledpreacher.blogspot.com/2009/03/christ-and-culture-revisited-by-d.html
 

Here is a good and sound article about our need for Christ in the Church and in the World

http://www.the-highway.com/articleSept03.html