Free Because We Are Called to Counter Culture by David Platt Page A

square to make a statement on poverty, sex trafficking, or the orphan crisis, that leader will gladly, boldly, and clearly share his or her convictions. However, if you ask the same Christian leader in the same public setting to make a statement on homosexuality or abortion,that leader will respond with either nervous hesitancy or virtual heresy, if he or she responds at all. “That’s not the issue I’m concerned with,” the leader might say. “My focus is on this other issue, and that’s what I want to speak about.”
    The practical effect of this is evident across the contemporary Christian landscape. All sorts of younger evangelicals write blogs, take pictures, send tweets, and attend conferences where they fight to alleviate poverty and end slavery. Other evangelicals care for foster children in the United States and adopt orphans from around the world. Many of these efforts are good, and we should continue in them. What is problematic, however, is when these same evangelicals stay silent in conversations about more culturally controversial issues like abortion or so-called same-sex marriage. Those issues are not my concern, they think. I’m more comfortable talking about other issues.
    But what if Christ commands us to make these issues our concern? And what if Christ’s call in our lives is not to comfort in our culture? What if Christ in us actually compels us to counter our culture? Not to quietly sit and watch evolving cultural trends and not to subtly shift our views amid changing cultural tides, but to courageously share and show our convictions through what we say and how we live, even (or especially) when these convictions contradict the popular positions of our day. And to do all of this not with conceited minds or calloused hearts, but with the humble compassion of Christ on constant display in everything we say and do.
    Isn’t this, after all, the essence of what it means to follow Christ in the first place? “If anyone would come after me, let him denyhimself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Talk about countercultural. In a world where everything revolves around yourself   —protect yourself, promote yourself, comfort yourself, and take care of yourself   —Jesus says, “Crucify yourself. Put aside all self-preservation in order to live for God’s glorification, no matter what that means for you in the culture around you.”
    And isn’t this, after all, the main issue in any culture? Maybe better stated, isn’t he the main issue in any culture? What if the main issue in our culture today is not poverty or sex trafficking, homosexuality or abortion? What if the main issue is Go d ? And what might happen if we made him our focus instead? In a world marked by sex slavery and sexual immorality, the abandonment of children and the murder of children, racism and persecution, the needs of the poor and the neglect of the widow, how would we act ifwe fixed our gaze on the holiness, love, goodness, truth, justice, authority, and mercy of God revealed in the gospel?
    These are the questions driving me, and I invite you to explore them with me. I don’t by any means claim to know all the answers. But I’ve got this sense that if we take an honest look at our lives, our families, and our churches, we may realize that much of our supposed social justice is actually a selective social injustice. We may recognize that what we thought were separate social issues are in fact all intimately connected to our understanding of who God is and what God is doing in the world. In the process, we may find that the same heart of God that moves us to war against sex trafficking also moves us to war against sexual immorality. We may discover that the same gospel that compels us to combat poverty also compels us to defend marriage. And in the end, we may resolveto rearrange our lives, families, and churches around a more consistent, Christ-compelled, countercultural response to the most pressing