Engage Culture | Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell | Forward City Church Dang, I feel the spirit of God. Family, yesterday when my team and I arrived and I went up to my hotel room, I do the same thing. Every time I get into a hotel room, I kneel at the bed. I pray that God would consecrate the room because I don't know who was in there banging the night before. So, I always kneel down at the bed and I pray for God to saturate the room in his presence. And I pray for him to consecrate the room so it won't be no demons trying to roam around me while I'm in there every time. And as I was praying, I heard noise coming out the window. And I slipped over to the window. And when I peakedked out the window, I saw hundreds of people on the street corner across the street from the hotel. And they were packed on the sidewalk around a building that looked like a club. And there was lights in the building. And I can see through the window people dancing and drinking and enjoying themselves. And outside was hundreds of kids all over the place, no older than 20s, 30s, everywhere packed onto that corner. And as I was staring at them, man, tears began to fall from my eyes as I thought to myself, man, if the trumpet blow tonight, how many of them are going to be eternally lost forever? And my heart was broken for them. And I got down on my knees and I be to cry out, "Oh God, I pray you would save those men and women that are standing at that club. I pray they would be troubled inside that club. I pray they would come out and feel discontented in that club." Man, I was crying out for them. >> And as I'm crying out for them and I'm staring at all their faces, I'm thinking, man, they represent so many of the people in our lives. They represent your mothers and your fathers that are not saved and your brothers and friends that are not saved and family members that are not saved. And I'm wondering how many of us man are engaging the culture with prayers for Lord to save these unsaved loved ones in my family. And as I'm staring at them, man, they reminded me of the mass of humanity in our nation that are far away from God and should be engaged by the church. For Jesus gave the church as the answer to the problem of all this craziness in our nation and people are far away. The angels ain't coming down to do that work. The Lord gave the church to the world that we would pray, we would serve, we would spread the gospel, we would plant. He gave the church to do that mission. But all around the country, we don't see the church heavily involved in the great commission, heavily involved in the gospel. We don't see the church heavily involved in the work of Christ. Why? Because the church is battling a serious identity crisis. >> We see the same thing happening right now in the world. Never in my whole life of 40some years being in this earth have I ever seen a generation battling with such crippling identity crisis. Right now as I'm talking to you all across social media we see people having cultural wars around words like what is a male >> and what is a female and what are your pronouns and what is a Christian. We're arguing about whether or not a man can give birth to a baby. What kind of nonsense is this? ((applause)) We see people all around society that's confused about their identity, arguing about what are they, who are they all in our society, people wrestling with the identity. We see people calling themselves Christians and they have no semblance of Christianity in their life. We see athletes calling themselves Christians and rappers calling themselves Christians and influencers calling themselves Christians, but they don't look nothing like the Christ they claim they serve. That's why God gave you a hotter title than just Christian. It's why Jesus called you disciples. >> Cuz they carry crosses. >> Because they sacrifice. Because they're trying to be like the one who saved them. >> It's easy to take the title Christian. It's another thing to take the title disciple. >> Yes, sir. >> And right now as I'm talking to you, man, not only is there identity crisis in society, but even more tragic, there is an identity crisis in the church. >> That's why instead of spreading the gospel and being about this business of our father, instead what we're spreading, we're busy about apathy. We're spreading the gospel of nonsense. We're spreading the gospel of antics. We are doing foolishness in our church. The church is losing influence right now because we are not about our father's business. >> Right? And this is very important. Watch because functionality follows identity. However you see yourself in the mirror is how you're going to perform in life. Your activities follow how you see yourself. And so when a person knows the identity, you see that in the way that they conduct themselves in life. It's like the one you call Lord. Jesus said, watch Jesus said, "I am the bread of life." identity. So he fed multitudes food functionality. God >> Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd identity." So he leads people into the kingdom functionality. >> Come on, man. ((applause)) Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life." So he raised people from the dead. >> Because Christ knew his identity, we see his lifestyle following his identity. >> Because functionality follows identity. >> Now look at me carefully. in the world outside of the kingdom. You can choose whatever identity you want and you can behave any way you want. But if you call yourself a follower of Christ inside the kingdom, your identity has already been chosen for you. Come on. >> And the only question you need to answer today is will you accept that identity and would your life look any different after you understand who God has truly called you to be? So Jesus said this about your identity in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 13. The Lord said this. He said, "You are the salt of the earth. >> But if the salt has lost its taste, how shall it saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet." Stop, man. This is a pregnant verse. We're going to give birth to like five babies out of this verse. The Lord first starts. He says, I want to draw your attention. He says, "You are the salt of the earth." Notice he did not say, "You will be." >> He did not say, "I will make you the salt of the earth." He's talking to all his followers and he says, "You are the salt of the earth." That is right now. If you're saved, sitting in his chair, you are the salt of the earth. Though he gives you an identity, you are salt. >> If you're 15 and saved, you are salt. If you're 19 and saved, you are salt. You're in your 40s and saved, you are salt, man. If you're 84 and still breathing, you are salt. >> He says you are the salt of the earth. Right now, as I'm talking to you, this is your identity. You are salt. Now when you hear that in America, you don't get excited cuz when you hear salt, your only thing you think about is seasoning for a steak. But to understand the significance of what Christ was saying, you got to understand the context in which he said this. >> It's like I kept a journal for 20 years. I've been writing in a journal. And if you go back and read my journal 15 years ago, you will read stories like my poverty. You will hear me talking about my kids with holes in their shoes. You'll hear me talking about food stamps and wick and government cheese and government milk. You will hear me talking about extreme struggles because that's what I was going through at that time. If you read my journal, you would not understand my words if you did not understand in which context in which I wrote that. In the same way, for you to understand the significance of what Christ is saying, you need to understand the context in which he said this. The Lord said this in the first century AD. And in the first century AD, the world could not imagine society without salt. Salt in the first century was one of the most valuable commodities in the world. Salt was so valuable that people paid themselves wages in salt long before there was a check. If you worked a week, they'll pay you wages in salt. Salt was so valuable, they used it for covenants and contracts. So if you want to sign a contract, put salt in one man's hand, salt in the other man's hand, shake hands, deal sealed. But that was not the highest use of salt in the first century. Listen to me. The highest use of salt in the first century was not just for seasoning. It was not just for contracts. It was not just for wages. The highest use of salt in the first century was to act as a preservative because they did not have refrigerators in the first century. Listen to me. That is if you did not want something to die, you would pack it with salt. >> If you did not want meat to die, you would pack it with salt. That is any place you want to keep away from decay, you would pack that thing with salt. So if you wanted something to stay alive, you would pack it with salt. ((applause)) The Lord says to you right now, you are the salt of the earth. The presupposition of the text is that the text assumes that there is decay in the earth >> and that things are dying in the earth and that the Lord's answer to that decay is the church of Jesus Christ. >> So we live in an hour where values are decaying. >> The definition of marriage is decaying. The family is decaying and the Lord looks out on broken society and his response is to pack society with the salt of the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. >> Listen that for all of the hatred against the American church, man. I be some of these atheists, they be like, "Oh, we don't like the church." Really? Let God remove the church from the earth. I bet you they they live in a world they don't want nothing to do with that world without the church. It's only the prayers of the saints that's keeping the full force of evil from destroying the whole church. So wherever there is decay, the Lord responds to that decay by packing it in with the brothers and sisters. >> So if you are the soul of the earth, man, the Lord is calling you watch to keep back decay to not allow the values of the kingdom to die in your spheres of influence. This is you watch keeping back decay in your marriage. This is you keeping back the K in the hearts of your teenagers. This is you keeping back the Kay, man, when you go to the job or when you go on the campus or when you're in the locker room. This is you keeping back the Kay on social media. This is why I was praying for all those people outside the window because I saw a decay across the street and immediately I began to pray against that decay. This is what the Lord is calling you and I to do. The Lord is calling you and I to care about the decay in society. This is a wife being tired of a crazy husband and pouring oil on his forehead at night while he's sleeping and laying hands on him and saying, "Lord, save this man. Make him a godly leader. Make him a godly father." This is you believing for your spouse. This is me at nighttime going into my children's bedroom and laying hands on their head and saying, "Lord, get a hold of my children. Save my daughter. Lord, save my son. This is me going after my son when he was being led astray by a demonic force through his phone on YouTube. And this is me going into his bedroom night, pouring oil on him and laying hands on him, said, "Devil, this one does not belong to you." Come on now. This is me fighting Satan for my own son and saying, "You can't creep into my house through his phone." This is me taking territory over his life. Yeah. >> Some of the things you'll be complaining about, the Lord has called you to kick back the K in that area. >> See, and when you understand your identity as salt, my brothers and sisters, it'll change the way that you pray. It'll change the way that you live. It'll change the way that you show up at the job. It'll change the way that you show up at the campus, man. Instead of begging God all the time for the things that you want that are materialistic, man, you'll be kneeling in your prayer closet and saying, "Lord, your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This will be fathers fighting for their homes and mothers fighting for their children and us fighting to push back the values of the kingdom to keep them solid in the earth. This is us men pushing back the K in our politics, in social media, on the job. This is us not allowing the things to die. The Lord has planted you in certain places for you to push back that decay. >> You looking for Travis to do that or you looking for Philip to do that. Man, you are anointed. You are chosen. You are called. Your prayers have power. >> This is you caring about the people you love who are far away from God and you crying out to them to be brought into the kingdom before time has run out for them. This is you driving around Colombia and seeing the brokenness of this city and caring about what's happening in this city. >> This is me walking through Walmart and man all thinking about all these people in our four that going to burn in hell. And I'm walking down the aisle just saying Lord save everybody in this building and rescue them to this is me being a missionary wherever I am. Yeah. >> This is you caring about the things in society that are decaying and that are falling apart and you stepping into that to do something about it. >> The Lord said, "You are the salt of the earth. >> You are the one I placed there to make a difference. You are the one I placed there to pray. You are the one I placed there to fight." This is us caring about the things around us that the devil's trying to take from us and us fighting to get that territory back. >> You are the salt of the earth. This is part of your identity. He didn't say you will be the salt. He says you are the salt right now. >> He said, "But if the salt loses its taste, how should the thing be salted again or be restored?" Now, when we read that, it sounds crazy to me because we know that salt can't lose its saltiness. But in the first century AD, when it didn't have the chemicals to keep the salt pure, sometimes in an attempt to make the salt more powerful, they will mix the salt with other substances thinking it will make the salt more strong. And anytime salt mixed with impure substances and would lose its saltiness, they would take the stalk and throw it out the window on the floor. God This is the Lord saying to my children, if you keep mixing with all this impure substances, >> if you keep mixing with all of these impurities, you lose your saltiness. What is your saltiness? It is your Christian influence. >> It is your Christian witness. And he says, man, if you keep mixing with all these impurities, man, you lose your influence. This is why you can't be posting pictures of you in a club on Saturday and then posting pictures of you in church on Sunday. >> You got people watching you >> and then you want to come and talk to them about Jesus on Tuesday. They're not going to listen to anything you have to say because you're losing your influence with them. See, most of these people don't have an issue with God. They got an issue with the people that represent him. >> Come on, man. >> They think the church is a joke because we act that way. >> That's why the church is a clown in every movie that you see. We are the butt of the jokes of society because they don't take us serious because, man, we don't take the gospel and the word of God serious. ((applause)) See, you care about likes, you care about status, you care about money, you care about fame, you care about platforms, but we don't care enough about our Christian witness. >> You don't care enough about what your lifestyle says to the people that are watching you. And the Lord says, if you lose your Christian influence, he says, man, you you'll go to heaven. you you'll make it to glory, but you won't be useful to me down here. >> We got all these people. You you're praying for God for a platform, but you won't put your face on an altar. >> It's like, yo, you you want to be anointed, but we don't want to pay a price for that. Why does everybody want to have a microphone, but you don't have a prayer life? ((applause)) And what the Lord wants us to do, man, is care about our Christian witness in society. He wants you to be salty so he can use you in every sphere of influence. >> So you be jealous of everybody who the Lord is using. You think that they are like superior to you, but you're jealous of people who care about their Christian witness. And I'm telling you, my brothers and sisters in this room, please hear me. Some of you, you'll be struggling. What is God calling me to do? You're struggling with your purpose. There's so much identity crisis in this room. I I feel brokenness in this room. And I'm telling you right now, if you would just see your identity as salt. If you would see yourself as someone valuable, man, it would change the way you see yourself, it'll change the way you move. It'll change the way you pray. It'll change the way you feel, man. You can have brokenness and still be salty. You can have issues from your past and still be salty. You got things you're not a proud of and still be salty. Yo, I I I I'm I'm a ninja, but I'm salty. >> I came out those streets, but I'm salty. I got some things in my past I'm not proud of, but I'm salty. I made a lot of mistakes, but I'm salty. I got some things I'm not proud of, but I'm salty. ((applause)) ((applause)) It's like, why is this the only thing you care about? God, >> why why why is the only thing you care about is just the Sunday morning service? >> I I you you come into rooms like this and you check off the box and then you have nothing to do with the kingdom from Monday through Saturday. The Lord can't get you to pray. He can't get you to cry. He can't get you to care about the people around you. He can't open your eyes to see the times that we live in in man. If the world is going to see change, the church has to be made alive. Man, I pray for some of y'all that the Lord would give you a hatred for sin and a hatred for the things that's happened in society. I I'm done, man. Man, I I I pray for some of y'all that the Lord would give you a hatred for the things you like. I want you to hate the fact that we see people mocking Christ on social media. >> We got transvestite pastors in the pull pit. >> We got men in the pool pit preaching the doctrine of inclusion that say you can live anywhere you want and everybody's going to heaven. That is a doctrine of a demon that's going to send people to hell. We see people on Tik Tok be mocking Christ >> and dancing on the cross. Why you not mad? >> Why are you not angry? >> Why do you see what's happening to the church in America and you don't care? Why is this enough for you? ((applause)) >> How are we going to engage a culture when you don't know who you are? See, I got insecurities, but I show up in a room like salt. >> And I'm not tall, but I show up around tall people like I'm salt. >> And I walk the streets at night like I'm salt. And I post on my social media like I'm salt. >> And I take authority in my prayer room like I'm salt. >> I attack everything the devil is attacking around me like I'm salt. I punch the devil in his face from my prayer closet like I'm salt. I take my mind when it's heavy and I bury it in the word of God like I'm salt. I'll be ringing out sin from my heart like I'm salt. >> I'll walk through the airport like I'm salt. >> I'll walk the streets of Colombia like I'm salt. >> I show up in every environment like I do have the authority to do something about what's happening in that environment. shedding tears and being broken and caring about what's happening in America. >> You said, "Lord, use me. How could he when you don't know who you are, >> man? There's women in here. You so desperate for love. You think you have to be naked on social media for somebody to tell you they love you. You don't even understand that you're salt. >> You don't even understand how valuable you are. You don't even understand how beautiful virtue is. Virtue is beautiful. Purity is beautiful. Holiness is beautiful. Knowing who you are in Christ is beautiful. ((applause)) Somebody say amen. Have your family crazy. Pray them into the kingdom. >> No, listen to me. I'm No, I'm serious. No, not these little now lay me down to sleep. No, Lord. I pray you punch them in their soul. >> I pray you strip them of false peace. I pray you take out of their life everything that's blinding them from seeing you. I pray you bring them to their knees where they have nothing left to do but cry out and say, "Lord, forgive me of my sins." That's how you pray when you know your salt. >> There's people in here, you got wayward teenagers, man. You pray over them like your salt. >> We keep back the Kay. We keep things from dying. We fight for our marriages. We fight for our children. We fight for the values of the kingdom. We fight for the word of God. We fight for holiness. We fight for purity. But the Lord ain't stopped there. He said, "You are the light of the world." a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. >> He's talking in the first century AD where on the countryside is pitch black and you will see cities like Jerusalem up on a hill lit up with nightlights and candles and it cannot be hidden in the dark that wherever you saw that city you know there was light in the distance. The text presupposes that the world that we live in is dark. It is spiritually dark. It is morally dark. It is virtually dark. And the light in this dark world is sitting in these chairs. It is you and I are the lights in these dark world. That for some people, the only Jesus they going to see is in your life. ((applause)) >> And I want to remind you, you have no virtue of your own. That we are only moons. We are a reflection of the sun, the s o n. >> And for some of you, hear me, man. Everything in your life will change when you accept your identity. >> I'm telling you, things in your life will change when you embrace the fact that you are salt and light. It'll change the way you think about yourself. >> It'll change the way that you show up. It'll change the way that you serve. It'll change the way that you give. It'll change the way that you do everything. If you admire anything about me, it's because I have a prayer life that's stronger than my preaching life. And then I walk into every environment like I am salt and like I am light. Some of you, man, you got to be tired of a whack, lame, dry, dead Christianity. >> I'm telling you, on the other side of a full surrender, man, is a life you would never imagine. power and authority and anointing. You'll hear God more clearly. You won't think you need a prophet to tell you something because you have a prayer life for yourself. No, I'm I'm telling you, especially all y'all that look like me, man, I hate this in culture. You worship prophets because you think you can't hear from God for yourself. ((music playing)) ((applause)) >> You be so desperate to get a word. So anybody with the title prophet, you make them a god in your mind, not knowing you can open this Bible and hear Christ for yourself. You can kneel down and hear Christ for yourself. ((applause)) And I'm not saying they don't have real prophets. I'm saying I think the rise of false prophets is a punishment from God on our nation. Because sometimes the way God punishes you is not beating you down but giving you all of what you want more than him. ((applause)) >> It's why he said, "Let your light shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven." And right now I want to pray over everyone under the sound of my voice. Gosh. >> Hey family, it's Pastor Jim. I pray that this message you just heard impacted your life forever. That's our desire. And not only you, but that you would share it with a friend, a family member, anyone that God puts on your heart that this word would affect, would change them, too. Hey, also while you're at it, head over to our YouTube, become a subscriber, hit that bell notification so that you are notified every time we upload something new. And Meg, we have some good stuff coming to you. Hey, at Ford City, we don't dismiss. We simply declare, "Your past is gone. Your future awaits.