Cultural Identity Part 2

Pastor Kerry Wilson

 Cultural Identity Part 2
• “Culture” has been determined as the second
most difficult word in the English language to
define. The first most difficult word to define
is “nature”. Of course this is not my
conclusion, because my English is horrible and
I am not a linguist.
• I want to be definitive in what we are
teaching and not be lost in the ambiguity of
linguistics.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• Using terms like “culture war”, “disintegration
of culture” can be confusing. Every culture is
made up or from ideas, values and
presuppositions which indicates how
important culture really is. Then we must
know that laws are the most dramatic ways
that any culture is expressed and enforced.
• Which came first, The chicken or the egg ?
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• The answer is the chicken, and through the
natural course of what chickens do and who
they are, they lay eggs. This is a natural
phenomena of God’s creation. Then what
becomes a “cultural phenomena” is what we
do with those eggs. Some people fry them,
some eat them raw, some poach them, some
scramble them, some eat them hard boiled,
we use them for recipes and the list goes on.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
This is what defines culture in the most simplistic
way. It is what a person is doing with what God
has given us.
When God created Adam, He put everything in
place by way of differentiation so that Adam
could do something that would impact God’s
creation. God gave him dominion or made him
the ruler over this garden or parcel of land. God
gave him light, water, soil but then gave him the
commandment to dress and keep it.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• God put all these things in place but Adam had to
create the garden. He was made responsible for
making something of what God had given him. Adam
did not create from “ex-nihilo” or create from nothing
to something but he did create something from what
God had given him.
• The point of this sermon will be what are we doing
with what God has given us. Has this world’s culture so
permeated the Church that we no longer accept or
assume the responsibility for what God has given us
and more tragic is what have we done with it?
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• If we are going to re-shape or change the world in
which we live, we have to make eggs our way in
this world. The first principle has to do with “who
we are”, or our identity. Genesis 1.26a “ And God
said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness:” Genesis 1.27 says this, “ So God
created man in his own image, in the image of
God created he him; male and female created he
them. “
• And the end result of this creation was’ Genesis
1.31b “ it was very good”.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• In our renewed mind and in the transforming of
our minds from this system we now have the
mind of Christ. We think like God thinks, now one
of the problems is a familiar term in this
generation. Identity Theft, it is a relevant term,
Satan, the thief has come to steal your identity,
kill your ability to cultivate, and ultimately
destroy your purpose in Jesus. ( John 10:10)
• He doesn’t want you to know who you are ,
consequently your relationships won’t know who
you are.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• We have to start thinking before we act and
speak, we make eggs like heaven makes eggs. It is
not in many cases our first response but it
becomes a discipline, it is like playing the piano,
at first you spend years playing just notes and
scales and continue to ask the question when am
I going to make music. It comes with time and
diligence. One of the reasons we are to be no
more children but men and women of God is
because in the discipline of time we mature.
Children imitate, Adolescence makes something
of this program.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• James 1.8 “ A double minded man is unstable in
all his ways.” This comes from not realizing who
you are in Jesus. You can’t solve problems, make
changes, impact culture when you aren’t thinking
in the way that God thinks.
• The second principle of what constitutes identity
is “Genealogy”. Now in speaking of Adam,
genealogy doesn’t seem important but it became
very important in maintaining who we are when
sin and satan became part of the picture.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• Culture wants to melt you into its forms, thought
processes and goals. Satan has set this culture up for a
fall because in the recovery of man God had a different
plan.
• Have you ever noticed how concerned the Bible is with
genealogy? Let’s talk about God’s recovery plan of
man. You see in sin man has no identity, he is in crisis,
as evidenced by the current solutions for our world’s
ills.
• Genealogy becomes lost in the dispersion as well as
identity in creation and purpose of man. Wild origin
stories have their beginnings in myths and legends.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• Genesis 12 starts the journey in the recovery
of man. God chooses a man Abraham, and
that man embarks on a journey by faith. God
deals with this man and creates covenant with
him, giving him favor, blessing, and ultimate
blessing. This journey has yet to come to it’s
end but in fact is still be travelled by countless
numbers of covenanted people who
tenaciously cling to their identity.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• Let’s try to make it simple by outline
• I. Man
• II. Family
• III. Nation
• IV. Holy Nation
• VI. Homeland from which to operate in the
recovery of the known world, and to prepare
cultural change by creating something for future
generations to build upon.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• How many of you know how tenacious Israel is
concerning maintaining their identity, they
remain Jews no matter where there geographical
location may have planted them.
• One reason is that genealogy also has to do with
bloodline. They believe in pro-creation, or to put
it simply Jews producing little Jews. Now in our
culture bloodline is not an issue as we are
basically a melting pot of nationalities.
• We still want to make eggs our way you know!
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• Genealogy is very important to the born again person,
they are like Jesus, who have natural birth and then
spiritual birth. His blood gives us the right by spiritual
transfusion into the family of God, heirs and joint heirs with
the King of Kings. This is why that are genealogy is so
important, we too must pro create, and procreation in the
spiritual is a matter of the contraceptive methods. The
Spirit of God with the Word of God as presented by this
group called the church produces spiritual children. If
culture has infused this generation with ideas, values and
presuppositions whose laws don’t match the laws of
heaven then what we produce becomes foreign to the
culture of heaven.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• The third principle of identity is geography,
where you are from and your roots becomes
vital in identity.
• Let’s return to our text and move forward in
this recovery program. Now we have seventy
souls or a big family moving into Egypt, a place
of preparation as God was revealing Himself
to His future posterity.
 Cultural Identity Part 2
• God places this family in the midst of a advanced
culture as slaves. Ironic how that God’s chosen
people started in slave status, I believe this would
enable them to understand freedom in being the
Family of God.
• The geographical location is being prepared by
God for them to make something out of it, they
were going to cultivate, grow the concept of a
monotheistic God to a lost and dying world.