Today, we are surrounded by a variety of wicked and perverse ideologies. Much of it is being forced upon us and demanding that we accept these ideologies as the new normal. We are being surrounded like it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah when perversion pounded on Lot’s front door desiring to have its perverted way with those inside Lot’s home.

While writing to the church in Philippi, Paul gave these instructions, “Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear” (Philippians 1:12). Like the culture in Paul’s day, so it is today. We must commit to being diligent in our faith to live a holy life while surrounded by increasing levels of darkness and evil. The Church needs to be informed about the deceptive environment in which they live and how to express the Gospel lovingly and truthfully in that context. God’s love is not vague. It is a ”go your way and sin no more” kind of language.

After Paul told the Philippians to work hard to show the results of their salvation, he continued, “Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless” (Philippians 2:15-16). Paul was getting personal here. He was telling the Philippians if they did not hold firmly to the truth in how they lived, all his work among them would be in vain.

When Peter culminated his historic sermon on the Day of Pentecost, in his closing remarks translators used the same Greek word for “crooked” that Paul would later use in his comments to the Philippians describing the culture in their context. Being crooked is the by-product of allowing perverse and wicked ways to chart the course of a person’s life.

“Peter continued preaching for a long time, urging his listeners to repent and, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation!’ Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day—about 3,000 in all” (Acts 2:40-41). Defining the crookedness of culture and calling people to repent did not prevent 3,000 people from coming to the Lord.

A confused and compromised Church will have little impact on the surrounding culture. We have been groomed by all forms of media – broadcast, print, and social media – who tell us what language we can use and how we should address the issues of life. In some quarters of the Church, the door has been opened to all forms of perversion without qualification and clarity thinking it is an act of love when it is really a form of spiritual dishonesty. To have people sit in our pews week after week and not hear the truth regarding the life choices they make is not a genuine and honest message. Ultimately, it will dishonor the very people we want to reach who will never know what it means to be set free by the truth.