BP 172
As a member of a prayer team from the United States currently meeting with pastors in the Nordic countries and attending a Gospel Coalition Conference and a parachurch retreat, it has become apparent that the spiritual soil in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and the Faroe Islands is hard. The Nordic countries are clearly influenced by secular culture.
Os Guinness writes in his book Impossible People, “Modernism as a philosophy may oppose faith outright, but modernity does not. Its damage is not through opposition, but through seduction and distortion. It doesn’t say, for example, ‘No faith allowed here’ but ‘No faith is needed here.’ Contrary to Jesus and the Torah, modernity claims that man can now live ‘by bread alone,’ or rather by science, technology, management and marketing alone. Secularists do not want God, whereas the secularized have no need of God, and that is only one of the many seductions and distortions of modernity.”
Guinness goes on to say, “Christians in the West [including the Nordic countries] are living in a grand clarifying moment. The gap between Christians and the wider culture is widening, and many formerly nominal Christians are becoming ‘religious nones.’”
One question that has arisen among pastors I spoke with in Stockholm is how to reach secularized people in Sweden who are infected by the virus of modernity. How can Jesus be made relevant to people who are often not opposed to Jesus (many have not even heard of Jesus’ death and resurrection) but simply sense no need for Christianity and therefore are quick to shun its message?
The relevancy of Jesus to a post-modern world is of supreme importance. Do we go out on the street corners in a culture where 2% of the population is composed of born-again believers and preach the gospel to them? I believe you would be quickly dismissed if you used that approach. Some might argue that the “ripe” apples will respond to preaching and come to faith whereas the “unripe” apples will ignore the gospel as those who have not been chosen or are not yet prepared to receive Jesus.
While there may be truth in that statement, are there other options available to reach out to individuals who are not yet ripe but who could be spiritually and psychologically ripened by some intervention that might help prepare them to receive the truth of the gospel?
As I have spoken with pastors and a leaders of parachurch organizations here in Stockholm, I hear a common theme that might define the secularized culture in Sweden: lonely. Many individuals feel alone and lonely in the Nordic countries.
My first reflection about loneliness here in Sweden and the other Norden countries is that, yes, for sure you are lonely. You were made to have deep intimacy with your Creator. If you have shunned the One who designed and made you and are settling instead for transient realities and fleeting pleasures, of course you will feel alone and lonely.
There is always a consequence to living far from Christ.
In Ephesians 2:11ff, Paul writes, “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
If we are separated from Christ, alienated, and strangers to Jesus, we will have no hope and exist in this world without God, the most precious, loving, and redeeming Being in the universe. It seems to follow quite logically that aloneness and loneliness readily accompany a life that is separated from Jesus and therefore without hope.
So, humans in the Nordic countries and around the world can choose to live without Christ and choose instead to bow down to self and secularism, but there will be an eternal cost. One writer once said, “All thoughts are thinkable, but not all thoughts are livable.” Just because we as humans think something is true and want it to be true doesn’t mean that it is true in reality and livable on a practical level.
To believe and live out the thought that there is no God or that God cannot be known personally is to settle for no hope, separation from Jesus, and therefore and lonely life. Jesus came to be your Savior and best friend. Without Him, we are shunning the most intimate and loving friend we could ever have.
Sweden and the other Nordic countries are lonely and alone without Jesus. All of us believers around the world need to bring Jesus into that aloneness and help unbelievers know what they are missing. Whether through friendship evangelism or through helping people see that their aloneness in the world is not simply due to the presence of technology and social media but through the absence of Jesus in their lives.
Pray for non believers and help them to see that one can exist without Jesus but they one cannot truly live without Him. He is not optional if a person wants to have hope, joy, love, strong marriages, and a culture built on bedrock instead of shifting sand.
Sweden, you were made to walk in close friendship with your Designer and Creator. To live without Him is to live alone.
Loneliness and aloneness are both signposts pointing to your need for the deep and personal love of Jesus Christ.
Don’t leave earth without Him.
And don’t live in this current world without Him unless you want aloneness and darkness to be your closest friend. After all, Jesus came to be WITH you, to walk with you every moment of your life. With Jesus, you will never be alone again. You might feel lonely once in a while, but He forever is living in your heart. A person can’t get closer than that.
16“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God” ~ John 3