Faithful Christian: Living for God in a Broken World

It’s easy to become discouraged.

Turn on the news, scroll through social media, or simply talk with your neighbors, and you’ll quickly discover that people believe something is wrong with our country. Families are struggling. Churches are declining. Trust in institutions continues to erode. Every election promises change, yet many people feel like the problems only grow larger.

Almost everyone agrees society is broken.

Very few agree on how to fix it.

Throughout this Start at Home series, we’ve examined God’s design for the family, the church, and government. We’ve seen what happens when each institution leaves the responsibilities God assigned to it. Families weaken when they stop teaching God’s truth. Churches lose their effectiveness when they drift from Christ’s mission. Governments create unintended consequences when they move beyond the role God established for them.

After reading the previous articles, you might be asking a logical question:

“If all of this is true, what can I possibly do about it?”

The answer may surprise you.

• You probably can’t change Washington this week.
• You probably can’t transform your state government this month.
• You probably can’t reshape your entire church overnight.

But you can do something that is every bit as important.

You can faithfully fulfill the responsibilities God has entrusted to you.

That is where lasting change begins.

We Often Take Broken Things to the Wrong Place

Recently, I preached a sermon titled “Fixing a Broken Society.” I opened with a simple question:

Have you ever had something break and not know who to take it to?

Maybe your car started making a strange noise or maybe your computer suddenly quit working. Maybe you dropped your phone and shattered the screen. Before you can fix the problem, you first have to answer another question:

Who is qualified to fix it?

That same principle applies to society.

When Humpty Dumpty had his great fall, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put him back together again. They simply weren’t equipped for the task. By contrast, when my niece Khloe broke her arm after being thrown over the handlebars of her bicycle, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law knew exactly where to take her. They didn’t drive to the state capitol and they didn’t call a politician. They took her to the emergency room because that’s where broken bones are treated.

Our culture often makes the opposite mistake.

Whenever society experiences another crisis, our first instinct is to ask what Washington should do, what Harrisburg should do, or what new law should be passed. We assume that if government becomes large enough, wise enough, or powerful enough, it can solve whatever problem lies before us.

Scripture points us in a different direction.

God did not create one institution to solve every problem. He established three: the family, the church, and government. Each has a unique purpose, distinct responsibilities, and God-given authority. When we expect one institution to do the work of another, we shouldn’t be surprised when the results fall short of God’s design.

That’s exactly what we’ve been discovering throughout this series.

The Wrong Question Produces the Wrong Solution

When something is broken, our natural tendency is to look for someone else to fix it.

We ask who should be elected, what policy should change, or which institution should step in. Those questions dominate news broadcasts, political debates, and conversations around the dinner table. Yet they often overlook a more important question.

Am I faithfully doing the job God has already given me?

Think about the progression.

• If we want a better world, we need better countries.
• If we want better countries, we need better states.
• If we want better states, we need better counties.
• If we want better counties, we need better towns.
• If we want better towns, we need better churches.
• If we want better churches, we need better families.

And if we want better families…

It starts at home.

That truth sits at the heart of this entire series.

Real cultural change doesn’t begin in a legislature.

• It doesn’t begin in a courtroom.
• It doesn’t even begin in the pulpit.
• It begins when ordinary Christians decide to live according to God’s design inside their own homes, faithfully raising their children, loving their spouses, serving in their churches, and living as ambassadors for Christ wherever God has placed them.

History is filled with people who tried to change society from the top down.

The gospel has always worked from the inside out.

When hearts are transformed, families become stronger. Stronger families strengthen churches. Strong churches influence communities. Healthy communities shape states and nations.

God’s blueprint has never changed.

Neither has His method.

Satan’s Strategy Has Never Changed

When we look around at our culture, it’s easy to become consumed by the headlines. Families are struggling, churches are declining, political division continues to deepen, and confusion about truth seems to grow with each passing year. Those are real problems, but they are only the visible symptoms of a much deeper issue.

Scripture reminds us that our greatest battle has never been primarily cultural or political. Behind every attack on God’s design is a spiritual battle that has been raging since the beginning of time.

Paul reminds believers:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.” (Ephesians 6:12, CSB)

That perspective changes everything.

Instead of viewing people as the enemy, we begin to recognize the true source of the conflict. Satan has opposed God’s design from the moment he tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, and his strategy has remained remarkably consistent ever since. Although the methods may change from one generation to another, the objective never does.

As I said in my sermon, his playbook hasn’t changed. He has simply repackaged the same lies for every generation.

Why the Family Is Always Under Attack

That raises an important question.

Why would Satan devote so much effort to attacking marriage and the family?

The answer is that marriage has never been his ultimate target. Instead, it is one of the most effective ways to accomplish something much bigger. His goal is to keep people from knowing, glorifying, and following God.

Jesus described Satan’s mission in unmistakable terms:

“A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” (John 10:10, CSB)

When you begin looking at society through that lens, many of today’s problems make much more sense.

A child who never witnesses a loving, biblical marriage often struggles to understand God’s covenant love. Someone who grows up without hearing God’s Word has a much harder time recognizing truth when false teaching appears. Entire generations can reach adulthood without ever seeing God’s design modeled in the home.

None of that happens accidentally.

Every broken family creates another opportunity for God’s design to become less visible. Every generation that remains untaught becomes more vulnerable to deception. Satan understands that if he can weaken the family, he weakens the church. As the church loses influence, the culture drifts even farther from biblical truth, creating still more broken families.

The cycle continues because the strategy works.

That’s why this discussion is about much more than politics or cultural trends. At its core, this is a spiritual battle over whether people will embrace God’s design or settle for Satan’s counterfeit.

Every Generation Will Be Discipled

One of the greatest mistakes Christians can make is believing that if the church remains silent, people will somehow discover biblical truth on their own.

History tells a different story.

Every generation is discipled by someone.

Jesus never instructed His followers to make converts and stop there. His command was to make disciples—men and women whose thinking, values, and lives are continually shaped by God’s truth. That command is just as urgent today because the competition for people’s hearts and minds has never been greater.

Every day, millions of people are being discipled by social media, television, podcasts, news outlets, universities, entertainers, and online influencers. Those voices constantly teach what to believe about marriage, sexuality, gender, justice, identity, government, money, and truth. Whether those ideas agree with Scripture or not, they are shaping the worldview of the next generation.

If the church doesn’t disciple people with God’s truth, the culture will disciple them with the world’s values.

That statement formed one of the central themes of my sermon because I believe it describes exactly where we are today. Too many Christians have allowed their understanding of current issues to be shaped more by cable news, political commentators, and social media than by the Word of God. When the church avoids teaching what Scripture says about the issues people face every day, it should not surprise us when believers begin thinking more like the culture than like Christ.

The answer isn’t for Christians to become louder.

The answer is for Christians to become better disciples.

That begins in our homes, continues in our churches, and spreads into every area of life. Parents must intentionally teach their children. Churches must faithfully proclaim the whole counsel of God. Individual believers must spend time in God’s Word until their thinking is shaped by Scripture instead of by whatever voice happens to be the loudest.

Only then will we begin seeing the kind of lasting change that no election, law, or government program can ever produce.