In this sermon, Scott Brown discusses the concept of coolness, its connection to identity, and the gravitational pull of worldly desires. He emphasizes that true coolness is about what one identifies with and the force that pulls one's demeanor, attitudes, and goals. The sermon examines various scripture passages, highlighting the dangers of the fear of man, the consequences of seeking praise from others, and the ultimate difference between a cool life and a Christ-centered life. In Colossians 3, the apostle Paul discusses setting one's mind on heavenly things and seeking an identity in Christ rather than worldly acceptance. The sermon concludes with a call to embrace Christ, throw off worldly attractions, and be attracted to Jesus.

Oh my, okay. Sorry, we're so professional around here. That's right. You know, as we've been considering this whole matter of culture and our relationship with it, We're going to end here with some thoughts from the Word of God that will help us, first of all, not to be swallowed up by this culture, but rather to be clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ. Strangely enough, this subject is under the heading of coolness.

You know, the worship of coolness, the idolatry of coolness. And when Jeff, you know, when it occurred to me that Jeff really wanted me to speak on coolness, it occurred to me I'd never really given a message about coolness before. But then the more I thought about it, actually, probably every message I've ever preached has something to do with coolness in some way, particularly this whole matter of being clothed with Christ. You know, every time we open up the Word of God, we get a vision of Christ. And his clothing, his righteousness, his law written in our hearts, his ways, his Likeness, this really is sort of the counter cultural principle that really overthrows the impulses for coolness.

Everybody knows what it means to desire to be cool. Do we have to define it? You know actually there are so many definitions of coolness out there and it actually depends on you know when you what what dictionary you go to because the the definitions change. Here's one definition something regarded as cool is an admired aesthetic attitude, behavior, compartment, appearance, and style, influenced by a product of the zeitgeist. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well as its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning.

So there you have it. The word has no single meaning. And here's another erudite and precise definition of coolness. There is no single concept of cool. So there you have it.

Amen, Let's go home. Well, actually, when we speak of coolness, I think we have to recognize that there's always this great gravitational force of the world. You know, in the same way that the Earth has a gravitational force and the Moon has an even greater gravitational force against the Earth. We are pulled. The waters of the Earth are actually pulled toward the moon.

And this is what happens to us. We have these gravitational forces in the culture that pull us in a certain direction. But what will keep us, you know, rightly on our axis? What will keep us orbiting and spinning rightly? And that's really the subject that we have here before us.

Some speak of coolness as social desirability or even rebelliousness. But here is the bottom line. Are you ready? The real definition of coolness. What coolness really is, I'm now going to defy all dictionary definitions, even Wikipedia.

Coolness is really about identification. What do I want to identify with? What really defines my life? What is the vision for my life? What is it that will be the gravitational force that will pull my demeanor in a certain direction?

What will be the gravitational force that pulls me in the way that I present myself, my attitudes, my goals, my look, all of these things. What is it that's pulling on me? This is really the question of coolness. And everyone who's alive understands the pull in one way or another. Particularly when you're young.

It seems like the younger you are, the greater the pull. I think that is because the smaller your age, the smaller your body, the smaller your mind, the more immature you are, the more you get pulled around. Hey, that's just the way it is. I'm sorry if you're 15 or 16 or 17. That's the way it is with you.

You're gonna get pulled around a lot harder. You're gonna get jerked around a lot more by this culture because of the size of your soul. And this is why you know every young person at the same time can have tremendous resistance against these pulls with with the the corresponding size of their faith. The fire that burns within them for Jesus Christ, greater than all those fires out there that would destroy them. This is the matter here that's before us.

Romans 12 verses one and two speak of this subject of coolness. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world. In other words, don't be squeezed into its mold. Or using the imagery that I started with, don't be pulled by this great gravitational force that will suck you into the netherworld of death.

Do not be conformed, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God. This is exactly what the apostle Paul was speaking about to the church in Thessalonica when he said, each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. In other words, to possess your vessel rather than to have it pulled and possessed by other forces that are out there. I wanna give some examples of this in scripture. There are various kinds of examples that we see in scripture.

The very first example, of course, began in the Garden of Eden. And we find Eve, who was not satisfied with the knowledge that God had provided. She wanted something different. She wanted something more than what God gave her. She wanted to be cooler than God, really.

And that has always been our problem. We always want to clothe ourselves with something that God hasn't provided. We want to be something other than what he's designed us to be. We want to know things that he doesn't want us to know. We want to be what we aren't created to be.

And this is really the beginning of it. I think the conflict of the devil and Adam and Eve in the garden is really the pinnacle, you know, illustration of this whole gravitational force to be cooler than God. You could go to the Tower of Babel. In the Tower of Babel, what was the great principle? What was the cry of the heart?

It was, let us make a name for ourselves. We want our own identity. We want our own life. We want something that's different than what God. God's identity is not enough.

We want our own identity. This is a driver of this whole matter of coolness. When you want to be something different than what God has desired you to be. You have become just exactly like those who desire to build the Tower of Babel saying, let us make a name for ourselves. They wanted to actually live a life apart from the Lord rather than to be clothed with the robes of righteousness, to be clothed with His wisdom, to be saturated with His Word, to to have His name upon them.

No, they wanted their own name. You know the Christian though loves the meditation that they've been given a new name and a new heart. Not that old worldly heart, not that old worldly name, but a new name. And it's a name that's written in heaven. We could talk about Nadab and Abihu, those brothers who wanted something different for worship than what God had provided.

And God killed them and many, many others. Their desire for syncretism, their desire to mix in the things of the world with the things of God had enormous cultural consequences. It affected tens of thousands of people's lives as God moved through in judgment. You wanna ask yourself, what are the consequences of syncretism? Read the story of Nadab and Abihu.

They wanted to be cooler than God. They wanted a life that was better, more shined up, more interesting than God. And they wanted to do that in their worship. This is one of the big issues that we face here in our modern era. There are people who want to present a worship that's different than what God has defined.

And they want to create all kinds of elements of worship that God has not commanded. And that impulse to try to create just the coolest, most emotionally effective, powerfully driven kind of worship experience that'll send you off into the clouds. It's this desire to want something better than God, to be cooler than God. That's what Nadab and Abihu wanted. They wanted something different than what God had supplied.

There's so many places that we could go. We could go to the New Testament. We could go to Ananias and Sapphira. They wanted a reputation that was different than their hearts. And they wanted to impress the apostles and the people there by bringing a big gift.

They did bring a big gift, but it wasn't what they said it was. And the judgment that came upon them and the fear that filled the church was the result of God's displeasure of Ananias and Sapphira wanting to be so well thought of in the eyes of their contemporaries. We could speak of so many examples of it, but the truth is there's a way that seems right to a man, and its way is death. That's the impulse to be clothed with something other than the name of God. And the whole subject of coolness really is the subject of your whole identity.

What do you want your identity to be? And if your whole identity is caught up with God, then the gravitational forces are broken in your life. And what a blessing it is when they are broken. I wanna talk about some principles from scripture. We've talked about a few examples from scripture, but now let's talk about principles in scripture.

Principle number one, the fear of man. Proverbs 29, 25 says, the fear of man brings a snare but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe. Many seek the rulers favor but justice for man comes from the Lord." Here's this fear of man, this gravitational force, you know, that's pulling against us. When we, when our fear is not God, but rather man, we find ourselves in the grip of this gravitational pull that coolness always supplies. And then the contrast is the fear of the Lord.

He says the fear of man brings a snare. In other words, there's danger there, there's trouble there. You find yourself being entrapped. It's a trap. You know it's such a trap that you sort of become the subject of that one that you fear.

You become their little puppet. This is the problem with the fear of man. This is the problem with coolness. When you desire to be so independent, you actually become the puppet of those you want to be identified with. And you know, it's funny, you see all these independent people walking around, you know, you see groups of them, you know, walking together and they're all dressed, all these independent people are dressed so exactly alike.

Well, that's because they've been enslaved, they've been enslaved by their fear of man and their desire to be cool. So they become a caricature, they become kind of a knock off in a sense of that which they actually fear. So you become, in coolness, you actually become the slave of what you fear, rather than the slave of God. Proverbs 9, 10, and 11 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For by me your days will be multiplied and years of life will be added to you.

If you are wise you are wise for yourself and if you scoff you will bear it alone." He's talking about the consequences of rejecting the fear of the Lord and fearing man. And being pulled along by this desire for the acceptance that coolness might bring to you. There's the exchanging the glory of God for a lie or for an idol. This is what happens when one's identity is connected with anything other than God. You make this tragic exchange.

You exchange the glory of God, the wisdom of God, the love of God upon you. You exchange the things that God has desired for you for a cheap substitute, coolness. It's really all about bringing It's really all about bringing glory to yourself rather than bringing glory to God. You know, Matthew chapter 6 reports the words of Jesus on this desire to receive glory from man. Even, you know, religious people can receive glory from man, can desire it, can love the respectful greetings in the marketplaces.

And Jesus says, therefore if you do, when you do a charitable deed do not sound a trumpet as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. They give their charitable gifts to receive glory from men. It's religious coolness is all it is. It's just a desire to have the esteem of man through some, you know, spiritual exercise like that.

And so you have, you know, covetousness being cloaked in religious deeds, which really is just nothing other than a desire to have the praise of man. If you're living for the praise of man, your life is always going to be changing. You will be a nomad. You'll be a philosophical nomad. You might even be a geographical nomad, but you will always be moving with the new thing, you know, that will make you acceptable.

That's the tragedy of it. This is really, as I said at the beginning, it's about identity. Who will you be identified with? And I'll turn us to Colossians chapter 3. If you have your Bibles, please open to Colossians chapter 3.

Here I believe we're at the heart of the matter when we find ourselves in Colossians chapter 3 because in Colossians chapter 3 you have you have all of these things coming together the identity the desire the mind earth heaven all these things are here. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. So verse 1 really speaks of the seeking heart. What is the heart seeking? Is it seeking the things that are above or the things on the earth?

You know the conflict the conflict with coolness is that it's the seeking of the things of the earth. It's desiring earthly acceptability, earthly identification, earthly connection, that gravitational pull is so strong. But here in verse one is something completely different. Seeking those things which are above where Christ is. The gravitational pull of life is toward Christ.

Seeking, seeking, seeking, longing for him, not some other other gravitational force that's pulling. And he says in verse 2, set your mind on the things above, not on things on the earth. So this has to do with the mind. You know, the affections are always built by the things that the mind feeds upon. And, you know, the only hope for us, you know, trapped in a desire for coolness is to set our mind on the things above.

So that our minds are drawn in that direction. So that the Word of God, Christ, His Word, This is the great gravitational force that's pulling us. And it's tugging us, it's calling us, it's appealing to us. Come to me, come to me. You know, all you are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Come to me, be identified with me. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things on the earth. In verse 3, For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Now we come to the ultimate identity. Your life is hidden with Christ in God.

And then he says, When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and covetousness, which is idolatry, because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them but now you yourselves are to put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created Him." The language here is about putting things off, resisting, throwing off the pull of the world, and embracing Christ. And what we find here is that Christ, Christ, when you identify with Him, He takes you to glory. That's the difference.

The difference between the cool life and the Christ life. One is is, you know, a fleeting earthly identification. But with Christ, it's heavenly glory for all eternity. That's the difference. And then he says that we put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created Him.

And so you see the distinction that the Lord has before us. We have this great pull of the world to identify with it. At the same time there's Christ, the great Savior of the world. The one that we ought to identify with and not care at all about the world. You know it's so easy you know to be just like the Pharisees who wanted praise from men.

They wanted their glory here on this earth. Remember what Jesus said? They have their reward. The reward you get for coolness, you get right now. And then it ends.

And that's it. With the Lord Jesus Christ though you get all of eternity you get his presence you get his name put upon you You get His righteousness put upon you like a cloak. And now you're identified with the Lord Jesus Christ. This really is the essence of conversion, that a person would seek the Lord while he may be found, to call on him while he's near, to trust in his righteousness, and to recognize that he became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. And this whole matter of coolness, it does touch on conversion, it touches on the Gospel, it touches on everything.

And so when Jeff asked me to speak about coolness, it didn't really occur to me how broadly connected it really is to the essence of the gospel. That if any if any man desires to follow Christ he must pick up his cross and follow him and deny himself and follow Christ. Be clothed with Christ. Be identified with Christ and not care for any of the favor of the world. So, would you pray with me?

Oh Lord, I thank you for the sending of your son, Jesus Christ, to walk, to show us how to walk, to teach us more beautiful things than what happened to be drawing us in this world. Oh Lord, that you would give us such a desire for your son Jesus Christ. That we would throw off all worldly attractions and be attracted to him. Oh Lord that you would give us hearts even more attracted to Him than we ever have been. Amen.