Something has changed. As recently as 2002, when a U.S. court in San Francisco declared the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, the U.S. Senate blasted the decision as “nuts” and “stupid” and passed a resolution 99–0 in favor of the phrase. In 2021, the U.S. government’s annual budget replaced “mothers” with the phrase “birthing people.” There was no vote in Congress about it.

The “Jesus Saves” banners and Christian music in the crowd outside the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, would have been recognizable to anyone who has attended a Right to Life rally in the past three decades. But no one would have imagined that breaking laws and harming police would be part of such gatherings. Something has changed.

For many Christians, fear of cultural change is fueling a ferocity in cultural engagement—or at least support for politicians, pundits, and protesters who angrily fight our perceived cultural opponents. Both the fear and the ferocity are signs of a problem of focus. Perhaps like Peter in Matthew 14, we’ve shifted our gaze from Jesus to the violent winds of the storm around us. We’re looking too much at the controversies on our screens and too little at the Scriptures.

The Bible reassures us that Jesus is the Redeemer King. He has been given power over all the events in creation and culture for this purpose: to bless the culture and build His church. When we look at Jesus and what He’s doing, we can find hope, even as we grieve with Jesus over the brokenness that still remains. Then we can engage our culture out of hope rather than despair.

To do this, the Bible gives us four ways to look—in the following order.

Look Up

If in faith we look up from our screens, the Scriptures tell us Jesus is ruling from heaven over all human culture. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, God the Father gave Jesus the entire created realm (including culture) to rule as Creator and Redeemer. A key Bible passage to show this truth is Ephesians 1:22, where the Apostle Paul wrote, “He (God the Father) put all things under His (Christ’s) feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church.”

Jesus does not use His control over creation and culture to amass earthly power. He already has all the power possible (Acts 10:36). Rather, Jesus uses His power over creation and culture to accomplish a spiritual goal: to save people from their sins and reunite them with God in the Church.

Jesus can accomplish this goal however He wants, but He frequently works in the following two ways. First, He allows people the freedom to pursue their sinful desires and experience the consequences, eventually prompting them via the Holy Spirit to cry out to Him for help. Second, He puts Christians through challenging times so they cry out in faith for His help, showing non-Christians a more appealing way to get through the heartaches of life. In both cases, Jesus brings people to faith by not ending all sin and by not blessing all Christian cultural endeavors. He may allow sin to suffuse the culture and Christians to fail at redeeming the culture—much like what we see happen-ing today. Whether Christians’ cultural influence waxes or wanes, Jesus is in control of both, using both to accomplish the true purpose of His kingdom.

Look Back

The Psalms call us repeatedly to look back at God’s deliverances to gain hope for the future. When God’s people are in exile—physical or figurative separation from the ideal state of things—they remember God’s past goodness and trust they will see it again.

“My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar,” wrote the sons of Korah during a period of exile from Israel. “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Ps. 42:4–6).

Christians should make a habit of looking back in faith and forward in hope. Reading the Bible is an act of looking back, as we see how God miraculously delivered His people from far more dire situations than we now face. He brought them out of slavery in Egypt. He split the Red Sea and buried the Egyptians. He fed His people in the desert, bringing food from the sky and water from a rock. Today we can trust in that same God to deliver us from bondage, to open ways when there is no way, and to provide for us even in the midst of deserts.

We can also look back by studying history and biography, seeing how Jesus has called His people and built His church amid constant threats. We can look back in our own lives by keeping prayer journals and then reviewing them. I do this once a year with a prayer partner, and I am always amazed how, throughout just 12 months, God provided so many of the things I asked for—many of which I no longer recalled praying for. We forget, but Jesus never does.

Look Outward

When John the Baptist saw the political culture turn against him, leading to his imprisonment, he also had doubts about Jesus. Even after John heard that Jesus raised a boy from the dead, John sent messengers to ask Jesus if He was truly the promised King. Jesus was in the middle of healing people who were blind, lame, deaf, and afflicted with leprosy. To the messengers, Jesus replied, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard” (Luke 7:18–21).

We also need to look outward from our present circumstances and see what Jesus is doing throughout our world. Throughout 2021, I wrote a series of posts on the Gentle Reformation blog citing long-term statistics that showed surprising results: over the past several decades, abortion (in any form), infant mortality, divorce, and deaths from war have all gone down. Meanwhile, global wealth and gospel sharing have gone up, and, despite the impact of COVID, average lifespans are still way up from the mid-20th Century.

As with John the Baptist, Jesus doesn’t always give Christians the political victories we seek. But He still does miraculous things that bless the culture and build His church. If only we have the eyes to see—and join Him.

To get this perspective, we need to change our information sources. Taking the long view is not the strength of Twitter, TV news, or talk radio. However, it’s easier than ever to collect and analyze data, and there are many resources that help. A few of my favorites are HumanProgress.org, Our World in Data, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Institute for Family Studies. Also, you can type into Google the name of the issue you’re interested in and “historical data.” You’ll see Jesus at work in chart form. These sources are generally not Reformed or even Christian, and so discernment is necessary. But in an age marked by instant outrage over isolated factoids, a historical perspective can be a helpful corrective.

Look Right in Front of You

Since giving the cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28, God has called His people to be engaged in culture. But He calls us to do that in a particular way. It’s not, primarily, by watching sports or movies, by trading book recommendations, by talking politics or even by voting. God calls us to en-gage in culture by loving our neighbors—the people right in front of us.

Regardless of the latest trends in the economy or evangelicalism, and no matter what’s happening in the halls of government or across the world, there are people in your house, in your neighbor-hood, at your kids’ school, and at your office who need a loving relationship. The people who need you might not agree with you. They might not even appreciate what you do for them. But by serving them in love, we truly follow Jesus. It’s how we join His plan to bless the culture and build the church.

Martin Luther (famously) made a distinction between the two kingdoms of heaven and earth, but also (much less famously) said the two kingdoms are bridged by Christians loving their neighbors. In his commentary on Galatians, Luther described a Christian with true faith who serves his neighbor in love as someone who “descends from heaven like rain that makes the earth fruitful,” adding that he “steps forth into another kingdom and does the good works his hands find to do.”

Faith, hope, and love. When we combine love for neighbors with faith in Jesus—who He is, what He’s done before, and what He’s doing now—He will give us hope instead of fear, hospitality in-stead of ferocity. It’s not in the fate of our nation but in the face of our neighbor that we truly see Jesus at work—blessing our culture and building His church.

J. K. Wall is the author of Messiah the Prince Revisited, published by Crown & Covenant Publications. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife, Christina, and their three boys, John, Arthur, and Theodore.