How God Uses Culture

I was doing some research for my sermon on Sunday and I came across this interesting little tidbit about the Ark of the Covenant.

"God spoke to his people through their culture. He used their language and their customs. He described himself as a shepherd, for example, an occupation they knew well. When God commanded the Hebrews to build the tabernacle and temple, the builders followed cultural patterns that had been known for centuries. Moreover, long before God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, ancient peoples used tablets as symbols and summaries of covenants." ~ http://www.followtherabbi.com/

There are many paths which one can take from this paragraph. The one that immediately stood out to me was that "God spoke to his people through their culture." Interesting how in the United States there is a Christian counter culture. There is "Christian" music, clothes, slang, books, and even entertainment (Gaithers, Left Behind Movies, Veggie Tales)

Why can't Christ followers, instead of walking away from culture and calling it "secular" choose to engage culture and be a part of its renewal and restoration? The reality is that God is probably more at work in "secular" culture than He is in the Christian counter culture. What is interesting is that we (Christians) have tried to make Jesus look "cool" by creating this counter culture. The problem is that Jesus created the culture, it is a part of the story that is unfolding. So instead of trying to create something different, why not "ride the wave"? Use the culture as God is, to communicate the unchanging truths of His love for the human race and His plan to redeem it.