To receive the message of the gospel without a corresponding change of lifestyle means that the message has not be received. Think of the message of the gospel as a course correction. To receive the course correction information, but fail to actually make the correction to your course is equivalent to not receiving it.
In contemporary America Christians like to think that we are a Christian nation, that we made the necessary course correction a long time ago as a nation. Which means that as Christians today we simply need to follow the course of American society because America is a Christian nation. This thought is half true, which means that it is also half false. Some elements of contemporary American culture do conform to the gospel, but many don’t. So as Christians we cannot just blindly follow American culture.
The fact that some of our culture is Christian actually makes being a Christian in America more difficult, not less. Why? Because we must realize that everything in American culture is not Christian, and we must know the difference between what is faithful in our culture and what is not. We can neither simply trust the culture, nor simply abandon the culture. We must know the difference between faithfulness and faithlessness in a culture that is confused about that difference.
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