africabound

Ever had a rude awakening?

I have nine children, so I have had plenty.

Honestly, probably more of them, have been cute awakenings, actually. Like the time, I awoke to my two year old daughter singing, I may never march in the infantry, ride in the Calvary, shoot the artillery, but I am in the Lord’s army.

A rude, cute, awakenening.

And, you know, even though I wasn’t incredibly excited to hear it around five on Friday morning, that song does remind us of an important truth.  We as believers are involved in a war. And the Bible tells us our conflict is against three great enemies; the flesh, the devil and the world.

We began to look at what the Scripture teaches us about the world last week.

And we saw that God has not called us to withdraw from the world, but to resist its influence.  Jesus Himself prays, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.”   

This means God has called us to be holy in an unholy world.  That’s not always easy because the world we live in is not neutral towards biblical truth.  It’s hostile towards it.  And so it’s not content to allow believers to think and live biblically.  It wants to influence us. It wants us to think the way it thinks.  We have a responsibility to resist its influence.  That’s why Paul says, ‘be not conformed to the world…’  

So we as believers are involved in a great struggle.  We struggle to keep ourselves unstained by worldliness. We don’t want to think the way the world thinks, and we don’t want to live the way the world lives.  It’s not always easy, but we struggle. Now if there’s no struggle, we know we’re not believers.  Because true believers war against worldliness.  

That’s exactly what we see in James 1:27. 

Remember that in verses 26 and 27 James is giving us three tests to help us evaluate whether or not our religion is real.  And this is one of them, look at verse 27, “This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father, to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” Worship that is pure comes from people striving to keep themselves pure, and worship that is false from people who are false.  

Now, there’s something interesting about this particular test. 

It’s a bit different than the first two.  When James says that your religion is worthless if you don’t bridle your tongue, and that true religion visits orphans and widows in their distress, it is difficult to wiggle your way out of the conviction.  Either you are bridling your tongue or you are visiting orphans and widows in their distress or you are not.  These are very specific, black and white tests.  But this third test is not nearly as specific, it’s much more general and so there are some who when they read ‘keep yourself unstained by the world,’ may think they pass this test when they don’t because they are unaware of specific ways that they have been stained.   

But have no fear.

Because, James is ever practical. 

He doesn’t allow you to wiggle your way out of the conviction.  Instead he keeps pressing his point home.  One of the ways he does that is by providing practical illustrations of the truth he is teaching.  1:2-4, ‘Consider it all joy my brothers when you encounter various trials…’ what’s that look like? 1:9-11, ‘let the poor man glory in his high position and the rich man glory in his low position…’ 1:22, ‘prove yourselves doers of the word and not hearers only…’ what’s it look like to be a hearer only? 1:23,24 ‘a hearer only is like a man who looks in a mirror, goes away and forgets what he looks like…’  Here is the truth, here is what it looks like.  

And that’s what he does again for us here in 2.

Remember when James wrote this letter he didn’t divide it into chapters.  That came later.  What he writes in 2:1-13 flows out of what he has just written in 1:26,27. He doesn’t stop by simply calling us to keep ourselves pure from worldliness, he continues by giving us a very down to earth example of how worldly thinking so often infects the church. 

This is one illustration of what worldliness looks like.  

We often evaluate people using the world’s standards.  We show favoritism. The world is partial, which means that they make decisions about people on the basis of external factors alone.  And when the church shows favoritism you know it’s being stained by the world.  

Honestly this issue might not seem all that important to us, but it’s obviously very important to James.  So important that he spends thirteen verses arguing against it.  And although this particular topic might not be high on our list of issues to discuss, God shows His wisdom by including it here in the book of James, because we find that it is a major problem throughout history.  

In fact you could argue that this problem of favoritism is one of the major problems throughout history.  Think slavery, think civil rights, think caste system, think Oliver Twist, think the parable of the Good Samaritan, think World War 2, think Hitler, think Aryan nation. All just extreme forms of this very common problem: the sin of partiality, or favoritism, making decisions about people on the basis of external factors alone. 

And anytime you see the same problem occurring repeatedly throughout history it should cause you to put your guard up, because you realize, that biblically speaking, the same sin nature that resided in those individuals resides in you.  

Man because of his sinful nature is instinctively prejudiced.  I remember how this was driven home to me when I went to Latvia for a missions trip.  I found as I traveled throughout Latvia that many Latvians were incredibly prejudiced against Russians.  Now I couldn’t tell the difference between a Latvian and a Russian, but they could.  And it finally struck that racism is not about color.  If we were all the same color we’d still have problems with racism.  Because the problem is deeper than color, it’s in our hearts.      

It’s this sin of partiality or favoritism.  Making evaluations of people on the basis of the world’s standards, not God’s.  

This was a particular problem in the early church.  God commanded His people to be impartial, but it was difficult, because the church was the one place in all of society where it wasn’t about social status.  Slave, master, rich, poor, male, female, one in Christ.  Besides that most everyone in the early church was poor, so if a rich person was converted it would be very easy to get real excited not about his conversion but about what he had to offer the church.  

That’s the issue James is addressing here.  He’s writing to believers who are suffering.  And they are struggling in how they are responding to that suffering.  And he’s aware that one of the sins they are going to struggle with in particular is this sin of partiality.  Evaluating people the way the world does. And so he presents an air tight argument against favoritism.  

He begins with his thesis statement in verse 1:

Favoritism and True Faith don’t mix. 

“My brethren do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.”  He addresses these believers with a term of affection, my brothers. Perhaps he does so to soften the blow they are about to receive.  I love you and that’s why I am about to rebuke you. 

Notice exactly how James puts it. 

He doesn’t merely say “Don’t show favoritism.”  He says, “Don’t hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.”  This verse is not a suggestion.  So it must not be read that way.  It’s a command.  James is laying down the law.  To put it another way – he’s saying – true authentic faith in Jesus Christ is absolutely incompatible with an attitude of favoritism. 

Favoritism is not merely being discourteous. It’s not just bad manners. It is anti-gospel.  

In most of our Bibles the term favoritism comes at the end of the verse.  In the Greek, it’s right up front for emphasis.  Imagine it in bold print, almost like a title for the essay that follows.  The word for favoritism is a ‘distinctively Christian word.’  In fact, many scholars suggest that the writers of the New Testament actually coined it.  John MacArthur explains that “perhaps the reason they had to come up with this new word is because favoritism was such an accepted part of most ancient societies that it was assumed and not even identified as it still is in many cultures today.”  It literally means ‘receiving of face’ or ‘lifting of face.’  And it came to be a well-known term denoting the partiality of a judge who made biased judgments based on external circumstances, and more generically of preferring a person because of something you are enamored by.

Here favoritism is in the plural, which means that James is not just talking about an isolated act of favoritism, but instead about a pattern of life and a problem with wide-ranging applications.  That means he’s forbidding favoritism of any kind.  He’s about to show us one example of favoritism in verses 2-4, preferring the rich, but that is not the only kind of favoritism that’s sinful. 

Christians must not make a practice out of favoritism and they must not show favoritism in any way.  

The grammar of this passage strongly suggests that he’s calling on the church to stop a habit or action that is already in progress.  In other words, he’s not merely telling them to not do something in the future. He’s commanding them to stop something they are doing now.  

Just because we are believers doesn’t mean we are perfect, and we constantly need to humbly evaluate our lives and our church in the light of God’s Word, to determine whether or not we have slipped into worldly patterns unaware.   Wordliness is especially dangerous when it is subtle.  It often sneaks into our lives through the back door and instead of showing up in what we wear or what we do, shows up in how we think and what we desire.  And that’s what seems to have happened here to these believers.  They were going about their religious activities, while thinking the way the world thinks.  

James is going to tell us exactly why favoritism is such a serious sin down in verses 5-11; but for now I want you to notice the hint he gives us here in verse 1. 

He says our faith is in whom? The glorious Lord Jesus Christ. 

When you say you put your faith in Christ what are you saying?  One of the things you are saying is that He is glorious.  That He is worthy of exaltation.  That He is famous.  That He is worthy of our honor. 

When you show favoritism you are glorying in the wrong person.

These two terms Christ and glory go together.  They are inextricably linked.  We serve a glorious Savior.  Our Savior is exalted far above all.  There is no one and nothing here on earth that even compares to Him.  When you think awesome, when you think worthy of respect, when you think glory, you need to think Jesus Christ.  1 Corinthians 2:8 calls Him the Lord of glory.  Colossians 3:4 says that Christ is now in glory.  2 Thessalonians 2:14 explains that glory belongs to Him.   1 Timothy 3:16 says that he was taken up to glory, and Titus 2:13 tells us that when he returns that day will be full of glory.  Glory belongs to Jesus Christ.  He is the very definition of glory.  

True believers shouldn’t be overawed or bedazzled by passing temporary worldly glory because our faith is in someone whose glory far outshines anyone or anything here on this earth, the Lord Jesus Christ.   Your faith in the glorious Jesus Christ is incompatible with favoritism because when you show favoritism what are you doing?  You are giving glory to man that belongs only to Christ.  When you show favoritism you are giving the glory Jesus Christ deserves to some man who doesn’t.  

I like how one pastor puts it, “We know the glory of God when we look by faith into the face of Jesus Christ. In any Christian congregation there is only one glory and that belongs to Jehovah Jesus, and we have to make sure that that is so. We have nothing else to offer men and women except Jesus Christ. Isaiah saw him in the temple and we see this same one by faith. All the wealth and fame and power of sinners is less than nothing compared to him. The name of Jesus does not borrow a thing from us – all the glory of men is like the flower of the field, withering and perishing….If a congregation were full of millionaires, and beauty queens, and the Philadelphia Eagles, and had the leadership of Mensa men with their IQ’s going through the roof – all that would give no additional glory to Jesus Christ. It would, of course, detract from it. In the presence of his glory all earthly achievements are less than dust. If you reject my Jesus Christ I cannot say to you, “Well, what do you think of these moral guidelines, family counsels, our choir, ideas about government and social action ?” My one task is to persuade you of the Lord’s glory, and if you see that than everything is new. If you don’t see that then our church being full of beautiful people will not help you at all. I cannot discriminate and highlight the wealthy, and tell you where the talent is in the congregation. If you become a Christian all this congregation will be your family. For your brothers and sisters there will be very different kinds of men and women. I have to point you to Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.”

That’s why Favoritism and Faith Don’t Mix.  

The church is not about the glory of man.  It’s about the glory of Christ. 

Now you know James.  He’s not going to stop with just giving you the principle, or stating his thesis.  He’s got to move on and give us an illustration of just exactly what favoritism looks like, which we will look at next time.  

A Mack Family Update

Filled with pictures, a big announcement, an amazing testimony, singing and a video or two!

Is your religion real?

In James 1:26 and 27, we are given three tests.

1.) The way we speak.

2.) The way we relate to the vulnerable.

And,

3.) The way we relate to the world.

Are we worldly?

Over the past couple of posts we have been defining worldliness and thinking a little about why it is dangerous. Now, let’s try to get specific.

What are some specific ways we can evaluate whether or not we are worldly?

First.

What’s your attitude towards money?  

Matthew 6:19ff, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal…”

The world’s attitude towards money, treasure it.  God’s,treasure me. 

No one can serve two masters.

You can’t serve God and money. 

So you need to ask yourself some tough questions.  Why do I work?  Why do I save my money?  Why do I have the house I have?  Why do I have the car I have?  Listen, you’ve got to ask yourself the hard questions.  Get together with someone who knows more than you and ask for help.  Work through your attitude towards money.  Have you been stained by the world?  

Second.

What’s your attitude toward entertainment?

Too often our attitude towards entertainment is just like the worlds. 

Wayne Wilson writes, “Every Christian seems to agree that we live in a time of cultural decline.  Obscenity, vulgarity, and perversion are the norms.  Decency, honor and purity are the exceptions.  Christians talk about a culture war as though it were an us versus them contest.  I will argue that we are the enemy – that it is us versus us.  The decadence prevails because it is largely funded by Christian dollars, viewed in Christian homes, and welcomed by Christian hearts.  Somehow we have grown fond of this world.  Christians have always been tempted by the world, but this is I believe the first generation of Bible believing Christians to ever have embraced the world’s temptations so completely.  We delight in that which is offensive to God.  Because we love what the world loves the world is tearing us down.”

How does your view of entertainment match up to Ephesians 5:3-7?  “But do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among saints; and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.  For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.  Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.  Therefore do not be partakers with them…”  

When was the last time you exposed yourself or your family to entertainment that matches the description given here in Ephesians 5?  What’s the world say about that?  Oh it’s just funny joking.  Or that kind of stuff doesn’t bother me.  But that’s not the point.  It should bother you.  Wayne Wilson explains, “To rely on what bothers me is trusting my own heart, the very thing the Bible warns I should not trust.  If someone steals or watches pornography enough times, it may not bother that person anymore, but is that a true standard?  People do become callous.  The heart is deceitful.  A cold heart is not a reliable standard to live by.”  Have you been stained by the world?  

Third.

What’s the purpose of your life? 

Are you living primarily for the now?  Are you living primarily for your own personal pleasure?  

The world makes its decisions on the basis of one thing. How will it affect me?  Will it bring me pleasure?   The apostle John defines worldliness as “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life…” In other words, living for the now.  

Sometimes professing Christians make decisions that way.  How many times have you heard someone say, or you have said yourself, I would obey God in this particular area, but it’s too hard.  What do they mean by that?  God’s commands don’t fit my desires.  I would serve in the local church, I would submit to my husband, I would sacrificially love my wife, I would witness, but I don’t want to, so I’m not going to.  

God has given us our purpose.

You have been bought with a price therefore honor God with your body. 

But is that how we are living?   How do you make decisions?  What’s the bottom line?  Are you being stained by the world?  

Four.

What’s your attitude towards sin?

This is a bit more general, but it’s an important issue.  

The world minimizes sin.  Too many believers fall for that trap. Instead of seeing our sin the way God sees it, we minimize it and make excuses for it.  

“It is but a little sin!  God is merciful!  God is not extreme…We mean well.  One cannot be so particular!  Where is the mighty harm?  We only do as others!”  

Do you make excuses for your sin?  Even as we talk about some of these examples of worldliness are you coming up with rationalizations in your heart?  

We must not accept the world’s standards and the world’s definition of sin.  We must remember as J.C. Ryle writes, ‘Sin comes to us, like Judas, with a kiss, and like Joab, with an outstretched hand and flattering words.  The forbidden fruit seemed good and desirable to Eve, yet it cast her out of Eden.  The walking idly on his palace seemed harmless enough to David, yet in ended in adultery and murder.  Sin rarely seems sin at its first beginnings.  Let us then watch and pray that we fall into temptation.”

Do you see sin as no big deal?  Have you been stained by the world?

Those are just a few examples that come to mind.

Now, I didn’t give you those examples so that we might establish our own legalistic list of do’s and don’ts but instead to help you see that we all are in danger of being infected with worldliness.  Worldliness is not an issue out there that we don’t have to be concerned about because we are in here.

No, we are involved in a battle.  We need to war against worldliness.  If we are not, we are losing.    

Obviously, as believers, we are not perfect. 

That’s not James’ point here in verse 27.  The apostle John says “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”  Paul writes of believers, “the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and they are contrary to one another.”  But the point is, true believers fight.  They work at keeping themselves from being stained by the world because they realize the stakes are high. 

James is very black and white about this isn’t he? 

If you are not keeping yourself from being stained by the world, in other words, if you are living your life according to the world’s standards and values, that’s proof your worship isn’t acceptable to God.  It’s worthless.  

Why?  Is this works salvation?  No.  Of course not.  It’s salvation works. 

As Christians, we have been set free.  Colossians 1:13 says that we have been “transferred out of the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”  We’re not who we used to be.  God by His grace has taken us out of one kingdom and transferred us to another.  And, so Paul says in Colossians 3, “since we have been raised up with Christ…” since we have this new life, “we are to keep seeking the things above where Christ is…”  “Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” 

We don’t keep ourselves unstained from the world because that’s what saves us, we keep ourselves unstained from the world because we are saved.  We are new creatures.  We’ve left that old life behind.  We’ve turned from the world to Christ, so why would we ever go back.  That’s why this is a great test of whether our worship is real.  It’s not something that can really be forced upon you. 

It’s something that should flow from you.  

Many years ago Martyn Lloyd Jones was struggling with his call to the ministry.  He had been trained as a doctor, and actually was the assistant physician for the Queen’s personal physician.  So he was on his way up.  But he sensed a call to the ministry.  As he was struggling through his call, which direction to take with his life, he was asked by one of his friends to go out to the theater.  

Years later, Lloyd Jones recalls that visit, as a turning point in his life.  He couldn’t remember the play, but what he does remember is coming out of the theater with the great crowds behind him, and all the glamour that is part of a night out at a play, and sees a rag-tag group of Salvation Army members playing a hymn on their instruments.  At that point, he said, he realized “These are my people.  These are the people to whom I belong.  And I want to belong to them.”  

We’ve come out of the world.  We don’t belong there anymore.  We have a new life and a new purpose and a new direction.  The world used to be everything to us, now God is.

This is not legalistic – keep yourself from worldliness.  This is grace – keep yourself from worldliness.  Christ has redeemed us – he has saved us – and so we long to be with Him and do what He desires.  

Edward Payson illustrates, “When a man stands with his back to the sun, his own shadow and the shadows of surrounding objects are before him.  But when he turns towards the sun, all these shadows are behind him.  It is the same in spiritual things.  God is the great Sun of the Universe.  Compared with him creatures are but shadows.  But while men stand with their backs to God, all these shadows are before them, and engross their affections, desires and exertions.  On the contrary, when they are converted and turn to God, all these shadows are thrown behind them, and God becomes all in all, so they can say from the heart, ‘Whom have we in heaven but thee? And there is none on earth that we desire besides thee.”  (Psalm 73:25)”

Think of it like this:  “The Scriptures teach us that angels are continually present in this world, and they are doing all sorts of things in the purpose of God.  Since they are spirits, we can’t see them with our eyes.  So we go about our day and we are basically unaware of all that is going on around us.  Now imagine, that God should somehow give you the ability to see these angels throughout your day.  That would certainly change the way you went about doing things, wouldn’t it?  You would see angels where everybody else just saw nothing.  You would be interested by the sight, you would want to talk with these angels, you would want to become friends with these angels.  You wouldn’t be like other men any more, would you?  You would be something of a new person, angels would seem much more interesting to you than anything else.  People would either think you were crazy or a visionary or just distracted.  Now God did not make angels visible to us.  But the light of God’s Word does make the Lord of angels in some sense visible to us, at least now he is a reality in our minds, and the Scriptures help us to feel and act as if we saw Him who is invisible.  The Scriptures bring God into the circle of objects by which we perceive ourselves surrounded, and in whatever circle he is seen, he will be seen to be the most important object in it.  Now if the sight of angels would affect a change in a man’s character, how much more will seeing the infinite God.  His favor will appear all important, his anger dreadful; all other objects will, in a measure, lose their interest, and the man will be thought deluded, or visionary or distracted.”  

True believers are different than the world. 

That’s James 1:27. 

True religion is this – to keep oneself unstained by the world. 

Worldliness is a problem.  We’re not living in heaven.  We’re living in hostile territory.  The world’s against God and it wants us to be.  This means we have to keep ourselves from being stained by the world.  

Is your religion real? 

That’s the test James gives us. 

If you are not a believer you are just going to live your life according to the world’s system.  You may go to church on Sunday, but you live for the world throughout the week.  But if you are a true believer, you’ve been transformed and so although you still fall and still struggle, you will war against worldliness for the glory of your God and Father.     

Do you?

Worldliness is dangerous because it stains us.   

James says true religion is to ‘keep oneself unstained by the world.’

In other words, if you are not actively keeping yourself, you are going to be stained by the world.

The reason you have to actively keep yourself unstained by the world is because the world is constantly seeking to press us into its mold.  You hear a lot these days about tolerance. But the truth is the world is not tolerant towards God and towards true believers.  The world wants you to think like they think.  That’s why the apostle Paul explains in Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  

If we are not on our guard, we are in danger. 

You’ve all heard the story of how you boil a frog.  You don’t just set him down in boiling water.  No you put him in a pot of water that is a nice temperature, and then you slowly turn up the heat.  That’s the way worldliness tends to stain us and to infect our lives.   We let down our guard.   

You see this happening in the Old Testament. 

One author explains, “As Israel became apostate, it’s practices were progressively less distinguishable from those of the Canaanites.”  Slowly but surely they began to think and act just like the world around them because they were not on their guard.  They weren’t keeping themselves unstained from the world.  

And “Just as Israel was told repeatedly to separate itself from the immoralities of the pagan peoples it was displacing in Canaan the early church was to separate itself from the beliefs and practices of the … civilization within which it existed.  Christians were not to feel at home in the world but rather were to conduct themselves as strangers and exiles, without becoming conformed to the surrounding society.”  

If we are not careful, what happens is that we being to integrate worldly ideas and principles with our Christian practice, without even really realizing it.  We become more and more worldly but are unaware of our worldliness because we are still participating in religious activities.  

Herbert Schlossberg in his book Idols for Destruction explains, “Rarely when Israel fell into idolatry did they openly renounce the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in order to bow before the pagan shrines.  Instead…the nation combined the old rituals with what it knew of Canaanite religion.  We can see this in the description of the religious revival under King Josiah.  The king commanded the priests to remove from the temple the vessels that had been introduced for the service of Baal and of the heavenly bodies, he deposed the priests who burned incense to the pagan deities, he scattered the cult prostitutes…In turning away from God, the nation had not fallen into irreligion, but had combined the temple religion with the pagan beliefs and practices of the surrounding peoples.”  Their lives were stained by the world, and thus their worship was unacceptable to God.  

When I was a young man I went to the border of Rwanda.  And if you remember Rwanda a number of years ago was the scene of a terrible tribal war.  Hundreds if not thousands died.  And it was so sad as I talked to one of the missionaries about Rwanda he told me that before that event occurred Rwanda had been considered a Christian nation.  Many missionaries had gone to Rwanda and many had been supposedly converted.  But what had happened in reality was that many of the Rwandas just added Christianity to their old tribal religions.  It was a surface Christianity.  They went to church, they went through the motions of worship, but down deep, they hadn’t changed.  And so when the war broke out, they went back to their old ways because they had never really turned to new ones.

It’s easy to point our fingers at the Rwandans, but I’m afraid many professing Christians are like that.  We’ve just added going to church and praying as kind of a surface covering over a heart and life that is completely devoted to the world and our previous way of life. 

 If we take a step back we can see this happening in the church at large. Too often the ideas and principles that control the church are just the same principles and ideas that control those in the world, only perhaps they are clothed in more religious language.

For example I was reading in a newsletter, that in a past issue of Newsweek their religion editor asserted that ‘mere tolerance of other religions is not enough..’ and the ‘acceptance of other religions as valid paths to God is insufficient.’  According to the editor, ‘the most important theological agenda in the millennium is for committed Christians, Jews and Muslims to find within their own traditions sound theological reasons for valuing other faiths without compromising their own.”  

Now you think, that’s the world, I can understand that.  Apart from God, that makes sense.  But you don’t expect that kind of thing from the church.  But turn to Christianity Today, in a recent article by a college professor from a well known Christian college, we read that Christians ‘should seek Muslim prayer partners and gather together to pray to the true, one and only God to have mercy on us.’

“When evangelicals capitulate and attempt to soften the offense of the gospel this way, they blur the lines between the god of Islam and the God of the Bible.”  That’s just thinking like the world.  We can love Muslims and reach out to them without compromising the truth.  To do otherwise is to be stained by the world.  

Another example is that of psychology.  A University of Illinois psychologist “studied over a long period of time the relationship between academic psychology and the American churches.”  And you know what he found?  He discovered that “psychology and psychiatry were beginning to discover the damage done by their naturalistic assumptions…” But on the other hand, many in the churches had become so enamored with the naturalistic assumptions that were contradictory to their own beliefs that they were more committed to psychology and psychiatry than the psychologist and psychiatrists were.  

There are certainly other examples. 

James Montgomery Boice gives four.  “Like those liberals of past years, evangelicals today…1.) Pursue the world’s wisdom…If they are asked whether the Bible is the authoritative and inerrant Word of God, most will answer affirmatively.  But many have abandoned the Bible all the same because they don’t think it is adequate for the challenges we face as they enter a new millennium.  They don’t think it is sufficient for winning people to Christ so they turn to felt-need sermons, to entertainment, or to signs and wonders.  They do not think the Scriptures are sufficient for achieving genuine Christian growth, so they turn to therapy groups…2.) Embrace the world’s theology.  Like liberals before us evangelicals use the Bible’s words but give them new meanings.  Sin becomes dysfunctional behavior.  Salvation becomes self-esteem or wholeness…3.) Follow the World’s agenda.  The world’s major agenda is not hunger, racism…The world’s major agenda is being happy and happiness is achieving the maximum amount of personal peace and sufficient prosperity to enjoy it.  But is that not the bottom line of much evangelical preaching today?  Being happy?  Being content?  Being satisfied…4.)  Employ the world’s methods.  Evangelicals have become like liberals in this area, too.  How else are we to explain the stress so many place on numerical growth and money?  How else are we to explain that so many pastors tone down the hard edges of Bible truth in order to attract greater numbers to their services…”  

But we must be careful here.  It’s easy to talk generally about worldliness.  It’s even easy to talk about ways in which the church at large is becoming more and more worldly.  But we must remember that the church at large is made up of who?  Individuals.  And the church as a whole compromises with the world because individuals do.  So if we are concerned about the worldliness in the church, we need to start by being concerned about the worldliness in our hearts. Take your time this week and evaluate your life in light of Scriptures. 

Am I being stained by the world?  

Sometimes it is hard for us to identify the ways in which we are worldly because we have become so accustomed to it.  I’m sure many of the Rwandans didn’t think much about killing members of the other tribes because that’s the way they had always lived.  And many times we don’t think much about our worldliness because that’s our culture and we haven’t examined ourselves in light of Scripture. 

Donald Grey Barnhouse tells of how “Some years ago, musicians noted that errand boys in a certain part of London all whistled out of tune as they went about their work. It was talked about and someone suggested that it was because the bells of Westminster were slightly out of tune. Something had gone wrong with the chimes and they were discordant. The boys did not know there was anything wrong with the peals, and quite unconsciously they had copied their pitch. 

So we tend to copy the people with whom we associate; we borrow thoughts from the books we read and the programs to which we listen, almost without knowing it. God has given us His Word which is the absolute pitch of life and living. If we learn to sing by it, we shall easily detect the false in all of the music of the world.”  

Again, Herbert Schlossberg explains, “Idols are hard to identify after they have been part of the society for a time.  It became ‘normal’ for the people of Jerusalem to worship Molech in the temple, and it seemed odd that people calling themselves prophets should denounce the practice.  Molech was part of the establishment religious scene, one that directed the national worship throughout living memory.  The idol was supported by all the best elements of society, the political, economic, and religious power structure.  The prophets therefore denounced the powerful, wealth, and respectable, not because there is anything inherently wrong with those attributes, but because in that society people so described organized and validated a system of idol worship and injustice.”  

That’s why we must be on our guard.  That’s why we need to be called to ever-renewed vigilance and watchfulness in the war against worldliness.

If we are not warring against worldliness we are giving in to it.

Are you worldly?

That’s an important question.

After all, listen to James 1:27.

“This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father…to keep oneself unstained by the world.”  

Worldliness is a problem because the world wants to stain you and it’s a problem you should be concerned about because as James explains worship that God accepts comes from people who keep themselves unstained by the world.  

So the stakes our high.

Our relationship with the world is a test of our relationship with God.  Therefore regardless of how often you go to church, and how religious you appear, you need to ask yourself, am I keeping myself pure?

It is possible to engage in religious activities while being stained by the world.

Isaiah 1, perfect example. 

As one man writes,

“The nation of Judah was sunk in corruption and oppression, bribery was rampant, and the legal system a tool of despoliation.  Economic crime and murder abounded and government officials committed criminal acts.  Yet with all this the official religion of the nation, the temple worship of the Creator of the universe flourished.  People took part in the cultic observances of the God whose laws they had come to despise.” 

They claimed to worship God while living for themselves.

And you know what? 

God hates that kind of worship. 

He says, “Bring your worthless offerings no longer, incense is an abomination to Me.  New moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies – I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.’ (Is.1:13)”   

They were worldly worshipers, and so God rejected their worldly worship.  

But worldliness is not just an Old Testament problem.

It’s a New Testament problem as well. 

Paul says in Philippians 4:18,19 “Many walk of whom I often told you and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, who set their minds on earthly things.” 

Many people are worldly.  Not just those who are outside the church.  Many professing believers lives are stained by worldliness. 

That’s why the apostle John has to give this urgent admonition, “Do not love the world, nor the things of the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  

And if worldliness was a problem in the Old Testament, and a problem in the New Testament you can be sure that it is a problem today. 

In fact, I am afraid, many professing believers have failed at just this point.  

They don’t abandon worship. They come to church.  They go through all the motions.  But what they do on Sunday morning has nothing to do with the rest of their lives.  As one writer explains, they fail to understand that their worship service on Sunday mornings completely repudiates the way of life they uphold throughout the week. 

In the other words, they are  just as worldly as the world.

The truth is, many are outworlding the world. 

As James Montgomery Boice writes,

“Over a decade ago, Professor Martin Marty, always a shrewd observer of the American church said in a magazine interview that in his judgment, evangelicals would be ‘the most worldly people in America’ by the end of the century.  Marty’s observations are not always right in my opinion, but in this case he was on target.  Evangelicals have embraced worldliness in the same ways that it was embraced by liberal churches.” 

Iain Murray explains,

“Instead of the churches revolutionizing the culture, the reverse has happened.  Churches have been converted to the world…the stream of historic orthodoxy that once watered the evangelical soul is now dammed by a worldliness that many fail to recognize as worldliness because of the cultural innocence with which it presents itself.”  

Worldliness is a problem.

Are you worldly?

To answer that question, obviously you need to know what worldliness is.

The Greek word James uses for world is ‘kosmos.’

Sometimes it is used in Scripture to describe the physical universe itself, things like stars and planets, and the earth.  Obviously that’s not how James is using the term here.  He’s not talking about grass stains. This term kosmos is also used throughout Scripture to describe a way of thinking about life, and a way of living one’s life.  As one Greek dictionary defines it, the world is “the system of practices and standards associated with secular society (that is without reference to the demands and requirements of God.)”  The world represents apart from God thinking and living.

Worldliness, as Iain Murray explains,

“Is departing from God.  It is a man-centered way of thinking.” 

Or as David Wells writes, “Worldliness is that system of values and beliefs, behaviors, and expectations, in any given culture that have at their center the fallen human being and that relegate to their periphery any thought about God.  Worldliness is what makes sin look normal in any age and righteousness seem odd.”  

You see, there are two ways of viewing life. 

One is from God’s perspective, which is revealed in the Word, and the other is man’s perspective, which is revealed in the world.  God has a worldview, and He presents that worldview in the Scripture.  Unregenerate man also has a worldview.  He lives his life according to Galatians 4:3 in bondage to the basic principles of the world.   And these two perspectives, God’s and unregenerate man’s, are not neutral towards one another as some seem to think.  They are opposites.  What is of the world is not of the Father, and what is of the Father is not of the world.  The apostle John explains, “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15)  The two cannot co-exist.

The Bible tells us God looks at the world’s ideas and principles and says they are foolish.  In fact, Paul says He has made them foolish.  1 Corinthians 1:20, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe?  Where is the debater of this age?  Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”  And the world looks at God’s wisdom and thinks it is foolish.  1 Corinthians 2:14, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to Him…”  

Sometimes when people hear the word worldliness, they think of a list of do’s and don’ts.  But when James talks about true believers keeping themselves unstained by the world and we talk about warring against worldliness, we’re talking about much more than just sticking to a list of do’s and don’ts that some person has made up. 

In fact, I think this is one of Satan’s great strategies. 

Many people hear James say ‘keep yourself unstained by the world…’ and they automatically think, ‘Great I am doing that.  I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t go to bad movies. Therefore, I’m not worldly.’  But worldliness, being stained by the world, is something much bigger than not drinking and not smoking and not going to bad movies.  You can avoid movies, wear plain dresses and live in a monastery in the wilderness and be as worldly as a person who does all these things, because as John MacArthur puts it, “Worldliness is the sin of allowing one’s appetites, ambitions, or conduct to be fashioned by worldly values.”

I am saying, worldliness is a way of thinking, a way of looking at life

It is about more than what you do or don’t do. It’s about what’s going on in your heart.

To be stained by the world is to think like the world thinks and live like the world lives. 

You know, James uses different language but makes the same point over in 4:4, “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

An enemy of God!

Are you worldly?

It’s dangerous, and in our next post, we’ll see just how dangerous being worldly can be.