CHRISTIANS ARE IN THE WORLD; NOW WHAT?
Dear Saints:
Just in the last week, we had reports that almost 30 young people were rescued from child sex traffickers in a city in Colorado; that rival gangs of Somali youth were involved in shootings at a high school homecoming game in Minnesota; and two different planned terrorist attacks at our state capital and at a popular mall in another state, one involving guns and one involving bombs, but both premeditated plans to kill tens or hundreds of people.
It’s tempting to think the main problem with the world is all the bad things that happen. But see what the devil does. His real goal is to inflict misery and grief, anger and blame, fear, and doubt of God. When people react by saying, “Why bring children into such a world?” Satan’s winning. If we react with fear, sing a song of sadness and gloom, joining the chorus of the unbelieving world that loses hope, we aren’t seeing the world as God does.
Jesus does not hate the world. The world consists of sinners, yes; but sinners whom He wants to bring to heaven as redeemed saints. He loves the world! Lutheran hymn writer Paul Gerhardt has given us the words for this, in a hymn where He says that love caused Christ to come down from heaven:
A love that could embrace
A world where sorrow dwelleth,
Which sin and suff’ring fill, More than the tongue e’er telleth;
Yet Thou couldst love it still! (ELH #94 v. 5)
Our God sees that the main problem isn’t what can happen to our bodies. Remember, Jesus said: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mt 10:28, 16:26) The world is what we’re passing through on our way to heaven. He wants us to arrive safely. We only arrive safely by faith in Him, as we see in Jesus’ parable today. He wants us to guard against false teaching that produces false belief. It’s the reason for these instructions in Ephesians 5:
Ephesians 5:15-21 (v. 15-16). See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Lord, this is Your Word, and these are Your words. Guard our faith by the truth; Your Word is truth. Amen.
- God says to “redeem the time,” and that “the days are evil.”
You’ve heard that Christians are to “be in the world, but not of the world.” You can’t help being in the world. But you can help whether you’re going to be “of the world,” caught up in its wicked ways.
Christians are in the world; now what? What do we do? St. Paul uses the word “circumspectly” to tell us. “Walk circumspectly” can be said this way: “walk cautiously” or “be careful how you walk.”It means to have our heads up, be alert, on the lookout. It’s being cautious – not the way a nervous person is, but the way a soldier is. A soldier in enemy territory expects the worst, prepares himself for it, never relaxes, stays on guard.
This is still a little too general. What are we looking out for? It helps to know what it means that “the world” is an enemy of our faith, or that “the days are evil.” God does not hate the world He made, and He doesn’t want us to hate the world in general. It’s very specific when we speak of “the world” as an enemy. The catechism teaches what this is.
Under “Thy will be done,” it’s the devil, the world and our sinful flesh which (it says) will “not let us hallow His name nor let His kingdom come” – so “the world” here is whatever gets us to go against God’s will. Under “lead us not into temptation,” again it’s the devil, the world and our sinful flesh which work to “deceive us [and] lead us into misbelief, despair, and other shameful sin.” So “the world” is also whatever leads us into sinning, or leads us to be in a place of fear or despair, which is the opposite of trust and hope in God.
The part of the world that we’re to watch out for is being led to go against God’s will as revealed in the Ten Commandments, sinning against God. The fact is, we aren’t careful enough. That’s why God’s apostle has to say: “Be careful how you walk in the world.” It matters who your friends are, what they influence you to think and do. It matters where you get your information, if it contradicts God’s Word. It matters what you watch, what you read, whom you listen to. This is where the world gets to influence you.
A particular danger is wanting the world’s approval, when the world threatens you with embarrassment, loneliness, lack of friends, or feeling irrelevant and ignored. If you’re made to feel that your child has to miss church because of membership on a team, or that what you’ve been taught to believe and do – the lines you’ve been taught not to cross – are out of favor, or if you don’t see that movie or read that book you’ll be the only one missing out, or that you have to stay in a job that works against your faith, or compels your absence from God’s house or keeps you working hours that give you less time with your wife and children, then the godless world is re-forming your life to be – if not godless – then less directed by God.
When the world has its way with us, you see Christians who don’t look so different from the rest of the world. Our desire to have it comfortable in the world leads to the world influencing us rather than the other way around. Then you aren’t being the light of the world and salt of the earth.
- “Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”That’s what St. Paul says next, to us who confess that we’ve been unwise, uncautious, careless, falling into the world’s way of thinking and living.
He says: “But understand what the will of the Lord is.” What is God’s will? “The Lord is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. God our Savior desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2Pe 3:8, 1Ti2:3-4). That is what God wants.
God doesn’t want anyone on this earth to perish eternally. He wants everyone to be saved. Christ came down from heaven to this world. His will was not to forget the world, abandon or forsake it, but come to it, to take on human flesh, to be in the world and for the world to “not know” Him, to reject and kill Him, all of which only served His purpose of redeeming the world, including everyone in the world, in His finished work of salvation!
So the “now what?” question of finding ourselves in the world starts with this. We know God sent His Son into the world that we are in. It isn’t only a fallen world. It’s a redeemed world! This knowledge is found only in the Gospel, only in His Church where His Word is taught in its truth and purity.
Far from being self-conscious or embarrassed before the world, you know something. We’re given something much bigger than this world. All your identity, worth and value is found in Jesus. He is your Savior. He’s redeemed you from sin, death, and hell. You’re holy in God’s sight, even glorious.
The world can offer you nothing, but in this world God gives you the gifts by which He brings you into the most glorious, fulfilled and perfect life, inside His eternal kingdom. What you have, everyone in the world should want – and at some point will want – and God wants it for every person. He sends us into the world with this message of His love for all people.
- “But be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”
A Christian doesn’t join in the world’s song and chorus of sadness and despair, hopelessness and gloom. We do sigh and groan, of course. We suffer in this world. We might join in the songs of sadness and fear and gloom sometimes. Our faith isn’t always strong.
But “be filled with the Spirit” means that the Holy Spirit proceeds forth as a Gift from the Father and the Son, in His Word and Sacraments, to speak Jesus to us. This is Christ – by means of His Spirit – continuing to come to His world, to come to us here: where we are weak to make us strong, where we’re afraid to give us confidence, where we are sad to give us godly cheer and joy.
So here is a clear contrast with “the world.” The world responds to evil by numbing itself to it, for instance getting drunk as St. Paul says here. But as a Christian what do you do in the face of evil and all that’s wrong in the world? Sing! When you sing in the face of sin, sorrow, fear and death, that’s faith.
People don’t sing together much anymore. Even in some churches their worship is defined by people sitting and listening to performers. That’s not what God has called His Christians to do! God gives this gift to us in the church, so we can sing together, sing to one another, strengthen each other, and also to fill the world with our singing – even by having a song in your heart, walking in the world with a defiant joy! – and filling the world with the beauty of the Lord. Rather than having anger and defeatist fear in your heart to be always “making melody in our hearts to the Lord.”
St. Paul says we “sing to one another,” bolstering each other with God’s words set to music, which is God’s creation to beat back the devil. Remember, the angels are “the heavenly host,” or army; what we see them doing in the Christmas story, to beat back the forces of hell, is sing! The devil hates music and wants to silence it by overpowering us with worries and cares, and filling our ears and our minds with words of foreboding and fear. So joining us with the angels, the Spirit gives us“psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” to defy and beat back Satan. The “new song” we sing is the Gospel, God’s love for the world He made, revealed in Jesus. Let your life be this song!
Prayer: Lord, grant that I always desire what is most acceptable and most dear to You. Let Your will be mine and let my will follow Yours and agree with it. Grant that I may die to all things in the world, and for Your sake love to be scorned and not known in this generation. Grant me above all things that can be desired to rest in You, to have my heart in peace in You. You are the true peace of the heart, You its only rest. Amen. (Thomas á Kempis, The Lord Will Answer, 322)