Sermons

Summary: What did Jesus mean by being in the world but not of the world?

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1 Peter 2:11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the gentiles that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Introduction

If you read the Bible from the beginning, by the time you hit the third book you come across an awesome command that should stop you in your tracks.

Leviticus 11:44 I am Yahweh your God; set yourselves apart and be holy, because I am holy.

And just in case that does not stop you in your tracks, God repeated it again in the very next verse.

45 I am Yahweh who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.

And just in case you missed it there, God repeats it again in Leviticus 19:2, 20:7, 20:26, 21:6, and 1 Peter 1:16. God has declared that without holiness, no one will see Him (Heb.12:14). Unholiness separates us from God; holiness opens the way to Him, and so we must be holy.

Holy means to be separated from evil and set apart for God. But what does that look like in day-to-day life? How do we separate ourselves from evil and yet still live in this world? This is such an important issue, and there is so much confusion about it that I decided to devote a whole sermon just to thinking through this one principle.

Legalism and Worldliness

There are two ways we routinely fall off the horse in this area of holiness. You can fall off one side into legalism, or fall off the other side into worldliness. I will start with legalism.

Legalism

We left off last time with…

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart.

Guard it from what? Any influence that might tug it away from God in the direction of sin. And how you go about avoiding those influences is a judgment call for each individual Christian. For example, one person might say, “I can’t watch a football game. With the kind of commercials that come on, and all the rest of it – by the time the game is over all my fleshy desires are activated and revved up, and my godly desires for prayer and Scripture and the things of God are barely there. And so for me, it is a sin to watch a football game.” Is that true? Is it a sin for him to watch a game? Absolutely! Of course it is sin to knowingly do some unnecessary thing that you know is going to draw you away from the Lord. Is it legalism for him to say, “I’m not going to watch any football games”? No, that is not legalism; it is wisdom.

Is it legalism for him to come to you and suggest that maybe you should not watch them either? No. There is nothing wrong with that. If he suspects those games have the same influence on you that they have on him, if he cares about you at all he is going to suggest that to you. That is not legalism; it is love.

It becomes legalism when he assumes that it is sin for you. It is fine for him to say, “I think you should consider whether it’s wise for you to watch those games.” But it is legalism if he just assumes, “It’s a sin for you to watch them just like it is for me.”

It is not legalism for me to avoid things that harm me spiritually, whether it be games, vacations, high salary, free time, the Internet, certain foods, certain friends – none of that is legalism. It is not legalism to strive with all your might to avoid things that are likely to have a bad influence on you. Legalism is when I impose my judgment calls about influence on you.

We all draw lines on how much exposure we are going to have to various negative influences. Television, movies, novels, news broadcasts, magazines, friends, work environments, music, etc. I had a job once where they played secular country music all day, and it had a terrible effect on my spiritual life. All day long I found myself having worthless, inane lyrics just running nonstop through my head. I could not think about Scripture or anything worthwhile. And I cannot imagine how anyone can listen to that music and keep their thoughts on things above, and so I always counsel people not to listen to secular music. But I would never point to someone and say, “You’re in sin for listening to that.” Nor would I ever look down on that person or think, “Oh, that person probably isn’t very serious about personal holiness.” If I had any thoughts like that at all – that would be legalism. Legalism is when you impose your judgment calls on someone else.

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