BETWEEN WEIRD AND WORLDLY
Bob Marcaurelle
meadowbrookbaptist.cc
“The Lord says, ‘Come out from among them and be separated from them. Then I will receive you and be a Father to you. You will be my sons and daughters.’”
(2 Corinthians 6:17-18)
PART 1:
In Grammar School I was walking down the hall with everyone else to watch “Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain. Two girls were sitting in the hall. I found out why. They were “Christians” and were not allowed to go to movies. I remember thinking - Man, that’s weird! I went to church every now and then and never heard anything like that.
Thirty years later, as a pastor, I was interested in a certain movie and it was rated “PG-13.” Wanting to be careful I asked one of our finest young people about the movie. He said, “Preacher Bob, it wasn’t that bad. There was hardly any cursing. The PG-13 rating was probably for the violence.”
I went and every other word, it seemed, was a filthy curse word. God’s name was dragged through the dirt. I quietly slipped out hoping no one would see me. And I thought of that young person any why he lied to me. I realized later he didn’t.
Our generation is so saturated with sex, profanity and violence that we are immune to it. Somewhere between the weirdness of the first two girls and the worldliness of that young man, we must learn what to do to be a good witness for Jesus to the world around us. We must have a balance between INSULATION from the people without IMMITATION of them.
Both extremes have their problems for the Christian who is serious about being a witness. While I am sure God prefers the first extreme over the second, we can be so weird that our witness is weakened. We CAN be “so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.”
But likewise, we cannot pull people out of the filth of sin if we wallow in the filth ourselves. Listen to Paul in
Ephesians 5
“Take no part in the worthless pleasures of evil and darkness, but instead, rebuke and expose them. . .when they see how wrong they really are, some of them may even become children of the light” (5:11, 13, LIVING BIBLE).
This is the problem we face every day as we go out into our filthy Canaan culture to school, to work, to play and even to worship. No greater problem and no more difficult challenge faces us than our relationship with the world and its non-Christian culture, value and lifestyle. What are our choices? First. . .
I. THE WORLDLY STANCE
The most popular and prevalent Christian reaction to the world is to be like it or, at least, to keep our faith a secret, so we won’t be different. A Gallup poll in the late 1980's, revealed very little difference in the ethics and behavior of people who went to church and people who did not. The same result was in the “Barna Report” of the 1990’s. The people of the world see us go to church and sing:
They go to church on Sunday
In fine clothes attired
They’ll be alright on Monday
Its’ just a little habit they’ve acquired
The “world” that crucified Jesus sits IN OUR PEWS and preaches from our pulpits. Most Pharisees and many Rabbis (Scribes) tithed, prayed twice daily, fasted, attended synagogue (church), gave alms to the poor, studied their Bibles, witnessed publicly to let everyone know they were servants of God, killed Jesus and went to hell.
When I pastored a small country church, Martin Luther King was assassinated. One of my “finest?” members said the man who killed him should get a medal.” This is an outrage. No wonder we can’t get people in church. All we have to offer them is what they already are. Why is this happening?
1. The Searing of Conscience (1 Cor. 8:7; 1 Tim. 4:2)
The Bible talks about weak and defiled consciences (1 Cor. 8:7) being seared (1 Tim. 4:2) by sin. That was the problem of that young man. For us to get away from illicit sex, violence, profanity and materialism would be like a fish getting away from water. When everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, is doing something, we CAN keep our kids from doing it for a while but it’s almost impossible to get them to really believe it is wrong.
There are the teens in our churches who see nothing wrong with singing hymns on Sunday, speaking on Youth Night and watching the worst kind of videos and listening to heavy metal rock that glorifies sex and violence during the week. Their motto is, “When in Canaan, do as the Canaanites do.” (The same is true of many adults.)
In a sin saturated society, sin has a blinding effect even on good people. Alexander Pope said it best:
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face
We first endure, then pity, then embrace
(Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Man” in The Book of Classic English Poetry, selected by Edwin Markham: New York: Wm. H. Wise and Co., 1934, p. 1205)
2. The Lack of Clarity by the Church
Adding to the confusion is the lack of clarity by the church. Our views of right and wrong are constantly changing. The church, in its long history, has come up with some weird notions about what we should and should not do.
Some Baptist Churches, to this day, have fellowship halls that are not connected with the sanctuary. When they were constructed they felt it was “wrong” to eat in a sanctuary.
Some changes come in reaction to criticism. Today, when Conservative Christians speak out against anything the world delights in, the media pictures us as bigots, trying to play God. Our people, young and old, are affected by this. They begin to wonder not if WE are right, but if the BIBLE is right.
John R. W. Stott, talking about how difficult preaching is in the modern world, said the world's attitude to the church, to parents and to teachers, is, "Don't preach at me."
3. The Lack of Courage (Rom. 12:1)
There’s another reason and it leaves us far more responsible - the lack of courage. We know what the Bible says about us and the world's sins and don’t have to be Bible scholars to understand it. Romans 12:1 says, “Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold” (Phillips). James 4:4 says, “You adulterers and adulteresses - don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God, therefore, the friend of the world is God’s enemy.”
Even good Christians ignore this because we do not want to be DIFFERENT. About two years into playing golf, I was frustrated because I could hit woods but not irons. You never know how far a wood will hit the ball, so you need irons to control the distance and hit it near the hole.
I kept wishing someone would make irons that looked like woods. And then someone did. I laid down $300 and my game improved immediately. The only thing is - irons that look like woods look weird. People kept asking, “What in the world kind of club is that?” I listened to that for about six months and then traded them for some regular irons I still couldn’t hit. My score went back to being bad.
But I have never regretted getting rid of them. Why? Because no golf score is worth the burden of being looked on as different. That’s the way it is with most Christians - young and old. We fear being different far more than we fear God and we love being a regular person far more than we love the Lord who died in our place.
We have men and women who see nothing wrong with attending movies that blaspheme the name of God and Jesus; which take away all the mystery from sexual acts and which portray violence of the sickest nature. They become “hypocrites in reverse” – pretending to like what they inwardly dislike to be liked.
The results of worldly behavior are disastrous. We lose power in prayer for the Bible says if we cherish iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us (Ps. 66:18). We lose closeness to God for the Bible says in James the friend of the world is the enemy of God (James 4:4). We lose the power to witness because Jesus says dirty salt is fit only to be walked on by men (Matt. 5:13-14).
Like Lot, who went into Sodom and let Sodom get into him, and had sex with his daughters while he was drunk, we can do shameful and painful things that scar us and those we love for the rest of our lives. That’s why the Bible issues warning after warning about worldly behavior.
Solomon said, “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent” (1:10). Then he explained why, “They lay a trap for themselves. . .(1:18) / and you eat the bitter fruit of your ways” (1:31).
II. THE WEIRD STANCE (2 Cor. 6:17-18)
These are those who RENOUNCE the world and RETREAT FROM IT. The two girls in my school were taught this - anything on film is a “No! No!” Knowing the dangers and heeding the call of God to be holy or set apart (Deut. 7:6) many retreat to the safe cloister of a totally religious environment.
For an extreme example, the Mennonites retreat totally from culture and build strong, godly, disciplined homes and individuals. But they are considered weird by the world and most people in the church. They are good people, but they will never be influential witnesses to many people.
Many well-meaning Christians have gone too far and mistaken separation from the world’s sins with ISOLATION from the world itself. We can hide in the salt shaker of church buildings and INSULATE ourselves from people.
In the third and fourth centuries, monasteries sprang up and monks retreated from the established church and the world so they could be holy. Simeon Stylites lived 37 years on top of a pillar and one hermit who lived 55 years alone on Mount Sinai, accepting no visitors, said, “The man who is often visited by mortals cannot be visited by angels.”
We have our versions of that today. It is not true of all Christian parents, but for some it is the reason why they send their children to Christian schools or listen exclusively to Christian radio. It is not for us to criticize because they are addressing issues that are important to them. Like us, they are trying to obey God.
III. THE WITNESSING STANCE (John 17:1,15-16; Matthew 5:13-14)
1. Our Duty
In Jesus’ prayer for his disciples and us, in John 17, He said,
“Holy Father. . . My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world even as I am not of it” (17:1, 15-16).
Jesus calls us SALT. Salt can stop the decay of meat or add flavor to it. But in both cases the salt must TOUCH the meat and we as the salt of the earth or “world” must TOUCH the world to bring it to Christ (Matt. 5:13-14).
2. Our Decisions
We all have to make our own choices and do what we feel is right and best for our witness and as parents for our own children. I cannot decide for you and you cannot decide for me. As Baptist parents in the last few decades, we have had to decide things such as taking our children to Disney World and whether or not to let them observe Halloween.
And this is part of our Christian growth. For years a famous pastor in our denomination was criticized and passed over for denominational work because he offered a prayer of dedication for a new Brewery. I joined the judges. What we didn’t know was that he was trying to win a neighbor to Christ; agreed to pray and learned when he got there that he was praying for a brewery.
He said he prayed because he didn’t want to embarrass his friend, and then he told his deacons and his church and asked for understanding and forgiveness –which they gladly gave him –as they should.
You say, “Preacher Bob, how will I know what to do and not to do?” I wish I could give you easy answers and a list of “do’s and don’t’s”, but I can’t.
For example, one part of a godly wife tells her not to go to company parties where there is drinking but another part says she needs to stand behind her husband, especially in the eyes of his co-workers. If she asks fellow Christians she will find people on both sides.
3. The Danger of Sin
The Pharisees (whose name meant SEPARATED ONES) accused Jesus of being a wine drinker and a friend of sinners (Matt. 7:34; 11:19). In fact, that’s one of the things that got Him killed. But Jesus was holy and separate from their sins. He had contact without being contaminated. He was in the world but not of it.
We are called to go into our world as witnesses (Acts 1:8). If we go we must be careful that the world does not get into us. We are like ships. It must be in the water but must not let the water get into it.
To do this we need some convictions about our conduct. We need some non-negotiable lines we will not cross. Only the Holy Spirit can guide us through this.
4, The Demands of Soul Winning (Acts 16:3)
. One of Paul’s deepest convictions, one he went to prison for, was that circumcision was not necessary for salvation But when he took Timothy on a missionary journey,
“He had him circumcised because of the Jews who lived in that region, for they all knew that his father was a Gentile” (Acts 16:3).
Here he did not take his stand against circumcision, as he HAD done in the case of TITUS (Gal. 2:3). Why ? He did it for the sake of the Gospel. He did not want the Jews to turn a deaf ear to his gospel message, which they all would have done if he traveled with a Gentile.
The devil, my friends, is so wise. He can even use our love for and commitment to Christ against us. Paul could have taken a stand and refused to have Timothy circumcised but it would NOT have been the witnessing stance God wanted.
5. The Damage of Separation
It SURRENDERS THE WHOLE WORLD to the devil - art, music, sports, movies, TV. Friends, these mold the minds of our children and grandchildren and we ought to be out there cleaning up as much as we can for Jesus.
It can BREED PRIDE. It easily tempts us to view separation as the mark of a godly Christian. Many First Century Rabbis (scribes) and Pharisees went to synagogue every week, tithed, fasted, prayed twice a day, gave alms to the poor, saw no need of repentance, killed Jesus and went to hell.
6. The Damage in the Witnessing Stance
If we take a balanced witnessing stance, we are still going to be criticized. The CHURCH will criticize us. Some will call us WEIRD.
Some will call us WORLDLY. When a famous magician came to our area on a Wednesday night, I had someone do Prayer Meeting for me and my wife and I took our three daughters to see him. The next week I had two ladies (church members) come to my office, each one with a big Bible.
One praised me for having the nerve to put my family above church “work”. The other one told me I should not be having anything to do with Satan’s witchcraft and sorcery. I explained to her the difference between “slight of hand” magic and “black” magic but I might as well have been talking to the wall.
No matter what stance we take, the WORLD will criticize us. Salt in a wound irritates and we will always be an uncomfortable irritant to morally diseased people.
The words of Jesus still ring true, “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own” (John 15:18-19).
My first year in Seminary some friends and I took a break from our study and went to the game room and yelled to the top of our voices as we watched the World Series. On the third or fourth night we found a note on the screen. (If you so-called preachers cared as much about winning people to Christ as you do about baseball God would be pleased with you.”
Paul Harvey told of a dear lady in Chicago who spent her life helping others as a nurse. She always took it as a calling and a ministry from God and always seemed to joyfully walk the second mile.
When retirement came she couldn’t take it for long. She went back to the hospital as a volunteer to do for patients what busy nurses don’t have time for. Thus she says, she can help both the patients and the nurses.
This wonderful lady, known all over that great city, is a small light of love shining in the darkness. Paul Harvey says that when you talk to her you soon find out the three great loves of her life. She loves her God and her church - no matter what! She loves her home and family - no matter what
And she loves the Chicago Cubs - no matter what! Somewhere between weird and worldly, this lady has taken a beautiful, helpful witnessing stance in her world. Let us seek to do the same even if both the church and the world criticizes us.
