The Relationship Of Believers To The World Series

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As a child and a teenager, I wanted to be accepted. To belong to the circle of friends that lived on my street. I wanted them to like me and to let me be part of the things they did. To be asked to play with them. To be part of the baseball games. To be invited to the birthday parties. To be liked by them. It hurt when they made fun of me or acted like I did not exist—that I didn’t belong. And so I tried hard to be accepted, to belong. I tried to act and dress in the same ways. And I laughed at their jokes even when they were not funny.

But sometimes I found myself doing things that I should not be doing. Ringing a doorbell at an older couple’s home and running away. Going along in making fun of someone else. I knew these things were wrong but I found it so easy to do them. Because I wanted to belong.

Have you ever done something you should not have because you wanted to belong to the group or you did not want them to think you were a sissy or a goodie-goodie or a geek or whatever name is used today?

As adults do, we still have a desire to belong, to be accepted by others? At work? In the neighborhood? In your extended family? Doesn’t it feel good to tell a joke and everyone laughs and thinks we are funny?

It’s a basic need that we need to belong. To be loved as one of the group. To be loved by the world as its own. It hurts to be made fun of or rejected - at any age. Even if you are retired. If you thought you were part of a group of friends and they do something without you, you feel left out and hurt.

Jesus says to us that if you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. We want to belong, we want to be loved. We want to be popular. To say what will be accepted.

It is said that President Lyndon Johnson used to carry with him the latest opinion polls so that he knew what stand to take on a particular day.

But as Christians we have a dilemma. Jesus says to us "You do not belong to the world." To each one of you who are a true believer, Jesus says to you that you do not belong to the world. In John 17:14, Jesus says that we are not of this world any more than He is of this world. This means that we look at things differently than the world sees things.

The world we are referring to is the human system that is opposed to God—the world which thinks that we are ok and we don’t need God—that we are able to look after ourselves and don’t need God—that we are to look out for ourselves first—that success and popularity are important.

Jesus says that we don’t belong to this world and their way of thinking and living. That we are not to feel at home in this world. That we do not get our security, our comfort and hope from this world. That we are, as Peter, says, 1 Pet 2:11 "aliens and strangers in the world." That we are not to even think as the world thinks. That we are not to conform to the pattern of this world.

And yet this happens so easily. Even in the church. The church is to go out into the world but I believe that in the last few decades the world has gotten more into the church than the church has gotten into the world. And into the lives of each believer.

Even in discussing how God wants us to live, we so easily use human logic rather than the word of God. God says to turn the other cheek when we are slapped, but even as believers, we say that may sound good but it doesn’t work. We don’t need to be doormats. Listen to yourselves as you discuss issues or how we are to act in various situations. I wish we carried tape recorders around. We might be surprised how often our words reflect worldly wisdom rather than the word and will of God.

Remember, we do not belong to the world. Or to its ways of thinking. We are exposed more than any other generation to the world’s way of thinking. Bombarded by printed material, by music, by movies, by TV shows.

We need to remember that we don’t belong to the world. Rather we belong to Jesus Christ. Jesus says to us "You do not belong to the world" Why? Because Jesus says, “I have chosen you out of the world."