M-G: 11.13.14 // Three Areas of Worldliness in the Church – Part 1 Introduction

There are many ways by which worldliness creeps into a church. It is nothing more than a harmful spiritual parasite that can suck the life out of the spiritual healthiness of any body of believers. It makes its entrance overtly and subtly, in obvious and insidious ways. The carriers are believers in general, the faithful and the disobedient, and the ominous tares (religious lost people who look and talk a good game, having a form of godliness but denying its power, 2 Tim 3:5). This spiritual bug thrives, breeds, and multiplies in a culture of ignorance of the Scriptures.

Let me give a simple definition of worldliness. It is anything that opposes God, His Word, or His people. The major problem is believers not knowing when something is posing a threat to the church! Acting upon knowledge of the Scriptures protects the church, not ignorance. Once it infiltrates a church, it grows exponentially in a culture of biblical ignorance. Ignorance is never aware, alarmed, or upset over something or someone that is in opposition to God, His Word, or His people unless someone else points it out for they lack the spiritual discernment that comes with knowledge and wisdom. Some of the obvious signs of worldliness are skirmishes, clashes, and battles rather than unity and love for the glory of God, or sin is tolerated in the camp, or a cold liturgical distance where kind flocks to kind, and God is nowhere to be found, no growth only ritualism. An earmark of the handiwork of worldliness is creating division.

In our series, there are three great works in the Scriptures that we are well acquainted with in our lives: judging, forgiving, and loving. It is interesting to ask people what they think about these subjects. Mostly, it is a sad response to subjectivism rather than scriptural clarity. Unless we understand the biblical meaning of them we are subject to being infected by the worldliness bug. The only immunization is knowledge of the truth and purity of the soul. Instead of thinking and acting in a biblical manner concerning these, we are worldlier in our expression of them rather than judging, forgiving, and loving like Christ. To make matters worse we have a tendency to get defensive if someone challenges our understanding of judging, forgiving, and loving. I am no stranger to this response.

Worldliness feeds an easy believism that gives rise to an unrealistic view of Christianity. I chose these three because they are not an outright attack on Scripture through a blunt and brute force of ideas like salvation is by works; the Bible is a book of men; Jesus is not God; we are not sinners; the message of the cross is absurd (1 Cor 1:18); the resurrection is a hoax; or the Bible is full of errors and cannot be trusted, et al. No, sometimes worldliness attaches to the not so obvious or subtle concepts like judging, forgiving, and loving in a worldly manner rather than biblically. And you know what's crazy? Many believers truly believe that they are judging, forgiving, and loving according to the Bible, if that doesn't beat all - don't judge, forgive freely (repentance not necessary), and love without standards.

Historically, every facet of the Bible has been under attack from the beginning; the serpent said to Eve in the Garden, “Did God actually say” (Gn 3:1, ESV) because Satan knows that the Word of God is foundational to Christianity; destroy the foundation, and the structure collapses – “You will not surely die” (Gn 3:4). Paradise collapsed alright; Adam and Eve were spiritually separated from God, and eventually both died physically (cf. Gn 5:5). Along with man, the entire Universe was placed under the curse. When God’s Word is not obeyed; bad things happen. Satan knows this; it is too bad we don’t learn from our mistakes. Ah, the law of the harvest, reaping what is sown. It can be a very tough law though forgiven. Best to avoid sin, don’t you think?

Satan knows that heaven and earth will pass away, but God’s Word will never pass away (Mk 13:31), but he will continue to dissuade men of the truth by any means possible. Promoting the ignorance of the Scriptures and twisting its meaning are just two ways of manipulating believers in keeping them away from the truth. At the Bema we can’t blame our poor choices on Satan. Willful ignorance is on us as believers, and it is costly – loss of rewards (1 Cor 3:15). 

    

It may come as sort of a surprise to some of you on pointing out these three avenues where Satan has infiltrated many churches of America, if not all, and twisted and contorted its biblical meanings. If you are spiritually perceptive you will be alarmed that not only have the biblical meaning of these three words been tampered with and corrupted by worldly thinking but how the world’s interpretation of their meanings has gained a foothold in churches claiming to be the bastion of truth. Whenever believers begin accepting the world’s interpretation of Scripture, what is wrong with this picture? Are believers actually doing that? God help us, yep! 

1 Cor 2:14 makes it very clear that the natural man does not have the spiritual capacity to discern spiritual truth. He cannot have spiritual insight because the Holy Spirit does not live within the heart of a lost man. Jude translates the same Greek word translated “natural” by Paul as “sensual” (Jude 1:19). He further describes the sensual persons causing divisions as “not having the Spirit.” So the natural man in 1 Cor 2:14 does not have the Holy Spirit which is why he does not have spiritual discernment; therefore, he (the natural or sensual man) is blind, deprived of eternal life and spiritual insight through unbelief (2 Cor 4:4).

All men are born spiritually blind (Psa 51:5; Rom 3:23) until receiving the Holy Spirit by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Eph 2:8-9). Paul makes it crystal clear if a person does not have the Holy Spirit, they are lost and do not belong to God (Rom 8:9), but the Holy Spirit only indwells believers (Jn 14:17; Rom 5:5; 8:9, 11; 1 Cor 3:16; 6:19; Eph 2:22; 2 Tim 1:14).

Incredulous as this may sound, what we have here are believers buying into the interpretation of judging, forgiving, and loving by a world blinded by unbelief! Why would we do that? I think because of willful biblical illiteracy and convenience (allowing some flex or wiggle room); you may have a better explanation. Either way, buying into the world’s interpretations of biblical texts is illogical, irrational, insulting to God’s Holy Spirit (because we are listening to the world rather than Him), and just plain stupid! This will become more evident as we proceed in these three areas that have been compromised by a desire for easy believism that lacks commitment, accountability, or vulnerability. It’s an easy buy-in.

This is what believers want today: Christianity on my own terms. The world demands more choices; the saints conclude that the church needs to provide greater choices in worship, service, or whatever. The church in appeasing the choice-demanding saints and reaching a lost world demanding more choices are providing a wider variety of choices. It is explained away or justified under the umbrella of the cause of Christ. Unfortunately, saved sinners and unsaved sinners alike are becoming accustomed to having multiple choices, or they take their business elsewhere. One of the byproducts of this is the idea of dragging a cafeteria-styled mentality to the Scriptures: take what is appetizing, disregarding the rest. Should a pastor come across as too narrow or perceived as too direct, the cafeteria-styled worshiper is off to another more “loving” church! It’s the way of the world, multiple options, “make it worth my while to be here.”

Maybe we have inadvertently created a spoil the child spoil the Scriptures in our attempt to teach the saints and reach sinners for Christ in America?  It poses a problematic situation to tell those who have become addicted to having choices everywhere they go; that when it comes to the Bible, you can’t pick and choose what to believe and be true to the Lord (cf Jn 14:15; 21; 15:14; 1 Jn 2:3-5). I think we have opened up Pandora’s Box by giving people what they want.

Now, there are plenty of churches around to offer an open invitation out there to those who say give me choices rather than give me Christ. They don’t say it that way but that is what they really mean. They are looking for benefits. Insanity is the dog chasing its tail and expecting a different result. We all need revival for a heart for God and His truth. Jeremiah didn’t give the people what they wanted; he gave them what they needed, and he was definitely an unpopular guy. Do we fear that obscurity and irrelevance in society will make us ineffective for the Lord? Those who hold to the truth are the effective ones (cf. Noah); the results of our faithfulness to His Word are the Lord’s business. Noah was more effective than he realized though he never won one convert in 120 years of preaching/building from the big pulpit called an ark.

Let me give you two grey moments surfacing from an “everything is relative culture.” Our American heritage is reflected in the statement, “In God we trust.” Today, there is such a diversity of religious groups in America; when someone states that they trust in God, we have to ask a more specific question, “In what God do you trust?” Otherwise, we may not be talking about the same God!

Now, when someone says that they believe in the Bible, we have to ask (1) what Bible, and (2) how much of it? I agree; it’s ridiculous, but this is where we are at spiritually in America where “that’s your interpretation” serves as a criticism and a disqualifier. I am of the opinion we could time stamp this period in history as “Every man did that which is right in his own eyes” (Jdg 21:25). As we move closer to the genesis of the seven-year tribulation period, none of this should be unexpected to a Biblicist. I guess I better state what I mean by that word; a Biblicist is one who believes that the Bible (not KJV only) is the supreme and final authority in all matters of faith and practice.

Worldliness is nothing more than a move from the objective propositional truth of Scripture to a subjective suppositional false teaching of the truth or downright rejection of it. A stinging word for this is apostasy, a turning away from the truth of God. Saints today want a convenient truth, avoiding uncomfortable facts for a comfortable fiction, and we can see it in these three areas: judging, forgiving, and loving. You may reject what I am going to say about them because you might be guilty of it to some degree or another, or you might think “That’s your interpretation.” 

There is a high probability it will hit us all between the eyes, but ask yourself this with an open mind and heart, “Do I want to be like Christ or like the world?” The former pays eternal dividends; the latter pays temporal ones, redeemable for only this side. Let me give you a provocative truth before possibly dismissing me as too clinical and coldhearted,

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn 2:15).

Allow me to translate this verse. “Stop loving the world or do not have the habit of loving the world that opposes God, His Word, or His people (cf. 1 Jn 2:16). If any keep on loving the world, the love of God does not dwell in him as the ruling principle of his life” (A.E.T., author’s expanded translation).

Now, read Rom 5:5. If the love of God is absent in the heart, the Holy Spirit is not there either! Light and darkness cannot dwell together. We will talk more about this later in the series.

To be sure the tentacles of worldliness have grabbed a hold of more than these three words in our series, but judging, forgiving, and loving are not as noticeable as overt sinful thoughts and behavior. If we think along these lines: “don’t judge,” forgive freely,” and “love everybody without expectations” then you need to read this series very carefully; it pertains to you! Once you become aware of a departure from the biblical meaning in the usage of these words, you may spot the difference and hopefully decide to align with the biblical meaning in these common actions of judging, forgiving, and loving. They are very important words that come frequently across our radar. These can be tough words to execute in certain situations so we better get it right if we are going to do right by God and others.

Apostasy breeds in such a rich environment when every man does what he or she thinks is right. Faithfulness is about doing what God thinks is right. Apostasy has always been with us to some degree. As morality and ethics continue to decay in the world ramping up to the advent of the anti-Christ, it stands to reason that apostasy will gain greater momentum and more real estate of the hearts. We all carry baggage into the church. It’s time to unload some of the weight.

I know of good churches that choose legalism over the Lord to manhandle (fleshly overtures) the sheep into the fold and keep spiritual surveillance over them. As society becomes more openly wicked, there is this tendency for the grip of legalism to become tighter that only stifles and suffocates the freedoms believers have in Christ. Ignorance keeps legalism thriving. Adding to that the government’s increasingly hostile attitude toward the Church, we have much to concern ourselves with. We certainly don’t want to further burden the church with worldliness on our part.

It is faith in the liberating truth of God’s Word that truly sets men free, not the flesh of rules and regulations or the libertinism of multiple choices. There is nothing more loving than the truth. This may hit closer to home than we think because there are plenty of believers changing the truth of Scripture with worldly thinking; it's pandemic. Stay with me as we get out of our comfort zone in talking about how worldly our judging, forgiving, and loving may have become. <>< 

To Part 2