“If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” I John 2:15
Wow! What a powerful and convicting statement! Most of us immediately start asking questions like:
“What does it mean to love the world?
What is the meaning of ‘world’?
How can I live in this world and not love it?”
These are legitimate questions. And to them I’m sure you would add the question, “What do you mean by referring to Christianity as a “counter-culture reality”?
By a counter-culture reality, I mean the reality of a unique group or community of people, who are citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom of God who affect the culture in which they live by the way they talk, the associations they keep, the way they respond and speak to people outside their unique community, and the way they conduct every aspect of their lives in the everyday concourse of life.
The cultural reality of this group of people is that they refuse to capitulate to and become conformed to the culture in which they live. They are uniquely different in a myriad of ways because of their existence as “alien creations,” that is, individuals with real connections to “another world.” Those outside their community realize just who they are, what they believe deeply, and why they stand for their beliefs so courageously. It appears that their mission in life has to do with “another world,” which is dramatically different from this one.
The context out of which the above scriptural phrase is taken says this:
“I have written unto you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not of the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever.” (I John 2:14-17)
The over-riding concept you get from the above passage of Scripture is that the “fathers” and “young men” to whom the Apostle John is writing are individuals who are challenged to be “other-worldly,” that is, people who are admonished to live for the Kingdom of God into which they have been brought by the gracious working of God the Father by means of the New Birth. The reason they are admonished to respond to life in this world differently than their neighbors is found in verse 28 of the same chapter, which states:
“And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.”
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, co-equal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, is going to return to this earth to receive the Kingdom His Father has prepared for Him. He will rule and reign over the whole creation, spoken of in Scripture as the New Earth. And those uniquely different citizens of His Kingdom will reign with Him. Until that day, their conduct in this world must be as unique as they are, if they truly love God and God the Father’s love truly resides in their lives.
I would like to describe four characteristics of our contemporary culture. And I would like for you to ask yourself “Am I any different from my unbelieving neighbors, friends, and work and play associates?” What is our culture really like, and how do I respond to it?
Therapeutic Culture
First, we live in what has been called a “therapeutic culture.” We are a culture that likes to be soothed, to feel good about ourselves and the life we live amongst our friends and associates. We have every conceivable service at our disposal to make us feel good. Whether it’s our therapist, counselor, guru, personal coach, doctor, psychic or attorney, we must have those around us who will keep us from being too troubled by the world we live in.
We are so self absorbed that we feel life boils down to “me,” and fail to realize that life really boils down to “me and GOD,” both in this life and that which is to come. We succumb to the evil of loving that part of the world’s system, which is referred to here as “the pride of life.” It’s a me, me, me world for us.
That is, unless we have God’s love abiding in us and we are praying, looking and laboring for His Kingdom, while living as aliens in the kingdom of this world. What I see and fear, is that the majority of those living in the evangelical Christian world today have succumbed to the “American Pride of Life” and are not living as aliens from another kingdom, but rather absorbing and being absorbed by this world’s culture. It doesn’t take a spiritual genius to read the paper and see that, although one third of America’s population professes to be “born again,” that one third has very little impact upon our nation’s culture.
Entertainment Culture
Secondly, we live in what could be called an “entertainment culture.” Since the world is filled with so much anger, violence, war, death, destruction, perversion and politics, we feel we must hide from it all by being entertained by many worldly things. “The things of the world” is a good phrase to describe our cultures obsession to somehow be “happy” amidst all the chaos. We go to concerts, theater, opera, ball games, car races, and any activity whereby we can be entertained to keep out minds off of the ugliness we know exists in the world around us, not to mention the “third” world, which we would just as soon avoid all together.
We want constant and instant gratification; so if we can’t be running around for entertainment, we absorb it by the hour in front of our TV screen or computer monitor.
“Heavenly joy” we ask, what’s that?
Looking for “a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God”?
“What’s that all about,” most would ask.
It is so easy today for professing Christians to get caught up in this world’s desire for entertainment. Though we cannot totally escape it, we must ask ourselves if we have been caught in its web to the point we do not know what it means to have “the love of the Father” in us in a way that makes us truly unique to our neighbors and friends.
Materialistic Culture
Thirdly, we live in a “materialistic culture.” Regarding the World War II Battle for Britain, Winston Churchill referred to those brave Spitfire pilots when he said, “Never has so few done so much for so many!”
It might be said of most of today’s evangelical Christians, “Never have so few been mesmerized by so much!” Our culture’s obsession for having houses, cars, boats, RVs, Harleys, horses, dogs, cats, birds and every other kind of “toy” is mind-boggling. There are millions upon millions of people in this world who don’t even have a roof over their head at night, let alone a full stomach; but somehow most of us think having “things” is an acceptable substitute for having “the love of the Father” in us.
We have an addictive tendency to live for things, or what might be called “the lust of the eyes,” instead of living to know Jesus Christ, being discovered as living in a spiritual relationship with Him and sharing His love with those around us who live in spiritual darkness and deadness.
The church’s compromise with our materialistic culture has drawn us from the spiritual battlefield for the souls of men into the shopping mall of our greed for “things.” The Apostle Paul admonished young Timothy:
“Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.”
Most of us know absolutely nothing about material hardship or sacrifice for the cause of Christ. And he substantiated fact that approximately 94% of professing Christians rob from God by not tithing shows just how materialistic we are!
Hedonistic Culture
Fourthly, we live in a “hedonistic culture.” We know that hedonism is a system of thought and living, which says the most important thing in life is pleasure. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die. Few people want to serve others. Most want to “go for the gusto, live life to the fullest, get all you can get while the getting’s good!”
We take cruises, join clubs, get on teams, go to parties, attend sporting events and a host of other things which might be called “the lust of the flesh.” That is, our fleshly nature, our inner sense of self-worth wants to be fed by the fleshly joys, which tantalize those in the world around us and beckon to our fleshly nature.
We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to know pain, struggle or spiritual conflict. We just want to have “fun.” It’s so much more pleasant to have fun, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, many today look at going to church as having “spiritual fun,” rather than worshipping God “in spirit and in truth.” But is that why God “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of His beloved Son”? I think not!
Culture of Spectatorism
One of the dangers of living in a therapeutic, entertainment, materialistic, hedonistic culture is that we, as Christians, become observers. We have succumbed to the “culture of spectatorism.”
We watch rather than think. And in watching, we become lured into the thinking patterns of this world, which according to the Scriptures “lies in the arms of the evil one [Satan].” And from watching, we absorb the ways of looking at the world in the way everyone else does. From observing we go on to absorbing; and from absorbing we move to imitating. And in so doing we exhibit the self-destructive tendency to stunt, short-circuit or destroy our spiritual growth by loving what this world has to offer rather than obeying God’s command to “stop loving the world.”
Why should we stop loving the world?
The answer is plain and simple: because “the world is passing away, and also its lusts.”
God has told us what we must do, if we don’t want our usefulness to pass away with this corrupt, worldly society: we must do the will of God. And the will of God is for us to not love this world, but be filled with the love of our heavenly Father and dedicated to fulfilling His purposes for our lives. His will is for us to be sanctified – to be set apart for His service. His will is for us to be kept from the evil one, Satan, and the corrupting influences of the culture around us.
As Jesus prayed:
“I do not ask Thee (God the Father) to take them (Christians) out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”
God wills the Church to be a counter-cultural influence, because the church is of not of this world’s culture, but is of heavenly origin and exists for a heavenly purpose.
May God help us to realize our place in this world and the responsibilities, which are ours as citizens of His heavenly kingdom.
May we grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, be filled with His Spirit, and get “on mission” as ambassadors of His Kingdom.
May we stop loving the culture of the world in which we find ourselves living, and live a godly life, which others will observe as being uniquely different.
May we “prove ourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom we appear as lights in the world.”
The world will never be attracted to a light that it cannot see. Christ, the light of the world, longs to live through His Church, which is the light of the world. Until that happens, the world will lack the reality of a heavenly, Christ-centered culture of individuals whose hearts and lives are filled with the love and purposes of God the Father.