Authentic Righteousness: Engaging the World Without Conforming

Martin Luther said that the Christian, in his struggle for obedience has many obstacles to overcome, but basically we’re involved in warfare that takes place not on one front or two fronts but on three fronts and that the triad of enemies that confront the Christian are, as Luther maintained, the world, the flesh, and the devil. [00:01:11]

And so though we distinguish among these three, we don’t want to separate them one from the other, but we will look at each one of these seriatim, and in this session we’re going to consider the Christian’s struggle with what the New Testament calls “the world.” [00:02:29]

The world exists in this regard in antithesis and opposition and tension over against the kingdom of God, and so He says, “I pray not that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world, so sanctify them through Your truth. Thy word is truth.” [00:06:02]

Jesus said, “I don’t ask that You take them out of the world.” Jesus was not starting a new community of Essenes. Do you remember the Essenes that were – whose work were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls? These were people who drew apart from civilization to live in total isolation so that they could keep themselves pure for the coming of the Messiah. [00:10:09]

Now, I think that’s consistent with what the apostle Paul teaches in his grand climax in the practical application of the book of Romans after this expanse of development of heavy doctrine and theology. You remember how he begins the twelfth chapter where he said, “I beseech you therefore, my brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service”? [00:11:30]

Popularity with our peers at about age 13 becomes one of the most important passions of our lives, and if we don’t receive a certain measure of popularity, that is so crushing to the human spirit that it can carry in our psyches the rest of our lives. Everybody wants to be liked by other people, but we learn as children – as I learned when I was in the sixth grade – that if I was going to be popular there was a price tag to be paid, and the most important price for popularity was conformity. [00:16:15]

And so the seductive power of this world is to conform – to conform to it. Well what is it that we’re being drawn to conformity? The Germans have a word for it. You know how the Germans say – the Germanic language is. They’ll just take two good concrete nouns and just squash them together and make one word out of them. [00:19:52]

In other words, they become slaves to the Zeitgeist or the spirit of the age, and that’s why he called for superman, the “Ubermensch.” He said, “The Ubermensch will be known as a person who will leave the herd and dare to think for himself.” In other words, the superman of Nietzsche would be the ultimate non-conformist. [00:22:09]

If you want to be a non-conformist in the biblical sense, be somebody whose word can be trusted. Be somebody who will do what’s right even if it costs them money. That’s different. It’s not that if everybody in the world is wearing white hats, we start to wear red ones. That’s not the non-conformity that the New Testament is talking about, but we read the rest of the verse and we see that we are not simply to be non-conformists for non-conformity’s sake, but we are to be transformed. [00:24:43]

To be transformed means to “go over, above, beyond” the structures of the present world. When I first became a Christian, the fellow that led me to Christ made a statement to me in the first two weeks. I said, “What does it mean to you to be a Christian?” He said, “What it means to me is to be a Christian is that I’m going to outwork you, I’m going to outfight you, and I’m going to outlove you.” [00:25:14]

Most Christians today take their ethical guidance from what’s legal or what’s accepted in the rest of the world; or we want to have the civil magistrates enforce the Christian ethic. See wait a minute! The Christian ethic is the same no matter what the Supreme Court does or what the Supreme Court says! I don’t march to that drumbeat. We have a Lord who gives us our ethic and His commandments. He said, “Obey My commandments.” That’s our responsibility. [00:26:54]