In but Not Of

Good afternoon, everyone. Good to be here with all of you today, and welcome again to our visitors as well. We're glad to have you here with us. It's been kind of a whirlwind, but exciting week, like Mr. Thomas said was in India. As it turns out, just for a couple of days this week had a canceled flight on Sunday, so it was kind of a long trip hanging around in Newark.

The silver lining was that I got to watch all of the Cavs game at the airport. You always have to look out for the good things, right? But India's an interesting place. I always like going there because there's a real sense of excitement there. You probably know it's an incredibly impoverished society on one side, but there's also just an amazing amount of development going on there. People are just really excited about what they've seen in terms of the changes of their lives and the way that they're able to live over the last 20 years or so.

And a lot of hope, a lot of young people. Just one interesting statistic that came out of one of the meetings I was in was in the next few years, 20% of the working age population in the world will be in India. So it's just staggering when you think about the changes happening to the demographics of the world. There was actually a guy from China in the meeting with us, and he was very quick to point out that if you average out China and India, everything stays okay because, of course, China's about to hit the tipping point with all the only children that they've been in.

And if you average out China and India, the only children that they've had, well, they'll be predominantly a nation of senior citizens in the next 10 years or so. Anyways, that's a side point and a bit of trivia for all of you who are interested in it. Happy to talk more about it after services, though. For those of you who like titles to messages, the title for this one is In But Not Of.

In But Not Of. And for those of you who are curious, you can start trying to figure out where that comes from. If you'll turn with me to John 17, we'll read verses 9 through 19. That's really where this concept comes from that we'll spend a few minutes thinking about this afternoon. I apologize for those of you who are looking forward to a nap and like when I usually speak. No slides today, no lights down, so you'll just have to try to bear it for the next half hour or so. John 17, verses 9 through 19. This is Jesus Christ at the time shortly before he was crucified as he was praying to God, and he was praying for his disciples, and he was praying for all who would come after him.

So it certainly includes us. Verse 9 of John 17, I pray for them. I don't pray for the world, but for those who you have given me, for they're yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I'm glorified in them. Now, I'm no longer in the world, but these are in the world. And I come to you, Holy Father, keep through your name those who you have given me, that they may be one as we are.

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me I've kept, and none of them has lost except the son of perbit perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I've given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. Your word, they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

In, but not of. So as laid out in this passage, we were intentionally left in this world by Jesus Christ, and at the same time should not be of the world.

Now this is a tension, a conundrum, you might say, that Christianity has dealt with through the ages. And when we think back and look at it, you can see how different denominations, different churches, have always struggled with, what does this mean? How should we behave? So we've seen churches and people who believe that dancing is wrong. We see those who believe that card playing is wrong, because it's worldly.

We see the Temperance Movement that came in the United States. We see things going back 20 years ago where Long Hair was considered worldly. The Beatles, perhaps, were considered worldly. Well, today I guess they're considered easy listening music. And these things change. As culture changes, as time changes, what is worldly and what is not changes. Makeup, at one point, was considered worldly by many people.

So a lot of traditions get built up around Christianity and what it means to be in the world but not of the world. And it's important to focus on what the Bible says about it. And we'll take at least a first look at that today. An interesting story that came up around this in terms of being sensitive about what a Christian should or should not say. This came off the world's greatest authority, known as the Internet.

There was a nice lady, a minister's widow, who was a little old-fashioned. She was planning a week's vacation in California at Skylake Yosemite Campground. But she wanted to make sure of the accommodation first. Uppermost, in her mind, were the bathroom facilities, but she couldn't bring herself to write the word toilet in a letter. After considerable deliberation, she settled on bathroom commode. But when she wrote that down, it still sounded too forward. So after the first page of her letter, she referred to the bathroom commode as BC.

After lunch, she found the letter and was baffled by the euphemism, so she showed the letter around to several counselors, but they couldn't decipher it either. The staff member's wife, who knew that the lady was the widow of a famous Baptist preacher, was sure it must be a question about the local Baptist Church. Of course, the first staffer exclaims, BC stands for Baptist Church. So he sat down and wrote the following.

I had a question for you. I was a woman who was located nine miles north of the campground and is capable of seating 250 people at one time. I admit it's quite a distance away if you're in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you'll be pleased to know that a great number of people take their lunches along and make a day of it. They usually arrive early and stay late.

And it was so crowded we had to stand up the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that right now there's a supper plan to raise money to buy more seats. They're going to hold it in the basement of the BC. I would like to say that it pains me very much not to be able to go more regularly, but is surely no lack of desire on my part. As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly in cold weather. If you decide to come down to our campground, perhaps I could go with you the first time, sit with you, and introduce you to all the folks. Remember, this is a friendly community.

So, a little bit of levity in terms of what can happen when we're afraid of saying or thinking a few things that perhaps are not as prohibited as we might think. Let me just say one caveat before we launch into the rest of the message. Today, I'm going to talk about one element of our Christian lives. As we realize there are many elements to them, we're not going to talk today about our lives within the church and within the church community. We're not going to talk about our lives in terms of our view towards the poor and the needy around us. That's on purpose simply to focus the topic in the short time that we have. What I do want to talk about is our day-to-day lives and how we approach the way that we live our daily lives and how we view it in terms of our Christian responsibilities and commitments, how we interact with the people that we interface with on a day-to-day basis. Let's just look at two dimensions of that. First, I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about the occupations that we pursue, and then secondly, how we conduct ourselves in doing those things.

Now, the Bible offers a great deal of leeway in the occupations we pursue. And when we think about it, maybe this is a strange topic to address, but I was looking at some statistics just going through the Internet, and I found a Bureau of Labor Statistics study from 2013. And according to that study in 2013, time used, on average, in a workday for employed persons who were between 25 and 54 and had children, included about 7.7 hours sleeping and 8.7 hours working. The rest of the time was divided up between a whole bunch of other activities, including eating, caring for others, household activities, and leisure and sports. So what's the point of that? The point is, in our productive lives, we, by and large, are going to spend the majority of our time, more time, working than we do anything else.

Is Christianity, is the Bible, applicable to that? And what does it have to say about it? Remarkably, it's fairly silent regarding what we do as an occupation. And in the Bible, there are examples of people who come from a whole bunch of different occupations and educational backgrounds.

Let's look at a few of those examples briefly before we move on. First of all, let's think about personality, because personality really motivates the things that we do, the things that we enjoy doing. And the Bible reveals that God worked through a lot of different personalities. Think of Samson in the Old Testament. If you know anything about Samson, you probably didn't want to be his mom.

Here's a guy who, when he was probably an elder teenager, what do you do? He tied the tails of foxes together, tied cloths to them, lit them on fire, and sent them through the grain fields of the Philistines to burn them down. Now, do you ground a kid after they do that?

Or do you spank them? What do you do? Put them in time out? The thing is, he was so strong, he could have broken out of anything. And you compare that to someone like Daniel. Daniel, an intellectual, somebody brought up in the court of the world's predominant ruling empire at that time. Somebody who must have been a very capable and a strong politician as he survived three different world-ruling empires and remained a very influential advisor through all of those.

And think about Mary, who was picked out by God to be the mother of Jesus Christ. One of the interesting passages to me always is at the time that they were returning from Jerusalem. They couldn't find Jesus Christ anywhere. He was probably 12 or 13 years old. And finally, they found him, and he was in the synagogue with the elders preaching and talking and exchanging viewpoints. And it says that Mary understood something at that point.

She kept them in her heart. Basically, she just took it in and she pondered it. And you compare that, then, to somebody like Peter, who Jesus Christ is walking across the water. What does Peter say?

I'm jumping in. I'm going to walk on the water with you. What would Peter have done if he was the one who was told the secret of Jesus Christ and saw what it was that he was becoming at age 12? God works with people who are incredibly different. And one of the things we have to realize and recognize as Christians is it's okay.

The personalities that we have, the ways that we go about doing things, is what we are. And God made us with variety on purpose and for a reason as he placed us in this world. Let's look a little more at occupations. Again, educated people versus uneducated people. Is it more Christian to be educated? Well, we look at Acts 2. We look at Paul. He was a student of Gamaliel. Gamaliel, if you look him up, was one of the leading rabbis of that time, one of the leading teachers of the law.

The Torah, the two historically most famous scholars, Hillel and Shammai, he was apparently the student of one of those. So Paul essentially went to the modern equivalent of Princeton or Harvard. Highly, highly educated person. But then we look at who Jesus Christ dealt with as his disciples. In Acts 4, verse 10, we won't spend the time to turn there right now, but if you want to look it up, Acts 4, verse 10, they talk about Peter and John as uneducated Galileans.

Now, the Galileans back then were probably like we'd call and apologize for saying this, but people like from Louisiana today, or Mississippi. Right? People we look at, and again, a stereotype, but commonly not considered the most educated people out there. Of course, there are plenty of educated people in Mississippi and Louisiana. But again, if you're making a joke in the U.S., you often use those states as kind of a place where people come from the backwoods. That's how Galileans were, where John and Peter came from. But God worked with them, just as he worked with Paul, a very highly educated people. We see a mix of working class, rich and poor people that God worked with in the Bible.

Again, we won't turn there, but if you want to look in Matthew 27, verses 57 through 60 mentions a man named Joseph of Arimathea. And it mentions that he was an extremely wealthy man. And he took his money, and he took apparently a fairly expensive sepulchre that he had built to bury his family. And as a holy day was approaching, he worked with the Romans, took Jesus Christ down from the cross, and set him in his own family's sepulchre, using the money that he had, the wealth that he had, in order to bury Jesus Christ.

But then we look in James. And James 2, we can turn there to verses 1 through 4. You see here an example that, at least in the early New Testament church, and certainly ever since then, there was a large variety of economic means in terms of the people who came to church. And again, that very much the way it was intended. James 2, verses 1 through 4. James says here, Now, if that wasn't something that was happening as people came into services, poor people, rich people, potentially partiality in how you treat them, James would have never mentioned it.

So again, God dealing with a variety of people from all kinds of different walks of lives. Let's turn to one other scripture as we think practically about what this means. And again, let's turn to Ecclesiastes 9, verse 10.

Because my mom wanted me to do a better job when I was doing my chores around the house. Ecclesiastes 9, verse 10.

And again, I'd focus here on the first part, whatever your hand finds to do. In any part of our endeavors, whatever it is we're doing, whether it's our hobby, whether it's helping someone else, whether it's doing our job from 9 to 5 every day, we're told to put our whole selves into it as Christians. So, especially I think right now, speaking to the younger people in the audience, you know, we often, especially as Christians, think about how do we put together the things that we hear about and focus on in terms of being godly, and how we do things day to day in our lives. We spend so much time on the job as younger people, we spend so much time in our education. What I read from these things in the Bible is, throw yourself into it, grab hold of it, look for things that you can put your passion into, and excel at them. Get your education. Focus on doing a good job. Focus on having a productive life. I think that honors God, and I think it's very much consistent with what we see in the Scriptures. We still have to remember the other side, though, and that is, that's part of being in, but what about not being of the world? The Bible does speak very loudly and very often about how we lead our lives. Again, it doesn't say with a lot of specificity what we should do as an occupation or as a hobby, but all over the Bible you'll see a lot written about how we should do it. Let me talk first just briefly about perspective or frame of reference. How you look at something completely impacts and influences how you interpret the things that you're seeing. I'm going to read a short poem called The Cookie Thief. It was written by Valerie Cox. It comes from the book Chicken Soup for the Soul.

She munched cookies and watched the clock as this gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock. She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by, thinking, if I wasn't so nice, I'd blacken his eye. With each cookie she took, he took one too, and when only one was left, she wondered what he'd do. With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and he broke it in half. He offered her half as he ate the other. She snatched it from him and thought, oh, brother, this guy has some nerve and he's also rude. Why didn't he even show any gratitude? She had never known when she had been so galled and sighed with relief when her flight was called. She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate, refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate. She boarded the plane and sank in her seat, then sought her book, which was almost complete. As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise. There was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes. If mine are here, she moaned with despair. Then the others were his, and he tried to share. Too late to apologize, she realized with grief that she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.

Interesting story. One set of facts in terms of what happened. Who was eating cookies from the bag? But a completely different viewpoint towards that situation from where she was when she thought that was her bag of cookies to when she thought that was his bag of cookies. Or actually the opposite way around, right? How we look at something could be the same set of facts. How we look at those things can make such a difference. I want to take us back again to what was the title here, In But Not Of, and what we read about in John. And that is that God intentionally put us in this world. How do we view our lives in this world? Do we view it as something we try to escape, avoid, move away from, so we can look forward just to being at church with God's people? Or do we look at it as a part of our Christian lives, a place that we exercise and live our Christian lives, and a place where Jesus Christ and God the Father deliberately placed us so that we would do things? That's a challenge I'd encourage all of us to think about. Because how we look at that makes a huge difference in terms of how we live those lives, those 8.7 hours a day that we spend working, for example, the time we spend interacting with our neighbors. How we view that time, and whether we see it as part of our spiritual living, or whether we see it as a sideshow that we try to avoid and get through and move on from. Turn with me, if you will, to Luke 16. And we'll read verses 10 through 12. Luke 16 verses 10 through 12. This is the parable of the unjust steward. We're not going to go through and read the entire parable, but we're just going to focus on verses 10 through 12, which make the point, and the point that I'd like to draw here. Luke 16, starting in verse 10, says here, So what God is talking about here, if we put this into our lives, is the way that we live our everyday lives, the way we execute our responsibilities in the world, whatever those things might be. The way we do our job, the way we treat other people, is a direct outgrowth or expression of how God is working within us.

It's not something to escape from. It's not something to hide from. But it's a place where we exercise our Christianity on a day-to-day basis. And if we read this parable and we take it to what the meaning is, it's something that God looks at and observes to see what it is that's actually living within us. You know, we've all heard the old phrase, you know, you really know what a person's about when you see how they act when they think nobody's watching them. And that's how it is here. How is it that we act? How do we fulfill our responsibilities, carry out our duties, do our work when nobody who's a part of our congregation, for example, is watching us? How is it that we do that? Is it consistent with what we say and what others think that we believe?

So what I'd like to focus on in this area is that we think deeply about how we live our day-to-day lives and the impact that we have on others. You know, one TV show that I've watched from time to time that I enjoy is a show called Survivor. So it's a reality TV show. It places people on an island. It places them in a mini-society, you know, a dozen people or so. And every week after different things happen, they have to vote somebody off of this island or this little civilization that they're in. And what I find really interesting about it is that it forces people to make decisions about relationships that they build personally with people and the desire to win a million dollars, which the winner gets. And I always find it a very interesting thing from a psychological standpoint and from a moral standpoint in terms of what people are able and willing to do. Some of the people will say, from the beginning, I'm not going to violate my morals, I'm not going to lie to anyone, and they will play the game that way. Other people will say, you know what? This isn't real life. I'm going to do whatever I have to do. I'm going to lie, I'm going to cheat, I'll steal from people if I have to. I'll basically do anything short of killing them in order to win this money. Why? Well, it's only a game. It doesn't really matter. It's only a game. It's not real life. How do we view our lives versus our Christianity? Do we sometimes view our lives simply as the game that we're playing and Christianity as a reality? Or do we view it all as part of a whole, and the fact that how we live those lives in the end is a reflection of what's in our hearts and shows what we truly believe? Let's turn to Matthew 5, verses 14 through 16. Matthew 5, verses 14 through 16. One other point to briefly draw out here as we talk about living in, but not of the world. Matthew 5, verses 14 through 16. And the point here is that we should live lives that are different, and that something should come as an outgrowth of those lives that are different. Matthew 5, verses 14 through 16.

So what does that mean in the end? Not only that they see our good works, but that they somehow tie it to our faith in God. That they understand at some level that we do believe in God, that we are Christians, and that we seek to follow Him. How is it in your workplace, in your neighborhood, with the people that you interact with when you're not there?

Have you ever walked into a room and turned on the lights, and something just doesn't seem quite right? That happened the other day. Walked into my office where I do a lot of my work, pulled on the strings, turned on the light. Something just didn't seem right. I couldn't see as clearly. I felt that something was off. And finally, after a minute or two, I looked under the hood of the lamp, I saw that one of the lights was burned out. And it wasn't enough to just strike me overtly. It wasn't dark in there. But there was less light than there usually was, and I could just feel a difference.

But before I saw the difference, I could just feel it. There was just not something that wasn't quite right in the room. How is it for you, when you don't show up for work, for a week? What's it like? Do people say, he's not there? Something just seems a little different. We're not working as well as a team. We used to have a little more fun as we did our jobs. We used to enjoy this interaction that we had back and forth.

Or, as I've experienced directly in some situations, when the person is not there, do they say, boy, isn't this a relief? We can finally have a good time. We're finally not being jumped on for every little thing that we do. How do people react when you're not in the surroundings that you're usually in?

The light that you bring, the light of God, the light of Jesus Christ, where people glorify the Father in heaven as they see what's missing when you're not there. Something for us to think about and focus on, a practical level, as we consider being in and not of the world. Lastly, before we wrap up, let's talk a little bit about the idea of worldliness. We touched on it starting in the early part of the message, because some will say that, after hearing these things, it's just an encouragement to jump into the world with both feet and just be like everyone else. And hopefully you understand that's not at all the point of what I'm saying. I'd like to read a paragraph, though, from a Bible dictionary, and I think we have to be careful how we define worldliness and focus on the real definition of what it is. From this Bible dictionary, it said, Going on with the quote, Rather, it's the acceptance of the values and assumptions of a society that has no place for God. So to what extent are we guilty of that, no matter how we dress, no matter how we comb or style our hair, how much makeup we wear, to what extent do we take on the values and assumptions of a society that has no place for God? It's a matter of our priorities. Let's turn to Matthew 6, and we'll read verses 25 through 34. It's our last passage here. Matthew 6 verses 25 through 34. This directly addresses the way that we think and we act, compared to the way that those around us do. Verse 25 and Matthew 6, So why do you worry about clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they don't sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are they not of more value than they? Which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to a stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, if they don't toil or spin. And yet I say to you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not a raid like one of these.

Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore don't worry, saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For after these things the Gentiles seek. If your heavenly Father knows that you need these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you. Therefore don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient to the day is its own trouble. What is it that we spend our time and our priorities on? I think, to me, this passage really hones in on it, in terms of how we view our everyday lives. Now it's not saying, God feeds everyone, so don't worry about going out and working. Because, you know, God feeds the animals out there, and, you know, cats, they sleep most of the day. You look at lions out on the savannah, they probably sleep 15, 20 hours a day. God takes care of them, so I'm not going to work. He'll take care of me, too. He's not saying that. I think we all understand that. But what he's saying is, in terms of where our focus, where our energy, where our priority goes, we have to be productive members of society. We have to go in, we have to do our jobs. But there's a difference between doing those things and doing them well, versus striving for something and trying to create something for ourselves and grasping it, and throwing our whole beings into trying to attain whatever it is that we want. Status, riches, something simple like a new car, whatever it is. But that's what he's pointing out here. In the end, as Christians, we know that this life and what's in it is a testing ground. It's a place that we act out our Christianity, but it's not our ultimate goal. And that leads us to live very differently than the people that we work with day to day, many of whom have the things in this life as their only or their ultimate goal. Different set of priorities, a different way of thinking and working. So in conclusion, as we look back at this concept of in but not of, and we've only scratched the surface of it, really, God gives us great leeway in how we choose to use our physically productive time. And we should have passion, focus, excitement about the ways that we choose to use that time. That's what makes us people, and there's nothing wrong with that. What he does want to see, though, is also that we're exercising his mind and his priorities in all of the things that we do. Exercising practical Christianity in the ways that we live our lives and positively impacting the people that we come into contact with. And doing it in a way that glorifies not us, but his name. And lastly, the way that we avoid being of the world is by continuing to fill ourselves with God's Word and his way, coming before him in prayer, so that our top priority in our lives is not the physical things that we see around us, but his way of life. So as we pursue our daily lives, let's take the challenges of everyday life knowing that how we spend each moment of our day is relevant to God. It can bring him honor, it can improve the lives of those around us, and it can strengthen us as Christians.