Not of This World
Think back on a time when you didn’t belong; when you felt out of place, not part of the crowd. Uninvited. Cut from the team. Just moved to town. Unable to afford the right clothes or a big enough house. Not big enough. Not small enough. Not smart enough. Not athletic. While this list might take most of us all the way back to middle school, it seems we are always trying find our circle, our people, our tribe. And as an inherently communal people, made in the image of our eternally relational God, we were born to belong. So a lack of community and relationship almost always leads to despair.
But the reality is we can’t be a part of every group or every scene. Our preferences and the sheer limitation of space-time force us to choose. As cliche as it is (and to return to the school hallways in our minds), you can’t be both a jock and a nerd - not really. And something fascinating happens when we do in fact find belonging somewhere and with someone, we become content with not belonging to the group(s) we previously pursued. All of the sudden, having found our “identity,” we can be in the presence of people from other camps and with vastly differing opinions all without vying for their approval. We can be among them while not being of (belonging to) them.
This relational reality; this idea of belonging is the backdrop for Jesus’ High Priestly prayer in John 17. Read just an excerpt…
John 17:9,14–20 - I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given me, for they are Yours… I have 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 ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the Evil (One). They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. As You sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word.
Here, Jesus describes his followers as being in the world but not of the world.
This is where we live for now and we can’t help but engage with folks who want nothing to do with God, but this is not where we truly belong or where we will spend forever. And we do not find our ultimate sense of identity in an earthly system or with any people on this side of eternity. Instead, we belong to God (v.9 - they are yours) and this world is not our home (v.15, cf. Phil. 3:20). Well, it is not our final home. Paul, Peter and others expound on this in Scripture when they call Christians “strangers,” “sojourners” and “foreigners.” We are, as the hymn says, “just a passin’ through.”
“This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue; The angels beckon me from heaven's open door, And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.” - I Can't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
But herein lies the tension. We aren’t just buying time or passive strangers in a foreign land sitting on our hands until our heavenly King gets back. We have not been left here. Quite the opposite, we have been sent into the world (v.18). We are here for a reason. We are here with a mission - that others might believe through our word, our testimony of Jesus Christ (v.20). So, we are different from the world on purpose and with a purpose. And this counter-cultural, missional living in a godless world produces a few tensions for the Christian, such as: Do we love or do we hate the world? Do we avoid or engage with a sinful world? And can we be so heavenly minded that we’re of no or very little earthly good?
Tension #1: The Christian must learn to navigate the tension between “loving the world” (Jn. 3:16) and “not loving the world” (1 Jn. 2:15). The key to resolving this tension is to understand that the word “world” can mean three things, either the literal created world, the people of this world or the evil system of the world over which our spiritual enemy exercises his limited and temporary rule. You have probably heard the saying, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” This isn’t far off and Jude 1:23 seems to describe this in part, but it can be difficult to distinguish between the two when it is sinners who sin, and who love their sin (John 3:19). And if you thought the opposition was fierce in middle school for being on the outside, speaking out against sin and calling those we love to repentance, can lead to nothing less than hatred (v.14) or worse. But, we see our Lord and Savior, full of grace and truth, beautifully navigating this tension by being a “friend of sinners” (Lk. 7:34) all without committing sin or making light of the sin of others. He radically combined boldness and compassion in order to seek and save the lost (Lk. 19:10). Humbled by our own sin and God’s redeeming grace, may we have the same boldness before God and compassion for the lost with the same need we do for a Savior.
Tension 2: The Christian must learn to navigate the tension between “being separate from the world” and “being salt and light” to the world. The key to resolving this tension is the simple commitment to live for God and love our neighbor. Paradoxically, two things are true at once - in our salvation, we have been called out of the sinful world system and then sent back in, as it were, on a mission from God to help rescue those still under God’s wrath for sin (Jude 1:23a). God’s people are repeatedly told to “get out of Egypt” (Gen. 19), to “flee Babylon” (Is.48;52, Jer. 50-51, Rev. 18:4) or to be above reproach in terms of a holy lifestyle (Eph. 5:3). Then, we are sent into the world as salt and light (Matt. 5). Consider this: in order for salt to be useful, it must make contact with the otherwise decaying meat, and it order for light to be useful, it must shine in the darkness. We were redeemed (bought out of) a dead and dark world system over which our enemy rules, we have been radically and irreversably changed. Then we were commissioned to return, filled with the Holy Spirit, to preach the Word that preserve and promises eternal life, and compelled to reflect Jesus, who is the true Light of the World, as we share the good news of the Gospel.
Tension 3: The Christian must learn to navigate the tension between “exercising dominion” (Gen. 1-2) along with “seeking the good of the city” (Jer. 29) and the fact that we are “strangers and aliens, citizens of heaven” (Phil. 3, Heb. 11, 1 Pt. 2). The key to resolving this tension is to steward well God’s good creation and to work to see characteristics of His heavenly kingdom manifest on earth - for God’s glory and the good of creation. We are to be both heavenly minded and a source - better yet, a conduit - of earthly good. Our transcendent heavenly hope should inspire imminent earthly living for which even our unbelieving neighbor, parent, boss, etc. are grateful. These two desires need not be contradictory, so long as luxurious living in this life does not distract from the glory of the next, or our desperation for eternity does not result in navel-gazing or sky-watching. After all, it is precisely because we love and long for Christ’s return that we desire to be pleasing to Him in the meantime and to have stewarded well the talents (spiritual gifts/gospel/commands) He has given us (Matt. 24-25).
Note that resolving these tensions (how we feel about the world, how we engage with the lost and where we focus our attention in this life) has everything to do with who we are and to whom we belong. Read how Jesus concludes this prayer and note the intimacy relationship with the God-head the Christian is brought into upon belief.
John 17: 24-26 - Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
By faith in Christ, He is in us and we have the love of the Father that the Son has always known. In Christ, we have the confident hope of one day being with Him forever. And in Christ, we are considered joint-heirs with Him and have received the Spirit that cries “Abba, Father” (Rom. 815-17, Jn. 14:18). We belong to God. And it is this belonging that satisfies us in the face of the temptation and distraction we inevitably face in this world. It is this belonging that emboldens us to live for God and love our neighbor no matter the resistance (John 16:33).