Worldliness

I will confess that “worldliness” is a hard word to define. In our text this week, James says that “friendship with the world is enmity with God.” What does that even mean? When I was growing up I knew what it meant. To be worldly was to enjoy certain things way too much. We were naturally suspicious of any kind of pleasure. So, the way to end worldliness was to make lists of things that we called evil and abstain from them. Things like drinking, smoking, dancing, and certain kinds of music. However, even then I saw people who could keep the list perfectly but still exhibited no fruit of the spirit. What was up with that?So, what is worldliness? C. J. Mahaney says it like this, “Worldliness, then, is a love for this fallen world. It’s loving the values and pursuits of this world that stand opposed to God. More specifically, it is to gratify and exalt oneself to the exclusion of God.” (C. J. Mahaney, ed., Worldliness) Worldliness means basically to live according to the world’s value and to disregard God’s law and values. We can do this in almost any area of life—sex, money, work, relationships, children, etc. There is typically a “popular” way of doing things in any culture or body of people. If the Bible doesn’t address it, then to follow along is okay. But when the Bible speaks into the values of the culture around us and we choose to follow the culture rather than the wisdom of God, we are at that point “worldly”.There is no letting up in James. He won’t let us profess one thing and live another. He refuses to allow us to make a profession without having the lifestyle to back up our claim. It is hard but James, like a good parent that is jealous for the greater good of his children, has one hope in mind––that we will be exalted! We can’t be worldly and be exalted and know joy unspeakable. God never baptizes our sin and says, “Well, I hope a good time was had by all.” No, He says, “Repent, change, submit your ways unto me, and in due time, I will exalt you.”That is the gospel—death and resurrection; and by the way, there is no such thing as “friendship with the world.” If you don’t believe me, I have a story to tell you about a lady named Gomer. It is in the Old Testament, and James alludes to it in our text this week. Hope to see you Sunday!Blessings,Jim