How to Avoid the World’s Seduction
Part 4
To do your best
at any particular job, you want to use the most effective tools. Trying to deny
worldliness without faith is the same as trying to work without the right set
of tools. As we have begun to see, the most effective tool—indeed, the only effective tool—for turning us from
lovers of the world into lovers of God is the gospel.
It is only in
the gospel that God stands revealed as an object of confidence to sinners. It
is only in the gospel where our desire for Him is not chilled by the barrier of
guilt that hinders every approach not made through Christ, our mediator (1 Timothy
2:5). The gospel brings us hope, with which we draw near to God. To live
without hope is to live without God, and if the heart is without God, the world
will then have control over it.
The world’s
control over the heart is destroyed only when a person sees and embraces God as
revealed through Christ. Then we no longer look on God with terror as an
offended lawgiver. Instead, we are enabled by faith (which is God’s own gift)
to see His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. In the gospel, we hear Him proclaim
goodwill, full pardon, and complete acceptance to those who turn to Him in
repentance.
Only when a
heart has been regenerated can it experience a love that overshadows, and
ultimately drives out, its love of the world. When we are released from the
spirit of bondage and received by the Spirit of adoption, we are brought under
a new and better master—One who delivers us from the enslavement of our heart’s
former desires. In this way, saving faith brings life to a heart that is
otherwise dead to the influence of any other offer of salvation.
The gospel is
designed to both pacify the sinner’s conscience and purify his heart. It does
not do just one or the other. Take away the pacifying, and the purifying is
taken away as well. On the flip side, the more a conscience is pacified, the
more it is purified. In other words, the more a conscience is soothed by the
gospel, the more it is sanctified by the gospel.
This is one of
the great secrets of the Christian life: the more you view God as a giver of
free, unmerited, unending grace, the more enabled you are to live in obedience
to Him. The more attractive God appears to you, the less attractive the world
will appear. Your love for God will spring out of your awareness of God’s love
for you. In effect, you will experience and demonstrate the truth that the
gospel creates what the law commands.
The person who
views God as saying, “Obey me or else” will be filled with a constant fear of
punishment, and this fear will eat away at his confidence to interact with God.
If, in awareness of his sin and shame, he persists in “making it up” to God, he
is actually pursuing his own selfish pride and not God’s glory. By trying to
prove himself through obedience, he reveals a heart of disobedience; he is
approaching God strictly on his own terms.
In the gospel,
God’s acceptance is given freely, without money and without cost (Isaiah 55:1),
so that a person’s security in God is placed beyond the reach of any
disturbance. The Christian can rest in God’s presence just as one might relax
with a friend. Through the gospel, an understanding is established between God
and man: God delights to show goodness to His children, and His children find
the truest possible sense of gladness in the beauty of this goodness. Salvation
by free grace, salvation based not on works but on the mercy of God—salvation
such as this is just as effective in delivering our wayward hearts from
worldliness as it is in delivering our corrupt souls from condemnation.
The freeness of
grace, which so many are tempted to think provides an excuse to sin, is
actually what enables the heart to fight against
sin. Far from being a seed that sprouts into worldly living, free grace is the
seed of an inclination against worldly
living. To the degree that you compromise the freeness of this grace, to that
degree you will take away one’s ability to love God and reject worldliness. The
most powerful transformation that can occur within a sinner is when, under the
belief that he is saved by free grace, he is taught by that same grace to “deny
ungodliness and worldly lusts” (Titus 2:11-12).
Because of the
gospel, the Christian need not lose heart. Even if he cannot effectively
discern the corruption of the world, he can still aid himself in destroying the
world’s influence in his life. All he needs to do is continually remind himself
of the gospel.
If you are
unable to understand the true nature of the present world, you can still study
what has been revealed from the world to come. If you are unable to observe and
dissect sinful desires, you can still wield the only weapon that destroys those
desires: the gospel. You may not be able to bring into light the hidden
recesses of human nature, with all the weaknesses and lurking appetites that
belong to it. Nevertheless, you do have a truth in your possession that, like a
black hole, will swallow up all such lurking appetites.
Therefore,
never stop using this powerful instrument in putting an end to your love of the
world. Use every legitimate method of instilling in your heart a love of Him
who is greater than the world. If at all possible, clear away the shroud of
unbelief that hides and darkens God’s lovely face. Never cease to affirm that
in the gospel, which reconciles sinful people to their Maker, the God of love
presents you with a kaleidoscope of His endearing qualities.
photo credit: reinvented via photopin cc