Holy people in an unholy world

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your lives as foreigners here in reverent fear. 1 Peter 1:17

When I was a boy there was an American folk singer called Jim Reeves. He had a booming bass voice which was both powerful and gentle. I discovered that if you lay in a hot bath (no showers in those days) and sang out into the steam you could do a pretty good imitation of him. (Don’t picture me, please.)

One of his songs declared: “This world is not my home,/ I’m just a-passing through./ My treasure’s all 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 any more.”

A bit twee and sentimental? Perhaps so. But the thought behind those words is in fact thoroughly biblical.

It contains a truth that the apostle Peter was very conscious of. In the verse I’ve picked out above he tells his readers to “live out your lives as foreigners here” on earth. For “foreigners” we could read “exiles” or “temporary residents”. The same thought is there in the letter’s very first verse – “To God’s elect, exiles…” - and again in 2:11: “Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires…”

It’s not just Peter who stresses this theme. The writer to the Hebrews tells his readers that “here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (13:14). Paul too tells us that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20).

The idea has its roots way back in the Old Testament. The Psalmist tells God, “I dwell with you as a foreigner, a stranger, as all my ancestors were” (Psalm 39:12). Perhaps he is recalling the experience of Abraham, the father of God’s people: when he needed to buy a burial plot for his wife Sarah, Abraham told the Hittites among whom he was living, “I am a foreigner and a stranger among you” (Genesis 23:4).

And, of course, it all comes together beautifully in the promise of Jesus to his disciples: “I am going to prepare a place for you” (John 14:1-4).

I could heap up plenty more Bible passages like these, but I think that’s enough to be going on with! It’s certainly a precious truth.

I suspect, though, that it’s one of those Bible truths we happily accept in theory, but pretty well ignore in practice.

The trouble, I find, is that I feel so much at home in this world! This, after all, is the world I was born into. I breathe its air, I drink its water, I enjoy its food, I delight in its beauty - and I agonise over its pains. This world is my home: where else? Every time I buy some “worldly” object, whether necessity or luxury, it tightens its grip on me. And, of course, to have a bank account, or insurance policies, or a mortgage, or savings, or a multitude of other things, can only be to deepen my immersion in it.

There’s a difficult balance to be struck. I’m sure God doesn’t want us all to become hermits, getting rid of our worldly possessions and shunning all worldly pleasures. No: Jesus came so that we might have life “and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Our world, even in its fallen state, is a good world, and God wants us to enjoy it.

I’m sure too that he doesn’t want us to use this truth as a cop-out, withdrawing from all involvement in “worldly” affairs and refusing to accept responsibility for some of this world’s troubles and sorrows. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer, after all, that God’s will might be done “on earth as it is in heaven” – and it is surely hypocritical to pray that prayer and then fold our arms and leave it at that.

At about the same time as I was doing my Jim Reeves imitations in the bath I became a Christian. One of the catch-phrases we were taught was that we are “in the world, but not of it”. Perhaps that sums up the balance pretty well.

But we need to pray regularly that that balance be maintained by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To enjoy the world that God has made is one thing; to let it sink its claws deep within us is quite another. Peter makes it clear in verses 15-16 by latching on to the idea of holiness: “Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do…”. Holy people in an unholy world – isn’t that a perfect description of what the church should be?

Here’s a thought I find it helpful to challenge myself with…

My task as an exile in this world is to bring a little bit of heaven to earth every day by the way I live and by the person I am. Jesus said “You are the light of the world”, which means, staggering though it may seem, that people can look at us and see him.

Just think of that next time you walk down the street!

Loving Father, bring me to that place where I can pray with Paul – and really mean it! – “to me, to live is Christ, to die is gain”. Amen.