1 John 3:1-3
“The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.”
With these words, the apostle John, in today’s lesson from his First Epistle, describes the situation in which Christians find themselves in this world.
Now, when John speaks of the “world” in this sense, he’s not talking about the physical world: a world which God created, and which God still sustains as a realm of blessing for all people who live in it. He’s talking about the world in terms of the deep and systemic corruption of what God created.
In its spiritual blindness, the world in this sense of the term opposes all that is of God and that honors God. In its perversity and malevolence, the world in this sense is a component of the unholy trinity of the Christian’s enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Jesus is speaking of the world in this sense when he describes Satan as “the prince of this world.” And this is the world – the fallen world – that does not know us – just as it did not know Jesus when he walked the earth: preaching and healing, loving and serving, living and dying.
The Greek word translated here as “know” does not refer to a simple acquaintance or external familiarity with something or someone, but it means a deep and experiential understanding of something or someone.
The sinful world does not understand Christians. The corrupt world does not get us.
Christians, and the way they try to live, don’t make any sense. The fallen world says: “Follow your heart; do whatever seems best to you in the moment.” But Christians try to follow the directives of the Proverbs:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”
The fallen world usually says, “Look out for number one”: that is, live for yourself, for your own pleasure and comfort. But Christians try to follow the exhortations of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians:
“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”
Those in the world with a slightly higher morality are not completely self-oriented, but would think that loyalty to family is more important than anything else. But Christians soberly heed the words of Jesus, when he says:
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”
The fallen world says: “Don’t get mad, get even.” But Christians know that Jesus has called them to something else:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. … You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven…”
The fallen world loves money. Even those who don’t have it, strive to get as much of it as they can. But Christians try to live by St. Paul’s words in his First Epistle to Timothy:
“We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…”
Christians understand the world much better than the world understands Christians. And that’s because each of us was completely enmeshed in the world ourselves, before we knew Christ.
Whether it was for a few days after birth, before we were brought to the baptismal font, or was for several years, before an adult conversion, each of us in the past was “without Christ, … having no hope and without God in the world” – to quote from the Epistle to the Ephesians.
And traces of the world – and of its deceptive allurements and destructive passions – remain in us, thereby reminding us of what we have been rescued from, and of what we should never want to return to.
Indeed, we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. We were bought at a price – the price of the blood of atonement that Jesus shed for us on the cross.
Therefore, with God’s help, we seek to glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, which are God’s. And St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Colossians, furthermore comforts and emboldens us with the assurance that God
“has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
So, we understand the fallen world, because we used to be a part of it. And as far as our lingering sinful nature is concerned, the fallen world’s tempting tentacles still reach into us, and always need to be pushed out again through daily repentance, and daily faith in Christ’s forgiveness.
But, according to the new nature that God’s Spirit has birthed within us, and in which Christ now dwells, we are free of this. Our eyes now look up from the mundane and the material, to the horizons of hope, and to the eternal life that Christ’s resurrection has opened for us.
We have this hope in God, because we have God’s Word: his inspired written Word in Holy Scripture, and his preached and sacramental Word drawn from Scripture.
We therefore understand what Paul is talking about in his First Epistle to the Corinthians when he writes:
These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.”
Indeed, the fallen world does not get this. The fallen world, and those within it whose minds are still cloaked with a devilish darkness regarding the things of God, do not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to them.
In comparison to this, we are certainly not boasting. It is only because of God’s grace that our eyes and minds have been opened.
It is only because of God’s Word that we know what we are now in Christ, and what we will be in Christ. As St. John writes in today’s text:
“Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed.” But, “We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him…”
But the world does not know these things. The world does not know Christ. The world does not know us. And the world responds in two different ways, as it evaluates us and tries to make sense of us.
The first response corresponds to the fact that the world thinks that the things that have been revealed, and that we believe, are foolishness. And so we are seen as foolish, and are treated as such: with mockery, insults, patronizing attitudes, and derisive comments. We are objects of curiosity, not to be taken seriously.
But the second response, which is becoming the more common response, is that we are taken seriously: as serious and dangerous threats. Totalitarian governments never like having Christians under their authority, because Christians will always recognize God as a higher authority.
And people who are imbued with a totalitarian spirit – who demand submission to their will and to their ideas – likewise never like having to deal with Christians, because Christians – true Christians – will always recognize God’s Word as a higher judge of what is real, and as a higher witness to what is true.
In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus warns:
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. … But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.”
So, because of our love for hurting people who are confused about who and what God has made them to be, we are called haters – by those who hate us. Because of our compassion for unborn children and their frightened mothers, we are called oppressors. Because of our respect for the rule of law – since civil government is an institution of God – we are called racists.
Christians aren’t any of those things. But an angry and threatened world will throw at us, any mud that is within reach, hoping that something will stick – and hoping that we will be scared off, and will be quiet.
Don’t let it concern you that you are not understood, that you are mocked, and that you are hated, by the world. And don’t try to win the world over by embracing worldliness. In his Epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul asks this rhetorical question:
“Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
And Paul writes in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians:
“Just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.”
You might think that the world will love you once again if you just make a few compromises: sacrificing some of your convictions, but not all of them; or engaging in some shadowy behavior, but not too much.
But this fallen world, and Satan as the prince of this world, will not be satisfied until they have sucked all of your faith out of you; and have pulled you into total darkness, and into the works of darkness. As St. Paul reminds us in his Epistle to the Romans, the children of the fallen world are “filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful…”
They won’t be satisfied until they have made you to be just like them. Don’t go down this pathway. But unbelieving individuals in the fallen world can come to understand us when they become one of us.
With God’s help, we should resist going down the pathway that takes us to where they are. But also with God’s help, we can lead at least some of them on that pathway, in the opposite direction: away from the despair and death of sin, and into the hope and life of Christ; away from the overwhelming weight of the guilt of sin, into the freedom of forgiveness in Christ.
Don’t let them lead you away from the good place where you are, but ask God to show you how you can lead some of them away from the bad place where they are. Show them a better way. Show them Christ’s way.
Speak to them of Christ’s way. St. Peter writes in his First Epistle:
“Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles…”
And why does he beg us in this way? He tells us. It is because
“You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”
And therefore Peter also says:
“Even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. ‘And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.’ But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.”
They might make fun of you and laugh at you – initially. They might even get angry – at first. But if you have put God’s message of law and gospel into their ears, the Holy Spirit may thereby have planted a seed of repentance and faith in their minds and hearts – a seed that may someday sprout and grow.
And if that happens – when that happened – they will know Jesus. And they will then, finally, know us. Amen.