Do you ever feel the stark contrast between a worship service and the day-in, day-out world that you live in? Most of the time we can connect with God at church. It's fairly easy to experience something spiritual or transcendent; God is near!

Then we go back into the everyday world, and what a difference! God seems conspicuous by His absence in our relationships with the people we relate to or work with, the news we hear and see, and even our own inward thinking and feeling.

Today we conclude our six-part series on “Anatomy of a Soul” with part six. I've called it “When Facing Opposition: The Conflicted Soul,” because the giving of our hearts and souls to the Lord automatically puts us into conflict with the world around us — and the world within us, too! Some of the psalms in the book of Psalms address this issue.

THE ATTACKED PSALMIST
Several of the psalms are called “imprecatory” psalms. In them the psalmists express their feelings that they had been treated unjustly because of their commitment to God — so they ask God to bring justice to bear on the situation, including the punishment of the people who were causing their grief. For instance, in Psalm 70 David wrote, “Hasten, O God, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me. May those who seek my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace. May those who say to me, 'Aha! Aha!' turn back because of their shame.” (Psalm 70:1-3) It sounds as if the psalmist was saying to God, “Go get ‘em, God!” — and that's pretty much what he was saying!

The beauty of the psalms is that they’re honest writing: the psalmists wrote what they felt. They were being honest with God, and that's a good model for us to follow in our own praying! Because the psalmist — in this case, David — sought to align himself with God's will, he was experiencing conflict with the people around him who didn't seek to follow God's will. He was trying to obey God, but other people didn't appreciate it. In another psalm David expressed it this way: “They repay me evil for good and leave my soul forlorn.” (Psalm 35:12) As we conclude this series on the anatomy of the soul we need to address the fact that often our souls feel forlorn, along with other feelings we don't especially enjoy, when we seek to be serious followers of Jesus Christ.

David the psalmist wanted God to put his enemies to shame. His primary motive, however, was not personal vengeance; it was that “God be exalted,” as he stated at the end of verse 4. On the surface it would seem that David and the other poets who created the imprecatory psalms wanted God to help them get even. However, their motive was higher than that — at least most of the time. They represented God in the world, and when people treated them badly it was a reflection of how those people felt about God. The psalmists wanted God to be honored by everyone, and that meant judging those who dishonored the psalmists when they were trying to honor God.

We need to be careful of something. It's easy to think that we're always on the Lord's side — or rather that God's always on our side. When we feel that people don't understand us, or when they treat us other than the way we want to be treated, we may think that it's us and God against them. However, in some cases we may be in the wrong. Christians can sometimes be so insensitive and brash when they’re trying to get through to someone that you can't really blame the non-Christian for reacting against that. The Bible says that we’re to be a peculiar people, but unfortunately sometimes Christians can be downright odd, or even annoying!

If we seek to follow Jesus, we're going to experience conflict with the world around us. Jesus warned us about that.

JESUS' WARNING
Jesus said, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than the master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.” (John 15:19-21)

There you have it! Jesus tells us that we can be guaranteed of conflict in life when we follow Him, because the world isn’t following Him! That world doesn't have to be far away; it can be in our own families. Jesus said on another occasion, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'” (Matthew 10:34-36)

Some of you have experienced that in your own families, perhaps at holiday gatherings. You receive subtle little jibes — or perhaps not so subtle. It hurts because these people are family that you love — or would like to love, with the help of God. Some people here may experience this kind of conflict in a marriage with an unbeliever.

I think it's good to be reminded of this fact so that we aren’t surprised when we’re put down, insulted, or in some way persecuted for our faith. Jesus said that it would happen. We'd like to be at peace within our souls for having decided to follow Jesus, but our souls are conflicted because people we'd like to have love us and respect us don't like us very much for following Jesus. There are many areas in which we should expect to have conflict with the world.

CONFLICT WITH THE WORLD
The most obvious, comprehensive way that we, as followers of Christ, will experience conflict in our everyday, in-the-world lives is that God's presence isn’t obvious in the world! God is pretty much ignored. This is Christmas time, and it's a good example. As we listen to radio, watch TV, surf the net, and read the papers, much is said about Christmas — but little is said about whose birthday we celebrate. It’s the most obvious example, at this time of year, of how we’re in conflict with the world.

The world seems to pretty much ignore God. Recently Evel Knievel died, and there were profiles about him on TV, on the Internet, and in the newspaper, but almost all of them ignored the last and greatest leap he made: the leap of faith. One Sunday a few months ago he was baptized by Robert Schuller in the Crystal Cathedral. Just before his baptism Knievel gave an impassioned testimony about turning to Jesus, and he pleaded with people to do the same. His baptism prompted the baptism of hundreds of worshipers at the Crystal Cathedral that morning. God used him to prompt a mass revival in one of the best-known churches in the country!

His new faith in Christ is even mentioned on his official web site: “And lastly, most important to him above all was his new-found faith in Jesus Christ. Just as he always took great care in surrounding himself with the best people he could depend upon to help him make his jumps during his motorcycle career, Knievel found his greatest friend of all in preparation for his final leap from life. He was profoundly happy that he gave his life to God, who comforted him and gave him the strength he needed to make it through the end.”

What an amazing story! What an end to an amazing life — yet most of the media chose not to focus on it, or not even mention it! We live in a world that’s stubbornly determined to ignore God, even if it means inadequate reporting of news!

Much of advertising communicates that our value as a person is based on what we own: the cars we drive, the houses we live in, the clothes we wear. We can easily be persuaded to believe this ourselves as followers of Jesus. Jesus said, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15)

The realm of sexuality is another area where followers of Christ part ways with the world. God's view can be stated rather simply. Let me quote from John R. W. Stott, a well-known Christian biblical scholar: “It is precisely because God has instituted marriage as his own intended context for sexual enjoyment that he forbids it in all other contexts. True, only adultery is explicitly condemned, because it is a direct assault on marriage. But other forms of sexual immorality are implicitly included, because they too undermine marriage. Cohabitation, for example, involving sex before marriage, even sex without marriage, is an attempt to experience love without commitment. . . . Then it should also be clear that a same-sex partnership is not a legitimate alternative to heterosexual marriage but is rather incompatible with God's created and natural order. The only 'one flesh' experience God has authorized is within heterosexual monogamy. As George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, said in April 2002, 'Any sexual relationship beyond the confines of heterosexual marriage is a deviation from Scripture.’” (Through the Bible, p.66)

Jesus said, “Haven't you read . . . that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?” (Matthew 19:4-5) As followers of Jesus we experience conflict with the world in this whole area of sexuality.

There’s another area of conflict with the world. The world says that there are many ways to God. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) As followers of Jesus, we believe His claim that the only way to have an eternal relationship with God is through God's Son: Jesus. This doesn’t go over well with current views. It's in direct conflict with the way that the world views religion.

When it comes to all of these areas and others, be prepared as followers of Jesus to be accused of narrow-mindedness, bigotry, homophobia, being old-fashioned, or even holding immoral views. We may not be chased by an actual enemy, as David was, but we’re constantly attacked by views contrary to Christ.

LIVING WITH THE CONFLICT
Our conflict with so much of what's around us should encourage us to see that we have a purpose for being here! Jesus said of us, His followers, “You are the salt of the earth. . . . You are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:13-14) We’re supposed to make a difference. Like salt, we're supposed to bring a little good taste and a heaping dose of purification to this world. Like light, we're supposed to expose what's wrong — and bring the truth to light.

This is difficult to do; we need the Lord's help all the time. We'll always be tempted to go along with the crowd, wanting to fit in. As followers of Jesus we need to realize that at our cores — at the soul level — we aren't our old selves. Christ is there, inhabiting our souls and giving us a new identity in Him. As the apostle Paul put it, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, . . .” (Galatians 2:20) This should define our identity: it’s an identity in Christ, of Him in us at our soul level. The conflict with the world becomes a conflict within us, but the good news is that when we’re followers of Jesus He's at the core of who we are! We can win the conflict with the world that's within us because we have Him within us.

We can do no better than to pray the last lines of David's prayer, which we call Psalm 70: “Yet I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay.” (Psalm 70:5) He’ll do that! He’ll help us live in a world where we experience conflict and help us with our conflicting souls. Remember what Jesus tells us as His followers: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)