Chapter 21: Loving God More Than We Love the World
With every lesson,I hope at least someone walks away with something lasting. Something that you will remember in the months and years to come, at least subconsciously. I have high hopes for this one, mostly because it touches on a difficult, seat-squirming subject: worldliness. [write “worldliness” for emphasis on the chalkboard]
To get your salivary glands rolling, let me hint at where we are going today and say that, in regards to worldliness, there are 2 great principles that I believe are especially pertinent and that Lorenzo Snow touches on that pertain to worldiness, that will help us apply it to our lives. [write 1. and 2. on the board]. We'll come back to these later and I'll let the excitement of what they might be brood in your minds.
Worldiness is a difficult subject, because we all hear it and think “eww, that’s bad, we shouldn’t be worldly”, but when it comes to actually making changes in our lives the idea starts to get a lot more complicated and sticky, and nobody really wants to talk about it. Part of this complication comes because “wordliness” is a very vague term that can be hard to define. All we really know is that it’s a bad word. It’s sort of like a mormon euphemism, a term that encapsulates everything Satan stands for.
So what does it really mean? What is worldliness? How do you define it? Is worldliness defined by how much money we make? By how industrial we are? By how much time we spend at work? By how many expensive things we buy? By our hobbies? [get discussion going]
Right now I’m going to take us through some thoughts and some scriptures, first going from a place where worldiness seems easy to avoid and then to a place where it’s near impossible to avoid. After my monolog I’ll open it up to discussion and then we’ll look at some things Lorenzo snow had to say.
If avoiding wordliness is loving God more than the world…. yeah it still sounds sort of vague, huh. With that definition, it almost sounds like we can conveniently self define what it means to love God more than the world, and sort of do whatever we want to. It’s like a blank check to heaven. Living the gospel has never been so easy!
But then just when we’re feeling good about ourselves, we find that Jesus said some really uncomfortable things that really screw up our complacency. Like the time in Matthew 19 when he once told someone to sell everything he had and give it to the poor, only if he wanted to be perfect. Then Jesus went even further, saying: Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.
Great… so… we can’t own nice things (anything?) if we want to love God more than the world? If we don’t want to be worldly?
That’s one of those scriptures that most Christians, Mormons included, probably try to sweep under the carpet because it makes us too uncomfortable. But us Mormons have it rough because we go to the temple and covenant to dedicate our all to the kingdom of God. Suddenly that scripture in Matthew 19 that we always avoided comes back to bite us hard, and instead of avoiding it we promise to live it. Great….
Oh! But then we remember that those silly saints in the early church couldn’t handle this “law of consecration”, so God gave us the concrete law of tithing instead. All we have to do is pay our 10% and we are no longer “worldy”. Right? Me 1, worldiness 0. Nice. Glad that issue is finally resolved.
Except… aren’t there millions of scriptures in the Book of Mormon and Bible telling us we’ll go to Hell if we don’t give money and clothes and food to poor people? Like Lazarus and the rich man? Or the scriptures that tell us not to lay up treasures on earth or in our bank account?
So I’ve tried to show that this is a complex subject, and I want to hear your opinions on how we deal with this thing called worldiness, and how we know when we are starting to become “worldy”.
For me, I already mentioned there were two principles that help us practically deal with worldiness.
1. One heart and one mind
The first is whether or not I am one heart and one mind with ward. [write “one heart and one mind” on the 1. spot]
President Snow spends a while in the manual reflecting on his time at Kirtland. He describes how wonderful it was when they built the temple and had strong spiritual experiences. Then, he describes how everything seemed to come tumbling down and the dark days that followed. Interestingly, he basically pins most of the badness that happened in Kirtland to worldiness. Specifically, he said people started to engage in speculation, which he defined as: “unusual business risks in hopes of getting rich quickly”. He said it was this desire for money which tore the saints apart. Let’s read one paragraph on page 251 in the middle of the section, starting with the word “singular”:
Singular as it may appear, this spirit of speculation pervaded the quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the quorum of the Seven Presidents of Seventies; indeed, there was not a quorum in the Church but was more or less touched with this spirit of speculation. As that spirit increased, disunion followed. Brethren and sisters began to slander and quarrel one with the other, because their interests were not in harmony.
I think these are great indicators of how we’re doing with worldiness. if we are trying to be in harmony with our ward, to help people out, making time to serve others, doing our calling, home teaching, not gossiping too much about each other, then we’re probably doing pretty good. If we are too busy with work or hobbies or vacation, maybe we should engage in some self-reflection. It goes along with Moses 7:18 “And the Lord called his people a Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.”
2. Gratitude
The second principle that can be our guide to avoiding worldiness is gratitude [write it at 2. on board]
In the spirit of Thanksgiving coming up, there is a great question posed by President snow in the second to last paragraph on page 254:
Now let me ask the question, Who [does] possess anything, who can really and truly call any of this world’s goods his own?
It’s sort of a rhetorical question, which can be followed by another rhetorical question of my own: “how many of you always remember to be grateful”?
That’s the hard part, remembering to be grateful. Nonetheless, when we do remember to be grateful to God, I don’t think we will have trouble being generous and loving and kind and avoiding worldiness. President Snow’s question again, this time with his follow up::
Now let me ask the question, Who [does] possess anything, who can really and truly call any of this world’s goods his own? I do not presume to, I am merely a steward over a very little, and unto God I am held accountable for its use and disposition.
Thoughts?
For gratitude to be meaningful, it must be paired with humility. It’s so easy to become a Zoramite on the Rameumpton stand, thanking God that we obeyed the commandments and he blessed us. Imagine how arrogant it can sound when we say that the all powerful being, the creator of the universe, spent his time giving us blessing upon blessing because of our righteousness. He did this for us while millions and millions and millions around the earth are suffering and dying, hungry and cold, with prayers unanswered. That’s uncomfortable. It’s not gratitude if we think we had anything to do with it, that’s just pride. We must remember that we are unprofitable servants, that we got more than we deserve. We know living the gospel brings happiness and blessings, but there's not much more we can say than that. It can only be when we think of the grace of God, of Christ’s suffering for us sinners, of receiving blessings unearned, of blessings as tender mercies that comes to us unworthy souls, it’s only then that our hearts can really be touched towards forsaking worldiness. When I remember like Paul that by the grace of God I am what I am (1 cor 15:10), it is only then that I can hope to have true gratitude and overcome worldiness by loving our fellow man.
Any thoughts or experiences?
I testify that none of us will ever earn our way to heaven. Christ did that for us, and if we can remember that it is by his grace any of us are standing here today, I know we will have power to overcome the world, helping others as we achieve unity and harmony with the saints.
Brigham Young quote to possibly share during lesson:
This will become the great highway of the nations. Kings and emperors and the noble and wise of the earth will visit us here, while the wicked and ungodly will envy us our comfortable homes and possessions....
The worst fear that I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and his people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution, and be true. But my greater fear for them is that they cannot stand wealth; and yet they have to be tried with riches, for they will become the richest people on this earth. (Brigham Young: The Man and His Work, 4th ed., p.126-129)
