There is a line in this Sunday’s message that I moved past quickly, and it nagged me for a while afterwards.
I said that Salvationists are sometimes tempted to reduce holiness down to a list of dos and don’ts. Negative holiness. We read the soldier’s covenant, tick off the things we have not done, and conclude that we must be fine.
I said it lightly. I should not have. Because I have done it for years.
Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I'm no longer preaching every Sunday, but God's word doesn't go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.
This week's sermon was originally preached 22 August 2021.
Here is the trouble with negative holiness. It is measurable. You can audit it on a Sunday evening. I did not drink, I did not gamble, I did not lose my temper in the car park, so the week has gone well. It gives you a score. And a score feels like progress.
But John is not handing us a scorecard. Look again at what he actually writes: “For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions.” Every one of those three is about desire. Not behaviour. Desire.
You can go a whole month without doing a single thing on the list and still want the world with your whole chest.
That is the uncomfortable bit. A list of don’ts can be kept by willpower. Desire cannot. You do not talk yourself out of wanting something by trying harder not to want it. You are only ever moved off a craving by a stronger love.
Which is why John does not finish with a warning. He finishes with a promise: “But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.” He points at the thing that lasts, because he knows that seeing what lasts is the only cure for wanting what does not.
So here is the harder question I would put to you this week, and I am putting it to myself first.
Not, what did I avoid?
But, what did I actually want?
Sit down on Friday with a piece of paper and write down the three things you thought about most this week. Not the things you did. The things your mind drifted to when it was not being supervised. Your commute, your queue at the till, the ten minutes before you fell asleep.
That list is a truer picture of your heart than your behaviour is.
And then, gently, do not resolve to want less. Ask God to give you more of himself, until the wanting shifts. That is the work of a lifetime, and it is not done alone. It is done in the company of a few Christian friends who know you well enough to ask what you have been thinking about.
Find those friends. That was Sunday’s point, and it is still the point.
Which of the three did the paper reveal for you?