In practice we don’t always hate the world (sinful rebellion) as our enemy.  In practice, we don’t always act as if God is our friend.  If we did, we would always want to do his will.  

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.James 4:4
With these words James presents a stark contrast between two different relationships.  There’s your relationship with the world and then there’s your relationship with God.  The two ought never to be of the same sort.  One way or another these two relationships should always be radically opposed.
Now we could consider what it means to have friendship with the world.  We could look at what that involves and all its different permutations.  If this were a sermon, I’d definitely do that.  However, in this brief meditation, I want to go a different route.  If what the Holy Spirit says is true (which it is), then we ought to be able to flip the terms around in his formulation.  When we do that, we discover something remarkable.
What I mean is this:  if “friendship with the world is enmity with God,” then the reverse follows as also true.  It is also true that “enmity with the world is friendship with God.”  Moreover, anyone who wishes to be an enemy of the world is a friend of God.  When we put it like that, two key questions still need to be answered.
First, what would it mean to be an enemy of the world?  Enmity with the world means a relationship of hostility or hatred with the world.  And what is meant by “the world” here?   It refers to everything associated with humanity’s rebellion against God.  “The world” is all the different ways in which sin manifests itself amongst human beings.  Being an enemy of the world really means being hostile towards sin.  Rather than embracing or coddling sinfulness, you hate it and long to see it destroyed.  Being an enemy of the world means you harbour no affection for the rebellion which has the potential to destroy you and other human beings.  This is the way it ought to be for those redeemed by Christ.
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Many children feel their parent’s divorce is one of the most devastating events in their life, an event that damages their own self-perception and hinders their ability to form and maintain healthy relationships.

Last week, The Cut profiled nine women about “the Moment They Knew Their Marriage Was Over,” noting, “as painful as it may be” sometimes divorce is “exactly what you have to do.” It’s true that the marriage challenges adults face are often weighty. But what both The Cut and our culture largely ignore is the life-long cost divorce inflicts on children, preferring to believe that what children want most is “happy” parents rather than parents who work to stay married.
In reality, many children feel their parent’s divorce is one of the most devastating events in their life, an event that damages their own self-perception and hinders their ability to form and maintain healthy relationships. The Federalist spoke with nine children, whose names have been changed, about their lives in the moments and years following their parents’ announcement that their marriage was over.
My mother told me she was divorcing my father when I was 17 years old. My brother had already gone to college, so I was alone. My first reaction was “I just want the fighting to stop.” I thought the divorce would bring relief, I had no idea what the impact of the dissolution of our family would bring.
Both parents went on with their lives, and I was left alone to figure things out on my own. Our house was sold, I went off to college, and felt devastated I had no family or home to go back to anymore.
I couldn’t reconcile the fact that half of me is mom, half of me is dad, and if they hate each other, how can they possibly love me completely, as they can see the other person they hate in me? I felt unlovable and completely abandoned. My relationships have always failed because I was waiting for the “shoe to drop,” convincing myself no one can love me and no one wants to be around me for too long.—Samantha, 59, customer service, Michigan
When I was 11 years old, I came home from Vacation Bible School, and my mother told me she was moving out and divorcing my dad. She knew that I was aware of her affairs. I felt dirty, like I was guilty by association. It made me incredibly insecure when anyone said I looked like her/reminded them of her. It alienated me from that side of my family.—Ava, 23, secretary, Minnesota
I was 5 years old when my parents got divorced. To be honest, I don’t recall a moment they sat my sister and I down and told us. We just remember Dad being gone for months at a time before he came back into town and I started my visitation.
A court system chose the days of the week I’d see my dad, and the days of each week I’d see my mom. I remember feeling unstable and confused. As I packed my belongings in a bag for a weekend with Dad I didn’t understand why my sisters weren’t coming. That’s when I found out they both had a different dad. My dad had raised them for most of their lives, and suddenly it was as if they weren’t a part of him anymore.
Deep grief filled my little body as I mourned not having access to my dad Monday to Friday. I cried myself to sleep Friday to Sunday when I couldn’t have access to my mom. I had separation anxiety from my mom, so one time my dad sent the cops to pick me up when I didn’t want to go.
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Generation Z have grown up with the internet in their pocket, saturated with information but starving for truth. As a generation, they seem to want to be protected and insulated from ideas that make them uncomfortable or “unsafe”. There are real challenges in raising children in a generation that seems completely disconnected from Christian truth and values, as well as difficulty in reaching that very generation. We need to prepare young people for the world around them rather than a world that no longer exists. They need more than mere church attendance, they need to know what they should believe and why.  It can be intensely hard to be “the only one” who stands apart amid such trends.
We have to take seriously what it means to pass on the faith, fully and intact to the rising generation. The key sphere for this is one that many young people in Gen Z profess to value a huge positive influence. They value relationships, not just with friends but also with their family. In a 2017 Youth for Christ Survey, 82% of young people said that making their family proud was their number one priority, and 73% who believed in God said their family was the main influence on their faith. In a generation that knows the fragility of families and pressures on them more than ever, they need families where living and believing the faith are central.
The beginning of Psalm 78 speaks of the need to pass the faith from one generation to another. God has given us His Word for this purpose (v1 and 4). There may be ancient things that are mysterious in it and foreign to contemporary thinking (v2), yet we are to know, understand it as well as to praise God for it (v3-4). He has given it to us to believe and obey (v5-6), we are also to show the next generation how to do this (v7) and avoid all examples of disobedience and backsliding (v8). This is shown from the example of Israel (using the name of Ephraim, the most mighty and numerous tribe). They were deserted by God in battle because their confidence was in their own resources and strength rather than believing in God. They disregarded the covenant they had entered into with God, disobeyed His commands and did not make use of the works He had done (v9-11). The resources they depended on could become useless to them; God could take away their wisdom, courage, strength, and success in chastising them. In the following updated extract, David Dickson shows what it means to pass on the faith to another generation.
We Must Give Them Scripture Truth
Those are worthy of the name of fathers in the Church who transmit to posterity the truth of God contained in Scripture, such as is here prescribed in this Psalm. This is the only infallible sort of tradition, which delivers to posterity what God delivered to the prophets or their predecessors by Scripture.
The godly in every age ought to have the same care to transmit the Word of truth to their posterity, which their ancestors had to transmit it to them. Thought ought to pay the debt they owe to their faithful ancestors to succeeding generations; they will not hide them from their children.
The Word of the Lord has true antiquity; divine doctrine is no new doctrine, it is “of old.” And for this reason should we hear it attentively and believingly. Although the Word of the Lord is a mystery and “dark sayings” to the unbelieving multitude of the world, yet it is understood, received and believed by the true members of the Church from age to age. The prophet, speaking of himself and the godly in his time, says that their parables and dark sayings are those “which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.” Although the Word of the Lord is plain to the attentive believer, to the inattentive unbeliever it is a hidden mystery. For this reason, we need to hear attentively and believingly.
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