Sermon: Conforming to This World
Signs to Beware of
#1349
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 05-Nov-16; 78 minutes
summary: We must be willing to be team players, yielding our private ambitions and desires for the good of the team. It is the coach's prerogative to expect that we conform to his playbook. We are obligated to transform or change our game to please our coach. This mandate becomes challenging because the world desperately wants to squeeze us into its mold. It is far easier to conform to the world than to conform to Christ. We must extricate ourselves from the walking dead and yield to God to renew our minds, living in the spirit rather than in the flesh. Four major warning signs caution us that we have come too close to compromising with the world. 1) We discover there is a serious change in our prayer and/or Bible study habits. 2) We find ourselves withdrawing from fellowship with the brethren—tantamount to withdrawing from God. 3) We find ourselves seeking praise from those in the world. 4) We begin to look to the world for solutions to problems. We need to remember that Christ, not our human reason, is the Way.
transcript:
Everyone seems to have a system these days. Most people just naturally want to succeed, we want to become wealthy, have a little bit more money in our pockets, or we want to make it to the top of our profession, or what have you. We want to be popular, or want some other thing. It seems today everyone wants their fifteen minuets of fame. Or maybe the vast majority of us we just want to make it through our workday and be able to relax at night. So we see in various parts of our society—especially in advertising—we see people and companies peddling their systems to us. It is their way that they have through research or experience or hidden wisdom from somewhere, that they figured out how to reach these goals in our hectic, demanding, confusing times. You have to have a system, an organized route, a way to do these things so that we can navigate our way and come out on top, have the money, or whatever our goal is. Financial mavericks have their go-to stocks and their hidden gems, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Leadership gurus come at us on Facebook all the time, or we hear it on the radio, or see them on TV. They have their pithy quotations that they give to us, that will inspire us. They have their 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 step plans that, if you just follow these in this order, and do just these right things you will get to where you want to be. Then they have their selective biographies of various leaders from the past who applied themselves and did this and that, so that one could follow them and become just like them. Then there are life coaches. They have their $139.00 seminars and their $299.00 personal meetings, and then they have their various books and videos and trinkets for sale. All they are looking for is money. Then there are medical and health practitioners out there who say, if you just follow their way and do these things, eat this and do not eat that, take this supplement and do not take this, avoid these other things, then you are sure to be healthy and it will work on you like magic. Everybody has a system. I see these systems best in sports, everybody has a system to make you be able to play better or do this other things better. I see it a lot in golf coaching. Each golf coach has his system. He has his way that if you just follow his way then it will work for you, and you will be a better golfer. There are a lot of different stances, grips, swing trajectories, swing speeds, not to mention various types of balls, clubs, tees, gloves, shoes. Also helpful and gimmicky doodads, and whatnots, that they will sell you to try to take a few strokes off your game. Just attach this doodad to your driver and take ten practice swings, and then remove the doodad. You will hit the ball 50 yards more than you have in the past just because of a weight or wind resistant, or something that makes that gold club feel heavy until you take the doodad off and you are swinging like you have nothing in your hands. Like many Americans these days I watch a lot of football and I see systems there. Each team, each head coach, has a system. For instance, at a basic level there are some head coaches that are offensive-minded. They just like scoring points, their object is to score as much as possible and as quickly as possible. That is their mind set, they are going to put most of their mind—experience—toward getting their players to score points. Then there are defensive line coaches who do the opposite. They want to keep the other team from scoring points, and if they have an offensive that will score a few points, that is all they need. They come at it from different ends of the spectrum of how to win a game. The Carolina Panthers coach is Ron Rivera. He is from the 1985 Chicago Bears that some say is the greatest defense of all time. Now you would have fists fights about that if you brought it up in certain places, like in Pittsburgh. But it was a very defensive-minded team. That is the way Ron Rivera approaches his team. He looks first to defense, and they have had a very good defense despite their best player, their more outwardly vocal and well-known player, Cam Newton (the quarter back), who is an offensive-minded person. Last year when they went 15 and 1 during the regular season, they had the highest scoring offense in the league. They made it to the Super Bowl. They came at it every week, at least from the coach’s point of view, as a defensive team. They were going to stop the other team. When a head coach is hired, he usually brings in his own offensive and defensive coordinator and several of his lesser coaches, so he can put his entire philosophy in there and not have anyone hold it up. He brings in those he has worked with in the past, and those he feels who have similar philosophy to him so he can work with them. The first matter of business when that happens, is for these coaches to get together with him, sit down and write an entirely new playbook for the team. Of course, the coach probably has a head start on this because he used this playbook for a long time. But he gets together with his offensive and defensive coordinators and the basically come up with a way, written down on paper, that their team is going to win games. The philosophy is put right into that playbook. When a player, either those who have been with the team in the past or those they just brought in comes, into the team, the first thing they have to do is commit that playbook to memory so they know exactly where to be, where to line up on every play, no matter what the play is that is called. They also need to know what they need to be doing and where they need to go once the ball is hiked. They have to have this philosophy and all the specifics of how it works in their heads all the time, so that when they are on the field, they know exactly what to do. If they are going to have a really good team, each player has to know not only what he has to do and where he needs to be, but also where everybody else on the team is, and what he will be doing. Everybody knows exactly what everybody is doing, and they all do their part to make that play a success. That is just the beginning of what it takes to buy into a coach’s system. Knowledge of it and what to do, and then they have to practice and play that way as well. Then there are coaches like Bill Belichick from the New England Patriots. He is the coach in the National Football League that everyone loves to hate, except New England Patriot fans and they are usually pretty obnoxious about it. (But that is just coming from a Carolina Panther’s fan.) Belichick is the most detailed coach in the league, he was the one who the most specific philosophy of all, and it has won him champion ships, Super Bowls, he just keeps winning. He has been studying football since he was a little kid. His dad was a head coach on a college team, and Bill began coaching under him for a while. When he was young, he began to build a library of football books, not just books about certain players, it is about football and how football dynasties are built, how individual teams work, great football players, coaches, philosophies on how these work. It is supposed to be the foremost football library in the world in his house. He has come up with a system that has interchangeable parts. He does not need great players. Tom Brady was not a great player. He was a back up quarterback when he started, he was perfect for the system. He is a pocket passer, he has a quick release, and he is smart. He has other qualities, too, I am sure. But that is what Bill Belichick asks for in a quarterback. Let me just give you one example of how his philosophy works. He believes in a very quick passing game. The ball is hiked, given to Tom Brady, he steps back three steps, and throws the ball, he gets it out of his hands in a few seconds. He has a lot of short passes and moves the ball down the field very methodically and they score. Most people do not understand that you can take Gronkowski out and put a similar player in and the system would still work. What Belichick does is he looks around the league for people with certain skill sets, let us say he wants somebody with good hands, someone who can catch the ball, quick, has a good field sense, when he is on the field he knows what other people are doing and how they are going to react and he can be where he needs to be. Let us say he finds a player and this guy is 5ft 9 and 175 lbs. But he has the requisite skill set. He says,” I want that guy” and he puts him in the system, and he trains him to do the thing that he wants him to do. And the guy catches pass after pass after pass. He helps move the team down the field, even though he is a little guy, and nobody else wants him. His name is Wes Welker or his name is Julian Edelman. Or who knows who the next guy will be the coach chooses to do the job, and they win consistently. Because they conform to the system that Bill Belichick has put in for his team. Let us say that a quarterback learns his craft under a pass happy coaches system, meaning they pass a lot, 40-50 times a game. But midway through his career he becomes a free agent, and he signs a contract with another team. But just as he signs a new contract, the new team suddenly fires their head coach, and they hire a new one with a completely different philosophy. Now here he is going to a new team, and he expected a few changes, but now he goes to a team that is going to have an entirely different way of doing things, an entirely different philosophy. The new coach, knowing he has this great quarterback, but who is a passer, even though he knows that and will do things maybe to change a little bit to allow his star quarterback to do what he does, he will want the star quarterback to conform to his system. By the way, he is the head coach, he is the one whose neck is on the line if this team does not win. Let us say that this new coach is like Ron Rivera, who is a running kind of guy. We know that every time the Panthers come out, their first play is a run. Let us say, the coach wants to run these run plays all the time. What if the quarterback goes up to the line and starts changing these plays, and making the excuse that they were ready for the run so I passed, and he keeps doing this. I do not think the head coach is going to be very happy that the quarterback is not doing what he wants him to do. There is going to be a problem. Depending upon his ability to conform, the quarterback may have a difficult time transforming his game to suit his coach’s style. Old habits die hard, but he has to change. The quarterback cannot run his own philosophy in the face of his coach’s philosophy. It does not work. But if he does not conform to his coach’s philosophy he is going to lose his job, and lose his paycheck. I hope you have been thinking about this in parallel to life as a Christian. I think they are easy to see. We have been given an opportunity to become a free agent. We have changed teams; we are now under a different coaching philosophy. Our Coach does not play by the same rules as the old one did. He does not have the same goals, He is not interested in a lot of the same things that the old coach was. He wants to win the right way. Our careers, and even our desire to make it to the hall of fame, depend on our ability to transform our games to match our coach’s philosophy and produce touch downs and win games. The question is, as that star player who is now a free agent gone to another team, will we transform? Will we change our game to suit our Coach? Or will old habits reemerge to prove that our conformity to the old way is our true nature? We know that our walk to the Kingdom of God is what we call the process of sanctification, that is, the process that takes place over years and many experiences that we go through in which we are to become holy as God is holy (I Peter 1:16). That is our goal. God has taken us thoroughly unholy and unrighteous, and He has brought us into a new way, a whole new way of life, and He wants us to transform into something totally different. He wants us to go from unholy to holy, from corrupt to righteous, from sinful to living life as Jesus Christ did—without sin. We are told that this process of sanctification is growing in being a Christian or becoming transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Failure to do this is called backsliding, apostatizing, or returning to the world, or as vividly as Peter said, returning to the vomit. My question today is, how can we know that the world is gaining a foothold in our lives once again? What are the signs that we can see that we may have started to take some steps backwards rather than forward? What must we be aware of, what are the risks, the signs, the things that may pop up in our lives that will give us a clue that we are not going the way our Coach wants us to go? Most of the scriptures we will be going to today are fairly common, we go to them often. Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The apostle Paul is giving us our marching orders after going through a whole series of doctrinal arguments, teachings, to set the matter straight on just how everything is set up. Chapter 12 begins the more practical Christian living section. He is explaining something very similar in both verses. Verse 1 is a plea, he is begging us, urging us, appealing to us as brethren going through the same sort of thing, that we should sacrifice ourselves to become holy—a noble and wonderful goal that we have here, that we need to put our all into. It is only reasonable, as he says there, that we should do this because we have been wholly purchased by Christ’s sacrifice. Since something so great has been done for us, we have to do whatever we can in response to this to make sure we please the One who did this for us. He put up His all for us. And now we in turn, because of what He did, have to respond in this way, which is to become a living sacrifice. We were bought at the highest cost that could be (I Corinthians 6:20). We were bought at a price—a priceless price, the very precious life of our Creator. So, we owe Him our complete submission. We were slaves of sin and corruption, but now, because He has bought us, we are still slaves, but slaves to righteousness. Now our job is not to continue in sin but turn our lives around in thanksgiving to Jesus Christ for what He did on our behalf. He tells us that this sacrifice that Jesus Christ made obliges us to respond with total obedience, which requires us to give ourselves, to sacrifice ourselves, our all, but remain alive. Be a living sacrifice. We do not have to do what He did, He died in sacrifice for us. Because of God the Father, He gave Him life. In Romans 5 it says we are saved by His life. Now we are, having been saved, supposed to live in sacrifice, in a sacrificial posture, a sacrificial way, showing godly love all the while. It is suggested by this verse that this is the only way that we can be like God as a human being in this world. The proof of that is the life of Jesus Christ. When God came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, this is what He did. He lived a life of selfless love that was constantly sacrificing Himself while alive, and ultimately as His final sacrifice was in death, but He constantly sacrificed Himself to give to His disciples, to give to the world. Whether in teaching, healing, casting out demons, prayer, or whatever it was that He did to provide us an example of how to live. This is the only way that a person who is on God’s team, as it were, can live, the way the Coach wants us to live, through being a living sacrifice. Then there is verse 2. Having stated the means that this can be done, Paul provides the goal, the true goal. That goal is transformation, with the object of truly testing, proving, and learning what God’s will is. While we do this, while we test and prove and learn what God’s will is, we are being transformed, changed from something that we have been to what God wants us to be. This process of transformation is into the image of Christ, becoming just like Him. It is this process of transformation that builds God’s good and acceptable and perfect character in us. When we follow God’s good and acceptable and perfect will, it becomes ingrained upon us, and it becomes godly character. The process happens in the mind, by the renewing of the mind. Little by little, experience by experience, study after study, prayer after prayer. Whatever it is that we are doing, that we involve God in the relationship with Him in our lives, our mind is renewed. The old is thrown out, the new is put in place. You could say that our minds become completely renovated. Ultimately, the idea, the goal is to completely change the way we think, so that we no longer think like we once did while we were in the world, but we think like God. The problem is, in this world there is a swirling vortex of satanic and human nature that constantly pulls on us like gravity, it is pulling us away from the likeness of God that is trying to grow within us. In the J.B. Phillips translation (more of a paraphrase, he is rewording things to help us to understand. But he uses a different metaphor for this “but be transformed”) he says of verse 2, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.” It is constantly trying to do this to us. There is a system, a way, a mold, a pattern that the world is trying to force us to be like, force us into, so that we are like it and not like God. It is always there, a constant pressure. It is ever-present. The world is so much with us, all the time, because we are human and that is basically all we can see and feel and hear, and we are often unduly influenced to think and speak and act after the world and not after God, whom we cannot see. So we tend to follow that squeezing process into the worldly mold rather than follow the way of God, because it is easier. It is more comfortable even, because we have grown up with it, it is what we are used to, it is how our habits were all built, and so we very easily fall back into it even though God has done such great things for us. We are under constant pressure. Satan is out there, and his attitudes are beaming at us all the time, they are always trying to pull us away from God. The world is out there pretty much unaware of what Satan is doing to them, but they, because of what Satan has conditioned them to do, are all pulling us in Satan’s direction too, because that is the way they have been trained. Their systems that they bring up, that they want us to get involved in with them are all designed to move us away from God. It is just the way it is. Romans 8:7 The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God. So all these things that human beings come up with, as we know from Genesis 3, are mixtures of good and evil, but because evil is present within them they are all going to move us away from God eventually. Even though a system may seem right, we know from the Proverbs that its end is the way of death. Because these systems are from mankind and the original author is Satan, or if nothing else, his influence. That is the problem. We are being boiled in this very nasty pot all the time and we cannot help but take on its flavor. God has called us out of the pot, if you will, but we seem to want to jump back in it because it is familiar to us, and because the pressures to get back in it are so great. It does not help, as I already mentioned, that because we have grown up in the world, we are predisposed to the conditioning that we had before. We like the enticements that are out there, that pull us back into it, because it is what we are used to and it what human nature enjoys. It is a huge fight. It is much easier to conform to the world than be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Far, far easier, because we are disposed, conditioned, our flesh is selfish, all those things fight against us, against the Spirit of God in our minds that is trying to pull us toward Him, but all the rest of our resources that we gathered over many years of life, are pulling us in the other direction. God wants us to be different, He wants us to be holy; and the basis of that word has to do with being different, being separate, set apart. He does not want us to be like all the yellow pencils in the world. He wants us to be something much greater. So we have to work very hard to transform rather than to conform to this world. Let us go to Ephesians the fifth chapter. I would call Ephesians 5, verses 1 through 7 a parallel to what is in Romans 12. He puts it in different terms, but he is basically getting the same thing out to us. He is trying to convince us of the same thing. Ephesians 5:1-7 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them. He is telling us once again, be transformed, because Christ made an awesome sacrifice for you. Walk in love as He walked in love. Do not let these other things pull you back into the world’s mold. Do not allow yourself to come down from where God has exalted you, into doing all these terrible things. Do not let anyone get into your minds and deceive you with empty philosophy, with deceit, that will make you go the other way and change you back into what you were. He goes on to name some of the sins that we should no longer be doing. He shows us that our thoughts and speech and actions are to reflect the love of Christ. If we fail to do this, if we go back into what we were pulled out of, it will jeopardize our inheritance in the Kingdom of God. We have to guard our minds from the ideas and philosophies of the world. What God is doing is renewing our minds, He is changing our thinking so that it is just like His. If we follow those other ways of thinking, then we are inviting God’s wrath upon us. Instead of using the word conforming to the world, as he did in Romans 12:1, Paul speaks of partaking with the world (verse 7). We do not want to partake with the people of this world in these anti-God ways, in these empty words, and philosophies, and their ways of doing things. Let us see another one. This is all through Paul’s writings. I could probably go to a similar chapter in each one of his books because he always comes back around to this. We have been called for a reason, God has done great things for us for a reason, and not just that He wants to save us (just in stark terms), but that He wants to change us. He does not want children that are rebellious, He does not want children that still stink of the world. He wants holy children. So Paul, knowing this, is constantly reminding us throughout his epistles that this is our job now. Colossians 3:1-11 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourself once walked when you lived in them. But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. He says we are no longer among the walking dead in the world. We have been exalted to commune with God on His throne. We were raised with Christ, raised out of the waters of baptism with Christ, which is a type of resurrection. Now we are alive, when we were raised out of that water Christ did not leave us on the earth, as it were. Our physical bodies are on the earth, but what He has done is set us in heavenly places. He has given us access to the very throne of God, “sitting at the right hand of God.” That is where Christ is. He has brought us into Him, our lives now are of the Spirit and not of the flesh. We have to raise our whole game, as it were, from out of the mud of this earth into the Spirit, the way God thinks, the way He does things. God did this for us so that we can be changed, have a different environment. We cannot be with the pigs and expect to smell good, so He raises us out of that kind of situation—the dirt and grime and corruption of this world—and He spiritually puts us in a place of purity and perfection—the very throne room of God through Jesus Christ’s blood. It says in verse 3, “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” We died to all the corruption and filth of this world, and now we are in Christ, and being in Christ we are now sitting right next to the Father on His throne. It is in that environment within the relationship with Christ the Son and God the Father that we can have a renewing of our minds. That is the only way it will happen. It cannot happen while our minds are still in the filth of this world. There is too much influence that will change us. We have to hold those changes back that keep us conformed to this world rather than allowing us to transform. We have to be transferred into the Kingdom of the Son of His love. We have to be moved out of what we grew up in, into the spiritual “place” that will give us the opportunity to make real changes, where we have a wall of separation, a hedge around us to keep a lot of those things out while we learn and grow and come into the image of Jesus Christ. We are not completely protected. God allows us to have our interactions with this world, but (verse 2), “Set your mind on things above.” It means fixed there, do not just come and go, fix it there, set it there, place it there, have it there always so that we will not feel the bombardments from this world. Everything is looking at the spiritual side of things rather than the physical. When we come out of the water of baptism, we are no longer of the earth but of heaven. Our address has changed, our homeland is no longer on this earth but it is in heaven. Our origin has changed. If we are in Christ, that means that our origin is where He is from, and He is from heaven. Our source of life and strength has changed. We are no longer tied by an umbilical cord to the filth of this world. We are tied to God and His Son through His Holy Spirit. As Paul writes: Philippians 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our loyalties have changed. We are no longer of these nations of the world, we are of a different, higher order than this world. Nothing in this world is greater than being placed in the Body of Christ. The only thing he says here is we wait for our change and glorification. But we cannot just wait, there is more to it than that, we must make changes. It is the only logical conclusion, as Paul says in Romans 12:1. It is the only rational thing we can do, make changes, to be transformed. We are to put to death the parts in us that try to drag us back down to earth. We do not need them, they only slow us down. What he is talking about is those habits of thought and speech and actions that put us in danger of God’s wrath against sin. We have to kill the old man, he says, and put on a totally new man who is being renewed day by day into the image of our Creator, Jesus Christ. This takes special kind of self-discipline. It takes constant self-examination; it takes strenuous effort because the old man fights back tooth and nail to remain strong and dominant in our lives. It does not want to give up, it does not want to disappear. It wants nothing more than to drag us back into conformity with this world—and it is doing it all the time. I know I have not said anything new to you today. Maybe tried to put it in a different way so that maybe it will click a little bit better. So, we are all working, trying, to become more like Jesus Christ. We are all doing what we can to grow, but what are the early warning signs that will key us in to the fact that the world is encroaching on us once again? Let us say, we have not been putting up a whole lot of effort lately. Let us say, things of this world have been squeezing us a bit, things in this world are distracting, that we have had a problem focusing on what we should. We all go through these periods. We have high points and then we go over the edge of the cliff and go into deep troughs sometimes, and we have to pull ourselves out. What are the early warnings signs that will tell us that we are in the trough? Or tell us we are approaching a low point, at least, and we need to turn things around? What are the signs that we will be able to tell when we are not quite so close to God as we should be and that the world is actually gnawing at our ankles and pulling us off back into the swamp? These four that I came up with are not an exhaustive list by any means. They are just some of the things that have struck me in the past week, that I want to share. 1. First thing to be aware of is when there is a serious change in our habits of prayer and/or study. (I will concentrate more on prayer here because there is more on prayer than on study in the Scripture.) I Thessalonians 5:17-18 Pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Paul makes it sound that we have to be praying constantly. That is really not what he is telling us to do. That would be impossible; you could not pray constantly and get anything else done. What he is talking about here is an attitude, a constant attitude of prayer, that you are always willing to go to God. Maybe a better way to explain it is that we have a regular and thorough practice of prayer. If we find we are sloughing off in our prayers or postponing them for another time, or skipping them altogether, especially putting them into the future because we want to do something else, and especially if that something else is an activity that has little or no connection to godliness. It could be work or play that we do, if we are skipping our prayer to go do that then there is a problem. There are all kinds of distractions that come up but if prayer is shunted aside in order to do those physical things that really do not matter very much in the long run, then we should take heed that something is going wrong. There is another facet to this. Let us go to James 4, the first four verses. In addition to being concerned about putting off, or slacking off in our prayers, we should be attentive to the content of our prayers. Notice what James says here. James 4:1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? There is a war going on within us. We are constantly trying to please ourselves. Our nature is just designed that way. It is slightly selfish. We want to please our bodies. We want to do the things we want to do and then Satan comes in with his attitudes and he amps those things up. So we want pleasures and we have to fight them. Not that pleasure is a bad thing. There are good godly pleasures too. But normally, the pleasure of human nature are not going to lead to godliness because our desires tend to be for more illicit things. James 4:2-4 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. [that was the first point] You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! [that is really quite shocking!] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. What is this telling us? It is telling us that we have to evaluate what we routinely ask for. We have to really think about how we approach God when we ask for things, and what we are asking for. Are we using Him as a piggy bank? Is He our fairy godfather? Is He the one who is just going to grant our wishes because we want to fulfill our desires and our lusts? What are we asking for when we go before Him? Is it for His glory? For the Kingdom to come? Do we ask for His Spirit? Do we ask for faith, love, hope, and other aspects of His nature to be built within us? Are we asking for His help to overcome a problem? Are we asking for mercy and help for the brethren? Or are we asking for money? A new car? A new house? A promotion? More stuff? Are we wanting Him to help us to get ahead of the other guy? A vacation in the Bahamas? What are we asking for? Are the requests we ask before God selfless or selfish? Are we wanting good to come of these things from His perspective or from ours? Are we asking according to His will or according to our own? James says these people were asking amiss. They were allowing their own desires, selfishness, their own carnality to craft the questions, the requests, for their own benefit. I have to say that God wants us to come before Him for the things that we need. There is an element there in our requests to God where we can ask Him for the things that we need. But are we asking for things purely for our own self-aggrandizement, selfish pleasures to fulfill our lusts? We need to think very seriously about those things. If our prayers have gone from a balance of righteous prayers to the kind of prayers that are purely me, me, me, and what I want, then we need to take heed. We need to be careful. James says very pointedly here that this kind of selfishness indicates a desire to be friendly with the world, to do its will and not God’s will. That is the very next thing that he pops into. If you are asking amiss, then you are trying to have friendship with the world. That is the type of thing that they would ask for. You are aligning yourself with the enemy. It is very subtle, but it is getting back into the thought process that you were pulled out of, always wanting things for yourself, your own benefit. Just something to be aware of there. Second warning sign. We find this in Hebrews 10, verse 19 to 25. I am going to read this before I give you what my point is because it is very interesting how this passage starts and how it ends. He says here: Hebrews 10:19-25 Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus [he is taking about prayer here], by a new and living way which He consecrated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. 2. You find yourself withdrawing from fellowship with the brethren. This goes hand in hand with the one we just saw in the first point, about changing our habits in prayer. That is withdrawing from fellowship with God. That is why I read the first part here of Hebrews 10:19-22. He is telling them let us go and get into the throne room of God, let us go boldly there and get the help that we need. And an early warning sign is that we pull back from doing that, trying to put distance between us and God. And then the next reaction when we start doing that is that we start to pull away from our brethren as well. They are His people; they are God’s people, and these two will go together hand in hand. Most often we stop giving God the time we need, and it soon develops into not giving the brethren the time that they need, or that we need with them. Fellowship is very important, we need it, it is good for us. It is good for us in that the brethren are our only true allies in this life. Everyone else is an enemy. Our brethren are the only ones on our team. If we want to score touchdowns we have to do it with them, we cannot do it on our own. If we are going to win the game, we need the whole team. The other team is too strong. We cannot do it on our own, the other team is too strong for one person to make it work. It will not happen when we also pull back from the coach. Our fellow saints are the only ones in this world who can help us and guide us, if we let them. If we pull back from them then there will be no help at all. We need to let them stay with us and work with us. They are the only ones who can stir up love and good works among us. So it is very important that we keep doing things with the brethren, keep them close. Let us go back to Romans 12, the very next verse, because this is what Paul essentially gets to in the very next breath. Romans 12:3-6 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not too think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. He is talking about using them within the body of the church. Let us drop down to verse 9. These are things we do amongst one another. Romans 12:9-16 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer [there it is again], distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. These are things we do in the Body of Christ. If we pull ourselves away from the Body of Christ, we will weaken, and if things go too far we will die on the Vine. We need to be involved in the church so we can learn to work effectively with one another in preparation for the Kingdom of God. And in this life, cause growth and produce spiritual fruit. Ephesians 4:16 From whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share [we need each part], causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. 3. You find yourself seeking praise or approval from those in the world. John 12:42-43 Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Wanting this approval from the world kept these people from committing to God, to Jesus Christ in the flesh. It works the same way with us but in reverse. We have already committed to God, but if we are seeking the approval of men, we are beginning to pull back from Him, because we are thinking that people’s approval is greater than that of Jesus Christ. Romans 2:28-29 For he is not a Jew [he is talking about what spiritual Jews are here] who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God. Galatians 1:9-10 [Paul’s own experience] As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. He draws a pretty stark line here. If you are out there trying to please men and get their approval you are not a servant of Christ. That is a pretty sobering if you ask me! So we should not really care, it should not really bother us (I know it does sometimes) what the uncalled think of us, or what our beliefs are or our practices. We should just push all of that aside and say, “I’m going to please God!” Remember the Daniel 6:10 incident, where they passed a law saying if you prayed or worshipped any other god but the king, then you would die. Daniel wanted to please God rather than men. He prayed openly, three times a day so that people could see him worshipping God. He went to the lion’s den but he proved his point. God is the Great God, not any man. 4. You look to the world for answers to problems. Turn to Psalm 146, verses 3 through 5 (also jot down Psalm 118:5-9). Psalm 146:3-5 Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of a man, in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. I have been a little saddened to see how many people in the church of God put far too much hope in political candidates, political movements, political processes and initiatives over the past months and years. It has really come to a head in this particular run for the White House. No man, woman, no act of Congress, nothing will solve our problems. As Douglas MacArthur said before Congress, April 19, 1951, in his farewell address: We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem is basically theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character, which will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature, and all material and cultural developments of the past 2,000 years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh. Mr. Armstrong quoted that a time or two. It is not going to take a political solution. It has to be something of the Spirit and it is only though Jesus Christ and the calling that He has given to us and the conversion that He is working out in us. This can be in any facet of life, not just politics, where we seek the help or solutions of men. Instead of looking for some man’s system that promises to solve all our problems, God wants us to trust Him, to take His solutions and put them to work in every area of our lives—whether it is marriage, child rearing, our work, getting along with our neighbors, accumulating wealth, preparing for old age, getting out of debt. It does not matter what the problem is. He wants us to come to Him and use His solutions, not the temporary, inherently selfish, and earthbound answers that men tend to give. II Corinthians 4:16-18 tells us that even though we have various problems and trials we should be looking for eternal solutions, and those solutions are found in God. Our future lies not in the temporary, earthbound solutions but in eternal life with God in His Kingdom. That is where the solutions lie, and we need to be constantly reminding ourselves that anything else is worthless. Let us conclude in John 14, verses 1 through 6. John 14:1-6 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” So, we do not need to be troubled or fear what will come upon us, or what man can do to us. We do not have to worry about that. Man can do nothing that God does not allow. Our hope and trust must be in Jesus Christ, that He and God the Father are working on our behalf constantly and preparing us for what is to come. We just have to trust His system, His playbook, if you will. We have to follow the plays that have been given to us by our Head Coach, which are the examples and the teachings of Jesus Christ, who is the true and living way that will lead to eternal life with Him and the Father.
RTR/cdm/drm
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