Good morning, Calvary Chapel, good morning.
What a blessed morning it is. Amen.
It's always good to be in the
House of the Lord. When I ask you, please turn in
your Bibles to James chapter 4. We're going to be in, We're
going to be in. You start at verse 7.
But before we do that, I have just a couple things to say
before we say something. Hey, man.
Well, first of all, I just want to welcome everyone that's here
today as our sister always gives the most gracious welcome to
everybody. I just want to echo that.
Thank you all for coming. Those of you who are new here,
welcome to Calvary Chapel and thank you so much for choosing
the worship with us this morning.
And those who are already, we thank God for you guys coming to
every, every Tuesday, I mean every Wednesday and every Sunday
that you're with us. We are grateful that you have
chosen to worship with us. And of course, I never want to
neglect those who are listening behind prison walls.
It's so great that you choose to worship with us and we pray that
the ministry is a blessing to you.
I just want to mention that, you know, there's times when people
may ask, you know, on a Sunday sometimes, how do I, how do I
give, you know, how do I give the cowboy child?
How do I give to this ministry? How do we give to the radio
station? And well, we want to answer that
this morning. First of all, I want to thank
you for your support. Those of you who give, we thank
you for your support. We could not do any of the
things that we're able to do without your precious gift,
financial gifts and the blessings that you have given,
particularly in 2025. But if those of you who are
questioned, like just some new people here and they want to
know, well, how do we give now? We don't take an offering, so
you never see people walking through the sanctuary with any
kind of receptacles or anything asking for an offering.
We don't take an offering as a body of Christ.
We give an offering and the church receives your offering,
but we don't take an offering. So how do you give then?
Well, first of all, back in our Fourier, in the front there is a
black box. As soon as you come in the door,
if you walk in those doors and you look to the left, there's a
black box there that has a opening and you can give your
gift there either when you first come in or on your way out, feel
free to give a gift. And also in the back there,
there is a black receptacle looks almost just like that one
and it has an opening as well. And you are able to drop your
offering in there OK as well. Now there's some of you who say,
well, you know what, I like to give online or I like to give by
push pay. If you would download the
Calvary Chapel app, you can give by push pay on that app.
OK with and actually that's how I give.
I like to give by push pay. It's really easy.
I can be anywhere. So oh, you know what?
I didn't get a chance to give this morning.
Bam, go on my app and it's done and it's done.
So it's very easy. You can give online at the
Calvary Chapel website if you choose to do that.
Some of you may say, you know what, I'm more old fashioned.
I like to give by mail. I want to mail mine in and we
do. We get a lot of people who
decided to mail their offerings in, and you can do that by
mailing it to Calvary Chapel Post Office, Box 716,
Greensburg, PA 156 01. So all these are the various
places where the various ways that you can give to this
ministry. But we want to thank you so much
because God has been faithful to this house and you're giving and
you have been a blessing to this house in terms of your faithful
and very generous giving. And we want to thank you for
that. So having said that, why don't
we get into the word of God? What do you think?
Amen. Let's get into the Word of God.
Let's pray. Father, we do thank you, first
of all, that you've given us your Son, Jesus Christ.
We thank you for the salvation that we have through him.
We thank you, Father, for our redemption, our sanctification,
and our justification that we have through the shed blood of
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
And we thank you for this day that you have given us, that we
will be be glad and rejoice in. We thank you Father, for these
wonderful dear brothers and sisters who make up the body of
Calvary Chapel. We thank you for their heart to
serve you through this ministry. We thank you for those who have
given and those who desire to give.
We ask God for a blessing upon them.
And Father, we thank you for your word, which you give to us,
that we may know you as we seek you.
So we ask today, Father, as we sit under your word, we thank
you that we've been able to worship with you through Psalm,
we've been able to worship through prayer, and even through
our giving, we worship you. And now we're going to worship
you, Father, by sitting under your word and submitting to your
word. And we pray, Father, that you
would open your mouth this morning and that You would speak
to us. We need you to speak to us.
It doesn't matter what I have to say.
No one's here to see me or hear me.
But Father, we do want to come and hear you.
We want to hear Your heart concerning these passages.
And Father, we pray that you would cause Your word to
transform us, to change us, to make us more like your Son,
Jesus Christ. That's our desire every time we
come together. It calls us, O God, to grow in
the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and
every day Lord, every day. So we ask these things in the
name of our Savior, in our Lord, in Jesus name we pray.
Let everybody say Amen, Amen. So let's get into the word of
God. Amen.
So we are in James chapter 4 and although I want to the, the,
the, the main focus of our text today is going to be starting at
verse 7. But before we do that, I do want
to go back to chapter to verse 4.
And it says this, It says the doctors and the doctor says, do
you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with
God, and whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world
makes himself an enemy of God? Or do you not think that the
Scripture says in vain? The Spirit who dwells in US
yearns jealously. And I'm going to stop right
there for a second. So James was speaking, as we've
mentioned before, James is speaking to a scattered people.
This is not just one particular church that he's speaking to.
He's speaking to believers, but they're scattered due to the
persecution. They were scattered.
They've left Jerusalem and they're in a lot of different
places. So being in different places,
one of the things that can happen with church, just like it
can happen with us, right? Depending on where, where it is
that we're scattered to, there's that potential of being
persecuted by the non believers in those areas or in, in, in
this case, it was not only just the non believers or the, the
Gentiles, but also the non believing Jews.
We're also persecuting them. And, and, and James was dealing
with an issue of the people trying to survive in those
areas. And a lot of times they would
compromise in order to try to get along, in order to try not
to stand out. And, you know, we, we, we know
what that's like. You know, as, you know, growing
up, sometimes we just don't want to stand out.
And it's almost easier or we feel that it's easier.
We convince ourselves that it's easier to just compromise, to
just, you know, fit in, so to speak, be like everybody else.
But then you think to yourself, well, what was I thinking?
After a while, you know, of different things that you do to
compromise. And you think, what was I
thinking? What was wrong with me?
How could I have made a decision to act like that?
Well, just for just for a second there, I just want you to know
what it looks like sometimes of what was I thinking, OK.
And this is a time in my life when I capitulated to what was
going on around me. I wanted to look like them and I
wanted to act like them. So I have this evidence that I'm
going to share with you. What was I thinking?
I don't know what's worse, the hair or the shirt.
What was I thinking flowery shirt and I don't even know if
you can see the medallion in there with that.
But anyway, that was in one of my what were what was I thinking
days. So keep that in mind because as
we go further, we're going to get back to what was I thinking,
OK. But throughout the Bible,
throughout the Bible, it was mentioned by God.
God made it very clear that he wanted the church.
He wanted Israel to be separate from the other nations.
He warned them several times. When you go into these different
places, don't do what they do. Don't act like they act.
Don't take on their sins. Don't worship their gods.
He did it throughout the entire Old Testament.
Moses warned them even before they went into Canaan.
Now when you go in, make sure you don't act the way they act.
Don't take on their customs. Don't do the things that they
do. Keep yourself separate and even
into the New Testament, you know, Jesus made it clear, you
know, you can't serve 2 masters, OK, you either going to love one
or hate the other, or you're going to be loyal to 1 and
despise the other. But you can't serve 2 masters.
You can't serve both God and Mammon.
And I love what some of the New Testament scripture say about
it. I'm just going to look at a
couple. I'm going to start with John.
Let's start with John and and John and, and, and in the book
of John, Jesus says this in his prayer.
John 17 looking at verse 14, he says this.
He says I have given them your word and the world has hated
them because they are not of the world.
And Jesus preached that constantly that you are not of
the world. The world's going to hate you.
People are not going to receive you.
They didn't receive me, so they're not going to receive
you. So you're not of the world, just
as I am not of the world. 15 says I do not pray that you
should be, that you should take them out of the world.
We need to be here in the world. We are the light and we are the
salt, so we need to be here in the world.
The Israelites were supposed to be the people of God who would
demonstrate the righteousness of God in the earth around all
those Pagan nations. They were to be the light.
And we as a church today, we are supposed to be the light.
It's a very significant thing for you to be in Christ Jesus.
It's not just to wake up every morning and say I'm saved.
No, our lives should demonstrate the righteousness and the
goodness and the love of Jesus Christ and we will stand out.
We will be different. Some people will love that.
Some people may love it from afar.
Other people are going to hate that as we're going to talk
about that in a second. But Jesus makes it, makes it
very clear that they, he says they are not of the world, just
as I am not of the world. Now one more, I'm going to a
couple more. I'm going to take a look at,
let's look at Romans chapter 12. It's, it's, it's a, it's a
common one. I'm sure you guys could probably
recite it without even going to it.
And he just simply says this. I'm going to read 1 and 2 verses
1 and 2. I beseech you therefore,
brother, and 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. Conform the word con.
Inform the word con means form with it means to be with.
Do not be with this world in terms of assimilating their
ideas, assimilating their culture.
Don't be with them in form. We should not look like them.
But he says be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Transform means to be to go beyond, to cross.
We should cross their culture, not be informed to their
culture, but we should cross their culture and go beyond.
The Bible says that we should seek those things which are
above and not the things that are upon the earth.
We should place, we should set our minds on things that are
above. We're the Kingdom of God and we
are supposed to represent the Kingdom of God.
And that's exactly what James is saying here.
So you're going into these communities and instead of being
separate, he says, as it tells us back here, back in James
chapter 4, he says instead you're being adulterous, you're
betraying God and you're, and you're, and you're worshipping
their their gods and you're assimilating to their to their
cultures and, and doing the things that they do.
Instead of being separate, he said, you're, you're being an
adulterers and adulteresses. Do you not know that friendship
with the world is enmity with God?
Friendship. That means having the same
values, having those things in common and living like them have
an agreement with them. When the Bible clearly tells us
what does, what agreement does light have with dark?
But instead these, these, you know, these scattered believers,
because they were trying to get along, they became adulterers.
They betrayed, they betrayed the Lord Jesus.
Now, now, now he now, if we were to portray our loved one, just
think about that for a second. We would betray our loved one
and give our affection to someone else.
That would be jealousy on my part.
If I if, if I, if my wife was and I and I never believed she
would, but if my wife was to, if I sensed that there was
affection that was being given to somebody else, her heart was
being given to someone else, that would create jealousy in
me. I would be jealous.
God was jealous and he says that down here in verse in verse 5,
he says the spirit who dwells in US yearns jealously.
That means it longs for their affection.
He longs for their heart. But that heart was given to
another God. That heart was given to another
culture, and they started acting like other people.
And God is saying the spirit in you is jealous.
I want your affection because my affection is better for you.
I give life the things of the world, earthly, sensual,
demonic, those things bring death.
So he was jealous for them. But even what it says back here
and when he says, do you not know?
Their friendship with the world is enmity against God.
That means it's hostile against God, hostile, very hostile
against God. Whoever therefore wants to be a
friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God, makes
himself an enemy of God. Who wants to be an enemy of God?
But when we compromise with the world, is what James is saying
to these people. When you compromise with the
world, you're making yourself an enemy of God.
Why? Because the world hates God.
The world hates God very quickly.
Can we go back to Psalm 2 very quickly?
This epitomizes exactly what James is saying, that in terms
of the world versus the church, Psalm chapter 2.
Again, most of you can probably recite this song by heart, but
just so we have a good understanding, let's just read
it. Verse one says this Why do the
heathens rage? Or why does a nation's rage and
the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set
themselves, and the rulers take counsel together.
Look who they're taking counsel against.
Against the Lord, against the Lord and against his anointed. 1
The Messiah, verse 3 This is the attitude of the world.
This is the attitude of the world, and it's the attitude of
the flesh, which is why we have to keep our flesh in check.
Let us break their bonds in pieces and castaway their cords
from us. We've got, we don't want you to
rule over us, so we're casting your bonds away from us.
That's why they get rid of Bibles.
They don't want us to have Bibles in public places and they
don't want us to have Bibles in school where and work and all
those things because they want to cast those things out.
They want to get rid of those things, though.
Listen, the world hates God and the world is saying to us, God,
you are not going to rule over me.
And as a church we need to understand that, but we need to
stand on the word of God because He will rule over us.
He is our authority. He is our ultimate authority,
even over the authority of man. So and we see that.
In our society, we see that in our in the culture that they're
refusing to let God rule over them.
They say, well, how? Well for one thing, when someone
says we're, you know, I, we're, you know, we're teaching the
children right from wrong when parents say it, or even when or
even when the school say it, we're teaching your children
right from wrong. We better make sure that we
understand what right and wrong they're talking about because
there's right and wrong concerning the culture.
What they say is right and wrong, and then there's a right
and wrong, which is of this word.
So you as a parent, you better be.
We have to be as a community here, even with our kids that we
see here. And I'm so glad that we see
young kids sitting in the sanctuary hearing the Word of
God. We as a community teach our
children right from wrong as it relates to the Word of God.
Let me give you an example of where I saw that.
That really, really caused me to see that there's a cause for
concern. When I was working, I was at a
meeting and my then supervisor and about two or three other
people were having a conversation.
I was earshot of the conversation.
They weren't talking to me, but they were having this
conversation and I heard the manager say this the other
night. I was so proud of my son.
He came home from school and his grandfather was there.
He came home from school and he said, mom, our teacher, who was
a man, brought his husband to school.
Wow. The father said, what
grandfather? The grandfather says what?
That's not right. And then the little boy said,
Pop, anybody who loves anybody is right.
And the mother beamed and she was so happy and, and, and and
so, you know, blessed by the fact that her son could stand up
and say that. And then she says to the father,
I don't want discrimination of any kind in this house.
So we know. We know what is right and wrong
concerning the way that she looks at things.
When she said that, I turned to her who wasn't in the
conversation but was earshot. I said, I agree with dad, I
agree with granddad. And from that time on, there was
a target on my back. But I did, I agree with dad,
granddad, we have to make sure that our kids are getting right
and wrong from the right source because the culture has totally
confused what they think is right and wrong.
And, and, and, and I know I believe we talked about this a
little bit, but I just want to go through this just a little
bit. When you talked about what's
right and wrong, how does their values where they look at things
as being right and wrong and their hatred of God and their
refusal to be under the authority of the word of God?
Well, first of all, how about a traditional family, Their idea
of tradition, a traditional family is it could be a man and
a man, a woman and a woman. I mean, totally want to tear up
the traditional family, the biblical traditional family.
We have to be able to stand and say, no, that's not right.
Traditional family is a man and a woman.
It cannot be to women. It cannot be to to men.
Why can't it be? Because the creator who created
family says it was a man and a woman.
That's why when we look at when we look at marriage, they think
anybody can get married. No, it is not right for two
women to get married. You can't produce.
It's not right for two men to get married.
It is between a man and a woman. But let's look at something
else. Let's look at genderism where
they think that it's OK that a, a kid 810 years old comes home
and say mommy, you know, a son, a boy comes home and say Mommy,
I want to be, I want to be a girl.
Or a 10 year old girl comes home and say, Mommy, I want to be a
guy. God made a mistake.
I should have been a no, sorry. What you get at birth.
That's what God intended you to be.
I'm not calling. We should not be calling some
man Sally. If his name is Stu, it's Stu.
It ain't going to be Sally. We can't be calling some woman
Donald because her name is Diane.
But that's what the culture will force us to try to do.
And if we participate in that, then we're not setting ourselves
separate from the church, from the from the world.
We look just like and sound just like the world.
It's amazing that somebody would say that God made a mistake.
He put the wrong person in the wrong body.
No, God did not make a mistake. So when we look at all these
things and we can go on and on. I mean, I mean, the culture has
just been, you know, the fact that, you know, they want to
call marriage. Well, they, they well, it's it's
legally marriage. If somebody lives together for
seven years, no, God still say that's fornication.
God says it's fornication. When you get married, then you
become a married couple. When you have vows before him,
then you become a married couple.
It's not just because you live together.
We don't Playhouse in the church.
We just don't know. The world may say that world may
be OK with that. We can't be.
And James is saying to this church here and to this body of
believers, we have to stop committing adultery against God
and we have to stop becoming this friendship with the world.
It doesn't mean we don't associate with the world, but to
be a friend of the world means that we are going to compromise
and bend just so we can get along with the world.
And we can't do that. We can't do that.
So it goes on here. And like I said, he says, what
do you, you know, do you think the Scripture says in vain that
the Spirit who dwells in US yearns jealousy?
In other words, the Holy Spirit, when we, when he sees those
idols like that in the life of the church and the life of a
Christian, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit that's in US, he yearns
jealously. He longs jealously, but verse 6
is the good news. Verse 6 is the good news, but he
gives more grace. He gives more grace, bless the
Lord. So maybe I've gone through these
things in my life at one time, and I did.
There was a time when all those things were OK.
Then when the Holy Spirit comes and moves in, all of a sudden
now your life changes. We're transformed by the Holy
Spirit. And it doesn't mean that we no
longer sin. It doesn't mean that we no
longer slip. But what it means is that our
hearts now yearn for the things of God.
They yearn for the things of God.
So the good thing is that when we humble ourselves and say,
God, I am wrong, I sinned, I'm in sin and I want to repent, I
want to ask for forgiveness. I want to give my heart back to
you. When he says, but he gives more
grace, that means that grace is there for us.
That grace is there for us. And that's such a great, a great
thing. Because I'm sure that there's
people, it may be people who are listening, maybe somebody that's
even here who may be thinking, the things I did are so bad.
There's no way God is going to forgive me.
There's no way he's going to be OK with me because the things I
did are so bad. No, God gives more grace and
even where he says here God resists the proud, the proud of
those who want to continue in that way and want to justify
being in that way and want to make it sound OK being in that
way and try to spin it. So being in that way is OK
because I want to do things my way.
I don't want nobody to tell me what to do.
That's the proud and God resists the proud.
And that word resists is scary because it means that God steps
in and stands against the proud. He steps in and he is saying to
the proud. I'm opposing the proud.
I don't want to be in a position or in a place to be opposed by
God. But he says what?
But he gives grace to the humble, to those who ask for
forgiveness, to those who humble themselves and come before him
and repent. And I've been the recipient of
that grace more times than I can count.
And I'm sure most of you have too.
And thank God He is a God of grace.
Because had he judged me according to my life, had he
judged me according to my works, had he judged me according to my
sins, I wouldn't be here. He would have destroyed me,
taking me out just like he did Ananias and Sapphira.
Just like he did with what ABBA who and his brother.
Judgment came quick and it was swift and it was harsh.
But if we're, if we're honest, every one of us here have done
something that would have been justifiable for God to judge us
in that way. Every one of us, but because of
Jesus Christ, because of the shed blood of our Savior Jesus
Christ, we're not judged according to our sins.
Blessings is the man whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered. That's why we love him.
That's why we love Jesus Christ. And then verse 7, he says,
therefore, so you look at all those things that happened
prior, the fact that we had these wars and you know, in
verse one, we had these wars and these fights in the church and
recognizing that those things came from the fact that we in
our own hearts are warring against each other.
And the fact that we were adultery, We, we, we betrayed
God and we weren't faithful to God.
And we and, and, and the fact that this, you know, these,
these people were, were going after other gods and
assimilating with the culture and being friends with the world
and enemies against God in spite of all those things come to
verse 7. And he says, therefore submit to
God because his grace, he gives grace to the humble.
So therefore submit to God, resist the devil and he will
flee from you. Submit to God.
Unfortunately, sometimes because of the the desire for certain
people to want to have the pleasure and the desires of this
world, instead of submitting to God, we submit to the
temptations of the evil 1 and resist God.
When the Holy Spirit is pulling us and saying don't do that, we
resist that and submit the devil.
But God is saying submit. James is saying here, submit to
God. This is what humility looks
like. Submit to God.
And what we're going to talk about from this point on to
about the next three, 3 verses or so, it's going to be our
relationship with the Father, our relationship with God.
And the first thing we need to do is to submit to him.
Submit to Him whenever we have those decisions to make.
Am I going to do it the way the culture says it, or am I going
to do it the way God do it? Submit to Him.
Submit to God and resist the devil.
In submitting to God, we do resist the devil.
Thank God if we resist, if we submit to God, we are resisting
the devil. All we have to do is just look
at the example of Jesus Christ when he was in the wilderness
and when they were and when they came to, when the enemy came to
tempt him. Four times he tried to get Jesus
to submit to him. The devil, He wanted you to
submit to him. But Jesus was full of the Holy
Spirit, full of the Holy Spirit. Fasting 40 days and 40 nights.
Body was weak, but he refused on any point to give to Satan.
He refused. Just look at that for a second.
Go back. It's always good to read those
things again. Go back to Matthew 4 and very
quickly when we look at what Jesus went through and how he
handled it, how he submitted to God and resisted the devil.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days
and 40 nights afterward, he was hungry.
Now when the attempter came to him, he said, if you are the Son
of God, command these stones to become bread.
But Jesus meaning he answered and said, It is written
submitting to God, man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Then in verse 5, the devil then took him up into the holy city
and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you
are the Son of God, throw yourself down for what is
written. He shall give his angels charge
over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you
dash your foot against a stone. Now we know that Satan knows the
word of God as well, but it doesn't mean he always quote it
right? Doesn't mean he always quote it
right. He will change something in that
in that verse so that it disobeys God.
So in this one, he changed a couple things so that it
disobeyed God. But then Jesus said this to him.
It is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.
And again, the devil took him up on to an exceedingly high
mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their
glory. And he said to him, all these I
will give to you if you fall down and worship me.
And that is exactly what the world wants, is for us to put
ourselves in a position that it looks like we're worshipping the
world or worshipping Satan. It's exactly what they want,
Anything. Look, Satan doesn't mind us
coming to church. He doesn't mind us calling
ourself a Christian. He just doesn't want us to obey
God. He just doesn't want us to obey
God. He doesn't want us to live like
a Christian. He doesn't want us to walk in
the ways of Jesus Christ. Call yourself whatever you want,
Satan said himself. I mean, you know, over in James,
he said himself, demons believe and they tremble.
He don't mind you believe in, but he don't want you to obey.
He don't want you to obey. He don't care if you hear the
word. He just don't want you to be a
doer of the Word. That's where we make the, that's
what we can have the difference. So Jesus said to him, it is
written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.
Again. The devil took him up on
exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of
the world and their glory. And he said to him, All these
things I will give to you if you fall down and worship me.
And Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan, for it is written,
you shall worship the Lord your God in him, and him only shall
you serve. That is the example of someone
or how Jesus submitted himself to God, submitted himself to the
word of God at every turn, and resisted the devil.
So how do we submit? First of all, we need to draw
near to God. Look at what it says in verse 8.
Let's draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
No one has ever tried to draw near to God, and God draw away
from them. He's never drawn away from
anybody who draw near to him. Never.
In fact, Jesus said all that will come to me.
He said I won't lose any of them out of my hand.
No one can come to him except the Father send them.
And all that comes to me and all that the Father send will come
to me, and I will lose none of them, none of them.
So you know, when, when, when we come and we draw ourselves to
God, God never refuses us. In fact, there's nowhere that I
can remember in the Word of God where someone repented and God
did not receive their humility. Even Ahab.
Ahab, who was one of the worst kings when he repented God did
not do all the, the, the things that he was going to do to Ahab
deferred it because Ahab ended up going back and doing wrong
anyway. Even Manasseh, same thing when
he repented, God hurt him. God hurt him.
He hears the repented heart. He hears it all the time to
repent at heart, you know, so he, you know, so we, we draw
near to God and he will draw near to us.
Then he says, cleanse your hands, cleanse your hands.
Cleanse your hands. That means, you know, cease from
doing sin. You know, there's activity that
we do that may be sinful. Things that we do with our hands
is outward things that we do that are sinful.
And James says, cease from doing those things, cease from doing
those things, you know, whatever that activity is.
And we and we, we, you know, we know what our own activity is.
If there's something that we're doing that's contrary to the
word of God, James is just sharing it very clearly that
this is what this church was doing.
And James said, well, stop doing those things, you know, put away
your idols, you know, stop, you know, stop participating in
sexual immorality, You know, you know, you know, stop hating your
brothers, you know, stop talking against your brothers.
There are things that that, that, that we do outwardly that
we need to be cleansed from, that our hands need to be
cleansed from. I love what it says over in
Second Corinthians chapter 6. Second Corinthians chapter 6.
This is another one of those scriptures that makes it very
clear how we are to be separate from the world and and and the
Bible makes it very clear. So over in in second Corinthians
chapter 6, and I'm just going to start right there, verse 14.
It says do not be equally unequally yoked together with
unbelievers. For what fellowship has
righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light
with darkness? And what accord has Christ with
Belau? And what part has a believer
with an unbeliever? And what agreement has a temple
of God with idols? For you are the temple of the
living God, as God has said, I will dwell in them and I will
walk among them. I will be their God and they
shall be my people. Therefore come out from among
them and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch what is
unclean. And I will receive you.
I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and
daughters says the Almighty God. And then in verse 1 of chapter
of Chapter 7 in the same book right down from it, it says
therefore having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse
ourselves from all filthiness and the flesh of the flesh and
spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
And that's what he's asking for, holiness.
And thank God we don't have to, you know, make we don't have to
sacrifice bulls and animals in order to draw near to God
anymore. We don't have to sacrifice and
get blood from bulls to sprinkle us for our hands to be clean.
We don't have to go through ceremonial rituals in order to
be clean. Jesus Christ cleanses us from
all sin is what the word of God says.
If we confess our sins so we don't, we have this cleansing
that comes from Jesus Christ because he can cleanse us to the
uttermost. I received, I received a, an
article from a dear sister yesterday that just really
blessed me. And I, I have to just talk about
how the article talked about how, when, when, when the Bible
says that we are to search or, or that God searches the, the,
the mind and the heart. When God searches that it's not
just a superficial search of the mind and heart, but is actually
in the Hebrew it is actually stated that it's the kidneys and
the heart, the kidney and the heart, which is actually in
places that are deeper than just the mind or just the heart.
It's deeper inside of us and, and the whole thinking is this
without going through a whole statement about it.
It's about God seeing areas in our lives that we may not even
realize are there. He cleanses us totally.
When the scripture says in Hebrews that He saves us to the
uttermost, that means that everything, when we come before
Him for cleansing, He cleanse us everything.
Everything. Even the things that we don't
mention to Him are being cleansed when we come before Him
because He sees everything and we are cleansed in Him.
So we can come before Him not by the the blood of goats and
bulls, but we can come through with boldness by the broken body
and blood of Jesus Christ. Thank you Jesus.
And then he tells us, he says, purify your hearts, you double
minded The people in this church was was living a life that was
totally double minded. You know, they were they were
trying to act Christian, but yet they were compromising with the
world. And he says, no, cleanse
yourself from those things. You double minded.
You know, you know, you're going to either be on one side or the
other. You can't be lukewarm.
You won't either be hot or you be cold or I'm going to spew you
out, you know, cleanse your mind.
You double minded. You can't both serve God and
Mammon. You can't serve 2 masters.
It's what he's saying to them and to us.
Cleanse ourselves from those things.
Let's give ourselves, submit ourselves holy to the Lord and
then over here and then we're going to, we're going to stop
after this one. Verses 9 and 10 he says lament,
mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to
mourning in your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight
of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Unfortunately, when we're living in that ungodly life, running
after the pleasures of the world, running after our own
desires, it's almost like we celebrate it.
We're laughing and joking and, and, and just act like we're
having such a grand old time when we should actually be
mourning. We should be weeping, we should
be lamenting. Even when we think back on those
things, it should give you one of those mind things where you
said, what was I thinking? I don't know about you, but I've
had some of those moments when I'm sitting and I'm meditating
or pondering some things that that I was, you know, that I'm
trying to, to do with the Lord. And then these thoughts start
coming back of things that I've done years ago.
And I think, how could I have done that?
What were you thinking? Not just this picture, but I
mean actual activity and things that I've done.
And I wondered how could I have done that to a God who loves me
so much, who died for me? And I, and I started, you know,
and of course I thought about Clark's description last week
when he talked about the crucifixion, when that thing
drives home what he went through and, and, and, and he, he, he
did it eloquently, You know, there, there was no question
about it. He drew a picture for us that we
should all be able to see of of some of the devastation.
And I say some of the devastation because I've read
many of them and every one of them, people will say, but this
is not even close to what he actually went through, what he
went through. And when I think about that and
then think about my life and the things that I've done, how could
I have done that to him? Lord, how could I have done that
to you? How could I have acted that way?
How could I have compromised that way?
And yes, I've lamented, I've wept and I've mourned.
There's things that I say or have said and, and, and when the
Lord brings it to my attention, I think, why, What was I
thinking? Why would I have said that?
And I can, you know, lament those things.
So we should, James is saying there should be some remorse
about our sin, not celebrating it, not laughing it up.
You know, that laughter needs to be turned to mourning and that
joy that we that we feel about seeking this, this ungodly
pleasure and this ungodly joy that should be turned to gloom.
We should feel a reproach concerning those things.
And then he says, well, humble yourselves again.
He tells us about humbling ourselves.
Humble yourselves in the sight of God, in the sight of the
Lord, and He will build and lift you up.
Unfortunately, sometimes we want to be lifted up by the world.
We want the things of the world to lift us up.
We want the accomplishments of the world that we do in the
world to lift us up. We want the things, the material
things that we can accumulate to lift us up.
But when we humble ourselves before God, there's nothing that
lifts us up like God does nothing.
You can get all those things that you go for, all the selfish
ambition that you have. I don't care what goals you
have. You can win championships If
you're an athlete, you can get all the money that you can try
to get. If you're in corporate America,
all the things that you may try to accumulate, it will not fill
that void. People who have accomplished
much more than we have, people who have more money than we
have, they still ask the question, is this all that there
is? Is there not more than this?
Because they don't have Jesus Christ?
There's nothing that can fill our hearts and our lives like
Jesus Christ. Nothing.
So he says, humble yourselves, come before him, submit
ourselves to him, draw near to Him, cleanse our hands, cleanse
and, and, and, and, and purify our hearts.
That's how we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord.
And he will lift you up. And when he lifts you up, He
will pull you up out of that muck and that mire.
He'll pull you up out of that pit and he will make you new.
Thank you, Jesus. We're going to end there,
Father. I'm so grateful to you, Lord,
that your grace is greater than my sin.
So grateful to you, Father, that your patience with me and with
all of us, Lord, has been exceedingly great.
I thank you, Lord, for teaching us your heart, giving us your
heart through your Scriptures. And I thank you that we even
right now, Lord, if we find ourselves walking in a way
that's contrary to who you are, that Father, we can humble
ourselves and come to you and ask for forgiveness.
Thank you, Thank you, Lord, thank you that you sent your Son
Jesus Christ to be such an example for us here in the earth
round not only an example of walking in righteousness, but an
example of how we conduct ourselves even in suffering.
Lord, thank you. And Father, sometimes it's hard
for us just to deal with the persecution that we receive
sometimes day-to-day this these these sanctions that we get from
society from not obeying them or or conforming to them.
And, and, and they have their ways, Lord, that they show us
that they're not pleased with us either conform or be rejected.
But Father, I thank you for the example that Jesus Christ gives
us. Even in suffering, He continued
to submit himself to you.