Victory Over The World

D.L. Moody said, “Christians should live in the world, but not be filled with it. A ship lives in the water; but if the water gets into the ship, she goes to the bottom. So Christians may live in the world; but if the world gets into them, they sink.” Pastor Ray shares a message entitled, "Victory Over The World."

What is Ridgecrest Baptist Church - Sermons?

Ridgecrest Baptist Church is located in Dothan, AL and exists to Reach the lost, Build the believer, and Connect people of God to the mission and purpose of God.

You see the title of the message that I want to share with you this morning from the book of James Victory over the world. Dr David Wells of the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary observes this. He says worldliness is what makes sin look normal in any age. Did you get that? Worldliness is what makes sin look normal in any age. He further defines it this way. He says, and I quote worldliness is a system of values in any given age, which has at its center our fallen human perspective, which displaces God and His truth from the world and then makes sin look normal and righteousness seems strange. It thus gives great plausibility to what is morally wrong and for that reason makes what is wrong seem normal. That's what he defines worldliness, as I think he's right.

Some years ago, addressing a national seminar of Southern Baptist leaders, george Gallup, a famous poster, said this. He said we find there is very little difference in ethical behavior between churchgoers and those who are not active religiously. The levels of lying, cheating and stealing are remarkably similar in both groups. Eight out of ten Americans consider themselves Christians, gallup said, yet only about half of them could identify the person who gave the sermon on the mount, and still fewer could recall five of the ten commandments and only two out of ten said that they would be willing to suffer for their faith. Now we can understand, I think, the world's pull toward those who do not know God. Would you agree with that? We can understand how the world could. I've told you many times through the years never get mad at lost people for acting lost. We can understand the pull of the world toward that, but even for Christians that pull is a great struggle. Believers have to face how to be in the world, but not of the world. The scripture teaches us, and there is this constant pull on us to be conformed to the world's system of beliefs and the world's system of behavior and the world's value system. All of this is real. It's a constant pull on us in subtle ways, sometimes in overt ways, but most of it's kind of very subtle. But it is very, very serious. I think you would agree. The pull is real, the pull is powerful and we find ourselves being torn and pushed toward a worldly agenda, even when we don't intentionally plan to go that way.

I think that's what Paul was talking about in Romans, chapter seven, when he described his own battle. He said for I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for I have a desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. You ever feel that way, for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Hello, now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin that dwells within me. That's the battle Paul described that he himself thought we get, that we understand that this pull, this battle, this toward the world system, is real and it's challenging and it's constant. This kind of battle has always been real. It was the case for the believers that James is writing to. Because of this battle that goes on constantly, and because James recognized what they were dealing with, he gave them some insight, and it's insight that's helpful to us this morning.

If you have your Bibles open to James, chapter four, if you're physically able to do so, why don't you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word beginning in verse one? What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder, you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight in quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask, wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he is made to dwell in us, but he gives more grace? Therefore, it says God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Get yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart, you double-minded, be wretched and mourn and weep and let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you Now.

Father, thank you for your word, its instruction, its conviction, its direction. We pray this morning, father, that you will use it to cut away at those parts of us, father, that are so susceptible to the worldly pressures and the worldly agenda. Lord, we all confess that this is a battle that we can't win apart from you and the power of your Holy Spirit in us. So teach us and speak to us this morning and now. Lord, will you take my study and will you take my thoughts, my mind, my words, myself and Father, would you use it to honor you with your word? We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, you can be seated Now.

James begins this section of his letter by addressing the infighting that had come to characterize the church. You notice what he begins with. He says what causes quarrels and causes fights, and he repeats this idea a little bit later on. This was going on in the church and this is what was characterizing it. This is not what they should have been known for, but sadly, the church that James is writing to was acting more like citizens of the world than citizens of the kingdom of God. The church is called, we know, to be salt and light. You and I are called to be salt and light in a dark world, and there are going to be times when the church must stand against the spirit of the age, or the zeitgeist some call it. It is a battle between the light of God and the darkness of a fallen world. It's part of a spiritual war that goes on and has been going on since Satan was cast from heaven. But the church should never be characterized by internal warfare. We may sometimes have to stand out there, but we should never be characterized by internal warfare here. Does that make sense? That's what was going on and that's why James is addressing that and that's why it's so important for us to get the message that he has for us.

The church was worldly and James explains why. So what had caused the church to fall victim to this kind of godless, worldly agenda? James suggests there are at least seven things that had caused that, and they are helpful for us to understand. I really believe that part of the success in a spiritual war comes when we understand the enemy, the tactics. In military, they study the tactics of the enemy so they'll know how to make an offensive or a counter offensive. They study and learn what are their tendencies, what do they tend to do? Well, here's what we need to learn about worldliness. We need to understand the tendencies, we need to understand the problems, and they exhibited some problems seven of them.

Let me show them to you. Number one. They had a passion problem. Look at verse one. What causes these quarrels and these fights among you?

And then he says is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You see, not all passion is a bad thing. I'm for passion. There's so much good about passion. We ought to be passionate.

When I look for staff members and the staff would tell you this, or the two primary things I look for may surprise you. Well, the first one I look for calling. I want to know that they've been called to ministry. But the second one is passion. Passion for God, passion for ministry, because here's what I believe a person that's called to ministry and a person that has passion for God can do just about anything God wants them to do. So passion is not all bad, but there are many things in this world that represent passions that are destructive to us. There are the good passions, the passions for things like reaching the loss, the passions for missions that we've talked about, the passion for the scriptures. You ought to have a passion for the word of God. We should be passionate about eternity Hello, we're going to spend a lot of time there. But that's not the kind of passion James is talking about the word passion here.

In the Greek is the word hedonon. From it we get our English word hedonism. Have you ever heard that word, hedonism? Hedonism is the word that is captured best by the idea of cravings, and in the Greek it denotes that I did that's the word he uses here. This pleasure, this craving for pleasure, self gratification. There's a picture of constant warfare, being pulled toward things that we shouldn't be pulled toward, of urgings and desires that are clawing at us and cause us to pursue them. You know, whatever will bring us a pleasure, worldliness is about passion, inordinate passion. Worldliness is about self and not about the Savior. Now, everyone knows what it's like to experience these things.

As I've said, everyone knows what it's like to engage in this kind of spiritual warfare, to have your flesh consistently yearning for something the Bible also refers to this in 1 John 2, 16, as what John called the lust of the flesh for all that is in the world. See, that's that worldly pull, that worldly system, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world. And I don't know if you noticed in verse 2 here he said you desire and you do not have. So you murder, you covet. You can obtain the results of this kind of worldly self-focused living, this hedonism, where, in James's day, were murder and covetousness and quarrels and fighting.

Tragically, christians, and even churches, sometimes engage in more internal warfare because of their self-centered passions and their self-focused desires than they do in fighting the good fight of faith, and it's the kind of stuff James is talking about here. This kind of internal battle that can rage and take hold is the kind of stuff that damages the work of God, and when it happens, it's more about getting our own way really than it is about doing the will of God. That's the case that James is addressing here. It's what he's writing about and it's almost always, when you see this kind of stuff internal fighting, internal quarreling, internal fussing it's almost always an indication of a church that has gone worldly.

So let me give you a question. Each of us should ask ourselves from time to time. We should ask whether worldliness has suddenly captured our hearts and our minds. And here's the way you ask that question to yourself. And be honest with yourself, by the way. You don't trick God if you lie to yourself. But here's a question for us to answer from time to time Am I more concerned with getting my way than I am with God's will getting accomplished? Am I more concerned with getting my way than I am with God's will getting or being accomplished? You see, your answer will tell a lot about what really controls the agenda of your life.

So they had a passion problem. But, number two, they had a prayer problem. Look at verses 2 and 3. He says you have not because you ask not. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask wrongly. They had a prayer problem, didn't they? And once again, the root of their prayer problem was self-centered passion. Their prayers were completely focused on themselves and they wanted their prayers. They wanted what they wanted, and so they wanted God to align his will with their prayers. Did you get that? They wanted God to align his will with their prayers. They wanted what they wanted. They had these desires and these self-focused passions and they went to God when they prayed and they said God, do what we want you to do.

Now let me clarify something. I'm not saying that God will not answer prayers that relate to your desires. In fact, the Bible says that God longs to give the righteous the desires of their heart. The real question for us is what are your desires and what's behind your desires? James points to two, I think, characteristics of worldly prayer. Let me give them to you.

The first characteristic of worldly praying is that it misuses prayer. It misuses prayer you have not because you ask not. They weren't taking advantage of prayer, they were misusing it. Frankly, they weren't praying much at all. Did you know? When you don't pray, you're misusing prayer. Prayer is the most powerful tool in your spiritual armor that you have to go before God with. You can go before Him, and we see it in the Psalms, we see it expressed throughout the scripture. When men and women of God found themselves needing wisdom or to take some kind of action, where'd they go? They turned to God. Jehoshaphat I think of you, remember the story of Jehoshaphat. He stood before the people and then he called out to God with the people assembled and he said oh God, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you. That's say God, we want to align ourselves with your will, not God. Would you align your will with us? And they were misusing prayer. They weren't praying very much at all, but their expectations of God to give them. Their desires was very high. Now do you see that they weren't praying very much? You have not, because you ask not, but their expectations were high. So they weren't praying, but they still expected God to do what they wanted God to do, and that was a misuse of prayer. A second characteristic of worldly prayer is not only that it misuses prayer, it abuses prayer. And James goes on to say this you ask wrongly, in order to spend it on your passions. See, not only were they not praying very much, but when they did pray, it was all about them, it was all about their agenda. They were using prayer to try to manipulate and, if you will, control the outcome from God, and they were living outside of the will of God. And so they were asking God to do God, you do what we want, rather than asking God God, what do you want?

Sometimes people will say I don't know what to pray. Let me tell you something. When I find myself in I don't know what to pray, or I don't know how to pray for someone, have you ever felt like that I need to pray for somebody? I don't know how to pray for them. What do I pray for them? Or God, I know I need to be praying. What do I pray for? Let me tell you something I learned a long time ago, and this is what I do. I say God, number one, there's so and so, and I need you to put them on my heart. I need to be praying for them. What do you want me to pray for them? What do you want me to pray for them? You'll be amazed at how suddenly God will begin to reveal a couple of things pray this for them or pray this for them, and don't say well, god, I don't think that's what they need. I think they need this. Don't do that. Okay, I ask you, and this is what God told me to pray in, so I pray that.

The other thing is, when you say I need to be praying, I don't know what to pray for, say God, what do you want me to pray for? Not just what do you want me to pray for that person, but you're in a situation, god, what do I pray for in this situation? It's a simple question, but I want to tell you something. It will change the way you pray. What do you want me to pray for, Instead of just you know? Remember what Jesus said about the Pharisees that they were known for all their babble and everything when they prayed. They're known for their lofty prayer. Look, it's not about that. That's what Jesus was saying. They were just praying anything. Have you ever done that? Have you ever just started mouthing off words to God and then you call yourself saying I don't even think, I'm thinking through, I've just learned how to do that. So, instead of doing that, why don't you just say God, what do you want me to pray? What do you see? If we're not careful, we can abuse prayer, and prayer is such a great privilege for us.

I remember one time years ago I guess this is over 30 years ago and I was out visiting a family one night. They had visited our church and I was going out. This is in the days when people still wanted you to come by their house, you know. And so I went by their house. They weren't there. I left my card and a note on their door and then I was driving.

As I was driving away, I thought we're gonna call them and leave them a message. You know so good to have you with us. So I called them and I got their answering machine right, so I thought I'm gonna leave the message. And then I said, hey, this is Pastor Ray and I said just wanted to call and tell you it's so good to have you with us this past week and if you have any questions or anything I can help you with, don't hesitate to give me a call. But we're so glad that you were with us and we look forward to seeing you again. In Jesus' name amen. And I hung up and when I did, when I said that I did this, I went oh, I wanted. I thought you know what that was, that was just rote. In Jesus' name amen. And I called them back. I was laughing.

I said bet, you never had anybody welcome you to church and pray with you at the same time, have you? Well, we do that sometimes in prayer. Our prayers get like that. They just become words. And look, it's better to have less words and more meaning than it is to have a lot of words that you've just learned to repeat. And so so they were. They were abusing and misusing this wonderful gift of prayer. They were asking God, do what we want you to do, instead of saying God, what do you want to do? How do you avoid worldliness in prayer. Well, the Psalmist said delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act. That's how. That's how you avoid worldliness in prayer. So to have victory over worldliness, we have to get our passion right. We have to get our prayer life right. Third, they had a priority problem. Look at verse four.

James says friendship with the world is enmity. Friendship with the world describes a deliberate choice to follow the world. It's an act of defiance and rebellion against God. In fact, james equates that kind of friendship with the world to spiritual adultery. He says it's like spiritual adultery and for a Christian, this type of response resembles. It resembles entering the enemy's camp, the camp of the enemy and joining the army of the enemy. When he says friendship with the world, it's like I've left the light side and gone to the dark side. I've become a part of the camp of the enemy.

And James is saying to us that a person cannot be loyal to God and controlled by worldliness at the same time. It's the message he wants us to get and that's consistent with what Jesus said as well. Jesus said this. He said no one can serve two masters. It's what James is saying to us. You can't do that. You can't be a friend of the world and a friend of God. They're incompatible.

The problem for us is that our hearts are multi-divided, aren't they? Pastor Ray Ortland put it like this. He said it's like we have a boardroom in every heart and he says think of it this way. Imagine a big table, leather chairs, coffee, bottled water and a whiteboard. Imagine a committee sits around that table. In your heart there is the social you, there is the private you, there's the work you, there's the sexual you, there's the recreational you, there's the religious you and others perhaps. And the committee is arguing. All of these yous are arguing and debating and voting on how to respond and they are constantly agitated with one another and upset. Rarely can they come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision. We tell ourselves we're this way because we're so busy and we have so many responsibilities. But the truth is that we're just divided, we're unfocused, we're hesitant and unfree.

He says that kind of person can accept Jesus in two ways. One way is to invite Him to become a part of the committee. You know, he just becomes one more member of a divided committee. Just come on Jesus and be on the committee and Jesus gets one vote too. But then he becomes just one more complication. The other way he says is to accept Jesus by saying my life isn't working. Please come in and fire this committee. Every last one of them. I hand myself over to you. I'm now your responsibility. Please take and run my whole life for me.

You see, accepting Jesus is not just adding Jesus on top of something, it's also subtracting the idols of life. And this is what James is wanting us to see. Friendship with the world makes you an enemy with God. You can't just tack Jesus on to a worldly life and say that'll work. And then look at verse five here in our text and he says do you notice this? That God's spirit yearns for our undivided loyalty? Do you see that he yearns earnestly? In other words, he desires to be the priority of our existence. The spirit of God dwelling in you desires not to be a board member. He desires to be the controlling priority of your existence. Jesus doesn't want to simply reside in your life, he wants to preside over your life, and that's the central priority to finding victory over worldliness.

All right, problem number four they had a pride problem. Look at verse six. But he gives more grace. Therefore. It says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. That a pride problem.

I think one of the greatest characteristics of worldliness is this matter of pride. You know, the kind of pride James is talking about here is the pride of those who turn their hearts away from God and become dominated by the temporal pursuits of things like materialism or prestige or advancing themselves. You see, god's aim is that we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Now, to do that, that's a humbling process, because it means that we have to submit and we have to change our pursuits to the kingdom of God. Today we've found new ways to be proud of our humility, haven't we?

And an article from the Atlantic last year, read by David Brooks, titled Truly Humble to be the author of this article. Brooks mocks what he says passes for humility these days, and he points to a tweet from the president of the European Central Bank who said, and I quote I was humbled to be awarded an honorary degree by the London School of Economics earlier this week. Thank you so much for this prestigious honor. Brooks goes on the article say you know what we do? We dance around our humble bragging. But now Brooks says our so-called humility has become explicit and assertive and direct and even unashamed. He said we blaze forth so much humility that it's practically blinding. Humility, he writes, has become the new pride. You heard about the guy you know. He said I'm proud of my humility. And that's what he's saying.

There's no such thing, listen, there's no such thing as an arrogant pursuit of God. Why? Because James says that God opposes the proud. An arrogant pursuit of God is actually the pursuit of self. That is nothing more than religious, a religious facade. Yes, I'm pursuing God. When a person has to tell you how spiritual they are, you just mark it down that they've been captured by pride. They have a pride problem.

On the other hand, james does something for us here. He gives us this promise. He says that God gives grace to the humble. That means God gives his favor and his blessing to those who humbly seek him. Look, it's safe to say we all want the favor and blessing of God. Amen, say amen if you want the favor and blessing of God in your life. You do, don't you? You know what James says.

The path to that is, you know what the Bible teaches. The path to that is the path to that is humility. If you want to go up, you go down. Remember what Jesus said he that would be greatest among you, let him be servant of all. He's talking about humility, and James gives us this promise here. God gives grace, literally, favor and blessing to the humble. So you have the options pride and opposing God, or humility, resulting in the promise of favor and blessing. It's a no brainer, isn't it? And so they had a pride problem, pride, a problem with your pride. Well, evidence, oftentimes a worldly agenda driving your life. And then there's a fifth thing that he talks about, a fifth problem. They had a posture problem. Verse seven, verse 10, submit verse seven. Submit yourselves there, for to God, this is a posture of worship. When we recognize that God is greater and more worthy of honor than ourselves, guess what? We are more than willing to submit to his plans and purposes, his control.

You recall how Matthew's gospel ended, don't you? In Matthew, chapter 28, verse 18, jesus ends with this he says all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Now what we typically do is we go on to those last two verses. There we say it's the great commission and it is. But we miss that first statement all authority, not some authority. All authority, he says, in heaven and on earth, has been given to me. But we kind of gloss on that and say so, go therefore into the world. We're all for that. But we miss something he's saying the reason I'm sending you is because I have all. I have the authority to do it. All authority, heaven. You go and stand in heaven and say does Jesus really have the authority to do this? Guess what? The answer is Yep. In this world, even though it is the domain of darkness, jesus has given the enemy of your soul right now the ability to rule until he returns in this world. And guess what that means? He has the authority to do it In this world, in the heavenly world, in the spiritual context, in the earthly context. Jesus has all authority. That's what he is telling us there. In other words, he's the one who calls the shots and our response is to submit. Submission is an act of worship and our submission is an act of obedience and it stems from trust and love and our desire to follow him.

I don't know if you ever saw the movie the Princess Bride, and in the Princess Bride it's kind of a spoofy kind of movie and it's cheesy humor on the screen for over an hour. I like that. But in the beginning of that film you may remember the Princess Bride. You know Buttercup. She would ask Wesley to do something. How many other intellectuals have watched that movie?

Remember you remember what Wesley would say when Buttercup would ask him to do something? Anybody remember as you wish, as you wish. Well, listen to me. This should be our response to the Lord Jesus. Pray as you wish, jesus. No debate, no discussion. I recognize who you are. You have control over me. So, as you wish, and note that there is a connection between submitting to Jesus' lordship and something else. Did you see it? Our ability and our capacity to resist the devil.

Now remember, in this discussion about overcoming worldliness, james is teaching that the source of worldliness is the devil. John teaches that, jesus teaches that, and the secret to victory over the world, the flesh and the devil, is in resisting him. That's what James says right here. But look, the secret to resisting him comes when we submit to him, to God, and notice what the devil will do. The devil will what class? Flee. So submission to God causes and brings about victory over the enemy of your soul. The devil will flee. So if you want victory over the world, get your posture right, submit and worship Jesus.

Number six they had a proximity problem. Verse eight draw near to God. He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. You double-minded. They had a proximity problem. Drawing near. Drawing near means to draw really close. It means to get as close as possible to God. It means to get right next to him. It means to be right there with him, where you can talk and he can talk and he hears and you hear. You're right there. It means face to face.

Over thanksgiving, many of you celebrated with your families and friends and our kids came down and are headed back to Nashville today. But my grandsons, they're just, you know, they're the delight of Alison and our life. They're just a delight of our life and one of the things that we love about them. And our older one now he's five, well, a little over five, and his little brother mimics him a lot. But the older one, when it's time for him to eat, he'll sit down at the table and he will fix a plate and he'll say Pops, will you come sit next to me? And you know what I do. I say ain't, no way, kid, you know that doesn't happen. I say you bet, buddy, I'll come and sit with you, but it doesn't stop there. So he'll sit here and I'll sit right here like this, right, and this happened every meal, every meal. Pops, would you come sit by me Right here? He's here.

And then in just a few minutes he'll get this little grin on his face and he'll start sliding his plate over toward mine, just like that, real slowly. He'll slide over and he'll take his water cup and he'll start sliding his cup over there. And then he'll grin and say can I come sit in your lap and eat? And I say no, kid, that's too close. You know I don't say that. I say yeah, come on, come on and sit and pops his lap and eat, and he'll sit there. And then, after a few minutes guess what he does, just to be equal in this thing he'll say yaya, that's Allison's grandma name, by the way. In the Greek it means grandma Yaya, I'm serious, go look it up. We do everything biblically. I'm Lord. You know I'm kidding, but he'll say. He'll say it's a yaya, can I come sit in your lap? And you know what yaya says Come on, he'll move from my lap to her lap. And then he does something else when he sits in our laps, he'll take our hands and he'll wrap them around him while he eats.

Man, you learn a lot from grandkids and I was thinking yesterday about that and I thought you know what that's proximity, isn't it? Pops? I want to be as close as I can be. I want to be touching you. That's how close I want to be. Why don't I get that with my Heavenly Father? God, I want to be as close to you as I can be. I want to be touching you. I want to be looking into your face. I want your arms wrapped around me. We miss it, don't we? You know why Worldliness pulls us away.

They had a proximity problem, and so when James tells them to draw near, he means not just that, here's a theory. The fact that he says it means it can be done. See, well, you know, draw near to God. Yeah, I get that in theory. No, james is not talking about theory. He's talking about the fact that, because he says it, it can be done. That's the way it should be between us and God.

So can I ask you this morning how close are you to God? How close do you want to be? Maybe that's a better question. You know my grandson. He won't say I don't know. It may not always be that way, but he wants to be close. He wants to be close. Do you want to be close to your heavenly Father? You want to be close to him. How close do you want to be?

The fact is now, listen, you're as close to God as you want to be. You are as close, because if you're not close to God, it's not because God is running from you. It's because you are not getting up next to him. Notice the order. Draw near to God, and what class he will run from you. No, draw near to God, you do it. God says I love you. I've proven that. I sent my son to die for you. If you will draw near to me, I'm there. You draw near to me, I'll be there. I'll draw near to you. You're as close to God as you want to be. But the question is are you as close to God as you ought to be If you want victorious power over the world and worldliness and temptation and anxiety and fear. You're going to have to get closer to God.

Our staff hears me say this all the time Proximity is one of the most important things in your spiritual life. Proximity to God, proximity to God and there are a lot of things in your life that would be fixed simply by your drawing nearer to God. There are a lot of things in your life that would be fixed if you would just get closer to God. There's one final thing. I want to show you One final problem they had. I didn't think I'd get through seven of those, did you Fooled you Number seven. They had a purity problem.

Say cleanse your hands and purify your hearts. These were all the reasons that they were worldly. Cleanse your hands is a call for outward purity, your behavior, your outward behavior, cleanse now, by the way, the way you get cleansed externally is by being cleansed internally. And that's the second part, which is, he says, purify your hearts. That's a call for the inward purity. It means living with a mind that's under the control of the Spirit of God. It means a heart that is loyal to God.

And we do this stuff backwards really a lot of times. What we do is we try to change the externals, hoping that'll change the internals, but that's really a backward process. You have to change what's happening inside before there will be changes that manifest long term on the outside. You can do some stuff for a little while. It's kind of like a diet. You know you can do it for a little while, but there has to be something inside driving you to sustain it. You can make some adjustments outwardly in your life and behavior, but if you want to sustain it you've got to have an internal change. There's got to be a heart transplant and, by the way, god specializes in that.

One of the most dangerous ideas I think today in our church culture is the belief that we can come to God just as we are and stay the way we are. That's just not true. It's not biblical. And while Jesus is compassionate and Jesus is forgiving, he also calls us to purity and thought and behavior. You remember the woman called in adultery? You remember the question Jesus asked. She said woman, where are your accusers? She said nobody here accuses me. And Jesus said to her neither do I accuse you. Now, what was that? That was compassion and it was forgiveness. It wasn't expressed by Jesus, but he also then said you remember the rest of the story? Because, by the way, this particular story is being abused by progressive Christians out there to say you can essentially live the way you want because God is a God of forgiveness. Jesus didn't. They stop at part of it. I don't accuse you, this isn't our place to accuse. No, he said but now go and sin no more. Right, did you get that? There was compassion and forgiveness, but there was also correction. There was a call to change, a change of behavior. Jesus didn't say to her listen, neither do I accuse you. Carry on. He said I don't accuse you either. Now, stop this, don't do this anymore. This isn't consistent with my forgiveness. You get it. Cleanse your hands Now. All of us come to Christ the way we are. You don't come to Christ clean.

I was talking to a man in prison some years ago and I began to share. Well, I shared the Gospel with him. And as I shared the Gospel with him, toward the end I said would you like to trust Christ as your Savior? And he said oh, I sure would. I said well, I can lead you in that process. How do I invite Christ into your life? And this is what the prisoner said to me. He said I can't do that right now. And I said why not? He said because there are too many problems in my life. I've got to get straightened out first. But when I get those problems straightened out I want to do this. And I tried to tell him. I tried to tell him you can't clean yourself up to come to God. You come to God because you can't clean yourself up. But he just didn't get it. He just didn't get it. My heart broke for him. It really did. I walked out and I think, god, how do you help a person understand that? But the age we live in so often says well, you know, I've got to get stuff straightened out so Jesus can have me.

All of us come to Christ the way we are. We come to Christ as impure. We come to Christ as sinners. But now here's the caveat Though we come to Christ the way we are, when we come to Christ we do not remain the way we were. Paul said if anyone is in Christ, they have become a new creation. Behold, the old things have passed away and all things have become new. You know what he's saying. When you come to Christ, you come to Christ as a sinner. All of us problems everything. We come like we are. But when we come to Christ and when we meet Christ, we don't stay the way we were. He changed us. He changed us. If you are no different than you were when you came to Christ, you may not have come to Christ because you've become a new creation. Does that make sense? You've become a new creation.

By the way, I saw something this weekend, a football game and there was a player, and I don't remember, I don't even know what team it was in, I just happened to see. You know, they put that eye black tape over their eyes, right there. You know, and you know, of course, the trendy thing over the years has been to put a little something on there, you know, in white ink. And I happened to notice this one and his strip went from here all the way over his nose to the other side. There was no break or anything. But there's a reason for that, because when I happened to, I stopped and to read what was on it and when I read it it was 2nd Corinthians 517. So he needed that whole thing to get that over there.

2nd Corinthians 517, that's what this is. You know what he was saying. If any man is a new creation, the old things have passed away. I'm new. The old stuff has passed away. Behold, all has become new. Listen, you don't come to Christ any other way than how you are. But when you come to Christ, he changes you and you don't stay the way you were. Christ died to save us from our sins. He didn't die to enable us to continue in our sin.

There are some today that are saying that they are free in Christ and because they are under His grace, they can live and behave essentially like the rest of the world. Paul dealt with that in a couple of places. He dealt with it in Corinthians. He says are you not just carnal? You look just like the world. They were saying well, but we're free in Christ. Because we're free in Christ, you know, we're free to live because Jesus forgives. So he comes back in Romans and deals with it In Romans, chapter 6, he says what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin? That grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Here's what he said. They were saying, they were arguing ah, we're under grace now, we're under grace we can live however we want. And in particular the Christians in Rome, what they had.

There was an element that had filtrated the churches, saying you know what Jesus loves to do? He loves to give out grace. And I believe that, don't you? We're all evident evidence that he loves to give out grace. All of us thank God for His grace. Amen, say amen. If you're grateful for His grace, we're grateful for that. And they were saying ah, god loves to give out grace. So the more we sin, the more grace he has to give out. And since he loves to give out more grace, then we're going to do Him a favor. We're just going to keep on sinning. That was the mindset.

And so Paul writes and says shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And he says no. In the Greek it's the strongest negative. In the Greek language, meganoto. It means never, ever, no, no, no, no. That's what Paul was saying, because they had decided that they could live impure lives and still call themselves followers of Christ. And so he addresses that.

The church today, unfortunately, in many cases, is full of people who want to be Christian in confession while remaining worldly in their conduct. So James tells them cleanse their hands purify their hearts. The fact is, christians cannot peacefully coexist with sinful behavior. Now you're a sinner and you've been saved by grace and by from the penalty of sin, but you're still battling with sin in this world. You're still battling it. You will battle it until he calls you home or he returns for us. But if sin can operate in your life and you not be affected or bothered by it, there's a problem because it can't peacefully coexist with the Spirit of God. There's conviction there, and victory over worldliness is not about adding a little bit of Jesus to your life, it's about giving your life completely over to Him.

I've quoted this before and I end with this today, a poem from William Ernest Henley, an 1875 poet, called Invictus, and if you've ever read that poem before, you know how it ends. It has this kind of stunning end to the poem. Henley's poem is a short poem and the poem was really written by him, kind of as his expression of how he copes with the circumstances of life, and it's really kind of self-focused, self-centered, this arrogant. I don't need anything, I don't need anybody, I've got control of everything. And this is how he ends. If you've read the poem you know this. He ends with the famous lines I'm the master of my fate, I'm the captain of my soul. I bet he'd like to rewrite that poem now, because that was 1875.

Sixteen years after Henley first published Invictus, the great British preacher Charles Spurgeon offered an alternative philosophy of life. And on June the 7th, 1891, in the closing words of Spurgeon's final sermon, he urged the people to submit to a better captain for their soul. This is what he said, and I quote. He said every person must serve somebody. We have no choice as to that fact. Those who say they have no master are actually slaves to themselves.

And upon it you will either serve Satan or serve Christ. You'll either serve yourself or serve the Savior. You will find sin self, satan and the world to be hard masters, but if you wear the uniform of Christ, you will find him so meek and low-live heart that you will find rest into your souls. If you could see our captain, if you could see our captain, you would go down on your knees and beg him to let you enter the ranks of those who follow him. It is heaven to serve Jesus. It is heaven to belong to him.

Amen, let's pray. Father, it is, it is. It's heaven to serve you. It's heaven to know you. It's heaven to follow you. Lord, we thank you that you are a God of grace and mercy and compassion and forgiveness, father. This battle with the world, father, we all know, is a constant, consistent battle, but we know, father, that in Christ we have the victory. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

And so, father, I pray this morning for any that are watching by television or listening on radio or are watching on live stream, that have never put their trust in you and they've just been trying to clean their act up and get it right. Help them today to understand the whole reason they need you is because they can't clean themselves up. And any that are in this audience, father, that need to know you. Let this be that day where they call upon you, just as your word is said. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Believe in your heart, confess with your mouth that God has raised him from the dead and you will be saved. You can call on him.

Heads are bowed in this place. Wherever you are right now, just bow your head. Just say to him Lord Jesus, thank you for loving me. I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I need you and I want you to be my savior. I'm tired of trying to fix it on my own. I need you. I invite you to come into my life and be my savior. He'll hear that prayer if you call on him, father. Thank you again that you do hear us and that, father, you want to reside in us and that you want to take us, father, on your journey. Lord, we love you and we make our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.

Would you stand with me this morning for our time of invitation? I'll be here at the front. Our staff are going to be on the aisles. Maybe you're here. You say Pastor, I've already done that. I've already called on Christ. I did that a long time ago. But I need a church family, a church home. Would you just slip out on the balcony, ground floor you come, take one of us and say, hey, I'd like to join Ridgecrest. I don't even know how all that works. Maybe don't worry about it, we'll handle it. We'll take it from there. You, of course, can stop by our welcome center and you can talk about any decisions or use that tear-off panel, all of that kind of stuff. But I want to invite you to come forward.

Jesus called people publicly. I call you publicly. Come make your decision. You want to use this altar to pray? We use it a lot. Come use it. You're praying for somebody, you're praying about something, you're praying about some battle. You're praying about direction. You need wisdom, all of those things. The posture remember we talked about posture. A posture of worship is a bent knee. You come and bend the knee before God this morning. Maybe you've prayed that prayer, trusted Christ. Come say, pastor, I did, I prayed it. You come on, we'll take it from there, don't worry about that, thank you.