My text this morning is from
the small book of 1st John. If you'd turn there with me,
we'll spend a little time there and then we'll go to another
passage. But this is a message that has been
a real burden on my heart. So many that I love, even of
my own family, are absolutely being Consumed by this world
and the things in it And John writes here in verse
15 of 1st John chapter 2 He says love not the world Neither
the things that are in the world If any man loved the world the
love of the father is not in him My, those are alarming words. So what does it mean to love
not the world? Well, it means a lot of different
things to a lot of different people. But when you simply cut to the
chase of what it means, the believer, the child of God, is not does not desire this to be
their home. The child of God is not to love
the world, neither desire to be their home. This world is
not where the child of God desires to be. We're just passing through. If you belong to God, he's going
to wing you from this world. He just is. He's going to make you want to
leave. I remember Brother Maurice, my
dear pastor, now gone to be with the Lord. He used to always say,
I'm so ready to go. And I can remember being in my
mid-30s, I'm like, well, I'm really not. I've got a few things
I'd still like to do. Now at age 60, I know more what
he meant. Desire to go and be with Christ. Love not the world. Now does
that mean that the people of God mope around and try to be
miserable? That seems to be what religion
makes this. And most people do that. to appear holy. It doesn't mean that at all.
I've heard it said, and now I experience it, that believing sinners are
the happiest, most miserable people on earth. We are happy that we've been
saved, that God in his mercy and grace has revealed the truth
to us. And yet, miserable because we
desire to go to our real home. To be with our Lord and Savior
forever. You know, residency in this world
doesn't even come close to what awaits us in glory. We just have,
our finite sinful minds won't allow us to enter in to what
awaits the child of God in glory. To forever be with Him. You know
people talk about walking the streets of gold and having the
man, listen, heaven is heaven because Christ will be there.
And I'll forever set his feet and say holy, holy, holy is the
Lamb of God. John says love not the things
of the world. What does that mean? Well, Religion
claims that it means sell your television, don't go to movies,
throw away your rock and roll albums. You know, in an attempt
to be holy one time many years ago, before I knew God or his
gospel, in an attempt to be holy, I threw away all my old albums. What an idiot. I wonder how holy I appeared
a week later when I was going through that dumpster trying
to find them and get them back. Oh my friends, and let me say
this, never ever feel guilty about having nice things in this
world. That's what religion will make
you feel guilty about having nice things. Well you ought to
sell that and give it to the Lord. What they're saying is
you ought to sell it and give it to the church and give it
to us. But never feel guilty about having
nice things. God wants you to have nice things. God is the one who blessed you
with the nice things. But never ever love the blessings
that God gives you more than the one who gave them to you.
That's what John's saying here, love not the things of the world,
love them not more than me. You know I thought it was very
interesting to find that that original Greek word for world,
cosmos, gives reference to a place where we morally adorn decorate,
embellish, enhance, beautify, and expand upon. The natural
man, that fallen nature within the spiritually dead, goes to
great lengths to make this world seem better than it really is. In our sin we adorn and we enhance
and we embellish and we expand the attraction of this world
and to ourselves. We actually go to great lengths
to convince ourselves that this world is better than it really
is. And by nature we look for things that we might make our
lives here enhanced. There's nothing that will enhance
your life more here than to know the Savior. The Holy Spirit through
John here tells us that any man, woman, sinner who loves this
world this way does not have the love of the Father in him.
You cannot love this world. I've experienced this. You cannot love this world and
the things of the world this way. It will consume you. It will consume your heart and
your mind and your affections and usually there'll be nothing
left for you to love your God, His providence and His rule over
you. It's absolutely impossible to
love two people the most. Right? This world is exactly what God
calls it and warns us it to be. and the lust, and the pride,
and the promoting of man, the honoring of man, the achievements
of man. The embellished, exaggerated
world is not of God. That's what John is saying. Just
not of God. Look at verse 16. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, And the lust of the eyes and the pride
of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. Now I'm
not going to tell you all the things in this world that I love
way too much. I don't know that we've got time.
And I'm not going to try to preach and point my finger at anyone
and try to expose the things that I'm sure You love too much
in this world. You know yours and I know mine.
But what I am going to tell you is this. All that is in this
world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life is not of God. But it's of the world. And the
things that we lust after in this flesh, and there are plenty,
aren't there? Let's just be honest. And the worldly things that we
take great pride in, we take great pride in many things. It's not of God the Father, they're
of the world. I was around an acquaintance
of mine not long ago and he said every time he'd make a statement
he'd say, isn't that just awesome? Isn't that just awesome? People of the world don't know
anything about awesome. I ran across a verse recently
that said, it's Psalm 33, it said, let all the world, referring
to this self-decorated world in which we live, it said, let
all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the
world stand in awe of Him. God is awesome. Everything else
falls way, way short. Why? Well, look at verse 17.
For the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. All these fleshly,
lusty, self-exaggerated things and all the love and affection
and pride that goes along with them is going to pass away. But he that doeth the will of
God, look at it, abideth forever. Just passing through. And when
all is said and done, our little man-made, self-decorated world,
along with all the things that we by nature hold so dear, are
going to mean nothing when we leave this world. And what you
make the abundance of your heart, in your heart, in this life,
is going to determine where you spend the next one. And in Christ
Jesus, who was God in the flesh. Oh, listen everybody. You know,
people say, oh yeah, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He's God the
Son. The glorious second person of
the Godhead. And you know, when Paul said,
I determine not to know anything among you other than Jesus Christ,
and Him crucified. That's the two things, the only
two things really, when you get right down to it, that you need
to know. Jesus Christ, He's God. He's God. And Him crucified. God died for your sin. God did. He's the only one that
could put your sin away. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. John says, if you love this world
and the things of it, the love of the Father is not in you.
So I ask this question to myself often, a whole lot lately. I won't go into the detail why,
but as I mentioned earlier, I have some in my family, close family,
that this world is just destroying. My heart breaks for them. Oh,
I wish I could show them Christ. I wish I could I wish I could
put the love of God in their hearts, but I can't. Only He
can. I want to ask you this question
that I ask myself. What is found in the abundance
of your heart? If you turn back three small
books to the book of James, we'll spend the rest of our time here.
chapter 4 of James. I want you to look, begin looking
with me in verse 4. James starts, this verse 4 starts
with the words ye adulterers and adulteresses. Now let me
say before we read any further that that's not addressing men
and women who are literal adulterers and adulteresses, though it's
certainly includes them, but this is speaking in a figurative,
symbolic sense. It's actually speaking of us
in a spiritual way. An adulterer, as you know, is
anyone who removes their affection for their beloved spouse and
sets those affections upon another. A spiritual adulterer is one
who instead of loving Christ with all their heart, souls,
and mind, they set their affections upon the world and the things
of it. And the question that I find
myself ultimately concerned about is this speaking of me. Am I
one of these? Am I a spiritual adulterer? I'm greatly concerned that I
often act as one who is. We commit spiritual adultery
when we allow our love and our affection for our beloved Christ,
our heavenly husband, to be placed upon another. Look at verse 4
in its entirety. Ye adulterers and adulteresses,
know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a
friend of the world is the enemy of God. Oh, I don't want to be
an enemy of God. You and I, honestly, way too friendly with this world. I want to be honest with you
and I want you to be honest with yourself. Is this describing
you? The word enmity, that's a strong
word when you get to really looking at it in the scripture. It means
to be hostile. And James says here to be a friend
of the world is to be hostile towards God. Hostile towards God. It's to
be resentful. It's to be bitter towards God. How can that be? Well, I alluded
to it a moment ago when I said you can't love two people the
most. You cannot serve two masters. You just can't do it. Only one
can be master. The Lord himself said, for either
he'll hate the one and love the other, or else he'll hold to
the one and despise the other, but we cannot. We don't have
the ability to serve God and mammon, and mammon is anything
that we make our God. Verse 5 here, James says, do
you think that the scripture saith in vain the spirit that
dwelleth in us, lusteth to envy, and that simply means that this
old man of flesh that still dwells in us, one day I'm going to be rid of
him, but this old man of flesh that still dwells in us desires
to destroy us. You know people talk, I hear
a lot of people in religion talk about old The devil, the devil
is. The devil made me do it. Oh,
Flip Wilson used to say, those of you old enough to remember.
The devil made me do it. I'm afraid we give him too much
credit sometimes. My biggest enemy is myself most
of the time. Our old and fallen nature, lust,
desires, and longs to sin. And the thing that concerns me
the most is the scriptures say the wages of sin is death. Every
imagination of the thoughts of this old man, this old nature,
are only evil continually. And if that upsets some of you,
I'm sorry, but I'm telling you that's what God says about you
and me by nature. It's been that way ever since
sin entered into the world through Adam. Look up at verse 1. From whence come wars and fighting
among you? Come they not hence even of your
lust that war in your members You lust and you have not, you
kill and you desire to have and cannot obtain, you fight and
war yet you have not because you ask not and you ask and receive
not because you ask amiss, look at this last sentence here, that
you may consume it upon your lust. You can trace every war in the
history of mankind Back to one thing. Lust. Lust is the result
of sin. It's the cause of all our problems.
And lust means much more than just a sexual desire. You know
that. Lust is greed, it's covetousness,
it's craving, it's longing, having great desire for anything that's
in this world. And in verse 5, James is asking,
do you think that God tells us these things in vain? Are these
not words of warning to the professing child of God? The lust at war
in our members bring forth wars and fightings. Verse 2, we lust
and have not, we kill and we desire to have, we cannot obtain,
we fight and war some more to get more. It's a vicious cycle. so that we can consume them more
upon our lust. And my greatest concern upon
reading these verses is, what am I going to do? Man, there's
still a great war that goes on in my members. Is there any hope for me? Is there any help for such a
one as I? I ask myself that constantly. I know the answer, but it still
concerns me. I'm telling you this morning,
there's hope. And it's the gospel. Look at
verse 6. But he giveth more grace. No doubt that God's grace to
his That God's grace to us is something that we by nature really
don't know much about. We really don't. Why? Because
everything we do, everything we think is affected by our sin. Everybody talks about God's grace.
Don't they? Everybody in religion talks about
God's grace. Most everybody declares to have
it. This religion, religious world
proclaims to be saved by it. Oh yeah, I'm saved by grace. And yet most don't have any idea
what was required for God to give grace to us. Just use it
flippantly. Oh, grace, grace. Marvelous grace. It took the death of the perfect
Son of God to give you grace. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that's not of yourself. The grace is not of yourself,
the faith is not of yourself. It's the gift of God. God's grace and His faith is
His gift to us. So, there's hope for a sinner
such as I. He giveth more grace. Look at verse 6 again. Wherefore
he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto who? The
humble. We're going to have to come down
off our high horses. Now listen, if you're one of
God's sheep, He's going to make you humble. He just is. You see who God gives more grace
to? The humble. And yet He's the
one that makes us humble. It's His grace that makes you
humble. None of us are humble by nature, are we? No. He's gonna cause His people to
see that they are nothing, that they can do nothing, in order
to obtain His grace and His faith. It's gonna either be His gift
to you, Or you'll never have it. You sure can't. You sure don't deserve it. You
can't earn it. It's a gift. Oh, what a gift. He's going to make you willing
to bow to His way of redemption. Or He's going to resist you in
your pride. Do you know that there will be
no proud boasters in the glory of heaven? all going to be bowed
before Him, humble and thankful that Christ died for them. We're
going to have to give up our self-righteous, filthy, let me
add that, filthy self-righteous works and humbly receive the
righteousness of God found in Christ as His gift to us. I know you know this, this life
is a constant struggle for the child of God, but He gives it
more grace. I believe that it was Mr. Spurgeon
who said, as long as the fight shall last, as long as this war
continues in this body of death, the hell will last. Why? Because he giveth more grace. More grace. And in the wilderness
of this man-exalted world, God will give you bread from heaven,
and it'll never ever cease as long as you see your need of
it. Do you need it? I need more grace. Christ is that bread of life
and he said he or she that cometh to me shall never hunger and
shall never thirst there shall be more grace than
sin oh aren't you glad to know that for the redeemed child of
God for where sin abounded grace did much more abound so Should we not, in all our
ways, acknowledge Him? If we do, He'll direct our paths.
He'll keep us coming out of our need. Do you suffer from spiritual
poverty? I don't assume that everyone
here this morning knows the Lord Jesus Christ and is resting in
His love, mercy, and grace. Are you in spiritual poverty?
Well, I don't say this to be ugly, but if you're suffering
in spiritual poverty, it's really your own fault. You know why?
Because He giveth more grace. God's grace leads a believing
sinner to gratitude, and all grace leads us to humility. Grace never leads us to lift
up ourselves and say, well, I've done much and I've done well
to obtain this grace. Does God's Word not declare that
it is He that giveth more grace? Oh, let's don't rush over these
with God's Word when we're reading it. He giveth more grace. It's He that gives it. Grace is God's to give. And did
God not say, I will have mercy on whom I'll have mercy, and
I'll have compassion on whom I will have compassion? His mercy
to us is in Christ, nowhere else. He told Moses that was his glory. Did God not say, it's not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. And most of you are very familiar
with the passage in Ephesians 2, I won't turn you there, but
let me read a couple verses here. Among whom we also, we all had,
there's another little word, we all had our conversation in
times past, In the lust, there's that little word again, the lust
of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the
mind, and we're by nature the children of wrath, even as others. And I'm like, oh, that's so true.
But God, who is rich in mercy for his
great love wherewith he loveth us, even when we were dead in
sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace, Are you
saved? He giveth more praise. Verse 6, God resisteth
the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. So let me ask you,
has God made you humble? The child of God knows that God's
grace is undeserved. And what, oh, blessed substitution What satisfaction, oh beloved,
what satisfaction and what security we should feel in meditating
and thinking on the goodness of God. I didn't deserve His mercy, I
didn't deserve His grace, but He giveth. And He giveth more
and more and more. And this is not to the believing
sinner just an occasional display of His love, mercy and grace
to us. No, sir. He always giveth more
grace. He's still giving it. There are no restrictions in the way
of getting this grace. When He giveth more grace, you
don't need to go through some appointed priest or man or use
a prescribed ritual or perform a religious duty of self-righteousness
to obtain it. It's the gift of God. How simple
that is. Isn't it so simple yet impossible
to believe unless God give us more grace to believe it. Like every other promise of God's,
God's grace is in, by, and through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
why He's our message. That's why salvation is in a
person. He is the one mediator between
God and man. Just one mediator. Only one way
for me to get back into fellowship with God. Just one. Just one. And if you seek grace and mercy
from Him, you can be assured of receiving it. He gives what none other can
give. He giveth more grace. More grace. God giveth more grace because
Christ gave all. Even his life. To save his people
from their sin. So, are any of you seeking more
grace? He's giving you grace to seek
it. Now listen, if He's given you grace to seek it, He'll surely
give you more grace to find it. Does He not delight to show mercy? Isn't that what the Scripture
says? He delights to show mercy and give grace. Are any of you
grieving over sin? Your sin. Not the sin of the
world, not what you see on TV, your own sin. Are you grieving
over sin? Even that is of His grace. And He'll give you more grace
to rejoice in the pardon of your sin through Christ. I ask the unbelieving that are
here this morning, have you begun to pray for grace? Do you desire
this grace? Your prayers are according to
His grace bestowed upon you, but He will give you more grace
to continue in prayer until you receive that which you pray for.
You see, it's all of Him. He gives the grace, and then
He just keeps giving. And I just love to dwell on that,
don't you? I mean, that's my hope. That's
my confidence. Oh, that we might be enabled
to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and please the Father
to give Christ to us, For in him all fullness dwells. With
him you shall find that you receive more and more and more and more
grace, adequate and sufficient for all your need." Isn't that
what he told Paul? My grace is sufficient, more
than enough. Do you love this world and the
things of it? More than you should. Well, more
than likely if you're breathing you are. But what then shall
we do? Look at verse 7. Submit yourselves therefore to
God. Resist the devil and he'll flee
from you. Draw nigh to God and he'll draw
nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners.
Purify your heart she double-minded be afflicted and mourn and weep
over your sin That's what we mourn. That's what the child
of God weeps about more than anything. Oh My sin so easily besets me He says let your laughter be
turned to mourning why because of your sin I Your enmity towards God. And
your joy be turned to heaviness because of your sin and your
love for this wicked world. And humble yourselves in the
sight of God and He shall lift you up. Oh may God enable you to humble
yourself. Why? Because He giveth more grace.
He giveth more grace. May God enable you to trust in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you, Chris.