SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Beginning next Sunday, we're going to start a walk through the book of Judges for the remainder of the summer.
SPEAKER_01: I had intended this morning to do an introduction to all of that, not knowing what Webb was going to preach on last Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: And as our good God, only He can do, what Webb preached on last week was a fitting transition into what I'm talking about this morning.
SPEAKER_01: But think about what you just prayed.
SPEAKER_01: Singing really is not much more than that, it's just a different form of praying.
SPEAKER_01: Satisfied, he is all I need.
SPEAKER_01: Can you rest all of your days in the goodness of Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Were you listening?
SPEAKER_01: Did you hear yourself preach that to your heart?
SPEAKER_01: Because if you sang, if your voice was producing sounds, you heard it.
SPEAKER_01: Heart, rest in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You just told yourself that Jesus Christ is all you need.
SPEAKER_01: Do you believe it?
SPEAKER_01: As we learned last week, when Webb led us through the account of Elijah and the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, Israel, ancient Israel, would not be satisfied with God.
SPEAKER_01: God's goodness was insufficient.
SPEAKER_01: They desired more.
SPEAKER_01: But the root of Israel's problem was idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: They were what we would call today syncretistic.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted the best of all worlds.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted Yahweh and Baal.
SPEAKER_01: In 1 Kings 18, Elijah called it limping between two faiths, which is just the perfect imagery, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's not walking with confidence and firmness and steadfastness.
SPEAKER_01: It's limping.
SPEAKER_01: It's limping along the way because there is no confidence.
SPEAKER_01: There is no steadfastness.
SPEAKER_01: You don't even know what's right.
SPEAKER_01: You're just hoping that one of these things is going to work out for me.
SPEAKER_01: They tried to appease a demon for their own ends when Yahweh didn't give them what they wanted.
SPEAKER_01: Saying they followed the God of Israel while bowing to Baal was idolatry because Yahweh was not their sole allegiance.
SPEAKER_01: I have one goal this morning, and that is to help you walk out of this gathering together with a soul allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Israel attempted to appease a demon in hopes of having fertile soil for their crops, of having a good harvest, of having bountiful seasonal rains while barely clinging to the remnants of their faith in the God of their fathers.
SPEAKER_01: That's because divided loyalty, that's not the right one.
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
SPEAKER_01: Did I not get that up there?
SPEAKER_01: I didn't get that up there.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry about that, folks.
SPEAKER_01: See?
SPEAKER_01: I told you.
SPEAKER_01: If something doesn't happen, it's because I'm new here.
SPEAKER_01: Divided loyalty is idolatry because it allows room for other allegiances.
SPEAKER_01: We say that again.
SPEAKER_01: Divided loyalty is idolatry because it allows room for other allegiances.
SPEAKER_01: And when it comes to God, there is no room for another allegiance.
SPEAKER_01: In a few moments, we will move on to 1 John.
SPEAKER_01: But first I want you to think about Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: In 1 Kings, Elijah appears out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_01: Almost literally.
SPEAKER_01: We don't really know who his parents were.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have any information about his background.
SPEAKER_01: It's just boom, there he is on the scene.
SPEAKER_01: This prophet of God functioning under the name of God.
SPEAKER_01: Why was Elijah there?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we get a hint, at least, from his name.
SPEAKER_01: His name is a compound Hebrew word.
SPEAKER_01: Ali, which means my God, and Yah, which is a shortened form of God's name, Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: My God is Yah, or Yah is my God.
SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine the setting.
SPEAKER_01: The Jewish people in the northern nation of Israel are drawn to worshiping demons in the form of idols while holding on to some element of worship in the true God.
SPEAKER_01: The false god, Baal, who was a kind of fertility god, was believed to bring the spring and the fall rains that would promote great harvests.
SPEAKER_01: Baal is being championed by the worst king in the history of Israel and his deadly wife, Jezebel.
SPEAKER_01: And suddenly along comes this man out of nowhere, declaring, there's not going to be any rain for three years.
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, my God is Yah.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah, the prophet, challenged the idolatry that divided allegiance among the people merely by appearing on the scene.
SPEAKER_01: His name alone declared that.
SPEAKER_01: And if you were listening last week, you heard of the unquestioned demonstration of Yahweh as the true God at Mount Carmel, bringing down fire from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That demonstration was an explicit one that screamed, Yah is God.
SPEAKER_01: Repent of your idolatry and give him your soul allegiance.
SPEAKER_01: In the process of his sermon, Webb cut deeply at our idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: No, we don't have the physical representations of wooden images that may just be wood or covered with silver or gold.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have physical representations of idols and demons that we worship, but that doesn't mean that we don't struggle with idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: We don't talk enough about idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: Probably in part because it makes us squirm a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
SPEAKER_01: Squirming's good.
SPEAKER_01: Did you know that there is a New Testament corollary to Elijah's fight against idolatry?
SPEAKER_01: The person who is the corollary is the Apostle John, that disciple known as the disciple of love.
SPEAKER_01: And the place is his letter to the church known as 1 John.
SPEAKER_01: The last line, the very last line of 1 John written to a New Testament church is this.
SPEAKER_01: Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Who are you talking to, John?
SPEAKER_01: I don't have idols.
SPEAKER_01: Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
SPEAKER_01: John wanted those Christians to succeed at living in an evil world.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we're going to judge us next.
SPEAKER_01: Next Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: What is it like to live in an evil world?
SPEAKER_01: John wanted the Christians of his time to succeed at living in an evil in an evil world, but succeeding at living in an evil world requires a soul allegiance without idolatry in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Look with me at 1 John chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: 1 John chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: These few sentences here may be familiar to you, but beginning in verse 15, John says, Do not love the world or the things in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
SPEAKER_01: For all that is in the world, that is the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life, that's not from the Father, but it's from the world.
SPEAKER_01: And the world is passing away along with its desires.
SPEAKER_01: But whoever does, the will of God abides forever.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: If you look at the next sentence, sort of amplifies the importance.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Little children, it's the last hour.
SPEAKER_01: And if it's the last hour 2,000 years ago, we're probably in the last minutes today.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we are honest and objective in our reflections, we might find ourselves in one of three places.
SPEAKER_01: Some might find themselves living in and loving the world with all of its niceties, its comforts, its entertainments, its fulfillments that make us happy and comfortable and that emphasize satisfying every desire that we have.
SPEAKER_01: You might find yourself there.
SPEAKER_01: Some might find themselves on the opposite end.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, Pastor, I'm not like that at all.
SPEAKER_01: I'm on the opposite end.
SPEAKER_01: You might be living a holy life.
SPEAKER_01: You might not be drawn to what this world offers.
SPEAKER_01: You may have crucified the flesh with all of its desires, focusing entirely on who you are in Christ, and you regularly succeed at squashing sin in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if that's your honest assessment, that I would check your pulse because you're probably closer to heaven than you realize.
SPEAKER_01: Most followers of Christ will be somewhere in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: Songwriter Mark Hall wrote a song by that title to illustrate this position.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote, somewhere between the hot and the cold.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between the new and the old.
SPEAKER_01: It goes on.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between the right and the wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between the darkness and the light.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between who I was and who you're making me.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere in the middle, you'll find me.
SPEAKER_01: The song then moves to even more picturesque language that illustrates that position.
SPEAKER_01: We are fearless warriors, but we're afraid to get outside of the picket fence.
SPEAKER_01: We have reckless abandon for Christ, but you know, we can't go beyond our common sense.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we have deep water faith, but we never get outside of the shallow end of the pool.
SPEAKER_01: There's the God I want, and the God who is.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between my heart and my hands, somewhere between my faith and my plans.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between the safety of the boat and the crashing waves, somewhere between a whisper and a roar.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between the altar and the door.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between contented peace and always wanting more.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere in the middle, you'll find me.
SPEAKER_01: I see some knowing glances.
SPEAKER_01: Does that resonate with you?
SPEAKER_01: The majority of Western Christians, I would suggest, are somewhere in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: We are generally satisfied with the status quo and we remain happy as long as life feels good.
SPEAKER_01: But spiritually, we are often content to have one foot in the boat and one in the water, one in the church and one in our faith, and the other in the world.
SPEAKER_01: I'm guessing that there are very, very, very few who would sincerely consider themselves as holy as God expects us to be.
SPEAKER_01: Most of us will be in the middle with at least one foot in the fleeting joys of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And that's precisely what John addresses in 1 John 2, verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: He says that Christians have a unique struggle with a proper allegiance.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, he would have no need to say, do not love the world.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not just the world, do not love the things in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, John, I'm okay with you saying, don't love the world, but don't take away my things.
SPEAKER_01: The Christian should have no allegiance that opposes the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
SPEAKER_01: The problem is that being human inherently draws us toward our surroundings, to the passing things of our world.
SPEAKER_01: And that world demands our allegiance in order to fit in, in order to be approved, to be accepted, to be recognized.
SPEAKER_01: But that is not God's way.
SPEAKER_01: For God says we are new creations, yet we still exist in a world waiting for its own renewal.
SPEAKER_01: Now, to be clear, John doesn't refer to absolutely everything in the world or every detail about the world.
SPEAKER_01: So we need to understand a little bit more about what he is thinking when he says, do not love the world.
SPEAKER_01: And so if we look over and just to chapter 3, verse 1, we begin to see that this world is something that does not know God.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the world in which we exist that is opposed to God because it does not know Him.
SPEAKER_01: If we keep flipping over in chapter 4, verse 1, we see that this is a world that contains many false prophets, that speaks against God, that speaks contrary to God, that does not want people to believe God.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 4, verse 3, it's a world that does not confess Jesus and therefore is opposed to God.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 4, verse 9, it's it's a place into which God sent his son.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 5, verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: It's something that is to be overcome by those who believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you pause and think about that, if it is to be overcome, that implicitly suggests that it is trying to overcome us.
SPEAKER_01: It is trying to overcome the things of God.
SPEAKER_01: But John says, no, you are to overcome it.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 5, verse 19.
SPEAKER_01: Probably the pinnacle.
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about the world's system that lies in the power of the evil one.
SPEAKER_01: So in the context of 1 John, the world is not God's creation that was declared very good on the sixth day of creation.
SPEAKER_01: The world is the system of life and activity which is now under the sway of the evil one, who is God's enemy and therefore our enemy.
SPEAKER_01: The good things that God created have been infected by sin and twisted for use in an evil way.
SPEAKER_01: And human beings, made as God's images, have turned those good things into idols.
SPEAKER_01: And those idols then turn our allegiance away from Christ to the expectations and demands of a perishing world.
SPEAKER_01: We become double-minded, trying to focus on spiritual things and on eternity on Sundays while desperately maintaining our grasp of the present world the rest of the week.
SPEAKER_01: And whether we admit it or not, we are too content living somewhere in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: And if we are content living in the middle, then that suggests that we are not giving wholehearted allegiance to God or the world.
SPEAKER_01: We are just like the Jews of Elijah's time when we think that we can follow God and have life our way.
SPEAKER_01: Right now you're thinking, I wish he'd stayed on sabbatical.
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry, the preacher preaches first to himself.
SPEAKER_01: This is hard.
SPEAKER_01: John cuts to the core of who we are.
SPEAKER_01: Christians of every age must must acknowledge that loving the world and the things of the world is enmity with God.
SPEAKER_01: To be clear, we're not talking about appreciating and enjoying the gracious provisions of our God with thankfulness in your heart to God.
SPEAKER_01: We're not talking about that.
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about a love, a kind of attachment that draws us away from our allegiance to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, you cannot love both God and money.
SPEAKER_01: Money is just a symbol of the things of the world.
SPEAKER_01: My friends, it is traitorous to give our allegiance to anything but our sovereign Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Do not love the world or the things in the world.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
SPEAKER_01: Loving the world proclaims to everyone that God is not good enough.
SPEAKER_01: It proclaims I cannot be satisfied with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It asserts that Jesus does not care for us enough.
SPEAKER_01: It declares that he does not supply our needs in the best way possible, and that he does not have our greatest good at heart because he doesn't give us what the world has.
SPEAKER_01: I was talking with my son this week that when I was growing up, I did not have video games.
SPEAKER_01: But the neighbors did.
SPEAKER_01: That was hard for a little kid.
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't understand at the time that mom and dad didn't have the money to buy video games and video game consoles.
SPEAKER_01: I just knew that I didn't have what they had, and that was hard for my little heart.
SPEAKER_01: Could not understand that God knew that what He was doing for me was my very best.
SPEAKER_01: Good.
SPEAKER_01: If God is not good.
SPEAKER_01: Enough, if we have a divided allegiance that shouts from the rooftops, I will not live all my days resting in the sufficiency of Christ's goodness.
SPEAKER_01: Even more startling, John tells us that loving the world means that the love of the Father is not in that person.
SPEAKER_01: Those who love a perishing world cannot exercise true love for the Father because the Father has not first loved them.
SPEAKER_01: And that is a precarious place to be.
SPEAKER_01: 1 John 4, verse 19 tells us that we love God because He first loved us.
SPEAKER_01: But if we love the world, the Father's love does not reside in us.
SPEAKER_01: Which means there's no faith connection, there's no genuine creation, there's no genuine faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so John declares the stark truth.
SPEAKER_01: Those whom the Father has loved first and who have been drawn to saving faith in Jesus do not have a habit of loving the world.
SPEAKER_01: My friends, it does not get more serious than this.
SPEAKER_01: You need to check your spiritual status if you habitually love the world and the things in it.
SPEAKER_01: Christians struggle with a proper allegiance.
SPEAKER_01: We routinely find ourselves stuck in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: I once heard it described as an aspect of our sheepishness.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the Bible talks about us as sheep.
SPEAKER_01: We once lived in another pasture where the world and everything in it was ours.
SPEAKER_01: All that we could make of the world was ours, the whole world was ours.
SPEAKER_01: But when we trusted in Jesus, the Father picks us up and places us in Jesus' pasture, in the pasture led and managed by the Good Shepherd, which is imminently better than the pastures of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And yet we want to live as close to the fence as we possibly can, often sticking our heads through the barbed wire to reach the grass from the old pasture, thinking that grass is better than the grass that the Good Shepherd gives me.
SPEAKER_01: We grow dissatisfied with what God has provided for us.
SPEAKER_01: And soon we're grumpy and we're we're discontent, and soon we're we're fighting our way through the fence to the pastures of the world, acting as traitors of the one who bought us.
SPEAKER_01: How do we fix that?
SPEAKER_01: Glad you asked.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't tell you.
SPEAKER_01: The key is first and foremost accepting and believing that we are different to people.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of us find discomfort in sticking out and being different.
SPEAKER_01: God likes that.
SPEAKER_01: You know that old song?
SPEAKER_01: This world is not my home.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just a passing through.
SPEAKER_01: It has a campy sound to it, but it has a ring of truth.
SPEAKER_01: We're no longer citizens of this world.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the apostle Paul proclaimed to the Christians in Philippi.
SPEAKER_01: Philippi was one of those cities that had a history of defying Rome.
SPEAKER_01: But at one point in history, they changed all of that and they appeased the Roman Emperor, and so the Roman Emperor declared them to be a Roman colony, which meant that everybody in the city of Philippi obtained Roman citizenship by mere presence of their lives and their living and their birth in the city of Philippi.
SPEAKER_01: We are Roman citizens.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says to the Christians, I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: Your citizenship is in heaven, from which we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We have been remade for another world, friends, for another place.
SPEAKER_01: We are no longer locals, but foreigners struggling to live in what is now an alien world to us.
SPEAKER_01: I can't figure it out.
SPEAKER_01: People keep looking for alien life in outer space or in Area 51, but all they should have to do is look in the local church.
SPEAKER_01: Because Scripture tells us we are to live divinely empowered lives in this world.
SPEAKER_01: We are to be different.
SPEAKER_01: We are to be alien people in an alien world, emboldened by the Spirit of God to be different, to be like Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This world is not my home.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
SPEAKER_01: We're specifically told not to love three portions of the evil world systems: the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life.
SPEAKER_01: These desires, these cravings, these lusts originate from the unredeemed portion of our being that craves things that are not eternal.
SPEAKER_01: John's saying that our unredeemed body, the flesh, the physical house in which we live as God's images, carries with it ungodly desires.
SPEAKER_01: And those desires are of the world and they lead to sin.
SPEAKER_01: They're not linked to God the Father or spiritual life, but cause us to be drawn away and enticed by outward stimuli.
SPEAKER_01: The evil nature of this world entices what is sinful in us.
SPEAKER_01: I want to keep preaching, but I need to wrap this up.
SPEAKER_01: Pride here speaks of arrogance or conceit.
SPEAKER_01: The pride of life, the desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes, the pride of life.
SPEAKER_01: Life is sometimes translated as possessions or objects.
SPEAKER_01: It's the word bios from which we get biology.
SPEAKER_01: Most likely it's a speaking here of an arrogance of what we have become, of who we are, of what we've made ourselves into, of what we have.
SPEAKER_01: We think arrogantly that life is about us.
SPEAKER_01: It's what I want to make of it, and we we feel like we deserve to have what we want to have because of all of the desires of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, all of these things.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's not wrong, friends, to have possessions.
SPEAKER_01: It's not wrong to be comfortable or to be wealthy even, but it but it does come with problems.
SPEAKER_01: It's not sinful to enjoy the good things that God has given us.
SPEAKER_01: However, the heart can be drawn away into a prideful view of this life and everything in it rather than to be drawn to thankfulness and generosity.
SPEAKER_01: And the point here is that we must not be worldly.
SPEAKER_01: God's people must not act, must not speak, and live like human beings that are drawn to the passions and desires of the evil world.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, chapter 3, verse 6 says this no one who abides in him keeps on sinning.
SPEAKER_01: No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or know him.
SPEAKER_01: If this is your habit, if this is your way of life, then you've got problems.
SPEAKER_01: In this little letter, John writes much about how we should be different.
SPEAKER_01: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a lifelong process, to be sure.
SPEAKER_01: And first and foremost, it's a work of God.
SPEAKER_01: He promises that he is making his people into the image of his son.
SPEAKER_01: He's doing that by giving us his spirit to empower us to live upright and godly lives in this present age.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I've given you the down payment of my spirit to guarantee that I'm going to finish what I've started, but that means he has already started it in you.
SPEAKER_01: That's the divine perspective.
SPEAKER_01: But we as human beings tend to view things not first from God's viewpoint, but from ours.
SPEAKER_01: And so John helps us with that in verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: He helps our mindset.
SPEAKER_01: And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
SPEAKER_01: This beloved disciple helps us with a proper worldview.
SPEAKER_01: It's a point of view that knows deeply that everything outside of the sanctuary of Christ is going to go away.
SPEAKER_01: We are to be alien people, not in appearance, but as a matter of being and conduct.
SPEAKER_01: That happens as we cultivate an eternal perspective.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you doing what you do?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you living the way you live?
SPEAKER_01: Is it because of your attachment to the world and the things of the world, or is it because you have been changed by Christ to have the mind of Christ and to be thinking eternally?
SPEAKER_01: I love the way that C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis stated very pointedly in his book, Mere Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: He said, every time that you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little bit different than what it was before.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you take your life as a whole from beginning to end, with all of its innumerable choices, all your life long, you are slowly turning that central part of you into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature.
SPEAKER_01: In John's words, into an eternal focused being or a worldly focused being.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis goes on.
SPEAKER_01: Either into a creature that is in harmony with God and thus with other creatures or and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God and with its fellow creatures and with itself.
SPEAKER_01: If you love the world, you're at war with yourself, Christian.
SPEAKER_01: To be the one kind of creature is heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power.
SPEAKER_01: To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness.
SPEAKER_01: Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.
SPEAKER_01: And each decision, each choice, each action in your life takes you one step towards loving the world or one step closer to the love of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: We live in an evil, perishing world that exists temporarily.
SPEAKER_01: Unless the Lord returns first, you and I are going to die.
SPEAKER_01: And this world in which we live is going to burn in a divine cleansing and remaking.
SPEAKER_01: Now let me ask you some troubling questions.
SPEAKER_01: In light of all of this.
SPEAKER_01: If you are not in love with the world, let's make that assumption.
SPEAKER_01: We are not in love with the world, but we are walking with Christ, should we get bent out of shape about the economy?
SPEAKER_01: Should we worry about what a foreign president thinks about America?
SPEAKER_01: Should we be stressed and wringing our hands about who is or who will be the president?
SPEAKER_01: Or what the next freedom to slip out of our fingers will be?
SPEAKER_01: It's all gonna burn up anyway.
SPEAKER_01: These are troubling questions because we're caught in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: Our hearts are drawn in two directions.
SPEAKER_01: We want to be drawn to eternity, but we can't help but have our feet in the world.
SPEAKER_01: There's a part of us that loves the world.
SPEAKER_01: Well, God is sanctifying us.
SPEAKER_01: That means he is slowly but surely turning our hearts away from the world and toward him.
SPEAKER_01: But we are idolaters as long as we desire the world and the things of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And in that case, we are no different than Elijah's people who shouted for Baal to give them rain.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we desperately want to see things from an early earthly vantage point and God's vantage point.
SPEAKER_01: But when we want both, we fail to remember that only one of those will last.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever does the will of God abides forever.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not suggesting at all that we shouldn't care about those difficult questions.
SPEAKER_01: They are essential for us to consider because we are here as resident aliens.
SPEAKER_01: They impact us.
SPEAKER_01: We should care about those questions.
SPEAKER_01: But do they distract us from our primary focus on eternal things?
SPEAKER_01: Do they draw our hearts and love for those things more than the things of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Through death or the Lord's return, a time is coming, probably more quickly than any of us realize, when none of the desires of this life will matter anymore.
SPEAKER_01: The things of this world presents to us to lure us into its embrace will be long gone and long forgotten.
SPEAKER_01: And it's better to remind yourself continually of the temporary nature of this world and command your heart to give sole allegiance to the Lord who bought you.
SPEAKER_01: Shift your hands, your feet, and your heart away from the middle, where Christ might be to you a stumbling stone.
SPEAKER_01: And instead take your hands and your feet and your heart directly to the stone sanctuary, where you can love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, we come and we bow before you, confessing the idolatry of our heart.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, your people do not want to have this torn allegiance, this dividedness within us.
SPEAKER_01: We desperately want to be wholeheartedly devoted to you.
SPEAKER_01: Loosen the grasp this world has on us.
SPEAKER_01: Cause us to see you more clearly, to see Christ and Christ alone.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.