DEALING WITH THE WORLDLY CHRISTIAN

SCRIPTURE: John 21:15-17; Rev. 2:2-5; Cor. 3:1-3

INTRO:    (Read John 21:15-17.)

Say, if the Lord came to your house and sat down to visit with you, what do you think he'd say? Perhaps He would ask, "Do you love me?".

Peter had denied even knowing Jesus at the time of the crucifixion, and his fellowship with Christ was damaged by his sin. After His resurrection, Jesus joined His disciples for breakfast. After breakfast, He asked Peter the question, "Do you love Me?" three times. Do you know what He was doing? He was reinstating Peter after his three failures. Three denials, three questions.

Jesus brought Peter back in line by bringing him back to the basic issue: "Do you love Me?". He wanted Peter to realize that DEVOTION comes before DUTY.

(Read Revelation 2:2-5.)

Notice that when Jesus looked at the Ephesian church, He saw a lot of good things: good, hard, continuing work; an abhorrence of wickedness; faithfulness in hard times; and sound doctrine.

But they didn't score so well in one particular area: They had left their first love, Who is Christ. The DUTY that was the result of DEVOTION had taken the place of DEVOTION!

Now, three out of four isn't bad. They had good deeds, they served God with endurance, and they were sound in doctrine. They just needed to work harder on the love thing.

But Jesus explained that none of these things mattered if they didn't love Him first and foremost. He had taught sometime earlier that we are to love Him more than we love anything or anybody else.

I think today's church needs a warning. This church needs a warning. We need to be reminded that none of what we do -- none of our ministry, none of our efforts -- mean anything if we are not doing out of our love for Christ. I suspect that many of us are serving because somebody's got to do it, or because we love children, or because we like to help people, or because we feel guilty not serving. Jesus is saying, "Without your love for Me being what it ought to be, nothing else you do really matters." He never intended DUTY to replace DEVOTION.

Now, I realize that our love will waver from time to time. And it'll never be all that it ought to be. But like Peter and the Ephesian church, we've got to recognize when we've left our first love, and repent and come back.

A love relationship is always a struggle. We struggle to keep love alive. We struggle to be faithful. Many of us have love crises with God from time to time. Our priorities get messed up. We become self-centered. We become DUTY-oriented, instead of DEVOTION-oriented. We have a problem with CARNALITY or WORLDLINESS, which is a spiritual state in which a born-again believer knowlingly and persistently lives to please and serve self rather than Christ.

In 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 Paul talks about worldly Christians.

(Read 1 Cor. 3:1-3.)

Please note what he says...

First,

The Corinthian Christians had left their first love. They were carnal -- worldly. But notice that Paul addresses them as "Brothers." And he begins his letter to them with these words: "To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy..." It wasn't that they weren't Christians; it was that they were too worldly to be of any heavenly good!

God's people have always been flawed. Saul consulted a medium; David committed adultery and murder; Solomon asked God for wisdom, but looked for meaning to life in possessions and in loving "many foreign women"; Paul struggled daily against the desires of his flesh.

I'm not perfect, and neither are you. That doesn't mean we aren't Christians, no more than a husbands and wives aren't husbands and wives because they lose their love for one another.

Paul tells the Corinthians that they "are still worldly." We Christians start out as "babes in Christ," feeding on milk, but we're expected to grow and move up to solid food. As the Corinthians, we often stay immature and stagnate. Have you ever met any 50-or-60-year-old "infants in Christ"? I have too.

Too many Christians don't appear to be much different from non-Christians, except for their involvement in "church work." They were born again, but they've never produced the fruit of the Spirit. Paul talks about this in Galatians 5:19-23...

(Read Gal. 5:19-23.)

Too many of us are still engaged in "acts of the sinful nature." We are worldly.

(Read 1 Cor. 3:3.)

Too many of us have developed a mind-set of disobedience -- we are willfully continuing our sinful ways, being controlled by the old person we used to be rather than by the new person we have become.

We don't HAVE to be this way. We are this way because we choose to follow our flesh instead of the Spirit. In Romans 7 Paul explains his struggle...

(Read Romans 7:14-25.)

Through the power of Christ, we can overcome our fleshly-mindedness.

He says in verse 4: "For when one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos,' are you not mere men?"

What was going on? I'll tell you. They had not submitted to the Lordship of Christ. They were in rebellion. They were acting like heathens!

A visitor might be impressed by our worship assembly, and think us to be genuine Christians. But what if that same visitor heard us in our small gatherings, in our home lives, and in various conversations and dealing with problems and criticizing one another? That's carnality. Jesus hates that.

CONCLUSION:

Most kids like to play in dirt. Give most kids a big dirt pile and they're happy as can be. They try to eat it, they smear it all over themselves. Dirt is the favorite toy of most little kids. And we don't give it a second thought. "It's just the way kids are."

But have you ever seen a grown man or woman playing on a dirt pile like kids -- eating it, and smearing it all over himself? We'd think that was weird, mighty weird, wouldn't we?

Well, there are two many Christians who haven't grown up spiritually. They continue to "play" and feed upon the "dirt" of this world. If they were brand new Christians, we could understand. "They just don't know any better." But there are Christians who've been exposed to the truth and will of God for many years, week after week, month after month, and they don't seem to know how to stay out of the mud.

The dirt and mud of worldly living can look good only to a Christian who's left his first love.

It's time to come back. Jesus wants you to love Him more than anything or anyone else. He wants to show you something that's so much better that you'll never want to play in the dirt again!

PRAYER:

INVITATION: