Dying to Live: Dying to the World

I just want You, nothing else, nothing else, nothing else will do, I just want You, nothing

else, nothing else Jesus, nothing else will do, Father God, thank You so much for the opportunity

to come, and Lord this morning I pray that You would help the cry of our hearts to truly

be for You. I'm sure that many of us have come in the room this morning thinking of what

we can get from being here, saying that Lord I need help with this, I need a word from You,

I need some encouragement, I need, I just need something, but Father we need You, we simply need

You in our lives and we need You to speak in a powerful way, and Father more than what we can

get from today's message or from songs or from prayer or anything like that, Lord we just need

to ask ourselves, Lord what can we give? What can we give to You this morning that would be pleasing

and honoring to You? What is it that You would require of us on this day at this time?

Because there's always something to give. Lord I pray that You would remind us today of all that

You've given to us already and the endless possibilities of all the things You can do

and those hurdles we will overcome in our walk with You. So I pray this morning that You would put it

on our hearts, God, to just surrender and to be willing to give anything that You call us to

give. Father I pray for Mr. Ralph this morning as he's in the hospital and doctors are still

trying to figure out what's going on with him, so Lord we just pray that You touch his body,

be with everybody who's involved in that caretaking process to give them wisdom and understanding.

Father I pray for Miss Vivian, Miss Amy's friend, and God that You would touch her today and her

family as she continues on with her battle. Father I'm sure there's a lot of other requests

in this room, and Lord we give these things to You because we realize that we are weak and

powerless and we are completely at Your mercy. So God I pray that You would show up in the way

that You know that we need, not necessarily the way that we won't, but the way that You

know that we need today. Father we love You and thank You and we're so grateful to be in Your

house and I just pray that You would guide us in these moments. We love You and we ask all this

in Jesus' precious and holy name, all God's people said. Amen. You may be seated.

Well we're in week two of talking about dying to live. I asked last week if I had your

permission to speak honestly from God's Word, and so I ask it again today. Y'all okay with that?

Because it's not easy. It's not something that we typically enjoy. These are not a set of

sermons that I think people necessarily get excited about coming to church for.

But we begin last week in our new series talking about dying to sin. The first thing that we have

to do as we begin to live for Christ is die to sin. The analogy in all of the New Testament from

the Gospels all the way through the Epistles of dying to so many things in order to live for Christ

is littered throughout New Testament Scripture. And so we see the first thing that we have to

die to is sin because that's what Jesus came to die for was to free us from our sin.

And if you have not come to the point in your life where you're not willing to die to sin,

I'm sorry to say that this morning's sermon is probably not going to be very relevant to you,

okay? If you missed last week's sermon, you can catch it on Facebook, YouTube, podcasts,

whatever. You can go back and listen to it. But the importance of dying to sin is so necessary

because Scripture lays out plainly what is sinful, what God considers disobedient to his will and his

way in our life. And we can easily read Scripture. Even with the Holy Spirit in our lives, there are

things that we do that we know is wrong within our hearts. We know it. We really don't even need

Scripture for us to know that it's wrong because we can feel it when we do it. He puts that weight

on us to know that this is not right. And if you're not willing to die to that,

you're not going to be willing to die to what we're going to talk about today because today we're

talking about the need for us to die to the world. And that's a very tricky thing. This

is going to be one of the most difficult aspects for Christians to make this next move just for

analogy purposes up the ladder the closer you get to Christ. Okay? So you can die to sin,

which we know, like there are things listed in Scripture that says this is wrong. This is against

God's will. This is not beneficial for you or for other people. This is not showing love to other

people. Like we can point out very easily many different sins that we need to die to.

But dying to the world is a very different thing because when you look at the world

and you go back to Genesis chapter one and God is speaking everything into existence,

every time God creates something, what does he say? That it was good. And so when you look at the world,

in reality, there are many, many things in this world that are very good.

I mean, when you look at people, when God created Adam and Eve, he said that they were

very good. And yet the people are the ones who brought sin into the world to make it not

good in a lot of ways. And as people, we can take the best of things. We have this natural

gift in our lives to take the best of things, things that are absolutely wonderful and good

and twist it and manipulate it. And for lack of better terms, pervert it in a way to make it

sinful. We do that with everything. And this morning for something that Kevin might take

that's in the world and he might take that thing and use it to gratify himself and use it for

sinful things. Somebody like Mr. Bruce over here would never dream or be tempted in any way to

take that thing that Kevin did and to use it in the way that Kevin did and vice versa.

So there might be something that Bruce takes and he puts up on a pedestal and he elevates it

in a way in his life that is unbeneficial that can become sinful that Kevin would never dream of.

And we all do that. We all can take things of the world and put them in places and positions in

our lives to where it brings more harm to us than it does good. What God intended for good,

we can absolutely 100% use for bad because we're sinful and our first temptation is to gratify

ourself and to seek comfort and that is not what God has called us to. And so there is an absolute

need for us to die to the world. If you're not willing to die to sin, you're never going to

die to things of the world because you're never going to be able to rationalize it. If you

cannot in your mind and heart rationalize the need for you to die to sin, you're never going to

rationalize the need for you to die to the world because there's not going to be anyone else

who's going to be digging inside the depths of your heart and in your mind and in your life

and saying, I know what the Lord's saying to you in the quiet still moments of the night when

you're laying in bed and you're thinking about these things and you feel that that whisper from

the Lord to say, you need to give it to me. It's time. I'm calling you out of this. I want you to

give this up. I want you to die to this because I have something better for you. Nobody else is

going to be able to put their finger on that and say, I know what the Lord's saying to you.

That's something that's going to be done between you and God. It's going to be something that

you reject from him and our passage of scripture is going to be in John chapter 17 verses 13

John 17:13–18

through 18 and you can turn there in your Bibles. If you'd like, it'll be on the screen,

but this entire chapter is a prayer that Jesus actually prays for his disciples and his

followers right before he is about to go to Jerusalem and be crucified for our sins.

And as Jesus prays this prayer, we're picking up in the middle of it in verse 13

and he says, now I'm coming to you. He's praying to God. He's saying that he's about to go to God.

He says, now I'm coming to you. I told them many things while I was with them in this world

so that they would be filled with my joy. You know, everything that that Jesus teaches us

and tells us is not so that we will be miserable. I think we have to take a step back and remind

ourselves of that sometimes that as we read these passages, we talk about dying to sin,

we talk about dying to the world. It's not that Jesus Christ is calling you to give up

all these things so that your life will stink and you'll be miserable and you'll be bored

and you will miss out on all this other life that everyone else is getting to do.

And I think that as you are younger, the more you probably think those things because you're

watching everyone else get to do things maybe that you don't get to do and you feel cheated

in a lot of ways. The older you get, the more you realize a lot of that stuff that you wanted

really isn't that important. We need to be reminded of that as adults, but as kids,

even as young people this morning, to know that when Jesus was here and he was speaking

these things and teaching his disciples, he did this so that they would be filled with his joy.

There's a reason why you can see people who have everything in life that so many of us would like

to have and they're absolutely miserable. And then you can see people who are broke

and poor and have lived difficult lives and have had bad situations and circumstances in their life

and they're completely filled with joy and they can stand up and they can give testimony and they

can talk about how good the Lord has been to them and how happy they are in their life.

Only God can do that. So Jesus doesn't want you to be miserable. He wants you to be filled with joy.

That's really important. Verse 14. He says, I've given them your word and the world hates them

because they do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world.

If you're a Christian and if you follow Jesus Christ, you do not belong to the world.

I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one.

They do not belong to this world any more than I do. Make them holy by your truth. Teach them your

word, which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I'm sending them into the world and I give

myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth. This is what

Christ wants for people who claim to be his followers. That we do not belong to the world.

That we are made holy and he doesn't want to take you out of the world, but he actually

wants to send you into the world in a completely different way than what we have been here in the

past. Pre-salvation, pre-dying to things, pre-dying to sin, pre-dying to the world.

He wants to send you back into the world as a new creation. He is not satisfied with us

to just claim him as savior. He is also not satisfied with us just to die to sin. He wants

more. As I said in the prayer earlier as we get started, it's not really a question of what will

you get today, but the question maybe should be, what can you give? Because know this morning

that Christ wants more. We shouldn't be afraid of that, but we should welcome that into our lives.

Point number one, the world will hate you. You are not of the world. You're called to die to

the world. And if you do that, the world will hate you. Now, I don't want you to get confused

or misunderstand what we're talking about today. I do not think that we as Christians

should be so abrasive or obnoxious that the world should hate us. Does that make sense?

There should be no effort on your part to speed up the process for the world disliking you as a

Christian. You get that? Because I promise you, if you live for Christ and you do what

he's called you to do, there will be plenty enough people who will dislike you for it.

As soon as you start standing up for Christ's laws and his morals and everything that he's

called us to do as Christianity, the way that we speak, the way that we live, what we engage in,

what we abstain from, people will despise you for it. And we live in a day and time where probably

the past six to seven years. I think the American church doesn't even know how to handle this

because we've never really experienced it before. But for the first time in probably the past six

or seven years, as soon as you start standing up for Christ and you start opposing someone and

saying, that's not right. That's not okay. That is not how God has called us to live.

It's not how God has called us to speak. It's not how God has called us to do this or that or

that or that. And the world will automatically just lie into you. And we went through the

whole cancel culture thing. And we go through this whole idea of media and the secular world

hating people for standing up for what they believe to be true through the eyes of God and Jesus Christ.

If you truly take a stand for Christ, the world will dislike you for it. And you need to know

that you don't have to try. You don't have to make an effort for that to happen. You can literally

love people and serve them and care for them. And they will still dislike you for it.

Several years ago, when Tim Tebow was kind of at his height when he was moving out of college and

into the professional world, and he was taking some massive stands for Christ back before

a lot of people were, and he was getting a lot of attention through the media.

One of the things that happened is that a lot of journalists committed themselves

to trying to find dirt on him in his life. And they would follow him around to try to

disprove him to saying, okay, you're taking these massive stands for Christ when you're in front of

the camera and you're saying all these good things and people love you for it. But in his

private life, there has to be something that he's doing that we can find dirt on and discredit

him because that's what most people do. And sadly, that is what most people do.

And the amazing thing is, is so many of these journalists followed him around,

looked for dirt, watched him, and they said, as much as we wanted to dislike him,

as much as they wanted to, and they even said, we wanted to dislike him, his private life was exemplary.

And we could find nothing. And actually, it makes you want to like him more because while everyone

else is going out and they're partying, and they're doing everything that normal people do,

and normal athletes do, and normal famous people do, they're going out to do all these things,

this guy is going and meeting with helpless, needy people, crippled people, meeting with kids,

signing autographs, hanging out, doing stuff that no one else is doing, said his life is so good,

you can't help but to like him even though you want to hate him. That's the attitude that the

world will have for people who truly follow Christ. And so they will not like you.

In John chapter 15 verses 18 through 21, Jesus, this is a couple chapters before our focus passage,

John 15:18–21

Jesus is talking to his disciples and he's warning them. He says, if the world hates you,

remember that it hated me first. So if you're worried this morning, if you're playing this

game of like, I believe in Jesus, I want to go to heaven, I want to serve him, but I'm really

worried about what other people is going to think about me or my friends or my family

or relationships or whatever it may be. If you're worried about those things,

you're in a bad spot. Because Jesus said, if the world hates you, remember that hated me first,

the world would love you as one of its own if you belong to it. But as we said earlier,

we don't belong to this world. We have been called to die to it. But you are no longer part of the

world. I chose you to come out of the world. So it hates you. Do you remember what I told you?

A slave is not greater than the master. Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you.

And if they had listened to me, naturally they would listen to you. They will do all this to

you because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me. And here's the thing.

You know, when we talk about what it means to be a believer and a follower of Christ,

it's not just a matter of dying to sin, but it's also a matter of also dying to the world.

And whenever you start drawing those lines in the sand and saying, nope, this is the line.

Like this is absolutely what God has called us to do. And this is the line of my life.

And that's where most people get real apprehensive and they're not willing to cross the line and

go beyond that threshold to really pursue Christ in their life. And it's going to feel,

it's going to hurt because there's been times in my life where I've lost relationships and

friendships with people over like my convictions and over what I felt like God was leading me to do.

And in those moments, you have to remind yourself they're not rejecting you

because they liked who you were, right? Who you were, they were fine with.

It's Jesus, it's Christ, the one that they're rejecting. And he warns his disciples of this.

There's going to be a massive amount of people who are automatically going to ostracize you

or push against you or reject you as a result of you being a follower of Christ. And that is okay.

In fact, it's probably one of the greatest indications that you're probably living the

life for Christ that you should be living. The world is not going to welcome people in

who challenges their beliefs, who challenges their normal life because it's going to offend them.

And we see that more today than we've ever seen it before in our life.

There's a lot of people who are not committed to following the Lord

and they're not willing to die to sin and they're not willing to die to things of the world

and they will fight tooth and nail to keep what they want in their life.

And today, we're supposed to not be allowed to offend them at all.

And I challenge you today, you can challenge them without offending them.

You can stand up for Christ, you can do it in a loving way, you can speak truth,

you can speak it in love and they will be offended because they don't want to hear it,

but you can do it without being offensive. And I challenge you to do that today.

Point number two, we've said it over and over, we do not belong to this world.

And this is perhaps the most difficult transition we will make as Christians in America.

We have amazing lives.

I don't know if you've ever sit back and just thought about that,

but if you've ever had the opportunity to go on some mission trips or go to some places

around the world that have different lifestyles than we do, Greg took us on several mission trips,

we got to see some really tough situations for people, especially going to Haiti.

And you see the way those people live, it's like, we've got it good.

We complain about a lot, we whine about a lot, we have great lives.

The most poor people in our country are obese.

We have a homeless guy who walks up and down our road that people give food to all the time.

His dog has shoes.

I mean, do you know what that means?

Like his dog has shoes.

Like even the homeless guy has a pretty good life.

He has food.

He's cared for, even his pet is cared for.

Like we cannot even understand what it means.

And a lot of times people will sit back in our society and think, man, life is so good.

Like I love my life.

I love my home, I love my family, I love my relationships.

And now everything may not be absolutely perfect, but we can within reason know,

like we've got it pretty good.

I can't imagine heaven being better than what I have or what I've been given in this life.

And that's one of the biggest pitfalls that we have as Americans,

is that we have really good lives.

We have access to a lot of resources that people around the world will never get to experience.

And we have a really hard time of dying to these things because we know that life is good.

We know that we've had it good.

But the truth is, is we don't belong to this world.

And we have to be careful not to take things of this world

and put it in places where it doesn't belong.

And in 1 John chapter 2, verses 15 through 17, John writes and says,

1 John 2:15–17

do not love this world, nor the things that offers you.

For when you love the world, you do not have the love of the father in you.

We talk about hard teachings and we talk about things that like,

that really prick us beyond just conviction of sin and stuff.

But whenever you look at the disciples and they're talking to these new Christians,

they're teaching them what it means to follow Christ,

is that if you love the world, you don't have the love of the father in you.

And then you have to decide, okay, how much do I actually believe in God's word?

How much am I willing to take this word and apply it to my life?

Because I don't know about you guys, but as a pastor,

there are a lot of things in this world that I love.

There's a lot of things in this world that I'm very grateful for

and I appreciate and I gravitate to.

And to know this morning that as we talk about this together, even for myself,

there's a lot of things in this world that aren't necessarily bad,

that Christ calls us to die to so that we can have more of him and more of his kingdom.

For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure,

a craving for everything we see and pride in our achievements and possessions.

I don't know about you guys, but that right there, that speaks directly to me.

These are not from the father, but are from this world.

And this world is fading away along with everything that people crave.

But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

The necessity to die to this world is so important,

because if this is what you're clinging to,

you're clinging to something that's not going to exist anymore.

The scripture says it's fading away.

It says the heavens and the earth will be destroyed

and God will create a new heavens and a new earth

and anything that exists in this life

that we cling to, we cling to it for nothing

because it's going to be taken away anyway.

There's nothing that exists in this world that we can take with us.

Nothing that's going to last, nothing that's going to make the transition

from this to eternity when we spend with Christ.

Don't be surprised when Jesus says,

hey, die to the world because it's going to die and fade anyway.

Go ahead and give it up because you're going to have to give it up anyway.

Make the decision now.

And the truth is, is we really cannot see what the world does to us

until we actually pull ourselves back and die to it.

And then it's like our eyes are open and we see it for the first time.

It's just, it's amazing how we could not see it before.

I don't know if you've ever done that where it's like,

I remember one time whenever I first went in the,

first got into college and I stopped playing sports,

I put on a good bit of weight, more than now I was about up to 240.

And I remember bending over and tying my shoes and I was like,

you know, it's like you'd have to hold your breath to tie your shoe.

And it's like, you don't realize how out of shape or how bad you feel or something until

you go on a diet or you get serious and you start working out

and you lose some of that weight.

It's like, man, I feel so much better.

Same thing with like addictions or whether it's cigarettes or alcohol or whatever it may be.

It's like people just talk about all the time.

I don't, I did not realize how bad I felt until after I quit doing that or I got,

or I made that change.

It's how I feel so much better now.

I can't believe I did that to myself.

And it's no different from a spiritual perspective.

We have no idea what the world does to us, what it takes from us,

the anxiety, the pressure, the stress, the distraction that it puts in our life to keep us.

And Satan does this to us.

He keeps us from focusing on Christ by throwing other things in the mix to distract us

all the time.

And we cannot understand that until we die to it and we're removed from it.

And then it's like our eyes are everywhere.

It's like, man, I can't believe I did not see it before.

And there's so many things that God wants to do that in our lives that he wants to cleanse

us from, remove from our lives and give us something better.

That's the thing that we have to have faith in, that Christ has something better for us.

And point number three, we are to be made holy.

We talked a lot about it over the past few weeks, but

you know, the whole reason to die to sin, to die to the world, is that you are called

as a believer in Jesus Christ to be set apart, which is to be holy.

There's nothing more that Christ wants from his followers than to be set apart and to be made

holy.

That's his plan.

And not only does he want to bring you out of sin,

but he also wants to bring you out of relationships that are not beneficial for you.

And whether you realize it or not, like all of us probably have some type of relationship that's

not been, whether it's a relationship with someone we really love and care about,

or whether it's a friendship or whether it's whatever it may be, relationships, hobbies,

professions, things in this world that we cling to and think are really important.

And in truth, they're just distracting and they're sucking the life out of us.

And if we can remove those things from our life and Christ can put new things in our life,

it will be so much better.

But the trick is, is we're finite beings.

We're so limited on what we can partake of and let into ourselves.

We only have so much time.

You cannot be devoted to every single thing that you want to.

You've already had to pick and choose stuff.

Whether you realize it or not, you've already had to neglect some things in life in order

to focus on other things.

And if you don't believe me, you do it for a job every single day.

Anybody who goes to work every day, you neglect a lot of other stuff to go to that job.

You sacrifice, you die to other things to go to that job,

to get the money to live off of in other areas of your life.

We do stuff like that all the time and Christ has simply called us,

look, die to the world because I have something better for you.

These things are taking your time.

They're taking your energy, your efforts.

Your finances, everything, and if you die to that,

I can give you something so much better,

but you won't understand it or realize it until you do it.

In Romans 12 verses one through two, Paul wrote and told the church in Rome,

he says, and so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you

to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.

Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable.

You guys know that you could be sacrificing to the Lord and it not be acceptable.

It'd be a shame to be giving up stuff

and then it not really be what God wants.

That'd be a terrible place to be in.

This is truly the way to worship him.

In verse two, it says, don't copy the behavior and customs of this world,

but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way that you think.

Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

God wants to transform us.

He wants to change us, not just from a spiritual perspective,

not just from a physical perspective, even from a mental perspective.

He wants to change the way that you think.

When he does, then you will know.

Then you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will for you really is.

You're not going to be able to see it beforehand.

You're not going to be able to grasp it.

You're not going to be able to rationalize in your mind,

I need to give this up because I know that what God has for me is so much better.

It's going to take a great amount of faith on your part to do that.

But here's the good thing.

Your relationship with Christ is already completely built on faith.

Your salvation is based off of faith and believing that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.

You've already got a little bit of a start.

It's going to take faith for you to die to sin.

Something that we know plainly says this is not beneficial for you.

This is harmful.

There's consequences of it.

Die to sin.

God has something better for you.

Then you die to the world.

God has something better for you.

And I can't tell you this morning what it is that God has something better for you.

The only thing I can do is testify that 26 years that I've been following the Lord,

every time that I've died to something, God has given me something better.

And I can't explain that to you.

I can't tell you like, and I'll be honest,

I haven't always died to everything when I should have died to it.

I've held on to a lot of things a lot longer than I should have.

But every single time that I've given something up and died to it in the name of Christ,

something better has come along.

God has had a better plan for my life than I had for myself.

Way better.

And that's the only thing that I can tell you.

Because you're going to have to get to the point where you believe in your life

to step out in faith and say, okay, God, don't get it.

I don't understand it.

I don't know what you have for me, but I'm willing to put my toe in the water

and test it out and see, let's die to this thing.

Let's see what happens.

And let's move forward.

And I can tell you that whenever you see God work and move,

and you die to some things early on,

and you see the better things come along,

it makes it easier to do it the older you get.

But if you refuse, and if you stay hard-hearted,

because a lot of you think, oh, I'm young, I wait a little bit.

I'll give it a few years.

I'll get it right later on down the road.

It gets harder the older you get.

It is much more difficult to make decisions to die to things

and give things up when you're married

and you got a spouse depending on you,

when you have kids and they're dependent on you.

When you're so far into something

and you got so much money invested in something,

it only gets harder.

So give it up now as fast as you can.

Die to it now as fast as you can.

Colossians chapter three, verses five through 10.

It says, so put to death the sinful earthly things

lurking within you.

Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity,

lust and evil desires.

Don't be greedy.

For a greedy person is an idolater,

worshiping the things of this world.

Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming.

You used to do these things when your life

was still a part of this world,

but now it is time to get rid of anger, rage,

malicious behavior, slander and dirty language.

Don't lie to each other.

For you have stripped off your old sinful nature

and all its wicked deeds.

Put on your new nature and be renewed

as you learn to know your creator

and become like him.

You cannot deny the amount of scripture

that calls us to die to sin,

to die to the world,

and to come and know Christ more.

It's all throughout the Bible.

And the Lord's will for your life

is for you to be holy,

for you to receive a new nature,

to be reborn,

to be made new,

to learn to know your creator

and to become more like him.

Because the truth is,

is that Christ doesn't want to take you

out of the world,

but he wants to renew you.

He wants to change you and transform you

and send you into the world.

Because your life is not just about

making sure that you get to go to heaven.

Your life is called to build

the kingdom of heaven.

You are called to be a servant of Christ,

to bring other people along with you,

to be a witness and a minister of the gospel.

Become more like Jesus

to be sent into the world

to lead other people to Jesus.

You can't lead other people to Christ

if you have sin in your life.

You can't lead other people to Christ

if you're taking things of the world

and you're putting them in places

in your life that they shouldn't be there

because that's idolatry

and you're putting things before God.

God has called us to die,

to sin,

to die to the world.

What do you believe in?

Because it's faith.

It's all about faith.

It's all about believing

to know that, okay, God,

you know I don't want to give this up.

I know I don't want to give this up,

but I believe in you enough to know

that if I give this up,

there's a reason

and there's something better

and I can't see that until I do it.

So Lord, help me do it.

What do you believe in?

Let's pray.

Father God, thank you again

for the opportunity to be here today,

to worship you and serve you

and Father, I pray that you would

speak powerfully into our hearts,

even in this moment.

Only you know what you whisper to us

when no one else is around.

Lord, the sinful stuff

is a little more obvious,

but the things of the world,

that's when it starts getting tough.

It's hard to rationalize,

but Lord, you have something

so much better for us.

I pray, God, that we would

step out in faith today,

die to the things you've called us to,

to receive things

that we can't even possibly imagine

are so much better for us,

to give us a joy

that we could never understand otherwise.

Well, we love you today

and we ask all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You're dismissed, thank you.