1 John 2:15-17 | The Love God Hates

This is City Post Church, we're about three things, build

equipped and send all under the lordship of Jesus Christ, a

small Church Plant in Fort Worth Texas, who decided to do things

a little differently. I would almost I had to Crystal,

I love City Post because of the people.

It's where I belong, we truly preach the word.

I love City Post because of the community.

We've been able to build to do ministry.

Like Jesus perlite to push back Darkness.

This is City, Post podcast. First John chapter 2, we're

1 John 2 · chapter mention

going to go ahead and just jump right into it.

Man, I love catching people outside of the routine.

They're like, what do we? What do you do?

It's a video. Am I supposed to move?

What? Oh, no.

Hey first John chapter 2 man. Reason I saw that and I was

1 John 2 · chapter mention

like, man, I pray that it's a reminder of how powerful the

God, we serve is these next couple of weeks were going to be

looking at some difficult texts in God's word.

And my prayer for us is that we do not run away from hard things

we actually run, right? Toward them.

So, if there's going to be some things that that jostle our

hearts, there's going to be Some, some some things that like

push against the culture, there's going to be some things

that pushes against American Christianity, but I just want to

encourage you guys to really just lean into it to ask

questions to say. Yes, Lord we trust you.

This is your word it's infallible.

So I'm not the one, I'm the one that's wrong, not you right?

So so and that's a difficult thing but I I also want us to

understand that we serve a God that's all powerful Mighty and

has the power to change. Man, I love listening to

Stephens testimony. I was just floored because I'm

like, man, I was like, dude, let's just go home after that.

Like what are we even doing here?

Like, we're good man. I was like good night, but which

writes like man were able to forgive because he forgave us

and that's so strong. So we're only going to be

looking at three verses today. We're just going to Jump right

into it because we have a lot of ground to cover your labor.

Ricky. It's only three verses.

I'm like, I know, just wait. All right.

So look at verses, 15 through 17.

In first John, chapter 2 This is what the word of the Lord has to

1 John 2 · chapter mention

say, says, do not love the world or anything in the world.

If anyone loves the world, Yeah, there you go.

If anyone loves the world love for the father is not in them

for everything. In the world, the lust of the

flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life comes not from

the father. But from the world, the world

and it's desires, pass away. But whoever does the will of God

lives forever. Father, we ask you this morning

to be with us. Lord help us to understand your

your word father. Thank you.

So much for it. Lord, I pray for myself that you

helped me to organize my thoughts.

God, that you just help me to remember everything that was

studied, Lord. And I pray that you open our

hearts and minds and God, We Praise You For Hearing our kids

class right now. Because God, that means that

there's a future in here. There's a life that our kids are

learning your word at a level that they understand it.

And Lord, we pray that they fall in love with you and that they

get to know Jesus more. So, Jesus, thank you so much for

what's happening in your name. We pray all these things.

Amen. All right, so last week we

talked about the Christian Life and how we're not supposed to

just stay as baby Christians, that there's levels to this

thing. And, you know, John went ahead

and he gave us a verse of reassurance in verse 12 and he

said, hey understand this, you guys have been forgiven however

You have the children, which are like the baby Christians.

You have the young men, which are those who are learning God's

word and they're ready to go fight, somebody spiritually and

then you have the father's in the faith and the fathers, and

the faith are those who have lived a little bit.

They've seen God work. They know God in an intimate

level and that's kind of what we're trying to reach.

Now, John is going to transition and he is going to kind Go after

the gnostics and their belief systems here, because what the

gnostics believed. Remember if you guys, you know,

weeks ago, they looked at how the spiritual and the material

or separated. They were like, Jesus can't be

100% man, and 100% God. And John is fighting that.

So, he gives these taste like, no, like, if you're a follower

of Christ, you're going to be repentant, you're going to hate

sin morality, you're going to look at morality differently

than the way you guys see it. And You guys go around and you

claim to be enlightened and you're starting to throw this

bad theology out there and John comes at them with these tests.

And this next test is going to kind of be a part of one of the

tests that John gives and it's about love, but I want to kind

of talk from the subject. The love that God hates Because

even though God is love, the love that God hates is when we

have love for the world. And that's something that they

were like Well Ricky that's kind of a stretch.

And I'm like no it's not bro. It's like in the word, it's

right here. So we have got to walk through

this and we got to try to understand with John is trying

to tell us when it comes to following Christ because there's

a dichotomy here, there's a positive, there's going to be,

you're going to see a lot of positive positive terms and

words that can also be negative as well.

So what John is saying is like as Fellow Christians.

We are to be filled with the love of God.

So if we're filled with the love of God, therefore we cannot be

filled with the love of the world.

The Bible is very clear. Like, there's your one of two

sets here. God the Father we belong to him

or you belong to the light. The prince of light, who is

Satan? Jesus talks about this.

So there's no ands ifs or buts about it.

You're like, no Rick. I don't belong to anybody, I

don't believe in anything. You just claimed your dad.

You're either with God, our you're not with God, there's no

gray area here. And if you're not filled with

the love of God then you're filled with the love of the

world and what he's going to call out here is that Believers

in Christ cannot be filled with both it's impossible and we have

got to fight this. Look at James 4:4.

James 4:4

I'm just going to go and read it for time sake.

It says you adulterous people don't you know, that friendship.

The ship with the world means, enmity against God.

Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world

becomes? An enemy of God, John is warning

us and you're like, will recount.

We supposed to be in the world. Yes, you're supposed to be in

the world but not of it. You supposed to be in the

darkness. We're supposed to be light, but

you're not supposed to be like the darkness.

It makes no sense. So let's go ahead and dive into

it. So God John is in verse 15, he's

going to give us a command in this text the derivative the

command is do not love the world period and then he's going to

tell us the reasons why you should not love the world and

that's where we're going today. So, look at verse 15.

Do not love the world or anything in the world.

So, first thing off, immediately, what we see here is

that John is giving what we call a derivative.

This is a command statement, this isn't anything that's

subjective. This is not an opinion.

There's no conditions tied to the statement.

This is straight up truth. He's like, listen, if he's

addressing the children, so let's connect all the dots.

If you are a follower of Christ, he's telling you, do not love

the world or anything in the world.

So, the world, there's a Greek word.

Now, the New Testament was written in Greek, that's why we

always reference the Greek, a lot.

So the Greek word for the world here is what we call Cosmos or

Cosmos is kind of what you get that out of.

A lot of you guys have heard that word before Cosmos.

So what this word means is the world of existence a way of

life. So what John is not saying he's

not saying, do not love the physical world, the created

world, you guys get that, right? He's not saying not, don't love

God's creation, You can't say that because in Genesis and the

beginning, God said, let there be light and he created all

these things at at the end of his creative piece to it.

He said and he looked at everything and said it is good.

So you can't hate anything that God already claims.

It's good. So he's not talking about that

world. He's also not talking the

cosmos. He's not talking about the world

of humanity. God loves people and we are to

love people to. We are to love everyone.

Love your neighbor as yourself. We are to love those.

Why? Because even while we were still

Sinners, when we were still enemies of God, he still chose

to die for us. That's the greatest act of love

that anyone can give. So we are to love people.

We are to care for people where to have compassion for people,

but we're not to love their sin. See, love does not mean that you

conform to the things of the world.

You're not accepting of its ideologies and you're not

accepting of its philosophies and you're not saying that's how

you think. Wonderful know, I love you as a

person. And but I don't agree and I

don't love your sin. And that's what he's claiming

here. So what world what Cosmos is

John talking about? So what John's referring to here

is like he say do not love the world's spiritual systems, do

not love the world spiritual systems.

Why? Because the world spiritual

systems are governed by the prince of the world who is

Satan? Now, I know this seems kind of

trippy for a lot of us, but this is the reality of the world we

live in because of Genesis chapter 3, we live in a sinful

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

world. This is the same exact system

that John that Jesus talks about in John chapter 15 verses 18,

John 15:18

where he says if the world hates, you know, that it hated

me first that it hated me before it hated you.

But then he talks about this in chapter 16 of John where he

said, As but take heart for I have overcome this Cosmos, he

said I have overcome the world. What he's really saying is I

have overcomed this worlds, spiritual system that is driven

by Satan. I'm over sin.

I'm over all of this. I have overcome all of this mess

because I am God. So these are the so what he's

saying is like, listen, you're not supposed to love the

ideologies and the Enterprises that stimulate the Fallen

Humanity. So anything that goes against

the word of God, the name of God, the will of God, the plan

of God or God's creation. You're not supposed to love it.

You're not supposed to tie your name to that stuff.

You're not supposed to point at it and be like, yes, this is

wonderful. You can't love that.

It should actually break your heart.

When you see something like that, the Holy Spirit should

stir in you. And you should feel heartbroken

that somebody's outside of the will of God, because you know

where that's going to lead. And we're going to see why he's

telling us this. So if anyone loves the world,

the love of the father is not in them.

The love of the father is not in them, so we see this.

So a genuine Christian is marked.

Bye. Love, we love people.

That's, that's what we were marked with.

Not just love, but we're also marked with an obedience to our

King, whose Jesus and obedience to God.

A non-believer is marked by Rebellion against a holy and

righteous God. Non-believers don't care for

God, they don't care for anything spiritual because

everything is about self. So if you're a Believer, you

should be marked by love and obedience to holy and righteous

God. But if your non-believer your

life is going to be marked with a rebellion against the holy and

righteous God, So, if you're in love with the world, you're just

not in love with the world. You're also enslaved to the

world. You're you're enslaved to this

control of the world and you're okay with it.

And here's the problem. The false teachers of this time

they were all about the world's philosophies and ideologies they

actually like put that in their own lives and they were actually

bleeding it out. They were like man this is

great, everything leads to God, I'm in line.

You should listen to me and they were just spitting all this

stuff out. Out and John is like know if, if

you love God you do not love the world.

You're not okay with this. Look at verse 16 now.

We're going to get into it. For everything in the world.

So now he gave us the derivative the command don't love the

world, you should love God. Now he's going to give us the

why for everything in the world. And there's three things he's

going to mention the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and

the pride of life, The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes

and the pride of life comes not from the father, but the world.

So all these worlds, philosophies and ideologies and

everything that it appears very attractive, it's wrapped in a

nice. Big bow for you.

It's always looks great. It always is fun.

It's like yeah, this is the way we should do things, but what

we're going to see in verse 17 is that it leads to destruction.

I mean you you're just throwing your money in a black hole it

makes no sense. So he's saying, all these things

are going to actually end up ruining you, and he's about to

expose Satan and his plan and how he does these things.

There's a deceptiveness in loving the world, but we love

the world because there's an attractiveness that comes with

our sinful nature. So there's things in our lives

that we point to That we're like, that's not that bad.

And a little bit at a time Satan uses this Not to destroy you

quickly but to pull you away slowly because he knows that.

If he could just keep pulling you away, pulling you away

pulling you away. You're not just going to destroy

your body. You're not going to destroy your

family, you're not going to just destroy your relationships, but

at the end of it all, you're going to destroy your faith. and

if he does that, Then. It's exactly what he wanted to

do. So, let's walk through this

thing, because this is so fascinating to me, in the more,

I studied this. I'm like, wow, this is, this is

wild stuff. This makes sense.

So, look at the first one was, what comes from the world is?

Number one is the lust of the flesh.

You're like, Well, Ricky, what does that even mean?

What's the lust of the flesh? So the word lust here is

actually the Greek is translated as epithelium.

Apathy me us are. There you go.

EP ithu, Mia epithelial. Um yeah I don't I can you say

that right now but I know what it means.

All right. So so there's a specific word

that he uses as the word lust. Now here's what's Wild.

This word can be used positively or negatively.

Like I'm married, right? So I lust after my wife.

Amen. Married people.

Right? So, I have this epidemia toward

my wife like, I am attracted to her.

I want to hit that. All right, thank you.

All right. Y'all are here.

All right, so Rachel's, like what does that even mean so

violent? I want to I want I want that

lust is going to move me into action and that's a positive

thing. Why is that positive?

Because Dad is a sexuality that God has intended for listen.

Anything sexual outside of the marriage bed, is a sin toward

God. So, if anything inside of that

marriage bed, man, that glorifies God, that glorifies

his creation of sex. It actually, it's a Real thing.

And husbands, you should lust after your wives.

There it is. I come on.

I gave you a second chance here, man.

Come on fellas and wives. You should lust after your

husband to, that's a good thing that pleases the Lord.

But if you lust outside of that marriage bed it leads to - it

leads to sin. That leads to destruction.

You see a fire is good when it's in a fireplace when it's used

for its methods. But If it's outside, it causes

destruction, it burns things, it hurts things.

So, this word lust can either be negative or positive, but in

this context of lust of the flesh.

It's - why is it - because this impulse in US, is leading to

transgressions Anything that leads to a transgression is

negative because we are sinning against a holy and righteous

God. So what he's saying is that the

lust of the flesh, there's something that is so sensual,

there's something that's so appealing to our flesh, that is

causing us to act on it. So what is the flesh that John

is talking about? The flesh is our Humanity, our

sinful Essence, our sinful nature.

You might hear stuff like the heart wants what the heart

wants. But here's the issue with that.

Jeremiah 17:9 says that the heart is deceitful above all

Jeremiah 17:9

things and Beyond cure who can understand my God.

So there's what Satan does. He uses the lust that we have in

a negative light? The thing that draws us to

transgressions. He uses that he pulls that away,

And he turns it to the flesh instead of himself.

He turns it to transgressions, instead of pleasing acts of

holiness. So we need to be paid and we

need to pay close attention to this.

So number one, he says the lust of the flesh.

Number two, he says the lust of the eyes so he uses the same

word, empathy Mia, but he now he's throwing in the eyes.

So it's not this thing that's drawing to our sinful nature in

her heart and the things that we want individually, which is

going against God, but now he's putting in the eyes.

So first, It's the sinful disposition of man that's going

to bring us to this evil World system, and now he's going to

use our eyes. Satan uses our eyes, very, very

strategically to incite wrongful desires.

You know, eyes are a gift of God.

A lot of people say, eyes are the windows to the soul.

But sometimes Satan uses our eyes to see the things that

tempt us and when we see the things that tempt us and attract

us, it actually incites an action in us where a lot of

times we don't want to do nothing until we see it.

You know, I notice about this, like yesterday we had a father

and daughter dance, and I told the girls I was like, Hey, after

this, we're going to go get ice cream.

And of course, the Lena was like, whoa, and then Livia was

like just running laps anyway. So I was like, don't tell live

yet, she gonna throw scene. But you see how say we're going

to get ice cream and it was fine but it wasn't until they saw all

the flavors of ice cream that they were like banging on the

glass and like just going like, I don't know which one like the

excitement arose because they were able to see what I entice

them with you see? So that's kind of how Satan

Works. He knows what we want.

He knows what we're what we're grounded to, he knows what our

heart. Wants.

And yes, we think about it. We like, oh man, that sounds

good. But then you're able to see it

and he put stuff in front of you that you're just like, bam.

And you're like, oh I I want to do it now.

I want to see it now, I want this now.

And there's so many examples in scripture, I'll give you guys

two examples in the Bible where we see this Lot's wife, she

missed used her eyes. In the Old Testament, she missed

used her eyes and God killed her as a result.

He told law and his family's. Like I want you to run from the

city do not look at the city. Don't turn.

Don't look at it and what does w like?

Lot's wife do. And she becomes a pillar of

salt. We also see this with David in

second, Samuel chapter 11, David's on the rooftop, minding

his own business and he sees somebody taking a shower, her

name is Bathsheba And subsequently, he commits

adultery with her. And he pays severely for his sin

with the remainder of his life. It goes bad for him, it's hard

for him. All it took was for him to view

that. And he acted on it.

And not just on top of that. But in order for him to cover

his tracks, what does he do? He has Uriah killed you, see how

it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse and listen.

That's no different with David did.

All he did was he just cleared his browser history?

We do the same thing. We see things, we should not be

seeing we see things. That entice us to do things that

don't honor God. And what we end up doing is we

try to clear that path and think everything is going to be made,

okay? But our flesh is still flesh.

It's still there. So, yeah, you might feel better

for a little bit, but just give it time.

Because if it's not taken care of the lust of the flesh, the

lust of the eyes. And then the last thing that

Satan uses is the pride of life, man.

This one's hard like we could I don't sound too bad.

How many of you guys like to admit?

You're wrong. How many fights have we've

gotten over? About being wrong or right pride

is serious pride is hard, pride is a real issue.

She was going to raise my hand to we beat me to it.

Alright, so I like yeah man I don't pry too serious.

So what does the pride of life mean?

Pride of life means that you think that you can do it

yourself. So the reality is that the

appropriate response is a humility and a gratitude to God,

he's the one that's all Sovereign.

He's the one that's all powerful.

He's the one that is making all of this work in the cosmos, but

with the pride of life does is that it points all back to you.

I'm the one that did this, I'm the one that's making this

happen. Like you forget like God you

like you talk like. God is small or something.

And no. But that's the biggest lie that

Satan uses. He puts it on you so that way

you could go parade around and like you want to impress people.

And you forget to give glory and honor to God.

Romans chapter 1, verses 22 through 25 says this best we end

Romans 1:22–25

up praising and worshipping the creation instead of the creator.

That's what the pride of life is, that's what the pride of

life does. We give too much credit to the

creation and we forgo the Creator.

So I want us to look at this because this is, this is so

fascinating and what he's saying in verse 16 is like, all these

things are not of the father. They don't belong to God because

they lead to transgressions and they lead to destruction and

everything about God is love and everything about God is

following him and everything about God is good.

So that's my question to us. How do I know I'm stuck in a

world system? What fruit are you bearing?

Think about the fruit that's coming out of your life, is it

good? Is it pleasing?

Is it honorable? Or is it struggle?

Real is nothing working. Are you stuck in a cycle of sin?

That's destroying you. That's not of God.

This is right? We've got to, we have got to

acknowledge it. So the world is the enemy of a

Christian because it is rebellion in up.

Opposition against God and it's controlled by Satan.

How does Satan do this? And I'll find a couple examples.

There's three things flesh, eyes and pride, I'm going to keep

repeating the store so that way it could sink into our.

Our heads here flesh is the humanity.

The functions of humanity that's based off of the desires of our

heart. It's what we want.

It's what the self wants, what the heart wants, which is evil.

The eyes individual seek to have more than others.

You start seeing things and you want it to happen, right?

It entices us. But then the pride hits.

And that's what the files, God. We become arrogant.

We act like God has been dethroned.

We're the ones that run the universe.

This is Satan's game plan. This is how he plays us.

This is how he draws us into sin.

This is how he makes his fall in love with the world.

So two quick start like, so you like will recover, how does

this? Genesis chapter 3 and I'm going

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

to run through this for time sake, but we see this with the

fall of Man, Genesis 3:6, the devil appeal appealed to Eve's

Genesis 3:6

desire for food. That's the lust of the flesh.

God told him, you can do anything you want to, but just

don't eat out of this tree. So what does he do, man, I want

something good appeals to her desire to want something and

then he shows her something attractive says that that fruit

was like really, like it looked real good.

I always think of like the fruit and Avatar.

You know, they like Malachi like, man.

That is good stuff. So it appeals to its

attractiveness. That's the lust of the eyes and

then her desire to have wisdom and knowledge to be like God

that's the pride of the flesh. See how this works and I'll even

take you one more. Luke Chapter 4 verses verses 12

Luke 4 · chapter mention

to 13. Jesus is about to start his

ministry after he gets. Baptized he gets set to the

wilderness. For 40 days and 40 nights.

And at that time Satan is they're tempting him.

What does Satan appeal to checked?

His house is so well, number one, he appeals to God's Jesus

Humanity by saying, hey aren't you hungry?

If your God, take this rock and make a bread?

His Humanity right there. That's the lust of the flesh.

Number two, his eyes. The lust of the eyes.

Satan tells Jesus. Look at all this stuff.

Look how beautiful this place is.

If you bow to me, I will give you everything.

The lust of the eyes and then he goes to the pride where he tells

Jesus. You know what?

If you jump off this cliff and if you're God you jump off this

cliff and all these angels come and save you.

Man, people really know who you are.

If Jesus were to do that, he would have presumed protection

from God. And he would have gained a

little bit more Prestige. Knowing people see, people think

that he landed safely that's the pride of the flesh.

So when all of this hits us, how do we fight it the same way?

Jesus did, what does Jesus do? He quotes scripture, you

Testament every time Satan threw something at him, he knew God's

word and he uses that. Hey, make this bread up man

shall not live off, brother, bread alone.

Everything so understanding God, knowing God's word, helps us

fight. That that whole thing about

loving the world. When we We love the world and

listen, we're off. We've got to love God.

And then the last verse, look at verse 17.

The world and his desires pass away.

But whoever does the will of God lives forever.

See the John is giving two extreme examples.

He was like, listen. So Satan is using this scheme to

pull you away from the love of God.

He wants you to love the world, so he's going to give you the

desires of your flesh, the desires of your eyes and the

pride of, man, And what John is saying is like, be careful

because that world that you're loving so much.

It's going to die. It's going to go away.

It's going to pass. That word passing away.

That Greek word is periya go, which means to disappear.

When sin entered this world, this world the world that we

live in. Now the cosmos has begun a path

to disappear this world that we live in right now is not going

to be around forever. You could put electric cars in

every single person. It's still going to disappear.

You could do whatever you want to.

It is on a way out. It's on its way to

self-destruction and what God is saying to us.

What John is saying is like listen don't feed into something

that is going to go away. Don't pour into the temporary,

but if you love God, the kingdom of God is forever.

This is what you sow into this is what you put your life into.

This is not temporary. God's will is permanent and it's

unchangeable. This is what you want to feed

right here. This is what you want to tell

your life to. This is why we do what we do.

The Bible says that we are our life on this world.

It's nothing but a vapor here. One moment gone.

The next It's going to disappear in Jesus is going to come back

one day and he is going to replace this sinful world with

Glory. So there's a contrast, the world

will disappear. So why are we feeding into a?

Why we love in that? Except you should love the

kingdom because that is permanent that will not change.

I know, three heavy versus and I started to think as we kind of

wrap things up here is Satan uses this whole system.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of man,

the luster. And I started thinking, man.

That's the question that we need to ask ourselves is what is the

fruit that our lives are giving. How do I know that I am stuck in

this world system that is run by Satan and not by God, how do I

know? This because I'm looking around.

And the more that I do stuff out in the more, I meet people and

stuff in the community, we've become so numb to our sin that

we think Brokenness is normal. And yes, sin has entered the but

but think about it, like we're cool with broken relationships.

Like we're okay with marriages being crippled and and we're

like abuse and hey man, addictions is there just fine.

I mean they just that's just who we are, its built-in us, there's

a genetic disposition, that's why I'm addicted.

Which is a bunch of crap anyway. Families are broken.

There's heard, there's abused, there's illness their sickness.

There's all these things. There's people that are

struggling with their identity. I don't know if I'm a guy or a

girl. Really, where is all this coming

from how we struggling with our sexuality?

How, what's wrong with us? And the problem is, what's wrong

with us? Is us We are sinful and the

answer is Christ. And we've got to start talking

about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride

of life. So, yeah, you know, I want to go

ahead and say that. Like, yeah, Ricky.

I'm depressed. I have anxiety.

I have self-esteem issues. But yeah, but all you do is

watch porn hub, Netflix and World of Warcraft.

So, what's wrong? You can't just blame things on

this world, why? Because this world system is

corrupt. So if you're trying to find an

answer to humanity in this world, it's not going to work.

It's actually going to keep you going in circles.

Satan offers to keep you there. How Because we have to look at

some deeper wounds in our lives. So yeah, you know what?

Like my I was I was an abusive relationship.

I didn't have a father growing up.

I was hurt. I was backstabbed.

And what Satan does is, instead of offering you freedom from

that sin, he gives you what the flesh wants.

How do I feel better about myself?

Here comes the lust of the flesh, you know, man.

Like you should take this, this will actually help numb you a

little bit and I'm good. Here comes the lust of the eyes.

Boom, this is what it looks like.

Awesome. I'm going to numb myself now and

then I'm going to give you the pride of man.

Dude, you need some help. No, I don't I'm fine.

I controlled anytime I want to. Really.

And then next time you have a bad day at work.

Next time you have a fight at home.

Next time, something goes wrong. It's the same exact cycle.

Next thing, you know, you look up and your life is destroyed.

Your family is destroyed. Your health is destroyed.

And then your faith is destroyed.

Why? Because you've given in to the

flesh, The Eyes Of Love, the lust of the eyes and the pride

of Flesh. We've got to start looking at

the deeper issue because there's a lot of us were walking around

with some deep wounds that have not been addressed and you're

not going to heal the wound. What you're doing is you're

buying into the LIE of Satan saying, Hey, listen, here's a

way for you to make yourself feel better, lust of the flesh,

lust of the eyes pride of man and you feel better for a little

bit until you fall off. Again, it's a Annual cycle

saying is offering to keep you there, but Jesus is offering

real freedom. How to say and keep you there

because he's like, men do what you want, fix it yourself.

And what Jesus says is, no give it to me.

I'm going to do it for you saying is like, no, but look at

the beauty of the world and Jesus like, no, look at the

beauty of the cross. Saying is like invest in

yourself. It's important and she's like no

don't invest in yourself. Don't even invest in this world.

It's going to disappear. You invest in the Kingdom.

You invest in me and watch me, invest in you.

Saying says stuff. Like it's okay, man, you got

this. You got this.

You can do this. You're not weak and Jesus says,

no, I got this. You can't do it, but I can Last

thing the saying says, we'll get to work, hurry up you're not

grinding hard enough and what Jesus says is like stop working

so hard, repent and let me do it.

You see the dichotomy here, the differences here.

And what John is pointing at? Is he saying, listen, if you

love the world, if you support the world, if you love it's

ideologies, if you love everything, the world says, if

you're like cheering on sin, that he's like, not the love of

the father, is not in you because that's not stuff, that

God who loves and it leads to destruction.

That's the bottom line. So we have these deep wounds, we

have these, we're marked with some hard stuff in our lives and

on, with this This little show that I know some of y'all watch

called it's called Yellowstone where you know talking about

Yellowstone man. I saw this.

It was just kind of playing in the background and there was a

scene that caught my attention. And since season 1 episode 4,

just in case you wanted nothing. But there's this cowboy on

yellow stars. Name is Jimmy and he's kind of a

puny little guy but he's part of the family now.

So Jimmy's on this Ranch and he's like, yes, in the way that

Jim, they know that Jim he's part of the crew is that he has

that brand on him. He has that Yellowstone brand

and there's an episode where there's like some guys working

and they're kind of picking on Jimmy because he's kind of like

a little like he's grinding and too small.

And he tried to fight. But then, rip wheeler shows up.

Now, rip is like, the metal metal guy.

Like, he's the one in charge and rip shows up and he drops the

dude and he starts fighting for Jimmy.

And he looks at the guys, like you want to fight somebody?

I'll fight you all do, right? And you're like, yeah, rib, get

them. What's interesting is as Jimmy

stands up and he's all beat up and bloody and stuff.

And after Rim Fire's the guy he looks at Jimmy and he says Jimmy

there's a thousand of them just like them.

That work here. They're going to come and go.

He goes, but you're a branded man that means that you're going

to die here. Because you're branded.

Man, I saw that and I was like, man, isn't that the pride of

man? There's some of us in this room

that we've been wounded so badly that we have a brand on us, we

have a scar on us and what Satan does.

He tells you? He's like no no no you see this

world? You're going to die here because

you've been branded You're an addict, that's who you are.

You're damaged goods. You're a drug addict.

You're you've been abused. Nobody's going to want you.

That's The Branding that I've put on your life and all these

people are going to come and go, but you're going to die here.

And I wonder if we start shifting our wounds a little bit

and start letting if we Let Jesus, take our scars and wounds

because for some of us, we look at it.

We're like, man, that's a reminder, Satan reminds us of

who we are, and listen to me. Wounds are not a reminder of

your hurt, their reminder of your healing and a lot of us,

see our scars and we're like, nah man.

I've been hurt before. Like this is what happened.

I got shot here and I got shot here.

No, and we got a shot. Shift our focus and say no.

Like this is where God was faithful.

This is where he saved me man. This is where like he pulled me

out. Like I should have been divorced

by now, but he saved this. So when sayings like, no, you're

a branded. You're going to die in this

world. You're like, no, I'm not.

Jesus comes in and you're like, no, this doesn't mean that I

belong here. This means that I got rescue

from here. I'm not going to die in this

world. I'm asking to live in this world

and I'm going to live a life that's pleasing to the Lord

fulfilling to God. And I'm going to honor him with

my life. Scars are not a reminder of her

through. There are a reminder of those

who were healed. And I wonder this morning if

there's some of us in this room that are like, you know what?

Ricky I I'm tired of the cycle. I am ready to be free.

I'm tired of this cycle. I'm tired of saying, oh, he's

pointing to like, man, this is who I am.

I'm branded as ABC, fill in the blank.

And I think some of us need to get free today.

Some of us need to be free today.

This is what I'm going to do is we're going to pray and as we

worship, if you need somebody to pray with.

If you need somebody to talk to listen, we're a small Church,

man. Nobody's going to be, we're

family here. We talked about this last week.

We don't struggle alone. If you need somebody to pray

with you, man, I'll pray with. You got my dad back there.

We have Rachel. We have some people that want to

just pray for you. Stephen will pray for you guys.

Some of us we just need some time to reflect.

That's how good that's we're going to worship together here

but I just want to let you know today that there is freedom in

Christ. Don't love the world, love God,

the world leads to nothing. God leads to everything.

We pray for us. Father, we love you Jesus.

Thank you because you are a faithful God.

And and Lord, even when Satan reminds us of our wounds scene

reminds us that we've been branded because of our sin Lord.

I pray that you Remind us that we have been forgiven.

We've been healed, we've been restored.

Father, that we have a story to tell that we've witnessed your

goodness on our lives. so Lord, I pray that as we as we spend

time with worship that the Holy Spirit began to move in our

lives, father, and that were able to put aside the pride of

man and come to the throne humbly and broken.

So Jesus, we love you and we praise you for all these things.

Amen, it's worship together. and come to the throne humbly and

broken. So Jesus, we love you and we

praise you for all these things. Amen, it's worship together.