A Righteous Man In A Sinful World

A RIGHTEOUS MAN IN A SINFUL WORLD

2 Cor 6:14-18

Gen 39:1-7

One of the biggest challenges that face believers these days is how to stay righteous in a very sinful world. The truth is that sin is pleasurable no matter how much you pretend that it is not. It is great temptation that we face on a daily basis not to fall into sin. Heb 11:24 says that by faith, Moses when he came to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Verse 26 says esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. The truth about sin is that the pleasure is only for a season and the thing that really endures is the blessing of God. That is why we are told in Prov 10:22 that the blessing of The Lord maketh rich and addeth no sorrow with it.

The truth is that the gospel that is generally preached in the present at church deals with the issue of blessings, miracles and prosperity and God has been doing great things along these lines in the lives of believers, even the biggest cynics cannot deny the awesome power of God that is at work in the lives of believers. However, where the challenge now comes is that as our people are getting blessed and getting very exposed many of them are unprepared on how to deal with the challenge that comes with the new lifestyles that they adopt. Let me create a scenario for us. When we just gave our lives to Christ things were still pretty rough and our lifestyle was restricted to going to hustle, get back home and go to church. You did not have money for the other luxuries of life and the temptations that come with it. However, as you progressed in faith and grace, God started to bless you and this also came with it new exposures. You can now afford the highest level of electronics in your house, overseas travels and exposures and new friends who are not necessarily believers. At the highest level of life you cannot be secluded and you must have close interactions with all types of people. In fact you will have the opposite sex literally throwing themselves at you. You will have amazing attention from ladies who can win beauty contests anywhere in the world. It is even worse when you are not in Nigeria, where some of these ladies look like the ones that you see in fashion magazines, very clean.

There is also the lure of the corruption that is in the world. In a bid to remain competitive in the business world, you are often under pressure to make compromises. A little concealment can make all the difference in making hundreds of millions or even billions in a transaction. It may be easier to deal with when you are on you own, where you can just walk out of it and no one will question your discretion. But what happens when you are in the employment of someone and walking out of such a deal may cost you your job. Remember that you are now living a great lifestyle provided for by the job which you are doing. The house is on mortgage, the cars were purchased by loan funded by the job and guaranteed by the office and the children are in posh schools that you cannot afford if you do not have the job. In order words, you are a slave in Egypt.

The only problem is that you do not know that you are a slave already in Egypt. The bible said concerning Joseph that he was a prosperous man, but he was a slave in the house of his master in Egypt. That was a very difficult situation and condition to live in. The problem will always be, how can a righteous man survive in a sinful world? How can Joseph keep up with the principles of the word of God so as not to compromise his faith knowing that he would always be under pressure to compromise. How can you stay righteous in a market place that is rife with sharp practices and manipulations? How can you hang out with friends and not indulge in the things which they all do? How can you restrain yourself from keeping the girlfriends that they keep and all kinds of fashionable things which are contrary to the word of God? If faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word, fear and iniquity also comes by hearing and hearing from the devil through the company that you keep. After a while, the things which you have always seen as completely wrong will now seem permissible and you will even begin to look for scripture to back our actions. So many of us have shipwrecked our lives simply because we could not keep the faith in a sinful world. It is often difficult to tell a man who is being apparently blessed that his lifestyle is wrong, especially when things are still going well until the inevitable happens to him. At this stage of your life everyone is telling you of how good God has been to you and how much of a wonderful person you are and no one is likely to tell you where you are missing it because of one or two things that they are getting from you. As a pastor, one of the things that I hate telling my members is, did I not warn you? I hate it because at that stage, what he really needs is encouragement and solution to his predicament. But the truth is that you must tell him so that he would not fall into that error again.