Sermon Central
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Are You An Enemy Of God?
Contributed by Joe Rowland on Aug 10, 2009 (message contributor)
Summary: The world will try to kiss us with the kiss of death; we have to stay focused on Jesus as believers. We have to tell the world “NO WE ARE MARRIED”, we are married in a sense to Jesus! Are you an enemy of God?
Are You An Enemy Of God?
1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Our bodies are made of flesh and blood. Since this is the case, we have wars within our members.
My spirit wants to do what is right, but my flesh is weak and without help from God, I might give in to what my flesh wants to do.
There is only one solution for the problems that we have, and that is to understand that all things come to us from God through the Cross.
When the Cross and what Jesus did upon it becomes the object of our faith, this gives the Holy Spirit latitude to work within our lives in order that we might live the life we ought to live.
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
Romans 6:12 and 13 says:
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
James 4:2 says:
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
Such a person is not looking to God but rather operating from self will.
The word kill in verse two refers to destroying the reputation of another in order to gain advantage and do so by slander.
Ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not; this refers to believers who little seek the Lord for anything, but they depend upon other sources.
Verse three says: Ye ask, and receive not, and there is a reason, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
The person who does this is not asking for the will of God, but rather from his or her own selfish desires.
4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
This presents James using the same terminology as Paul in Romans 7:1-4.
The believer is to look exclusively to Christ regarding all of his needs; to look elsewhere presents the person committing spiritual adultery.
Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?
If Christ is not strictly the object of our faith God looks at everything else as worldliness.
According to verse four, whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
A believer does not act the way that the world acts, a believer in Jesus does not do what the world does.
If we are a friend of the world and what it has to offer, then we are an enemy of God.
Are you an enemy of God?
Dream 8-3-09
I dreamed that we were at Dad’s. A party was going on. I was sitting in the living room. Two girls started dancing. One of them was trying to get me to pay attention to her. She leaned over to kiss me; I yelled out, “NO, I AM MARRIED”. The girl ran out of the room. The Lord gave me this scripture:
