Worldliness is against being like Jesus
ALL I NEED TO LEARN ABOUT LIFE I LEARNED FROM THE EASTER BUNNY!
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Everyone needs a friend who is all ears. There’s no such thing as too much candy. All work and no play can make you a basket case. A cute little tail attracts a lot of attention. Everyone is entitled to a bad hare day. Let happy thoughts multiply like rabbits. Some body parts should be floppy. Keep you paws off other people’s jellybeans. Good things come in small-sugarcoated packages. The grass is greener in someone else’s basket. An Easter bonnet can tame even the wildest hare. To show your true colors you have to come out of the shell. The best things in life are still sweet and gooey.
THE RICH FAMILY IN CHURCH by Eddie Ogan. I’ll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money. By 1946, my older sisters were married and my brothers had left home. A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. When we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn’t listen to the radio, we’d save money on that month’s electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents, we could buy enough cotton loops to make three potholders to sell for $1. We made $20 on potholders. That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night, we’d sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering. The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn’t care that we wouldn’t have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn’t own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn’t seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet. But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt rich. When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20. As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch, Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn’t say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn’t talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn’t have our Mom and Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night. We had two knifes that we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn’t have many things that other people had, but I’d never thought we were poor. That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn’t like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed--I didn’t even want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor! I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally, on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn’t know. We’d never known we were poor. We didn’t want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn’t talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church, we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can’t we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn’t expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church." Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100." We were the rich family in the church! Hadn’t the missionary said so? From that day on, I’ve never been poor again. I’ve always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus! By Willard Caddell, who was a very rich man?
We began a series from 2 Pt 1 5-7 on what we are to add to our faith. We have spoken on faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance and are working on godliness. I ask the question what is the opposite of godliness in your thinking? Something that might come to your mind right off is demonism or acting like the devil seeing he is nothing like God. I want to direct you to some scripture to show you what we need to be aware of as what goes against being godly. 1 JN 2:16, Mt 16:26, COL 3:2 and James 4:4. The word we see here is worldliness. We could also use the word Self-centeredness or selfishness. This is displayed in our craving, over desire for things and boasting about ourselves. It shows when a person gets what he wants when he wants it and making a big deal about it. John Wesley put his is words like this, “Worldliness is anything that keeps us from worshiping God. Some one has said the only thing that keeps one from coming to church is sin and that is because you choose not to worship God. That is pretty strong words but consider it in your minds. The Devil does not want you to come to church and hear God’s word. Another quote about worldliness is “Whatever makes one think that resisting or ignoring God will give more satisfaction than obeying him.”
We need to understand that worldliness is not the same as earthiness. Earthiness has to do with us being human with limitations, weaknesses, shortcomings, imperfections, flaws and the needs we have as people made in the image of God. Worldliness denies our humanness in that it says we are our own god and do not need Him. The cure to not being worldly and live in the path of godliness is to be more human. It is to live in complete dependence on God. We do not have to fake who we really are. Being godly is a beautiful thing. I want to see two things we need to pursue in being godly and opposing worldliness.
1. We need to look intently at Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. As you abide more and more in him you will become more like Him. When I read about Jesus and He came to difficult situations he would not directly answer the ones who confronted him but asked them a question. When you have as struggle with the things of this world ask a question. Would Jesus want me to do this? Would I do it if He were watching me? Jesus did not care so much about what others thought about Him but lived a life that pleased His Father knowing that kind of life would justify the way he lived. He lived a righteous life and lathes Father deal with the hearts of men. Do you remember that the word says He was tempted in all points just as we are yet without sin? Be like Jesus as we read in James 4:8 “Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you.” Romans 12:1-2
2. It takes daily discipline. The Bible says one needs to die to self daily. This means being faithful in the small things. What are the small things/ let me suggest a few. Devotions each day with reading the Bible and praying. Giving your best where you work even if the boss is not around or your fellow workers slack off in their work. Take time to help others. Always be honest. Set your mind to think positive thoughts. Take time to plan what you are going to give in the offering in church before you come. Take time to sing songs that will help your mind think on Jesus. “For God so loved the world, He gave His only son. To die on Calvary’s tree, from sin to set me free. Some day He is coming back what glory that will be. Wonderful his love to me.”
I met Jesus at the cross roads where the two ways meet. Satan saw me standing there and said come this way, lots and lots of pleasures I will off offer you today. But I said no! There is Jesus here see what he offers me. Down here my sins forgive, up there a home in heaven. Praise God that’s the life for me.” Each day you make the decision to be more like Jesus or be worldly and deny being godly.
One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?" "It was great, Dad." "Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked. "Oh yeah, “said the son. "So, tell me, what you learned from the trip?" asked the father. The son answered: "I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us; they have friends to protect them." The boy’s father was speechless. Then his son added, "Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are." Isn’t perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don’t have.
