Helps and hinderances in motivation for the Lord Jesus Christ. A few weeks and services ago we began to study and look at what might help motivate us for Christ. What were they? Bible prophecies concerning Jesus coming again. Heaven. Hell.
Tonight, I want us to look at the opposite, not what helps motivate us, but what hinders us from serving the Lord.
1. Satan, yes, John 10:10, but Satan can only influence us. He can never control us.
2. How does he influence us? How does he cause us to grow apathetic in our service? It is the world.
3. Tonight, I want us to look at the power of the world. 2 Timothy 4:10, Demas did not plan to forsake Paul and the work of the Lord, the world is powerful.
I. Introduction
1. The people in the early church changed their world. Today the world is changing the church.
2. Christ put the church in the world, but Satan has put the world in the church.
3. The word world really means anything that comes between you and Christ.
4. One step further, if Jesus is not first in your life, then you are becoming worldly. Matthew 6:33
5. The world separates you from Christ. 2 Corinthians 6:17
6. Satan uses the world against Christ, the church, and all Christians.
7. I believe this is the number one reason why some never can get motivated for the cause of Christ.
II. The Call of the World
1. Two forces are calling us: the world and Jesus. There is no middle ground.
2. Call to serve, John 8:34
a. Those who practice sin are the servants to sin. Really means slaves to sin.
b. Not only practice sin, but let sin linger in your mind. Romans 6:11-13
c. Luke 9:23; Jesus also calls, but few surrender.
3. Why is the call of the world so powerful? We are full of things the world can touch.
a. 1 Peter 2:11
b. We love self and the world. Greater than the love we have for God. 2 Timothy 3:4, Luke 12:19
III. The Character of the World
1. 2 Corinthians 4:4, blinds and deceives.
2. James 1:13-15, tempted, drawn away by own lust, then comes sin, then comes death, and in the end, it will destroy you.
3. Mark 8:36, many in responding to the call of the world have damned their own soul to a Devil’s hell.
4. 1 Timothy 4:2, the world will deaden your conscience, no feeling, no heart.
5. The character of the world is this; It deceives, it destroys, it damns, and it deadens…
IV. The Control of the World
1. The world can control your attitude. James 4:4, it makes you an enemy of God.
2. 1 Timothy 6:10, it can control our appetite, self before God, Luke 9:57-62
3. 1 John 2:15-17, control our affections, we lose our love for God.
4. The world controls our attitude our appetite and our affections the world has control on us.
V. The Contamination of the World
1. You can not play with fire and not get burned, play with coal, and not get black and you can not play with the world and not be defiled.
2. Romans 1:21, defiles the head, knew about God, but forgot him.
3. Matthew 15:19, defiles the heart.
4. It defiles your habits.
VI. The Cleansing from the World
1. 2 Corinthians 7:1, Cleanse self.
2. Romans 12:2; not conformed to this world. How?
a. The mind is the battlefield.
b. We are to have the mind of Christ.
3. You cannot fellowship with the world, or the people of the world, without it having an influence upon you.
a. Teens, parents, employer, preacher, Christian
b. You are known by the friends you keep, and your friends do influence you.
c. By the places you go and the things you say.
4. Many of us have cooled down. Lost our love and desire for the word of the Lord. Why? The love for the world and the things it has to offer. The world is powerful.
a. Satan knows how to offer the world to you. He did to Jesus.
b. The next time we have the opportunities to serve Christ or be a witness for him. Don’t put it off. If He is speaking to you, He will equip you.
