SAILING @ LIFE Part 3
“Improving Your Relationships With God”
Pastor Jeff Seaman
We have been in a series called “SAILING @ LIFE” and today I want to start the first part on relationships. When you look at life as a hole, its all about relationships, and if we are going to sail @ life we must know how to have great relationships, and how to fix the one that have been hurt or have died.
So today I want to start on our relationship with God for I believe that if we can keep our relationship with God healthy we stand a better chance at keeping healthy relationships with others. So I titled my sermon “Improving Your Relationship With God”
So many Christians today don’t understand that the Bible warns us that the Devil will try any thing to get us to not build up our relationship with God. The Devil fears some one who has a strong relationship with God. You see there are people who are known in Hell, and are feared, because they walk with God on a daily.
Eph. 6:10-11 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.
Today I want us to look at the very first relationship that the devil had his scheme working on, and see what caused the brake down. We today are still having relationship problem with God, and we need to understand what is causing it, and what is the result when thing come in between God and us.
I Peter 5:8 “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
Jesus told Peter once Luke 22:31 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.”
Church we must understand that the devil is looking for way to break our relationships with God, let us not just blink at the warnings that Jesus told the church.
Let us look at some of the schemes the devil uses to try and hinder or even destroy our relationships with God
SCHEMES THAT CAN KILL YOUR RELATIONSHIP
I want to look closely at some of the schemes that the devil uses on us and how it affects us. When the devil is trying to destroy our relationships with God you need to know that he works over time so that you and I don’t realize what is happening, just like you can boil a frog to death. This will be a three week part on Improving Your Relationship With God.
We will look at three of the most common one that we see today.
WORLDLINESS, SIN, and DISTRACTIONS
1. THE FIST SCHEME IS BECOMING WORLDLY
Most people have stopped using the Susan B. Anthony dollar that was first issued a few decades ago. The problem was that the Anthony dollar looked and felt so mush like a quarter that people kept getting them confused.
A worldly Christian causes similar confusion. A worldly Christian is so immersed in this world and the world’s way of thinking that people can’t tell whether he’s the real thing or not.
The scheme of worldliness is one of his masterpieces, because it cripples the church and our relationship with God.
Rom 12:1-2 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is –his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
James 4:4-7 “You people aren’t faithful to God! Don’t you know that if you love the world, you are God’s enemies? And if you decide to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Do you doubt the Scriptures that say, God truly cares about the Spirit he has put in us? In fact, God treats us with even greater kindness, just as the Scripture say, God oppose everyone who is proud, but he is kind to everyone who is humble.” Vs. 7 “Surrender to God! Resist the devil, and he will run from you.”
The Bible warns us not to become a friend of the world and not to adopt the spirit of this age. Paul called it in:
Eph. 2:2 “The spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience”
Definition of worldliness: Worldliness is that attitude of a Christian’s heart that reflects the spirit of this age, the attitude and values of a system that is spear headed by the devil. This system is characterized by thoughts and actions that exclude God.
WHAT ARE THE SIGNS OF WORLDLINESS
1. WORLDLINESS CAUSES US TO HAVE FIGHTS & CONFLICT WITH OTHERS & WITHIN
The first result of worldliness is conflict with others. A Christian who lives in constant conflict is revealing a worldly spirit. A husband and wife who fight all the time are revealing a worldly their worldliness.
A HOLDOVER FROM THE OLD LIFE
Titus 3:3 “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.”
The bible teaches that fussing and fighting are part of the old life that is suppose to be behind us.
The Bible ask a question of Christians: James 4:1 “What is the source of quarrels among you?” Then the answer comes: “Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?”
When you and I are worldly minded conflict will happen and anger will flare up when we don’t get our way or when someone messes with our little domain.
James 1:20 “Anger of man that does not achieve the righteousness of God.” You see, some of us have been fighting for years about circumstances and people that bother us, and things still haven’t changed.
Do you know why? Because as long as we are determined to use human means to try to accomplish a righteous goal, God steps back and say’s “You are on your own” a worldly person tries to handle it all buy him self and we leave God out of the problem.
The Bible is clear; you and I can’t accomplish God’s work when we’re empowered by human anger or worldly mindset.
When we become worldly, leaving God out, our own desires take control and in the book of II Tim. 3:2-4 we see it character: “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God.”
The amazing thing is that the people who practice these thing are then said to Vs. 5 “hold to a form of Godliness”
The devil uses worldliness to get us to lust after things we want. This world effectively communicates the idea of trying to fulfill our pleasures at any cost. We fight for what we want, and sometime it leads to conflict.
One of the devils schemes is worldliness and it is a killer of our relationships with others and with God.
2. WORLDLINESS CAUSES COMPLACENCY OR LUKEWARMNESS
Rev. 3:15-16 “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
When we start to become worldly Christians, we become warm in our walk with God not on fire for Him. We don’t really stand for anything.
The Church of Laodicea was known for having great wealth, but poor water. A six-mile long water aqueduct brought the supply of water from the south. The water came from the hot spring and was cooled to lukewarm, not very satisfying for drink of for bathing.
When you become worldly, you have lost your passion, or fire for the Lord. We become so busy with the things of life that we have little time for the Lord. You are not hot nor cold, and the Lord wishes we were one or the other.
You become comfortable with your life and don’t want to take time to change many things.
One sign of luke-warmness is a dry prayer life, and dry study times, and dry worship time, you start to just play lip service. Do you find your self just kind of in the middle not really growing, but just staying in the same comfortable place. Remember Jesus had a strong word for the church of Laodicea, he knew there deeds and he say’s the same to us, get your passion again and start making a difference in life, nobody wants luke-warm water to drink.
3. WORLDLINESS GIVES YOU MISCONCEPTIONS
Rev. 3:17 “You say, I’m rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing; but you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
When you become worldly, you become blind to your true spiritual condition.
The Church of Laodicea thought they were well off.
What a difference there was between the thoughts they had of themselves and the thoughts Jesus had of them. Perhaps they were well provided for as to their bodies, and this made them overlook their soul. Or They thought themselves well furnished in their souls.
They had gifts and they took them for grace, they had wit, and they mistook it for true wisdom.
They were poor – their souls were starving in the midst of their abundance. Starving for a tough of God.
They were blind – they could not see their state, or their way, or their danger.
They were naked – their naked-ness was both of guilt and of pollution, and they had no covering. They lay always exposed to sin and shame.
4. WORLDLINESS MAKE US ENEMYS OF GOD
When we allow worldliness to creep into our lives, we remove God’s blessing and we become his enemy.
Many of you will say I don’t agree with you pastor, well I did not say it God did!
Many people in the church today have not felt God or seen God do something in their lives, because they have a worldly spirit.
James. 4:4 “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God. Any one who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God”
God will not share His thrown with pride!
Vs. 6 “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
One of the enemy was of getting us to not have a health relationship with God is to make us become worldly Christians, church let us beware of his schemes and have a great relationship with our God.
James 4:7 “Submit yourself, then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded.
