WESTSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH
PASTOR: TERRY VAUGHAN
SERMON TITLE: BEWARE
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
I had a burdened heart last night and I felt led to take one of my earlier sermons that was on tape with to work this morning and listen to it. I never do that. I usually like to listen to other preachers and not myself. I tell you what, the Lord blessed my heart and I was saying Amen and I was the one preaching. (laughter) More so than that it helped me.
TEXT VERSE: COLOSSIANS 2:8 “BEWARE LEST ANY MAN SPOIL YOU THROUGH PHILOSOPHY AND VAIN DECEIT, AFTER THE TRADITION OF MEN, AFTER THE RUDIMENTS OF THE WORLD, AND NOT AFTER CHRIST.”
Everything we do needs to revolve around Christ. Turn to LUKE 12 . We just wanted to read that verse to kind of get us started. A lot of times we seem to get off from the important things in this life. Sometimes we let distractions pull us away from the very meaning of life which is the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said this in Philippians: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” So the very lives we live is Christ. To die is gain. Thank God when we die it’s not going to be demotion but a premotion. I’m looking forward to it. Now in Colossians 2:8 the first word was BEWARE. There’s often times in the Bible when the Lord wants us to beware of certain things. Now I can’t point out all these things to you but number one if I’m going to beware of anything I have to beware of myself. I have a hard time keeping up with I do, let alone what other people do. I have to keep myself in line with the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m the one that’s going to have to answer to him one day after awhile. Whether it’s good or bad, I’m going to have to give account for myself for what I do or what I don’t do. I fall down and beg God many times to forgive me for not following the Spirit of God. Than there’s times I kneel down and thank Him for things that He allows us to do. There’s a lot of times we let things deviate us from God’s word or way. So the Lord said Beware. Now look at LUKE 12:1 “IN THE MEAN TIME, WHEN THERE WERE GATHERED TOGETHER AN INNUMERABLE MULTITUDE OF PEOPLE, INSOMUCH THAT THEY TRODE UPON ANOTHER, HE BEGAN TO SAY UNTO HIS DISCIPLES FIRST OF ALL, BEWARE YE OF THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES, WHICH IS HYPOCRISY.
I want to talk to you first of all about Hypocrisy. I don’t want you to look tonight at who you think tonight might be a hypocrite. I want you to examine yourself. When we come to the house of God we have to get what we need as a child of God first then we can worry about other people. We have to keep our own house in order. Hypocrisy is a Greek word that means actor. In other words their pretenders. When we get in that Hypocrite mode we end up pretending to be somebody or something that we’re not. We end up wanting to impress other people and try to prove to other people that we are who they think we are. In actuality we’re coving up who we really are and making them believe we’re somebody else. In the natural sense a hypocrite is always trying to please others. Their trying to let other people look at them and see them as some big person. In a Christians life a hypocrite is someone who tries to be spiritual when in actuality they aren’t spiritual. God said to watch out for these kind of people and don’t let hypocrisy become a part of your life. A lot of Christians think they are above that but none of us are. You see these lost people all the time saying I’m not going down to that church because it’s full of a bunch of hypocrites. They may be right. We need to make sure we don’t give anybody that impression. You watch t.v. and you’ve seen these actors and sometimes people begin to think that that’s who those people really are. I seen a documentary on Gilligans Island one time and they said right after they put the show on the air people began to call in and say there were some people stranded on a deserted Island. They started believing what they saw. That’s what hypocrites do. They want people to believe their somebody they aren’t.
I want you to notice this: Jesus said to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Leaven
is the same thing as the word yeast. Hypocrisy will do the same thing to your ego as yeast will do to bread
dough. It will make it puff up. When your ego in hypocrisy starts to puff up all of a sudden pride will
take over in your life and you’ll automatically start detoriating as a Christian when you let hypocrisy come
into your life. You put that yeast in that bread dough and put it in the oven and it will slowly rise. That’s what hypocrisy does. It starts off a little thing and you let it go and it will end up a big thing. It will mess you up and everybody around you. We need to get rid of it. A lot of people like to preach on good things but there are some warnings in the word of God. You can make somebody think that you’re somebody important but God knows exactally who you are and who I am. We can pretend with other people but we cannot pretend with God. There’s a lot of people in the world that will dress up fancy and go to the house of God, they’ll praise God and be friendly with you and they’ll go right out the doors and stop at the liquor store. I’ve seen them do it. That’s describes hypocrisy. Their pretending to be a Christian while they are at church and then when they leave their not. We’re all subject to be hypocrites if we don’t stay close to God.
(Beware of covetousness)
Now I want you to look at LUKE 12:15 “TAKE HEED, AND BEWARE OF COVETOUSNESS: FOR A MAN’S LIFE CONSISTETH NOT IN THE ABUNDANCE OF THE THINGS WHICH HE POSSESSETH.”
Covetousness is a bad thing when it comes to Christians life. What is covetousness? It means you want more than what you really need. It might be a desire, a thirst, a craving for money, for things that money can buy, a position, power. It can be anything that God don’t want you to have. If we’re not satisfied with what God’s given us, we don’t need to be worrying about anything else. The Bible says to be content with such things as you have. But people are always wanting more. But they always want to give God less. I’m not just talking about money, I’m talking about spiritual things. They always want God to serve them but they never want to serve God. They want God to meet all of their needs, they don’t want to be lacking and they want to have everything but God has already given them everything they need and if they don’t appreciate it God will not give them anything more. I preached a message on quality not quantity. Be content with what you have. Jesus promised us in his word that he’d supply us all our needs. But first we have to seek first the kingdom of God then all these other things will be added unto you. Some people think they can live an old devilish life as a child of God and they expect God to give them everything and I’m telling you it don’t work that way. If you don’t seek God first don’t go crying to God if you don’t have what you need. It don’t matter to me if I’m living in a cabin or in a volkswagon. If I have Christ first I’ll be satisfied. Are you satisfied with what God’s given you? If you’re not, he’s not going to give you anything else. A preacher told me long time ago when I was pastoring another church, he said don’t get discouraged. If you can’t learn to preach to two or three, don’t expect God to give you a congregation of 500. Now I get excited if I just have one to preach to. It could be that one last lost soul before God calls us home. If we aren’t content with the things that we have eventually the devil will make us think that the things that we have aren’t good enough. And when we start thinking that we’ll start falling off as a Christian. The devil will have us right where he wants us because we’re not content with what God has given us. All the things we can get in this life will not help us in the next life. People are always worrying about the things that money can buy instead of the things that money can’t buy. The things that money can buy will never do you any good here unless you pick up a Bible and give it away. No wonder it’s the best selling book in the world. It’s the only thing money can buy that will help you in this life. Wayne once said the Bible meant Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Actually the word Bible means Scroll but Wayne’s version sounded good.
(Beware of worry)
No look at LUKE 12:22 “THEREFORE I SAY UNTO YOU, TAKE NO THOUGHT FOR YOUR LIFE, WHAT YE SHALL EAT; NEITHER FOR THE BODY, WHAT YE SHALL PUT ON. THE LIFE IS MORE THAN MEAT AND THE BODY IS MORE THAN RAIMENT.” We should beware of our worry.
Don’t worry about what you have to eat or what you have to wear. Worrying about things is a sin against God. When you worry about things down here it means you aren’t trusting in God. Anytime we start worrying about material things more than we do spiritual things, we’re sinning against God. Worrying is a sin. People have the thoughts of the devil always in their mind worrying about this and that. It’ll stack up on you and when worrying stacks up on you, sin will stack up on you. If I were to say, how many of us do it, we’d all raise our hands. If you’re worrying about things then you don’t have enough faith. The Bible says we walk by faith and not by sight. It don’t matter if you can see what’s coming at you or not, if you believe God’s going to give it to you, you might as well claim victory. Worrying is not having faith in an Almighty God. We need to beware of our worrying. My mama’s one of the biggest worry worts you’ve ever seen in your life. She hears a siren from her apartment and she’ll call all eight of her kids and make sure we’re okay. Some of it rubbed off on me. Often times we take after our parents. We need to take up some traits from our heavenly father. The Bible says without faith it is impossible to please God.
(Beware of Carelessness)
Now look at LUKE 12:39 “AND THIS KNOW, THAT IF THE GOODMAN OF THE HOUSE HAD KNOWN WHAT HOUR THE THIEF WOULD COME, HE WOULD HAVE WATCHED, AND NOT HAVE SUFFERED HIS HOUSE TO BE BROKEN THROUGH.”
We need to be watching for the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Anytime we as Christians stop looking for His coming we’ll stop loving people, we’ll stop loving the life we life for Christ, we’ll stop loving the church. He says for us to watch. For us to wait. While we’re watching and waiting, we need to be working. Blessed are those when He comes, he’ll find them doing his work. We need to always expect that Christ is coming. Let me give you a good witnessing tool. A popular preacher said it but his name leaves me. He said he’d go up to Christians and say: “Do you think the Lord is coming back today?” They’d say no. Then he’d say, “you better get ready because at such an hour as you think not the son of man is coming.” That would be great for lost people too. Ask them if they think the Lord’s coming back today and they might say they don’t know what you’re talking about and you can just start telling them about Jesus. The Son of Man cometh and the Bible tells us to be watching, waiting and working. When He comes he will not tarry. Preacher preached a message one time and said that people are always watching television. always listening to the radio but they were never watching for the Lord to come. I believe He could come any minute now. I believe we’re living in the last days according to God’s calendar. We need to beware of our carelessness. If we know He’s coming, why aren’t we telling people? Don’t lay down your Christianity just because you’ve been a Christian for fifteen years and He hasn’t come back yet. He said he’d come and He will come. if we’re living our lives in the present tense and not in the future tense our life will bring us down. We need to see that it’s not just the time frame of this world but eternity. We need to look at things from a heavenly perspective instead of an earthly perspective. We need to realize that the Lord is coming and we need to tell people that God is getting ready to send His Son to gather His children home. We need to be preaching it, teaching it, confessing it and witnessing it until He comes. I had a thought about why is more people got saved years ago than they do now? It’s our fault. We’ve got too many preacher preaching about how to have a good marriage and not about Jesus. They used to preach Hellfire and Brimstone. It was not uncommon to go to the house of God and hear about fire and brimstone. The more they preached about the lake of fire, the more that got saved. Now they preach on how to live a good Godly life. Get them saved and God will teach them how to live. We need more Hellfire and Brimstone in our messages. Am I trying to scare people into getting saved. No. It’s just being honest with them. You can call it Hades if you want to but I call it Hell. The first message Jesus ever preached when he came was REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND.
(Beware of Spiritual Dullness)
Now look at LUKE 12:54 “WHEN YE SEE A CLOUD RISE OUT OF THE WEST, STRAIGHTWAY YE SAY, THERE COMETH A SHOWER; AND SO IT IS. (55) AND WHEN YOU SEE THE SOUTH WIND BLOW, YE SAY, THERE WILL BE HEAT; AND IT COMETH TO PASS. (56) YE HYPOCRITES, YE CAN DISCERN THE FACE OF THE SKY AND OF THE EARTH; BUT HOW IS IT THAT YE DO NOT DISCERN THIS TIME?”
We’re aliens where we’re living at. We’re living on enemy territory. This world has a lot of earthly knowledge but they don’t have any spiritual knowledge. They know how to get men to the moon but they don’t know how to get men to heaven. They have spiritual dullness in their life. People always know how to stay out of prison. They’re scared to death they’ll do something wrong have to go to prison. They do all these things down in prison and they don’t know what to do to stay out of Hell. Scientist are worry about how many planets there are and all these scientific things, they can tell you when it’s going to rain or when it’s going to be sunny, but they don’t even have Christ as their Savior. They can do all these things and can’t even tell someone how to get to heaven. We’re living in a sad world. If you don’t have spiritual knowledge and wisdom, how can you share it? You can tell them about this world all you want to but it will come to an end one day. Are you ready? Are you watching?
LET US PRAY: Father, Thank you Lord for the message. I pray you would give me more knowledge and wisdom that I may use it to witness to a lost and dying world. I pray that I would always be found doing that which is pleasing in your sight. May my inner light so shine that you are glorified in heaven. In Jesus Name. Amen
