"Pleasing God in My Desires"
Gal.5:19, Gen 4:1-8
Now if you have your bible with you this morning I want you to turn to Gen.4:1 with me this and as you do, I want you think about this question, "If you could have one desire fulfilled in your life and know that you would get it, what would it be?" Now don’t answer to quickly because there is an array of things that we could ask for. We could ask for financial stability, or to find the love of our lives, maybe it’s to be popular, or have the prefect body, maybe peace and the list could go on and on, but what would it be?
In the last two weeks we have seen how powerful the world influences are on our thoughts, our actions, and also our relationship with God. This persistent pull of the world is having a devastating effect on Christian’s today and many are finding it hard to distinguish between what is socially acceptable and that which is biblically permissible.
Part of the problem as we weigh out this issue, whether we want to admit or not, is that we have an almost magnetic desire to "Please the Flesh". Don’t believe me, go 24 hours without eating and see how your body reacts and how pleased it is with you. Paul tells us that there is a battle going on in each one of us, a battle between the "Flesh" and the "Spirit".
Gal 5:16-18
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
So, we shouldn’t find it strange that the "Flesh" wants to cast its vote when it comes to the issues of pleasing itself. Some people will try to convince you that we are born inherently good and moral, however, the scriptures tell us that each one of us is born with a sinful nature with a desire to please "Self". And to prove this you don’t have to look too far. Just take a stroll down to the toddler’s room; remove all the toys except the one that they all like playing with, and you will see this concept in full force.
Our intrinsic behavior is to please "Self" and my fear is that we have either forgotten or simply don’t understand what the scriptures are talking about in (1 Peter 4:1) when He says, "we should no longer live in the lust of the flesh, but live for the will of God".
1 Peter 4:1-3 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
And then I love what Peter goes on to say in the next verse.
1 Peter 4:3 For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles--when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness… (and so on).
In other words, somehow we have mollified why we live outside the prefect will of God. And mollify means to reduce the rigidity of (the integrity); or soften. And far to many Christians have mollified the Word of God. Far too many Christians weakened their walk with God in order to pacify the desires of the "Flesh". Far too many Christians are only skin-deep.
Last week we looked at pleasing God through the "Purity" within ourselves. And the week before that, we looked at pleasing God through the control of the "Sexual" bombardment that we are faced with. This week as we continue to examine what it takes to please God, we will find out that we have to get control of our "Desires". In order to that we have to understand three things about "Desires".
I. Desire is not Necessarily Bad.
1) Examples from the Scriptures pertaining to good desires.
a) Jesus Prayed in John 17:24 "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world."
i) Christ desire was that the disciples would see His glory.
b) Pauls desire in Rom 10:1 was to see his countrymen saved "Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved."
i) There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see individuals enter into a personal relationship with the Lord.
c) Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:1-3 "as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,"
i) Peter said desire to grow in your walk with the Lord.
d) David’s prayer found in Ps 38:9 was "Lord, all my desire is before You;"
e) The scriptures tell us in 1 Cor 14:1 to "Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts,"
f) Nehemiah talked to the Lord in Neh 1:11 and said, " O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear (reverence) Your name;
g) So we see that the scriptures teach us that not all desire is bad desire.
2) Examples of Personal Desires.
a) Not too many of you know this but when I was a child one of my biggest desires was to work with animals and not any animals but wild animals. As a child I was fascinated with shows like Jacque C. Underwater adventures and National Geographic and I don’t think that I missed one show when they were popular. I dreamed of relocating to the plains of Africa and living my life in the wild. Later on in life when I realized that I wasn’t safari material my desires changed.
b) Many of you here have desires. Some of you are finished with high school and now desire to go to college. Others are finished with college and now desire to start a carrier. For some it’s the dream of starting a family, a business, or maybe your first house…everyone has desires and it doesn’t mean that they are bad desires.
3) Examples of Spiritual Desires.
a) I would hope this morning that each one of you has spiritual desires. When I say that I mean I hope that each one of you has set some goals and challenges in your relationship with God. Example:
i) My desire is to read through the entire Bible in one year and here’s how I am going to do it.
ii) My desire is to get more connected with my church family so I am going to get out of my comfort zone.
iii) My desire it to please God in all areas of my life and I am going to make the changes that He wants me to do.
iv) My desire is to serve God through this local church and I am not going to let the busyness of my life get in the way.
v) My desire is to financially support your work God and I am going to trust that you will take care of me.
vi) My desire is to know more about you God.
b) Everyone needs spiritual desires and if you don’t have any let me make three suggestions to you.
i) First, pray that God will challenge you with some specific spiritual desires.
ii) Second, make a list of your spiritual desires and put them in your bible.
iii) Third, start doing them. If we never do them the bible calls that "Dead Faith".
James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
So as we look at desires as a whole, not ever desire is bad for us or sinful. So then we must ask ourselves what is God talking about in Gal.5:19 when he says that one of the "Works of the Flesh" is "Lasciviousness" . Which brings us to our second point;
II. What is Sinful Desire?
It’s important to understand the type of sin that Paul is describing here in Gal.5.
· William Barclay defines this type of person as one that "Always ready for Pleasure" the man that practices it has been said to know no restraint, but to do whatever whim and wanton insolence man suggest. He continues on to say that the idea is that of a man who is so far gone in desire that he ceases to care what people say or think.
· Lasciviousness (equivalent words) - lustfulness, wantonness, extreme desire, unrestrained craving, self-centeredness.
· It’s the same thought that Christ talked about in Mark 7:21-23 "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a man."
· You see, the first three characteristics of the "Works of the Flesh" (fornication, uncleanness, and lasciviousness) are sensual deviations from Gods plan for you.
· As we will see in the next few weeks that the rest of the "Works of the Flesh" fall into three other categories.
· Religious deviations.
· Personal relationship disorders
· Sins of intemperance
So how does desire become sin? Lets take a look at a very popular portion of scripture where we see how personal desire becomes sin. Read Gen.4:1-8. So when does desire become sin?
Read Text
1) When desire gets in the way of our relationship with God. (vs.4:5)
a) Cain’s main problem is that he put his desires, his wants, his goals and aspirations before God’s.
i) Cain’s only thought here was "How little do I have to give to God?" "What’s the minimum that I need to commit myself?"
ii) Make note of this, no where in this portion of scripture will you see that God required an offering from Cain or Able. This was completely voluntary.
(1) You might be thinking, "Well, God should have been happy with what Cain brought to Him, He didn’t ask for anything in the first place."
(2) The principle here is that if Cain was going to give something to God he should have given the best or given nothing at all.
iii) You see Cain’s gift to God came from a selfish desire to please himself and God rejected it.
b) On the other hand you have Able the scripture say that he gave of the firstborn or the best that he had.
i) And I am sure that Able might had looked over at that little lamb and his desire was to keep the best for himself and take a lesser sacrifice, but he didn’t.
c) That’s the problem with selfish desire interfere in our relationship with God, it muddies our thinking and makes us do things that we know we shouldn’t.
d) Far to many Christians today suffer from the Cain syndrome. They are constantly giving God their leftovers but they expect God’s very best for their lives.
i) They have set their personal goals, desires, and aspirations before God’s desire for their lives.
ii) They have made excuses will not or cannot God.
3 types of Selfish Christians:
· There are Christians that have set a spiritual comfort level on (low) and wont go beyond because they know if they do, they will have to relinquish some of those desires that they are holding onto. So they stay detached Christians.
· Then there are Christians that have set a material comfort level on (high) and they feel that unless God maintains them in a specific income bracket they wont serve or give back to Him. And their attitude is well if God wants me to give He will have to supply more. They are the faithless Christians.
· Lastly there are the Christians that I call the Ciscal and Ebert Christians. They are the ones that are continually complaining about what needs to be done around the church but never take the time or effort to do anything. They are the first to point out the weaknesses in the ministry that’s not meeting their needs or desires, but they are the last to help. There the first ones that speak-up when something is not going their way or they are not getting the praise they feel they need. You see their job is just to be critical and it’s everyone else’s job to fix the problem or cater to their needs. They are the critical Christians.
I would imagine that there are going to be some pretty disappointed Christians at the pearly gates. There are going to be those Christians that say, "hey wait a minuet I deserve more that this." And do you know what response they are going to get back? "You get what you put in." you served yourself and your desires your entire life now reap the benefits for eternity.
So desire becomes sin when it gets in the way with our relationship with God. But desire also becomes sin when…
2) When desire controls our behavior. (vs.5b-7)
a) Three areas that were controlled by the selfish desires of Cain.
i) His sinful desire brought anger into his life. "and Cain was very wroth"
(1) Many times when we are harboring selfish desires it causes anger in our lives.
(2) It causes anger because whether we see it or not, the reason we anger is because we are not getting our way.
(3) Anger is a sure sign of a selfish person and that is way the scriptures are so clear on this subject.
Prov 21:19 Better to dwell in the wilderness, Than with a contentious and angry woman.
Prov 22:24-25
24 Make no friendship with an angry man, And with a furious man do not go, 25 Lest you learn his ways And set a snare for your soul.
ii) His sinful desire brought despondency into his life. "and his countenance fell"
(1) If left to long in a person’s life sinful desire will overtake them and it will break them.
(2) Cain’s sinful desire tuned into envy, hatred, and strife.
(3) There is something very clear to me through this portion of scripture and that is if you continue to harbor sinful desire it will eat you from the inside out.
(4) Unwillingness to yield to the H.S
iii) His sinful desires brought captivity over him. "shall rule over him"
(1) God gave Cain a chance to retrace his steps and be accepted.
(2) God said to Cain that this is a second chance for you and if you choose to reevaluate your motive and repent from your selfish desire everything can be made right, if not, sin will overtake you.
(3) What 2nd chance is God giving you?
So when is desire destructive? First when it interferes with my relationship with God, second when my desire interferes with my behavior, but lastly
3) When desire damages those around us. (vs.8)
a) Because of Cain’s unwillingness to recognize the sin of desire in his life it destroyed the life of his brother. And can I tell you that’s what sinful desire does. It cares not for the innocent, the weak, or the unawares; it consumes, it lusts, it exhaust itself until it is satisfied
b) I have seen way to many people crushed under foot by the selfish desires of other people. I have seen far to marriages destroyed by the moment of passion. I have heard too many stories of broken friendships and destroyed relationships because of selfish desire.
You see that is what Gal.5 is talking about. Its talking about a desire that overtakes you, consumes you, convinces you everything is all right, and eventually destroys you.
III. Price of Sinful Desires.
1) Sinful desire is open before God. (vs.9-10)
2) Sinful desire has consequences (vs.11-12)
3) The price of sinful desire is high (vs.13)
Conclusion:
Here’s the great news, God has given us the key to overcome sinful desires and its found in that simple verse we looked at two weeks ago.
James 4:7-8 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
