Don’t Let The World Change You

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Good morning. Have you ever noticed how difficult it can be to stand for something when everything around you seems to be going in the opposite direction? Maybe you've heard the phrase like a fish swimming upstream. We've all been there. We live in a world where right and wrong are constantly being redefined. We live in a world where compromise is celebrated.

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And temptation is everywhere, and standing firm in your faith can sometimes make you feel like you're the one who's out of step. But here's something that we need to understand: God never called us to blend in with the world, he called us to be different. The question isn't whether the world is going to challenge your faith because it will. The question is when those challenges come, will you stand firm?

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Or will you compromise? Today, let's talk about what it takes to stay true to God in the world that we live in. We've been talking the past few days about context, about the good works that God expects us to do, and about us being created in Christ Jesus to do those good works. And today, well, that that's hard. That's hard to do that.

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That's hard to to live the life that God wants us to live. I'm not gonna lie to you about that. How can I keep true to God in our world today? I got four things I'm gonna give you today, four things we're gonna look at that's gonna help us as we try to live for God in a world that seems to be contrary to him. Let's start our journey today in First Corinthians chapter number nine. First Corinthians chapter number nine.

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We're going to look specifically at verses twenty four through twenty seven. Scripture says Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain, and every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. And now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run to

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Not as uncertainty, uncertainly, so fight I, not as one that beateth the air. But I keep my body, or I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. What's Paul teaching us here? He's teaching us several things. He's talking about in this section of scripture, he's talking about being a servant to help spread.

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the gospel, a servant to all people. He's talking about making himself like everybody else so that he can reach them. And and if you're gonna do that, you need to be focused. If you're gonna live the Christian life, you need to be focused. And that's what the illustration that is given here in verses 24 through 26 is that we need to to make sure that we keep our focus.

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He said in verse 24 that everybody runs the race, but only one person's going to be the winner. Only one person's going to get the gold medal. And he says to us, so run in a way that you may obtain the gold medal. Run your best. Run your fastest. Run the how whatever it takes to win, that's what you need to do. And he says here in verse 25, he's talking about how we need to bring ourselves to

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under what's see how we need to be temperate in all things. Temperance here simply means simply means to be self-controlled. He's using this race analogy here and he's saying that if you're gonna strive, if you're gonna struggle, if you're gonna gonna go out and contend for that medal, then you need to make sure that you are temperate, that you are self-controlled. Somebody that's gonna be training to run the New York marathon.

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is not gonna sit there and eat an entire chocolate cake the night before they go out and run for that race because that's gonna add weight to them. They're gonna do they're gonna they're gonna be self controlled to only eat and drink the things that's gonna help them perform at their best. And that's what we as Christians need to do living in our world today is we need to make sure that we are only consuming the things

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That's going to give us the energy and the self-control to do the things God called us to do. And friends, that means that we need to make sure that we are in a steady diet of getting in the Word of God, of getting in the Bible. We've been talking a lot about that this week, about getting into the Word and studying it. But the only way we're going to be able to live for God in a world that's upside down, in a world that is.

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is is full of evil is if we have a steady diet of the Bible and applying the Bible and and and in doing the Bible and being self-controlled. He says therefore in verse 26, he tells us here that that he is he is focused in his run. He is focused in his fight. He's not just running for the sake of running. He's not just beating the air.

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He is focused on doing what God called him to do. And then verse number twenty seven here is the key to being able to win here. He says, But I keep my my under my body and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means when I have preached to others I myself should be a castaway. What Paul is saying here is he's constantly bringing his body into subjection. That's called self control. That's called called um

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Oh, what's the word I'm trying to think of right here? That's called that's called being s focused on what you want or what you're striving for. And if we want to truly live for God in this lost and hurting world, we need to be focused. We need to be training ourselves. We need to practice self-control. We need to to make sure that we are we are doing the best we can and getting the best diet that we can.

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We must be disciplined. That's number one. Number two, decide what you're going to give yourself to. Decide what you're going to give yourself to. I alluded to these verses yesterday. Romans chapter six is where we're going to go here. Romans chapter six. And we're going to look here at verses 12 and 13.

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In Romans chapter six, Paul is teaching us about walking in the new life, and he explains what baptism means and what it represents and what it means to you and me. And then we get down here to verses twelve and thirteen. And Paul says, Let us or let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto since

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But yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Now let's jump down to verse sixteen. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves, servants to obey, his servants you are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. What Paul is teaching us here is that we have to make a choice.

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Each and every day, each and every minute, what it is that we're going to give ourselves to. Are we going to give ourselves to doing the things of God, submitting or giving doing the things of God, bringing our body under subjection, striving to do the things of God? Or are we going to give ourselves over to the things of the devil, to the things of the flesh, to the things of the world? He says here in verse 12.

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Not to let sin reign in our mortal body, getting back to that that race illustration there in First Corinthians that we looked at. We need to make sure that we're not letting anything in there that's going to cause us to stumble. That's going to cause us to fall. And by letting sin run rampant in our life, that's eventually going to cause us to fall. We may be able to stand up to it for a time, but it's eventually going to cause us to stumble.

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And it's going to cause us to fall. He says, Don't let sin reign in your body. Then he says, Don't yield yourself as instruments of our unrighteousness, but yield yourselves to God. Yield yourselves to God. Friends, that's a decision we need to make every day, every hour, every minute, every second. What are we submitting ourselves to? Are we going to give ourselves over to our sin nature?

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Or are we going to give ourselves over to God? That's what we need to figure out. You must be disciplined. You have to decide what you're going to give yourself to. Number three, if you want to stay true to God in our world today, is you need to mortify the deeds of the flesh. Mortify means just that. It means to kill, it means to destroy. Just like Paul tells us here in verse 12 of Romans chapter 6 about not letting sin reign in our mortal body.

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that we should obey it. So therefore we need to get rid of it. We need to crucify it with Christ on the cross. I know people that's been been smokers, let's say, is an example for fifty years that one day decided that was detrimental to their faith and they left that pack of cigarettes on the altar and walked away and they never picked it up again. I know people that's done that with alcohol. I've heard of people that's done that with with anything. We just had to make that choice.

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And finally, we need to mortify the deeds of the flesh. Let's look at Romans chapter eight, verse number thirteen, and there's a similar verse to this in Colossians chapter three and verse number five. But he says, For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Paul is talking here about our life in in the spirit of

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How we should be submitting ourselves to the Spirit and following the Spirit's example and following the Spirit's leading. And and he he's making a very distinct um division here in verse number 13. If you live after the flesh, ye shall die. You can't put it any more plainly than that. If you live after the flesh, you're gonna die spiritually, you're gonna die physically.

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But he says, If ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live. You see, that's the key right there to being able to overcome your sin nature is to do it through the spirit. To do it through the spirit of God.

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He says he say do that and you will live. Let's go over to Galatians. Galatians chapter number five.

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Galatians chapter five, and let's look here at verses sixteen and seventeen. Paul says, We're remember we're talking about mortifying the deeds of the flesh here. He says, This I say then, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. I'm going to stop there for just a second. Remember, he said through if you through the spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live.

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Here in Galatians, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Do you see a connection right there? That's right, it's the spirit. It's the Holy Spirit that Jesus has given you at that time of salvation that seals you to the day of redemption. And if we're living in Him, if we're walking in Him, if we're we're following Him, then we're going to be able to overcome that sin nature.

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And he says in verse 17, For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary the one to the other, so you cannot do the things that you would. Paul's teaching us again that the flesh and the spirit are contrary to one another. They cannot coexist. A phrase I used to use quite often on these internet Bible studies here was that you can't be a

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a Christian on Sunday and be a sinner on Monday. You can't walk with one foot in the in in in Christ and the other foot in the world. It doesn't work like that. They could not coexist. He says the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. That's why we need to walk in the spirit. And that brings us to the fourth thing if we're going to live for God in our world today.

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And that's found in James chapter number four and verse number seven. This I think is the key to the whole thing. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. You see, a lot of times we try to resist the devil, but we don't submit to God, and we can't do it on our own. You first got to submit yourself to God.

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Then resist the devil, and the devil's gonna flee. So let me ask you this today as we wrap it up.

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Are you trying to live in the world but it they're live it live for Christ in the world? It's hard. We all go most of us, not all of us, most of us, go to some kind of secular workplace where the F bomb is probably dropped a hundred times a shift, if not more. We hear the dirty jokes. We hear the the the crude comments people make. And it's hard. It's hard to live for Christ in our world.

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But if you discipline yourself, if you decide that you're gonna follow Christ, if you if you get rid of the deeds of the flesh and you submit yourself to God, that's gonna make things a lot easier. And the devil won't get won't get a chance to trip you up. He's gonna try.

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Why don't you take some time today and submit yourself to God? Submit this day to Him. And then choose to follow Him as you go through this day. Remember, get into God's Word and allow God's Word to get into you. Then share that word with someone today. Have a blessed day.