In our previous episode, part one, we talked about the propensity to fall in love with the world, to get involved with the world as far as our motives are concerned, our identity is concerned, and of course then our actions follow that. So while we may be professing to be followers of Christ, and we may be professing that our citizenship is in heaven even, we are behaving and walking and talking just as the world does. And this is a very subtle, very easy thing to do, especially in America, because we have so much glitz, so much glimmer, so many shiny objects, and, frankly, a lifestyle, quality of life, that is so far superior than anything that has ever been known in human history, except maybe among the aristocracies and the monarchies, But even they did not have the things that the average American has available to them today. And so it's very easy to try to Americanize the gospel and assume that as part of your Christian life is to have all the same values of the world and in fact really believe that it's God's will for you to have all the same weaknesses and values and lusts of the world, because that's all, that's part of the blessing of living in, quote, Christian America, end quote, and so on and so on and so on. But the Bible has a different take on that. The Bible understands that the world system, and so we want to be careful when we understand to say the world. We're not talking about the cosmos as far as a creation is concerned. Creation is God's handiwork. It is one of the ways he reveals himself to us. Psalm 18 is clear about that. And so we have to be nuanced in our understanding when we say the world. What we're talking about here in this context, in James chapter 4, is the nuance of the system, the satanic system of this world. in which the God of this world, Satan himself, has set the standards for what it means to be a human being. And that, of course, is defined as those who are in rebellion to their Creator, who are determined to not keep the knowledge of God himself, their Creator, in their thinking, and have become convinced, deceived into thinking that they can be their own deity. They can discern what's good and evil for themselves. They can set the standard. They don't want a creator who sets the standard for good and evil, they want to be able to do it themselves and so make themselves the center of the universe, the center of their own lives, and the world system that develops out of that is very much a reflection of the heart of fallen, depraved humanity. And so we were looking at James chapter 4 and about what that looks like today. Let me just take a few moments then to remind you of what we talked about last week. But today I want to also give you the remedy, the biblical remedy for being caught up in this system of fighting and warring and conflict over this power struggle that we have. It's one thing when Eve decided she wanted to be the center of the universe, but so did Adam. And of course that showed up later on in the conflict between Cain and Abel. You can't have two coexisting people thinking that they are each the center of the universe without conflict. And so Cain kills Abel in order to impose his view on the situation. And the rest, as they say, is history. So let's look back at the text. James chapter four, verse one through six is where we went last time. What causes fight and quarrels among you? What causes these fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires? that battle within you, you desire, but do not have. So you kill, you covet, but you cannot get what you want. So you quarrel and fight. See, this is all about evil desires. This is all about the lusts of the flesh. This is all about the way we live and that when we were slaves to sin, Romans chapter six. And if we are not taught well, if we're not instructed as to a new way of life in Christ, if all we're told is that we have to pray the sinner's prayer and that we get baptized and then we're in and we just have to hang on now until Jesus comes back, that's not enough. You have to be taught what it means now to be a Christian and to have a new way of life where you put off the old And you put on the new self, the new self that is made and created after the image of your Creator, and true righteousness and holiness. That's Ephesians chapter 4, by the way. So we have these desires that battle within us is a default. It's a default, even for the believer, if we are not being taught because we've been habitually slaves of sin all of our lives. And just because we say the sinner's prayer, even if we experience a genuine conversion, a new birth by the Spirit, we go through the waters of baptism, something very powerful, very important has happened. But that's not the end game. That's only the new beginning point for you in your life. And so you have to then begin to go to the teachings of the apostles and of our Lord Jesus to find a new way of living. Let me just read that, remind you of that again. Ephesians 4, verse 20. That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ, talking about the ignorance and the loss of sensitivity and the indulgence of sensuality that is common in a pagan world. That's not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in Him, in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, and that's where we stop. We weren't taught. We aren't taught. The average Christian is very untaught. They're entertained, they're coached, they're inspired, but they're untaught. You were taught, with regard to your formal way of life, to put off your old self, not to baptize it. We don't baptize the old self in baptism. We water down, we bury in the waters of baptism, we give a water burial Your old self stays in the water. Your new self comes up out of the water to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, as I mentioned a few moments ago. So we are to go on as in verse 25 of Ephesians 4. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood, speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. Quit lying to each other, quit seeking to manipulate each other, quit living according to the flesh. See the flesh is very religious. The flesh is very religious, and it's very easy to just fall into a form of godliness that denies the power thereof, and get into some kind of religiosity that looks good, sounds good, gives a good appearance, may even have some church activities involved to it, a good giving record on the books at the church, but you're still living like the world. You do not have, back to James chapter 4, you do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. See, this is the default mode. This has been the plague throughout redemptive history upon the redeemed people of God, that they tend to gather and they tend to look around themselves and begin acting like the world. Instead of continuing to look to God, continuing to look to the revelation of God in his son, especially now. And so he goes on to verse 4, you adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Estrangement? Hatred? Resistance? Don't you know that friendship boils down to their minds again? No, they don't know this. In fact, most preachers today are taking the pulpit, especially these characters on TV, are going to tell you that friendship with the world is friendship with God. In fact, you can gauge your friendship with God by how well you're getting along with the world, how well you're hooked up, how well you're connected, how well you're reflecting the values and the greed and the mindset of the world. Success-driven churches. Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. I don't know how James can be any clearer. These are some sharp edges, aren't they? The Holy Spirit, through the text, is giving us some very sharp edges here. We're adulterous. Once we are in Christ, if we are to continue living like the world, we default to becoming an adulterous people. Friendship with the world is enmity against God. Anyone who chooses, see, we choose based upon habitual patterns that we adopted while we were yet slaves to sin. Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. How many Christians today, caught up in the lusts of the eyes, the lusts, the pride of life, the lusts of the flesh, the things of the world, are living as enemies of God? That's a scary question, isn't it? Many are. The popular versions of Christianity are living that way today. In Philippians chapter 3, Paul refers to that. He says in verse 17, join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For as I've often told you before, and now I tell you again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction. Their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. They set their minds on earthly things." Are you an enemy of God? Are you an adulterous people? Are you over-identified with the things and the values and the ways of the world? So that is determining your identity, that it determines your motives, that it defines your actions. Important questions. Or do you think Scripture says without reason, he says in verse 5 in James, that the jealousy, he jealousy longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us. God is a jealous God. He won't share you with the world. If you choose to line up with the world and try to keep one foot in the kingdom of God, you're just not going to get anything done. Listen, a half-measured commitment leaves you with a zero result. It's not good math. Half-measured commitment produces not half benefit, but zero benefit. but he gives us more grace. That is why scripture says God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. And that's our segue now into the remedy. What is the remedy? If you have been honest enough with yourself, that you realize that your identity, your motives, and your actions are reflective of the world, and you don't want to be there anymore. You've come to that as a point of default because you just didn't know what else to do. You have not been taught well by your pastors and your elders, your Christian leaders, and so you just don't know what to do. Remember, in Romans 6, 17, and 18, it's very clear. It's very clear that we must be taught There's a pattern of teaching. In fact, it's important enough. Let me refer back to that real quickly here. Romans chapter 6. These things are so profound. I lived as a Christian for 20 years in a default pattern to a slave of sin, thinking I was a Christian because I was not being taught well. I wasn't being taught how to put off and put on, how to walk in a new way of life. Mine was as is typical for American Christians in evangelicalism, especially, to just get saved and behave. You know, try to avoid the grosser moral sins and make sure your attendance at church is kept up regular, and you make sure you give, too. You know, you have to do all the Christian things. But I was never taught how to be a Christian. I wanted to. The Lord had worked upon my heart and mind. I had a genuine, regenerate experience. I was born of the Spirit. I'd gone through the waters of baptism. I was ready. I was ready, but I was not being taught. Paul says here in Romans 6, what then, shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, your slaves are the one you obey? See, this begs the question, beloved, whom are you obeying today? Whom are you obeying? Whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching. See, there's two things here. There's a pattern of apostolic teaching. that's been revealed to us through the writings of the Apostles, including the Gospels of our Lord Jesus, there's a pattern of teaching here that is defined like this. Regeneration begins the work of God in your life in a very practical, very experiential, very existential way. Regeneration and justification by faith, as important as those are, obviously, There's no life, there's no new life without the new birth. But if we make the new birth itself the end game, then we miss out on the new life. We're not giving people the whole counsel of God, and we have blood on our hands. But thanks be to God, he says, that though you used to be slaves to sins, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. So what's the intervening work of grace that determines whether or not, even after baptism, whether you continue as a slave of sin or learn to walk as a, by the way, which you aren't anymore. You are not a slave to sin anymore. But if you aren't taught that, you're going to default to that because that's all you've ever known. You have to be taught then to be a slave of righteousness. And that comes about as we are devoted and obedient to the teachings of the New Testament, to the teachings of scripture, especially the words, the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and how to be his disciple, how to walk and live differently. Okay, so God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. Here then is two points of remedy. I'm gonna give you a point of remedy from James chapter four. I'm giving you a point of remedy, a very powerful remedy, in Philippians chapter 2. But first, let's look at James chapter 4, verse 7. Submit yourselves then to God. That's the first remedy. Submit yourselves then to God. That's not a one-time event. That is a moment by moment, breath in, breath out, daily submission. Submit yourselves then to God. When I was first in my early recovery, I had a wonderful man in my life, an older man, who told me, Rick, you need to pray on your knees every morning. He said, you're so full of pride that you need to pray on your knees. Don't you dare stand praying or even sit praying. Get on your knees. You need to be clear in your mind about who's in charge and you're not. Submit yourselves then to God. And then comes with that, resist the devil and he will flee from you. You are no longer a slave to sin, as I said a moment ago. You are now a child of God. You have to learn now to walk live as a slave of righteousness. Resist the devil. The devil was once reigning supreme and now he is not in your life anymore. He's not the god of this age for you anymore. You have been reconciled to the true god. Resist the devil therefore and he will flee from you. All he can do is tempt you. He can't control you. Resist him. Come near to God and he will come near to you. So there you go. Cement yourselves into God. Resist the devil. He will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. There's a promise for you. Wash your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. See, this is the point. We can't be double-minded. We can't love the world and love God at the same time. We can't love this present, this system of this present evil age and love God at the same time. It's a double-mindedness. We need to be purifying our hearts. It's a heart thing. It's not a worldview only. It's not a It's not just a philosophical leaning. It is a heart thing. We need to purify our hearts. And we do that by recognizing what we have been doing, by recognizing that we have been living like the world, thinking like the world, behaving like the world, and all the while professing to be followers of Christ. And so in verse 9 it tells us, therefore, to grieve, mourn, wail, Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. This is not about healthy laughter or healthy joy. We're talking about people here who just think it's great to get together and use sarcasm and laugh and have fun and party and dance. You know, like you see on TV or in the movies sometimes, people having these worldly parties and they're all dressed up and they're dancing. They're spinning around with drinks in their hands. He says, grieve, mourn, change your laughter to mourning. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And your joy to gloom, worldly joy. What is the things that give you joy? Change that to gloom, humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up. So there's the first point of remedy. Submit yourselves then to God. The antithesis of that, of course, is being a rebellion towards God. You need to resist the devil, not give in to him, and flee from you. I have, in the past, I've had many of my clients, as a pastor or counselor, many of my clients come in excusing their behavior. Well, I got engaged in pornography again this week. I feel pretty bad about it. But, you know, thank God I'm not under the law. I'm under grace. And, you know, I know it's just part of the now and not yet. And that's the not yet for me. And yada, yada. They're very lighthearted about it. They're very casual about it. And it always strikes me how casual they can be about it. Well, that's because they've been taught wrong. They've been taught, nah, nah, no big deal. You know, God loves you. Have a wonderful plan for your life. No, we should be prepared to come near to God and he will come near to you. And coming near to God is here defined as washing your hands, purifying your hearts, grieving, mourning, wailing. Because the more that we see of God's goodness and his glory and the transformation that we can experience in Jesus, the less taste we will have for the things of the world. You know, it's in the old covenant under Ezekiel and the prophets. He promised that when part of the new covenant, Ezekiel 36, 31, that part of the blessings of the new covenant would be that we would actually come to loathe our own ways. Not justify them, not minimize them, not baptize them, but to loathe our own ways. When we begin to see the glory and the wonders of God's ways, and we as obedient children begin to walk and step with Him and not the world, we come to truly loathe those old ways of thinking. Okay, Philippians chapter 2, I want to bring you back to now. There's this wonderful poetic, some think it's a hymn, others don't. It doesn't matter. Paul is giving us a model and he's given Christ himself as a model for what it means to be human. Jesus is the pioneer of our faith. He is the one to whom we are to be conformed. It is to his life that we are to be conformed. His life within us. And he gives us this wonderful pattern of living that Jesus played out in his own life. That is a model for us to follow and it starts in verse 5. In your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Let me just interject. Your spiritual maturity and your spiritual health is only as good as the quality of your relationships. Now you can't control that completely clearly, right? Because the relationship involves two or more people. But to the degree that you keep your side of the fence clean, you keep your own heart and minds and hands clean, that you are still available to be the love of God to another person, you are fulfilling this. In your relationships with one another, he's talking about our interpersonal relationships within the church particularly here, have the same mindset. See, we are transformed by the renewing of our what? Our minds, yes. It's how we think that's at risk here. It's how we think. Every poor choice begins with a thought, and so we have to be mindful of our own thinking. Our mindset has to be in place. So mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. When Jesus became incarnate, the pre-existing Son of God, the eternal Son of God, became incarnate, He did not have any diminishing of His deity. Undiminished deity in undefiled humanity. But He did not use His place as God to His own advantage or to exploit you. Instead, He made himself nothing. So if the one who was God himself took on human flesh and did not use his place as deity to force you into acknowledging that in him, rather he didn't, he did not. He told people not to tell others that he was the Messiah. The humility there was amazing. He did not come to exploit you. He did not come to rule over you, per se, as their leaders did. Jesus came to serve. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. He who is in the form of God took on the form of a servant. This is, if you will, the transformation of Christ. And we're being called to the same transformation. Remember, unlike Jesus, unlike the Eternal Son, when we realize that we're in our early adolescence or whatever, we begin to try to impose ourselves on people. We try to use our humanity to exploit others, to demand others do for us, and to be manipulative and controlling. And it just shows you the degree of rebellion that we come into the world with. But he who became incarnate made himself nothing. He took on instead the very nature of a slave, a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man. He was a man, fully man, undiminished deity, undefiled humanity. And he modeled for us now what it means to be human. Whether we know it or not, we all really want to be fully human. It's just, we don't know what that is, and Adam is not a good standard. It's Jesus who is our standard. In being found in appearance as a man, what did he do? He humbled himself. That's the most appropriate response to your humanity. It's not self-realization. It's not self-exaltation. It's not walking around tooting your horn. It's not talking about how grand you are. It's humbling yourself. And who did he humble himself to? We just read that in James chapter 4, didn't we? Humble yourself before God and he will lift you up. So he humbled himself. Jesus in full recognition of his full humanity humbled himself fully by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. So that in this life is our pattern. That's the remedy for worldliness. The remedy for worldliness, let me caution you here now, is not some kind of religious external piety in dress and diet and behavior. It takes more than going back to church on Sunday night to remedy your old worldly mindset. The remedy for worldliness and being in love with the world is to be like Jesus. That's what the Spirit's at work in you, right now, doing, is conforming you into the image of His Son. So as you read and study and pray for the illuminating work of the Spirit in the text of Scripture, and you realize your mind is being changed, your thinking is being changed, your mindset is being changed, you're becoming more like Jesus, who did not exploit, who did not impose himself. He did not exalt himself. We could even say he was anonymous. He took on an anonymity in the world. For the first 30 years of his life, nobody saw him as being anything different than any other young Jewish man in the world. It wasn't until he went to the waters of baptism, and the heavens opened, and the Spirit descended upon him like a dove, and the voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. That was the demarcation point, where something clearly was different about this young Jew from Nazareth. But up until that point, he lived in utter anonymity. He did not have a personal agenda. He didn't go around as a teenager touting his credentials, challenging others, bragging about his status. But he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness. So what does it mean to be human? It isn't to go chasing the things of the world, beloved. It isn't to go lusting after the things the world lusts after. That only creates conflict, and arguments, and debate, and even murder. Now, what we want is to be like Jesus, who took on the very nature of a slave or a servant, being made in human likeness, being found in appearance as a man. He did the very most important thing you can do when you realize how human you truly are, and that is humble yourself. and become obedient to the known will of God, even to the point of death. And for Jesus, that was death on a cross. No more, nothing worse. No way of dying that was worse. And that's verses 6, 7, and 8 of Philippians chapter 2. That's what it means in this life for you and I. We are to be cruciform people. We are to be people of the cross. We are to be being conformed to his death. Very important to understand that. Paul said he was being conformed to his death. Philippians chapter 3, he says this, beginning in verse 9, and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law. In other words, self-achievement. but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead." Another translation would be, being conformed to his death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead. So if we are not being conformed to His death, we will never be conformed to His glory as resurrection. There's no other way to glory except through the cross. Christians are people of the cross. Verse 9, Therefore God exalted him to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, through the glory of God the Father. See, the exaltation came after the cross, and the same is with you. If you are going to share in Christ's glory, which you are destined for, You are destined to share in Christ's glory, but you must come to that glory through the cross. You must put to death everything in you that is not of Christ, that is not Christ in you. Anything that does not correlate to the life of Christ in you must be prepared to put to death. and so then he says in verse 12 Philippians chapter 2 and I'll close with this therefore my dear friends as you have always obeyed there's the obedient factor again not only in my presence but how much more in my absence but now much more in my absence continue to work out, continue to do this. See, this is the early church. We, they were taught to continue to work out their salvation. They were never taught to get saved, sit on their hands, and wait for Jesus to come back. And then watch the show up on the stage once a week. No, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose. What is God's purpose? What is God's good pleasure? Well, let me tell you, it is to conform you into the image of His Son, so that you live like Him in this world, and you can share His glory in the next. That's the remedy. That's the remedy for worldliness. It's not some kind of religious holiness, external piety. Quantitative external piety, as Gordon Fee calls it. No. The remedy is to be like Jesus. In thought, word, and deed. Think like Him. Speak like Him. Act like Him. He is your identity, beloved. He is your identity. He's the one who determines your motives, and He is the one who determines your actions. So there we have it. Recognize the lure of the world. Recognize that much of the preaching that happens on Sundays is designed to invite you to embrace the world, especially in the charismatic movement. No, you have to get away from that. You have to move away from that. Listen, any form of Christianity that is not bringing you to a better degree of understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Christ, and be transformed through the renewing of your mind, your mindset, so that you're becoming more like Jesus, any form of Christianity that's not taking you in that direction is not Christianity. I don't care what it calls itself. Transformation is God's purpose for you and for the church. And if that transformation into Christ's image, and not just some kind of piety, some kind of hollow, shallow piety, or some kind of cheesy, squeaky clean moralism, but in genuine godliness and righteousness and holiness, where love is your guiding principle, love for God and love for neighbor. Sacrificial service, humility, obedience to the known will of God. So let me just leave you with this last thought. What's the remedy for worldliness? It's anonymity, humility, and obedience to the known will of God. After the model, image of Jesus I Hope this has been helpful to you. I hope you hear the echo I hope you hear thus saith the Lord because this is not Rick's message to you This is the Word of God. This is God speaking to us, you and I both. I'm hearing it while you're hearing it. The Word of the Lord to us today is to move away from worldliness, reject worldliness, and embrace conformity to the image of Jesus. Amen.