You got a Bible, go to 2 Timothy chapter 3. We’re finishing up 2 Timothy this spring. We’ll do 1, 2 and 3 John this summer, and then in the fall, we’re gonna hit the great book of Genesis, so that’s where we’re going in the next year.

And if you’re new, hope you packed a breakfast. This could be awhile. I’m gonna have a wonderful time at your expense, and it could be awhile, so hang in there with me. I will pray for your fortitude, and then I’ll get you. So I’ll pray and then we’ll spend some time together in 2 Timothy 3.

Father God, we love you. We thank you for an opportunity to study this evening. We ask that you would take these same Scriptures that you have inspired and to illuminate them to our understanding. God, we ask particularly tonight that your Holy Spirit would come and do your great ministry of convicting us of sin and showing us where we are astray and where we need to be corrected so that we can brought into right relationship with you.

God, I pray that as we study tonight that we would learn how to love you in the daily affairs of our life, that our relationship with you wouldn’t be detached and impersonal, that it would be very real, very personal and very practical.

God, I thank you that you give us sometimes in the Scriptures like this word tonight hard words in an effort to make us soft people. I pray that as we study tonight we would receive the hard words and that we’d walk away with soft hearts that love you and love other people and are receptive toward those things that you would call us and intend us to pursue.

We love you, God. We give our time to you. We give ourselves to you, and we thank you for the love that you extend to us in Jesus’ good name. Amen.

As we get into 2 Timothy 3 tonight, we are going to deal with your life in an intensely practical way. Throughout the course of your life, my life, we’re gonna make decisions: how we spend our money, our time, how we treat people, how we work, what we eat, what we drink, what we do, how we speak. We’re gonna make a number of decisions. They’re going to come out of some sort of identity that we have about ourselves.

We evaluate ourselves. We decide who we think we are and what we think is good and noble and what we think is unworthy of our time or devotion or energy. And out of that identity and that sense of self comes all of our decision-making.

What invariably happens, though, is that life doesn’t go the way that we were intending. Things get hard. Things become terrible. Things become polluted, messed up, and people want change, right? That’s the great mantra and issue is people want change in their life.

But what often happens is that people want things to change, but people themselves do not want to change, okay. This is the problem. As a pastor, I deal with this all the time. People come in and say, “I don’t like all the effects.” Well, would you like to address the causes? “No. No, I would like to just keep doing what I’m doing and have different results,” which is clinically the definition of insanity. The insane person keeps doing the same thing anticipating that something different will happen, right?

And so what we’re gonna deal with today, we’re gonna look at your life. We’re gonna open it up in all of its nefarious nature. We’re just gonna shine a deep light on it, and we’re gonna hit you all because today he has a long list of about 20 things that are evil and nasty and rotten and vile. And it’s like buckshot out of a gun, equal opportunity offense for one and all. You’re gonna get hit, and you’re gonna feel like, oh, that spanked my inner child. Didn’t come here for that, not what I was looking for. You’re gonna get a shot or 20.

And when you get the shot, your first inclination is gonna be to resist, to suppress, to fight, to come up with lots of excuses. Oh, I have a good reason. I couldn’t find my pants. You know, you’re gonna come up with some reason to defend yourself, okay?

Don’t resist. Don’t fight. Give me an hour, two, three of your life, and just go with me on this. Hear me out. Feel it through. Take the shot and then walk with me through to the end, okay? This is where we’re going, and it should be good if you endure with me.

We’re gonna look at your life, and then we’re gonna work backwards, cause and effect. Paul speaks to young Timothy about all these matters, this list of 20 things, and he prefaces it with this. “But mark this. There will be terrible times in the last days.” That’s when you expect the Scooby Doo music to kick in, right? Like whoooooo. That’s kind of a scary verse.

I read this to my kids this last week. My two-year-old son Calvin said, “Scawy.” He’s got no Rs yet. He’s like in the Elmer Fudd stage of linguistic development. To him this is a scawy verse, very scary. But here’s the deal. In the last days there will be terrible times. And a lot of people are like oh, my gosh! Jesus is coming back! Get clean fresh clothes on and look holy, you know. This is gonna be terrible!

Some of you are freaked. Jesus is coming back, today, tomorrow, 10,000 years. I don’t know. There’s a big debate over what the last days are. People have thought that the last days have been here, that oh, my gosh! He’s gonna come back any minute for a long time. In the early church in the Bible, it was the church at Thessalonica, the letter of 1 Thessalonians, they all quit their jobs, just sit around jumping up and down, practicing for the rapture. Jesus is coming back. We’re gonna hear the theme song for The Jeffersons and just get out of here. This is gonna be great.

And Paul says get a job. It’s gonna be awhile, and 2,000 years later, we go yeah, it’s been awhile. Good thing you didn’t quit your job, you know? So we gotta figure out, okay, what are the last days ’cause there’s terrible times in the last days. And some people think just because we have terrible times, it’s the last days. It’s not that way.

The last days refers to a huge period of human history. First, we have the coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God, come in human flesh. He’s a man. Come into human history. He’s the Old Testament promised Messiah that the Jews had been waiting for for thousands of years. He finally comes after all this expectation and anticipation. He lives, he dies for sin, our sin, though he was sinless. He rises. He conquers sin and death. He goes back into Heaven. He says, “I’m coming again.”

Now, the last event in human history will be sometime still in the future. Jesus comes back, this time to bless his faithful followers, to judge his enemies, to rule and reign, to set up a Kingdom over all the earth, to be King of Kings, Lord of Lords. The time in the middle between Jesus’ first and second coming, those are the last days. That’s a lot of days, but those are the last days. So we’re living in the last days.

Now, what happens is – I’m just gonna get into some theology – the question is what happens before Jesus comes back? There are two prevailing opinions. I’ll give you big words ’cause, you know, you gotta get your money’s worth. One of the big words is post-millennialism. Post-millennialism serves like an evolutionary theology that things will get better, we’ll get better. Things will improve, better, better, better, more Christians. The world’s a lovely place. We’re all like the Von Trapp family just singing songs and skipping and then wham, Jesus comes back. Tah dah, it’s all good.

The other is called pre-millennialism, which says, no, it gets worse, worse, worse, worse. It’s like devolution. Jesus is gonna come back right before the whole thing just falls apart because the world’s gonna be a terrible place.

Some of you are – and as things get good, people become post-millennial. As things get bad, people get pre-millennial. Now is a terrible, now is a bad time. We’re at war, terrorists. Half of you fill up your car, and the gas in you car is worth more than your car. You know, it’s kind of that time. You know, this is not – this is a terrible time.

But what he says is there’ll be times in this last period of human history that are terrible. You can infer from that there’ll be other times that aren’t so bad, that aren’t so bad. So there’ll be times that are good, times that are bad. You think okay, what’s gonna cause the terrible times? Plague, hurricanes, natural disasters? What? What will cause the terrible times? And he says people.

People cause terrible times. Does this make sense in your life? If you track the vast majority of things in your life that are unpleasant, there’s a person at the other end. Somewhere in the cause and effect chain, there’s another sinful person that has jacked up your life. People do terrible things, right? It’s not the antelopes that are gonna ruin everything. It’s us. You and me, we’re gonna ruin everything. We do terrible things.

So what he’s talking about is in the last period of human history that we are living in, there will be seasons where things are just terrible, so we need to be knowledgeable of that. We need to be aware of that.
Then he gets into 20 different ways that people act terrible, so this is gonna be incredibly encouraging for you. You’re gonna love this. All you guys who wore your cup, good move. This is gonna be a good day.

Okay, the first thing is he says that people will be – here’s the taproot of all the problems – “lovers of themselves.” Did you know that was a sin. Did you know that you’re not supposed to just sit around and love yourself? Did you know that?

’Cause, see, in our day what they tell you is this. You need to love yourself before you can …

Response: Love.

Love anyone else, says Great High Queen Oprah. That’s what she says, right? That’s what everybody says. You can’t love anybody. You don’t even love yourself, so we sit around all day saying well, I’m looking at my bellybutton trying to figure out how to love myself. Do I love myself enough? Once I love myself, then I can love other people. I’m gonna love me, love me, love me. And the Bible says this. God loves you, so you don’t need to love yourself. You’re already loved. And out of God, who is love, he loves you. He gives you his love so now you can be loving.

See, people who don’t know God, they gotta get their love from somewhere, so they’re trying to get it from themselves, but the problem is they’re working from a deficit. God, who is love, he works from an abundance. He loves us. We’re loved. Okay, now I have my security, my identity. I’m loved. Now I can be loving.

That’s why Jesus, when they came to him, they said, Jesus, what is the most important thing? And he said two things: love God, love people. He didn’t say love yourself ‘cause if you don’t love yourself, you can’t love any – he said you’re loved. I love you. You’re fine. Move on. Go love somebody else. Love me. Love them.

And when they – Jesus said something else as well. He said, not to love ourselves. He told us to deny ourselves. The great American skill of denial, self-denial, right? We don’t deny ourselves anything. We’re an addicted, compulsive, overbearing people.

Jesus says to learn to deny ourselves. And the problem is in a culture that tells you that self-love is the highest virtue, the reason that it aspires to that is that we live in a day that sees no higher being other than people. There’s no God. There’s just us, so we need to love ourselves ’cause we’re the highest.

Well, if there’s God, then there’s someone higher than us, and there’s someone else to love, and that would be God. But people don’t love him. They just love themselves. And in so doing, they make themselves their own God, the center of their universe. Everything circulates around me. What would make me feel happy? What would make me feel secure? What would make me feel good? What would make me feel loved? What would meet my needs?
And it’s absolute narcissism. It’s navel-gazing. It’s absolute self-absorption. Bible says that’s a problem because you cannot be absolutely all-consumed with self and love God and love other people. You just can’t, just can’t. Says that’s the taproot of terrible times, people just running around worrying about loving themselves and not loving anyone else.

In addition, he says, “they will be lovers of money.” Did you know that’s a sin? The Bible doesn’t say that money is evil, but it says that “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” If you love money, Proverbs says you’ll never have enough. Some of you are like as soon as I make this much, I’ll be happy. You get it and you go, oh, there’s something else I need.

We’re never satisfied if we worship money. Jesus said we can’t worship God and money. We can only have one God. For many people, money is their God. They will sacrifice family, friends, marriage, clear conscience, ethics, principles, morality. They’ll sacrifice everything for more money.

Jesus says “what good is it if you gain the whole world and lose your soul?” So you go to Hell with a gold card. What are you gonna buy? There’s nothing there. It’s an illusion that there is anything good apart from God.

Am I saying it’s wrong to make money? No. Am I saying it’s wrong to invest and work hard and to see your money multiply and grow? Not at all? Am I saying that it is a problem for you to spend money? Not at all. What I’m saying is this. Our goal should be to love people and use money. I’ve said this before. People who love money use people, and they’ve inverted their priorities. They’ve inverted their paradigm.

In God’s economy, loving God, loving people, helping people, serving people is highest priority. In the inverted, jacked up nature of the culture in which you and I were reared, love of self and love of money are the only values that dominate. What will make me happy and make me rich?

If you have that value system, you will use people to make more money, and you won’t use money to love more people. The purpose of money is to love more people. The purpose of people is not to make more money. This is the problem in business. Business uses customers and clients. This is the problem in ministry. Ministry has used people for money. This is the problem in relationships. Women use men in order to have a viable income and be provided for. This is what happens. If you don’t love people, you will love money. If you do love money, you will use people, and it’s a sin.

It goes on to talk about terrible times. We’re 10 percent of the way in. Feeling good? Feel happy? Gets worse. “Lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful.” Did you know that bragging is a sin? Paul says – he quotes Jeremiah – “May I boast in nothing but Jesus” and his cross and what he’s done. If I wanna brag, I’ll brag about how good God is and all the good things he’s done for me.

Boastful people, they continually remind you of how wonderful they are. This is who I am. This is what I’ve done. This is how much I make. This is what I know. This is what I’ve accomplished. I’m very significant. You wanna see my resume? I’m very important. I’m better than you.

And boastful people, they become very lonely people because they can’t have a relationship with encouragement. They’re always competing with someone trying to show how much better they are. Someone says, “I got a promotion.” Well, I’m making more than you. Well, I accomplished. I accomplished that.

These people are so tremendously insecure. There’s just a braggadocious nature that comes with them, just a boastfulness. You can’t even be around them. You’re like, okay, I got it. You win. You’re better. You’re smarter. You’re cuter. You’re whatever. Could you just shut up. I’m so tired of hearing about what you have and what you know and who you know and what you’ve done. You just love yourself. You love your money, and you love to tell me about how great you are and all the things you do with all your money. I don’t wanna hear it.

It leads to terrible times, boasting and bragging. We live in a culture that our whole goal is to make money, worship ourselves, so we can get a posse and have a bunch of people gather around us and tell us how awesome we are so that when we boast, we have an audience. That’s the American dream. He says terrible times. That’s a terrible world. That’s a terrible life. It’s a vacuous life. It builds and does nothing.

It goes on, “proud.” Did you know pride’s a sin? I’m not even kidding. It really is. It’s a sin. No, seriously. So you’re thinking who is he to tell me that? That’s what I’m talking about. Pride is a terrible sin. It’s the sin that got Satan kicked out of Heaven. It’s the sin that got us kicked out of the garden, and we live in a culture that tells us be proud! Have self-esteem! It’s just a synonym for pride.

Self-actualization! You know Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Your greatest need, according to this weird, inverted pyramid, is self-actualization, self-fulfillment, self-grandizement. You need to be someone so you can be proud of who you are!

No. You know, in William Bennett’s Book of Virtues, it’s this book of stories you’re supposed to read to little kids, it includes all the great list of Western virtues taken from Greek philosophy and Roman history and Western culture. It doesn’t include humility because in our culture that’s not a virtue. That’s a vice. Pride, that’s a virtue. Humility, that’s a vice.

It says that “God opposes the proud, and he gives grace to the humble,” in 1 Peter 5. Philippians 2 says that Jesus was humble, humble. People who are proud – the problem with proud people is just like Satan, they’re so full of themselves that they start to elevate themselves to the point that they think they’re peers with God.

Oh, God’s got an opinion? Me, too! God’s got an idea? I got one of my own. God gives a command. Sounds like a suggestion ’cause I got a better idea. And people rise up just feeling like they can argue with God. They can argue with their Bible. They can disobey, ignore it and do whatever they want ’cause after all, who does he think he is? God? Doesn’t he know there’s a lot of us running around?

That’s pride. God doesn’t tolerate that. God doesn’t deal with that. Just like when my little kid looks me in the eye and points his finger at me, it’s all downhill from there for him, all right. Dad? Oh, you put the finger away. You’ll never see that thing again. You know, I don’t – you gotta respect, you know?

And what happens is with proud people, they just continually raise themselves up. Arrogance. And a lot of people, they get a lot of drive out of this. I do this for my name. I do this for my glory. I do this for my career. I do this for my success. This is for me. This is for me. I’m gonna be proud of myself. They’re gonna know my name. I will accomplish something. I will be somebody – in Hell with Satan. Ladeedah. I mean, congratulations, you know.

It’s just God opposes the proud. He gives grace to the humble. People that are creating terrible times, they don’t know that God’s grace will enable them to have a successful life. You don’t need to work out of arrogance and pride. You can work out of humility and love and get more done. If you don’t know that, terrible, terrible, terrible times.

Goes on, “abusive.” These are people who are mean with their mouth and mean with their hands. They’re sort of the violent, nasty kind of people. They’re just abusive. They verbally abuse people. They take advantage of people. They malign people. They’re just combative.

Here’s where it all starts. It begins when they’re little, and they’re disobedient to their parents. Proverbs says that when you train a child in the way they should grow, when they grow older, they will not depart from that life course. That’s good and bad. If you point a kid toward God, they make progress. You point a kid away from God toward worshipping themselves, spoiled little brat, they’re gonna make a lot of momentum in that trajectory as well.

It is a sin for a child to be disobedient to their parents. The problem is in our culture, again, this is a virtue, not a vice. We’ve created something called adolescence that is the huge excuse to disobey your parents. Oh, they’re teenagers. Well, no, they had the terrible twos and then the terrible threes. And now they’re having the terrible 57s. At what point do we say hey that’s wicked. Knock it off!

Adolescence is this time where you rebel against your parents. Children are encouraged to rebel against their parents as if somehow their parents were absent or stupid. If you sat down with your kids if you’re a parent and watched the kids’ TV shows or movies, I just watched one with my four-year-son Zach this week, a snowboarding monkey.

Now, like all good plot lines, there is an absent or stupid father, a brilliant 10-, 11-year-old boy and a pet. And the father is an absent father or an imbecile, and the 10-, 11-year-old boy and the pet save the day. Okay so we’re watching this thing, and the father’s an imbecile, and the 11-year-old boy and the snowboarding monkey save the day. The hero to this thing is the brilliant monkey who, you know, praise God he’s there because without him, the whole world would come undone because the father apparently has taken a roofing hammer to his frontal lobe and can’t connect two reasonable thoughts, so the monkey is there to save the day.

And I get done watching the movie and I’m thinking this is just teaching my kid to disobey me. Everything is your dad’s an idiot. You and the pet need to go with your own gut ‘cause you’re a lot smarter. And so we get done with this movie. I looked at him. I said, “Hey, Zach, what did you think about the daddy in that show?” He said, “He was kind of dumb, huh? He didn’t pay much attention.” Yeah, what’d you think about the monkey? “That was a really smart monkey,” he says. I said yeah. Monkeys are not brilliant, and monkeys can’t snowboard, and monkeys don’t save the day.

Like the reason our family holds together is not by the monkey’s efforts. We had to nail this down, but it’s an attempt to teach the children to disobey the parents. Watch a kids’ show. Sassing their parents. Oftentimes, when the kids disobey the parents, things go good because the parents were dumb and wrong. It’s disobedience to parents.

In the Old Testament if you cussed out or hit your parent, you could be killed. I mean, if that was still true, we’d be meeting in a phone booth. We wouldn’t need this room. We have a world where people just disobey their parents. There’s no respect for Mom and Dad at all. And in the Old Testament with the Ten Commandments, it tells us that the reason why God wants us to obey our parents is so we’d have a long, good life on the earth. We wouldn’t end up dead quickly like stupid kids do.

But it starts early. It starts with the developmental, habitual pattern, but you need to know this, guys. You live in a world that since you came out of the womb has wanted you to love yourself, pursue money, be an arrogant jerk, think of no one, ignore God and then boast in all your accomplishments. Your whole education system is built that way. The whole – the air you breathe, the water you drink, the world you live in is built to worship you, not God, and to get you to be a foolish person who thinks they’re brilliant. That’s the world we live in. And Paul says when that happens, there are what kind of times? Terrible times, terrible times. People suffer.

Goes on to say these people are “ungrateful.” It comes out of a taproot of ungratefulness. Some of you spent more time praying for things than you do thanking God for things he’s already provided. Some of you continually lament those things you have not accomplished, achieved or obtained, not being grateful for what you already have.

A lack of gratitude, a lack of thankfulness leads to terrible times. I’ll tell you what. If you wanna shipwreck your marriage, if you wanna shortcut, here it is. Never say thank you. Never compliment. Never remember a good thing. Just always complain and gripe about what is left undone. That’ll do it. If you want somebody to hate you, that’s the secret. Be ungrateful.

You wanna be a grateful person. How many of you work in a social service sector of the economy? You’re a barista. You work at a bank. You deal with people. When’s the last time anyone thanked you for going above and beyond the call of duty with sincerity? It very rarely happens, very rarely happens because in a culture where everyone worships themselves, thinks that they’re their own God. I’m very proud. I’m very important. I’m very significant. You should serve me. You’re part of my minions in the service economy. Don’t you know who I am? I have a cubicle. I said double tall whatever. I drink tea. I don’t know.

I just, I feel sorry for the baristas, you know? Barista, I think, is Greek for punching bag. I mean, it’s unbelievable. I said whipped. I’m thinking I’ll whip you. You know, like it’s just people are ungrateful. And you can do something nice. You don’t get a thank you. You don’t get a nothing, nothing.

What that leads to then if you’re not a person who thanks, appreciates and is grateful, you will be a person who eventually finds themselves being incredibly lonely. People are gonna say why bother? Why try? You don’t care. You don’t acknowledge it. You don’t thank. You don’t appreciate. You’re not grateful. There’s just why bother? And so all the sudden people stop serving one another. They stop helping one another. They stop loving on another, and the whole culture just becomes fragmented and disassociated.

Guys, you wanna get into the habitual practice of being a grateful person. The most convicting person in my life on this is my two-year-old son Calvin. He’s go his issues, but on this one, he’s rock solid. He’s the most thankful person I know. He says thank you enthusiastically all the time. We have no idea where he got it. Wherever he got it we’re trying to plug the rest of the kids into that source.

The kid is amazing. The other day we’re having dinner and brought dinner. Thank you, Daddy. Big smile. Bring him his juice. Thank you, Dad. I mean, he said thank you seven times at the meal. Thanked me for praying. Thanked me for working to make money so that he could eat. I mean, two-year-old with a big perspective, realizing it just wasn’t the food fairy that brings the dinner. Dad goes to work and makes money. Mom cooks the meal.

You know, thankful, thankful kid. He’s always very, very thankful, very grateful. The other day too same thing. I went to put his shirt on him. He looked at me, and he patted his shirt. He said, “This is the shirt my daddy bought me. Thank you, Daddy.” That kid’s gonna get more shirts, you know? He’s just a very grateful, thankful kid for everything. He remembers everything that he’s gotten. He remembers who gave it. And when he’s enjoying it or playing with that toy or wearing that shirt or eating that food, he thanks the person that provided it. He’s just very thankful.

Guys, it leads to terrible times when you get served and loved by people, and you’re not grateful. It discourages them from loving and encouraging and helping and serving other people. You know, it’s so sad. I mean, not to boast ‘cause I’ve messed up a lot of my life, but it was just so telling to me. I was at a restaurant recently eating, and there was a young gal, who served me, very delightful, very sweet, very helpful, very attentive. Just very nice gal, very good at her job, and when it was done, I looked at her and I said, “Thank you so much for taking good care of me. This is some of the best service I’ve had in a long time. You’re really attentive, and I just really appreciate that.” She started crying. She started choking up.

And I thought how sad is it when this woman is delightful and very helpful and deals with innumerable people throughout the course of a day, and apparently is so lacking in any sort of encouragement or thanks or gratitude that a bit of encouragement breaks her emotionally. Because our world is filled with those people. Some of you are those people. We wanna be the grateful people. Otherwise, it’s terrible times. Everyone starts to fend for themselves, treat other people like machines that are minions there to do our bidding and our work. We wanna be grateful.

We wanna get into the habit of writing thank you cards, not just for gifts you get but for love you get or service you get. You wanna be the person who compliments other people in their presence. This is So-and-So. Let me tell you about So-and-So. They are so great. They did this great thing. They’ll blush and get embarrassed. It’s not flattery. It’s gratitude. It’s being thankful. It’s speaking well of people. It’s encouraging them.

Paul says, when that doesn’t happen, it’s terrible times. Goes on to talk about some other issues. “Unholy,” this is where you’re not holy. This is the junk drawer for sin. You’re not obeying God. You’re not following God. You’re not reading your Bible. You’re not praying. You’re not considering – you’re just off doing your own thing. Holiness means different. It’s other.

The whole world operates in one way. God’s people are to operate through a completely inverted paradigm system of values. From pride to humility, from anger to love, from sin to grace, we work on an inverted paradigm. And when we don’t, we’re acting in a manner that is unholy. To be unholy, just be like everybody else. That’s the point because holiness means you’re different. Unholiness means you’re just like everybody else, just the way everybody else is.

If you’re normal, you’re wicked. You say but we’re the majority. I know. Do the math on that. Little scary. That’s what makes terrible times, and it’s without love. You gotta look at your life and say when I make decisions, when I choose words, when I spend money, is it out of love? Do I love God? Do I love people? Am I a person who’s operating with love? Or am I a person who is continually manipulating and using people because I love myself and I want everyone to love and worship and adore and follow me, to increase my bottom line, to increase my good name, to increase my fame, my reputation. That’s not loving. That’s using people. It is.

There are women who raise children without love. There are husbands who cultivate wives without love. There are bosses who build businesses without love. There are churches who build ministries without love, all of which is just wicked. God has loved us so that we can love, and it’ll be a terrible time if anything in our life is not touched by God’s love through us, and therefore, is done without love. Then it’s a terrible thing.

Goes on “unforgiving.” This is terrible. Unforgiveness is this. Someone sins against you. They say something or do something that is just wrong, and you are – you’re very displeased by that. Here’s what can happen though. You stay mad for a long time. Some of you have certain conversations or actions that you continually replay in your own mind. It’s just this seething bitterness that that speech or event is living and active in the present continually because you will not let it die.

Someone sins against you, and you continue to live in that moment and have that be a present tense moment in your memory forever or through your words talking about it. You won’t let that thing die. You won’t let that person off the hook. You won’t forgive them. We cannot be Christians without being people who forgive because we have sinned against God. And God and Christ, Ephesians says, has forgiven us. Therefore, now that we’re forgiven, we are compelled to be forgiving.

You say but they don’t deserve it. Well, that’s the nature of grace. We don’t deserve God’s forgiveness. No one deserves our forgiveness. He loves us. We love them. He forgives us. We forgive them. Some of you say but they didn’t apologize. I’m telling you they may never. They may die or you may die before an apology ever gets uttered. And if you’re predicating your forgiveness on repentance and apology, you will never forgive.

It has nothing in this section to do with what they’ve done. It solely has to with your reaction to what they have done. We can’t control the actions and attitudes of other people. We can control our reaction and attitude to their action and attitude. We’re only responsible for ourselves.

When someone sins against you, they’re sinning against you, but they’re also sinning against God. And providing you don’t forgive them, you are keeping yourself between that person and God. You wanna forgive them and extricate yourself and just allow God to deal with them unencumbered. Say I love you. I forgive you. It was wrong. If you ever apologize, I will absolutely receive that, but right now I forgive you, and this is between you and God, and I’m out of the middle. I’m not bitter. I’m not angry. I’m not mad. It’s not personal. It was wrong, but I love you. I forgive you. And leave it between them and God.

People who are unforgiving tend to bring up the past, continually use things that were done in the past as ammunition to absolutely harm someone verbally. You’re always like this. Remember this time? You did this. You said that. You hurt. And just what happens – I find this – people that are sinned against that don’t forgive, what invariably happens is they take on that moment as their identity. I’m a wounded person. I’m a victim. I’m a hurt person. I’m a scarred person. I’m a damaged person. I’m a violated person. I’m a defiled person.

And if you work out of the identity that was given you in sin and not the identity that was given you in Jesus, your life will be nothing but a series of terrible times because you’re allowing the sin to live in the present, not the forgiveness, and you’re allowing your identity to be shaped by someone else’s action other than Jesus. That’s terrible. That’s not good for them. It’s not good for you. It’s not good for anything. It’s not good for anyone. Unforgivness is a terrible sin.

You’re thinking that you’re gonna make that person pay. They have no idea that you’re bitter, angry, mad, up all night, violent, frustrated. They’ve moved on, and you continue to live in that place and only do damage unto yourself. Terrible times come out of unforgiveness.

What happens then is unforgiving people are also slanderous. It’s their mouth. They start saying terrible things about this person, terrible things. Of course, never to their face, always behind their back.

Goes on “without self-control.” People who love themselves can’t control themselves because to control yourself you need something higher than yourself. You need God. If you love yourself, your flesh, your sin nature, that seed of rebellion from your father Adam lives in you, and you just wanna sin, and you have no means of self-control. You can’t stop. You can’t help it.

You see that, you buy it. You see that, you eat it. You see that, you smoke that. You see that, you drink that. You see that person, you take your clothes off. You have no self-control. Some of you are totally out of control. Say I wish I had self-control. You can’t have self-control if you love and worship yourself. You need to give yourself to God, and then God will give you the ability to have control. Control comes from God. We need someone else. We are not the best person to govern ourselves and to rule ourselves because we have our own innate desires for rebellion that lead us into trouble. We need God’s involvement. We need God’s protection. Some of you lack self-control. It’s a terrible thing. Get into debt. You get drunk. You get high. Just lack of control, just lack of control. It’s a terrible sin to be out of control.

Goes on, talks about other terrible sins “brutal.” Brutal. These are violent, mean, nasty, difficult, obstinate people, just brutal. Sometimes it’s physical. Sometime’s it’s just plain, old verbal. “Not lovers of the good.” They don’t wanna do what’s right. You say you know what? I love what Augustine says, the great church father. He says that when it comes to the Bible, if you don’t wanna know what the interpretation of a particular passage is, always go with that interpretation that fosters the greatest love of Jesus and the greatest love of people. That’s the right interpretation.

Some people don’t love that at all. They say I don’t care if – say what would be most loving to God? What do I care? What would be most loving to people? What do I care? I’m in this for me. What’s best for me? What do I want? What do I need? What do I think? What do I feel? What about me? Then you can’t be a lover of the good. You’re only the lover of the self. You can’t love good and love self at the same time because sometimes what’s in your best interest isn’t good, so you can’t love yourself and love good simultaneously.

You choose to love good and doing good and being good and pursuing good, and sometimes that will be at the expense of what you aspire to in the first place. May cost you some money. May cost you some power or some pride, some fame, but it’s good because it’s what’s loving, and it’s what’s best.

When people don’t embrace that, what kind of times? Terrible times, terrible times. Most people today, some people say I really don’t wanna be doing this. Of course, you do. You do what you want. If you’re doing it, that’s what you wanna do. You love doing that. Don’t lie and say you don’t. The only reason you’d say you don’t wanna do something that you’re doing is ‘cause you’re proud and you want me to think that you’re better than you are.

I’m a great counselor. One session is all it takes.

“Not lovers of the good, treacherous.” These are people that are traitors and betrayers. You sign a business deal, and they rip you off, and they’re supposed to be your partner. You sign a marriage covenant, and they commit adultery and betray the covenant. They say that they’re a Christian brother or sister, and they completely undermine you. They say that they are your pastor, and they run off in sin or disappear.

It’s the same as Judas Iscariot. They kiss you right before they betray you. It’s a terrible thing. Treacherous people, traitors, unfaithful people, disloyal people, people that you love and entrusted yourself to, people that you made yourself vulnerable to, that you’ve exposed yourself to. They don’t see that as love and vulnerability. They see that as weakness and opportunity, and they exploit that and harm you. Treacherous.

Some of you are very smart, and you wait for people to entrust themselves to you so that you can harm them because you’re proud and you love yourself and not them. That’s treacherous. That’s treacherous, and it leads to terrible times.

Some people, too, are rash, just make decisions on the fly, no prayerful careful consideration. Some of you guys let’s get married. What’s your name? Like we slept together. Let’s get married. I mean, I had a bad day at work. I quit! Well, what are you gonna do for food. I don’t know. I’m rash. I don’t know. I don’t think about things. I just get all emotional, and I just go off like a bottle rocket and boom. And then I’m done, and I don’t know what I’m doing.

Some of you ladies are married to this guy. He calls it headship and leadership, right? I just make decisions. I’m in charge. I quit my job and I did this and I did this, and we’re doing this and we’re doing this, and the lady’s like have you prayed? Hey, you’re supposed to submit. Don’t ask questions. I’m just asking if you prayed, you know? Don’t quote me any verses out of Proverbs, tell me to be quiet. I’m just asking did you do your homework? Did you think about this? Did you pray about this? Were you care – but, you know, before you take a job, before you hire somebody, before you quit, before you fire somebody, before you get married, before you sign a contract, before you join a church, before you commit yourself to a God, you know, don’t just get all rash about it. Some people just want decisions to be made, so they just are rash.

Because of that, they’re pushed around by circumstance. They’re always reacting, not thinking through. Okay, now, who is God? Why am I here? What’s priority? Where are we going? How could this be prudent, wise? How would I put this together in a reasonable way? This is business, life, family, ministry. This is the decision-making. You don’t wanna be rash. You don’t wanna be rash because once you obligate yourself and you give your word, you’re obligated to keep your word, so you wanna be very careful before you obligate yourself.

People who love themselves, they’re rash. Somebody comes along and says would you do – yeah, I’ll do it ‘cause they just want that person to affirm and esteem and to praise them. They’re not thinking through whether or not this is the wise and good and prudent.

Goes on “conceited.” Conceited. Conceit is related to pride. Here’s what conceit is. Conceit is where you evaluate yourself, whatever your thing is, right? You’re a business person. You’re ministry. You’re musician. You’re photographer. You’re filmmaker. You’re a computer code writer. You’re an author. You’re a teacher. Whatever your thing is, whatever it is, you’ll assess yourself. You’ll sort of make a self-judgment and a determination of your skill set and your ability level, and you’ll go with that, and then anyone else who disagrees with you is dumb.

How many of you work in human resources? Somebody comes in. I’m really good at this. You’re not. Well, how do you know? Well, you’re unemployed, so how would you know? You know, if you were so good at this, someone would pay you and you would not argue with me. Just people have a proclivity to think that they’re good at something that they’re not and then to drown out all voices that contradict.

You watch American Idol? In their head some people sound good, right? I mean, the other – I mean, if you closed your eyes, though, you’re thinking oh, my gosh, al-Qaida got somebody, and they’re torturing them. What are they doing to that poor person? You open your eyes. You go that’s a person singing. In their head they think they sound tremendous. Simon comes along and says, “That was awful.” And they say, “Well, who are you? How do you know? How do you…?”

You need to be willing to accept criticism. You need to be willing to be corrected. You need to be willing to have somebody come along and say that was terrible. What are you thinking? You’re not any good at this. You’re pretty good at this, so stop deciding that this is who you are and what you do, and just accept your lot. That’s what Romans 12 says. We shouldn’t think of ourselves more highly than – we should assess ourselves soberly with rational, sound judgment.

You ever met a person who’s just conceited? The girl who thinks she’s hot, and she’s lukewarm. You know, you’re going – you know, the guy who thinks he’s brilliant, and he’s dim, you know? You’re just going, you know, you could use a little input. You could use a little feedback. You could use a little counsel. You could use a little correction, and if you’re unwilling to receive that, you’re just conceited. Happens all the time. Just conceited.

And conceited people have a propensity to think that they are very important. I’m very important, but again, only in your head. To everybody else you’re another person in a cubicle that we don’t care about. In your head, though, you are King of the Universe. You took a vote. It was unanimous, one to nothing, that you were important.

I was sitting in line the other day. A bunch of people – I’m about halfway up – some lady in her mid-30s, 40s, something like that, just cuts right in front of me in the line in the store. I looked at her. I said, “What are you doing?” And she says, “Well, I’m busy.” I said, “Yeah, we all are.” I said, “You know, the back of the line is back there.” She said, “Well, I’m very important.” I said, “I have no idea who you are. You can’t be that important or otherwise I would know you. I have cable, right? I see all the important people. I don’t know you.” And she says, “Well, I have a lot of things to do.” I said, “I know and the first one is to get to the back of the line.” You know and everybody else is in line just thinking, “Yes.”

But they’re conceited people. They just walk around like I’m here. Bow down now and bring the gifts. It’s like, no, no, you’re not, you know? You’re just a regular guy with bad perception. That’s all you are. Conceited people, though, they just have a total overextended view of themselves, you know? That’s why a little put the pin in the balloon and watch it deflate. You know, it’s like that is what happens when you’re conceited.

You’re just – I mean, I’ll tell you what. And the people that are most likely to become this way are the people that have had some measure of success. The band that gets signed to their first deal, the student who completes their first degree, right? The employee who gets their first raise. The mother who’s raised her first child. The guy who’s bought his first home. It’s as soon as somebody gets a measure of success, all of the sudden they’ve arrived. They’ve voted. They’re very important. They got it all together. They don’t need to listen to anybody. Now they got it all figured out.

Some of you haven’t listened to a thing since junior high. That’s conceit, and what he says is when the world is filled with conceited people, it leads to terrible times because nobody makes any progress, maturity. Everybody assesses themselves, loves themselves, analyzes themselves, esteems themselves, serves themselves. Nobody could say a thing, and they’ve all got deaf ears unless it’s somebody who agrees with them.

Goes on “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” “Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” This is America. Some countries, people starve to death. We eat to death. We’re the nation who created the buffet. All you can eat, right? We are the nation – pleasure. Is it a sin to have pleasure? No. Psalms says that pleasure comes from the right hand of God. God made our bodies for certain pleasure: food, drink, sex feels good. Not a shock. God made it that way. Wasn’t like God was up in Heaven going, “They’re kissing and eating. I can’t believe they would’ve – I never would’ve guessed.” We were put together to enjoy certain things, and so we do. But if we love the pleasure and not the giver of the pleasure, God, that’s a sin.

That’s when all of the sudden we worship and we’re gluttons. We worship drink. We’re alcoholics. We worship sex, and we’re addicts and predators. The love of pleasure leads to a hatred of God, and ultimately, sin leads to death. So those who love pleasure end up dying through their own pleasure. That’s why they can’t stop. It’s not the things that you hate that enslave you. It’s the things that you enjoy that are most likely to enslave you. “Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

Now here’s the problem. “Having a form of godliness but denying its power.” These are not the bad people outside of the church. These are not all the atheists and the non-Christians and the Communists and the secular humanists and the boy bands and the world dictators. These are not those evil people. These are church people. This is us.

There’s a propensity in the church for us to think all the bad people are out there. All the good people are in here. Can we lock the doors and order pizza? Can we just ignore them? No ‘cause the bad people are here. They’re there too, but here is where people who have a form of godliness that deny the power of God are most likely to gather and assemble. Christians are notorious for hypocrisy.

A form of godliness is this: spirituality. I hate spirituality. It’s a pseudonym for demon. We don’t worship spirits. We worship God. We don’t wanna be spiritual. We wanna be godly. You know, it’s just an all-inverted paradigm. If you go to the bookstore, you’ll see spirituality, which is basically a lot of different people writing books on how to have a form of godliness.

We’re a country. Our money says “In God We Trust.” We pledge allegiance to one nation under God. We have a form of godliness. The vast majority of Americans statistically are not atheists. They’re theists. They believe there’s a God. The vast majority pray.

I was on a tour of MTV studios a few years ago talking to the marketing director. She said that the vast majority of young people pray and believe in God, almost 200 percent. It’s spirituality. It’s a form of godliness. It’s a pseudo-religion. It has nothing to do with Jesus or redemption. It’s just about me believing that I’m a wonderful person and that if I sort of tap into this, you know, sky fairy named God or whoever or whatever he is, then that sky fairy will just infuse me with the juice that I need to go be the great success so I can be arrogant and proud and get all my love and accolades and adoration, and this God is gonna be the gas in my tank who will let me be all I can be and actualize my potential. That’s a form of godliness, but it’s not godly.

It’s still about me being worshipped and adored, not about me belonging to him. It’s about me sitting on a throne and God being my underling making me look good. And that’s how we do spirituality here in this country. It’s how we do it, and it’s a form of godliness. It’s a form of godliness, but it’s not godly. It’s a fake. It’s a substitute. It’s a religion. It’s a morality. It’s a spirituality, but it’s not life with Jesus. It’s just not. And the problem is that it denies the power of God.

Here’s the point. You can’t be a Christian and not change. You can’t. Some of you say but I prayed or I memorized a verse or I cried at a large event when they yelled at me like you. I’m in. No, you only know that you’ve met God when you see change in your life. God is powerful, and when your life is terrible – and some of you are looking at this list going I thought terrible would mean like I was broke or my life was – no. Terrible can mean that you’re a great success, and you don’t love God. That’s terrible. You’re all full of yourself, not full of humility.

And what he says is this. People who live according to the precepts of this other paradigm structure, this other inverted values structure, what happens is this. They have denied that God has any power to change or transform them altogether. They’re in denial. You can’t meet God and not change. You can’t. You can’t meet Jesus and be full of yourself. You realize you’re nothing. You’re just somebody who’s loved.

You can’t meet God and not forgive people once you’ve been forgiven. You can’t meet God and be unholy when your God is holy, and you wanna imitate him. You can’t be a person who loves money and uses people if you met Jesus because you’ll love Jesus and use money to love people.

The whole key is once you meet Jesus you encounter the power of God. It inverts your heart, your paradigm. It gives you new desires, new attitudes, new will, new mission. It completely changes you from the inside out, and there’s power that shows up in your life that comes from God. It’s not from self. This isn’t self-esteem, self-actualization, self-improvement, self-help. This is God involving himself and changing you by his power.

Spirituality can’t do that. Only God can. Spirituality is what you do to please God. Christianity is what God has done to love you. He says you know what? In this room, guys, the people that are most likely to commit the terrible sins on this nefarious list, the great 20 in the Hall of Shame, are us. I’m the pastor, so I’m probably the most likely, and then you in my wake.

So what do we do with these people who claim to be Christians or try to be spiritual but are just working in a completely inverted way, and it’s all about them, not about God. Do we listen to them? Do we read their books? Do we download their Web sites. Do we listen to their talk shows? Do we embrace their concepts? Do we pursue their spirituality? He tells us “have nothing to do with them.” Just don’t.
It’s not talking about non-Christians. Hear about people who claim to be Christians or claim to be spiritual, people who are coming to church and just living absolutely antithetical to God without repentance or change. Have nothing to do with them.

If you hang out with a person who is a slanderer, see if you don’t start slandering. If you hang out with a person who loves money, see if you don’t have a change in your attitude toward money. If you hang out with a person who is unforgiving, see if that seed of rebellion and bitterness doesn’t creep into your own heart. What he says is this. Don’t, do not associate yourself with people who claim to love Jesus but live absolutely antithetical to him. That hypocrisy is deadly and it’s catching.

And I’ll tell you this too. There are some people in the room that are more prone to falling into false teachers and false religion and false spirituality and false piety. He mentions you. Now some of you ladies are gonna hate this. The ones that hate it need to hear it the loudest. Here’s the ones who are most vulnerable to this kind of world view and this kind of paradigm and this kind of thinking. He talks about it in the next verse.

These false teachers are the kind who worm their way into homes. I love the fact that the word worm is used. That’s how cults do their job. [Knocking] Hi, is your husband home? Nope. Can I come in? Aha, no. I got a verse. You’re a worm. Leave. And that’s what they do. They worm their way into homes. Sometimes they worm their way in through knocking on the door. Sometimes it’s your roommate brings this guy home. It’s the television talk show. It’s the radio talk show. It’s the Internet chatroom. It worms its way into your home, ladies, and “gains control of weak-willed women.”

Are all women weak-willed? No, some women are strong-willed, and we pray for their husbands. Other women are weak-willed. Now here’s a weak-willed woman. Whatever. A weak-willed woman just goes with whatever she’s told, right? Why did you sleep with him? He said he loved me. No, he loves you naked. Oh, well, he says he will go to church. Has he ever been to church? No, he’s always hungover in the morning. We have an evening. He’s drunk by then. What the – why’d you give him your money? He said to. He said to give him the money, so I gave him the money. He didn’t mean to hit me. He meant to hit the wall, and I got in the way. Silly me.

Just weak-willed. He doesn’t love you. He’s using you. He’s taking your money. He’s a nut job. He’s feeding you heresy. He’s using you. He loves himself, and you’re just part of his posse. Doesn’t care about you. He’s giving you thinking that’s nuts. He’s encouraged you to live apart from Jesus and apart from his precepts and apart from his work. He’s nuts. Why do you do that? I can’t help myself. It’s like the breeze shows up, and I just get blown around.

See, some of you ladies know this gal. And you know, at Mars Hill it’s so hard because, ladies, I can’t save you from yourself. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. Weak-willed women are perpetually vulnerable. They’re in a dangerous place. They could get hurt. They could get taken advantage of. What Paul is saying you gotta be real careful if you’re a weak-willed woman, if you’re easily pushed, if you’re easily swayed, if you’re easily blown over.

And here’s why women are weak-willed. They’re loaded down with sins. They got all kinds of sin in their life. They’re not quick to repent, quick to respond, quick to renew. And they’re swayed by all kinds of evil desires. I want attention. I want a guy to take care of me. I wanna have sex. I wanna have kids. Desires that perhaps are not evil, but when you’re swayed down with sin, they become evil desires because you want those things instead of a relationship with God, and you want those things at the expense of the relationship with God.

Some of you ladies are weak-willed, and I hear this from weak-willed women all the time. I just need a husband who will take care of me. That’s the last thing you need. You will attract the wrong man, and if you attract the right man, you will make him the wrong man. You are not fit for marriage until you have your own relationship with God, your own convictions, your own holiness, your own ability to deal with your own sin, to control your own desires.

Gentlemen, do not marry these women. Take me at my word. These women attract the finest men. You wanna know why the bad girl always goes for the good guy. ’Cause the good guy wants to put a cape on, fly in, be the superhero, save the day and rescue the princess. So weak-willed women are notorious for pitching emotional fits, creating drama, huge need, immediate crisis. The good guy comes in to save the day. She doesn’t want to be saved. She wants to meet the needs of her sinful, evil desires.

A guy who doesn’t know that thinks he’s coming into save. He’s not. He’s coming in to be killed. He’s been ambushed. Some of you go I married her. What’ll I do now? It’s gonna be some work, some medication, right? Weak-willed women, they’re an easy score. They’re a life of misery. They just are.

Some of you, ladies, you really need to get it together. I’m worried about you. I love you. I’m your brother. I’m your pastor. I care, but the truth is if you’re weak-willed, have a pile of sin in your life and you’re weighed down with evil desires, you are most vulnerable to the wrong kinds of men who will come in, pretend spirituality so that they can take advantage of you physically, sexually, emotionally, financially. They will tap you for whatever it is that makes them filled with arrogance and pride ‘cause you’re another notch on the belt. You’re another conquest in the game.

And don’t think that just ‘cause they’re sitting in church or say they’re a Christian that they’re better guys. There are some guys that I believe Satan sends here to pick off the easiest women in the room. And a lot of women come in who are easy thinking this is a safe place. I don’t need to grow or mature.

But here’s the problem, ladies. “These women are always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” They’re on the latest spiritual trends, bandwagon. They’re reading the latest book. They’re onto the latest, you know, Web site or author or radio shows, television shows. Some of you ladies have been coming here for years. Some of you have been listening to me for years. You’ve learned, but you have not attained any acknowledgement of that which is true. It is my responsibility to teach. It is our responsibility as a church to teach. It is your responsibility to learn and to acknowledge that which is true and thereby to reject that which is false. That is incumbent upon you.

And you can’t say but I’m a single gal or I didn’t have the right husband or I didn’t have the right father or I’ve been really busy or he said he loved me. No, you need to acknowledge the truth. The truth is that many of you are weak-willed women who are loaded down with sins and desires that are evil. And the reason that your life is terrible is because you’ve made that life.

I see many women crying about their life neglecting the fact that they are the ones who created that life and wanting someone else to come in and in an instant save the day, rescue the princess, mount the white horse and ride off into the sunset.

The acknowledgement of the truth is this. I have made my own problems. I am responsible. I am an adult. I do what I wanna do. I’ve done what I have wanted to do. I have not loved God. I’ve loved me. I have not served others. I have served me. I am proud. I am self-absorbed. I am confused. There is something tragically wrong with me. I need God’s help. I’m a mess.

And I want you men to just pledge with me that you will not intentionally pursue and take advantage of these women. They are the lowest-hanging fruit. They are the easiest pick, but it’s tragic if you take advantage of them. It’s just deplorable. Our job is to love weak-willed women so that they become strong-willed women, not to take advantage of them.

And you ladies need to take responsibility for your own relationship with God and your own spiritual maturity.

Goes on, he closes with this. “Just as Janes and Jambres” – these are the two guys that opposed Moses in the book of Exodus. They were magicians for King Pharaoh who performed false signs, wonders and miracles. “As they opposed Moses, so also these men,” false teachers, bad guys, pseudo-Christians, nut job instructors who crawl into the church looking for the low-hanging fruit and the easy women. “These are men of depraved minds who, as far as the faith is concerned, they are rejected.”

False teachers, sinful men, people who are just spiritual and have a form of godliness but have not experienced the power of God to transform their life, they’re not dumb. They’re depraved. They’re not stupid. They’re wrong. They argue well. They write well. They publish freely. They’re incredibly popular. They are majority, but their minds are depraved. They’re bent on sin, not on God. They’re bent on self, not on Jesus.

They love themselves. They want you to follow their legion so that you can love them too, and they will tell you to love yourself as they love themselves. They will encourage you to worship them and worship themselves. Their minds are depraved. They’re crooked. They’re bent. They’ll fill self up with self. They’ll never bring you to repentance. You’ll never get mad or angry or upset with these guys ‘cause they’re always gonna tell you that you’re wonderful as long as your just like them.

Some of you women are the easiest pick. I see a wicked guy who gets off theologically, goes astray, loses his compass. Then we ask him to leave the church ’cause we don’t wanna have anything to do with them like the verse previously said. I have yet to see any one of those men in the seven-and-a-half-year history of the church not leave without taking at least one woman with him. I have yet to see a bad guy walk out the door without at least one woman.

His depraved mind causes him to go after the most vulnerable women to cause them to agree with him theologically, to use them for sex, for money, for affection, for time, for power, for the ability to teach, for whatever it is. And then when they move on, they just leave damage and mayhem in their wake. It’s because their minds are depraved. They’re not encouraging people to love God and love one another. They were only encouraging that person to love them and agree with them. That was it. That’s it.

The good news is this. “They will not get very far because as is the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.” They’re fools. You say but they’re popular. They got a book deal. Fools have book deals. So do wise people. Fools have radio shows. So do wise people. Fools have ability to teach and to instruct, and so do wise people. Just because someone is widely popular doesn’t mean that they’re wise.

You need to look at the folly and say you know what? That just isn’t leading to love of God, love of neighbor. That isn’t leading to repentance of sin. That isn’t leading to Jesus. That’s just going somewhere else. Here’s where I’m gonna close. Here’s what I’m worried about. I’m worried that you guys would now take this list of 20 things and say okay, I’m not gonna do those things. I’m gonna do these things. I’m gonna be a good, moral person. I’m gonna not do this. I’m gonna start doing this. I’m gonna go from this to this. Here’s my new good list.

Don’t do that. That is a form of godliness. We don’t wanna encourage you toward morality. We don’t wanna encourage you toward godliness. We wanna encourage you toward God, okay? The first thing he said was they only love themselves. At the end he says they love pleasure instead of God. The bookends for the behavior and conduct is not loving God. So the issue is not my anger, my tongue, my budget, my pants. The issue is I don’t love God. I don’t love Jesus. I just don’t love him. That’s the issue.

If you have habitual sin in your life, anything that I’ve dealt with tonight, the problem is that in that part of your life it is disassociated from Jesus. You don’t love him. You say well, this is my money. He can butt out. This is my sex. He can butt out. This is my relationship. He can butt out. This is my anger. He can butt out. This is my business. He can butt out. This is my family. He can butt out. Do you love him? Not here or not at all. This is mine. This is his. Or maybe it’s all mine, and none of it’s his. I don’t love him.

Terrible times. When all or any of your life are disconnected from the Lord Jesus, who is God, who died for your sin, will embrace you, love you, forgive you, will give you his love so that you can get your security from his love for you, not from having to love yourself, not from having to perform or execute or be smart or popular or successful, just having security in the fact that you’re made by God, loved by God, saved by God, kept by God.

And out of God’s love and God’s work you can then love God back. And out of God’s love for you and your love for God will come a whole different value structure, a whole different paradigm for life, and you’ll find you’re forgiven, loving, considerate, thankful. You’re a different person. You’ve experienced the power of God, not just godliness, but God. Not just morality, but God. Not just good things that would make you a better person so that when you achieve them you can boast on all of your successes and pride.

But humility that comes to Jesus and says thank you for dying. Thank you for rising. Thank you for forgiving. Thank you for loving. Please give me your power so that I can be like you and not like me. And that way you can be honored. And if anyone should come to me and say “I really appreciate you”, say yes, Jesus has done a wonderful thing in my life, and I can boast in what you’ve done, not in my own accomplishments.

What I call you to tonight is this. It’s an issue of cause and effect. I don’t want you to chase all of the effects. I want you to pursue the cause of change. That’s Jesus. He’s God, loves you. You’re only hope for identity and to go from terrible times to good times is to be with him and to have him in and through and over and for all aspects of your life. And if there’s anything in that list that is perpetual for you, you need to know this. You don’t love Jesus, not there. You just don’t.

You need to own that tonight. You need to feel that pressure. You need to turn from that and trust in him. You need to turn from yourself and embrace him. He’s the only one who can forgive sin. He’s the only one who has the power to change lives, and the key is this, guys. I tell you this all the time. I’ll tell you it again. It’s not about what you do. Don’t look at the list and say this is what I need to do. It’s about who you love. You love him, you’ll do that. If you don’t love him, you can’t do that.

If you don’t love him, and you do do that, you’ll become proud, and you’ll love yourself, and you’ll be worse than when you started after a lifetime of sincere effort. So first things first. Cause, love Jesus. Effect, go from terrible to good times, okay?

We’re gonna give you a chance to pray and do your business with God. We’re gonna partake of communion, which is remembering the body and blood of Jesus, our great God and King. For all that are Christians and have repented of sin, you’re welcome to partake with us. We’re gonna give of our tithes and offerings, which is one of the ways that we say that we love God more than money. And we’re gonna sing. We’re gonna celebrate ’cause guess what. We’re in the last days, but it doesn’t need to be terrible times. It could be times of love, grace, forgiveness, mercy, salvation, redemption, cleansing, healing, fresh starts, new identity, God’s love, us loving God, us loving each other and working out of a new center and a new paradigm together as a new people. And that’s what we celebrate and sing and thank God for. I’ll pray for you.

Father God, we love you. We thank you for a chance to study your Word. God, I have a real burdened heart today for the ladies. Many are single. Many are weak-willed. Many are loaded down with sins and burdened with wicked desires. God, they want sex, not a husband. They wanna be taken care of, not responsibility. They wanna be looked after, not adults. They wanna continue in their life course, and they just wanna have different consequences and results.

God, they’re vulnerable to false teachers that would affirm that. They’re vulnerable to dangerous men who would abuse that. God, I pray for wisdom, and I pray for fresh beginning for those weak-willed women who are in the room and most vulnerable among us. God, many are my sisters. Many put themselves in harm’s way regularly. Many of them continue to flirt with disaster, and in so doing so, God, they’re in the process of shipwrecking a relationship with you.

I pray for the men that they wouldn’t become false teachers and sinful men who have a form of godliness that are just spiritual hypocrites that have spirituality but not Jesus.

And God, I pray for us all that we would feel the sting of your conviction, but it wouldn’t lead to condemnation. It would lead to repentance, which would lead to life. God, thank you for that, that you don’t allow us to remain conceited people who just look at our own life, assess ourselves, judge ourselves and move on, that you care enough to involve yourself to speak to us, to bring us under the Scriptures, to expose us, our hearts, our motives, our attitudes, our desires and our wills, that you lay us bare, that you reveal who we truly are, and then you love us and you embrace us. You forgive us. You transform us so that we can be more like the Lord Jesus and less like our natural inclinations.

We seek that tonight. We celebrate that tonight. We embrace that tonight, and I pray for us all, Lord God, that our lives would not be marked by terrible times but they would be marked by good times, born out of a love for you and a love for one another that commissions itself with your love for us. Amen.