Sermon Manuscripts
Deliverance
From the World
a sermon in the series:
Worldliness
A sermon delivered
Sunday Morning, March 15, 2009
at Oak Grove Baptist Church, Paducah, KY
by S. Michael Durham
© 2009 Real Truth Matters
Galatians 1:4
Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.
I want to return to the text I used to begin this series on worldliness, because we have yet to show how Christ delivers us from this present evil age. Modern culture does not appreciate the idea that our present age is evil. It criticizes Christian believers for thinking culture and civilization, as we know them, are evil. The cry of our times is, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” I might see that quotation applicable if the Bible taught us that any assessment of good or bad or right or wrong is condemnable, but it doesn’t. It tells us there are a good many things that are righteous, and everything else is unrighteous. Even our text makes a judgment of this present age by condemning it as evil.
I don’t wish to be insensitive to anyone or show disrespect to anyone who may disagree with me. But, ladies and gentlemen, the confusion that reigns over our times like a blinding fog must be cleared so that we can see the runway and safely land a crippled culture and not crash. Societal evolution has not led man to ascend to a higher order; it has led man to a deeper despair. Man may be technologically superior to previous generations, but he cannot boast he is spiritually superior. For all the strides in science, medicine and technology, we are not the better morally. These things do not answer the deepest longings and questions of the human soul.
This modern generation has decided that since scientific advancements can’t alleviate the pain, the despair and the longing of the soul, it will try something new—the throwing off of all moral restraint. It will develop a creed that has as its chief hallmark doctrinal statement that there are no moral absolutes: nothing is “right” and nothing is “wrong.” This is not new. For 70 or so years in America, we have traveled this road of irresolute uncertainty so that most young people today have no bearings or markings to know where they are or where they are going on life’s sea. This present evil age tells them that nothing is right and nothing is wrong.
What is the result of this madness? The result is the belief that nothing can be trusted. To say there are no absolutes is to remove the ability to trust! If someone tells you morality is a sham; there is no right or wrong; then how can you trust him with anything of value? He could steal you blind and think nothing of it? How could you tell her your deepest secrets and trust she will keep them in confidence, if she doesn’t think it immoral to betray that confidence?
My point is this: moral flimsiness leads to the breakdown of human relationships. We cannot live without right and wrong! You don’t want to live without right and wrong! As an example, imagine your sociology teacher tells you tomorrow that all the girls will receive an A and all the boys will receive an F. What would you say? If you are male in that class, I guarantee you would complain that was not objective or fair! But if there are no moral absolutes, the words “objective” and “fair” make no sense.
If your employer tells you that he needs the money he’s supposed to pay you because his children wish to go to Disney World, what would you tell him if you believe morality is relative? Without moral standards, all hope of order is murdered and chaos is free to have its mayhem. There must be rights and wrongs—you don’t want to live in a world or a society where there are no moral absolutes, do you? Freedom cannot be achieved by destroying morality. “Truth” that is good for one person but not good for another is not the means to true happiness. God has given His truth to us, and moral standards to ensure our freedoms, joy and tranquility. If you will give yourself to God’s ways, you will not be confused or unhappy. God’s truth is for your joy in this life and in the life to come. There is only one way: Jesus Christ.
I will answer two questions here regarding deliverance from this present evil age:
Why is deliverance from sin not enough?
It’s not enough because Paul doesn’t stop with our sins being taken care of. He goes on to say, “[Jesus Christ] gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age.” Isn’t sin the real problem? Of course it is, but it isn’t our only problem. This present evil age, or in other words, worldliness, is also a problem. As we have seen in our study on worldliness, it is not just something “out there” but something also in our hearts. John says worldliness, or love of the world, is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Those things are all within you and me. Sin is nothing more than the fulfilling of those three things.
The word “lust” means an intense desire and cravings of the mind and body. Don’t limit the word “lust” to sexual sins, because the Bible doesn’t use it only in that narrow way. It means any intense craving or longing of the mind or body, whether it be the desire to be loved or accepted, the desire for protection and health, the desire for wealth, comfort, joy, food, survival—all of these things are natural to us; most of them God-given. But these natural longings and wants are not in agreement with God’s moral standards because they don’t want to be governed.
Have you ever noticed that when someone told you that you couldn’t do something you wanted, there was something on the inside of you that resisted? That is the flesh. The Bible says it is our fallen, corrupted human nature. We don’t start life out morally neutral or innocent. We start out with a nature that wants what it wants when it wants it and how it wants it! The Bible says these wants are out of proportion to what God originally intended for us, and now we don’t want to submit to His standards and guidelines on how to satisfy these desires! Therefore, when you are tempted to sin, these natural desires are being enticed to be satisfied in a way that God prohibits.
So we could define sin in this way:
Sin is a violating of God’s law by fulfilling the natural desires in a way God rejects.
When you sin, you put yourself on the wrong side of God’s law and become a fugitive against Him. Many today reject the view of God that He is judicial and righteous—they say that contradicts God’s love, and that He wouldn’t condemn anyone (or at least them) to hell. But truthfully, God’s holy justice is a demonstration of His love, in much the same way that human judicial systems are a demonstration of a society’s love for order.
What would happen if we disband the courts tomorrow? What would happen if we lay off all the police, for the cause of love? I don’t think you’d like to live in that kind of a world. What kind of world would it be if this so-called “god of love” simply let everything go and every evil happen? If that god let everyone be his own god and do whatever he wanted? How can you call that love? You don’t even love your children in that manner; why do you impose a false standard of love upon God?
God loves that which is holy; therefore, He must come against all that which would destroy His holiness. Our problem today is that we think we’re the apple of God’s eye. We think we are His only affection. You should know you’re not on the top of God’s totem pole of love—He loves something even more: His own, holy, glorious Self. Don’t think that makes God to be self-centered and egotistical. What He loves is that which is good and holy, and holy and good must be preserved. There is nothing as good and holy as God. I’m glad God loves that which is holy and has determined that holy and good shall overcome!
Our sin puts us in a position of liability. Our text says Jesus gave Himself for our sins. Paul is referring to the debt we owe God’s justice. When a person breaks human law, he or she must be brought to justice and pay the penalty of the law. Our sins against God stand over us as a penalty that must be paid. When the Bible says, “Jesus gave Himself for our sins,” it means that He paid our penalty! With our sin debt removed, God can show you mercy and forgiveness! God loves in such a way that He maintains justice and righteousness and all that is good through Jesus Christ.
When Jesus died for your sins, He did more than make a way of saving sinners; He protected all that is holy. He is pouring out and demonstrating His righteous wrath against our sins so He can be good, loving, kind and merciful toward you. That’s the kind of love you need—not this namby-pamby, anything-goes kind of love: that kind of love will damn you and never deliver you.
Our sin problem is more than an issue of law and penalty and justice. It’s also about our inability to become like Jesus. Salvation is more than just about getting the sins of the past dealt with; it’s also about not sinning from this moment on. Hardly anyone believes that anymore: “Do you mean we’re supposed to be perfect?” Yes, there is a verse or two like that in the Bible. “Be ye perfect as I am perfect.” God doesn’t do away with His moral standards. So if He is to save you, He must do more than just deal with the past and allow you to live like you used to. Salvation and the gospel are about delivering us from both the penalty of sin and the power of sin. God wants to give you victory over your fallen human nature so you will not sin like you used to. This is very good news!
I’m thankful for what God did for me in December 1986 when He saved me, but I feel worse a sinner today than I did 22 years ago, because I know more about myself in the light of His glory and countenance. And I don’t like what I see. Heaven to me is not so much about streets of gold and pearly gates and mansions; it is about being delivered from sin. I won’t be like this anymore! I can have no hope in a salvation that only deals with penalty and not power. I need a Savior that can break the power of sin in my life.
To most, holy living sounds like a drag. But the truth is that holy living is the only way to true freedom and true joy. The deception of this present evil age is to make you think holiness is something terrible so that you never investigate it. If you’re to become holy, you need more than just the penalty of your sins to be fixed. You need to be fixed. You need deliverance from the lies and manipulation of this flesh, which is part of this present evil age.
Someone said it this way. A Christian in this world is like a boat in the water: the boat is in the water, but the water is not supposed to be in the boat. Likewise, the Christian is in the world, but the world is not supposed to be in the Christian. Christ has given Himself to deliver us from the world that is in us. We need deliverance from our sins, and we need deliverance from this world that keeps us captured in it. That is why His death for past sins is not enough.
How does Christ deliver us from this present evil age?
Paul answers our question in Galatians 2:20. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” A four-part answer is contained within this verse.
Identity (or union or being made one) with Christ delivers us from this present evil age, because His death becomes our death.
This theology is important because without it, one cannot know true joy and happiness. The Bible says something wonderful took place the moment He died on that cross. Romans 6:10 says He died to sin once and for all. He lived under the law, and though He was sinless, He died to the world of sin. When He was resurrected, He was no longer under that realm.
If you would trust Him to the degree that you would entrust yourself to Him, He would consider that enough to justify you and remove the penalty of your sin. We should all rejoice at this. He knows you can’t live like Him, so He said if you just trust that what His Son did on the cross was for you, what He accomplished for you will be given to you: perfection and complete acceptance.
Galatians 2:16 says, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.” Paul had explained in Galatians 1:13-14 how he had tried to be justified by the works of the law. He knew it couldn’t be done.
So being right with God is not something you earn; it is a gift given to you. And when you put your faith in Him (entrust yourself to Him), He will declare you right.
Identity with Christ puts us in the place of grace.
Now we are no longer under the law trying to get God’s approval by how good you are. We are now under grace. This does not mean that upon salvation it doesn’t matter how we live (as many modern Baptists believe); it means that it’s a grace that keeps working in us. “Once saved, always saved” is true in the sense that those who are His are His forever, but the issue is what kind of grace do you believe in? A grace that says sin is OK, or one that keeps working in you to purify you from sin’s corruption?
If you are lost in a dark, unfamiliar cave with hundreds of tunnels and only one way leads out, and your flashlight has died, which way will you go? You go half a mile into the cave and discover myriads of little tunnels leading in every direction. If you go the wrong way, you will eventually die. What will you do? Suppose someone with a light finds you in the cave and says, “Trust me, and I will get you out of here.” What is he asking you to do? He is asking you to not only believe he is trustworthy, but also to go where he tells you and do what he tells you. And if you want to get out of the cave, you will do as he says.
So trust means more than just believing in someone. (For how could you not believe in the existence of the man with the light?) It means to entrust your life to that person. Why would you entrust your life to the man with the light? For all you know, he could be a mass murderer wanting you to be his next victim. But you have never seen a darkness as black as this, and therefore, you take the chance, and you trust and obey.
I wonder about any of you who would say in the darkness and dankness of your sin, “I don’t know if I can trust Jesus or not.” Your predicament is far worse than being lost in some underground cavern. Your lost condition exceeds being stranded in an unfamiliar place. I am talking not just about your eternal destiny, but also about right now—you are lost in this world like a little lamb having no shepherd. You don’t know how to live, which way to turn, what to do; everything you have done up to this point has led to failure. Why can you not trust the Savior? If you were in that dark cave you would trust that man with the light even though you had never met him before. How can you not trust God Almighty, who has never lied? There is no shadow of turning, no variableness with Him. His word is true. “Follow Me, trust Me, and I will deliver you.” Don’t wait—do it now. It is not a matter of believing He exists; it is a matter of obeying and following Him.
Faith in God is all that He asks of you, and that faith unites you to Jesus and His death for you. Then, Paul says, just like Jesus was in your place in this world under the wrath of God, now you can be in His place in this world by grace.
The moment you put your faith in God, a supernatural desire is given to you that counteracts the world within you.
Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” The power of the cross is that faith in it causes a supernatural infusion of the life of Christ in you by the Person of the Holy Spirit. That is a part of the gift of salvation. God knows you can’t live a holy life and keep His commandments by yourself. He knows the powers of the lusts of the flesh are way too strong. So He grants you a divine power to overcome. I don’t know how it happens; all I know is it happens. I was blind, but now I see. I was lost, but now am found. I know something is different about me—I’m not perfect yet. I know I’m not what I should be, but I’m not what I used to be. Why can’t I explain it? Because it is supernatural.
I don’t want you to jump through our hoops; you’ll jump right into hell. I want you to trust in God and let Him give you life supernaturally.
His death delivers us from this present evil age because His death is the fulfillment of God’s promises.
Think with me to see this connection. Look again at the next part of Galatians 2:20—“and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Paul says faith in the death of Christ saved him from sin by being his death to sin. Faith in Christ is how the life of Jesus is lived through him. Where is this idea promised? Paul develops it in chapter 3 of Galatians. He shows the Galatian Christians that Jesus was the fulfillment of a promise made to Abraham, first prophesied after Adam and Eve fell, 4,000 years before.
Paul says something beautiful when he says in chapter 4, “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law.” In other words, He kept His promise. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross is the fulfillment of that old promise.
If God would keep His promise about killing His own Son on your behalf, don’t you think that if He promises to give you power to live victoriously over this present evil age, that it is so?
Look at Romans 8:31. “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” How do I know God is for me? Look at verse 32: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Now you know God is a promise keeper. He sent His Son. And He will freely give us all things, by faith in His promises.
I wish to take this one step further, and highlight perhaps the most important point of this message: We overcome the world and live holy as long as we believe the promises of God are better than the promises of the world. That is what the death of Christ reminds us: He can be trusted; He did fulfill His promise. But He has made many, many more promises. 2 Peter 1:4 says, “by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Paul and Peter agree: God has made you some promises, and all He asks of you is to believe His promises are better than the promises of the world, and if you do that you will overcome the corruption in this world that is stimulated by your lusts.
When temptations, cravings and desires, come upon you in a way that you know God will not be pleased or glorified with their indulgence, you must concider this question: “Who am I going to believe, the promises of God or the world? Do I really believe that the Lord knows the way to freedom, joy, contentment and happiness, or do I believe the indulgence of these appetites are the way to these things?” The world has an allurement and attraction we must not minimize. I will not scoff at the dazzling marketing campaign of the world that would have us believe it knows better than God.
But Paul says this present evil age is just that—evil. It is a deception and a sham. There are times that your desires seem so overwhelming. I’m not even talking about the gross wicked sins we all think of first; I’m talking about the desires of our mind we may not think of as evil. What about the desire to be right and prove someone else wrong? What will you do with the natural desire to be satisfied and pronounced right? Don’t tell me that’s not a powerful desire; it’s what fuels most arguments. I must prove I’m right to serve justice, we think. Here’s what God says about it: wisdom from above is yielding. Do I follow this to its conclusion and prove I’m right, or do I listen to God that death to self will glorify Him and bring more joy?
Paul says if you want to have victory, you must believe the promises of God are better than the promises of the world.
Finally, I want you to note that Paul says in our text this is the will of God for you. God has something better for you than anything this world will give you. It is a life free of you trying to promote yourself, protect yourself, pleasure yourself and defend yourself—it is a life lost in the protection of Jesus Christ. Don’t misunderstand and think that I am promising you will never be afflicted by the evil spirit of this world—even in surrender to Christ, every Christian is still subject to the world’s enticement. But I can promise that Christ is a deliverer, and He will work in you, guaranteeing that His work will not stop until it is complete. “For this is the will of God in you, even your sanctification!” Perfect holiness!
Your deliverance will begin the moment you allow God the entirety of your life. Not just a compartment or segment of your life, but all of your life. So I cry and plead with you, give your entire self to Jesus; yield yourself to Him right now. Renounce the evil spirit that has played you for a fool. There’s a wisdom that is heavenly and a wisdom that is earthly. God’s wisdom delivers you from the sensual, devilish wisdom of this world and all of its fruits. We may all be present in a world that is evil, but we don’t need to be of this world. Nor do we need to be manipulated by the lying spirit of this age. Simply trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, believing that He who has promised is able to deliver you, and God will save you from this present evil age. Amen. |
