Revival Conference 2007 - Richard Sipley - Part 2

And the world passeth away, and the less thereof, but he who does the will of God abides forever. So my subject is very simple. It's four words. Oh, brother, just to get them this morning, it's four words. Love, not the world. Love, not the world. The Church of Jesus Christ today needs to hear this message penetrate their hearts and their lives and their homes and their churches and transform them. Love, not the world. Now, I grew up in a church setting in western Pennsylvania where we were constantly exhorted not to be worldly. There was preached, taught, exhorted, almost harassed, not to be worldly. Don't be worldly. Don't be worldly. What was meant by that? Well, in that group, those who were considered worldly were. Are you ready? Don't fall out of your seat now. Anywhere. Those who wore lipstick and possibly earrings, they were worldly. That was worldly. That was out. My wife, when she was a teenager, can still remember how their Sunday school teacher, Sunday after Sunday, got after them because they didn't dare to wear lipstick to church. But if she thought any of them maybe did to school, she got after them, Bob, because that was worldly. It's getting really quiet in here. Did I say something wrong now? Really hilarious. If you attended the theater, of course you were worldly. If you danced, you really were worldly. If you played cards, you were really on the way down now. If possibly you professed Christ in smoke, that was really questionable whether you were saved, and if you drank at all, obviously you were not a Christian. Now, don't get me wrong about any of these things. One way or the other, okay? You say, hurry up and tell us which ones are wrong. No, I want to get out of line. No, no, no. I refrained from all those things. I didn't smoke, I didn't chew, I didn't go with girls that do. I thought, because I refrained from all those things, that I was not worldly. I found out that that didn't have anything directly to do with being worldly. I mean, it might be a manifestation of something one way or another, but it really didn't deal with the issue of being worldly. Now, listen carefully. Jesus never used the word worldly or worldliness ever, at least he did. It's nowhere in the Scriptures. You got that? He didn't use the word worldly or worldliness, but he had a great deal to say about the world. In fact, as soon as you decide to make a study of it, you are overwhelmed. You go through the four Gospels, and you say, I can't believe it. I had no idea he talked about this this much. It just becomes a pile of Scripture. We couldn't possibly do an exposition on all those this morning, and we won't even try. I'll give you some. But Jesus had a lot to say about the world. For instance, Jesus said, I came into the world. What does that mean? It simply means that he came down from heaven's glory out of eternity and focused himself in a woman's womb and took on himself a human nature and flesh and body, and was born into our world. That's what he meant when he said, I came into the world. Right? Right? It isn't polite to sit and stare when someone asks you questions. I never ask trick questions. I hate trick questions. Jesus said, I came into the world. He said, I am going out of the world. What did he mean? He meant that he was going to leave this ball, this earth, and go back to heaven's glory. Right? I hate you right now. I thought you knew all this stuff. He said, I am not of the world. Oh. He said, I came down from heaven. I am not of this world. Then he said, you are not of this world the same as I am not of this world. Oh. Whoa. He said, the world hates me. Is that true? The world hated him, right? They gave him a mock trial and nailed him on a cross and put him in a tomb. They thought they were rid of him. They hated him. The scribes and Pharisees would grind their teeth in rage and go out and plot how to kill him. They hated him. Boy, the world certainly doesn't hate some parts of the church today. Right? Well, that's how you can get a big audience. Just get one of the big preachers. Again, he said in John 15, verses 18 and 19, if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belong to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. You try to read some of these passages and about every two or three words you have the word world. I'm telling you, Jesus had a lot to say about this. Again in John 17, he said, Holy Father, I am come to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world. See, I'm doing all this because you've got to get straight this morning what the world is. He says, I'm still here, but I won't be, so that they may have full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world. He doesn't want us to go off and be a bunch of monks or nuns somewhere, right? God doesn't want Christians to be in isolation. He wants them to be in separation, and there's a huge difference between separation and isolation. When I was a young Christian, I thought the two were synonymous, and I'm so glad that God got through to me that he didn't want me isolated from the world. He wanted me right out in the middle of the world, standing for Christ and witnessing for Jesus and winning lost people out of the world. Then he says, my prayer is not that you take them out of the world.