My lead Pastor started home from Canada this weekend; so yesterday I got to take the pulpit and address the congregation at Cornerstone Church one last time. The title of the message was “Don’t Be Mr. In Between.” Here for discussion is pt. 1
Today our study together from the Word of God is taken from the Book of James Chapter 4. Let’s begin in Verse 1
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? 2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
You adulterers![a] Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. 5 Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him.[b] 6 And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say,
7 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.8 Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.
Today we are talking about friendship with the world and what it does to us.
In 1944 Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen wrote a song that went like this:
As Johnny says, I feel a sermon comin’ on.