February 4, 2025 • 17 mins
In this episode Josh explores the tension between living in a distracted world and maintaining a close relationship with God. We discuss how our engagement with worldly systems affects our struggles with sin, particularly unwanted sexual behaviors, and explore spiritual disciplines that can guide us back to a life of thriving in faith.
• Exploring the dual meanings of 'world' in scripture
• Understanding friendship with the world as spiritual conflict
• The impact of worldly influences on sexual sin struggles
• Identifying aspects to leave behind for spiritual growth
• The value of spiritual practices like silence and fasting
• Encouragement to make firm choices for a deep relationship with God
Join us to uncover ways to break free from the world's systems and walk in friendship with God.
Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I may be late to the party here, but in the last few
years, handful of years, I'vebeen increasingly convicted,
increasingly compelled, by areality that is all over the
pages of scripture but thatsomehow I have missed for a long
time.
And this reality is simply thatthe world is not conducive to a
(00:43):
life of thriving and flour,that the world is not conducive
to walking with God.
What I mean by thatspecifically and I'll share
several examples that in ourday-to-day lives, the normal,
quote-unquote normal of ourlives, whether it's waking up in
the morning, listening to theradio, watching TV, driving to
work, driving home from work,going to the store, buying
(01:03):
things, selling things, raisingkids, going to school, you name
it that as we do those things,the natural rhythm of the world
around us, the natural airwavesof the world around us, what we
are doing, in those things, asnormal, neutral as they may
sound, that nonetheless theenvironment, the air we're
(01:23):
breathing is not conducive towalking with God.
So let's talk about the world.
Now.
In scripture, when you read theword world, when world comes up
especially I'm just going tostick to the New Testament here
there are two different uses ofthe word world, and I don't know
the Greek so I can't speak tothat specifically.
(01:45):
But one use of the worldincludes God's creation nature,
the sky, the heavens, the earthand people, human beings that's
one use of the word world humanbeings, that's one use of the
(02:08):
word world.
And we see that in John 3.16,where Jesus says for God so
loved the world that he gave hisonly begotten son that whoever
believes in him shall not perishbut have everlasting life.
And you can see, even in thecontext of that one verse, that
there the writer of John isquoting Jesus and Jesus is
referring to people.
For God so loved the world,people, the people who inhabit
(02:29):
the world and all that they'remeant to live in and rule over,
and reign and grow, and etcetera, et cetera.
God so loved the world.
This is the world he created.
But there is also anotherversion of world that's talked
about in scripture and that ismore aligned with the world
systems.
The way the world will operatein rebellion to God, trying to
(02:53):
be its own God, trying to do iton its own, trying to do it
separately from its creatorworld, is in fact an enemy.
And here I'm going to quotefrom the apostle James, so one
of Jesus' disciples.
He writes in James 4, he saysadulterers.
(03:14):
This is beginning in verse 4 ofchapter 4, adulterers.
Do you not know that friendshipwith the world is enmity with
God?
So in other words, enmity youmake yourself an enemy to God.
Friendship with the world isenmity with God.
Therefore, whoever wishes to bea friend of the world becomes
an enemy of God.
Or do you suppose that it isfor nothing that the scripture
(03:36):
says God yearns jealously forthe spirit that he has made to
dwell in us?
Now, obviously, in the context,james is not referring to
people.
He's not referring to peoplethat God so loved that he came
to save.
Otherwise this would make anysense.
Therefore, whoever wishes to bea friend of the world becomes
an enemy of God.
Jesus himself is a friend tosinners.
(03:56):
He is a friend to people in theworld.
He came for their sake, out oflove for them.
James is talking about somethingdifferent here and in context.
He's talking about the worldsystem, the way that things work
here, and how embedded andunder our skin and into our gut
and into our heart and ourdesires the world can get.
He starts chapter four withthose conflicts and disputes
(04:19):
among you.
They come from your cravingsthat are at war.
So there's that idea of waragain that are at war within you
.
You want something and do nothave it, so you commit murder.
You covet something and cannotobtain it, so you engage in
disputes and conflicts you donot have because you do not ask.
You do not ask and do notreceive because you ask wrongly,
(04:39):
in order to spend what you geton your pleasures.
And that's where I picked upbefore.
And the next word he gives isadulterers.
In other words, to be anadulterer is to be unfaithful.
You have left your committedlove, the one you have betrothed
to.
You are married to God himselfand you've instead gone to sleep
(05:01):
with other lovers.
And if you've heard this podcastfor any length of time, you
know that that whole concept ofadultery is used repeatedly by
prophets in the Old Testament.
God uses the idea of adulteryto compare what it is when we
leave him.
He is faithful to us, he hascovenanted himself to us, he has
wed himself to us and we sayyes, lord.
(05:23):
And then we turn around and man, you want some pictures of
adultery in the old Testamentthat are just brutal?
Go to the book of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel holds nothing back andthis might get an explicit
rating for this podcast, but he,ezekiel, his word to the
unfaithful Israelites is is you?
You were drawn to the, to thelarge penises of Babylon, and so
(05:44):
you went lusting after them.
This is a picture of idolatry.
This is a picture of adulterywith the world.
And so what are the world'ssystems that we are under and,
specifically for this podcast,what are the ways that our
adulteries, our friendship withthe world keep us struggling and
(06:06):
struggling and struggling withour unwanted sexual behaviors,
with our sexual sins?
Why do we struggle with sexualsin?
Well, one of the reasons isbecause we have become so
embedded into, so committed to,so in bed with the world, that
when we try to say no to oursexual sin, we've got like no
(06:27):
ground to sand, we've got notools in our pocket, we've got
no strength in our muscles tosay no, because we have just
lived in friendship with theworld.
One example of this I know ayoung man who is trying to
abstain from pornography butrefuses to give up screens, and
(06:48):
he regularly goes to screens.
He loves watching YouTubeshorts and TikToks and whatever
else.
And I'm not saying that youcan't do that.
I'm not trying to restrict youor draw hard lines or create new
laws.
But I am saying that if thosethings are part of your
friendship with the world, ifyou are believing that you can
(07:08):
watch YouTube and scroll andscroll and scroll, or you can
scroll through TikToks and theywill not influence you, that
they somehow will help you to bea friend to God, even though
they are reeking of the world,then I'd suggest you've got
something else coming.
You cannot be a friend to theworld and a friend to God.
(07:32):
You cannot sit in the boat ofthe world, with the flow of the
world, and walk in obedience toGod.
There is no way to do it.
To God, there is no way to doit.
So, in your struggle againstsexual sin, your attempts to
leave sexual sin behind, whatmight you need to say no to,
(07:54):
outside of just the sexual sin?
What are the other thingsaround your sexual sin that keep
propping it up, that keepleading you down that path?
That is the natural flow of thestream.
Now, here, there, I want tocaution you because I'm not in
any way trying to encourage youto what what people in recovery
call act in, which is just tryto get really rigid with your
(08:15):
life.
Create a, a, a hard and fastset of rules that keep you away
from temptation and and that youget really, really strict with
yourself.
Most people, when they try todo that, are just like a yo-yo
back and forth between rigidityand sin.
Rigidity and sin, because theydon't have that kind of living,
doesn't have power to save you.
Rather, what I am saying iswould you be willing to open
(08:39):
your life to the Lord and toothers, to go on a journey of
self-discovery, to find out whatare the ways that I have
believed that the world and theworld systems and the way that
quote unquote everybody does it?
What are the ways that Ibelieve that that will work for
me, that that actually willcultivate, or help me to
cultivate, a life of obedienceand devotion to the Lord?
(09:03):
Because once those things areexposed, then you can begin to
make other decisions that aremore healthy, more holy, more
wholesome, more in the directionthat you want to go.
What are the ways that you needto give up going with the flow
and instead saying, no, that'snot actually working for me,
(09:24):
because that does not cultivatea life of friendship with God?
The other thing I want toencourage you in this is to
consider the ancient spiritualpractices, the ancient spiritual
disciplines that Christianshave followed for thousands of
years now, things likesimplicity.
And simplicity is thediscipline of being content with
(09:45):
what you have, not getting morethan you need, not possessing,
or holding on to more than youneed, giving away what you don't
need with generosity,simplicity.
Simplicity could also be amatter of the kind of schedule
you keep.
Is your schedule without margin?
If so, then what aboutpracticing the spiritual
(10:06):
discipline of simplicity?
Sabbath is another one, and thisis relatively new to me.
I'll be honest with you.
I, just for the last ninemonths, have been practicing the
Sabbath.
Did not practice Sabbath before, and by practicing Sabbath I
specifically mean not working,ceasing from work, stopping work
and all thoughts of work on theSabbath, and my family and I,
(10:29):
we keep Sabbath on Sunday, butit means we don't work on Sunday
.
Sunday, but it means we don'twork on Sunday.
We also don't buy things onSunday, because to buy things to
go out to eat means we'remaking somebody else work and
they may not care about keepingthe Sabbath.
But just looking at the OldTestament and God's command for
his people in the Old Testamentabout Sabbath, that's just a
(10:52):
choice that we've made andlisten.
It maybe used to be that that alot of the shops and and things
would shut down on Sundays.
Sports weren't on Sundays Imean kids sports weren't on
Sundays at least and so therewas a lot more openness to
people practicing Sabbath.
Not the case anymore.
It's more evidence that theworld is having its way in our
world, in our culture.
So simplicity, sabbath, thisancient spiritual discipline of
(11:17):
silence, silence, is a rarecommodity in our culture.
Henry Nouwen wrote a book onsilence.
It must've been 30 years agonow and what he was finding at
that time was that silence wasvery, very difficult to come by.
I would say it is even moredifficult to come by.
There is so much noise in ourculture and when we do find
(11:43):
places of silence, we are soaddicted to distraction that we
pull out our own little devicesand say give me some noise, give
me some distraction, give mesomething.
Silence is the practice ofbeing still before God with no
noise.
As you do it, if you'reanything like me, you're going
to find a million differentkinds of voices in your head,
(12:05):
ideas, distractions, that justkind of will flow through your
head, which is just moreevidence of how the world is
working against your ability towalk with God.
We can't even sit with God insilence for five minutes.
We become so conditioned tolive a life attentive to a
myriad of anything else besidesjust being with God.
(12:30):
Next spiritual practice, ofcourse, would be scripture
reading, scripture study.
Man, I gotta tell you like Ifind hardly any medicine so
powerful in healing and curingand correcting the craziness of
(12:51):
the cultural's impact in mythinking.
I find no greater medicine thandiving into the pages of
scripture, reading whole booksat a time.
Just if you want some medicineto help you wake up to the
reality of the God exists andthat we are designed to walk
with him and that walking withhim necessarily means walking in
(13:15):
contradiction to the worldaround us, then pick up the
gospels.
Read the gospels Matthew, mark,luke and John.
Then pick up the gospels.
Read the gospels Matthew, mark,luke and John.
Read the epistles.
They will do you a world ofgood and I'm preferential to
reading things as a whole.
I can rarely do that with thegospels and the longer epistles,
(13:42):
but if I need a boost ofvitamin C and medicine for my
spirit, you know read.
I'll read first or secondThessalonians first, second
Timothy first, second or firstJohn is.
Those are just some phenomenalbooks to wake me up.
First negative Peter.
I mean gosh.
So scripture, study, scripturereading in large quantities, do
it and watch the difference itmakes, watch how it wakes you up
and begins to form your innerworld and your thought life
(14:06):
around the things of God.
And finally and again, there'sso many other spiritual
practices, but the final one Iwant to bring into this is
fasting, abstaining from foodfor a length of time, whether
that's for a meal or a half aday, or 6 am to 6 pm, sunrise to
sunset, a whole 24-hour periodor longer.
(14:28):
There's something powerfulabout fasting and I can't
explain all of it, but there'ssomething that opens our spirits
to the Lord as we fast.
And one of the practices I loveto do when I'm fasting is when
I notice the hunger pangs.
I use that as a cue to pray, acue to turn my attention, at
least for a moment, towards Godand to say something like and a
friend taught me this years agosomething like Lord, what I'm
(14:50):
really most hungry for is notfood.
I am most hungry for you.
I hunger and thirst for you,god, thirst for you, God.
Practice that and it will beginto draw you away from the world
.
It'll also, by the way, ifyou're anything like me, it'll
(15:12):
point out for you just howenamored with food our culture
is.
There are signs and smells andliteral advertisements for food
everywhere.
It's hard to drive down thestreet without seeing a picture
and smelling smells of food.
We are addicted to our idols offood.
That's the way the world goes.
So in your journey away fromsexual sin, in your journey away
from unwanted sexual behavior,are there ways that you have
(15:34):
been believing that you can justlive a normal life unimpacted
and able to find freedom fromsexual sin, even as you have
made yourself a friend to theworld?
I would encourage you open thispart of your life to God, see
what he might expose, see whathe might reveal to you about
ways that you made a friend tothe world, not for the purpose
(15:56):
of becoming rigid, not for thepurpose of becoming an angry
curmudgeon who shakes his fistsat the world, but simply as a
way to say okay, lord, I seethat I've made myself a friend
of the world.
I want to love the people ofthe world as you did, jesus,
even as I make a firm break fromthe systems and the idols and
(16:17):
the ways that the world is under.
The spell that the world isunder.
I want to walk in friendshipwith you.
I want to walk in friendshipwith you, friends.
Let me close with a passage fromJohn's letter, john.
In John first, john two,beginning in verse 15, he says
(16:40):
do not love the world or thethings in the world.
If anyone loves the world, thelove of the Father is not in him
.
For all that is in the worldthe desires of the flesh and the
desires of the eyes and thepride of life, is not from the
Father but is from the world.
And the world is passing awayalong with its desires.
But whoever does the will ofGod abides forever.
(17:03):
Amen.
I may be late to the party here, but in the last few
years, handful of years, I'vebeen increasingly convicted,
increasingly compelled, by areality that is all over the
pages of scripture but thatsomehow I have missed for a long
time.
And this reality is simply thatthe world is not conducive to a
(00:43):
life of thriving and flour,that the world is not conducive
to walking with God.
What I mean by thatspecifically and I'll share
several examples that in ourday-to-day lives, the normal,
quote-unquote normal of ourlives, whether it's waking up in
the morning, listening to theradio, watching TV, driving to
work, driving home from work,going to the store, buying
(01:03):
things, selling things, raisingkids, going to school, you name
it that as we do those things,the natural rhythm of the world
around us, the natural airwavesof the world around us, what we
are doing, in those things, asnormal, neutral as they may
sound, that nonetheless theenvironment, the air we're
(01:23):
breathing is not conducive towalking with God.
So let's talk about the world.
Now.
In scripture, when you read theword world, when world comes up
especially I'm just going tostick to the New Testament here
there are two different uses ofthe word world, and I don't know
the Greek so I can't speak tothat specifically.
(01:45):
But one use of the worldincludes God's creation nature,
the sky, the heavens, the earthand people, human beings that's
one use of the word world humanbeings, that's one use of the
(02:08):
word world.
And we see that in John 3.16,where Jesus says for God so
loved the world that he gave hisonly begotten son that whoever
believes in him shall not perishbut have everlasting life.
And you can see, even in thecontext of that one verse, that
there the writer of John isquoting Jesus and Jesus is
referring to people.
For God so loved the world,people, the people who inhabit
(02:29):
the world and all that they'remeant to live in and rule over,
and reign and grow, and etcetera, et cetera.
God so loved the world.
This is the world he created.
But there is also anotherversion of world that's talked
about in scripture and that ismore aligned with the world
systems.
The way the world will operatein rebellion to God, trying to
(02:53):
be its own God, trying to do iton its own, trying to do it
separately from its creatorworld, is in fact an enemy.
And here I'm going to quotefrom the apostle James, so one
of Jesus' disciples.
He writes in James 4, he saysadulterers.
(03:14):
This is beginning in verse 4 ofchapter 4, adulterers.
Do you not know that friendshipwith the world is enmity with
God?
So in other words, enmity youmake yourself an enemy to God.
Friendship with the world isenmity with God.
Therefore, whoever wishes to bea friend of the world becomes
an enemy of God.
Or do you suppose that it isfor nothing that the scripture
(03:36):
says God yearns jealously forthe spirit that he has made to
dwell in us?
Now, obviously, in the context,james is not referring to
people.
He's not referring to peoplethat God so loved that he came
to save.
Otherwise this would make anysense.
Therefore, whoever wishes to bea friend of the world becomes
an enemy of God.
Jesus himself is a friend tosinners.
(03:56):
He is a friend to people in theworld.
He came for their sake, out oflove for them.
James is talking about somethingdifferent here and in context.
He's talking about the worldsystem, the way that things work
here, and how embedded andunder our skin and into our gut
and into our heart and ourdesires the world can get.
He starts chapter four withthose conflicts and disputes
(04:19):
among you.
They come from your cravingsthat are at war.
So there's that idea of waragain that are at war within you
.
You want something and do nothave it, so you commit murder.
You covet something and cannotobtain it, so you engage in
disputes and conflicts you donot have because you do not ask.
You do not ask and do notreceive because you ask wrongly,
(04:39):
in order to spend what you geton your pleasures.
And that's where I picked upbefore.
And the next word he gives isadulterers.
In other words, to be anadulterer is to be unfaithful.
You have left your committedlove, the one you have betrothed
to.
You are married to God himselfand you've instead gone to sleep
(05:01):
with other lovers.
And if you've heard this podcastfor any length of time, you
know that that whole concept ofadultery is used repeatedly by
prophets in the Old Testament.
God uses the idea of adulteryto compare what it is when we
leave him.
He is faithful to us, he hascovenanted himself to us, he has
wed himself to us and we sayyes, lord.
(05:23):
And then we turn around and man, you want some pictures of
adultery in the old Testamentthat are just brutal?
Go to the book of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel holds nothing back andthis might get an explicit
rating for this podcast, but he,ezekiel, his word to the
unfaithful Israelites is is you?
You were drawn to the, to thelarge penises of Babylon, and so
(05:44):
you went lusting after them.
This is a picture of idolatry.
This is a picture of adulterywith the world.
And so what are the world'ssystems that we are under and,
specifically for this podcast,what are the ways that our
adulteries, our friendship withthe world keep us struggling and
(06:06):
struggling and struggling withour unwanted sexual behaviors,
with our sexual sins?
Why do we struggle with sexualsin?
Well, one of the reasons isbecause we have become so
embedded into, so committed to,so in bed with the world, that
when we try to say no to oursexual sin, we've got like no
(06:27):
ground to sand, we've got notools in our pocket, we've got
no strength in our muscles tosay no, because we have just
lived in friendship with theworld.
One example of this I know ayoung man who is trying to
abstain from pornography butrefuses to give up screens, and
(06:48):
he regularly goes to screens.
He loves watching YouTubeshorts and TikToks and whatever
else.
And I'm not saying that youcan't do that.
I'm not trying to restrict youor draw hard lines or create new
laws.
But I am saying that if thosethings are part of your
friendship with the world, ifyou are believing that you can
(07:08):
watch YouTube and scroll andscroll and scroll, or you can
scroll through TikToks and theywill not influence you, that
they somehow will help you to bea friend to God, even though
they are reeking of the world,then I'd suggest you've got
something else coming.
You cannot be a friend to theworld and a friend to God.
(07:32):
You cannot sit in the boat ofthe world, with the flow of the
world, and walk in obedience toGod.
There is no way to do it.
To God, there is no way to doit.
So, in your struggle againstsexual sin, your attempts to
leave sexual sin behind, whatmight you need to say no to,
(07:54):
outside of just the sexual sin?
What are the other thingsaround your sexual sin that keep
propping it up, that keepleading you down that path?
That is the natural flow of thestream.
Now, here, there, I want tocaution you because I'm not in
any way trying to encourage youto what what people in recovery
call act in, which is just tryto get really rigid with your
(08:15):
life.
Create a, a, a hard and fastset of rules that keep you away
from temptation and and that youget really, really strict with
yourself.
Most people, when they try todo that, are just like a yo-yo
back and forth between rigidityand sin.
Rigidity and sin, because theydon't have that kind of living,
doesn't have power to save you.
Rather, what I am saying iswould you be willing to open
(08:39):
your life to the Lord and toothers, to go on a journey of
self-discovery, to find out whatare the ways that I have
believed that the world and theworld systems and the way that
quote unquote everybody does it?
What are the ways that Ibelieve that that will work for
me, that that actually willcultivate, or help me to
cultivate, a life of obedienceand devotion to the Lord?
(09:03):
Because once those things areexposed, then you can begin to
make other decisions that aremore healthy, more holy, more
wholesome, more in the directionthat you want to go.
What are the ways that you needto give up going with the flow
and instead saying, no, that'snot actually working for me,
(09:24):
because that does not cultivatea life of friendship with God?
The other thing I want toencourage you in this is to
consider the ancient spiritualpractices, the ancient spiritual
disciplines that Christianshave followed for thousands of
years now, things likesimplicity.
And simplicity is thediscipline of being content with
(09:45):
what you have, not getting morethan you need, not possessing,
or holding on to more than youneed, giving away what you don't
need with generosity,simplicity.
Simplicity could also be amatter of the kind of schedule
you keep.
Is your schedule without margin?
If so, then what aboutpracticing the spiritual
(10:06):
discipline of simplicity?
Sabbath is another one, and thisis relatively new to me.
I'll be honest with you.
I, just for the last ninemonths, have been practicing the
Sabbath.
Did not practice Sabbath before, and by practicing Sabbath I
specifically mean not working,ceasing from work, stopping work
and all thoughts of work on theSabbath, and my family and I,
(10:29):
we keep Sabbath on Sunday, butit means we don't work on Sunday
.
Sunday, but it means we don'twork on Sunday.
We also don't buy things onSunday, because to buy things to
go out to eat means we'remaking somebody else work and
they may not care about keepingthe Sabbath.
But just looking at the OldTestament and God's command for
his people in the Old Testamentabout Sabbath, that's just a
(10:52):
choice that we've made andlisten.
It maybe used to be that that alot of the shops and and things
would shut down on Sundays.
Sports weren't on Sundays Imean kids sports weren't on
Sundays at least and so therewas a lot more openness to
people practicing Sabbath.
Not the case anymore.
It's more evidence that theworld is having its way in our
world, in our culture.
So simplicity, sabbath, thisancient spiritual discipline of
(11:17):
silence, silence, is a rarecommodity in our culture.
Henry Nouwen wrote a book onsilence.
It must've been 30 years agonow and what he was finding at
that time was that silence wasvery, very difficult to come by.
I would say it is even moredifficult to come by.
There is so much noise in ourculture and when we do find
(11:43):
places of silence, we are soaddicted to distraction that we
pull out our own little devicesand say give me some noise, give
me some distraction, give mesomething.
Silence is the practice ofbeing still before God with no
noise.
As you do it, if you'reanything like me, you're going
to find a million differentkinds of voices in your head,
(12:05):
ideas, distractions, that justkind of will flow through your
head, which is just moreevidence of how the world is
working against your ability towalk with God.
We can't even sit with God insilence for five minutes.
We become so conditioned tolive a life attentive to a
myriad of anything else besidesjust being with God.
(12:30):
Next spiritual practice, ofcourse, would be scripture
reading, scripture study.
Man, I gotta tell you like Ifind hardly any medicine so
powerful in healing and curingand correcting the craziness of
(12:51):
the cultural's impact in mythinking.
I find no greater medicine thandiving into the pages of
scripture, reading whole booksat a time.
Just if you want some medicineto help you wake up to the
reality of the God exists andthat we are designed to walk
with him and that walking withhim necessarily means walking in
(13:15):
contradiction to the worldaround us, then pick up the
gospels.
Read the gospels Matthew, mark,luke and John.
Then pick up the gospels.
Read the gospels Matthew, mark,luke and John.
Read the epistles.
They will do you a world ofgood and I'm preferential to
reading things as a whole.
I can rarely do that with thegospels and the longer epistles,
(13:42):
but if I need a boost ofvitamin C and medicine for my
spirit, you know read.
I'll read first or secondThessalonians first, second
Timothy first, second or firstJohn is.
Those are just some phenomenalbooks to wake me up.
First negative Peter.
I mean gosh.
So scripture, study, scripturereading in large quantities, do
it and watch the difference itmakes, watch how it wakes you up
and begins to form your innerworld and your thought life
(14:06):
around the things of God.
And finally and again, there'sso many other spiritual
practices, but the final one Iwant to bring into this is
fasting, abstaining from foodfor a length of time, whether
that's for a meal or a half aday, or 6 am to 6 pm, sunrise to
sunset, a whole 24-hour periodor longer.
(14:28):
There's something powerfulabout fasting and I can't
explain all of it, but there'ssomething that opens our spirits
to the Lord as we fast.
And one of the practices I loveto do when I'm fasting is when
I notice the hunger pangs.
I use that as a cue to pray, acue to turn my attention, at
least for a moment, towards Godand to say something like and a
friend taught me this years agosomething like Lord, what I'm
(14:50):
really most hungry for is notfood.
I am most hungry for you.
I hunger and thirst for you,god, thirst for you, God.
Practice that and it will beginto draw you away from the world
.
It'll also, by the way, ifyou're anything like me, it'll
(15:12):
point out for you just howenamored with food our culture
is.
There are signs and smells andliteral advertisements for food
everywhere.
It's hard to drive down thestreet without seeing a picture
and smelling smells of food.
We are addicted to our idols offood.
That's the way the world goes.
So in your journey away fromsexual sin, in your journey away
from unwanted sexual behavior,are there ways that you have
(15:34):
been believing that you can justlive a normal life unimpacted
and able to find freedom fromsexual sin, even as you have
made yourself a friend to theworld?
I would encourage you open thispart of your life to God, see
what he might expose, see whathe might reveal to you about
ways that you made a friend tothe world, not for the purpose
(15:56):
of becoming rigid, not for thepurpose of becoming an angry
curmudgeon who shakes his fistsat the world, but simply as a
way to say okay, lord, I seethat I've made myself a friend
of the world.
I want to love the people ofthe world as you did, jesus,
even as I make a firm break fromthe systems and the idols and
(16:17):
the ways that the world is under.
The spell that the world isunder.
I want to walk in friendshipwith you.
I want to walk in friendshipwith you, friends.
Let me close with a passage fromJohn's letter, john.
In John first, john two,beginning in verse 15, he says
(16:40):
do not love the world or thethings in the world.
If anyone loves the world, thelove of the Father is not in him
.
For all that is in the worldthe desires of the flesh and the
desires of the eyes and thepride of life, is not from the
Father but is from the world.
And the world is passing awayalong with its desires.
But whoever does the will ofGod abides forever.
(17:03):
Amen.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.