Charge to the Graduates

Jeremy Menicucci

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Charge to the graduates of the class of 2018 of Heritage Christian Fellowship, focusing on avoiding worldliness and having a firm foundation in the Gospel of Jesus Christ

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Introduction / Sermon

I want to demand something of the graduates this evening. Those who are currently graduates, actually, and those who will be graduates.

So actually, I’m really just speaking to everyone.

And I say that I want to demand something and not ask something because I believe this morning, here tonight, is the single most important, Christian moment in your life.

I’m close to begging something in my demand. I’m not asking, I’m not telling, but I am demanding and begging.

What am I begging? I am begging that you follow the commands and the instructions of this passage of Scripture.

I am demanding that you take a very sober look at your future from this moment.

One of the reasons why I sense this urgency and I make this demand is because statistically, more than half of you will walk away from Christianity.

And my demand is to break the statistics and remain in Christianity.

Don’t pretend that going out from among us is not possible in your life

Don’t pretend like staying among us isn’t important

We already know that some have walked away into ruin and misery.

I’ve already been apart of preaching the Gospel to some who turn right around and abandon the very truths that they both professed to accept and walked in for some time.

And the timeframe for this to happen, starts at this moment.

This passage details exactly how to avoid falling into ruin and misery.

John’s first epistle is probably best known as the black and white epistle.

It’s black and white, there are no gray areas. Either you’re a Christian or your not.

If you’re a Christian you live like a Christian. Makes sense. If you’re not a Christian it is evident that you’re not a Christian.

And it is evident in your behavior and in your affections.

Those who are plummeting into sin and ruin and misery right now are those who have only talked about being a Christian.

But who have not lived as a Christian. The fact of the matter is, that I can tell you all day that I’m a Doctor.

But if I don’t do things that a doctor does it’s very difficult to believe that I’m actually a doctor. If I can’t practice medicine,

Then there is no reason why I should be considered a doctor.

Why would it work as a Christian to say I’m a Christian and yet fail to practice Christian things?

What’s one mark, that would be a truly significant one for a Christian to know that their a Christian?

If the Love of God is in them. And how do you know that the love of God is in you? If you don’t love the things of the world or the world.

The draw away from Church happens because the draw of the world is stronger.

In other words, you won’t stay in the church because the things within the church are not the things you love.

The things that you love are in the world therefore you will leave the church to pursue what’s in the world.

In the church there are not things that are lovely to those who do not love God.

There’s no reason to stay among those who are not lovely to you in order to pursue those who are lovely.

Now. Who or what is the world? And in what sense should we not love it?

says that God loves the world. God so loves the world. This love prompted Him to send His son to save everyone who believes.

Wouldn’t it be bizarre if God loves something that we are not supposed to love?

There are many definitions of the word “World”.

World can be how everything is arranged and put into order. World can mean all humans. World can mean some humans.

Like the, “World of Sports”. The “Gaming World”. “The Fashion World”. In the “World of racing”.

It can mean the earth. The World in which we live.

Now I doubt that God is ultimately not wanting people to have a love for the earth.

I don’t think God is trying to communicate through His written word here that if you love the globe in which we live to a certain extent that you are apostate.

I don’t think he’s talking about the “World of Racing”.

It wouldn’t make sense that we shouldn’t love the whole world that Jesus is the propitiating sacrifice for in verse 2.

It’s more than just the three categories that we’ll get into, because he says don’t love the world or the things in the world.

He explains what things are in the world but he doesn’t give the immediate definition of the world.

How would that make sense? Jesus Christ is the advocate for those whom His people are supposed to not love.

Would it make sense that the world has to do with verse 17? If the world is passing away with it’s desires, but the one who does the will of God abides.

The World is everything and possibly everyone who refuses to love God and do His will.

But Jesus commanded us to love our enemies, right? Absolutely, no question.

(ESV)

26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

John is taking a teaching about love straight from the words of Christ. If the love that you have for worldly people is greater

Than the love you have for Christ, you do not have the love of the Father and are not a disciple of Jesus.

It’s the kind of love and love in comparison. Don’t have the kind of love that would result in you leaving the church to pursue the same things that worldly people, unbelievers, pursue.

The issue grows, however, when you realize what is said in verse

I’m sure it’s a bummer to find out that you have no original desires.

Either your desires are from the Father or from the World. So your desires will draw you away from the church because your desires are the world’s desires that are for the world’s things.

And those things, the things of the world, are seen in three categories.

And these are going to be the three categories that you will struggle with the most.

Desires of the flesh. Could even be the desires of the body. The world, then, is all about things that make the body feel good.

It craves things, like immorality and the use of substances to produce a high.

It craves things that are pleasing to the senses.

God doesn’t give you those desires. And those things are passing away.

(ESV)

24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

The only way you can do this is if Jesus is more enjoyable and desirable to you than the things in the world.

And again this goes right along with the people who can provide you these categories.

So stop for a moment and realize that when someone is giving you romantic interests what desires are drawing you to that person?

Do you realize that if that person is providing for you a means to express your fleshly, sinful, immoral desires that that is not from God?

Those are worldly desires leading you away.

Desires of the eyes is another category. Things that specifically look good and feel good.

And the pride of life. Which can even be understood as the desire for possessions.

The three most important things that you could struggle with are present within our text.

Something that could make your body feel good, that could satisfy your cravings to see sinful things,

And the pride of life which is really the idea of being proud of having the things that satisfy the body and the eyes.

I’ve counseled women who have remained in dating relationships that are miserable.

Why would you remain in a dating relationship that is miserable? It’s because even though it provides misery, it provides the things of the world.

It feeds the lusts of the flesh and the eyes. Those are so important to the world that people will endure hostilities just so they can get those things.

What woman on the face of the planet would tolerate abortion? Why would you subject yourself to the loss of a baby when so many women are devastated when they miscarry?

It’s because babies interrupt the good feelings of the body. Babies get in the way of sexual freedom, which feeds the body’s lust.

Why would so many people be ok with ending the lives of those who are suffering?

And those who are suffering are willing to end their own lives?

It’s because it’s hard to watch those who are suffering suffer, and it does not feel good to the body to suffer.

Our WORLD is entirely about doing whatever is necessary to maintain what feels good to the body and what is pleasing to the eyes.

And the pride of life happens when the world is able to have it’s bodies pleased and it’s eyes satisfied.

And what’s crazy is the fact that so many people suffer certain things, like bad relationships, in order to have what matters the most to them.

Christians are those who should be willing to suffer things like persecution because God matters so much to them.

Some are even willing to sacrifice their church families and even their biological families or friends to make sure that they can keep their bodily lusts.

If you take the same attitude and change the desire from the world to God, you will be the most steadfast as a Christian.

And you’ll have the most amount of joy stored up in God.

I’m going to skip verse 18 and go to verse 19 so that we can feel the impact of what John is saying.

(ESV)

19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

People who walk away from the church are those who were never really apart of it.

They’re drawn away from the desires that have always been there.

And John informs us that what makes it evident that there were a group of people in the midsts of the church who leave the church

to follow after the wordly desires within them that they were never one of us is the fact that they leave us.

It’s not leaving one church and going to another, but it is leaving a community of Christians to join the world.

So many youth find homes in the world when the leave to go to College or start careers because they find out that they actually match the world.

It’s like in the movie Rio 2 when the birds realize that there are other birds of their own kind, that they’re inclined to leave the city to go be with those who are like them.

For parents, there would be not a single shred of worry about losing your child to the world if they’re in public schools or colleges,

If they’re children have manifested a distinct difference between them and the world.

You have nothing to worry about if you demonstrate how distinctly different you are from the world.

The world will reject you.

But the church won’t. We won’t.

And the things that you, who are genuine believers want, is here. You won’t be accepted out in the world. And that’s refreshing actually.

But here in the church, are the things you really want. A community of caring Christians who take care of each other, and who gather to worship God.

Now I skipped verse 18. Because it might be a severe punch in the face to recognize who “they are” who go out from among us.

John says, it’s the last hour. The antichrist is coming. And there are many antichrists, and they went out from among us.

Anti either means, against or in place of. And this case it’s both. And antichrist is someone who sets themselves against Christ and in place of Christ.

Which effectively means that those who go out from among us are those who have heard about Christ,

And decided to live against Him and in place of Him as their own lord of their lives.

It’s not an innocent falling away it’s a replacement of Jesus Christ within one’s own life with one’s own life.

(ESV)

24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.

This is what’s at stake here. It’s not about our church or other churches keeping their numbers up, it’s about you not losing your life eternally.

So here are some charges that I want to leave you with:

Don’t love the world. It seems entirely possible for true Christians, then to flirt with the concepts of the world

You can’t trust the cravings of your body

You can’t trust

Visual stimulation is a worldly thing

Just because you have the things that physically satisfy is not proof that you’re doing things right

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