How to Prevent Disloyalty to Christ Part 1

Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Prevent Disloyalty to Christ Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 11:1-6.

We are the bride of Christ, and we are called to be loyal to Jesus. Our love and affection is for Him. It is not for the world. It’s not our flesh. It isn’t for our devil, but rather our affection for Christ.

Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and I want to thank you for tuning in and hear what the Lord has to say for us. Today we’re going to be in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, learning about how to prevent disloyalty to Christ, how do prevent this loyalty to Christ.

You know, we all are tempted to go our own way, but Jesus said, if you’re gonna be my follower, you got to deny self. So how can I be loyal to Jesus Christ in these troubling times? Let’s get into our passage and learn more about what that Well, if you have your Bible this morning, turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 11.

Second Corinthians 11, we’re going to start a new study on how to prevent disloyalty to Christ. We’re still tracking through 2nd Corinthians. The Bible emphasizes the importance of having loyalty. The bible tells us in Proverbs 20 verse 6, most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness, but a faithful man who can find.

Who can find that faithful person? Who could find that loyal person. They are rare people who are loyal, who our faithful. We know and understand that our loyalty proves our love. When you are loyalty to someone you’re saying that you love them.

Again the scripture says in Proverbs 21 21 one, He who pursues righteousness and loyalty finds life, righteousness, and honor. It’s an admirable quality to be a loyal person and to pursue it. There is important in all relationships that there be loyalty, but far greater than any loyalty to a person on this earth, it is most important that we are loyal to Jesus Christ.

Jesus said in Mark 12, verse 30, that thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with al thy soul, withal thy mind, and withall thy strength. This is the first commandment. This the priority command.

This was the most important thing in your life is that you would have a love to God and that that love would be shown in you loyalty to him. in every aspect of your life, your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength, an incredible affection of love and loyalty to God Almighty.

And yet all of us stand in need to make sure that we do not drift in our faith. The hymn writer said, prone to wander, Lord, prone leave the God that I love. You and I are saved by grace and we continue in this faith by grace, but we still deal with the flesh.

We still with deal the world. We’re still dealing with satanic temptations that are upon us that can woo us away from Jesus Christ. This is the concern that the Apostle has for the Corinthians. in 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 and he is writing to them to help them to stay focused on their loyalty to Jesus Christ.

I want you to pick up with me in verse 1. It says, oh that you would bear with me and a little folly and indeed you do bear me for I am jealous for you with godly jealousy for For I have betrothed you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

But I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ, or if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received or a difference gospel which have you not accepted you may well put up with it for I consider that I am not at all inferior to the most eminent apostles even though I’m untrained in speech yet I am NOT in knowledge but we had been thoroughly manifested among you in all things.

So let me share with you some principles on making sure that we stay loyal to Christ. But the first principle on how to prevent disloyalty is to develop a deep commitment for the jealousy of God. To develop a DEEP COMMITMENT for The Jealousy of GOD.

Again, look at verse 2. He says here, I am jealous over you with Godly jealousy. Jealousy often has an evil connotation of selfishness. When we see people that are jealous, we kind of look down upon it.

And that is true very much like anger, jealousy can go both ways. There is a righteous anger. You remember that Jesus was insulted by how people were being taken advantage of in the temple. And he turned over tables and he chased all the merchants out of the house of Lord, because they had turned it into a den of thieves.

And they were profiting off the poor people that were coming to worship God. And so Jesus became very angry. There is a righteous anger, but the Bible tells us that there is an anger for man that is not godly.

And so it is true as well with jealousy. That there is a gody jealousy and there’s a human prideful jealousy, and understanding that distinction can sometimes be difficult in our faith, but yet God has called us to have a jealousy for Him.

The Apostle says, I am jealous over you. He He is jealous over the people of God. He has a godly jealousy for them. The Bible describes that God is a jealous God, Exodus 20, verse 5, I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.” There is the distinction, again, between human jealousy and gody jealousy.

We understand those two tracks in our mind. Don’t misunderstand me this morning. but God is reminding us that He is jealous for us, that he has a jealousy for use. When the apostle says, I am jealous over you, over the people of God with a godly jealousy, he is simply saying I’m jealous for you with the zeal from God to protect you from the world, to protects you from evil, to protect you from drifting in your loyalty to God.

If we’re going to prevent disloyalty to Christ, we have to develop a de -commitment for the jealousy of God, again, the Bible says in Exodus 34 verse 14, thou shall worship no other God for their Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God the zeal or the jealousy that comes from God Himself is a jealousy for your heart.

Do you understand that? That God desires to be first in your life, that you can worship no other God, that nothing can be before God Almighty in you heart and He is jealous for that and that he gives the responsibility of God’s leaders in the church, like the apostle Paul, to protect you from drifting in your loyalty to Jesus Christ.

So we continue to look at this verse. I am jealous in verse two, chapter 11, for you with godly jealousy. And he says, I have betrothed you to one husband. Paul is concerned about the people of God. And the reason that he is concerned is that He has this responsibility.

That He would present the people God who are the bride of Christ to present them, to present this bride, which is the church. Which is you who would believe in Jesus Christ. If you’re here this morning and you believe in Jesus, you are the bride of Christ.

And God has a jealousy for you and does not want you to go any other direction than to have your heart totally focused on Him. And Paul has the responsibility as an apostle to present this bride to her husband, Jesus Christ, do you see that?

For I have betrothed you to one husband I’m in verse two, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. So, Paul is concerned. He is concern that the husband Christ would be robbed of the love of God’s people.

Now think about that. That Christ, there’s a jealousy. There is a jealously for God. It is God who is worthy of your love. It’s God, who’s deserving of you love, It is God who should be the priority of your life.

And Paul says, I do not want you to rob God of what he is worthy of. And that is your most and deepest and affection for him, that you should totally devoted and loyal to him. Now I know it’s hard to maybe grasp this, but Paul is jealous for God.

he is jealous for God that God would receive all that he deserves. He is jealous, for, God. There is a jealousy of God, that God’s people would not withhold what this great and awesome God has done for us in bringing salvation to us.

And Paul has this role, he has, this responsibility to present this beautiful bride to her husband, Jesus Christ. He does not want the rival teachers that have infiltrated the church to court the Lord’s beautiful pride and steal her away from Christ, you’re with me, I hope you are, because if you have a child, maybe one day that child will get married, maybe not, I don’t know, but if the Lord has that in the plans, that you would want that to be a special relationship and that there to an authentic love between that man and woman and if that love would be pure and honorable to God and you’d never want your child to disloyal and vice versa, you wouldn’t want your spouse to get disloyed and that somehow their affection and their love to go towards someone else, and there would be an anger in your heart, there will be a disappointment in you heart.

There would a frustration in heart if you ever had to experience anything like that, so that you would only want one loyalty. This is the heart of Paul. Does not want the church to leave her first love.

Remember Revelation 2 for when Jesus spoke to the churches he commended them he found a lot of things that they were doing good but he said to the church at Ephesus nevertheless I have somewhat against thee because thou has left thy first love.

In the Greek the word first means priority and he is saying to The Church Jesus is saying you have left your priority love you You have become involved in so much that you have forgotten about me, meaning Christ, that he is not number one in your life.

Christ cannot tolerate a rival king on his throne. Where is Jesus in you life? Is he more important than any other relationship in life, is jesus more than your career? Is jusus important that any activity, any event that is to come in your schedule this coming week, Jesus must be number one.

And if you were to prevent disloyalty in you heart, there has to be a jealousy for God that you desire that his love would never be misdirected and that your love would be never misdirected. Now you’ll note in verse two, he says, as I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Let’s understand this because here, the apostle is envisioning three stages of marriage, which speaks of three of our salvation.

Now, again, we like to Americanize the Bible. We read the bible, we understand it in our English language in a way our culture is, and then we interpret it that way. but that’s not the way you’re supposed to interpret the Bible.

You’ve got to understand the context and you say, well, I don’t have time to do all that reading and I don’ have the time do do that studying. That’s why you have a pastor. And so his responsibility is to teach you and hope you’ll understand that so that when you read this, that you will have the right perspective.

So the three stages of a Hebrew wedding, the 3 stages of a wedding in the nation of Israel would go like this for the Jewish people. First, there is a betrothal. Now, in a Hebrew wedding, this betrathal would often take place when the kids were little.

And so moms and dads would get together and they’d say, well, I want my kid to marry your kid and your kids to married my kids. They would pre -arrange wedding. Some parents like that idea, amen. You decide who’s gonna be the spouse.

The children had no choice in it. the parents would create, if you will, a betrothal. And this was the responsibility of the father of The Bride to make sure that The bride was presented to her husband, the groom, as a pure virgin.

So he was protective. He was always making sure that she was cared for and that every need was met in her life and he would keep her from evil and He would her problems and temptations in this world.

And this was all a part of the betrothal agreement. Then there was the presentation. The presentation of The Bride to the Husband. This would last several days. Ceremonies after ceremonies. Now you think about this, but that’s part the of presentation And then the third part is finally the ceremony of the exchanging of the vows and being committed to one another in a covenant relationship forever and ever.

Now the church is betrothed to Christ. My point is that the church chosen by the Father, the Church in this betrothal, chosen by the Father as a gift to His Son, the Church. You are the bride of Christ.

You’re chosen of God. This is your conversion. This a picture of your faith in Christ, this is a beautiful picture of you coming to the Lord Jesus Christ and so in His sovereign grace, He has called you out of the world.

In His sovereign grace. He has chosen you to be a part of the family of God and you are the bride of Christ and, you my friends, are engaged to Jesus Christ. There is an engagement period. It is now.

it is this present age and it is between the two Advent’s in that we have this beginning Advent. I told you last week that the word Advent means coming. It’s a Latin word, which means, coming, so you have the first coming of Jesus, which is his birth, but we are waiting for the second coming Jesus.

We are living in this present age, and we’re being kept and being prepared to be presented to Christ. We’re the bride of Christ, and are called to loyal to Jesus! We have already been attached to Jesus Christ.

Our love and affection is for Him. It is not for the world. It not not our flesh. It’s not the devil. But rather our affection for Christ and God is using His word. He is his body of Christ, He’s using his truth into your life to keep you and to prepare you and to purify you so that like a father you would be presented to Christ as a pure virgin.

Did you see that in verse 2? Paul says that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christs. That’s his goal. So there is coming this third stage of our salvation. There is the first stage where we get converted.

We come to Christ, we are committed to Christ. We make that arrangement. The Father has made a covenant with us. It was sealed on the cross. It paid for through the blood of Jesus Christ and that covenant exists and you responded in faith and repentance to God and you now are his and you are being prepared.

You are kept. You’re being purified for one day. the wedding is coming. You’re saying did I miss the wedding? It hasn’t happened yet. The wedding is Coming Church. It is the second coming of Jesus Christ.

It’s the Rapture of the Church, it is the Coming of Jesus Christ and Revelation 19 .7 says, let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to Him for the marriage of the Lamb is come and His wife has made herself ready.

Now, what would we think of a bride? Is that as she was getting ready for her big day, that while she getting was ready, that she would put on this beautiful white dress, which is, by the way, the white dressed is supposed to be a symbol of her purity.

It is to a be symbol of affection and devotion to her husband, that while she was getting ready with this white dress all of a sudden she were to get hungry and as she getting hungry she wanted McDonald’s french fries but here this bride they run out and get her french fries and she opens up the ketchup and it goes all over her dress what would it be like for the church which is you and me to be getting ready in this life to being prepared to be presented to our husband, Jesus Christ.

To live in a world, and because of our fleshly desires, to stay by the world. To life a life that is impure. To Live a Life that would make people question who we are devoted to and who are loyal to.

What would that be like? Friends, Paul is concerned that the church at Corinth is becoming spiritually promiscuous during the period of preparation to be presented to the groom, Jesus Christ. The message to you this morning is that you are to prevent disloyalty to Christ, you are develop a deep commitment for the jealousy of God.

that you would never want God to be disappointed that somehow you have let him down and you are not worthy of this white dress, you’re not of worthy this pure purity, you were not worth of the washing and the cleansing and preparation that he has done in your heart and your life that some how your loyalty for God has been distracted and have been drawn away and your affection is for another, which only incites the jealousy of God.

The Apostle Paul is the friend of the bridegroom. In the Jewish weddings, the Friend arranged all the preliminaries of the preparation of marriage, presided over the wedding feast, make sure all special duties of The Friend of bridegroom were accomplished until the bride groom and the Bride were brought together.

You remember that when John the Baptist was coming to the end of his ministry, that the attention was being drifted from the friend of the bread groom, John, the baptist to Jesus. And John The Baptist’s disciples were kind of distraught about that because they said, look, Jesus now is taking all the crowds.

and John the Baptist told his disciples that he is the friend of the bridegroom and that He was simply preparing the way for the Brideg room to come and then it was His job to unite the bride with the Brideg Room and it that it time for Him and here’s where He made that famous statement.

John said, I must decrease and He must what? That was Paul’s job. His Job, it is a job of every pastor, of every elder, of ever deacon, of evry servant of God, Sunday school teacher, Bible study leader.

It is our job to prepare the bride to present to Christ a pure people before God. So when Jesus receives his bride, she is pure. The church is the Bride. and she is to be, as Paul said in verse 2, a chaste virgin to Christ.

Now he says in Verse 3, I fear, lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness so your mind may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” The second step in trying to prevent disloyalty to Christ is to stay focused on Christ.

It is the stay focus the singleness of devotion that God calls for us and I want you to see that last phrase here’s the point he says the simplicity that is in Christ would you underscore that word simplicity because that’s not the first time we’ve seen that Word in this letter but it means it has the idea of of singleness, a purpose, of integrity.

Here’s the idea, the undivided attention. You met those people, they’re the jack of all trades. They could do anything and everything, right? But they can’t do everything really well, can they? But those who say, this is my focus, this my purpose and I have this one devotion, this what Paul is saying to the church.

He’s saying I fear that Satan is trying to deceive you and he’s trying to corrupt you from the simplicity that is in Christ. He is trying, to draw you away from, the affection that is due to Jesus Christ you see friends if you had a devotion and a dedication to the jealousy of God you would never want God to not receive all of your love and all of your affection, and of all your passion.

You would want to be that pure bride. You want want be to that person that would never hurt the heart of you savior. You never want walk down that aisle at the rapture. You’d never wanna walk that that in a dress with ketchup stains on it.

You wanna be presented to Christ as pure and holy and righteous and that your devotion would be fully, completely upon him. Satan’s chief activity and his chief goal in your life as a believer, he can’t take your salvation away from you, but what he’s gonna do from now on while you’re in this engagement period, this preparation period.

While you are getting ready to be presented, what does he want you to do? to think differently about God, to thing differently about His word that would cause you to disobey God and to live outside of His will.

Look at again, I fearless somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by His craftiness, your mind. Would you circle that? Not your body, but your mine, because that’s where the battle is. It always is in your minds because the Bible teaches as a man thinks, so is he.

My behavior is rooted in my beliefs. My actions are the results of my attitude. My conduct is a direct reflection of my character, who I am within. It says more about who am I without. And so the devil’s not stupid.

The devil is not ignorant. And he goes after the mind. He wants to change the way that you think about God and about self and the world. Notice what he says, may be corrupted, that you may be corrupt it.

So the devil is a deceiver and he deceives the church. Let’s go back to 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 11. Here’s the warning, lest Satan should take advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.

We jump over to chapter 10, not too long ago we talked to you about the spiritual warfare. Chapter 10 verse 4 and 5, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every what?

Thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ because the devil knows that if he could get ahold of your mind, if you could a hold of thought life, if can get hold the way that you think, he can lead you in a path of disobedience.

Here’s what the Devil wants for your life. He wants you to be presented to Christ, impure, your dress fully stained, a disappointment to the groom. I stand up here and I do weddings and that bride walks through that door and look at his face and the joy, the excitement, and anticipation, love, what the devil wants is when that door opens, that your life is such a mess so far from God, so much steeped into sin that you would disappoint Christ.

The Bible emphasizes the importance of loyalty, and most people have things that they’re loyal to or even people. But remember that our loyalty proves our love. As you and I choose to be loyal to Christ, we are also expressing our love to Christ.

We live in times where the loyalty of God’s people is going to be challenged. Are you willing to stand up, speak up and stand strong for the Lord Jesus Christ? These times are going call for the hearts of men and women to tested.

And I hope that you will prove to be a faithful believer and who loves the Lord and is loyal to His cause. So this is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.