Crooked and Perverse Generation

Introduction

Can you imagine? And maybe you can be in a place where your circumstances are rather discouraging. And that’s not the way the Lord intends it to be. And that’s my lead in to a passage that if you’re not acquainted with, I want you to become more acquainted with it. It is a text in the New Testament with which, right behind the Sermon on the Mount, Christians should be digesting on a regular basis and appreciating or trying to appreciate the depth of what it’s saying about our lives. It’s Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 16. In these verses, we are given important instruction, direction for our lives, and motivation to do what we must to gain heaven. And oh, what a gain that will be.

If, but not doubting the existence of these things, but instead affirming those things, if there is any encouragement in Christ, oh, indeed, there is. If there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if there is any affection and compassion, as sure as these things do exist in Christ, what should that mean in your behavior? And it’s not going to translate into your behavior until it first dominates the way you think. People of compassion. People who maintain the same love, who are united in spirit, who are intent on one purpose, and they’re not selfish, and they do not do things from the standpoint of empty conceit or selfish interests, but they esteem others better than themselves. And they’re concerned about the interests of others.

And so verses one through four are explaining to us what this fellowship of the Spirit means in regard to our conduct. And then he goes on to explain these wonderful, noble qualities that are to be ours, were first exemplified in our Lord. This mind, this way of thinking that we’re supposed to develop as Christians, was a mind that the Lord displayed. Let this mind be in you, or have this attitude in yourselves. What attitude? The one he’s just described in verses one through four. The attitudes that were the Lord’s, that he put on display for us to see that we read about in the gospels. The attitude of a sacrificial servant, who, though he existed in the presence of God with the very form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be held on to.

But he gave it up for us. And what that means is not that he ceased to be God, but that he took upon himself human flesh. He made himself, he humbled himself as a man, he took upon himself the form of a servant, but that’s not all that he did. He died even a death of crucifixion for those that he loved. He descended to an extent, though we study it week by week. I don’t believe we can ever fully appreciate even death on a cross. And because of that tremendous humiliation, that tremendous descent from being in the presence and being deity to come and descend to that extent. Because of that descent, because of what he did, because he provided redemption, because he lived perfectly, because he conquered death and the grave for us, he was raised from the dead, and ultimately he ascended to a place that no other can rival.

He has a name that is above every name. And I loved Aaron’s comments about how what he provided is near to us. Because he came to earth, because he redeemed us with that one sacrifice for all time, that is now made available to all of us to grasp. It is near to you. And where is he now? Exactly where he’s been since he ascended. Sitting in a place that no one else occupies or rivals. He has a name that is above every name. And if we don’t get the next part right, our lives are failures. We should bow at his name. We should humble ourselves before him, and we should confess him with our lips and with our lives because he is worthy. At his name.

Every D should bow. And every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He is ruler and king, absolute ruler. To the glory of God the Father. And because he is who he is, because he demonstrated what he demonstrated that we’re to be practicing in our lives, verses 1 through 4, he says, now you need to do saving activity. You need to work out your salvation. You need to do your part in God’s grand scheme of your redemption. And you need to work out your salvation, and you need to do so with absolute reverence and respect for God and the terror that is in his hands. Fear. To do so with fear and trembling. Knowing that as we do that, as we conduct ourselves in this fashion, working out our salvation with fear and trembling, that we have God’s assistance.

Sometimes that’s overlooked. People read verse 12. You can’t read verse 12 without reading verse 13. Don’t ever do that. It’s not the end of the sentence. Don’t ever do that. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you. Both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And because of all of that, possessing this relationship with him, knowing that God is working through us and in us to his glory. What should we have to complain about? Why should we be in conflict with one another when he has called us to peace? Why should we complain against one another? I think that’s sort of the idea of the second part of that. Do all things without grumbling or disputing the New American standard says.

That you may prove yourselves. Hey, what are you proving about yourself? And you need to prove it to yourself as well as proving it to the world who sees your life. That you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God. That’s what I’m proving. I’m showing the world that I belong to him. I’m his child. Children of God.

Above reproach. In the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. I’ve been hearing that phrase. And I’ll tell you, I guess I really didn’t see the greater context of this when I was younger. But I remember preachers talking about Philippians 2 15. The crooked and perverse generation. And that stuck with me. That’s a phrase that I knew. Hey, that’s a good phrase to know. A crooked and perverse generation. That’s our surroundings. That’s our circumstances. And if it was bad in the first century, man, it’s is it even worse than the 21st century? Maybe. A crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world. Holding fast the word of life. So that in the day of Christ, that is surely coming, I might add, so that in the day of Christ I may have cause to glory, because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.

That is, the preaching that I’m doing is causing the right result, a glorious result, and that is your being affected. I understand that feeling that Paul had. I don’t want to spin my wheel, so to speak, and just preach to no effect. I want you to be the kind of people that Philippians 2 describes. Now, that, in short, is the context of Philippians 2. Despite the strong currents, and that’s really what Paul is telling us, despite the strong currents that are pulling us, trying to drag us with the multitudes headed in the wrong direction, we hold fast the word of life. Well, how bad is it? A few pages earlier in Ephesians chapter 5. How bad is it? Well, you need to be careful how you walk.

That’s how bad it is. Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, and make the most of your time because the days are evil. That’s how bad it is. It’s a crooked and perverse generation. The days are evil. And so then you need to make the most of your time. And be careful. And know your mission. Holding fast the word of life. Sometimes we do a lot of time decrying how bad it is in the world. And it is.

1. Simply Ignored: No Reaction at All

A crooked and perverse generation. Now what? How are we going to respond to the godless unspiritual self loving world that we find ourselves in? Basically, you have three options. Number one. This wicked and crooked and perverse generation can simply be ignored. Basically, you can have no reaction at all. You can overlook what is there. And act as if it doesn’t exist. And I’ll tell you, that’s what some people do. I don’t feel like it’s that bad, some people seem to be saying. I sort of feel comfortable here. I want to stay here longer than man’s allotted days. I like this world where I live. Profanity is everywhere, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s even in commercials. You only have 30 seconds and you’re going to use profanity. Really?

Well, don’t turn on the TV. Well, you’re still going to hear a lot of profanity. In the school, the workplace. Oh, we could talk about amount of exposure. That’s worthwhile. Limiting our exposure in whatever ways we can. Some of you are exposed naturally to more of it than I am. I work alone. When you hear a word of profanity, and you’ll hear some today, I’m pretty sure. Hopefully, not in here. When you hear that next word of profanity, how are you going to react? Or will you? When you see people drinking and abriating themselves. What’s your reaction to that? Here’s what I think we need to be careful of. That we get desensitized to the fact that we live in a wicked and perverse generation. And that we start to not see these things as the bad things and destructive things that they are.

And I just named a couple of areas of sinful conduct, but I want you to be thinking about this morning as we think about whether we should be reacting to what is around us and what that reaction should be. What does sin do? Why is sin such a bad thing? And why should we react to it? Because one’s relationship to God is affected, that’s why. It affects our souls. It is destructive in nature. Its practice is destructive. It lessens the quality of our lives. That’s what sin does and puts us in league with the adversary. And that’s just to name a few. I could probably name some more things as to what sin does. And it’s not just the commission of things that are evil, according to Matthew chapter 25, verses 31 through 46.

It’s leaving things undone that we ought to be doing because we possess this mind that we talked about in Philippians chapter 2 in serving others and assisting the Lord’s people. When you do it unto these, you do it unto me. Jesus says. And by failure to be the kind of brother that we ought to be, or the sister that we ought to be, we might again find ourselves in league with the devil eternally. Everlasting punishment. Prepared for the devil and his angels, he says in that context. Not just the sins that we particularly find this detestable and distasteful, but we need to react to all sin, all sin, because of its destructive nature. Whether we’re talking about profanity or drunkenness or lasciviousness, or whether we’re talking about sins of the tongue.

Equally destructive envy and lust. So one of the points of this lesson, as I talk about our reactions to the evil world around us, is that we need to do some sin sensitivity training. Train yourself to be holy, or train yourself to be godly, Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 7. For bodily exercise profits a little. My sister and I were talking about this yesterday as we were eating breakfast in Tampa, Florida. About, yeah, bodily exercise has a little profit. Might want to engage in a little bit of that, has some profit, but godliness is profitable for all things. Having promise of not just this life, which bodily exercise has a promise of this life, see. But godliness has a promise of this life and even more, the life to come.

So you better give greater attention to that. The godliness. But he said in verse 7, before he went into that thing we talk about all the time, bodily exercise versus spiritual exercise. But in verse 7, he says, train yourself. We’ve got to train yourself. This sermon this morning is about your training and my training. And one of the things we need to do is to do something else other than just ignore the fact that we live in a crooked and perverse generation. We need to react toward it. Being numb. And desensitized to sin, not reacting at all. Let me just tell you why that’s dangerous. It is this close. See how close that is? That’s really close. Being desensitized to a crooked and perverse generation is this close to getting in it.

2. Getting In It: Partaking

To partaking.

I wish I could take the time this morning to read Deuteronomy 17, 2 through 7, because there’s some very strong warnings there about anybody who engages in idolatry, even if it’s your neighbor. I mean, some very severe reaction needs to take place immediately. You need to obliterate and take care of the idolater, and you need to do it immediately. And the reason why that’s such important instruction, as you read throughout their history, they didn’t do that, and what happened? They became desensitized to idolatry, and soon enough they were all in it. They didn’t do what Deuteronomy 17 said. They lived among it, didn’t react to it, and the next thing you know, they were doing it. Because sin has an appeal. And they partook. But we need to remember something about lust gone amok, about evil speech that I’ve mentioned, and anger and wrath to boot, passion, immorality, impurity.

Notice verse 6 of Colossians chapter 3, it says, For on account of these things, the wrath of God will come.

And it’s going to be poured out on a wicked and perverse generation. And if that’s not the case, then I can’t trust this book at all because Colossians 3 says, it’s on account of these things, the wrath of God is coming. What wrath of God? Well, in Genesis 6, if you’ll remember, because sin was introduced in the world, and we talked about that recently, the partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and what progressed as a result, the thoughts of man became evil continually, and God had remorse that he’d even made man. I think that’s said accommodatively for us, but there was one man who found grapes in the eyes of the Lord, and that was Noah. And in 120 years, he was going to destroy that entire generation.

And it says in chapter 7, when that was done, when the boat was built and the ark was sealed, it says he blotted out every living thing. That’s a verse now. Genesis 7 and verse 23. Oh, that wrath. Yeah. He blotted out every living thing. And he’s going to do that again. And you will not derive comfort from the fact that you find yourself in the majority. Oh, I’m not the only one. As the world is being dismantled, and you along with it, I’m not the only one. That’s not going to be any comfort at all. You’re not going to care how many other people there are out there. You’re going to care about what’s happening to you. And that’s what happens if we partake and do not change our course.

3. Stop Sinning: Refrain or Abstain

And so that leads me. These are not good options. Number one usually leads to number two. And number one, being defensitized. It’s not a good thing. So that leads me to the third option. There are all kinds of passages. Stop sinning and be sober minded as you ought. That’s one of my favorites. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 34. What’s the secret to it? Is there a secret to defeating sin? Stop it. Stop sinning and be sober-minded as you ought. The verse before that talks about beware of the influences that are coming to bear in your life, by the way. The bad company passage. Verse 33. Stop sinning. Be sober-minded. Flee, youthful lusts. Flee. Abstain from every form of evil. So that’s your third option. You need to refrain or abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul.

4. Developing a Passion Opposed to Sin

But here’s the point. We’ve got to go even further in our reaction to this wicked and perverse generation. Not just not partake, not just refrain or abstain, but the scriptures talk to us about developing a passion opposed to sin. That’s where I’m going today. What did Tony talk about today? It’s developing a passion about sin and what it does. And how destructive it is. Because I tell you, if you get to this, number three, what I had up there just a second ago, refrain and abstain, that’ll happen. We need to grow in intensity in dislike of sinful conduct. I understand. Love the sinner. We want them to recover. It’s not about bashing them when they’re down and being gleeful about where they’re headed. Please don’t act like that.

We don’t want anyone to be lost. But the sin that is being practiced, we need to hate it. And I’ll just take you to one chapter in the Bible, howbeit a big one, Psalm 119, that talks about developing this kind of intensity where sin is concerned. Psalm 119. Let’s start in verse 29.

What a great prayer. Let’s be praying this. Lord, remove the false way from me and graciously grant me your law. I don’t know that I’ve referenced that verse very much, but man, I started liking it last week a lot. Remove me from the false way and graciously grant me your law. And then this, you know this one, right? From your precepts I get understanding. And that’s what we’re trying to provide about a wicked and perverse generation. I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false blame. Hate it. Not just coincide with it. Well, it’s regrettable. Hate it. The psalmist said. Oh, and he’s not done. Therefore, I esteem right, and we need to do that, I esteem right all your precepts. And sometimes we question that. But we need to esteem all of God’s precepts as right.

I hate every false way. And let me say it again, make sure everybody gets it. How about this? My eyes shed streams of water. Because of that crooked and perverse generation among whom we live. Who do I not have regard for God’s laws and his ways? I hate and despise falsehood. And I’ve got to tell you, it’s falsehood of every kind. But when people do not preach God’s word in truth and they speak lies from pulpits like this, we ought to hate that and despise that. Because men are lost as a result. Let us not be of this world. As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. Let me tell you why I’m preaching this. I love Philippians chapter 2. I want you to appreciate that chapter, at least the first 16 verses as it talks about our role in the world.

But I saw this post by a good friend of mine, Doy Moyer. Used to teach at FC.

Here’s how the post began. Profanity laced. Excessive gore. Full nudity. That got my attention. Good Facebook post got my attention. And shattering records. I mean. He says, congratulations, world. You’re being very worldly. I wonder what Christians ought to do with this. And he quotes 1 John 2, 15 through 17 love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. The world is passing away, and also it’s lust. But the one who does the will of God lives forever. Yes, we’ve all been guilty, he says, of loving the world. By God’s grace, forgiveness can be ours. Amen. May we all today choose God’s grace over the world. That was the end of the post. And so I knew immediately he was talking about some movie that had been released.

I had no idea which one it was. But I was pretty sure I could find it. And so first I went to Rotten Tomatoes to find out what was out. And then I went to plugged in online because I knew I could find it there. And the movie to which he was referring was Deadpool. With Ryan Reynolds, whom I actually like as an actor. Okay, you didn’t know anything about Deadpool. Let me just say, I guess villain goes very bad as the idea, I don’t know, or comic book person. I don’t know what it is. Action hero, whatever. Plugged in, gave it one half star out of five. And that might have been generous. But I said that to say, while I was on the website, I went to another review, to another movie, because I noticed they had given it zero out of five.

Now that’s really bad. And then at the end of the review, I love this. I love this. The reviewer. Now, I mean, yes, this is a conservative, quote, Christian website. But I love this review at the end. I’ll make this conclusion simple by turning it into a plea. Please, don’t see this movie. Promise me. As a friend. And that’s where it ended. I like that. Whatever you do, don’t spend money on this. Don’t go see this movie. Promise me as a friend. I’ll say that about that movie, and if you want to know, I’ll tell you later. But I would say that about Deadpool too. And a lot of other things that have no benefit to our minds that will not assist us in having the mind of Christ.

We need to come to hate the sin that grips our world. Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. And what that means for you and me is that we need to be focused on a different realm. I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul. We need to be filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5 and verse 18, and to be dominated by that which elevates our lives and our minds. And we’re in a warfare. And it’s a warfare that the devil is winning with most of the world, but thanks be to God, we don’t have to lose along with them. We need to fight the good fight of faith. This is an intense battle. This isn’t a playground.

Conclusion

This isn’t a swing set. This is a battlefield. It’s a war. And we’ve got to get intense about it. Fighting the good fight. And realizing that we have something greater in store for us than anything this world can offer. I’m done. Sorry. Appreciate that, brother. And speaking of that, a sister who will not be named Julia has asked me to preach on heaven. And I was just sitting there as we were singing the psalm before I got up here to preach. I got an idea for that, actually. Focus. Fix your hopes on where we’re going. If you’re in this audience tonight and you’re under the sway of today, it might be tonight by the time I get done, Will. If you’re under the sway of the devil, remember what we read in Colossians chapter 3.

The wrath of God is coming. On those who practice sin and whose sins are not covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.

I’m going to go a different direction. I’m going to go a better direction. I’m going to go God’s direction. And then you know what’s going to come from my lips? Because I’ve made that determination. I believe in Jesus. That He is the Savior of the world and that He’s my Savior. And I’m going to confess Him with my lips. And then I’m going to let His blood and His will have His way with me. I’m going to be baptized into Christ, washed and cleansed, and rise to walk in newness of life so that I don’t have to be numbered among that massive throng of people who will be lost. The broad gate and the broad way that leads to destruction. We urge you to respond while there’s time and opportunity.

Let’s stand and sing.