Detox Part 2 – Overcoming Toxic Influences
Brian Sump
Sermon Notes:
Toxic: anything containing poisonous materials capable of causing sickness or death
• Toxic influences cause us to oppose God’s will for us
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive; because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.’ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” James 4:1-8 NIV
The three most toxic influences in our lives are:
1. The flesh
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” Galatians 5:16-17 NIV
To detox from the influences of the flesh we must:
• Acknowledge our sins
• Accept the Holy Spirit’s help
• Adopt new habits
2. The world
“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours … I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” John 17:9-11 NIV
To detox from the influences of the world we must understand:
• Jesus commands us to be in the world but not of the world
o We came from the world
“I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.” John 17:6-7 NIV
o We should be different than the world
“I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.” John 17:14 NIV
o We are to remain in the world
“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” John 17:15-18 NIV
3. The devil
“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 NIV
To detox from the influences of the devil we must:
• Resist him and he will flee
• Remind yourself he is inferior to God
• Remember he is a liar