200503 Easter 4 Drive in Service (audio) 200503 Easter 4 Order of Service Sermon Manuscript: One of the words that Christians use in a special way is the word “world.” Those who are not familiar with Christ’s the apostles’ teachings might think that the globe, the planet earth, is being talked about with that word. That is not what is meant when the New Testament speaks about the “world.” What is meant by the word “world” has a lot to do with another special Christian word—the “flesh.” Here, too, those who are unfamiliar with Christian teaching might think of the butcher shop with such a word. But, again, that is not what Christians mean with the word “flesh.”So let’s begin by better understanding the word “flesh” as it is used in the Bible. “Flesh” is the word that is used to talk about the way that all people are after the fall into sin. When Adam and Eve sinned against God it was no longer natural for them to do the will of God. Instead, they loved themselves above everything else. What they wanted out of life was to be as comfortable as possible. They did not want to work or have trouble or suffer. They wanted to minimize these things as much as they possibly could, and they wanted to maximize pleasure. The more pleasure the better. This often drags the flesh into gluttony, drunkenness, pornography, adultery, and many other excesses. This is all contradictory to God’s will. It is God’s will that we should be content with what we have and to thank God for it. It is his will that we should love our neighbor and look out for him. We should help and support him in whatever needs he might have. We should help him to improve and protect his possessions and income. We should work, have trouble, and suffer—not so that we can get filthy stinking rich, but because it is helpful to those whom we are serving.And so now, perhaps, we have an idea of what the flesh is and what it is after. The flesh is greedy, lazy, deceitful, hankering after pleasure, honor, glory, and power. With these things as the endpoints, the goalposts, in life, all our thoughts, words, and actions are directed towards attaining them. Our flesh acts as though we are going to live forever and so it tries to accumulate more and more. It acts as though we will never be judged, and so it has no scruples. Whatever it can get away with, it does. If no one is looking, then do it. This is what is meant by the word “flesh” in the New Testament.What is meant by the word “world,” then, is the accumulation of all people’s flesh. The flesh’s goals and philosophies and ways of living are all included in the word “world.” As the accumulated wisdom of everybody’s flesh, you might say that the “world,” that is, its philosophy and way of life, is what comes naturally to people. People naturally understand looking out for themselves. They naturally understand that striving after honor, glory, and power is beneficial for a person’s quality of life. It is inconceivable to our flesh that any other way of living is even possible, because any other way of living is so impractical.But it is actually the world that is impractical, for the world cannot go on forever. It will not go on forever. Something that Jesus points out about the people who lived at the time of Noah and at the time of Sodom and Gomorrah was that they assumed that things would keep going on the way they had been. The folks at those times were contentedly living their lives as each saw fit. None of them paid any mind to their Creator or to any kind of judgment. They thought things would go on like that forever—perhaps they believed that they were going to build a more wonderful and advanced world. But then judgment came. A whole lot of people hope that there is no god. In fact, this is what comes naturally to our flesh as David points out in Psalm 14. People hope that there is no God so that they won’t be accountable for what they have done. But there is a God. And he does, indeed, judge, as every calamity and every disa