How to Love the World

Our key verse for today is 1 John 2:15 and I want you all to read this with me so if you have a Bible with you, go ahead and tap or turn to that verse. Ready?

1 John 2:15 ESV

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

This passage goes on to give us the PERFECT road map on how to love the world, let’s take a look.

1 John 2:16–17 ESV

For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

3 things here that we can pursue to love the world, lets break it down.

1. EMBRACE YOUR DESIRES

Romans 8:5–8 ESV

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

So seek out all your desires, it can’t hurt, right?

Galatians 5:16 ESV

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

The reality is we can’t do both, we can’t chase our own desires and seek out God’s, we can only choose one.

2. IF YOU SEE IT, TAKE IT

Our key verse said the desire of the eyes, but what does that even mean? well,

A great philosopher, Ariana Grande once said

“I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it”-Ariana Grande

This could be ANYTHING. We tend to assume that it’s only a sexual desire that falls into this category but it’s any form of envy that we could have.

If celebrities can embrace their desires and seek out anything that they could ever want, why shouldn’t we?

The world is always telling us that this is a good thing and how we look is more important than who we are.

If you see it and you like it, go after it!

I mean, this has been something that’s been around since the beginning, if you turn to Genesis 3:6 which says

Genesis 3:6 ESV

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

You’ll see that one of the reasons that Eve ate the forbidden fruit was because she SAW it, and it looked good.

She gratified the desires of her eyes and condemned humanity, but if you do, you’ll condemn yourself.

3. NO MATTER WHAT, ELEVATE YOURSELF

Elevate your status, all that matters is how important you are, the fancy job title, getting married just to say who you are, get that nice car, that nice house, get everything you can, always be looking for more, spend all your time building a social media platform and feed your ego with likes and followers. As long as you look important, that’s all that matters.

So now we know, the 3 major temptations in the world are the desires of the flesh, desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. We also know, that if we want to love the world, we need to embrace all of our desires, go after everything that looks good, and elevate ourselves, lets see how we can love Jesus and NOT the world now, turn with me to.

Matthew 16:24 ESV

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

DENY YOURSELF

If you want to oppose the desires of the flesh, you need to deny yourself. The world tells you to satisfy all of your desires but if we want to love like Jesus does and serve like Jesus served, we need to be willing to give up things we want now for things we want later.

TAKE UP YOUR CROSS

No one ever said following Jesus is easy, if you want to oppose the desire of the eye, you need to keep your eyes on Jesus, when you focus on Jesus the shiny things around you won’t be as tempting.