The Love of the World and Love of the Father
The Love of the World and Love of the Father
1 John 2:15-17
By Sean Kelly
Next week I'm going to be here. If in my power, that's about all I can say. So we'll see how it goes.
So first, John, chapter two, verses 15 through 17. These will probably be very familiar verses to you. I find that most of us have probably read them or had studied them before.
I think this is a convicting lesson. This is very convicting for me. Maybe what I will say when he has what I say.
But I think if you look at the passage word of God and really think about what's said there. Heavenly Father, we're just thankful for the opportunity to learn from your word and thankful for Pastor Jordan that you've had another year to serve you. Excuse me.
To have a clear line to accurately present your word to us and that we would be attentive to here understanding that we seek to apply to our lives. I just really love us to just have a good time in your work. 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. For all this is in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the father, but is of the world.
World has passed away in the lust of it. But he who does the will of God forever. So John gives us an important so we're going to keep going.
So John gives some important principles. Living the christian life here. And this is the big principle here, you cannot love both God and the world.
And we're going to look at that. We're going to talk about that. There's a choice you have to make in your life.
Let's choose one or the other. John gives us the command not to love the world. That explains what it means to love the world.
And finally gives us rationale why we should not love the world. So it's very, you see a lot of similar phrasing here, but John's making a point here. He wants to reader.
You have to be on one side or the other. To put it in my world perspective. You can't be a packer fan and a viking fan.
You can't do it. They don't exist together. There's something wrong if you're trying to do both and you're not really a fan of either in magistrate world, if you're not, if you're trying to do both, you're really just loving the world.
You're not loving the bottom because they cannot look at it. So that's what we're looking at this morning. So point one here is going to be the command.
Okay? Can you hear me now? They wouldn't always fit. That's what. Okay, so first, John 215 is coming out.
Do not love the world. Over things in the world. But anyone loves the world.
The love of the father is not hating him. So the command here said, do not and should not love two things. The first one is the love of the world.
Now, what's the world? This is a good question to ask. What does it mean to not love the world? Because those John 316 tell us that God so loved the world. So if God loved the world, why are we not to love the world? Well, because the world can mean different things.
Right? Okay, let's look at this. You guys look like you already got. So let's take the very basic.
The first thing the world could mean is, yeah, it could be all people. This is the John three six paper. God is the love of the world.
He loves everybody, all the people in the world. He expresses love to everybody by man and prosper. Everyone says, right.
His death was sufficient for everyone. And so God loves the world. So the second thing the world can be is, okay, yeah, physical things.
This is the physical world. I don't have a verse off of that hand, but the Bible talks about these things, about the world, the world God created. Let's talk about God creating the world.
The world. The world we stand on, the world. We build on, we drive on, we walk on, we live on.
That's the world. Third thing the world can be. And then call this a system.
What I mean by this is like philosophies, principles, kind of ideas. It's how the world works. And we all know that because we live in the world, we see how the world works apart from Christ, right? And this is what the world is talking about, the world apart from Christ.
Their principle, their philosophy. And that's what this passage here is talking about, you know, above the world. It comes from the world.
Cosmos. We get the cosmos. Cosmonauts, cosmetics.
You get a lot of words out of this. It's an ordering of things. But in this context here, what it's really referring to is the world order, how the world works, and how the world operates, its philosophies, its ideas.
And we're commanded a lot in the Bible to vote worldly things and to avoid worldly thoughts and the way the world works. I don't know if that. Felix passages here.
Romans twelve two. Go ahead, John two. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
So command here to the believers, do not be conformed, do not fit the mold of the world. It's not always not talking about the people. They're all people.
Not talking about the physical stuff of the world system. Don't conform to that system. Don't act like the world.
Don't think like the world. Don't do the things the world does. Instead, you're to be transformed.
You're supposed to renew your mind, that you understand what God's will is and that God's will is good. It's acceptable, and it's perfect. And so here again, another passage talks about avoiding the things of the world.
We're not to love the world. We're not to be conformed to the world. Let's look at first Corinthians 2:12.
Now we have received not the spirit, the spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. And here there's a difference in spirit, not the spirit of the world, not the spirit that brings up the world's wisdom, the world's ideas, the world's path, but the spirit of God. And here it talks about that we know the things that are freely given to us by God.
So God's spirit is in contrast to the spirit of the world, the idea of what the world would teach us, words that taught by God's spirit, we're taught by what he would teach us through his word. So there's a difference there. Ephesians 2138.
And you be made alive, who were deadly trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others bears time on our salvation. In Ephesians two, and this is the passage where we get saved, as later on in the passage here's talking about, before we were saved, we conducted ourselves according to the course of this world. And it goes on to describe it in very great detail, what that actually means, that they're walking according to the prince of the power of the air.
They're walking according to what females do. The spirit works in the sons of disobedience. So as we look out at unsaved people, we see that they're not walking the right way.
That's how we used to walk. He goes on even further to explain that we conduct ourselves in the loss of the flesh. We fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
We were children of wrath, just as everyone else. That's the course of the world. That's the world's principles.
And here in this passage, where it's talking about our salvation, it says, he made you alive. You were in debt, in trespasses of sin in which you once walked in this course. So there's a difference there.
Now that you're alive, you should not be walking in the course of the world. There's this, and we'll see this throughout this passage here. There's this difference of world and the things of God.
They don't go together. They're oiled water. They separate from each other.
You can't be in full, and you need to make the choice. So it says, do not love the world. And then it says in number two here, I guess this is the same verb.
It says, not love, not the things in the world. What does that mean? I always thought that this meant to stop, you know, don't love the world. I don't love the things of the world.
So I shouldn't be loving a nice sports car. I shouldn't be loving a sweet guitar. I shouldn't be loving having lots of money.
I always thought that's what that meant. But when you look at the courses passage, I'll try to show this as we go through. I think this is talking about something different.
I think this is talking about our ideas, our motivations, our personal rationales. We're not to love the world, the whole system, but we're also not to live in the idea of we're living according to the same thing that the world desires, the same thing that the world seeks after. Those things are not to be part of our lives.
And so, you know, I have this ideas, motivations, rationales, etcetera, these kind of things, the way we think. I'm going to show this in the next point, that this is what this passage is all about. It's how we think, it's what our desires are.
It's what our motivations are. And so the world, I think, is this whole philosophy, this overall philosophy, the world lives by. And then the things of the world are personal motivations, ideals that can be contrary to the things that make kind of sense.
Hopefully it will make a little more sense. I don't get too much away here, because we're working through this. I want to get second Corinthians ten, three through five.
According to the tradition of according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. So that was after this was the difference between the world they got here. That there's basic principles of the world.
And then there's principles that are according to Christ. You have one or the other. So that's kind of where you point us there.
Now we'll go to the second print. Go ahead. For though we walk in the clerks, we did not war according to the clerks.
Where the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. The mighty God for pulling down funnels, casting down arguments and every high thing, bringing every thought. This is talking about our spiritual life.
It's using a metaphor of war. Fear here that we're at war with something. Here we don't war according to the flesh.
Because we're not warring with the stuff, physical objects. We're worrying about the stuff that's going on in our mind and the stuff that's going on as far as our philosophies, our motivations. You can see that even at the end of the verse there, bringing every thought into captivity.
Our thoughts are very important because they determine our direction. They determine where we're going and the way we think. Whatever our motivation is, whatever our rationale is for doing something, that's what's going to make us do that thing.
And so here that I think the things of the world, here is this idea. What is our motivation, our rationale, our desires? What are we seeking after? What is our goal and what we're doing? Those are the things that are things in the world that we can love. The wrong.
Then I add this, and this is usually again, over and over. Love is exclusive. So if someone loves the world, the love of the father is not in them.
There's a divider. You can't love the world and love the father. You can't say, on Monday and Tuesday, I'm going to be loving the things of the world.
And Wednesday I'm going to come to church and then turn my life back over to God and love God. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then I'm back to loving the world. And Sunday I come back to church, I'll love the things of God.
It doesn't work that way. If you're loving the world, you can't have the love of the father. That's how it works.
Even if it's a little bit. You can't have both. They're mutually exclusive.
A good illustration Jesus gives is in Matthew 624. And I know this is probably familiar, but would you like to do that for us? Go ahead, Eric. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else you will be loyal to the one that despises the other.
You cannot serve God. And so here, Jesus uses God in mammon. Mammon is money.
You can't be serving God in your life and also serve. I want to be rich and I love money. I want everything.
I can give you money. It doesn't work together. You can't serve two masters.
You think of how even most governments work. There's usually one guy that's kind of heading things up. We have a president here.
We have kings. We have emperors. That's because it works.
You can't have two guys, both with the same power and being both master over something. And in our spiritual life, we can make the world our master. So we need to make a decision.
What are we going to love? Do we love the world and the things in the world or do we love the things of God? Because I'm loving the things of the world. And if I'm desiring those things, and that's what my motivation is, that I'm not loving God. I'm not showing God love, being serious.
So that's a command point one here. .2 the explanation, that's great.
I think I understand it. But now, what are the things of the world? What are the things I have to avoid loving? What are the things I have to avoid focusing on? That's where John gets to verse 16 here for all that is in the world. So he's talking about the world, the love of the world and love of the things of the world.
All that is in the world. And then he gives us this apostle here. I'm going to expand on that.
The things that are in the world, these are what they are, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. And then he adds on his ..., the father of the world. And here you see that dichotomy again, that one or the other, you can't have these things and have the things of God.
You got to choose one way or the other. So the explanation here, the defining principle of the world system, all that is in the world. He gives us three things here.
First thing is the lust of the flesh. So what's. Let's talk about lust first because we put on the word lust and what's the first thing that comes to mind, yeah, sexual lust.
That's how we think of it. This word lust is a prequel epiphymia. That's why it just means desire.
And actually, in several places in the Bible, it actually relates to good things, desiring the things of God. And so, in and of itself, this word is not a bad word. It depends on what the object of the desire is.
If I'm desiring to serve God, if I'm desiring to love others and serve others, that's a good desire. I'm not going to say it's a desire most faultless. That's a good lust.
But that's not a big thing to say. It's a good desire. But you can say these things here.
This is the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the most. Right. Because that's all that this word lust means, is a desire, a longing.
So what do we desire? What is our focus? What is our goal in life? What are we putting our energies into? What is our desire? Is it the things that matter? Is it these three things that John lists here? The first one he lists is the lust of the flesh. So what's the flesh? Flesh is physical death, things that make us feel good in our flesh. Lust in a sexual way. This is a lust of the flesh because we desire that good feeling. Sexual intercourse, is enjoyable.
God designed it that way. We designed it in the confines of a married relationship, a faithful marriage relationship. And our lusts, our desires, if that's what we're focused on them, we're looking for other ways to fulfill that because we're trying to feel good in our flesh.
What else would be a lust in the flesh? Food. That's a good one. Why do some people eat too much? It tastes good.
Maybe it's even comforting when we're going through hard times. It brings us these feelings. And when you start focus on my goal in life is to get good food and eat good food.
And I don't care. It's my food. It becomes a lust.
It becomes a desire, a lust of the flesh. What else? Okay, I think power over others. I think that fits into categories, but I think it's a good one because it does fit in this one.
Because it makes you feel important, it makes you feel strong. It makes you feel like you're better than everyone else. So there is a feeling there, I think also works in the private life because it gives you all those important things also.
So I think that's a good one. In that for circle, maybe things like music. Yeah.
I think you might get into the next category, so we'll hold on that one. I think you can feel good, like, driving the vehicle. Maybe the need for speed type idea.
Boy, this is fun. This is amusement in itself. I mean, you can take any amusement parks if you live, to be going to the riding roller coaster.
That's, like, your whole focus on life and goal. That's lust of the flush. Money.
Okay. Yeah. I think money fits also in the next category really well.
But there might be something about having that security of money. What about, like, your own physical appearance? Like, you try to change? Okay. I think.
I think that's probably good. There could be some fleshly desire type thing with that. I think that's also a pride thing.
Like, you want to look nice and you want to look good and be cool and whatever. So I think that kind of fits into two categories. You see, a lot of this stuff overlaps.
It's not one or the other. Sleeping. Sleeping.
Sleep excessively. Yeah. Sleeping in a.
Yeah. Because it feels good to be able to rest and not do anything. I even thought about giving, like, kind of laziness.
I don't want to do the hard work. I want the comfort of not doing anything. So these are all good things.
We don't have to exhaust the list, but the things that make us feel good in the flesh, that satisfy our fleshly desire, the fluff of the eyes. This is the idea. We see something.
Everyone. This is a lot of places where I think if somebody buys this brand new car and Sully offers a $60,000 super truck thing, you're like, that's what you're living for. That's what I mean.
It's good. If you want a nice truck, that's fine. But if that's what your desires are for, that's what your focus on, that becomes a lust, obviously.
Let's just read the one right now. The works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, rudeness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. But which I tell you beforehand, which just as I also told you in times past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
So here's the work of the flesh, the things that our flesh brings up. I'm not going to go with this whole list, but you start looking at adultery or can't talk about orientation, that kind of uncleanness, lewdness, this stuff that when we're doing it, it makes us feel good in the flesh. How person look at the wrath.
There's murders, drunkenness, that kind of stuff. So there's a good list here, just in case Paul missed anything he has and the like. So there's more than just a split even.
I'm assuming he's talking to unbelievers in this. In John or in Galatians. Galatians, he's.
He's talking to believers. The next verse is what the fruit of the spirit is. And so it's telling us that there's.
There's, again, this division between the things that are of the flesh of the world and the things that are spiritual, and we need to focus on those spiritual things. So the fruit of the spirit is the very next verse in this passage there. So it is the believers in this.
So let me explain the last part of that verse. If you're a believer, you give a God like that on the cross. It's those who practice those things.
So what he's saying is, if you're doing that, you're acting like the people who practice those things are unsafe. The unsafe people are doing this. They're not inheriting the king of God.
Why are you doing that? Also because you shouldn't be. You're inheriting the king of God. That's not consistent with who you are.
So that's why he's saying that there. But it is characteristic of those who are unsafe. You know, he's describing, when he describes this, he's describing, these are unsafe people.
This is what they do. And then he's saying, he's basically the point of Christians. You're not unsafe.
Why are you doing this? You're different. We need to live different. Yeah.
So bus to the eyes. We're back here. So the things that we see, we want.
And I mentioned, Carl, what? Any other thoughts on bus? I think this is pretty easy. This is where I think money also fits in, because money gets you stuff. And it's like, I want stuff, so I want to be rich so I can buy what I want.
I know you're as fast as you get to seers catalog and say, oh, this is wonderful for Christmas. Or you see the advertisements on your TV and, oh, look at this great thing here. Look at this.
It's flashy. Yeah. With kids, you practice a lot of the lust of the eyes.
And not intentionally, even, like you and my kids, I'm like, maybe a birthday list so I can give you some presents for your birthday. And then they start going on Amazon. Oh, that's what I want.
And we're kind of beating that a little bit. We shouldn't be. But on the other hand, I want to buy a birthday present.
So I don't even know what they want. It's kind of. It's a hard diploma, but you extract that out.
And as adults, you know, for us, the catalog is maybe a tool catalog or, you know, going to a car dealership and looking at cars, this is where we start going, oh, I want that. I want that. For me, cars isn't a big deal.
I want a car. That one needs to be active for work, and I don't have to take the shop everywhere. That's kind of my goal.
So I see somebody getting new car. I think, why should you spend $50,000? I just don't get it sometimes. But other people struggle with this, and I'm not saying I don't.
I struggle with other things. Like, I like these Kobe models, and I go online and I go, ooh, I want to have one. So there's stuff.
But are we making that our focus? Is that how we're living by I'm trying to get what I can see, the kind of things I desire. I think somebody with a nice house, I want that kind of house. When we focus on that, and that becomes our motivation, our.
It becomes our rationale for what we do. Things that I'm going to do everything I can to get those things that I want, that becomes the lust of the eyes. And again, it's not bad to have money.
I'm not saying that God blesses you with lots of riches. Use it for God's glory. Don't focus on what you can give and all the cool things to do for goddess, just be painful.
Cash less to you that way. It gives you a nice car that runs well. Enjoy that car.
Use it for cash flow or use it to drive them around Saturdays. Do the right thing with it. So once the isolates.
So Nathan doesn't come in, skip a verse again. We're going to do proverbs 27 20. Never bold.
So the eyes of man are never satisfied. And I think here it's kind of indicating our natural state before Christ. Our eyes are not satisfied.
That this is a good temptation to us because we see stuff and we want. That's just how we manifest ours. So something we need to watch out as far as Christians, that's in our fleshly nature.
We need to be careful that. Okay, third one is the private life. I think this one's probably the easiest one.
Private life is the things that exalt us. Our role as Christians should not be to exalt ourselves, but to exalt God, to bring him glory. We're created for his glory, for his purposes.
And when we focus on what makes me look more important and what makes me look better, what makes me look awesome and amazing, that that's our focus and that's our motivation that we've got undermine other things of the world. So, pride of life, I think pretty simple. Romans twelve three looks pretty bad.
We are in Romans twelve one or Romans twelve two. This is an excerpt for I say through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has felt each one of the measure of faith. So there, pretty simple.
Don't think too high with yourself. Think solely about yourself. If your goal is I'm really cool and I need to be lifted up, and I need thereby, you know that you have a wrong motivation if you're there to make yourself moving forward.
And your motivations, your actions are to give yourself a better position and be seen as just special in everybody's eyes, that's wrong. And now God tells us to humble ourselves that he's not good. More highly of yourself than he ought.
Think of yourself soberly, which is, you know, reasonably, is to take a good account of who you are. Proverbs 1618 through 19. It's actually my wife used to quote on pride pillow before destruction and a how to spirit before it falls.
That all along it said, pride is a bad thing. It goes before destruction, the body spirit goes before a fall. If you're being prideful, you're setting yourself up for a fall.
And God actually says here, so we need to be careful about being too prideful. So going back to this verse in verse 16 here, John goes on to say that all this is not of the father, but it's of the world, so it's not of the father. I think that's pretty clear.
You look at scripture and you excel that these things are not God. In fact, I was thinking about this, and it was after I heard my notes. But the first sin shows how this came into the world.
It didn't come of God. It came of Adam and Eve, disobedience. And you can see that because what when you look at the apple.
What did she see? Did she. Okay, first of all, she saw it was good for food. That's what the Bible says, it's good for food.
What's that? That's the lust of the flesh. Right? She was like, look at her. That's going to be tasty.
That's going to be good to eat. She also said, it also says, pleasant to the eyes. He looked inside and said, I did want that.
That's a nice looking fruit. Was the third thing that she realized about it. Yeah.
It's gonna make her wise. My God. Right? What's that? I'm not satisfied with my situation.
I wanna be lifted up. I wanna be like God. I wanna have his wisdom.
So that's pride of life. And it all started. Satan's been using the same things over and over throughout history to bring us away from God.
It started right there in the garden. And they're not of the father. It's not what God desires.
It's not what God wants for us. They are of the world. It's a worldly system, philosophy to be satisfied and lust of the flesh.
Lust the eyes of the pride of life in our life. Let's look at a couple passages now. We'll go to James four, one through four.
Josiah. Go ahead. Where do wars and fights come from among you? They do not come from your desires for pleasure.
That war, it remembers you. Lust and do not have, murder and covet and cannot take fight and war if you do not have. If you do not ask, you ask if you do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasure.
Adulterers and adulteresses do not know the friendship of the world or the enmity of God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Okay, so looking at this verse, if you look in verse one there, the word desires is italicized.
That means it's not really going to grieve. So you can't make the statement that this is all lust necessary. But you look at what are they desiring? Desire.
Pleasure. Whose pleasure? Things of God are things yourself. The desire for pleasure, remember, is you lost.
There's your desire. You lost. And honestly, this is used in a bad manner.
That's why they translated lust and not desire here. So you lust for the things that you want and you don't have. You murder and covet.
Now, does murder and covet satisfy yourself or someone else? Yourself. Right. So again, it's just focused on yourself and it goes on you asking, you spend on your pleasures and then at the end of this, and they think that James talking a little bit or something, you don't know that friendship with the world is enemy with God.
You can't be friends with the world and be friends with God. If you're friends with the world, you're automatically an enemy of God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
It's mutually exclusive. We need to make a choice in this. What are we going to focus on? What is it going to be our motivation, our life? What is our desire? Are we desiring that we grow in Christ, that we serve in the way we're supposed to, that we worship him with our lives, that we bring him glory in all we do? Or are we focused on worldly things? That I want this, I want that.
I wish people would look at me in a better light. I wish that I got more recognition. What is our motivation in life? And I'd like to say in my life that's 100% motivated by wanting to serve God and worship him.
But when I sin, I can't say that I'm motivated by the lust of the flesh, lust the eyes and part of life. And that's something that we, for me, this is my second nation. Cause I sit up here and I go, well, I can think of several ways this last week that I violated these three principles and I have to go up here and teach it from the word of God, right? So we're all struggling with it, but John is trying to give us this idea that we can get this in focus, that you can't love God and you can't love the world.
It's one or the other. And if you're loving the world even a little bit here, you don't have to love God in you. So it ought to be a motivation for us to say, hey, let me refine my life, let me start living more and more for God.
Let me take accountability for what I'm doing and what I focus on and turn my focus sorts of things about. So that's the explanation there. Hope that makes sense.
Third one, pure verses here, psalm 1997 ten. Thank you. I mean, so excited about what I'm saying.
Who wants to be saints? He delivers them out of the hands of riches. You will love the Lord for you to do. Do you love the Lord or you love the healer? So number three here.
The reason, the explanation I have is kind of, this is what it is. The reason is now, okay, why is this important? Why does it matter? I'm safe. I'm forgiven.
My eternal life is secure. I'm not going to lose that. Why does it really matter if I'm loving God or loving the world or I'm doing? Who cares? What's the big difference? Yeah, the world is passing away.
And the lust of it. But he does. The will of God abides forever.
So, first of all, we see the world is passing away. Now, what's the first thing you might think? Or you think the world is passing away? Am I back? Things flying far. Okay, like when I read this, the first thing that comes to my mind, that maybe you're different to me.
I think, oh, yeah, Christ is coming back. And to destroy the world and make a new world. The world is taxing away.
That's not what signs. This is present tense in this passage. The world is in the process of passing away.
So what does this mean? Now we're talking about world, and in this passage, this is world philosophy. Remember, this isn't the physical world. This isn't the people.
Although people are passing me all the time. This is the world's philosophy. So what does it mean? The world's philosophy is our passing away.
I look around and I see the world as evil as ever. Right? There's the world's philosophy that's ruling everything right now, at least in our country and most of the other places in the world. So what does it mean that it's passing away? Sure doesn't look like it's passing away to me, right.
Okay, so, Matt, we know the world will pass away in Christ return. I put a passage there just so you can. We're not going to look at it, but this is present tense, the world is passing away.
So since we were talking about the world system, I believe that this is the world passing away. As the truth is being revealed. We have the truth.
As John's writing, he's saying, you're getting the word of God. We're finishing up the word of God here. You're getting the truth.
The world's ideas are passing away because the truth is coming in here. And as you follow the truth, as you believe the truth, we'll God be going away. And so it's a change by God's word in his keyboard that changes what the world is.
It's no longer the world is all darkness now. There's light in the world, and there's people living as light. Jesus, John's phraseology.
And that's how the world was casting away. So two Corinthians four, six. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light, but the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Okay, look at this. First, God will command the light to shine out of darkness. So God's bringing light is bringing truth into the world, right? How does he do that? Who has shown in our hearts to give the light? So God's shining his light through us, through his people.
We're the displays of God's light. Okay, you go on and stop their purpose. If you give the light of the knowledge of glory.
God. The knowledge of the glory of God to who? To God? No, God already knows that to us. Well, we've already gotten that to his word.
We're displaying the knowledge of the glory of God to the world. We're the lights of the world. We're the people who are shining and representing God in the world.
And if we're living the right way, if we're doing the right things, we become that light that counteracts darkness. And so, by the world of passing away, I think that's through us, through our obedience, through our lives, that God is working that in the world. And it is passing away because as we reveal light, as people come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, that's a little more of the world that's gone.
They're coming into the life of the name of God's kingdom and serving him. And so it's through us. So I think because the world is passing away, this is a personal thing, we need to take responsibility for that, that God wants to use us to be his light in the world.
Does that kind of make sense? Okay, and the lust of the world is passing away. So you got the world system, you got the desires. And again, this is the lust of the world is lust of the flesh, of the lust of the eyes, of the fire.
Where does that manifest itself in our lives? So that's cast in the way it says God's working in our lives. And so I think this has a very personal application. This isn't just some day.
Well, God's working on it. He's going to fix everything eventually. Well, this is us doing it in our lives, and that's what we need to be doing.
James 127. Oh, yeah, James. Okay, so James 1:27 would like to go ahead.
Pure and undefiled religion before God and the father is this to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and keep oneself unspotted in the world? Here in undefiled religion, I can kind of paraphrase, this is to serve people that have need. That's what the world is in trouble with need and to live righteous lives before God yourself unspotted in the world. This is what we're called to do.
We're called to serve others, and we're called to live lives of righteousness. Christianity is really very simple. Serve the people around you and do what God tells you to do.
Rocket scientists to figure it out. And this is what God wants us to do. Psalm 119, 104.
How do we do that? Psalm 118 104. Through your example, I will get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way.
So how do we do this is through God's work. So as we're living according to God's word, as that life is manifesting ourselves in itself, in us, we are the reason the world is passed away, because God's truth is coming through us. So last one.
This one's a difficult one. I've thought a lot about this even since I did my notes. And actually I met with Kevin Subra yesterday.
We talked a little bit about this passage and kind of came to think, the one doing the will of God abides forever. These are also all present tense. The one who is presently doing the will of God is presently abiding forever.
So what does that mean? Because when we read it, we say he's going to abide forever. That's the future stuff. You do the will of God now, you abide forever.
This is, you're presently doing the will of God. You're presently abiding forever. And I think the idea is that this is where our motivations are.
As we're doing the will of God, we're living in the realm of eternal. We're living in the realm of what God wants us to be doing. And this is the right realm.
This is what we're going to do for all eternity. And so we're already there. We're already doing the purposes and the things that God wants us to do, as we're abiding in, and as we're rejecting the world, as we're rejecting what's the principle of us, we're rejecting the things of the world.
And we're living for God. We're in that state now. We're the place where God wants us to be.
Does that kind of make sense? It's a hard concept, and we don't talk like that. You know, how can you be abiding now forever? Well, you're abiding on forever as you're doing, as you're working with God as you're doing what he wants you to do. So let's look at second John one and two, last passage this morning.
The elder be a like lady and her children, whom my love is true, and not only the eyes, but also all those who have known the truth and abides in us and will be with us. So the truth abides in us presently and will be with us forever. It's the same truth we're living by, the truth of God's word.
And so, as we're living in now, we're living the same truth that we're going to live in 10,000 years from now about who God is and what his will is. And we need to be abiding in that presence that we're abiding in. Things are God right now.
So that's kind of where I've come up with that. Like I said, it's a difficult concept. But the idea is here that, again, you're either abiding in the things of the world, you're buying in the lusts of the world, or you're buying the things of God, one or the other.
And we need to make that choice. My takeaways here, first, when I ask the question, who or what do you love by that? What's your motivation? What's your focus? What's driving your life? Your focus is on loving, serving Christianity, because you're focused on living, serving Christ. Or are you in love with the world and his philosophies and motivations? If you're not loving God, then focus your love on one.
It's very simple. It's one or the other. You're loving the Vikings, back on the many day patterns.
Dave's looking at me like, I have no idea. You get the idea. They're mutually exclusive.
You can't be one. You can't be both. Gotta be one or the other.
Second, when our struggles with sin come down to our desires and our pride, when we desire what God desires and seek to exalt in our sinful desires and not have a safe hold on us. So what do you desire in your life? What is your goal? Do you go from church here and going, well, I wonder how I can serve God this afternoon. How can I do what God wants me to do? Or are you like, well, I gotta do this stuff.
I gotta make my house look really good, because right now it just looks ratty. And so I gotta do housework because that's important to me. That's the ultimate goal of my life, is having a nice looking house, or if I go home and I'm just gonna try to make peace with my family because I want the comfort of not having a conflict in the house, you know, what is your focus? And our focus needs to be on seeking to do what God wants of doing, exalting him.
Last one. The abiding things are things which we do because we're doing a lot. I don't know what extraordinary.
But you do for God. And the things that God demands us to do, the other things which oftentimes occupy too much of our time, are passing away and ultimately worthless. And so are you doing the abiding things, the things that are in the realm of what God wants.
When we have an eternal perspective, we will focus on doing those things. At last. So, any additional thoughts, questions, comments, concerns? I mean, I was thinking about the political environment pretty much the whole time.
It's just very extreme in America right now. Yeah. So can you be a Democrat and a Republican the same? A lot of people would say no, but I'm a registered independent of are you going to vote one way or the other, or are you going to vote none of the above? But for us, it's even more personal than that.
I mean, I think that's a good illustration, but it's really what's in our life. And again, when we're sinning, when we're disobeying God, our focus isn't on the love of God. The focus is on the love of the things of the world.
It's very simple. You know, you can't sin and be like, well, I'm loving God by sin. That doesn't make any sense.
So when you sin, you have to say, okay, what am I focused on here? If I get mad at my kids and I yell, I focus on some lust through the flesh ideas there, because it makes me feel good to be yelling at my kid and be on my frustration at them, well, is that what God wants you to do now? I'll yell at my kids if they're like, somebody's gonna put their hand on a hot burner, and I'll yell really loud. So there's certain times I'm saying that, but, yeah, if you're out for some. So, yeah, it's really.
This is really a very personal passage. Each one of us needs to examine what's going on inside of us. What is our motivation? What is our goal? What is our, what are our priorities in our life? What.
What is our focus? And we'll find out that whatever you're focused on is probably the affecting how you're living your life. Because if you're focused on the things that God, you're focused on what he wants. If you're focused on bringing him glory, guess what? You're actually using that.
Also, just as we make decisions, is this something that God wants decision or is something underlined? Yeah, I mean, that comes down to the very basic. But we also, you know, it's not just about making decisions, about what's the motivation, what's, what's behind those decisions we made. Because there's times where I focus on the wrong thing, I still make the right decision.
Because at that moment, I make the right decision, not because my focus was in the right place. And so we can, and I'm not saying that the decisions are unimportant. We ought to be right now.
But if our motivation is still wrong on that, we can make five right decisions or we're going to jump right back to making the wrong decision after that. Yeah, decisions are good, but where's my ed at? What is my motivation like? Is my motivation truly to serve God, to honor and glorify him? Because that's gonna make the decision process really easy. Then if I'm like, if that's what I'm doing, then that's what's gonna come out of my life.
Anything else? Us. So I have a closing prayer. Josiah, would you close us in prayer? Dear Lord, we just thank you for this, people we've given us over the last week.
Lord, thank you for Jordan's and Sean's messages today, Lord, and wish Jordan happy birthday, Lord. We thank him for his service that you give to Northridge. We just pray that there would be much attendance tonight. Youth group, lord, and wish that you would bless our fellowship.
