Worldly Love
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Please turn to 1 John 2:15-17 as we consider the problem of Worldly Love.
I’m sure that we have each heard many cliches regarding the need for love in this world. Many are found in catchy song lyrics or titles — “What the world needs now is love, sweet love”; or “Love makes the world go round.” Or how about “All we need is love.”
To be sure, we are commanded in Scripture to make an emphasis on love. As we well know, Christ stated that all of the OT hinges on two commandments. The first is to love God with everything that is in us. And the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves — so, yes, there is a place for self-love for the Christian, but it should never be at the expense of others.
Throughout this epistle John emphasizes the importance of loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. But in our passage for this morning, John points out something which the believer in Jesus Christ shouldn’t love.
As we go through our passage we will first deal with somethings which need to be defined in order to understand what John is communicating to his readers. Then we will look at the negative and positive sides of love.
Let’s read our passage together.
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 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.
Let’s begin with some
Definitions
Definitions
Look at the first phrase of verse 15.
Do not love the world or the things in the world.
Let’s begin by
Defining Love
Defining Love
Those who have been believers, and or church attenders for any length of time are probably familiar with the Greek terms used for love in the NT. The term used here is the verb form of agape — agapaō. The noun form of this word is used by John to express the attitude of God toward His Son.
I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
It is also used by John to express the attitude of God toward the human race in general.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
It is also used to convey God’s will to His adopted children concerning their attitude toward one another.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
It is also used to express the attitude which believers are to have toward all men.
and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you,
Note that
Love Can Only be Known from the Actions it Prompts
God’s love is seen in that He sent His Son into the world to save His people from their sins. How is it that people are saved through Jesus — the Eternal Son of God? They are saved by believing in Him.
What does such belief include?
It includes belief in the reason Jesus came to save us — namely that we are all plagued with the cancer of sin. And like a cancer it spreads throughout our entire being and infects every part of us — our bodies, our minds, our spirit, our soul, and our will.
Belief in Jesus also includes believing in His person. First of all, Jesus was a real, historical person, and not just some legendary myth. Secondly, Jesus was fully man — that is the aspect of the doctrine of Jesus that John is so intent on defending. Thirdly, Jesus was fully God. He was not like the mythological Hercules who was part man and part god. He was and remains fully God. He did not divest Himself of His deity when He humbled Himself and became man. But He did veil that glory most of the time — yet there were times during His earthly life in which that veil was removed for a small portion of time, revealing His glory to the apostles.
Belief in Jesus also includes believing in His sinless life. Though you and I were born with a sin nature, Jesus, who was conceived by supernatural means, did not have a sin nature. You and I are sinners by birth and by choice. Jesus was neither a sinner by birth, nor by choice.
Belief in Jesus also includes believing in His redemptive work on the cross. Jesus died as a substitute for all who place their faith and trust in His person and His work. He who knew no sin became sin during that time in which He was forsaken by God. And those who believe in Him, even though we do not have a righteousness of our own, become righteous, through faith in Him.
Belief in Jesus includes believing in His resurrection from the dead. As Paul put it, if Christ is not raised from the dead then we are the most pitiable people in the world, because we would be still dead in our trespasses and sins.
So, we have been looking at the definition of love. Let’s now look at
Defining World
Defining World
Look at the first part of verse 15 again.
Do not love the world or the things in the world.
Sometimes John uses it in reference to the entirety of creation.
He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
Sometimes John uses in terms the whole of the human race.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Sometimes he uses it of the present condition of human affairs which are in opposition of God.
The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
In this last sense of the term, the world is under the rule of Satan, and hates the things of God. And it is in this sense that the term in used in our present text.
Note that
The World Hates God and it Hates the People of God
So, we have define love and world. There is one more term (which is not found in this text) which we should define.
Defining Worldliness
Defining Worldliness
While the term is not used in this text, it is certainly inferred.
Note that
Worldliness is an Attitude Rather than an Action
Warren Wiersbe wrote, “Worldliness is not so much a matter of activity as of attitude. It is possible for a Christian to stay away from questionable amusements and doubtful places and still love the world, for worldliness is a matter of the heart. To the extent that a Christian loves the world system and the things in it, he does not love the Father.” (Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 492.)
So, we have been looking at definitions. Let’s turn our attention now to
The Negative Side of Love
The Negative Side of Love
There are two basic reasons presented in our text as to why believers are not to love the world — the love of the world is incompatible with the love of God, and the world itself is transient in nature. Let’s look first at
Incompatibility
Incompatibility
Note that
The Love of the World is Contradictory to the Love of God
Look again at verse 15.
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.
Commentator Glen Barker considers this to be another test to see of walking in the light. According to Barker, if a person loves this world’s system then he or she is not walking in the light.
What other tests have we seen in our study of 1 John?
Acknowledgement of personal sin nature and acts of sin (1:8-10)
Obedience to the commandments of Christ (2:3)
Imitation of Christ (2:6)
Loving our brothers and sisters in Christ (2:10)
What does John mean when he writes that the love of the Father is not in the person who loves the world? First we have to understand how John uses the term love in the second half of verse 15.
Barker wrote, “Love also means something different in this passage. Here it is not the selfless love for one’s brother (cf. 2:10) but the love that entices by evil desire or base appetite that is forbidden (John 3:19; 12:43). It is the world’s ability to seduce the believer, to drag him away from love of the Father, that concerns John.” (Glenn W. Barker, “1 John,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews through Revelation, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 12 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981), 321.)
The idea seems to be that whatever we love with our whole heart is our master. If we truly obey the command to love God with our whole heart, mind, and soul, then God is our true Master. But if we love the things which belong to this world which is under the rulership of Satan, then those things becomes our master. And more pointedly, Satan becomes our master. Jesus clearly stated that we cannot serve two masters, either we will hate the one and love the other, or we will love the one and hate the other.
What is mastering you? What do you love the most? Do you truly love God more than anything else in this world? Or do you love your family more than you love God? If so, then your family is your master. Do you love your career more than you love God? If so, then your career is your master. Do you love wealth more than you love God? If so, then money is your master.
If you love anything more than you love God, then your are mastered by that thing which you love, and you are not walking in the light.
Look at verse 16.
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.
Here, John goes on to list three basic worldly attitudes which hamper the believer’s fellowship with God. And certainly these things are even more apparent in the lives of those who are not believers in Jesus Christ. I would like to look at them in reverse order, because I think that one leads to another.
Let’s first deal with what John referred to as the pride of life.
Barker wrote that “The pride of life describes a pretentious hypocrite who glories in himself or in his possessions. He is a person of ostentatious pride in “his own non-existent importance. Bruce (p. 61) says, If my reputation, my public image, matters more to me than the glory of God or the well-being of my followers, the ‘pretentiousness of life’ has become the object of my idol-worship.’” (Glenn W. Barker, “1 John,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews through Revelation, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 12 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981), 322.)
The Babylonian King, Nebuchadnezzar, fell victim to the pride of life. God even warned Nebuchadnezzar in a dream that it was going to happen. However, God’s warning was eventually forgotten. Let’s pick up the narrative in
All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar.
At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon,
and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”
While the words were still in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you,
and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.”
Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.
After seven years Nebuchadnezzar came to his senses and gave glory to the God of heaven, and then his mental capacity was restored to him. And I believe that He was truly to converted to be a God-fearing man. Look at
At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”
In this example the king repented of his pride of life and came to confess God as the only true God. The King wrote to his people and ended with this:
Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
While God is certainly able to humble the pride, there are times in which He allows a person wallow in pride in order to bring judgment upon themselves. The pride of life leads to the next of these vices — the desires of the eyes.
Because of our pride, we tend to convince ourselves that we deserve to have what is not ours to have. The Bible has many examples of such folks. The one I would like to mention is a man by the name of Achan. Achan was an Israelite who, under the leadership of Joshua, was among the armed forces who were going about conquering the land of Canaan. When God supernaturally conquered the city of Jericho, God instructed the people to not loot this city, but to devote every person and every material item to destruction. But Achan, in his pride, felt like he deserved to take some of the stuff that was to be devoted to God for himself. When Joshua confronted Achan with his sin, he confessed.
And Achan answered Joshua, “Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did:
when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”
Achan and his family were sentenced to death because his evil deed led to the death of 36 of their countrymen in the first battle of Ai.
So, pride leads to the lust of eyes, and the lust of the eyes leads to the lust of the flesh. And this is where we find King David. David had been a faithful shepherd of the nation of Israel. He was called a man after God’s own heart. But he was still a mortal man and subject to the same temptations which we are all subject to. On many occasions he was victorious over temptation. But there were occasions when he fell in defeat. One year, instead of going with his army into battle, he stayed back in Jerusalem and had way too much time on his hands. One evening he was walking about on the roof of his palace. Perhaps he was like Nebuchadnezzar and looking with pride on all he had accomplished. Anyway, he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath (I wonder if her name, Bathsheba, has anything to do with her seductive bathing). Having scene her in an immodest way, David lusted after her, and decided that he deserved to have an affair with her. You probably know the rest of the story, if you don’t it is recorded in 2 Samuel 11-12. Bathsheba became pregnant by David. In order to hide his sin from the people David arranged for her husband to die in battle. Then he took her as his wife.
You know how we often refer to
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
This is one of those times in which God took David’s wicked acts and worked them out for good. As a result of David being confronted with his sin, and his repentance before God, David wrote two of the most beautiful Psalms in the entire psalter — Psalms 32 & 51. Someday, perhaps I will have to teach the song which Isaac Watts and I collaborated together to write on Psalm 51.
Being finished with our history lesson, let’s look at verse 16 once again.
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.
These sinful characteristics are not given us by the Father. Adam and Eve did not have them when God created them. But the came from the world which is ruled by that serpent of old — Satan. Because of one man’s sin, sin entered the world and death by sin so that death passed among all men for all have sinned.
We have been looking at how these sinful traits, which go hand-in-hand with the love of the world, are not compatible with the love of the Father. Let’s turn our attention now to the
Temporal
Temporal
I originally put in the word “transientness” which apparently isn’t a word at all. So, I settled for the word temporal.
Note that
The Worldly Things Which become the Objects of our Desires Only Bring a Temporary Fulfillment
Look at the first part of verse 17.
And the world is passing away along with its desires ...
The sad truth is that we members of the human race often long most for things which are transient in nature. And the Bible addresses this truth. Paul wrote that rather than looking for things that are temporary we should looking for things that are eternal.
as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Solomon wrote
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Of course, a man who fears the LORD is to be praised as well.
I can’t get out of my mind the words written by missionary Jim Elliot before he became a martyr for Christ:
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
This quote is a call to action, encouraging people to prioritize eternal rewards over earthly possessions or fleeting pleasures. It emphasizes the value of giving up what is temporary to gain what is eternal.
And this brings us to
The Positive Side of Love
The Positive Side of Love
Look again at verse 17.
And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
Note that,
The Will of God is not Mysterious – It is Laid out for us in the Word of God
It seems like often people make determining the will of God into some elusive inner hunt within themselves. And it is true that God has designed us each for different tasks within the body of Christ. But God’s will for each of us in found in the commands that He gives us in Scripture. Our passage for today is a perfect example of God’s will. Look again at verse 15.
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.
Do not love the world or the things in the world is an imperative command. It is God’s will that we not love the world and all of its ungodly desires. And this brings us to the very brief statement about the positive side of love. Look at the last phrase of verse 17.
And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
Do you know how long forever is? Truthfully none but God knows how long it is, but know that forever is a long, long time.
When John stated that those who do the will of God abide forever it doesn’t mean that their bodies will never die. Certainly John did the will of God, and yet his body died. Certainly Peter and Paul did the will of God and their bodies died.
Paul described our bodies as being the tent in which our true person dwells. In that same context, when a believer’s body dies, the true person is absent from the body and present with the Lord. And thus, we who do the will of God abide forever.
So, does John mean that if we break one of God’s many commandments that we lose that forever abiding? No, because the price for our sins was paid in full by Christ when He hung on the cross on Golgotha. We will, for a time, take a pause on the path of walking in the light. But through confession we are cleansed and resume our journey with Christ. This is in reference to fellowship and not to salvation.
So, doing the will of God is related to keeping the commandments. With that thought in mind, look at
And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
Abiding forever with Christ is hinged upon belief in Him. If a person has savingly placed their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, then they have done the will of God, for it is not God’s will that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
There is a second part to doing the will of God, and that is to love one another just as Christ loved us. And this is where things get messy, because we struggle to truly demonstrate such love.
My friends, as we close today, I want you to ask yourself if you are obeying the command to not the love the world or the things in the world?
I recently saw, and shared this post on Facebook: “If you chase it more than you chase God: it’s an idol!” This is so true. Is there anything in your life that you chase more than you chase God? If so, acknowledge it to God — that’s called confession — agree with Him that it is sin, and ask His aid in truly repenting of your sin, and changing the direction of your life so that you chase after God and not after the world.
Let’s pray.
Holy Father,
We come before You acknowledging that we so often chase after worldly things rather than chasing after You. Forgive us for any such sin. Cleanse us and restore any broken fellowship, I pray.
Father, I pray that You would enable us, through the indwelling presence of Your Holy Spirit, to put to death the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. Help us, Lord, to do Your will and to please You in all that we do and say.
Lord, I pray for any listening to this message who are not presently believers in Jesus Christ. I pray that You would open the eyes of their hearts to perceive the truth of the message of the cross and the empty tomb, and be saved.
I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
