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What Not to Love
A sermon on 1 John 2:15-17 preached at Christ the King Church on 1~/15~/06
 
*Prayer:  *Father, open our eyes to see and our hearts to sense the truth of your Word.
Lord, you know that I need help to preach, and that this congregation needs help to listen.
So, help us both to recognize and receive the treasures of your Scriptures.
I ask this in Jesus’ name.
* *
*Introduction:  *“She loves me, she loves me not.
She love me, she loves me not.
She love me, she loves me not.”
We all know the words and the cadence of that familiar game, that lover’s game in which the petals of a flower fall to the ground until there remains but one petal, that providential petal, that petal which supposedly reveals whether the affections of the one desired are mutual or not.
The theme of love is addressed throughout the Bible, but nowhere more so than in the First Epistle of John.
In this letter of love the word *“love”* is used some 54 times.
And all of those uses are positive except one.
The “love me,” we might say, is used more than the “love me not.”
Throughout this letter, John speaks of what is the shared love between God and His people, and also of what should be the shared love between fellow believers.[1]
There is only one place in this whole letter where the negative exists, where we are told to “love not,” and that is here in 2:15.
Here, and only here, are we commanded /what not to love/:  *“Do not love … the world or the things of the world.”*
This morning we are going to look at this ‘negative’ command so that we might apply it positively to our lives.
So, first, we are going to see what is meant by it; and second, the reasons for it.
Then, after we have understood /what/ we are not to love and /why /we are not to love it (once we have filled our heads with the light of God’s truth), well then we will seek also to fill our hearts with a fire for God’s love.
So I invite you to join me this morning, by not only opening your Bibles at this time, but also by opening your heads and your hearts to listen to what God has to teach.
!! Context and Command
 
As some of you know I have been helping out at Aurora Christian High School as an assistant varsity basketball coach.
The other day, my son (who is a freshmen there) told me that many of the boys on the freshman basketball team are intimidated by me.
I asked him, “Why?”
And he said something to the affect; “They say you always have a serious look on your face.”
Now, for those who know me best, my wife and children especially (but even the varsity basketball team I coach), they will attest that I can be quite serious and thus intimating I suppose, but I can also be quite playful and gentle and affirming and thus very approachable.
As I said two weeks ago, the apostle John’s congregation, as they read the first chapter of his Epistle, might have sensed some intimation.
They could have felt that the calling of God in Christ that he presented to them was too hard and too high.
That is why, I think, John in a sense, sat down with them, and said in 2:12-14, “Let’s get to know each other better.
And let me start by reminding you that you are loved by me and loved by God in Christ.”
You see, just when John’s congregation might have been wondering to themselves, “Am I truly a Christian?
Have I been forgiven of my sins?
Do I really know God?  Do I really know Christ?
Has the Devil still got a vice-grip on my heart?”
John gave them, what we called “a threefold encouragement.”[2]
He reminded them that they *“know”* God as their *“Father,” *and that they have been forgiven of their sins.
He reminded them that they know Christ, *“Him who is from the beginning.”*
And he reminded them that they have *“overcome the evil one.”
*
* *
But here in our passage, after these words of assurance and affirmation, John returns (one might say) to his old continuance.
He puts on his game-face, his serious face.
He moves from affirmation to exhortation.[3]
He moves, like any good coach would do, from saying, “good job,” to shouting, “let’s go!”
For here, in vv.15-17, we find perhaps his most “stringent” demand yet.[4]
Here is his sternest “warning.”[5]
Here is his strongest command:  *“Do not love the world or the things of the world.”*
* *
Now, this famous command appears to be pretty straightforward.
Yet, the more one looks at it, the more questions are likely to arise.
One might begin to say, “Wait a minute, what does John mean when he says we are not to love *“the world”*?
Doesn’t the Bible teach that God so loved /the world/ that He sent His Son (3:16; 1 John 4:19)?
And isn’t Jesus called the *“savior of /the world/”* (John 4:42; 1 John 2:2)?
And hasn’t John himself just taught in this very Epistle that Christians are to love, to love others in /this world/?”
So, what in the world does John mean by *“the world”*?
In John’s writings the word *“world”* has a wide range of meaning.[6]
On one hand, the world was made by God through Christ and is loved by God through Christ.
On the other hand, the world lies in the grip of Satan and is comprised of all on earth who oppose God and His plan.
Now, it is obviously this second *“world”* that John is referring to here.
So, “the world in this passage does not mean the world in general… it means the world which … [has] forsaken the God who made it.”[7]
It is “the world apart from God.”[8]
It is the godless world, the world that is totally “at variance with God” and the things of God.[9]
 
!!
The Three “Things”
 
Now, look with me at v.16.
Here John further clarifies this command.
Verse 15 says we are not to love the world (the evil or godless world) and the things of that world.
But what exactly are these *“things”* in the world that we are not to love?
Well, John answers that question in verse 16, when he writes of *“the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions.”
*Those are the three *“things,” *the three worldly attitudes or interests or ambitions or actions we are not to love!*  *
 
The first thing is *“the desires of the flesh.”
*We might use the word *“desire”* in a positive sense, such as, “I desire to be a better husband” or “I desire to love and serve God.”
However, the word used here is almost always used in the Bible in a negative way.
It has a morally negative connotation.[10]
That’s why the NIV translates it “cravings.”
Perhaps “sinful cravings” gets the point across best.
So, we are not to crave or lust after that which is *“of the flesh.”
*Now, when the Bible speaks about *“the flesh”* it does at times refer to sexual sin.
Here, however the term is as broad as our bodies.
It is all the evil lusts we might have or do have for physical pleasure (NLT), and all the aims and ambitions that attach itself to that.
William Barclay summarizes it very well when he writes, “To be subject to the flesh’s desire is to judge everything by purely material standards [it is to be a /materialist/ in the fullest and worst sense of the word].
It is to live a life dominated by the senses.
It is to be gluttonous in food; [over indulgent] in luxury; slavish in pleasure; lustful and lax in morals; selfish in the use of possessions … extravagant in the gratification of material desires.
The flesh’s desire [disregards] the commandments of God, the judgment of God, the standards of God and the very existence of God.”[11]  So, the *“desires of the flesh”* is that yoke that hangs around our necks, which turns our attention from God to that which is merely material, earthly, worldly.
In Genesis, 4:7, the Lord said to Cain, *“Sin is* *crouching at the door.
Its /desire/ is for you, but you must rule over it.”
*The same is true for us.
Sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is to push its way-in in order that it may rule over us.
But we, unlike Cain, must succeed in keeping that door shut, that door to sin closed!
The apostle John has already told these Christians and us that we have *“overcome the evil one”- *the Devil himself!*  *Here, he is simply telling us that we need also to overcome ourselves, and those desires within that seek to choke the life of faith.
In Romans 13:14 Paul tells us to *“put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
*John’s intention is the same.
Because we have, through faith, put on Jesus, we must put aside all sinful cravings, all those lustful desires that are opposed to God.
 
*“The desires of the flesh”-* that is the first thing we are to avoid.
The second thing is *“the desires of the eyes.”
*Here we move from the temptations within to the temptations without, those cravings that come through these little crevasses, those cravings that make their way through our eyes into our hearts just as sneakily as a serpent pulls its’ large body through a narrow opening in a poorly plastered wall.
Our flesh is weak, as weak as that poorly plastered wall!
Yet our eyes are weaker still.
Of our whole body, these two little openings are the most susceptible parts, the most susceptible to sin.
The Devil wants our eyes wide-open to all that is worldly, to all that this world has to offer.
He wants us to /covet /all that which is opposed to God, whether it is ungodly status, ungodly success, ungodly pursuits, or ungodly possessions.
Here is the same temptation that Eve experienced in the Garden of Eden and Jesus likewise in the Wilderness.
Eve listened to the crafty snake and thus allowed sin to enter into her heart through her eyes.
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