1 John 2:15-26

Christians are called to be different from the World!

Last week we discussed that we should love our brothers and sisters in Christ and tonight we are going to look into what Christians should not love. As a Christian we are called to loved people and point people to Christ but we are called not to love the World. This does not mean that we should be awkward around anything that is worldly but rather we should not be partaking in things of the world because we are a new creation.

1 John 2:15–17 ESV

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. 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. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

There have always been two sides to this argument about not loving the world.

We should not interact with the world at all and should isolate ourselves completely from anything worldly. AKA living in a commune separated from society.

We should engage with the world whole heartedly because Jesus ate with sinners and interacted with the world, so we should too.

The reality of both of these arguments is that both are beneficial in a sense but are taken at two different face values.

Option 1 suggest that Christians should not interact with anybody in the world but the downside to this is how do lost people come to know Christ if Christians are leading them to HIM.

Option 2 suggest that Christians should go full fledged into the world and start partaking in the things of the world in order to bring the lost to Christ. The issue is people will take this approach as a license to sin or will put themselves in situations that they do not need be in. Such as a drunk who has gotten saved and is on the process to become sober, decides he wants to go into a bar in order to witness to people. That is a good thing but he is putting himself into a compromising position if he rushes into a bar to quickly.

Christians are called to not love the world which is sin but yet we should be evangelizing to the world. Christians should not be partaking in sin and allowing sin to control their lives because we are living for Christ rather than the World. Through living for Christ we should be sharing Christ with everyone we come in contact with. This would be completely impossible if we isolated ourselves from the world. But we do not need to be putting ourselves into situations in which we are prone to sin.

Why should Christians not love the World?

Christians should not love the world meaning that Christians should not have their driving factor to be sin! We are no longer controlled by the world but rather our Master is Christ. A Christian cannot serve two different masters they must choose to serve the World or God.

But by serving God you are still supposed evangelize to the world and not neglect that responsibility.

1 John 2:18–25 ESV

18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.

When John was writing this epistle he wrote it as a mentor and a leader for the early church. He talked to them as a children in the faith because most of them were new to salvation. John was warning them that the end is near and so much closer now then it was almost 2000 years ago.

This should be an encouragement to share our faith with others as well as terrifying to those who are not saved. We need to be sharing our faith with Friends and if you are not saved today is the day for salvation. No one knows when Christ is coming back but we do know it is soon.

We also need to be aware of the false prophets that are actively spreading a false gospel to all people. This is terrible because so many people flock to this type of teaching due to it making themselves feel good.

Most of the false teachers are the ones who were originally raised in bible preaching churches but did not truly know what they believe and why they believe it and there is a good chance that they were never saved to begin with.

Key aspects of a Christian is knowing Christ and Who Christ is. Jesus was God in the flesh. If people do not recognized the deity of Jesus then He could not save us from our sins. We cannot say that Jesus was not God and that God was not Jesus.

The epistle of 1 John is written to people who know the truth and the truth is Christ. The truth is what you learn from scripture and there is nothing false in scripture. We learn our faith from the bible. This should not be something new to anyone, but if you ever go to a church and they are not preaching out of the Bible leave. That is were false teachers come from. Or they will use scripture to twist it to mean something different than the original meaning.

The Bible is always true when taken in the correct context.

John is writing to Christians who know Christ and is encouraging them to continue abiding in Christ.

John 6:67–68 ESV

67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,

Whenever Jesus was ministering to other people there were thousands of people who followed Him in order to see miracles and learn from Him. All of these people were called disciples of Jesus but this is not the original 12 disciples. Those are called apostles.

These verses talk about Jesus preaching to the people and some of the followers did not necessary like what Jesus was saying because it did not make them feel good so they checked out and left. Jesus then turned to the disciples and ask if they are going to leave too. The disciples responded by saying who should we go too?

The disciples knew who that followed and why they followed Jesus and they didn't have any body else to go too. We should be the same way! So many times we will get distracted by the world that we stop following Jesus in order to follow the world. But the disciple never stopped following Christ because they didn't know who they would go to if they stopped following Jesus.

We should be so close to Jesus in our everyday life that we have no where else to turn too. When life gets difficult we should turn to Christ. When life is perfect we should still turn to Christ.

1 John 2:26–27 ESV

26 I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. 27 But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.

The crazy thing about being saved is that you don’t need anyone to teach you the bible. The catch is that you must be diving into scripture yourselves. This is also not saying that you should stop coming to church because you can do it on your own. But this is saying that you should know scripture well enough that in case someone is preaching false doctrine to you are able to discern that it is false.

We should be abiding in the creator of everything because that is where all knowledge and comfort originate from.