Do Not Love the World (1 John 2:12-17)
Do Not Love the World
1 John 2:15-17
Introduction
In my early twenties, I got a real taste of the world. Though some of it was enjoyable to me, there was a lingering dissatisfaction with every bite I took. You see, my parents had warned me of this. I had grown up in the church. I put my faith in Jesus from a young age.
Even though, like the prodigal, I wanted the Father’s gifts without the Father, I eventually came to see that the Father was the greatest gift of all. How did I come to see that? How do any of us come to see that? Well, unlike the parable, we don’t have a jealous and proud older brother, but an older brother, namely Jesus Christ, who relentlessly pursues us and shows us the never-ending love of the Father!
From the moment he took my hand and brought me back to the embrace of the Father, the world no longer had the same allure it once did.
Now, I wish that was the end of the story, but here I am, here we are, still in this world and still prone to wander.
Though it's true, like we learned last week, that we have overcome the evil one and belong to a different world through our faith in Jesus, the subtle seductions of the world can still capture a Christian’s heart. We have a new nature, and yet our sin nature still sometimes craves the sin of the world. Jesus knew this well, and prayed these words for us before ascending to heaven:
The Apostle John recorded them:14 [Father], I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one (Jn 17).
Jesus’s prayer is not that Christians would be removed from the world right now. I don’t think the idea is that we would move as far away from anything that might smell of the world either. Jesus certainly didn’t do that. But his prayer is that we would overcome in the midst of temptation while we live in the world.
Because we are still in this world, you and I need this message today. We need to know the antidote to the temptation to grow fond again of the world.
Lets dive in. Verse 15 Please read along in your Bibles or in the Bibles in front of you..
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.
The first question that arises is what is the world and the things in the world John is referring to? I love my family, Daniel? I love my house and nation and job? Is that loving the world? Is John referring to oceans, houses, books, music, food, or any other good thing?
Perhaps John is broad here because he wants to remind us that anything in the world, good or bad things, can crowd out your love for God? I think that’s true, but I believe he has something in mind that is even more specific.
If you look at verse 16, you’ll see that John describes what comes from the world or the practices of those in the world. That is, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life.
And in verse 17 John contrasts these practices of the world with the practice of the godly. the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. So, what we learn is that the world produces desires that oppose the will of God. Do you see the distinction? It’s the flesh, the eyes, and pride that drives the actions of those in the world, rather than a desire to do what pleases God.
So then, it begins to make sense why John will say later in the letter in 5:19 that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.”
If you know anything about this evil one, you know that he is the chief rebel and is leading a rebellion against God. He fundamentally opposes God and he is leading others to do the same.
So I think John would say that the world is the domain of the evil one where the flesh rules and God is ignored. I’ll say it again. The world is the domain of the evil one where the flesh rules and God is ignored. **
So you can begin to see why this matters so much to John.
The Competing Loves
Let’s go deeper in Verse 15, where John shows us two competing loves. He contrasts love for the world with love of the Father. Read 15 again: 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.
John could not be more black and white. This is how John talks in this book. He says in 3:10 that if you make a practice of sinning, you are a child of the devil. He says in 5:12 that if you have the Son you have life. But if you don’t, you don’t have life. In the same way, John argues that love for the world cannot cohabitate with love for God. They cannot coexist.
It’s like saying that I can love my wife and my mistress too. John is saying that if you are in bed with the world, you do not have the love of the Father.
Verse 16 takes this idea even further.
16 [for is another word for because – so it’s answering the question why can’t the two coexist?] 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.
Notice first the answer to the why? Why can’t love for the world and love for the Father coexist? Because what is practiced in the world is not from the Father. In other words, it has nothing to do with him, his character, what he loves, with his purpose for all that he has made. Instead, what comes out from the world, which is ruled by the evil one, is a system that is utterly opposed to God.
There are two separate kingdoms at war here. They cannot be friends. It’s like oil and water.
Now let’s focus in on the three descriptions John gives of the world’s system.
What are the desires of the flesh and the eyes and the pride of life?
The desires of the flesh are cravings for physical pleasure. But what makes anything, whether sex, food, or sleep, worldly rather than godly? Simply put, pursuing pleasure in your own way, on your own time, without God in mind or in direct obedience to him makes even good things, worldly sin things.
Adam and Eve’s sin is a perfect example and parallels John’s three descriptions of the world very closely. Turn to Genesis 3:6 with me in your Bibles if you are able. Remember, Adam and Eve were given all the trees of the garden to indulge in. We need to remember that God gave us our senses, not so that he could slap us every time we enjoyed something in this world. Yet, one indulgence was forbidden by God. God ordered the world wisely for our good.
But Eve, believing the serpent’s lies, when she looked at the tree of knowledge of good and evil, she “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, took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (Gen 3:6).
She wanted what would satisfy her belly, what would satisfy the lust of her eye, and to become wise, or to become like God, and yet it was all apart from God.
You see, the thing that makes the world’s operating system so disgusting is that it twists God’s good designs for good things into something they were never meant to be. Take pornography for example. Sex is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, to be enjoyed within the safety and joy of a covenant marriage. But pornography twists God’s design for sexuality until it is nearly unrecognizable. Our ability to see beauty and pursue intimacy in a holy way in this world is severely distorted because of the influence of the world on our sexuality.
It’s important to note that the world and the devil is not only to blame here. What makes the devil’s lies and the world’s allure so powerful is that our sinful flesh desires these things. When sin entered the world through our first parents, we were all born with cravings not for God and his will but for the flesh. This is why we need Christ to remake us and give us new desires.
Second, the desires of the eyes. The desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes are tightly connected. This pertains to pleasure as well, but it gets after a different element, namely, our craving to have all kinds of pleasure that we see. It’s the root of greed and covetousness. The human eye, driven by our sinful flesh, is insatiably hungry for more. Whether it’s sex, or food, or drink, or a matter of possessions – wanting the nicer car or house or phone – or even adventure and experiences. Again, God has made the world beautiful and has given us eyes to behold glory and to be fruitful and multiply. But instead of using our eye to glorify God for all he has made and consider how to expand the good world he gave us dominion over, the world trains us to see and take as we please. We have become like ravenous animals that fight tooth and nail to get what we want and no one should tell us no or we will bite their heads off.
Finally, the pride of life. This is wanting to appear important or wise, whether with achievements or possessions or your image. Eve wanted wisdom apart from God or outside of his will. Likewise, pride of life is not godward but self-centered. It looks to self and what you achieve or own for a sense of affirmation or accomplishment. Pride of life is ultimately a belief that one can have purpose, meaning, and identity outside of God.
The Father has already given incredible position and dignity to humanity. But the world tells us that our possessions, status, career, beauty or finances can elevate us above others and especially God. If you want an example of what this looks like, spend two minutes on social media and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.
I think every sin can fit into one of these categories that John has given us to describe the world. The world is driven by a lust for pleasure and selfish gain and glory seeking, driving God out of every inch of life. The world’s system is built on sin and rebellion.
Which is why, John says, these things are abhorrent to God and that it will all soon pass away. Look at verse 17 with me:
And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
It’s all passing away. This is more than rust and natural death. John is hinting at the coming judgment by God on all who are part of this rebellion. Turn to Revelation 18, another one of John’s writings. John records a vision the Lord showed him of the destruction of “Babylon the Great” which is symbolic of the world in chapter 18:4:
“Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Pay her back as she herself has paid back others,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.
7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury,
so give her a like measure of torment and mourning,
since in her heart she says,
‘I sit as a queen,
I am no widow,
and mourning I shall never see.’
8 For this reason her plagues will come in a single day,
death and mourning and famine,
and she will be burned up with fire;
for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.”
I could camp here for a while if I had time. John saw the wrath that is coming on the world, which devours others, lives for self and the flesh, and in wicked pride that sees no need for God.
Application:
Friends, with Jesus, John is calling us, to come out from the world. That is, to not live in the patterns of the world. It’s a merciful warning to us to run from the fleeting pleasures of sin.
But he also adds a promise in 1 John 17: Those who do God’s will abide or live forever in the Father’s ever-satisfying love.
The Christian life is kind of like this: a treasure has been purchased for us and belongs to us that is more valuable than anything this world could ever offer. But to attain the treasure, the individual must forsake every other thing that he once counted valuable and worthy of time, attention, and money. The world and the things in the world are the things to be forsaken, while Christ and the eternal life he brings us in relationship with the Father is the invaluable treasure.
Christian, is that your treasure? Or do you love the world?
Maybe you’re here today and not a Christian. It makes sense that you love the pleasures the world offers you because you believe that you have found treasure. But those who belong to the Father have tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord and therefore put to death their love for the world because they know that they have found a more lasting and incomparably valuable treasure. I invite you to come and see for yourself.
If you want to know more, come talk to me after the service.
This is what the Apostle so wants us to get. What we have in the love of the Father is incomparably greater than anything in this world. I could promise you the sex, the marriage, the children, the riches, the fame, the possessions and experiences of your dreams, but they will soon pass away. The Father’s love will outweigh all of this beyond imagination into eternity. You will never exhaust the riches of God’s love.
As I was preparing, I asked the question: What makes the Father’s love so relevant for this exhortation? Why does he contrast love for the world with love of the Father?
Sweeter than just forgiven sins, or the promise of heaven instead of hell is the joy of being known and loved by our Father who chose us and adopted us into his family. To be known and fully loved by our Father produces in us the same kinds of things a good earthly father’s love produces in his children. Namely, security, joy, contentment, a deep sense of identity and purpose. All of these things are daily offered to us by the world with its empty pleasures. But the Father’s love so deeply satisfies us so that we can overcome the world in the face of temptation. PAUSE
So what does it say if you find that you have love for the world today?
Yes, you are disobeying God.
Yes, you need your mind renewed.
But according to this passage, most chiefly, you need to grow in your understanding of the Father's love!
So those who are most worldly are those most in need of knowing the Father's Love!
And this radically challenges the way we disciple people. Yes, we call people to repentance. But perhaps the main reason someone will keep going back to the same worldly filth is because they still don't know how much the Father loves them.
Pastor J.D. Greear wisely said, “Love for God grows only in the assurance of the love of God.”[2]
There was no one who knew this better than Jesus. He was in the ever-seducing world. He faced every demonic temptation that we do today. How did he overcome? He had heard the Father say over him “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.” His heart was full and steadfast in his understanding of the Father’s love so that he could say with deep conviction, “man doesn’t live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” His flesh was hungry, literally starving after a long stint of fasting, but he knew that what lasted was found in God, not in a fleeting moment of pleasure outside of God’s plan.
Neither did his heart crave the world’s affirmation. He was a king. But though no one bowed to him, he knew the position he had with his Father.
When faced with the temptation to abandon the mission and despise the cup that God had given him to drink for our salvation, he didn’t cling to the world he could see but to the joy set before him, and said Father, not my will but yours be done.
Why? Why did he come and do all of this? In living and dying for us, he was putting the Father’s love on full display and bringing us rebels back to the Father.
Do you want a fresh revelation of the Father’s love? Look at Jesus, whom God sent, who would go all the way to the cross in order to get us rebels back.
This is the antidote we need today: that the Father’s love drives him to keep pursuing us even when we have stumbled back into sin. His choice to save you and adopt you is a commitment that goes beyond your fickleness.
Today, church, with this glorious truth, I want all of us to repent of competing loves that are of this world and are squeezing out our love for the Father and our knowledge of his love for us. And I want you to believe the Gospel and marvel afresh at the love of the Father. With his love in mind, let us seek to know and walk in a manner pleasing to our God. Study God’s Word with diligence and lean into the church for help to know how to navigate the challenges of living in this fallen world.
Let’s pray and ask God to help us receive a fresh revelation of the Father’s love.
Benediction:
When Jesus rose from death, he rose so that you and I can not only live forever in eternity, but that we might have new life now, doing the will of the Father in the power of the Spirit. We are not removed from this world for a reason. We were born again by the love of the Father so that we can turn back to the world from which we no longer belong and help others know the Father’s love.
[1] Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John The Love God Hates (1 John 2:12–17)
[2] J. D. Greear, “Assured because of Your Love of the Father: 1 John,” in J. D. Greear Sermon Archive (Durham, NC: The Summit Church, 2017), 1 Jn.