Love not the world, 1 John 2: 15-17

As we have seen in our study of 1 John so far, John has been writing to the church that they might not only know God, but that they might have fellowship with God.  Fellowship is intimacy, it is communion, it is having the life of God and the light of God in you.  Fellowship with God is the way to complete joy.  It is the way to life, abundant life, even eternal life.  And fellowship, John says, produces love for God.  That is the result of fellowship; that we come to love God, even as He has loved us.  And so to that end we love one another.

In chapter  2, John has shown us what love for God looks like.  It looks like the same love that Christ has for us. In 2:6 he says we walk in the same manner as He walked. So Jesus Christ is our example of how to love.  And the evidence that we have  Christ’s kind of love, John says, is that we keep His commandments.  We keep His word.  Jesus manifested His perfect love by keeping the commandments of God and keeping the word of God perfectly.  And so if we are His disciples, we too will keep His commandments and His word.  If we do not keep His commandments, and yet we say we know God, then John says in vs 4 that we are a liar and the truth is not in us. 

That love which produces obedience also produces spiritual maturity.  As we obey Him, as we are trained by obedience to the word and His commandments, we grow in our faith.  We grow in maturity.  And that is the goal of discipleship.  That we would come to maturity in Christ, that we might become reproducers.  That we might shine the light of God to others, so that they would come to know God, as they see the life of Christ in us.

So John  tells us that if we love God, we will love what He loves.  We will love Him, we will love one another, we will love His commandments, and we will love His word.  But in our text today, John says that on the other hand, if we love God, we will not love things that are opposed to God.  If we love God’s truth, we will not love a lie.  If we love God’s word, we will not love that which is opposed to His word.  

So he shows us what love is not, by saying it this way; “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  What John is saying, is that the world system is opposed to God, it is not of God, and if you love the things of the world, God does not love you.  “The love of the Father is not in him.” I take that to mean that God’s love is not completed in us, because our love is diverted from Him to the world. So loving the world is not loving God because the world is in opposition to God. 

Now let’s make sure everyone is on the same page with what is meant by the world.  The world does not mean Earth, or all that God has created to live on the earth, like animals and birds and trees or the ocean.  One could have an ungodly love for those things too, so that they become sinful, if we worship the creature rather than the Creator.  But I don’t think that’s primarily what John is talking about.  And he isn’t necessarily talking about the individual people in the world. In John 3:16 it says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  

So God obviously loves the people of this world, and we also are told to love one another, to love our neighbor, and even love our enemies.  But again it’s possible to love people, or a person, to the degree that you love them more than God, and that would be a sin.  But again, I think that isn’t primarily what is spoken of here.  

What we can deduce from scripture is that the “world” is a reference to the world system, which was orchestrated by Satan himself, to be in opposition to God, and designed to seduce people to believe a lie and reject the truth. This demonic system is described in  Eph 2:1 which says, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”

So it’s the world system, or age, which Paul speaks of is like a water course, which directs the flow of a river, like a channel cut through the landscape.  It is directed, Paul says, by Satan, and works in mankind to produce disobedience to God.  And John also tells us that this world system is opposed to God - it is opposed to what God has revealed in His word, so that if you love the world, then you are being equivalent to an adulterous wife or husband who is cheating on their mate.  

In James 4:4 we see that very analogy of adultery used.  James says, “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”  So to be a friend of the world, is to love the world system.  And God is not pleased with that.  He is opposed to that world system, Jesus suffered and died to take us out of that system, and so to return to it is to spurn the value of the shed blood of the Holy Son of God.

Now in vs.16, we see more detail in regards to what constitutes the world.  Notice the phrase, “all that is in the world.”  So all that is in the world, all that constitutes what he means by the words “in the world” is found in the next three phrases.  Three things that make up what John refers to as the things of the world system which is in opposition to God.

The first thing John says is of the world, is the lust of the flesh.  What is that?  Well, lust means a carnal desire or forbidden desire.  It is sinful desires.  In John 8:44 Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  So it is sinful, it’s from your fallen nature, and it is of the devil. 

Paul said in  Romans 6:12, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts.”   Lusts then is a desire of the flesh, it is carnal, it is sinful, it is natural, it is devilish.  It is wanting what Satan says is good, and rejecting what God says is good.  It is selfish.  Ultimately that is it: it is selfish impulses that are contrary to the spiritual truth God has given us. It can be a lust of the body, or a lust of the mind.  But it is not spiritual, but carnal, and self centered, desiring self fulfillment, usually at the expense of others. It is loving me, more than loving God.  

The second thing John identifies as of the world is the lust of the eyes.  All of these are related, of course.  They can be overlapping.  But specifically, John says it is the things which are lusts of the eyes.  Once again, lust means carnal desires.  And many times those desires originate by what we see.  What we look at excites our lusts.  Now most of us instantly think of things like pornography, or looking at someone in a lustful way.  And that certainly fits in this category. 

Jesus said in Matthew 5:28, “but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  So merely looking at a woman with lust is equivalent to adultery which is a grievous sin against God and man.  David committed a horrible sin, the sin of adultery and murder, and it all started with looking at Bathsheba inappropriately.  It started with a look, gave birth to sin, and it ended up in destruction.

But there is more to the lust of the eyes than looking at a woman.  Lust of the eyes can include looking at your neighbors house and lusting after it.  Looking at the nice clothes of people you meet and lusting after that.  Or lusting after cars, or possessions of any kind.   Anything that takes your eyes off of Christ and turns that kind of adoration to someone or something else is sinful. It’s seeking what isn’t yours.  It’s seeking what God has not given you. It’s dissatisfaction with what God has given you.  It’s of the world.  And it’s in opposition to God.

The final thing which John says is of the world is the pride of life.  I really think this one is behind all the others because it’s the source of all sin.  The pride of life is that which says, “I will get what I want because I need it, or because it’s my right to have it, or because it will make me happy.”  And once again it’s origin is from Satan. 

In Isaiah 14:13, we read what God said to Lucifer,  “For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,  I will be like the Most High.’”  Notice, five times Satan says, “I will.”  That is the hall mark of pride.  It was the original sin, and it still is the origin of all sin.  Pride.  And God hates pride.  

Jesus was anything but prideful. Phil. 2:6 says of Christ, “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”  To humble yourself is to be like Christ, to be a servant, to be obedient even unto death.  Christ put aside His rightful place in heaven on the throne, to take our place as a payment for our sin.  He is the opposite of prideful.  And so should we be even as He was.  We should live for Him and no longer simply for ourselves. 

So there are three gateways to sin that are identified here; the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.  All sin finds it’s way into our hearts by at least one of those gates.  And there are two examples in the Bible in which we see all three of those illustrated. The first one we will look at the person failed in their temptation.  The second one we will look at the person was victorious in their temptation. 

Now as you might have guessed, the first example is found in Genesis 3, when Eve was deceived by Satan to eat of the tree.  Verse 6 says, "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food…”  So what's the first one? Lust of the flesh.  She desired to eat what God had said was not good.  It wasn't related to hunger, she had all kinds of things to eat. It was the idea that there was something desirable being withheld from her.  She thought it was something good.  That there was something good outside of what God had said was good. The lust of the flesh.

Secondly, she saw also that it was a delight to the eyes. That's the lust of the eyes. She went from thinking about it to looking at it.  To gaze at it longingly.  

And then she also saw that the tree was desirable to make one wise.  That is the pride of life.  The pride of life is arrogance to think you know better than God knows.  Eve listened to the devil, then she believed the devil’s lie.  She doubted God’s goodness and doubted His word.  Then she wanted what the devil told her was good.  She looked at it and it looked good to her.  And so she ate it, and she got her husband to eat it as well.  And because Adam partook of the sinful thing, the sin nature has passed down from him to every subsequent generation.  We suffer the sin nature today because of the original sin of Adam.

But because God loved us, even when we were sinners, God sent forth the second Adam.  And that second Adam is Jesus Christ.  And Christ is my second illustration of dealing with the threefold temptation of sin, but unlike Adam and Eve, the second Adam was victorious over sin, that we too might have victory over sin.  

This illustration is found in Luke 4.  Jesus had just been baptized.  God had spoken audibly to Him from heaven.  It was the beginning of His earthly ministry.  And God started it all off with 40 days of fasting in the wilderness and being tempted by the devil.  That ought to be a lesson right there.  You can have a mountain top experience with God, be doing everything right, and yet God decides you need to go through a period of fasting and temptation.  

But Jesus was obedient because the Father willed that He do it. He was submitted completely to the will of the Father, He only did what the Father told Him to do. He operated only in the power of the Holy Spirit and here He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. But along comes Satan and Satan comes at Him with the three temptations of the world and says to Him, "You need to eat,  why don’t you turn those stones into bread." "Jesus said, 'It is written man shall not live on bread alone.'" He didn't give in to the lusts of the flesh.

So, Satan led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world.  Satan went after Him by the lust of the eyes. "And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.”  This was an attempt to appear to help get Christ’s mission accomplished, but by  Satan’s methods.  We have that same temptation in ministry today, don’t we?  We can get it done quicker, more efficiently if we do it the world’s way.  We can have the admiration of the world if we only disregard what God says and do it the world’s way.  

But Jesus answered and said to him, 'It is written you shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.'" I can't serve you. I will not worship you.  Jesus will say later that you must worship God in spirit and in truth.  There can’t be worship that isn’t true to God.

There is one more temptation left and that's to the pride of life, so Satan led Him to Jerusalem, had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, probably a 400-foot drop to the valley below on that southeast corner of the temple ground. "If you are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here." You want these people to recognize You as the Messiah, the Son of God, remember the Old Testament says in Psalm 91, "He'll give His angels charge concerning You to guard You, on their hands they'll bear You up lest You strike Your foot against a stone."

Satan has appealed to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and now the pride of life, and Jesus said to him, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." Three times now Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy. He quotes the law of God.  He just met every temptation with Scripture. He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

And that’s how we overcome the world with it’s  lusts of the flesh and eyes, and the pride of life.  Every temptation can be overcome with scripture.  We answer every temptation with the word.  It’s the only way we can overcome temptation, when we remind ourselves of what God has said.  We combat the lie with the truth.

So that’s what we are left with.  A choice between the lie and the truth.  The lie of the world, the lie of Satan, or the truth of God.  And these two choices, John says, have two outcomes, two destinies.  One leads to death, and one leads to life.  He says  in vs.17, “The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”  We have two different principles operating. In the world the principle of death is operating. In the people of God who have overcome the world the principle of life is operating.  The world is corrupt and dying.  It is fading away.  It’s becoming worse and worse and the cancer that is sin is feeding upon itself, destroying itself.  And one day, Peter said in 2 Peter 3, “ by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”  All that is in the world, all it’s lusts, all it’s pride, will be destroyed.  

But, John says, “the one who does the will of God lives forever.”  That which is physical, earthly, worldly will pass away.  But that which is spiritual will live forever.  Jesus taught this principle in  Luke 12:30, saying, “For all these things (lusts of the world, pride of life) the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  

I close today with that thought; set your affections on things above.  Not on this world.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your soul, and with all your might.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  And love not the world, neither the things in the world.  They are passing away, but He who does the will of God lives forever.  Martin Luther wrote, "I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all. But the things I have placed in God's hands I still possess." 

Have you completely surrendered your life to God?  Or are there things of this world that have seduced your affection from God and cause you to sin against Him?  I pray that today the eyes of your heart will be opened, and you will confess your sin, turn from that sin, and trust in His word to lead you and guide you in all truth, and into life everlasting.  Let us pray.