Last week as we looked at the preceding verses, we talked about spiritual maturity.
After our new birth, when we are born again spiritually, John described three stages of spiritual growth which he titled as little children, young men and fathers. And what we determined last week was that the goal of spiritual maturity is to become like Jesus Christ. That is what spiritual maturity accomplishes in our lives. We grow spiritually to become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. That process of becoming like Christ is what the Bible calls sanctification. Sanctification is becoming more like Christ. Sanctification is a process which begins at new birth and matures as we grow spiritually to be like Christ.
Now in this passage we are looking at today, John gives the antithesis for spiritual maturity. The antithesis for spiritual maturity is to become like the world. Instead of becoming like Christ, we become conformed to the world. The apostle Paul warned against that in Romans 12:2 saying, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” So the hindrance to spiritual maturity is being conformed to the world. Instead of loving Christ and loving what He loved, we love the world and we love what the world loves. So there are two opposing ways to walk, two opposing ways to live. You cannot walk north and south at the same time, can you? Neither can you walk after the Spirit and walk after the flesh.
Paul refers to that contrast of flesh and spirit. He says the flesh and the Spirit are opposed to one another. In Gal 5:17 he says, “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another.”
Now that’s what John has been teaching since the beginning of his epistle. That light and darkness cannot have fellowship together. He says in chapter 1: vs5-6 “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”
So John is concerned that we walk in the Spirit. His concern is that we walk in the light, not in darkness. His concern is that we keep the commandments of God, and not do the works of darkness. He says you cannot say you have fellowship with God and walk in the darkness. John wants to help bring us to spiritual maturity in Christ, to become like Christ. And so to do that, he has said that we must not walk in darkness. He has said that we must not practice sin but practice the truth. And now he speaks of this contrast in another dimension, and says that we must not love the world.
He says in vs 15, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world.” It’s necessary for us to define what he means by the world. The Greek word is kosmos. And there are numerous ways in which this word world are used in the Bible. It can refer to the physical earth, it can refer to people, it can refer to a system.
Now when John says here to “do not love the world,” he’s not talking about the world of individuals, because we know that God Himself loves the world of individuals, and we are told to love one another. Everyone should be familiar with John 3:16 which says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” So if God loves the world, then John must not be saying we should not love the individuals of the world.
And he must not be speaking of the physical world which is the earth and the plants and the creatures God has created. For we know that the heavens declare the glory of God, and as Romans 1:20 says, the creation teaches us about the invisible attributes of God. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
But what the world refers to in this context is the world system that is in opposition to the heavenly system. It is the natural, sinful nature of mankind acting in opposition to the spiritual, godly nature. It is a world system that has been orchestrated by Satan to bring about the rebellion of man against God. In Col 1:13 it is described as two opposing kingdoms. It says, “For [God] rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” The apostle Paul spoke of it this way in Ephesians 2:1-2 “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.”
This idea which Paul refers to as the course of this world, can be likened to a river that runs in it’s course, the rushing water having eaten out a course in which the water is carried along in a path. In other places, it is called an age, this present age, or this present world. Paul says it’s a satanically devised course that carries along the people in a current, rushing them towards an inevitable end which is destruction.
So the world system, this age, this course that is moving, sweeping along all who are held within it, which is going in the opposite direction than what it means to walk with God. It’s a system that has blinded the eyes of those who are in it. It’s a system that captivates and enslaves those that are in it. And it’s a system that leads to their destruction. John calls it simply the world. And he warns us - do not love the world.
Well, why would a person love the world to begin with? The answer is because everyone is doing it. Have you ever been rafting down a river? My family was talking the other day about going on a short trip this summer, and we talked about going to Harper’s Ferry. The big thing to do there is you rent a inner tube and they take you way up the Shenandoah River and drop you off and you float down the river with the current. I went over the bridge there once on a sunny, summer day and there looked like hundreds of people floating downstream enjoying the river.
The funny thing is when you are floating down the river with all these people you don’t have the sense that you are going all that fast. You’re all floating along together. It’s fun. It doesn’t seem dangerous. But once you are in the current, it’s going to take you where it wants to take you, and as you are caught up in it, it has control of you.
Now that may be fine for an afternoon on the Shenandoah, but it’s another thing to be floating on the Niagara River and not know that the falls are up ahead. That’s what it’s like to be caught up in the world and being swept along to an eventual end which the Bible calls death. So John says do not love the world. Don’t let yourself be enamored by what the world system is selling. It’s alienation from God. It’s life which is in opposition to God. It’s living by the world’s standards, by what the world says is fun, by what the world says is fulfilling, by what the world says is acceptable. But it’s in opposition to God. In fact, the world is orchestrated by Satan himself to take us captive and destroy us. John says later in chapter 5 vs 19 of this epistle, “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in [the power of] the evil one.”
So John adds, “Do not love the world, nor the things of this world.” The things of this world is just an expansion on the world. John’s not talking about the things that God created, but it’s the things that this world system values. Such things could be money, luxury items, homes, a certain life-style. These things of the world could even be people. It could be woman or a man that you desire, that you think if I could just have this person, then I would be happy, my life would be perfect. I think the things of this world could be thought of as shiny, seductive lures which the devil uses to draw you into his world system. They are the attractive things of this world that you desire, that promise fulfillment, but in fact just get you hooked into the devil’s system, that gets you caught up in chasing things that never fulfill what they promise.
Jesus said if you love Me, you will keep My commandments. So to love the world and the things of the world is to have a love for the things of the world that supersedes the love which we should have for God. The things of this world are not necessarily bad in and of themselves. There is nothing wrong with having a nice house, or a nice car, or having a wife or husband. But what is wrong is when you put those things above the love for God that should be preeminent.
Jesus said in Matt. 10:37 "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” And then again in Matt. 19:29 "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.”
The point being that anything that supersedes our love for God is sinful. It’s not the thing that is necessarily sinful, it’s the love of those things which is sinful. 1 Timothy 6:10 says, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.” It’s not money that is sinful, it’s the love of money that is sinful. So it’s not the world that is sinful, it’s loving the world that is sinful.
When I was growing up as a pastor’s kid in the church, there was a lot of talk about worldliness. Anything that looked cool was considered worldly. Anything that seemed like fun was worldly. And there was a pretty long list of things that were considered worldly. Some of those things seem so antiquated now. Dancing was worldly. Movies were worldly. I wanted to join the Boy Scouts when I was a young kid, but my dad said it was worldly. Knowing what we know about the Boy Scouts that have come out lately, maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to keep me out of it. But the warnings against worldliness for the most part missed the mark. They focused too much on the external and not enough on the internal. It’s not the things of the world that’s the problem as much as it is our affection for the world. So the important distinction to this warning is what do you love? What has first place in your heart?
John then goes on to say, "If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." The first thing he says is that loving the world and loving the Father are incompatible. These two loves cannot go together. They are contradictory, very much like our Lord speaks in Matthew 6:24 when he says, "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
We are to be in the world, but not of the world. In John 17:14 Jesus prayed in the upper room for the disciples saying, "I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil [one.] They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” So we are in the world, but not of the world. If we love the world, then we cannot love God. Our love for God is to be preeminent. If we love God we obey God’s commandments. If we love the world, then God’s love is not in us. That simply means that the our love is the evidence of our faith. If we love the world and obey it’s desires, then we are not God’s children. The evidence of our salvation is proven by what we love.
So John goes on to give further justification of the incompatibility of these two loves. He says in vs 16 “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”
It’s almost as if he sums up all the things of the world as being in one of these three categories; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. One writer called them a trinity of evil. They are in opposition to the Holy Trinity. Or as John writes, they are not of the Father, but of the world.
So what does he mean when he says lusts of the flesh? When we hear the word lust we tend to think of sexual sins. And while it certainly includes that, lusts are really just desires that are in opposition to godly desires. They are sensual desires, desires of the senses. You can lust after food, lust after sex, lust after power, lust after fame or fortune. Desires of the flesh then are those that would appear to satisfy the physical body. Sexual desires outside of marriage are lusts of the flesh, but so are the desires for food which are gluttony. It might also be a desire for drink, for drugs, for anything that serves the body, the senses. These are desires that are in excess, that are outside of the way that God ordained for our senses to operate. It’s a love for such things that exceeds or perverts God’s created intention.
The next category John gives is “the lust of the eyes." I think what this refers to is coveting. It’s desiring what you see, what is not yours, but which you want. It’s like being married and as you and your wife are walking through the mall, your head is swiveling around to look at another woman. You may not act upon it, but you nevertheless desire it, and that desire is sin. Coveting is the sin of the heart. It’s a desire for that which is not yours, being unsatisfied with what God has given you, and desiring more than you should.
Now that covers a lot of territory. It covers pornography, or coveting your neighbors things, or desiring anything that does not belong to you. Lust is a perversion of love. So it’s a perverse desire for what is not yours, but which you wish was. The lust of the eyes is the sin of the heart before it becomes a sin of the flesh. Before Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, she looked with her eyes and saw that the fruit of the tree was desirable.
Genesis 3:6 “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make [one] wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.” God had forbidden the fruit, but Eve looked with her eyes, it delighted her eyes, and she desired it so she took it and sinned against God.
The last category of this illicit love of the world that John warns against is the pride of life. The pride of life can cover a wide gamut of things. For instance, it can be arrogance, which is the lack of humility. It’s thinking you are better than others, more deserving. It can be a lack of love for others. It can be a spirit of competition, always trying to outdo someone. Keeping up with the Jones. Whatever form it takes, it is not expressive of a love for God and a love for one another. Instead it is a love of one’s self. It’s self love, or selfishness. That is contrary to the love of God which is a sacrificial love for others.
So this love of the things of the world is not from the Father, but from the satanic system of the world. And the end of those things is death, but the end result of our love for God is life. John states this principle in 1John 2:17 “The world is passing away, and [also] its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
The world is passing away… the clock is ticking, time is passing, and the time of the end is approaching. It’s possible that you might even say that the earth is dying, as everything in it eventually dies, as everything is corrupted by death. The environmentalists think that somehow we can stop the world from dying. But this world is not going to last forever. At the fall, sin entered the world and death by sin. And it’s headed towards it’s inevitable conclusion. The culmination of this age will coincide with the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Peter said that the world and it’s works will be burned up. In 2 Peter 3:10 he says, “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.” Everything that is in the world, everything that was so desirable, that caused men to lust after them, all those things are passing away. They are all in the process of death. Why would we want to be chasing those things which are destined to be destroyed?
Jesus said in Matthew 16:26 "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” What good does it do to spend your life chasing after the things of this world, trying to fulfill the lusts of this world? They are passing away. And one day you also will pass away. There is a popular bumper sticker which says, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” That’s actually a pretty sick joke. There are no winners in the system of the world. There are only losers. And as Jesus said, in the pursuit of the world, you also lose your own soul. Even if you manage to get more than your fair share in this world, you cannot take it with you in the next. The world’s currency has no value in heaven. Money cannot buy eternal life.
But John says the one who does the will of God lives forever. What is the will of God? To love God and love the Son. To obey Him, to abide with Him, to walk with Him, to worship Him, to have faith in Him. And he who has faith in Jesus Christ and follows Him will live forever. Jesus said in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Do you believe this? Do you believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, that He came to earth to live a perfect life, and to be your substitute, to pay the penalty for your sins by His death on the cross? Do you believe that God raised Him from the dead and that He lives and stands at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us? Do you believe in Him, if so, then He gives life to them that believe. Life that continues after the grave. Life that is not of this world, but spiritual. And He freely gives it to all who confess their sins and believe in Him.
You cannot love the world and love God. Choose this day whom you will serve, whom you will love. Are you loving the world and the things of the world, or will you love and serve the Lord? Chose to love God, and receive everlasting life in Christ.
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