You Can't Love Both God and the World
1 John 2v15b-17
15th May 2020
Last time, we considered the meaning of John's instruction:
1 John 2:15a
Do not love the world or anything in the world.
In Robert Law's commentary on this passage, he interprets this by saying "Do not court the intimacy and favour of the unchristian world. Do not take up its customs for your laws. Do not adopt its ideals, nor covert its prizes nor seek fellowship with its life."
John continues:
1 John 2:15a
If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.
How can you say you're a Christian, you love God, if you're allowing worldly priorities to triumph over godly priorities? How can you say you love God if you get involved in the evil system designed to undermine the Kingdom of God and keep people away from the truth of the gospel?
In church on a Sunday morning, surrounded by flawed but beautiful, loving Christian people, we can understand the need to be set apart as God's holy and distinctive people, but out there on a Monday morning, it's so hard to not buy into some of the world's values and practices. We all like to be popular. We all dislike to be persecuted. There is a pressure on you, not perhaps so much as in other countries, but even perhaps in your family, even perhaps at work, even perhaps in church, to say or do the ungodly thing. We all get it wrong sometimes. But let's agree to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6v33).
So far as it's possible, let us wash our hands of all that is unclean, and embrace all that is pure. Let's follow Paul's instruction to set your minds on things above, not on earthly things" (Colossians 3v2). And let us get better at this day by day, and when we fall flat on our faces and discover what sinners we still are, let us get up and start again.
1 John 2:16
For everything in the world — the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes
and the boasting of what he has and does — comes not from the Father but from the
world.
In the old English translations, and in the latest NIV, "the cravings of sinful man" is translated as "the lusts of the flesh" but I prefer the original NIV translation here. It's not just sex and money. It's not just alcohol and overeating. It's all the desires of the sort of person I was and you were before we were born again. New Testament writers - and particularly Paul - call man's fallen sinful nature "the flesh". All the desires that you and I had before we knew Jesus, we got from the world, not from God. but we're now called to turn our back on all of it.
It's easy for us to see that overeating, drunkenness and inappropriate sex is wrong. But what about the desire for money? Paul wrote to Timothy: "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and have pierced themselves with many griefs." (1 Timothy 6v10). This is serious stuff. Better to seek first the kingdom of God and trust him for money than to run after it. That's easy in theory, until you can't pay the gas bill, and then it's all a bit harder, isn't it?
I'm not saying this is easy, but to paraphrase what John says in this letter, if you're going to call yourself a Christian, live like a Christian. A Christian will turn his back on all this. He'll turn his back on his love for peace and quiet, for comfort, for popularity, for safety, for power.
I'll talk more about power next week.
We all know what John means when he says the lust of the eyes. We've all been there. "Ooh, that looks nice, I must own it." I get this in car showrooms. I once had to sit ten feet away from a second-hand Aston Martin for half an hour. It was a very beautiful car, and I had a struggle to not buy it, despite the fact that for me to own it would have been entirely impractical. Other people are tempted by other things. It's a cliché that many women like shoes, for example. But the idea that if something is pretty, then I must own it, does not come from God.
God doesn't want us all walking around in sackcloth all the time, but you and I don't need pretty things. We don't need a posher car, or a bigger house, or a nicer stereo. God may give them to you, or you make take them for yourself, but you don't need them, and they will not make you happier. Jesus will make you happier. Nothing else will.
The man who has Jesus and nothing more has infinitely more than the man who has everything else but doesn't have Jesus. There are days when we feel like we haven't got much else, but we'll always have Jesus. And that will do.
Now and again, God gives us a few nice things as well or, rather, lends them to us. The world wants you to want all sorts of stuff. Advertisements try to tell you that you really, really want things you'd never really thought about. I hope we reach the point in our Christian lives where we see some things being advertised and think "Really? Does anybody want that?" The world wants you to want it. The system wants your money and the devil wants you to be envious and greedy.
And the boasting of what a man has and does comes from the world. "My house is bigger than your house." "My car is faster than your car." "My wife is prettier than your wife." "My preaching is better than your preaching." All this comes from the world, not from the Father. "My church is nicer than your church". "My family is more organised and obedient than your family." "Aren't I doing well?" "I make more money than you." "My job is more impressive and influential and powerful than yours." All this comes from the world, not from the Father. God hates it.
1 John 2:17
The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of
God lives for ever.
All the stuff that I'd like - I'd like to be more popular, I'd like a bigger pension fund, I'd like a newer car, I'd like more antiques, I'd like more chocolate - all the rest of it - is passing away. But those who do the will of God, who turn their backs on all this nonsense, all this illusion, all this sin - and seek the kingdom of God first will have a glorious and blissful eternity. They will live forever in God's presence, with new bodies that actually work, free from sin, pain and sorrow.
We will know a happiness that this world cannot afford - and that you and I cannot even imagine - for all eternity, if we will live God's way, and not the world's way. Don't get suckered into wanting what the world wants.