Good morning. Would you turn with me in your Bibles to 1 John 2. You'll find your place in verse 15. Our text this morning will be 1 John 2, 15-17. While you're finding your place, I'll say a few words of introduction. There's a funny thing that happens on schoolyard playgrounds. It's common to see children bullied. There's always a bully on every schoolyard playground. But my own experience as a boy taught me that a funny thing happens when the child who's bullied suddenly is treated well by the bully. For some reason, that child wants more of that affection, more of that friendship. And then the bully mistreats the child again. But then the next day comes back and shows him some kind of friendship, and the child who was bullied wants it all the more. At least that was my own experience as a boy. And I think about that as I have come into adulthood and see how similar our situation is in this world. As Christians, we live in a world that, frankly, doesn't really care for us. Not the sort of Christian that believes that there's one way to salvation in Jesus Christ alone. That Christian the world could do less with. Would rather not us be around. And yet we all have this tendency to long for the world's approval. To long for the things that the world has to offer us. The Apostle John, when he wrote his first letter, wrote to a church that was faced by a very similar situation. And he knew that that kind of tendency threatens the faith of believers. Because to long for the world's affection, we'll find, is incompatible with having a true and abiding love for God. And so if you found your place in 1 John chapter 2, would you follow along with me as I read verse 15 to 17. The Apostle wrote, 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. 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. And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. Father, we come to you today seeking your aid. As we read your word and we study it together, as we learn from you, we pray that you would open our minds and our hearts to receive your word. We pray that you would be glorified, that we wouldn't seek our own glory, but that we would long for you and for the approval that comes from you, that you would increase our love for you and for one another, that you would write your word on our hearts, make us to love it, and make us those who will do your will. We thank you for your word this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, it's always important to look at the context of a passage, but it's particularly important when you're reading a letter to consider the context into which the author wrote. when the Apostle John, like the Apostle Paul, wrote a letter to a particular congregation, often they were assessing or they were addressing a particular situation. In the case of 1 John, we can see that false teachers had arisen in the church. We know this from chapter 2, verse 26, where John says, I write these things about those who are trying to deceive you. And in verse 19 of the same chapter, he tells them, they went out from us, but they were not of us. Speaking again of these false teachers, showing that those who had remained in the church apparently had not accepted their teaching, and so the false teachers had left and looked for another place to spread their views. We don't know all the details of what they taught, but from reading John's letter, we get a sense of what it was. It amounted to a denial of Christ, that He had come in the flesh or that He was truly God in any sense of the word. It involved a denial of sin and the seriousness of sin or the reality of sin in their lives. And it was a loveless teaching. It was an exclusive teaching. From reading John's letter, we get this sense that John is addressing all of these concerns as he writes to this church. It's easy for us to look at this as outsiders and say, so what's the big deal? They left, so long, goodbye and good riddance. But if you imagine yourself in the situation of a church like this, imagine that people whom you had served with, who you had worshipped with, who you had thought of as brothers and sisters, who you had loved, suddenly began trying to convince you of a false gospel. And along the way decided that you were a lost cause and left. would leave scars, certainly. It would hurt. You would wonder, what happened? And then imagine that those people, as they leave, they find approval from the world. Maybe some of them write books that become bestsellers. They start churches, so-called, and those churches grow and flourish. And the world looks at them and says, this is the kind of teaching that we long for. These are the kind of people that we want to be around. And you start to wonder, Am I in the right place? Am I on the right path? Well, forgive me for a little bit of speculation. We don't know if that's exactly what's going through the mind of these believers, but it's not hard to see that this might have been the case. We know that there were false teachers, we know that they had left, and we know that John is writing to address that situation. And he writes to them to encourage them to remain true to the gospel that they heard at first, the gospel that the apostles had preached, to remain true to the word that they had received, to continue in faith, to continue trusting Christ, to continue loving one another, and to continue obeying his word. Of the false prophets, he writes, they are from the world. Therefore, they speak from the world and the world listens to them. But it ought not to be so among the people of God. So John writes these words then, do not love the world or the things in the world. When we look at those words, we have to think, what is John actually saying? And to understand what he's saying, we need to understand what he's not saying. You see, at first it seems like there might be a contradiction here. In his gospel, John wrote, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son. And we look at that and we say, if God loved the world, surely we ought to love the world also. But here he's saying, do not love the world or the things in the world. How do we reconcile these two passages? Well, in one of my Greek textbooks, they use this exact passage to illustrate the importance of context in word study. You see, what John is speaking about in John 3, 16 is the redeeming love of God that results in a particular action, namely the sending of his son to redeem sinners out of the world. But here what we find is that John is speaking of a different kind of affection, not the affection that gives rise to evangelistic efforts, not the kind that causes Christians to support missionary causes, not the kind that causes them to sacrifice for the good of others. But rather the kind of love and affection that says, I want that more than anything else. I want to be identified with the world. I want to have what the world has to offer. That's the kind of love he's addressing. That's what he says not to do. Don't love the world in this way. We see parallels in Paul's first letter to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 6, 17, Paul instructs Timothy how to encourage those who are wealthy. And he writes, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. He'll go on to encourage them to be generous. But the main thing there is that those who have ought not to hope in what they have. It should not be the source of their hope, it should not be the source of their assurance, but rather the God who provided it. The God who can take it away, but the God who promises to provide for all our needs. And so John is saying a similar thing here, though over a broader scope, not just addressing money, not just addressing wealth, but addressing all that the world has to offer, indeed all that the world is. It's also helpful to note that John says, don't love the world. A friend recently said to me, money is the root of all evil. He was shocked when I said to him, the Bible doesn't say that. It doesn't say that. Again, in 1 Timothy 6, 10, it says the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It's a slight difference, but it's such an important difference. Money is a tool, it can be used for good, it can be used for evil, but it's neutral in itself. What's wrong is to love it, to desire it above all things. That's what the Apostle Paul knew and that's what John knows and is telling us. We ought not to love the world. And yet we easily go and go into ideas that see an implication that we have to have some life of austerity, self-denial, that we can't have anything. If that's what John was saying, he'd be contradicting what he's going to say later on. In 1 John 3, he'll say if anyone has the world's goods, the world's possessions, that he ought to be generous, that he ought not to close his heart against his brother who doesn't have. The implication of that is that some will have the things the world has to offer and some will not and will need it. And those who have ought to be generous in helping those who don't. But in each case, both need something. John is not saying that we should get rid of all that we have, all our money, our homes, and whatever it is that the world has to offer. He's saying don't love it because he understands the danger of the world's things. We need things. We need food. We need a house. We need a home. We need friends. We need family. But those things ought not to become gods to us. That's why John closes this letter saying, keep yourself from idols, little children. Keep yourself from idols. The things the world has to offer so easily become idols when we set our affections on them and love them. There's a example of this, a tragic example of this in the Gospels. In Luke 18, we read about a rich young man who comes to Jesus. The rich young man asks Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life? To which Jesus responds, keep the commandments. And he lists a few of them. The man responds saying, all of these I have done since I was a child. What does Jesus say? There's one thing that you lack. Go and sell all that you have and come follow me. It's not that Jesus was teaching Christians that we all must sell all we have. But this particular man, his response shows what Jesus was after. He had asked for eternal life. And Jesus said, sell all you have and follow me. And instead he went away grieving. He went away sorrowful because he couldn't have both. And so instead of eternal life, he said, I'd rather be rich. I'd rather have my wealth. I'd rather have what doesn't last than treasure in heaven. It's a tragic example and yet we're so much like the rich young man. We get caught in the moment. We think about all the things in the world, our jobs, our ambitions, being well thought of in our communities, perhaps a desire to be famous or powerful. All of these things entice us and we want them and we set our affections on them and we pursue them at all costs. And it's a road that leads to destruction. And that's what John is warning us against. Don't love the world or the things in the world. He goes on to say, if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. We might say, why can't I have both? The rich young ruler wanted both. Why can't I have both? Why can't I have my ambitions, my toys, my entertainments? Why can't I love those things and love God? But John is telling us that the two are incompatible. How can we understand this? It's helpful to consider an illustration. Think of marriage. God ordained marriage between a man and a woman. A husband ought to set his affections on his wife singularly, uniquely, and only. There can be no rivals. And yet when we look through the pages of Scripture, even among our heroes in the faith, Abraham, Jacob, David, and so many others, we see that they had multiple wives. We see polygamy was practiced frequently in the Old Testament. And what's the thread, the common theme that runs through all of those stories? Rivalries. Animosity. Women are mistreated, treated like possessions. You think of Sarah and Hagar, and Hagar's treated horribly. He couldn't love both. He couldn't really love either in that case. Not the way that he was called to, not the way that he ought to. It's the same way with the world and with God. We can't love God and we can't love the world. As Jesus says, no one can serve two masters. Either he will love the one and hate the other or hate the one and love the other. In that case, he says you can't serve God and money. But insert for money anything that you have set your affections on. You can't serve it. You can't love it in that way and love God. It's the first reason why we can't go on loving the world. Why we can't desire it above all things is because it's incompatible with the love of God. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. All that is in the world, John goes on, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world. These ideas, the desires of the eyes and the desires of the flesh, they refer to the idea behind covetous. We long for things that we don't have. What we see or what we feel, we want it. We see that other people have it. We see that they enjoy it. We think that would be wonderful. I love it. There's a sense of sin surrounding it too, the idea of desires or lusts. We long for that which is not ours. We have no sense of contentment. That's what John is referring to when he refers to the things in the world, these covetous desires. And on the other hand, he talks about the pride of life or pride in possessions, some translations may say. It's the idea behind having a proud heart in what I have, that I see my status according to the size of my home or how nice my car is or where I am at work, whether I'm promoted or whether other people see that I'm doing good work. That I'm proud of those things and I want to sustain that and I want to preserve that and protect that. Those are the things in the world that John warns us against. What he tells us is shocking. All that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. Now we know that every good gift is from above. Everything that we have is a gift from God. And yet here in the sense that it becomes a sinful lust, it becomes a desire that tempts us to disbelieve, to have wrong affections, it's not from God. It's from the world. We shouldn't long for it. And he goes on. Not only is it from the world, but it's passing away. The world is passing away along with its desires. It's not permanent. It's not eternal, it's merely temporary. We look at the world around us and we see a place that's full of strife, warfare and threats, corruption in government, in companies where we work. We see a place that's bad. True, there are many wonderful things in the world, music, arts, learning, science. All of that, though, only serves to further the deception that this is something we should long for. But as we look at the turmoil in the world, what we see is a world that's groaning, as the Apostle Paul says in Romans, a world that's waiting for its redemption, a world that's decaying. It's a world that's passing away. It won't last. And so the rich young ruler made a foolish bargain. He gave that which he couldn't keep, or he took that which he couldn't keep and gave up that which lasts forever. In the third grade in Ms. Moskal's class, my teacher had a way of rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior. She would say to us, if you do something well, if you help a classmate or do well on a test, you get a little green ticket. If you do something bad, I'll take some away. And throughout the year, you could save up those tickets and use them to buy treats or little toys. And then at the end of the year, there was going to be an auction where she would bring in different toys and other stuffed animals or whatnot. And you could buy these, bid on these toys and these animals, these things that kids love with all your tickets. Well, it wasn't long before I had the most tickets in the class by far. And I was a real miser about it. She would come around offering pretzel rods and I'd say, no thank you, I don't want a pretzel rod or a candy, I'm saving my tickets. I had it in my mind that that last auction, that last day, there was going to be something great. Something that would last me forever. I was thinking maybe a bicycle, a skateboard, something that would be amazing. So I saved all my tickets and the last day of class came and before I went to school my dad said to me, you better not come home with any tickets. So we're sitting through the auction, and I passed up the Reese's cups. I passed up the action figures. I knew that the last thing was going to be great. And she said, it's the last item for auction. It was a plastic pearl necklace. And I felt like I had died and gone to the fourth grade. Well, what had I to do? I had a mandate from my father, and I said, all my tickets. And no one even quarreled with that. The pearl necklace was mine. Well, the next year, fourth grade was about to begin. I pulled my backpack out. They hadn't even bothered to take my tickets. I looked in the bottom and all these little green slips of paper weren't even big enough to put notes on. They were nothing. They were worthless. But I learned an important lesson in the fourth grade and in the third grade. That's what the world is. We think we can have it. We think it will satisfy us. But it cannot satisfy us. And that's what John is saying. The world is like those little green tickets. They're not worthy of your affection. It's not worth saving up. It's not worth seeking above all things. It's passing away. The world is passing away along with its desires. All of this is enough perhaps to discourage us. We look at these warnings and we say, what hope is there? Even ancient philosophers, ancient Greek philosophers recognized this truth, the world is passing away, that you can't take things with you when you go. But they had no hope to offer in spite of that. But here John then turns. After the warning, he gives us a promise. The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. So we have a third reason why we should not love the world. It's because there's one who's so much more worthy of our love. We read through the pages of John's letter and in his gospel how the world hates God, hates Christ, hates the people of God. The world doesn't know God's people, John will say. It's a place that's full of false teachers, that's full of deceit. Indeed, it's ruled by the evil one, John says. Why would we want it? And yet, throughout the pages of 1 John, we read words like this about our Lord. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Again, if anyone does sin, he has an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. In chapter 3, John begins, see what kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God and so we are. By this we know love that he laid down his life for us, he'll say later. And again, what we read this morning, the way we were assured from scripture in this, the love of God was made manifest among us. That God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we serve a God who is faithful and just, who is forgiving, who loves us with a love that is infinite, a love that we cannot comprehend, a love that He has made known by sending His Son to die for our sins. He is worthy of all your affection. He is worthy of all your hope. He is worthy of all your love. The world is not. And so let us be those who, knowing God's love for us, say, let us do His will and trust in Him that He might enable us to do His will, that He might enable us to obey His commandments, that He might enable us to believe on the one who died for our sins. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have this promise. Whoever does the will of God abides forever. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we come to you this morning thankful. Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude because of what you've done for us. And yet we know that we'll go from here this week, we'll go back to our jobs, we'll go back to our ordinary days, we'll go back into the world. and will be enticed by the world and things it offers. Lord, make us to see your glory and your goodness, that we might long for you above all things, that we might see everything in its proper place as a good gift from you, as a means to glorify you, and not as something to be longed for above all else. We thank You, Lord, for Your goodness in sending Your Son to die for us that we might have life forevermore. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.