Let us now turn in our copies of God's Word as we continue worshipping 1 John 2, starting in verse 12. You can find it in the Pew Bibles on page 1021, if you're using a Pew Bible. In past weeks, we've gone through this letter of the Apostle John, 1 John, as we've seen God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit portrayed in different ways, and we'll see them portrayed throughout this letter as we go forward. We saw the character of Christ as our advocate and as our great high priest in heaven last week in chapter 1 and into chapter 2. And we saw that that overflows into our lives and a command to love one another, just as Christ loved us, as the Father loved us and sent His only begotten Son. Now we'll look at a group of encouragements and commands of John this week, as we look at 1 John 12-24. This is the Word of God, it is infallible and errant, the very words of God. 1 John 2, starting in verse 12. I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for His namesake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. 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 the 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. Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us because they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the son and in the father. And this is the promise that he made to us eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in Him. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Your words are true. We want to confess that You are not a liar, but You are truth. That is Your character. That You are light. and in you is no darkness at all. We come to you this day asking your help to teach us, and that Christ would teach us all things. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. A good teacher knows the proper time to instruct and to give encouragement, and also to give discipline. There's that two-fold nature of being a teacher, along with other things, is you have times of correction and times of encouragement. Well, John does just that. As we come to this letter in verses 12 through 14, we see an encouragement. We see that he declares the assurance that believers have in Christ. And as you read it, you saw probably a repetition of groups. We have three groups in these verses, repeated three different times, or they're repeated twice each group. And as John speaks to each one of these groups, we should take lessons from that, encouragement in our own life, that we as believers, as John is speaking to us today, that we should be assured in our salvation. First, he speaks in verse 12 to little children. And he says, because your sins are forgiven for His namesake. There's a little bit of disagreement in the commentaries. about what this means. Is he speaking to little children, those that are going to be coming this week at VBS and around our community, or is he speaking to every believer as a whole? All the fathers, ages, men and women. It seems like in this word, in this Greek word, that he's speaking to the totality. He's used this before as we've run across that. We've heard little children or He's commanding them, giving this tender pastoral care to the believers. And then He breaks it down into fathers and young men. And then He repeats it again, children, because you know the Father. And then fathers and young men again. And as we read these verses, verses 12 through 14, you probably heard a lot of familiar phrases that we've read about and as we've talked about in the opening verses of this letter, in chapters 1 and beginning of chapters 2. He's encouraging them of what they already know. Your sins are forgiven. You know what is true because you know God from the beginning. And also to the young men, you're strong, you're spiritually strong. You have overcome the devil. And then he says it again, just like teachers, children in school. The teacher sometimes repeats himself or herself over and over again for a reason that we may learn it. Repetition is part of teaching. So John uses repetition in these verses and to encourage the believers in their salvation. to strengthen them. Because He's talked about weighty matters in the first chapter. He wants them to be strong in their faith. He's speaking to each one of them. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. And He's speaking to us today. He's giving us encouragement, if we are in Christ, that we know God. We've known the message of the Gospel from the very beginning. and that we should look to the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, for encouragement, the very Law of God. He's speaking to the young men, the young men and young women today, and all of us, that we are strong and that the Word of God abides in us. So that should be a challenge to us today, as John was challenging these first century believers, that the Word of God abides in us. Do we have the Word of God in our minds, in our hearts? Do we have the Word of God close to us? Do we know the Father? Do we know Him from the very beginning in the Gospel of Jesus Christ? The Apostle John is encouraging these believers, the believers that he's writing to, that they know the Father, and they should have assurance and encouragement in their faith. This is what we see in verses 12 through 14. We see this encouragement. We see these words that John speaks to the believers. But then he shifts, just like a teacher shifts thoughts, he shifts to that of rebuke, that of a warning, and a rebuke to the false teachers, the Antichrist that we read about in our text, and those false teachers, but also to the believers as a warning that they shouldn't fall into this great temptation. So what is the temptation? where John, in verses 15-17, asks a question. It's a quite simple question, really. He asks to the believers in his day, as this letter was read and disseminated throughout the early church, as it was spoken to the congregations. And also today, as we hear it, and all believers, from then until now, they get this question from John. What do you love most in life? What do you love most in life? Where do your affections go? Well, as human beings, as you might know, we all love something. We were created to love, as human beings, it is in our DNA. Children, you might love ice cream, or us adults, we might like a vacation, or other things that we enjoy. This is part of God's very nature that He's given to us as human beings. Back in Genesis, before the fall in Genesis 3, God says, as a triune God, then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. that human beings, all of us, all human beings throughout time and history, were created after God's likeness. We are created for God in His glory. He created us to love. Love Him with all of our hearts. By nature, humans are loving beings. But since the fall, and as we read that in Genesis 3, We see that we no longer love God with a pure love. We love ourselves. We love ourselves deeply at times and our affections are love for ourselves and hatred at times for God and others. So believers, those the day that hear this message, you are to love God with all of your affections. You are to love God with all of your affections. First, in verse 15, John commands us, he gives us this warning. Love not the world. Love not the world. John writes, do not love the world or the things in the world. What is this warning? What is comprised of this command by John? Well, first we must understand what John means by these words. What does he mean by the word love? And what does he mean by the word world? He first means in the word love, the Greek word that he used, you might have heard this before, agape. different types of love in the New Testament that are used, different Greek words. John chooses the word agape. The Holy Spirit inspired John to use this word from the very character of God. God shows agape love to us. It is a love of attachment and intimate fellowship and loyal devotion. It is one of those deep loves, the different types of love used in the Greek language. John uses this deep, abiding fellowship that God has modeled to us. He uses this word, this word for love, but he points it toward not a love for God, but a love for the things God has created, the world. And this is the word that John is using, the world, that it is encompassing all of the aspects of our lives. In the Greek language, there's six different types of the word world. You can find it throughout the New Testament used in six different ways, six distinct Greek words. Here in 1 John, he uses the word cosmos. Children, if you've studied in your school that the cosmos, the heavens and the earth that comes from this word, and John is using it to kind of bring in everything, a totality of the physical world, all the humans, the decoration and adornment of this earth. But then also he brings in the philosophical worldviews, how we think, how our affections run as human beings. The different emotions that we have, he pulls that in all in this one word. Here, set up for VBS, we have a landscape perfectly used for my sermon of the world. It's a picture, and if you go out to the Grand Canyon, you would see the awe of the world, all of the creation. Children, if you look at this picture, you see the different animals. And if there was people in here, you would see human beings and societies and cultures. And that is what John is getting at when he uses this word. The word world is talking about the worldviews, the society norms of this world. What John is not saying in this verse, in verse 15, is that we shouldn't enjoy God's creation. God is the creator of all things and in a proper use of God's creation, we can enjoy the created world. We can enjoy our houses and our cars, We can enjoy the creation, a sunrise or a sunset, our food. We can enjoy that. But John is saying when we agape, when we love with all of our affections and all of our emotions the world and stop there, we stop at the mere physical world. We stop at the animals and the trees and we stop at the food, and we stop at the humans, and we don't go on to love God. In that way we have erred. We have sinned against God. We don't just have to look at the trees, and the animals, and the physical world, or societies, and our cities, and our states. We can look at our own hearts. We know that this tendency, and what John is saying, is in each one of us. Our hearts are idle factories, as John Calvin said. Just like a factory produces an object, as we have factories here in Topeka that produce different things, our hearts at times produce idles. By nature, before coming to Christ, we were full of these idols. We worshiped all different sorts of things. And as we see in society, many cultures around the world worship different objects. They worship the creation instead of the Creator. But even as believers, we can fall into this trap. We can fall into the trap and the warning that John says not to fall into. Do not love the world or the things in the world. We can turn our houses and our cars, our jobs, even our children into idols. Our secret sins that the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John write about over and over again. They warn us not to fall into this temptation. The world's idols only take from us. They don't give fulfillment. They don't give true joy and affections. They take our love. They don't give us true, eternal love. And John warns of that in this letter. He says, little children, keep yourselves from idols. That's what he writes at the very end of this letter. From the very beginning to the very end, he's saying, stay away from idols. Have your affections turned to God. You don't have to go to Las Vegas or another city to know about the darkness of the world or the crime that is in our cities and other cities. Our own heart condemns us. Our own heart is the one that can testify that we break the law of God and our thoughts and our words and our deeds every day. Our own heart does that. There's an example from back in the Book of Genesis in chapter 19. If you remember, children, Lot's wife. What a crazy story of Lot leaving the city of Sodom. God sent down angels to the city to warn Lot and his wife and his two daughters and their family to flee. And Abraham, our father in the faith, is pleading with God, don't destroy the city, because he knows Lot is in there. He knows his family is in there. But we also know from God that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah loved the world, and they loved all of the things in the world greatly. We have a list of the things they loved dearly. But God was merciful to Lot and his family. He sent down these angels, and He said, come out, and they grabbed them by their hands. They were reluctant to leave the city of Sodom. But as they were leaving, and as God rained down fire and brimstone upon the city, as we know that story so well, Lot's wife looked back. It doesn't say a lot in the text. It just says that she looked back. And as you might know, she turned into a pillar of salt. We aren't privy in the text of why she looked back. We don't know her emotions. We don't know, as the scripture says in other ways, her heart. She looked back. And that's all we know. And she turned in like that. a pillar of salt. We don't know what her idols were, what she longed from Sodom. All we know is that she turned into a pillar of salt. So God takes sin very seriously. He took it during the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, and He takes sin seriously right now. We know from our confession the definition of sin. Children, you might know that. What is sin? Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. We have missed the mark of God. Even though we try with our good works, we cannot live up to the great and holy standard of God's law. We fail each and every day. And in that way, we love the gift rather than the giver. We love the gift of God's creation and we worship it. We worship the good things that God has given us, instead of worshipping the giver. God, the creator of all things. And that's what John is pleading with the believers. He's pleading with us today. 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. If you love the world with all of your affections, John is saying you don't have the agape love of God in you. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, John writes. And His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our faith. Our faith in Christ. The faith that Jesus gives us. The Holy Spirit puts in our hearts that we may believe and love God with all of our heart. We often do not love God with all of our affections. We do what John says we are not to do. In that way, the love of the Father is not in him. It's not in those that rebel against God. As believers, we know that we have assurance that we are in God. So John is speaking to those, these antichrists, those that are not in Christ, not to love the world. But believers, brothers and sisters in Christ, we should listen in. As John is saying this to the unbeliever, do not love the world or the things in the world. If you love the world, the Father's love is not in you. We should listen in on this command and take heed not to love the world. For the antichrist, What John is writing about, these false teachers and warning the believers in this time about, we read that in verses 20-27. This is anti-Christ. They are against Christ. That is in the word itself. They are liars. They deny that Jesus is the Christ. They deny these core fundamental doctrines that we take as our truth. These false teachers, they also lack contentment. And that's what John is digging at in these verses, in verses 15 through 17. These false teachers, here in this letter and also today, they lack contentment. Do we lack contentment in God's love? The Apostle Paul writes to his disciple, his son in the faith, Timothy, many years after possibly this letter, or around that same time period. He writes to Timothy and he says, Beware of these false teachers, for they lack contentment. They stir up false teaching, but in their heart, they aren't content with God. and the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. But he says to Timothy, but godliness with contentment is great gain. And he goes on in these famous words, we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of the world. We can enjoy God's creation, but when we die, And we will die unless Christ comes back. We cannot take anything in our world away with us into eternity, into everlasting life. The clothes on our backs, our cars, our homes. We can't even take our family with us unless they are believers and we see them again. So John is warning us about this lack of contentment in our hearts and to those around us. And he's saying, do not love with all of your affections the world." Then he goes deeper. Second, John describes this world, and we kind of pull back the curtains into these worldly affections. In verse 16, we see the affections of the world, with all of the darkness and depravity that is described throughout the Scriptures. John writes in verse 16, for all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and desires of the eyes and the pride of life, the pride in possessions is not from the father, but is from the world. In James, the author in the New Testament writes, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. What a warning. And that's what John is warning us today. We are not to love the world, to be friends with the world in the way, not that we are to not evangelize, but we are not to be like the world with all of the sin and the lawlessness and the breaking of God's commandments. John describes the world in three different ways. He says that they have desires, that they have affections for the things that they love. Three things that he says in this verse. The desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, the boasting in possessions. These things, this list that John gives us is comprehensive, not exhaustive. This kind of pulls in the different aspects of this world. And if we are honest with ourselves, at times we fall into these temptations. We fall into these desires that John is describing that make up the DNA of the world. At times we fall into hypocrisy. And John says, if we say we are in the light, but we walk in darkness, we lie. We lie that we have done what is good, but in God's eyes, we've done evil. For all that is in the world, the cravings of the flesh. If you remember the history of Israel throughout the Old Testament, they had times where they fell into grave sin. and Ezekiel and the other prophets, we read of the horrid acts that they did, the wicked deeds of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. We read that they gave themselves over to the nations around them. That they loved the food of Egypt. They loved the women of Egypt. They loved all the aspects of the old nation. the pagan nation, the nations around them, and God says, I will bring judgment. If we read that history over and over again, Israel falls into sin, yet he sends his prophets. While they were loving the world, he sends those prophets to call them back to himself. He desires godliness. He desires a pure and loving heart for himself. We also look at the desires of the eyes. John gives us this second description of the world, and we see that the lamp of the body is the eyes. We remember in the Old Testament that King Solomon, he lusted for great things. He lusted for the wealth. He lusted after many wives. He desired the desire of the eyes. And we can fall into this today. The things that we see on TV and technology, we desire those more than we desire God. Ecclesiastes, it writes, and whatever your eyes desire, I did not keep from them, Solomon writes. I kept my heart from no pleasure for my heart found pleasure in all my toil. And this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it. And behold, all was vanity. Solomon is saying, all that I have gathered, all that my eyes have seen, all the kingdoms that I have brought in to Israel, all of it is vanity. All the possessions of the world without God, without using them for God's glory and for His kingdom, it is all vanity. Thirdly, John gives a description of the world, the pride of life. The pride of life, the things of life, our livelihood, our physical houses and cars, the things that we have as our possessions, that we are not to boast in them. We are not to look to them as our ultimate hope and love them and not God. We're not to boast in them as we are great and as the kingdoms of the world, the empires of the world have said, look to us, look at our things. Look at all the stuff that we have gathered into our homes and we have forsaken God. We do not love him. Solomon also writes in Ecclesiastes, he who loves money will not be satisfied with money for he who loves wealth with his income. This also is vanity. In our American affluent culture, we often do love money. We fall into that temptation of the pride of life that in our hearts, in our actions, we have despised the contentment of God for the things that He has given to us, and we have the pride of life. Jesus warns of this in the New Testament. He warns not to love money. We cannot love God and money at the same time. Thus we see in John's words, in these verses, that John is not just speaking of the physical world, of the things around that we see, this building and everything in this created world, but also of our hearts, of our affections, our desires, what we go after, day in and day out, in the secret parts of our lives and also in the public aspects of our lives. John is saying not to love the world or the things of the world. So as believers, how do we guard against this? How do we guard against the temptation for the world? It's sometimes alluring and drawing in our hearts, the things of the eyes, the things of the flesh, and our own pride in our lives. Well, God gives us the Holy Spirit. In the text that we read in Genesis 3, We read of Eve falling in the temptation of the serpent, that he was alluring, that he was cunning in the garden. Our first parents gave in to that temptation. As you might have heard, you also heard a similarity in that list of what John is saying back to Eve, that she looked at that fruit and it was desirous. It looked good, the flesh of it. It looked like it could be eaten. And it looked pretty, maybe shiny, and all of its affections and all of its desires that Eve longed for. And also it could be made wise, that somehow even Adam in their own pride could say, God, I know more than you. I know more than you because I have this fruit. I've eaten of it. I've believed the lie of the serpent. And so I know more than you. In that contrast, thousands of years later, another temptation happened. Very similar, but in a different way than the serpent coming to Eve and to Adam. As you remember, in Christ's ministry, after His baptism, after God says, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, into the world, with all of its affections, and the devil came to Jesus. He came to Him in almost a broken record. He came to Him in the same way that He came to Eve. And He said, Jesus, would you like some of this world? Would you like some of this affection? Would you like the things of this world? With all the flesh, and the desires, and the loves, all you have to do is just give in. Just for one second. Jesus was in the wilderness. He was hungry, the text says. He was deeply hungry after fasting for 40 days without food. And the devil came to him and said, would you like what I tried to give to Eve? Would you like the desires of the flesh? Would you like some bread? Would you like the desires of the eyes? Would you like these cities that I could give you? Would you like the pride of life? Would you like the pride that you are above the Father and that you can take dominion? I can give it to you. And just like that was a false promise of the devil, it's a false promise to us today, that even though we desire to love the world, we cannot get fulfillment from our affections and our desires and the things of this world. Only through God and a love for God can we have true satisfaction. And if we have the Holy Spirit within us, He is our helper. during times of temptation in our own hearts from the world and the things of the world. Our own sinful nature, our old man. We can sometimes fall and stumble. We can fall daily in thought or in deed. And what does that mean? And John is saying what that means in this text. We desire, we crave after the flesh, after human flesh, after the flesh of this world. We're gluttons after flesh. We desire the eyes. We desire with our eyes the things of this world. We do it for our own pride. We are selfish. And when we do that, the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins and we run back to our Father. We run back to Christ and we ask Him, we confess our sins. We know, as John has said, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. When we have gone after the world and when we confess, we confess our sins, we know that Christ's blood took away those sins. It cleansed us. from all unrighteousness. Thus, Paul writes in Galatians, if we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let our affections be that of the Spirit of God. Just as Christ in the wilderness, His affections were for the Father through the help of the Holy Spirit that was landed upon Him back at His baptism. In our baptisms, in our Christian life, we are to look to God with the help of the Spirit to flee the things of this world. Flee the affections of the world. We are to love God with all of our heart, our soul, and our mind, as Christ tells us. Quoting the Old Testament, quoting the law. So children, young men, men and women, Those of all ages, do you love God with all of your affections? Do you love God with all of your affections? Or do you love the world and the things of the world? And believer, if you do fall into a love of the world, know that you have an advocate in heaven. You have Christ that stands as your intercessor before the Father, and His blood has cleansed you from all sins. You have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God that will help you in times of temptation. If you're a child of God, we are not to love the world. We are to love the Father with all of our affections, all of our desires, all of our emotions. So if we do fall into these sins, and as we see the world and its corruption and darkness, are we to despair? As John writes about these false teachers, are we to live in a misery of this world? And John says, no. He gives the encouragement. He says in verse 17, and the world is passing away along with its desires. The world is passing away. John says in verse 17, there is another world. Not just this physical world, but there is a world of love. A world of love toward God. He uses this word, passing away. It's used in other parts of this scripture as vanishing or fading away. It is an active verb. And it says that it is passing away. This physical world will eventually vanish. And John is saying to us today that the things of this world, all that he described in the verses before this, all of the things of creation are vanishing away. And thus we are not to hold closely to the things of this world, because they are but a vapor, and then eternity. So, Paul tells us to set our minds on things above, not on things of this earth, where Christ is. He is now in the world of love. And as we see in the try you nature of God and the love. that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has for themselves. Within the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they have this love. And it flows out to us by the Holy Spirit today. And we can live in that love and love the Father just as He has loved us. But we still live in a sinful world of the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. We still have our old man that we live with. Children, do you know of the feeling as you go on a vacation, as you travel home, you long for your house, you long for your bed in the familiar places? And adults might have that same feeling after going on a trip or a vacation. Thus, as believers, as we walk through this life, this life of sin and around us of misery, we should look to our home in heaven. This world of love that we have communion with God, we have this union with God, but also we have perfect communion in heaven. This is a temporary world that we live in. The creation is a temporary world, but God is offering us an eternal life. And that's what he says in verse 17. The world is passing away along with all of its desires, all of its loves, all of its affections. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. Whoever does the will of God abides forever. Was that not what Christ desired to do? The will of the Father? This week, tomorrow in VBS, we're going to read in the Gospel of John, in chapter 6, Jesus came down to do the will of the Father. He came down from heaven, that perfect world of love, for us. for our sinful condition, to redeem us from the curse of the law, the condemnation that we have because of our sins. He redeemed us to take us back to that world of love, the love that the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit have amongst themselves. Jonathan Edwards, the preacher in the 1700s, describes it as the Son that comes up and gives light to everything. and gives light to the world, and thus a love in heaven will give light to everyone. In that next age, in that age to come, we are to glorify Christ. We are to give God all glory. We are to love with a pure love God. Thus, I ask you again today, John asks you, what do you love most in life? And truly, that is what Jesus is asking you and I today. What do we love most in life? Do we love the world and the things in the world? Do we love worldly affections? Do we love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength? Do we love God more than the desires of this world? Are we like the false teachers that deny Christ and deny Christ with our words and our actions? Or do we live in the Spirit and step with the Spirit? And thus, God says He knows us. What is our loves today? What are our affections? Are they for the world? Are they for God? Are they looking toward that coming age of eternity? That world of heaven and of continual love for the Father? That He loves us and we love one another in that world of love. If so, look to Christ, he is the one that redeems us from our sins and gives us the strength, the power of the Holy Spirit lives within us to say no to the world. And yes, the Christ, let us live in the love of God as we love God with all of our hearts, all of our souls and with all of our strength. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we desire to love you. We desire to know you in your fullness. We know that in your character that is love. Love that you have shown us through Christ coming to earth. So we thank you, Heavenly Father, we thank you for showing us the way, giving us the spirit that lives within us. We pray that we would not fall into the temptation of the world, the desires, the cravings, the affections that are going to pass away only for a moment. We get our tryst and then they go away. But we don't love God. Pray that we would have that affection for you, Heavenly Father. The Holy Spirit work in us new affections that we love you with all of our heart. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. We're now going to turn in our Psalters as we praise the Lord, Psalm 26, Selection A. As you look over some of these verses, these words, they are quite shocking. Just look at the first couple of words. It says,