Christians Do Not Love the World

If you have not already, turn in your Bible to 1 John 2 as we continue our expository series through the book of 1 John. And I, just by way of introduction, if you haven't been here for the series, I am probably oversimplifying, but I would like us to— because 1 John works a little differently than other books, it works differently than, say, a letter from Paul or a proverb or something in the way it's structured. It actually works a lot more like Proverbs than a letter from Paul. But the book of 1 John is essentially just a punch list of tests of true Christianity. It's essentially the book— if you ever wonder if you're a Christian, go read 1 John and he will tell you. John will tell you whether you're a real Christian or not. And he will also give you some clues as to whether the Christianity you believe is real Christianity. So that's the value of the book of John. If you want to know the main meaning, in my opinion, of the book of John, the summary meaning, the overall picture, the theme of the book of John is what a real Christian is. And other than the first message, the first message I just called the introduction to 1 John, all the other messages that I have prepared all have the word Christians in the title. And the idea is something like I'm trying to kind of force that issue with you to say, this is what Christians are. This is what Christianity is. And you can see in the title today that Christians do not love the world.

Now I'm going to do almost as much clarification today as I am exposition because it needs to be done in this subject because we're bridging a gap. I don't know if you know, but it's sometimes hard to bridge the gap of 2,000 years to the original author's intent and his words penned 2,000 years ago. That 2,000-year gap can be hard. And then there's another gap, the gap that we're all in different places in our lives and the way we learned the meaning of words and what they mean. And so it can be kind of hard. There's a lot going on there. If you want to feel sorry for me, then I'll take it, which is hard to preach to people who are 90 and also 9 and to cover 2,000 years' worth of history and understanding of things. So I'll do my best as we cover this section of 1 John today.

Now, I am not old enough to have been a Christian when Keith Green was popular. Those of you who are a little older than me and were Christians before me know who Keith Green is. I know who he is, but I didn't ever listen to his music. He was a well-known Christian musician. But he had a very famous saying that I have borrowed, stolen, and that is that he says, "If TV, television, is not an idol, then why does all your furniture face it?" And I remember hearing that early in my Christian walk. I did not know who Keith Green was, but I knew that hit me hard. We just talked in Sunday school that we didn't watch TV. That might have been part of it, that I was scared of TV because of him saying that. Well, now TV has been replaced with that little rectangle in your pocket or your purse. And I can just ask you point blank, if your phone is not in idle, have you walked around in public lately and seen what people are looking at?

OK. I say that to you because we are going to be talking about how we know whether we love something or not. Have you ever played charades? I've never actually physically played charades. I'm not sure I want to. But have you ever played the game? You know the game, right, where you are supposed to, without words, act out a word or a phrase or something, a title of a movie or a book or whatever. And you're supposed to act it out with your body. And the people watching have to guess merely from your actions and no words. Well, if you were to play charades and try to act out what it means to love something, How would you do it? Now, I knew somebody would do that. I didn't— it came fast. This is what Marsha did, right? But what if it wasn't a person? What if the thing you're trying to act out love for is not a person? Maybe you still make that same action. How do you show that you love something? What's the action associated with love if it's not people? What if I were to ask, how would you do charades and to say you love football? Or love pizza? How would you say that? Do you love pizza? You know, how would you act out the love of pizza? I'm saying that because everything that we love usually has an action associated with it. In other words, when we love something, we usually do something that shows we love it.

For example, maybe I could pick on the other Shipper in the room. How would you manifest a love— he already did it. You got to let me finish. We've been hanging around each other a long time. He did this. Doug, you got me. I was going to say, how do you know if you love fishing? How would it manifest itself? How does the love of fishing manifest itself? You can all answer that question. How does the love of fishing manifest itself? You go fishing. There's an action associated with it. If you love food, how does that manifest itself? You could either talk about the eating or the effects. At the eating. And for example, what if you love sobriety and health? How does it manifest itself in your life? If you say, "I love being healthy," what would your actions look like? I think you all see where I'm going with this.

What if— John's already said it once in this text, and he'll say it again later. If I were to say, how would you— what would love of God look like? How would you show— I can tell you I love health by my actions and being healthy, eating the right foods and exercising. I can tell you I love my family and taking care of them and providing for them and being affectionate toward them. But how does love of God manifest itself? How does love of neighbor manifest itself? John will say— he already said just a few verses ago, "He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him." He abides in the light. He's living in the light. That's how you can identify somebody that loves his brother. Later, John's going to say in chapter 5, "By this we know that we love the children of God." when we love God and keep his commandments. You're gonna know that you love the children of God when you love him and keep his commandments. So those are the actions associated with love.

Now, the tough question of the morning: how would you know you love the world and the things of the world? How would you manifest an action, a behavior, an identifiable mark. How would you be shown as someone who loves the world or the things of the world? What would that look like? And I'm gonna suggest to you before I move too quickly that that question is very important because I genuinely believe— forgive me if this sounds critical. I mean, what good would I be as a Baptist preacher if I didn't at least sometimes sound critical? I actually believe that it's very possible that people love the world and the things of the world and don't think they do. I think it's very possible that we are in love with things that are of the world, that do not have their origin in the Lord, that do not have a description from the Lord or a prescription from the Lord, things that God would actually say not to love, and we love them because we think they come from him or because we think they're neutral. That it is possible, in my opinion, that Christians, Christians, children of God, can love the world and the things of the world and not know it. That, I hope, is something this section of 1 John helps us with, that we will get an X-ray on what actually loving the world looks like, that we would be able to negatively play charades to show what loving the world looks like, like we love pizza or our grandbabies.

Maybe the question I can ask now as we go forward, do you wanna know what it looks like? Is that a happy thought this morning that we might find out we've been loving the world and shouldn't? No, you'll see, I have a whole section this morning in the sermon that tells you it's good that God helps us understand what it looks like to love the world. It's actually happy news. It's actually beneficial. Just like, are you the kind of person that doesn't want to go to the doctor because he might find something wrong with you? Well, what happens if you find out that, "Yeah, there might be something wrong with me, but it's got an easy cure. And I avoided the doctor for 10 years, and now I go to the doctor and all you're telling me is I need to do 10 sit-ups a day? Man, I would have came to you 10 years ago." That's what I think today should be like. Instead of me just pounding on Christians or us in this church that, "You love the world, you need to stop, and you're worldly, and you're ungodly, and you're sinful." That's not the plan today. I will do some of that. I will try to accurately X-ray us in our love of God or the world and expose a love of the world if it's there, because I want us to know if it's there. I'm not telling you I know you love the world, but I want you to know whether you love the world or not. And then once we know it, to then turn our attention to where we should be loving. Today is all correction, this text, but then we'll move on and we'll get into some really neat— pages later. I've already prepared those sermons, and, oh, John really strengthens Christians if we'll take it.

So let's pray and find out if we love the world, and if we do, stop.

Father, I think the Christians in this room want to know if there's anything that needs to be purged or if there's any part of us that needs addressing. I think that we really do want the surgery done, because I think most of the believers in this room really do understand that the best thing for us is to love you most. I think that's true. I think even in my own life, when I struggled, underneath that struggle was a genuine desire to put you first and to love you more than anything. And we battle our old nature, and we battle the old man. And I'd like to think, Father, that this group of people here this morning is battling and excited at the prospect that we can love you more and live for you more and manifest our love for you more in this world. So would you please help us do with John's words here today what is supposed to be done. And what's supposed to be done is for us to love you more. So would you help us do that by learning to love the world less? In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, I have a whole section here of defining the word world, and I've already done it once, even in 1 John back in verse 2 when he's the propitiation for the whole world. I've already done this once and I'm probably going to do it again, which is how do you define the word world? What does the word word in the New Testament that John is about to tell us mean? He's going to tell us, "Do not love the world or the things of the world in the world." What does that word mean? Because I promise you, if I ask 10 of you in the room, "Define the word world," we are going to have probably 10 different definitions. And the wild thing is they're probably all going to be right. That's the crazy thing is there could be— in fact, I've read one commentator that did say there are as many as 10 different understandings of the word world. I just use the word I just picked number 10 arbitrarily this morning, but there could be 10 different understandings. For example, I always use— if you're ever talking to somebody who says God has to love everybody in the whole wide world, and that's typical when people read John 3:16, that that's how they take it to mean, he loves every single person, then I would challenge them first of all to read John 17:9 where he says he does not pray for the world, but also John 1:10. Right in one verse you have the word world 3 times. That's hard to say, by the way. I've been anxious the whole time on it. Word world, word world. Like practice it like a broadcaster or a theater major, you know, word, world, word, world, like so that I don't slur my speech and you think I'm on medication or something. So it is hard to define the word world. It's hard. It's not as easy as you might think. In John 1:10, you have it used 3 times in 1 verse, and all 3 have a different connotation. Now, 2 of them are close, but 1 of them is very different. John tells us that Jesus was in the world, And that kind of means on the planet, right? He was here on Earth. And then it goes on to say, "The worlds were made," or was made, "through him." So clearly that's the planet, but that also might mean all of creation, that everything created was made through him. And then it says, "And the world did not know him." So how can planet Earth know somebody? Well, clearly that doesn't mean the planet Earth. So what does the word world mean? Well, in one verse, 3 times.

I could keep going. In John 13, We see the word world as ascribed to the physical earth. Now, before the Feast of Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world. We use that phrase too, right? Something's out of this world. What do we mean by that? We mean it's cosmic, it's galactic, right? So Jesus is going to leave the world, the physical world, the planet. Or later, the world system in John 12, or earlier, now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. What does that mean? The planet? Does that mean somebody's ruling planet Earth, the physical thing called the planet? Or does it mean the world system, the idea of the world apart from God, the godless world system? Does it mean that? Or how about the people in the world system? So you can see, do— John's going to tell us not to love the world. What does he mean? Does he mean to not love the people of the world? Does he not mean to love the planet? So we're not supposed to be an environmentalist? Does he mean to not love the world system? But then the world system has people, John 7:7. '"The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.'" Does that mean earth, the planet, hates Jesus and his works? Or does that mean the people in the world system hate Jesus and his works? So in that case, the word "world" is people, the people of the world. And you say, "Yeah, the world's people are all evil, right?" Well, hold on because John 3:16 is followed by John 3— what comes after 16? 17, that next verse says, "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." So you have the system of the world under the influence of Satan. I'll get to that in just a second. You have the world and its people. You have the planet itself, the cosmos itself. That, by the way, incidentally, is the Greek word for world in all these cases, is the Greek word cosmos. So the idea of creation. That's the idea. And then you have— John will say it later in 1 John that this world that we know of is under the sway of the devil. In chapter 5, verse 19, we are of God and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. So what will the Bible mean when it says the word world? We have to define it.

Now I'm going to get clear in a moment in the next two sections. I will clarify in a moment what is the world in more definitive terms. But for now, what I want us to make sure we're all clear on that when you engage the New Testament and you study the New Testament and you hear the word world, you have to be a good student of Scripture to make sure you don't just make it mean that first thought that pops into your head. You got to be a good student. You have to see it in its context. Who is Jesus talking to in John 3 when he says, "God so loved the world"? He's talking to a Jew and a teacher of Israel who might think that God only loves Israel and Jews. Who might need to hear, hey, Nicodemus, you're not the only object of God's love. He loves everybody in the whole world. Now, does that mean he loves every individual? Because we're going to hear Paul say he didn't love Esau. So when you dig into those things and you spend time on those things, we're going to find out that the world, as John is going to describe it here today, the things of the world that we are to not love are those things that are not God-honoring, God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, scripture-promoting, et cetera.

I think that it is possible, by the way, there are things in this world that are neutral. By neutral, I mean the thing itself doesn't have a moral component, like the chair you're sitting on. The chair you're sitting on is amoral, right? There is moral, which is righteous and holy and pure and good ethically, right? There is immoral, which is unrighteous, impure, unethical, right? And then there is amoral. There are things that by themselves, like a tree or the chair you're sitting on or your car, those things are amoral. That means the thing itself does not inherently have a moral component, an ethical right or wrong component to it. Now, money is one of those things. Money is amoral, but you can use money morally or you can use money immorally, right? We all see that. When John is going to tell us not to love the world, he's not going to be talking about the amoral things. He's going to be talking about the things of the world that are clearly against God and His things. And that could include an immoral thing, or an amoral thing like money, if it's used incorrectly. Okay? So I want to make sure we're clear. This is why we haven't even really got started yet. We haven't even got into the text yet. I just want to make sure we're clear that the word "world" The understanding of it is always found in its context. When you open the New Testament, the context will tell you what it means. And in this context, when John says, "Do not love the world," the world he's talking about is the world that is ruled or under the influence of Satan and is anti-God and the things that Jesus said would hate us, the people and the system against God and not God-honoring, okay?

And I'll make that clear in a bit. Get your Bibles handy because I'm going to have you turn. I don't usually do that to other places. So here is an easy way, a quick test. In fact, this is kind of the theme of the sermon. You could take this with you. John isn't saying this. I'm encapsulating John's thoughts for you to take with you. An easy way to test whether a thing is of the world or of God is to ask what God gets out of you loving it. What does God get out of me loving blank? So what does God get out of me loving Milk Duds? 'Cause I love Milk Duds, by the way. What does God get out of me loving my family? What does God get out of me loving sports? What does God get? And that question, if it's not completely the answer, will help you see the answer. It'll get you on the path to getting to the answer of whether you love a thing of the world or a thing of God. Please put that in your pocket. What does God get out of it? Because that will come into play here in a moment when I dig into these things.

So now look at the text with me, please. Verse 15. And I'm going to do the thing. I'm going to chop them up. I'm going to parse the verses. Sorry. I know some people don't like that. Nobody's ever told me they don't like it, but some people don't like when I stagger the verses, do a piece at a time. But I assume you've read the text and you've read it multiple times and you know what it says. So I'm just going to do what I normally do and read it. In the parts as I handle them, as the pieces as I handle them. "Do not love the world or the things in the world." Now, that's John's first command, whatever he means, and he will expound on it in a moment, what he means by the things in the world. He's going to tell us what he means. But for now, whatever he says the things of the world are, I want you to see, us to see, that this is a command that John, an apostle and a prophet and an author of Scripture, just said Do not love the world or the things in the world. So whatever he means about the world, you and I need to see this is the same weight, the same character, the same stuff, the same DNA as thus says the Lord. Do not love the world. He is not suggesting it. He's not saying try hard not to focus on it. He's not saying do your best. He's not saying I know it's hard because you're out there, but do your very best and try not to love the world very much. That is not what it's saying.

It's in a command. This verb, when he says, "Do not love the world," that is in the imperative mood. It's a command. And then he also amplifies it in case we were unclear. What do you mean by the world? You only mean the planet, or do you mean the system? No, or the things in the world. So if there's any question, whatever we're going to say next, and I'm going to do my best to expound and understand and help us see what the things of the world are that we're not supposed to love, we all need to be clear in this room. That this is not a suggestion. This is not "do your best." This is a command, like not to kill and not to steal, that we Christians are told in command form, "Do not love the world." You cannot love the world. You must not love the world. You dare not love the world, whatever it means. So I hope we're all clear. It's a command.

And if you wonder how serious the command is, It's an absolute command. Look at the next part of verse 15. "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." So if I don't explain this today, let's just say you all were just reading through 1 John. And by the way, you would have gotten this without me. I'm supposed to explain it. That's my job and all. But I do think that you probably would understand the text. You don't need me. Well, maybe you need me. The Bible says we need pastors. But I think you understand what I mean. You could figure this out on your own. In other words, reading through 1 John and grasping the concept, you would grasp this concept as a Christian. The Word of God, the Holy Spirit, you're capable of understanding this. But I want you to ask yourself right now, before today, before engaging in this challenge of 1 John 2, before looking at the verses, how seriously was I, the Christian, me, in my seat right now, thinking a potential love I might have for the world would be? How serious?

What level of crime would it be if I loved the world and the things of the world? What level of What level of disappointment or pain would I expect from God if I didn't love— or if I loved the world instead of Him? Well, I want you to see how serious it is. This is why it's serious to me to get this right. Because what if we're cruising along and we think we're loving God and not loving the world, but we might be loving the things of the world and not know it? And now you find out if you love the things of the world and that is your focus and all you're thinking of is temporal and secular and horizontal, and that's all your eyes are focused on, then you do not have the love of the Father in you. That's bad news. This is serious business. I want you to know without question you don't love the world. I want to settle it. I want you to leave here confident. Man, I'm glad I don't love the world. I'm glad the world doesn't have a hold on me. I'm glad I'm dead to the world and the world is dead to me. I'm glad the world does not own me anymore. I'm glad I'm not the person who doesn't have the love of the Father. You can only serve two masters. You can't serve two masters. I mean, you can only serve one master. And I know today because John has helped me understand, I do not love the world. I want you settled on it. That's my job is to get us settled on it so that we all leave here today confident we don't love the world. And instead of loving the world, we love the things of God.

So we have this idea that God just loves everybody and we can love whatever we want. And the thing that I know God loves the most is the thing that I love the most. Isn't that good news that the things I love and the things that are my favorite things and the things that appeal to my taste and my interests and my happiness and my progress and my growth in life and my satisfaction and my contentment, isn't it wonderful how all the things that make me happy make God happy? I actually think that's how we think. That we do the thing, we love the thing, we get involved in the thing, and then later we'll ask God to be a part of it. And I'm suggesting that when John says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. Anybody that does love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." We should all like— remember in the old cartoon days when you'd watch Looney Tunes and you would hear the screech of brakes? Er, er, er, and the cartoon would skid to a halt? I hope all of our brains have that sound in it right now. That we er, er, er, we all skid to a stop and say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I do not want there to be even an inkling or a chance that the love of the Father is not in me." I want to know that the love of the Father's in me. And I can only know without a shadow of a doubt that the love of the Father's in me is if I don't love the world. So what I would hope for right now, you listening to me right now are saying, "Tell me what the world is and what the love of the world is, then I want to know. Help me out. Tell me, Pastor. Get on with it. Tell me how not to love the world because it's serious business."

Do me a favor now. Turn to Philippians 4:8. Now, this is not in a worldliness context or a love of the world. It's not. But I'm gonna use it anyway. I'm gonna use Philippians 4:8 and then Galatians in a moment. What I wanna do here is use Philippians and Galatians as sort of a— oh, I just figured it out. I'm gonna play charades. Now I'm not gonna do the physical action, but pretend Philippians 4:8 is charades. How do you know you're not thinking about and loving the things of the world? Well, Paul in Philippians is talking about anxiety, right? That's what he's talking about because the Philippian church was worried about Paul and maybe worried that the ministry was in trouble. And so Paul tells them, "Don't worry. Don't be anxious. But instead of being anxious, by prayer and supplication," right, "make your request to God." And then he goes on to say, "Think about these things instead of the things that you might be anxious about." And these are the things in verse 8 of Philippians 4. "Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are good— of good report," sorry, "if there is any virtue," And if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. So you got the idea there that there are approved of things that you can love, think on. You should love things that are pure. You should love things that are lovely. You should love things that are of good report. These are God's kind of things. These are the things that directly from Scripture tell you, focus on those things. Those are good things to put your attention on, right?

Now, turn to Galatians 5. Now, usually we'll go to the fruit of the Spirit here, and I think sometimes people skip the works of the flesh. So Paul just told us in Philippians, focus on these kinds of things. These are good attention-getters. These are good things to put your eyes on and your heart on. Let's now go to Galatians 5:19. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Now what I'm suggesting here is these are the kinds of works that the world produces. They're also the kind of works that the world celebrates. The things of the world look like this. If somebody is doing these things, the works of the flesh, they're playing charades and telling you they love the world. That's what I want you to see. So if the things you love are lewd and they're gross and they're bad and the things that are about to be listed here as works of the flesh, you can guess, you can bank on it, these are of the world. These are worldly things. These are not spiritual things.

These are earthly things. Verse 19, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness." Essentially, that says all of entertainment, doesn't it? Doesn't that just describe everything in movies and TV and everything else, music, right? Verse 20, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries— that's all partying. And didn't we just get through spring break? Everybody was innocent during spring break, right? And the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in the time past, in time past, and that those who practice such things will not— what does your text say? Does it say will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do you want to know why they won't inherit the kingdom of God? Because they love the kingdom of earth. They will inherit the kingdom of earth and hell that comes with it. So if you love the world, you're going to bear that kind of work, fruit. You're going to live the way Paul just said you live from the flesh. So in a moment, he's going to tell us the lust of the flesh is something that's a thing of the world. When he says that, now you know that's what the flesh does. By the way, the happy news is there too at the end, verse 22. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law." Now, Paul already told us what to meditate on. Now he's telling us this is the fruit of the Spirit. So you can all know that the things of God, at least in these two texts we looked at.

The things of God are listed there, are things that God doesn't forbid, He doesn't condemn. These are the kind of things, love, joy, peace, kindness. In other words, all the things that are not the world. How much kindness is in our world? How much patience is in our world? How much self-control is in our world? Right? So you can see a mirror or a contrast of what the world is and what the works of God are.

Simply put, Doing the things of the world minimizes God and His Word and His holiness and His glory. Doing the things of God maximize God's glory and adherence to His Word and holiness. You're either for Him or against Him according to Scripture. Jesus Himself says that. He says, "You're either with me or against me." There isn't any gray area.

All right, so how do you know? Let's look at it together. So do not love the world. Or the things of the world, right? He says that if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, the things in the world. So if— do not love the world itself and the world system, the system that's under the sway of the devil, the system that's fallen, the system that curses God, the system that killed the Son of God. Don't love that world and definitely don't love the things it produces. So if something is born out of the world, if the world gives birth to something, if it's a world's thing, then don't love that thing, whatever it is. If the world made it, watch out for it. Okay? And then he says, "If anybody does do that, the love of the Father is not in him." You can't say you love the world and love God at the same time.

And you might say, "Wait a second, doesn't God say he loves the world?" Ah, hang in there. "For all that is in the world," verse 16 starts with. Everything that's in the world, the world we're describing is the world that is against God, that is cursed, that is under this sway of the devil, that does these things that I just said, the works of the flesh.

That world, everything that's in the world, the first one First one listed is the lust of the flesh. Then it goes on to say the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. What is the lust of the flesh? I'm going to do something very rare, and no, I'm not going to say the ESV gets it right. I'm going to say something even more painful. The NIV gets it right. Oh, hurts, hurts. Stomachache having to say that out loud. I don't love the NIV, the Nearly Inspired Version. It gets it right because it translates the word here, epithumeo, the Greek word, cravings. Now, I say it gets it right. It's actually interpreting as much as it's translating, okay? It's actually doing some interpreting for us, which, by the way, that's one of my challenges with the NIV. The NIV is almost a paraphrase rather than a translation, and that's kind of the challenge with it. It's good to have good paraphrases, so it's a decent paraphrase. I want you to see the meaning of the text today.

The word lust is best translated lust. Epithēmaō is the right word. Lust is the right word. But the NIV gets the interpretation of that word correct, even though I don't think it should be interpreting. But the idea of craving, the thing that your flesh, your body, your being, your soul, you, you, the thing you are attracted to, the thing that pulls you, the thing, the itch that wants to be scratched.

When it says the lust of the flesh, the easiest way to understand flesh is opposed to spirit, right? You should have less flesh and more spirit. The flesh is supposed to not be the thing you're trying to do well with. The flesh profits nothing, right? The idea is that our flesh is just the part of us that in the fall got corrupted And now we're trying to not satisfy this thing. We're supposed to mortify the deeds that this thing loves. We're supposed to put to death the deeds of the flesh. We're not supposed to be satisfying our flesh. And of course it means our biological flesh, our physical body. Of course it means that. But it means our most base desires that are in our fallenness.

It means that when we fell in sin, all of us fell, our body and the invisible part. And now we are trying to satisfy this thing apart from God. In fact, we find most of our satisfactions in the flesh. Most of them are not in our spirit or on the invisible side. So the idea of the first work of the flesh, the first— I mean, uh, all the thing of the world is the lust, the desire, the craving of the flesh, sexual desires, covetous desires, that, like I say, that itch that we want to scratch.

So you're thinking of what you think your body, and life needs to be happy, that is not God. So that if you say, "In order to be happy, I need God plus the car, the woman, the girl, the money, the house, the satisfaction, the retirement account, the health. I need God plus—" I can go all the way. Those were decent things I said. What about the evil things? Pornography, alcoholism, taking advantage of people, Whatever the thing is that you think needs to be added to God and him alone and being his child and him being your Father and you having his Spirit and you having the Word, invisible things that are the most meaningful things, a worship life with him, a walk with him.

If there's something you say, "Yeah, I have all of that, but I need these other things in order to be happy," those are the things of the flesh. And it doesn't matter what label they have on them. If the label is them plus God. It doesn't matter. Even a good thing, even a good thing like a family can be a thing that is not honoring to God, where you can make it a thing of the world just by your worshiping it instead of Him.

Now, it could be that that's, I don't know, abstract to us. But I think Christians in the room who have battled the flesh know what I mean when I say flesh. I don't think anybody's in here thinking, well, this, you know, I've been getting drunk every other day. But is that a work of the flesh? Is that a lust of the flesh? I think everybody knows that you're trying to be satisfied in something that's not the Lord. So the flesh, the lust, the desires, the cravings, the attractions of the flesh, the things that the flesh says will satisfy you that are not God's things, that's the first thing of the world. Small or big, you can have small things that you think you need too, not just big things. And you can have good things that you think you need too, that are not just bad things.

So the things of the world that are scratching the flesh's itch. And you can also say the flesh is the old man, the things that unbelievers loved, that you loved before you were saved, things that you put on pedestals and thought you needed and had to have before you were saved. So the first thing of the world is the lust of the flesh.

The next thing of the world is the lust of the eyes. These are the objects of our attention, of our focus. Think of what you focus on. Do you focus on the things of God? Do you focus on the things of heaven? Do you focus on eternity and the future and the character and nature of the Almighty? What has your attention? What do your eyes like to fall to? When you're driving, men, and there's an attractive woman on the side of the road, where do your eyes go? Or ladies on whatever your version of that is. I don't know. I don't know what ladies lust after. I don't want to know, actually. Is it family? What is it? It might be men. It could be an attractive man on the side of the road.

But think about where your eyes fall because this isn't the same exact thing even though the Greek word is the same, epithumao, lust, desire, craving, same word for the eyes and the flesh. But the idea here, I think, has to do with where our eyes go, we go. And if we don't follow through with the flesh to get what the eyes see— the eyes are enough according to Jesus, right? Because he says, he makes it really clear that it isn't merely the physical act of adultery, is it? It's that desire of the flesh. But how did David, for example, first get the desire for Bathsheba? He saw her. Got it? He saw her first.

Does our world hide things that we would lust after, or does our world display everything that we would lust after? You know how many billions, maybe trillions of dollars are spent on advertisement so that we would see the right things? Do you realize— I've mentioned this before, but maybe you weren't here for the evening services— but do you realize that there are literally scientific, AI-driven algorithms that are counting the number of seconds your eyes are looking at something you scroll, down to the millisecond. So that if you scroll and your phone is measuring that you're moving like this, and you do this just once, measured. Give them another one of that same thing. You're doing this. He doesn't want this. She doesn't want this. He doesn't want this. Give them 2 more of those. Right? So it's literally measuring. But what is it measuring? What is it gauging? What is it trying to get? Your eyes. It's trying to get your eyes because it knows that the eyes eventually will get into your flesh. It knows that.

That's why it puts the pretty girl. That's why the hamburgers look differently on the menu than they do in your bag. 'Cause they know if they showed you on the menu what was in the bag, you wouldn't buy that hamburger. The eyes are not the window to the soul, they're the window to hell is what they're the window to. The eyes are the things that get us. Do you ever notice that the things that come across our focus, the visible things instead of the invisible things, the visible things are always shiny and glisteny and beautiful. They're always the thing that draws your attention. You're never going to see dull, brown things, old things.

It's funny because my fellow guitar players will know this, there's a whole a whole business in guitar playing of relicing guitars. And it's funny, if you want to— if you think like Republicans and Democrats fight, you should hear guitar players who love and hate relicing a guitar. The idea is you take a brand new guitar, freshly made new Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul, and then you beat it up so that it looks 60 years old and like it's been run through the wringer. And people, believe it or not, pay extra for that. Now, some of you already know you pay extra for the stonewashed torn-up jeans too, right? So you all understand. But why would a guitar player want a guitar that's all beat up? Now, everybody thinks, ah, that's totally innocent. No, it isn't. He's lying. That's stolen valor. He's trying to act like he's played that guitar for 50 years or that it's a valuable guitar. Why? He wants your eyes to see the more valuable thing.

So in that case, the more valuable thing looks more beat up. The value is in it being beat up, right? But the thing I'm trying to get to here, I hope you're seeing it, is it's the eyes that get you. It's the focus. It's on visible things, not invisible things. Jesus, in that conversation with Nicodemus, says, "Unless someone's born again, they cannot—" what? "The kingdom of God." Why can they not see the kingdom of God? Because they can only see the kingdom of earth. Paul, talking about being absent from the body and present with the Lord, says, we are confident knowing that while we're home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. Why? We walk by faith, not by— so if everything is appealing to your sight, what are you not walking by?

It's so simple that we're not looking to glory, we're not looking to heaven. I love when the scripture says we see Jesus. Do you see Jesus? Or do you see iPhone? Do you see Jesus, or do you see 4 bedrooms instead of 2? Do you see the author and finisher of your faith? Do you press toward the upward call? Do you look forward to Christ? Is He your finish line? Not satisfaction in what you can see on earth.

It's so easy to see that we can focus on the physical, the horizontal, the in front of us. The thing that gets our eyes and our attention, whatever it is— cars, clothes, shoes, watches, guitars— that can get our attention. Our attention can be down here at the horizontal level and not up, not seeing the eternity, not seeing that we'll be with the Lord one day, not acknowledging the idea that my kingdom here, this world here— and we'll get to that— is passing away, and I want what I do to last forever.

And then lastly, the thing of the world that's listed is the pride of life. This is a hard thing to translate, this phrase that John uses, because it's almost like the boast life, like it's a— the way it's translated, the boast life. What does that mean? And I've tried to put it in your notes there to get the concept across, which is confidence in the secular world. So the lust of the flesh is trying to make me happy. The lust of the eyes is seeing things, coveting things, desiring physical things, the things that are visible, and making those my focus. Whether I have them or not, they're the things I love the most, things I can see, not the invisible things of God, but the things of earth, right? And now we go on to the pride of life, which is— it's the idea of confidence that this life can satisfy you. That's the idea of the pride of life, is the idea that as long— have you ever heard Anybody use the phrase, "Whatever life has to offer"? Have you heard that phrase before?

That he had anything life had to offer, whatever life has to offer. That phrase fits here perfectly. It's the idea that we believe our happiness will be in what life has to offer. And when I say life, I mean the life that's the world. We believe the promises of the world will make us happy. We believe that we will be satisfied and fulfilled once we have the things of life. In fact, we think we deserve We deserve the things of the world. Pride, do you see it? We deserve happiness. We deserve contentment. We deserve this world to satisfy us. We deserve— if anybody deserves good things, I deserve good things. And that's that idea of pride, of deserving. And then finding our satisfaction or finding the way this world, this fallen world, this godless world, this Christ-hating, Christ-crucifying world, this world is what makes me happy.

This is the craziest thing about social media. The power that social media has over people who want the approval of the world. They— that is the best example of counting how important you are by the number of followers you have is the perfect example of the pride of life. That I am made to feel good by the people of the world. They approve of me and I feel good about myself. That's pride. Instead of the humility of the gospel, I have the pride of life, the perishable things, the pleasures of this world. All life has to offer, status, the advantage of being important here on planet Earth, that is of the world. The craziest thing is how profitable that is and how much our culture is infatuated with such things.

All of those things, John says, is not of the Father but of the world. He said earlier, don't love the world. If you love the world, love the Father is not in you. The love of the world looks like this. Trying to make this thing happy, trying to scratch your flesh's itch, focusing on things that are temporal and not yours, the visible things, and then thinking you're satisfied by what you see on earth, that, that your eyes and what they're attracted to are what's most important, and then the confidence that you in this life can be fulfilled without the Lord. That is all of the world and not of the Father. So clear. And none of those three things is God the center main character, and none of those things.

The kids, would you guys be impressed if I said God is an NPC? You can tell the older people what that means if you want. So here comes the part where John is very nice to us, and God is very nice to us by giving us this next important part. Look at it with me. Is God trying to make us unhappy? Is God trying to keep us from fun and good things? Is God a buzzkill, a killjoy, a party crasher? Does God know we'll be happy with all these things and He just wants us to be miserable and not having them? Does God want us to give up our purity with a young man or a woman because He knows we'll love it so much that we'll be happy with it? He's just keeping us from being happy, right? Does God want me to not steal from my boss because He knows if I steal from him, I'll be happy? That's why God's trying to stop it, right? 'Cause he doesn't want me happy. He's trying to take away all the fun.

Look at verse 17, the first part, "And the world is passing away, and the lust of it." If you haven't in a while, read the book of Ecclesiastes all the way through. People have called religion the opiate of society. Christianity is the opiate of society. It's what we use to numb ourselves from the pain. It's what we need. Incidentally, when Marx said that, Marx was actually being complimentary to to religion. Most people don't know that. That when Karl Marx said, "Religion is the opiate of society," he was actually saying society needs an opiate because it's in trouble. He wasn't saying it's bad. But anyway, that's beside the point.

If you're focused on the things of the world, you are not focused on eternity. Right? What John is telling us now, if you are focused on the things of the world, the thing you're focusing on will disappoint you because it's passing away. It's going away. It cannot fulfill you, not only now, but in the future. So you're essentially investing in something that's going under. So when John tells you, "Don't love the world," he's doing you a favor because the world is going to let you down and disappoint you. And it's going to leave you empty. And it's going to break all of its promises.

So instead of focusing on the world and everything that's in it, all the lusts and the pride and everything else, those things are passing away. Why would you want to put your attention on something that won't matter in the future? Eternity matters forever. You will spend forever with the Lord. You will be in his presence forever. So why would you be spending your time and energy on things that'll pass away?

This is what Jesus means when he says, seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all of the important things will be added to you. Why? Because his kingdom and his righteousness lasts forever, and everything else passes away. So why would you spend your energy on something passing away? That would be like you buying a car you know is going to break down in 10 miles. Why would you do that? It's a bad investment. It's a bad use of your energy.

If you were about to buy something and I knew it was going to be bad for you, right? I knew it was bad for you, or take a medication and I knew it was going to hurt you, or make a life choice and I knew it was going to hurt you, and I tell you, "Don't do that. You'll regret it." You can ignore me, but also sometimes you can be rescued from pain and difficulty and disappointment if somebody rescues you and tells you, "Don't do it. Don't buy that."

How many of you have ever lost super glue because it dried up? Anybody? Does that happen to me, or I'm the only one that bought super glue and you had to buy it again? OK? Watch this. Refrigerate your super glue. Why did I have to get 48 years old to learn that? I'm 53 now. Why did I have to go through my whole life before I finally found out that if you refrigerate super glue, it doesn't harden? Nobody told me that. You didn't tell me that, by the way. You should have told me. Why am I telling you that? I don't want you to keep wasting money on super glue. So buy water-thin super glue and put that container in the fridge and it will last. Mine lasted 3 years. I just finally used all of it. I had to buy the first tube in 3 years.

Why? Am I doing you a favor by telling you that or am I mean? That's mean. Mean. PJ, don't tell me that. Don't tell me to buy, to refrigerate my super glue. How dare you? I've been storing it in the cabinet for years and replace it every single time I have to use it. My way is the best way. No, John is doing that right now, and it's way more important than super glue. He's telling us, if you trust the world, you will be disappointed. And worse of all, you will not have glorified God with your life. Worst of all, when you get to heaven, you will get there empty-handed. You will not have crowns to cast at his feet. You will not have the blessings that he let you experience in ministry and service. You will get there and say, well, I made it in by the skin skin of my teeth, at least I got to heaven, as though heaven is the most important thing. It's not. Heaven is not the most important thing. God being glorified is the most important thing.

And your energy on earth is supposed to be spent doing eternal things so that he will get eternal glory from your actions. So that when you get to heaven, you say, here, Lord, here's what I did. This is me praying for my friend. This is me discipling somebody. This is me evangelizing somebody. This is me serving my church. This is me praying for my pastor. This is me loving my family. This is me taking care of my kids and showing them what you're like. Here's what I have, Lord. I did all of those things that you do love instead of all the things of the world that I loved. That's what heaven is about. It's about honoring God, not just getting there. And you can't just— you can't honor God if you love the things here.

So John is doing us a huge favor by telling us, don't love the things of the world. It's not just a command. Oh, it hurts so bad. Oh, but I really want to love the things of the world. We should be saying, thank you, John. Thank you for telling me what the things of the world are so that I don't have to focus on him. Thank you for telling me it's worth giving up everything this world has to offer for the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for that. This is not him taking away your fun. This is him adding an eternal fun and praising the Lord forever and ever.

You, none of you, none of you, not one person in here who gives up a thing of the world will regret it. Nobody will. You will stand before the Lord for eternity and you will never once say, I wish I had gotten that other iPhone. You will not say that. You will not say, "I wish I'd went to that one more movie." You will not say, "I wish I had made a little bit more of an investment in my retirement account." You won't say any of that. Everything you give up for the Lord will be a glad thing you gave up for the Lord.

So we owe John a great debt of gratitude, and the Holy Spirit in giving his word through him. When you get to heaven, go thank John, if you in fact do what he says and obey the commandment not to love the world. Look at the last part of verse 17. It's what I was just telling you. He— but he who does the will of God abides forever. The world's passing away. The things of the world is passing away. The lewdness, the disgusting things, the gross things, the supposedly satisfying things of the world, the hamburger menu version on the menu, that's passing away. The relic guitars are passing away. The Teslas are passing away. The presidential candidates are passing away. The Everything you ever wanted and you thought the earth could give you to satisfy you, everything your flesh wanted, everything your eyes saw, everything you thought would make you happy and confident in this life, all of that is passing away.

But whoever does the will of God abides forever. And it's a good forever. It's a good forever when you abide with the Lord. I remember vividly, I had a very— I won't call it an epiphany because I'm not a prophet or anything. But there's somebody I follow in sports. He's an MMA guy. And he was affected very much by the death of Kobe Bryant, even though he's a basketball player and not a fighter. And I just remember hearing him go on doing what the kids call giving him his flowers. Because you're supposed to now learn to give people their flowers while they're alive instead of after they die, right? That's the idea.

And this journalist who I care about, I consider him a friend, is going on and on about Kobe. And about his impact on basketball and about the fact that he died in a helicopter crash with his daughter, doing tournament things with his daughter, and how noble that was. And by the way, I'm not arguing with any of that. Those things are all significant. I'm not trying to belittle Kobe Bryant or the family's loss or anything. It's a terrible tragedy. But the thing I remember is in that moment when he's doing it, I knew— and I'm sorry if I'm cynical, I'm sorry if I'm skeptical, I'm sorry if I've been around the block enough— But my very first thought was, Kobe's gonna be forgotten. And he'll only be brought up if somebody's talking about good basketball players. Big news story today, but it's gonna go away.

I'm sorry, folks, Charlie Kirk's gonna be forgotten. I'm sorry. I'm not saying that negatively. He shouldn't be forgotten. He should be remembered. But I'm trying to tell you, the things in this world, even the good things in the world, are passing away. I'm not saying it's sinful to love basketball or Charlie Kirk. I'm trying to tell you, have your energy and attention upward. Look upward. In fact, by the way, if you want to honor Charlie Kirk, do that, right? That's the idea, is look upward and heavenward, because you'll see him again one day. But I want you to see that this world is passing away. That goes for the world and its terrible things, but it also goes for everything else too. It's all passing away. But whoever does the will of God lives, abides, remains— the Greek word— remains forever.

I prepared a sermon, in fact, and some lessons and answered some questions about Abraham this week. And it hit me as I was typing the Kobe Bryant thing a few weeks ago that we're still talking about Abraham after all this time. Why? Why do we still talk about Abraham? Why do we forget who— I don't know. When was the last time you talked about Willie Mays? When was the last time you talked about, I don't know, Charles Bronson? I'm just picking names out of my head. You kids don't even know who Charles Bronson is. You haven't talked about them in a while, but you're still talking about Abraham. Why? Why do we talk about Abraham? Why? Because he did the will of God, and we know he has the testimony, abides forever.

If you think heaven is going to be a boring place and not a place you want to spend your energy, first of all, repent of that. Secondly, go read Revelation 5. And go look at what it will be like one day when we bow the knee before the Lord. And I challenge you, especially you young people, stop believing the lies of the world. There were things you cared about a year ago that you don't care about right now at all. And the things you care about right now at all, you may not care about in a year. But if you care about the Lord, if you focus on the Lord, instead of your eyes being horizontal, they're vertical, they're looking up toward glory. Instead of lusting after the things here, you desire the things of God and the things of heaven. Those last forever. Those last forever.

I'll leave you with this. Some of you know my daughter Pearl, who is playing piano today. That Pearl. She's named after Pearl Merritt. Now Pearl Merritt was sort of like the church's grandma. You know, she just loved everybody. She had the funniest way ever of getting off the phone. If you're ever on a phone call with her— there's— Marcia's laughing already. If you were getting off the phone with Pearl, you wouldn't know it was coming. She would get the conversation done, and then she would say, "Blessings to you. Bye." Click. Oh, I wasn't ready. I had more. So Pearl was amazing. She was an amazing woman.

And I went to visit her about 6 days, 5 days before she passed. She was in the hospital in Turlock. She couldn't breathe. She was struggling. It made me sad that she was trying to talk. I was like, "Just calm down. You don't have to talk." And in her last breaths, when to me, that I heard, she was asking about my kids and the kids of the church. And then 6 days later, she's in heaven. Let me tell you what she wasn't asking about. Who's winning the baseball game? What kind of car do you drive, Johnny? What's the square footage of your house? What's your retirement account looking like? Those were not the things she asked about on her deathbed. She cared about the kids, and not just because they were kids, but because she cared about their souls. She prayed for them. And wanted them to be right before the Lord.

Are you thinking about God's things, or are your eyes on the world's things? It's a really simple question once you understand what that means. The world, the things that aren't God's things, the things that don't come from his word, things that don't come from his instruction, that are not of his spirit. I'm telling you, you will not regret divorcing this world. You won't. You'll thank me for that in eternity. I'm gonna be thinking John though. Maybe you can just join me in saying, "Where's John? We need to talk to this guy. John, you were right. Thank you. I made a commitment not to love the world, and I'm so glad I did. I'm so glad I focused my energy on the Lord and His work in my family's life, in my church's life, in my country's life, that He became my focus." Ah, I'm so thankful that the Lord was my focus.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for the clear instruction from John Even though it needs some help in terms of us understanding it, we need the help, the text doesn't. Even though we need the help to understand it, it is pretty clear that there are your things and there are the world's things. And you thankfully tell us to love you above everything. We do want the love of the Father in us. Would you help us be sure of that even today? Maybe Father, we might have conversations with our family about that. Are there things in our life that need to be examined so that we make sure we love the Lord above everything? Please help us do that. You deserve it, and we also know it's best for us. In Jesus' name, Amen.