Love Not The World

 

 

"¹⁵ Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. ¹⁷ The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever."

I John 2:15-17

 

 

Good Morning my beloved,

 

Welcome to worship this Lord's day! We're so pleased to have you here with us today. We continue to lift all of you up in our prayers. We respectfully ask that you would pray for this ministry to continue to reach the lost, the broken and the hopeless. And for us. We are so grateful for those of you who have been sharing the ministry website with all of your family and friends. Your faithfulness to share God's Word with others has brought about tremendous results. Where will God's Word be heard today? With your help, and God's blessing, it will reach those that need it most. May God richly bless you for helping spread His Word.

 

 

Love and hate, often go hand in hand. We live in an increasingly wicked society, criminals and sexual immorality are being glamorized, greed and the desire for more than is deserved is being promoted. We're told material possessions will bring us happiness, if we only have more. How are we Christians, to deal with living in such a society? We could just go along with this immoral, corrupt society and do what the world does, yet Scripture clearly tells us that we are not to be like the world.

 

In James 4:4, James tells us "You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

 

And Paul says in Romans 12:2, "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."

 

We are taught today, that God is love, that He is the never-ending source of love, and that is certainly true. However, the God who loves must also hate. The God who loves all that is good, all that is pure and holy, must hate all that is evil and defiled and perverse. As followers of Christ, we should love what God loves and hate what God hates. In other words, we must love people, however, we cannot love the world or the things in the world, including sin.

 

God, created us to be worshippers. The question then, is not whether will we worship but whatwill we worship. In spite of what many believe, it is impossible to worship nothing! If we do not worship God, we will inevitably worship something else. It is no wonder, then, that the first 3 of the 10 commandments deal with the proper worship of God.

 

You cannot run with the world while claiming to walk with God!

 

Let us pray

 

Heavenly Father,

 

Father, we thank You for Your Word for us today. Thank You for this rich reminder, that from the moment when we in faith reached out to embrace Jesus Christ, we love the people around us, and we hate the world system, an evil system that is pervaded by a hatred of You, and of Christ. A world, that even though You have perfectly loved them, hates You.

Help us Lord, to love what You love and hate what You hate. May we continue to grow in our love for You and not fall back into the temptations of this evil world. Help us to understand the glories of our salvation. Keep us faithful. That we no longer love the world, or the things of this world, but that we would love You.

 

Father, we pray for those who are yet lost, that You open their blind eyes, their deaf ears and soften their hardened hearts, that they would turn to You in repentance, surrendering to Christ and His Lordship.

May it all be for Your glory and for Christ's sake and Your increase in the kingdom.

In Jesus' precious name we pray

Amen

Today's Message: Love Not The World

Since God has forbidden His own to love for the world and the things of the world, it is essential that we understand clearly what love for the world is. We must also understand that the source of this command is God Himself. We must understand that the Bible, is the authoritative, eternal Word of God.

 

In Hebrews 4:2, the author tells us "For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard."

 

The Word did not profit them means that it did not produce the desired effect, because they did not believe it, they did act upon it. Our text today, constitutes a sharp rebuke to worldly mindedness or worldly thinking. In the Scripture, the worldly-minded are called "adulterers and adulteresses."

The message is that to be controlled by the spirit of worldliness is totally incompatible with the ways of God and renders one guilty of spiritual adultery.  

In His Word, God has clearly warns us that there is no place for both God and the world in our lives, we cannot love God and love the world. The Bible is very clear that God is a God of perfect love. However, because God loves perfectly, He also hates perfectly. That is to say, that if you love something, then you will hate that which threatens it. As Christians, we are then faced with a choice, loving God or loving the world.

 

Open with me your Bibles to I John chapter 2. As we continue our study of this marvelous epistle, we come to verses 15 through 17.   

I invite you to follow along with me as I read to you to set the text in our minds, while we prepare our hearts for what the Spirit of God has is saying to each of us. Listen for the voice of our Lord. I John 2:15-17.

 

"Do not love the world nor 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 lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever."

 

The use of the present tense makes it clear that love for the world and love for the Father are ruling principles of life. And as such, they are mutually exclusive. Where there is one, the other cannot exist. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him," means that love for the world excludes love for the Father. We need to understand that.

 

One of the most challenging responsibilities then, is for a Christian is to live in the world without the world living in him. The worlds values are in sharp contrast with the Christian life. That's why Jesus said we are to be in the world but not of the world, for the world is passing away.

 

Therefore, if anything is more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart, your thoughts and your imagination more than God, is sin. The the greater your love for the world, the greater your hatred for God. In contrast, the greater your affection for what is right, the more your disaffection for what is wrong.

 

The writer of Psalms 97:10 tells us "Hate evil, you who love the Lord, Who preserves the souls of His godly ones; He delivers them from the hand of the wicked."

 

It is my love for the truth of God that causes me to hate error. It is my love for righteousness that causes me to hate sin. I want to be clear, I make absolutely no apologies for that. Nonetheless, because I love imperfectly, I therefore, hate imperfectly. Though I am a reflection, created in His image, I am but a mere shadow of the perfection of God. 

 

Whether they realize it or not, unregenerate people, those who are unsaved, are energized by the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. Satan uses these people to fulfill his evil purposes and plans. Those who are unsaved, belong not to God, but belong to the world.

 

Throughout the history of the mankind, few problems have been more troublesome for believers, than worldliness. In an effort to be considered relevant and reach the lost in our culture, there is the very real and present danger that we will become like the culture and lose our distinctiveness, and our effectiveness for Christ. With the pervasive influence of the media, the lure of the world is now far greater than it ever has been. Worldliness is, at its core, a matter of the heart.

The same is true of God, if your heart is captured by the love of God, you will be drawn to Him and to the things of God. The only way that our hearts can be transformed is by the Holy Spirit, who resides in those who love and believe in the One True Living God.

Many Christians today, think that as long as they do not commit or practice specific sins, they are not of the world. However, it is entirely possible to avoid such practices and yet, still be worldly. Believers, as those who are of the world, can become so preoccupied with making money, gaining a reputation, or participating in activities, that these pursuits become all-consuming. When we become too attached to the transient things of this temporal life, we are then, bound to this world. The perfect love of God demands an absolutely perfect hatred of those things which are contrary to that love.

 

Proverbs 6:16 tells us there are six things which Lord hates, even seven which are an abomination to Him. The first of which is haughty eyes, in the Hebrew it is "lofty eyes." It is to have an arrogant demeanor, a disdain for those who are beneath you in value and significance. It indicates a kind of pride that fills the heart with a sense of self. Pride, then, is really the gateway to all forms of sin, no matter what the sin is, it is reflective of pride. Which is an attitude of disobedience and a rebellion against God’s law.

 

In Psalms 101:4-5, God says "A perverse heart shall depart from me. I will know no evil. Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy; No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure."

 

In addition to haughty eyes, God hates lying tongues. Since God is the God of truth; God hates lies. The ungodly world system makes sin and immorality look normal and the righteousness of the godly look strange. God hates hands that shed innocent blood. God hates murderers. God hates a heart that devises wicked plans. God hates a false witness, whose perjury destroy the lives of others and assault justice.

 

There are other things that God hates, Revelation 2 tells us that God hates false religion. Amos 5 tells us that God hates hypocrisy. To summarize, God hates all things that are not consistent with His holy nature. 

 

And that bring us to our passage, verse 15 "Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

 

God hates the world system and He hates those who love the world. In other words, you must choose your love; that is you love either the world or the Father. I would encourage each of you take a close look at your life and do a little spiritual inventory, to see if your life matches up with God's standard, as set forth in His Word. So that you can know that you have eternal life. 

 

There are many today, who claim to be Christians, who have denied the true Christ, who have denied their true sinful condition, who have no manifest obedience in their life. They are being mislead, deceived into believing their salvation is secure. By the way, Christians are marked by love, but it is not a love of this world. It is a love for God. And, if we truly love God, we will obey His commands. 

 

Obedience is what sets those of us who are true Christians apart from those who a false Christians.Those who outside the kingdom of God, identify with the world and the world identifies with them. They speak as the world speaks, they live as the world lives. If you are a true Christian, you speak and live according to the Word of God. When you come to faith in Jesus Christ, you have just overcome the world. Meaning you have literally been separated from the world. 

 

In John 15:19, Jesus said "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you."

 

Paul says in Ephesians 2, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." 

 

And, Galatians 6:14 says, "We’re dead to the world and the world is dead to us." That's pretty strong language. Many today, believe that there are no implications in living any way they want, their lives are literally engulfed by the world system. I believe the Word of God is very clear here. John boldly says, "If that’s your situation, the love of the Father is not in you."

 

You cannot follow God's commandments, and seek His fellowship while following the worlds customs and seeking it's favor. This of course  refers to the lusts, ambitions, motives and dominating principles of the world. If you belong to God, it’s not in you at all. That means once you’ve made the decision to follow Christ, you must fight to maintain your choice against the strong under current of the world. 

 

We're not talking about the created world, or the human world. John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."  God loved people, He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. That’s why He became the propitiation for our sins, not only our sins but the sins of the world. So, we're talking about the invisible, spiritual system of evil. That's the world we're talking about. That's the world we are not to love.

 

The evil order, run by Satan, set against the things of God. This is the wicked and corrupt world of Jesus spoke of when He said, "The world hates you and it has hated me." The world that hated Jesus is run by the enemy, Satan's system opposes God. 

 

While it is true that we have literally died to the world, it is also true that we can be tempted by the things in the world, material things, lustful things, we can still find alluring.You need to understand that when you became a Christian, you made a choice, a decision, you affirmed that the gospel of Jesus Christ was true, otherwise you couldn't have become a Christian. You affirmed that believe it and you confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. At that moment you became dead to the world, the system that opposes that reality. 

 

So, when I say I hate the world, it doesn't mean I hate creation, it doesn't mean that I hate all the people in the world. It doesn't mean that my own fallenness isn't tempted by the lure of the world, but deep within my redeemed soul, I hate what opposes my Lord and Savior. Being completely transparent, sometimes I want to take the books that deny the deity of Christ, and set them on fire, because they anger my soul, for misrepresenting Christ. I don't care what form of religion or atheism they come from, because the common denominator is all the same, Satan. The spirit of anti-Christ is already working in the world. Whether it's Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, or atheism. That line was drawn the moment I became a believer. 

 

I want to be clear, I'm not saying you should have disdain for these people, because you should love them in the way God loves them. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 5, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you"

 

But you don’t love the system of anti-Christ! Because if you area true Christian, you’re going to hate everything about it.

 

Verse 16, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world."

 

God has one plan for His people and the world has another. Plans that do not originate in God, they show no likeness to His character, and are contrary to the life which He wills for His people  The word "flesh" describes the human nature as corrupted by sin.It refers to unlawful desires which are produced by the flesh nature. The unregenerate nature. Desires that are without regard for the will of God.

 

"The lust of the eyes" speaks of every unlawful craving for that which entices our eyes. This phrase, by the way, is broad enough to include every kind of unlawful sinful desire. The eyes are a gateway to the mind. 

 

Any relationship must be maintained, and that is certainly true of your relationship with the Father. That is why Satan works so hard to lure you away from the Father’s love with all of the temptations of the world. To yield to the temptation of lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is to maintain love for this fallen world.

 

Satan's pattern is always the same, even with Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan urged Jesus to turn the stones into bread, the lust of the flesh. He tried to tempt Him all the kingdoms of the earth, the lust of the eyes.  He encouraged Him to jump off the pinnacle of the temple, which could have been a source of pride.

 

Lust almost always is used in a negative sense in the New Testament. While it certainly includes sexual sins, but also all activity that stems from the self-seeking, godless nature that we are born with. The desire for sex and companionship is legitimate when we keep them within the boundaries as set forth by God. When they become sinful is when we seek to fulfill them in ungodly ways.

 

"the boastful pride of life," refers to sinful pride over what you do have. It’s easy to forget that He gave you everything that you have and to start boasting in your achievements and possessions, as if you attained them on your own. The phrase then implies an arrogant spirit of self-sufficiency and a vain sense of security, both of which are based upon a false estimate of the stability and value of worldly things. Worldliness does not always reside in things but in our attitude towards things, which begins in the heart.

 

In Daniel 4:30, Nebuchadnezzar said, "Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" God immediately drove him out into the fields to live as a wild beast until his heart was humbled!

 

We all struggle against temptation, and if we're being honest, there are times, we fail. However, if you continually yielding to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life as your way of life, you are maintaining love for the world. There is then no love for the Father. The same devices which trapped Eve back in the Garden, are being us to trap Christians today. The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. When we understand this truth and submit our lives to God’s control of these matters, we will be victorious!

 

In verse 17, John says "The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever." To obey God is to maintain your love for Him.

 

I have heard a number of people say "I can’t wait till the next election." I’ve got news for you: It’s not going to be any different. Because it’s still the world.It's still Satan's kingdom. So here’s what you ought to be looking at, "The world is passing away," why waste your time and energy on the things of this world, when the world is passing away? This world carries within its own destruction.

 

And as for the next election, or the one after that, Romans 13:1 tells us "Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God." This world is already passing away, and so is the world system which is opposed to God, which is already failing.

 

If you love the world or the things in the world, you are guaranteed to lose them all at death. "But the one who does the will of God lives forever." The term "forever" means for time and eternity. One of the fringe benefits of being saved is the privilege of knowing God’s will. God reveals His will to us through His Word. The will of God is not something that we are to obey occasionally, if it coincides with our desires and lifestyle, it is something that controls our lives. Above all else in life, we need to do God’s will.

 

In Colossians 1:9, Paul says "For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding."

 

In Closing..

 

Although God’s will was uncomfortable for Jesus, He was committed to doing the will of His Father. This evil world is passing away, but it is not going away until Jesus returns and destroys it. Therefore, we must resist the temptations of the world and live for God. 

 

If you are a person, living for the world, living for what you can see, allow me to remind you, there is no future for the world.

 

A Christian, lives for the unseen realities of God, to obey God's Word and His will, and lives for God's approval. 

 

Many world civilizations have come and gone. This world is passing away, slowly but inevitably and perhaps much sooner than you think. Many today, are tempted to live for the moment, to conform to their way of life to the way of this material world. Rather than to deny themselves and follow the Word and will of God. 

 

You can take all that I have in this world, just give me Jesus. Some of you still need to make a choice, to love God, who has promised to supply all your needs or love the world, which promises to steal your soul. 

The world is foolish, fighting to hold onto what they cannot keep. While the child of God, gives away what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose. If you love the world, it will pass away and take you with it!

May it be so..

And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.

Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen

 

 

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