Do Not Love the World
In 1 John 2:3-11, the apostle John explains just how important loving God and loving our neighbor is to our growth and spiritual formation. Then in the next three verses, 1 John 2:12-14, John turns to the recipients of his book and applauds the spiritual growth that he sees in their lives. The young Christians he calls “children,” the Seasoned Christians he calls “fathers,” and those in the middle, he calls “young men.”
And in those three verses John gives Christians in each of those 3 groups a pat on the back and highlights the growth that he sees in them. But then, as soon as he is done applauding their growth, he issues this warning:
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world” (1 John 2:15-16).
When I read this passage, it gives me a serious case of whiplash, because God goes from high praise in verses 12-14 to a serious warning in verses 15-16! In fact, the shift is so unexpected that it has caused many to ask: Why does God make such an abrupt right turn in verse 15?
I think the answer to that question is pretty simple. We as Christians may be doing very well in our walk with God, but the #1 threat to our continued success is getting lured out of a life that is loving toward God and getting dragged back into a life that loves the world.
God isn’t just warning the young Christians that they are at risk; the young men and the seasoned Christians are at risk too. It’s a warning to every one of us, no matter where we are in their walk with God, because Satan is a relentless fisherman. He picks off the children and lures in the young men, but he goes after the Fathers too.
GOING FISHING
My wife’s dad was an avid fisherman who loved to fish for bass. One day he caught a grand daddy bass that was so big, he stuffed it and hung it on his living room wall as a trophy. But that wasn’t his only trophy wall. If you went behind the shed where Merle kept his fishing gear, there were dozens of bleached out heads of the big bass that he’d caught nailed to the side of his shed.
It doesn’t matter if you are young in your faith, a seasoned saint, or something in between; Satan is fishing for you. He’s trying to get you to swallow something fake with a hook in it, because he wants nothing more than to lure you out of a life that loves God and your neighbor, and to drag you into a life that loves the world so he can mount your head on his wall of shame.
In 2 Timothy 4:9 we’re told that a seasoned Christian, named Demus, took Satan’s bait and ended up with his head mounted on Satan’s wall of shame. Paul told his young protégée, Timothy, “Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demus, because he loved this world, has deserted me” (2 Timothy 4:9-10).
You see, the more you love the world, the less you love God, and the easier it is to turn your back on your neighbor. When Demus began to love the world, he not only turned his back on God -- he also deserted his friend! Because loving God and your neighbor, and loving the world are inseparably linked. As one love grows the other one dies. The more you love the world, the more you will turn your back on God and use people. And the more you love God and your neighbor, the more you will turn your back on the world.
TRIED AND TRUE LURES
So how did Demus get dragged into loving the world? The same way you and I do. Satan dangled some lure out in front of him and got him to swallow something fake with a hook in it. Satan has lots of lures, but he uses three tried and true tricks to get us to swallow them.
The first trick that Satan uses is to hide his hook in our sinful cravings. (The Lust of the flesh)! There is something in each of us that craves the forbidden. We’re supposed to love our mate, but often we end up loving sex or loving romantic attention, instead of a person. And then, the next thing we know, we are turning our backs on our family, on our church, and on God because we are immersed in an affair. It’s fine to want a good sex life with your wife, and its fine to want a rich romantic life with your husband. But when we become convinced that we don’t just want sex and romance, but that we ned sex and romance, then we’ve just swallowed something fake with a hook in it, and we’ll soon find ourselves in an affair if we don’t spit the hook.
God says that sex and romance in a marriage are good gifts from him and therefore, when we experience them, we should lift our eyes to heaven and say, “thank you.” But the world tells a different story. It says that sex and romance are not a just a want, they’re a fundamental need, and if we don’t get them from our mate, then it’s ok to cheat and get them from somewhere else. That’s an example of the lust of the flesh.
Satan’s second trick is to hide his hook in the lust of our eyes! That is, we don’t see Satan’s hook because all we see is some shiny thing that we want. We want lots of stuff: we want a new car, a better house, a higher paying job, a BMW motorcycle! The problem is not that we want things; the problem is that we lust for things; the problem is we convince ourselves that we have to have the new car, the new bike, the new job in order to be happy and fulfilled. When we want something, and God gives us a way to have it, our natural reaction should be to lift your eyes to heaven and say thank you. But when we lust after something, we become obsessed with getting it, because we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s essential to our happiness. But even when we get it, we won’t look up to God and say thank you; we’ll look out at others and fall for trick #3, called the pride of Life.
The pride of life is shorthand for boasting about what we possess or about what we’ve done. In the world, it is not enough to achieve something that makes a difference for God; it’s not enough to acquire a possession and gratefully enjoy it. No. In the world, the real pleasure in achieving something or in acquiring something, is in the sense of superiority we feel when others see what we have or what we’ve done. In the world, the real pay off in having something or accomplishing something is telling people about it so you can see their jealousy and envy!
I heard a story about a pastor who was feeling unappreciated by the people in his church, so he decided to lie to his congregation and call in sick one Sunday morning. But instead of staying home, he climbed in his car and drove to the next town and went golfing all morning. He was having a great day on the course. In fact, on the sixth hole, he pulled off the perfect shot and watched as the ball dropped on the green and rolled into the cup. It was the shot of a lifetime; he made a hole in one! He was laughing wildly and jumping up and down -- but then his face turned pale, because he realized he could never tell anyone. That’s the pride of life.
A DEADLY AFFAIR
So, whether Satan’s lure appeals to our sinful desires, our craving for something we see, or our need to make sure people see what we possess and what we’ve done, the end result is always the same. When we swallow one of Satan’s lures, we end up loving the world rather than loving God and our neighbor. When we take Satan’s bait, we don’t just pick up a few bad habits; we commit spiritual adultery. We give our heart to the world, rather than to God. We cheat on God and have an affair with the world.
Do you know what every wife wants to know when she finds out that her husband is having an affair? She wants to know if he loves her, because she knows that if her husband loves someone else, his love for her will keep shrinking and shrinking until it’s gone.
That same thing is true in your relationship with God. You were made to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might; and when you start loving the world, your love for God will shrink and shrink and shrink until it is gone. That’s why God makes this startling statement about loving the world:
“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes the enemy of God” (James 4:4).
When we love the world, our love for God shrinks and shrinks until it morphs into hatred towards him. When we are having an affair with the world, we can’t stand to hear God’s word or talk to him in prayer or be around his people. That’s the bad news.
But here’s the good news: the opposite is also true! When you start loving God again, your love for the world will shrink and shrink until it morphs into a hatred of the world.
Why does the other woman or the other man in an affair always want you to leave your spouse? Why do they want you to ignore them? Why do they want you to redefine your courtship and say, “I never loved him,” or “I never loved her”? Because the other woman or the other man knows that if you ever start falling in love with your mate again, your love will shrink and shrink until there’s no place left for them in your life. Somewhere in their heart of hearts they know, if you start loving your mate again, the affair will have to end and it will not end with the two of you being close friends, because if it does, you’ll get sucked right back into it. To end an affair, the other man or the other woman knows they must become an enemy!
The same is true with God. What does it take to break off your affair with the world? You have to own your sin, repent of it, turn your back on the world and walk away so you can start investing again in your love relationship with God. Because the more you love God the less you will love the world. It will keep shrinking and shrinking, until there is no place for it left in your life.
