I Can Love God Instead of the World

Please note: This transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for accurate information and meaning.

Sermon Summary

This sermon, grounded in 1 John 2:15-17, examines the biblical command to not “love the world.” It explores the difference between holding temporary, worldly desires with an open hand versus clinging to them like idols, contrasting the fleeting nature of worldly lusts with the eternal security found in trusting Jesus and doing the will of God.

Key Points

• The Command and the Context: The commands (imperatives) of Scripture flow directly from the truths (indicatives) of what Jesus has already accomplished for believers.

• Defining Love: In this context, “love” refers to setting one’s deepest affections—the mind, will, and emotions—on something as an ultimate source of satisfaction.

• Defining the World: “The world” does not mean God’s physical creation, but rather the temporary, broken systems defined by sin, death, and rebellion against God.

• The Solution to Temptation: Willpower alone cannot overcome the temptations of the flesh, eyes, and pride. True victory comes from resting in the forgiveness and power of Jesus Christ.

• The Eternal Perspective: Worldly desires and attachments will ultimately pass away, but those who trust in Christ and do the will of God will live forever.

Sermon Transcript

Introduction: Indicatives Fuel Imperatives

As we continue in worship, we turn our attention to the Word of God, and we turn our attention to the Epistle of 1 John. As we’ve been continuing our series through this book, we’re looking at chapter two, starting in verse 15.

As we look at this section, it’s maybe a little jarring for us. The first chapter and a half of 1 John is very indicative-heavy. It talks a lot about what Jesus has done for us, who we are in Jesus, and what Jesus is actively doing on our behalf. We look at the section right before where it talks about our forgiveness that is ours in Jesus, our knowledge of God that comes through the work of Jesus, and our power over sin, death, and the devil that comes through Jesus. It’s all about what Jesus has done, the love of God for us in Christ Jesus, and now we shift towards something called an imperative.

In the Greek, an imperative is always a command. It’s “do this” or “don’t do this.” So this is the first bit of that we get in the Epistle of 1 John. But as we have that in mind, the indicatives fuel the imperatives. The imperatives flow from the indicatives. The commands of Scripture flow from the relationship and the work that God has already done on our behalf.

With that in mind, let’s turn our attention to chapter 2, verse 15 of 1 John. Let’s give ourselves to the reading of God’s Word:

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your grace to us, that in every season of life you are good and trustworthy. You reveal yourself to us in creation, and you reveal yourself to us in your Word. May you show us more clearly your character and your will for our lives in this passage. May you transform us by the power of your Spirit, and may you help us to love Jesus more fully as a result. We ask all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Defining Love

The word love comes up a lot in the Epistle of 1 John. Some call it the Epistle of Love for that reason. In this little section, the word love is repeated several times. I think six was my count, but it might be shorter than that if you include the previous parts. It’s repeated multiple times just in that first opening verse. That should give us an indication that love is a significant part of what this passage is about, particularly as you consider that imperative at the beginning: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.”

It is good for us to consider what love is in this context. We’ve talked about love in terms of interactions with other folks as being an unconditional commitment to the highest good of another person. But as we’re thinking about love in relation to the world, to desires, to objects, and activities, we often use the word love in an imprecise way in our society today. We’ll talk about how we love coffee, we love this new store that opened downtown, we love watching the History Channel, we loved the new Spider-Man movie, we loved the Odyssey, whatever it might be. But what do we actually mean when we use the word love in those contexts?

We really mean we greatly enjoyed that thing. That thing brought a moment of pleasure into my life, it brought a bright spot in my day, it was a wonderful experience. That is mostly what we are trying to communicate. When the authors of Scripture use the word love, and particularly as John is using it here in this section, he is using it to describe our affections. It is the thing that we are putting our hearts on. In the Scriptures, the heart can be described as the mind, the will, and the emotions. So the things that are captivating our minds, the things that are captivating our actions, the things that are captivating our emotions—it’s those things that we are loving. It is those things that we are placing our affections on.

At first glance, when we read this first sentence, it says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.” We might think, does that mean I can’t enjoy anything? Does that mean I can’t enjoy God’s good gifts that He gives us? Does this mean that I can’t enjoy nature, food, relationships, and all these blessings that God gives us?

No. Instead, it’s calling us to have a proper affection—an affection that’s not focused towards the world, but is instead focused towards God.

Understanding “The World”

The question that might arise next is, what is the world? This gets a little confusing as you read through the Scriptures because the Greek term for world is cosmos, and that’s used in a variety of ways throughout the New Testament. It’s used in the sense of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” In that setting, he is speaking about the universe and people.

But in this setting, and in others, it speaks of the world as a contrasting element to who God is. There’s the world, the flesh, the devil, and there’s God. This is a way that John is describing the realities that are against the Lord, the realities that are marked by evil, sin, death, and decay, rather than marked by the Lord Himself.

What he is getting at here in this first section is: set your affections, set your heart, your mind, your will, and your emotions not on those things that are anti-God—not against those things that are marked by sin, death, and the devil—but instead rest those affections on the Father. “If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.” The main point this morning is that we can love God instead of loving the world. We can love God rather than loving those things which are marked by sin, death, and decay around us.

The first step in recognizing that reality is recognizing that we don’t actually need to love the world. We don’t have to set our affections on those things that are against the Lord. Sometimes it feels like we have no other choice. If we think of addiction, or if we think of hang-ups in our own lives, our own wrestle with sin—past or present—I think we all recognize how difficult it is to separate our minds, our wills, and our emotions from clinging to those things defined by worldliness rather than by godliness.

Another way to describe our affections, and what this means to love the world, is that instead of holding our hands loosely when it comes to some of these things, we are instead gripping them. To love is to grip, to hold on, to cling to. So that’s a good question for yourself this morning: What are you clinging to? What is it that you love? Where is your heart set upon this morning?

The Rich Young Ruler

An example of this through the Scriptures is the story of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19. The rich young ruler comes up to Jesus and he says, “Teacher, I have kept the law since my youth. What more must I do to be saved?”

Jesus looks at him and says, “Take all that you have, sell it, and give it to the poor.” Matthew tells us that the young man walked away with sadness because he was a man of great wealth. Jesus finishes that by saying, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to inherit the kingdom of God.”

Now, the point of that story is not to say having money is bad. It’s not to say having wealth is bad. But what you see in the rich young ruler is that he comes to Jesus asking good questions. He’s asking, “How do I have eternal life? What else is there? I want to do it!” Jesus analyzes him and sees the reality—that the young ruler had such a grip on his wealth, his hands were held so tightly around his money, that even as he was offered eternal life, he wasn’t loosening that grip and clinging to Jesus. He was holding even more tightly to the money.

In that, we see where the love of the young ruler was. His love was not directed towards God; he wasn’t clinging to Jesus or to the Father, but instead, he was clinging to his money.

You and I do the same thing all the time with various things in our lives, or at least we are tempted to. Particularly as unbelievers, we cling to sex, we cling to money, we cling to power, we cling to influence, we cling to reputation, we cling to our pride and our arrogance. We cling to all these things that do not give life. We cling to all these things that at different parts of our lives—held in the proper way—can be healthy, but we make them ultimate things. We make them into idols. And then we find that our love is in those things rather than in the Father.

The Power to Overcome in Jesus

If you remember what we talked about last week, this letter would have been read in its entirety. Rather than having a sermon, the gathered church would have just read straight through this letter. So what comes right before this section? The reasons for John’s writing to them: that they were forgiven in Jesus, that they had a personal knowledge and relationship with God, and that through Christ they had been given power to overcome sin, death, and the devil.

As this imperative comes—saying, “Do not love what is in the world”—the solution has already been provided. We can’t divorce this from the greater context of the letter. Jesus has already forgiven. Jesus has already brought relationship back with the Father. Jesus has already given His power. Therefore, when he says, “Do not do this,” we might ask, “Where’s the power to do this? This seems insurmountable in our lives. How can we cling to Jesus rather than clinging to the things of the world?”

Through the work of Jesus, we remember that we have been forgiven. We remember that we have been made right with God. We remember that we have the power of Jesus Himself. Therefore, we have the ability through the indwelling Holy Spirit to turn from our love of the world and cling to Jesus. We already have that power.

There’s a recognition that we as Christians need to have: we can actually say no to sin. We can actually say no to those temptations that come upon us so strongly and cling to the Father.

That statement is maybe terrifying, but it’s an accurate statement to say that those who love God, as John gets to in 1 John 4:19, love because God first loved us. If we aren’t loving God, if we aren’t loosening our grip on the things of the world and grabbing tightly to Jesus, that’s just an indicator that the love of God has not yet grabbed a hold of us. The love of God has not yet made its way to us.

This morning, many of you are believers. Some of you are likely not believers. Has the love of God gripped you? Do you see the reality of loosening your grip on the things of the world and tightening it on the Lord? As you examine that reality in your life, it’s not saying, “You’ve got to grip harder to get the love of God,” because God is going to give you His love as you go to Him. He provides that in spades and bucketfuls and oceanfuls. But it is a call to accurately assess where you are, because the love of God is available to you. Through the work of Jesus, He says, “Come and say no to the things of the world and say yes to loving God,” because that’s how He designed us in this world.

If we are to love God instead of loving the world, we need to first start with the simple reality that we don’t need to love the world. We have what we need in Jesus. He has given us Himself, and therefore we can choose to love God rather than the things of the world.

Disordered Loves and Strong Desires

But as we think about that reality, we also still wrestle with internal desires toward sinful realities. St. Augustine talked about it in terms of having disordered loves. We sin in certain ways, we have proclivities toward certain sins, and we have specific temptations unique to us as individuals because we are tempted to love the wrong things.

That’s what John is describing next: “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”

These lusts can also be equally translated as “strong desires.” If you ever have experienced a strong, overwhelming desire toward a sinful reality—whatever that might be, whether that’s gossip, slander, greed, sex, money, power—if you have that overwhelming compulsion toward something, it’s one of these desires being listed here. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life—these are categories that essentially encapsulate all of the sins we struggle with in our lives.

We still experience those realities on an ongoing basis to some extent. Some of these things you struggle with more strongly than others. Some of you at one point in your life might not struggle with any of them, and at a different point you might find yourself overwhelmed by strong desires toward these sins.

As we experience those things, as we are being overwhelmed perhaps, the question that comes up is, “Well, how? I feel all this temptation. I feel these desires building within me.” Some might say you have to white-knuckle it, just try harder. You’re just being weak. Maybe you’re a fan of David Goggins and you just say, “You have to burn the boats.” All the young guys back there are nodding their heads at me.

But that’s not the answer. The answer is to trust Jesus. To trust that you are forgiven, to trust that you have been brought back into relationship with God, to trust that you do have His power, that all those things are actually yours. Therefore, as these temptations overwhelm, you can choose to trust God—that what God has done for you is enough, and that God will see you through these temptations, providing in this hour of need so that you might overcome the reality of temptation in those moments. That reveals our roots. As these temptations encroach upon us, as we wrestle with the reality of our loves and desires, recognizing our internal struggles reveals our central captivities. What is captivating our minds, our wills, and our emotions? What are we leaning towards?

When we experience lust of various kinds, it shows us how we are struggling to trust Jesus. It’s an encouragement that as we are threatened by those things, we can in fact trust Jesus in the midst of them, as we remember His work on our behalf. We don’t need to love the world. Jesus has given us what we need, and we can press into Him and what He has provided. We can live in joy as we still recognize the reality of the broken world around us, and we can look at the remaining desires that are warped and misdirected, trusting that God’s Word is trustworthy, that what He has said is true, and that who He is is true.

The World is Passing Away

Lastly, as he continues in verse 17: “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”

That first part is crucial for this conversation. God is not just being the fun police and saying, “You just can’t do the things you want to do.” He’s not just saying, “Don’t put your love in these things because they’re too much fun.” He’s recognizing that all of the things we attach our hearts to will eventually pass away. The world and its desires will not remain at the end of the age. When Jesus comes back in glory and power, as the new city, the New Jerusalem, and the new heavens and the new earth come into being, those things will pass away.

If we are spending our lives clinging to money, what’s going to happen to that money in the new heavens and the new earth? Do you think it’s going to be worth much? I don’t think so. If we’re clinging to our power, our authority, our prestige in this life, a reputation we build for ourselves, whose reputation do you think is going to matter in the new heavens and the new earth? Jesus’s, not yours. That reputation is gone. Everything in our lives that we cling so tightly to, that we put our heart and our soul into, if we are clinging to the things of this world, each and every one of those things is going to pass away. None of those things are permanent. None of those things can save you. None of those things give life.

As we consider the desires that come from the world, as we consider loving Jesus instead of the world, we recognize that those desires lie to us. The world lies to us about what is true and what is lasting and what is most valuable. We can take the encouragement of Jesus to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven rather than treasures here below, where moth and rust destroy. Everything is passing away. Where are you putting your love? Where are you putting all that you are—your mind, your will, and your emotion?

Because the only place where those things are safe, the only place that is safe to put your love, the only place where you will not be disappointed if you put your love in it, is the Lord Himself. Because He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the one who has bought you with the blood of Jesus. He is the one who has drawn you close while you were an enemy and made you a son or a daughter. Do not be satisfied with the things that are passing and fading. Do not put your hope and your confidence in those things. Do not put your heart in those things. Put your hope and your heart in Jesus.

Doing the Will of God

The second part says, “But whoever does the will of God lives forever.” This is not John reverting to moralism, saying, “You’ve got to bootstrap your way into heaven. Whoever does the will of God lives forever.” It’s a true statement. As James says, “Faith without works is dead.” As we read the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, we see very clearly that God requires obedience of His people. Jesus Himself says, “Those who love me keep my commandments.”

But what is the first commandment that each of you and I obey as we become believers? Or what is the commandment that we respond to? We respond to what Peter says at Pentecost in Acts 2, as he’s proclaiming the gospel and the identity of Jesus. He says, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you.” Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. As Paul says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

Those who do the will of the Father are those who believe the gospel—those who cling to Jesus rather than clinging to the things of the world. It is through clinging to Jesus that we receive eternal life. It is through clinging to Jesus that we are not disappointed by the wasting away of the world and the things we’ve placed our hearts in, because Jesus is the only place that does not waste away.

Friends, as we consider loving God instead of loving the world, we can recognize that we do not need to love the world because we have all we need in Jesus. He has given us Himself—full forgiveness of sins, His power, right relationship with God. We have all that we need. We can turn from those things because God has first loved us. Secondly, we can trust God as we still face the indwelling reality of our sin, as we still face temptation day after day. That temptation does not have the final word. That temptation is lying to us, and it is saying that we can find security and peace in that which is not God. We can trust God in the midst of that because He has already provided us all we need in Christ. Lastly, we can do the will of God. That begins with trusting Jesus—rather than holding tightly to the things of this world, we hold tightly to our Lord Jesus, who gives us eternal life through His death, His resurrection, and His indwelling Spirit.

There is a better picture ahead for us. There is a better reality ahead for us as we cling to Jesus rather than clinging to the world, because as we cling to the world, it leads to destruction. As we cling to Jesus, we go towards eternal life.

Let’s pray. Father, thank you for your grace that you love us. I pray that you would remind us that you are good and trustworthy, that your will is good. That you have given us all we need in Jesus to love you and to seek you in the midst of a world that is fallen and contrary to you. May you give us great joy and peace in Christ as we consider these realities. We ask all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.