Sermon: Right Ordered Loves

Did you take your Bibles this morning and turn open to first John This morning we're looking at first John chapter two verses 15 through 17. It's near the back of the Bible. You go to Revelation and then you got first and second and third John Jude W right before that it's first John. If you want to use a Pew Bible, turn right there in page 10 21 in the Pew Bible 10 21 this morning. First John chapter two verses 15 through 17

and let's pray before we open the word together this morning.

Father, we are thankful that your word is living inactive, active. We prayed this morning that it would be living and active over these next minutes in this room. We pray in faith that it wouldn't just be true in this room, that it'd be true in our hearts and in our minds, in our very souls,

that you would open the eyes of our hearts today, that we would by faith, gaze upon your glory and the face of your son, that we would be led by your spirit before your throne and that we would find a throne of grace for sinners today

And that you are ministering to each of us. That we would say that when we lead this place, that we know that we have encountered the living God by his living word

and that we are changed as a result. We pray all of this in the strong name of Jesus, the Christ, amen For Strong chapter two verses 15 through 17. This is a holy iner, sufficient word of God. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life is not from the Father,

but is from the world and the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Wanna look at these verses under four points this morning, there are four sentences there in your text and each point deals with each of the sentences. The first sentence is the command, the second sentence is the caution, the third sentence is the consideration, and then finally the fourth sentence is the climax. So you have the command, the caution, the consideration, and then the climax. First you have the command. It is right out of the box.

John starts right away. There is a very strong imperative that he gives us at the outset of this passage. Do not love the world or the things in the world. The verb tense there is in the present. It has the idea of that you should not now love the world or the things in the world and it has the idea of continuing on. You should not continue to love the world or the things in the world do not love the world itself. There's an overarching kind of grand narrative here

and do not love the world. And then he gets specific. Do not love the things in the world

and maybe some of you, rightfully as you're hearing that there are different warning bells going off in your head. Do not love the world. Do not love the things in the world really how? How do you not love the things in the world? How do you not love a crisp fall day? How do you not love a rainbow? How do you not love your dog? How do you not love your own child,

John himself, right? Write later in this letter love one another. Well, that seems contradictory, John, aren't we in the world? You tell us to love one another. Isn't this world our father's creation? Didn't he make this? How can we not love what our father created? We sing it often. This is my father's world. I rest me in the thought of rocks, of trees, of skies and seas his hand, the wonders rot. How can I not love what he created?

That's not just that God created the things in the world, he loves the world. Well, we know this, John, you yourself wrote that the most famous of verses John three 16, for God so loved the world,

It's It's the exact same writer, the exact same apostle. He uses the exact same words. Love agape, world, cosmos. God so loved the world, but you are not to love the world. Well that doesn't make a lot of sense

in John one here, in one John in chapter four, verse 14, he also says that Jesus, the Son was sent to be the savior of the world. So how, How do you, how do you wrap your mind around this? God loves the world. God created the world. There are things in the world that clearly are good and right to love and yet we are told do not love the world and do not love the things in the world where Bebe Warfield, a 19th century uh, theologian was wrestling with

what does it mean in John three 16 that God so loved the world? What is the world there? And He said there are really four answers that have been given throughout church history. God so loved the world. The first is that God so loved the world in the sense that there is a love for every person without exception in the world. First John four 14, you have a similar thing world there, but that can't be the case that that doesn't make sense.

If that was the case, we would be universalists. But John three 17, right of John three 16, John three 17, we have there that God will judge some people that they receive his justice. They were not saved or we could argue that well if it means all people without exception God so loved the world, maybe you don't have to be universalist, but, but then it's that Christ's death upon the cross is not sufficient for all people.

That somehow it's, it's limited and somehow it is, it is not efficacious, it's not factual for all those that it was intended for that there there's some kind of thing that stops it and it makes the defam of cross puny.

Others have understood world and these contexts, as Jesus was sent for all people without ethnic distinction, he, he didn't just come for the Jews He, he came for the Greeks and he came for the Ethiopians and he came for the Syrians and he came for the Dakota Sioux and he came for the Chinese and he came for the Italians and the Irish. And maybe that's the case in John three 16. Maybe that's the case in one John four,

but that doesn't make sense here in one John two 15, do not love the world.

Others have understood. John three 16 is referring to only the elect. For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son to save the elect, but that makes no sense in this passage either. Do not love the world you, you can't love the elect of the world. Even if you could identify them, you're not allowed to love them. No, that makes no sense.

Warfield Gave a fourth possibility and I think it's the most likely possibility not only for John three 16, not only first one John four, but also here for one John two 15 and that is that the word world in these contexts represents the sinful, fallen, dark world of humanity and rebellion against God. As John says in chapter five verse 19 of this book, first John, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. That is the world as it is.

This side of Christ's return from glory is under the influence of Satan. He is as Paul says in Ephesians two, the prince of the power of the air this world as a result of Adam's trusting of Satan in the garden and buying into his lie that when Adam chose to eat from that forbidden fruit and he fell, the world fell with him and every person fell in and with him in that first sin. So that now this is a world that is ruled

and that has, has been influenced and has the contagion of sin and the prince of the power of the heirs, Satan's influence within it.

It's dark, It's Fallen, it's opposed to God. That's the world. Listen to what Jesus says in John 15. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me. Before, it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. It's in rebellion.

And that spirit of rebellion is what Paul says of the Christian that in Ephesians two, that's what you once were influenced by. That's what you were once drinking and and living in. He says, we once walked in the spirit following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience. So when John says, do not love the world or the things in the world, he's saying to the Christian,

don't go back and become part of the rebellion that you were saved from.

He's concerned here with what we often call worldliness.

That's the command. Do not love the world. Were the things in the world. Don't you go back to being opposed to God and be consumed with worldliness.

Second, the caution, the caution is this. That second sentence, if anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. Now this is a pastoral caution. He, he, he's looking at these that he's writing to and he's counting them as Christians. He, he believes that there's Christians. He's not doubting their faith. He he's simply warning them. He wants them to keep living as sons, as children of God. Rebellion and opposition is not the way of sons.

He's reminding them that you've been brought out of darkness into delight. You are no longer part of this world. You are actually seated and thrown above as the writer of Hebrews says with Christ, you are reigning with him this kingdom that has broken into the world in the person of Christ's life that is shown in the darkness. You are part of it. In fact, as Paul will say, you are a new creation.

The old is gone. The new has come. That is the eschaton that that in times is already broken in in your very person, in that your now recreated, you're part of the world to come.

So why would you turn back To the world That You were part of that's disappearing.

Don't love the world, this world, a world that is filled with rebellion And You've been set free from sin and rebellion, which quickly moves us to 0.3, the consideration. Notice how he gets specific about worldliness in verse 16. Three things, desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes, pride of life. Some go back to Genesis and believe those were the three sins that eve entertained and that she chose to eat of that fruit of the tree.

These are those that could be, but, but what he is doing is he's rooting worldliness. She'll note, not an action, but in the heart.

John's point is that these things are internal

And How does that work?

How is this worldliness the things of the world that are out there? How is it that that they are, they are in here, they're internal, and yet what John says is, is do not love the world or the things in the world. And yet now he's talking about things that are internal to you and I inside of us. Well, John Owens says it this way. He said, it is evident that all these things are principally in the subject that is us, not in the object, in the heart,

not in the world, but they are said to be in the world because the world gets into them, mixes itself with them, unites itself with them, incorporates into them. The world gets in there

and it's so easy to be blind to,

We're So consumed with what's out here and we can be blind to what's in here. And that's his concern.

And we can scoff at that. That man that has tin luxury sports cars in his garage. What materialism

or that woman that spends hours each day shopping online and buying everything she can on her phone or the man who constantly talks about himself and is so proud about how he has reached the highest echelons of his business world and everybody respects him and everybody gets to hear about how everybody respects him.

That's worldliness, that's easy to recognize.

But John and Christ aren't simply concerned with the outward manifestation of these things. But the inward roots, again, note the language of verse 16. He focuses on desires on pride that's inside a man, that's inside a woman.

Jesus said it this way. It is out of the heart that evil thoughts come as well as murder, adultery, sexual immorality, stealing false testimony and slander rebellion as well as obedience is rooted in the heart.

And we can be experts. We can be experts at keeping worldliness from showing without while, all the while, we'll, we're keeping it within

Or our piety can be remarkable while we are excusing or even worse, we're nursing ing sin within

which you think with me it's easy to do.

We scoff at the person who's caught up and the materialism of our day while we inwardly covet what they actually have can't believe they bought that and they bought that and they bought that. And inwardly you're going, Ooh, I wish I had that.

We say that we can't believe someone would visit a prostitute. Why would they do that and forsake everything that they had in their family And all the while we, we nurture lust within our own heart

or maybe even more subtle. We'd never dare become intoxicated with alcohol. That's worldliness. But inwardly we're intoxicated with the spirit of the age. We can ride the church down the street with its pride flag. It's, it's been co-opted by the culture. It's living like all this world is all that matters, but in our own hearts, we find ourselves linking Christ's kingdom with this or that political party and its success

and we ride its highs and its lows when it does good. We are very high when it does bad, we are very low. We are more animated by what's happening with this or that political thing than we are by the success of Christ's kingdom in this world. We get our marching orders more from M-S-N-B-C and Fox News than we do from the scriptures.

That's forgetting who we are

when he says in the second sentence, if anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. John says this because he's a pastor, he knows people, but it's more than he knows himself. He knows his own struggles. This Is just part of living in the world.

Someone asked me uh, the other day, they said, uh, Jason, as you're preaching through first John, what, what do you think about overall? Like what is it that's kind of, and I said, oh, it's easy for me that there's one thought that constantly goes through my mind whenever I'm dealing with John as I I think about who he was and then who he became.

You remember John and the gospels, John and James are with Jesus and there's that city that wants nothing to do with Jesus and John and James, they're like, let's call down fire on this thing. Let's consume 'em all. Come on. And Jesus calls them sons of thunder. They're Angry. They they they want a pound of flesh.

A testimony of John in church history. He's the only apostle that wasn't martyred for the faith And the testimony in church history is that he was an old man and they would carry him around on a palate. There would be four men that would carry him everywhere. He would go and he would go to church and he would go back home and he would go to church and he would go back home and they would carry him through the streets and the people knew it was the apostle

John and so they would gather around this pallet as he was lifted in the air and he said the same thing over and over and over, just one thing Because He is being paraded through the streets and going from home to the church and church to home. He would just lift out his hand and he would pat them on the head and he would say, little children love one another. Little children love one another. Little children love one another.

It's An amazing transformation.

Why is it that beyond anything else is he saying? Well, at least in part it this had to be a great wrestling in his own spirit, this man, a thunder, a son of thunder and angry and ready to call down wrath and fire upon all of these people. And by the time he gets to the end of his life, he's just reminding people love one another in Christ, love one another, in Christ, love one another in Christ. He's been battling

the temptation to forget we are Gods, God's people and to think and desire and lust and act and be motivated like those around us in the world. It is a very real constant temptation, which means that you have to be constantly on guard and which means you have to fight.

You say, well that sounds exhausting. It is, it is.

But the same Christ who saved you is king and is your defender. And he says, you come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. And so you keep running to him and you hide under the shadow of his wing and he leads you besides to walers and he makes you to lie down in green pastures and you rest under his kingship. You have the greatest safety net in the universe. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.

After the day of Christ Jesus, he will not leave you. He will not forsake you. He cannot abandon you. So you rest in that and you fight.

How do you fight? One commentator said it this way, said, the one effective antidote to worldliness that is to have one's heart so filled with the father's love that it has no room for any love that is incompatible with that. Amen and amen. You're constantly running to the throne of grace. Oh Father in Christ pour out more of Christ's love my heart. Help me to live more and more in that love. Because what the love of God does is it pushes out

the things that would seek the dark things that would seek to occupy places of your hard head, makes no room for it, pushes it out, Fill me with more and more of your love and you pursue It.

So putting all this together

and John says you can't love the world or the things in the world. D does he have in mind the sunrise or the rainbow or the flower garden or your work or your car or your home or your recreation or your sports or your crafting or your son or your daughter or your grandfather or grandmother or spouse? No. Now that's not what he's speaking of.

It's not as if we believe that the things which are spiritual are actually good and the things that are physical are are somehow evil or bad. We're not doulas. You are to take enjoyment and to love things in the material world. This is my father's world, but you are not to love that which is in rebellion against your father.

Notice that the love that John speaks about here and the desires that he speaks about in verse 16 are things opposed to God and he ends verse 17, with whoever does the will of God abides forever. Another way of saying this is we want our loves and desires to be rightly ordered, to be ordered according to the person of God and the law of God. They're to be informed by him. And anything that is opposed to God or opposed to the law of God is

not a right desire, it is sin.

You say, well duh, I know that. Let me tell you this. In 20 years of pastoral ministry, I have had the same conversation with 7, 8, 9 people.

I can tell you almost what they're going to say verbatim before they say it to me because I've been around the horn enough times now

it is someone that I have had the pleasure of being their pastor and then all of a sudden they decide as a professing Christian that they are no longer happy in their marriage and they are going to divorce their spouse but they don't have biblical grounds for it.

And I have sat down with them, every single one of them across the table from them standing in a corner talking with them and I will warn them what they are doing is sin because it's not according to God's law and almost verbatim they will have the same response.

I just know I've never been closer to God than I am right now

and I know that he gave me this desire and he's okay with it and I have peace like I've never had peace about something before.

And Jeremiah says, he says, the heart is deceitful above all else and desperately sick.

You file this way because I find that when you and I are steeped in sin and we find ourselves in the midst of it, oh man, we do one of these and we close our eyes and it's like we can hear nothing. You need this sealed away in your brain right now so that it resounds if you're ever in that day, God forbid. But if you're ever in that day, if it is opposed to the law of God, it is sin. No matter what your desires say, no matter

what peace you think you have,

you need an authoritative word outside of yourself because your heart is deceitful above all elses.

God's law never deceives you. It's true. He declares what is true and right and good his will,

but it isn't just things clearly opposing God's law that is worldliness. It's placing too much emphasis upon good things. For example, it's right to desire and love good food and good drink, but that desire and that love can become inordinate. You know this and when it becomes inordinate, it becomes gluttony and it becomes drunkenness. Or maybe he's more subtle still I can have a right desire for the love of saving money.

Doesn't the proverbs say that the ant is wise because he stores up? Wasn't Joseph commended for storing up the grain and he fed all of the world by saving up and we can do this, we can say, look, I'm, I'm saving up. It's wise, it's good, it's right and it is, but not at the expense of not giving liberally to the poor and to the church and to the needy, not sharing what the Lord has given to me. It's a wrongly ordered thing.

It's a right thing wrongly ordered.

I've made an idol of it and it becomes worldliness. To put it another way, Jesus said, you cannot serve two masters. He said, for either a person will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. He said, you cannot serve God and money is money bad. No.

In its right place is food, sex is drink, it's recreation, hobbies or vacations or retirement funds or are they bad? No. He gave you good gifts to enjoy, enjoy them Rightly in the right place.

What John is concerned about is that our lives are to be centered, centered upon the one who loved us and bought us, who brought us to light. They are not to be centered upon the world that seeks to condemn us and drag us back down into the darkness with it.

And that leads to our final point, the climax verse 17.

John wants you to consider the end and the end is this, the world is passing away crazy. I mean it's truly almost the definition of insanity. How much you and I will expend ourselves on things that are not lasting and how we will forsake the things that are truly lasting in eternal for that which we know is disappearing

live in light of what lasts. John is saying two clear statements. The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever, Satan and sin and the world and temptation come to an end. They do not enjoy forever, life forever, but those who have God have life abundant. Jesus said, I came that they may have life and have life abundantly. John says it just a little later in the chapter in verse 25,

and this is the promise that he made to us. Eternal life. This is fading, it's disappearing, it's going to be gone. This is life eternal Forever.

The psalmist in Psalm 36, 9 I think says it the most poetic and beautiful of ways. He says this, he says, for with you, speaking of God, for with you is the fountain of life in your life. Do we in your light, do we see light God? God is the fountain of life.

That Is he's the wellspring of all life because in and of himself he has life and he's the fountain of life. So everything that has life, everything that promises life has to flow from him. So much of what you and I are chasing after we chase after it because it gives us some measure of life there. There's a goodness to it. There's a joy in it, there's a happiness in it. There's a pleasure in it. He's the fountain of life,

but drinking from a teaspoon when you can be swallowed up by the ocean, he, he reaches out and he says, I am the fountain of life. He who drinks for me shall never thirst.

Every good gift comes from above. Why would you not go to the giver? John is saying you keep going to the giver.

So it's being united with him, destroy drawing near to him. It's it's enjoying more of him that that there is real life, abundant life, full life, true life

and your light. We see light, abundance, blessing, everlasting happiness, delight, whoever does the will of God abides forever lives in the fullest of possible senses and light and life forever. Don't forsake that Jonas say,

Jonathan Edwards preached a, a wonderful sermon, 19th or 18th century American pastor, it's worth your time, maybe a Lord's Day afternoon to grab it and read it, take you 30 minutes. It's called Heaven is a world of love.

And in that he, he's arguing that, don't you understand that? Because he's the fountain of love. He's the fountain of life and what heaven is, as you and I get to be with the father of mercies, the father of all love, he's there

and the Son who came in love and gave himself in love for sinners upon the cross, he's there and the spirit, that very third person of the triune godhood, who is said to be love, who applies the love of God the Father and God the Son to us. He's there and he's in us and with us.

But Edwards points out it's not just the father and the son and the spirit, these three persons of the one triune Godhead. But now you're there with all of the saints who are before his throne. All of these saints who now, all those who have been in Christ, who are now perfected in love, John's little blessings of little children love one another. It's now come to full flower in heaven,

But Just love each other

but no longer be contention, but no longer be slander, But No longer be hatred or disruption.

No jealousies, no pride, just full life abiding forever, pure and free from all selfish motives, all rebellion,

and will abide forever.

Edward said it this way, he said, love in heaven is always mutual and reciprocated to the full. There's nothing to interrupt their love or to hinder the most full, imperfect enjoyment of it, full imperfect according to your capacity forever.

Now, here's what's astounding to me. The first time I began to understand this, it has never ceased to delight me, is do you understand that heaven, because it is eternal, you shall have an increasing delight and happiness and experience of the love of God and a growing experience of giving love to God and one another more and more and more and more day after day after day forever.

Why is that? Because you are finite and he's infinite.

And as you and I are in glory, we will come to an increasing understanding of him, a greater knowledge of him day after day for all of eternity. And that increasing knowledge will give us day after day for all of eternity and increasing love for him and that increasing love day after day after day will encourage an increasing experience of his love for all of eternity. Your capacity will expand Forever.

It's going from heights of love and joy and happiness and life and light to greater heights of life and light Forever.

John said, Why would you pass that up

For what's passing away

sad? Edward said, God is the highest good, the reasonable creature. God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.

Do not love the world, the things in the world. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you that you are a God of such great love.

You would love fallen sinner so much that you would send your only begotten son that we might know your love, not just today but forever.

And know Son, how we give you praise that you are willing to suffer and die for those who were created to give you glory and to a spirit. We give you praise for applying this redemption and we be a people who more and more see ourselves as pilgrims in this world and more and more set our hearts upon the world to come

living in your love, looking forward to be en raptured by your love for all eternity. And we pray all of this in the strong name of Christ Jesus, the savior of sinners. Amen.