How to Enjoy the World

We are continuing our study through 1 John. Our text this morning is 1 John 2, verses 12 through 17. As I think about this text this morning, I want to think about a question that was pressed upon me a number of years ago by A.W. Tozer. Is this world a battlefield or a playground? Is this world a battlefield or a playground? As I read this question from one of Tozer's books, it sunk deep into my soul. Because I had been trained all my life to think about this world as an opportunity to be entertained. To find how I can be amused most efficiently by the things of this world. And as I thought about the question, I realized that I looked at the world with secular eyes. I looked at the world not as a Christian in thinking about how I can use this world to glorify God. How can I use this life to glorify God? But I looked at it as a way that I can entertain myself. See, as Americans, as Sean already prayed very clearly, We have a strong tendency to amuse ourselves. We have a strong tendency to want to be entertained constantly, and the outcome of that is going to be we're going to eventually amuse ourselves to death. We're looking at the world as a place for entertainment rather than worship. Paul makes it very clear in 1 Corinthians that this is not the way we are to look at the world, he argues. If there is no resurrection, let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. If there is no resurrection, let's pursue every possible worldly pleasure. But friends, we come this morning because we believe in a resurrected Christ. We believe that we will be risen from the grave. God will raise us up. Therefore, we do not look at the world as a place to be entertained. We don't look at the world as a playground. No, we look at it as a battlefield. We look at it as a place where we're going to go in and we're going to do spiritual battle against temptation. We're going to battle for our souls. We're going to battle for each other's souls. We're going to be watchful for one another because there is always sin seeking to entice, seeking to lure us so that it can destroy us. Friends, as we look at this morning, we're going to look at how we should approach the world. Last week, we looked at how we should be intentional in loving one another. That's one of the great marks that we can have as Christians for our assurance. One of the great tasks that we can so that we know that we are believers is that we love one another. But now John's going to take our focus for being internally focused and saying, there's another way you can have assurance. And there's another way you can have fellowship with the Father and the Son. And that is how you relate to the world outside of the church. So as we continue to think about what it means to have fellowship with the Father and the Son, as we think about what it means to have assurance that we are God's children, we're going to be thinking about how we should relate to the world. And we're going to begin this section in verse 12. I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. 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 the pride and possessions 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. Our first section that we're going to look at this morning is verses 12 through 14. And you could hear the repetition already. I am writing to you, little children. I am writing to you, fathers. I am writing to you, young men. There's three groups that John or there's three different people that John appears to be addressing. Young men, fathers and children. There's parallelism here, because if you look at the first three declarations of who he's writing to, he changes the tense in the second three. But he keeps the list in the same order. And the declarations that he says are very similar. Take, for instance, the bottom of verse 13. I'm writing to you, young men, because you've overcome the evil one. He says the same thing in the second set. Look what he says about the fathers. You know him who is from the beginning. He says that to them twice. Now, this is a really odd style of writing. This is really peculiar because John just kind of goes off and starts saying, I'm writing to you, I'm writing to you, I'm writing to you. It's kind of peculiar in the rest of the letter, the rest of this writing. And it's somewhat of a, it's called some confusion because the question is, why did he go into this kind of rhetorical style of addressing the church? What is he actually trying to accomplish here? Well, I think he's accomplishing a change in focus. He's changing the focus from being internal to being external. And one of the key things he's doing here is he's reminding the believers of who they are in Christ. It's very important to keep this in mind, because the reason John is writing this letter is that false teachers had come in. And false teachers began to deny who Jesus Christ was. False teachers came in and began to deny the gospel. And false teachers undermined the assurance that these believers had in who they were in Christ. And I believe what John is doing here is he's affirming, he's reminding the believers of their identity in Christ. And it's important to do this as he transitions to the next test for assurance, because they've begun to forget. They've begun to question. Now, there's another question here. So I believe he's doing this primarily to remind them who they are. as Christians. The next question is, is he literally addressing three different groups? Is he giving one address to little children, another address to fathers, another address to young men? Beyond that, we could ask, is he speaking of physical age or is he referring to spiritual maturity? These are these are possibilities in terms of how John is writing here. Little children could be little children. young children or they could be new in the faith. Fathers could be older men or they could be the mature believers. Well, I actually don't think either one of those options really makes the text make the most sense. What I believe he's doing with the three different titles and the three different names is that it's some kind of a rhetorical device to draw attention to all the church. And the reason I believe it's not referring to every different kind of believer or every different age group, is that if you look at all the descriptions, they're really true of every believer at every age and every spiritual level of maturity, right? If you look at this, every Christian should have their sins forgiven for his name's sake, not just the little children, but the fathers and the mothers and the young men and the young women. If you look at the next one, because you know him who is from the beginning, Well, every believer has to know Jesus. It's not just the fathers, but it's the young children and the young men. So I believe what he's using, the way he's referring to the different groups is more of a rhetorical device rather than listing out specific groups. And so as believers, as the church, what we want to do is say, what is he saying about us? What is our identity? As John is stating it here, that we can understand for ourselves. Well, the first one is really the most important identity marker for who we are as Christians. He's writing to us because our sins are forgiven. For his namesake. For Christ's namesake. This is important because, well, this is the beginning of the Christian life. This is important because this is how we enter into fellowship with the Father and the Son. This is important because this is the very basis of our fellowshipping together as forgiven saints. But notice the emphasis is the fact that your sins are forgiven for his namesake. This should be very comforting for us all. God Himself has come down to save us so that we can have forgiveness in His name, the name above all names, the name that has the most authority behind it than any name in all of creation. You see, you should be comforted this morning that your position before God, your forgiveness is not in my name. My name has no authority in it. My job is simply to point you to the one true name who can forgive you. You should also find comfort that your forgiveness is not bound to your parents name. Your forgiveness is only in Jesus Christ. He has put your parents over you. for you to honor them and for them to lead you and to have authority over you, to train you up so that you are protected and presented to Christ as a believer in His name. To be comforted that there's no authority in our names. We should find comfort in that because we know that if someone tries to find authority in us, or forgiveness in us, we know that we're going to fail them. And we know that if we seek forgiveness and comfort in other people, we're going to be failed. It's easy to be trapped in and want to find that very comforting face in front of us and find authority and forgiveness in them. But no, the only comfort and true forgiveness we can have is in Christ and Him alone. Our job is to point each other to that name. Our job is to not say you are forgiven because we can't see the heart. Our job is to care for one another and love one another and point out the fruit that we do see so that we encourage one another in forgiveness. The second identity marker, not only are we forgiven for his namesake, but we know him. Again, the main purpose of the letter is for us to have fellowship with the father and fellowship with the son. Well, here, John says that we know him who is from the beginning and we know the father. I believe that Jesus is the person he's referring to when he says, we know him who is from the beginning. Look at chapter one, verse one, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. That's Jesus Christ. What John is writing is that we as believers are identified by our knowing the father and the son. And the third marker, which I think is really the focus here, a rhetorical device that he uses here is in stress. The very end of this declaration is what he's stressing. And it makes sense because of the transition. You have overcome the evil one. You have overcome the evil one, and that's obviously a reference to Satan. And that's obviously tied to the false teachers. Satan has sent in false teachers to corrupt the gospel, to corrupt the church, to corrupt their assurance. And he's writing them saying, you have overcome the evil one. Now, there's a particular way John is writing this that is important for us to understand. It's not a mere past tense. You overcame the evil one at one time. It's not a future tense. You will overcome the evil one at some future time. It's not a simple present. You are in the present act overcoming the evil one. No, it's called the perfect tense. It's referring to a state of being. It's referring to a state where we have overcome and are continuing to overcome the evil one. It would be as if I were to say, I'm going to walk out and open the door. That's a future tense. I'm going to open the door or I could look back and say, I opened the door. No, this tense is as if I went back and I was opening the door. The door is being held open so everyone can walk out. That's the tense John is using, that we are in a state and continue to be in that state where we are overcoming the evil one. That is important because what we're going to mainly focus on this morning is how we relate to the world that's led by the evil one and led by Satan. But before we get there, let's look at the very end stress because he adds something to you have overcome the evil one. He says, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you. I think this is a very intentional addition. I think it's a very intentional stress that the way we overcome the evil one is by having the word of God abide in us. If we are being tempted, if we are being strained, if we are being crushed or feel like we're destroyed by the evil one and his temptations, the way to overcome that is to abide in his word, to let the word of God abide in us. It's just like Jesus did. Whenever he was tempted, he countered the temptation with the Word of God. That's a model for us. If we're living in this world, we will feel crushed by Satan at times. We will feel crushed by the temptation of this world at times. And in those deep moments of feeling crushed, the way to experience the state of overcoming the evil one is to look to Scripture. Look to the Word of God who has become incarnate. Look to what He's accomplished for us. Look to the fact that our temptation should not overwhelm us with guilt, but our temptation has been forgiven by Christ in His death and resurrection. So, friends, our identity, Based upon verses 12 through 14 is the fact that we have been forgiven. We know the Father. We know the Son. And we are overcoming the evil one. And again, the importance of this transition is that he is beginning to talk about how we're going to relate to the evil one. And it's very clear in verse 15. Do not love the world or the things in the world. Very simple, clear command. Do not love the world or the things in the world. But I think some terms need to be defined to properly and best understand this. What does John refer to when he says the world? Well, one option is he could be referring to the created cosmos. He could be referring to the world as the earth and the sea and the mountains and the trees and everything God created. Well, I don't think that's a possible interpretation of what the word world means in this context, because later on he's going to say everything from the world is not from the Father. But the created world, well, it's from the Creator. It's from the Father. He's not referring to all the temporal, physical things that God has created. No, he's referring to something else. He's referring to the rebellious order of men who oppose God, His goodness, and His purpose. The word world here, I believe, refers to the rebellious order of men who oppose God, His goodness, and His purpose. Flip over to 1 John 5.19. We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. You see that contrast. Now, I believe in a very sovereign God. I believe in a God who has only created this entire world, but He has His hand constantly sustaining it, controlling it, and holding it up in existence. So John can't be referring to that kind of world here that lies in the power of the evil one. No, I believe he's referring to the sinful order of us. I believe what the word world here means And John's typical usage of it is it's not the physical planet, but it's our rebellion against God. It's our wanting to throw off His authority, wanting to deny His goodness and wanting to deny His purpose. Other texts where you see Satan leading the world are John 12, 31. in John 14, 30. These are texts where you can clearly see that John, when he uses the word world, it's a sinful, rebellious order because Satan is leading it. Let's just pause there for a second and think about John 3, 16. If he uses the word world in John 3, 16, think about what that means. God so loved all of us who are in absolute rebellion against Him. That's sweeter, isn't it? It's not just this world that He created, but it's us who have our fist up against Him. It's us who say, I don't want Your authority on my life. God loves us who are opposing Him. So much that He sent His Son to die for us, to rise again, to give us hope. So, to think about it as we love the world, we have to realize we're that world. Our hearts are naturally inclined to oppose God and His goodness and His purpose. Our sinful tendency to rebellion puts us in the world at some level because we were opposed to God until He brought and shared His love for us. That's when we're transferred from the domain of darkness and into His kingdom of light. What does it mean to not love the world? What does it mean to not love the rebellious order of man who opposes God, his goodness and his purposes? Well, last week we said love in the church is intentionally willing the good of another. It's pursuing intentionally others for their own well-being, thinking of others as more important than ourselves. Well, the word love here has the same basic meaning, but obviously the application has to change somewhat because the clear Affection of love is contrasted between you're either going to love the world or you're going to love God. Here, you have to intentionally set your mind and your affections either upon the rebellious order of God, or you're going to do it your way and for your own entertainment and for your own amusement, or you're going to set your affections and your purposes and value God. Above all else. See, our hearts are little idle factories. Our hearts are always wanting to look out and rebel against God and make something more important than Him. Our hearts are always wanting to find something else to worship. Primarily us. And that's why John tells the Christians to not love the world. Because when you're giving your love to the world, you're not giving it to God, who is the only proper recipient of our highest affection, of our highest value, of our highest purpose. So, the command is clear. Do not love the world. Do not seek to participate in the rebellion against God and His goodness and His purpose. And then I believe John gives us three reasons why we should not love the world. The first one continues in verse 15. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. There's a clear contrast. It's an either or. You can't love God and the world. Your hearts weren't created like that. Your being wasn't created to share your affections. It's just like you weren't created to have multiple spouses. You can't love two people with your highest purpose and your highest value. But here the contrast is loving God or that which opposes God. If you love the world, you have no room in your heart to love God. And if you love God, you're removing all that space in your heart that you've been using to love the world. You see, we only have room for one true love. And our hearts are complicated because there is always that sin that remains in us that's trying to throw out the love for God and build up a love for ourselves. But the Christian duty is to always be seeking to cast out a love for the world so that you let in the love for God. If you want to grow in your love for God, if you see this text and you're convicted, how am I supposed to stop loving the world that's always around me and enticing me and bringing me into submission to being entertained and amused? The way to do that, the way to grow in your love for God is to repent. The way to grow in your love for God is to repent of your love for specific ways you're loving this world. You see, when you draw out, when you've drowned out the earthly love that's inside of you, you draw in the divine love. You have to make room We have to make room in our idol factories to get rid of all the love for other things, so the love of God can come in and be manifested and change the way we live, change what we value, change what we do, change the way we think, change the way we relate to one another. Now, when we repent, we have to be intentional of casting out a love for the world and putting back in a love for God. We have to be intentional in casting out love for other amusements that we entertain ourselves with, that are sinful. We have to be intentional in putting back in a love for God, because if you do not replace a love for the world with a love for God, you're going to end up replacing the love for the world with another kind of perverse love for yourself. You're going to become self-righteous. You're going to replace a left of the world with a legalism that builds yourself up and says, look what I don't do anymore. I'm going to begin judging all those people who continue to live that way. You see, it has to be an intentional desire and affection for who God is and what He's done for you. Because if all you're doing is stop doing one sinful practice, you're just going to think, how great am I? How silly those other human beings are that continue to do those things. As we think about the love for God, we have to realize that this is a battleground, but we always have to realize that this life, this created order is meant to be an opportunity to worship. You see, if we think about everything God has created, it's supposed to be used to worship Him. It's supposed to be used to love Him. The perverse, sinful heart switches that around. We like to try to use God so that we can enjoy something else. That's idolatry. That's making whatever it is you're using God for more important than God. But friends, the way to understand this world, the created world, not the simple rebellion, the way to understand this life that God has created us for is that He has given us good gifts and they are to be used to love Him. He is the ultimate end of our affections. Now, friends, as we've talked about what it means to love God and not love the world, I pray the Spirit is stirring your affections. I pray the Spirit is convicting. But do not be overwhelmed. We can look back in 1 John 1 and see that if we are faithful to confess, he is faithful to forgive. What we should do is we realize that we are really overwhelmed constantly with things of the world. It should help us understand we're just dependent upon God. The more we're overwhelmed with a love for the world, the more we should be overwhelmed with an absolute dependence upon Christ, His work, and the Spirit's work inside of us. A very practical application of this is to talk about those things that you love so much that are opposed to God. Find other faithful brothers and sisters that you can freely talk about these things with. and that you know that they will minister the gospel to you. They will remind you of the great forgiveness you have in Christ for those things you love. And they can begin holding you accountable for those things. The second reason that we're not to love the world is that the things that make up the world are not from the Father. You see, the Father is the good God, the Father of light, who gives His children only good and perfect gifts. Look at verse 16. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride and possessions is not from the Father, but is from the world. The Father gives His children good gifts. The Father gives all of creation good gifts. But we, in our sinfulness, take those good gifts and instead of using them to worship the Father, we use them to worship ourselves. We use them for our own end and our own purposes instead of looking at them and considering the way God has intended them. Let's look at the three things that are in the world that John lists. The desires of the flesh. Now this is obviously referring to physical pleasures. This is kind of the motto, if it feels good, do it, or its predecessor, let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. We have to realize that all these physical things that God has created, they are meant to be enjoyed. They are meant to be enjoyed according to God's purposes. The desires of the eyes. I believe this is the sinful inquisitiveness that we can have. We look at the world and we may see a lifestyle that we don't have, and the lust of the eyes is desiring that lifestyle that God has not blessed us with. It could be wanting a particular thing and not having it, but lusting after it because you see it and it looks good and you want it. And so you have a sinful, selfish desire to have it. It's looking into the things of the world and wishing you had the things of the world, that you're experiencing the world in a way that God has not blessed you with. This sin is clearly seen in Eve. When Satan was tempting her, she looked at the apple and said, it is good to eat. The promise of Satan looked good to her. She could be as wise as God. This is the lust of the desires of the eyes. We lust over the things we see and we have a wrong desire for them. Finally, pride and possessions. This is just accumulating as much as we can in life and saying, look at me and the mountain I get to stand upon as king. It's building yourself up based upon what you've accumulated or what you've done. Now, all three of these things are rebellion. There are different kinds of rebellion against God because He has given us physical pleasures to enjoy. He's given us food to eat. But we can abuse that food by being gluttonous. We can abuse that food in what a proper setting after Thanksgiving. And I've confessed I've eaten five Thanksgiving meals to address this. We can abuse food. We can fill ourselves with gluttony. Or there's another kind of gluttony that C.S. Lewis mentions, and it's always wanting the best, smallest portion. See, there's a gluttony that says, I'm going to eat everything I can and fill myself until I'm overstuffed. Or there's a kind of gluttony that says, I want just the smallest sliver. So you think you're not a glutton, but I want it to be the best thing I can possibly taste. See, it's trying to find too much satisfaction and joy in something God has given us. It's perverting the good gift of God. A friend of mine just recently reminded me of this analogy from Ravi Zacharias. Imagine there's a young lady and she receives a diamond ring from her boyfriend. Obviously, she's become engaged. And it's a beautiful diamond ring. It's what she always desired and wanted in an engagement ring. And as time goes on, she keeps looking at that ring and people keep complimenting that ring and how good it looks on her finger. And what she begins to do is love the ring and she loses love for her fiancé. She begins to be so infatuated with the rock on her finger that she begins to forget The token of love that it is, and the love that she once had for the man, and the love that the man has for her. You see, that's the perversion of the gift. It completely corrupts the gift. It completely corrupts the whole purpose of the goodness of the gift. That's what we do to our bridegroom. That's what we do to Jesus Christ, our bridegroom. He gives us good gifts. And instead of keeping our eyes on Him and thanking Him for the gifts, we quickly get enticed to keep our eyes on the temporal and the physical and get overwhelmed with those gifts instead of being thankful for the giver. One particular gift God has given us is intimacy in marriage. God has given us the gift of sex. It is a gift God gave to a man and a woman to enjoy and experience and delight in in his proper boundaries between a man and a woman in matrimony. It's an amazing gift because it builds up an intimacy that you only share with one person in this world. And it's an amazing gift because it allows you to participate in the creative action of God. It helps you It's the means of procreation. And while it can be one of the greatest gifts to enjoy properly, it's one of the worst abuse gifts. We live in a very sexually charged age. We flaunt sexuality and promiscuity. It's to the point where you can't even watch an afternoon football game without having to turn the TV off if your children are in the room. What we have to be thinking of constantly is how we take these good gifts and how we need to make sure we're protecting ourselves from being enticed to abusing these good gifts and using them to glorify the Creator. Now, let me speak to the young children particularly here. You will have the desire of the eyes to look into these things. You will have the desire for the eyes to look into things that your parents are protecting you from. And a wise child will trust your parents. A wise child will trust that they are protecting you from something you do not need to experience. And you do not need to wonder, what are these things? The wise child will protect their greatest treasure. The wise child will protect that thing that they can never have back again. And that is their innocence and their purity. The wise child will love their parents because they turn the TV off and tell them to turn their head and tell them not to wonder about these things. The wise child will see their purity and their innocence as something to protect with all of their strength and all of their might. That is your gift. It is your treasure. I pray that you will not be like your pastor who lived as a foolish young man. I did not learn not to look into these things and not to be inquisitive about these things from Scripture. I learned the hard way by jumping in and trying to find out about these things. Let me tell you, your innocence and your purity, you never get it back. And you can be forgiven for breaking God's laws. You can be forgiven. For losing your innocence, and I praise God for that. But I think the way to become the most worshipful, the way to love God with all of your heart and all of your strength and all of your might is to keep your purity. Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Protecting that purity allows you to experience God in a way that I cannot. I believe Jesus is saying, my purity has been renewed to me, but there's consequences ongoing because of my foolish decisions. Children, do not be foolish. Honor your mother and father. Protect your hearts. Protect your eyes. Another thing God has given us that we need to be mindful of and protecting is money. This is a good gift from God that we can use for His glory and to love Him with, but it's also something that completely corrupt us. I was given a small portion of money that I put in the stock market before it crashed. I never worried about it before it crashed, but after it crashed, I looked at the stock market every day in the name of good stewardship. And after looking at it every day, I could tell my heart loved that money and longed to receive that money I lost in the stock market back. Instead of just being money I let sit there, I became so obsessed with it. I loved it. It's guarding your heart and guarding your actions because the things of this world will creep in and destroy you. Finally, the last reason we should not love the world is verse 17, and the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does, the will of God abides forever. Well, we know that the world is passing away because there's so many passages. One, 1 Corinthians 15 says that when Jesus comes back, he's going to finally put an end to the rebellious order and he's going to renew all things. Now, the question is, how should that affect us now? We need to realize that if we are living our life, investing in pleasures that are merely temporary, we're going to suffer a judgment that is forever. If our purpose and love is only for this world and seeking out the temporary pleasures, the judgment upon us is going to be eternal. But if we look to heaven, if we look at the good gifts of God and we think about how we can use them to glorify God and love God, then the promise is sure. Whoever does the will of God abides forever. Friend, we can look at this world as a playground, as a place to be amused. And we'll amuse ourselves to death. Or we can look at this world as a battleground where our souls are always being tempted. Our life is always in danger. I think the latter is the best of the two options. What I really think we should do is look at this world as an arena for worship. This world is an arena for worship because every good gift can be used for selfish purposes, or every gift can be used to love God. Will you pray with me? Almighty God, we come before you, your children that you have poured out your love upon, even though we are rebellious against you. Lord, I pray that we would put down our fist. We would open up our hearts and we would allow your love to come in us again in a new way, in a powerful way to clean out all of the love that we have accumulated for this world. Help us, Lord, to have full assurance. by repenting, by casting out every enticement that takes us away from You. Help us, Lord, build up a love that seeks only You and treasures the steadfast love that You've poured out upon us. In Your name we pray, Amen.