Loving God more than the world

Today's study in 1 John chapter 2 is titled, I titled it, Loving God More Than the World, and my hope for us is that we leave this room today inspired to love God more than the world. After facing our greatest problem in life last week, that God is holy, he is pure, he is light, in him is no darkness at all, and that we have sin and we do sin, which dwells in the darkness and separates us from God. Our answer was stepping into the light, walking in the light with confession of sins where we gain cleansing and forgiveness, and remember we said that only happens in the light, there is no cleansing in the darkness, only in the light. And so now lest we think that sin is just a business as usual part of our life, this is our job, we sin, God forgives, this chapter is going to turn us toward that conversation of obedience, love and obedience. So let's start right in with verse 1, my little children I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, he is the perpetuation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And we have to stop because those verses almost finish up our conversation from chapter 1 and we want to look at those two key words, propitiation and advocate. I first met the word propitiation as a young girl in Sunday school and I heard one of my classmates reciting a verse that had that word in it, and I can remember just sort of throwing up my hands like, I give up, if the Bible is about words like this I can't do it, it's too much. Because it is a Sunday school-ish word isn't it, it's a churchy word, but look at here we are studying 1st John so we have to identify what do these churchy words mean, what is propitiation? And hopefully you looked it up and investigated but what I want to bring is that the word simply means an appeasement, a satisfaction. And so when Jesus is the propitiation of our sins it means that he appeases the wrath of God that is due us because of our sin, he satisfies that. No person could accomplish that because we have sin and we do sin, but Jesus the Son of God who is fully God and fully man is the only one who could appease that penalty for our sin and he basically assumed our obligation, he assumed our debt, like maybe you would assume someone's debt, you assume their car loan and now that debt belongs to you, you have taken it upon yourself. Maybe that's another way to look at it. And then our relationship with God has changed and we see we have an advocate with the Father because of that. The NIV puts it very clear, one who speaks in our defense. So we can be forgiven, cleansed because we have an advocate who speaks in our defense to the Father and says remember I assumed that debt, it's on me and I've paid the penalty. And those are two great themes that we could develop and really enjoy but we have lots of verses and so we need to move on don't we? Again I want to bring what we're doing today in connection with the title of our whole Bible study. We opened this letter last week with the concept of light, walking in the light, and today we're going to talk a lot about love, walking in love which is demonstrated through obedience, light and love. Verse 3 says, by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. And these are the kind of verses that we need to read and write and meditate on because we live in a Christian climate that says things like you know what it's not about rules it's about relationship and I've probably said that maybe you've said that it is true in itself but when you read these verses if you just settle on these verses don't you come to the conclusion you know I think it's about rules and relationship I think it's about both of them this is what John is talking about and good theology tells us that keeping rules doesn't save us that doesn't mean they're not important that doesn't mean we discard them completely just because it doesn't bring us our salvation and I use the word rules but I'm using it interchangeably with law or commandments John's choice here is commandments and so look at the three ways that he's saying the same thing don't you love that about John is that he makes everything clear by saying it another way so verses three four and six we know him if we keep his commandments verse four anyone says I know him but doesn't keep his commandments is lying and whoever says I abide in him ought to walk in the way in which he walked so here we are children of God who have taken full advantage of the propitiation for our sins we don't have the option of just simply ignoring the commandment part so I want to review while we're talking about this word I want to review what we've talked about before in our Bible studies about the commandments that the commandments of God reveal to us God's character they show us what he is like they show us what he loves they show us what he hates if you want to know what God loves and what he hates we can do a study on the law because it shows his character if we love God we should love what he loves right this makes sense it is logic so verse 6 tells us we ought to walk in the same way in which he walked meaning Jesus how did Jesus walk well he walked in such a way that it showed he loved the commands of God I want to show you a verse from John 14 31 Jesus says

and then in Matthew 5 17 Jesus said

so I kind of feel like in our day the word commandment has gained kind of a bad rap a little bit we feel so liberated from rules in our day so as to think that if you're following God's rules you're being legalistic and I think the Gnostics also had a they thought obedience was overrated too they had new and secret knowledge which John didn't want his readers to think that he was bringing something new to them so when he picks up here in verse 7 he says beloved I'm writing to you no new commandment but an old commandment that you had from the beginning the old commandment is the word that you have heard and his Jewish listeners would have heard the Word of God from their youngest of days they would have sung those things they would have memorized him they would have heard him over and over and John is making the link this is nothing new this is from the beginning verse 8 says at the same time it is a new commandment that I'm writing to you which is true in him and in you that's the new part because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining and so now these next verses bring us to a for example here whoever says he's in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness whoever loves his brother abides in the light and in him there's no cause for stumbling but whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he's going because the darkness has blinded his eyes and the darkness is a dangerous place for us to be isn't it all right now these five verses to me seemed very very much to represent a similarity to the five verses that we ended on last week if you say if you say all those they're the kind of repetitious and last week we had the analogy that God is to light as sin is to darkness and these verses the cycle around this time in this these verses John narrows it a little bit and we have love is to light as hate is to darkness these black-and-white statements of John verses 9 and 10 those who hate their brother still in darkness those who love their brother are abiding in the light you gotta love how clear it is now I feel like that these statements are both a command for us and a barometer of our love for God. So we ask ourselves the question, do you have a believer in your life that just gets under your skin? You don't love them. Maybe you wouldn't say that you hate them, and so you want the gray. You're looking for the gray. Where do my feelings fit in between? But you dislike them enough for this verse to make you uncomfortable. We said that we weren't going to correct John and say well what he meant to say was, but let's also hold in tension another Bible truth that we know from Philippians, that God who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. We are not completely transformed and completely sanctified all at one time in our life. We're growing in transformation. So if you don't love somebody, that doesn't mean you're not saved. That means that God is working on you through this Bible study for transformation, to grow you. Now the converse is true, that if we continue to hate a person without any real transformation, even progress, then we continue to walk in darkness. And remember what we learned about forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn't happen in the darkness. The darkness is where people stumble, where they are blinded. It's dangerous. They run into things. Forgiveness only happens in the light. So if we're not making progress and transformation, we are in the darkness, and we should take note of that. It's a dangerous place to be relationally, emotionally, and spiritually. But knowing Jesus means walking in the light, obeying his commandments, and his commandments are summarized in the law of love. And the four example here we have is loving our brothers and sisters. Now I want to stay focused on love, and so I'm gonna skip this poem form that's in verses 12 to 14. We talked about it in the study guide. I want to scoot right down to verses 15 to 17 to read next, which says, 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's in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes, the 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. All right, so let's define what the world means here in this context. And I'm just gonna say that it means that fallen and yet still enticing system of man or way of life that works against God's kingdom. Now note here that John didn't talk about our actions in these verses, these three verses that we read, like we talked about last week, if you say or if you do. He didn't yet talk about our actions. He's pointing us to look at what do you love. He's pointing us to look at what comes before our actions, okay? He says, do not love the world. In other words, John is saying, do you love the world? He's saying, if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. He's saying, how much do you love the Father? See, it's all about what's in our heart first, what's inside of us. Not so much about what we do, because you know what? We eventually do what we love. Is that not a truth in our life? Whatever we love, that's what we're going to eventually do. So what is so enticing about this way of life that works against God's kingdom? And John gave three phrases. The first one was, he talked about the desires of the flesh. And this is our body's desires to be comfortable, to be the pleasure of food, the pleasure of sex, the pleasure of being pain-free. Basically, all things sensual, having to do with our senses. He talked about the desire of the eyes, those things that represent beauty or luxury to us, and the material goods, the things that we want to surround ourselves in, put ourselves in that place that make us feel awesome. And then the pride of life. And pride is a key here. It's that infatuation with the idea that I can direct my own course aside from what God has already told me. The idea that I can be the queen of my own universe. That I can draft my own rules for living. That is the pride of life. And pride of life desires independence from God. It desires control. And eventually it can blind us to dealing with our sins. Now, it can be a problem for us to love food, love comfort, love material goods, love money, all that. But I think at the end of the day, it's that nasty pride of life that takes us down. Or maybe it's what God wants us to settle on this month as we're going through this. Maybe this is a focus just for our women and for our group here. And so what I want to do is I want to take that phrase, the pride of life, and I want to substitute a word in there. And that's the word control. The pride of being in control over my life. Do you love control? Are you a control freak? I have said that about myself because it is true at times. Do you hate not being in control in a situation? And does this question put a different spin on that passage? And you know, maybe this has been a familiar passage to you. Maybe you were even in our Genesis study when we got to Genesis chapter 3 and we saw the clear link between Eve's actions and exactly what it is that John is pointing out to us, that Eve saw with her eyes that the fruit was good and that she believed it would satisfy her flesh. But what really took her down was that she crafted her own set of rules against what God had already told her. It was that pride of life, the thinking that she could take control and it would work out better or best. And so maybe you've all reprocessed this and so you've determined in your in your heart, like, I am NOT supposed to love the world. Like, I am NOT, I need self-control over the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh and no pride of life. And you've probably began, if you've done that, to think like I had a younger sister that when Christmas time came she confused the words of O come all ye faithful joyful and try not to. And sometimes that's how we live it as Christians. I'm supposed to be joyful and I'm supposed to try not to. I don't think it works very good. But it's not so much saying no to the world as it is saying yes to God. It is more of a replacement than applying the self control. And John's bringing us to face what we love here. We got to love something. We were created to love something. That's how God made us. So I look at myself in the mirror of these verses and if I realize as I look at this, I love independence. I love empowerment. I love control over my life. Then I have to come to the conclusion I'm in a love affair with the things of the world. That's where my affections are set and I'm in danger. But what I need to do is turn my back on that love affair and I need to turn to a greater love. Not just self-control saying no no no no no. Replacement. Replacing it with a greater love and purposefully cultivating that love. You know love isn't an emotion that we fall into as much as it is a decision. If you've been married longer than about a day you know that. So what's my process here if I want to substitute my love affair with the world with a greater love? The process is my mind informs me of the gospel that I know to be true. What Jesus has done for me. And then my will deliberately says I will set my affection on that. And then I make a choice to love God through Jesus and give him control over my life. God does and always has wanted love from us. Is that something you've thought of recently? God wants you to love him. He wants you to love him. I want to show you from Deuteronomy 10, 12, and 13. And by the way there are seven places in Deuteronomy where it says love the Lord your God in different sorts of conversations. And this is just the one and I chose that I liked best. And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all of his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul, and to keep his commandments and statutes. Why do we do that? Jesus told us. That's how we prove our love for the Father. Jesus followed because he said, that way the world will know that I love the Father. Well, we all start out wanting control if this conversation makes you feel uncomfortable, just know we all started there. Every two-year-old displays the fact that we want control over our own life, how it's gonna go, when it's gonna go, who's gonna serve me, all of that. So we remember that we're not summoning self-control here to try not to love the world, but we need to replace the love affair that we have with the world with a greater love. And as we focus on our love for, our honor of, our desire for, our worship of Jesus, and we turn our eyes to him, the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. But it's a decision to turn our eyes away from the world toward Jesus. All right, two more sections to go. I called them beware of what is false and hold on to what is true. And verse 18 says, children, it is the last hour, and as you've heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come, therefore we know that it is the last hour. And the phrase last hour is similar to last days, meaning the church age, and the church age will be marked by Antichrist teaching. It will never stop. Throughout the church age, we will, in the last hour, we will always have those who are teaching things that are opposed to Christ. So what is characteristic of the false teachers that John is talking about? In verse 19, first it says, they went out from us, and we'll skip down to verse 22. It says, who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? That's characteristic. It is the Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son also, or has the Father also. And so we learn that false teachings usually center, almost always center on the person and the work of Jesus Christ. John said the Antichrist denies that Jesus is the Christ. So we can learn from this. It's dangerous, it's heartbreaking, and it's very common. In our church circles, in the greater church, there are philosophies of ministry, and there are styles of worship, and there are teachings about end times, and baptism, and things like that, that we can minimize, and not make a big deal of, and say, hey, we're still in fellowship. The teaching of the work and the person of Jesus Christ is not one of those things. There can be no minimizing, no compromise whatsoever on that point. And since that's the case, let's quickly go through it. The person of Christ. And you could grab our church's statement of faith and read through this, but I'll just in 15 seconds say that Jesus is the word of life, with God in the beginning, creator of all that exists. When the time had fully come, he was born of woman, born under law, manifest as the exact representation of God, yet fully man in order to be the propitiation of our sins. Just no compromise there. And then because of this revelation, and what we know about Jesus Christ, it is impossible for someone to say, oh, I believe in God, I just don't believe that Jesus is the son of God. That is an impossibility, and we should be warned about that because look at what we studied. No one who denies the son has the father, who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah. This seems like a real theological study. It is, but hey, you guys, we're moms, we're sisters. We need to have this dialed in, in our mouth, standing with the word of God in our mouth so that we know, and when we hear an anti-Christ teaching, we say, uh-uh, no, no, no, I know what the Bible teaches. How about the work of Christ? What Jesus accomplished on the cross by shedding his blood for the remission of sins is the only means of salvation to allow us to be acceptable to the father, and this was revealed from the beginning. It is not new knowledge, okay? This was revealed even before the sacrificial law came, when God said, take that Passover lamb, sacrifice it, put the blood over the doorpost, and if you trust in me, the angel of death will pass over, and even before the exodus, when God told Abraham to take his son, whom he loved, and to take him up to Mount Moriah to begin to show this demonstration or this drama of what God the Father would do with his real son, and then even before Abraham, when God came and he sacrificed an animal to cover the sins of Adam and Eve, there was only one way for things to happen, and this is from the beginning. The work of Christ is something that they had heard from the beginning, which was manifest to them at that point, and they saw, oh, I get it. I see everything that our scriptures pointed us to, that we can't appease God by anything that we do. We can't appease him by our obedience. We can't do it by our sacrifice. We can't do it by extra credit social work. There's nothing that's gonna cause him to say, now, look at you, that's awesome. I'll let you get in on your own. You don't have to believe in Jesus because you're awesome. There's nothing. It is only the propitiation of our sins. All right, so I wanna move on to the very last point, which is hold on to what is true, and we'll start in verse 20. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and no lie is of the truth. And now in these final verses, just be listening for this word abide. We hold on by abiding, verse 24. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he has made to us, eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you, but the anointing that you've received from him abides in you. This is the truth that the Holy Spirit puts in us when we receive Christ. And you have no need that anyone should teach you something new. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him. And now little children, abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink back from him in shame at his coming. Did you hear the very clear message? We're supposed to abide in him. He made the point. John makes the point, I love it. We are supposed to abide in him and make sure that he abides in us, both the knowledge about the person and the work of Jesus and the anointing by his spirit. So I wanna use that word abiding as kind of a summary banner over everything that we went over in this chapter and ask four questions. Does your abiding in Christ show through your obedience to his commands? Does your abiding in Christ show by how you love your brothers and sisters? Does your abiding in Christ grow to love God more than you love the world? And does your abiding in Christ show as you uphold the truth of the person and the work of Jesus? And then I just wanna end with three personal questions related to the things that we studied. Question number one, so as we studied God's commands, what command came to mind that you sort of just wanted to sweep under the rug? Or like what happens like you see it coming down the grocery aisle and so you just kind of turn around, go the other way, I don't have time to talk right now. Just wanna kind of ignore this command right now. God is stirring up transformation in your life in that area. Number two, who is that sister or brother that gets under your skin? And you wouldn't admit that you hate her, but you might say you don't love her and you know it because you avoid her. God is stirring up transformation in your life. And the last one, how are you gonna choose to love Jesus more than the world this week, to grow your affection for Christ and lessen your affection for the world that you live in? God is stirring up transformation in your life through this. Lord, we invite you to stir up that transformation. Lord, the last thing we want is to be recipients of the propitiation. for our sins, and then not walk in your commands, and not grow, not grow to love you, and to display our love by the things that we do. So as difficult as it may seem or painful, we invite you to do that work in our lives, do that work in our hearts, and Lord, we ask you for the power in our lives to be obedient. Lord, in the power to love you, our heart's desire is to fix our eyes upon you and to love you, and Lord, sometimes we're just at a loss. We don't even know what that means, but you can show us. You can show us what it means, and so we just stand here and ask you, Lord, help us to love you more, love you more this week than we did before, and then, of course, to show it through the things that we do. We commit this in Jesus' name, amen.