The following message is a presentation of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where we're proclaiming the sufficiency of Scripture for church and family life. More information about the NCFIC is available at www.ncfic.org. It's always a great honor to be with you. If you'd open your Bibles with me please to 1 John chapter 2. The first epistle of John 2, and would you please stand with me as we read the Word of God together?
We're going to read verses 15 through 17. 1 John 2, verses 15 through 17. Let us give our close attention, let's give our hearts attention to the Word of God. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world, and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Amen. Let's pray. Holy and righteous Father we come into thy presence pleading that Thy mighty Spirit would attend the preaching of Thy word, that it might bring Thee glory, that it might draw the lost unto Thee, and that it might be used of Thy Spirit to sanctify Thy people.
And may it all be to the glory and in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Please be seated. Christ-centered Spirit wrought, Christ-centered, Spirit-wrought, Word-informed Holiness is a beautiful thing that reflects the holy character of God, our sovereign creator and redeemer. From the very first song recorded in Scripture, who is like thee, glorious and holiness to John's heavenly vision of six-winged beasts that never stop saying, holy, holy, holy Lord God almighty, the entire Bible bears abundant witness to God's majestic, breathtaking holiness.
And this thrice holy God commands us through Peter, as he which hath called you is holy so be ye holy in all manner of conversation or lifestyle behavior because it is written Be ye holy, for I am holy. If we profess a holy God, we must pursue a holy life. The sacred text that we have just read presents perhaps the greatest roadblock to believers on the highway to holiness the love of the world but what is the love of the world in order to answer this question, we must first consider the context in which John gives this command. Love, not the world. May the God of light grant us much light as we consider 1 John's context.
In chapter 1 verses 1 through 4 of John's first letter, John begins by claiming his authority as an apostle. He was an eyewitness of the Word of Life, the Blessed Lord Jesus Christ. John testified, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. And he did this so that his readers would join him in fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Now there is no greater experience for the child of God then in verse 5 John proclaims the message that is central to the entire letter.
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. This metaphor of light refers to God's beautiful, dazzling, blinding holiness. And in verses 6 through 10, the apostle describes the believer's life as walking in the light, as He is in the light. And this means living a life that reflects and bears witness to God's radiant holiness. In chapter 2 verses 1 and 2, The apostle then declares his reason for writing, that ye sin not.
And then he adds a gracious pastoral comfort. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. John then explains in verses 3 through 6 that obedience to God's commandments is evidence that one truly knows God. Disobedience is not the cause of salvation, it is the result of salvation. It is evidence that someone is alive and walking in the light.
John then reminds his readers in verses 7 through 11 that Christ's old and new commandment to love our Christian brothers and sisters is another evidence of walking in the light or as Robert Law said in his wonderful book, The Tests of Life, John has given us an epistle that is indeed filled all the way through with the tests of life, whether or not we are alive in the Savior. Finally, in verses 12 through 14, John encourages his little children in the faith, both fathers and young men, by assuring them that they know God, that they are strong in the Word, and that they have overcome the wicked one. Now having delivered the message of God's bright, shining holiness, and having described living in holiness, and having assured Christ's people of the soundness of their walk, John gives the first commandment in his epistle, love not the world. He does so because loving the world stands in direct opposition to the God who is light. It stands in direct opposition to walking in the light.
May the Lord Jesus Christ, our beloved Redeemer, help us as we unfold our inspired and infallible text by answering three questions. Having looked at the context, we want to know what does it mean to love the world? Secondly, what are the elements of loving the world? And finally, number three, what is God's conclusion? Or what is John's conclusion about loving the world?
So let us answer first, what does it mean to love the world? Inspired by the Holy Spirit, John commands God's children, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. To understand this, we must first define the word love and the word world. We do not have the time to discuss the several ancient Greek words that translate our English love. However, the word John uses usually refers to the love of persons to other persons, as in chapter 2, verse 10.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light. Now, this is a love that is drawn out of the heart by the preciousness of the object, which is usually another person. It is a love of concern. It is a love of compassion, of affection, of intimate fellowship. That is why the New Testament writers generally use it as love for God or love for God's people.
However, sometimes things can be the object of this love, such as the world. In this sense, the same Greek word means to like something on the basis of a high regard, a high regard for its value or its perceived importance. So it implies taking pleasure in something, prizing it above other things, being unwilling to part with it, being unwilling to abandon it for something else. The Puritan Theophilus Gale put it this way, to rest contented and satisfied in any object so as not to seek out for anything else in point of happiness in other words you're fixing your heart and your mind on something because you believe it will make you happy. This is the love that John prohibits.
Do not fix your affections of your heart on this world for your satisfaction and happiness. Do not fix the affections of your heart on this world for your satisfaction and happiness." So what does John then mean by world? Biblical authors use the word world in several ways, and John uses it more than any other New Testament writer. In fact, more than all other New Testament writers combined. Not only does he use it frequently, he seems to use it in at least five ways.
Sometimes John uses the word to mean the universe, the planet we live on, the natural sphere of human existence, believers, and lost humanity in its hatred for and opposition to God and Christ. The last definition is what John has in mind. The God-hating system that stands against God, against His Son, and against His will. In John 15, 18, Jesus spoke of the world this way if the world hate you if the world hate you you know that it hated me before it hated you John vividly describes the magnitude of the depravity of this evil system and he puts it this way, the whole world lieth in wickedness. That is, fallen mankind without Christ lies under the power of Satan.
So by the world, John means the evil system that arises from lost mankind under the power of Satan and all the ways in which it stands in opposition to God. We must not love this. As Robert Law says, it is the mass of unbelieving and unspiritual men, The social organism of evil. This wicked system is the domain of Satan and its religions, philosophies, ideas, entertainments, goals, desires, fashions, and pleasures which originate from radically depraved hearts. And It is by nature utterly hostile to Jesus Christ his lordship and His will And we can add to that his people If you are faithful to Christ the world is not going to love you.
Christ says so. That's alright, because if the world hates us, it is good evidence we are walking with our Savior who has conquered this world. To prize this world, to highly value it, to make its customs your laws, your fashion or its fashion, the way you guide your life, to set your affections upon it, is what John means when he says walking in darkness. This is life dominated by our senses. This is life dominated by our desires.
And this is simply the everyday life lived by average people who do not know Christ. This is what life without Christ looks like. Now I want to consider what loving the world does not mean. John is not forbidding us to love God's creation. He made it and it is good.
And the Scriptures tell us we may enjoy it. Of course, not above the Creator. Neither is He forbidding us to love the souls of lost people. John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. But now is John contradicting himself?
No. God loves men, women, and children, Jew and Gentile, old and young, healthy and sick, rich and poor, out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation, in order to save them through the person and work of the crucified and resurrected Lord of glory, Jesus Christ. Certainly we may and must love the lost person's soul and tell him, tell her of Christ, call them to him. So then let's consider what loving the world is. If we've understood these definitions at all, then loving the world means setting your affections on anything that stands in opposition to God.
What John is prohibiting is Christians loving the satanic world system for self-gain, personal delight, sensual pleasures, and happiness. He is prohibiting adopting its ideas, courting its intimacy, seeking the approval of the un-Christian world around you. This is loving the world. This is standing in opposition against God. So with this in mind, weigh carefully John's conclusion.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The Holy Spirit makes clear that it does not matter who you are or what your profession of faith may be. It does not matter if you are known for great learning, great ability, great wealth, great spiritual experiences, great beauty, great talent, great preaching. If you love the world, you do not love the Father. Now, all of us are tempted to this and all of us sin in this.
We have to learn to discern more of which we'll talk about and this is of course one of the reasons that John has told us prior to this, I'm writing to you that you sin not. Resist it. Fight against it. Repent of it. Mortify it.
Thankfully, we have an advocate, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Now love for the world and love for the Father cannot exist in the same person. Love and the world, love for the world, renders it impossible to know the fullness of joy that comes with fellowshipping with God. It is the direct enemy. As I said, it is the greatest roadblock on the highway to holiness.
Nothing will keep you from that sweet fellowship with God the Father and with His Son, like love for the world. The struggle is in every Christian, But there is an answer in Christ. This world hates God, hates His will, hates His Word, hates His Son, and hates His people and expresses that in the way it lives. I'm not necessarily saying that people in the world always have some kind of violent and hostile attitude towards you until you faithfully walk with Christ in their lifestyle and then you'll find out where they are and You'll find out where you are If your ears love to tune in that which ridicules and despises the Father and his word if your eyes love to gaze upon media that mocks and blasphemes the Holy One who writhed in agony upon Calvary's cross. If your heart yearns for and feasts upon that which scorns and rejects the gospel of God's grace, you do not love the Father.
This is what John says, if any man loved the world The love of the Father is not in him. Those two loves will not work together. That is why there is always such a great struggle in real believers. Their hearts are in tune with the Lord, but they've trained their flesh in their lives to the things of this world. What are the elements of loving the world?
Having commanded God's people not to love the world, John now explains why. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, And the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. Let's consider the lust of the flesh. The Greek word translated lust simply means strong desire, craving. It can be used in a good sense or a bad sense.
Here, John means the longings, the cravings that are driven by that are driven by our sinful nature. God created our bodily appetites. As He created them, they are good. But when the God of light is absent from our hearts The natural appetites become the lust of the flesh It's a good thing to eat but when it's hijacked by our lust, it becomes gluttony. It becomes a false savior.
It's that which comforts me when I'm down. The catalog of selfish human desires and all the evil motivations that spring up in man's darkened heart is extensive drunkenness, fornication, gluttony, adultery, homosexuality, lying, fornication, gluttony, adultery, homosexuality, lying, and many, many more. They arise from the empty, grasping hearts of lost men. It is what gives their lives meaning. Tragically, the biblical meaning is that they are lost and under God's judgment.
Quoting Bushnell, Robert Law says, Quoting Bushnell, Robert Law says, the lust of the flesh is a reality or is in reality, the hunger of the godlike soul deprived of its proper nutrition and flying to the body for a substitute. If God does not satisfy your soul. The only option is your senses. And you will satisfy them. Do you indulge the lust of the flesh?
This is loving the world. The lust of the eyes. This includes every variety of sinful pleasure that originates with sight. Make sure you hear that carefully. Our eyes are good things as the creation of God.
Eyes are good and blessed organs that can be the source of some of life's most delightful experiences But perverted and distorted by the flesh No other Avenue has such immediate access to your soul and your eyes can become the occasion of the most seductive, destructive and disastrous experiences in your life. The world easily and quickly makes its entrance through the eyes into the human heart, and once there establishes strongholds of darkness that enslave and war against the soul. Eve saw the tree, that it was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a thing to be desired. And she was drawn by these good eyes into Satan's lie. David saw a woman washing herself and followed his eyes into adultery.
Wicked desires stirred up by the flesh permit images into our hearts that provoke countless varieties of covetousness, greed, sensuality, whoredom, all manner of darkness. Do you indulge the lust of the eyes? This is to love the world. The pride of life. The apostle speaks here of boastful, delusional pride for which there is no real basis.
It springs forth from overvaluing our material possessions or our lifestyle. The idea here is that a person who constantly brags about himself, his way of living, his stuff, and they don't have to brag about it in open ways. They can just constantly keep it before your eyes. In the spiritual realm, it points to one who exalts in his experiences, his giving, his prayers, his love for the Lord, his faith. And again, Isaiah's preaching.
These are all good things in themselves. But the flesh can take these things and make any one of them, can make all of them idols of self glorification. The pride of life is the religion of self-glorification where self is the center of the universe around which everything else orbits. This is sinful dependence upon self instead of believing dependence upon God. Professing Christians can and do this.
The pride of life hungers for the praise of men. Will people think I'm the best preacher at the conference? Will famous preacher A think I'm a good preacher? The human heart loves flattery, admiration, self-display, applause. When I was in the music business, We walked out on stage one night, it was in our hometown.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of people there. When our name was mentioned, The crowd exploded in a roar that was truly deafening. The band couldn't hear me count off the first song. I had to stomp the stage for them to hear it. There is not another rush like that in life.
We all want it somewhere. We don't have to have 10, 000. One or two applauding us, verbally or any other way, will satisfy the idol. The pride of life is poisonous to walking in the light. Here is the heart puffed up spiritually, emotionally, mentally bloated like a big blowfish and disfigured.
Do you indulge in the pride of life? This is to love the world. It will edge out the love of God, the love of the Father. So what is the source of these elements? Where do they come from?
This unholy trinity, sensuality, materialism, self-glorification is not of the Father but is of the world. Again we are brought face to face with the foundation upon which John's arguments are laid. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. The Holy God has one program for human life, walking in light. The world has an entirely different program, walking in darkness.
The Holy God, the God of light, calls his people into fellowship with him. He calls them into fellowship with his holy, his beloved, his altogether lovely Son. Altogether lovely son but the lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh the pride of life squeeze that out These things do not come from God. They do not arise from the Holy Spirit. They are not promoted in the Holy Scriptures.
They utterly destroy fellowship with God. These things spring forth from the world. And the fountain of the world is the Christless heart. For from within, said our Lord, out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. Culture is the expression of the human heart And the heart is either alive in Christ or it is rotting in the grave of lust.
What does our culture say to you right now? I can think of no greater illustration of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, then our present cultural atmosphere. So what is John's conclusion about loving the world? The world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that do with the will of God abideth forever, forever. What an extraordinary contrast that which is fading and that which stands triumphantly, victoriously for all eternity.
The world is passing away, John says. This world of Adam's sinful children can only find life by satisfying their fleshly desires. That's what life is, and yet according to Scripture, nothing, it is nothing but a it is nothing but a death style. People without Christ are zombies. The walking dead.
Dead in trespasses and sins. Because of this, the wages of sin is death in every generation. John is not telling us that creation is presently vanishing away. He's telling us that the pleasures, the cravings of the world are momentary, temporary, fading as soon as they are experienced, leaving us with just desiring more. What the world finds valuable and It evaporates like dreams and shadows that melt away as men reach for them.
Possessions go, beauties go, health goes. Nothing in this world lasts but the soul and it will be forever in the glorious holy presence of the God of light or it will be forever in hell. And we're one day closer to that moment. This day will be over shortly. The world and its opposition to God are coming to an end.
They may be having their moment right now, and it may get a whole lot worse, but they've already lost, and it's passing away. It will not last. All of their kingdoms will be laid in the dust by the King of Kings. The world is passing away, marching toward the day of judgment. So doing the will of God is the evidence of eternal life.
In light of this temporary world, in light of its fading lusts, John declared triumphantly, He that doeth the will of God, he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Here we face a very simple statement from John that sounds profoundly contradictory to the message of grace. Why did John not say, he that believeth on Christ abideth forever? Certainly that's true, But the answer lies in the nature of the faith that truly saves. Living faith in Jesus Christ displays itself by faith in God's word and loving obedience to it.
We are feeble, yes, tempted only when we're awake. Feeble, Yes. Limited. Yes, and sometimes falling. But is it our desire to go on living like the world or our desire to repent and look to Jesus Christ our advocate and overcome the world.
Those are the only options. If you go on in it, whatever your profession, you are deceived. John's words are so frighteningly simple, you've got to buy a lot of commentaries to get around what he's saying. It's true. My dear brethren, Living faith, living faith walks in the light.
It may be struggling, it may be falling on its face all the way up the path, but it's going in the path. It is a life of repentance, a life of mortification, and a life of joyful fellowship with God the Father and His Son. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. John is not talking about a salvation by works. But the grace that saves us teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
We are created in Christ Jesus on two good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. And when we do, it is evidence that it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do. It is God by His grace, by His glorious life working in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. A life of fellowship with the Father and the Son, a life of joy, a life of joyfully keeping God's commandments, a life of loving the brethren is a life of walking in the light. And its end is the consummated glory of God's kingdom, eternity with him who loved us before the foundation of the world.
I don't know if I'll have another 30 years. But the blessed hope is before me. And if the Lord takes me tonight or gives me thirty, There is nothing more glorious than walking in the light. We utterly help set up the roadblock on the highway to holiness When we love the world. So what does all this mean to us?
We make a few applications. The question that you ask at a time like this is so what? So what? Well first, if we would have holy lives, holy families, holy churches, we must see the beauty of holiness in the God who is light. To find one's joy, delight, and happiness in the present satanic system is the love for the world and it is an utter rejection of the God of light.
John points us to the love of the Father, the eternal, holy, almighty, sovereign God, first person of the blessed Trinity, as the Shorter Catechism says. God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being. Wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Do you know that God? Do you commune with that God?
Can you say, by His mercy, by His grace, by His great gospel, I know that God? Or do you have some kind of Jesus put together from a few Jesus movies and some velvet paintings? Or someone that you just have a vibe about? What God do you worship? John is calling us to the God of light.
We must know him. The Father, listen, the Father has loved his people from eternity with an everlasting love. He purposed before the foundation of the world to save us by his blessed and holy Son Jesus Christ the righteous the Father created all things through his beloved Son so that he might accomplish and apply redemption for sinners. The Father's will is that His Son should save every single one that He gave Him in eternity, and that He raise each one up at the last day. This Father, this glorious God of light, poured out all his anger and wrath upon his Son as he hung upon the cross of Calvary.
He spent all the fury of his offended justice upon Christ, whose blood ran down from his head, his hands, and his feet. And he did this so that all, all that believe would have all of their transgressions washed away, removed as far as the east is from the west. Dying in agony upon Calvary's cross and rising again the third day, Jesus accomplished everything that his Father sent him to do on our behalf, everything infinitely necessary for our justification, our sanctification, our glorification. It is ours in Christ by appointment of the Father. The Father imputes the righteousness of Christ the Son to those who repent and believe on the God-man, the risen Lord of glory.
The Father kept his promise and the Son sent the Holy Spirit as another comforter to abide with us forever, to regenerate, strengthen, to guide us into God's truth. And at God the Father's command, that blessed Spirit brings us into union with Christ, and we bear eternal fruit to the Father's glory Amazing grace the Father did all this So that we might walk in the light Will you love Him or this satanic God-hating world? That's what John's setting before us. We must know this God, this God of resplendent glory, the radiant outshining of all his attributes and perfections are dazzling and transforming. In all his attributes, in all his glorious perfections, in all his redeeming work for his people, we should love the Father, not the world.
We should love the Father with all of our hearts, all of our souls, all of our strength, all of our mind. Secondly, if we would have holy lives, holy families, holy churches, we must learn that holiness of life, walking in the light, arises from a new heart and works its way into our daily living. It's inside out, not outside on. My wife and I used to live by a house that was set back from the road. And after driving back and forth over the years, we noticed that these bushes in front of their home were always blossoming.
And we had no idea what kind of bush blossomed all year long like this. So the curiosity got the best of us. One day we drove up in their driveway and I pulled up next to those bushes, got out and looked carefully and someone had tied these flowers, plastic flowers, on these living bushes. They look great from the road. Is that the way some of us are?
We've got some things that we put on from the outside hoping that everybody will look at them and think we're okay. Do we do that with God? The kind of life the Lord works in our hearts actually brings forth real fruit. And that we do these things not just because we have to, but because it is indeed the desire of our hearts. Everyone born of God's Spirit can say with Paul, Lord, what would thou have me to do?
And delight in it. When God regenerates us by his Spirit he gives us a new heart so that we will have new desires, new life. We do not start walking in the light. We do not start wholly living with external things wired on flowers. But an inward heavenly life breathed from heaven that works its way out.
And if that's true of you, your life will change, you will begin to love holy things as much as you may struggle, as much as you have to die to yourself, you will follow Christ, you will deny yourself daily and take up his cross and you know what? You will be different from the world. One of the things that strikes me about many modern churches, a lot of modern evangelicalism, is they're afraid to be different. I Saw a homeschool video here recently where the young man, very cockily, was telling everybody, hey, you think we homeschoolers are weird? We know all the best bands, we all know the best movies, we all know the best stuff, and he gave me a wonderful liturgy and list from hell It was the world writ large Yeah, we can be home schoolers and cool too No you can't It's also tragic to me that many, many seem to have an idolatrous fear of being called a legalist.
And so they'll look at God's Word and look at God's Word until they've kind of found that way around what it's saying. Get a good commentary here, a popular speaker that's agreeing with them. If you want to walk with Christ, it's a walk under the cross. It's not a popularity contest. But under that cross, you'll be walking with the Savior.
And that is the best company in the world. Be different in Christ, not because you try to make yourself weird or odd or super cool for a homeschooler, But because the desire of your heart is to walk on the highway of holiness. Because it brings God glory. And it fills your heart with a feast of fat things. Lastly, if we would have holy lives, my brethren, holy families, holy churches.
We must learn to discern the difference between darkness and light. By God's grace, we do this by one, communing with the God who is light in prayer. That's been said already. It will be said again. There is no communion.
Heart, communion, transforming, communion with the living God, apart from prayer. Secondly, immersing ourselves in His Word and meditating upon it. If you have never read Thomas Watson's The Christian on the Mount, bless your soul and do that. Christians don't meditate anymore. In fact, when they hear the word they usually think of something Eastern, not something biblical.
We can argue that the Bible is an Eastern book, but the point of the matter is we've all been touched by the New Age and Eastern religion so much that very often the thoughts that come to our mind when we hear biblical words carry a different definition. Meditation in God's word is transforming. Meditating on the glories of Christ, our prophet, our priest, our king, our surety, our blessed substitute, our all in all. And number three, by grace living, by grace living the word of God by faith in Christ. It's always by faith in Christ.
We do not look to ourselves. We look out of ourselves to Christ and then follow him. My blessed brethren, Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins. And He did this that He might deliver us from this present evil world, not so that we could set our affections on it. Delivered from the world.
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life are exactly what He died to deliver us from. It is impossible then to love that world and the God of light. No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. My brethren, God decreed from all eternity to save his people from the penalty, the power, the pleasure, and someday praise the Lord, the very presence of sin. He predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his son, not to the image of movie stars and rock stars and celebrities of every sort.
Wrong image, wrong model. He did not lavish the riches of his grace upon us so that we could clutch the fool's gold of lust and clutch it to our bosom as if we needed it for life. He did not hang the Son of God upon the cross so that we could live like those who hate him. He did not send the Holy Ghost to stir up our affections for sensuality, materialism, self-glorification. If ye then be risen with Christ, writes Paul, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
He does not give us new hearts so that we might be fashioned according to our former lusts. He does not feed us the bread of life so that we can hunger and thirst for the dead things of this world. He does not instruct us from his holy truth so that we might consume and live by the lying philosophies of darkened hearts. He does not add us to his holy church so that we can hang out with lost people and adopt their attitudes, their dreams, and their ways. You can have friends that are lost, but you ought to be talking to them about Christ.
He did not give us his holy worship to be set aside for hunting and fishing and sports and concerts and unnecessary travel. We are and unnecessary travel. We are not to take his worship and lay it aside like an empty dress. He did not clothe us with Christ's righteousness so that we can expose our bodies with the immodest and licentious fashions of perverted designers. He does not open our eyes so that we can inflame our lust with pornography.
Or any of the media's impure images. This is Christ's blood-bought mind and body and soul. It is His paid for on Calvary. We need to remember it's His. He did not open our ears so that we could listen to the lies of ungodly people.
Brethren, young people, please hear this. Do we understand? Do we have enough discernment to know that much of the music, the videos, the films of the world are simply catechisms from hell? Over and over and over so that you love what they love. He did not illuminate our mind to make them temples of Hollywood or false religion.
In other words, God did not reveal His eternal love in Christ Jesus to us so that we might love the world. But that we might know Him, fellowship with Him. No joy inexpressible, full of glory. How's your joy level? Won't be true for everybody, but it might be connected to the love of the world.
We want real joy that lasts, that cannot be taken away from us. Our God wants us to know Him, to fellowship with Him, and to love Him so that as we live day by day in a lost and dying world, we might be reflecting the God of light as we walk in his light. To love the world is to love what God hates, to esteem what God loathes, to value what God rejects, to admire what God despises, to exalt what God condemns, to accept what God rejects, to savor what God vomits out, To call good what God calls evil. To love the world is to worship the creature instead of the creator. The highway to holiness, the narrow way.
But the only way that truly is life and life more abundantly is to worship the God who is light. It is to fellowship with the Father, fellowship with the Son, that glorious one, to walk in the light as He is in the light. So, my dear friends, let us look to Christ by faith and walk in the beauty of holiness. Love not the world, Love the true and living God in Christ Jesus by the power of His Spirit. Amen.
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