The Love God Hates June 14, John 2:12-17

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1 I. Introduction The Love God Hates June 14, John 2:12-17 Christians and the church have been under attack since the beginning of Christianity. Some attacks have come from the outside through various forms of persecution some as simple as not allowing the Bible to be seen on a person s desk or forbidding copies of verses in a person s workspace, other persecutions are violent; some even leading to death. Other attacks have come from within the church through false teachers. Jesus warned in Matthew 7:15, Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. Every Christian must be familiar enough with God s Word so that, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:11, he or she can take your stand against the devil s schemes. Every Christian needs to be like the Bereans turn to Acts 17:11. Every Christian needs to verify that what is taught is what the Bible says. John wrote this Letter of 1 st John to Christians of his day as well as those who would come later namely, us. He wrote about how to deal with false teachings and to give assurance of salvation he wrote in 1 John 5:13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. Earlier in chapter 2, he basically reminded the reader of Jesus summary of the Ten Commandments from Mark 12:30-31: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength and Love your neighbor as yourself. John summed it up this way in 1 John 2:10 & 11, Whoever loves his brother lives in the light... whoever hates his brother is in the darkness. But in more than one area of life, love and hate go hand in hand. A husband who loves his wife is certainly going to hate anything that might harm her. Psalm 97:10 says, Let those who love the LORD hate evil. In Romans 12:9 Paul wrote, Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. There is the right kind of love and there is a wrong kind of love a love God hates. But before he wrote of this love, John wrote about three different stages or degrees of believers. II. Different Stages of Believers John began this section by addressing dear children the Greek word teknia (tekni,a) means born ones. This seems to imply that John is writing to all believers. All Christians have been born into God s family through faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31) and have had their sins forgiven Colossians 2:13 says, When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins. 1

2 We all begin as dear children born ones but we must not stay that way. Only as a Christian grows spiritually can he overcome the world; then he can love what God loves and hate what God hates. John listed three stages or degrees of Christians in the local church family: fathers, young men, and children. A. Fathers Fathers are mature believers who know God, i.e. they have an intimate, personal relationship with Him. Because they know God, they know the dangers of the world. The mature believer recognizes as James wrote in James 4:4: that friendship with the world is hatred toward God. Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. They have been transformed from the inside by the Holy Spirit, but they know they haven t made it. Turn to Philippians 3:12-15a. There are Fathers and then there are... B. Young men Young men are conquerors. Through their understanding of Scripture, i.e. the Word of God, they have overcome the evil one the devil. The young men are not as mature as the fathers, but they are maturing for they use the Word of God effectively. They have learned how to live for God. They are examples of 2 Timothy 2:15, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Through their actions young men are coming to know God on a more intimate basis. C. Finally, there are Children The children of 1 John 2:13 are not the same ones addressed in verse 12 two different Greek words are used. The word in verse 13, paidia (paidi,a), denotes the idea of immature ones or little children that are still under parental instruction. These are young Christians who have not yet grown up in Christ. Children are immature Christians. Like physical children, these spiritual children know their Father, but they still have some growing up to do. Spiritual children lack discernment and are easily trapped by deceivers and false teachers turn to Ephesians 4: Sadly, some Christians never grow past being children turn to Hebrews 5: III. The Love God Hates A. The Command: Do not love the world or anything in the world. After getting the attention of all his readers the mature, the growing, and the immature, John gave a command: Do not love the world or anything in the world. This is the love that God hates: love of the world. The world and things in the world is the world system the invisible, spiritual system of evil. It is Satan s system for opposing the work of Christ here on earth 1 John 5:19 says, We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. Ephesians 6:11-12 tells us that the devil has an organization of evil spirits working with him and influencing the affairs of this world. 2

3 Unsaved people belong to this world. In Luke 16:8 Jesus calls them The people of this world. When a person becomes a Christian, he or she is no longer a child or slave of the world system. Colossians 1:13 says, For he, i.e. Jesus, has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. A Christian must not love the world anymore. B. The Reason Following the command, John gave the reason for the command: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. There are only two choices: either we love God or we love the world. Because believers are forgiven, have a true knowledge of God, have the Holy Spirit living in them, have an understanding of sin, and a growing relationship with the Father, they cannot love the world. Such a lack of love of the world is an assurance of salvation. Without a doubt, our culture today is anti-god and the child of God should not, must not, love it. We are in the world, but we are not of the world in the Garden of Gethsemane in John 17:11, Jesus prayed, I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name. John wrote that If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. C. Three temptations. John then listed three things or temptations that are in the world ways the world system uses to trap Christians I like the list from the KJV: The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. These are the same devices that trapped Eve in the Garden of Eden Genesis 3:6 says, When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food (the lust of the flesh) and pleasing to the eye (the lust of the eyes), and also desirable for gaining wisdom (the pride of life), she took some and ate it. 1. The lust of the flesh. The lust of the flesh is anything that appeals to man s fallen nature the NIV rightly calls it the cravings of sinful man. Flesh is the nature we receive in our physical birth; spirit is the nature we receive in the second birth (John 3:5-6). In his life, a Christian has both the old nature or self, i.e. the flesh, and the new nature or self, i.e. the Spirit. Paul; wrote in Colossians 3:9-10, Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. God has given man certain desires, and these desires are good. Things like hunger, thirst, weariness, and sex are not all evil in themselves. There is nothing wrong about eating, drinking, sleeping, or having children. But when the flesh nature controls them, they become sinful lusts. Hunger is not evil, but gluttony is sinful (Philippians 3:19). Thirst is not evil, but drunkenness is a sin. Sleep is a gift of 3

4 God, but Proverbs 18:9 calls laziness shameful. Sex is God s precious gift when used appropriately; but when used wrongly, it becomes immorality. Paul warned the Galatians in Galatians 5:19-21, The acts of the sinful nature (i.e. the flesh) are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. 2. The lust of the eyes. Eyes are gifts from God that allow people to see His beautiful creation and excellent works. However, they are also windows for temptation to enter. What one sees can lead to dissatisfaction, covetousness and idolatry. The Bible has many examples: there s David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11, there s Lot s wife and Sodom in Genesis 19, there s Achan in Joshua 7. Achan, one of Joshua s soldiers, brought defeat to the army because of the lust of his eyes. God had warned Israel not to take any spoils from the condemned city of Jericho, but Achan did not obey. In Joshua 7:21 he said, When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. The lust of the eyes led him into sin and caused the death of many Israelites. The eyes, like the other senses, are a gateway into the mind. The lust of the eyes can, therefore, include intellectual pursuits that are contrary to God s Word. There is pressure to make Christians think/see the way the world thinks. God warns us against the counsel of the ungodly in Psalm 1:1. 3. The Pride of Life. The third trap is the pride of life or the boasting of what he has and does. Pride is the base for most sins. Instead of accepting what one has in humility and gratitude to God, sinners exalt themselves and seek fulfillment in things that glorify the creature instead of the Creator. Some people even sacrifice honesty and integrity for notoriety and a feeling of importance. D. Finally, we see the end result: The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. The world isn t permanent. One day the world system will be gone; all the pleasant attractions will be gone; all are passing away. Slowly, but surely, and perhaps sooner than even Christians think, the world is passing away, but the man who does God s will abides forever. Long after the world system, the celebrated culture, the endless philosophies, the selfish intellectualism, and godless materialism have been forgotten and long after this planet has been replaced by the new heavens and the new earth of Revelation 21:1, God s faithful servant will remain sharing the glory of God for all eternity. The correct choice of standards to be loved the world s standards or God s standards should be a no brainer. 4

5 IV. Conclusion Colossians 4:12 says that God s goal is that you may stand firm in all the will of God. This is maturity. A little child constantly asks his parents what is right and what is wrong and what they want him to do or not to do. But as he lives with his parents and experiences their training and discipline, he gradually discovers what their will for him is. An immature Christian is always asking his friends what they think God s will is for him. A mature Christian stands firm in the will of God. He knows what the Lord wants him to do. A mature Christian stays away from the things of the world because of what the world is (a satanic system that hates and opposes Christ); because of what the world does to us (it entices us to live on sinful substitutes); and because of what the Christian is a child of God. We all know that the way to a man s heart is his stomach; the way the world gets into a Christian is through his heart. This is why God said, Do not love the world! Anything that robs a Christian of his enjoyment of the Father s love, or of his desire to do the Father s will, is worldly and must be avoided. Using God s Word, every believer must identify those things for himself. Every Christian must decide, Will I live for the present, or will I live for the will of God and abide forever? Jesus said in Matthew 24:6, No one can serve two masters. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 that the choice is to build with temporary materials, like wood, hay and straw or build with permanent materials like gold, silver, and costly stones. It s your choice. Like Paul, the wise or mature believer will choose wisely and will forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead, pressing on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called him heavenward in Christ Jesus. Love for the world is the love God hates. It is the love a Christian must avoid at all costs! Do not love the world or anything in the world. 5