Reject Worldliness
1 John 2:12-17
September 24, 2017
This past week I was getting changed in the locker room of the gym where I work out. In the next row of lockers over was a group of guys I do not know having a conversation about the earthquake in Mexico City. Some had family members who live there and were describing the chaos and devastation that followed the earthquake. Another had family near the city where the quake twelve days prior had struck. Still another was remarking about the hurricanes in Texas and the Virgin Islands and the Florida Keys and Florida itself and Puerto Rico. And then there were the fires in the northwest. “Creepy,” said one, with affirmative grunts that followed. “It’s just really creepy, like someone is trying to tell us something.”
Ok, so I was eavesdropping a little bit, but I was curious to hear where this was going to go. I wondered if they would begin to reflect at all about their own mortality, the significance of the choices in their life, or in any way discern a call to turn towards God in any fashion. Nope.
It was like the thought was just something from a scary movie that sends a shiver down your spine, titillates you for a moment, and then you move on with the rest of your day. Either that or it was just too momentous to contemplate in the middle of a locker room with the guys.
It saddened me a little bit. For me, it is often in the mundane moments of life that I realize how different it is being a Christian. Though it shouldn’t, it constantly surprises me how differently Christians understand life than does the world.
Read 1 John 2:12-17
This is not an easy section to summarize or encapsulate. John was employing a couple of rhetorical forms here – forms that would have sounded like a pop song to the people of the day but are foreign to us.
Just to remind you where we are in this letter: the Apostle John was writing to a group of house churches that had grown up around his influence and testimony. They had as their primary written resource the gospel that John had written. As we discovered during last week’s sermon, it was not safe to assume that everyone believed the same thing. It is amazing how the very same words can be understood completely differently – all depending upon what you are looking to find and what you bring to it. Those different understandings had festered and boiled up into full blown controversy – to such an extent that there were splits in the congregations. The people who remained were struggling to understand what had happened, puzzled as to why there was so much tension, and insecure about their own standing with God because these other people who claimed to be Christians were telling them that they were wrong.
John was writing a pastoral letter of encouragement to those who remained that the path they were walking was indeed the path of God. That John loved these people is evident in the way he addressed them: children, fathers, and young men (young people). It was an expression of intimacy in relationship with them. This was the Apostle reminding them of his heart for their spiritual welfare.
To digress for just a moment: there is great scholarly debate about the specific designations John used – whom did he mean by “children, fathers, and young men?” There are all sorts of theories; none of which is so compelling or revealing to spend a lot of time exploring. The most helpful is to understand that all Christians are children; and fathers and young people are descriptions of spiritual maturity. Some of you may have notes in your Bibles suggesting other possibilities, but to get caught up in exploring them here would be to lose track of what John was saying to all of them.
John was drawing three distinctions:
· Love of the world versus love of the Father;
· The things of the world come from the world and not from the Father;
· The world passes away while the one who obeys God remains forever.
In verses 12- 14, where he was writing to those whom he loved, he makes three affirmations. In verses 15-17, he contrasted those affirmations with the error of those who had gone out from them. We are going to look a little bit at each of these.
Love of the world versus love of the Father
We begin with John’s stark expression of the difference between the love of the world versus love of the Father. In writing to children, John declared, “You know the Father.” That is set in contrast to “Do not love the world or the things in the world.”
Another way of understanding “love of the world” is appetites.
Jerry Seinfeld has a bit about the things adults say to children. One was, “you’ll ruin your appetite.” We have all heard that and anyone who has ever dealt with children has probably said it. Seinfeld noted that, “what is missing is the reality that we cannot really ruin our appetite. Even if we satisfy one, your appetite is not ruined because there’s another that’s coming right behind. There’s always another appetite. There’s always the next thing we want, we need, we have to have.”
Then, there was the movie Wall Street, in which Michael Douglas played slick finance shark Gordon Gecko, gives a speech to shareholders at a company he was going to dismantle:
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.
The world teaches that you are responsible for your own happiness and righteousness and satisfaction. But do you not see that “greed” is not good? Greed isolates. Greed alienates. Greed puffs us up in pride, as if somehow we are better than others because of something we purchased, something we acquired, something we attained. “Keeping up with the Joneses” – love of the world and the things of the world – causes many people great anxiety, steals joy from them, and breaks the bonds of fellowship. What did Jesus say? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.(Matthew 6:25-34)
Let me give you a practical application of what that looks like: Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written when Paul was in prison. Part of the reason for his letter was to thank the Philippians for support that they had sent him.
I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned for me, but had no opportunity to show it. Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress.
Paul’s faith in Christ was sufficient to alleviate his anxiety about his present circumstances. It is not that he was “so heavenly minded that he was no earthly good”; rather, he was so heavenly minded that he was thoroughly earthly good. He was able to pursue ministry in city after city where he was scorned, afflicted, rejected, and abused. I do not think any of us aspire to the level of abuse he endured, but we can be encouraged to see the surpassing value of loving Christ over what the world has to offer.
Comes from the world versus comes from the Father
Again, I think most people understand the concept of loving God and not loving the world or things from the world, but the difficult comes in determining what comes from the Father and what comes from the world. They often look similar, but they are very, very different. Here, John was writing to “fathers,” because “you know him who is from the beginning.” This is contrasted with “all that is in the world – the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches.” This is where faith meets real day-to-day life. What does it mean to “know him who is from the beginning?” It means knowing Jesus; Jesus as he is revealed in Scripture.
It occurred to me that many people operate with a theology that is best exemplified in the setup for the NBC television show, The Voice. There is this image that we are going to be brought to the stage for one chance at eternal life. We are alone in front of the heavenly host. The judges have their backs turned. We have to convince the judges to turn around and pick us. In other words, we have to prove our merit. We have to demonstrate our righteousness. We have to show we are worthy. We have 90 seconds to convince them that we belong in order to have a chance for our dreams to be fulfilled. If we do not get a chair to turn, we are not worth the time of the gods. We are dismissed and probably never heard from again. Yes, there are the few who are invited back, but more are not invited back than those who do get a second chance.
To extend the analogy a little bit, for these people who believe like this, Jesus is like the host, Carson Daly. Jesus does the background interviews, gets people to the stage, and then stands off to the side and roots them on. Ultimately, Jesus is a good man who wants the best for us, but is ultimately powerless – we stand alone and it is all up to us.
Friends, that is not knowing the one who is from the very beginning. The Jesus revealed in Scripture does come meet us, does walk with us, and does root for us. That’s the part that is similar; however, the Jesus revealed in Scripture is so much more. Jesus is the producer of the show, he is sitting in the judges’ chairs, he is the one who gives us the voice to sing and, in fact, most importantly, sings with us so that our song is pure and holy. As Paul wrote to the Romans, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.” And then, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 11:36 – 12:2)
The essence of what John was saying is that by remembering the One who is from the beginning – and knowing him – we are able to discern what is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent and worthy of praise. Holding onto Jesus means not holding onto the things that have no eternal significance.
The world passes away versus the one who obeys God remains forever.
And that leads us to the final contrast: “the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one” versus “the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever.”
The rewards the world has to offer are fleeting. What we see, hear, smell, touch, and feel here are temporary. I do not know how many of you have noticed this, but in my eleven years with you I have gotten eleven years older and not younger. I am not the same as I once was. There were pastors before me, and if the Lord tarries long enough, there will be pastors after me. I am temporary. Jesus is forever.
I started serving here just less than a year before one of the biggest “desire of the eyes” I can remember came to be: the iPhone – first generation – was released on June 29, 2007. [1] Can you remember how big a deal that was? Can you even remember the world prior to smart phones? Oh, how I wanted one. Jen will tell you that one of my weaknesses is being an early adopter of new technology. I am aware, but have formulated a strategy to help make it seem less of a vice: when the new iPhone came out, I got it for her. I try to get the new technology for her to use; that way I can feel good about myself.
Now, let me ask you: do you remember your excitement or the thrill of getting your first smartphone? It was kind of intimidating and wonderful all at the same time. How is this going to work? What am I actually going to be able to do?
Now, let me ask you this: how many of you still use your first smartphone? Or, let me ask it this way, have any of you ever upgraded your phones from one model to the next? The thrill of a new phone is temporary, right?
Or, let me try it this way. A few years ago, when Abby was playing softball, her teams won a whole bunch of tournaments. We could have filled a guest room with all her trophies. Each one was hard fought. Each one involved a lot of time, energy and devotion. Each victory was sweet and wonderful. Yet when she was preparing to go to college this summer, she did some cleaning out of her room. She decided to save just a couple – maybe 3 – of the trophies she had worked so hard to win. The thrill of those accomplishments was temporary.