I John 2:12-17
The message of 1st John is for all ages of believers. Verse 3
states that one purpose of the
book was to give assurance of salvation. These verses address
those who are truly saved.
The reason he is writing them is because they are saved. I John
is a book for believers.
Matthew Henry feels that this refers to spiritual maturity and not
age. This passage shows
that no matter what stage of maturity a believer is at there is a common
bond of mutual
love and contempt for the world. We are given in verse 15 and
following a common
command... No matter our spiritual maturity we still need to be separate
from this world.
We have the commonality of Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We have
the commonality of
an eternal home in heaven. We have the commonality of being able
to enter into the
throne room of grace through the shed blood of Christ. We have
the commonality of
having our sins forgiven. We need to cooperate and fellowship
not judge those who
aren’t to our level of spiritual maturity. We need to cherish
our brothers and sisters in
Christ and build them up. We are to love God and show it by loving
our brothers and
sisters.
We are not to love this world or the things of this world. Colossians
3:1,2 We are to be
willing to lay down our life for Christ. He laid down His life
for us. We cannot straddle
the fence to between God and this world. Imagine if you would
someone 5 foot 6 inches
tall try to straddle a 6 foot fence. They just couldn’t do that;
it is physically impossible to
do. You are on one side or the other. Either you love God
or you love this world. The
verse continues to say “If any man love the world, the love of the
Father is not in him.”
There are many who we see in Church on Sunday who love this world,
that we won’t see
in heaven. We need to make sure we are saved first and then we
need to be lighthouses to
those we go to church with. There are more hypocrites in church
than in a bar. The
Pharisees went to church, they tithed, they made long prayers, yet
they lived for things of
this world. They did things to be seen of men and not God.
They loved the adoration of
people and the praise of men. They loved this world. No
wonder there are hypocrites
today, if there were hypocrites in Christ’s day. Ask yourself
why do you do things? To
please God or be seen of men?
A good test to see where your heart is check where you spend your time.
Do you spend
your time in the Word of God, and digging into Bible study helps, serving
God, praying
for others, singing hymns and songs to the Lord? Or do you spend
your time watching
TV, reading novels, Movies, etc.? If you spend you free time
with the things of this world
it shows where your heart truly is. If a man loves his wife,
he spends time with her. He
talks about her, he communicates with her. The same holds true
if you love God. You
spend time with God, you communicate with God daily many times a day.
People don’t
have to ask if you are a Christian they know. In the Bible God
says “My son give me thine
heart.” Have you given your heart to Jesus? With the heart
man believes unto
righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Romans 10:9,10
Notice when you give God your heart it yields righteousness and you
confess or talk about
Him. Are you really saved? If so you will love God and not the
things of this world.
Verse 16 tells us why you can’t love this world and be saved.
All that is in this world is
the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
The world desires to have
and has not. They want more and more to consume on their lusts.
James 4:1-3a back up I
John. “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they
not hence, even of
your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and have not: ye
kill, and desire to have, and
cannot obtain: ye fight and war....” James 4:4 “Ye adulterers and adulteresses,
know ye
not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever
therefore will be a
friend of the world is the enemy of God.” Romans8:5-8
How did King David fall into the sin with Bathsheeba? The lust
of the eyes. He saw
something he didn’t have and wanted it. We need to be careful
what we see, hear, or
touch. You can knock King David, but do you watch movies with
nudity or anything that
is provocative? Do you watch the women that walk by? Before
pointing at others sins we
need to examine ourselves. A side note is that even though King
David fell into sin, he did
not remain there. He sought God’s forgiveness and continued on
in his Christian walk.
Psalms 51 is his prayer of repentance. God forgave him and was
able to use him.
Back to the warning. The lust of the eyes has brought down many
high powered people,
many well respected evangelists, many husbands and wives. We
must control what we
see, as much as we are able to. The lust of the flesh.
After you see something and want it,
you then consume it on the lust of the flesh. A person sees a
car they really can’t afford,
the lust after it. They buy it and consume it upon their lusts.
They become enslaved to a
high payment they have to serve. The Bible says that when sin
is complete it brings forth
death. Lusts are not of God, they are of this world.
The old saying sex sells, proves that this world seeks the lust of the
flesh and the eyes.
Why are most TV shows and movies popular? Because they show God’s
love and
promote righteous living? Hardly. They are popular because
they promote things that
play up to people’s desires or lusts. People complain when a
pastor preaches for 2 or 3
hours yet they will sit through a movie such as Titanic that has nudity
and call it a good
film and not complain that it is a long movie. A pastor that
even preaches for over an
hour gets complaints, yet the same people will sit through a TV show
full of cursing,
violence, etc. Where is your heart do you love to hear the Word
of God expounded or do
you find that boring and love the things of this world?
Do you live by faith or by emotions? The world teaches us to live
by our emotions.
Movies play on our emotions that make us feel happy, sad, mad, romantic,
etc. The only
thing is that nothing in the real world has changed. Alcohol
which is of the world,
deadens our senses and changes our emotions. Tobacco calms our
nerves, makes us feel
better, etc. Drugs alter emotions as well. The world asks
how do you feel? You get
sucked into living by emotions. When we get a raise we are ecstatic,
when we get burnt
fries at a fast food place we get mad, when money gets tight we get
worried. We learn to
live by our emotions. But if God has our heart we learn to walk
by faith. We avoid the
things of this world which train us to live by emotions. When
our emotions change it
doesn’t mean that anything has really changed. If we wake up
in a good or bad mood,
there isn’t any difference in the real world. We are to let God
be our Lord and not our
emotions. When we feel anxious we can cast all our cares and
worries on Him for He
cares for us. When we are down we can go to Him in prayer, He
heals the broken
hearted, When we are happy we can give Him the glory. Our day
should be based on our
faith not our emotions. Emotions lie to you. God cannot
lie. You get a tax notice for
$450,000 your emotions will lie to you. You will be anxious and
stressed. When the truth
is that you just won $1,000,000. Emotions lie. The best
way to avoid the ups and downs
of life is to walk by faith and not by sight. Avoiding this world
and what it teaches it the
best way to avoid depression.
The world teaches us to be angry and hate those who do us wrong.
The world teaches us
to hold grudges. We learn to be bitter. We learn to live
by our emotions. Our emotions
tell us to be bitter. The things is that anger turned inward
causes 95% of all cases of
depression. Less than 5% are caused by chemical imbalances in
the brain. The Bible
teaches us to love one another. The Bible teaches us to do good
to those who persecute
us. The Bible teaches us to be forgiving even as God for Christ’s
sake has forgiven us.
When we learn to love and forgive we don’t hold grudges, we don’t let
the sun go down
upon our wrath. We then in turn are happier. We don’t develop
depression. Grudges
don’t hurt the person they are held against, they hurt the person who
holds the grudge.
The person that holds the grudge develops the ulcer. When you
fail to forgive you hurt
yourself. God teaches us love and forgiveness. The world
teaches us anger and hatred.
When the Bible tells us to avoid things of this world there is a definite
reason.
Verse 16 also speaks about pride. Pride is the first sin ever
done. The devil used to be the
highest angel in heaven, but he got lifted up with pride. The
devil was kicked out of
heaven for that sin. People too many times are motivated by pride.
When someone hurts
their pride, they get mad. Pride leads people to try to outdo
their neighbor, not love their
neighbor. The neighbor gets a 14 foot bass boat, so they get
a 16 foot bass boat. The
neighbor gets a new car, so they get a new Mercedes. Pride
motivates people to compete
with each other and not work together. Pride leads to shallow
lives. Pride leads people to
try to keep up appearances instead of being real.
Now let’s turn to what pride does in a church. Pride is what makes
someone seek to hold
all of the high posts in the church. A lady who you used to attend
my father’s church
would always seek to be the head of every committee, the Women’s Missionary
Committee, the Planning Committee, this committee, that committee.
The only thing is
she never worked in those committees. When you talked with her
she’d brag about her
positions and titles. Some pastors are guilty of this too.
They will brag about their
degrees and titles in the community. Lay people fall into this
trap of pride too. We mowe
the yard, prune the shrubs, vacuum the church, decorate the sunday
school. Then when
no one compliments or even notices our hard work, we become mad or
upset. Why?
Pride. James 4:6-10 Talks about humility. The Bible
teaches us to be humble. The Bible
teach us to do thing whole heartedly as unto the Lord and not men.
Why? Because it is
from God that we receive our reward. Ephesians 6:6-8 Why
did the pharisees do such
showy things was it not pride? Why did God hear the publicans
prayer and not the prayer
of the pharisee? Was it not because of the humility/pride issue.
The Bible says that, God
resisteth the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So pride
is of this world and we need
to learn to avoid it.
Verse 17 shows us why we should avoid having our sights set on this
world. The world
passes away and the lust thereof. That car you worked so hard
to get, won’t be running in
30 years. That new TV won’t be working in 20 years. That
retirement nest egg doesn’t
go with you into eternity. The only thing you can take out of
this world is Jesus. All the
material things of this world, the praise of people, the relationships
built, etc. all stay
behind when you die. But if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord
and Savior you will live
forever with God. If you die without Christ there is an eternity
separated from God in
hell. Hell was created for the devil and his followers.
It takes only one sin to be on your
way to hell. And the only person to ever have lived a sinless
life is Jesus Christ, the third
person of the Trinity. But Jesus died to save you from this terrible
fate and He offers
salvation free of charge. All you have to do is accept it.
Ask Him for mercy, repent of
your sins and ask Him to forgive you and come into your heart.
Give Him yourself. He
gave Himself for you. The gift is free of charge and available
to all, but it is good for only
those who take it. Ephesians 2:8,9 says, “For by grace are we
saved through faith and
that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God and not of works, lest
any man should boast.”
You don’t have to earn salvation, you can’t. Jesus paid the price
on calvary and offers
salvation free to you. Jesus loves you and will forgive you unconditionally
only if you ask
Him. Just repent from your sins and turn to God. Take Him
as you Lord and Savior.
Once we are saved, we are to live like it. We need to read the
Bible and pray. We need to
spend time with Jesus who gave Himself for us. We need to seek
to do the will of God.
After salvation we aren’t perfect but we are forgiven. Read the
section on I John 1:9 He
gave us this promise, not as a license to sin, but a remedy for sin.
When we sin we need to
not remain their, but ask God for forgiveness and get back right with
God. King David
committed several sins like adultery and murder, but when he asked
God for forgivness
God forgave him. There is no sin too big or too small for God
to forgive. He freely
forgives. King David was used to write more of the book of Psalms
after he asked God’s
forgiveness. The devil will lie to you and tell you that God
can never forgive you or use
you, but that is a lie. God is willing to forgive and allow you
to be used in His kingdom.
We are to strive to be sinless, but we are not to wallow in self judgement
if we sin. If God
is willing to forgive us, shouldn’t we forgive ourselves?
Once we are saved we are to avoid the things of this world and do the
will of God. When
we are saved we are to take Jesus as our Lord and Savior, not just
our Savior. We can’t
get saved and then continue in sin. Romans 6:1-3 tells
us that we are not to continue in
sin. We are to do more than just say Jesus is Lord we to live
it. He is to be the Lord of
our lives. We have a promise that if we abide in His will, (if
we are saved) we have an
eternal life in heaven. Not only do we have happier life here
on earth, we have a much
better life afterwards. Streets paved with gold verses eternity
in flames. Eternal
happiness in heaven is a wonderful reward for just accepting God’s
free gift.
