Struggling with a restless heart, strained relationships, or a nagging sense of insecurity? What if the key to overcoming these challenges lies in what – and Who – you truly love?Join Pastor Sam Sutter at BBCC for the sermon, "Your Loves Shape Your Future," an urgent and hope-filled exploration of 1 John 2:15-17. We'll unravel what the Apostle John really means when he warns us "Do not love the world,". If you're tired of being exhausted and distracted by things that don't ultimately satisfy, this message from 1 John will equip you to live with profound hope and purpose. It's time to discover how loving God more can change everything.
Your Loves Shape Your Forever
– 1 John 2:15-17
John exposes the “enchantment of worldliness” and calls believers to re-anchor their love, identity and hope in God and eternity. Living this way produces peaceful relationships, inner security, deep contentment and lasting purpose.
Introduction: What’s at Stake
Key Vocabulary (in context of 1 John)
15 “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” (NIV)
What “Loving the World” Means
Why World-Love Is Futile
Living as Pilgrims
Diagnostic Questions
Practices that Break the Enchantment
BBCC Verse of the Week: The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. 1 John 2:17 (NIV)
Generations of Western Christians have supposed that Christians are meant to renounce "the world" in any and every sense: natural enjoyments, the pleasures of food and drink, the created order itself. Perhaps, they think, "the world"-this world of space, time and matter-is actually evil! Perhaps we should try to live as though we were pure spirits? No: that's not what John has in mind. As in some other early Christian writings, "the world" here, like the word flesh when Paul uses it, means "the world as it places itself over against God." The world remains God's good creation, and as such is to be enjoyed with thanksgiving, as Paul says (1 Timothy 4:4-5). The command "Do not love the world, or the things that are in the world" (v. 15) refers not to the physical stuff of this world but to "the world" as it is in rebellion against God: "the world" as the combination of things that draw us away from God. The flesh, the eyes, life itself-all can become idols. Like all idols they demand more and more from those who worship them. All idolatry draws us into the lie, or if we're not careful, into the Lie. We must celebrate all the goodness of the world, all God's goodness to us within his creation. But we must not worship it. What are some present-day examples of the values of "the world" which John denounces? – N.T. Wright
In John’s writings this preposition [ek] is used to construct the duality between God and the world, truth and falsehood, righteousness and sin. Reflecting a usage similar to that in the gospel, the author of 1 John repeatedly speaks of being “of [ἐκ] the Father/God/Spirit” or “of [ἐκ] the world/devil” (1 John 2:16; 3:8, 9, 10, 12, 19; 4:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13; 5:1, 4, 18, 19; 3 John 11). To be “of” God or “of” the world specifies the origin of one’s impulses, motivations, and spiritual identity. Often the English preposition “from” does not suggest anything more than having come from somewhere. When John writes, “Because everything in the world — the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride of life — is not of [ek] the Father but is of [ek] the world” (2:16), he means that these things characterize the person who is of the world. The NIV translation of ek as “comes from” doesn’t capture that sense well. It is not as if such things fly out of the world and into the church; rather, those who love the world and the things of the world are themselves “of” the world. Their basic desires and impulses do not originate with God. One either is of the world/devil or is of God, and the only way to be of God is to be reborn as his child (3:1, 2, 10; 5:2). Jesus explains in John 3:5 – 6, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of [ek] water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of [ek] the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of [ek] the Spirit is spirit” (ESV). Therefore the expression “to be of God” or “to be of the world” is a Johannine way of saying either that one is a child of God who has been delivered from sin, or that one has been born only of the world and remains under God’s wrath (John 3:36). – Karen Jobes
The world, like the darkness that is in it, is already disintegrating (paragetai is used both here and in v. 8). Cf. 1 Corinthians 7:31. And those consumed with worldly lusts will pass away with it. Only one kind of person will remain: the man who does the will of God lives for ever. Jesus had said that ‘whoever does God’s will’ was his ‘brother and sister and mother’ (Mark 3:35). John draws the logical conclusion that those thus related to Christ live as he lives (cf. John 8:35; 12:34). The same choice between God and the world, or more particularly between the lust of the world and the will of God, still confronts Christians. We shall more readily obey the command ‘do not love the world’ if we remember that while the world and its desires are transient, God’s will and those who do it are alike eternal (cf. 2 Cor. 4:18). – John Stott
Give me Father, a purpose deep, In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
Faithful and true what e’er the strife, Pleasing Thee in my daily life;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Oh let my love with fervor burn, And from the world now let me turn;
Living for Thee, and Thee alone, Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, yes only one, Now let me say, “Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call, I know I’ll say “’Twas worth it all”;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last
Charles T. Studd (1860 – 1931)
For next week – Read 1 John 2:18-28 Pastor Samuel Sutter // sam@BBCCOnline.org
