Title: Do not love the world
Bible: 1 John 2:15-17
Key verse: 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
Praise the Lord
Glory to the Lord that he has given us a new day.
On this new day also, he wants to give new/fresh mercy to all of you.
I hope you all will take it through his word and through his fellowship.
Many times, we hear that when a potter takes clay in his hands, he knows very well what shape to give it and what to make. In the same way, God, who is much greater than the potter, who has created everything from nothing. If we give him our lives, won't it make your and my lives better?
Yes, He will, but only when we surrender ourselves to our creator's hands.
To surrender means to give life into God’s hands and to live life in God's words.
If you have your bible with you.
Open with me 1 John 2:15-17
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.
Amen
Let us pray to God..
As followers of Christ, we have to love, and He says to love everyone, That is why we, Christ, are lovers of extravagance.
We love because God is love, we love because God first loved us.
We love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, Love your neighbour as you love yourself. Through love, the world knows that we are followers of Jesus.
Not only love another, but the Bible says to love your enemies.
The apostle Paul says by Love we fulfil the law, In romans 13:8-10 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.
Even John 3:16 says For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
In John 3:16 God says “For God so loved the world, but in 1 John2:15, God is saying that “ Do not love the world or anything in the world.
For himself, he says “ For God so loved the world, but in 1 John he is saying to us “ Do not love.
It is command of God “ do not love the world”, which means if we break it, that we are in sin.
In other words, Love can be sinful. And there many example when love can be sinful.
So, question is what makes love sinful?
What could make love sinful?
Under what circumstance would love be considered sinful?
First of all, love becomes sinful when it is directed in the wrong object .
(जब प्रेम गलत वस्तु की ओर निर्देशित होता है तो वह पापपूर्ण हो जाता है)
Verse 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.
In John’s gospel and John's letter, we can see this word “world’ in three different ways.
Firstly, the world refers to all creation , which we can see in many chapters of John's Gospel.
The world that John is talking about in 1 John 2 is not this world. He is not saying here that we should not love this earth that God created.
Secondly, the word "world" refers to the people who live in this world that God has created. And God is not saying, Do not love people, do not love humankind.
The world that John is talking that it does not mean this.
Because of the love that we are called to give even to our enemies.
So, John is not talking about the first and second worlds.
However, there is a third use of the term "world," which refers to the spiritual realm that is in opposition to God and in rebellion against His kingdom. This is the world John is talking about in his letter.
So when John says, “Do not love the world, he says your love becomes sinful when it is objected to by that system that is anti-God, or kingdom of darkness.
John has spoken about this world many times in his letter.
In 1 John 5, John says that by faith, the Christian is able to overcome the world.
In 1 John 3:13, it says the world hates believers.
In 4:3, it is the abode of the anti-Christ.
In 4:5, it is the abode of unbelievers.
In 5:19, the whole world is controlled by the evil one.
So John refers to the world that is under the control of the enemy, Satan, the world that is spiritual and ideological and at war with our King and his kingdom.
Therefore, he says, “Do not love that world at all.
When your love is towards the world, then there is no room for the love of God, because when your love and your affections are directed towards the world, they oppose God.
James says 4:4. You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other, you cannot serve both God and money.
When we talk about salvation, we are taken out of the world, we are taken out of that system, we are taken out of darkness, and we are put into His wonderful light.
But if our love is still for the world, then our faithfulness has not legally been transferred.
Therefore 1 John 2:19 says They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
Because their love and affection were pointed at the system that opposed to God.
John 15;19 if you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
John 17:16 They are not of the world, Just I am not of the world.
If you see the picture of the husband and wife, The Bible says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. But the moment you turn that love into another, you are guilty of idolatry.
In the same way, the moment we turn that love that we are called to have for God, the moment we turn that to the world from which we were saved, that shows we do not have love or love for God.
Dear brothers and sister Love becomes sinful when it arises from the wrong sources
प्रेम तब पापपूर्ण हो जाता है जब वह गलत स्रोतों से उत्पन्न होता है
Verse 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.
This love for the world arises from the world, just as our love for God or the things of God arises from God.
So, this love becomes sinful when it arises not from God but from a different source (the world).
Lust (desires) of the flesh/physical pleasure, the lust (desires) of the eyes are sinful desires, and pride (arrogance) is sinful behaviour.
The first two are internal and hidden sins, and the last one is revealed sin.
Lust of flesh—these include all the sinful physical desires. Lust of the eyes means greed and covetousness.
Pride means taking pride in what one’s accomplished, it means seeking a good name or high position, it means putting confidence in oneself instead of in God.
These things arise in the world. And when we are saying lust of flesh, lust of eyes, and boasting, we are talking about the third world, not the first two worlds.
For example: I can give thanks the beauty of a sunset and the beauty of those things which God made. I must love people to whom God has created in this world. It is arises by God himself. But in this present those love has be changed, instead of loving the beauty of a sunset, now people are worshiping God’s created things.
Money is not evil in itself, but to love money is evil.
Rest is a good and necessary thing, but to love rest leads to laziness.
Work is a good and necessary thing, but loving the work in an unsuitable way gives rise to pride and worldly ambition.
Therefore, instead of loving these things, we must love the givers of these gifts.
True love can lead me to share my testimony, but pride can make me represented as better, and overemphasised.
True love can lead me to use my voice to proclaim the gospel, but pride makes me love to talk too much.
True love can lead me to share my story, but pride can lead me to make myself the hero of every story I tell.
Love becomes sinful based on direction, and source.
Finally our love becomes sinful when its produce a wrong fruit.
Verse 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
In this verse, we have two ends.
This world is passing away, and on the other side, we have our God, who lives forever.
Love becomes sinful when it leads to the wrong end and produces the wrong fruit.
Our passions can be sinful when they are pointed in directions that lead to death.
1 Corinthians 7:29–31 What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that time is short. From now on, those who have wives should live as if they do not; 30 those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31 those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
There is no life there.
Romans 1:18-27
There is bad fruit.
It is pointed in the wrong direction.
It is arising from the wrong source,
And it is producing bad fruit .
Therefore, it falls into the categories of love that is sinful, love that does not glorify God, and love that is in the third version of the word world.
The system that is openly opposed to all that God is and rebels against God and His kingdom.
The Bible says, Do not love.
There are some loves that are not acceptable. In other words, there are some loves that are not truly love.
Dear brothers and sisters, do not love the world, do not love based on your passions and your desires.
But love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, which means your passion will be in his direction.
The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
The world and its desires are passing away, so why put faith in things that pass away?
But the man who does the will of God lives forever.
God’s will is that, men believe in Christ and obey his commands, especially the two great commandments to love God and neighbour.
Even though, God is telling you, do not love the world, maybe you feel no good, or maybe it looks uncomfortable, But through these commands, he is calling us away from death, because he loves us, he wants us to abide in God, to remain in God, and to not perish.
Therefore, do not love the world.
Amen
