Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Garden story
There is a man who lives in a small town somewhere in the heartland of America.
It is a place where the soil is good and many things grow.
And this man has a pretty good size garden in the back of his yard.
He has all sorts of different crops that grow in this garden, and it flourishes and does very well because the climate is just right for agriculture.
But somewhere into the growing season he starts to notice that his vegetables are being eaten right off the plants.
Sometimes the entire plants are eaten.
And so, he takes the time to build a fence enclosing the entire garden to keep out anything that might come foraging.
But the problem persists and plants still show signs of being eaten by some kind of creature.
He thinks, maybe it’s deer that are coming into his garden and his fence is not tall enough to keep them out.
So, he goes and invests more time and more resources into redoing his fence so that it is higher and will deter anything bigger like the deer.
But the problem still goes on.
So, he thinks maybe it’s rabbits or gophers who find a hole or squeeze beneath the gate and somehow find a way in.
So, he goes back and makes sure that his fence is secured all the way into the ground all the way around the garden with no holes.
He remakes the gate so that it is tight right down to the ground and has no possible way for anything to squeeze through.
And still, his plants and vegetables are suffering damage.
He wanders out back to his garden and sees day after day that something is finding a way to get into his fence and feast on his crops.
It cannot be birds, because it is the leaves and stalks that are being chewed, not just the crops and seeds.
He checks and double checks everything.
But the man is simply baffled.
He has no idea what is getting into his garden, or how this creature is able to do it.
Do you know what it is?
There was a rabbit that lived in the garden.
When the man built the fence, it didn’t keep the rabbit out because the rabbit was already in.
in fact, by placing the fence around the garden the man was actually helping the rabbit by putting up a boundary that would protect the rabbit from any other predators.
His attempt at a solution was only making the problem worse.
This man spent all his time trying to solve a problem that was destroying his garden.
When in fact, the problem was right in front of him the whole time and he never saw it.
Context: John says that there is a difference between living in the light and living in darkness.
Somehow living in the light means your life looks different.
We can spend so much time trying to pursue that on our own and trying to figure out what that means.
But so often, the problem is actually right in front of us and we never even see it.
And so, we fight and struggle to fix our lives on our own.
But in Christ, God provides us a better solution.
Passage
1 John 2:15–17 (NIV)
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.
There is a problem with this passage that requires some extra thought.
If we glance over these words too quickly, we might jump to the wrong conclusions.
Let’s remember it is the apostle John who is writing these words.
It is John who is telling the people of the church “Do not love the world.”
But wait, it is this same John who wrote in his gospel perhaps the most recognized Bible verse in America—John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world.”
In one letter John writes that God loves the world so much that he will give anything for it.
Then in another letter John writes to instruct the church to be careful not to love to world.
So, God loves the world, but we are not supposed to love the world?
Maybe the meaning of this passage is not so simple after all.
Today we are considering just these three verses from 1 John 2. And we need to ask a few tough questions.
What does John mean when he says that we are not to love the world?
And what does John mean that we are to love the Father?
Here’s the thing.
I think the answer to both those questions means just as much for us in the church today as it did for John’s original audience two thousand years ago.
Love for the World
Agape
So, let’s start with love for the world.
We need to focus on two words in particular: love and world.
Some of you may know that the Greek language has several different words that all translate into English as love.
In this passage John uses the highest of all meanings for love; he uses the Greek words agape.
This is not the kind of love that talks about affection or good feelings or pleasure.
Agape is a sacrificial love.
It is a love that gives.
It is a love that is steadfast.
It is a love that holds strong commitment.
It is a love that does not let go.
I love to go play a round of golf.
But that’s not agape.
Trust me, I do not have any strong commitments to my golf game.
I do not make sacrifices for my level of golf.
If you’ve ever played a round of golf with me you know this is true.
But in a completely different way, I also say that I love my family.
This is a completely different kind of love.
I do hold strong commitments to my family.
I do make sacrifices for my family.
My love for family is steadfast.
It does not let go.
This is agape.
John is saying, don’t love the world like that—agape.
Don’t love the world in such a way that you sacrifice important parts of your life for it.
Don’t love the world in such a way that you cannot let go.
It’s okay to have some affections in this world.
It’s okay to take some pleasure in the good things of this world which God provides.
But agape kind of love is reserved for something different.
Kosmos
This brings us to the second word to which we need to pay some closer attention.
World.
It is the Greek word kosmos.
This one is tricky because kosmos can have different nuances depending upon the context of the passage.
Generally, kosmos refers to the created universe.
In some instances, the context can narrow the meaning a bit to refer only to the parts of the natural world that have fallen into sin.
How do we know the difference?
One clue in this passage is the inclusion of other words that tip the nuance in a particular direction.
John uses three examples of what he means by the kosmos.
These examples show us what in particular we should not love in this world.
John’s use of the word ‘flesh’—Greek sarx—is almost always a reference to the natural world that has fallen into sin.
He talks about lust of the eyes.
And he also talks about the pride of life.
There are two Greek words for life.
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