Sermon Tone Analysis

Last week we saw from the text in 1 John 2:12-14 that John provided a word of encouragement.

John now gives a word of exhortation and warning concerning something he identifies six (6) times as “the world”

Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 John 2:15-17

Here John is not using the word “world (Gk cosmos) to speak of God’s good creation or even the world of people for whom Christ died (John 3:16).

He is referring here to a worldview perspective that is led by “the evil one” whom we have overcome and that is characterized by the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride in possessions, look again at 1 John 2:16

To love the world is to be devoid of love for the Father.

(v.

15)

Worldliness or “being of the world” that John is talking about here has to do with those things that idolize thoughts, values and behaviors that are contrary to God’s Word and His will.

No the things in the world that reflect the glory, goodness and gifts of God.

But things that appeal to our sinful flesh like, drug abuse, drunkenness, gluttony, abundance of possessions, sexual perversions, etc.

So what John does here in today’s text is highlight three things the world promises but cannot deliver.

The world cannot give you what you need (2:15).

Look again in v. 15

The longing of the human heart is to be loved and to love.

The objects of our affections need to be rightly ordered if we are truly to find ultimate and lasting satisfaction.

John, therefore, commands us, “Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world.”

Why?

To love the world is to not love Father God, which is what you really need.

It is what you were created for.

You are either going to be a lover of world or a lover of God.

John says, “Choose your lover, but choose carefully; choose wisely.

Choose God the Father, not the worldly enticements of the father of lies” (John 8:44).

We must recognize that turning even good things into “god” things becomes a bad thing.

It is to give your love to a lesser lover—one who can never satisfy, who can never give you what you truly need.

The world cannot give you what it promises (2:16).

This is one of the most important verses in the Bible.

It identifies in vivid detail the weapons the world uses to seduce men and women into joining its side.

Amazingly, each of these weapons resides in us!

The enemy really is within!

These same three weapons slew Adam and Eve in the Garden.

Genesis 3:6 says, “Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food [lust of the flesh] and delightful to look at [lust of the eyes], and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom [the pride of life].”

These same three weapons were conquered by Christ, the second Adam, in His temptation in the wilderness.

Luke 4:1–13 explains that the Devil beckoned Him to “tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3), which is the lust of the flesh.

Then he “showed Him all the kingdoms of the world” (Luke 4:5), tempting Jesus with the lust of the eyes.

Finally, from the pinnacle of the temple, the Devil challenged him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here.

For it is written: He will give His angels orders concerning you, to protect you, and they will support you with their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone” (Luke 4:9–10).

But even the pride of life could not lead the Savior into sin.

The world cannot give you what will last (2:17).

This verse brings to a conclusion John’s argument as he contrasts the two loves, two lives, two approaches to life.

Why side with the world?

Why give your life to an empty imitation, a worthless fake, a temporary illusion?

The world, this evil and deceptive system of Satan, is continually passing away and its desires with it.

The darkness was on the run in 2:8.

The world is on the run in 2:17.

Light and that which will last forever has shown up in Jesus Christ.

What remains?

What lasts?

What endures?

The answer is, the one doing (continually) the will of God.

This one abides (continually) forever.

Jesus said many things about the will of God, especially in John’s Gospel.

My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.

(John 4:34

I can do nothing on My own.

I judge only as I hear, and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (John 5:30

For I have come down from heaven, not to do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (John 6:38

Jesus’ work is lasting and effectual because it was the will of the Father for Him to do that work.

For our work to abide like Christ’s, our hearts must not be attached to the things of this world, but to the will of the Father.