Pentecost 23 1 John 2:15-17

November 3, 2013

We hear about it in the news, dramatized in movies, and lived out in the lives of people we may know. In fact, there’s even a detailed incident of it in the Bible, in the life of a great hero of faith and forerunner of the Savior – King David of Israel.A man or woman gets romantically involved with someone who isn’t their spouse. It’s tragic, shocking, and shameful. And incredibly stupid. It never works out!No matter how right and wonderful it feels at the time, every promising love affairhas a miserable ending, ruining marriages, families, and reputations. Sometimes it even leads to murder. And unless they repent, as David did,they will face God’s judgment for it.

Marital unfaithfulness is just one example of a much greater love affair that tempts us all. Jesus’ apostle, John, warns each of us about falling in love with the world and the things in the world.God protects us from that dangerous love affair by warning us of the world’s illusion and wooing us with his genuine love.

  1. By warning us of the world’s illusion

What does God mean by “the world?” The most famous passage in the Bible tells us that “God so loved the world the he gave his one and only Son.” If he loved it, why does he warn us not to love it? Here’s where we need to see that God uses the word “world” in different ways. “World” can mean either the planet God created and or the people he created to live on this planet. Those are two good things, and because God loves his creation, so should we.But God also uses the word “world” in a third way, a negative way, which John describes here as “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”. In this sense, “world” refers to the way sin perverts human wants and desires to use the things God created in the opposite way God intends.

For example, I want to feel good and be happy, but my sinful heart wants it now and it wants it my way. I might try to escape my problems and lower my stress with alcohol or smoking marijuana. My bills are mounting so I’ll spend more money on lottery tickets and gambling and hope I win big. We want to be together now and someday we’ll get married. It’s all out there as a lure for “the lust of the flesh” that burns within me.

I want to feel loved and valued and I want it my way, and there’s so much for “the lust of the eyes” to feast upon. Just walk through Sam’s Club or Costco or the mall to see all the things you deserve. Turn on the TV and flip to a movie rated “Mature” or search the internet for lonely people looking for love in all the wrong places, or just let your eyes linger on that attractive girl or guy at the swimming pool and wonder, “what if…”

I want to feel important, and “the pride of life” urges me to come out on top and be recognized in some way – for my talent, for what I’ve accomplished, for what I have.

You see, the world isn’t just “out there”. It’s “in here”. It sings my sinful nature’s favorite songs. It is alluring. It is captivating. It seeks to draw me in, away from God, away from my Savior, away from heaven. It is exactly what the devil has programmed it to do from the beginning. It“comes not from the Father but from the world.”

And it is deadly. “If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.” As Jesus once put it, “No one can serve two masters.” It is either/or. You can’t serve both God and “stuff”, the things of the world. It is a dangerous love affair. James, the brother of Jesus, even put it that way in his letter:“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”(James 4:4) And there’s only one destiny for God’s enemies – hell.

God protects us from that dangerous loving affair by warning us of the world’s illusion. It’s like this bottle of flavored water. It has the “essence” of strawberry but there’s not a drop of real strawberry in it. It’s an illusion. It’s the same with the world. It promises happiness but gives nothing but disappointment, pain, and sorrow. “The world and its desires pass away.”It won’t last. It’s on the garbage truck, heading to the dump, ready to be incinerated. If you’ve ever seen the calculator that ticks off the climbing national debt, imagine it going the other way, ticking off the disappearing days, hours, and minutes until the Last Day.

We need God to warn us about the dangerous love affair we’re tempted to have with the world. We need him to warn us because the world presents it as such a bonus, such a good thing. The world tries to disguise the evil by calling it things like “healthy alternate lifestyles” and “having a good time” and “living the life you deserve”. The world makes it sound like you’re missing out and you’re intolerant if you don’t approve.

God warns us because he loves us. He loved us so much that he rescued us from the destruction that is coming upon the world. He became sin for us and made himself guilty of all our lustful desires so that God could condemn them all in his body. And now we are free to listen to another song, a new song of God’s mercy and forgiveness in Christ Jesus. The world lures with illusions and empty promises. But

  1. God woos us with his genuine love.

God woos us. He courts us. He invites us. Not the way the world does it. The world packages things to make them appealing to the eye. We are lured to a product or a person because of their outward appearance so we will embrace it.

God’s love comes to us in a package covered with blood in the form of a despised, rejected, tortured life that ended in humiliation and death - definitely not a lure for “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life.” Yet that death is greatest demonstration of love we’ll ever know. Christ died for sinners, a love that invites the guilty, shame-filled conscience to peace and rest in his forgiveness.

We don’t embrace God’s love. God’s love embraces us. He comes to us through the unattractive packages of words, water, wine, and bread and woos us with his gifts of genuine love. There a no loud commercials, flashing lights, bright colored shiny packages. Just a look of love that calls out, “Today salvation has come to you. Your sins are forgiven. Come, follow me.”

Unlike the world, which promises so much but gives nothing but grief and pain, God’s love delivers everything he promises. “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” The will of God is to take him at his word, believe in Jesus, and be saved.

Who would want to flirt with a dangerous love affair and risk forfeiting such genuine love? It’s enough to make us want to “be faithful to the point of death” so he can “give us the crown of life” in heaven. Amen