When Love is Wrong
Passing on the Faith, Part 4
2 Timothy 3:1-5
Most people today believe a myth,
that the world is becoming a better and better place.
We believe the myth that people are improving,
that the world is becoming more enlightened,
and that we’re way ahead of where our ancestors were.
Now, certainly, there are bright spots in the world today.
Technology has changed our lives,
and made all sorts of tasks easier,
Especially medical technology
has improved the life of billions of people around the planet.
For example small pox has all but been eliminated.
and polio is getting close.
In the US, the life expectancy of a person back in the year 1900
was 47 years old.
Now it’s 77 years old.
In one century we’ve gained 30 years of life.
Some of us here have had our lives saved
by heart bypass surgery,
by new cancer treatments,
or by organ transplants.
There’s also been a lot of progress in Civil Rights,
for minorities and for women
over the last century.
So there’s many improvements.
But at the same time,
in the last 50 years
divorce rates have skyrocketed,
along with the use of illegal drugs,
rates of depression,
and suicide has increased
Single parent families are way way up,
sexual abuse of children has gone up.
educational performance has fallen,
50 years ago
shootings in schools were unheard of,
terrorism was not a threat,
and nobody even cared if you brought a knife on an airplane.
Technology has vastly improved our lives,
but its also brought porn
into any room that has a computer,
and its also given us the ability
to more efficiently kill each other.
So how do we really measure
whether we’re better off or worse off
at any particular time in history?
What’s the standard of a great society?
Is it the wealth of our people?
or the strength of our military?
or the quality of our technology?
And how do you find out if you are moving forward
as a human being,
or moving backward?
How do you measure whether you’re
becoming a better person,
or a worse person?
Is it how much money you make,
or how many friends you have on Facebook?
or whether you have the latest gadgets,
like an i-phone or i-pad.
How do we measure?
Well, the Bible actually tells us the standard
that we can measure by,
and it’s actually the same for societies and for individuals.
The biblical standard for measuring progress
is simply love.
1 Corinthians 13:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Without love,
an individual or society
ranks in the sight of God
as a big zero.
You may have more money than Bill Gates,
more power than Duke Energy,
and so many advanced degrees next to your name,
they call you Dr. Fahrenheit,
But without love,
God says you amount to nothing. Zero.
It was love that made early Christian communities great,
and caused our faith
to spread so rapidly around the world.
About 150 years after Christ,
a great Christian leader named Turtullian,
lived in Carthage,
an area that is now part of Tunisia in North Africa,
Tertullian wrote that for non-believers in his day
the way of describing Christians was that
People pointed at them in the street and said,
“See how they love one another. In fact, they’re ready to die for one another. They even call each other ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ even though they don’t come from the same family.”
Now, those early Christians
didn’t have our technology.
didn’t our conveniences,
didn’t have our wealth,
didn’t live nearly as long as we do.
But on the scale that God measures people by,
some of those early Christian communities
were far greater in the sight of God
than modern America is,
because they had a love
that we can’t even imagine.
The Bible tells us that God is love
and we’re made in his image
we’re also made to love,
But here’s the problem,
you can love the wrong things,
and not love the right things.
What are the right things?
First and foremost, we’re supposed to love God,
and second, to love others.
What are the wrong things to love?
That’s what we’re going to look at today.
We’re in a series based on the book in the Bible, 2 Timothy,
so if you have your bibles
turn to 2 Tim chapter 3.
As I read, I want you to notice the word lovers.
In fact, you all jump in and say the word whenever I get to it…
2 Timothy 3:1-5 TNIV
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
The apostle Paul tells us that
Sometimes people love the wrong things,
and when that happens on a widespread basis,
in any society,
it makes for terrible times.
The apostle Paul says:
Mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.
Have you ever heard anyone say,
We must be in the last days,
because there’s all kinds of earthquakes,
tsunamis, hurricanes,
disasters,
must be the last days.
Well, here’s what the bible says.
Jesus has promised to come back,
and when he does
he will bless his faithful followers,
and judge his enemies,
set up a Kingdom over all the earth,
and he will rule and reign,
as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
so it will happen,
and it could happen any day.
But its also true that,
people have been saying
He’s gonna come back any day now,
for a long, long time.
In fact, Jesus had only been gone for about 20 years,
when Paul wrote the letter of 1 Thessalonians,
to the church at Thessalonica,
And he wrote the letter to correct them,
because the Christians there
were all quitting their jobs,
and sitting around
jumping up and down,
practicing for the rapture.
Because they said,
Jesus is coming back any day now.
And we’re gonna be out of here.
So why should we work?
And Paul says, get a job.
because it’s gonna be awhile,
and 2,000 years later, we go
yeah, it has been awhile.
Good thing you didn’t quit your job.
So when are the last days
that he’s talking about?
The last days refers to
a long period of human history.
Its the time between Jesus’ first coming
and his second coming,
those are the last days.
He’s not speaking about the very last days of history,
like a year or two,
before Christ returns.
And he’s not talking about the tribulation period.
By the last days,
Paul means the entire period of history
between the first coming of Christ
and the second coming.
So we are living in the last days.
In case we have any doubts about
what Paul means by the last days,
We see the same thing said in other places,
The book of Hebrews also tells us that
planet Earth entered the last days.
with the coming of Christ,
Hebrews 1:1-2:
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son...
So we’re in the last days, now,
And Paul says
In the last days,
there will be times that are terrible.
Now, that’s not news to some of you.
I mean, right now,
We’re at war with terrorists.
your house is worth half what it was 3 years ago.
And when you fill your tank with gas
the gas is worth more than your car.
so you’re saying,
yeah, duhhh,
its terrible right now.
But, when Paul says this,
what does he say will cause
the terrible times?
Is it gonna be
Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and flu epidemics?
What’s gonna cause the terrible times?
Paul says: people.
Not earthquakes or hurricanes.
People cause terrible times.
Does that kinda make sense in your life?
If you track the vast majority of things in your life
that are unpleasant,
there’s a person at the other end.
Somewhere in the cause and effect chain,
there’s another sinful person
causing you problems.
Because people do terrible things, right?
If anybody ruins the world,
its not gonna be roaches or mosquitos or sharks or elephants,
its gonna be people.
Because people do terrible things.
Then Paul lists 20 different ways
that people act terrible,
and if I covered these all 20 in depth,
we’d be here about 4 hours
and by then we’d all be so depressed
we’d want to head for the Ohio River
and jump off a bridge.
So I’m not going to cover them all.
I’m only going to look at three,
because there’s three times in this list,
when Paul says people will love something that’s wrong,
and when they do,
and its going to make for terrible times.
The very first thing Paul says, in Verse 2,
people will be lovers of themselves;
He’s talking about
The love of ourselves over the love of God.
The love of ourselves over the love of others.
And Paul lists this first,
because this one is sort of the root or foundation
of all of the other bad stuff
listed in verses 2, 3 and 4,
He says, People will be lovers of themselves.
Now, hold on a minute,
some of you are saying,
what’s wrong with that?
I thought we were supposed to love ourselves,
I’m sure I heard Oprah say,
you need to love yourself
before you can love others.
How can Paul say that’s wrong?
According to the latest psychology,
I gotta figure out how to love me better,
and then maybe I’ll worry about
how to love others.
Well, You may read that in self-help books,
but you won’t find that in God’s word.
The bible says that
you don’t need to figure out how to love yourself more,
you need to realize how much God loves you,
and there’s a big difference.
See, you are already loved, by God.
And God gives you his love
so that now,
you can be loving to others.
When I receive God’s love,
I have the security and identity I need in him.
So now I can be loving to others.
That’s why Jesus said
the 2 most important commands are, what?
Love God, and love others.
He didn’t say love yourself.
he said you're already loved.
God loves you.
So you're fine. Move on.
Now go love somebody else.
Love God, and Love others.
Some of you are thinking,
well Ken, doesn’t the Bible command us to love ourselves?
Then answer is, no
it never says that.
Now it does tell you
to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself.
Well, doesn’t that mean
that you can’t love your neighbor
without first loving yourself?”
I’ve seen that written in 50 different books.
No, that’s not what it really means.
I’ve done a bunch of research on this.
For example, Rich Nathan,
who is pastor of the Columbus Vineyard,
the largest Vineyard Church in the US
with about 10,000 people,
I heard him teach about this whole area,
He said, that’s a twisting of what Jesus said.
Jesus is not commanding you to love yourself,
He’s assuming that
you already love yourself.
Jesus just assumes that
we take care of #1, ourselves.
And isn’t that really true?
If our needs aren’t taken care of,
what do we do,
we get highly upset.
If there’s no hot water for the shower,
I’m ticked,
if there’s no food I like in the refrigerator,
or the TV is broken,
or my needs are somehow not met,
we try to fix that situation,
because we care about our own needs,
we make sure our own interests
are taken care of,
we watch out for #1.
So, when Jesus commands us
“Love your neighbor as yourself”
he’s saying,
I know you’re watching out for your own interests,
so make sure you look out
for the interests of others as well.
Love them, like you love yourself.
If you like to be praised for good work,
then praise others.
If you don’t like to be criticized or rejected,
don’t criticize or reject others.
If you don’t like people gossiping about you,
don’t talk about them behind their back.
In fact, when it comes to self,
Jesus just assumes that we’ll love ourself,
but he commands us
to deny ourself.
You see, we’re to love and affirm
what we are by way of creation.
but we are to deny
what we are by way of the fall.
We should love what we are by way of creation.
In other words I can say,
I love how God made me,
I love my gender,
and the way God shaped my body,
and the gifts and talents he gave me,
the family he gave me,
because I know he designed me perfectly,
to be and do,
what he wants me to be and do.
So I love all that.
But when Jesus says I should deny myself,
I deny what I am by way of the fall.
So I deny my lack of self-control,
I deny my self when it wants to give into temptations,
I deny my self when it wants to be
selfish, and proud, and resentful,
and always put myself first and others last,
an always have my own way,
and be critical,
and hard to please,
rude to other people,
and take offense easily.
Jesus says, deny yourself, but truthfully,
Very few people in our society
take Jesus seriously,
and deny themselves,
which is why Paul said
terrible times will come,
because People will be lovers of themselves.
Then he goes on and says:
People will be lovers money…
Let me tell you one true story.
A pastor was standing in line
at a convenience store in New Orleans.
He noticed a family in front of him
didn’t have enough money for the groceries they were buying.
The pastor tapped the man on the shoulder
and asked him to please take the money he was offering him.
The man took the money offered
bought the groceries and left.
Nine years later,
the pastor was invited to be a guest speaker
at another church in New Orleans.
He spoke and after the service
he was standing by the door greeting people.
a man walked up to him.
He said that nine years ago
he and his wife had been destitute.
They’d lost everything
had no jobs, no money and were living in their car.
They weren’t Christians at the time
they were so depressed
and they decided to both commit suicide.
They drove to a cliff and discussed how they’d do it.
but right about then their 4 year old boy was hungry,
so they decided that before they committed suicide,
they’d buy their son some food.
So they went to a convenience store to buy milk and bread.
They were standing in line at the store
and they realized they didn’t even have enough money
to pay for the milk and bread,
Then the man standing behind them in line spoke
and asked them to please take accept enough money
to pay for their groceries,
And the man also said to him,
“And please remember this: Jesus loves you.”
The man said they left the store with the groceries.
They drove back to the cliff and wept for hours.
They decided they couldn’t go through with suicide,
so they drove away.
As they were driving away, they passed a church
that had a sign that read,
“Jesus loves you.”
They went to the church the next Sunday
and they both got saved.
The the man told the pastor that
the moment that this pastor stood up in the pulpit
they knew that he was the person who had given them the money
They said that they had been Christians now for nine years
and because of the pastor’s simple act of generosity,
they didn’t kill themselves.
Now, most of us could tell a story
about how someone’s act of generosity
made a big difference in our lives.
but Paul says that in the last days,
people will become lovers of money.
and if you’re a lover of money,
you don’t let go of it easily,
you’re not going to have stories to tell,
of when you were generous like that.
Did you know loving money is a sin?
The Bible doesn’t say money is evil,
but it says that
“the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”
And Jesus says
What good is it if you gain the whole world
and lose your soul?”
So what if you go to Hell with a gold card.
What are you gonna buy?
There’s nothing there.
There is nothing worth having apart from God.
There is nothing worth owning
if it distracts you from God.
Our goal should be to love people
and use money.
the purpose of money is to love more people.
not to make more money.
People who love money, use people.
and that describes America.
Just think about,
who are the heroes in our society.
Mostly, lovers of money.
A few years ago Jack Welch
former CEO of General Electric,
was voted the most admired executive in America.
Many years ago I worked for GE,
in the same building in Connecticut where Jack had his office.
When Jack Welch retired from GE in 2001,
he was worth about $500 million dollars.
Some people would say half a billion dollars at age 65,
that’s probably enough to see me through retirement.
its probably enough for a little security,
a nest egg for my family.
But apparently, $500 million
wasn’t enough for Jack Welch.
He got divorced,
and didn’t want to give his wife very much alimony,
So, Jack Welch’s wife sued him,
And all the details of Welch’s GE retirement package,
were revealed to the public for the first time.
It turns out that Jack negotiated for a pension of
$16 million dollars a year.
plus the use of a GE Boeing 737 business jet
24 hours a day for life.
which by itself costs about $300,000 a month.
It like, Jack, You’re retired now.
You can’t fly commercial?
GE also pays all of the expenses,
for a $15 million dollar Manhattan apartment
that was bought at company expense.
They pay for his food and wine bill every month,
which come to about $9000 a month.
Jack must have a big appetite.
Jack’s clothes cost $2000 a month, paid for by GE.
He gets floor level seats for Knick games.
Courtside seats at the US Open,
and box seats for all Yankee and Red Sox games.
Now, that’s where I just draw the line.
Who gets box seats for the Yankees and the Red Sox?
There’s something wrong with that.
If you like the Yankees, you hate the Red Sox, and vice versa.
Nobody gets box seats at both the Yankees and Red Sox!”
That’s just evil.
GE also picks up all of Jack’s restaurant bills.
buys his daily newspapers.
pays for his dry cleaning.
and video rentals.
I mean, who can afford to rent videos,
on only $16 million a year retirement.
When Jack was criticized for this extravagance
at shareholders’ expense
he was quoted in the newspaper as saying,
“What I am receiving is a lot less than I could have received.
I actually sacrificed millions of dollars in striking this deal.”
In other words, his argument is,
“I actually deserve more.”
Oh, I forgot to mention,
according to court documents,
Jack Welch also gives about $600 a month to charity.
Which is much less than some of you give each month.
So I guess you guys must be richer than Jack.
In the last days, people will be lovers of money.
But the truth is,
you don’t have to be a big time corporate executive,
or a famous athlete
or celebrity
to love money.
Many people who are struggling to make ends meet,
love money
just as much as Jack Welch does.
So let me ask you
Do you love money?
Of course, you’d say,
“Definitely not!
I’m not like Jack Welch.”
Well, the problem is,
You can’t tell whether someone loves money
by the size of his or her income,
or what size home you live in,
or what kind of car you drive,
or how many pairs of shoes are in your closet.
So how do you know if you love money?
Well, let me give you 3 questions to ask.
#1: Are you content with what you have?
Maybe you live in an apartment
furnished with hand-me-downs,
and drive a 14-year old Ford
that’s held together with duct tape,
or, maybe you’ve got a huge house,
3 cars,
and a vacation home.
But either way,
Are you content with what you have,
Do you thank God for what you have,
and you’re happy with it,
or do you always want a little more?
you always have your eye on that next thing,
that you want to get.
Who do you think has the deepest,
most satisfying joy in life?
A man who pays several hundred dollars
for a suite in the city,
and spends his evenings in a half- lit,
smoked-filled lounge,
impressing some strange woman with $10 cocktails,
or a man who chooses to stay in a Motel 6
by a vacant lot of sunflowers
and spends the evening watching the sunset
and writing love letters to his wife.
Who is truly more joyful?
Have you learned the secret of being content?
Question #2:
Do you play the comparison game?
Greg our worship leader, was down in Florida one time.
He saw someone with a pair of genuine alligator shoes,
he started comparing, and said
those are a lot nicer than mine,
I want some of those,
so he went to a local shoe store,
but he was shocked at the high prices they were asking
for real alligator shoes.
So he said "Well I'll just go get my own alligator,
so I can get a pair of shoes at a decent price."
Later in the day, the shopkeeper saw Greg standing waist deep in the water, with a shotgun.
He took aim at an alligator, blasted away,
and hauled it onto the swamp bank.
Lying nearby were several more alligators. The shopkeeper watched in amazement as Greg flipped the alligator on its back and shouted in frustration, "Darn, this one isn't wearing any shoes either."
Are you always comparing your stuff with others?
You feel okay about your stuff,
until you see what your friend or co-worker drives,
or you visit somebody else’s house,
that looks nicer than yours.
Let me ask you, What’s more important?
What a person is,
or what he owns?
People who love money focus on
what other people own.
But people who love people
focus on what other people are,
and who cares what they own.
What are you focused on?
Here’s a third question:
Do you honor God with what you have?
No matter what your income in,
high or low,
as you stand before the Lord,
would you say,
God, I am generous toward your church
and toward the work of your kingdom
with my giving.
I’m generous,
because I’m not a lover of money,
I’m a lover of God,
So it is easy for me to give money away.
Could you say that to God, in honesty?
What is it that you really love?
Finally, in verse 4
Paul says that People will be:
lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…
That describes America.
In some countries, people starve to death.
We eat to death.
We’re the nation who created the buffet.
All you can eat, right?
Now, it a sin to have pleasure? No.
Psalms says that
pleasure comes from the right hand of God.
God designed our bodies for certain pleasures:
food, drink, sex all bring pleasure.
God designed it that way.
Its not like God is up in Heaven going,
Just look at them,
“They're kissing and eating,
and enjoying it.
What is wrong with them.
No. God designed our bodies
to enjoy certain things,
But if we love the pleasure
and not the giver of the pleasure, God,
that’s a sin.
That’s when all of the sudden
we worship food and become gluttons.
We worship drink and become alcoholics.
We worship sex, and become addicts and predators.
When we worship the pleasure
it leads to a hatred of God,
and ultimately, sin leads to death.
It’s not the things that you hate that enslave you.
It’s the things that you enjoy
that are most likely to enslave you.
“Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”
One author said,
You can tell how far you are from God,
by how much you’ve turned
toward your body and toward sensuality.
Corrupt cultures are obsessed by sensuality,
and all that it includes,
looks and appearance, sex, status, clothes, sexiness,
all those things are part of a culture’s sensuality.
You see what happens is,
when a society stops worshipping and loving God,
they turn toward the human body and sensuality
as a substitute.
According to the great historian, William Durant,
history shows that
virtually every great society in history
did not decline because of external attack.
Rather, they were destroyed by internal rot,
primarily from over-emphasis
on sensuality.
Now if you simply watch tv programming or ads today,
what do you think our society emphasizes.
No doubt, sensuality.
And again that includes,
looks and appearance, sex, status, clothes, sexiness,
So, how do you become a lover of God,
instead of a lover of pleasure?
Dallas Willard is one of the greatest Christian Authors
and theologians alive today,
He has a great book is titled
“The Renovation of the Heart”
and he lists three things you can do
to turn away from
this over-emphasis on sensuality
or as he calls it,
to turn away from your body
and turn to God.
First of all, he says,
“Stop idolizing your body.”
In other words,
stop treating your body as if
it was of ultimate importance.
So what if you’re aging,
so what if you look in the mirror
and you have a wrinkle,
or you sag where you didn’t before?
Yes you should care for your body.
Yes you should exercise
and watch your diet.
But the purpose of caring for your body
is in order that you might use your body
to serve God and to serve other people.
So stop making an idol of your body.
Second, He says,
stop misusing your body.
Stop using your body to satisfy
what can only be satisfied in God.
There’s a number of ways we can misuse our body,
we can put things into it
that are bad for us,
or put in too much of good things.
but one thing that Dallas Willard emphasizes,
is, if you are a follower of Christ.
men and women,
at all costs,
stop trying to be sexy,
Now, that goes against the grain in our society,
But stop trying to be sexy.
In other words,
Stop trying to elicit a sexual response
from other men or women,
who are not your spouse.
Stop dressing in a sexy way.
Stop carrying yourself in a sexy way.
You can be beautiful,
or you can be handsome,
without manipulating the responses of others.
Stop misusing your body.
The third way to become a lover of God,
instead of a lover of pleasure, is
start dedicating your body to the Lord.
If you feel like there are areas
where your body is out of control,
or you’ve become a lover of bodily pleasure,
then dedicate your body to the Lord.
The Bible says in Romans 12,
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is true worship.
Dallas Willard suggests this little spiritual discipline.
He says, during a prayer time or quiet time,
formally surrender your body to God.
Go through the parts of your body,
Start with your eyes, what you look at,
and go downward.
your ears—what you listen to,
your mouth—what you eat, and what you say,
your hands, your feet, your whole body,
dedicate each part of your body to God.
And if your body is out of control,
you may want to do this every day for a month,
or several months.
Give your body over to God,
to be used by his power
and for his purpose.
You see, you were created
not for the love of yourself,
or the love of money,
or the love of your own body.
You were created
to give and receive love from God
and to give and receive love from others.
We need to love the right things,
not the wrong things.
Be a lover of God. Be a lover of other people.
Let’s stand for prayer.
