John reveals somethings about his audience in these verses of scriptures…
In verses 12-14. John is writing to "little children” of God.
In verses 12 and 13 he uses two different words for “Little children”.
(1) First in Verse 12 refers to all believers as the words “Little children” means literally "born ones." That is these are young converts that recently have been born into the Kingdom of God.
• That is to enjoy living in this life physically, we have to be born in this life
• To enjoy living in the kingdom of God spiritually, we have to be born in the Kingdom of God.
This is why God’s Word teach “Ye must be born again 'if you are going to live in God’s Kingdom.
2)Secondly, in Verse 13 he uses a different word for “Little children” to describe those just starting out in the Christian life. They have been born again but they are immature in the faith. So, John is addressing a congregation of young converted immature Christians.
To all of God’s children, in whatever stage of spiritual development they are in, John gives a strong warning!!!
Look at verse 15. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
In verse 15 the word LOVE is used 3 TIMES in 3 different ways.
Have you ever thought about HOW IMPORTANT THE WORD LOVE IS TO US CHRISTIANS?
Is there anything more important than LOVE?
• What would it be like to live in a world where there is NO LOVE!
I WOULDN’T WANT TO LIVE IN SUCH A WORLD.
• What would it be live in a home where there is NO LOVE!
I WOULDN’T WANT TO LIVE IN SUCH A HOME.
• What would be like to attend a church where there was NO LOVE!
I WOULDN’T WANT TO BELONG TO SUCH A CHURCH
There is not anything more important than LOVE!!! Nothing!!!
Illus: All the problems in the WORLD, in our HOMES, in our NEIGHBORHOODS AND IN OUR CHURCHES mostly come from a…
(1) LACK OF LOVE
(2) MIS-UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT LOVE IS
In this IMPURE WORLD we need to make sure we really know what the word LOVE REALLY MEANS?
The apostle John agrees with me and this is why he is addressing these young converts.
Why?
As new born babes in the Lord we all have different meaning of the word LOVE.
Illus: For example, teenagers develop a definition of the word love as a teenager when they fall in love. ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU CANNOT TELL THEM ANYTHING ABOUT LOVE, THEY KNOW ALL ABOUT LOVE!!!
They know more about love than their parents and grandparents put together…THEY THINK!!!
Most of the time their love is an EMOTIONAL LOVE, not a PURE LOVE.
Illus: For example they can believe in this kind of emotional love and have ten different girl friends in ten months.
To know what love is we have to know God, because the Word of God tell us…
I. GOD IS LOVE
Here is the proof…
Look at Romans 5:7-8 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Illus: I was talking to a policemen who just got out the marines. On his first assignment he was assigned to go to a church and makes sure everything was secure.
When he got there, he met a tall man that told him he was there cleaning one of the buildings.
Everything seem to be alright, so he headed back to his car to leave. However, he looked behind him and this man was charging him and cursing him. He immediately called for help. But by the time help arrived this tall man had beaten him badly.
After help arrived they put him in hand-cuffs and placed him in the car.
After this policeman had been taken care of one of the policemen walked over to him and told him this guy that beat him up wanted to know if he would drop the charges.
He said he told him, “Heck no, that man has beaten the devil out of me, I want him arrested!”
Listen, when the Lord saved us the Bible tells us we were still sinners. BUT YET HE SAVED US!!!
Listen, God love is an everlasting love
JEREMIAH 31:3 “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.'”
Illus: God loves me today and I do not have to wonder if God will love me tomorrow. GOD IS LOVE!!!
Illus: God love is not a Love like a water spiket” that turns “On and off”!
Illus: It is like when a man truly falls in love with his wife and she no longer have that school girl figure and her smooth skin is replace with wrinkles, if he TRULY LOVES her he will love her till the day she dies.
Illus: The Billy Graham movie "A Vow to Cherish" illustrates the COMMITMENT of PURE LOVE in a powerful way.
• The lead character’s wife contracts Alzheimer’s at a very young age, devastating the family and threatening to destroy a long-standing marriage.
• The husband is reduced to a caregiver for a wife who can no longer physically or mentally fulfill him.
• She doesn’t even know his name.
• In the meantime, he strikes up a friendship with an attractive woman he meets while jogging.
• The climax of the movie takes place when the husband, on the brink of compromise and close to walking away from it all, renews his COMMITMENT to his wife.
• In an incredibly moving scene, he kneels by their bed, holds his wife’s hand, looks her in the eye and repeats his wedding vows
For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions.
These are not from the Father, but are from this world,
We can all be thankful for God’s incredible everlasting love.
God who knows all about love tells believer…
II. Love not the world?
The word “world” is used in at least three different ways in the Scriptures:
(1) The word “world” often refers to the physical world, the earth which God made.
In Acts 17:24 "God that made the world and all things therein." Speaks of our planet.
(2) Sometime the word “world” often refers to the world of mankind:
John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world.”
(3) The word “world” often refers to the world system: In this context the world is an enemy of God which opposes God.
This is the meaning of “world” in this passage.
• In John 12:31 Satan is described as "the prince of this world".
• Jesus said John 5:19 "We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one".
In this WORLD OF IMPURITY GOD IS TELLING BELIEVERS NOT TO LOVE THE WORLD
• Lost people do not think the way saved people think.
• Lost people do no love what saved people love.
The world then is not a natural habitat for a believer for his citizenship is in heaven.
Philippians 3:20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
The words “OUR CONVERSATION” may be rendered, "our citizenship is in heaven".
Christian fellowship and the world are incompatible because of the moral pollution of sin.
HOW IS IT INCOMPATIBLE?
Illus: For example, all of us are concerned for the pollution of the environment, but we Christians are also concerned for the moral pollution of the world. The lost world is not!!!
Christians are not to love the world because of what the world does.
Love for the world is irreconcilable with love for the Father.
God’s Word tells us, "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
Look at what the world does to believers. “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”
The Lust of the flesh includes anything that appeals to man’s fallen nature.
It refers to the basic nature of unregenerate man that makes him blind to spiritual truth.
Let me explain…
Illus: You can ask a sinner a sensible question such as:
1) Do you want to serve GOD WHO LOVES YOU?
2) Do you want to serve the devil who HATES YOU?
And the obvious answer should be GOD!!!
But Satan has blinded the mind of the lost and they continue to serve a devil that hates them and send them to an eternal hell!!!
Illus: Every time a preacher gives an invitation to be saved, there are sinners saying one of two things…
• I Choose Jesus who loves them
• I Choose Satan who hates them
Lust of the flesh is an illegitimate expression of a basic desire.
For example…
• Hunger is not evil, but gluttony is sinful.
• Sleep is a gift of God, but laziness is shameful,
• Sex is God’s precious gift when used rightly in the context of marriage but used wrongly it becomes immorality.
Look at Galatians 5:19-21 for a list of the deeds of the flesh.
Everything God said about the flesh is negative.
Look at Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
The lust of the eyes refers to the unlawful cravings which entice our eyes.
• The eyes are the gateway into the mind. So much modern entertainment appeals to our eyes.
• Advertisement appeals are often made by things that are immoral and materialistic. This leads to covetousness.
• The lust of the eyes pressures us to think as the world thinks. It is to see things in the light of the world rather than with the eyes of God.
The Psalmist prayed, “Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity” (Psalm 119:37).
Our eyes can get us into trouble.
Illus: Remember King David a great man of God his eyes got him in trouble on the roof top lusting for Bathsheba.
What a great price he paid for his lusting!!!
The Bible speaks many times about love, and what it is.
Let us look at a biblical definition of love and see in what ways it is different from its worldly counterpart.
(1) God’s love is all-encompassing
Illus: God does not select only the beautiful people, or the rich, or the successful to love; He loves the world.
He loves us so much that He gave His Son in order that the world could be saved, “John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
(2)Notice that God’s love is for everyone in the world; whoever believes in Him.
We are to love others as God loves us. We are not to pick the nicest looking, most prestigious and popular people to love.
(3) God’s word even tells us to love our enemies (Luke 6:27-36).
Jesus is our example and, as He was being crucified, He said to a thiel in Luke 23:43 “And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
Many times, the world’s idea of love is to love those who can further our career or those from whom you can get something that you need. This is not a godly love.
Conclusion:
Let me illustrate with a true story of true love.
Illus Iris Blue always wanted to be a lady, but she was a big girl and awkward. At 12 years of age, she was 6’3" - bigger than her teachers!
The world told her as a girl that if she didn’t have a certain kind of body, she wasn’t a real woman. All she wanted was someone who would open the door for her and treat her like a lady. She just wanted to feel valuable, like she was special. She tried to bury her feelings inside but began to struggle because of her size and because she didn’t feel pretty.
She came home from church one day and asked her mother, "Why I am so big mother?"
And her mom said, "God did it."
Iris said, "I wanted to whup God!
I thought, “Why’d He do that?’" She became angry, disillusioned with God - and rebellious.
At age 13 she ran away from home. By the following week she was working in a topless nightclub "doing everything she said she would never do." She started doing drugs and stealing. She was arrested several times. This young Baptist girl with parents who dearly loved her was eventually arrested for armed robbery and sent to prison.
She was not only locked up behind bars, but she was also locked up in a body and a life that she could not stand. She used to daydream, locked up in solitary confinement and in her dreams, she would dream that a doctor would operate on her and pull her apart and inside her great big body would be a little bitty pretty girl and men would fall at her feet.
She dreamed of the day when she would be a lady. She wasted 7 years of her life daydreaming in prison.
Her parents were told to give up on her after psychological tests and personality evaluations conducted in prison determined that she was, "incorrigible and a degenerate" - words she later learned meant there was no hope.
When Iris got out of prison, within hours she was back on drugs. When she got home to her room she found 7 years of Christmas presents, Easter baskets, Valentines Gifts, birthday presents. But even her mom and daddy’s love weren’t enough to make her feel like a lady.
She began working in bars again. In fact, it wasn’t long before she was running 3 bars and living a horrible life filled with drugs, sex and everything imaginable.
But momma didn’t give up. She began to pray. She invited Iris over for dinner one night and before Iris left, she looked her in the eye and told her, "Iris, you need Jesus."
Iris made fun of her mother and God. Called her a hypocrite. Her mom knew she was right. She went home, fell on her knees and said, "God, she’s right, I’m a hypocrite and a phony. Forgive me, cleanse me, fill me with your peace and your presence and whatever it takes, save my baby. I don’t want to go to heaven without her."
She went back to church and told the whole church to pray for Iris.
Iris went back to the bars. It didn’t seem like the prayers were doing anything at first. But in two weeks, a young man heard a message that we’re to go out and look for the hurting and bring them into the Kingdom. And he picked Iris. He started witnessing to her. He would call her up and tell her how valuable she was saying, "If you had been the only person in the whole world, Jesus would have died for you. God loves you Iris." He’d call late at night and she’d be high and have to plug her ears and go in the bathroom just to hear because it was so loud in the bar. And he’d say, "I just called to say, ’Jesus loves you.’" And she’d hang up on him.
He witnessed to her several times and then one day he called her up and said, "Iris, would you meet me outside. I want to tell you goodbye." So he came and she went out and sat in his car. He said, "Iris, you think I’m not even a man because what you girls are trying to get me to do, I won’t go for. I know it would feel good for a few moments but I’m more concerned about your eternity than a moments pleasure for me." Then with tears running down his face, this man said the words that changed her life. He said, "Iris, Jesus can make you a lady."
When he said the word, "Lady" something broke open inside her. All her life she’d wanted to be a lady.
They got out and knelt on the street corner as this man led her in the sinner’s prayer, explaining that it was like a preacher giving a young bride and groom their wedding vows.
He said, "Jesus, do you want Iris?" He said, "Aahh,
He said He wants you Iris, whatever it takes…"
He said, "Iris, do you want Jesus?" And she said, "Yeah…I do."
That night God changed her life. She closed three clubs the next day. Today she’s in the ministry with her husband. They travel around the world telling what Jesus has done for them.
Her testimony: On March 31, she knelt down on a street corner an old tramp but stood up a lady; clean, pure, forgiven, innocent, blameless…She found Pure Love in an Impure World.
I. God Is Love
II. Love Not the World
