1 John 2:15-17
On June 25th, 1967 an estimated 700 million people across 24 countries tuned into the international broadcast of Our World. It was the largest televised event at that time ending with the first ever live version of the Beatles, “All You Need is Love.” It was a simple song with a simple message,
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
Brian Epstein, the band’s manager, wrote, “It was an inspired song and they really wanted to give the world a message. The nice thing about it is that it cannot be misinterpreted. It is a clear message saying that love is everything.” Written at the height of the Vietnam war, the song became the anthem to the counterculture movement of the Summer of Love which advocated an end to the war and encouraged the “free love” of the 1960s sexual ethos.
Who could argue with its message? All you need is love, love / Love is all you need. Epstein said, “It is a clear message that love is everything.” John Lennon wrote the song with his own concept of love encouraging his own definition of love hoping to shift the culture to his version of love. Lennon said of the song that it was a propaganda piece adding, “I’m a revolutionary artist. My art is dedicated to change.” Lennon wanted to redefine love. He had his own definition and concept of love. What did he mean by love? What are we to love? Who are we to love?
All You Need is Love started to show the early seed of postmodern thought. To love, in Lennon’s view, is to accept someone else for who they are and what they do. To love is to accept without restriction. The problem is that not all love is good. There are certain loves that are dangerous to the soul and deadly to our relationship with God. North African theologian, St. Augustine writes that real love knows how to, “love things…in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less.” You can love in the right way or the wrong way; in the proper order or in disorder. The Apostle John wants to teach us to love in the right way, the right order and with the right object.
The Danger of Worldly Love
John begins with a command and a warning. He is writing to Christians and Christians want to have fellowship with God the Father and the Son Jesus Christ. He is commanding them not to love the world by warning them that worldly love reveals that the love of the Father is absent and the absence of the love of the Father means there is no fellowship with God. 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” John uses two different concepts for the world in his writing. He uses the positive aspect of the world like he does in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” And he also uses it as a negative concept referring to the place or realm under control of the Devil. The world or kosmos refers to attitudes and concepts that stand opposed to God. The worldly system is the cultural stream that is carrying people away from the Lord. Paul warns of the devilish worldly philosophy,
Colossians 2:8, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”
2 Corinthians 10:3–5, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,”
We must be on guard against worldly philosophy and ideologies and empty teachings that are opposed to the knowledge of God and seek to destroy our souls.
John reveals that there are two kinds of love. There is a love for God and a love for the world. We will set our affections and our heart desire on the Lord or we will set them on the things that are against Him. Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” There is no dual allegiance in life. You either serve the Lord or you serve the world and the things in the world. Jesus is showing us that money and the love of money is one way we love the world over the Lord. We can have no other masters. Exodus 20:2-3, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” Are you serving another god? Do you have another master?
The consequence for wrongly ordering love or a love set on the wrong master could not be any more dire. “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” If you do not have a love for God and his word, then you may not have the love of the Father. John defines a love for God in the last chapter of this epistle, 1 John 5:1–5
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
We love God when we obey his Word. We love God when we love the children of God. We love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength when we love our neighbor as ourselves. John is linking the two.
If you love the world and the things in the world, you may not have the love of the Father. Paul writes to Timothy that in the last days people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, not lovers of good, but lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. If you are living for yourself, your bank account, or for your pleasure, then you are not a lover of God. And if you do not love God, then you are in danger. There is nothing more important in this life than to make sure that you have the right love. Love for God is all you need.
And if you do not have love for God, I would plead with you to call out to Christ and ask him to remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of love for him. Ask him to change your affections. Friend, God has shown that he loves you, by sending his son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross for your sin and to be raised for your justification. Jesus Christ demonstrated love for you and for me by paying our debt in life, death, and resurrection. If you have never trusted in Jesus, he is calling to you today. Love him. Obey him. We can love God, because God has first loved us. He wants you to have his love. Repent of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ as your only hope for salvation and only way to true love.
There may be others of you who have confessed Christ, but your love for God has grown cold. You are flirting with a love for the world. Let me encourage you to be aware of little “g” gods that want your affections. One could say that John’s aim for this entire epistle is that we would keep our love centered on God. He concludes this letter, 1 John 5:21, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” Idols are little “g” gods that want to steal our love from God. John shows that the false loves begin in our heart.
The Desires of Worldly Love
We live in a fallen world. It is easy to see that our world is broken, but it is harder to see how that brokenness manifests itself in our hearts. It is easier to see brokenness when we look out into the world but hard to see brokenness in our own hearts. Our culture says that if we feel it then it must be right. If I have this desire, and I have always had this desire, then that desire must be good. Desires or a strong feeling of wanting to have something are fallen just like this fallen world. We must analyze our desires and submit them to the Word of God. 1 John 2:16, “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” Not all desires are bad, but of the 38 times the word for desires is used in the NT, they have a negative connotation.
First, notice that the desires that John mentions are not from the Father but from the world. As a Christian, we should always be aware of anything that would keep us from the love of God. And if anything would keep us from God, we should cut it out of our life. Second, notice that John is not talking about certain activities but is focusing on the motivations of the heart behind those activities. The Bible does talk about particular activities that we should not engage in (drunkenness, adultery), but the Bible focuses more on the motivation of the heart. We can do the “right” thing for the “wrong” reason. The Pharisees would pray (the “right” thing) to be seen by men (the “wrong” reason”). John does not want you to focus only on your outward action, but he wants you to dig and do the work of the heart. It is the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and pride of life that is from the world. James has a parallel passage, James 4:1–4,
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Our desires give birth to sin and reveal our allegiance. Are we friends with God or the world? Friendship with the world, living in the desires of our flesh, makes us an enemy of God.
John highlights three specific things that are from the world. First, the desires of the flesh. Paul specifies the works of the flesh. As I read this list ask the Holy Spirit to reveal if you are serving any one of these worldly desires, Galatians 5:19–21
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Those who do such things do not have the love of the Father. Does your life look like the world? Does our life as a congregation look like a list of the flesh or the list of the Spirit? Galatians 5:22–24
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we are in Christ, we have crucified our flesh. We no longer live for our earthly desires but to please the Lord. In Christ, we desire to please God.
Secondly, John warns us of the desires of the eyes. The eyes are windows to the soul. Jesus says,
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6:22–23)
One can think of Eve in the garden and King David on the rooftop. It was their eyes that led them away from the Lord. We must be incredibly careful how we use our eyes. Our eyes may lead us to envy and coveting as we stare at the lives of others online, our eyes may lead us to dehumanizing men and women made in God’s image as we lust in pornography or objectifying others in our minds, our eyes may lead us to discontentment as long for that which the Lord in his good wisdom has chosen not to give us. Friend, be careful with your eyes. They are a lamp of the body which leads to light or darkness.
Lastly, John warns of the pride of life or the pride in possessions. The sinful human heart is always looking to find a way to boast. We boast in what we do or what we have because we want glory. We want others to think well of us. So much of our daily lives exists so others would see us. The common phase in our social media driven world, “If it is not online, then it didn’t happen.” Are we living to be seen by the world or by God? Danny akin powerful notes,
This pride that results from and in worldly possession is an affront to God, for it leads to a glorification of the self and a failure to realize the dependence of humanity upon God, the Creator, for existence. In this area of temptation, individuals make idols of their livelihood, social standing, and any other status symbol that the world determines is important but that matters little to God. Pride, prestige, power, and position count for nothing in the kingdom of God. The value system of this world is turned on its head when God provides the evaluation.[1]
Beloved, remember Paul’s word, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? (1 Cor 4:7b) Let us not rob God of his glory but let us give God the glory for everything we have in this life. Give thanks in all circumstances and for all your blessings for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.
The desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life will affect all of us in all kinds of ways. We need one another to help keep us from idols. When was the last time you confessed your idols to someone? Confessed how you are tempted to love the world? Beloved, we are works in progress. We need one another. We need one another to expose our blind spots and to help keep our hearts loving the right things in the right ways. It would be great if every single member of our church had a co-laboring love-detector. We get our oil changed every 3,000 miles, we get our body checked once a year with a physical, wouldn’t it be worthwhile if we had a brother or sister helping us discern if we are loving the world or loving the Father.
This past week, I have had several folks in our congregation come to me to share how their desires have caused them to fall away from Christ. Praise God that they had enough courage to come forward and say I do not want to love the world or the things in the world, because I want the love of the Father and fellowship with Jesus whose blood cleanses us from sin. Beloved, the world and its desires want your soul. Do not love the world. Let us actively fight against that love for the world but exhorting and encouraging one another to love the Father. Let us encourage each other to read and memorize God’s word. Let us encourage each other to use our gifts to serve others. Let us grow in our love for the Father together.
The Death of Worldly Love
There are days when the fight against sin seems unbearable. We are overwhelmed with the desires of the flesh that continue to wage war against our souls. We fall into temptation and swim in the waters of guilt, shame and condemnation. We weep of weakness and call out to God, “How long, O Lord?” Not only are we weary of our own internal battle, we grieve the pain we see in our world. We lament the sin in our leaders, in our families and in our churches. We are a smoldering wick and a bruised reed. We are tired and feel like we cannot go on. Let me encourage today to press on. Press on towards the upward call of God in Christ Jesus because there is coming day when this world and its desires will pass away and those who stick with the Lord will endure forever. 1 John 2:17, “And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
Jesus Christ has overcome the world. He died for our sins and was raised for hope. Death could not hold him and it will not hold us. Our calling is do the will of God. If we do the will God, that proves that we belong to God. We are saved by his grace unto good works. We wage war against our flesh and every worldly philosophy taking every thought captive to Christ. We will serve the Lord Jesus and no other. He is the one who died and the one who rose again. The only ones who will remain with God and experience his glory are those who love the Father. We love the Father because he has first loved us in his Son. We can endure. We can press on. We can because of Christ.
This past week, I have been thinking a lot about Olin Hollis. Olin was a dear brother, a faithful deacon, and a man who did the will of God. During his final weeks before his death, every time you would visit him he would make you sing with him a song about heaven. As I look at all that evil in the world and the evil in my own heart, I may be discouraged, but when I think that there is coming day, yes,
There is coming a day
When no heartaches shall come
No more clouds in the sky
No more tears to dim the eye
All is peace forever more
On that happy golden shore
What a day, glorious day that will be
There’ll be no sorrows there
And no more burdens to bear
No more sickness and no more pain
No more parting over there
And forever I will be
With the One who died for me
What a day, glorious day that will be
What a day that will be
When my Jesus I shall see
When I look upon His face
The One who saved me by His grace
When He takes me by the hand
And leads me to the Promised Land
What a day, glorious day that will be
[1] Akin, D. L. (2001). 1, 2, 3 John (Vol. 38, p. 111). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
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