REAL CHRISTIANITY
1 JOHN 2:15-17 ETC. - PAGE 1
LOVING GOD
Real Christianity #8, Studies
in 1 John
Let’s talk about loving God.
We will use 1 John 2:15-17,
the next passage in our 1 John series as an important part of the
discussion.
But, we will include other
passages as well. Let’s look at:
THE COMMAND TO LOVE GOD
Matthew 22:35-40 - Then
one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and
saying, [36] Master, which is the great commandment in the law? [37] Jesus said
unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind. [38] This is the first
and great commandment. [39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself. [40] On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets.
Jesus summed up the whole Old
Testament Law and Prophets with two quotes:
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 - Hear, O
Leviticus 19:18 - Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge
against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself: I am the Lord.
·
According to John
MacArthur, loving God with all our hearts is to love him from “the core of
one’s personal being”.
·
Loving God with
all our soul is equivalent to emotion. We should be emotionally committed in
our love for God.
·
Loving God with
all our minds “is used here in the sense of intellectual, willful vigor and
determination, carrying both the meaning of mental and endeavor and of
strength” John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary,
Matthew 16-23 (Chicago, Moody Press, 1988), p.339
Now, humanly speaking to love
the Lord my God in such a way, I would have to keep the Old Testament Law,
especially the 10 Commandments. The first four commandments are in relationship
to loving God. The last six are in relation
to loving others. Because we are talking about loving God, let’s just list the
first four commandments.
1.
Exodus
20:3 - Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2.
Exodus
20:4-6 - Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in
the water under the earth: [5] Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor
serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that
hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my
commandments.
3.
Exodus
20:7 - Thou shalt not take the name of the
Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
4.
Exodus
20:8 - Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
So the love of God is
commanded. But there is a problem. You can’t do it!
You can’t love the Lord your
God with all your heart soul and mind, nor can you love your neighbor as
yourself.
Somewhere along the line, you
have already broken the Ten Commandments, and have, therefore failed to love
God the way you should. Romans 3:23, Isaiah 64:6
Before the Ten Commandments,
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden also failed to obey God when they ate the forbidden
fruit. Their disobedience showed they
did not love God with all their hearts, souls and minds. You too, have failed to obey God and have not
loved Him with all your heart, soul and mind.
THE CAUSE FOR LOVING GOD
There is a cause, a reason for
us to love God completely.
We could not love God the way
we should. We could not obey His commandments.
We failed to love God.
But God did not fail to love
us. 1 John 4:10, Romans 5:6-8
Either a person pays for His
own sins and spends eternity in hell, or someone needed to satisfy God’s
righteous judgment by paying for us. The
person who paid for our sins had to be someone who had no sin Himself. That was the Lord Jesus Christ.
What love God has shown for
us! That love becomes real in our lives
when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, when we trust Him for
forgiveness and eternal life. John 3:16
If you have trusted Christ
you have every reason and every motivation to love the Lord your God with all
you heart, soul and mind. You can say with the Psalmist:
Psalm 40:2 - He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon
a rock, and established my goings.
1 John 4:19 - We love him, because he first loved us.
Our love for God should be in
response to His love for us!
We should love Him
completely, because He loves us completely!
THE CHALLENGE TO LOVING GOD
Although we have due cause to
love God completely, we are challenged in our love. This brings us to our 1 John text.
1 John 2:15 - Love not the world, neither the things that
are in the world. If any man love the world, the love
of the Father is not in him.
We are challenged by the pull
of the “world”.
The world wants us to love
it.
In this verse the word
“world” does not refer to the earth, nor does it refer to the people on the
earth. It refers to the “world system”
or the world’s evil way of doing things.
God is telling us here that
we will either love the world’s wicked ways or we will love God. It will be one or the other. The one who loves God does not love the
world.
The one who loves the world
does not love God. Matthew 6:24
Our challenge is this: Even
as Christians it is possible for us to love the world. And loving the world is
the last thing that we should want to do! James 4:4
So what exactly do we love
when we love the World?
1 John 2:16 - 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.
Lust is desire. Not all desire is wrong. If we didn’t desire
food we wouldn’t eat. If husbands and
wives don’t desire each other there would be no children. If we didn’t desire rest we wouldn’t sleep. If we didn’t desire liquid we wouldn’t drink.
The “lust of the flesh” is when
these desires get out of hand.
The one who lusts after food
is a glutton.
The one who lusts after sex
is a fornicator, an adulterer, or worse!
The one who lusts after rest
is lazy!
The one who lusts after the
wrong kind of liquid is an alcoholic!
Whenever I allow my own
physical desires to get out of hand, I am guilty of “lust of the flesh”.
The “lust of the eyes” is
when I desire to please my eyes more than I try to please God.
Most of us would not argue
that pornography is wrong! It is when I allow my eyes to feast on things that
are sensual.
But anytime we look at a
member of the opposite sex with the wrong motives, we are guilty of the lust of
the eyes. Matthew 5:27-28
Lust of the eyes often allows
us to enter a fantasy world of entertainment that distracts us from the love of
God.
Americans love their sports
entertainment, their video entertainment, their television entertainment and
their world wide web entertainment. And when these fill us with visions and
thoughts contrary to God’s holiness or rob us of time that should be devoted to
God, they are wrong!
Another way the “lust of the
eyes” affects us is through our wanting what other people have. We want to “keep up with the Jones”. We want the car, the house, the gun, the
dress that we really don’t need, but we want it more than we want to please
God!
When these things rob us of
our commitment, love and loyalty to God, they are wrong!
“Lust of the flesh”, “Lust of
the eyes” and “the pride of life”.
There is nothing wrong with
taking pride in your work or in your appearance.
Pride is wrong when you think
yourself better than others and even say so!
Pride is what often keeps us
from admitting we are wrong, or apologizing, or asking for forgiveness.
John wraps up this little
section of Scripture by saying in Vs. 17, And the
world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God
abideth for ever.
Beloved we have a challenge
on our hands. We are challenged to love
God and not the world, and quite frankly, it is not easy. We have a tendency because of what the Bible
calls “the Old Nature” to want to love the world instead of wanting to love
God.
We need help and our final
point supplies it.
THE COMMAND TO LOVE GOD
THE CAUSE FOR LOVING GOD
THE CHALLENGE TO LOVE GOD
THE CONQUEST IN LOVING GOD
I was not able to save
myself, to justify myself before God.
I could not love God
completely in my own strength before I was saved.
I can not love God completely
in my own strength after I am saved.
I will succumb to the world.
The help I need is based on
the fact that I am identified with Christ in his death, burial, and
resurrection. Romans 6:3-4
When Christ died, I died.
When Christ was buried, I was
buried.
When Christ rose to new life,
I rose to new life.
Romans 8:1-4 - There is therefore now no condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit. [2] For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free
from the law of sin and death. [3] For what the law could not do, in that it
was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: [4] That the righteousness of
the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit.
The righteousness of the Law
is to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul and mind. I will do this when I am controlled by the
Holy Spirit.
The righteousness of the law
is fulfilled in me as I walk under the control of the Holy Spirit of God in my
life.
He is the one that will
enable me to walk after the Spirit!
Galatians 5:16 - This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye
shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Galatians 5:22-24 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, [23] Meekness, temperance:
against such there is no law. [24] And they that are Christ's have crucified
the flesh with the affections and lusts.
How do you become filled with
the Spirit?
·
Consider yourself
“crucified with Christ”.
Galatians 2:20 - I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of
God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
·
Ask God to fill
you with His Spirit and believe He will!
Luke 11:13 - If ye then, being evil, know how to give
good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give
the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
John 14:13 - And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I
do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
The only way you will truly
love God is when you appreciate what Jesus has done for you, submit to Him as
Lord of you life, and ask Him to control you by His Spirit.
THE COMMAND TO LOVE GOD
THE CAUSE FOR LOVING GOD
THE CHALLENGE TO LOVE GOD
THE CONQUEST IN LOVING GOD