Exploring 1 John: The Problem of Worldliness
1 John 2:15; 1 Corinthians 10:31 - He is the focal point of our lives and we do everything for His glory.
”Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.“
1 John 2:15 NASB1995
This verse is a key test for a believer in understanding their fellowship with God. As I write this, we are sitting outside near our small RV at a nice state park in Texas listening to many birds singing and enjoying the warm evening air, fragrant with unseen flowers. The hardy trees in this dry area are budding out and the cactus in the area are sprouting beautiful buds. I look at the Creation and immediately love the Creator. We just witnessed evidence of His intelligent design for the universe a few days ago when we viewed the total solar eclipse. We have enjoyed seeing different, vivid wildflowers along the roads and savoring nice meals on this trip.
But I am not to love the things of the world, am I, by enjoying these things? Let’s start to unpack this precept with some great commentary from Enduring Word:
Do not love the world: John has told us that if we walk in sin’s darkness and claim to be in fellowship with God, we are lying (1 John 1:6). Now John points out a specific area of sin that especially threatens our fellowship with God: worldliness, to love the world.
Do not love the world or the things in the world: The world, in the sense John means it here, is not the global earth. Nor is it the mass of humanity, which God Himself loves (John 3:16). Instead it is the community of sinful humanity that is united in rebellion against God.
One of the first examples of this idea of the world in the Bible helps us to understand this point. Genesis 11 speaks of human society’s united rebellion against God at the tower of Babel. At the tower of Babel, there was an anti-God leader of humanity (whose name was Nimrod). There was organized rebellion against God (in disobeying the command to disperse over the whole earth). There was direct distrust of God’s word and promise (in building what was probably a water-safe tower to protect against a future flood from heaven).
The whole story of the tower of Babel also shows us another fundamental fact about the world system. The world’s progress, technology, government, and organization can make man better off, but not better. Because we like being better off, it is easy to fall in love with the world.
Finally, the story of the tower of Babel shows us that the world system – as impressive and winning as it appears to be – will never win out over God. The Lord defeated the rebellion at the tower of Babel easily. The world system will never win out over God.
Do not love the world: That is, we are not to love either the world’s system or its way of doing things. There is a secular, anti-God or ignoring-God way of doing things that characterizes human society, and it is easy to love the world in this sense.
Notice what the world wants from us: love. This love is expressed in time, attention, and expense. We are encouraged and persuaded to give our time, attention, and money to the things of this world instead of the things of God.
If you love the world, there are rewards to be gained. You may find a place of prestige, of status, of honor, of comfort. The world system knows how to reward its lovers.
At the same time, even at their best the rewards that come from this world last only as long as we live. The problem is that though we gain prestige, status, honor, and comfort of this world, we lose the prestige, status, honor, and comfort of heaven.
Or the things in the world: This isn’t so much a warning against a love for the beauty of the world God created (though we must always love the Creator instead of the creation). Instead, it is more of a warning against loving the material things which characterize the world system.
The world buys our love with the great things it has to give us. Cars, homes, gadgets, and the status that goes with all of them, can really make our hearts at home in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him: Simply, love for the world is incompatible with love for the Father. Therefore if one claims to love God and yet loves the world, there is something wrong with his claim to love God.
Through the centuries, Christians have dealt with the magnetic pull of the world in different ways. At one time it was thought that if you were a really committed Christian and really wanted to love God instead of the world, you would leave human society and live as a monk or a nun out in a desolate monastery.
This approach, and other approaches that seek to take us out of the world, have two problems. The first problem is that we bring the world with us into our monastery. The other problem is that Jesus intended us to be in the world but not of the world. We see this in His prayer for us in John 17:14-18.
This commentary is so good. It is so convicting. Guzik is warning us against loving those systems that make the world comfortable, prestigious, and seem to make us better off, but these same idols do not make us better as His children. They make the world secular. They make the world a place that is rebelling against God. They buy us off with love of the fun, the pleasures, the goodies. We want the true, the beautiful and the good, but don’t look in the right place.
Oh, this is always so hard for me, to not love the things of this world. I have explored this one in many ways in the past, so I will just leave you with these thoughts from John Piper from his heartfelt sermon on this passage in 1 John:
But someone will ask, “Should I not desire dinner? Should I not desire a job? Should I not desire a spouse? Should I not desire the child in my womb? Should I not desire a healthy body or a good night’s rest or the morning sun or a great book or an evening with friends?”
And the answer is no — unless it is a desire for God! Do you desire dinner because you desire God? Do you want a job because in it you will discover God and love God? Do you long for a spouse because you are hungry for God and hope to see him and love him in your partner? Do you desire the child and the healthy body and the good night’s rest and the morning sun and the great book and the evening with friends for God’s sake? Do you have an eye for God in everything you desire? (See Colossians 3:17; 1 Corinthians 10:31.)
Saint Augustine captured the heart of our text when he prayed to the Father and said, “He loves thee too little who loves anything together with thee which he loves not for thy sake.”
Therefore, brothers and sisters, 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. But if the love of the Father is in you, if you love God with all your heart, then every room you enter will be a temple of love to God, all your work will be a sacrifice of love to God, every meal will be a banquet of love with God, every song will be an overture of love to God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 says this well, as noted in Piper’s commentary:
”Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.“
1 Corinthians 10:31 NASB1995
Do everything for Him, in gratitude and awe and love! Then every room will be a temple, every work a sacrifice of love, every meal a banquet, every song a worship hymn. This is not a free pass to be distracted by those worldly pleasures, but to think of Him first and last in everything that you see and do!
My next devotional examines 1 John 2:16 - The character of the world.
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord - Whatever I do, let me do it all for Your Glory. Amen!
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Commentary from Enduring Word by David Guzik is used with written permission.
John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For more than thirty years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis. He is author of more than fifty books, and his sermons, articles, books, and more are available free of charge at desiringGod.org.
In all cases of republishing, the following attribution must be included:
By John Piper. © Desiring God Foundation. Source: desiringGod.org