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I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions, we're in day four of our
look through chapter two. We're going to look at verses 15 to 17 today. We've
looked this week at how Jesus deals with our sin, how you and I can live out a
life of love and faith.

Today we're going to look at how do you deal with the world around you and what
it can do to you, how it tries to conform you into its pattern, into its mold.
Listen to what John has to say to that in verses 15 to 17. "Do not," he says,
"do not love the world or anything in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything
in the world, the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting
of what he has and what he does, comes not from the Father, but from the world.
The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives
forever.

" Now the first question many of us have in these verses is, wait, it says do
not love the world, but doesn't the Bible say God so loved the world? Is God
supposed to love the world and I'm not supposed to love the world? What is this
talking about?

You have to understand the meaning of the word world. The Greek word world can
mean different things in different contexts. And here he's not talking about the
physical world.

He's not talking about the things that God has made. He's not talking about the
people in the world. The way that the word world is being used here is to mean
the without God way of thinking that dominates the world.

It's the worldly philosophy of selfishness that you see all around you. So don't
love the world. Don't love the selfishness in the world.

In fact he says, John is just so obvious. Have you noticed this? You can't be in
God's light and in darkness at the same time.

If you're in darkness, guess what? You're not in the light. That's pretty
obvious, but we miss it.

And here he says, if you love the world, you can't love the Father at the same
time because they're in opposition to one another. It's pretty obvious. But we
miss the obvious.

He doesn't want us to. He's talking about this undeniable point. When you chose
to love the world, you push out love for God.

You cannot love both at the same time. We tell ourselves we can, but we just
cannot. Jesus said you can't love God and money at the same time.

John tells us you love the world and the love of the Father is not in you. They
can't exist in the same heart at the same time because they are polar opposites
to one another. Now what's he talking about here?

What is this world system that chases out love for God? Well, John's very clear
about this. It's three things.

He talks about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life. Everything in the world. First, he says the lust of the flesh, the
cravings of sinful man.

What is the lust of our flesh? The word flesh here doesn't mean your body. It
means your selfish way of thinking.

In the New Testament, the word flesh can sometimes mean your body, but it can
also mean a way of thinking, a fleshly way of thinking. And here it means the
carnal way of thinking that what I want, what I desire is what I should get. I
get what I want, the lust of the flesh.

It's position and it's power. He also talks about the lust of the eyes. Things
that I see that I want, and that's possessions.

That's the world system. If I just had more position, if I just had more power,
I'd feel better about myself. If I just had more possessions, I see that he has
that, she has that.

I want that. If I could get that, I would be like them. I would be better
somehow, as if possessions could somehow meet the needs of my heart and my life.

Instead of filling our lives with God, we fill our lives with possessions. Now,
you're going to have to have some possessions in this world, whoever you are,
you're going to have to have some possessions. Whatever possessions you have,
whether it's a lot or a little, you can use them to serve yourself or you can
use them to serve God.

The question here isn't whether you have any possessions or not. The question
is, what do you think of the possessions that you have? I know greedy people who
have very few things, and I know extremely giving people who have a lot of
possessions, but they use them for God.

The lust of the eyes is, I've got to have more things in order to meet the
deepest need of my heart. That's the world system. Lust of the flesh, lust of
the eyes, and then he says, the pride of life.

The pride that I can do it my way. The pride that I can build the life that I
want. Now, many people have pointed out that this list that's here in 1 John is
the very list of sins that you see in the garden in the first sin.

When Eve saw the apple, she saw what it looked like. It was good in its
appearance. She saw that it would meet her need, that if she ate it, what would
happen?

She would become like God, and she had pride. All of these things were caught up
in that very first sin, the appearance of something good, the power that she
could have in her life, the pride of thinking she could be like God. And they're
in my life, too.

They're in your life, too. The pride of life. Pride is the worst addiction.

We become addicted to pride. It's a false mood changer. We try to bolster
ourselves and lie to ourselves about ourselves, thinking that that's somehow how
I'm going to meet my needs.

That's pride. I can't meet my deepest needs. Only God can meet my deepest needs.

In our comparative and competitive world, pride sometimes becomes our defense. I
have to have more and look better than everybody else. You don't need to defend
yourself against these values of the world.

Not if you refuse to accept these values of the world. What you do instead of
defending yourself, instead of protecting yourself against these values of the
world, you just realize those aren't my values. I have different values.

I have the values that come from a love for God. Instead of being in a defensive
mode or an offensive mode, you're in a trusting mode. You trust him.

Well, I love the world because I think somehow that the world system is going to
meet my deepest needs. I've bought the lie. Satan's lie.

I don't see the world for what it really is. What is the world? Why should I not
love the world?

Well, Warren Wiersbe talks about this. He says, here's three reasons. Number
one, because of what the world is, it's a satanic system opposing God.

Number two, because of what the world does to us, it ruins our lives on sinful
substitutes. And number three, because of what you are as a believer, you're a
child of God. You're not a child of this world.

And oh, by the way, here's a fourth one, because of where the world is headed.
It's passing away. But the one who does the will of God lives forever.

Do I want to hitch my wagon to something that's going down the slope into a
ravine and into destruction, or do I want to hitch to God? In verse 17, right
after saying the world and its desires pass away, John says the one who does the
will of God lives forever. So my question is, what does it mean to do the will
of God?

If that's what it takes to live forever, what does it mean to do God's will? How
do I accomplish this in my life? Well, to accomplish God's will in my life is to
follow his leadership in my life and to follow his leadership in my life is to
follow him in my life.

God's will is a matter of my relationship with God, not rules and regulations,
but relationship with God. The will of God is that you get to know his son,
Jesus Christ. That's where it begins.

And then the will of God is that you live out that relationship with his son,
Jesus Christ. Jesus was as clear as a bell about this. That's what it means to
do the will of God.

And anyone who tries to reduce the will of God to their list, instead of it
meaning my relationship, your relationship with Christ, they're not in the will
of God. If I want to live a new kind of life, I've got to realize I can get
caught up in love for the world sometimes. And I've got to set that aside,
realizing what the world really is and where it really wants to take me, and
choose instead love for God.

Let me read for you again, 1 John 2, 15 to 17, in the message paraphrased before
we pray. Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods.

Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that
goes on in the world, wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself,
wanting to appear important, has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates
you from him.

The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out. But whoever
does what God wants is set for eternity. Let's pray together.

Lord, we're surrounded by this world and all of its wants, and so we can get
caught up in this world and all of its wants. I pray that today you help us to
see the world around us, its system, its selfishness for what it really is, with
fresh new spiritual eyes, and help us to see you for who you really are. A God
who loves us, all the way from now into eternity.

A God who has plans to grow us, to become more in character like you created us
to be, and to use us to please you and to serve others. Lord, you are heading us
for eternity, and I pray you'd help us to see our lives today in light of that
truth. In your name, amen.

Well join us tomorrow, just one word about one of the things we're going to talk
about tomorrow, antichrist. We're going to see what John has to say about that
in verses 18 to 29.