This morning I am going to be talking about the first three verses (vs15 – 17) of our Epistle reading as we continue this short series of talks on the Letters of John. And even though the subsequent verses of our reading in this second chapter deal with a hugely important issue facing not only the churches of John’s day but also very much our own Church of England today, the significance of these first three verses for effective Christian living and discipleship is such that we really must give them the time they deserve.
The subsequent verses 18 – 29 deal with the threat to effective Christian living and discipleship from within the church itself, that is, the threat of heresy from false teachers who proclaim a different or an elitist Gospel rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is still very much a threat to today’s church and something we will need to return to because it has caused much damage by its superficially attractive but misleading and destructive ideas. Whereas verses 15 – 17 deal with the threat to effective Christian living and discipleship from outside, from what John calls ‘the world’.
When you have been in the ministry as long as I have, you are tempted, on the basis of reflection about what it is really makes people tick and either attracts or repulses them to or from the Christian faith, to come up with some key facts or issues that generally seem to fit most cases. And in my experience, the two greatest obstacles by far to effective Christian living and discipleship amongst those who attend churches are these: doubt and worldliness.
Many of the doubts people have about the Christian faith actually arise from and are often fed by the very false teaching John goes on to talk about in the second part of our reading this morning – which, I promise, we will return to at a later date. To doubt is fashionable these days and of course doubting requires far less effort on a person’s part than actually getting to know and understanding the Scriptures and the Creeds. Most doubts actually arise from people putting more faith in the current –but ever-changing – ideas, fashions, and discoveries of ‘the world’ rather than in what God has revealed about himself, about us, and about the world to us already.
But it is the second of these, worldliness, the attractions of the world, that is the matter at hand in these first three verses of this morning’s reading: so let’s see what it is exactly John has to say about the danger of worldliness. These words of his, remember, come immediately after those wonderfully encouraging and reassuring words of his in the first part of chapter 2. (If you missed either or both of the first two talks, you can find them together with study questions on our website – or just ask me for a paper copy.)
v.15 states this. ‘Do not love the world or the things in the world.’ By ‘the world’ John does not mean that we should not enjoy all that God has given to enjoy; nor that we should give up our jobs or families or possessions in order to escape from the world – though some might well consider that really quite an attractive idea from time to time! No, what John has in mind here is a disposition, an attitude, a frame of mind. What he means here by the word ‘world’ is ‘that anti-God mentality of the human race’, the worldwide fondness for sin and selfishness which causes women and men to stumble into wickedness and which prevents that true knowledge of God John was describing for us in chapter 1.
If you want a brief definition of ‘worldliness’, it is this: ‘the inclination to be drawn into the ways of the people around us who do not know God’. The ‘things in the world’ are the ways in which the world’s magnetism – keeping in mind that by ‘the world’ John means an anti-God mentality – operates.
To refuse to love the world means a decisive rejection of the world’s aspirations and outlooks, to refuse to be party to or to be drawn into its grumblings, its covetousness, and its obsessions. (Think of Jesus’ parable of the Sower (Luke Ch 8) and what happens to some of the seed there.)
I was talking recently with someone who was complaining about how her children seemed so obsessed with themselves and their possessions. Well, just by looking at her I could see immediately why! Just as
I could also see that she wasn’t going to appreciate my telling her why. But I do find, I have to say, that people often either cannot or will not see just how much they are led by the world and why – often to their great sadness – they find effective Christian life and discipleship so tough. The English taboo of talking to others about one’s faith is a classic example of the world’s overcoming of Christian principles and priorities – the fear of upsetting people or of being treated as too religious or of being dumped on the heap of social outcasts – avoided at the club; not invited to the drinks party. It’s true, isn’t it! John gives us two reasons why we should not love the world. One is that ‘worldliness’ excludes God’s love (v15 and 16); and the other is that the world will pass away and only love for God will survive (v 17).
First, love of the world will drive out love for God in our lives. As Jesus put it so bluntly, ‘You cannot serve two masters; either you will hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.’(Luke 16) The point both Jesus and John are making is this: loving the world is a failure to love God; it is failure to grasp hold of how much God loves us; and it is bound to show itself in failure truly to love other people genuinely and for their good. Loving others is not a matter of showering them with material things, flattering them, or inflating their egos under the guise of building up their self-esteem: it is a matter of our first loving God and asking him – if it’s not already manifestly clear - how we can best serve that person. And if that person does not know Jesus, then the best way that we can serve them, be a ‘good neighbour’ to them, is to introduce them to Jesus.
John goes on in v16 to identify the three channels along which the world attacks us. There are three routes along which we are pulled into earthly ways. First, ‘the desires of the flesh’. This is the pull into wickedness that comes to us through our physical appetites, our sexuality, our hunger and thirst, our desire to protect ourselves. Secondly, ‘the desire of the eyes’. This is the way in which sin’s pull is intensified when we see something that attracts us but are blind to the fact either that it or he or she belongs to someone else or that in possessing whatever it is has ‘caught’ our eye would damage our relationship with others or with God. And thirdly, ‘the pride of riches’. This is probably more accurately translated as ‘the pride of life’ and means ‘the tendency we have to exalt our selves, to manipulate ourselves to look good in the eyes of others’ – which of course often requires some riches to do so! (Which the translators probably realised and so made the translation by association.)
It is interesting to note, and certainly the early Church Fathers noted, that all three of these channels of temptation were operating both in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness and with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden but with of course different outcomes. I’ll leave you to look at those two passages in Matthew and Genesis and compare the similarities and different outcomes. (Answers by next Sunday on a post card, please!)
Now we need to remember with all this in this letter John is addressing Christians, not outsiders to the Church. He has just, earlier in the chapter, given them great assurance. ‘Your sins have been forgiven.....you have known him....you have overcome...you are strong and the word of God remains in you’. But they need to realise that discipleship, the road to suffering and to glory, demands understanding and commitment. It is also a road from which we can so easily be led astray by those three channels John has just mentioned and also by the false teaching of those, even in the Church, who do not ‘know’ God albeit that they teach about him..... and in some cases in the Church of England are even employed to do so!
I am quite sure that the only way for us to break free of the various holds of the world is to spend time prayerfully considering the gift of God’s love for us. It requires us to consider what we were or are without God and also to consider what we are being offered or now have in God through faith in Jesus Christ. It is primarily, I believe, this reflecting on God’s love which inspires a person not only to faith but, much more importantly, to effective discipleship. And it is so liberating from the cares and false pleasures of ‘the world’. Worldliness does great damage both to us and to our relationships.
But there is a reward for doing the will of God. (Inscription above Chancel steps.) v17. Every part of our lives that is governed by love for the world is already doomed to be useless and to be destroyed: only what has been done out of love for God will remain; it has eternal value. What is done out of love for God is described by Jesus as ‘building up treasure in Heaven’. Notice John says that eternal life is the reward of those who do the ‘will’ of God. And there is no excuse for not knowing the will of God because it is made known to us in His word and confirmed by his Spirit. The only way we cannot know his will is by rejecting His word and His Spirit. This morning we celebrate His gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. If you feel that you are still too easily tempted by the world or too prone to doubt, then today would be a very appropriate day on which either to commit or to renew your commitment to him, to ‘do the will of God’ and to know the liberation from the cares and attractions of the world, to know Him,
His truth and His love which not only surpasses anything the world can offer but which can keep us from the world as we delight more and more in Him.
QUESTIONS
1. Where and how might we draw the line between enjoying the world and becoming too worldly? What criteria would you use?
2. Why are we so easily tempted by ‘the world’? What are the temptations to follow the world you find the most difficult to resist?
3. Can you think of examples on the T.V. of the way in which the commercial interests try to induce you into worldliness, even making you feel comfortable with your choice to do so?
4. Why do people doubt the Gospel? On what grounds do they doubt? Are the grounds always reasonable grounds or are they actually just excuses to avoid the challenge of the Gospel?
5. What are the striking differences between the two accounts of temptation in Genesis and in Matthew?
6. Have a look at verses 18 – 29. Why is heresy (false teaching) such an issue for John? Why is what we believe so important for how we behave? It has been said that each person is his or her own theologian and that ‘what goes on inside my head is none of the Church’s business.’ If that is true, why did Jesus found His Church? Why is what the Church teaches important?
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