The World Passes Away I John 2:15-17

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 I John 2:15-17

  " The world is evil when you become its slave.  The world has a lot to offer---just as Egypt did for the children of Jacob---as long as you don't feel bound to obey it.  The great struggle facing you is not to leave the world, ro reject your ambitions and aspirations, or to despise money, prestige or success, but to claim your spiritual truth and to live in the world as someone who doesn't belong to it...All the good things our world has to offer are yours to enjoy.  But you can enjoy them truly only when you acknowledge them as affirmations of the truth that  you are the Beloved of God.  

The truth will set you free to receive the beauty of nature and culture in gratitude, as a sign of your Belovedness.  That truth will allow you to receive the gifts you receive from your society and celebrate life.  But that truth will also allow you to let go of what distracts you, confuses you, and puts in jeopardy the life of the Spirit within you."  Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

a. John the Apostle now reminders the Church---the little children vs 12, the fathers , vs 13 and the young men that they have overcome the wicked one but now " Love not the world!" ( present imperative verb tense we should know this) vs 15  I would put this in caps with an exclamation mark.

We are not men and women of the World, but of the Word.  Ch 4 :1 reminds them as well that in the world is the spirit of antichrist and false teachers that do not confess "that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh"

We should not join ourselves with the world, but love God, vs 5 as well as love our brother and sister vs 10.

" Friendship with the world is enmity with God" James 4:4  

This reminds me of the parable in Luke 12 of the man who built bigger barns .  12:20 " Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee..."

---Satan is the ruler of this world Jn 12:31

b. Not love the world nor the things in the world.

We are not saying the world has no beauty or you cannot love flowers and animals.  Jesus said something in the Gospel that explained this for me.  "Matthew 6:33

 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."  

The things in themselves are not evil, but as Nouwen said in the intro, "

All the good things our world has to offer are yours to enjoy.  But you can enjoy them truly only when you acknowledge them as affirmations of the truth that  you are the Beloved of God."  

c.  Lastly we should not be boastful and prideful as this is of the world.  2:16  This is not from the Father .  We are full of pride and boastful.  Oh, look at that or look at so and so.  They are down , and I am up because I love God.  Well this is not of the Father .  The word is boastful, empty pride and swagger .  " Empty display in act".

John Wesley said, " Anything that cools my love for Christ is the world."

Conclusion is in the last part of the vss we are studying today.  " And the world is already passing away ( has been) a present tense passive verb.  The one doing the Will of God remains forever. Mark 3:35 Jesus said that whoever does the will of God is His brother, His sister and mother.

The present age is doomed.  The world like the darkness vs 8 is already disintegrating and its lusts. 

C S Lewis said it this way, "Light of the Cosmos

The defiance of the good atheist hurled at an apparently ruthless and idiotic cosmos is really an unconscious homage to something in or behind that cosmos which he recognizes as infinitely valuable and authoritative: for if mercy and justice were really only private whims of his own with no objective and impersonal roots, and if he realized this, he could not go on being indignant. The fact that he arraigns heaven itself for disregarding them means that at some level of his mind he knows they are enthroned in a higher heaven still."

Outrage at crookedness only makes sense if one has a notion of the straight.

Or as ST Paul said it, "Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

For momentary , light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."  2 Corinthians 4:18


 

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