[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church, located in Plano, Texas.
[SPEAKER_00]: For more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry, please visit CitizensChurch.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: That isn't feeling tireless in here, and this ends up, the woohooves, but that's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So good to be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though I haven't been here for a few years, I actually think about this church a lot as a, as a very sister church to my own, and relationship of jaymen.
[SPEAKER_00]: many others here that has been very sweet to me and very dear, and I think of this as a beautiful place, and so it's wonderful to be back here with you and to continue in this series that you're going through.
[SPEAKER_00]: A couple of weeks ago I was in Orlando speaking at conference and it was my wife's birthday on the same time, so we decided she'd go with me on the trip, which was really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had had the opportunity, we had to do have six kids, and we used to do a teaching for Kim's Crusades, and we were in Orlando a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we used to take the kids to the Universal Studios all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: We loved it so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that the kids are all grown, we thought, you know, we're going to have to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This would be pretty fun to go without the kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it actually was quite fun, a little less expensive and a lot less stressful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except for when we rode the new star dust chasers or whatever roller coaster at Epic.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should have googled it beforehand because we're a little old for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if we both felt kind of sick for a while afterwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we're there waiting in the line for escape from green guts and, you know, old men and black ride and transformers 40 in the Simpsons ride, and all these things we did, it was really fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that really struck me this time is that they all have these signs.
[SPEAKER_00]: that say things like, you should not write this.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are pregnant or have recently had surgery, back or neck issues, have a normally high blood pressure, since a stroke, stroke or fog effects, or have a heart condition.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on some of the more intense rides,
[SPEAKER_00]: there were even like pictures and and and things saying like if you have a prosthetic limb you should remove it before you take this right which should have been our clue that some of those rides were definitely above our age pay grade but as i was thinking about this
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like, what are these signs?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, they are warnings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what they say about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are warnings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And why are they there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, partly for litigation reasons, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: But more importantly,
[SPEAKER_00]: These are warnings that are there because there's a risk involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a risk involved in choosing to get onto these rides.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a thrill.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an adventure that is really beautiful in human for those who partake in these, but every adventure comes with a risk.
[SPEAKER_00]: or else it actually wouldn't be meaningful or engaging.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we have to have these warnings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, while we may be tempted to kind of think of these warnings cynically like others try not get sued, or probably for most of us just kind of ignoring them, we don't really think about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I reflected on them, I realized that at their best, warnings like this are warnings that come from love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Warnings that are there because of the desire for us to be safe and okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even though Universal Studios probably doesn't love me, and exactly those theme park
[SPEAKER_00]: Warnings are really a subspecies of all kinds of loving warnings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you might think of like very driven up past S.S. Park in Colorado to go over the continental divide.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see all these pictures of like a car going over the side.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a warning to say be careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or like the flight attendant telling you what to do in the case of a water landing that actually might save your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe even more particularly like a parent warning a child not to run into a busy street.
[SPEAKER_00]: or to not put a small wooden object in your mouth, or to do heroin, or to leave a wallet full of cash in your back pocket when you tour Rome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Such warnings, they might actually sound kind of harsh, and might sound like the wrong vibe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm about to ride this amazing ride and you're spoiling it, but you're talking about dismembered limbs and head injuries, like what a vibe killer,
[SPEAKER_00]: warnings that come from love are actually necessary when the potential to misstep is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when there's an actual possibility that we could experience harm, in fact, it would actually be not loving to not warn someone if the mountain road you're trying to drive on is washed out or someone is just broken glass and you should be, you should watch your
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here at Susan's again, you've been working through first John.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a powerful little letter.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is a part of the new testament that if I can just be honest with you, often to me feels a little harsh.
[SPEAKER_00]: and maybe feels a little stark.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe you felt that when we had those verses read for you strong statements in these absolute dichotomies, and first John is full of warnings.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, let me just read for you that first verse again is to make sure we hear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not love the world or the things in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father's not in him or the last verse, the world is passing way along with its desires.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are strong words, but what we'll see, I think, and what I want to understand is that the tone here is not harsh, but it's the tone of a father who cares and is actually loving us by trying to protect us from harm.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do have a confession to make, and that is that when
[SPEAKER_00]: J.man reached out to me and invited me to preach and told me what the text would be.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read it, and my honest reaction was, uh, not because I don't love the Bible and don't love God I do, but because when I read verse 15, do not love the world of things in the world, my reaction is, but I actually love the world, the world is awesome, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I really mean that, like all the beautiful things God has made.
[SPEAKER_00]: in creation, mountains, and oceans, and all the beautiful things in life of good food, and friends, and all the things, and then all the things that God enables us as His sub-creators to make, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We make beautiful things, relationships, and businesses, and art, and children, and spreadsheets, and meals, and woodcraft.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you look at the Bible from the beginning to the end, and especially you see it really clearly in the beginning, the Garden of Eden is a Garden of Delights.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then if you go all the way through the Bible to the end to the book of Revelation, what you see, it's a picture of a time of great joy and pleasure in a garden city.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Scriptures constantly say things like, at God's right hand, our pleasure is ever more.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, we read a verse, like, do not love the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like, well, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has made this beautiful world, and he's made beautiful people in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Moreover, I think part of my reaction to this verse is that I've seen throughout Christian history that many Christians and maybe you have been a part of this yourself, maybe you're recovering from it, maybe you're still in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they've often weaponized a verse like 1 John 215.
[SPEAKER_00]: to actually be disengaged with the world, like, oh, the world is horrible, and it's bad at all the people, it's to be disengaged with beauty, to deny the God-good creativeness of the world, to despise other people, and have often adopted an unbiblical understanding of what we call the end times, or eschatology, that all this world is going away, which is not what the Bible says, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as I read these verses and didn't read them again, I quickly realized that my ugly action, though, was not what God was saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I texted Jamie back and said, let's see what God has to say this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a short text.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to help us understand it with three kind of brief moves.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to look at first what the command is.
[SPEAKER_00]: very briefly, and then see, what is God, our Father?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's His reasoning for this?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the command and then the reasoning, and then just like, what's the outcome?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what does this do for us, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: And in all of this, I really just wanted to look at the text and hear from our Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: who made us and who's inviting us into fullness of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the command.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just look at it here again with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you have a Bible, look there with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not love the world or the things in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually very straightforward and clear until you start to think about it more like I was doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you begin to realize, but wait a minute, probably one of the most famous verses in the whole Bible, John 316, says the opposite of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, it turns out God loves the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So why would he be telling us not to love the world and all its things in it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the key to begin to understand this is to think carefully about this word world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can think about it in English, you can think about it how it's used in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of times the world means the way I was just describing it, it's this place of beauty, it's nature, it's creation, it's all the things that God enables humans to make, and it's a good thing, and humans itself, but sometimes in the Bible
[SPEAKER_00]: is used in a different sense as it's being used here, and it means the godless system that's opposed to God, things out in the world and things in our hearts as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so John 3, 16 and verse John 2, 15 are not in competition with each other, they're not contradict each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: The key is understanding these two different senses we can use the word world.
[SPEAKER_00]: God loves the world and God is actually calling us to love the world as well in the sense of what's the second greatest commandment according to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself, to love people, to love your spouse and children, and grandchildren, and neighbors, and co-workers, and even your enemies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says in the Surman of the Mile.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in the one sense, we are called to love the world, but what first John to 15 is talking about here, is it command to not love the world's systems, values, outside there, and inside our hearts they're opposed to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to really understand that, we have to then look at what the reasoning is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at the second part of verse 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, did not love the world or the things in the world?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if anyone loves the world, here's the reason why this is bad,
[SPEAKER_00]: For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life, it's actually not from the father, but from the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think there's a couple things we see here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, the reason and then kind of the clarification of what the world means.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason we're not to not love the world,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think what John's reflecting on here is Jesus' own teaching here, about the fact that you and I cannot serve or love two masters.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way God has made our hearts, we cannot be devoted, truly, to two opposite things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria Jesus' words, you cannot serve or love.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of the same word or be devoted to to conflicting masters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what John saying here as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have love for the things of the world that are opposed to God, then you actually don't have love.
[SPEAKER_00]: For God, you cannot have both.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think one of the clearest places John is actually reflecting on this is probably the most famous teaching of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is teaching in what's called the Sermon of the Mount and Matthew 5667, the jaman mentioned already.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in this, there's this consistent theme of a devotion of our heart to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember that phrase he uses in the Beatitudes where Jesus says that
[SPEAKER_00]: happier, flourishing, and blessed are the pure and heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you and I hear the word pure and heart, we probably think mostly of sexual purity and that's important as well, but that's not the primary sense of purity of heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Purity of heart is like purity, like silver or gold, can be 100% pure or close to it or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Purity means singularity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's of one essence, it's of one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what Jesus is calling us to, with purity of heart, is not, I mean ideally, we'd be saying this, but we'll never be sinless on this side of the new creation, but he is asking for a devotedness, a dedicatedness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes on in chapter five to talk about a dedicatedness that you and I don't just have an external righteousness where we're just going through the motions, but he cares and sees about our heart, our interior person, there's a singularity between those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in chapter six, Jesus talks about anxiety and money, and remember he says you, again, that's where he says you can't serve two masters.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll love one and hate the other, and then he says, and said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, all of that is talking about a singularity of heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not a perfection, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not in the sense that we'll ever be perfect in this, but a dedicatedness, a singularity of heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: This, I think, is what John is talking about as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about, when he says, don't love the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about setting our devotion towards the things of the world, setting our affections toward them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he clarifies more of what these things of the world are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you see it there in verse 16?
[SPEAKER_00]: In following, he says, they are specifically the loss of the flash.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, for us, I think we probably think of sexual sins and those are bad sins as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But lust of the flesh really just means anything that's dominated and driven by our sinful nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the Bible, a lot of times flesh doesn't mean physicality.
[SPEAKER_00]: It often means our sinful nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the same lust of the flesh are these desires, these corruptible senses that come from our sinful nature and often manifests it through our bodies.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think of like gluttony, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is not a, not as something we talk a lot about, especially in the land of barbecue, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to mess with Texas, but I do want to mess with our hearts a little bit here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is to recognize that our relationship to food, no matter what your body size or body type is, can actually be messed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: on either end of our relationship to food.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it can also mean just being a slave to pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can mean being selfish with our possessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can mean being extravagant in our gratification and material desires.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, anything that's in us that's motivated, but it's tricky because it's like, well, all these things are beautiful in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: These beautiful things that God has made.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as long as we're not having sinful things, can't we just enjoy them?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but here's the key, friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's how to be honest with your own heart is,
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this a craving that is from my sinful nature?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this just enjoying good things?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, a good way to help discern that is to look at what happens when you don't get what you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you have this desire for something and you don't get it, can you still be content?
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so it's great to enjoy a great meal, great time with friends, but can you still be content when you don't get those things?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the kind of indicator that maybe there might be driven by this lust of our sinful nature or the lust of the eyes, he says, secondly, this isn't some kind of weird fascination with corneas and retinas or something, but this means things that our eyes lead us to
[SPEAKER_00]: coveting what other people have, maybe you go to somebody's nice house or right in their nice car, or think about what appears to you a better marriage than you have, or better kids or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you see that you might disorder your heart and make you kind of love that more than God and desire that and crave that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might be kind of a morbid curiosity about dark things.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we're going to get sucked into, it might be probably all of reality television.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's right in all these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it also might include cravings to be seen a certain way.
[SPEAKER_00]: To actually cause coveting and other people so we'll feel better about ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think in many ways the biggest of these ideas you can see in verse 16 that he says he calls it the pride of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a little confusing, but I think what this means, this kind of fundamental human sense of self-dependence and self-reliance, and then kind of the arrogance of how we hold ourselves, some pretension, maybe in fashion or display, the desire to gain credit, make sure we get credit when we've done something or even to get credit for something we didn't do.
[SPEAKER_00]: the thirsting to be respectable, and to be self-reliant, to struggle after honor.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really the opposite of what Jesus himself is.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he calls himself me, can he models this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Meek and the Bible doesn't mean like milk toast.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means a strength that doesn't have to win.
[SPEAKER_00]: a strength that doesn't have to get the credit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you see somebody that operates that way, that is very beautiful and very attractive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone who isn't wimpy or something in that sense, but has actually strong and capable, but is okay, it should be quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And is okay to not get the credit for everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the opposite of the pride of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I think of the pride of life, the number one thing that I keep thinking about,
[SPEAKER_00]: is delta comfort plus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I am like a committed delta man, but I know it's kind of weird in Texas because it's easier to be American here.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I fly a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was probably on 80 planes last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm flexing, bright of life, you're welcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, I'm kind of sick of flying now, honestly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fly a lot and I'm totally committed to Delta.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've sucked me into their loyalty program.
[SPEAKER_00]: I made Diamond this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm like really something at a super scary that you're clapping, I mean, but actually I am clapping for myself in my own heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it...
[SPEAKER_00]: It is amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what that means is that I spent half my life flying from Louisville to Atlanta just to fly somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it might take me 18 flights to get somewhere, but I am committed to Delta, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And part of it is, is because how they've sucked me in with comfort plus.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the sense the little white or seats, little nicer, you get to board earlier, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because I have flown so much, and now I've made diamond,
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I get upgraded to first class, almost all the time, which I can't afford to pay for first class, but I get upgraded.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what I find happening in my heart at airports now, zone one, zone one, or first class customers, I don't walk forward with a swagger, I really don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I'm better than other people, but I kind of do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have to admit that, I mean, I kind of when I'm walking and that I'm sitting in first class and they're like rubbing my feet and giving me eight coffees and I'm smoking one of those long cigarettes or something And then all these other people like six kids and chicken coops are going by and it's like, and I'm trying not to make eye contacts because I feel bad to a little bit that I'm in first class with, you know, all these things happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it actually is in my heart that I've come to think of myself that I'm a comfort-plus man, or I'm a zone one man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've converted this gift that is a total gift that I deserve nothing of into something that is like my devotion now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what really reveals it?
[SPEAKER_00]: is that occasionally my flights would get messed up, or I'll have to come back early, or late from something, or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I didn't book early enough or something, and for whatever reason, I ended up having to fly main cabin with all the riff-raff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm saying that that is the radicularity of my heart, that I'm getting as a modern,
[SPEAKER_00]: person getting to fly across the nation or across the world in absolute luxury and safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm complaining in my heart that I'm playing main cabin, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is because what happens in our love oriented, love mechanized hearts, we can turn gifts into things that then become expectations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is this brokenness of our devotion that John is warning us against.
[SPEAKER_00]: That it's a gift to get to fly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a gift if you get up to it or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if that becomes your identity, that becomes your devotion, it's going to kill you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to kill you, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only in this life with this appointment, but of course, in the long run as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these three descriptions,
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's good to remember that this isn't something that just happens to younger Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: This can happen to a very mature saint, even.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can think of great leaders and pastors, others who actually maybe lived and ran the course well, and then at the very end they stumbled.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because of just some temptation, but because something happened to their hearts that can happen to my heart and your heart as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: that the gifts become an expectation, and the gifts become an identity, the gifts become a devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I think about this,
[SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking about the Ariana Grande 2019 smash hit as I'm sure you were as well as I started talking about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seven rings which I'm not a big fan of hers actually but she's riffing as you may know this song.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sampling my favorite things, this great song, but in this gross, flat, bold, materialistic way about going to Tiffany's, you know, the song, and buying seven expense engagement rings not because she's in a relationship but for her six best friends, I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted, I got it, I wanted, I got it, I got it, I got it, you like my hair, G-thanks, just bought it, I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's so bold.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so bold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, whoever said money can't solve your problems, must not have had enough money to solve them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we laugh, and I'm not trying to make fun of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying that is so absurd, but all that we do as other humans who don't go to Tiffany's and buys seven engagements, we just have like a really sophisticated version of that, a very nuanced version of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where we're not gonna say it that boldly,
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we often joke in my family, you know, money can't buy you happiness, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this is what happens to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in no way being trying to be mean or snarkier think I'm better than Ariana Grande, because I'm not as a human.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something very, to me, beautifully funny happened, as you may know the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: She took, she made so much money from that song, that she went and got a tattoo in Japanese in the Kanji style of writing that said she thought, seven rings.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when she posted about it,
[SPEAKER_00]: Several people pointed out who knew Japanese and Kanji that she had accidentally, it did say seven rings, but it actually was the brand name of a small Habachii barbecue grill, which is to me, so perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because,
[SPEAKER_00]: She was thinking that she was honoring this great song, but the reality is that the materialism of loving these things is in God's eyes, the value of a small Habbachi girl that you can buy in Amazon.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't want you to be thinking about her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to be thinking about what you and I have tattooed on our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: something that we've devoted ourselves to that is really worth nothing more than a small grill.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God, our Father, doesn't want that to be true of our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants us to know more than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that leads to the final move to outcome in the verse 17.
[SPEAKER_00]: but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is kind of the end game of this is that these worldly desires that might be something good that we are taking pleasure and there might be something bad, we're taking pleasure in.
[SPEAKER_00]: They may seem good now, but the Bible consistently teaches that there's a great reversal coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: When God is going to turn things upside down, He's gonna set the world to right.
[SPEAKER_00]: and that the things that are not of him will cease to exist and those who are devoted to them will be lost as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: You and I wouldn't join a company that's about to be investigated by the FBI who's just a clear bankruptcy who's labing everyone off as about to close.
[SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't join that company or that team unless you were deceived.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, no one in the right man would write mine would do that unless you're being deceived.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what happens the devil who is opposed to God and his people and our own hearts, our sinful nature, they do deceive us and make us either take pleasure in things that are completely not from God or take things that are from God and turn them into our identity and turn them into our treasures and not God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love what Charles Spurgeon said about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, your affections are meant for something better than these transient and defiled things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't let your hearts love flow out to things.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so soiled in base.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas the Apostle Paul says, set your minds on things above, not on things on the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's because of what it says there in the end of our 17 that the reality is that there are two ages.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's the age to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where things are going to be made clear and set to right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, we're living in this overlap of the ages now, where we can begin to experience the kind of freedom and the kind of relationship to the world that we should have.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is a time coming where it will become very clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God will set the world to right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so to kind of bring this together, I want to say that really the problem that first John II, 15 to 17 is pointing out is actually not the loving nature of our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the devotional nature of our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what St. Augustine calls the disordering of our loves.
[SPEAKER_00]: That Augustine really wrestles with like, what is sin?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think he rightly points out that sin, we tend to think that it was like we're building against God or breaking his laws and those are true, but those are even a function of something deeper.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is that we are loving people.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're devoted people.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the things we're devoted to can get disordered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we end up, as he says, using or utilizing things that we should love and loving things that we should be utilizing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if a food and drink and meaningful work and all this kind of things are great, those should be used in honor to God, but we tend to love those.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then things that should be loved, like people, we tend to use them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's saying, this is the problem is that there's a disordering of our loves, not that we love things, but that we get them out of whack and in the wrong order.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so then, to quote another theologian Thomas Traumers of famous Germany preached in the 19th century, he asked the question, so how do you fix that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, when you and I are honest and look inside and see that there's lots of ways in which we have disordered loves, how do you fix that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, one is to the negative part of us to recognize these things are passing away, as we've just said.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it turns out that if you just kind of tell yourself to stop doing something bad, it's not really very effective in the long run.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you need is that that disordered love or that wrong affection to be replaced by a higher and deeper and more powerful affection.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just telling yourself, don't do this, but actually recognizing there's something more, something more beautiful that I can give my love to, and that's exactly what the Scripture's teach.
[SPEAKER_00]: That God Himself is our treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that there's a time coming when our lives will be revealed and will be ordered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the things that you and I long for that we're trying to get through food and money and sex and prestige and all these kind of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: All those things we long for will be fulfilled for those who seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: For those who actually are longing, hoping for it, imperfectly, but asking God by the spirit
[SPEAKER_00]: And to enable us to love the things that are supposed to love and only use the things we're supposed to use.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this life is fleeting and only a fool would give ourselves to things that will not last.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we need a vision that this text is giving us of what is to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now and in the future,
[SPEAKER_00]: when we learn to have our hearts rightly ordered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what does this mean, practically if you mean it means it doesn't mean saying no to some disordered things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's some purchase you're thinking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's just wanting to be more quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it is, there's a good and learning to have it's of saying no to some disordering loves because what we do does affect us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the choice we make does shape our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: to ordered loves.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it means pursuing and attending to beautiful things.
[SPEAKER_00]: In relationships, in gifts that God has given us, just without disordering them and disorienting them and making them our identity or our hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your Creator Father today, even if you're not a Christian, is saying to you, come, come, taste and see that I'm good.
[SPEAKER_00]: and look and see that what you long for is available at my right hand, there are pleasures for every more.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so invites you by saying, do not love the world or the things in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: For all that's in the world, the tires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life, it's not from the Father, from this world, and this world is passing away.
[SPEAKER_00]: But whoever does the will of God, that is love, him, will buy it forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let me pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thank you, our Heavenly Father, that in all of our imperfections, in all of our
[SPEAKER_00]: Disordered loves all of our pride of life in so many ways that we all are self-dependent and think we're better and think we're worth something more than other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: In all these ways, you still look upon us with love and that even while we were dead in our sins, you set your covenant love upon us, you reveal that by sending your son.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Jesus, the you say, I've come that you might have life and have it in full abundance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And thank you, God, that your mercies are new every morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: myself for all of us here, that you would do another deeper today work of softening our hearts, not letting our hearts be more hardened.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do another work today of freeing us from addictions, freeing us from the seeking the praise of others.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the ways that we foolishly harm ourselves by getting our hearts messed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So please just have mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We crowd to his children, crying out to a father, we can't fix ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So please come by the spirit and heal our hearts, I pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we ask these things in Jesus' powerful name, Amen.