Special NYE Message - Do Not Love…

Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located

in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship

Ministries with 3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism,

discipleship and church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church

and other sermons from throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bickford and I will be your

host for this podcast. I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing

to you and bring you closer to God.

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. First off, I'd like to apologize for having this

podcast not uploaded on the normal time on Sunday afternoon. I was able to get out and

preach for the morning but I ended up getting a little sick and so I'd actually been sleeping

most of the time in between I normally post and now. So I apologize for the delay. But

with that, I've put together a message. It was the one that I did preach on Sunday and

it's a little bit of a New Year's message in the sense that I just wanted to take some

time to reflect. You know, it was on Sunday, it was New Year's Eve and as the year is coming

to an end, I wanted to take a little bit of time just to reflect back on the year that

many of us would have had. Looking at our successes or our failures is a very common

thing that we tend to do. And so as the world stops and recounts all the events of last

year, we should also set some time aside to remember our own testimony and what God has

done in our own lives to reflect on the blessings and even yes lament on the trials that we

may have faced and to remember to praise God in the midst of both trials and blessings.

Let's keep in mind all the blessings that we have living here in Canada or in the United

States or in the Western world. It's just a tremendous blessing that we do have even

though there are a lot of things waging war against us, it's important for us to remember

our blessings. And with that in mind, I wanted to share a little bit from the satirical article

from the Babylon Bee that should just help us to remember how we are blessed and what

we're fighting for in the rest of the world. So here's the article. And just before I jump

into the article, the message I've entitled today is actually called Do Not Love and the

subheading is compassion, clarity and conviction. And the text we'll be working off of this

morning or evening or whenever you're listening is first John two verses 15 through 17. So

if you have your Bibles and you're following along, you can go ahead and turn there. But

let's jump into this, this funny fun article from the Babylon Bee. Times are tough in here

in the United States, especially for Christians from subpar coffee quality and stale breakfast

pastries to the worship teams fog machine breaking down and congregates having to park

up to a hundred feet away from the church building. American churches are facing unprecedented

hardships but how are our Christian brothers and sisters around the world faring? The Babylon

Bee has conducted an investigation and come up with the following list of differences

between the challenges faced by the underground church and the American church. So every time

I say American church, you could think, you know, Canadian church, you could think Western

world church, you could, you know, put any of those, those kinds of things on there just

so that we can remember to contrast the blessing that we have in the Western world versus our

brothers who are fighting for the same gospel in the rest of the world. So first up is the

American church complex growth and marketing strategies versus the underground church growth

strategy is to preach the gospel and try not to die. The American church will have pastors

jump dirt bikes over the stage to attract a crowd. Whereas the underground church pastor

will have to ride his dirt bike to escape the secret police. The American church pastor

has thousands of followers on Instagram. Whereas the underground pastor is forced to hide his

identity to avoid the Gulag. And the American eight trained musicians play over a $12 million

sound system. Whereas the underground church have has acapella hymns whispered to avoid

detection. In America, you could see here the people say bummer, your favorite preacher

from the pastoral staff isn't speaking today versus the underground will say bummer. The

only pastor your church has was imprisoned last night. And America, it'll say greeter

stand near the doors, you know, to usher people into the church. Whereas the underground church

will have lookouts posted on the roof. American pastors hide money in the walls, underground

pastors hide in the walls. American pastors will or churches will search for new churches

because the music isn't your style. Whereas the underground church, you'll search for

a new church because yours was burnt down by warlords last week. America, the authorities

have issued a mandate to stop the church from gathering together to worship. And the underground

church, the authorities have to kill them to stop them from gathering together to worship.

So I bring this the article up and it is tongue in cheek. It's satire from the Babylon B.

But it's critical that we keep ourselves in check. Remembering the difficulties others

face to help us remember that our mission is not over. And sometimes we might get knocked

down or hurt, but we need to get up, rub a little dirt on it and carry on with the mission.

So as we turn to our text at first, John two verses 15 at 16 or 15 to 17, just remember

that we do have a calling and we do have a purpose and we should remember to always as

we look back on the last year, you know, to count our blessings on where we are and to

remember that God is with us even in the trials and to give him praise both in the good times

and in the bad, because he is there for us in the midst of it all. So let's jump into

our text at verse 15. 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 for all that is in the world. The desires

of the flesh and the desires, the eyes and pride of life is not from the father, but

is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does

the will of God abides forever. And as an illustration, I wanted to pull this, this

excerpt that I found from the, the, the U S constitutional convention in Philadelphia

from September 15th, 1787. And these, these, these words come from James Madison. So just

keep in mind that it's, that it's a different kind of English that they're speaking at the

time, but I think the point will still come across. Will's the last members were signing

the constitution, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, looking towards the president's chair at the back

of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed a few members near him. The painters

had found it difficult to distinguish in their art, a rising from a setting sun. I've said

he often and often in the course of the session, the viscitudes of my hope and fears as it

to its issue, look at the behind the president without being able to tell whether it was

rising or setting, but now at length, I have happiness to know that it is rising and not

setting. The founding father had accomplished what they had set out to do with full pains

of labor. They have given birth and we're seeing the rise of a new nation.

So this, this little piece of a, you know, this excerpt from James Madison brings to,

you know, pretty clear thought the difference between a rising or setting sun. You know,

we have in our text, this call to not love the world. We have in this call that to recognize

that, you know, what is in of the, in the world, the desires of the eyes and the pride

of life, the desires of the flesh, these things are passing away, but whoever does the will

of God abides forever. So the world at the time of Christ's crucifixion, they thought

that they were creating the, the end of the believers belief that this, this, you know,

idea of Jesus Christ by taking and smiting Jesus, that they were putting an end to his

teachings. They thought it was the setting of the sun, but in reality, as we know, Jesus

Christ rose on that third day and it was just the rising of the sun. And it was just that

new beginning in Jesus Christ that was just taking its, its start at the, at, at, after

the third day of his crucifixion. So this brings me my first point, which is compassion.

And the main part of compassion is that I don't want you to perish. And as Christians,

we should want no one to perish. We should want everybody to turn to Jesus Christ for

their salvation so that all men can turn to him and be saved and set free from the bondage

of their sin. And they, this brings me the first thought of what, what we're commanded

not to love. We're commanded by, by Jesus Christ not to love the things of this world,

things that are sort of to sum this up, we're directed not to love things that are directed

towards the wrong things. In Matthew 28, 19 through 20, it says, go therefore and make

disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son of the Holy

Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold, I am with

you always to the end of the age. We're told in this scripture right away, teaching them

to observe all that I've commanded you. So clearly Jesus gave commands in ways to live

that we are supposed to observe or live by. There are three times when we're called not

to love. We hear a lot in today's society that love is love. This statement is meant

to shut down discourse and render us unable to defend against the cultural changes that

we see in the world today. The reality of this argument is the root as at its root,

Oriental mysticism or Gnosticism that is present in our own age, but it's not a new

idea. This has been around for a very long time. And when we look at our texts in verse

15, we see John tell us to be wary of the world too. 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. John is

not talking about loving our neighbor or for the created world, but rather the powers and

principalities that make up the spiritual realm that are in opposition to God and in

rebellion to his kingdom. In Ephesians 6 12, it says, for we do not wrestle against flesh

and blood, but against the rulers and against the authorities and against the cosmic powers

over this present darkness and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

And James 4 4, it says, you adulterous people, do you know that friendship with the world

is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself

an enemy of God. It is that we are commanded not to love. Jesus tells us the hierarchy

when dealing with the Sadducees in Matthew 22. So there's clearly an understanding of

things that have a hierarchy and how love is supposed to to actually be dealt with according

to the will of God. And Matthew 22 36 through 39, it says, teacher, which is the greatest

commandment in the law. And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all

your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first

commandment and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So when

where then does compassion come in? When the gospel is taken together as a whole and in

context, we see our love has to first be focused on the right things to focus on things of

on the things of God and his call in our life is right and proper. This is what leads others

to repentance and salvation in Christ. This is godly love and compassion. We do not hate

the sinner, but rather we desperately want to see them come into right relationship with

the father. And this brings me to my next thought, which is the importance of clarity.

And as we think of clarity, think of the woman at the well and how Jesus dealt with the woman

at the well and she he brought to light her sin. Brought it out into the daylight so she

could see it so she had to deal with it. And then in the end, he said, go and sin no more.

Repentance sin no more. There is a declaration of this is your sin. Now go in and live clean

and away from it. Part of clarity is understanding that this is God's design. And part of the

failure of man is that the world is looking at the wrong source. So when you are loving

something that doesn't come from God, when you are loving something that is not within

the framework or the pattern of God's design, you're pulling from the wrong source and that

love is wrong. God has given us the word of God and it is a powerful resource that shows

us time and time again the pattern that he has built into the world. And as a quick aside,

if you think of Noah, in the time of Noah, this is before the Bible, God has put into

nature was put into mankind an understanding of right and wrong. And so when the judgment

of the time of Noah came about, they didn't have the word, but they had an understanding

of right and wrong and they were judged for their for their sin that they lived because

it said that every thought and all imagination was wicked at the time of Noah. And that's

why the judgment of God had to come in at that period of time and only Noah and his

family were saved. But we have this tremendous resource, which is the word of God. And when

we read the word of God and hold to the truth of the gospel, we are able with a plain reading

to see God's plan and his purpose. But we live in a fallen world and we are oftentimes

bombarded with a diff with different or new ideas, new translations or interpretations.

This is the same thing that the apostles were dealing with in the first century church.

There was a creeping plague that was infiltrating many of the early churches. And that is why

we have many of the epistles that are directly dealing with this so that we can have clarity

on the subject. One example is the book of Hebrews and how it was directed at the Jews

specifically to thwart wrong teaching and to clarify the new covenant in contrast to

the old covenant. In our text with John, we see the battle that is beginning to be fought

in verses 15 through 17. This call to resisting the world. John warned the readers of the

worldly dangers that are that the that faced Christians as he seeks to get to know God

better. He did so to enable them to prepare them for to overcome these obstacles with

God's help. As often in first John, we have reminders of what the readers already knew

and were doing or of what they knew they should avoid. The New Testament uses the term world

in at least three ways. Sometimes the world refers to the planet earth, the physical world.

Sometimes it refers to humankind, the human world. And sometimes it refers to the human

culture as influenced by Satan, the world system, which is what's being used here. John

presents these three pairs or these contrasting ideas in the earlier part of first John and

two chapter two, 12 through 14. In verse 15, he's using the love of the world to contrast

the true love, the love of the father. In verse 16, he's using the come comes from the

world, the idea of what is coming out of the world versus what comes from the father to

contrast what is good to love, which is what comes from the father and which we shouldn't

love, which comes from the world. And then to contrast the end of the times, the world

that's passing away versus the one who obeys God remains forever. So those who abide in

the father live forever and those who abide in the world will pass away with it. So these

thoughts, these ideas, they're, they're critical to our understanding of what godly love is

and the kind of love that we're supposed to respect and honor and the kind of love that

we're called not to not to foster. In Romans 12 two, it says, do not be conformed to this

world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind by the testing that you may discern

what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And second Timothy

four 10, we get a picture of how, how, you know, of this battle was clearly evident in

their time for in four tenants as for Demas in his love with this present world has deserted

me and gone to Thessalonica. Christians has gone to Galatia and Titus to Dalmatia. In

verses 15 through 27 of our text, we only read a snippet of this, but we can see that

there's a recognizing of the spiritual adversary. If you read the continuation of that chapter,

having encouraged the readers with affirmations that their spiritual condition was very good.

John turned next to the enemies that they must face the world and the Antichrist. John

summarized the appeal of the world system as threefold. Here's a picture of the infernal

Trinity, the three faces of the world, the three sources of worldly temptation, lusts

or cravings of desires. And in context, they are evil because they are not in harmony with

God's will. The lust of the flesh is the desire to do something apart from the will

of God. It includes every sinful activity that appeals to the sinful hearts of people.

The lusts of the eyes is a desire to have something apart from the will of God. Whatever

is appealing to our senses, but is not properly ours to desire or obtain falls under this

category. And the pride of life is the desire to be something apart from the will of God.

It refers to the boastful pretensions in earthly matters. The first desire appeals mainly to

the body. The second appeals to the soul or the intellect and the third to the spirit.

The most common manifestation of lust of the flesh in modern Western civilization is illicit

sex, hedonism, idolizing pleasure. The most common manifestation of lust of the eyes is

the excessive buying materialism, idolizing possessions. And the most common manifestation

of the pride of life is trying to control egotism and idolizing power. In Romans 13,

14, it says, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratifying

its desires. This is far different than what our society calls us to do today, isn't it?

But we're called to make no room for the flesh or gratifying its desires. In 1 Peter

4, 2, it says, so as to live for the rest of time in the flesh, no longer for human

passions, but for the will of God. In 2 Peter 2, 18 through 19, for speaking loud boasts

of folly, they entice by sensual passions of flesh those who are barely escaping from those

who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves, are slaves

of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved. This is the folly

we deal with, is that the world is calling us to be caught into the same web of folly

that they are, the same sensual passions of the flesh that they are. Even though they

think they're calling for freedom, they're slaves to their own corruption. For whatever

overcomes a person to that he is enslaved by. Part of the battle is knowing who and

what we are fighting. And during the first century church, much like now, we are fighting

Gnostic philosophies that seek to dilute the scripture and in some cases hide the true

meaning for the select few. So some possible options as to which group of Gnostics John

was addressing. You know, one main one is incipient Gnosticism. The basic teaching teachings

of incipient Gnosticism of the first century seemed to have been an emphasis on eternal

dualism between the spirit and matter. The spirit being the high God was considered good

while matter was inherently evil. This dichotomy resembles Plato isms, ideal versus physical,

heavenly versus earthly, invisible versus visible. There was also an over emphasis on the importance

of secret knowledge, passwords or secret codes, which allow us soul to pass through the angelic

spheres up to the high God necessary for salvation. There are two primary forms of incipient Gnosticism,

which apparently could have been in the background of first John. You have docetic Gnosticism,

which denies the true humanity of Jesus Christ because matter is evil. And you have syrnthian

Gnosticism, which identifies Christ with one of many angelic levels between the good high

God and evil matter. This Christ spirit indwelt the man Jesus at his baptism and left him

before his crucifixion. These two groups practiced either asceticism, which is if the body wants

it, it is evil, or antimonism, which is if the body wants it, give in. So these are the

two ideas that we battle with today. And you can probably see a couple of them in different

groups of society today. You have some groups that say give in to pleasure because God wouldn't

have given you these desires if he didn't want you to act on them fully. And this is

something John was dealing with. And we've already got the epistles. We have Paul, I've

read from Peter, I've read from Paul's writings and I've read from John's writings and they

all come against this idea. So we've already had this dealt with since the first century,

since the beginnings of the church. So there's no excuse for it. This giving into your pleasures

and your flesh and giving into your desires has already been dealt with by the word of

God long ago. And then we have this other group that says if the body wants it, it's

evil. This is shooing of everything that the body needs, like eating food for that matter.

That is more of an idea that you see commonly in Buddhism, where they're trying to eliminate

self altogether. And this idea is also dealt with. We're supposed to love God with everything

and we're supposed to live according to his pattern. Enjoy. That's why clarity of our

beliefs is so critical. To understand the plain reading of the words of Christ in the

many epistles gives us this basis to grow in our knowledge of the Lord. It gives us

a measuring stick to judge this world. If something in our culture is antithetical to

the gospel, then we need to offer clarity to the world and be the salt and light that

is needed. This brings me to my final point, which is conviction. To know what God's truth

is. Part of the way that we know what God's truth is, is by the fruit that someone bears.

So when someone is providing godly fruit, we know that it's from God. But when the wrong

fruit is being created, then we know that it's coming from the wrong source. God allows

us to live in our sin in the hope that we will turn from our sin and to him will turn

for redemption. We live in a fallen world and there's a lot that is wrong with the world

due to the corruption of sin. This does not mean that we have free reign to keep sinning,

but rather that we aspire to a higher principle. We should be growing in our convictions as

we draw closer to the Lord, not moving farther and farther away from the light. In verse

17, we learn that another reason we should not pursue the desires of this world is that

this system, along with its desires, is in the process of passing out of existence. We

are living in what John called the last hour of the world's existence. The world is only

temporary and ephemeral. Those who do God's will will abide, will remain alive forever.

Since all Christians will live forever, John was not saying we attain eternal life by our

obedience. However, we abide, we enjoy this relationship, this intimate relationship with

God and we experience our eternal life abundantly now as well as after death when we obey God.

Just as Abraham through obedience to God obtained the title friend of God, by which he is known

today in three world religions, it will be known forever, so too the obedient Christian

can obtain the same identity by obedience. Likewise, it would be reasonable to conclude

that Christian identity and eternity will be determined by obedience to God in time.

Resisting the appeal of the world is difficult for every believer. John urged his readers

in view of its attractiveness to understand the avenues of its temptations and to remember

four things. Love for the world indicates a lack of love for God. It results in consequences

that are not what our loving Heavenly Father desires for our welfare. It lasts for only

a short time and it precludes intimate fellowship with God. In 1 Corinthians 7, 31, and those

who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it, for the present form

of this world is passing away. So as we close, we need to remember that we are to deal with

those in the world with compassion just as Christ did. The goal is not to become more

like the world but to rescue others from the grip of the world. When dealing with the world,

our place in it must stand with clarity. The world will try to confuse you and lead you

astray. One of the best ways to combat this is to pray. Read your Bible regularly and

to commune with fellow believers. We are also shown we should avoid the fleshly and carnal

things of this world. And that finally brings me to conviction. As we grow in Christ, we

should also grow in our convictions. The closer we move to Christ, the further we move away

from this world. So do not be afraid to tell others that even though God is the God of

love, that does not mean that we are called to love all things. We are called to love

the Lord. Matthew 22, 37. And he said to them, You shall love the Lord your God with all

your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. That means you love him more

than you love yourself. And that means that you do what he says out of love for him before

you just do what you want, especially when what you want is in contradiction or is contrary

to his word. That means we love him above all else, that because we love him, we will

not love the things that are in rebellion to God and his nature. And with that, if I

could have every head bowed, every eye closed, unless of course you're driving. I always

like to throw that in just in case. I want to thank you for listening to this message

and I pray that it has impacted your life. But as if every message I want to give an

opportunity that if this message is spoken to you, if it's convicted your heart and you

recognize that you're not right with God and you want to get right with God, that you can

do that right now. You could signify that you want that by lifting your hand, raise

a hand. I can't see it, but clear you know, but God can. And if you did raise your hand

and you mean it, that you want, you want to repent, you want to get right with God, that

you can do that. You just simply repeat this prayer after me. Dear Lord God, I know that

I'm a sinner, but I know that you sent your son, Jesus Christ to die for me and that he

rose from the dead and I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and my savior and I repent of my

sin. I turn from him and I thank you for salvation in Jesus name. Amen. Simple prayer. We typically

call that a sinner's prayer and that is all it takes to, you know, to go from being dead

in the world to alive in Christ. And of course there's always next steps just to grow in

Christ like I always said and part of that is finding a Bible believing church. If you're

in Salmon Arm, you know, reach out. We have service at 1030 on Sundays. If you're somewhere

else in the world and you want help finding a church, reach out. I'd be more than happy

to point you in the direction of one of our 3500 fellowship churches that we have worldwide.

God's moving in this end times and we want to get as many people in right relationship

with God as we possibly can. I want to thank you for listening. I apologize for the sound

of my voice this morning. I'm getting over being sick, but I thank you again and I can't

wait for you to come back next time. God bless.