[0:00] Turn in your Bibles to 1 John. We'll remain... Oh, well, I was going to remain standing. But since... Yeah, come on, stand up. We'll remain standing tonight for the reading of God's Word.
[0:16] We're going to read from 1 John, chapter 2. And we're going to read verses 12 through 17.
[0:37] This is God's Word. I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.
[0:48] I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.
[1:00] I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong and the Word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
[1:17] 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 does, comes not from the Father, but from the world.
[1:42] The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. Let's listen as this word is preached. Well, good leaders know how to motivate.
[2:01] It is no illusion that we are a little bit closer tonight. Those of us who are members, we're given some extra motivation. To move up and enjoy that singing.
[2:15] The best teachers, the best coaches, the best generals, the best bosses. They have expectations for those under them. They give orders.
[2:28] They give commands. And those under them, they obey those commands. They follow those orders because they were motivated well.
[2:39] Now, the strategies might look a little bit different. Sometimes that motivation comes as a warm encouragement, like a teacher publicly praising his or her student for an excellent job on a paper.
[2:54] Sometimes those motivations come with more sternness and intensity, like a drill instructor who is getting after his troops because they haven't done their drills with precision.
[3:06] Different strategies. But we see the same outcome because of good motivation. And so whether it's in the classroom, or it's on the battlefield, or it's in the workplace, we need motivation.
[3:22] And we see that as well in the Christian life. We too need to be motivated. We're weak. We're feeble. We are sinful creatures.
[3:34] And so we need motivation. Do you remember the words of the Apostle Paul? I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race.
[3:45] I have kept the faith. So Paul, he persevered to the end. Paul endured to the end of the Christian life. And why is that?
[3:57] Well, we read on. There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.
[4:10] So even Paul was given real, concrete motivation. We need it too. And God, in his sovereign grace, is the master motivator.
[4:23] Now, God brings all of his purposes to pass. All that he pleases, he does. And he sees that it is done. And he uses means.
[4:35] Motivation is a means by which he accomplishes his perfect purposes. And so we are given help tonight. God gives us motivation.
[4:47] Motivation to obey his commands. And here is the singular command that God gives us tonight. Do not love the world or the things of the world.
[4:59] Do not love the world or the things in the world. Now, this is actually the first direct command that God has given to us as we have journeyed through 1 John together.
[5:12] The first imperative. A clear command. Do not love the world. Now, John isn't talking about the physical world here. He is not saying, don't love or enjoy or appreciate or have your affections warmed as you see birds and flowers and clouds.
[5:32] That's not what God is getting at here. God is giving us this command to not love unbelieving society in what it loves.
[5:44] All that it promotes. All that it values. God is commanding us, don't love what the world puts forward. What hostile society puts forward.
[5:57] And so don't align yourself with its values. Why not? Because the world is at odds with God. Scripture gives us three enemies that the Christian faces.
[6:10] The flesh, the world, and the devil. And so the world is this collective opposition to God from unbelieving society. Have you ever done one of those puzzles where it's this beautiful picture and you realize really quickly on that the picture is actually made up of lots of other little tiny images.
[6:33] And when you put all of those images together, it creates like a baby or a dog or something. But it's made up of lots of little images. So too with the world.
[6:44] The blending together of sinful men and women into one larger singular purpose. A common unity against God. So don't be fooled.
[6:58] The world is not neutral. Later in John's letter he writes, The whole world lies under the power of the evil one. So the world is under the control of Satan insofar as God allows.
[7:13] He is, as Ephesians 2 says, The prince of the power of the air. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Elsewhere Satan is said to be the god, little g, of this world.
[7:29] And Satan is not neutral. He is hell-bent on carrying out his evil schemes. And the world is his vehicle for this. Satan puts into motion his plans using the world as his stage.
[7:47] He uses sinful men and women as his agents. And so when we're given this command, Do not love the world or the things in the world, it's with good reason.
[7:57] The world opposes God. The world hates God. Jesus said it very simply in John 7. The world hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
[8:10] The world, its works, evil. God, his works, good. And so it makes sense that God is pressing upon us here in 1 John a healthy sense of separation.
[8:25] We should not look like the world. How we talk should be different. How we act should be different. What we value should be different. What we prioritize should be different.
[8:38] We should not share in the same interests that the world is putting forward. We should not join the same causes that the world promotes. We shouldn't hold to the same philosophies that the world holds to.
[8:52] The world is against God. And so God gives us this command. And then, in His kindness, He gives us four motivations this evening from our passage.
[9:06] Four motivations to help us to obey the command. Four motivations to keep us from loving the world. Kids, do you know what the word motivation means?
[9:20] A motivation, it's like a push that we need. A little push that we need to do something. Sometimes, it's like a little push that we need to not do something.
[9:34] Have your parents ever given you a command something like this? Don't run in the road. We're having to learn that in the Horn household. We used to live in a cul-de-sac.
[9:44] Now, we live on a street where the cars come through. And so we're learning, don't run in the road. And you're called to obey your parents. And if they said nothing else to you but that command, you should listen and obey because they're your parents.
[10:00] And God has put them in authority over you. But maybe your parents also are kind in their motivation that they give to you. And they might say something to you like, don't run in the road because you could get hurt.
[10:15] And you think, I don't want to get hurt. I don't want something to happen. And so that helps you to obey their command. They give you that little push that you need.
[10:29] Well, God is kind to us as well, isn't he? And God, in his love and in his grace, gives us these commandments this evening. He gives us these motivations, I should say.
[10:40] So here's the first motivation. The first motivation to help us that we don't love the world is this. We are forgiven of our sins. We are forgiven of our sins.
[10:55] 1 John 2, and we're just going to read verse 12. So the four motivations that we're going to see this evening, they all have their root.
[11:13] They all are tied into our spiritual status. They are all tied into who we are in Christ, if we are in Christ. This is true of you, John says.
[11:26] Your sins are forgiven. This is a statement of fact. This is not John giving us a possibility. It's not John saying, your sins could be forgiven, but now are not.
[11:39] Or he's not saying, well, you are forgiven of your sins, but they could be somehow unforgiven in the future. This motivation, like all of these motivations put forward, is an unchanging statement of fact.
[11:55] It is tied to your identity in Christ. And that's good motivation for us. Something unchanging. Something that we can bank on. You and I, we can press forward in the Christian life with all of its challenges and all of its trials, with all the temptations that we face to love the world.
[12:16] We can press on in the Christian life because we stand on this solid ground. We sang of that even just this evening. We have this solid ground.
[12:28] That's what each motivation is. Our sins are forgiven. That is true. That is unchanging. And so if you aren't totally sure, if you have any doubts about that, John spells it out for us.
[12:42] Because we are forgiven for His namesake. Or perhaps your translation says, on account of His name. So we are forgiven, not because of what we have done.
[12:57] We're forgiven not because of our righteousness, not because our faith was strong enough, not because we felt bad enough about our sins, but because of Christ.
[13:09] And because of His death on the cross. On account of Him, God has forgiven us. If God forgave us on account of ourselves, if God forgave us on account of our namesake, all hope would be lost.
[13:29] We would have no motivation to obey God's command given here to not love the world. There would be no solid ground for us to stand on. We would not be able to press forward in the Christian life because we would have no hope of forgiveness.
[13:47] None. Aside from God, there is no one who knows us better than ourselves. And an honest evaluation of ourselves reveals two things.
[14:00] One, that we are completely undeserving of God's forgiveness. And two, that we are completely deserving of His condemnation.
[14:12] Undeserving of His forgiveness and we are deserving of His condemnation. And so if we had to look at our works and say, I'm going to offer this up to God for forgiveness, we would not find it.
[14:26] And in its place, we would see God's wrath. Without Christ, all that you have is your own record to show. That's all that you have.
[14:38] And it will condemn you. If you're not in Christ tonight, turn to the Savior. Find life in Him.
[14:48] Find forgiveness because of His death on the cross. But if you are in Christ, His record is yours. Your record of sin has been replaced with His record of righteousness.
[15:05] Thank the Lord that He does not look to our own records. Because we only possessed a record of debt. But because of Christ, God has canceled the record of debt that stood against us.
[15:22] He nailed it upon the cross. And what did He do? He forgave us. We are forgiven. That is an unchanging status that is true of us.
[15:36] So, don't love the world. Don't love the world and the things in it. Because all that is of the world, all that is found in the world, it is what required your Savior's blood to be shed.
[15:54] All that is found in the world is what built up that record of debt that has now been forgiven. The world offers up to you sin. If we run back to the world, we are running back to our sin.
[16:09] We have been forgiven. Don't turn back to what had once condemned you. So, that is the first motivation that God gives us to keep us from loving the world.
[16:21] Here is the second. Motivation number two. We know and love the Father. We know and love the Father. Now, before we consider this second motivation in detail, you might have noticed that John likes to use a lot of different titles in this passage to describe different people groups.
[16:45] So, we had already seen John use that title for little children earlier in the letter. And we understand that that's him speaking figuratively. His warm endearment towards the church, towards all of us.
[16:58] That's John showing his affection, calling us little children. Well, now he's using a couple other titles. Fathers. And young men. And they both fall under that broad, general category of little children.
[17:14] So, John writes to all of us, the church, and then he makes these specific addresses to little children, or to young men and to fathers.
[17:25] But that's also John speaking figuratively. John is not saying, I have a word for the men who have children in the room. he's speaking of mature, older Christians.
[17:39] And he's not saying, well, and I also have a word to young men in the room who are under a certain age. You qualify for what I say here. He's speaking to younger Christians, those who are newer in the faith.
[17:52] So, John is purposefully speaking to these two groups of people. But there's a danger here that we have to be really careful of. we can be tempted to tune out something that is said in the word, something that is preached, because we think that's for somebody else.
[18:10] That's not for me. That is for someone else. To my shame, I literally found myself doing that this morning as the word was preached.
[18:22] I thought, I wish so-and-so was here so that they could hear this sermon. And then I thought, I'm about to address that in this sermon. I need to think not about what the Lord might have for them as good as our intentions might be.
[18:36] We need to consider what does the Lord say to us? And so, though his words are pointed to younger Christians in some capacities, to older Christians in some capacities, there is lots of overlap here for us to see and appreciate.
[18:52] All of Scripture is God-breathed. All of it is training us up in righteousness. So, don't tune anything out if you hear young men and you think, I'm a young woman. No, it is for us.
[19:04] It is for us. God isn't bringing his word to you so that you can go and have dealings with someone else.
[19:16] God is bringing his word to you so that he can have dealings with you. So, here's that word that he brings. That second motivation. We know the Father and his love is in us.
[19:29] We see that point made several times here in our verses. Verses 12-14, multiple times, John repeats, we know the Father. We know him who is from the beginning.
[19:41] And you see in one time there in verse 13, he addresses fathers. I am writing to you fathers because you know him who is from the beginning. But then you see he addresses that to the children.
[19:53] Speaking of all of us in the church, I write to you children because you know the Father. And we also see John makes the point in a warning of verse 15.
[20:05] We see the point that the Father's love is in us and he casts that in a negative sense. He says in verse 15, if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
[20:18] Or your translation might read, love for the Father is not in them. So we know the Father and we love the Father.
[20:29] So don't love the world. Do you hear the intimacy that is conveyed in these verses? How can we love the world?
[20:41] How can we spurn the one that we know and love who has first known us, and who has first loved us? Love isn't the problem.
[20:55] It's the object of our love. Our love cannot be divided. We can love the world. We can love God. But we cannot love both.
[21:07] To love the one is to hate the other. So what keeps us from loving the world? We remember afresh that we know the Father and we love the Father.
[21:21] These are highly relational terms. This is intimate language that John uses. Know and love. It wouldn't make sense to describe an intimate relationship with a force or with an idea or with a philosophy using words like know and love.
[21:39] That would be weird. It wouldn't make sense to do that. Our faith, though, is not centered on a philosophy. Our faith is not centered on a principle of life.
[21:51] It would be much easier to love the world and to minimize our sin as well as to minimize the possible consequences for our sin if we downplay the personhood of God.
[22:05] If we downplay the relational aspect of our faith, we are much more tempted to love the world if we want to conceive of God in our own mind's eye as just an idea.
[22:21] But God is not a force or an idea. We are in relationship with Him. He is from the beginning. He is the living God and He is our Father.
[22:33] He is not a God. He is our God and He knows us as a good Father would know His children. He's adopted us into His family.
[22:45] He has made us His own. We belong to Him. He loves us. He first knew us. So don't love the world and spurn your God.
[22:58] You know Him who is from the beginning. He first knew you. You love Him as well and He first loved you. Here is the third motivation to keep us from loving the world.
[23:12] We see the emptiness of Satan's temptations. We see the emptiness of Satan's temptations. Verse 13 in the middle begins with, I am writing to you young men because you have overcome the evil one.
[23:30] We read again in verse 14 at the end, and you have overcome the evil one. So twice here, John says, you have overcome the evil one.
[23:41] You have conquered. You have prevailed against him. You have gone to war. You have gone out to battle and you've come out as the victor. You've come out on top.
[23:53] Satan has been defeated. He is beaten. He's done. And John tells us that we have overcome him. How so? How did we overcome the evil one?
[24:08] Through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Christ has. In His life, He defeated Satan through His perfect obedience. He gave in to no temptation that Satan sent His way.
[24:23] And in His death, He defeated Satan. What does Colossians 2 tell us? He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them by the cross.
[24:39] We overcome the evil one because we have been united to Christ. And in every way, in life and in death, He overcame Satan.
[24:52] And so Christ is the victor and we get to share in His victory. So then, let that serve as motivation. Don't love the world.
[25:04] The whole world lies in the power of the evil one and you have overcome him. Don't turn back to his lies. Don't fall for his deceitful schemes. Don't succumb to his temptations.
[25:16] Satan has been defeated by our risen Savior. Now live like it. And how do we do that? By daily recognizing the emptiness of Satan's temptations.
[25:31] God has given us eyes to see. What does verse 16 say? For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.
[25:47] empty promises that Satan holds out to us and God has given us eyes to see. That's what they are. They're empty. Now that's Satan's age-old strategy.
[26:01] In the Garden of Eden, Eve didn't see with the eyes of faith. Eve saw just with her physical eyes. And she saw that the tree was good for food.
[26:12] And she saw that it was a delight to the eyes. And she saw that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. That sounds a whole lot like 1 John chapter 2.
[26:26] The desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life. And Eve took and she ate. And Adam took and Adam ate.
[26:39] And in that moment, they loved not God, but the world. and what destruction followed. What consequences for their sin. You can love the world now, but John tells us the world is passing away.
[26:57] It will not last. It will not endure. And all that it offers proves to be empty. That taste of pleasure now will be bitter in time.
[27:10] Adam and Eve, they enjoyed the thought of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But when they did, their pleasure quickly turned to helpless and hopeless shame.
[27:23] They were exposed in every way because they had failed to see the emptiness of Satan's lies. But John tells us that God has given us eyes to see.
[27:37] We have been given eyes to see and we overcome the evil one. He holds no grip on us if we are in Christ. So don't love the world.
[27:49] You know better. You have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. There is no comparison here. So why are we tempted?
[27:59] So much that John needs to give us this command. Do not love the world. Why are we tempted to love the world? One reason is the world promises instant, immediate gratification.
[28:14] The pleasures of this world can be had in all of their fullness right here, right now. And the pleasures of knowing and loving and enjoying God require faith.
[28:28] Yes, we have tasted and seen that God is good, but it is only a foretaste. We wait in anticipation. We wait in anticipation for eternal joys that are found at God's right hand.
[28:45] So don't fall for the imitation, even if you can have it right now. That instant gratification, it comes with a cost. It will do us great harm to our relationship to the Father.
[28:59] And if it persists, it may well prove that we never actually knew the Father in the first place, that the love of the Father was not actually in you.
[29:11] If you love the world and all of its empty promises, there are dire consequences that await. the world is passing away along with all of its desires.
[29:24] It will not last. But what you have in Christ will. Because what does John say at the end of our verses? But whoever does the will of God abides forever.
[29:39] What a contrast that he gives us. Christ is so much better, so don't let yourself be fooled by Satan's lies. God has given you eyes to see.
[29:53] You know the emptiness of his lies. And your eternal inheritance is being kept in heaven for you. And how does scripture describe that inheritance?
[30:05] Undefiled, unfading, and imperishable. So don't love the world. It will fade away. Motivation number four.
[30:16] Our final motivation to keep us from loving the world is this. We are strong through the abiding word of God. We are strong through the abiding word of God.
[30:30] Look at verse 14, beginning a couple lines down. I write to you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you.
[30:41] If you are in Christ tonight, the Bible teaches that you are not the same person that you once were. If you are in Christ, you have been changed. You have been transformed.
[30:54] And 1 Peter 1 verse 23 says this, you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.
[31:08] So you have been born again to eternal life through the word of God. By his word, God has given you new life. And so now you are strong through that abiding word.
[31:23] So don't turn back to the world and its emptiness. If you've ever broken a bone or had a debilitating injury, you may know something of muscular atrophy, the weakening of the muscle that is caused by this prolonged inactivity that you have done.
[31:46] I broke my foot in high school. And so I was on crutches for six weeks that failed to actually bring healing, and so then I was in a walking boot for another six weeks.
[31:57] And after getting that walking boot off, I thought, this is going to be amazing. I'm going to go right back to life as it was. And I got that walking boot off, and I had a limp, and that limp took quite a while to go away.
[32:12] I could not jog, I couldn't run, I had no agility. Why? Because if you looked at my two calves, they were like night and day. I mean, I'm not a strong man to begin with, but one calf was so weak, and the other was like normal weak.
[32:26] And yet, that weakening of my calf muscle, I didn't notice it over time. It was slow, it was subtle.
[32:39] And then I got that walking boot off, and it was a really abrupt realization. Love for the world may grow subtly in our lives.
[32:50] Without us even really noticing, we stop thinking critically, we stop thinking deeply, we stop engaging with our hearts and our minds in growing in grace, grace, and we become like that person who suffers a debilitating injury, and they don't even know it.
[33:08] Like that person who has had their spiritual muscles atrophy. They begin to slowly waste away. We lose the ability to know good from evil.
[33:20] We lose the ability to know right from wrong, to see that evil is indeed evil, and good is indeed good, and to not call evil good and good evil. Our understanding of God and His ways diminishes.
[33:37] And suddenly, what the world holds out to us doesn't seem so repulsive. It should be. We should be repulsed by it, but now there's a charm.
[33:50] Now there's something compelling about what the world holds out to us. Suddenly, it doesn't sound so bad. Suddenly, it doesn't strike us as so offensive and so vile.
[34:04] It's maybe just kind of okay. It's maybe even kind of appealing. John reminds us here, don't grow weary. Don't grow weak in your faith.
[34:17] We need to keep hitting the spiritual gem. We need to keep lifting the weights of our Christian life. And so what does spiritual strength look like?
[34:30] John says it looks like this. The word of God abides in you. The word of God abides in you. We have God's word in us.
[34:42] It lives in us. It's in our hearts. It's on our minds. It's upon our lips. It is at the ready. Like the blessed man of Psalm 1.
[34:54] Psalm 1 is really just this visual picture of the exhortation that we receive here in 1 John chapter 2. You want to know what it looks like to keep yourself from loving the world by God's grace?
[35:11] Read Psalm 1. Soak up Psalm 1. It begins like this. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
[35:26] You could say, blessed is the man who does not love the world. And so how does he abstain from loving the world? Verse 2.
[35:37] But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Or you could say the word of God abides in him.
[35:49] He delights in God's word. He meditates on God's word. And then what does he look like? Verse 3. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season.
[36:04] Its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. So the blessed man of Psalm 1, he abides in God's word and it makes him strong.
[36:16] Psalm 1 is spiritual strength on display. It's like a tree firmly planted, immovable, steadfast, resolute, confident, continually being nourished and strengthened by those streams of water.
[36:34] We make that the aim of our Christian lives. We are to be like that firmly planted tree only as God's word abides in us. It's on our lips.
[36:45] It's at the ready. And so we model our lives after not just the blessed man of Psalm 1, but ultimately after our Savior. He demonstrated this spiritual strength for us.
[36:59] Think back to his time in the wilderness when the spirit led him into the wilderness and he had gone without food, he was physically hungry and he was weak, having fasted for 40 days, but Jesus was spiritually sharp.
[37:17] He was spiritually strong. John tells us we are strong too. The word of God abides in us. And now, Christian, live according to what is already true of you.
[37:30] Live as one who is strong. Live as one who has the word of God in you. There's only one way to retain the word. We must read it.
[37:43] We must hear it read. We must hear it taught. We must hear it preached. That is me saying more than one way, but you get the idea. The input of the word is that one way.
[37:55] We must memorize it. We must meditate on it. There is no magic pill for retaining God's word in your heart, for storing it up in your heart.
[38:06] There is no diet pill to be had. There is no shake weight. There is no vibrating belt. None of the things that get put forward and people say, you could lose weight, you could gain muscle mass by doing this.
[38:20] They fail. No shortcuts to take. If you want to be spiritually strong, you put in the hard work of nourishing yourself with the word.
[38:33] We can't take a passive posture. We can't sit on the couch and eat potato chips and think we're going to gain muscle mass. We can't open the Bible just every blue moon, perhaps only when it's opened or told to be opened in the church and think we're going to grow in spiritual strength.
[38:51] It is hard work. It is labor intensive. You must read it and it must be a habit in your life. So we make it our habit to grow in a grace by God's grace in His word.
[39:07] So if it's not a habit in your life right now, consider what your habits are. What do you prioritize? What do you spend your time doing? What do you spend your time doing first?
[39:20] And make the necessary changes to prioritize the word in your life. Don't put it off. Don't make excuses. Don't hear the word tonight and then turn away and go back to how you were.
[39:33] If you are uncomfortable right now because the spirit is bringing conviction of your spiritual apathy, repent and take action. Make changes so that the word of God abides all the more deeply in you.
[39:48] And then persevere. Because it is not a one-time reality. This is the Christian life. The slow and steady progress of taking in the word, of knowing it more and more so that it does come out of us in our speech.
[40:08] We must keep working to store up the word in our hearts because we need it so that we might not love the world. So this is God's kindness to us.
[40:20] The motivation that he gives to us to keep us from loving the world. You are strong and the word of God abides in you. Don't love the world.
[40:30] So the four motivations we've been given this evening, they are to keep our affections from going astray. Here is one final motivation spoken by Christ himself on the night of his betrayal in John chapter 15.
[40:47] If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.
[40:58] But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. So don't love the world. Because the world doesn't love you.
[41:12] The world hates you. And so what a silly thing to do, to run after with all of our affections that which is giving us the cold shoulder, that which pushes us away and we should be glad it does, we're saying, I love you and I want to go towards you.
[41:28] What a silly thing to do. And so here's a fitting question. An early church father named Cyprian asked this question. Since the world hates the Christian, why do you love that which hates you?
[41:44] That is a compelling question. That is a convicting question. And perhaps it's convicting not just because we may be realizing just how much our affections are drawn to the world, but perhaps it's a convicting question because we may be realizing just how much the world doesn't really hate me.
[42:07] I may be thinking, I don't know if the world really hates me. So please don't hear me say that we should purposefully try to provoke the world.
[42:19] That we should behave in a way that agitates and annoys and frustrates the world. We shouldn't be mean-spirited, we shouldn't be provokers. 2 Timothy 2 24 teaches just the opposite.
[42:32] It says, And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.
[42:46] So we don't purposefully poke at the world in foolish ways. But the Bible is also clear that we live boldly, that we live with clarity.
[42:58] We should be known by others for our Christian faith in the world. We should be living differently, clearly different lives from the world.
[43:12] The world hated our Savior. And so at some point in some measure we should expect it will hate us too if we are living holy godly lives and putting those lives on display.
[43:29] So don't love the world. The world hates you. But brothers and sisters, God does not. God loves all of those who are His.
[43:42] And He demonstrated that love for us in the clearest way possible by going to the cross and by sending His Son to go to the cross to die for our sins.
[43:55] What greater motivation do we need to turn from the world and to love Him? And may we then live in such a way that the world sees Christ and in His grace comes to Christ as well.
[44:11] Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, Father, only You can do this good work in our hearts.
[44:24] Only You can give us the strength indeed to turn from the world, to turn from all of the empty lies of the evil one and to live holy godly lives.
[44:35] And so we pray, Father, that You would give us that strength. And we pray, Lord, that not only would we have the strength to turn from the world, but that we would live in such a way that we're not asking or seeking for the world's hatred, but we are living in a way that the world also is not pleased with us just as the world was not pleased with Christ.
[44:56] And then, Father, we pray that You would bring transformation in the lives of those that we rub shoulders with, our neighbors, our coworkers, family, friends.
[45:07] We pray, Lord, that they would see and that they would turn in repentance and faith, that Your Spirit would draw them to Yourself. We thank You, Father, that though the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, the evil one has been conquered.
[45:23] He has been conquered through the shed blood of Christ. We rejoice, we give thanks, and we can now stand with firmness, with confidence, knowing that Christ has prevailed.
[45:35] We pray that He would be magnified in our lives, that He would receive glory. We pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.