The World Behind Me
The Cross Before Me
“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 of 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.”
1 John 2:15-17 ESV
“The world behind me…The cross before me”
What does that mean?
What does it mean to “not love the world, or the things of this world?”
Didn’t God create the world?
Doesn’t God love the world?
Can’t I love both God and the world?
God is not saying do not love His creation. He loves His creation. Heaven and Earth. The sun, the moon, and the stars. All the races. All of the nations.
Each day of creation he was pleased.
He’s also not saying do not love mankind.
The only rule for living religiously is to love God.
But, if our love is still for the world, our allegiance has not been transferred.
When we are occupied with the vain love of the world we turn all of our thoughts and affections another way.
This vanity must first be torn away from us in order that the love of God may reign within us.
Until our minds are cleansed, the only rule may be repeated a hundred times but with no effect.
John writes that by faith the Christian is able to overcome the world in 1 John 5:4-5
He says the world passes away.
He says the world is ignorant of God
He says the world is the abode of false prophets.
The abode of the Antichrist.
The abode of false believers.
Finally, he says the whole world is controlled by the evil one.
The Devil.
It’s obvious here, that when John refers to the “world,” he isn’t referring to God’s glorious creation.
He’s referring to that world that is under the control of our adversary, the Devil.
When John says do not love the world, he is referring to that system that is in opposition to God, in opposition to the Kingdom.
That system that is Satanic.
That world that is spiritual, and ideological, and at war with our king and his kingdom.
James says something similar in James 4:4
“You adulterous people! Do you not 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”
So it’s an either or situation.
“No man can serve two masters. He will love the one and hate the other.”
In our salvation, in fact, we are taken out of the world, we are taken out of that system.
We are brought out of darkness and into His marvellous light.
We transfer kingdoms.
We switch allegiances.
We are in this world, but we are not of this world, and we are most assuredly, not to love this world.
The moment we turn the love that we are called to have for God, that love that has been shed abroad in our hearts, the minute we turn that to the world out of which we were saved, that means that we do not have the love of God, or love for God.
When our affections, when our love is pointed towards the world, there is no room for the love of God. Because when your love is pointed towards the world, it’s pointed towards that which opposes God.
I can love the beauty of a sunset. I can love the beauty of music and art, and the things in this world that God has made. I can and I must love the people whom God has created.
But the love that I have for those things, is a love that arises from God himself.
Our love can be perverted, so that, instead of me loving the beauty of a sunset or the beauty of God’s created order, now I worship God’s created order. I worship the creature rather than the creator. Now all of a sudden, those things can become a means to an end to satisfying myself, to gratifying my flesh. To quenching my lustful desires. That is when we have crossed a boundary.
You cannot love the world and God simultaneously, but you can love the world through God.
We must constantly examine our hearts for the presence of this love of the world.
“For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life–is not from the Father but is from the world”
This love for the world arises from the world, just like our love for God and for the things of God arises from God.
Cravings, and lust, these things arise from the world.
So, our love can become sinful based on its direction and based on its source.
Love also becomes sinful when it produces bad fruit.
Our passions become sinful when they are pointed in directions that lead to death and destruction, as opposed to directions that lead to life.
29 What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; 30 those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31 those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31 NIV
So, the world is passing away, along with it’s desires.
There is still life here, but the world is marching away.
When God commands us to not love the world, he is not God saying “Listen, there’s some good stuff out there that I want to keep from you.” That’s the lie of the serpent. When God commands us to not love the world he’s saying “That looks really good to you now, and may even feel really good to you, but it’s a mirage. In the end it will destroy you. In the end you will perish.”
This is the love of the Father.
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21
“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
1 John 5:4 KJV
“These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
John 15:17-19 KJV
“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.”
John 17:16-19 KJV