Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Good morning. Good morning.
[00:00:04] Happy Sunday.
[00:00:07] Yes. As Tina said, thank you for coming out today. I want you to know you just got a new jewel in your crown of life that the Lord will award to you. You're gonna have a nice shining. It's from this day, coming to church, so it is good to see you. And, yeah, Tina said we got a lot of stuff coming up, so make sure to stay connected. But today, we're gonna continue our series about love. Cause, you know, Valentine's Day just happened. Y'all married people. You have good Valentine's.
[00:00:42] Yeah. Okay. That doesn't sound great, but I'll assume the best.
[00:00:49] But we're talking about love matters, and we're looking through the book of First John, which is all about love. So we're gonna dig into that. But before we do, would you pray with me? Father, thank you for your grace and your love to us. Thank you for getting everyone here safely today. Lord, bless us as they leave. Bless our next service. And, Lord, help us to see the things in our life that ruin our capacity to love each other. Father, help us to learn what those are, and help us to stay connected to you so they don't grow in our lives. Help us. Guide us. Bless us. In Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:31] Well, there is a very famous. And it's a true story about the USS Indianapolis. Now, this story was really made famous by a scene in the movie Jaws, if you've seen that. But this is actually a true story about a World War II battleship. And it was carrying the.
[00:01:52] Some of the major components of the nuclear bombs that were going to be dropped. And it dropped those off. And then when it was returning, it got sunk by Japanese torpedoes. And most of the men were able to get off of the boat before it sank. But there, you know, it all happened very quickly. So they were on a couple life rafts, but there was, like, about 1,000 men just kind of floating in the water, and they were struggling with dehydration, with just all the difficulties of that. Not only were those issues, but there were actually sharks circling them that would kind of sort of pick them off. It was a nightmare scenario. And one of the things that would happen in this is that some of the men would get so dehydrated that they would start drinking the salt water, and then immediately they would essentially go to their deaths because it would just accelerate their dehydration. They would hallucinate. They would. And so they thought that that was the way to get relief, that that was going to help them. But it ended up just actually taking whatever life was left in them. And it's kind of this horrible story. But I think it also sort of illustrates a little bit of what we're going to see in the book of first, John. Because what John is going to kind of say is that whether we realize it or not, we kind of live in the salt water.
[00:03:28] And we're tempted to drink it because we think it will give us life. We're tempted because it seems like, well, it's water. How can it dehydrate me? Well, I don't know the science of it, but it does.
[00:03:41] And John is going to say that we're kind of swimming in this water, but we cannot get drink from that source. We need to go to a different source. I want to show you this today. So I'm just going to share two verses today because I've been trying to, like, preach a whole chapter and running out of time. And although I think today we do have time.
[00:04:04] It's parking lot. We got plenty of space between services. So maybe today I'll go a little bit. You good with that? I wanna make sure you get your money's worth. You came out, you know. But here we go. These are the verses. Second, I'm sorry. First John, chapter two. And we're picking them at verse 15. This is where we left off last week. And here's what he says. Do not love the world or the things in the world. Now this is the salt water. Cause we live in the world and we are surrounded by the things in the world. And what John's saying is, don't love them. In other words, don't absorb them and take them in. And we'll explain more what this means. For if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world. And just pay attention to these next three things. These are so important. The desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life.
[00:05:14] All three of these things 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. So John is saying some really powerful things here. And essentially what he's showing us, he's saying if we drink the salt water, if we connect to the world which we live in in the wrong kind of way, then our life is not going to be driven by the love of God and the love for other people. That's not what's gonna happen. Our life is gonna be driven by the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. Paul says, that's what is going to happen within us. And we're gonna miss God's purpose and God's will for our lives. So let me explain this more. Let's first talk about this idea of loving the world and not loving the world. Now, John, who wrote this letter is also the John who wrote the gospel, John's Gospel. And there is a verse in John's Gospel that is probably the most famous verse in the world. And it's John 3:16. This familiar to anybody. And the verse goes like this. For God so loved what the world that he gave his only son. Now, this is the same John that's writing these words where he says, hey, do not love the world. So on one hand, John says, will God love the world so much that he gave the thing that is beyond comprehension, the gift that is more than we could ever understand? He gave it out of love. And essentially, John's saying, and we ought to love the world in the same way God does. But then here he says, but don't love the world. Now, what is John doing? Is he trying to confuse us? I don't think that John loves to nuance ideas. He loves to show different angles and aspects and bring deeper meanings to these things. And so when he says, do not love the world, he does not mean do not love the people in the world.
[00:07:40] So I'm sorry, if you read these and you're like, see, now I can hate my neighbor. Sorry. No, you still can't do that. Now I can hate those extended family members. Nope, you're not off the hook for that. Because he does not mean don't love the people in the world, because God loves the people of this world. And God calls us to do the very same thing again and again and again. And that's all through this letter. So he doesn't mean that. He also doesn't mean that the world necessarily. That the creation itself is something to despise. See, there is a beauty to this snow, isn't there? I mean, it's annoying, yes, but there's a beauty to it. There's a beauty to the world that God created, isn't there? Isn't it? It's special to go to the ocean. Wouldn't it be nice to be on a beach right now? Amen.
[00:08:37] Wouldn't that be good for your soul?
[00:08:40] Yeah, let's figure that out after service, guys. All right. There's something about creation that speaks to the glory of God.
[00:08:51] And no one should enjoy the beauty of creation more than followers of Jesus. No one should look at a sunset and enjoy it more than a follower of Jesus. Because we say, hey, that my Lord and Savior created that.
[00:09:08] That is part of his majestic work and it speaks to his existence and his glory. So John is not saying that, that we should hate and despise all of that, that we're anti this. But here's what he means by the world. Many times he uses this term, world, and he means the broken system of thinking and living that is natural and normal to us.
[00:09:35] That, in other words, we can go through our life and we can just adopt a lot of broken ways of living our life, of thinking about life and relating to each other. Right? There's a lot of things that are really, really normal, but it doesn't mean they're good. You with me on this? And this is what John is saying, is that we have to resist and reject the broken systems of the world, of ways of thinking and ways of living that are contrary to God's purpose and calling on our life. You with me on this? And he says, because if we don't, then here's what it will produce. And he talks about these three things, and I call these the anti loves. The anti loves. Because when these three things are in operation in our life, it ruins our capacity to love people well. And John says, when I absorb the broken systems of the world, then this is naturally what is gonna arise in my life. It's what's gonna come out of me. It's what's going to control me. It's what's going to dictate how I live and how I connect to people. And he talks about these three things. Now, when you think about these three things, here's what's so profound about this. And you're not going to like this, but hear me out.
[00:11:05] Probably we could all find our deepest struggles in one of these.
[00:11:12] That as much as the world changes, it stays the same.
[00:11:18] Human brokenness 2000 years ago isn't really that different from human brokenness today. And the Bible has an amazing way to cut through the fog and to say, hey, here's what the issue actually is. And so when you listen to these and when you hear what John is saying, I want you to just not look in someone else's life and say, you know what? I think that really explains them.
[00:11:49] But I want you to look in your own life and I want you to look for these in you. And so here's what the first one is. He calls it the pride of. Or the desires of the flesh. The desires of the flesh. Now, these word desires are. They're the same word in both instances. And it's. It's over desire. It's desiring something too much. And the flesh is a reference to our bodies, essentially. And in all of our bodies, we have desires, right? We have a desire for food, for sleep, to drink, all kinds of things. We have natural desires within us. But John says when we are focused not on God, but on the broken systems of the world, then we will have over desires in our flesh. Because when you desire food too much, it does not help you. It hurts you. When you desire sleep too much, when our desire for sex gets broken or influenced in the wrong way, all of this ends up hurting us and ruining our capacity to love. And so John says, here's one of the ways we know we're not connecting to God is that the desires of the flesh are growing, but they're growing out of control. You with me on this.
[00:13:23] My daughter Abby, she's three, and she's got a lot of energy to her. And many times when we're trying to settle her down for dinner or something, she'll just start doing weird stuff like that, and she'll be like, I can't control my body. That's what she'll say. Like, abby, sit in your chair. I can't control my body. She'll start, like, rolling around on the floor. And Allie and I always are like, abby, you are in control of your body. It does not control you. You control it. She's like, I can't control it.
[00:14:01] It's fun.
[00:14:04] But you know what? Every time I say that to her, I'm like, you know what? I need that reminder, too.
[00:14:11] Because what happens when your appetites start to control you?
[00:14:16] Nothing good. Church. Amen. Nothing good. And it's a recipe to really hurt our relationships.
[00:14:25] I heard the story, recently, read the story of a man named Bill W. And he went overseas for the First World War. And he said that when he went over there, he had a desire for alcohol. Like, he always recognized that he had a drive to it, but he was kind of able to keep it in control. And he went to the war, went through that, came back home, and. And he ended up becoming a very successful stockbroker and making a ton of money. But while he was making a ton of money, while his life was going great, his drive for alcohol was growing at the same rate, even more.
[00:15:08] And so he had lots of money, he had good job, he had friends. He had all this, but he also had this growing addiction in his life.
[00:15:19] And as time went on and markets change, he ended up losing a lot of the money that he had gained, a lot of the fortune and the status and stuff like that. And it just kind of drove some of that addiction even more. And eventually it just took over his life and so bad that he would end up in the hospital time and time again. And every time he would say, I'm going to get my act together when I leave here.
[00:15:48] And then he would go out and he would fall into that cycle, something would trigger it and he would fall into it again and again until finally some men in his life said, hey, if you're going to get this right, it begins with recognizing you can't get this right. It begins with acknowledging this is beyond you and it can only be done through God's help.
[00:16:16] And sure enough, they helped guide him the way and he became one of the co founders of AA and helped a lot, a lot of people. But what I think is so profound about the recovery community is that they get what John is saying here and they understand it. And church, none of us are beyond that.
[00:16:40] We can all easily allow the desires of the flesh to slowly take over our life and to negatively impact the people in the relationships and the direction that God has for us.
[00:16:57] And John says, we've got to keep an eye out for that. Now that's the first one, here's the second one. The lust of the eyes. The over desires of the eyes.
[00:17:09] Now what does that look like?
[00:17:11] Well, I think simply it can look like this. Have you ever, have you ever like gotten something new and you're like, I'm so excited about this. You get a new car, you're like, man, this thing smells fantastic.
[00:17:25] But then the kids run through it, the dog runs through, loses the new car smell. Amen. And all of a sudden, what was so great yesterday, today is meh.
[00:17:41] And you're out looking at, wow, that over there looks nice. Amen. That's the lust of the eyes church. It's the disease of more.
[00:17:52] Well, if I can get more, better, bigger, nicer, well then life is going to feel really, really great. Allie and I were at some of her friends, they just built this big beautiful house. I mean just absolutely gorgeous. And they said, yeah, we're kind of thinking about maybe going a different direction. It's like, what?
[00:18:18] But that's the lust of the eyes.
[00:18:22] Here's another way it can look. Do you ever look at other people's lives and you're like, why do they have it so much easier than I do? And you start to get mad.
[00:18:33] Do you ever look at other people's lives and you're like, why do things just seem more natural for them? Or why do they have these opportunities and I don't? Why does just things seem to come together for them and everything seems to fall apart for me? Do you ever have those kind of thoughts?
[00:18:55] But what it does is it creates envy in you and it creates discontent. And guess what? When you're feeding on that, do you think that impacts your ability to love people? Well, it absolutely does.
[00:19:11] When I'm in the poor me chat mode, which I can go into so easily, I'm not a whole lot of good to Allie, my kids, this church, or anybody.
[00:19:25] I just want to sit in my poor me. Amen. And I just want to, you know, I want everybody to get on that train. But that's the lust of the eyes. Here's what I think.
[00:19:40] I think that our dependence on technology and social media is correlated to the lust of the eyes.
[00:19:50] I find myself scrolling on my phone when I'm stressed out, as if it's a healthy coping mechanism. Does that make sense? Like, somehow I'm like, oh, this is going to make me feel better. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm going to read Twitter. That's going to make me feel better. No, I'm gonna look at this. Doesn't make me feel. No, it doesn't.
[00:20:09] And in fact, all the research indicates that the more time you are on your phone and you are on social media, the less happy you are becoming.
[00:20:21] I said that at Thursday and there was a young dude and he's like, no.
[00:20:26] I was like, brother, I love you. That's why I'm telling you it. I'll show you the research here. I'm not trying, but, you know, we're. It's, it's. I think it's the lust of the eyes church. And it's a real drive. And John says, we've got to be careful. Now, I heard this interesting interview just this week, and it was with a man named Scott Galloway and this guy named Dr. K. And both of them. I know Scott, Pat Galloway is not a Christian. In fact, he's, you know, sort of very outspoken about being an atheist. And I'm not sure where this Dr. K is, but they were talking about men's struggle with pornography and they were talking about how devastating that is to men and how much of a problem it is in our culture. Now. They were not talking from a Christian or moral standpoint at all. But I stepped back and I thought, an atheist is talking about how bad pornography is.
[00:21:34] And if you're a follower of Jesus, you have a million more reasons why it's so bad. You with me on this? And why it's so detrimental. And yet here's what the stats say. Church is that two thirds of men. And I'm sorry, I'm talking to the guys, ladies, I don't know how this stuff works in your life, but you know, sorry, somebody else will have to talk on that.
[00:22:00] But guys. But it says 2/3 of men sort of actively struggle with it. Whether they are Christian or not.
[00:22:10] That actually doesn't matter. Still, two thirds of men, what is that? That is the lust of, of the eyes. And it's devastating, brothers. And let me just tell you this to my brothers here. If you are struggling with it, two things you need to do. Number one, you need to break out of the shame cycle today. And you need to know God loves you, God forgives you. Right? There's grace, there's help. Don't just kind of keep going in this journey and trying to sort of manage it all yourself, bring it into the light and get another brother to walk with you and pray with you and talk with you about it.
[00:22:58] Here's what happens. The shame overwhelms guys. And so you just, you sort of retreat and you try to get through it, but guess what? That just empowers it.
[00:23:09] But there are brothers with you in this church that will walk with you, that will love you, that will help you to connect to God's love and God's power. And it matters immensely. You with me on this. Sls of the eyes. Now let's talk about the last one, the pride of life. The word here is actually the arrogance of life. It's even nastier than pride. You can have. People can use pride with a good connotation. You can't use arrogance with a good connotation, can you? Like, oh, that person was arrogant. I really like them. No, it's not going to happen.
[00:23:47] And what is the arrogance of life? So we have the desires of the body, the desires of the eyes, and the arrogance of life. Well, this is the drive that says, I want to impress people.
[00:24:02] I want status, I want achievement, I want power, I want authority. I want people to recognize my contribution. I want pats on the back, all that kind of thing is what I think this encapsulates. It's that the arrogance of life is how I'm using life to build My ego in an unhealthy way.
[00:24:33] And it's devastating. And it's devastating to relationships. I was hearing a man talk about this new book called 8080 Marriage and Married People. And you don't have to admit this, but do you ever have fights about who does more at home? You ever have fights about that? No. Yeah, me either. Me either. We don't either. In the Beetler house. Only for the 12 years we've been married. But anyway.
[00:25:00] But, you know, a lot of fights. It's kind of. You're trying to say, like, what is fair here? You know, and many times you're like, well, this doesn't feel fair because I'm doing all this and you're not. And, you know, we kind of. We go to battle over that. And that's what this whole book is about. But one of the things in the book that it notes is that the problem that we have to be very aware of is that we can clearly see our own contributions, right? Like when. When I see Teddy and I know he's got a poopy diaper, and I'm like, I could let him drift to Mom.
[00:25:41] And then, like, the Holy Spirit's like, no, just go do it.
[00:25:45] And I go do it. Guess who is beyond aware that they did that? I am. You know, guess who is like, it's like I'm putting a star by my own name. Brothers, give me an amen on this. All right. Don't leave me. I'm getting a lot of judgmental looks, but, you know, I'm very aware of what I contribute, and as we all are because we live with ourselves. So everything you do, you see. But here's the fundamental problem. Everything your spouse does, you don't see you with me. So when you start measuring it, do you think your measurement's accurate? No. Do you think your scorekeeping is accurate? Sorry. No, it's not. It's weighted.
[00:26:34] And it's weighted incredibly towards you, and it's actually weighted negatively towards them. So here's what his point is, is that we've got to push ourselves away from that. And everybody needs to be committed to generosity.
[00:26:53] Generosity of time, effort, spirit. And I think that's a really good lesson. In fact, I said. Allie, I really think you should listen to this.
[00:27:02] Just kidding. Just kidding.
[00:27:05] Kind of. No, but the point is. Here's what the point is.
[00:27:12] Pride can drive our relationships without us even recognizing it.
[00:27:21] How many issues, if we are just dead honest with ourselves, come down to something unhealthy in our own ego?
[00:27:33] That either wants to be right, wants to get its way, doesn't want to acknowledge the other. How many times is that really what's happening? This is the pride of life.
[00:27:44] And John says, look, when I lose connection to God, guess what starts to fill that void? My own ego. But you know what? It doesn't help you and it doesn't help the people around you. And just what I would say, church, is that pride. It is so sneaky in our lives. You always have to keep your guards up for it in yourself.
[00:28:11] You always got to just say, lord, just help me to be humble before you and before others. In fact, I have a prayer for you just to pray and ask God about with pride. It says, lord, just I invite your spirit. It's somewhere, it's coming. I invite your spirit to help me to see where pride is controlling my relationships in an unhealthy way. Where pride is controlling my relationships in an unhealthy way. And ask God to show you that and then commit to acting on that.
[00:28:51] Now these are the things John says ruin love in our lives. These three things. The over desires of the body, the over desires of the eyes, and the arrogance of life. Now how do we ultimately fight against them?
[00:29:07] And here's what you need to know is that fighting against them is not just trying harder and saying, I'm gonna do better. That's where we wanna go all the time.
[00:29:21] I'm gonna, all right, I know my appetites have been controlling me. I'm gonna finally wrestle them down. I know there's been too much ego in me. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna beat this ego down until it becomes humble. And we wanna sort of take control of these things ourselves. And we wanna kind of like, just let me fix these and I'm gonna try harder. I'm gonna make a new effort towards it. But how many times have we gone down that road and landed in the same place? And here's what I think John wants us to see.
[00:29:57] These are the results of being connected to the world.
[00:30:03] The results of being connected to God flushes these things out. In other words, the way to fight them is to. A word that John loves to use is to abide in Christ.
[00:30:22] The way that my appetites come under control is not through my own self discipline, but through a deeper connection to Jesus Christ, through abiding in him and allowing his life and his love and his power to be at work in me. Here's what John says in his gospel in John 15, he says, abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you see. I think that's where we go wrong.
[00:31:05] We lose sight of the gospel. We lose sight of our connection to Christ. And without him, without abiding in him, there's no life, there's no strength. All we make room for are the pride of life, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh. He says, unless you abide in me. He goes on, I'm the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Now, here's what that means for us.
[00:31:39] That every day I need to get up and I need to acknowledge this reality.
[00:31:46] And I need to say, God, I can't do what I need to do today without you. Every day I need to do that. In fact, I need to do that a lot more than every day. I need to do that throughout the day. Anybody else?
[00:32:01] God, I can't do it without you. I cannot. You are the vine.
[00:32:06] Apart from you, I can do nothing.
[00:32:11] I need reminded of that. I need to sit in that reality. I need to state that reality. But here's the second thing. I also need to recognize I can do it. If I receive life and love from you, if I am connected to you, then I am connected to light. I am connected to love. I am connected to everything that needs to be at work in me. And lastly, and God, I want it to flow through me to others. That's what John is. If we walk in the light, then we will obey his command. We will love others. It all begins with our connection to God. Now, I don't know the last time that you were, like, insanely thirsty, but I remember my last time because it was a couple weeks ago when I got sick. I couldn't hold anything down. Not to gross you out. And you know after those times where you are so dehydrated that like, the greatest thing in the world is a cold cup of water, you have had those times. You're like, if I. When I can just drink that, I am going to feel alive again. That's where I was. I. I pretty sure I saw the Lord in the corner of my bedroom. I was, you know, near death, but he pulled me through. But I just wanted that cold water so bad. And when I finally was, it was like, it was amazing. It was better than any dessert out there. Because when you are so dehydrated, Water changes everything, doesn't it? And there's this beautiful scene again in John's gospel where this woman comes to him at a well and she asks for water. And Jesus says, hey, if you knew who you were talking to, I would give you the living water and you would never thirst again.
[00:34:13] You know, that promise was for her, but it's for you and me too. And today maybe our souls are dehydrated because we've been drinking the salt water. We've been drinking the salt water around us and we've been taking it in.
[00:34:29] And as we're hearing this message, these things are growing in us. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the arrogance of life. But you know what you need? You need the living water today. You need to just say, lord Jesus, would you fill my soul? Could I have some of that this morning? And he will give it to you. So let's ask for that in prayer right now. Lord, we just come to you and we acknowledge that you are the fount, the spring, the deepest reserve of living water.
[00:35:09] And Lord, we just ask that we could receive it from you today.
[00:35:14] We pray, Lord, where our souls have been dehydrated, drinking from the world around us.
[00:35:23] Father, just in this moment that we could receive from you as each of us has need. Lord, I pray our hearts would be open to you. I pray, Lord, our desires would be for you.
[00:35:38] And Father, I pray we could just receive from you now. Grant us this grace, Grant us this blessing. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen.
