WWUTT 406 Pride of Life?

The Desire of the Flesh, the Eyes, and the Pride of Life in 1 John 2

Whenever we sin, we sin in the same way that Adam did, pursuing the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. But instead we need to turn from worldly things and desire the things of God when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt .com.

Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky.

And greetings, everybody. We continue our study of 1 John 2 today. We've got three verses we're going to be looking at, verses 15, 16, and 17. The apostle writes, 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, the desires of the eyes, and the 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. Again verse 15, do not love the world, or the things in the world. Now this does not mean that we have a complete rejection or spite for the world, or abhor or hate the people in the world, because we have it said to us plainly in John 3, 16, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, and whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

So this specifically is talking about a worldly system, or anything that would be opposed to the things of God. Even in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So again, it's not a complete rejection of the world, but that we would not cling to things that are opposed to God. Consider the way that James put this, in James chapter 4, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. Now get this, verse 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.

When we cling to the things of this world, when we desire the stuff that is wasting away, that is going to perish by fire when the judgment of God comes, then we are longing for things that have no place in His eternal kingdom.

Our gaze and our longing, our heart is not fixed heavenward where it should be, rather we're desiring the stuff of this world. If that's what we want, if we're chasing after the passions that we have in our flesh, then we cannot be pursuing the Spirit of God.

Now it's okay to want to be healthy and to want to be prosperous. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. In fact, we have the instruction that's given to us by God to pray for the wealth of our captors.

That's the way that God put it to the Israelites when they were sent into Babylonian captivity in Jeremiah 29, pray for the wealth of your captors because when they have their wealth, you will find your wealth.

So if the nation that we live in is wealthy, then it will go well for us. It is okay for us to pray that way. Paul even instructs for us to pray that way in 1 Timothy chapter 2, that we would pray for kings and those who are in high position so that it may go well with us.

The same sort of instruction there. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. It gives us opportunity to be able to share the gospel. The better our conditions are around us, the nation that we live in, if we're healthy and we are able-bodied, then we are more able to be obedient to the Lord and his calling upon us as his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

So we use those freedoms that we are given as an opportunity to advance the gospel. It's okay to long for that. And again, it's to the praise of his glorious grace, not for our benefit, but so that we might use those opportunities to serve the Lord.

What's not okay is when we pray for health and wealth to benefit us or think that God exists for our benefit. Well, God wants me to be happy. So he's going to give me these things. And if I believe in it, then I'm going to unlock the power to be able to have the stuff that I want.

This is what all the name it and claim it prosperity teachers will tell you, that there is power in your words, that you need to believe hard enough. And if you believe more than you will have more, but that is not what we have said to us in the scriptures.

Again, James says it very plainly. You ask and don't receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. Our desire is to do the will of God. And when we desire the things of God and his glory, then we are doing the will of God instead of out to satisfy our own wills.

If you want to understand friendship with the world is enmity with God. If you want to understand that concept a little bit better, consider the way that Paul puts this in Galatians chapter five, when he compares the works of the flesh with the works of the spirit, he says, Galatians five, verse 16, I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit.

And the desires of the spirit are against the flesh for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

The list goes on and on. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. So very plainly, you take verses 19 through 21, and that's the stuff of the world.

That's worldliness. That's what it means to desire the world. When you are in sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, and coveting is idolatry, which Paul says elsewhere, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions.

Again, the list goes on and on. When you are involved in these things, when this marks your life, you are worldly and you are set against God. You are in the flesh, and what is of the flesh is incompatible with the things of the spirit.

The desires of the flesh are against the spirit. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. Whoever loves the world does not love God. All of these statements are one and the same. Do not love the world or the things in the world, the desires of 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, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life is not from the Father, but it is from the world.

Let's consider that here for a moment. I want to look at two things. The desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. What does this mean? Let's go back to Genesis chapter 3. So turn with me, if you will, to Genesis 3.

Got an Old Testament reference and another New Testament reference to look at. Problem with trying to go back to Genesis 3, 1, 2, or 3 is the pages are so close to the cover of my Bible that I can't get them apart.

Genesis chapter 3, of course, is where we read about the fall of man. And at the very beginning of this chapter, now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman, and of course, this is the voice of Satan, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.

And neither shall you touch it lest you die. And that wasn't part of the instruction. It was just that you should not eat of that fruit. Adam and Eve would more than likely have to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because part of Adam's job was to keep the garden that God had made.

And so that meant even caring for the tree of knowledge, he just couldn't eat it. And the day that they ate of it, they would surely die. But here, Eve has added to the command. You shouldn't eat of that tree, nor should you even touch it or you will die.

Verse four. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now get this verse six.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. There you have the descriptors there in verse six. The desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes and the pride of life.

Desire the flesh, desire of the eyes, pride of life. Let me read it again. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, she saw that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.

She took the fruit and ate and she gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate and the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

So from this very first sin, we have the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes and the pride of life. Hey, this is good for me. I should eat this. All right. That pride, they saw it with their eyes, they long for it with their flesh and they took it because they felt like they deserved it.

It was owed to them. This other stuff that God has given me, this entire garden, every other tree that's not good enough. I need the one that God told me not to eat from. And Adam and Eve decided that the fruit was better than obeying God and they ate of it and they sinned and thus was the fall of man.

So with that consideration in mind, what we read there in Genesis chapter three, let's go now to Matthew chapter four, Matthew chapter four. And of course this is the temptation of Christ in the desert.

After being baptized by John the Baptist in chapter three, then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

But Jesus answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written.

He will command his angels concerning you and on their hands, they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus said to him, again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these I will give you if you fall down and worship me. And then Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve.

Then the devil left him and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. So what we have here in this story in Matthew, the temptation of Christ, we have Jesus tempted in three ways. He was tempted in the same three ways that Adam was tempted in, but Adam failed.

He failed at the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life. He gave into all three. Jesus did not. So Jesus did perfectly what Adam could not do. And so Jesus fulfilled the law that Adam had broken just as sin and death came into the world by one man, Adam.

So life and resurrection from the grave come into the world from the last Adam. And that is Jesus Christ. So every sin that we are tempted by, we are partakers with Adam in the sin that he committed there in the garden of Eden.

All sin that we commit against God follows this pattern. It is giving into the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life. Christ was tempted and yet was without sin, as it says in the book of Hebrews.

He did not give into any of these things. So whenever we are faced with temptation and we feel that ache and that yearn in our bodies, in our fleshly bodies for the things of this world, we can remember that Christ suffered in the flesh in the same way, but he did not give in.

And so when we are tempted, just as he was tempted, but we do not give into that temptation, we share in the sufferings of Christ and in not giving into that temptation and fleeing from it instead to the righteousness of Christ, we are being made more and more like him.

This is being submitted to the will of the father instead of the wills and the desires of this world. All that is in the world is not from the father, but it is from the world and the world is passing away.

All the stuff that is around, it's passing away. Everything that is material, everything that is physical is, is breaking down the law of entropy. It's all falling apart around us. It is, it is subject to decay, to futility as Paul describes it in Romans chapter eight.

All of these things are eventually going to come to nothing. You know, it doesn't matter if you are a religious person or not. Even the unreligious believe that eventually the world is going to pass away.

It's evident. We can see it in creation all around us. That stuff is decaying. It's falling apart. Nothing lasts forever. So even the most ardent skeptic has to admit this world is simply not going to last.

You look around at human beings that are growing old and decaying and dying. The body just simply doesn't last. Sorry, but Ray Kurzweil is wrong. We are never going to achieve a singularity. You are never going to be able to upload your conscience to a computer and be able to live forever.

Never going to happen. The body is made to die because it has been subjected to futility because of the sinfulness of this fallen world. And so as a result of that sin, the curse is that the body will die.

That is an assurance that has been given to us in the scriptures. God will bring all things that exist to nothing. But to those who are in Christ, our lowly bodies will be made to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

That's the promise that Paul gives to the Philippians in Philippians chapter three. So those who are in Christ, we will live forever. But those who are not in Christ will perish with the rest of this world.

Those who are of the world will perish with the world. And again, even even the most skeptical person has to admit that this world isn't going to last and neither is my body. I am going to die. So the question becomes, where are you going to be on the day of judgment?

Will you be among those that Christ numbers as his own among his sheep and places on his right hand and says, enter the kingdom of God that has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world? Or will you be among those who are the goats that are separated and placed on his left hand side?

And Jesus says to them, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness into eternal punishment. It is only those who are in Christ Jesus who will live forever and be able to enter that imperishable kingdom of God.

But in order to come into that imperishable kingdom, we have to be made to be imperishable. And that's something we're going to get to pretty soon when we get to first John chapter three, where John says, beloved, we are God's children now.

And what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. So we will made to be like him and then we will see him as he is.

We're reminded here in chapter two, verse 17, that the world is passing away along with its desires. The desires of this world are also passing away. The desires for the things of this world are passing away.

If we fix our eyes on Jesus, if we desire the things of the eternal kingdom, then we have nothing to fear of that day when all things will be laid to waste because our heart and our desires have been toward things that are imperishable.

So there is nothing that we will lose. But for those who long for the things of this world, they will perish with the world. They will pass away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever.

And so I finish for you that passage that I was reading out of Galatians chapter five, where Paul goes on to describe the fruit of the spirit. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such things.

There is no law and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, with its longing for the stuff of this world. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit.

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another. Let that be our prayer before God. God may we live according to your spirit and so keep in step with the spirit according to the instructions that have been written down for us in the scriptures by your apostles driven by the spirit of God to write us these things.

Let us not become conceited, puffed up with pride, desiring the things that benefit us, investing ourselves wrongly in our own passions, and then in turn end up provoking one another and envying one another because somebody else has the stuff or the opportunities or the things or the position that I want.

Instead of submitting ourselves to the Lord and glorifying him and being obedient to the calling that you have given to us, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ as Paul put it in Ephesians chapter 5.

Help us in this way and guide us in your spirit. In the name of Christ we pray, amen.

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