We should also ask ourselves, “Is this activity that I’ve been involved in or place that I’ve been going to contaminating me by tempting me toward sin and helping me be entertained by sin? Do I find myself laughing at a joke that should make me cringe?” If it’s something that makes God in His holiness angry, and calls upon the wrath of God in judgment, why would we desire to be entertained by it and laugh at it? That’s why we should examine our hearts and get on our knees before the Lord. So we should ask ourselves, “Is anything more important to me than God?” If it is, it is an idol and should be taken down. Idolatry is when God is removed from the throne and something else is put in His place. We are set in orbit around it, and God becomes secondary. If we take some element of popular culture-whether it’s our leisure, pastime, hobby, or special interest in sports or arts or music-and make that an idol instead of serving the Lord, it becomes our god. The warning of 1 John 2:15-16 corresponds beautifully to the last verse of 1 John which says, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” An idol is any God-substitute, anything we make bigger than Him. The passions we invest in other things should be directed to Jesus.
WHY DO PEOPLE THINK THE PASSION OF CHRIST MOVIE IS CURSED MOVIE
One way we can begin to do that is by asking ourselves, “What are the novels I’m reading?” “What are the movies I’m watching?” “What are the things that preoccupy me?” “What are the things that I talk about?” “Am I proud of my favorite professional, college, or high school team and willing to talk about and defend that team, and yet am ashamed of the gospel of Christ?” Something is fundamentally wrong if we won’t talk to people about Jesus with any kind of passion and enthusiasm like we talk about a sports team or a movie or a TV program. I don’t know that it takes a lot of courage to say that we should avoid being captivated by the world, but it does take courage to actually live out those words.
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I think that’s really what 1 John 2 is saying. But we need to guard against loving the decadent, cultural elements that appeal to our sin nature, pride, and independence. Now, of course you can love the people in the world in the right sense and have your heart drawn toward God. Sometimes we as Christians love the world around us in a way that draws our hearts away from God. But let’s face it-there are a lot that aren’t. (And hopefully they have some things that not just avoid violating Scripture, but are actually in accord with it and honor it.) There are such things in our culture, and they can be very positive. It’s not an inherently bad thing to watch a decent television program, go to a music concert, or enjoy some arts or sports that are decent and don’t contain anything that specifically violates Scripture. It has become so much a part of us that we tend to be immersed in exactly the same things as the people around us. One of the negative things that I see in the American church today is its preoccupation with pop culture. In terms of what that practically means, I think it involves not being mesmerized by popular culture. Obviously when Scripture says to us in 1 John 2, “Don’t love the world,” it’s not telling us, “Don’t love the people of the world.” Rather, it is telling us, “Don’t love the sin of the world.” It means God loved the people in the world. What does “God so loved the world that He sent His only Son” mean? It doesn’t mean that God loved the sin of the world. “Don’t love the world” in John 2:15 doesn’t mean “don’t love the world” that is spoken of in John 3:16, where the same word, cosmos, is used. (Of course, in the beginning Eden was a perfect world, and the world to come-the New Earth-will be a great and wondrous world.) So it is not the earth we are supposed to reject and avoid (in fact we can’t avoid it), and certainly we are not supposed to hate people or culture.
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Now, we should certainly love the world as created by God. This is the world we are not supposed to love. The world as it is now is under the curse of sin. It is the attitude, “I can make it on my own. It is rebellion against God and self-sufficiency. For all that is in the world-the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions-is not from the Father but is from the world.” (Pride is the root of all other sins. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
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A blog reader asked, What exactly does it mean to “love not the world nor the things of the world” (1 John 2:15)? I hear it preached from time to time, but no one seems to have the courage to tell us what that means.ġ John 2:15-16 reads, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.