A better boast...

Resisting Worldly Affections – Part 3

(1 John 2:16-Part 3, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, May 22, 2016)

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.

Pride of life

Not every impulse is from the Father. Some need to be actively resisted. For example, what John calls “pride of life” will not lead to freedom and life, but only to bondage and decay.

John breaks down what he refers to as “all that is in the world” into three categories: “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life.” They have much in common with each other. We are using these three expressions to explore the eager passions of the body, the need to see and know everything, and the drive to own, Today, the third of these three: “pride of life.”

The word translated “pride” here can also mean a boasting arrogance that is unbecoming of someone who is a worshiper of the Almighty. It is only used one other time in the New Testament, in James 4.

[13] Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—[14] yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. [15] Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” [16] As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

The second word, translated “life” here, can also mean “possessions,” and there is a footnote in the ESV to that effect. Three quick uses of this word: In Mark 12:44, the widow puts in her whole life into the offering when she deposits her last remaining coin. In Luke 8:14, a person who gets caught up in possessions may find that this pursuit will “choke” out any progress in spiritual pursuits. In Luke 15:12, the son who squanders his father's estate on reckless pursuits has to return home with nothing except the hope that his father will give him a job as a servant.

One other use in 1 John (3:17) is revealing:

[16] By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. [17] But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

1 John 3:16, John uses the word “life” and “lives,” but this is a translation of a different Greek word, often translated “breath” or “soul.” Jesus laid down His “life” for us, His very breath, His heart, mind, will, soul—all that He had. If someone is following Him and has the world's “goods” and withholds these from someone in need, not allowing his heart to feel the need of his brother in Christ, that is not real love, even if we claim with our words that we love Christ and His church.

So what is “pride of life”? It is a proud, arrogant boasting in the present (or imagined future) of our personal accumulation of the world's goods. Consider this in light of the eager longings expressed in the other two lusts mentioned in 1 John 2:16 and we have an unclean craving to own in order to pump up ourselves in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. What makes this especially unattractive is this: The goods that we use for our boast are the necessities of survival for others who in great need. This is not from the Father, but from the world.

The problem with rejecting “pride of life” is that it is increasingly sought after as a sign of personal worthiness and /or it is despised by those who are envious. Loud voices call us to one side or another and both are wrong. How do we see this for what it really is?

First, such a use of our life and breath is not the way of the Lord Jesus. (Matthew 8:18-20)

[18] Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. [19] And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” [20] And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Second, it is not His leading for His church. (Luke 12:13-21)

[13] Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” [14] But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” [15] And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” [16] And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, [17] and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ [18] And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. [19] And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ [20] But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ [21] So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

You can live on either “side of the tracks” and find peace seeing things God's way. The Lord is not against possessions that are necessary for life, any more than He is against life itself. His plan for the church is that we would take heart from the fact that His Son is sitting at His right hand “until He makes His enemies His footstool.” We should use our goods with an eye toward the fuller life to come, and not with a slavish devotion to our own image in this passing world.

“Pride of life” is a heart issue. So are the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the eyes. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The Lord knew all about our heart problems. He took them upon Himself on the cross. His body was then placed in a borrowed grave. Three days later, He rose from the dead as the emperor over a new, and much more glorious, resurrection world.

Those who have received this life-changing message need to let their lives be changed. We do not need to boast in something so temporary as our possessions. We have a better boast as we join Paul's new heart that rejects the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and pride of life, as he wrote in Galatians 6:14:

[14] Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

One application:

Cultivate the pleasures of non-ownership. Enjoy what you cannot buy. Then use what you do own during your brief stay in this perishable world as a trust. We ourselves have been bought with a price. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

Old Testament Reading—Psalm 110 – Sit at My right hand

Gospel Reading—Luke 6:43-45 – Out of the abundance of the heart