“To be human is to be animated and oriented by some vision of the good life, some picture of what we think counts as “flourishing.” And we want that. We crave it. We desire it…. What if you are defined not by what you know but by what you desire? What if the center and seat of the human person is found not in the heady regions of the intellect but in the gut-level regions of the heart? We are oriented by our longings, directed by our desires.
The author of The Little Prince succinctly encapsulates the motive power of such allure: “If you want to build a ship,” he counsels, “don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” I want something, and want it ultimately. It is my desires that define me. In short, you are what you love. (James K. A. Smith)

This is a biblical notion, as we will see in this passage today. We begin with some verses in chapter 2 that read like a poem or a song (which is probably what it was). Some versions of the Bible will set it apart in a quote form that shows that. I am using Anthony’s Amplified Version again to embed all the hyperlinks the original audience likely made, so it’s going to look different than the typeset in your Bible, and it’s going to read slightly different as I turn it into prose rather than poetry.

12-14 I am writing to you, who are all my children in this new faith, because your sins have been forgiven by the authority of His name. I have written to the youngest of you, new converts, because you have known the Father. 13 I am writing to you, Founding Fathers[1] (and mothers),[2] because you have known God the Father, Creator, and recognized Jesus as that same Creator, as the One who started everything. I have written to those of you who, though young in the faith, are full of vigor and life because the voice of God remains and the Word of God is heard among you. Remember that you have conquered the evil one by the power of God.[3]

Okay, that’s the song part that I made less songy. Don’t get hung up on the differences between what John says to the age groups. It seems to be a framework on which to fasten what God is building in the church: You know God through Jesus; your sins have been forgiven by him; God’s Word and power are making you victorious in your fight against the evil one. Well done, church. Then, the caution.

15 Don’t fall in love with the sinful ways of the world or worship the corrupt things it can offer. Those who love (agape) its corrupt ways don’t have the Father’s love (agape) living within them.
16 All the things the world can offer to you—the lust[4] of the flesh (unreasonably excessive desire for sinful indulgence) the lust of the eyes[5] (covetous passion to have things[6]), and the pride of life (pompous sense of superiority and craving for recognition)—do not come from the Father.[7] These are the rotten fruits of this world. 17 This corrupt world is already wasting away, as are its selfish desires. But the person really doing God’s will—that person will never cease to be, but shall abide in the Kingdom of God forever.[8]

Our eyes have the potential to help us see the world as God sees it, so eyes are not the problem. Our flesh has the potential to then go to places our eyes revealed and do Kingdom work in a floundering empire. Our senses aren’t the problem. It’s our hearts.

lust of the flesh – unreasonably excessive desire for sinful indulgence; a nurtured desire to do something it is not in God’s will for us to do (at least not in the way we want to do it)..
the lust of the eyes - covetous passion to have things; a nurtured desire to have something it is not in God’s will for us to have (at least not in the way we want to have it)..
the pride of life - pompous sense of superiority and craving for recognition; a nurtured desire to have earthly power and glory that it is not God’s will for us to wield (at least not in the way we want to wield it).[9]

If you want to see two other places in the Bible where these three things are grouped together, check out Eve’s temptation in the Garden and Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.[10]

* * * * *

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23) We are what we love. So let’s talk about love and desire that produces fruit that either fades away like “wood, hay and stubble”[11] or endures forever.

The desires which God has placed in the human body are in themselves not sinful; they are God-given and essential. God made us with eyes and flesh – 5 senses, for that matter. It is not inherently sinful to use them or find pleasure in using them. We are designed to desire food, warmth, shelter, friendship, sex, affirmation, happiness, fulfillment, purpose, rest, relaxation, pleasure….

God made us. He designed us with loves and desires for all kinds of things. When rightly ordered, they reveal the love and care expressed by God in the order of his creation, and we worship God when we properly enjoy God’s creation. It’s when our lives become disordered that they become harmful. Warren Wiersbe wrote:

"These fundamental desires of life are the steam in the boiler that makes the machinery go. Turn off the steam and you have no power. Let the steam go its own way and you have destruction… These desires must be our servants and not our masters; and this we can do through Jesus Christ.” [12]

I heard the first part a lot growing up. I didn’t hear the second part enough when I was young: Desire is a gift from God. Being human involves wrestling with the fact that we have desires/loves outside of God’s will that should not be satisfied vs. having desires/loves inside of God’s will that can and perhaps should be satisfied.

The desire to have or experience the beautiful and good things in God’s beautiful and good world aren’t in and of themselves bad. I am afraid sometimes that we can become suspicious of pleasure, as if the only truly godly life is one in which we are always at least slightly miserable, or we feel guilty about really enjoying life. Jesus’ first recorded miracle was to make an already significantly pleasurable wedding feast even better. That says something.

If you have sexual desire, there is not something wrong with you. God designed you to have sexual desire. It just need to be your servant not your master.
If you love a good meal and really look forward to the next one, good for you. You are supposed to want food, and God designed your taste buds to enjoy good food more than bad food.
If you like long walks on the beach, good movies, beautiful art and music, the ability to travel and see the world… awesome. I think we are supposed to desire so experience these things. God’s creation ought to pull out that love in us.
If you wish your life was more ‘sensually’ rich – and by that I don’t mean sexual, I mean that your 5 senses are pleased rather than offended – that’s not a sinful desire. That’s a desire to experience the world in its original creation glory, when God saw all that He made and declared it good. Wanting to experience that goodness is not a cause for guilt or shame.

It’s not that we desire, love or enjoy some thing or someone or some place that is a problem. It’s how we love them, why we desire them, in what ways we properly steward the desires that arise (do I nurture it or banish it?), and what kind of world we create on the other side of expressing our loves.

The lust of the flesh and the eyes isn’t simply desire. It’s nurturing an unreasonably excessive desire for an indulgence that will be sinful. The problem is not the things which are desired; they are likely part of God’s good creation. The problem is that in a fallen world desire itself is broken. We can love good things poorly, love true things falsely, and at times even love things we shouldn’t. Simply saying “love is the answer” has never been true, because how we love, and why, and to what end we love matters.

If…

evil is the harmful distortion of good things, and
sin begins with a lust for this harmful distortion (James 1:14)

Then… then the solution to our inordinate desire for sinful indulgence is not eradication of the desire that God created and called good. The solution is redemption that frees us from desiring the distortion.

If you struggle with gluttony - nurtured, unreasonably excessive desire for something withinlimits for you - the solution isn’t for God to take away your desire to eat. You would die. The solution is for God to redeem the brokenness in a desire He designed you to have.
If you struggle with sexual lust – that is, the nurtured, unreasonably excessive desire for someone who is off limits to you – the solution is not for God to take away your sex drive. The solution is for God to redeem your sexual desire so that it is a properly ordered desire for someone who is the righteous focus of your desire.
If you struggle with control issues – the unreasonably excessive desire to be in the position of power in everything – the solution is not to take away a love of order, organization and structure. The solution is that your desire be redeemed so it is righteously reasonable such that you and those around you flourish.
If you struggle with orienting your life around pleasure – anything to feel good, to not be annoyed or discomforted – the solution is not for God to take away your 5 senses. The solution is for God to redeem and reorient your craving for sensual fulfillment toward His design. This is why it is important to clarify if is Jesus or the world that we love. Everything flows from our heart.[13]

* * * * *

So how do we avoid the pitfalls of disordered loves? How do we experience a reformation of our desires? Through a re-formation of our desires and loves. We need to acknowledge, surrender, respond righteously, and test the fruit of our desires and loves.

1. Acknowledge our desires. It does no good to ignore them or pretend they aren’t there. The unreasonably excessive ones must be named (ideally, in a community of accountability, but certainly before God). God knows what you the distortions of your desire already. He knows your heart. It does no good to ignore what you both know is there. Step one is to admit you have a problem (if the loves are sinful or disordered).

2. Surrender our desires. Once we acknowledge what we love and desire, the next thing to do is view it through the lenses of Scripture. Will this desire, if nurtured, lead me further into God’s will or further away from it? If into it, pray for more. If out of it, pray for God’s help to change the loves of your heart. It will require a miraculous intervention, no doubt about it. Pray hard.

3. Respond righteously to our desires (resist or nurture?) If we have surrendered them, we should know which path to take after we feel a desire God intends for us to feel. Big Picture: follow the path of the fruit of the Spirit. If you follow a desire you feel in the direction you want to go, will it rob of you of the fruit of the Spirit or bring you a harvest? Practical example: If my wife looks at me and thinks, “That is one fine man,” and has an increasing desire to, um, “know” me, that’s a desire solidly within the biblical framework of God’s will for marriage. She can nurture that rather than resist it. If she looks at another man and the same process begins, that’s one she has to resist. Same starting point, but one requires stepping immediately onto a path of resistance while the other allows her to follow a path of nurturing.

4. Test the fruit. “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” (Matthew 3:8). This is “a way of life consistent with the Kingdom of God”[14] that reflects a love of righteousness, not simply outward conformity,[15] and in which the fruit of the Spirit finds a natural home.

I want to leave you with 4 questions to consider.

Is the desire I have for this pleasure consistent with the design of God? “Did God intend for me to have this kind of desire? Should I resist it all together or is there a place to nurture it?”

Is my desire unreasonably excessive? (Did God intend for me to feel it this strongly? If not, what is going on?)

Is the end of this desire found within the will of God? (Is there a place in the Kingdom of God where this desire finds holy fulfillment?)

Will the person I become increasingly reflect a transformation into the image of Christ? Will nurturing and acting on the desire increase my fellowship with God and others?

_________________________________________________________________________________

[1] “By fathers it is very likely that the apostle means persons who had embraced Christianity on its first promulgation in Judea and in the Lesser Asia, some of them had probably seen Christ in the flesh; for this appears to be what is meant by, Ye have known him from the beginning. These were the elders and eye witnesses, who were of the longest standing in the Church, and well established in the truths of the Gospel, and in Christian experience.” (Adam Clarke)

[2] Stresses the historic origins of the faith and the growth of the personal knowledge of Christ that comes only with experience.

[3] “Fathers, πατερες· those who had been converted at the very commencement of Christianity, and had seen the eternal Word manifested in the flesh. Young Men, νεανισκοι· youths in the prime of their spiritual life, valiant soldiers, fighting under the banner of Christ, who had confounded Satan in his wiles, and overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. Little Children, παιδια· disciples of Christ, not of very long standing in the Church, nor of much experience, but who had known the Father; i.e. persons who had been made sons: God had sent the Spirit of his Son into their hearts, whereby they cried Abba, Father! Beloved Children, τεκνια· the most recent converts, and particularly those among young men and women who, from their youth, simplicity, openheartedness, and affectionate attachment to God and his cause, were peculiarly dear to this aged apostle of Jesus Christ… These four classes constituted the household or family of God. (Adam Clarke)

[4] Think “inordinate desire for something forbidden.”

[5] The "lust of the eyes" can refer especially to sexual lust, but can also mean everything that grabs our eyes and brings about greedy desire.

[6] Or…. “the lust of the eyes. The desire of seeing unlawful sights for the sake of the sinful pleasure to be derived from the sight; idle and prurient curiosity. Familiar as S. John’s readers must have been with the foul and cruel exhibitions of the circus and amphitheatre, this statement would at once meet with their assent. Tertullian, though he does not quote this passage in his treatise De Spectaculis, is full of its spirit: “The source from which all circus games are taken pollutes them … What is tainted taints us.” Similarly S. Augustine on this passage; “This it is that works in spectacles, in theatres, in sacraments of the devil, in magical arts, in witchcraft; none other than curiosity.” (Cambridge Bible For Schools And Colleges)

[7] The world's awful anti-trinity, the "lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," similarly is presented in Satan's temptation of Eve: "When she saw that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise," Ge 3:6 (one manifestation of "the pride of life," the desire to know above what God has revealed, Col 2:8, the pride of unsanctified knowledge). (Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary)

[8] ‘For ever’ is literally ‘unto the age’, i.e. ‘unto the age to come’, the kingdom of heaven; the word for ‘age’ (αἰών) being the substantive from which the word for ‘eternal’ (αἰώνιος) is derived. He who does God’s will shall abide until the kingdom of God comes and be a member of it. The latter fact, though not stated, is obviously implied. It would be a punishment and not a blessing to be allowed, like Moses, to see the kingdom but not enter it. The followers of the world share the death of the world: the children of God share His eternal life.” (Cambridge Bible For Schools And Colleges)

[9] “To the pride or boasting of life,— all that belongs to the outside of existence, houses, lands, whatever exalts a man above his fellow,—to this head we must refer the oppressor’s wrongs. (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges)

[10] There is more reality in the parallel drawn between S. John’s classification and the three elements in the temptation by which Eve was overcome by the evil one, and again the three temptations in which Christ overcame the evil one. ‘When the woman saw that the tree was good for food (the lust of the flesh), and that it was pleasant to the eyes (the lust of the eyes), and a tree to be desired to make one wise (the vainglory of life), she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat’ (Genesis 3:6). Similarly, the temptations (1) to work a miracle in order to satisfy the cravings of the flesh, (2) to submit to Satan in order to win possession of all that the eye could see, (3) to tempt God in order to win the glory of a miraculous preservation (Luke 4:1-12).

[11] 1 Corinthians 3:12

[12] (Wiersbe, W: Bible Exposition Commentary. 1989. Victor)

[13] And this is where the Pride of Life comes in. The pride of life isn’t merely taking satisfaction in a job well done. I think we are designed by God to feel that. When we hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” I don’t think we will respond with, “Aw, shucks. It was nothing.” I think we will respond with “YES! THANK YOU!” WOO HOO!” The problem is when it becomes the foundation of our identity, the thing we love in ways God never intended. The Pride of Life is a pompous sense of superiority and craving for recognition. If the lust of the flesh is the desire to do something apart from the will of God and the lust of the eyes is the desire to have something apart from the will of God, the pride of life is the desire to be something apart from the will of God.

“It describes a pretentious hypocrite who glories in himself or in his possessions. If one's public image means more than the glory of God or the well-being of one's fellow human beings, such pretentiousness of life has become a form of idol-worship. ‘Pride of life’ will be reflected in whatever status symbol is important to me or seems to define my identity. When I define myself to others in terms of my honorary degrees, the reputation of the church I serve, my annual income, the size of my library, my expensive car or house, and if in doing this I misrepresent the truth and in my boasting show myself to be only a pompous fool who has deceived no one, then I have succumbed to the pride of life. (Cambridge Bible For Schools And Colleges)

[14] Orthodox Study Bible

[15] Reformation Study Bible