[Victor Kubik]: I would like to start reading the red-letter words of Jesus Christ in John 3:15. John 3:15, as He spoke of Himself. Now, this is the most oft-quoted scripture, probably by anyone, everyone. And everyone would find this scripture to be very, very familiar.

My wife and I lived in Pasadena, California. And we went to the Rose Bowl Parade every January 1st. We lived only about 200, 300 feet. We lived on campus at Ambassador College. And we were only about 200, 300 feet away from the bleachers. And we enjoyed seeing the parades as it came by down Orange Grove Boulevard. But after the parade was done, after the very last float, there was usually a pickup truck that had a big sign on it, John 3:16. They were hoping that they would be seen on national and international television. However, I’m sure they shut their cameras off at that point, you know, if it wasn’t seen. But that truck, we’re always waiting that... We knew that the end of the parade was here when the John 3:16 vehicle came by. We read here in John 3:15, beginning, that whoever believes in Him, this is Jesus Christ speaking of Himself in red letters here, so it’s His own quote, “Whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” You’ve heard that. We’ve all heard this so many times.

Why does God love the world so much? Why does He express this type of feeling, this type of attitude, this type of direction towards human beings? Why does He love us and the world so much? When we see the kind of world it is, why does He love it so much? John, who had transcribed these words for us, in recorded Jesus’ words, also said the following, in 1 John 2:15. 1 John 2:15, something quite different on the surface. 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world. 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 lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever.” So, why are we not to love the world? When Jesus Christ died for the world, He loved the world that God the Father gave His only begotten Son. How do we understand this in the light of John 3:16? There are two words that are common in these passages. The words are love and world. How can we put these words together? How can we find a better understanding? Never had this happen before? Bev, could you give me page two?

Okay. Never thought this would happen on national television. How would we explain this? We could give a very simple explanation. I’m sure that most of you if you were to be asked about these verses, you would come and be able to answer it very, very straightforwardly. And most likely correctly. God loves the world, even as bad as it is.

Those who come to believe in Christ, and that’s usually very few, we won’t have too many people who believe the world is pretty rotten as we see around us, but we should stay away from the world and the things that people do in the world. If you do that, you’ll be safe. So, God loves the world. God loves you. And God loves them, although they’re not going to be saved at this point. We’re not sure what’s going to happen to them and when. But as long as you’re good, you’ll be okay if you stay away from the world. Now, there are some things that are complex issues of life and teaching that the world does not understand that we understand very, very easily and very, very well. We understand concepts and principles that the world simply has hidden to them. We understand why we were born. We understand the Kingdom of God, the world is lost in these teachings. But there are also certain things, certain things, like I said, that are complex to the world are very straightforward and clear to us. But there are some things that are very simple, like this, that have greater and deeper meaning. And that’s what I’d like to explore here this afternoon. Today, I want to build a bridge between love the world and loved not the world. What is the real relationship of God to the world? Because in it, we will see the great love of God towards every one of us and towards everyone who He has created.

First of all, let’s look at the definition for the word love. Love is from the Greek word here, agape. It is love in a moral, social, and divine sense. In Greek, there are three different words for love. There’s agape, there’s a word philia, and eros representing different forms of love. It is going beyond friendship and emotion, agape, although it includes it. It is self-sacrificial. Agape is how God loves the world. That’s how God loves the world. The English language is quite inadequate for expressing love. And English language is one word that’s one-size-fits-all for those three kinds of love. Greek has three words for love. And, you know, in World War II, American propaganda against Japanese said, “The Japanese had no words for love in their language.” The Japanese have five words for love, they even break this down even further than that. But this is the type of love that’s a moral love. It’s the love of God towards mankind. It is the ethical love He has towards us. Now let’s take a look at the word world. Very interesting word. The word for world in Greek is the word kosmos, kosmos. That may sound very familiar to you. I grew up in a Russian Ukrainian language-speaking home and we heard the word kosmos all the time. That was the universe. That was the solar system. That was all those things that we see up in the sky. What does kosmos mean? The definition for it? Number one, it can be the entire universe as the kosmos.

There was a PBS series, if you remember, it’s still available online, called “Cosmos.” It’s about the universe. It’s about the planets. It’s about the galaxies, a lot of interesting things about the universe. But also, the word kosmos can be the earth itself. It can also be the inhabitants of the earth. The human family can be the kosmos. In Biblical usage, also, it could be the ungodly multitude, the people out there, the whole mass of men alienated from God in a way that is used Biblically. And therefore, they are hostile to the cause of Christ. Also, the word world is a term that we use towards world affairs, things that are out there. It could include things like politics, that’s the world, the environment, Putin, Washington D.C., Cuomo, the oil pipeline, Mexican border. If you want to find out what the world is, turn on your television. That’s the world channel. I mean, just whatever the news is, that’s the world out there. All you have to do is to turn on your TV, or go to a movie, or find a lot of entertainment that has the world in it.

Also, other definitions in a Biblical lexicon are the whole circle of earthly goods, I find this to be interesting, endowments, riches, advantages, pleasures, which although hollow and frail and fleeting stir desire, seduced from God, and are obstacles to the cause of Christ. There are things that pull us away from Jesus Christ. And also, in this usage, it’s any aggregate or general collection of particulars as the gentiles compared to the Jews. The Jews were themselves and the rest of everybody was the world.

One verse that speaks to that, I’ll just write this for reference, Romans 11:12. Now, if the gentiles were enriched because the people of Israel turned down God’s offer of salvation, think of how much greater a blessing the world will share when they finally accept it. So, it was somebody outside of us.

In the Ukrainian Sabbatarian community, I found it interesting that they talked about their church. And everything else outside the church, people were the world. And they felt like their mission always was to go to the world outside by themselves. Well, some of the usages for the word world appear in the following words. The word cosmopolitan, you’ve heard cosmopolitan. There’s a magazine called “Cosmopolitan.” There are cities that are called cosmopolitan, societies that are cosmopolitan, which means societies of the world that have a lot of world things connected to it, New York, Toronto, Paris, are branded as cosmopolitan cities. They’re international and they’re sophisticated.

“Cosmopolitan” is a magazine for and by sophisticated people that have a “cosmo” attitude to them. The word worldly is an adjective to define behavior of people to various things, and actions and things are connected to this worldly behavior. It could be playing cards. It could be wearing makeup as people define it, dancing, alcohol, clothing defined by what percentage of skin is showing, hairstyles defined by level outrageous, shocking appearance, that pink hairdo, that is worldly.

Now this comprises worldly to some but is this ultimately what worldly is in how it’s defined. And in my sermon today, I’m not going to be giving you a sermon of lists. Here are things that are worldly. And so much percentage of this makes you worldly. Here’s how close you can get to this point before it’s Godly to jump the line to being worldly because there’s something much greater and something bigger, that underpins this attitude, and the attitude that we have towards God. So, I will build a bridge between love and love not the world. We will not build it upon the metrics of length, time, inches, games, light, volume, or any metric of that sort.

So, let me get to the bigger question. Why does God love the world so much? Why even bother? With all that people do, why does God love the world so much? I think it’s a fair question. To get a fuller understanding, let’s go to the very beginning about the creation of where it all started. God created a jewel, amidst the vast universe called the earth. There’s a conscious effort planned out activity was called the earth. From orbiting spacecraft, astronauts have been awed by what they have seen. Pictures of the earth from the moon are nothing short of dazzling in their divine beauty, the blueness, the clouds, the landmasses, they’re absolutely awesome of what is seen. This earth is beautiful. The Hubble telescope was launched 31 years ago and has brought many thousands of photos.

I have a book that employee of Jet Propulsion Laboratories, who was a member in Pasadena, California, gave me about the Hubble, showing just an amazing number of photographs. The greatest hits you might say of Hubble, and they are truly awesome. I was going through it this morning. I’m awed by the absolute beauty of the universe. The James Webb telescope is going up October 31st this year. It’s a $10 billion telescope that’s going out 1 million miles. And what it will discover we simply don’t know yet. But there are probably some even more awesome things that will be uncovered.

In 1968, three astronauts who were the first ones to go to the moon, not land on the moon but circle around it, Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman, the first humans to travel that far to see the earth from the level of the moon recited verses 1 through 10 from the book of Genesis. I remember that being done. I don’t know if that would be possible today to do it. They probably wouldn’t let them back to the earth. But they absolutely... They were just touched by what they saw, how beautiful it was. And read Genesis 1 through 10. Voyager 1 in 1990 is a space probe that left our solar system, kept going and going and going and going. And now it’s way past. But when it got to the 3.7 billion mile mark, the director of that project, Carl Sagan had it turn around from where it was going, point his camera towards the earth, and took an awesome picture, which became the title of his book, “Pale Blue Dot.”

He said, “Look, there’s a pale blue dot. I mean, all these lights and stars, that’s us. That’s all of our feelings. That’s all what we are. It’s all of our history. That’s everything about the human race, all the things we’re doing down here. Look at that pale blue dot.” He was awed by that. He was awed by the universe, even though he was an atheist. He didn’t believe in God. Here we have an earth, teeming with life, not just human life, but all other forms of life. Temperate place, protected, it’s a specially designed and prepared place for something. It’s the cradle of the universe. It’s the birthplace, the nursery, and the training place for those who were made in the image of God, as is described in Genesis 1. I’d like you to turn to Genesis 1 because we have, if you take a look at it, an understanding about why God loved the world. Why is it that this was such a big event for Him? Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Then Genesis 1:3, God said, “Let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light that it was good.” The first time that the word good is used. It’s used a number of times more in this chapter. God called that the first day. In verse 9, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear and it was so. And God called the dry land earth and the gathering together the waters He called seas. And God saw that it was good.”

Verse 12, “The earth brought forth grass, the herbs that yield seeds according to its kind, and a tree that yields fruit whose seed is in itself, according to its kind.” And God saw that it was what? It’s here. Good. Okay. Good. Good. Responsive audience here. Verse 17 or let’s go to verse 21, “God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves with which the waters abounded according to their kind and every winged bird, according to its kind.” And God saw that it was what? Good. Okay, good. That’s better. Okay. Verse 25, we’re starting speech clubs. It’s a mess. We’ll start here in church services. “And God made,” verse 25, “the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind,” that God saw that it was what?

[congregation]: Good.

[Victor Kubik]: Good. Very good. Okay. Then we get down to verse 26, and God said, “Let Us make man in Our image.” Now, this is not making little turtles, cows, grasses, or forming continents. This is creating birth of someone that looks like Him, very attached. Let us make according to our image after according to our likeness, in a very special club, so to speak. “And let them have dominion over fish of the sea, over the birds of the air.” Let them have dominion over this creation that He formed. So right away in the creation, He created beings that are in His image to look like Him, that act like Him, have characteristics and powers and creativity like Him, and are of His likeness and of His genre. “And God saw,” verse 31, “that everything He had made and indeed,” it was what?

[Congregation]: Good.

[Victor Kubik]: Wrong. Very good. What He had finished the creation with now was supreme. It was very, very good. This is a beautiful world that God created. All the different things were created on different days. They were all good. There was nothing that was still in development. It was all prepared and all put in place. And we see from the very beginning, a beautiful relationship between God and man develop. God loves this world. Can you imagine He created all this with a big plan to have as a pinnacle to recreate Himself, to make these not just little statues, but of His kind. It was His baby. That’s why He loved it. We have a couple here who just had a baby. We see the baby on Facebook almost every other day. They love their baby. They’re proud of their baby. That baby looks like them, combination of mom and dad. That’s how much and much more is how God loved the creation of man and woman because they were of His kind. They were of His family and they had a purpose. He created a nice home for it as well, and environment, and gave them jobs. I mean, it was really a great job. It was a great opportunity for mankind. Well, so how do we get from here to love not the world? How do we get here to love not the world? Well, Genesis 3, if you’d turn to Genesis 3. Enter the serpent. And again, we know the story. I think we should tell it again, in context with how God loved the world, how He had already invested Himself in this world. It wasn’t just a trial. It wasn’t just something out of a test tube. It wasn’t something from a back laboratory.

It was something well-prepared and well-designed. Enter the serpent who now tramped on what God had established. Verse 3 of Genesis 3, “Now, the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made.” And we see him approaching the woman with a question. “Has God indeed said that you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” This cunning creature, this cunning serpent, and cunning means having or showing skill in achieving one’s ends through deceit or evasion. Just kind of came in, he didn’t introduce himself, “Hi, I’m the serpent. I’m your neighbor. Would you like a cup of coffee and just sit down and get to know one another?” No, he immediately came to the questions that he wanted to ask. He was brazen. He was obnoxious and he asked the things that were of his special interest. He was cheeky, sneaky. He swaggered in, brazen, bold, obnoxious. He didn’t even introduce himself. Verse 2, “The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden.’” He had this woman... He already have her just kind of telling it all and she has nothing to hide, being very honest, explains to him what God told them, what their maker had told them. But at the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God had said, “You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. And that’s what God told us, Mr. serpent,” even very innocent tone. She wasn’t looking or shopping for another option. She was just telling him where she was at.

Notice that the serpent caught her when she was away from her husband. He wasn’t right there. Then verse 4, “Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘Hey, you’re not going to die. You shall not surely die.’” He says, for, verse 5, “God knows that in the day that you eat of it,” God knows this, He knows this, “your eyes will be opened. And you’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.” This was an absolute brazen lie. And it was the big issue he had with God. He is the one who wanted to be God. He wanted to be the one who was the top of the ruler of the universe. This was an issue that was needling him. And when he saw Adam and Eve being created in the image of God, he just couldn’t take it. He had to get in there and try to wreck it. And that’s what he was trying to do. So, verse 6, “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food,” she did a scientific analysis, “look good, was pleasant to the eyes.” It was a perfect fruit, whatever it was. People think it was an apple, but it’s not stated what it was. “And a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate. And she also gave her husband.” “Hey, Adam, look at this.” With him and she ate. “Hey, where did you get this?” “Well, you know, God told us we couldn’t but we have another guy who came up here and said it’s okay. It’s okay. It looks good. It will make you wise. And why would He tell you not to eat it? Have you ever thought of that?”

This appealed to their senses, to their visual taste, intellectual and rational appeal. So, on that basis, they made their decision. Then in verse 7, “The eyes of both of them were opened. And they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.” They knew right away they were scammed. They knew they shouldn’t have done it. When they ate that, something came over that, you know, “God told us... We were with Him. We spent time with Him. Our loving Father told us not to eat it, we shouldn’t have done it. We have been scammed. We have been impersonated.” Have you ever been scammed? Have any of you been scammed? I have been. I’ve been impersonated, you know, online. I hate it when I get scammed. I mean, I asked for something I shouldn’t. I sign up for something I shouldn’t. Right now, I don’t sign up for anybody. If you want to be a Facebook friend, call me. But I’ve been scammed that way over and over again. It makes me so mad every time because I sucker for these things. Well, this is what happened to Adam and Eve. They fell for this scam. And they knew that they had been taken. Verse 8, “Then the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, they heard this in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord.” I mean, they knew that they were guilty. “And the Lord God called to Adam and said, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid.’”

He was afraid because he knew he shouldn’t have done this. “Who told you you were naked?” God says in verse 11, “Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded that you should not eat?” The man said, “The woman who you gave me.” The first thing he did was blame the woman, blame somebody other than himself. Not taking responsibility for his actions. Then the Lord said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me.” She throws the blame off to their neighbor. Satan entered into the world of Adam and Eve, they weren’t invited. The serpent just came in. He had no conscience. He just wanted to be destructive. Competing loyalty to God was developed at the first... They took the word of a snake over their Creator. This was the first act of idolatry, they placed this snake.

Now let’s take a closer look at this deception of what it is that God does not want us to love in the world because it is the core substance of what we read in 1 John 2:15. This is the world that we don’t love. “If anyone loves the world,” which we already read, “the love of the Father is not in him for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but of the world.” This is the world and that’s where Adam and Eve got scammed. Worldliness is an attitude and action leading to evil desires. As we already read in verse 6 of Genesis 3, “The woman saw the tree was good for food,” lust of the eyes, was pleasant to the eyes, a tree desirable to make one wise and she fell for it.

That is what John 2:15 speaks of. And that is the heart and core of worldliness. Now, why is worldliness evil? We talk about, stay out of the world and those things that are of the world. Why is it so evil? Well, we can easily see from Adam and Eve’s example that God told them that they would die. That sort of was true then. But what about us and other confrontations with the world? Why is worldliness evil? Very easy, because it leads to death. You know, Adam and Eve were put into the garden of Eden and they were told to eat of every fruit except this one. And the fruits that they could eat included the tree of life, either walk up to it is something every morning and say, “Hey, let’s take one of these fruits of life.” There was something that was an age extent or something that gave them life because what happened when they were expelled from the Garden of Eden, they were cut off from this tree of life. And that is how death has passed on to all mankind. Worldliness leads to death. Man was created to eat of the tree of life. Why shouldn’t we love the world? Why shouldn’t we love the world? Because the world does not love you. The world does not like you. It hates you and it wants to destroy you. It wants your life. It wants your time. It wants your children. It wants your family. It wants to destroy you. I thought it was very interesting that a number of years ago, MasterCard had an ad campaign. It really struck me.

It’s called this card is so this and so that. It is so worldly. I thought, “Boy, this wouldn’t go over in the church too well.” This card is so worldly. I thought, “Well, that’s...” You know, and actually, it’s a card that you don’t want. It wants you. You don’t want it. That card, that ad was saying, “I want you to have ties to me in interest. I want your allegiance. I can give you all kinds of things that you can’t afford. If you just make the purchase on this card and just pay interest, ties to me for the things that you want.” That’s how that particular thing works. Credit card companies, what they call people that have credit scores of 750 or above, you know what they call them? Deadbeats. You can’t get any money out of them. They pay their bills. The people they want are people down in the lower credit scores, the ones that they can have on a continual treadmill of paying and paying and paying penalties and getting stuck in debt. That’s who they want. They want you to stay in debt. The world makes you believe that through a lottery, you can make a go of it. I feel so bad that when you walk into convenience store, and I see people who are lined up wanting to buy lottery tickets, people that have no business buying lottery tickets, they look like they’re just basically making it from, you know, month to month, the little ladies, people that think that maybe they can strike it rich here. We believe that’s the world. They will make you believe that the lottery is the way to riches.

You know, right now I saw a story a couple of days ago about the stimulus check that’s coming now. I’m talking about the great influx of people that are headed for where? Vegas. They’re all headed for Vegas because they want to get out of the lockdown, not being with people, but also for the chance to gamble. Many of them will lose it all. That’s the world. Vegas does not love anybody. It wants your money. Worldliness is something or Vegas is a place where you can drive to in a $20,000 car and leave on a $200,000 bus. And that’s what happens to, you know, many people. But God loves the world, the people, and He gave His only begotten Son to rescue them. God just didn’t throw people away, but He gave His Son to rescue them. And we could be very thankful as we took the Passover last night that we understand this. And that as we were told to imbibe of Christ, to have them come into our lives and be a part of us. And we have been rescued from the world. That’s what we have been called out of. God loves the world and He has given His begotten Son to rescue them. 1 Timothy 2:4, “God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” That’s where He’s going. So, let’s take a look at John 15:17. We started reading here yesterday in these words of Jesus Christ, of things that He said after initiating the New Testament symbols of the Passover. “These things I command you that you love one another.”

Verse 18, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you.”

The apostle John is known as a proponent of God’s love. He speaks about God’s love more than anyone else. But he also is one who knowledgeably describes the world. In fact, the word world is used 80 times in the book of John, 80 times that he speaks of the world, 22 times in 1 John, and one time in 2 John. John 17, which we read part of yesterday in the Passover service, the word world is used 19 times. This is the last prayer of Jesus Christ, the last moment of privacy that Jesus Christ had, where He could talk to His father. And He spoke of the word world 19 times. It was not a minor subject. It was very important. And it’s a very important one for us to understand. Let’s take a look at just some of the highlights of the chapter. I will just turn to a few verses. Verse 5, “Again, now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” He’s going through a great transition, a very important transition where He’ll have to make very, very important decisions. He’ll have to suffer and really endure something extremely horrible that none of us could really take. He says, “Father, help Me through this so that I can rejoin You, where we were before the world began,” before this project world was started. He says, “I have manifested Your name to the men,” where Jesus Christ now is praying for His disciples, “whom You have given Me out of the world.”

You know, all of us have come out of the world. We can be very thankful for that. And we should not have any desire to go back into the world, to those areas of lust, pride, and going beyond our means of taking things that don’t belong to us and things that are idolatrous. “They are Yours, You gave them to Me. And they have kept Your words.” Verse 9, “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world.” Jesus Christ was praying for His disciples of that time. As far as the world is concerned, He still has a future that He will work with, with them. “And mine are Yours,” verse 10, “and Yours are Mine and I am glorified in them.” Now, I am no longer in the world. But these are in the world and I come to You, Holy Father, keep through Your name, those whom You have given Me that they may be one, as we are one. That’s really intense. “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name.” Verse 14, “I have given them Your Word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world.” Now one reason why the world won’t like our church is we’re not of the world. We’re not subscribed to the values of this world. We don’t promote the things that the world has. That includes the politics, all the things I mentioned. That includes the behaviors. That includes the literature. That includes the cinema. That’s not us. We have a higher value that we look to. In verse 15, “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” And one of the challenges that we have is that we’ve not been called into a sanctuary.

We have not been called into a commune of some sort to live with one another. We were given the commission to stay in the world. And part of our work is to go into all the world, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God. That’s what our mission is. That’s what we’ve been called to do. Verse 17, “Sanctify them by Your truth, Your Word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify Myself, that they may be sanctified by the truth.” And then finally, Jesus Christ prays for all believers in verse 20. “I do not pray for these alone,” Jesus Christ prayed for us right here when He was with His Father the very last time as He was on the earth, “But also for those who will believe in Me through their word,” that’s us, who are carrying on the flag of Christianity, “that they all may be one, as You are Father in Me and I in You, us in the world may believe that You sent Me.” Verse 24, “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me, may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me, for You have loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known, but I have known You, and these known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name and will declare it that the love of what you have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” Our job right now is to live in this world. We’ve not been called out of the world. Most of you this Sabbath day and like the Passover service, Feast of Tabernacles, are about the only time that you’re not in the world, but you’re at work. You hear the language, you see the behavior, you see the conduct, you hear about their lives. You’ve been called to be a light to the world. That’s our job right now.

Verse 2 of Romans 12, we have a number of places. I can only turn to a couple of them, but I find them to be instructions, preeminent instructions to us. Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed. Do not be conformed to this world.” Don’t take on the attitudes of this world but “be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is at good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” Don’t look like, imitate, or sound like the world in your speech. We’re to be of a different genre altogether. Then Ephesians 2, “And you, He made alive,” this is us Christians, “who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world,” one time we tracked with the world. We liked all the things that they did. “According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sense of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And we’re by nature, children of wrath, even as others.” You know, from the very beginning, I mentioned certain number of indicators that people have used to say, “This is the world,” like dancing, like alcohol, or playing cards. Are those things wrong? I know that we have worked with other Christians, like in Sabbatarian Christians in Ukraine, and our group was playing cards after work in the apartment they were in. And one of the ministers came by, “You can’t play cards anywhere.”

And so, we told him, “Okay, okay, we won’t be playing cards.” They looked upon that as sin. The thing is not what’s wrong, it’s the attitude behind it. If it was for gambling, if it was for other purposes, if it was some kind of, you know, poker, whatever, that would have been wrong. It’s the use of the thing. It’s how it’s managed. There’s some dancing that is very worldly. I know at one time at a church function, I said to one of the young ladies that, “You can’t wiggle that much, you know. Really, would you please just tone it down?” But you know, we have dancing, you know, at camps, you know, in a proper way to teach proper relations, you know, other things that dancing is supposed to teach you. It’s the use of it. It’s the attitude behind it. It’s how it’s used. Now with pink hair, it’s something else. I don’t know. I’ll have a hard time with pink or green hair. You know? Because I wonder, what is the point, you know, of that? If you find me with green hair, there’s a problem.

God wants to redeem the entire world. He wants to bring it to sanity. He wants to save it. That’s what God’s intent is for all of us. It starts with forgiveness, reconciliation at the Passover. When we come to our God, we see a process being developed. And Passover is the first festival of the year with this process of rebuilding mankind whom He loves. The other festivals go on further to show what God will do with mankind, all the way to the Feast of Tabernacles, and to the last or the eighth day, which picture a time when God will bring everyone to the opportunity for salvation, which the world does not have right now.

That’s close to them. It’s our job to be in this world and to be shining lights of Godliness. One day, God will open up their hearts and minds in this particular environment. The source of worldliness, which crept into the garden of Eden in Genesis 3 will be removed because that’s where worldliness began and that’s where worldliness... We live in a world of Satan right now. This is where we live. We live in a world of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. And one thing that we did before the Passover is to examine ourselves. Are these things still in us? Are we doing anything about it? You know, I’ve been working on this sermon and just some of the thoughts of it. Personally, my personal assessment and examination was, where do I have these things in my life? The pride of life, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes? This is what we do.

I’d like to conclude with reading John 3:15 because as we see this very straightforward passage, we see in it the wish of God for all mankind. In fact, you could say, really the plan of God for human beings whom He loves. We’re His baby. He wants us to grow up. He wants us to become part of a greater family. John 3:15, “He, whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” And the time will come when people will the door open to believe, just like you had that aha moment where you came to believe, frankly, it wasn’t on your power. It was on something that God did to your mind. “So that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”

That’s how big this project has been in God’s eyes, in God’s mind, in God’s planning, and why this whole vast universe has been created to become the cradle for this pale blue dot, which is now the nursery for His family. “That whoever believes in Him should not perish,” because that’s what God wants, people not to perish. He wants you not to perish, but to have what? Everlasting life. And the last verse I’ll read as I think is equally as important in this trilogy or these three verses. And that is verse 17, which oftentimes is not read in connection with verse 16. “For God,” verse 17, “did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world.” He didn’t come to condemn the world. I get a newsletter for ministers, for other organizations, they had an interesting article about preaching. It said, “If God so loved the world, why do preachers sound like God hates the world?” That our preaching ought to be that God does love the world. They’re just not prepared right now. They’re lost. They need to be brought in. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world, through Him, might be saved.