The Love of the Father and the Lust of the Flesh

REFLECTION QUOTES

“If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.”

~Woody Allen


“For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaningless was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was…from…a certain system of morality…The supporters of these systems claimed that in some way they embodied the meaning…of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and at the same time justifying ourselves in our…erotical revolt: we could deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever.”

~Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”

~Albert Camus (1913-1960), French journalist and philosopher

“If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man…?”

~Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

“And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

“Classical Christianity is ‘not too grim, but too glad, to be true…. [Christians] are not ascetics but sensualists.’”

~C.S. Lewis in English Literature in the 16th Century

SERMON PASSAGE


1 John 2:12-17 (NASB)

12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake. 13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you know the Father. 14 I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.