Today we will talk about loving our souls. Why is it so important to love our souls? Isn’t it better to have power and education in this world? The two deacons this morning already mentioned that it’s good to have power and education, but to put all these things at the foremost of your life is not good for your spiritual health because one day we’ll pass away. No matter who you are, how great your business is, you’ll still die.

Where will you go after you die? What will you do with your soul? Are you able to be saved? This is a question we need to ask ourselves. These are things we talk about when we conduct our funeral services but funeral services are not for the deceased but those who are still alive; it’s for us to think about our lives at this point of time.

What is our greatest value? Is it to seek after the things of this world for things good for our souls?

Jesus gave a parable in Luke 12:15-21;

15 ‘And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”
16 Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully.
17 And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’
18 So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods.
19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ’
20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’
21 “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”’

Here, Jesus gave a parable and a comparison. He talked about this foolish rich man. V15 He mentioned, “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” after this He spoke a parable.

Truly, this man was very rich and had many barns to store his harvest. He said, “My barns are not big enough so I have to build them up again.” Then he said in v19;

And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ’

This is a good depiction of what society is like today. Isn’t it true? Everyone is looking towards wealth. They have no time for anything else except to earn money. Some people want to be a millionaire by the age of 30 and by the age of 40 they want a house at Sentosa Cove. Some wants to drive a BMW and so they need to achieve something by this time.

But when your life reaches its end and all things are done, will your soul be saved? Will you be able to bring all that you’ve earned? The Bible says, “Naked you came, naked you return.” You can’t bring anything with you because in the end all of this is vanity. All your achievements and possessions will also disappear with you. No one will remember. It’s all in vain.

The speaker has shared before that he was a technical trainer and have trained many people from different countries of the world. Many have through his training achieved their technical positions. When the speaker left his position to be a preacher, they wrote emails to him, (before he was a preacher, his name was William) “William, I won’t forget you! Because of you, I’m here today.”

One or two years later, some people would still write to him. But after that, he was forgotten. Just as how Joseph was forgotten, he too was forgotten. But whatever he had in the past doesn’t matter the speaker anymore because they don’t add to his spiritual life.

Elder James tells us in James 4:4;

‘Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ‘

If we love the flesh, we are friends with the world and hence we won’t love our soul. Elder James goes on to say in v5;

‘Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?’

Why would the spirit that dwells in us be jealous?

Let’s look at it from the perspective of marriage.

In a marriage, we don’t allow a third party to enter. A marriage is between a man and woman and they become one. When a third party enters, the marriage is broken and because of this, one party will commit adultery. But before this adultery happens, one of the parties in the marriage will be jealous. If you see your wife with another man, will you not be jealous? Will you not be jealous if you see your husband with another woman? Definitely. This jealousy is good; a marriage is between one man and woman, there should be NO third party.

Hence, Paul likens the relationship between the church and God to that of marriage; it’s very intimate and not permitted for a third party to break the marriage. With a third party, there’ll be jealousy. If you understand it this way, you’ll understand why James writes this passage in this way.

Our relationship with God is one-to-one. He will not allow the relationship between us and Him to be one of jealousy. If you focus on the world instead of God, there’ll be jealousy because your focus is of the world. From this encouragement from James, we should not love the world.

This afternoon, we’ll use the encouragement from Elder John about not loving the world. We turn to 1 John 2:15-17;

15 ‘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.
16 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.
17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.’

Here, Elder John gives us a very good encouragement. He said, “Do not love the world or the things of the world because if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

Your heart cannot love God and the world at the same time. You may say that everyone multitasks today. But, are you able to do things properly if you multitask? You may think that you can do well with divided attention, but it will most likely turn out that everything is not well done.

Elder John wants us to focus on loving God. If all your focus is on the world, there’s no way for you to welcome God in your life. Here tells us to not love the world and the things of the world. Do we really understand this commandment?

Why can’t Christians love the world? What is John talking about? You might ask, “Isn’t this world created by God? He even mentioned that all that He created was good. If I can’t love the world, what’s the point of me living on this earth?” What does it mean to not love the world?

Actually, it’s not about the material world but the world that is evil and belongs to the devil. It refers to all the evil of the world but not the material world. What kind of world is this? In v16, he explains;

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.

There are these 3 things in the world; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. This is the world of sin and evil and it belongs to the devil. The devil is the king of that world. These 3 things are being used all the time to tempt us to sin against God. From the beginning till now, the devil’s strategies have always been the same. Why? Because when men are weak, in addition to men not drawing close to God, men are swept by the waves of the world. We need to pay close attention to discern these things.

Lust of the flesh
What is the lust of the flesh? We turn to Galatians 5:19-21;

19 ‘Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,
20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.’

Paul mentions this and also in 1 Corinthians 6. These things satisfy the lust of the flesh. Instant gratification is something like that. There may be bad websites to teach you how to cheat on your spouse. Is this correct? According to the Bible, this is wrong and against the Word. However, people are happy to do such things. What kind of world is this? This is a world full of evil and this evil has reached the heavens because they don’t have the teachings of God in them. They do these to fulfil their desires and place their own pleasures as the most important. In reality, they’ve broken marriages and caused problems to society.

Lust of the eyes
What does the Bible say about covetousness? Why does Paul liken it to idolatry?

“I go and buy lottery and win 10 million dollars. Then I’ll offer a tithe and the church will have money”. Is it wrong? It’s not wrong to want to offer to God but the motivation is wrong - you are being greedy. We read Colossians 3:5-7;

5 ‘Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience,
7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.’

“I just want this thing, there’s nothing wrong. I see a beautiful girl and I want her, what’s wrong with that? I’m just admiring her beauty.” If you look one more time, you’re gone. You’re being covetous. Though, covetousness is more for wealth. When something replaces God in your heart, when this covetousness replaces God, this is now your god. This false god is now your idol. Isn’t this idolatry? You don’t worship the true God but you worship this false god, this is idolatry. If you do this, will you love your soul? You won’t.

The pride of life

What is the pride of life? You want to show off. You want to tell everyone what you’ve achieved and what you have. People of this world like to promote themselves. Isn’t this so? You want people to know you have many titles, “I’m a professor”. PhD means to have Permanent Head Damage (LOL).

But all these are vain and will pass away. When you gain it, you’ll look for more things because they can’t satisfy your empty hearts. They belong to the world that is evil but many in their pursuit of these things resort to all means to get them.

We read back at the latter part of 1 John 2:15;

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

If you love the world, how can you love the Father? This is not possible. The Lord Jesus also mentions in Matthew 6:24;

‘“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.’

The Lord Jesus in the sermon on the mount tells us that no one can serve two masters. When you want both, this will create jealousy. You cannot love both the world and love God.

What is loving the Father? Elder John teaches us if we want to love our Father, we will follow His instructions. We read 1 John 5:3;

‘For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. ‘

The parents here today were children once. When we were young, we don’t know many things and our parents will hit us. Why? Because they want to teach us how to obey and submit to them. In the process, we’ll suffer physical pain but later on we understand that our parents did this because they love us. Though they hit us physically, their pain is in their hearts. When we understand this, we’ll listen to them because we don’t want our parents to feel hurt because of us. When you understand your parents’ intentions, will you still want to anger them? Because you understand this, you’ll begin to love them.

What is our relationship with God like today? Why does God always use certain events to teach us? Is it because God doesn’t love us? Does He take joy from our sufferings? No, it’s because He loves us and so He is teaching us. In His teachings, He hopes for us to return and through this, we’ll love Him even more. Because you understand His love, you won’t go against His words and teachings because you understand His love for you. Because you love Him, “I don’t want to sin and I don’t want to anger God. Because I love Him and I’m willing to follow His commandments.”

Here elder John tells us that if we love Him, we’ll keep His commandments and His commandments will not be burdensome. Why? Because we love Him and love covers everything. Although you may suffer a little, you’ll do it. Because you love Him, you’ll do it such that whatever you do will be pleasing to God. This is what it means to love our Father.

If we love our Father and not the world, we will flee from the 3 things mentioned before.

Regrettably, our first ancestor fell and went against God’s words. God clearly told them to not eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and on the day they eat it they will surely die. But they wanted to eat it because it was desirable to them and they wanted to be like God. God gave them a simple instruction to not eat it. It’s so strange, there are so many fruits to eat, why did they have to eat THAT fruit? Because they wanted to be like God and wanted to taste it. What happened then? They were separated from God. Because they didn’t love God, they went against God’s words and departed from Him. From then on, they began to wander the face of the earth.

Today if we say we love God, we have to ask ourselves if we’re really following His commandments. If we do so, this lust of the flesh and eyes and the pride of life will no longer be a problem to us. But these things keep happening to us. If we don’t love God, these things will become a problem in our faith. We have to watch out for them and on this matter we must truly follow God’s word to use God’s word as this higher standard to discern and act according to it. Through the help of the Holy Spirit, may we overcome them.

All these will keep coming, but how will we face it when it comes to us? The Lord Jesus gave us a good example and used the word of God to overcome all the temptations of the devil. The devil used these 3 things to tempt Eve and used these 3 things to tempt Jesus as well. But Jesus didn’t fall. Why? He had God’s words in Him and used it to overcome the temptations of the devil. Therefore, He was victorious and gave us a good example to learn from. Today when we want to love our soul, let us love our Father and keep His commandments.

Why does elder John tell us to not love the world? We read 1 John 2:17;

‘And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.’

Yesterday the speaker talked about Greta Thunberg. She is a Swedish and climate change activist and is telling the world leaders to do something about climate change. All these are good things but what she doesn’t know is that this world will pass away. No matter what you do, when God comes again, all these will be destroyed.

What should we pursue and esteem then? We shouldn’t be concerned with the material things of the world but on our spiritual life. This world will pass away and life is also very short.

1 Peter 1:24 tells us;

‘because “All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away,’

This describes our short human life. Indeed, this is the case. Since it’s so short, what should we pursue? We should pursue after spiritual things so that we can truly be saved and our soul will enter heaven. Its true that the polar ice caps are melting and is causing the sea levels to rise. These are crises indeed but what is anything more important than this is our souls. Elder John has mentioned it very clearly; this world will pass away and hence we should do the will of God. Why? We turn to Matthew 7:21;

‘“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. ‘

Here, the Lord Jesus Christ says, “Not he who does the will of My Father”.

Who is the person who does the will of His Father? It is a person who completely follows the will of God and His instructions and not according to one’s own will. Only such a person will hold on to the word of God and only then can you enter this land which God has prepared for us. If you can do so, Revelation 14:13 tells us;

‘Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”’

On the last day, are we able to sing such a song of victory? Only people who follow the will of God will have this, only by following His commandments. These are the people who love God and hate the world. These are the people who also love their own soul. Only then, they’re able to sing this song at the end. Are our pursuits like this? On the last day, what will happen to us?

We should put in more effort in our spiritual pursuits. Jesus says, “What profit is there if you gain the whole world but you lose your own soul?” All things will pass away.

We turn to Romans 12:1-2;

1 ‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.’

What is to not be conformed by this world? It is to not be influenced by all the things of the world and to flee from these bad things and be renewed. This renewal comes from God and not from ourselves. Then, you’ll not belong to this world and you’ll go on this direction to loving your soul.

We ask God to guide us and our footsteps such that we’re able to value our faith in this end time.