The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

The Expulsive Power of a New Affection
How Love for Christ Drives Out Love for the World

Adapted from Thomas Chalmers. A modern-language adaptation by T. Kevin Inman

“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.” —1 John 2:15, LSB

How do you stop loving something you know you should not love?
That question reaches deeper than our outward behavior. We may recognize that a desire is sinful. We may see the damage it causes. We may sincerely wish we could leave it behind. Yet we find ourselves returning to it.

Why? Because knowing that something is wrong does not automatically remove our affection for it. We can understand the danger of a thing while still wanting it. There are two ways we might try to change a person’s heart. We can show him that what he loves is empty, disappointing, and unworthy of his devotion. Or we can show him someone more worthy of his love.

The first approach says, “Look at how little the world can give you.” The second says, “Look at the greatness and goodness of God, revealed in Jesus Christ.” Warnings have their place. Scripture exposes sin, unmasks its promises, and announces its consequences. But warnings alone cannot produce love for God. The heart needs more than reasons to abandon its old master. It needs a new and better love.

That is the central truth before us: the love of the world loses its ruling power as the love of God takes its place.


1. The Heart Always Reaches for Something

Our loves shape both what we pursue and what we enjoy. Sometimes we love something we do not yet possess. We want it, think about it, plan for it, and work to obtain it. At other times, we love something already in our possession. We take pleasure in it and want to keep it. In both cases, love gives direction to our lives.

Think of someone building a business. His goal draws his thoughts together, fills his schedule, and gives him reasons to get out of bed. He encounters setbacks, but even the struggle keeps him occupied. He has something to pursue. Then imagine that he sells the business and retires. He has the money he wanted and the freedom he anticipated. Yet he may discover that he misses the work more than he expected. His days feel strangely empty. The problem is not necessarily that he needs more possessions. He needs something to engage his mind and heart.

We see this throughout ordinary life. People want something to anticipate, someone to love, some purpose that makes their activity meaningful. This helps explain why merely telling someone to abandon a cherished pursuit often accomplishes so little. A person may already know that an activity wastes his time. He may admit that it costs too much and gives too little. Still, he returns to it because it fills his evenings, occupies his attention, and offers something to look forward to. If you take it away, what will fill the space? You may have proved that his pursuit is foolish. You have not yet given his heart another direction.

But introduce a stronger interest, and something changes. The activity he once guarded so fiercely may suddenly become easy to set aside. A new relationship, a new responsibility, or a new ambition can rearrange his schedule almost overnight. His capacity to love has not disappeared. His love has found a different object.


2. An Old Love Gives Way to a Stronger Love

We can observe this movement from one ruling desire to another as people grow older. A child may live for games and toys. Later, those interests give way to the desire for acceptance among friends. Then career success becomes more important. In time, wealth, influence, or reputation may take the leading place. The heart remains active through every change. One desire loses its authority because another desire becomes stronger.

Of course, this is not necessarily spiritual progress. A person can exchange one idol for another. Someone may abandon reckless pleasure because he has become devoted to making money. Another may lose interest in money because he now craves power. His behavior changes, but his heart still serves something other than God.

Nevertheless, these changes reveal something important about us. Our affections can be displaced by stronger affections. That is why an argument against a sinful desire, however convincing, may leave its power largely untouched. The person understands the argument, but he still wants what the sin promises. He needs more than the removal of an illusion. He needs a worthy object for his love.

Imagine asking someone to surrender his most valued possession. He will resist. But suppose he discovers something of far greater value, and keeping the first would prevent him from receiving the second. What once seemed impossible to surrender may become something he willingly releases. The discovery of greater worth changes his willingness to part with lesser things. The same is true of the heart. Its attachments are powerful, but they are not beyond the reach of a greater love.


3. Disappointment with the World Cannot Give Us Love for God

Some people become weary of the very things they once pursued. Pleasure grows repetitive. Success becomes exhausting. Possessions fail to satisfy. The life they imagined would make them happy leaves them asking, “Is this all?” But disappointment is not the same as conversion. A person can become tired of the world without becoming devoted to God. He can lose his appetite for familiar pleasures without gaining an appetite for holiness.

The discovery that an idol cannot satisfy does not, by itself, teach the heart to delight in the living God. This is one reason merely exposing the emptiness of worldly living cannot accomplish all that we sometimes expect.

A preacher may speak movingly about the shortness of life. He may remind his hearers that their possessions will pass to someone else, their achievements will be forgotten, and death will interrupt every earthly plan. The congregation may listen with unusual seriousness. People may feel ashamed of their priorities. Some may even leave determined to live differently. Then Monday comes. Work resumes. The phone begins demanding attention. Money, pleasure, reputation, and worry press their claims again. The heart returns to its familiar pursuits. Sunday’s emotion was real, but emotion alone did not establish a new ruling love.

It is possible to be deeply moved by a sermon and remain fundamentally unchanged. We may feel the weight of eternity for an hour while continuing to organize our lives around the same earthly treasures. The problem requires something deeper than a passing impression. It requires the renewal of the heart.


4. The Gospel Shows Us Someone Better

John’s command is searching: “Do not love the world.” He is not forbidding us to love people, enjoy God’s creation, or receive His gifts with gratitude. He is confronting devotion to a world that lives in rebellion against its Maker—the desires and priorities that draw our hearts away from Him.

For the person who does not know God, those earthly things provide the whole framework of life. They supply his hopes, ambitions, comforts, and sense of security. Tell him to abandon them, and he hears a command to surrender everything that makes life worthwhile. How can he obey?

The gospel brings God Himself before us as the One who is worthy of our deepest love. It reveals His glory, holiness, mercy, and grace. Above all, it shows us how guilty sinners can draw near to Him through Jesus Christ. This matters because guilt creates a real barrier. We cannot simply decide to feel warmly toward the God whose judgment we deserve. Our consciences testify against us. His holiness exposes our sin.

But in the gospel, we discover that God has provided the reconciliation we could never accomplish. The Father sent His Son. Christ bore the judgment sinners deserve. Through His death and resurrection, everyone who trusts in Him receives forgiveness and acceptance with God. God’s holiness has not diminished. His justice has not been ignored. At the cross, we see both the seriousness of our sin and the greatness of His mercy.

The sinner who trusts in Christ can draw near with confidence because his acceptance rests upon a finished work. Here a new affection begins to grow. By the Spirit’s renewing work, the God we once avoided becomes the Father we love. We begin to desire His presence, value His approval, and delight in His character. The world no longer holds everything we treasure. We have found a greater treasure in Him. This new love changes the place of other things in our lives. Some must be abandoned because they are sinful. Others can remain, but they must take their proper place beneath God.

We can enjoy His gifts without asking them to become our savior. We can work diligently without making success our identity. We can love our families deeply while acknowledging that they belong to Him. Love for God begins to bring order to loves that sin has disordered.


5. Faithful Preaching Must Hold Christ Before Us

This also explains what gives Christian preaching its transforming power. A preacher may be skilled at describing the problems of his age. He may expose pride, greed, immorality, and hypocrisy with remarkable insight. His hearers may recognize themselves in every illustration.

Such exposure can be useful. But an accurate diagnosis cannot supply the cure. The preacher must proclaim Christ. He must explain who Christ is, what He has accomplished, and why sinners can trust Him. He must announce forgiveness through His blood,
righteousness received through faith, reconciliation with God, and the hope of eternal life. A preacher may lack the eloquence to describe every hidden movement of the human heart. Yet if he faithfully opens the Scriptures and makes Christ known, God can use his message to change people at the deepest level.

The power belongs to God, who works through His truth. We therefore must do more than tell people that their idols will disappoint them. We must help them see the glory of the Savior. We must speak of His compassion toward sinners, His obedience to the Father, His willingness to suffer, His victory over death, and His faithfulness to all who belong to Him. The heart needs reasons to distrust sin’s promises. It also needs to behold the One whose promises are true.


6. The Gospel Provides What Its Commands Require

Some people hear the Bible’s commands and dismiss them as unrealistic. Love God above everything? Set your heart on things above? Live by faith? Put sinful desires to death? They look at their own hearts and conclude that such a life is impossible. Yet they often overlook the very truths through which God produces that life.

They reject the gospel’s explanation of Christ’s saving work, then wonder how anyone could obey the gospel’s commands. They turn away from the message that awakens love for God, then conclude that loving Him is beyond reach.

There is a connection between what Christians believe and how Christians live. Tell a guilty sinner to love God while leaving him with no hope of forgiveness, and he will hear the command through his fear of judgment. But show him the reconciliation God has provided in Christ, and he has reason to draw near.

Tell someone to release his grip on the world while offering him nothing beyond it, and he will cling to what he knows. But show him the sufficiency of God and the certainty of His promises, and he begins to see that surrender is possible. Tell someone to be holy while leaving him to his own resources, and you give him a task he cannot accomplish. But proclaim the Savior who forgives sin and the Spirit who renews the heart, and you explain the source of a new life.

Christian doctrine belongs at the center of Christian obedience. The truth of the gospel nourishes the love from which obedience grows. Commands without the gospel leave us struggling under a burden we cannot carry. A profession of faith that has no effect upon our obedience is equally empty. God joins truth and life together: we receive His grace through faith, and His grace teaches us to follow Him.


7. Free Grace Produces Grateful Obedience

The gospel addresses both our guilt and our corruption. It brings peace with God and begins changing what we desire. These benefits belong together. Suppose we approach God as though acceptance must be earned. Every act of obedience becomes part of an anxious calculation. Have I done enough? Has my failure undone my standing? Will God receive me if I improve? Our attention remains fixed upon ourselves. Even religious activity can become an effort to secure our own safety. But the gospel announces acceptance through Jesus Christ. We receive salvation as a gift of grace, apart from our works.

That changes the character of our obedience. We begin to serve God as children who have been welcomed into His family. Gratitude gives us reasons to obey that fear alone could never supply. The believer can say, “Christ has brought me near. The Father has received me. I belong to Him. How can I give myself to what dishonors the One who has loved me so freely?” Some fear that free grace will encourage carelessness about sin. But grace, truly understood, awakens a desire to please God. The cross shows us what our sin cost, even as it assures us that the debt has been paid. To add our performance as a condition of justification clouds that assurance. It introduces uncertainty where the gospel gives us grounds for confidence.

Our obedience matters deeply. It is the fruit of salvation and the fitting response to mercy. But it cannot become the foundation of our acceptance with God. Christ alone provides that foundation. As we rest in Him, we are freed to serve with love and gratitude.


8. Feed the Love That Weakens Sin’s Grip

What should we do when love for the world remains strong? We must take sin seriously. Confess it. Turn from it. Remove occasions for it. Seek help where needed. Obedience involves deliberate action. But all our efforts must remain rooted in faith in Christ. We need to nourish the love that gives those efforts their proper direction.

Read the Scriptures to know God more truly. Consider His character and His works. Give sustained attention to the person and saving work of Jesus Christ. Pray honestly about the desires that compete for your devotion. Ask God to expose their promises and deepen your delight in Him. Gather with His people. Hear His Word. Worship Him. Give thanks for particular mercies. Remember what He has promised to everyone who belongs to Christ.
When a sinful desire presses upon you, consider what you are asking it to provide. Are you seeking comfort, security, recognition, escape, or control? Then bring that desire into the light of God’s truth. Learn to trust His wisdom and goodness in the very place where you have been tempted to trust sin.

This is not a technique for producing an immediate feeling. Spiritual growth involves conflict, repeated repentance, and persevering obedience. Believers still face competing desires. Yet the direction is clear. We fight the love of the world by cultivating love for God through the truth of His gospel. Faith lays hold of Christ. Through faith, love grows. And as love for Him grows, the world’s claim upon our hearts begins to weaken.


9. A Better Country Changes What We Hold Dear

Imagine a man standing at the edge of the only country he has ever known. Behind him are familiar homes, fruitful fields, friendships, and all the comforts of ordinary life. Before him lies darkness. He can see no home, no welcome, no place to stand. Would he willingly leave everything familiar for that emptiness? He would naturally cling to what he knows.
Now imagine that the darkness lifts. Before him appears a better country. He sees beauty untouched by decay, fellowship unbroken by selfishness, and joy untroubled by death. There is peace, holiness, and a welcome he could never earn. Then he discovers that a way has been opened for him to enter. His situation has changed. He now has something greater to draw his heart forward.

The gospel assures us of hope beyond this passing world. Through Christ, we are brought to God and await life in His presence. Because our future rests on His promise, that hope transforms how we live today. We can receive earthly blessings with thanksgiving and hold them with open hands. We can endure loss without believing that all is lost. We can refuse sinful pleasures because their promises are small beside what God has given us in His Son. And we can turn from the world’s rule over our hearts because we have come to know its rightful King.

The heart changes as it discovers His worth. The love of the world is driven out by a greater love—the love of God, awakened and nourished through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is the Expulsive Power of a New Affection.