The sermon distinguishes the biblical word “agape,” God’s selfless, unmerited giving love, from eros (romantic desire) and philia (friendship), and confronts the world’s self-love (“self love is the greatest of all love… no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us”) with a costlier love: “love him and let him love you.” Drawing on 1 John 2:15-17, it warns that love for the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — is incompatible with love for the Father, since the world and its desires are passing away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
Because the world hates Christ’s followers just as it hated him, believers must test every spirit against the confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, and hold on to a faith that overcomes the world through love for God and obedience to his commandments, which are not burdensome. The controlling motive for all of this is 2 Corinthians 5:14-15: Christ died for all so that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised on their behalf.