Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program. I'm glad
you could join us today. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the book of
2 John. I've been, for the last few weeks,
I've preached on 1 John. Well, John wrote three epistles,
1 John, 2 John, and 3 John. And Lord willing, it's my intent
to preach through the short book. There's just one chapter of 2
John and then 3 John, one chapter. And you might ask, well, why
are these so short? Well, they're short, obviously,
this is the intent of God. You know, these scriptures are
God-inspired. And These books of 2nd and 3rd
John are shorter because everything that they relate to has already
been said in 1st John. What I'm going to talk to you
about today, and this is the title of the message, The Fellowship
of Truth and Love. The Fellowship of Truth and Love.
And that's really the theme of 2nd John and 3rd John. Now, 1
John established what I call the benchmarks of true Christian
fellowship. 1 John was a polemic, which means
it presents ideas that are poles apart, like the North Pole and
the South Pole in our world, in the earth. These are ideas
that are poles apart, and he starts off, for example, talking
about light, and then darkness. Those are poles apart. That's
what a polemic is. God is light and in him is no
darkness at all. And if we're true children of
God, we walk in the light of God's truth and not in darkness. Now, there's a lot of things
we don't know. But we do know what God reveals
concerning salvation and how he saves sinners according to
his glory in and by his grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so that's the gospel light that believers are brought into
by the Holy Spirit through Christ and what they walk in. And he
says, if we walk in darkness, we're lost. That's what it is
to walk in darkness. And then another benchmark of
fellowship has to do with the idea of righteousness. To walk
in righteousness is to walk by faith in Christ. It doesn't mean
that we are righteous within ourselves or that we have righteousness
in our works. It means that we look upon Christ
as the Lord, our righteousness, and we live trusting in Him and
resting upon Him, following Him as the Lord, our righteousness.
And that's His righteousness that God has imputed to us. God
has taken the merits of Christ, obedience unto death, and He's
charged them to the account of His people. And that's what the
blood is all about. We're justified by the blood
of Christ. His blood is his death, which
brought forth perfect righteousness, perfect satisfaction to God's
law and justice. And that's what God requires.
We cannot produce that by our works, but we have it in Christ. In Jeremiah 23, he's called the
Lord our righteousness. And we stand in him. Paul wrote
about it in Romans chapter four when he said, blessed is the
man to whom righteousness is imputed, charged, accounted without
works. And our fellowship is a fellowship
of righteousness if we're in the family of God. We all recognize
that our righteousness is Christ. Another benchmark of fellowship
is love. And that's that godly love that
God brings his children into, which brings them together in
Christ. And that's a love that cannot
be broken, a fellowship that cannot be broken. A lot of people
misuse and misunderstand the word love. But anyway, those
are the benchmarks of fellowship. Well, here in 2 John, he writes,
he says, look at verse one. It says, the elder, that's John,
unto the elect lady, and her children. So now he's writing
to an elect lady and her children. Now, a lot of biblical scholars
say this elect lady is not one individual believing woman, but
it's John's using a metaphor for the church. Now that could
be so. The church is God's elect, the
elect lady. And as far as the feminine lady
there, the church is called Christ's bride, Christ's wife, the bride
of Christ, the wife of Christ. The church is the bride of Christ.
He's the husband, we're the bride. He's the head, we're the body.
And so that could be, but now it could be some insist that
he's writing to one particular woman with her children and she's
one of God's elect, indicated by her belief in the
gospel, belief in Christ. But let me tell you something,
whatever position you take on it, it doesn't matter. This is
truth for all the church. For every individual, man or
woman in the church, this book is true. So understand that. But one thing that is significant
here is he calls whoever he's talking about, the church in
general or one particular sinner saved by grace, a woman, he says,
you're elect, chosen of God. That's my friend, election is
one of the most beautiful doctrines of scripture. that before the
foundation of the world, God chose a people, not because of
any foreseen faith or works in them. God's not looking down
through the telescope of time, as some believe, or through a
crystal ball. No, he chose them by grace. They're called the election of
grace. He uses Jacob and Esau as an
example of it in Romans chapter nine. Jacob have I loved, Esau
have I hated. And that's what it says. And
somebody says, well, I don't like that. That doesn't sound
fair. Well, read Romans 9 and what you will see there, if you
object to that, if you say it's not fair or it's mean of God
to do that, read Romans 9 and recognize yourself asking the
questions there that the Apostle Paul was guided and inspired
to answer by the power of the Holy Spirit. And you'll see the
reality of it. So understand that. But this
lady was elect and her children, but here's the next thing. John
says in verse one, whom I love in the truth. Now there's the
key, the fellowship of truth and love. You see, understand,
the fellowship of God's people is a binding together that God
by His grace in Christ, brings them together on the basis of
the truth of how God saves sinners by His grace in and by the Lord
Jesus Christ. And it's not a fellowship based
upon anything else. It's not based upon your socioeconomic
class. Now you probably have people
you associate with because you have the same interest in things
of the world like maybe a job, maybe a sports team or something
like that. Maybe how much money you make
or how little you make. Maybe your skin color. That's
the way people are. That's natural man. But this
fellowship here and this love here is based upon one thing,
and that is the truth of God's gospel, how he saves sinners
by his grace in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me show
you a passage in the book of Galatians chapter three, in verse
26. You know, back in the early church,
there were many Jews who claimed to be Christian, but who insisted
that the special privileges of salvation and blessing belonged
only to the Jews and not to the Gentiles. And in order for believing
Gentiles to enter into these special privileges, they had
to succumb to Jewish practices like circumcision, keeping a
Sabbath, keeping a day, all of that. And Paul the Apostle especially,
but even Peter later on, was adamant to dispel that kind of
thinking. That is not Christian thinking. That is not grace thinking. That is not gospel thinking.
That is not any part of the fellowship of the true Christian faith.
And Paul writes in Galatians 3, 26 about it. He says in verse
26, for you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. How do I know I'm a child of
God? How do I know I'm a sinner saved by grace? How do I know
that I have His righteousness imputed to me? I'm justified,
forgiven, declared righteous by faith in Jesus Christ. And
that faith is not natural to you or me. It's not the product
of our own decision. This faith is not because you
made a decision for Christ when you were 12, 13, 14 years old.
It's not because you were baptized. This faith only comes under the
truth by the new birth God given. For by grace are you saved through
faith that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works lest any man should boast. It's not because you gave your
heart to Jesus. It's because he gave you a new
heart. Read the Bible. And so he goes
on in Galatians chapter three, look at verse 27. For as many
of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Now to be baptized into Christ there is not referring to water
baptism. Now water baptism, immersion,
in the Bible is an ordinance, a confession of Christ. There is no salvation in the
waters of baptism. Salvation is in the water of
life, Jesus Christ, the blood of Christ. And those who are
baptized are to be baptized in His name, confessing that He
is their salvation. And if you're baptized without
knowing Christ, you just took a swim. That's all. But baptism
does not save you, does not wash away sins, but baptized into
Christ here simply means placed into Christ or united to Christ. Believers, God's elect, were
united to Christ before the foundation of the world eternally. They
were united to Christ legally in justification. When Christ
died, He died for me. I died with Him. Legally not
in my own person. I wasn't there but I was there
in his mind and heart According to the electing grace of God
when he was buried I was buried when he arose again. I rose again
when he ascended under the father. I ascended I am in Christ. I'm united to him. He's my representative
legally and then we were reunited to Christ redemptively when in
his death when he died and But then in time, God's gonna bring
his elect under the preaching of the gospel, and they will
be united to Christ spiritually in the new birth. And so he says,
as many as have been baptized into Christ, united to Christ,
have put on Christ. Now to put him on is to believe
in him. Put on, like a garment. That's
a metaphor now, not a literal description. It's not that Christ
is just on the outside of us, no, He's on the inside of us
by His Spirit and by His Word, but we believe on Him. And then
He says in verse 28, now look at this, if we believe in Christ,
if we've been united to Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek,
Jew nor Gentile, there's neither bond nor free, there's neither
male nor female, for you are all one, united, one body, in
Jesus Christ. And if you be Christ, if you
belong to Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according
to the promise. You're believers, sinners saved
by grace. So this fellowship that John
is speaking of in 2 John, it's the fellowship of love and truth. And it's that truth that brings
people together in love, united together under the gospel. Now,
this love is much misunderstood. We always think of love as an
emotion or a feeling, like a Hallmark card or something, and that's
not what it is. This love is what causes believers
to stay together in Christ, in the truth. And he says in verse
one, now this is 2 John 1, the elder unto the elect lady and
her children whom I love in the truth, and not only I, but also
all they that have known the truth. Not only is John the apostle
in fellowship with this lady or this group of people in the
truth, but all believers are together in the truth. Verse
two says, for the truth's sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall
be with us forever. If the truth is in you, if the
truth has set you free, if Christ has set you free, you'll be there
forever. As we learned back in 1 John,
you cannot apostatize from Christ. One thing I know, if God the
Holy Spirit has given you life, a new heart, a new mind, knowledge,
and brought you to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works,
You cannot ignore it, you cannot deny it, and you cannot leave
it. And if you just have an outward profession of faith, you can
and will. But he says in verse three, grace
be with you, mercy and peace from God the Father, and from
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. You see how he emphasizes that?
In truth, not just in truth. In love, not just in love, but
in truth and love. And so he says in verse four,
I rejoice greatly that I found thy children walking in truth
as we have received a commandment from the Father. And what is
that commandment? It's to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and love the brethren. That's the commandments that
he's talking about. And that's the work of the Holy
Spirit by the grace of God in Christ. And so he says in verse
five, and now I beseech thee, lady, Not as though I wrote a
new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning,
that we love one another. John spoke of that. He said,
I write no new commandment unto you. And he said, but an old
commandment, which is new in a sense in that you've never
done this before. Oh, you might've had religious
fellowship with a lot of people before you heard the gospel,
but it wasn't religious fellowship in the truth. And in the love
of God, there's no true godly fellowship until you're brought
to the truth. And thereupon comes the love
that binds us together. And so he says in verse six,
and this is love that we walk after his commandments. And this
is the commandment that as you have heard from the beginning,
you should walk in it. You see that? Love God, love
our neighbor, yes, but the commandment given to believers in line with
that is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and love the brethren. Under the law, we're told to
love everybody. Love everybody, even our enemies,
he says. He said that in Matthew 5 in
the Sermon on the Mount. But that's a different kind of
love. And I'm not just trying to shirk my responsibility to
love my enemies. That's hard to do. It's impossible
for us to do perfectly. We're to love our enemies. But
Christian love in love and truth, the fellowship of truth and love
is different. That's what causes us to stand
together under the truth of the gospel. If you believe the gospel,
the true gospel now, I'm with you and you're with me. Now we
may not like the same ball teams or we may not like the same politics. We might get upset and angry
over certain things and argue with each other, but in the gospel,
we're together. And that's what he's talking
about. Now he goes on to verse seven. He talks about a negative
here. He says, for many deceivers are
entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ has come
in the flesh. There are deceivers who've come
into the world who do not believe the gospel, but they claim to
be Christian. That's why they're deceivers. They claim to know Christ. They
claim to believe in him. They claim to believe the gospel.
but they don't believe the true gospel. You know, there are many
false gospels out there in this world that come under the name
of Christianity. That's right. Let me tell you
something about false gospels. There's basically, we could talk
about that for ages, because there's so many. But basically,
and here's what you need to look for, when you're listening to
a preacher preach, including me, You need to look for several
things, but all false gospels will make salvation in some way,
at some stage, to some degree, conditioned on you or me, conditioned
on sinners. Whereas the true gospel, tells
of a salvation that was and is conditioned wholly, 100% upon
Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is both God manifest in the
flesh and who by His work on the cross fulfilled those conditions
and secured the entire salvation of every sinner for whom He died
and was buried in a rose again on that cross the third day.
Now that's the true gospel. But now false gospels will go
elsewhere. They'll talk about how Christ died for everybody
conditionally. He died for you, but you must
make the difference. That's a deceiver now. The true
gospel is wrapped up in the glory of Christ's person as God manifests
in the flesh and the power and success of his redemptive work
on the cross to save his people from their sins. Jesus Christ
crucified. So that's the first thing. The
second thing that all false gospels will do is they will measure
holiness and righteousness on a sliding scale rather than pointing
you constantly to the perfection of righteousness and holiness
and goodness that can only be found in Christ, crucified and
risen from the dead. Now that's so. You know, when
people talk about being right with God, being blessed of God,
a lot of times they'll talk about, well, you know, I've got to do
better. And they may need to do better.
I need to do better. But my doing better is not my
righteousness before God. My works are not my holiness
in God's sight. Christ is. For Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And
if they come along preaching any other way, calling it Christ
or Jesus Christ, it's a false Christ. Paul dealt with that
in 2 Corinthians 11 when he talked about when those who come preach
another Jesus by another spirit, another gospel. And so in 2 John
7, he says, for many deceivers are entered into the world who
confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Now what
he's talking about there is the whole gospel, the person and
work of Christ. And he says, this is a deceiver
and an antichrist. That's one of the few times that
you see the word Antichrist in the Bible. It's always used by
the Apostle John. Antichrist simply means to be
against Christ, the true Christ. And anybody who claims to believe
in Christ, and to follow Christ, and to preach Christ, who doesn't
believe in, follow, and preach the true Christ, is Antichrist. And so he says in verse eight,
look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have
wrought, that is, which we have gained, not that we worked for. I know a lot of people say, well,
you worked for it. No, we don't work for it, God gives it, we
gained it. And he says, but that we receive
a full reward. Now, the full reward is eternal
glory. And it's not the reward of our
works. It's not even the reward of our perseverance. It's the
reward of grace. When Christ saves a sinner, He
keeps that sinner and He brings that sinner into glory. And it's
not rewards-based religion. In fact, the word reward here
is singular. It's the full reward that Christ
earned for His people and that they all receive equally because
of His righteousness imputed to us. It's not that God's gonna
bring you to judgment and say, well, let's see how many works
you did, and I'm gonna give you a bigger mansion, or I'm gonna
give you a smaller mansion. No, that's not gospel. That's
works, that's antichrist. No, sir. It speaks of the reward
of righteousness, the reward of grace. That's what Christ
earned for his people. All the benefits and blessings
that God's people receive are in inheritance. of grace. And so he says in verse nine,
now this is where he puts this fellowship of truth and love
to the test. Whosoever transgresseth and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. And he that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. Am I in fellowship
with Christ? John spoke of it in 1 John 1,
our fellowship is with the Father and the Son. He went on, our
fellowship by the Spirit is with the people of God. Well, how
do I know if I'm in fellowship with the Father and the Son?
How do I know I'm in fellowship with the people of God? Well,
he says it here, whosoever transgresseth, that word transgression means
go too far. and abideth, continueth not in
the doctrine, the teaching of Christ, hath not God." My friend,
if you claim to be a Christian, but you don't believe the gospel
that is according to truth, this word, you don't have God. You're not a child of God. You
give no evidence of being in fellowship with God. But he that
continueth in the doctrine of Christ, the teachings of Christ,
the glory of his person, the power of his finished work, he
has both the Father and the Son. He's in fellowship with the Father
and the Son. This is the fellowship of truth
and love. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
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today and may the Lord be with you.