Let's turn together to the letter
of 1 John and let's continue to plug through this little text.
1 John. I'm going to teach all the way
through verse 11 this morning starting in, of course, where
we are right now, verse 7, the for, the because, what's really
happening. in this text. And I want to remind
us all, too, that though there are manifold interpretations
of the occasion of this text and the audience, we really have
to put it in the light of what John has written already in his
first epistle. We want to take the narrowest
path possible to the easiest option so that we all can stay
on the same page. Otherwise, there's going to have
to be some extra biblical or outside biblical influence for
us to even understand what John's trying to say. Does that make
sense? And so because there is not a
secondary Bible, because there are not the appendices of John,
because there is not some other explanation somewhere else, we
trust by the scripture that the scripture in and of itself is
sufficient for the teaching of the church. So if this is true,
then we can stand knowing that what John is saying is what he's
already said. Not only that, we can dig deep
into the grammar. We can look at the manuscripts
of antiquity. We can look at all the different
variants of the grammar in the Greek even. And we can know that
what we have translated here is okay, but it doesn't necessarily
mean that it's perfect. But what is perfect is the truth
contained therein. What is perfect is the message
that John is giving. And so John has written this
letter and he's written this letter to the church to the church
plural calling her the elect lady and her children and he's
written this letter in a sense to remind them of what he's already
instructed the body of Christ to be doing and their love for
one another which is walking in the light of righteousness
which is walking in service to the Lord and He's heard about
these who have gone out and now others who have gone out into
the world, as we'll see this morning, the parallel and also
the distinctions between those two things from 1st and 2nd John.
And then he'll teach an exception to this command. And that's where
he's gonna start in verse seven. So let's read from, let's just
read the first 11 verses together. 1st John, I mean 2nd John. I've
been saying 1st John the whole time, haven't I? 2nd John. I can see y'all like, what are
you doing? Just yell it out next time. We'll
do like an auctioneer. To the elder, to the elect lady
and her children, whom I love in the truth and not only I,
but also all who know the truth because of the truth that abides
in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace will
be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's
Son, in truth and love. I rejoice greatly to find some
of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded
by the Father. And now I ask you, dear lady,
not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the
one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And
this is love, that we walk according to his commandments. This is
the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning,
so that you should walk in it. Because many deceivers have gone
out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of
Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is a deceiver and
the Antichrist. Watch yourselves, be careful,
so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but we may
win a full reward. Everyone who goes ahead and does
not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever
abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone
comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive
him into your home or give him any greeting, for whoever greets
him literally takes part in this wicked works. Though I have much
to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead,
I hope to come to you and talk face to face that our joy may
be complete. The children of your elect sister
greet you." You see, Paul is saying, we, the children, your
elect sister, we greet you, the children, of our Lexister, etc. Now some of us can relate to
what I'm about to share just as an example but growing up
there used to have, in this area specifically, there used to be
a season of time where we would have tents put up. And preachers
would be paraded through, people would come, choirs and musicians
from all the different congregations would come, and everybody would
sing, and they'd call it revival, right? You know what I'm talking
about when I say revival. And then when it went from tents, it went into
sharing the buildings of other congregations. And there's just
this parade of preachers that would just come through town.
And some of them were like bolsterous, some of them were timid, some
of them were serious, some of them were funny, some of them
were ridiculously incomprehensible. But as a child, you know, all
preachers sound like the Peanuts adults. And so it didn't really
matter what they were saying. I don't remember what they were
preaching. I remember the drawing birds in my picture Bible. Every
outdoor scene has a bird that I drew in it. I still have that
Bible today. So that's what I did as a child when there was somebody
preaching. I drew birds. But there's this
parade of preachers. And beloved, believe it or not,
even though we don't see that normative today, there is still a parade
of preachers. There's a parade of preachers on social media,
there's a parade of preachers on YouTube, there's a parade
of preachers on all the different platforms, there's websites galore,
there's sermon audio, and all the other different outlets through
which they can be posted and published. And so what we've
done in our lives is we've paraded a whole bunch of preachers before
our faces and before our hearts and before our ears. And sometimes
we've done so without any discernment whatsoever. We turn on the television,
there's a parade of preachers. And specifically when I talk
about preachers, I'm saying that term other than pastor, shepherd,
because these are people who just talk. Preachers are those
who just talk. Preachers just say stuff, they
teach things. A pastor teaches for a purpose, to shepherd and
to govern and to mature and to grow and to encourage and to
equip and to discipline himself and his family as one body. But we have all been inundated
with the parade of preachers, especially in our present day
culture. Now that's something that I never grew into the habit
of doing. I can't tell you that I've probably seen five YouTube
sermons in my entire life, that I've downloaded maybe less than
10 sermons my entire life from the internet whatsoever. I've
read a lot of sermons, I've been sent snippets of things, but
I've never been into the habit of just listening to preaching,
primarily because I don't have time. I don't have time, and
if I did, and in the times that I have specifically gone to look
for some specific preaching, it was to see, it was to interact,
it was to inform myself of what was being taught in a particular
congregation. So, of all the people that I've listened to,
it has been more research than it has been worship. But what
about you? I mean, how many preachers have
paraded through your eyes? How many different types of preaching?
How many sermons have come into your ears? How much truth has
been there? How much error has been put there?
Isn't it something? You know, I wish the Holy Spirit
on the day of our conversion, the moment of our experience
of life, to see the gospel, to understand what Christ has done
for his people, to rest in the sufficiency of all of his work,
where he satisfied the wrath of God for us and established
his righteousness to our account that we might be the righteousness
of God, having escaped all the condemnation therein of true
justice. This is the good news, right? I wish during that moment
that all understanding would be granted to us. Like it hit
us with this big gong of something, boom, and we open the Bible,
we know all things, we know all error, we are able to discern
all truth. But beloved, it's not that way.
The Bible does not teach us that we have supernatural inerrancy
in our understanding, nor does the Bible teach us that we have
an absolute supernatural and divine filter that protects us
completely from being deceived. And this is the point that I
wanna make very clear before we continue in this letter. Because,
I'm gonna tell you, I haven't had to go into looking and see
historically what theologians think about this text because
I have heard it my entire life. First John's the test to see
if you're really in the faith. If you don't pass all nine tests,
you're going to hell. Well, is salvation passing nine
tests? Or is salvation the sufficiency
of the work of Christ? What must you do to be saved? What does the apostle say? Believe
on the Son whom the Father has sent. He is the Christ. That word means Messiah. He is
the one who has satisfied God's wrath for His people. Resting
in the gospel is not found when we have to
pass a bunch of tests to see if we've rested in the gospel.
And so in like manner, 2 John is the test of who has passed
the test of 1 John. How do we know? That's not the
context. The context is so Myopic. It's so narrow. It's like there's
a big wall and we've drilled a 16th of an inch hole in it
and we're looking through that hole. And we can only see what's
in front of that hole. That is the centeredness of what
John is writing about here. He's not writing vaguely. He's
not writing broadly. He's not writing ambiguously.
And beloved, this letter is to teach us. We as the body of Christ,
we are here to learn, to be taught, to do the work of the ministry.
And this is something that I have to be very careful not to get
on my fundamental high horse and jump up and down and beat
the pulpit because I get really excited. People think I get angry. No, when I get serious about
something, I have the street preacher attitude. I just get
loud. I get loud. I'm not angry. I'm
just excited about teaching truth. And I want everybody to hear
it. And long before there were microphones, you had to learn
to project your voice. So I learned to project my voice,
and that's why a monitor is important. Otherwise I'd be yelling. Before
we had this monitor, many of you would jump three or four
times during Sunday. So this parade of preachers would
come around and they'd preach Christ. They'd preach a Jesus.
They'd preach a Messiah. And sometimes some of us would
go, wow, I never thought about that. I never thought about that. I've never heard that. That makes
a lot of what? Sense. And something about this
position being elevated two feet up off the ground with a microphone,
me standing here, looking all authoritative, it's the same
podium that you have at Walmart for the greeters. I mean, you
see the same position behind something to utilize. And if
it were this big, I'd have more stuff on it, spilling water,
knocking over things. This is not power. This is not
authority. This is power. This is authority. And as I said a thousand times
over, if a cat meows the Word of God, we are subject to it.
It's not about the man standing that makes the difference. It's
about the words coming out of his mouth are congruent with
that which is written, thus saith the Lord, in the pages herein.
So the Christ that we've heard preached is often very subtly
the same. You probably don't remember,
but I'll promise you if you grew up in the United States and you
went to revival meetings and you went to most evangelical
congregations and you spent some time listening to a parade of
preachers and guest speakers, you have heard of false Christ.
You don't have to have grown up under the Russellite persuasion,
the Jehovah's Witness persuasion, or the LDS persuasion to have
said, well, I was in a false Christ. You probably have heard
a false Christ from most Baptist pulpits, from most Methodist
pulpits, from most non-denominational pulpits. The question is, how
do we know? Well, I'm glad you asked. Now let's put back into perspective,
let's have in our mind before we get to the therefores, because
we get this teaching that John's going to give us, but we need
to make sure that we pay close attention to the fact that he
has precluded this with the command to love one another as Christ
has given you. The Father has commanded you. Christ is the
one who verbally said the command in his ministry. And so we're
seeing that that which Christ speaks is that which the Father
speaks. They are one God but two distinct persons. The Trinity,
the three-in-one, is an essential reality of the gospel because
it is an essential reality of who Christ is. And to be honest,
this is the specific issue that is taking place for the occasion
of this letter. This is the specific problem
that's going on here with this Gnostic-type teaching. What did
the Gnostics believe? The Gnostics believed in a higher
knowledge. The Gnostics believed that they could gain some greater
knowledge. And I'll go ahead and give you
this. If you look right there, look at verse nine. It says, everyone who goes on
ahead. You see that? That's almost sarcasm. What he's saying is these folks
that know a lot more than you do. They have gone beyond the
scripture. They've gone beyond what has
been revealed in the Bible. They've gone beyond the teachings
of Jesus himself. They have gained some new knowledge.
That's what Gnostics were all about. And because of that, and
I've said this already, some sects of Gnosticism Or all sects
of Gnosticism believed that that which was material, that which
could be touched and felt and measured and understood in the
material world was evil. So therefore there is no logical
way that Christ being righteousness could have been in a human body.
He was ethereal at best. He looked as though he were there,
but he was not there in a human body. And this was the blasphemous
error that the Gnosics were purveying. Now if Jesus did not come in
human flesh then his death was worthless. Because he did not
represent the elect of God in his suffering. He did not represent
the elect of God in his death and he surely didn't represent
the elect of God in his resurrection and the promise of eternal life
therein. God was not satisfied in the The role-playing of redemption. God is satisfied in true justice,
which requires true penalty, which requires true suffering
against true flesh. So God, the Son, took on flesh. And people were revising that.
Why? Because it's easier. It's easier in a lot of ways
to just pretend that what Jesus said about himself is not necessarily
the whole truth, but we can understand a little bit different because
the Spirit, they would say, God has taught me things that maybe
He'll teach you one day. Have you ever had somebody try
to argue with you about the person of Christ and tell you that one
day God will teach you, but they can't show you in the Bible?
See, that's what the Gnostics were doing. I have great knowledge.
Well, I don't see that in my Bible. Well, you just haven't
grown up enough yet. You gotta move beyond the reading, son.
You gotta get into the spirit. Well, that's not the way it works.
Because the spirit is the spirit of what? Truth. Truth is found
through the revelation of God alone through the written word
that he has established for us through the prophets and the
apostles. To which we would do well to pay attention, Peter
says. All of it. So we have the command to love.
We are to be walking We walk, in verse six, we walk in according
to the commandments. This is the commandment, just
as you've heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. We
are to be walking in mutual affection because of the truth of the gospel.
We cannot love Christ, we cannot love God, except through our
love for one another. This isn't new for us, beloved.
We've been hearing this for years. I've been in John's gospel, what,
three years? And so here we see this commandment.
And now we're going to see some instruction that seems to violate
this commandment. That's why John emphasizes it
so much here. The reason he wrote this letter
is to tell them to watch out for these evildoers. Watch out
for these false teachers. But he wanted to remind them
that they are a call to love. In verse seven, let's look at
that, four. I want you to love one another. I want you to walk.
I want you to understand you gotta have intimacy. You gotta
have closeness. not only so you can discern but so that you can
protect. Many deceivers, look at this, have gone out into the
world. Those who do not confess, and
this is important, the coming, grammatically there it's important,
the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the
deceiver and the Antichrist Watch yourselves so that, and I'm gonna
change this pronoun, should say we may not lose what we have
worked for, but may win a full reward. And
the reason I changed that is because the better texts say
we, and he says we secondly. So because of you, we don't lose. So we, it doesn't really matter,
I just prefer we. Because we are the body. We are
the body of Christ. We are the elect of God. We are
the believing ones. We are the church. And we must
pay close attention. So let's unpack this little by
little by little. And I might get through all through
verse 11 today. And if I do, I'm going to go
back in and pull out some application for the next few weeks. And then
we'll close the letter and move to 3 John. And then we're going
to get into the writing of Paul to Timothy. But there are deceivers. What do these deceivers do? Well,
these deceivers have, of course, changed the message of Christ. They've changed the message concerning
Messiah, who Messiah is. Not necessarily Jesus, but who
Messiah is. You know, we've already seen
in the introduction where John makes it very clear, God the
Father is from whom we get grace, mercy, and peace. And for those
of you who have not heard the sermon from like week two or
three, you need to go back and listen to that because it's important.
to see and understand the gospel in that context. And we get that
grace, mercy, and peace that will be with us. It's an absolute
certainty. It cannot not be with us. It
will be with us because it has come from God the Father. And
it has also come from God the Father and from Jesus Christ,
who is the Christ, Messiah, who is the Father's Son. So the distinction
there is to illustrate not only the divine nature of Jesus, but
the distinct person of Jesus. as the eternal Son of God who
took on flesh. Now I know we all want to have
that PhD come up in Trinitarian theology and lay it out so simply
with object lessons for like a five-year-old that we can go,
I get it, I get it. We're not supposed to get it
to get it. We're supposed to receive it and believe it. The
explanation of the incarnation is not given to us. The reality
of it is. So we receive by faith, and that
is the work of the Spirit. We rest in it. But yet our cognitive
minds, we love to mull around and think, oh yeah, I'd love
to have more detail. Well, the detail is the truth
that this is the truth, and Christ is the truth, and the Father
sent His Son in truth and love. So these deceivers change the
message concerning Christ. They say, well, Jesus, like we've
heard some of the, you know, we all know the cults. The cults
will say, well, you know, Jesus isn't God or Jesus is the Father,
and that's not true. We know modalism and Unitarianism
and all these other different heresies. The reason why we call
them heresies, divided opinions and error, is because they are
disruptive to the very expression of who Jesus says in the Bible
concerning himself. that he even says out of his
own mouth, my father's testimony of me and the Spirit's testimony
of me. So Jesus exposes, exposits, exegetes,
makes known that there are three persons who are one God. So these revisionists, these
guys, gals, whoever they were, teachers specifically, They were
not confessing, look at that, the coming of Jesus Christ in
the flesh. And what they were doing, they had gone out into
the world. Now this sounds very similar to over in 1 John where
we look and we see there are many who have false prophets
among the people as they have risen among you in 1 John 2.
And they have left out from among us for they were not with us.
Now that's true, where did they go? They left the assembly of
the saints. But these particular false teachers have come into
the assembly of the saints. Because what they did is they
left the apostolic teaching, they left the churches where
they started in the truth, and they changed their mind about
what they believed concerning Christ. Then they left out of
there and they went into the world and now they're coming
back into the churches. What does it mean to go out into
the world? Does it ring a bell? How about Acts chapter two? You
will be my witnesses in all the world. So these people are evangelists. These people are missionaries.
Most importantly, these people are preachers teaching lies about
Christ. And that is their job, that is
their desire, that is their purpose. Have you ever noticed it's not
these types of deceivers? They're not the ones who go out
in the world in the street corner and try to evangelize unchurched
people, are they? No, they come into the folds
of religious families. They come into the folds of certain
congregations. They want to convert people inside
the body to their way of thinking. And this has always been the
case. And one of my tenures in California, we had a gentleman
show up for a weekend conference and he was talking, during the
breaks, he was talking some nonsense. And one of the brothers came
up to me and said, Pastor, this guy over here is, I think he's teaching
full preterism. And he's teaching license to
sin over here. Really, let's go talk to this
guy. And ultimately we had to take the man out of the property
because he started handing out literature opposing the person
of Christ, trying to persuade the brothers and the sisters
of the faith from our congregation to come to one of his meetings
so that they could enjoy great new knowledge about the freedom
of the fact that there is no afterlife. This is it. We're done. God wants us to have
a good time. Live it up. And a similar situation
happened one time with someone who did not believe that the
word of God was sufficient. And they tried to come into the
church and joined a Sunday school class and started having little
coffee meetings with some of the brothers. Next thing you
know, this is long before Facebook was a thing. I don't think we
did Bible stuff on MySpace. I don't even remember what that
looked like. I just remember Tom, that's it. But this guy
started saying, well, you know what? People started coming to
me and saying, this man we're talking with here, he doesn't
believe that the Bible is even real. We shouldn't listen to the word
of God, we should pray. and talk to one another, and
in our praying and talking and listening to one another, God
will show us things that's never been written down. And believe it or not, there
were some people that started thinking that sounded pretty
good. And I'm going, yeah, and that's not new either. The prince of the power of the
air is always teaching somebody something. And he teaches us
stuff according to our desire of our flesh. That's what James
1's all about, right? Tempts us with new knowledge. Isn't
that what he did in the garden? Isn't that what Satan did in
the garden? He tempted Adam and Eve with new knowledge. He didn't
completely lie, he just didn't tell the truth. Hey, you know what, if you eat
this, you'll be like God in that you'll know something God doesn't
want you to know. A secret? See, gossip was already
in the heart of Adam and Eve. There's some secrets. You will
be like God, knowing good and evil. He told the truth. But
they didn't listen to what God had said. You see, outside the
scripture is a danger zone. It's a danger zone. And deceivers
change the message of the person of Christ in his incarnation.
They change the message then of the atonement. They change
the message then by implication of what the Bible even teaches,
thus they throw the scripture out all together and deceivers
evangelize with their message. They've gone out traveling around
and preaching. And beloved, it's never changed.
It's never changed. These people are claiming to
be Christian missionaries, claiming to have the gospel, sometimes
of free and sovereign grace, claiming to be theologians, claiming
to be apologists, claiming to be professors, claiming to be
pastors, but they are false teachers, and John calls them Antichrist.
Now see, that scares us. We get a lot of folks that just
get so scared. John is the only person that
writes the word Antichrist in the entire Bible. He's the only
person, there's five times he used the term Antichrist and
he's always talking about those who teach against the true doctrines
of Christ. 100% of the time, the Antichrist
is not a figure, it is a plural mindset of those who claim to
be Christian but preach against the Christ of the Bible. It is
a worldview. For those of you who weren't
here from my quick reading on Revelation, you can go back and
read that or listen to those on the church website. 27 weeks, I think it was a short
series. But deceivers, they are the Antichrist. In verse 8, though, he talks
now to the believers. He's not calling the deceivers.
He's talking to the believers. He's talking to the little children
who have the grace, the mercy, and the peace of God with them,
and that will be with them forever. Verse three, you see. So don't
lose sight of that. Don't think that John is changing
gears and calling the believers unbelievers. He's warning them
about these false teachers who have said Christ did not come
in the flesh. This is the only false teaching
that John is dealing with. He's not dealing with anything
else. That's it. There's no other implication,
segue, broad stroke, nothing else that is being talked about
in this letter except the incarnation, the human nature of Jesus Christ
in the flesh. And some of us may be thinking,
who would argue against that besides the cults? A lot of Southern Baptist churches
argue against it. One of the biggest churches in
Atlanta argues against it. It don't matter if Jesus was born
of a virgin. It don't matter if he was really a man. It don't
matter if this is my, it don't matter. He taught us a good way
to go. But beloved, you're gonna follow in the path of Christ
by following his example? And think that's gonna stand
before the father of righteousness? How much good works it's gonna
take for you to stand perfect before the Lord? You have to
actually be just like God in order to not be condemned by
God. And the only way you can be just like God is if God Himself
substituted Himself for you, and His perfect righteousness
is given to your account, and your sin is given to His account,
and He satisfies His wrath upon Himself. That's what happened.
That's what happened. That's the good news. But He's
telling the church, be careful, watch yourselves, beware, so
that we may not lose what we have worked for. we've worked
for. You see here, this is where,
this particular passage, I don't want to really get into all the
negative stuff and all the false stuff that can take place here,
but this passage is used by a lot of people to say, see, you can
lose your salvation and your salvation is something you've
got to work for. You've got to work for your salvation and you've been
doing well, but now, oh no, whoopsie, you've slid back down. Where
do we go? Beloved, is that good news? If
you have to get up every day and take the checklist of works,
checklist of salvation attainment, how close do you have to get
to obtain it. All the way there. You have to
get all the way there. You have to be completely divinely
perfect in all ways, all thoughts, at all times, forever. You cannot
do it. Salvation is not working toward
anything. Salvation is resting in the one
who worked for you, Jesus Christ the righteous. Resting. A body at rest is not moving,
is not striving, is not working. But because we are set apart
by Christ as a gift of grace, now there are some instructions
that we can strive to. And the primary instruction is
that we love one another as Christ has loved us. And that we serve
one another as if we are serving Christ. And that we teach one
another and protect one another and grow together and take care
of each other's needs. As we hold fast to the truth
of Christ, sharing life together, the word fellowship is all things
in common. Koinonia. Not, here's a buffet
for us to eat off of. Nothing wrong with those, let's
do it. But, that's not the point of fellowship. All things in
common. And specifically, we have the blood of Christ in common.
We have the grace of God in common. It's true for all of us who believe.
It's not true for the world. It's not true for unbelievers. So be careful. I don't want you
to lose what you've worked for. I don't want you to lose ground.
I don't want you to lose hope. I don't want you to lose joy.
I don't want you to slip back into despair. Because what are
we working toward? Glory. What are we working toward?
Joy, peace, grace, mercy. These things have been given
to us. We're working to the praise of His glorious grace. We're
looking for that joy, that gratitude and resting in Him so that our
joy may be complete. He said it over in 1 John twice.
He said it over here in 2 John already. We want to rest so that
our joy is complete, so that the troubles of this world and
the troubles of our mind and the troubles of our flesh are
not just inundating us and crashing us to the bottom of nowhere,
but when we are putting preachers in front of us who teach us falsely,
even if we can see it, we go from a place of joy and peace
and rest to a place of aggravation, fear, and frustration. If we're not even thinking and
deceived by it. And I'll be honest, I think it
really roots down to this. Believers must be watchful that
they do not become paranoid. They must be watchful for the
deception of their own minds. You realize when false teachers
come along that we have a responsibility to make sure that we do not embrace
them and endorse them and expose the body of Christ to them? That we also have a responsibility
to watch our own selves in thinking that the grace of God and the
truth of Christ is within our power to purify. That we actually
can keep someone from deception. You know how ridiculous that
is? You think someone's deceived by teaching them their deception,
you can actually see regeneration? We are not the Holy Spirit. God
does not use the exposition of deception for regeneration. He
uses the bold proclamation of the gospel and its purity. And
if people can't see that because they love what they can see,
it's because God has blinded their eyes. 2 Corinthians chapter
4. We do not practice cunning. or
twisting of the truth, but by bold proclamation of the truth.
We set ourselves before you, our conscience is clear. We set
ourselves before God, our conscience is clear. And if our gospel is
veiled, it is only veiled to those who are perishing, for
the God of this world has blinded the eyes of unbelievers to keep
them from seeing the light of the glory of Christ. But God
who said, let light shine out of darkness, what did the world
do for its own creation? Nothing. But God who said let light shine
on darkness has shone in our hearts to give us the light of
the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Deceivers think they're doing
something and we shouldn't give them the time of day as we'll
see. We should watch for the deception
in our own minds, we should watch for spirituality and maturity
arguments, we should watch out for thinking that we are gaining
some type of increase in our understanding. Test the spirits,
John said over there in chapter four of his first letter, beloved,
test the spirits to see if whether they are from God. Test the spirits,
test the teaching, test this. These people thought they had
progressed, That's what it means to go on ahead. These people
had gone on ahead. They have gone out into the world,
as we'll see there in just a minute. They thought they progressed
beyond what scripture teaches and they had gained some knowledge.
They had sort of settled into their reasoning, their argumentation,
the inferences, the implications, the opinions, the wisdom and
the applications of things that they had thought through themselves
and felt like that their understanding was superlative to that which
the apostles taught. And he says, believers beware,
watch out. Don't get sucked into this. He told the same thing
to the Church of Colossae, right? Do not be deceived by plausible
arguments. Do not be deceived by the elemental
spirits of this world. Do not be deceived by all of
this philosophy. What is philosophy? Thinking
about that which we hear, know, read, see, understand. How far
should we think? We should grow in the knowledge
of grace, Peter says. We should think until we run off the page
and then we can go back. It's okay to think. It's okay
to grow. It's okay to ponder. It's okay to wonder. Beloved,
if I wrote down everything that I thought, everything that I
even considered, wouldn't it be cool if I would be the biggest
heretic in the world? So when I set my mind to thinking,
I can really come up with some incredibly Well, some good screenplays. But they'd be antichrist. So
we just rope our thoughts right back into the scripture and we
don't progress. Because if we progress beyond
what scripture, we're moving away from the foundation. And
Paul tells in the letter to the first Corinthians, he tells the
Corinthians, you know, don't go beyond the foundation. For
the foundation was laid by the prophets. What's the foundation? The gospel of Jesus, Jesus Christ
and his word. The incarnation, the God-man
coming into the flesh, son of God coming into the flesh, becoming
the God-man and taking on the sins to satisfy the wrath of
God, of his people, that they may be the righteousness of God
through his imputed righteousness, through his perfection credited
to their account. That's why it's called Good News.
It's a single-sided transaction where God himself has satisfied
all the requirements therein of all the covenants therein.
and he is pleased. Jesus has sat down, it says in
Hebrews 1, at the right hand of majesty after making propitiation
for sin, satisfaction of God's wrath, propitiation, that's what
it means, in a simple sense. So when we move away from the
foundation, Paul would say to the Corinthians, well, you know, we've got the
foundation of the prophets, if we build on the foundation with
anything other than the same material, it's gonna be burned
away. And I see a lot of houses, I see a lot of slabs sitting
out there, but I see a lot of houses going up. Some additions going
on. And we pour the foundation, we
make sure it's firm to the ground. and then we build with sticks
and wood and plaster and then you know you put your roof material
on and you got windows and doors and all that kind of stuff. Well,
imagine that. Imagine in a spiritual sense building a house, building
the gospel. Here is Jesus Christ, the concrete
slab that goes to the center of the earth and then we're gonna
build our way up to heaven. You know some people tried to
do that, right? We see that story in the Old Testament. That's
world religion. That's man's efforts. Babble.
Look at what we've done. We got so high. Not even close. All fall short of the glory of
God. All are sinners. We don't build on anything other
than Christ. and we don't build out of anything
other than Christ. If we come to others with arguments
of apologetics that are not foundationally in the truth of Christ alone,
God is not establishing his people through those efforts. He cannot
do it because it would make him a liar. Well, you need to think
about this. This error is not right. Oh,
you know what? Anybody can come to those conclusions.
The question is, has God shown you the resting faith of truth? It's not wrong to have these
conversations, but don't think they're going to create conversion. They
don't create conversion. They create understanding, but
they don't create conversion. God the Spirit converts, and
He only does so through the occasion of the true teaching of Christ.
And so if we build upon the foundation when it's all tested in judgment,
like fire, the only thing that's going to be left is the gospel.
The only thing that's going to be left is Jesus. And so if we do anything
but that, then what's left? Nothing. So we're going to lose
what we've worked for. It's the same language that Paul
says to the Corinthians. And if you do see people, you
do see salvation through our gospel ministry, you do see God
bringing people to the truth and causing them to believe.
We do see regeneration taking place, but then we have built
so much stuff, there's so much scaffold out there that's not
divinely working, divinely operative, and divinely planted. It's going
to be gone, and even though these people are saved, even though
we do progress, and even though we do what? Succeed to be received
in the glory. We do so only through fire as
the thing falls down around us It pushes us out on our butts
burning You see quit wasting time We
don't we don't want to put deception in front of the people of God
this is this is John's biggest point And people argue what about
loving each other? We'll look at that. I Because if we move away from
the foundation, we call that apostasy. We do not revise the
gospel, nor do we put people in front of any revision of the
gospel. And I believe that this is where we see most of what
is known as evangelical, reformed, Protestant, American church.
Any label you want to put. I think a majority of American
Christianity has slidden off the foundation of truth. And people like to feel conviction.
They like to be stepped on. They like for their toes to hurt
when they leave. But there's nothing in the Gospel of John
that should cause us to leave limping. The Gospel is healing. Grace, by definition, is unmerited
favor. When Jesus healed the eyes of
the blind, and healed the legs of the lame, and healed the voice
of the mute. When He raised people from the
dead, it wasn't a half-hearted experience. I'm just going to
give you one eye. I'm just going to let you drag
yourself by one foot. We see the salvation that Christ completes
as all of mercy, all of grace, all of God, all of Christ. And
when we are still working in our own minds to feel like we've
got to do better in order for us to be secure in it, it is
not of Christ. Grace motivates the believer
to live his or her life for the sake of the glory of the very
one who laid down his life for them. and the body of Christ together
as we grow in these moments and then as we when we're done and
we live life together as we're able in this crazy culture in
this crazy climate that we're in. We found it easier together
to grow and to mature and to hold fast rather than being the
lone ranger who just got slapped in the head by some preaching.
Who gets home and thinks I need to do better. If this were a self-help rally,
we could all stand up and tell our neighbor, you need to do
better. You know, turn to the man on your left. You need to
do better. Now raise your hand and say, I need to do better.
Yeah, we all need to do better. We got that. But what is better
when it's not perfect? It's death. That's why we read
Romans 3 this morning. You want to be judged by the
law? The only thing it'll ever do for you is kill you. It'll
only indict you. It'll only condemn you. You want
to be judged by grace, by the law of Christ, by the law of
faith. You believe that Christ fulfilled
all righteousness for you. So why would we want to impose
any other teaching to us and to each other? It's hard to see
this sometimes in our culture, but many have moved beyond the
gospel of grace and God's righteousness. And many sheep, no, all sheep will soon see the
difference. The sheep will see the difference.
You ever talk to somebody before and you try to explain to them,
this is wrong, and they go, I just don't see it, I just don't see
it, I just don't see it, it's okay, it's okay. And it frustrates you,
right? And a year or two later, they
come back and says, let me tell you what I just saw. And they
tell you the same thing. And they see that which God has shown
you. See, it's in God's timing. We
can share, and we can preach, and we can teach, and we can
argue, and we can debate. We can shake, we can slap, we can throw them
off a cliff. We can do whatever we want to do. We can set ourselves
on fire, but only the Spirit of God is going to show the truth
to His people. May the sheep soon see the truth
and come out Beloved, I believe the greatest evil, according
to John's writing in both of these letters and even his revelation,
his apocalypse, the greatest evil in this world is a Christian
message with a false Christ. And evangelicals rise up, man,
the world's going to hell in a handbasket. No, it's not. No,
it's not. It's not any more evil than it
was in the first day. We've yet to hit ancient Rome
status. We've yet to get to the place
where debauchery was not only legal, but it was lauded. Yeah,
to a degree, we've seen nothing yet. Let's don't lose sight of
the fact that the greatest evil, according to the apostles, is
not the world doing what it's naturally inclined to do. It's
those claiming to be in Christ teaching a false Christ. That's
a greater evil than all of the wickedness that the world could
ever prescribe. And what else is a great wickedness?
To not love your brother. It's equal, remember 1 John? Sinners don't get, we don't get
off the hook. Oh, my toes, my toes, you're stepping on my toes.
Well, it's by the grace of God that you could even love, be
counted as a lover of your brother. Christ loved us instead of us
being required to love one another. Wow, so Christ took the punishment
for my unlovingness? Yes, he died for it. God is satisfied. There's no condemnation now when
you find yourself in an unloving state. So what does that do?
Well, I might as well just love somebody then. And for some of
us who are sort of hard-headed, well, I don't have to. No, you
don't. It's going to be hard for you. Because we're going to stretch
you a little bit, help you out. Quit putting your hand in the
fire, boss. My hand's on fire. A believer has much to lose. No one can lose salvation. See
this? Receivers are going to the world.
Beware. Beware. Watch yourself so that
you may not lose what we have worked for. Watch yourself so that we may
not lose what we have worked for, but we may win a full reward.
Just be careful. No one can lose salvation. There
can be some among us who have just regurgitated the right answers
for so long and eventually when this deception comes along they
can take hold of it to the point where they just they'll say it's
not really that important but this is what I believe. Can't
we be in unity? Can't we be together? No. And
I'm not talking about theological terms and historical theology
and writings and all of these things. I'm not talking about
the debates of all the fodder throughout history. I'm talking
about the person of Christ. I'm talking about his nature.
I'm talking about his flesh. I'm talking about the fact that
he was incarnate. He came into the world and he satisfied the
wrath of God through his death for his people. No one who has been born of God
can lose that birth. But many come to the knowledge
of some incredible academic facts that they think are awesome just
to find another set of academic facts that they think are more
awesome. And they slide from one scale to the other. So there
is a sense in which we can, if we're gonna send false teachers
through, I mean, it could pull out some false converts, but
what's worse than that? causing stirring and division
and separation of intimacy with the body itself. So if me and a brother in here
get into a shouting match right here in the middle of a service,
several of you would come up and put hands on us and pray
for us in a real quick way. But most of you would go home
and go, I don't ever want to come back around those people
again. that hurt me. This is not something I want.
We have a lot to lose when we invite false doctrine into the
church. Friends, there's a serious issue
of tolerance in our world. And I'll talk about that if I
have time. If a believer is deceived or
tricked or misguided in some of these things, that believer
will always come to the truth. That believer will always correct
themselves. That believer will always come back and go, you
know what? Yeah, I've studied that. That's wrong. And that's
part of the way we ought to live. Some of us who have gone through
these things can be together for the sake of that person who
is now experiencing these things. And we can, I don't even want
to use the philosophy on that, but we can inquire and ask questions
and probe and get to the point of the matter and help someone
by the mercies of Lord and through the Spirit alone be directed
back to the truth. This is why we must love in truth,
keeping our eyes on the full hope of Jesus Christ as revealed
to us through Scripture. But one who stays in the ways
of this spiritual extra-biblical progress, we must put them out. Especially those who are missionaries
for it. those who teach it. I mean, I've lost a lot of dear,
quote, brothers through the years who I miss because they want
to teach error. We can have a good time eating
a sandwich or going to the range or going on a road trip or whatever,
but we are not one in Christ. And just because it's a good
buddy, do we suppose to bring him up here and let him teach
the church? See, believers can lose focus.
Believers can lose focus on the message of the gospel. We have
a lot to lose. We can lose focus on maturing in grace. We can
lose focus on the mission of the church. We can lose our witness
of the gospel. We can lose our motivation for
true gospel affection. We can lose Our joy, we can come
to spiritual ruin? All because of false teachers.
All because of, and we have other letters in the scripture that
teach us that undisciplined sin can do the same thing, right? Believers can bankrupt their
joy through fear and fuss. I came to my mind this week.
And in doing so, we lose our full reward. What's the full reward? Life
now, here, and life ever after. Beloved, this world, though full
of, we sang A Mighty Fortress. I mean, that song, even though
it may be archaic in some of its language, is incredibly true
for the Christian. The enemy is at work doing the
will of the Father. He is doing everything that God
has purposed for him to do, and he is causing havoc, and God
has promised that we as the church will suffer and experience pain. The difference is we suffer as
those who have hope, and we do so with joy, knowing that Christ
is our joy, rather than worrying about all the other details of
life, thinking that this life is what it's all about to begin
with. You know it's not. So our full reward includes a joyful
life today. in the midst of suffering. Why
would we, as my wife has always said, borrow trouble by worrying
about these things that are not our ability to handle? And beloved,
I think sometimes we do that in the context of false teaching
and false teachers. Verse 9, everyone who goes on
ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have
God. And whoever abides in the teaching
has both the Father and the Son. Now next week, I want to specifically
deal with the teaching of Christ. Specifically. But today, just
in context, we're going to show what this is trying to tell us.
And we see here that these deceivers were teachers. They were teaching. They weren't just holding to
something. They weren't just mulling over saying, you know,
I think that's OK, that's true. No, I believe they weren't compromising
in the sense of, yeah, that can be true and this can be true.
But they were teaching it. And they were teaching false
truths, and the scripture here says they are not in Christ. They do not have God. God is
not in his lie, right? If I teach the truth, and I teach
the truth that God has revealed, then I'm teaching God, God is
with me, God is in the message. If I all of a sudden teach something
in error, is God in that message? No, God's not in that message,
because I haven't taught God in that message. What specifically were these
teachers teaching? That the person of Christ was not incarnate.
He did not come in the flesh. What else? Nothing. Nothing else
is in view. John doesn't mention any other
heresy whatsoever in this letter. That's it. These false teachers
were teaching that Jesus had not come in the flesh. That's
why he emphasizes it over and over again and they were evangelizing
the body of Christ for this purpose. The teaching of Christ, as we'll
see next week, concerns the work of Christ, the office of Christ,
the person of Christ, the essential revelation of God through the
scripture. Back to the Trinitarianism of the Trinitarian doctrines.
Back to what Jesus says in John 10 about He speaks the words
of God. But the Gnostics were smart.
These false teachers were smart. And they had grown to understand
things that God had shown them that they wanted others to know.
John says in his first letter in chapter 2 verse 22, it says,
who is the liar except he who denies that Jesus is Messiah?
This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son,
because to deny Christ in any part is to deny the Father also.
See, the world in all of its totality, except maybe atheists
by name, it's a misnomer, either way you look at it, say, well,
we can believe in a power or God or whatever, but this Jesus,
nah. Sorry, you can't come to God without coming to God the
Son. So abiding in Christ is abiding
to God. No one who denies the Son has the Father, Jesus says.
Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Abiding in God,
abiding in Christ, this is the same object. Jesus Christ is
God in the flesh. John 1, In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. The
Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory.
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only God who sits
at His side has made Him known. Jesus Christ is God. And He has
done the work of redemption for His people. It is finished. That's
what He said on the cross. That's what all the apostles
teach. It is a finished work. There's nothing waiting to be
done to redeem the people of God. He will show His people
what He has done by His Spirit. So remember in the first letter
where we saw these contrasts between walking in light and
walking in darkness, we see that this light walking is to reflect
the nature of the righteousness of Christ and our love for one
another. And the walking in darkness includes saying, man, I'm not
doing anything wrong. I'm not sinning. I'm teaching the truth. One can step as a believer into
the realms of darkness. One can fall, as I talked about
last week, into a pot hole. One can stumble, but they will
not make their home there. That's what it means to abide,
to make your home there. We don't make our home in lies because
we have the spirit of God. But it doesn't mean that some
of us aren't guilty of taking a preview. Call the agent up and say, hey,
can I take a look at the house? Jesus claimed that his teaching
was not his own. In John 7, he says, my teaching
is not mine, but he who sent me. If anyone's will is to do
God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether
I'm speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own
authority seeks his own glory. But the one who seeks the glory
of Him who sent Him is true, and in Him there is no falsehood.
Therefore, this particular teaching, this particular circumstance,
is saying that the Antichrist's false teachers reject the very
teaching of God the Son. Thus they reject the very teaching
of God. But, what does it say there?
Everyone who goes on ahead, who progresses in this knowledge
and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God.
Whoever, by contrast, abides in the teaching has both the
Father and the Son. So those who hold the profession
of truth concerning Jesus and His person, they are in God. They are in the Son. They are
in the Father. And this is where we get the
necessity to deal quickly and firmly with those who proclaim
Christ but deny He is God in the flesh. And beloved, I believe
there are some implications here. I'm going to talk about those
next week, but I believe there are some implications. Let me give you
a preview. I believe one of the implications is that if we deny
anything that the person of Christ accomplished in His flesh, it
is to deny the efficacy of Christ Himself, the person of Christ
Himself. To say that Christ did not atone for sin is a lie. To
say that man has a righteousness of his own is a lie. To say that
the gospel is an opportunity for you to do something to receive
eternal life is a lie. The gospel is the proclamation
of what God has done to save you. The humanity and the divinity
of Jesus is at the center of this issue. And the words of theology and
the phrasing of theology and the understanding of certain
things are not in view. We should continue to love each
other. Some people would say, well, we've got a problem here. What is it that we're supposed
to be doing? We're to watch ourselves. And then in verse 10, we see
this, if anyone comes to you, and that you there in the Greek,
especially, is plural. There's a plural, you all. Y'all. If anyone comes to y'all and
does not bring the teaching of the person of Christ as revealed
through him, Do not receive him into your house or give him any
greeting. I know I've gone a little longer
than normal, but bear with me. I see why it's important to understand
some things. We often put first century in our mind, we put first
century Christians in the same place that we are
with a little less technology, a little more dirt, don't we?
But there was no gathering place. Everybody gathered into a very
small structure, and they gathered into homes and to hear the word
of God taught, and then they left out of those homes to do
the work of the ministry as they were taught. And so to receive
one into, literally, translation there, the house, means to receive
them into the church. To greet them is to say to them,
I'm so glad you're here. I am so glad. It is so good to
see you. Welcome. Now imagine having a
guest pastor. I've had pastors visit our congregation
through the years and one of them made it known to one of
you some months later that because I did not recognize him and give
him opportunity to bless the church with a word that I offended
him and I took great pleasure in knowing that he was offended
because he won't come back now. I'm being facetious. Because there's some type of
esteem. Well, I'm a teacher too. I should be able to teach. I would be
very suspect if I showed up. Let's say I just went to a congregation
one Sunday on vacation and somebody recognized me. Oh, lookie there.
There's Pastor Tippins. Come on up here and just take the
pulpit today. I would be appalled. My friend over here says you're
a preacher, well come preach. You sure about this? What's your
attendance last week? What's your attendance this week?
Cut it in half, we're gonna take care of it. You can reduce your
budget. So I'm gonna go straight to John
six, and we're gonna empty this place out. I'm gonna title this my last
sermon here. John is saying don't receive
them. Don't let them come into the church. Don't parade them
in front. Don't give them a platform. Do not let them teach. That's
what he's saying. Do not provide for their ministry. Do not share their stuff. See,
it's real easy now. We're informal, brothers and
sisters, but it's not as informal as it was then. People just showed
up. And he didn't give a visitor card. I mean, somebody shows
up and says, hey, I've got a word. I'm a teacher. I'm a preacher.
I'm an apostle. They were put through the test.
These early churches were like, praise the Lord, we haven't heard
good teaching in a couple of weeks. Give it to us. Well, Jesus
really wasn't in the flesh. And all the young guys are going,
well, now this is making more sense. This is a little bit more
natural. The elder brothers are going,
okay, where's the lynching gonna begin? We gotta get rid of this
guy. John is saying, quit trying to say, quit trying to think
that you have to love these people in the same way that you love
the saints. These people are here to destroy the church. They're
to deceive the church. Churches met in homes and this
command not to promote or expose them to the body. Rest today. Do not support them. Do not greet
them. Do not expose the church to false teachers. Because when
we do, what happens? They continue in their evangelism. And if you expose the church
to them through any purpose, through any means, you're greeting
Him. And if you're greeting Him, you're
taking part in His wicked works. What does that mean? If you've got a friend who tells
you he's been going around gas stations and stealing credit
cards and little swipey things. Hey man, ride me down here to
Parker's. I've got to check a couple of
pumps. And you give them a ride, you're implicated in the crime. When a false teacher is given
a platform to teach the church the heresy, you're implicated
in the teaching. When you're given money to a
ministry that teaches error, you're implicated in that teaching.
You're not lost. You're not condemned. But you're
just as guilty, beloved. But the good thing is he's not
talking about you and of yourself. He's talking about we as the
body, specifically the elders of the church, need to pay close
attention who is teaching what and who is sharing what. And
now we live in the, you know, 2021 where the social media idea
and everything being online is a new style of parading of preachers. And beloved, we share stuff without
any discernment. We share things without looking
who it is. It's like the meme. You see the
lady going to bed and her mind saying, man, you just would never
listen to these false teachers. Thank God I don't have the discernment.
And then the next time her eyes are open, she says, well, why
are you listening to their music? You know, well, that's a good song.
I know they're heretics, but they're out there. You see? Just
a little. And I'm not picking on that.
Listen to whatever music you want. Truth is there, but you see,
we can easily justify who we listen to, what we share, but
we need to have discernment. Because I'm gonna tell you, if
the gospel was truly the gospel, if the true gospel was being
purveyed by everybody in the communities around us, in all
the different counties in which we represent, if the true gospel
was truly being purveyed by all the people who claim to be Christian,
then why is it that it's so rare when people hear it for the first
time, they go, What you talking about imputation? What you talking
about righteousness? See, the gospel is about righteousness.
The gospel is about God's righteousness through His Son, Jesus Christ,
who became a human being to satisfy God's wrath against His people's
sin. And it is satisfied. The work
is done. The wrath of God is finished. And that is a gift of grace.
It is mercy. And it's not offered to you as
an opportunity. It is finished for you as a finished
work. Jesus' death literally and explicitly
paid for the sins of all for whom it was intended. Who was
it intended for? God's people. the believing ones, the elect,
the church, the body, the bride, all the different words that
the apostles use relating to that, the elect lady. And faith is granted by the Father
when the sheep hear the truth through the Spirit. And then
we rest in that. Beloved, we have a real tolerance,
some of us. And this letter written to the
corporate body about not putting false teaching in front of the
church is so easy to overlook because we do want to be nice. And I think we have a problem with tolerance as a culture,
but the other problem is our tendency to be terrorizing against
intolerable evil. You know what I mean by that?
We're gonna cancel everything. We're gonna destroy, we're gonna
tear it down. How about we just say, that's
a lie, no more of it. Stay away from me. You see our brothers and sisters
eating poison? Hey dude, don't eat that. That's poisonous. We
don't have to start a campaign. Because when we start campaigns
against heresy, we're actually emphasizing error over truth. Because the natural human being
never listens to the truth. They always listen to the error.
And our human nature, even as believers, are quick to come
to the sidelines, pick up the pom-poms and start doing kicks
and cheers for the heresies. Or against the heresies, not
for the heresies. If we ever start a softball team, we'll
call it the Heresies. See what people think about that. But we're not to receive and
welcome false teaching. We're not to expose the body
to false teaching. Be careful that we're not doing
that, beloved, inadvertently. Don't look over there. Everybody looks
over there. Be careful. Make sure that there's some type
of conversation happening in the context of these exposés. We are to say this is wrong,
we are to call out wrongs, we are to expose error when it comes
into the church, we are to do so with a loving attitude, we
are not to be judgmental, and we are still, though we should
not allow teaching to take place before the church, we are still
able, if they're willing, to talk to false teachers and teach
them the truth. Because I don't believe every
heretic is reprobate. And if they don't see the truth,
that's okay. It's not ours to do. It's ours to express. We should teach with all humility
because God has granted us the great power of His loving grace
to see the truth. Who are we to be judgmental against
those who don't? And yes, it is a great evil to
malign the name of Christ. But it's also a great evil not
to be kind and gentle in the process of dealing with these
things. We should quickly say this is
error. And then we should quickly come to this is truth. And we move away from the error,
beloved, because when we play in the playground of error, we
have come beyond what scripture teaches. Many people will argue over the
things that I've taught today. Some will even say I'm a heretic
because I read this plain in its syntax. Others will say anathema. because they have stronger convictions
concerning specifically verse 9. But this letter doesn't speak
to these types of responses. It doesn't speak to these types
of things. There's plenty of instruction relating to people
who will judge others by their own ideologies and ignorance.
And we can warn them and let them be. But beloved, the biggest
thing that we should take away from this is that we aren't called
to be overly affectionate and provisional. for people who teach
another Christ, but we can and we are to be loving with one
another. So let's emphasize the command
and let's emphasize the life that exemplifies the teaching
of Christ. What is abiding? What is the
doctrine of Christ? The doctrine of Christ is I lay my life down
for the sheep. I want you to hear that, church.
I love the sheep. My father loves the sheep. My
father loves me. I lay down my life for the sheep.
No one takes it from me. And then I will take it up again.
I will die for my sheep. They will hear my voice and they
will follow me. They will listen to me. They
will watch me and they will hope in me. Why? Because of my peace
I give them. My love I give them. My joy I
give them. That's John 10 through 17 right
there. And no one will snatch them out
of my hands. No one will snatch them out of my hands. But if
you want good news, there's good news. No one can snatch us out
of the hand of Christ, not even ourselves. So we can walk with
peace. Remember, he says here, I rejoice
greatly to find some of you children walking in the truth and following
the command of love. And this is love, that we love
one another. Paul tells the Corinthians that love does not rejoice at
wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Paul tells the Ephesians
that we should speak the truth in love, and as we are speaking
the truth in love, we are to grow up into every way into Him
who is the head and to Christ. And in 1 John 3, little children,
let us not love in word or talk, but let us love in deed and in
truth. Let us focus on this more than we focus on anything else.
And then when we have perfected love, let's deal with some other
stuff. So we'll put the other stuff
in a drawer somewhere because I think we're going to spend
the rest of our lives perfecting love. Love was perfected for us on
the cross as Jesus gave his life. Let's prepare our hearts for
the table this morning. We thank you, Father, for giving us your
Son. We thank you, Lord, for the simple truth in this little
tiny letter. And Father, for This somewhat practical instruction
that seems a little different than normal. But for the most part, Lord,
we know that your purposes behind this writing will never return
to you void. That your word will do that which
it was purposed to do and that as we have looked at it and read
it and talked about it this morning, you will bring the fruit You
will bring the production of that which you purposed in our
hearts, in our minds, in our thinking, in our affections.
Lord, knowing that we don't have to be perfect because we cannot
be. And even if we were, we would still be sinners. Father, that
we don't have to prove ourselves to you. Lord, we know that we
don't have to put on the guise of being part of all sorts of
activities in order to be Christian. But Lord that we first must come
to the place of resting and hoping and loving. Teach us the truth
of Christ. Help us to be able to discern
truth from error and Lord let us be gentle but firm and rigid
And almost, no not almost, let us be immovable in the rock of
our salvation who is Jesus Christ. And thankful that we are not,
it is not up to us for you have anchored us into his death and
you have promised us the tether of his life and we are in him
and he is our life and nothing shall separate us from your love.
And so as we remember your table this morning, Lord, I thank you
for the body and the blood of Jesus, in whose name we pray.
Amen.