Abide: Session 10: Imitate God - Gaius

 

Second John showed us to guard truth - external conflict.

Third John is about internal conflict.

Verse 1. Gaius "my dear friend".

Verse 2. So convinced that his soul is healthy.

Verse 3. Report was good about Gaius.  He was walking in the truth and obedience.

Verse 4. John rejoices as Gaius is walking in the truth (John's response).  His deep and abiding faithfulness to the truth.  What relationships give us joy?  Gaius will pass the test of truth and righteousness and love.

Verse 5. Test of love he passes.  Who is Gaius being faithful, trustworthy and loving to? To God.  Gaius is doing a difficult work - effort.  He demonstrates love to strangers too.

Verse 6b-8. "A manner worthy of God" - send them with every provision.  Abraham also in Genesis with the strangers.  Probably itinerate missionaries these strangers.  Fellowship is a marker of Christian community.  We become fellow-workers when we support other missions.  We can use our words to bless, our money to bless, etc.

Verses 9-10.  Diotrephes (imitates evil).  Internal threat to the health of the church.  Discrediting the apostles.  Gossiping.  Making allies. "Wicked nonsense".  Doesn't go into detail here but has no respect for authority.  We also can have an authority issue.  We need to assess.  We need to also guard the truth.

Verses 11-12. Demetrius imitates good and not evil.  We are also to imitate good (Eph. 5:1-2).  We were made for it.

Verses 13-15. "By name" greetings.  What would John say to us now?  The same things:

.Jesus is real.  I know it!

.You are not the same because of Him

.Walk in righteousness

. Show love to each other

.Guard the truth

.Remember what you know

.Keep yourselves from idols

.He abides in you

.Abide in Him - make your home in Him

The problems of the early church are our problems as well:

1. Doctrinal confusion

2. False teachers

3. Divisions

4. Disagreements

5. Lovelessness

6. Disobedience or laziness with regard to obedience

7. Doubt

8. Believers of every level of maturity  

The assurance of the early church are ours as well:

1. Abide in the truth of Christ

2. Love the brothers

3. Walk according to the commands

4. Imitate Christ

9. 

Abide: Session 9: Walk in Truth and Love

 

Second John, Jen says, is like a memo. It was written 90-95 A.D. The Roman empire was at its height. Roman roads helped them to govern more areas. All forms of information traveled, just like the internet.  The early church had to face problems also.

2 John 1-2. "The elder" - John is old and respected and wise.  Elder in life experiences.  Written to a house church to give assurance.

Verse 3. Greeting changed "will be with you".  Dual nature - "in truth and love" continues.  Combines truth and love.  If we have just truth, we become legalistic.  If we just have love, we become too liberal.  We need the balance.  God has the balance perfectly.

Verses 4-6. "Walk" - relating it to the commandments.  Q: what's the significance of walking here? Obedience.  Righteousness. Look at Enoch in Genesis: "walked with God".  A bright light in the midst of dark sin.  Genesis 6:9 1) a humility, 2) implies agreement - Amos 3:3, 3) an increasing mutual affection - growing in love, 4) also an exercise of our faith, 5) it implies safety, 6) encouragement, 7) a preparation for future service, 8) also implies not walking with others, 9) pursue righteousness.  A steady every day obedience, companionship with God.

Verses 7-8. False teaching corrected.  "Full reward" - this is new.  Rewards: see Matt. 20:20-28, Matt. 5:11-12. Matt. 10:40-42; Matt. 6:1-4; Matt. 6:19-20, Matt. 16:27, Luke 6:35, Col. 3:23-24, Eph. 2:10 - walk in good works, eternal reward.

Verses 9-11. Refuse a false teacher in your home.  Do not abide with them.  No endorsement.  Truth supercedes love here.  What this means for us is to watch our endorsements, books, TV, etc.

Verse 12. "Face to face" - Exodus 33:11 Moses to God.  Hard conversations face-to-face - let truth be expressed with love.

Verse 13. Church to church greeting. 

Note: UCLA study says 58% of communication is through body language.  38% through vocal tone, pitch and emphasis. 7% through the content of a message.

Would you run a marathon with 7% of your physical strength? Would you take an important test with 7% of your intelligence? Would you host a holiday gathering with only 7% of your house cleaned?

Seven percent is NOT enough to communicate truth and love.  We should act so carefully if communication is not face-to-face in which much is at stake.  John points us to that.

There is a lot we can take from John's words in this short letter:

1. We can understand the importance of face-to-face communication.

2. We can understand the importance of our endorsements.

3. We can understand that in small situations when faithfulness is demonstrated and care is taken, there can be a big reward of the local church.

How do we inhabit our local church?  Because that's where our impact will be most felt in the family of God.  We will get to learn more about that in 3 John.

Next: Session 10: Imitate God - Gaius

Abide: Session 8: That You May Know

 

Chapter 5 verse 13 is the third statement of "I write these things so that." He has given us three ways to know by the three tests.

5:14-15. He's expressed this idea earlier in John 3:21-22.  What is really going on here? what is the right way for us to think about prayer? Look at John 15:7 - abide. What is the implication of His word abiding in us? Think of how a prayer journal might shape our conception of prayer that might be unhelpful.  We might think that prayer is shaped by making requests.  It might seem in this passage what is put before us is that we can have confidence when we ask. He does want us to ask.  If we abide, then when we come to prayer, it's to be understood we are going more than asking.  We extol.  Ask forgiveness.  Also, we don't see the whole picture.  "According to His will." 1 Thessalonians 4:3 tells us more in the Bible - what He says.  We need to pray the word and submit to His will when praying for circumstances. The God of all outcomes.  His time not ours.

5:16a. Intercession here.  We need to pray first.

5:16-17. This isn't special knowledge like the gnostics believe.  What kind of sin leads to death? The sin that we are not actually converted.  Pray "Lord, transform their heart." It's a rejection of truth - the sin that leads to death.  Jesus intercedes for Peter remember.

Reads "from the valley of vision."

John concludes now with the three tests again.

Verse 18. Test of righteousness.  We don't keep on sinning. "The evil one does not lay hold of us." Think of Job and Peter.

Verse 19. The test of love.

Verse 20. The test of truth.

Verse 21. Keep yourselves from fakes, false conceptions.  God is not like us!

Three questions:

1. What causes us to doubt we have eternal life?

2. What causes us to doubt that God hears our prayers?

3. What causes us to doubt that Jesus leads us not into temptation?

Next: Session 9: Walk in Truth and Love

Abide: Session 7: Overcoming the World

 

In session 7, we look at Chapter 5 of 1 John.

Verses 1-2. "Born of God". (The test of truth). "Loves Father", "loves whoever born of him" (Test of love). Test of righteousness - three summary statements.  "Who believes" - a deep-rooted belief.

Verse 3. "Not burdensome".  Sin is burdensome, but not God's commands.  They are difficult.  It is work.  If we think they're burdensome, we will complain and avoid.

Verses 4-5. "Overcome". Means we are quicker to repent and slower to repeat.  Keeping God's commands is one form in overcoming the world.  God's commandments find their origin in Him.  The more we understand this, the more we will value His commands.  We "overcome" the world one experience at a time. Help us to hate what you hate God.

Verses 6-8. We are shifting here into legal language: testify and testimony. A court room.  Matthew 18:20 is not referring to gathering 2 to 3 people in prayer.  It's actually referring to the need to establish credibility of a witness based on 2 or 3 witnesses.  So, here, we have 3 witnesses: water, blood, spirit.  He is establishing the truths of the claims of Jesus Christ according to 3 witnesses.  Look at Deut. 19:15.  Think of all the places in the Bible of establishing 2 or 3 witnesses for credibility: Revelations, birth of Jesus, temple, Abraham (3 men), Sodom and G, Garden of Eden.  Why water and blood? Exodus adventure: the sea and the blood on posts.  Moses tabernacle: laver of water (water), altar of sacrifice (blood), holy of holies (spirit).  Reference John 19:31-35.  He's showing that Jesus was human and actually suffered death, not what the gnostics believe.  The Spirit descends on the day of Pentecost: water, blood and Spirit. 

Verses 9-12. He says the Spirit is the test of truth, water is the test of righteousness, blood relates to the test of love.

Verses 9-10. "Greater". Testimony of man and the testimony of God.  He's referring to the spirit of the antichrist versus the Spirit of truth.  Which one is greater? The Spirit of truth.

Verse 12. More than saved from death but "life" as described in John 10.  No spiritual lack.

Fear of man is the beginning of folly but the fear of God, as in Proverbs, is the beginning of wisdom.

Abdundant life is for the one who will run the race for the testimony of the Lord.

Two questions:

1. What commandment do we find to be burdensome?

2. How is our life a testimony to eternal life?

Next: Session 8: "That You May Know"

Abide: Session 6: Truth and Error: God is Love

 

John introduces the idea of "Spirit" in the last verse we saw in chapter 3:24.  We start now with 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4:1-3. Notice he starts with "beloved" because of what he is going to share on love, not with "little children." All through scripture we see "anti-christs" (i.e. satan, Cain etc). Testing spirits we have the Holy Spirit and the spirit of the anti-christ.  The sense of the text here on "test the spirits" is not demonic. It's this: see if this is representative of the Spirit of God or the spirit of error.  He's actually saying "don't be gullible." He will also tell us how to test.  Beware of books that people are saying "God told me this" etc. This is a watered-down version of gnoticism.  Those books take up more of our thinking space than the Bible.

Verses 1-2. He's relating spirit to flesh here.  He's pushing back on what others have said that Jesus was only a spirit and only appeared in the flesh.

Verses 3-4. A "greater than" here also in John 3:20 "greater than our hearts." 

Verse 5.  "They" - antichrists. "From the world" or they went out from us.

Verse 6. "We" - apostles.  By this they can discern because of who listens to them.  Study the real thing (the Bible). We can't identify false teaching by asking if it is false but we have to know truth in order to identify false teaching.

Verses 7-12. Test of love. "Born of God" (John).  He speaks as Jesus does.  He send Him to be the "mercy seat" (propitiation) - the covering over, the ark, the manifest presence of God.  Luke about the Pharisee and sinner, he's actually saying "God be mercy-seated" to me a sinner.  A word picture here that between God and the sinner is the mercy seat. Verse 11 refers to His love manifested in us.  Sinners must see God's love in us.  God's love is perfected in us by producing loving fruit and actions.  We don't like the fact that God is invisible.  This gives false teachers the leeway to "paint" God as they want.

Verse 13-16. Spirit, Father and Son. Trinity here.  

God is Love. What's the problem with people saying this who do not have God abiding in them? They have reduced God to being only love.

John is making a point here when he says this that we cannot hate our brothers and still call ourselves a follower of Christ.  He has many more attributes than that.  OT shows compassion, mercy and grace of God.  We must spend time in all scripture, if we want to have a full view of God.

Verse 17-18a. Another verse that gets pulled out of context.  He's talking about the kind of confidence that allows you to stand on the day of judgment and not fear anything.  "As He is in the world, so also are we." Because as God's son is, so also are we God's children in this world.  Children don't have to gear punishment from the Father.  It's already been taken care of.

Verse 18. What kind of fear is cast out by perfect love? The fear of standing and receiving punishment from God. For the believer, that fear is gone forever.  One fear we need though "the fear of the Lord." "There is no fear in love" - been used wrongly.  we are not wrong to feel legitament fear.  We can lovingly be guided toward a better orientation.  The Christian life is not fear-free but we have a God who guides us in our natural fears. 

Verse 19. God's love was first directed toward us.

Verse 20. We have many visible things were can show our love and deep affection to.

Verse 21. John is dancing around the idea of the great commandment.  This is a deal breaker. Luke 10:25-29 - Jesus does not answer with a statement but a question.This man tries to justify himself by asking "who is my neighbor?"  So where's the line?  The attitude is "what's the bare minimum?"

Verses 30-31. The Jews would have understood this scene. 

Verse 32. The Levite here - the Jews get it.  The priest and the Levite passing by. But the Samaritan shows up.  Racism against them from the Jews.  Half-breeds.  Bad hatred exists.

Verses 33-34. He had compassion.  God describes Himself to Moses as a God of compasstion.  Samaritan has oil/wine with him.  He has an animal.

Verse 35. Money is not a problem.

Verse 36. Poses a question. "Who is acting like a neighbor here?"

Verse 37. Couldn't say "Samaritan".  Go and do likewise.  We are the man in the ditch.  Along comes a man who is rejected by the Jews, has compassion, the means to heal,  has great resources, leaves a deposit, goes away, promises to return.

Who is the good Samaritan?  Jesus - predicting His own ministry.  When we understand the lengths His love has gone, we should be the good Samaritan.

So, for us, "go and do likewise."

Pray for thoese we find hard to love and go and do likewise.

Next: Session 7 "Overcoming the World"

Abide Session 5: Practice Righteousness, Pusue Love, Possess Assurance

 To give us confidence, John will now explore what it means to be a child of God.  "Little children" = Tekna (Greek). We are the natural or genetic children of God.

John 3:1. "Children of God". Publicly recognized as such by God.  Don't lose the wonderment of this. "Behold of what country is the love of God". 

John 3:1b. "Know" - did not have relationship with or understand Him.

John 3:2. We are His children "now" - miraculous. What we will be has not yet appeared (made manifest).  It's not yet become obvious what we will be.

John 3:2b-3. What's the nature of the hope we have in Him? A present hope and a future hope; something better to come. We will be made like Him according to the first creation (Genesis 1:26-27). The image of God. What if we began to live into the pure desires now?

John 3:4. He circles back to the test of righteousness.  This is a devastating definition for sin "lawlessness". Legalists take God's law which is intended to bring glory to God and twist it to bring glory to them.

John 3:5-6. Don't practice sin - slower to repeat.  It's losing its grip.

John 3:7-9. "Practice".  A discipline.  Practice takes time.  "God's seed" = sperma.

John 3:10. "Evident" (manifest). He's moving to the test of love again.

John 3:11. "Love one another" is actually not new.  It first operated in the garden.

John 3:12. The law had been given though.  Whatever Cain knew he was to bring first and best. Love with God was fractured, so love of brother was fractured as well.  Same with Adam and Eve.

John 3:13-15. Echoes "sermon on the mount".  No "sibling" rivalry.

John 3:16-18. Sacrificial love is generous and tangible.

John 3:19-21. When would your heart condemn you? When you committed that sin again.  Confession is always better than concealment.  Nothing is concealed from God.  God is omniscient.

John 3:23-24. Test of truth.  Test of love. Test of righteousness. Three things repeated again.

End. 1) does what my hands are doing show that I love Him? 2) Does what my mind think about Him show that I love Him? 3) Does what my heart setting its desires on show that I love Him?

Questions

1. What repetitive sin do we need to confess again?

2. Who do we merely tolerate?

3. Where does our heart condemn us?

Next: Session 6: Truth & Error: God is Love

Abide: Session 4 The Test of Truth

There are starting to be divisions now in church history.

In John 18 Pilate asks "what is truth?" Many times we go to places on line or books to validate our own existing views of what is true or false - moral relativism.

John 2:18. Antichrists are many.  "The last hour" - the time between the 1st and 2nd coming.  Matthew 24:11 - Jesus' testimony.  Christ means "the anointed one." Anti means against.

Verse 19. They went out. The broke fellowship and went on their own.  Doctrine - perseverance of the saints.  He's concerned with those who are teachers and active in the faith.

Verses 20-21. Now "you" not "they."  Anointed.  Holy Spirit in us.

Verses 22-24a. Remember the foundational truths.

Verses 24b-25. Abiding life.

The list of truth is that you have to arrim that Jesus is God - Father and Son.  Fully God/fully man.  To deny this is to take away the very foundation of the gospel.

Identities of false teaching. Any doctrine that elevates the role of man and diminishes the role of God. Not everything we hear and disagree with is going to be false teaching.  What we are talking about is essential doctrines.

False teaching example. The word of faith to speak things into being and out of being.  God only has that power.  Another one: if I speak my fears aloud, the demons will know what my fears are and they can use it against me based on Job 3:25.  The fear was the loss of his family and health.  We fear God instead of "Pharoah."

Verses 26-27. "Need no teachers to teach you." What? He is arguing against special knowledge.  The anointing abides in us - so we can know the truth of our belief.  He's pressing against what these false teachers are saying.  Matthew 13 - wheat and weeds.  What fruit? Weeds no fruit.  Wheat does.  Believe the Bible.  Good soil of the church can be drained of its nutrients if we are not careful about false teaching.

Verses 26-28. "Abides in you". "Abide in Him".  When it says "we may have confidence", it's saying we may have assurance. See Romans 8:1.  Why does John speak of abiding in Christ so much? Because Jesus did (John 15).  What causes a lack of confidence? Not being prepared or equipped.

The confidence John is giving to the "little children" here is an act of rememberance: He abides in you and you abide in Him.

Core truths of Christian faith: 

1. Bible-inspired word of God

2. Trinity

We are sealed in Him for eternity.  No one can snatch us out of His hand.

We have no reason to shrink in shame at His coming because the penalty for sin is paid in full.

Next: Session 5: Practice righteousness, pursue love, possess assurance