Alba 10-27-2024
ABIDE IN THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST
II John 7-13
There was a man standing downtown waiting for a bus. He said it was raining cats and dogs. There was a lady standing next to him so he tried to be friendly and make conversation. “If this keeps up, we'll all have to buy an ark,” he said. “What's an ark?” she asked.
“You mean you haven't heard about Noah and the great flood and all those animals?” he asked her incredulously. “Look, mister,” she replied, “I've only been in town for four days. I've scarcely had time to read a paper.”
Sadly there are many people today who know so little about the Bible. But I like the story of the young boy, who every time went to his friend's house, saw the grandmother studying her Bible. Finally he asked the friend about it. “Why is your grandmother always reading her Bible?” The friend answered, “I don't know. But I think she is cramming for her finals.”
That may be so, but for sure, it was a way that she could abide in the doctrine of Christ. Reading the Bible helps anyone to know the teaching of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Yet, one who reads God's Word but doesn't do what it says, as James tells us, is like someone looking in the mirror and then forgetting what he looks like. In II John 7-13 we are told to do some looking. We are told to look to ourselves and to look out for deceivers. Lets read:
“7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. 8 Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.
“9 Whoever transgresses [which means, “goes farther than they should] and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; 11 for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.
“12 Having many things to write to you, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that our joy may be full. 13 The children of your elect sister greet you. Amen.”
This letter of John is short because, as he says, he would rather deal with the issues face to face. His letter is addressed to “the elect lady”. We don't know if the elect lady an individual who was very dear to John, or if it is a church who is symbolically referred to as the elect lady.
It seems likely that the reference is to a church, because verse thirteen seems to refer to a sister church and its members. While opinions on this vary, it doesn’t affect the message.
What is plain is that there are many deceivers who would lead us away from the true message of Jesus Christ. Therefore we must...
1. Look to Ourselves (vs. 8)
John warns that if we do not do this, we may lose our reward.
There is no greater disappointment than working for something for a long time, only to see that work just disappear. So we need to look to ourselves.
We are to abide, or stay true, to the doctrine of Christ which includes having a solid biblical understanding of what it means to be a Christian, to be a true follower of Jesus Christ. It also includes living in accordance to that understanding. The question is, are we staying true to the doctrine, the teaching, of Jesus? What evidence is there that we are not just playing a game, but that we truly are committed to our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior?
The apostle Paul says in II Corinthians 13:5 “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?” (NIV)
What is good is that this elect lady, or church, was loved in truth. And her children, or church members, were following the command to love one another. God’s Word spells out the perfect and ideal person, what God wants a person to be.
So we are to love one another in truth—in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Word of God. This means that we are to love one another as Jesus loved us, and as the Word of God instructs. The truth is that the message, the doctrine, of Christ is a message of love. God loved us enough to send Jesus as a sacrifice for our sin. Jesus loved us enough to allow the punishment we deserve to be suffered by Himself. So He died on that cross in our place so that we can be forgiven.
The love of Jesus and the love of God is a sacrificial love—a love that helps people even when they are unlovely and seemingly unlovable. It’s a love that reaches out to people even when it is not deserved. It is a love that the Lord wants each of us show to one another.
When Jesus is our Savior and Lord, He changes us. That is because He is not just another good man who gives us a good example of how to live. He is the divine Son of God, God in the flesh, who dwelt among us, and who died and rose from the grave to give us life eternal.
Our lives should be a continual confession of our faith in Jesus. We begin our Christian walk when we stand before the congregation and make a profession of faith saying, “I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” We follow that by being immersed into Christ for the remission of our sins. Scripture says that we come up from that watery grave a changed person who rises to walk in a new way of life (Romans 6).
We need to continually look to ourselves so that we lose nothing in our relationship with the Lord. Our time of communion when we observe The Lord's Supper each Sunday gives us an opportunity to do just that. I Corinthians 11:27-28
tells us, “Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”
Now, it doesn't say, “Examine yourself, and if you see yourself unworthy, don't take communion.” I know of some people who think that is what it says. But it doesn't! It is saying, examine yourself to make sure that you are partaking of the communion with the right attitude, aware of the physical body of Jesus' sacrifice, as well as the spiritual body, the church, our fellow believers. And then partake!
As we examine ourselves, it is good to pray a prayer based on Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (KJV) We must not stray from what our Lord has taught us in His Word.
But not only should we look to ourselves, we must...
2. Look Out for Deceivers
We are not to just accept whatever someone is teaching. We are to check their message against the doctrine, teaching of Jesus. In John's day there were false teachers of what is called Gnosticism. To them, salvation came through special, hidden, mystical knowledge that only a few understood. They also believed that the material world is evil, including our flesh. Some claimed that Jesus didn’t have a real body but was more like a ghost, meaning that His sufferings weren’t real. Others claimed the “Christ-Spirit” came upon the human Jesus at baptism and left him at the cross.
John wants to make sure that we are not taken in by teachings such as that. And we need to be on guard because there are still ideas like that being taught by some today. So John makes it clear in verse seven that the deceivers are those, “who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.”
John in his Gospel makes the point that when Jesus walked on this earth He was fully God and fully human. In John 1:1 he writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Then in verse 14 he writes, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” So the Word that was God became Jesus in the flesh. And John and Peter and Andrew and all the others beheld His glory.
We are warned to not be deceived by any other message about Jesus. But what were these Christians to do when these false teachers came to their houses? Hospitality was very important in that culture.
John continues with strong words in verses ten and eleven: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.” John is saying that the Christians to whom he is writing are not to give the false teachers lodging, food, or help along the way.
The word house here could mean your own home. But if the “elect lady” is a church, and most churches at the time John is writing met in homes, it could mean don't let a false teacher to be allowed to bring his message trying to influence the church members. Either way, it is wise to look out for false teachers.
Ephesians 5:11 says, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” Jefferson Williams, a minister in Illinois said that his brother is a very, very smart man. In high school, his brother was already translating the Bible from the Greek. One afternoon, a lady knocked on the door, and it became obvious she was a Jehovah’s Witness. Just as his mom was about to say no thank you, his 15-year-old brother came running out of his room and invited her in.
They sat together and he opened his Bible and read from John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” She immediately said that translation was wrong. Her translation, the New World Translation, reads, “and the Word was a god.” In other words, Jesus is not the Second Person of the Trinity.
Then his brother pulled out his Greek New Testament and said, “I’m glad you said that. Let’s forget translations. Let’s just read it right out of the Greek: “En arkhêi ên ho lógos, kaì ho lógos ên pròs tòn theón, kaì theòs ên ho lógos.”
At this, she stood up without saying a word, collected her things, and walked out the door. Williams said, “I’ll never forget my brother standing on the front porch yelling at this woman, 'kai theos en ho logos!'”
If you don't know, that phrase in Greek literally says, “And God was the Word.” And there is no Greek grammatical construction in this verse to claim that the Word is anything less than God.
So when it comes to people who bring a new or strange message, we need to check that message to see if it agrees with what is given us about Jesus in God's Word.
And then for those who deny the doctrine of Christ as God in the flesh who came as the perfect sacrifice for our salvation, we are not to welcome them, or give them a place of influence in the church or in our lives. For “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19)
We need to abide in the doctrine of Christ so that, as John says, our joy may be full.
CLOSE:
It takes constant vigilance to guard our faith and stay with what is revealed in scripture. It has been proven that people can too easily be swayed to believe an untruth. For example:
In 2018, Peter McIndoe wanted to let people know about the government conspiracy concerning birds. He said that from 1969 to 2001, the US government murdered over twelve billion birds and replaced them with surveillance drone replicas claiming that birds are government spy-drones and not real animals.
He started a movement called, “Birds Aren’t Real,” and said he uncovered CIA documents proving this fact. He traveled the country in a van promoting the idea that “Bird watching goes both ways.” He led rallies where hundreds of people showed up and chanted, “Birds Aren’t Real” at CNN and Twitter headquarters.
Even now you may see signs at sporting events, and on college campuses, and posts shared on Facebook that say “Birds Aren’t Real”, and the media has written national stories on the movement.
The only problem with this? It’s all fake. Peter started “the movement” as a social experiment to show how gullible people are concerning conspiracy theories.
But even after he wrote a front-page article in the New York Times, and did an online TED Talk admitting that all the facts were fake, there are still people who believe that Birds Aren’t Real.
More and more in our culture, we are having trouble with the line between what is true and what is false. So don't be misled by someone who tells you something different about Jesus. The only way He can be the perfect sacrifice to pay the price for your sins is that He is who He says He is.
When you come to Jesus for the salvation only He can give you can say with the hymn:
No one ever cared for me like Jesus;
There's no other friend so kind as He.
No one else could take the sin and darkness from me;
O how much He cared for me.
It is time for us to trust and obey Him.
