Putting It All Together Series

There is nothing quite so destructive as a lie. No one wants to be lied to. It is nothing short of betrayal. And no one wants to be lied about. It is an ugly and contemptuous act. The Bible traces our worst problems back to a lie. The serpent, remember, asked the woman whether it was true what he had heard, that she and the man could not eat the fruit growing on the trees in the garden. “Oh, we may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden,” she told him, “but God said, ‘you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden…, lest you die.”

To which the serpent said…what? “You will not…die” (Gen. 3:2-4). It was a lie. And it ruined everything. And that is exactly what Satan wants to do—he wants to ruin everything. And his most powerful weapon is the lie. In fact, Jesus calls Satan “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

Now, it would be the height of folly—would it not?—to build our lives on a lie, and yet many people do just that. They believe any and every thing except what God says is true. Why? Because the truth can be inconvenient. It can be unpleasant. Children are born thinking they are the center of the universe. They don’t know any better. But they soon learn that it isn’t so. And if they don’t learn that—if they persist in believing the lie—they will be miserable, and they will make others miserable. And, sadly, many people live under a version of that lie all through life.

But God calls us to build our lives on a foundation of truth. You see that in our passage today from the little book of 3 John. The word truth or true occurs seven times in the short space of fifteen verses. There is testimony to the truth. There is walking in the truth. There is working in the truth. There is even love in truth. And joy.

Some weeks ago, we began looking at core commitments for Christian living, and we have focused on four of them: What we have said is that, if we truly want to be disciples of Jesus Christ, we must (1) abide in the Word, (2) we must pray our hearts out, (3) we must be killing sin, and (4) we must give our lives away. Today, what I want to do is put all that together by emphasizing what is true in “true discipleship.”

So, what does it mean to be truly a disciple? It means it’s the thing itself. A true disciple is a disciple not in name only but a disciple in fact. It means that, as followers of Him who said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), we walk in the way in which He walked. We walk in the truth.

So, how do we do that? Here in 3 John we see that we walk in the truth (1) when what we think is anchored in the truth, (2) when what we do is anchored in the truth, and (3) when what we are is anchored in the truth.

WHAT WE THINK IS ANCHORED IN THE TRUTH

(3 John 1-4)

So, first of all, we are authentic disciples—we walk in the truth—when what we think is anchored in the truth. Our faith isn’t just about what’s in our heads, but the cranium is not negligible either when it comes to faith. Presbyterians have always known that we need to fill our minds with truth—truth about God, truth about Jesus, truth about sin, truth about ourselves. In fact, nothing of value in Christian discipleship can be sustained without being confident of what is true.

There Can Be No Love without the Truth (vv. 1-2)

Take love, for instance. There can be no love without the truth. In verse 1, John is writing to Gaius, a friend and fellow believer, and he says, “To the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.” He could have said simply, “whom I love,” but he didn’t. He added those important words “in truth.” All healthy love is based on trust, and trust relies on truth. And so, we see that there can be no love without truth—at least, no healthy, sustainable love. If you tell me you love me and I entrust myself to your love—and then you betray me—my trust dissolves and I no longer believe you are telling me the truth. Trust can be restored, but it requires hard work over a long stretch of time. And it is always vigilant regarding truth. There can be no love without the truth.

There Can Be No Joy without the Truth (vv. 3-4)