The Bible teaches that one of the fruits of the Spirit, and one of the characteristics of our faith, is joy.  Galatians 5:22-23 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

And joy is the result of our salvation.  David said in Psalm 51:12 “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.”  And James says that joy can even be experienced in suffering.  James 1:2-3 “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”

So if joy is supposed to the be the experience of Christian, then what is the problem?  Why are we not experiencing joy?  Well, I would suggest that the problem is our perspective.  We often have sorrow rather than joy because our perspective is shortened.  We are focused on the wrong things.  We focus on the past, or on our circumstances or compare our situations with what we think others have.   And quite often, we have unrealized expectations.

In the passage of scripture we are looking at today, the disciples had mistaken expectations as well.  Instead of experiencing joy, they were experiencing grief and sorrow.  And Jesus is quite concerned about that.  In fact, practically the whole Upper Room discourse is devoted to Jesus trying to lift the hope of the disciples.  He offers hope, and comfort and peace in the previous verses.  Now in today’s passage He offers joy. 

It’s amazing really that in the midst of the greatest trial and suffering of Christ’s life, He is concerned  about our joy.  That is a lesson for us.  That no matter how dire the circumstances, there is the promise of joy through Christ to those who are His disciples.  But there can be a promise of joy, there can be the gift of joy, and yet it can remain unclaimed and unexperienced.  So let’s look at this section and try to learn what Jesus is telling us, how we can know the joy of Christ.  I can assure you it’s not going to be found in the possessions or material things, by the kind of joy the world gives.  The joy of the Christian is found in Christ.

Before we expound upon these verses though, we need to remember the context of this passage.  In the previous verses, Jesus is speaking of the ministry of Spirit of Truth who will disclose the Lord’s words to them and teach them and work through them to be a witness to the world.

So within that context, we might expect that the following verses will be related to the ministry of the Spirit as well.  The first principle then that Jesus teaches is that joy, or the lack of it, is often related to our perspective.  In vs.16, Jesus says, “A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.”  Now this seems a bit of a riddle, and the disciples evidently thought so as well.  The reason Rabbis sometimes employed these type of riddles in their teaching was to get their students to ask questions.  To get them to think it through.

And we see that’s exactly what happens.  “Some of His disciples then said to one another, ‘What is this thing He is telling us, “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’; and, ‘because I go to the Father’?”  So they were saying, “What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is talking about.”

Now the problem is not that they were asking questions.  Because Jesus certainly phrased the riddle in order to make them ask questions.  But the problem is they are asking the wrong person.  They ask one another.  

Jesus had just finished telling them in vs.15 that the Spirit would disclose to them the things of Christ.  So they heard that, but in practice they weren’t looking to the Spirit.  They were asking one another.  And the result was confusion and ignorance. 

Folks, let this be a lesson to us.  Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  He has the answers to life. So when you have questions, ask Jesus.  Don’t come to Him as a last resort after you have exhausted all your natural resources, after you have failed time and time again in your own wisdom.  But ask of God.  James said in James 1:5, “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”  

The problem with the disciples’ perspective was it was short sighted.  Jesus had told them He was going away.  He had told them He was going to be killed.  And so they were upset.  Because they had pinned their hopes upon Him.  And well they should have.  But their hopes were based on the wrong expectations.  They expected Him to establish a physical, immediate Messianic kingdom here on earth, overthrow the Roman government, and place His disciples on thrones of power as His cabinet ministers within the kingdom.  That was their expectation. But their hopes were ill founded.  Because that wasn’t the plan of God. 

How many times are we discouraged and disappointed in life, especially as we attempt to live out the Christian life, because we have misplaced expectations?  To put it bluntly, we expect to have our cake and eat it too.  We expect to inherit the glories of heaven, and yet experience the glories of earth.  And since we are now on the earth, that takes precedence.  We want glory now.  We want prosperity.  We want blessings now. We want worldly success as a benefit for godliness.  But God doesn’t necessarily promise those things. In fact, God promises hardship now, but triumph and joy in the age to come.

So Jesus answers that false expectation with another enigmatic statement.  Vs.20,  “Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy.”  Now we see the promise of joy.  But note that their joy comes as a consequence of their sorrow. 

I want to point out here that I didn’t write these words.  I didn’t create this principle.  If I were making this up, I would tell you what the false prophets on television tell you; that God doesn’t want you to suffer.  That God never wants you to suffer.  He just wants you to be happy.  And whatever makes you happy makes God happy.  That is the false prophet’s message today.  And it’s a popular message.  It’s what people want to hear.  And so they seek out those false prophets who will tickle their ears and tell them what they want to believe.  

But the truth is that Jesus says we will suffer. He said back in vs.2 “They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.” Jesus said in vs.33, “In this world you will have trouble.”  

So I would suggest that the joy of the Christian is not tied to your circumstances.  Our circumstances change from day to day, from sorrow, to grief, from riches to poor, depending on the tides of this world.  But the joy of the Lord carries us through whatever trials we may endure. 

Maybe it would help to define our terms.  Joy is not necessarily happiness.  Or at least it is not constant happiness.  The band Switchfoot has a song in which they say that happiness is a yuppie word.  Happiness is the aspiration of a narcissistic world.  Modern man is addicted to the notion of achieving happiness at all costs.  And as such we are doomed to missing out on true joy because constant happiness is unachievable. The Bible never promises us constant happiness. 

However,  Jesus does promise us joy.  Joy that will not be taken from us. So what is joy?  I believe it is an abiding hope, a sense of contentment, the presence of peace that we can have no matter what our present circumstances may be.  It is something that is not focused as much on the present as it is on the future, or the goal.

Jesus illustrates this joy with a analogy, or a parable that is a very familiar figure to all of us.  Vs.21, “Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.”

I don’t know the of pain and anguish that a woman feels in childbirth, but I have witnessed it.  As I’m sure all of you have some familiarity with childbirth.  And I suppose that it is one of the most painful things a person can endure.  In fact, many women have died giving birth.  But commensurate with the pain is the joy that is produced.  So that you might say that the degree of joy is directly related to the degree of pain.  But that’s not entirely true either.  Because the joy of a child in the long run far outweighs the temporary pain of childbirth.  

So it is with our sorrows and joy.  Ps.30:5 says, “Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.”  For the Christian, our sufferings are temporary, but our joy is eternal.   However, it is important to realize that suffering does not eclipse joy.  In fact, our suffering is turned to joy.  And the way that is achieved is by having a longer range view, a different perspective.  

Consider Jesus Himself as our example.  Hebrews 12:2 says, we should fix our eyes on Jesus, “the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  What that verse tells us is that Jesus went to the suffering of the cross with the view of the joy set before Him, knowing that the result of His suffering would be the joy of bringing many sons to glory, seeing many children born again into the kingdom of God.

I am not espousing a false type of piety that claims joy in the midst of a tragedy of some sort.  We aren’t supposed to pretend everything is joyful when it isn’t, and somehow that is construed as faith and that faith results in actualizing joy.  I don’t believe that is what Jesus is teaching.  Obviously, you can’t rejoice in everything that happens in life.  Jesus Himself wept and was greatly disturbed in His Spirit on at least a couple of occasions.  So Jesus isn’t saying that it’s wrong to feel pain, or wrong to grieve. 

On the contrary, Jesus says you will grieve.  There will be times when you will feel pain like a woman in childbirth.  But He also promises that sorrow will be turned to joy.  And though there may be times when circumstances sort themselves out and we find our sorrow turned to joy on a physical level, I think this verse must be considered as relating to spiritual joy.  God can turn our sorrow into joy when we look at it from a spiritual perspective. 

For instance, no one can take the joy of my salvation away.  No matter what I lose on this earth, no one can take that away.  It is reserved in heaven for me, far beyond earthly circumstances.  And nothing can take away God’s love for me.   Romans 8:38, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  

So in the security of that knowledge, I know that Romans 8:28 then is true; “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”  God will work all things together for good.  

Now how will Christ accomplish His promise of turning the disciples sorrow to joy?  Well, in verse 16 He equates their sorrow and grief as stemming from His leaving them.  ““A little while, and you will no longer see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me.”  That statement is paralleled in vs 20; “Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned to joy.”  So we see that the fact that they will no longer see Him results in their sorrow and grief.  And in like manner, when they see Him again, their grief will be turned to joy.  

The obvious conclusion is that He is talking about His death producing sorrow and grief.  And then His resurrection will be the occasion for turning their grieving into joy.  And that certainly is true.  But there is evidently a further explanation as well when you consider vs. 22; “Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”  That joy that they have when they see Him again, will not be taken away .  I believe this statement indicates a more full measure of joy than simply temporal.  He is talking about eternal joy.  

Jesus will be resurrected 3 days after His crucifixion.  And that will be a joyous occasion.  But He is not with them constantly during those next 40 days He is on earth.  He comes and goes.  And many days they don’t know where He is during that time.  And then after 40 days He is taken up into heaven.  So what happens to their joy at that point, if it is dependent upon His physical presence with them?  

Well, I believe as you consider the context of vs.15 and other sayings of Jesus in the Upper Room discourse, He is talking about being with them forever in the presence of the Spirit. He said earlier in vs.6 “But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”  

So again Jesus relates His leaving them as producing sorrow, but their advantage will come from the coming of the Holy Spirit.  

And so Jesus speaks of that day, the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit would come and be with them forever.  And through the Spirit of Christ, Jesus would be with them always.  His presence in them in the person of the Spirit  would be the source of their joy.  Because He would be their Helper, their Comforter, their constant guide, their source of truth, and their source of hope and peace.  

That helps us understand what He is saying in vs.23; “In that day [what day? the day the Spirit comes to dwell in you forever] you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.”  

That helps us because Jesus has already told us what the Holy Spirit will do for us.  Vs.15, “He takes of mine and discloses it to you.”  So Jesus isn’t saying here that this is like having a personal genie to grant us our wishes.  We say our requests in just the right way, saying in Jesus’ same, and He will give it to us.  Jesus is not putting Himself in the position of our genie, which we get to control and manipulate to satisfy our desires.

He’s talking about disclosing to us His words, His truth, and His teaching.  And the Holy Spirit will guide us, teach us, and bring His words to our remembrance.  He will take of Christ’s words and disclose them to us.  That means He will disclose the truth to us.  Jesus says in that day, you won’t ask me, because I won’t be present physically to ask as you do now.  But I am giving you another Helper, and you will ask in Jesus’s name, and God will give you whatever you need.

I do think that our needs can include physical needs.  Phil. 4:19 says, “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”  But there is a difference between our needs and our wants. Those of us that have had children should have realized at some point that giving your child everything they want does not make them happy.  So I think that the primary emphasis here is on our spiritual needs.   Jesus has said that His words are life.  His truth results in life.  And Jesus has also said that you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.  Not only that, but Jesus calls the Spirit the Spirit of truth, so that we might be more certain that this is His chief ministry to us; to teach us the truth, to lead us in all truth. And when Jesus is gone, and the disciples cannot ask Him to help them, they will have the Spirit of truth to disclose His words to them.  

Finally, in vs.24, Jesus says, “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.”  Up until this point, the disciples asked Jesus directly anything that they had questions about or were concerned about.  So Jesus says, now that I am leaving, you are to ask God in my name.  To ask God in the name of Jesus is not just a phrase tacked on to the end of our prayers.  Like saying abracadabra and then presto, we get whatever we asked for.  But to ask in Christ’s name is to ask according to His will.  To ask according to His plan and purpose.  To ask consistent with who Jesus is.  

When we ask in His name, consistent with His will, then we will receive, and our joy will be made full.  Literally, it says, our joy will be fulfilled.  That speaks again of the promise of joy in the midst of sorrow.  The promise of joy is fulfilled when we ask according to His will.  That’s how Jesus Himself prayed to God in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Though He was suffering, sweating drops of blood, He prayed, “yet not My will, but Yours be done.”  And though He continued to suffer, He considered the joy set before Him, and endured the cross, until He was exalted on high to the side of the Father’s throne.

The same is true for us as it was for Jesus.   Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”  

The next verse, Rom.8:17 also adds, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”  That is the key to having joy.  We need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and as He considered the joy set before Him, so we must consider the joy set before us; even our inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.  

And the way we do that is through the help of the Spirit of truth who will be with us forever.  He is our Comforter, our Helper, and He will take of Christ’s words and disclose them to us, that we might have that joy fulfilled.  Joy is the fruit of walking in the Spirit.  Galatians 5:22 tells us, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, JOY, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”  

It was a long time between the birth of Christ in a manger, and the joy that He experienced in glory in the presence of the Father.  Thirty three years He suffered and was tried and tested.  Thirty three years He suffered in all points like we do, yet without sin.  He suffered as no man has ever suffered, leaving the throne of heaven for the life of a pauper, rejected of men whom He came to save.  Yet as a consequence, God has highly exalted Him, and given Him a kingdom which will never end, and to which every knee shall bow.  

Keep your eyes on Jesus.  Consider His example.  And keep the promise of His joy before you.  Walk in the Spirit, and the joy of the Lord will be with you, whatever the trials, whatever the season, whatever the circumstances.  

In Phil 4:11-13 Paul says,  “Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.  I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.  I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

Imagine if you knew that you had 12 hours to live.  What would you want to say to your loved ones?  Well, that’s the exact situation that is facing Jesus in this passage.  He knows that He will be delivered up to be crucified the next day, and He has many things that He wants to tell His disciples while He still has an opportunity.

In today’s passage, we are continuing in our study of Jesus’s Upper Room discourse.  There are five chapters in John which are dedicated to this one final evening of Christ’s ministry.  Five chapters of last minute instructions before Jesus is crucified the next morning.  So far, we have looked at the Lord washing the disciples feet, which I called an animated parable about Christian love.  Then we looked at the personification of those that reject God’s love, which was the defection of Judas.  Today, we are going to look at the commandment of love which Jesus gives to the church.  This new commandment is found in vs.34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

Love is a word that is so overused in the church today that it has practically lost all it’s relevance to Christian life.  Ever since the Beatles sang “All you need is love,” the church has tried to tie Christian love to the world’s definition of love.  Perhaps it was an attempt to woo the world to the church, by taking away any offense of the gospel and dumbing it down to a one word description which the world would find appealing. The result though has been very destructive to the life of the church.  Because the Bible makes it clear that love is to be the defining characteristic of the church, but if we don’t really know what love is, then it’s unlikely that we can manifest it.

Now as I see it, this passage is broken down by John into three segments.  First, is love manifested, second, love commanded, and thirdly, love rejected.  Or you could say, what love looks like, what love does, and what love is not.  Let’s look at them in that order.  First love manifested.  Or what love looks like.

When Judas leaves the supper and goes out into the darkness, Jesus says in vs.31, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.”  Notice first of all that 5 times Jesus says the word glorified or a variant of it, glorify.  A logical question then is what does Jesus mean by using the word glorified?  

Well, we talked about this a few weeks ago,  back in chapter 12:23,  Jesus had said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  And if you will remember I pointed ahead to today’s passage as a means of answering that question – what is meant by the word glorified?  And as I pointed out then, Jesus was not talking about receiving glory from the Jews, but He was speaking of the hour of His death.  He was looking forward to His death in a few days, realizing that His ministry coming to its conclusion, and that his crucifixion was the means of His glorification.

How bizarre it is to our human sensibilities to hear of death and glory being correlated.  We tend to think of being glorified as being lifted up, exalted, praised, adored – that sounds like our version of glory. But Christ saw His death as the means of glory.  He was lifted up, but He was lifted up on a cross, to bear our sin in shame and reproach, that He might redeem us from the curse of death.  That He might buy us back.  Glorification then was Christ magnifying God’s attributes in a visible way, which was accomplished on the cross.  That’s the definition of the word glorified; in the Greek “doxazo” which means to cause the dignity and worth of some person or thing to become manifest and acknowledged.

So Jesus’ act of self sacrifice is the manifestation of divine love.  God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins. Christ’s death manifested the magnificence of God’s love.  God displayed His love for the world by dying on a cross on a hill in Jerusalem.

So as the church seeks to define Christian love, we should look at our example of the cross.  It was there that God defined love.  Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”  God displayed His great love  for us by sending Jesus to die on the cross.  And Jesus displayed His great love, by willingly laying down His life for the church.

That act of sacrifice manifested Christ’s love.  And Christ’s love manifested God’s love. That is what Jesus means when He says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.”  That is how Jesus can tell Philip in the next chapter that “if you have seen Me you have seen the Father.”  Jesus glorifies the Father because He does the works of God.  And then Jesus goes on to say that God will glorify Him in Himself, that is by God Himself, and will do so straight away.  God’s love for the Son will be revealed in Jesus’s resurrection, and exaltation.  So God was glorified in Christ by his death upon the cross in obedience to his Father’s will.

Christ’s love teaches us that obedience is always tied to Christian love.  Jesus says in the next chapter, 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”  And John says in his epistle in  1John 2:4, “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.”  So you see that love is manifested or glorified by obedience.  

Empty praise, or words of affection for God are simply not enough.  It is worthless unless accompanied by deeds which manifest such love. And even God’s love for the Son is predicated upon the Son’s obedience. Hebrews 5:8 says that Jesus learned obedience from the things which He suffered.  The late Scottish theologian John Murray said, “God has forged an inseparable link between sufferings and glory.” He went on to say “My life has the chisel of God upon it.”  As we share in the fellowship of His sufferings, we are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, and that glorifies God in Christ Jesus.

So then, the glory of God is revealed in the love of God  which is manifested in the suffering of Jesus Christ.  He laid down His life for the church.  He was obedient even to the point of death.  He laid aside His privileges in order to offer Himself as our substitute, for our benefit, so that we might be reconciled to God.  He is our example of love.  There is no better example, or more complete example of love than that of Christ Jesus.  And from His example we learn that Christian love is sacrificial.  It is humble.  It is putting other’s needs first.  It is obedient to God’s will.   And that kind of selfless love was dramatically displayed in the glory of the cross.

Secondly, let’s look at love commanded.  Or what we must do.  First let’s  notice the reason for the commandment.  And that is because Jesus said He is going away.  He is returning to the Father.  And He says that they cannot come.  They are going to have to stay here on earth and continue Christ’s ministry.  They are going to be the ministers of the kingdom of God and be the shepherds of His church. 

 So He gives them a new commandment, a mission statement for how they will carry on His ministry without Him.  He has just finished giving them a new ordinance in the Lord’s Supper.  And as was customary in the Passover meal celebration, the father would explain the meaning of each item of the meal, and at certain times would instigate questions for the children, so they might learn the meaning of the celebration.  So it is in this meal with Christ, acting as the father administering the ordinance, He calls them His “little children.”  He is instructing them in the significance of the New Covenant in His blood, which is symbolized in the Lord’s Supper.  

So even as the Old Covenant was accompanied by commandments, so the New Covenant has a corresponding new commandment.  And the new commandment is that they are to love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

Remember when Jesus was questioned about the law, and asked which was the greatest commandment?  Jesus gave them two laws which encompassed all the Old Testament commandments.  In Luke 10:27 Jesus answered, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”  All of the commandments of the law were fulfilled in those two.  

So in a similar fashion, Jesus gives us just one commandment in the new covenant, and all the commandments are fulfilled in this one.  Love one another.  If you love your neighbor, you will not steal from him. If you love your neighbor, you will not commit adultery with his wife.  All the commandments are summarized by love one another.  Notice, Jesus says it twice.  Love one another.  That is the commandment.  But then in an echo of what we just explained from the previous verses, He says love one another even as I have loved you.  We love one another as Christ loved us.  As Christ laid down His life for the church.

Ephesians 5:25 tells us we are to love our wives “as Christ loved the church and laid down his life for her.”    That’s the standard for Christian love.  Laying down your life is not simply being willing to die, but willing to lay aside your prerogatives in life, laying aside your priorities, laying aside your rights, laying aside your desire for fulfillment for the sake of someone else.  We love others because He first loved us.  Like Christ; We love those who don’t reciprocate, we love those who are unlovely, we love even those that hate us, who treat us badly, even our enemies.  Those are all manifestations of Christ’s love for us.

There are two attributes then of this love towards others that Christ commands us to do. First, you will love one another as Christ loved us, and second, you will be known by your love for one another.   Since Jesus is going away, He will be manifested to the world by our love for one another. He will be served by our love for one another. We must be to the church what Jesus was to the church.  We carry on His work, His ministry. And so we do that by loving one another even as Christ loved us.  That means we put the kingdom of God  ahead of our own kingdom.  That means we serve the church as Christ served us.  That means we sacrifice our prerogatives for the sake of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Christian love is not sappy sentimentalism, but sacrificial.  I like Vernon McGee’s quote, who said, “I’m tired of sloppy agape.”  The world’s view of love, and unfortunately too often imitated by the church, is that of sloppy sentimentalism that masquerades as love.

But Paul gives the right perspective of love in 1Cor. 13:4, “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Compare that for a moment to John Lennon’s version from his song titled “Love”, which I would suggest is the world’s view of love.  He sings,  “Love is real, real is love, Love is feeling, feeling love, Love is wanting to be loved, Love is touch, touch is love, Love is reaching, reaching love, Love is asking to be loved.” Now that is sappy sentimentalism.   If I were to draw a distinction between the world’s view of love described by Lennon, and that of Christian love described by Paul, I would say that Lennon’s love is characterized by getting, but Christian love is characterized by giving.  The world’s view of love is selfish, the Lord’s view of love is sacrificial. The common or worldly view of love is all self directed.  Love is how I feel, how it makes me feel, it’s all generated towards myself.  Thus when it ceases to satisfy me I can so easily turn away from it and look elsewhere for satisfaction.

But even the mystics and the Greek philosopher’s agreed that the greatest end of man is to help others, and not just help oneself.  It is what is known in Latin  as the “summum bonum”, the highest good.  To live for oneself is to descend to the depths of narcissism.  And a narcissistic society is the ruin of any civilization.   Unfortunately, you need look no further than social media and the accompanying selfie fixation of modern society to recognize that we are on the downward slide of civilization as we know it.

But Christian love, agape love, is the characteristic of the saints, who are being chiseled into the image of Jesus Christ.  We are a new society, a new civilization, looking for a better and abiding country. And Jesus said as we exhibit Christ’s kind of love to one another, we will be known as His disciples.  This kind of love exhibited towards one another, becomes a testimony to the world that we are transformed, we are different by design, that we are God’s children, and we are the image of Christ.  Our sacrificial love becomes our testimony.

Then finally, let’s look at love rejected.  Or what love is not.  In vs.36 Simon Peter *said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” Peter *said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” Jesus *answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.”

I’ve said before that I believe Peter loved the Lord.  But I think his love for the Lord was a worldly type of love.  I think it was a passionate, impulsive, emotionally based love. And so consequently we see Peter always acting rashly, without thinking.  That kind of passion without the tempering of truth resulted in errors in judgement.

You can see evidences of that in this dialogue. Peter is impatient, he is impulsive.  His love for Christ is passionate, but lacks temperament.  He wants immediate gratification.  He doesn’t want to wait for the Lord’s will.  He wants to conform Christ to his own will.  We saw that in Matthew 16, when Jesus declared that He was going to die, and Peter said, “O no, Lord.  That will never happen.”  And Jesus said, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

At the crux of Peter’s problems is his superficial love for Christ. When it comes time to count the cost of what it means to love Christ he fails the test.  So it was that when the persecution came upon Christ that Peter’s passionate, but superficial love for Christ was exposed, causing Peter to desert Christ, and then coming back only to stay at a distance, and then to deny Him publicly three times.  The trial revealed the shallowness of Peter’s love for Christ.  When it came time to count the cost, to lay down his life for his Lord, his faith turned to fear.  His love went cold.  

So it is with many Christians today.  We say we love the Lord, we say we love His church, we say we love one another when the sun is shining and everything is going our way, when there is no price to pay.  But when things turn nasty, when the hour belongs to the power of darkness, when we stand to lose something dear to us, then our love of self  takes over.  Christ takes a backseat, and we take over the steering wheel of our lives again.  Our love for Christ is revealed in the difficulties and trials of life. Love is tempered in the fire of trials.  But according to Charles Spurgeon, “God gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.”  That is where love is tempered through selfless obedience even in suffering.

That’s why when Christ sought Peter out after His resurrection, and He wanted to bring Peter back into usefulness after his denial of Christ, Jesus asked Him three times an achingly poignant question.  “Peter, do you love Me?”  “Peter, do you love Me?”  “Peter, do you love Me?”  And Peter is almost beside himself in agony that Jesus keeps asking him if he loves Him. But each time, Jesus answer is virtually the same. “If you love Me, then feed My sheep.”  What was Jesus saying?  “If you love Me, love My sheep.”  That is what Peter needed to understand.  And that’s what we need to understand.  Love is obedience.  Love is sacrificial.  Love is humble.  Love is suffering for the sake of others.  

Love one another, even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.  “Love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” That is our mission statement.  That is our testimony.  Let us lay aside our lives for the sake of the Kingdom of God even as Christ laid aside His throne for a cross.  

I want to end by reading part of the letter from Paul to the church in Rome found in Romans 12, where he speaks of laying our lives down as our worship to God.  Laying down our prerogatives, laying down our rights for the sake of Christian love.  Listen to this admonition from Paul; this is the kind of love we need to have that the world might know we are Christ’s disciples.

 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and [e]acceptable and perfect.

For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.  For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function,  so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.  Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith;  if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching;  or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”

“Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.  Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;  not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;  rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,  contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.

 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.  Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.  Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men.  If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.  Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.  “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” 

The passage that we are looking at today in our study of Genesis may not seem on the surface to have a lot of application for us today.  I really kind of go through a debate with myself about which passages in Genesis are important for us to study and which I maybe could skip over. But of course all scripture is important, even the parts that seem less attractive than others.  In fact, maybe the parts that seem less attractive have an even greater significance because they are often overlooked.

Paul said in Romans 15:4 “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

But Jacob is not a character that we probably find attractive.  He was a schemer, a “heel catcher” according to the translation of his name.  He was a liar, a scoundrel.  And it’s to our credit that we don’t find him as someone that we would want to emulate.  Esau his fraternal twin brother was undoubtedly more of the type of guy that you would be attracted to, or that you would find appealing.  

And yet we know that the scriptures say in Malachi chapter 1 that contrary to human reason God loved Jacob and hated Esau.  Paul elaborates on that in Rom 9:10-13 saying,  “And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived [twins] by one man, our father Isaac;  for though [the twins] were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to [His] choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,  it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.”  Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”

Paul goes on to say in vs15 For [the Lord] says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.”  So then it [does] not [depend] on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

So then what we will learn from this passage then is really the sovereignty of God, that He directs in the affairs of men,  that He chooses whom He will have mercy upon, and whom He will shed His grace upon.  And salvation is not given to those who deserve mercy, or who earn mercy or who try to gain mercy through their own contrivance.  But salvation is given to those who are sinners, who are undeserving.  And Jacob is a good example of a person who is a sinner that receives the blessing of God.

And I would encourage you to think about blessing in that regard as you read the scriptures.  Blessing is really another way of referring to salvation.  So when Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, and He gave what is called the Beatitudes, “Blessed are you who mourn for they shall be comforted…etc.,” He is really speaking about the ultimate spiritual blessing which is salvation.  We have a tendency to think of blessing as physical, as material.  And that was the problem that Esau had.  

We saw last time that Esau despised the birthright, which was his spiritual blessing. But now in this passage, when the birthright is tied to the blessing, Esau mourns over the fact that Jacob has stolen his blessing from him, but he is mourning over the physical, material aspects of losing his inheritance and not mourning about his relationship with God.  He still despises the spiritual blessing, only finding value in the material blessing.

Now this is a story, Biblical history, and it would be difficult, if not pointless to try to create a four point outline from this passage in order to satisfy some sort of sermon etiquette. But if I were to do so, then we might say, 1, Isaac’s rebellion, 2, Rebecca’s deception, 3, Jacob’s participation, and 4,  Esau’s frustration.  But we will read the passage in large sections and comment on each in turn, and hopefully learn some principles in the process.

Let’s start reading in vs 1, “Now it came about, when Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, that he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” And he said to him, “Here I am.”  Isaac said, “Behold now, I am old [and] I do not know the day of my death.  Now then, please take your gear, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me;  and prepare a savory dish for me such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, so that my soul may bless you before I die.”

Martin Luther somehow deduced from the scriptures that Isaac was about 137 years old at this time. He would live to be 180.  So he’s going to be alive for 43 more years, but he’s convinced he is about to die.  I’ve known some people like that.  They talked about how pitiful they were and how they were going to die, and yet they lived for quite some time afterwards, albeit in misery and making everyone else’s life miserable in the process.

But it reminds me of a comedian named Spike Milligan, who created his own headstone before he died.  He had written on his tombstone, “I told you I was ill.”  I’m thinking about borrowing that for my headstone.  Isaac however, was virtually blind.  And so perhaps we should excuse his morose outlook on account of his blindness.

Now you should remember from last time that the Lord had told Rebecca that the older will serve the younger.  There is little doubt that she had relayed that word of God to Isaac.  So he knew that the plan of God was to bless Jacob even though Esau was the firstborn son, which by tradition would mean he would have the birthright and the blessing. But God had said the older would serve the younger.  And Isaac knew this.

Isaac also knew that this was in accordance with the promises made to his father Abraham that from his seed would come a nation, and from that nation would be blessed, and the nations of the world would be blessed through his seed. 

But in spite of the clear word of God, Isaac in his old age has decided that he would rather bless Esau because he loved him more.  He also knows that Esau had despised his birthright and sold it to Jacob for a mess of pottage. So he knew God’s will, and he knew Esau’s spiritual disposition did not qualify him as the head of the nation which God would bless.  And yet Isaac attempts to defy the word of the Lord and the purpose of the Lord and act autonomously to perform his own will, to elect his favorite son to the position of favor.

Yet Isaac was a man of faith.  As I said when we looked at the sacrifice of Abraham, the faith of Isaac was a tremendous thing that is unstated in scripture, but is shouted in the silence of scripture.  In his youth he submitted without question to the will of God, even to the point of losing his life.  But now somehow, near the end of his life, his love for the Lord has grown cold, and his autonomy and pride of life have grown stronger to the point that he thinks he can do what he wants, with impunity. Maybe he thinks that way because he has become excessively rich. He was far richer than his father Abraham. And I suppose that’s a temptation of the rich, that they think they are smarter than they really are, or more deserving, or superior in some way.

I also think that Isaac was a man who was ruled by his appetite. I don’t know why, but I have a really bad image of Isaac at this point in his life of looking like an older Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, and I can’t get it out of my mind. I don’t see this in scripture, but I imagine him as old and very heavy, blind and his only comfort is found in eating.  No other pleasure in life is able to be enjoyed anymore. And I think he must have a tremendous appetite. Though I may be speculating about his appearance, his appetite is verified in scripture because it says that Rebecca when preparing his favorite stew has Jacob slay two goats for his dinner.  Two goats for one person’s meal indicates a voracious appetite.

So he calls Esau, the mighty hunter, and says I want to bless you before I die.  Go hunting for me and then make me the savory food that I love that I may eat it and then bless you.  This statement savory food that I love is repeated again and again in this story.  It turns out that Rebecca can make the same meal out of goat that he thinks is venison.  So you have to wonder what the spices were that made it so savory. Maybe he liked Mexican food.  You put enough cilantro and chiles and hot sauce on your food and you can be eating anything and it tastes good. You don’t know what you’re eating.  But notice again and again it says which I love, or which he loves. I think Isaac loved food to the point of it being sinful.

Isaac loves Esau, and he loves savory food. And ultimately his love for what he loves outweighs his love for the Lord.  Some Bible scholars see in this text that Isaac attempted to do this secretly.  In spite of knowing what God’s will was, he was going to do this before he died, without his wife knowing or Jacob knowing and in rebellion against God’s will.

But his secret is overheard. Vs 5, Rebekah was listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game to bring [home,]  Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Behold, I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, saying,  ‘Bring me [some] game and prepare a savory dish for me, that I may eat, and bless you in the presence of the LORD before my death.’  “Now therefore, my son, listen to me as I command you. Go now to the flock and bring me two choice young goats from there, that I may prepare them [as] a savory dish for your father, such as he loves. Then you shall bring [it] to your father, that he may eat, so that he may bless you before his death.”

It’s possible that Rebecca knew what Isaac was planning and spied on him in order to hear his plans.  We don’t know for sure.  But there is plenty of intrigue to go around, and all of the family is guilty of it to some degree.

Rebecca also commands Jacob to obey her. She uses her authority as his mother to get him to do this thing.  But I would suggest that it wasn’t hard for Jacob to participate, because we have already seen that his desire is for the birthright and so also for the blessing.  So he is a willing accomplice, but together they will bring about the deception.

However, Rebecca has more culpability in this deception because she was the one who had directly heard from the Lord concerning His blessing on Jacob.  If she would have waited on the Lord and trusted in Him, He would have worked it out in spite of Isaac’s secret plan.  But she uses her own means to work out God’s will.  And that causes all sorts of problems and longterm consequences for all involved.

Rebecca said, “I may prepare them as a savory dish for your father, such as he loves. Then you shall bring it to your father, that he may eat, so that he may bless you before his death.” There it is again, the savory dish as he loves.  She knows Isaac’s weakness is his appetite.  

There is a saying that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.  And a cunning wife is able to make her husband think that her ideas are his ideas so that he ends up doing as she wants him to do, all the while appearing to be submitting to him. I’m not saying that is necessarily always a bad thing, but often women have more control over their husbands than they are given credit for.

Vs11,Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me, then I will be as a deceiver in his sight, and I will bring upon myself a curse and not a blessing.”  But his mother said to him, “Your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, get [them] for me.”  So he went and got [them,] and brought [them] to his mother; and his mother made savory food such as his father loved.  Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son.  And she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck.  She also gave the savory food and the bread, which she had made, to her son Jacob.

Notice that Jacob isn’t concerned that the plan to deceive his father is wrong, only whether it will succeed.  That is a common problem in the church today, not whether or not it is according to the plan of God or the word of God, but only if it will bring results.  And if it succeeds at some level then we think we have accomplished something for the Lord.  

But Rebecca assured Jacob that whatever curse may fall on him she will take upon herself. I think Rebecca did not foresee what that would mean.  For one, it would mean that she would never see her son that she loved again.  All that she had hoped to gain through this deception she would end up losing for herself because she instigated this deception.  Many a person entering into sin discounts the cost of that sin, and thanks lightly of  the consequences of it.  Sir Walter Scott is credited with the saying, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

All four of them — Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Esau — did not trust each other. Worse yet, they did not trust the Lord. Each one of them schemed and plotted against each other and against God.  Even worse is they seem to regard the blessing as magical, as something detached from God’s wisdom and will. But in giving the blessing, basically Isaac was speaking as a prophet of God, and only as his word was in accordance with God’s word could there be any blessing.

So what was conceived in the heart is then acted out. Jacob’s participation in Vs. 18, Then [Jacob] came to his father and said, “My father.” And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?”  Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done as you told me. Get up, please, sit and eat of my game, that you may bless me.”  Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have [it] so quickly, my son?” And he said, “Because the LORD your God caused [it] to happen to me.”  Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come close, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.”  So Jacob came close to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”  He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him. And he said, “Are you really my son Esau?” And he said, “I am.” So he said, “Bring [it] to me, and I will eat of my son’s game, that I may bless you.” And he brought [it] to him, and he ate; he also brought him wine and he drank.  Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come close and kiss me, my son.”  So he came close and kissed him; and when he smelled the smell of his garments, he blessed him and said, “See, the smell of my son Is like the smell of a field which the LORD has blessed;  Now may God give you of the dew of heaven, And of the fatness of the earth, And an abundance of grain and new wine;  May peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you; Be master of your brothers, And may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, And blessed be those who bless you.”

Jacob blatantly lies three times to his father.  That’s pretty brazen. Even more damning, Jacob uses the name of the Lord to add some credibility to his lies. But it’s interesting that Jacob says the LORD your God.  Not the LORD our God, or the Lord my God. It will be 20 years before Jacob says the LORD Is his God. He wants God’s blessing, but not God’s lordship.

Jacob knew that God had promised this blessing to him, so perhaps he felt justified in lying. The blessing was a gift of God, but that does not mean that we are to continue in sin that grace may abound. But the words of Isaac’s blessing echo the promises that God had made to Abraham and to Rebecca concerning Jacob. 

Vs30 Now it came about, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had hardly gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting.  Then he also made savory food, and brought it to his father; and he said to his father, “Let my father arise and eat of his son’s game, that you may bless me.”  Isaac his father said to him, “Who are you?” And he said, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.”  Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, “Who was he then that hunted game and brought [it] to me, so that I ate of all [of it] before you came, and blessed him? Yes, and he shall be blessed.”

The Hebrew phrase for trembled violently could be translated “Isaac trembled most excessively with a great trembling.” It was like he had a convulsion.  And what that indicates is Isaac feared God because he realized that God had prevailed in spite of his own efforts to subvert the will of God.  God has prevailed in His sovereignty over the affairs of man and the schemes of man.  

And when Isaac recognizes this, he trembles violently and then he says, “I have blessed him—and indeed he shall be blessed.”  Isaiah 66:5 says, “Hear the word of the LORD, you who tremble at His word.”  The word of the LORD is a fearful thing. It is irrevocable, immutable, unchanging, eternal.  It is “as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times.”  Not one jot or title shall fail until all of it has been fulfilled.  You better have a holy fear of the word of God. And a pastor or a prophet better have a holy fear of the word of God and relay it faithfully just as He has given it.  I think Isaac got a pretty good sense of the importance of every word of God, that it cannot fail. That it will prevail.

Then we come to Esau’s frustration. Vs34 When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me, [even] me also, O my father!”  And he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing.”  Then he said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob, for he has supplanted me these two times? He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” And he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” But Isaac replied to Esau, “Behold, I have made him your master, and all his relatives I have given to him as servants; and with grain and new wine I have sustained him. Now as for you then, what can I do, my son?”  Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me, [even] me also, O my father.” So Esau lifted his voice and wept.

Hebrews 12:15 says,  See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;  that [there be] no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a [single] meal.  For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.

Esau’s weeping was not in repentance for his disdain for spiritual things, but it was in hope that his father would change his mind, but Isaac could not change the blessing.  What he had blessed would indeed be blessed. 

So this blessing of Esau seems more like a curse. Vs 39 Then Isaac his father answered and said to him, “Behold, away from the fertility of the earth shall be your dwelling, And away from the dew of heaven from above. By your sword you shall live, And your brother you shall serve; But it shall come about when you become restless, That you will break his yoke from your neck.”  So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”  Now when the words of her elder son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she sent and called her younger son Jacob, and said to him, “Behold your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you [by planning] to kill you.  “Now therefore, my son, obey my voice, and arise, flee to Haran, to my brother Laban!  “Stay with him a few days, until your brother’s fury subsides,  until your brother’s anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?”  Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

So you see that the true heart of Esau is finally revealed. He plans to murder his brother.  God sees the heart.  And though Isaac saw things about Esau that he thought was appealing, yet God knew what kind of heart Esau had towards the things of God, and also his hatred towards his brother.

And the consequences of this deception for Rebecca is she sends Jacob away to her brother Laban she thinks for only a few days, but it ends up being over 20 years.  She never sees him again.  And Isaac suffers the loss of Jacob as well and sees this conflict develop between his sons that will continue for a thousand years.  

Sin is rebellion against God. Pure and simple.  And that rebellion is so foolish because we think we know best, and we do not subject our plans to God.  But thankfully, God’s sovereignty overrules man’s foolishness.

 In this tragic story, everyone lost. Each of the main characters — Isaac, Rebekah, Esau, and Jacob — schemed and maneuvered in human wisdom and energy, rejecting God’s word and wisdom. Nevertheless, God still accomplished His purpose. The tragedy was that each of the participants suffered, because they insisted on working against God’s word and wisdom.  The only saving grace is that God keeps His word, and He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy.  And but for the mercy of God, no one would be saved.

The passage before us today is without a doubt the most difficult of all of Mark’s gospel.  There have been more books written and arguments presented on various possible interpretations than we could possibly address in a month of Sundays.  After wrestling with how to best deal with this chapter, I eventually felt that the Lord seemed to be directing my thoughts to a particular theme that I am going to try to reveal today.  

Rather than seeing Jesus giving a comprehensive, consecutive system of eschatological events, what I really think the Lord doing here is presenting a series of warnings.  He is warning of persecution, of tribulation and of coming judgment.  And His warnings are given specifically to the disciples, but also to everyone who will read these warnings later.   Notice in vs37, “what I say to you I say to all, or as the RSV says, I say to everyone, be on the alert!”  So this is a warning for us as well. In fact, much of it may pertain more to us today than was pertinent to the disciples.  

This passage before us is known as the Olivet Discourse in theological circles. And that title and the scholarly debates which has enveloped this passage for centuries lends itself to a certain detached intellectualism where people talk about hermeneutics and eschatology.  But the fact is that this is a vital warning that Jesus is giving to the disciples and thus to the church that is as urgent now as it was then.

There are 6 warnings that Christ gives.  And I want to read them to you so that you get a sense of the urgency that the Lord was seeking to convey.  Vs5, And Jesus began to say to them, “See to it that no one misleads, or better, deceives you. Vs.9, But be on your guard… Vs23, “But take heed; vs33, “Take heed, keep on the alert. Vs35, “Therefore, be on the alert, Vs 37, ‘Be on the alert!’”

Now I read you those so you might get a sense of the theme of the discourse.  It is a series of warnings to the disciples and to the church who would follow, that there are going to be perilous times ahead.  That’s why I read to you the whole passage initially.  Taken as a whole, it is a somber message; multiple warnings of trials and tribulations and judgment that lies in store for the world and for those that are Christ’s disciples. As Peter wrote in 1Peter 4:17  “For the time [has come] for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if [it begins] with us first, what will [be] the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?”

As we begin this passage, we notice that His discourse is brought on by the disciples comments as they have left the temple and have started to ascend the Mt of Olives with Jesus, presumably to spend the night out in the open as they were accustomed to do each evening.  And perhaps as they stopped on the path to catch their breath, they look out across the ravine where the Kidron brook flowed and they see the walls of the temple before them reflecting the setting sun.  It was by all accounts one of the most beautiful buildings in the world at that time.  Herod had constructed the temple with huge white marble stones, some as big as 45 feet long, and he had overlaid much of the walls with plates of gold.  So as the sun was setting, it undoubtedly was reflecting off the white gleaming marble and the gold plates.  It would  certainly have been a tremendous sight.  There used to be a saying among the rabbis, that if you had not seen Herod’s temple, then you had not seen a beautiful building.

And the disciples were obviously in awe of it.  These were poor fishermen from Galilee, for the most part, and so this was a tremendous sight.  Notice how they speak of the temple to Jesus; “Teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!”  The disciples are merely repeating what was a very typical perspective for most Jews.  They all thought of the temple as the house of the Lord. They believed God dwelled in the midst of it, in the Holy of Holies.  It was the center of religious life.  David wrote many songs extolling the virtues of worshipping God in the temple.  And so for the disciples, as for most Jews, worshipping God and worshipping in the temple were synonymous.  In fact, you could say that in their minds to love the Lord was to love the temple.  

But the Lord’s actions over the last few days should have revealed that He was not pleased with the temple, nor the priests who oversaw  it, nor the commerce which was being conducted in it, nor the self righteous religious ceremonies that were being conducted in it.  However, the disciples’ thinking reflects what many people think concerning the church even today.  They associate a beautiful building with church.  They associate rituals and ceremonies with holiness.  They associate great crowds and pageantry and music and festivals with worshipping the Lord.  They look at the external church and think that somehow God is in it.  

But God’s attitude towards the church is not focused on the externals, especially not upon the buildings or the beautiful adornments or rituals or ceremonies or pageantry.  God is concerned with the heart.  As God told Samuel in regards to him choosing a king, “man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.”  God looks through the externals and sees the heart of the people.  1Co 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”

From God’s perspective, the love of the church is to be a love of Him.  The church as His body is to be a reflection of Him.  It is His house.  Remember the context here is still within the Passion week, when just a day earlier Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.  It is the pure, unadulterated love of a bride for her husband.  It is the love of Jonathan for David which David said was better than the love of a woman.  

I hate to even repeat what perverse things liberals have said concerning the love between Jonathan and David.  Let me just say what it is.  It is a picture of the way a man should love the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is a noble love, a love that is willing to lay down one’s life for his friend.  It is greater than romantic love.  It is greater, more noble than romantic love.  It cannot even be compared to erotic love.  It is the love of a warrior for his king and country, that motivates him to lay down his life in service.  It’s the kind of love that Uriah exhibited, when David called him from the battle field to come give him a report, in hope that Uriah would visit his wife and he could be thought of as the father of Bathsheba’s unborn child.  But Uriah, you will remember, refused to go to see his wife and rather slept on the porch of David’s palace.  His answer as to why he did not visit his wife was because his men were on the battlefront fighting, so how could he go sleep in comfort with his wife.  That’s the kind of love that surpasses the love of a man and woman.  That’s the kind of love we are to have for the church and for the Lord of the church. Oh that the church might have some Jonathan’s today who would give up their kingdom in order to serve the Lord.  Oh that the church might have a few Uriah’s today, that would give up even the love of their family for the sake of God’s church.

 I also want to say that this title Lord is something we need to think of more seriously.  We say Lord Jesus without thinking of what that means.  If we are truly Christians, then Jesus must not  only be our Savior, but also our Lord.  Lord means Sovereign.  Master, ruler, supreme ruler, owner, the one to whom all honor and homage is due.  He is the supreme ruler of our lives.  He gives us life, and liberty, and an eternal inheritance in the Kingdom of God.  He is the source of all life and all blessings.  How can we not give Him our all as our Lord?  And if He is our Lord, then we must serve Him with all our being; all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength.  Nothing less than all of me is acceptable service.  Nothing held back.

Phl 2:9 says,  “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”   So Jesus is Lord, and He is also Lord of the temple and Lord of the church.  And as Lord He has the authority and right to examine what is His and to do with it what He wills.  

Matthew records Jesus as saying just previously to the Olivet Discourse as He looked over the temple and all the religious proceedings, in Matthew 23:38  “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!”  And immediately afterwards the disciples then start speaking of how beautiful the temple and the buildings were. 

So the Lord responds with an even more dramatic statement; “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another which will not be torn down.”  We know from history that this astounding prophecy was fulfilled less than 40 years later when the Roman general Titus and His soldiers broke through the walls of Jerusalem and ransacked the city and the temple and set fire to the temple so that the gold plates melted and ran down into the cracks between the stones, and the soldiers pried apart the stones in order to get the gold.  Historians tell us that 1.1 million Jews were massacred in that incident, and consequently the religious and political life of the Jews ceased to exist as they were dispersed across the Middle East and into Europe.

Now the disciples are understandably concerned upon hearing this prophecy.  It must have sounded impossible, but yet they struggled to believe Jesus and understand Him.  So they come to Him privately and ask Him, ““Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are going to be fulfilled?”  There are really two questions that they are asking.  When will these things happen, and what are going to be the signs of the end of the age. Matthew’s version makes the question clearer, Matt. 24:3 “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

As I said at the beginning, Jesus is going to use this as an opportunity to give the disciples and us some insight into the future events, but at the same time serve a series of warnings to His followers to be on their guard, to be on the alert.  It almost sounds as if there is a military campaign against a fierce enemy.  And they must keep their guard up lest they be overwhelmed.  And perhaps that is exactly what is at stake.  In fact, nothing less than spiritual warfare is at stake.  Peter similarly warned the church later in 1Peter 5:8 “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, (your enemy) the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

Paul often related the church to a military unit. 2Tim. 2:3-4 “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.”

Now let’s notice these 6 warnings in order and speak briefly of each as we have the time.  I believe that the best understanding of these prophecies is to realize that some were fulfilled within the discples lifetime at the destruction of the temple and some are yet to be fulifiled completely, but which will be at the second coming of Christ.  There is a dual application to most of them, pertaining to the end of the age of the Israelites and also foreshadowing the end of the church age. Perhaps we may revisit some of this later, but for now I just want to give you an overview of what Jesus is warning the church of.  And that is what I think Jesus Himself is doing.  He is giving an overview.  This is not a detailed timeline of the end times.  It is an overview, highlights of the church age, the time between His going away and His coming again, so that we might be forewarned.  

First warning, vs5 , “See to it that no one misleads you. Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He!’ and will mislead many.”  This is a common warning in scripture.  It is a warning against false teachers and false religion.  Paul later on tells the Ephesian elders, in Acts 20:28-31 “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;  and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.”

I think this warning covers more than just false Christs, but also those who would preach a Christ which is not the Christ of the gospel.  It is a deceitful doctrine, a doctrine of demons.  It’s meant to lead people astray into false doctrine that produces spiritual shipwreck and keeps people from true Christianity.  It is superficial Christianity that is external but not internal. That’s why the Lord says don’t be deceived.  

Another false flag Jesus identifies is wars and rumors of wars.  He says that is not a sign of the end.  In fact, that’s just the beginning.  The times of tribulation that the church will suffer and the whole world will suffer will be marked by many wars, many nations rising against nations, kingdoms against kingdom, earthquakes and famines and so forth will be the norm after Christ is ascended into heaven.  People today are constantly grasping onto every new conflict or catastrophe and trying to use it as evidence that it must be the last days.  Jesus says that is just the beginning of the age, not the end.  Those sort of things will be the normal for the church age after Christ has gone away.

The second warning is in vs9,  “But be on your guard; for they will deliver you to the courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them. The gospel must first be preached to all the nations.” Now we know that this was fulfilled during the lives of the apostles.  Paul said by the time he wrote Romans which was before the destruction of Jerusalem that already the gospel had been taken to the whole world.  Of course, he was thinking of the known world.  But nevertheless, a certain measure was fulfilled then, and today we are seeing the full extent of that prophecy fulfilled.  I think that you could say that with internet and television the gospel has reached virtually every part of the world today.  

So there is a warning and a mandate.  Note that the gospel must be preached. It is our duty, it is our service to God.  It is the battle we have been called to wage for the kingdom. The enemy will only be defeated by the word of God as it is proclaimed throughout the world.  But the warning is that we will suffer for doing so, even as the disciples suffered.  Virtually all the apostles lost their life eventually in service of the gospel.  The same sacrifice is expected of us if necessary, but whether we live or die, we must proclaim the gospel.  We need to understand that the Lord is returning, and men are dying.  We need to preach, as the Puritan pastor Richard Baxter put it, as dying men to dying men.  The world is dying in their sins.  Without the Lord, without the gospel, people are destined for hell.  We must have a vision for the lost, even if it means that we sacrifice our lives or comfort in the process.  That is how we are to love our neighbor, by telling them the truth of the gospel.  It’s our mandate.  Our mission.

Jesus goes on to describe the opposition and persecution against His followers.  Even family members will turn on you.  In fact, I will go so far as to say that your family will often be the source of some of the most vicious attacks against you as a Christian.  Jesus says that in some cases they will even turn you over to be killed.  Children will rise up against their own parents.  2Tim. 3:1-5 says,  “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.  For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,  treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,  holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.”  Sounds exactly like our culture today.

Vs13 “You will be hated by all because of My name, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.”  I don’t think that Jesus is talking about conversion here, but he is talking about the end of one’s life.  Persevere until the end.  Endure until the end.  Fight the good fight.  Finish the course.  Paul said in 2Tim. 4:7-8 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith;  in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”  Such is our hope if we finish well.  

These next verses I think clearly refer to the destruction of the temple. Vs 14 “But when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. The one who is on the housetop must not go down, or go in to get anything out of his house;  and the one who is in the field must not turn back to get his coat. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! But pray that it may not happen in the winter.

The situation was when Jerusalem was surrounded by the Roman armies, the people did what was normal for that time, they fled for refuge to the walled cities.  In the case of Judea they fled to Jerusalem as the Romans came in closer. And as a result, when the Roman army sacked Jerusalem, over a million Jews were massacred.  Jesus said when this time comes, do not flee into the city, but instead flee to the mountains.  And it is believed that many of Jesus’s followers escaped by fleeing into the mountains. 

Now many dispensationalists make a lot of the mention of the abomination of desolation.  But it is  probably best understood as a reference to the Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes who offered swine blood on a pagan altar in the temple of Jerusalem 200 years before Christ in fulfillment of Daniels prophecy.  And Jesus used that event as a foreshadowing of the Roman legions with their banners depicting Caesar encircling Jerusalem.  In fact, in Luke’s synoptic account in Luke 21, he makes it clear that the encroaching Roman armies are the abomination of desolation here spoken of. Luke 21:20  “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near.” There may yet be a future fulfillment of that prophecy though in regards to Israel today.  Today I think you may certainly say that Israel is encircled by enemy armies.  Perhaps the end of the church age is near.  

Once again, Jesus warns of false Christs and false prophets who will arise, so that if possible they would lead astray even the elect.  As I mentioned earlier, Paul said those would arise immediately upon his departure.  John, and Peter and Jude also spoke of false prophets already in place.  John said in his day that many anti Christs were already in the world. So we know that was fulfilled, and yet we know that in the end of times such false teachers will increase even more.  Notice how today there are entire denominations that are known for their signs and wonders and consequently are deceiving many people.

Vs24-29 sound to many as if He is speaking of His second coming.  And perhaps in one respect He is.  But I think it is also accurate, and perhaps more accurate to see this section as apocalyptic language which depicts a coming judgment.  If you look at prophetic language of the Old Testament, particularly in regards to God’s judgment upon the pagan nations, you will hear many of the same phrases being used. The events depicted in Mark are similar to those used to foretell God’s judgment of other nations such as Babylon – Isaiah 13:9-10, (Jesus quotes from Isaiah 13 which is about the fall of Babylon saying that THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL BE FALLING   Egypt – Isaiah 19:1. Edom Isaiah 34:4,5; Nineveh – Nahum 1:3-5, Israel – Amos 8:9 or Judah – Jeremiah 4:5-6,23-28.  The prophets often foretold God’s coming in judgment upon such nations by using figures of speech denoting worldwide, cataclysmic destruction, even though it was a local or national event.  And perhaps it was done so to foreshadow God’s final judgment upon the world at the end of the age.  But I would add that the reason for God’s warning, and the reason for the ensuing judgment and wrath is to bring about repentance.  Even in judgment God is working to bring about repentance.

But notice that Jesus puts a contemporary ending on this section by saying this generation will not pass away until all these things come to pass.  Many theologians have tried to define generation to mean race or people in order to show that this judgment is still in the future.  But we know for certain that it was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in that generation (40 years).  But the point though I want to emphasize is that the Lord has the right to pronounce judgment upon His temple, and He has the right to pronounce judgment upon His world, and judgement upon His church as we saw in the letters to the seven churches.  And the certainty is that the Lord is going to return in judgment for the world, and deliverance for His bride. James 5:8-9 says “You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.  Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.”

The last three warnings are all found in the last section, from vs33 to 37.  And I have to cut this message short due to time.  But suffice it to say that Jesus illustrates very well the mission for the church today in His statement about the man who went away on a journey.  He is speaking metaphorically of course about Himself, who has ascended into heaven to the Father’s right hand.  In the meantime, He has given to us, His servants the responsibility of guarding His house and maintaining His kingdom until He returns.  And foremost in His statement, He instructs us to stay alert. 

“Therefore, be on the alert—for you do not know when the master of the house is coming, whether in the evening, at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—in case he should come suddenly and find you asleep. What I say to you I say to all, ‘Be on the alert!’”

Yet once again I think that there is an allusion to the immediate situation for the disciples and a future allusion for us today.  For the disicples, it would be but 2 more days before they would be told in the garden to watch and pray that they may not fall into temptation.  And yet Jesus found them asleep on two occasions.  And consequently they deserted Him in HIs betrayal. I think it’s no accident that Jesus mentions a rooster crowing, reminiscent of the denial by Peter when the cock crowed as he denied Christ three times.  They were so focused on the future that they forgot the present application to be on their guard.

And I think the application is just as appropriate for the church today.  I think the church is spiritually asleep when we are supposed to be on duty.  We need to be about the Lord’s business.  We need to be praying and watching and guarding against temptation.  But instead I’m afraid we are lulled to sleep by ear tickling preachers who are preaching a here and now materialistic prosperity doctrine so that we are so enamored with the world that we are too preoccupied to be any use for the kingdom.  I don’t want to take the time to tell you all the ways that you may be deceived by the devil, or distracted by the devil’s strategies, but I do know that the Lord is coming quickly.  And He is coming this time in judgment.  We need to make sure that we are found by Him to be faithful.  He is Lord.  We are His servants.  Remember Paul’s admonition to Timothy, “No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.”

In closing, let me read a few selected verses from Peter, warning us about the end of this age, found in 2Pe 3:3-4, 7, 10-15 “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,  and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” … 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. … 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.  Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!  But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,  and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.”

We are studying the first letter to Timothy which is the manifesto of church faith and practice. The Apostle Paul is relaying how the church is to conduct itself. He says in vs 15 “but in case I am delayed, [I write] so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.”

The Lord inspired Paul to write how the church is to be conducted. Jesus said, God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. So it’s important to God that we order our worship, conduct our church, according to His truth. Last week we looked at the Lord’s requirements and qualifications of the pastor, or elder, or overseer of the church. All of those titles are virtually synonymous. They all refer to the same position. But there is one more position that Paul is going to address and that is the position of deacon.

Deacon comes from the Greek word, “diakonos”, which meant servant, or waiter, or minister. We tend to think of the word minister differently than it is intended though. A minister is one appointed to carry out the commands of the master. Therefore, in political government, there are ministers of various departments of government, which administer the agenda or desires of the government. But the word itself does not denote a lofty title, but rather one who carries out the commands given to him by his superior.

So the pastor and the deacon(s) are both focused on the same agenda, and that is the support, proclamation and administration of the truth. The pastor has a different role than the deacon, but both are working on the same goal, for the same Lord. But in preparation for that, Paul has delineated the qualifications for deacons. Deacons are supporting and helping the pastor in the conduct or administration of the church. But to some extent, we are all to be serving the Lord, and following the example of a deacon. Deacons are men that are given an representative role in serving the church, but all the members of the body are to serve the Lord in a similar way. And so even though you may not be officially named a deacon, we should all follow their example as a model for ourselves.

To get a better idea of the job of a deacon, it’s perhaps a good idea to see how this position came about. We find that in the book of Acts, ch. 6:1-6 “Now at this time while the disciples were increasing [in number,] a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic [Jews] against the [native] Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving [of food.] So the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. “Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” The statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch. And these they brought before the apostles; and after praying, they laid their hands on them.”

So that is the account of choosing the first deacons in the first church in Jerusalem. At that time there were probably in excess of 8000 people in that church. The apostles were the pastors, but it became evident that there was a practical need for men who would serve the physical needs of the congregation. The command to love one another is worked out in practical ways. A superficial view would be that these men were not much more than glorified waiters. But a closer look reveals that they were much more than that. Steven in particular was a man of great faith, and we have his last sermon recorded in the book of Acts which he preached to the men who would eventually stone him to death. Phillip became known as the Evangelist, and we have record of how God used him to minister the word of God to the Ethiopian eunuch. These deacons then eventually became preachers and evangelists and missionaries, taking their service to the Lord to another level.

The qualifications that Peter and the elders of the church at Jerusalem gave for a deacon was “men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” That hardly seems like the qualification for a waiter, but they are good qualities for a servant of God. And those qualities are a summary perhaps for what Paul gives as qualifications for deacons in 1 Timothy.

So let’s look briefly at these qualifications. And I think the first thing we will notice is the similarity between the pastor’s qualifications and the deacon’s qualifications. Paul says in vs 8, “Deacons likewise [must be] men of dignity, not double-tongued, or addicted to much wine or fond of sordid gain, [but] holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. These men must also first be tested; then let them serve as deacons if they are beyond reproach.”

You will notice that the qualifications for deacons is much the same as for pastors, but perhaps abbreviated somewhat. And in the case of both positions, being a man who is above reproach is emphasized. He must be of good reputation both in the church and outside the church. He must be a straight talker, not someone who lies. He must be dignified. That doesn’t mean putting on airs, but honorable, a man of good character.

And just as with the pastor, he is not to be addicted to wine. Wine would include any alcoholic drink. Proverbs says, wine is a mocker, and strong drink a brawler, and he who is intoxicated with it is not wise. I would go so far as to say that you are going to have difficulty being a man of dignity if you are a consistent drinker.

Not fond of sordid gain is another qualification for a deacon. Sordid gain can cover a wide area of making money. It’s probably indicating that a deacon is of necessity going to be a man of business, but he should not use underhanded business practices. He should not be engaged in any immoral business. He should not be associated with anything in his business dealings that would bring dishonor to Christ. A lot of Christian businessmen think that all is fair in love and war and making a sale. That you have to do what you have to do in order to make it in today’s world. But a deacon must not have such a low standard in his business dealings. He is to be above board, not wiling to sacrifice principle for profit.

And then Paul adds, holding to the mystery of faith with a clear conscience. The word mystery there is used again in this passage in vs 16. And what mystery means is what was once hidden is now revealed. The faith then is the gospel which has been fully revealed. And these deacons are men who hold fast their faith with a clear conscience. That means that they are not deliberately living in sin in violation of their faith. They know what they believe and they live it out. It’s not just a head knowledge, but a life that reflects the knowledge of the truth. And maybe that is a distinction between pastors and deacons. Pastors preach the truth in word and deed, deacons preach the truth by deed. They are not so much preachers as they are practically working it out towards others in the church. Their life and conduct proclaim the truth of the gospel.

Now that leads to the next qualification which is in vs 10, “These men must also first be tested; then let them serve as deacons if they are beyond reproach.” In the qualifications for pastors, Paul had said they were not to be a new convert. That indicates that time was needed to mature a man to be a pastor before taking on this leadership role. And the same thing is virtually being said here. That a man must go through a time of testing before serving as a deacon. And then, when they have come through those tests, if they are without reproach, that is they didn’t fail the tests, then they are to serve the church in the capacity of a deacon.

Testing is not done to make someone fail. God isn’t trying to get you to fail the test. He is using it to prove your faith, or confirm or strengthen your faith through the test. Peter said in 1Peter 1:6-7 “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, [being] more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

So these men who are servants of the church are to be men who have come through the tests with a stronger, more mature faith. Their faith has been tested through fiery trials and come forth as gold.

And then stuck right in the middle of the qualifications for deacons is some qualifications for their wives. Now some have taken this verse to be a separate office of a deaconess, that is, a female deacon. But that doesn’t really correlate with all that was said about women’s role in the church in chapter 2. If you notice, the context of verses 8-12 is all about the qualifications for deacons except for verse 11. I think it makes much more sense contextually to consider verse 11 as a continuation of qualifications for deacons, but recognizing that their wives can affect their role.

Let’s notice what he says then in vs 11. “Women, [or an alternate reading is deacon’s wives] [must] likewise [be] dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things.” If this were qualifications for deaconesses, then it would seem odd that their qualifications are much more abbreviated than either deacons or pastors. Instead, I think it’s an indication that a deacon’s wife can either be a great asset to a deacon, or a great hindrance. And the goal would be that she would be an asset.

It’s likely that the wife of the deacon is mentioned here because the duties of the deacon might incorporate his wife to some extent. He is serving widows, often in their homes. I can tell you that if a deacon was to serve a widow, especially by going to her home, then it would be prudent to take along his wife. For my part, I am careful not to counsel any woman alone. I will always include my wife, or I will make sure we are in a public place. But even then, it would be much better for my reputation if my wife is with me. And maybe that is the reason why Paul includes their wives in this description, since one of their primary jobs was serving widows in the church.

And the wife of the deacon, being privy to the widows needs or private affairs by accompanying her husband, must be careful not to gossip about those things which she was privy to. She also must be mild mannered, not a hot head, that’s what it means to be temperate. And faithful in all things. She is to be a godly woman of faith. I can tell you this; a man and his wife are tied together in regards to reputation. One affects the other. They may have completely different personalities, but in reputation they are tied at the hip. A wife of bad character taints the reputation of a good man, and vice a versa.

But for the deacon’s part, he must be a man who is loyal to his wife. Paul says in vs 12, “Deacons must be husbands of [only] one wife, [and] good managers of [their] children and their own households.” If the deacon is a good steward of his own household, then he will be a good steward of the household of God. And unfortunately, the opposite is usually true. If he is not a good steward of his household, then he will not be a good steward of the household of God. Whether or not that verse also is an injunction against a deacon who is divorced, it is difficult to say. I would suggest that it probably indicates that he could be divorced, but not remarried. Though I cannot be dogmatic about that from this verse.

To be a deacon then is to be a servant or a steward of the church. And as such descriptions indicate, being a servant does not always carry a very high standing in the eyes of man.But Paul indicates here that it does carry a high standing in the eyes of God. He says in vs13, “For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a high standing and great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.”

Paul gives here an incentive for good stewardship and a promise of a good reward for their service. Jesus said if you give a cup of water in His name truly he will not lose his reward. So we can assume that Paul indicates that serving the practical needs of the people of the church is not less than giving a cup of water, and such service will be rewarded in heaven.

And then as I have already mentioned, Paul gives the reasons for relaying these instructions about the church and it’s leaders. He says in vs 14 “I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, [I write] so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.”

Now I have quoted this verse and spoken of this verse in each of our messages in 1 Timothy, but I realize not all of you have been here for the previous messages so I want to be sure you see a couple of things. First he says the household of God is the church of the living God. We are children of God by second birth. We are given a new spirit, and a new nature. We are born of God, who is our Heavenly Father. We are called the brethren of Christ. And we are considered brothers and sisters of one another. So we have a love for God and for one another that defines us as the family of God, the household of God.

And notice also that the word church is from the Greek word “ekklesia” which means called out ones, an assembly. It has nothing whatsoever to say about a building. Except in the passage in 1 Peter 2:5 where he says, “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” In other words, the people are the temple of the Holy Spirit. The people are the church, a spiritual house in which God dwells.

And finally, notice that the church’s duty is to support the truth. The truth refers to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except by Me.” So Christ is the truth, and the church’s purpose is to support and proclaim that truth, that by faith in Christ, the world might come to be saved.

That truth then is the theme of the hymn that Paul records here in the 16th verse. It is believed by many Bible scholars that this was part of a hymn that was well known in the early church. They deduce this by the word construction in the original language. I think it is very likely the case, or at least a creed that was rehearsed frequently in the early church.

Paul introduces it by saying, “By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness.” Common confession indicates it is something frequently confessed, that is possibly a hymn or creed. When he says the mystery of godliness, it is a reference to our faith in Christ. That which was hidden is now revealed, therefore he calls it a mystery. When Jesus Christ was manifested in the flesh, the gospel of God was revealed. That which had been a mystery, which the saints of old had seen only darkly as in a mirror, or in pictures and types, was now revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. And in a similar manner, this hymn that Paul repeats reveals that mystery of Christ from his birth to his ascension, and this truth going forth into all the world.

Let’s read it through. “He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.”

Now let’s consider each line separately and say a few words briefly about each statement.

He who was revealed in the flesh. This speaks of Jesus incarnation. But it also speaks of the eternal nature of Christ. It doesn’t say he was made in the flesh, or created in the flesh, but He was revealed in the flesh. That indicates that He who existed in the heavens with God, who was God, took on flesh. John 1 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He was preexistent God, who was revealed in the flesh. He was Eternal Truth, which became flesh.

“He was vindicated in the Spirit.” John the Baptist said, “I beheld the Spirit like a dove descending from heaven, and He remained on Him.” He was also vindicated in the Spirit as He came out of the water and went about Galilee preaching the gospel and working miracles. The power of the Holy Spirit was clearly upon Him. And He was finally vindicated in the Spirit when He arose from the grave, having been found blameless and without sin, being evident that He was the Son of God.

The next line is “seen by angels.” I wonder if that could better be translated testified by angels. He was certainly seen as well, but I think it more appropriate to think of their testimony to what they had seen. The angels testified to the shepherds at His birth. They ministered to Him in the wilderness. They ministered again to Him in the Garden of Gethsamane. And they testified to the disciples at His resurrection, “He is not here, He is risen.” They testified of HIs coming again at His ascension, that He would return in the same way that He had gone up into heaven. So the angels played a part in the proclamation of the truth of Jesus Christ.

The next line is proclaimed among the nations. The truth of the gospel was proclaimed with power at Pentecost, and then quickly spread to all the civilized nations. Today the gospel has been preached to the entire world. That is our mandate, to be witnesses, to bear testimony to the truth, and take it to the world.

And the last line is taken up in glory. Jesus appeared to 500 people after His death. There were 120 that were gathered together in the Upper Room. So it’s conceivable that there were at least 120 people who witnessed His ascension. And as I said a moment ago, the angels were also there at His ascension as the disciples looked up in the sky in wonder. The ascension indicates so many things to the Christian. First that Jesus is the Son of God. That He is living. That He is standing at the right hand of the Father to make intercession for us. And that He is coming again to claim His kingdom and claim HIs bride to live forever with Him.

And in the power of that truth, we can live without fear, without dread for the future, we can endure any suffering here on earth, having no fear of death, knowing that because He lives, we too shall live, and we shall live with Him. And until He comes again, we will gladly support and serve the truth as the church of the living God, the household of God. May we be found faithful servants when He comes.

Paul says in Rom 12:1-2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

At the beginning of a new year, a lot of people come up with a new year’s resolution that they intend to accomplish during the upcoming year.  Most of them don’t stick with it too long. I thought about a new year’s resolution quite a bit.  I plan on starting a new exercise program.  And I’ve already gotten started on my resolution. I’ve watched a lot of video’s about different workout plans.  But to tell you the truth, that’s probably about as far as I want to go with it.  Just watching all those video’s was exhausting.

It would be nice if you could get in shape just by wishing for it.  Imagine if God were to give you  one wish that He would grant you.  Well, He did jut that with a young man named Solomon. Solomon had inherited the kingdom of Israel from his father David. And after he had established his right to the throne, he sacrificed to God 1000 burnt offerings.  And in 1 Kings 3 we read that God appeared to him in a dream and said, “Ask what you wish Me to give you.” That’s what we all dream of, isn’t it?  I wonder what we might answer to that question.  If you could have one wish, what would you ask for?

Well, you know the story.  Of all the things that he could have asked for, Solomon asked for wisdom. And the Lord was pleased that Solomon asked for wisdom and not riches or long life or any number of other things. And so the Lord granted that request, making the promise that no one before or after him would be the equal of the wisdom of Solomon. And in addition, the Lord gave him riches and a long life.  Years later Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs, and he began by speaking of the importance of wisdom, saying, Prov. 1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

Now you will remember that James started off in his epistle, in chapter 1 vs 5,  by speaking about the importance of wisdom.  And as I said at that time, to understand what is meant by wisdom, or gaining wisdom, you have to consider the context, especially of the verses which come before.  Starting in chapter 1 vs 2, James talks about trials of our faith, and God’s purpose in them.  We learned that trials come from God, and we are to endure in them, so that God may complete our faith in us.  God uses trials as a means of maturing us in our faith.  And by the way, that’s the goal of our faith, that we might become mature  Note how James ends that passage, he says, “that you may be perfect and complete (that’s a phrase which speaks of spiritual maturity). And then he says to be spiritually mature means you are lacking in nothing.”  Lacking in nothing.  That’s a key to understanding wisdom, in vs 5.

Because in vs 5, James says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” Notice the repetition of the word “lack.”  So we go through trials that God may mature our faith, that we would be spiritually mature and not lacking in anything.  Then immediately, he follows that by telling us something that we may be lacking.  That’s the connection between spiritual maturity and wisdom.

So James says that if we are to be mature in our faith, nothing lacking, then we need the wisdom of God. We need to know the plan of God, and how we fit in that plan.  We need to know His plans  for us.  We need to know His will, that we may be obedient to it. Wisdom then is knowing God’s truth, knowing God’s will, knowing God’s plan, knowing what God’s purposes are for our lives, and for the world.  Strong’s concordance of the Greek word sophia from which comes our word wisdom, gives several definitions of wisdom.  But the one which I think applies most here says, “wisdom is the the knowledge and practice of the requisites for godly and upright living.”

I think that wisdom is absolutely vital for the second phase of our salvation.  The first stage being justification, the second is sanctification, and the third is glorification.  All three are necessary phases for our salvation to be complete.  Hebrews says concerning sanctification, that without it, no one will see the Lord.  So Christian maturity, or sanctification, is essential, and without it, then the Bible says you aren’t saved.  That’s what the scripture says, not me.

So I think James uses “wisdom”  as a synonym for the gospel.  Jesus said concerning Himself and His gospel, in Matt. 12:42 “[The] Queen of [the] South will rise up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.”

James has a unique writing characteristic whereby he brings up a subject, makes some remarks about it, lays down some principles, and then later on circles back around to expand even more on that subject.  And that’s what’s happening here in chapter 3. He has just finished giving an argument at the end of chapter 2 about someone who says, or claims to have faith, who claims to be saved, and yet there are no works to support or give evidence of that salvation. James says if there is no evidence in his works, then there is no saving faith.

He then went on to show in chapter 3 the incongruity of someone who says they have faith, and yet their talk betrays them as someone who has not been changed by salvation.  James says can a fountain bring forth both blessing and cursing?  These things must not be.

Then continuing in that theme James addresses wisdom again. In a similar fashion as when he discussed faith vs works,  In this section he is going to show the difference between true wisdom which is from God, and a false wisdom which is from the world.  And so he begins with true wisdom.  He says in vs 13, “Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.”  

What James says there is similar to what he has said about faith.  He says, if you have wisdom, then you will exhibit it by your works.  If you have salvation which produces spiritual maturity, then you will show it by your deeds.  Wisdom cannot be divorced from it’s evidence.  Wisdom then is not the accumulation of knowledge and facts, even knowledge and facts about God, or about the Bible.  But it is shown by one’s deeds.  Wisdom is not just knowledge, but the application of knowledge which is evidenced by the way you live.

And let’s take note of how he describes that evidence.  He says it’s good behavior, deeds performed in the gentleness of wisdom.  The KJV uses the word meekness instead of gentleness.  And I like that word better, though they both say the same thing.  But the idea of gentleness or meekness is not to be confused with weakness.  It’s not a mealy mouthed, limp wristed behavior.  The best way to understand meekness is strength under control.  It was used to describe a horse that had been tamed. You still hear the term gentled as a way of describing horses that have been tamed.  They still have tremendous strength and power, but it is under control.  

So it is with meekness, gentleness.  It is being under subjection to the Lord.  It’s being under the control of the Spirit of God.  It’s submission to His plan, His way.  Other Bible translations use the word humility instead of meekness.  And that is ok as well.  Humility is bowing to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life.  It’s esteeming others as more important than yourself. It’s not being proud, arrogant. 

The opposite of humility then is to be proud, arrogant.  And that’s the defining quality of the world’s wisdom.  Vs 14, “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and [so] lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.”

Let’s be sure to notice this reference to the truth that James makes in that verse.  Wisdom is founded on the truth of God’s word.  God’s word is wisdom.  It is absolute truth against a world of relevance and deception and double meaning.  Today we often hear people saying they believe in science.  As if science is truth and God’s word is fallible.  The Bible says, “let God be true, and every man found a liar.” I’m not saying that all science is a lie.  But I will say that God’s word is true, and when so called science contradicts God’s word, then such “science” is a lie.  More often than not, it seems that science is influenced by a political agenda, more than any unbiased,  empirical evidence.

Now the apostle Pau speaks to this idea that James contrasts between godly wisdom and the world’s wisdom. He gives a similar statement in Galatians 5:19-23, but substituting the idea of the fruit of the Spirit vs the fruit of the earthly nature. He says, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,  idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions,  envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

The first set of behaviors are deeds of the flesh, which are evidence of the wisdom of this world, which are of the natural man, the carnal man, and even worse, are demonically inspired.  You cannot be a child of God, supplied with the wisdom from God, and have those things characterize your life. 

You know, the original sin was pride, which is selfish ambition.  Satan said he would be like the Most High.  And perhaps all sin stems from pride and selfish ambition.  Caring more about yourself than about others.  Of course in Satan’s sin of pride there must have also been jealousy.  And so James identifies these as motivations for sin, whereas Paul identifies the sins themselves.  But make no mistake, pride and jealousy and selfish ambition are the root of all sins.  And if your behavior exhibits those things, then James says you don’t have godly wisdom, but you are operating under the wisdom of this world, which is demonic.  He says, “where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.”  Such attitudes produce evil.  Godly wisdom produces good behavior, but worldly wisdom produces evil behavior.  It’s just that cut and dry.

The world system champions selfish ambition.  Movies and television glorify those who sacrifice anything and anyone for the sake of climbing to the top.  The end justifies the means.  Selfish ambition is a synonym for ego. The world tells us the way to happiness, to fulfillment is to feed our ego, to satisfy our ego.  But God’s word tells us to slay our ego.  To lay it aside for the sake of building up others. To be humble, to do good deeds in the spirit of meekness.  Quite a contrast that James presents here between godly wisdom and the wisdom of the world.

But then he leaves off worldly wisdom and goes back to talking about godly wisdom and gives us a description of it, so that we might be able to recognize it, and also to utilize it and put it into practice.  He says in vs 17, “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.”  Seven characteristics of wisdom. Let’s think about each of them briefly.

First, it’s pure. I think it’s significant that pure is first.  Because I believe that when he says wisdom is pure, he is speaking of being holy.  God is holy, and as Peter said, we are to be holy because He is holy.  But pure also has the connotation of chaste.  Chaste is the word from which we get the word chastity.  It has the meaning of avoiding extramarital affairs.  And when we think of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, then that is how we should think of our relationship to him.  We are as Paul said in 2 Cor. 11:2  to be a chaste virgin.  He says,  “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you [as] a pure virgin.”   We don’t leave our devotion for Christ to have an affair with the world.  We have pledged our life to Christ, so we must be chaste in that regard.

Peaceable is the next description.  Peace loving is another possible translation. Heb. 12:14 says,  “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”  So the author of Hebrews says that peace is essential to sanctification. We are to be conciliators, We love peace.  We don’t love dissension, or making trouble, or strife. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Gentle is the next characteristic.  We have already talked about gentleness, meekness. Meekness is strength under control. Being submissive to God and to authority.  Not egotistic.

Then reasonable: it means of sound judgment. Not acting rashly, not speaking before you think. Able to be reasoned with.  Listening to reason.  God’s wisdom is reasonable.  He is not asking us to live unreasonable lives, to do some crazy thing, or to take a vow of poverty, or a vow of silence.  But to live in a way that shows love for our fellow man, and our love for God.   Reasonable means willing to yield, not being stubborn. It has a lot to do with peaceable.

Full of mercy and good fruits.  I suppose mercy and good fruits are actually speaking of the same thing, so it’s counted as one characteristic.  Mercy is a fruit of wisdom. If you have godly wisdom, then it will be evident by showing mercy. In other words, he reaches out to those around him. He puts into practice the words of Jesus who said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” We show mercy to those who don’t deserve it. Otherwise it is not mercy. We follow the example of Christ who showed mercy to sinners.  And mercy is what James calls good fruits.  Good deeds.  Deeds of mercy.  Not merely feeling sympathy, but showing sympathy by your deeds.

The next characteristic of wisdom is unwavering.  That speaks to something James spoke of earlier about a double minded man.  Unwavering is without dubiousness.  Without duplicity.  Without uncertainty.  We can know for sure how we are supposed to live because the Bible is unambiguous.  It is God’s certain word.  And so we can be unwavering in our resolve.  We can be stedfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

The final characteristic of wisdom is without hypocrisy.  The Greek word for hypocrite means an actor on a stage, who performs for the applause of men.  So to be without hypocrisy means to not act for show, to be seen, to gain approval from men. But we seek to gain approval from God.  It means to love one another with sincerity, without having an ulterior motive.  It means not wearing a mask. Not hiding behind a false face.

The conclusion then to this section of James argument concerning wisdom from above versus wisdom from below, is found in vs 18.  He says there, “And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”  James uses the analogy of a farmer who sows a seed and expects to get a harvest of what he planted. And so what he’s saying is that we plant righteousness by our good behavior, by our good deeds.  And we plant that righteousness in peace when we make peace. 

That statement is difficult to parse as the translation is one that is difficult.  But what we can be certain that James is saying, is that the fruit, or the evidence of wisdom is righteousness.  Wisdom is carried out by peacemakers, and when we are peacemakers, then righteousness is our fruit.  Jesus said, “You shall know them by their fruits.”   So you will know those who have the wisdom from God, because they will show the fruit of righteousness in their lives.  Their life cannot produce bitter water and sweet at the same time. They cannot say they have faith and not have works. So then if they are  wise and have understanding, then they will show by their good behavior their deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.  

Listen, in all of these examples of faith, of the tongue, of wisdom, James has been trying to show the difference between those who claim to be saved, versus those who really are saved.  And the point that must be understood is that to be saved requires a complete transformation from the carnal natural man, to be a new spiritual man, with a new heart, a new spirit, and a new nature.  This transformation is not something you can achieve on your own.  Just as a baby cannot orchestrate his own birth, neither can a man orchestrate his own salvation, which is called the new birth.  But as Jesus said, you must be born again.

And by being born again, God gives you a new heart, a new spirit, and a new nature, that has new desires, that is able to be like Christ. Only when you have been born again can you ever hope to be the sort of person that James says is a person of wisdom.  Only then can the Spirit of God be in you, and work in you, and lead you into the paths of righteousness.  And the only way to be born again, is to confess that you are a sinner, you are earthly, natural, carnal, corrupted, and ask God to cleanse you, to change you, and to renew a right spirit within you. God promises to answer that prayer on the basis of what Jesus Christ did for us by dying on the cross, and paying the penalty for our sin, that we might receive His righteousness.  Only when you have first received the seed of His righteousness, can you expect to have the harvest of your righteousness.  I pray that you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today so that you may come to know the wisdom which is from above.

We are continuing in our study of 2 John today.  Last week we looked at the first four verses, in which the word truth is used five times. The importance of the truth is the theme of this epistle.  As we continue in our study of the remaining verses, you will notice that we no longer see the word truth.  But nevertheless, the truth is still the focus of the passage, it’s just referred to in different ways.

For instance, starting in vs five John refers to the truth as the commandment.  God’s commandments are truth.  He is not merely talking about the 10 commandments, but about all the commands of God, all the word of God, the truth of God.  

Then in vs 7, he speaks of deceivers.  To be a deceiver is to be someone who speaks the opposite of the truth, or who subverts the truth.  You must have a standard of truth in order to determine if someone is a deceiver. 

Then in vs 9 John speaks of the teachings of Christ.  Well, Christ taught the truth about God.  He said He was the way, the truth and the life. To speak of Christ’s teaching then is just another way of speaking of the truth.  So the thrust of the epistle is the importance of the truth.  And I think ultimately he is writing to the church to defend the truth. John just refers to the truth in a variety of ways so that we understand the full scope of what constitutes truth.

So this little epistle is about the truth.  It’s about defending the truth, living in the truth, as he said in vs four, walking in the truth.  Jesus said that we are to worship God in spirit and in truth.  Jesus said that the word of God was truth.  And Paul said that the church is the pillar and support of the truth.  So John writes here to a particular church and the congregation of that church, whom he calls the chosen lady and her children.  He uses a euphemism or an indirect way of addressing the church in order to perhaps protect them from undue persecution.  But he writes them a warning to defend the truth, to uphold the truth, to abide in the truth in light of the deceivers that are working to destroy the church.

John is reaching the end of his life, probably in his nineties at this point.  And like Peter and Paul who have since died, he recognizes that in the life of the church since Pentecost, there are many deceivers, many antichrists that have risen from among the ranks of the church, whose diabolical goal is to destroy the church.  

Paul spoke of that happening many years previously as he was leaving the church at Ephesus, which John was now the pastor of.  Paul said many years earlier, in Acts 20:29 “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;  and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”

And John sees that very thing happening.  He has already written in 1 John 2:18 “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.”  And he says virtually the same thing in this letter to this church in vs 7, saying, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ [as] coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.”  The deceivers are those who have subverted the truth about Christ.

So in vs 4, which we looked at last time, John said he rejoiced to see that some of the lady’s children were walking in the truth.  He’s referring to some of the congregation of this church.  That’s the goal of our instruction, that a believer walks in the truth.  To walk refers to a lifestyle, to your manner of living.  To live in accordance with the truth.

Jesus said to the Father concerning His disciples in His prayer before His crucifixion, “Sanctify them in the truth, Your word is truth.”  Sanctification is the progression of our walk with Christ.  To walk in the truth speaks of the process of sanctification.  And sanctification is an essential part of our salvation. Heb. 12:14 says, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”  Sanctification is the process of living holy lives, being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  Sanctification happens as a result of, and following our justification. In the full scope of salvation, we are first justified, then sanctified, and then glorified.  All three elements are essential to salvation.  Sanctification is our walk in the truth.

John says though, in order to walk in the truth, we must love in the truth.  He says in vs5 and 6, “Now I ask you, lady, not as though [I were] writing to you a new commandment, but the one which 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, that you should walk in it.”

Notice the sequence.  John says we must walk in the truth.  Then he says we must love one another.  And then he says love is to walk in His commandments.  So to walk in the truth is to walk in love, and to walk in love is to walk in the commandments.  That’s an echo of what Jesus taught in John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

This is critical to understand; you cannot separate obedience from love. You cannot say “Oh, how I love Jesus,” and not keep His commandments.  John said back in 1John1:6  “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”  You cannot say you love God, you have fellowship with God, and walk in sin, or not walk according to the commandments.  If you say that, you are lying, and you do not practice the truth.  There it is again, the correlation of truth with the commandments, the teaching of Christ.  The idea of practicing the truth is the same as to walk in the truth. It doesn’t mean you are perfect, but it does mean you get better at it with practice.

But on the other hand, he adds to that principle in the next verse, 1 John 1:7, “but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”  Notice the sequence there.  If you walk in the Light, that is you walk in the truth, then you have fellowship with one another.  In other words, walking in the truth produces love, or fellowship with one another.  It’s interesting, that he doesn’t say that walking in the truth produces love for God, but he says that walking in the truth produces love for one another.  We show our love for God by loving one another, and we love one another by keeping His commandments.

That indicates that love is not a sentiment, it’s not a feeling that you have towards someone, or an attraction that you have, but love is a commitment to obey God by serving others.  I conducted a marriage ceremony yesterday, and I was reminded in the vows that in marriage we do not just make vows to one another.  But we make a vow to God to love one another with a sacrificial, serving love. That’s why the marriage vows are binding for as long as you live.  Because you made a vow to God, which is not predicated on how you feel now, nor on how you may feel 30 years from now.  But it’s a vow to obey God which is to love one another until death brings separation from that vow.

Now back in our text, John says that the command is not new, but it is old, one we had from the beginning. What is he talking about here?  Well, Jesus answers that in His response to a lawyer who asked him what was the greatest commandment.  Jesus said in Matt. 22:37-40 ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”  

So these two commandments, given hundreds of years before, were the summary of all the commandments.  All the commandments hinge on loving God and loving your neighbor.  So as Paul said in Romans 13:10, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”  And he said in 1Cor. 16:14 “Let all that you do be done in love.”  Love is the result of walking in the truth, of walking in the commandments.

So, John admonishes the church to walk in the truth, and then love in the truth, and then his final point, guard the truth, or defend the truth.  This is a vital function of the church, to guard the truth, to defend the truth.  Because the truth is and always has been under attack since the beginning, and that attack continues today.  In fact, I would say that the truth is being assaulted more today than ever before.  In the past, it was pretty much a front on attack.  But today, it’s much more insidious than that. It’s a flank attack or even an attack from the rear. The attacks against the truth today are camouflaged as being sensible, as being relevant, as scientific, as more contemporary interpretations of the truth.  And instead of many attacks coming from outside of the church, they are coming from within the church.

John starts this admonition with a warning; vs 7, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ [as] coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.  Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.”  

Back in 1 John 4, John said in vs 1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”  These false prophets John calls deceivers, antichrists who are filled with the spirit of deception and who seek to destroy the church.  When I speak of the church, I’m not speaking of an institution, but of the Christians that make up the church.  And these false prophets destroy the church by undermining the truth.

Notice that John says there are many deceivers.  Not just a few. I would dare to say that the majority of the mainstream churches today have gone so far astray from the truth today that it is unlikely that anyone in their congregations can understand enough truth to be saved.  Satan has skillfully infiltrated the church pulpits with pastors that have abandoned the authority of scripture, they have abandoned the doctrine of absolute truth; they have abandoned the principle that there is no other way to be saved than through Jesus Christ, they have abandoned any teaching about sin, they have abandoned the inerrancy of scripture in regards to creation, or the doctrine of the judgement of God upon sin, and about hell.  They preach another Christ, another gospel, which is really not another gospel at all, but the doctrine of demons.  That’s why John says they have the spirit of antichrist.  

Antichrist means another Christ. A Christ who didn’t come as God in the flesh to die for sin as a substitute for sinners, to pay the penalty for the judgment of God. But a Christ who just set an example for how we are to live.  The false prophets of John’s day were saying that Jesus wasn’t God, but that He was just a man upon whom the Spirit of God came at His baptism, and left when He died upon the cross. If that were true, then Jesus was not God incarnate, and He could not atone for sin, and He could not accomplish forgiveness for our sins. But false prophets offer many varieties on that false doctrine.  But the end result is they diminish Jesus Christ and His gospel, and subvert the truth so as to lead people in destruction.

John says to the church, “watch out for yourselves.”  Don’t be duped, don’t be deceived by the reasoning of false teachers. This is not just some theoretical exercise, but false teachers and false doctrine is dangerous to you and to your loved ones.  John says if you fall prey to it,  It’s possible to lose what you have accomplished, to lose your reward.  Now he isn’t talking about losing your salvation here.  Salvation is not a reward for our behavior, but it’s a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.  Salvation is by grace, and therefore, according to Romans 11:29,  “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” If God gave it to you, He isn’t going to take it away.  

So then what is John referring to, when he says you might lose your reward? I believe that it means you lose the reward which God will give for those works of righteousness which we have done for the kingdom of God.  The Bible teaches us that there are rewards in heaven for the things we have done as Christians for the kingdom of God.  But if you become duped by false teachers and adopt false teaching, you stand to lose out on your reward because you will be found to be following a doctrine that retards your sanctification and consequently makes to no effect your work for the kingdom.  But there is a reward for those that walk in the truth and fulfill their stewardship as servants of Christ.  Jesus said in Rev. 22:12 “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward [is] with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.”

So we have been warned to guard against deceivers, to beware of false prophets because they are working to destroy the truth.  That truth John correlates to the teaching of Jesus  Christ.  It’s what in other places is referred to as the apostle’s doctrine.  It’s the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And that means all of the apostle’s doctrine.  Not just a segment of it, or cherry picking bits and pieces of it that you like, and discarding those you don’t.  But the acceptance and belief in all of Christ’s teaching.  That is the truth.

John continues his warning about abandoning the truth in vs.9, 2 “Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.”  I think that when John says here “anyone” or in some versions, “everyone”, I believe he is referring to those false teachers he spoke of in vs 7.  He is describing them as someone that has gone too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ.  They have left the path of truth, and taken off down a rabbit trail that may seem to be connected to the truth, but in fact is a diversion.

What he says is the way you can know if someone is a false prophet, is an antichrist, is whether or not they abide in the teaching of Christ. If they don’t abide in Christ’s teaching, then he says they are not of God, and you should not listen to them.  Think of the cults for a moment.  All the major cults either add to the scriptures, or they add to the gospel of salvation, and they usually add another apostle, who they won’t admit has the same authority as Peter, Paul and John, or even Jesus Himself, but in practice they give this person even greater authority to define, and determine what scripture is really saying.  People like Joseph Smith, who started the Mormons.  Or Mary Baker Eddy, who started Christian Scientists.  Or Ellen White who started the Seventh Day Adventists. Or Charles Russel who started the Jehovah Witnesses.  All of these people’s writings are prodigious, rivaling scripture. And their disciples consider them to be of the same authority as the scriptures. 

But according to John, we can know that they are false by the fact they don’t abide in the teachings of Christ. But those who abide in the teachings of Christ, John says, have both the Father and the Son.  You should remember what Jesus said concerning His teaching – that He spoke the things from His Father.  In John 8:26, Jesus said “I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.” And in vs 28  Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am [He,] and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.”  So there is no disparity between what the Father says and what Jesus says.  If you abide in His teaching, then you have both the Father and the Son.

John feels so strongly about the truth, he feels so passionately about the deceivers who are trying to subvert the truth, that he says we should have nothing to do with them.  We should avoid them, abstain from their teaching, and abstain from fellowship with them.  He says in vs 10, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into [your] house, and do not give him a greeting.”

In the early church, they usually met in one another’s houses.  There were no church buildings such as is common today.  So John is saying if someone comes to your church bringing a teaching that is not in accordance with Christ’s teaching, then don’t even let them in the building.  Don’t give them a platform to air their deceit. Don’t welcome them into your house.

See, there is a limit to love. Love must be in the truth. Love doesn’t accept everything and everyone that comes down the pike when such people are really deceivers who are trying to destroy the truth.  Love is jealous of the truth.  Love guards the truth, defends the truth.  Love does not give place to that which will hurt the child of God, which deceives the Christian, which defrauds the church of her reward.  There is a time and place to be vigilant, even to be militant for the sake of the truth of the gospel.  Love doesn’t mean we accept those false teachers and give place to them.

You know, there is a place for righteous anger.  I get angry at the false teachers which proliferate the so called Christian television stations.  I get angry because they are able to come right into the living rooms of people’s homes and far too many naive Christians welcome them with open arms and naively accept their false teaching.  I get angry over that.  I’m sure some of you think I shouldn’t get angry.  But I think Jesus got angry and yet did not sin.  He got angry at the deceitfulness that was going on in the temple, which was the house of God.  He said you have made my Father’s house a den of thieves.  And He took a bullwhip and cleaned out the temple and kicked over their tables and chased them out.

Paul spoke to Timothy about false prophets and deceivers who he said they were to avoid.  2Tim. 3:6-8 “For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.  Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these [men] also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith.” 

Now I think Paul is not denigrating women there, but using a metaphor for spiritually weak people in the church, who allowed false teachers into their homes, who may have sincerely had a desire to know the truth, but were unable to do so, and in fact were deceived because they were learning from false teachers who were opposed to the truth. And so I think we are justified in feeling some anger towards those people who put a stumbling block before others, who prey on the weak.

But of course, when we call out these false prophets,  we risk being accused of being unloving.  I saw a story the other day on the news about a father whose son came home from school and said that a man had approached him at the bus stop and did some things that made him feel uncomfortable.  And so the father staked out the bus stop the next morning.  The man in question jogged by the bus stop at his usual time, and stopped to speak to the young boy, and reportedly touched the boy inappropriately. This jogger by the way, was one of the pastors of a local church.

Well, when the father of the boy saw this man touching his child that way, he took off and tackled this guy and from the looks of the photo, he permanently rearranged the culprits face.  Now you may not think that was very nice.  But I happen to think that is what love looks like.  That father loved his son so much that he would take whatever action was necessary in order to assure that this creep would never get the chance to take advantage of anyone again. Now I am not advocating violence against false teachers, however I am advocating that we avoid them like the plague, that we do not give them any platform, not even extend to them a Christian greeting, lest we find that we share in his evil teaching of subverting the truth, and putting a stumbling block before the naive.

So in this little letter to this unnamed church, John wanted to make it clear that the truth is essential, that walking in the truth is the means by which we show love for one another, and that the defense of the truth is critical to the life of the church.  He goes on to say that there are other things he wants to tell them, but he will wait until he sees them face to face.  These things he wrote about he felt were too critical to wait, but the rest he will tell them when he comes, so that their joy may be full.

And then he closes his letter by saying, 2John 1:13  “The children of your chosen sister greet you.”  I think that is merely the way in which he references the people in his church who are sending their sister church their greetings.   And I am sure that the Spirit of Truth, writing through John, speaks to our church the same things, that we should walk in the truth, love in the truth, and defend the truth.  Let us be on guard against deceivers who are preying on the church and distorting or subverting the truth.  

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with my history, I grew up as a pastor’s kid. I actually was born during the time my dad was in Bible college and he became a pastor shortly thereafter.  So consequently, I spent most of my early life in church. I grew up hearing the gospel, the stories of the Old and New Testament, singing the hymns, participating in some sort of church service at least three times a week, and sometimes more.

But when I was about 21 years old, I left home, pretty much abandoned my faith, and ran as far away from my upbringing as I possibly could.  The result was that I reached a point when I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore.  During those years I had also been exposed to certain doctrines  from churches which called themselves Christian, but which were in opposition to a lot of what I had been taught growing up, and the result was I was very confused.

When I finally came to my senses, to use a phrase from the parable of the prodigal son, I surrendered to the Lord one evening in a garage in Redondo Beach, California.  I had been wrestling under the conviction from the Lord all day, and finally came home to a party going on in my apartment, which I had no interest in joining in, so I went down to the garage and shut the door and tried to pray.

At first it seemed that my prayers bounced right back at me off the ceiling.  They didn’t seem to go anywhere.  And at that moment fear gripped my heart as I thought perhaps I had gone too far, and God would no longer hear me.  Desperate at that point, I cried out to the Lord in earnest, crying out loud, “Lord, have mercy on me! Please hear me!”  I knew I had gone astray.  I needed to be saved from my sin, delivered, cleansed, restored.  And God heard me, and He cleansed me, He forgave me, He renewed a right spirit within me.

I prayed a lot of things to the Lord in that garage, but one thing that was foremost in my prayer that I remember clearly, was saying to God that I wanted to know the truth. I  didn’t care if the truth was different than everything I had learned growing up in the church, but I wanted to know the truth, and I said if God would show it to me, then I would be obedient to it.

Well, after I finished getting right with God in the garage, I went upstairs to my room, and I found a copy of the New Testament and opened it to the gospel of John.  I read the entire gospel in one sitting.  Not that big of a feat, by the way.  You can read  it through in a couple of hours or so. 

And towards the end of the book I came across a particular verse which seemed to answer my prayer about knowing the truth.  It’s in John 16:13  “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”  Later on, I found another verse speaking of that same principle in 1John 2:27 which says, “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.”   

Now let me make it clear that those verses are not saying that we don’t need to hear the preaching of the gospel, or to attend a Bible study, that we don’t need to be taught anything.  It’s not saying that.  There are a lot of scriptures instructing pastors to preach and teach the church. But what they are saying, is that it’s possible to know the truth.  The Holy Spirit, which John calls the anointing in 1 John 2, is given to us so that we might know the truth.  God wants us to know the truth.  The truth matters to God, and the truth is essential to our salvation and sanctification. 

It should be patently evident, that not everything you hear in the church today, or read in some Christian book, or see or listen to on Christian media, is the truth. John spent quite a lot of time in 1 John warning us that there are antichrists in the church, false teachers in the church, that deceive, that twist the truth, pervert the truth, and obscure the truth.  So we must be discerning, and we can be discerning by the Spirit of Truth who is in us, who will guide us in the truth as we are obedient to the truth.

So God confirmed to me through scripture that I could know the truth.  It may take perseverance and obedience to learn the truth, but God wants us to know the truth. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.  He said you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.  So it’s critical that we know the truth.  Jesus also said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  In His high priestly prayer Jesus prayed to the Father, “Your word is truth.”  He also said He would send us the Spirit of Truth to guide us in the truth. So we cannot be saved without knowing the truth, and we cannot worship God unless it’s in accordance to the truth.  Adherence to the truth must be paramount in the Christian life.

So the truth must be of paramount importance in the church.  I started this church out of a passionate desire to proclaim the truth.  There are a lot of churches out there, but I felt a need to start a church that is founded on the truth and does not deviate from it.  My calling to preach the gospel is due to the conviction that I had that the truth needed to be proclaimed in a direct, and unequivocal way. 

One of the verses that I based my calling to preach upon is Paul’s admonition to a young pastor named Timothy which is found in 2Tim. 2:15 “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.”

So the scripture is the source of absolute truth. And through the guidance of the Spirit of truth we must study the word so that we might know the truth. There is no other reliable source of absolute truth.  And that means that the source of truth in preaching is the truth of the word of God. That means that the foundation of the church is the truth of the word of God.  Paul said in 1Tim. 3:15 “but in case I am delayed, [I write] so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” That means that the basis for Christian fellowship is the truth of the word of God. You know, a lot of people put their desire for fellowship at a higher premium than their desire for truth. But there can be no unity without unity in the truth.  Our fellowship is to be based on a common belief in the truth.

Now all of that is perhaps the longest introduction to a message I have ever given.  But John has a lot to say about truth, and particularly in this little epistle of 2 John, we see a great emphasis on the truth.  For instance, just in the first four verses he mentions truth five times. Altogether, John speaks of truth some 37 times in his writings.  So truth is important to John, it’s important to God, it should be important to the church,  and the truth’s essentiality is the reason for this letter.

As we look at this letter, we see that the writer identifies himself only as the elder.  And he writes to the chosen lady and her children.  The conservative view is that ancient Bible scholars have always attributed this letter and the next letter as from the apostle John.  John would have been in his 90’s at this point.  He is the last living apostle.  It’s possible that the term elder is indicative of his age. But it’s also probable, and more likely, that he uses elder as a title, which he has not only over the church in Ephesus, but over the church at large. He obviously considers himself the elder to the lady he is writing to, and she is obviously not in his church in Ephesus.  So more than likely it is a term that has superseded the term apostle, since his apostleship is not in question by this point, and furthermore, he is the only one still living.

So it’s well accepted that John is the author.  What’s not so universally agreed upon is who is the chosen lady.  There is a lot of debate on this point.  Some see her as an individual lady who he is familiar with, who has children that he knows, and who is well loved by the churches. Others see the phrase “chosen lady” as a reference to a particular church.  John is writing at a time of persecution of the church, and so he may be deliberately disguising his name and the name of the church in order to avoid persecution.  I guess I tend to lean towards the idea that he is writing to a church.  Though in the next epistle, he writes to an individual man by the name of Gaius, so it’s possible that he is writing one letter to a woman, and another letter to a man, but in both cases, the letters have a broader audience than just the recipient.  But I suppose that it’s best to look at it from the perspective that he is writing to a church and her children would refer to the members of that local body.

Now there are four points that I think John makes concerning truth in the opening four verses of this passage.  And the first point he makes is that the truth unites us.  I have already alluded to this principle which is found in many places in scripture. It is the truth that unites us. Look at verse 1. “The elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth and not only I but also all who know the truth.” 

What John is saying there is that our commonality is the truth. Our unity, our fellowship is not based on a denomination. It’s not based on some perception of spirituality. Our connection to one another is based on a body of truth, the word of truth, the revealed truth. It is the truth that unites us. As Christians, our common denominator is that we hold to the truth taught by the scriptures.  There are certain doctrines that must be held in common for us to have fellowship with one another. True believers are linked not by an organization, not by some nebulous testimony to Christ or God, but by a common knowledge of and belief in the truth of the gospel. John says the basis of their relationship, the basis of Christian love, is the truth.  Without that shared truth, there would be no relationship, no fellowship, no unity, no love for one another.

To be honest, I get a little exasperated with some Christians who seem to have this insatiable desire for fellowship at the expense of truth.  They may come to our church, they at least tacitly acknowledge that we teach the truth, they seem to appreciate that.  But then they go to other churches, other “Bible studies”  or whatever you want to call them, for the sake of fellowship.  But from the little I know of a lot of such groups or churches, they don’t hold to the same truth that we hold to.  They remind me of the warning that Paul made concerning the latter days, in 2Tim. 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but [wanting] to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,  and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”   We need to have a greater desire for the truth than a desire for fellowship, especially fellowship with those who don’t teach sound doctrine, who have turned away from the pure truth of the word for doctrines designed to please people. For teaching that tells you what you want to hear, rather than what you need to hear.

So John says it is the truth that unites us, that we have fellowship in. Secondly, John says that the truth indwells us, in verse 2. He goes on to say about the chosen lady, “whom I love in truth, and not only I but also all who know the truth for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever.” We’re not only united by the truth, we’re indwelled by the truth. The truth abides in us and will be with us forever.

Back in 1 John chapter 2 vs 20, which I quoted earlier, John says, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.  I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.” So you can know the truth because the Spirit of Truth has come upon you.  If you are a Christian, then the Spirit of Truth dwells in you, to teach you, to guide you in the truth. 1Cor. 2:12 says, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.”  That’s the Spirit’s primary purpose, is to guide us in the truth.  He has revealed the truth primarily through the scriptures, and then He gives us insight so that we can understand the scriptures.

This is a very critical passage in which Paul explains how we are indwelled by the Spirit of truth so that we might know the truth.  1Cor. 2:12-16 “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,  which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual [thoughts] with spiritual [words.]  But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.  But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.  For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.”  We are indwelled by His Spirit, the Spirit of truth, so that the truth of Christ is in us.

And by the way, the indwelling of the Spirit is not some sort of second blessing that you have to seek, you have to have some ecstatic experience in order to receive.  You receive the Spirit upon conversion, at salvation.  Paul says in Romans 8:9, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”  So if you’re saved, you have the Spirit in you.  If you don’t have the Spirit, then you are not saved.  You receive the Spirit instantly upon salvation.

So how important is the truth? It is the source of our salvation, it is the source of our fellowship, and it is our abiding confidence. Notice John says there in vs 2, “for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever.”  The truth will be with us forever.  1Peter 1:25  says,  “BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER.” And this is the word which was preached to you.” I believe that’s a reference to the fact that the truth is eternal.  It will never pass away, or become irrelevant.  It is eternal. And so the truth is with us forever.

But vs 2 also indicates that we can put our complete trust in the truth of God’s word.  God’s word will never fail.  His promises are going to be fulfilled.  We can trust in the truth of God’s word as if our lives depended upon it.  Because our lives do depend upon it. Our eternal destiny depends upon it. And God has written it down so that we might be even more certain of it’s truth, and of it’s fulfillment.

Jesus said in[Matt. 5:18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” The truth abides with us forever.That gives us confidence as we live our lives here on earth.  God’s word never fails.  

That confidence in the truth of God is saving faith, by the way.  We’ve talked recently about what is involved in saving faith.  How much faith do we need – faith in what exactly – what constitutes saving faith?  Well, saving faith is not a deeply held wish, or even a fervently held belief, but it’s trusting in the word of God.  Trusting in the promises of God.  That’s what it means to believe in Christ for salvation.  Believe what He has promised.  Believe in the promises of God. That’s saving faith. And that’s why knowing the truth is so important. Because we need to believe the truth, what the Bible declares is truth.  Not just what we want to be true or hope is true. But you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

That leads us to the third point that John makes regarding truth, and that is that truth is the source of blessing. Vs. 3, “Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”  The blessings are grace, mercy and peace.  Thats a common New Testament benediction used by a number of the apostles. But that doesn’t mean that we should gloss over it.  These are real blessings for the believer that come through God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Son of the Father.  I want to point out that in this statement John presents Jesus Christ as God, as being on the same level with God.  That was one of his major points in the first epistle of John, to establish the deity of Jesus Christ. And John does so here without fanfare or explanation.  But even so it’s a great statement of the deity of Christ. 

Now as to these blessings – grace, mercy and peace.  To the carnal mind they may not seem like too much to be rejoiced over.  We love to talk about how God blessed us with a new job, or a windfall of money, or some new possession that we can enjoy.  But these are spiritual blessings.  And sometimes we tend not to think of them quite so highly as we ought.  But let me remind you that grace is the means by which you were saved.  It’s not by your own merit, but by the gift of God that you were made righteous and declared holy unto the Lord. There is no other means by which we are saved than by grace. Grace is a gift of God, and as such a great blessing.

Mercy speaks of not getting what we deserve.  Grace is getting what we don’t deserve, which is life, which is righteousness, which is an inheritance in heaven.  But mercy is not getting what we do deserve, which is death. The wages of sin is death, and we are all sinners. Christ paid our debt to sin, so that we might be free. Mercy speaks of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is a great blessing.

And then peace.  Peace means peace with God.  We who were enemies are now made His friends.  Even more than friends, we are adopted into His family.  We have peace with God.  He is on our side.  He is not against us, but God is for us.  Peace with God, a very great blessing. And John says these blessings come through the Father and the Son, “in truth and love.”  These blessings could only be realized as we come to know the truth of the gospel.  Only as we worship God in spirit and in truth, can we realize these blessings of salvation.

And love speaks of the great love which the Father had for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  This is love, that Christ died for sinners so that they might be forgiven and receive life in Him. That is the truth about the love of God for us, which makes all the blessings of God possible. 

The final point is found in vs 4. We said that truth unites us, indwells us and blesses us. Truth also controls us. “I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father.” Now we are taking it to mean that in this church John found some of them walking in the truth. To walk in the truth is to be obedient to what God says in His word.  It means the same thing as walking in the Spirit, being guided by the Spirit. To walk in the truth means that you are obedient to the truth shown by the Spirit, and then you continue to be obedient as He reveals more truth. It’s continuing in the truth.

Notice John says to walk in the truth is the commandment from the Father. It simply refers to the idea of a believer who confesses the truth of God’s word and then lives in harmony with that word. Everything he says or does portrays a life that is governed by God’s truth.  To walk indicates action, it indicates application.  It means living out what you have been shown to be true.

But notice what did John say he found? Some of your children walking in truth. That’s probably a universal appraisal of the church.  Unfortunately, not all who believe are walking in the truth.  Some people in the church are sporadic walkers at best. They walk for a while and then they get distracted.  They become interested in something else that distracts them from their devotion to the Lord. Or some may have been walking at some point, but they no longer walk in the truth.

I’d guess that in the life of the church, about only half of the people at any given time are actively walking in the truth.  I think lethargy, and laziness, and complacency are more the order of the day for a lot of people.  And that should be a scary place to be.  It’s kind of like working out, trying to stay in shape.  You have good intentions, you start off on some new program, and you’re all gun ho for a while.  Then you start getting distracted.  You start making excuses why you don’t need to work out today.  And before you know it, you’re out of shape again.  And that makes it twice as hard to get back into shape, doesn’t it? It’s harder than ever to get back in the routine of going to the gym, and the workouts seem so strenuous that you end up giving up. 

That’s what happens when we stop actively pursuing our walk in the truth.  When we stop coming to church on a regular basis.  We start skipping devotions.  We make excuses why we can’t go to Bible study or attend some special event at church. And sooner or later, without realizing it, we are backslidden.  We have abandoned the truth for a lie.  We think we can live without abiding in Him, without walking with Him, without walking in the truth.  We fall for the lie of the devil. 

John said I was happy to see some of your children walking in the truth.  Any pastor, any elder of the church is  happy to see his people walking in the truth.  Because  they know when a person stops walking in the truth, it’s like walking down hill.  You find it easy at first, and then you start picking up speed, and then before you know it, you’re falling head over heals, and end up bruised and broken.

 I urge you today to examine your walk in light of the truth which we have been preaching today, and see if you are abiding in the truth, and the truth is abiding in you.  If it is not, then I urge you to call on the Lord to forgive you, to restore a right spirit within you, and cleanse you from all unrighteousness, so that you might be brought back into fellowship  with Him. 

We have finally come to the last message in the book of 1st John. I’m a little saddened by that. John has a unique style of writing, and a particular message which is absolutely essential to the Christian life. His whole epistle is a series of dogmatic declarations concerning how we may know that we have eternal life. And that theme is summarized here in these last verses by a series of doctrines which he says enables us to know that we are born of God.

The theme of the entire letter was summarized in vs 13, which says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” We can know that we have eternal life, by faith in, by believing in the name of the Son of God. To believe in the name means that we believe in the entire ministry of Jesus Christ; that He is the Messiah, the incarnate Son of God, who came to earth to live without sin in order to be our Savior, who died for our sins upon the cross, so that we might have our sins forgiven, and be given His righteousness, and be born again of His Spirit who lives in us. That is what it means to believe in the name of Jesus.

Then John said that another way we know that we are born of God, is that He hears us when we pray, and He answers our prayers that are in accordance with His will. Being the children of God is evidenced by the fact that our Father listens to our prayers and answers them. That’s a particular privilege of being a child of God. The unsaved person does not have that assurance.

Now as we come in our message today to verse 18, John gives us yet another assurance, another principle by which we can know that we have eternal life. He says in vs18 “We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.” Greek scholars tell us that the proper translation of the word “sins” is to read it as continues in, or practices sin. John isn’t saying that a Christian never sins. He said back in chapter 1 vs 8 “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

So the point is not that we never sin, but that he who is born of God does not continue in sin. He doesn’t practice sin any longer. Sin no longer has dominion over him. He is not under the power of sin. Jesus died on the cross not only to purchase our pardon for the penalty of sin, but also to deliver us from the power of sin over us. In our natural state we were enslaved to sin, but in our new life we are set free from sin. So we no longer practice sin. As John said previously in chapter 3 vs 9 “No one who is born of God practices sin.”

In other words, the Christian life is incompatible with sin. A Christian has been given a new nature, the nature of the Spirit within him, and so he practices righteousness. He is no longer controlled by sin. As one theologian said, “A child of God may sin, but his normal condition is one of resistance to sin.” So we can know we are born of God because we have a new nature that does not practice sin any longer.

Now that is true because of the next phrase in vs 18, because as John says “He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.” He who was born or literally, begotten of God keeps him. John is speaking of Jesus Christ as the One who keeps the person who is born of God. Jesus prayed on the night before His crucifixion, in the gospel of John 17:12, 15 “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. … 15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil [one.]”

So the Lord Jesus, the good Shepherd of the sheep, keeps His flock, and protects them from the evil one. The evil one is, of course, Satan. How does Christ keep us? What does that mean? It means that He keeps us from falling from grace. Jude says, in Jude 1:24-25 “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present [you] faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Savior, [be] glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.”

Jesus said in John 10:28-30 “and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given [them] to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch [them] out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” So you have a double guarantee that no one, not even the evil one, can snatch them out of the hand of God. Jesus keeps those who are His.

Jesus keeps us from the evil one. Satan cannot touch us without God’s permission. We need not fear the devil because greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world. Now for those of us studying Job on Wednesday nights, we know that God did give permission to Satan to touch Job, but God did not allow the devil to take his life. Satan had said to God, “Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side?” That is, I believe, the normal situation for the one who is born of God. God has a hedge of protection around us. Satan cannot touch him. He has to get permission.

You might remember that Jesus speaking to Peter said that Satan has demanded permission to sift him like wheat. And on that occasion God obviously gave the devil permission to tempt Peter. And Peter gave into that temptation and denied knowing Christ. But even though Peter fell, yet Christ sustained him. He kept him and came to him after His resurrection and restored Peter to full fellowship.

So Christ keeps us from the controlling power of sin, and the condemnation of sin, so that we who are born of God cannot continue in sin. We know that we are safe in the arms of Jesus from all attacks of Satan to try to take us from our position as a child of God.

John then states another thing we can know in vs 19, that we can be assured of. Vs19 “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in [the power of] the evil one.” John repeats a similar statement that he made back in chapter 3 vs 2, “Beloved, now we are children of God.” We have been given new life from God, born of His Spirit, so that we are now the children of God. We belong to His family. We belong to the kingdom of God. Such a tremendous privilege we have, to not only belong to the kingdom, but to be the children of the King. And we know that God is sovereign over all the affairs of men. We have the power and authority backing us of the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords and we are His representatives on earth. We belong to Christ.

But John contrasts our security in Christ with the fact that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. The world speaks of the opposing kingdom. The kingdom of this world, whose ruler is the evil one, Satan. Don’t misunderstand something, Satan does have a certain amount of power and authority. But its not equal to the power and authority of God. God has allowed him a degree of power and authority over the world for a limited time and in a limited capacity.

If you remember when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by the devil, the scripture says the devil took Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment’s time. And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.”
Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’”

Notice that Jesus didn’t rebuke the devil for lying when he said that the kingdoms of this world had been handed over to him. I think that is true. But Jesus, as the Son of God, knew that it was God who gave him that authority, and that the devil’s dominion was only for a short time. Jesus said in another place that the devil is the ruler of this world, but that one day he would be cast out. Paul in 2 Cor. 4:4 calls him the god of this world. From the account of Genesis 3, we know that by deception Satan took control over this world. So the whole world lies in his power. But Satan knows that his time is short before Jesus comes back to claim this world and vanquish him forever.

The world worships the devil, though they may not realize it. They bow before the idols that he has set up in the world system which seek to captivate people by empty promises of peace and prosperity and happiness. The devil has so orchestrated the course of this world as to take advantage of man by lies and deceit and enslave him to trying to find in satisfying the lusts of this world. And as such it is what the Bible calls the dominion of darkness. It’s populated by people who are attracted by the bright lights of this world, but the result is that they are blind and they cannot see that the real light of the world is Jesus.

But we are the children of God, and we belong to the kingdom of light. Paul said in Colossians 1:13-14 “For [God] rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

That leads us to the third thing that we know. Look at vs 20; “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” This is the last time John writes, “we know.” I think there are 33 references to the word “know” in this little epistle.

This time, however, John wants to remind us that God became incarnate, became flesh, and dwelt among us that we might know God. God revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:1 says that “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

We could not know God unless God revealed Himself to us. And John and the other apostles teach that God revealed Himself perfectly in Jesus Christ. He is the radiance of God’s glory, and the exact representation of His power. If you want to know what God is like, then look at Jesus. As Jesus said to Philip, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”

But in contrast, Satan doesn’t reveal himself as he really is, does he? He is a liar, and the father of lies. The Bible says he masquerades as an angel of light. He pretends. He deceives. But Jesus is the truth. And John says that He has given us understanding. How does that work? I will tell you how. It is through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our teacher. Back in chapter 2, John told us that the anointing, that is the Spirit, teaches us the truth. He says in vs 27 “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.”

You know, there are a lot of misunderstandings concerning the Holy Spirit that are being taught in some of the churches out there. A lot of them teach that the purpose of the Spirit is to give us a feeling, an experience, by which we can validate our Christianity. And as a result they only seem to be concerned with the showy gifts of the Spirit.

But Jesus said that the Spirit’s primary purpose was to glorify Him. He said in John 16:13-14 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose [it] to you.” So the Spirit’s primary function is to reveal the truth to us, and help us to understand the truth of Christ. The Spirit of God has inspired the word of God, so that we might know the truth. And then He gives understanding to the child of God, that they might grow in the knowledge of the truth.

John says that in addition to learning to know God, “we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.” In other words, we have fellowship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ. We abide in Him, and He abides in us. As Jesus prayed in the upper room before His crucifixion, John 17:20-21 “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, [are] in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

Now practically, how do we experience this oneness with Christ? I believe it’s by the word of God and the Holy Spirit. We read the word, study the word, believe the word, and act in accordance with the word. And the Spirit of God in us helps us to understand the word, and to obey the word. That’s what it means to abide in Him, and He in us. To walk where He leads, to walk in the Spirit and by the Spirit. And it’s also how we grow in the knowledge of God. That’s why we place such a premium in this church on reading and studying the word of God. There is no other way by which we can grow in our relationship with God, and grow in maturity in our faith.

Notice in this closing statement, John declares the deity of Jesus Christ. He says “we are in Him who is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” This is the basis of the gospel, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Without faith that Jesus is God in the flesh, we cannot be saved. He can give eternal life only if He is eternal, if He is immortal, if He is God. There can be no atonement, no forgiveness, if Jesus was not God. Only God can forgive sins. Only God can make atonement for the sins of the world.

The other night at Bible study we had a discussion about what kind of faith do we have to have to be saved. What do we have to believe to be saved? Because the Bible says that the devils believe in God and tremble, yet they are not saved. People in Christ’s day believed that He was a living, breathing person and they saw Him die on the cross, yet they were not all saved. So what constitutes saving faith?

Well, I alluded to the answer earlier when we talked about believing in the name of Jesus. To believe in the name of Jesus is to believe all that His name represents. All that He taught. All that was prophesied of Him and which He fulfilled. We were talking about Job the other night, and what he believed about God, and how little revelation he had received, and yet how deep was his faith.

We have been given tremendous revelation. We have been given 66 books containing God’s word. Job had none. We have been given the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. He is the greatest revelation. And we have the testimony of many, many eyewitnesses to Him, and practically all that He did and said recorded for us. So we who are given much, much shall be required. But at the very least, to be saved we must believe that Jesus is the Christ, that is the Messiah, the fulfillment of all Old Testament pictures and symbols and prophecy. And that He is the Son of God. That is He is deity. He was in the beginning with God, and He was God.

Then we have to believe in the finished work of Christ in His ministry on earth. That He lived a perfect life, to be our example, and to be our Savior as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He came to earth to die for my sins. And by trusting in Him and all that He is, and all that He has done to redeem me, I have forgiveness of my sins, and receive the Spirit of God in me as a deposit on eternal life. We need to believe all that. Because all of that is incorporated in the fact that Jesus is God and eternal life is in Him.

There is one last sentence with which John closes this epistle, and at first glance it may seem out of place. It seems disconnected with all that has previously been said in this passage. But when you think about it, John has been making a contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. He has been contrasting the kingdom of God’s Son, and the dominion of the evil one.

So now at the close, I believe he is merely extending that contrast by showing that while we worship Christ, the Son of God, the true God, yet the world worships idols, they worship false gods. And so John warns us to stay away from the idols of the world, because they are the means by which Satan controls the world.

Now what is an idol? Do people really bow down to idols today? Do they have little statues on their mantle that they light candles to, and say prayers to? Well, maybe some people do that sort of thing. But I believe most of the idols of the world we live in are a little more subtle than that. The devil is good about disguising his idols so that they don’t look like idols. Idols may look like a career. Idols may look like a savings account. Idols may look like a vacation home. Idols may look like a beautiful woman or a handsome man. Idols may look like sports or entertainment stars, or movie stars.

John lived in Ephesus, one of the worst cities in ancient history in regards to idol worship. There was the temple of Diana which sat on a hill overlooking the city, which employed prostitutes, priests, craftspeople, vendors, and all sorts of officials who promoted worship of the false god Diana. She promised fertility, prosperity and all the carnal pleasures of the world that were attractive to the people. And so John was well familiar with the evils of idol worship.

But today we can worship the false promises of our idols as well as the idols themselves. And the world system that Satan has orchestrated has an idol to fulfill every desire of the flesh and the mind. So we have to guard against that strategy of the devil which seeks to turn our affection away from God, and turn it to this world and the things of the world.

Paul identifies idolatry in Col. 3:5 “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.” I think he is saying that all of those things amounts to idolatry. Christians are susceptible to idolatry as well as the unsaved. So as Christians, Paul says we must mortify the flesh. Put to death the things of this world. Consider them as dead. And look to that which is life indeed.

But for the unsaved who may be hearing the gospel this morning, who are perhaps worshipping the god of this world, the things of this world, striving to find fulfillment in tangible, temporal things which are passing away, I would like to close by asking you a question from Mark 8;36 which records the words of Jesus saying, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Jesus gave His life so that you might be forgiven for your sins and receive everlasting life. Trust in Him as your Savior and Lord that you might be saved from the system of this world which seeks to keep you in bondage to sin and it’s penalty, which is eternal death. As John said in chapter 5 vs 13 “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” Turn to Jesus today and receive eternal life.