Well, as you can see, the title of this morning's sermon is Discerning Love, Discerning Love. love. The New Testament clearly calls for love to be central to the Christian's way of thinking and the Christian's way or manner of living. As we've been going through this second John letter that was written by John to as I took the position of a group of believers a local church others could take the position an individual and her immediate family but in any event John wrote a letter to some believers whether it was a family in terms of a an actual family or whether it was a family in reference to a group of believers, a corporate gathering of believers. Either way, the letter was written with the same objectives in mind. John wanted to communicate some truths, primarily to walk in truth was the theme of this letter. To have as a manner of living, live in truth. Have your manner of living identified with God's truth as directed by the word of truth and the spirit of truth working inside of you. We saw that one of the reminders of what that might look like involved remembering the command of Jesus to love one another even as I have loved you. That truth and love couldn't be separated because they're both qualities associated with God himself and his very character. And as there are qualities of God himself and his very character, then those are gonna be produced in the believer who is allowing the spirit of God to direct in his life because the spirit of God is only gonna produce in you when he's leading and directing the types of qualities that are consistent with God's character. And so God would never produce truth in your life without love because God isn't divided, God is one. And so his qualities, they manifest themselves in equal proportions and those are two of the things that have come out in this letter in terms of the emphasis of John to this group of believers that he's writing to. But when you think about this call towards love or having our manner of living wrapped or even under an umbrella of love as we interact with each other and we interact with the lost, there's also some call for some discernment in that application of that love. You see, loving somebody is not synonymous with agreeing with or accepting everything they believe, say, or teach. Now that's one of the greatest perversions of the world around us. It's been true in the past, but it's especially true in the present that there's this misconception that to love people means to accept everything that they believe, say, and teach, or to agree with that. You can love people without accepting everything that they believe. That is a horrible thing to be proposing to a community or to society at large, but believe it or not, Well, maybe it's not hard to believe at all. Society is eating that up completely, which has eliminated the whole idea of having any kind of biblical distinction. Because if society says to love somebody is that everybody makes their own truth, and you have to, in order to love them, accept everything they think, believe, or feel, then you have no distinctions being made. It's all what we would call relative then. And that idea of relativism is spreading through our country even now, but it's nothing this idea that everybody does what is right in his own eyes. You can read about that happening throughout the Old Testament as well. Where mankind left to his own devices naturally has a rebellion against God. To rebel against God is to rebel against God's truth. To rebel against God's truth is to say, I make my own truth. I'll be the determiner of my own life and my own direction, my own thinking. And when that happens, you have a description or a summary statement that says, in those days or at that time, every man did what was right in his own eyes. And so that's not something that is particularly new. You could trace that all the way back to the Garden of Eden-ness. Satan approaches Adam and Eve and says, did God really say? What is he really offering? He's offering an alternative to God's truth. And so did mankind fall for that? The answer is yes. They accepted a version I wouldn't say version of truth because those are either truth or error, but a perversion of truth in the place of God's actual truth. And the Bible says that that's what mankind has been doing from the beginning, exchanging God's truth for Satan's lies. And so as you think about this idea of Loving one another it's repeated over and over and over again. Well if you never qualified that With the biblical instruction that while you need to love people you don't need to Accept everything that they believe Now that changes things a little bit it gives us this responsibility to exercise some of the God-given discernment that is made possible even by the spirit of truth living inside of us. You see, people often fail to grasp this principle though. And I've frankly had several painful experiences with this even since I started pastoring here at this church. This idea that to disagree means that you're unloving. to make a biblical distinction means that you're being judgmental or that you're not accepting of people. And you know, I generally make it a point to not go out of my way to identify false teaching by name in terms of by the name of the people who are out there saying those things. I mainly try to talk about the teaching itself. But I recall an instance two years ago where I just happened to make a comment about a distinction with lordship salvation. And the idea of lordship salvation is that in order to be saved, you have to believe in the grace of God. You have to accept that you're a sinner. You have to accept that God offered a solution to man's sin. But as a part of putting your confidence in that, that you need to make Christ the Lord of your life. So while you're believing in him, what he's done for you on the cross, his death, burial, and resurrection, in doing so, you have to submit yourself to his lordship over your life. Now, is Christ Lord? The answer is yes, he is Lord. But is a response to the gospel message to focus on what you can do to make Christ the Lord of your life, or what God has done to save you, and you accepting that by faith alone. Which is it? Well, it's the focus on what Christ has done for you. It's faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone, that is the gospel that is presented by Paul in Acts 15, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, how he was buried and how he rose again the third day according to the scripture. The good news of the gospel is, sir, what must I do to be saved? And the answer is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. So you would struggle to find a passage that clearly would say believe and make Christ the Lord of your life. But what do they really mean by that? What they really mean by that is that you have to ensure that your life looks a certain way, that you produce a certain kind of change in your life. Now, they'd say God is the one producing it, but if you really want to be saved, you ought to make sure that your life starts to look a certain way as proof or evidence that your faith or your belief in Christ was genuine or authentic to begin with. Now, some of you, have you heard this message? Have you talked to people who propose that message? That the gospel includes changed lives? It includes making Christ the Lord of your life such that you would submit to his rule over your life? And if he was ruling in your life, your life would look a lot different than it otherwise would. That's a message that's out there. Now, is everybody who proclaims that message an unbeliever? The answer is no. some of the people who proclaim that message, at a point in time they did put all of their confidence in what Christ had done for them. And they're confusing second tense sanctification or practical sanctification with positional sanctification. How is one born into God's family? They're merging the two together. To say that God's desire for our lives once we are his child have to be manifest in the beginning or as a part of becoming a child of God or you weren't a child to begin with. And the Bible makes a distinction between the two. There's a way that man is born into God's family, that's faith alone. And then God, as you are a part of his family, as you are now his child, as you've experienced his spirit now living inside of you, says, I don't wanna leave you the way you are. I want to transform you over time. I want to mold you into the image of my son. And that's a process that will take place as you're willing to let me make those changes in you. As you're willing to get out of the way, keep your eyes focused on me, and allow my spirit to direct and work in your life. Now, what will the product of that be? that you would live a life that would bring him glory, that your manner of living would be consistent with God's values, God's standards of what is right. Now, is that because you're pumping those out in your flesh in order to prove that you were saved to begin with? No, it's as a byproduct of God's spirit working inside of you so that those things would become true of you as God works through you, but not because of you. And that's where the distinction is lost. That anything, any kind of teaching that ends up making the person the focus of the teaching, puts the spotlight on you, puts the responsibility on you, that's not true theology. It's not accurate theology. Accurate theology always puts the spotlight on God and what he can do in and through you or what he's done for you. And that's the distinction. But the question, coming back to it, is there are people who are confused or they have a less than ideal gospel presentation that's muddied by some of these things. It doesn't mean that every single one of them doesn't understand the gospel or isn't saved. It just means that currently they're proclaiming something that is confusing, it's garbled, it's muddled. It's not clear, and it's not something that would represent the clearest gospel presentation as presented by the word of God. Now, is that person, though, automatically an enemy? The answer is no. But when you make a distinction and you speak out against that kind of a message that involves you doing something for God to perfect what God started, or to finish what God started, or to prove the authenticity of what God has done, That's a perverted gospel message. And so we rightfully call that out. Well, in that instance, I called it out not only as lordship salvation, but I mentioned one of the primary proponents of that message. Again, I don't think that's the issue. The issue is what is the false teaching? But I happened to in that instance. Well, that really upset this person. who said, are you saying that that individual isn't a fellow believer? I said, I wouldn't have any way to know that. Only the Lord knows that. But the way we found some resolution in that conversation, as I said, it's not wrong to make, it doesn't make you unloving. It doesn't mean I'm against this person. I hope that the Lord can bring about some clarity in his thinking so that there's some clarity then in his message as he continuously has a wide audience to proclaim God's truth too. I hope that he comes to have more clarity in his message. I'm not against him in any way. Now only the Lord knows if he's saved or not. but the person who believes they're doing something to perfect what God started absolutely is not saved. If that's what you've always thought, you're not a believer. Because to believe is to accept that you have nothing to contribute to the equation and that God has 100% fully and completely satisfied and made a plan of rescue that was lacking nothing. He didn't need you to fill in any gaps in his plan. He's the perfect, all-knowing, sovereign God. He didn't need you. You needed him. And so because of your need for him, he made a way, a way of rescue that involved you accepting what he had done for you. And it's that simple. Now, at the end of the day, we talk about that need, though, to have distinctions, where we can say it has nothing to do with love, but love needs to be qualified with discernment. We can't just have blind love that accepts everyone and everything they say without ever taking a stand against it. under the guise that that's what it means to be loving. No, you can be very loving while at the same time having discernment and making distinctions. So, to the point of our message this morning, the biblical command to love others is qualified by the exhortation to exercise discernment. And discernment refers to the ability to decide between truth and error, or right and wrong. Discernment is the process of making careful distinctions in our thinking about truth. and the ability to think with discernment, it's synonymous with the ability to think biblically. Where do we get truth from? We get it from God's word, the word of truth. We get the ability to have discerning thinking or discerning love in this context as we qualify this command about love, God's instruction to love one another, this principle, this doctrine of loving others. as Christ has loved us. It's qualified by this call to exercise discernment. That's what it means to think biblically, though, is to exercise or implement practically these Christian principles and truth in a way that stays true to God's truth. Let's see how many more times we could work truth into the same sentence. Applying these principles in a way that maintains a focus on or are qualified by God's truth. So presently thinking biblically, it could be described as walking in truth, and that's the theme of this book. Second, John, the theme of this book, if you take nothing away from our studies, it's walking in truth, living in truth. John's saying live as directed by truth, by God's truth. As God directs and works in you, live in that manner that your life would be characterized by living or walking in truth. And so now John is going to expand on his warning that he just got done with here in verses 7 and 8 about beingware of deceivers. by calling for discerning love. Not just having love in general as he spoke of earlier in the letter, but calling for love that is qualified by having discernment added to or applied to that love as it is used in your life or as you interact with others in your life. So let's read through just so we come up to this with some more of a flavor of the full. tone of the book or the letter here. Let's start with verse one. There you have love and there you have truth. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in love and truth. Again, they can't be separated, they go together. I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in the truth. There's our theme for the whole. book, walking in the truth, as we received commandment from the Father. That's the truth that we're walking in, is the truth that comes from Him. And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning. And what is that? In a summary fashion, that we love one another. What Jesus says is the greatest commandment. This is love, that we walk according to his commandments, plurals. There you have again that integration between walking in love and walking in truth, how they can't be separated. This is the commandment that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. Now it's singular, likely focusing back to that primary theme of loving one another or that overshadowing principle that Jesus was so often speaking of. Now four. Why do we have to walk in the truth and why do we have to walk in the love? Why do we have to do them both at the same time? Because, you could take four and put because there in verse seven, many deceivers have gone out into the world. Now, how are they described or characterized? They do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. Could those people be believers? The answer is no, unless they've changed their tune recently. If they used to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and that he was the Savior of the world, that he had died in their place, and then had been confused or deceived themselves and now changed their message, then I guess they could be believers who are now confused. But I believe the primary application is these many deceivers In this context, in verse seven, they're not believers because they deny that Jesus came in the flesh. This is a deceiver, and in Antichrist, the one with that message has nothing that could identify him other than being a deceiver. That's a deceptive message to say that about the person and work of Jesus Christ. In fact, that is the most common attack that Satan has against the message of the Bible, is to undermine the message of Jesus Christ. By undermining the message of Jesus Christ, we keep people in the dark. And unfortunately, men are easily deceived because men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. So that's what they would naturally gravitate towards anyway. And that's why if our light isn't bright and if it is hidden by a basket, a bushel basket, then those that are perishing are the ones that are harmed by that decision on our part. If our gospel is hidden, it's hidden to the ones who need it the most. They need the glorious light of the gospel shined into their darkness. And if we hide that gospel inside ourselves and don't proclaim it to them, how are they ever going to get out of this deception that the world, the flesh, and the devil are propagating against them? Well, they couldn't. God wants to use you to shine his light into their lives. But I digress. So he says, look to yourselves. Because of the common attack, the spiritual battle that is raging, look to yourself, watch out for yourself, be aware. Now yourselves, plural, that we, he includes himself in it, do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. Let's finish the race so that we can hear, well done, thy good and faithful servant, and be rewarded for our willingness to serve the Lord in time. Allow him to work in our lives. Allow him to produce the manner of living in us that is consistent with his plan, his purpose, his word, and his will for our lives. God is so amazing that in addition to making that kind of life possible, a life that's described by perfect peace and fullness of joy, a life of abundant joy. I didn't come just that you would have life, but that you would have it to the fullest. A life that is where your cup is overflowing with God's goodness, His blessings, His provisions for you. That would be great enough, but this passage is talking about how God, in addition to that, is gonna reward those who faithfully serve Him when He was the one doing it all anyway. Absolutely mind-boggling when you think about that doctrine of rewards. Now we come to our passage for this morning. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. You can't have one without the other. We'll touch on that later today. If anyone comes to you and that will be interpreted when somebody comes to you, and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house, nor greet him. For he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. And what's the primary doctrine in the context that we're gonna be looking at? The doctrine that denies the person and work of Jesus Christ. So let's dive into this. That was a little bit of a longer review. Verse 9 is where we're picking up. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. So two options are now presented as potentially available to any individual as a present state of being. We're going to see that these verbs are in the present tense. But they're contrasted against each other. They stand in stark contrast to each other. You either are going to be described by the first or you're going to be described by the second. one who is transgressing and not abiding in the doctrine of Christ, or one who's abiding in the doctrine, one or the other, abiding or not abiding. So in the immediate context, John presents this as a mechanism for identifying one who is presently walking in the truth. Remember the exhortation is, some of your children walking in the truth. And that was lifted up. That was encouraged. That was praised. That's the goal or objective is that we would walk in God's love and we would walk in God's truth. That as God was working in us those things would be true of our manner of living. But our manner of living of course directly tied back to our manner of thinking. Our thinking is ultimately the issue. Where is our mind at? Is our mind stayed on him? Are we looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith? Is his spirit then free to work in our lives so that what is produced in our lives would be consistent with what God's truth is and what God's demonstration or His example of love is. So that's kind of the idea. So as we're looking for how do we identify then one who's walking in truth when we've got this alternative which is that there are those and they're not few in number there's many of them that are deceived themselves and are deceiving others with this false message and we need to be on guard or be aware of that satanic attack. So now how do we know if we ourselves are being influenced by this or how do we identify another who is potentially preaching or teaching this message? How do we determine whether they are in fact a deceiver and an antichrist? Well, this is the litmus test, if you will. This applies to the deceivers. He warned about in verses seven and eight. But this applies to the self-evaluation of an individual believer, too. When you're saying, look to yourselves, you could be considering now this as a way of evaluating or looking to yourself or guarding yourself. Ask yourself this question. Which of these two categories presently do I fall into? Again, because this is written in the present tense. You would use the same standard as it applied to anybody who would come to you with a message that they're hoping to proclaim. In this capacity, the idea we're going to see is in the capacity of a formal teacher in a local church setting. That is my take on it. It doesn't have to be that case, but a false teacher, somebody who's coming with a message that they're looking for an audience for. They're looking for somebody to propose or proclaim this false message to. And the question is, should I provide an audience? Should I become the audience for that message? And how will I determine which people I should give an audience to or not? Well, here's our test. Are they transgressing and not abiding in the doctrine of Christ? Or are they abiding in the doctrine of Christ? And so, when we look at the previous verse, the subject was believers, so that's why I take the position that this could be applied to both the deceivers and antichrists, who are unbelievers, but it also could be applied to believers as well, because the immediate context is we, we, we. So it's John including himself with this believing audience, and now then he says whoever. So who is the whoever referring to? Well, it could refer back, like I say, to verse seven, to the deceivers, but it could also refer back to verse eight, to Christians to evaluate themselves. Now we have abides in. So it's either you're going to abide in or you're not going to abide in. When we use that term abides in, it refers to any place one is presently remaining, staying, or residing. So you're either remaining or staying true to the doctrine of Christ, being influenced by the doctrine of Christ, or you're distancing yourself from that and not abiding in that. You're not remaining close to that. You're not staying close to that. You're not setting up your residence in God's truth. you're moving in a different direction. So then we have these two opposing present manners of living that are now contrasted. Again we said the first one is transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine. The second one is abides in the doctrine. Now they're mutually exclusive at any particular point in time. So they help to determine the authenticity of any Christian teacher and they would help to determine any individual believer's present fellowship status. What I mean by that is you can't be abiding in fellowship, having close intimate fellowship with the Father, being influenced then by his spirit, and at the same time not walking or abiding in the doctrine of Christ. The Spirit of God would never produce that kind of mindset in you. if you were being led by and influenced in that moment by a close intimate fellowship with God and the direction of God's spirit. So that's sort of the idea. You can't have one or the other, but this would help you to see, am I presently in fellowship or am I not? So now let's look at option number one. Option number one, it says that you, this individual, whoever transgresses, that's one description, and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ. Conclusion, that individual does not presently have God. Let's unpack that a little bit. So option one, this is more of the explanation of it. Anyone who transgresses, and that's defined as disregards, deviates from, or goes beyond. So anybody who's adding to, that's where the goes beyond means. So disregarding, deviating from, or going beyond. And that's what oftentimes false teachers are doing. They're not necessarily abandoning what's there. Very often they're teaching what's there in the word of God and then they're modifying it. They're adding to it. They're supplementing it. They're twisting it and perverting it. So often we think false teachers wouldn't hold the word of God high at all. In fact, often they hold it very high in such a way that we're tempted to conclude that their message must be authentic. except for if they take the message of the word of God and then they add to it, supplement what's here, then they are in fact deceivers. And that's the hard thing when you think about Christianity as a whole. There's warehouses that could be filled with books that identify or claim to be Christian books, where authors have taken God's word and they've sought to explain it or to discuss it or analyze it in some way. Now on one hand, we have a number of books that we have on offer in the bookstore. Do we say with every single one of those books that every sentence, every word written by a human being discussing biblical things is 100% accurate all the time? I would say no. Have we sought to carefully cultivate or curate, that's the word I wanted, curate books that we put in there that we think by and large are very accurate and they're very useful to our lives? The answer is yes, we have. But there's absolute garbage when it comes to many books that are available under the label of Christian books. The same can be said about anything that is written under the guise or promoted under the guise of Christianity. If it's not directly true or faithful to the word of God, then it's not helpful to our lives. It's a way that, in fact, making it seem good, it's attractive to us, but Satan is actually using our very own words, God's very own words, the things that we value, he's using the very things that we value to, in fact, distract us, to confuse us, to deceive us. and periodically there's the newest and there's the latest thread or angle on that, but it's very, very commonly, it doesn't come from the, it is coming from the world in a sense, but it's not a world we would identify as the world, it's coming from Christian community. The, again, self-labeled Christian community. And so you can regularly pick up a book, listen to a song, you can flip through the hymnal and find songs written by people who are five-point Calvinists, who would add to the gospel message. You don't even have to look very hard. So we have to curate that. We'd say, we're not gonna sing verse three. In some churches, they'll actually have to go so far as to taking a pen through certain words and replacing it with a doctrinally accurate word, because we don't wanna throw the baby out with the bathwater. So we've done that with music since the very beginning. But we have to do that with other things too. We could talk about commentaries. I use commentaries as I study and prepare. It's the last step in my preparation. We could talk about the process of exegesis someday, but the last step in that after reading it, comparing scripture with scripture, trying to make grammatical observations and looking at the grammar, that's in front of me, looking at the immediate context, looking at the general context, as I'm studying a passage, when I reach a conclusion about it, then I seek to compare that conclusion at times with what other Bible students have concluded. And we call those commentaries. Do they have some value? Yes. Are there some I could recommend to you? Yes. Could I wholeheartedly endorse any of them? The answer is no. because depending on their background, depending on where they're coming from, very often you have to have discernment. Remember we're talking about discernment today, discerning love. We have to exercise discernment with music, exercise discernment with Christian literature, we have to exercise discernment with even Christian commentaries where people have invested sometimes their whole lives into studying God's Word and preparing tools that others could use for the study of the Word of God. But very often as you read about, especially those that are influenced with this idea of maintaining your own salvation, okay, and that's a thread of, it's a works salvation that's a backdoor work salvation meaning they would agree that you can't do any works on the front end to be saved but yet at the same time they say you're not responsible to maintain your salvation preserve your salvation prove out the authenticity of your salvation those individuals oftentimes are associated with different Bible colleges and different churches and they write commentaries. So if that was their background and they're writing a commentary, when they come to passages that make it very clear that you cannot work for salvation, either to earn it or to maintain it, their take on that is twisted. When they come to passages that are talking about losing rewards, they talk about losing your position in God's family. They'll always twist it to try to support their theology. So they're making the passages work for their preconceived view of the theology. And so that's why it's careful to be, it's important to be careful about those things. So I got to all of that, sorry for that. rabbit trail, but we got to all that by talking about going beyond. Adding to, under the guise of being faithful to God's word, actually adding to it. Now, anyone who disregards, deviates from, or goes beyond, and does not abide in, which we talked about, meaning continue or remain consistent with, I think is the better way to take that here. The doctrine of Christ, what is that referring to? The teaching or instruction from Christ, and the teaching and instruction about Jesus Christ. That person is said to not have God. And so when we're thinking about not having God, does not have, it's a present tense, referring to a current state of being. It's in the active voice, meaning the subject is in the state of being described by the verse. So that person currently is described as not having God, and it's stated in the indicative mood as a fact, the person who has disregarded or deviated from or goes beyond God's truth or the doctrine of Christ in this specific application, he's not remaining consistent with that, that individual in that moment does not have God. So in the case of the unbeliever, what does that mean? That person does not have God, meaning they never had God. They do not have God because they never even at a point in time in the past put their faith in Christ alone and his finished work on their behalf. So that person has no relationship with God, and having no relationship with God, they certainly have no fellowship with God. That individual is invariably prone to erroneous thinking and then erroneous teaching, because that person never knew God and he presently doesn't know God either. And so that could have an application to an unbelieving deceiver or antichrist or false teacher. Now the other version of that though is in the case of a misdirected believer. In the case of a misdirected believer, this means that he has no present fellowship with God and not walking as directed by God's spirit, what is he susceptible to? Walk by means of the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. If you're walking as directed by the flesh, you're prone to erroneous thinking. You're prone to heresy. You're prone to teaching and believing and accepting things that aren't true. You're prone to being deceived yourself and then the sad reality is you're prone to deceiving others. And the reason is because you're not experiencing intimate present fellowship with God. at any point in time. So if this was in the case of a believer, we're not talking about losing their salvation. When we say they do not have God, they don't presently have God, it's the same as in 1 John. The many references to all the kinds of thinking that would be consistent with presently not being in fellowship with God, not trusting God, not presently having that intimacy with God. And you couldn't be presently directed by God and at the same time, examples from 1 John, you couldn't at the same time be hating your brother. You couldn't at the same time be actively transgressing God's commandments. The Spirit of God doesn't do that. So he's given many different examples in 1 John about how those kinds of thinking and those kinds of behaviors are evidence of a present lack of intimate fellowship with God. And so that's what this phrase again means as it relates to a believer. If that person is not presently abiding in the doctrine of Christ, that person is not presently in fellowship with God or does not presently have God. You see, believers aren't immune to being deceived. Believers are not immune from being deceived. And as I said, one step worse than that is in addition to not being immune from being deceived, you're not immune from spreading deception to the lives of others around you either. Now, I tend to think that when it comes to Christians deceiving each other, it often involves arguments about areas in which the Bible is silent. That would be the number one area that comes to my mind. where people are actively promoting viewpoints or thinking that the Bible doesn't even touch on, that the Bible doesn't have any way for us to compare scripture with scripture about. We can't go chapter and verse on it because it's not even in the Bible, that particular point, that particular topic. Now, if there's no way to judge your opinion or the statements that you're making about a particular topic with the word of truth, then isn't that by definition, that type of thinking, that particular opinion that you have, isn't it susceptible to deception? The reason is yes, because there's nothing to compare it to definitively. And so very often I think that's where we get each other off track. It's not even necessarily about things that you could go chapter and verse on, though there's plenty of that. But I would say within our church that has had very sound doctrine being taught for many, many years, decades, I don't think it's confusion about the simplicity of the gospel, about the assurance, the opportunity to have assurance of our salvation, the security of our position in God's family that God alone maintains. I don't think it's things like that, the tenses of salvation. I don't think it's things about dispensations. I don't think it's distinctions about Israel and the church. I think it's stuff that goes outside of the things that the Bible even speaks on. That's the most common thing that we get sucked into and deceived about. And it's because we're most susceptible to that. Because we're going outside of, we're going beyond the word of truth that we have as a guidebook for our lives. That is the very definition of transgressing. That is the very definition of going beyond the revealed word of God. And remember that John identified the most critical doctrine as that related to the person and work of Jesus Christ. So in the case of satanic attack, Satan is naturally gonna primarily attack the person and work of Jesus Christ because the only way that a person can be saved is by putting their faith alone in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone. So that's naturally why he attacks it. But confused believers within a church often represent the primary source of danger within a local church. You think about the attacks from outside. Is this church facing attacks from the outside? The answer is yes. But the way that that attack permeates its way or filters its way into a church is because as you go out into the world around you, your thinking is attacked. As your thinking is attacked, your thinking is changed at times when you're not looking to the Lord. When your thinking is changed by the messaging of the world, you then bring that thinking and those viewpoints into this church. So Satan's direct portal to the church is actually, in fact, the believers that attend the church. And so then you bring that thinking into the church and then Satan ultimately uses people, other believers, as the primary source of danger within the local church and be aware of that. Now, I don't think that's, that's not a call for you to put under the microscope every other believer. We're to treat each other with grace. But pray for your fellow believers. More importantly, pray for yourself. Pray that you wouldn't be the one that is sucking up and absorbing all this extra biblical stuff from the world around you and then bringing it into the church. Pray that that wouldn't describe you. Pray that you wouldn't be the one who picks up a piece of Christian literature that seems new and novel and exciting, and then you would have your thinking affected by that, and then you'd bring that viewpoint into the local church and start spreading it around to others. Pray that you wouldn't be the one who comes up with something new, a different twist on things in a way that you don't Be very careful to run by others. Now, is it possible that God could give you insight or illuminate your thinking about something that maybe we don't talk about enough here? Maybe we haven't really ever thought about. I think the answer is to that, I would qualify this answer, but I say yes. I think it's a mistake to think that we have everything figured out. We're human beings. We haven't been glorified yet. We're imperfect. There's probably things that the Lord wants to show us as a collective group that we don't yet know. That we haven't put enough focus on. That we haven't understood correctly. There probably are some of those things. So I don't rule that out. I just say we have to be very cautious or careful about that. Now, why are believers particularly susceptible to being misdirected or misguided or deceived by other believers? Why is that? Why are you more susceptible to being deceived by each other than you are the world around you in some ways? The reason is because you trust each other. You love each other. You accept each other. You welcome each other. You give opportunity and audience to each other where you might not do that with the world as readily. That's why. Now, when we think about the option number two, so on the one hand, you could transgress, not abide in the doctrines of Christ, and then be described as not having God, either unsaved or saved. Then option two, though, on the other hand, the one who abides in the doctrine, or teaching instruction from and about Jesus Christ, has present fellowship with both the Father and the Son. That's the other option. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. That is the alternative to being deceived or transgressing. speaking something that goes beyond what God has revealed through the teaching of Christ and the illumination of the writers of the New Testament scriptures about Christ. But remember the focus is on the teaching about Jesus Christ. The other nice thing about option two and the way it's worded here, obviously this is where God wants these believers to be. This is the standard. This is where, if you're gonna let somebody have an, if you're gonna give somebody an audience, as a local church, if we're gonna have somebody speak to the congregation, give them access to our local body of believers, this is the type of thing we want to see in them. That it's somebody who is remaining in, abiding in the doctrines, the teaching or instructions from and about Jesus Christ. That person has, if that's true of them, they have present fellowship with the Father and the Son. A nice little detail here, though, is with both the Father and the Son, you see that part of it? That's clear teaching about the deity of Jesus Christ. Now remember, there were many who denied that Christ ever came. There were many who denied that Christ, though they accepted that Christ came, but they denied that Christ was God, that He was God's Son. And here's another reference to the unity between the Father and the Son, as we talk about the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, there's a litmus test of sorts. Now, what is our response to be after using some discernment? After exercising discernment, after making clear biblical distinctions as we evaluate what somebody has to say, doctrinally speaking. Now what is our response to be? Well, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, so that's that person that is transgressing and not abiding in the doctrine of Jesus Christ, what's your response to be? Do not receive him into your house, nor greet him. So the way if is used here, when we say if anyone comes, it's used to communicate an assumption that this will happen. So you could phrase it more like in the future when somebody comes or when someone comes. See, false teachers will eventually end up on the church's doorstep or on the believer's doorstep individually. That will happen. Those people will show up wanting hospitality. They'll show up wanting entrance into the fellowship. They'll show up wanting an audience to spread their deception to. That will happen is what John is saying. So he's saying when this happens. Now remember, as we think about it even in our day, John was saying this will happen to you. Be prepared, be on guard. Make sure that you've looked to yourself so that you're thoughtful about these things. You're exercising discernment. You're ready to make biblical distinctions about what people are teaching or saying. So then, does it apply to our day? And the answer is yes. It takes many different shapes, but it's nothing new. It started in the very beginning. Satan came right up to Eve's doorstep, so to speak. And what was his message? Has God really said? To start questioning what God had said. Now did he do that by also speaking some amount of truth? And the answer is yes. But at the same time, he twisted the truth. Did Eve accurately speak God's truth? To a certain extent, but then she twisted God's truth. So the point being, it comes right to your doorstep. It came right to her doorstep. Now was it successful? Yeah, from the very first example, it was successful. Where in the spiritual battle that is raging, the enemy brings a message that is contrary to God's truth right to your doorstep. Now that's right to your doorstep individually, but right to the church's doorstep collectively too. Now why would Satan stop doing this? It was effective from the very beginning. It continues to be effective today. He's not going to give up on this tactic where he's going to seek under the guise of true Christian beliefs to propagate and promulgate and promote. Promulgate, I'm not even sure if that's a word. Promote his twisting of God's truth, or his exchanging of something else in place of God's truth. He's not gonna stop doing that. But remember, under the guise of Christianity. He does it under the guise of immorality and worldliness, but he does it under the guise of Christianity. That's our context here, is these are people proclaiming to be a part of the Christian movement that are coming to these communities with false messages. And that happens in the Christian community, too, that we often identify with. We should, to be one of Christ is to be a Christian. But that gets us to incorporate and add to what we consider to be Christian views and viewpoints when we, over time, we increase and we expand upon what those views actually entail. And then we come back to, again, where is it in the word of God? But anyway, we have these false teachers. They're gonna come. So the scenario was common in the first century. That's why John especially is writing this, but it was very common where somebody would present himself as a teacher and they would arrive and they would seek to have opportunity to minister to a church. Now think about even the Apostle Paul. On his missionary trips, he would enter synagogues. When he entered synagogues, he would be seeking an audience, right? Now, he would be afforded an opportunity to teach in those synagogues, why? because he had credentials. His credential was he was a rabbi. He had been taught, he had been raised, he had gone through that training that would qualify him to speak. So he was given an audience. And as Paul was given an audience, he had the opportunity to influence thinking. Now that was in a positive context because the message that Paul was proclaiming was true. But that was commonplace in the first century. For the first century church, the practice involved itinerant teachers sent out by their home churches to minister to daughter and sister churches. Remember, churches were planting other churches. This church has been involved in planting other churches. Now, over time, lots of churches were planted. Some planted by that church, some planted by other churches. If it was planted by this church, and you were a minister from this church, that would be a sister church, a daughter church would be a church that you yourself, this congregation, had planted. And so then various teachers and ministers would make the circuits to minister to these different bodies of believers. That was common in John's day. It was common in this first century. And so that's partly what's going on here, is now as those people are going around, how do you judge their credentials? How do you judge if they're somebody you should give an audience to? And John made that very clear. Are they abiding in the doctrines of Christ? Are they not abiding in the doctrines of Christ? So as a believer, what is your response to be as you're confronted by somebody seeking an audience? Well, here we find the other two present active imperatives in this letter. There's only three very strongly worded instructions, commands, however you would want to put it, but very strongly worded exhortations. Verse eight was look to yourself, that was the first one, and here's the only two other ones in this whole letter. It's do not receive and do not greet. They're both stated emphatically. Now they serve to qualify the general exhortation to love one another that we talked about earlier. And this represents a call for discernment in applying this principle because you could say there's all of these passages in the New Testament, we don't have time to get to them. We're already running low on time. But tons of passages in the New Testament calling for hospitality, calling for graciousness, calling for a loving response to people coming to your home, coming to your church. In fact, it's one of the qualities that is lifted up as something that would be fundamental to somebody who is even operating in a leadership position in the church, that you would have a heart towards hospitality or inviting people into your home. So to qualify that then, John says, but we're not gonna do that with people who are proclaiming a different message about the person and work of Jesus Christ. At a minimum, we're gonna draw a line there when it comes to giving a public audience to somebody who has a different gospel message. Paul says there's no such thing as another gospel. There's only one gospel message. Christ's death, burial, and resurrection on behalf of undeserving sinners and how it can only be accessed by faith or accepting as a free gift the offer of salvation that God makes to each and every person. And so he says, do not. So passionately warning you, do not, starts with receive them. It refers to welcoming or accepting someone into your home. Now, house here likely refers to the local church. That's especially true if you interpret a lack lady and her children as referring to a local church. You see, you is plural, and as is we in the immediate context. He's talking to a group of people. Now, remember that the developing church met in members' homes. And when you think about why would I not receive this person with this message, it's because the primary issue is one of identification. To receive the false teacher is to identify with his message or be identified with his message. We should not ever want to be identified with a message or perversion of the gospel message about who Jesus is and what he's done. We could be identified with maybe many other things, but we would never want to be identified as being accepting of another gospel message besides Christ and Him crucified. But the caveat is we should not see this as forbidding private hospitality to strangers or even to fellow Christians with whom we disagree theologically. That's not what this is saying. This is talking about somebody seeking an opportunity or an audience in my view, to the church family to communicate a false message about who Jesus is and what He's done. This is not a call for separation in every case of disagreement. People have really perverted this passage or taken it too far. That's not what John is after here. Remember, in the immediate context, the immediate context specifically involves false teaching about the person and work of Jesus Christ. The issue here involves more than disagreements and interpretation. It involves more than personal misunderstandings among members of the body of Christ. It was radical and clearly defined unbelief and it involved active and aggressive promotion of perversions of truth and practice that struck at the very heart of Christianity because it struck at the very message of salvation, the person and work of Jesus Christ. John is talking about hospitality directed to false teachers, primarily in the form of an official welcome into a congregation. That is my take on it. I wouldn't be dogmatic about it, but that's the take you would have if you interpret first one to be referring to a local church. Now, in addition to don't receive them, don't greet them. Now, it's used in conjunction with receive as an individual aspect of the same overall action. Don't receive them or greet them. That's an all-in-one kind of a thing. And another way of saying it would be, do not receive him with a greeting. So the greetings that were common were, I'm glad to see you, as you welcome somebody into your home, or I wish you well. Now, should you celebrate or say I'm glad to see somebody who is coming or arriving with a message, a false gospel message? See, culturally this involved a positive expression of encouragement. We wouldn't encourage that message. We could still love that person, pray for that person, even celebrate what God can do in spite of that particular teaching, but I don't think God can do anything when the person's underlying message of salvation is flawed. Sometimes we're talking about something less heinous than a perversion of the person and work of Jesus Christ, but it's something that we definitively disagree with and we think it's pretty substantial too when it comes to doctrine. In that case, we could still praise how God is using them as Paul praises those that are preaching the gospel message clearly, but they're doing it from the wrong motives. As he says, they're preaching Christ with a desire to add to my affliction. when he's in prison. He says, but I rejoice because in any event Jesus Christ is preached. So there are times where we can celebrate even false motives when the messaging still remains true. There's times we can agree to disagree about secondary matters of doctrine. This is focused on something much greater than that. Somebody who is coming with a very specific false message about the person and work of Jesus Christ. We move on to verse 11 though it says, for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. He who greets him shares in his evil deeds. This is why we don't receive or greet them, because we don't want to be associated with them, their teaching. It's not about them, it's by being associated with them though, we're associated with their message. So why should you not even greet a false teacher? Answer, guilt by association. And guilt by association is a powerful tool in the hands of the enemy of the gospel. If God can, sorry, if Satan can make it seem that we are, as a church family, aligned with a false message about the person and work of Jesus Christ, then he has done a lot to undermine what we should be all about or what we want to be all about. All of a sudden, we're identified with this ecumenical type of a mindset that says everything goes. As long as you think you're a Christian or say you're a Christian, that's fine. Anything you believe about salvation is fine. Nobody's viewpoint is any better than the next. But that's just not true. The Bible is a book of discernment and distinction. The Bible says there's one way to the Father. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. He says, I am the door by me. If anyone enters in, he shall be saved. The Bible says it's not by works of righteousness which you have done, but it's according to his mercy that he saved you. The Bible says, for by grace you've been saved through faith. It's not of yourself. It's a gift from God. It's not of works, lest anyone should boast. So a message that says you can work yourself into God's good graces, you can make yourself acceptable to God, and it puts the focus on the person instead of putting the focus on the person and work of Jesus, that's a perverted gospel. That's not something that we can get behind. That's not something that we want to be associated from. Why? Because that dilutes and it diminishes the clarity of the message that the Bible proclaims and that we're seeking to lift up as a church family. And that's why we don't make compromise or seek not to make compromise when it comes to the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news about who Jesus is and what he's done. So you should not only refuse to support false teachers, but you should avoid even appearing to support false teachers. When we permit false teaching in our church, we share responsibility for the impact that deception has in our lives and the lives of others. We share in his evil deeds when we allow that to take place. See, when it comes to denying Jesus Christ, what fellowship can we have with one publicly proclaiming a message in opposition to Christ? especially when it creates the appearance that we are partnering with them. What fellowship could we have with that? And that's why 2 Corinthians 6.14 says, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. We're not in partnership with them. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness, and what communion has light with darkness? You see, when we associate with those who do not maintain the clarity of the gospel message, it dims our light. It diminishes the brightness of the light we're trying to shine, which is the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone, and it's not of works. There's nothing you can do to work for this. You cannot earn this. Grace is God giving to the undeserving something they could never have come up with on their own or merited on their own. If it's not that message, friends, it's not the gospel and it's not grace. God loved the world so much that he gave. That's a picture of giving, a gift again. Freely given and freely received. His only son. Whoever believes in him, that's the only way you can access the gift that God offers, is through faith. Believing in what God has already done for you. Whoever believes in him will not perish, meaning it can never be lost, but will have, that's a present possession, the words of certainty, everlasting life. If you could lose it, it wouldn't be everlasting anymore, friends. And so that's the gospel message. That's the one that we have to maintain loyalty to and be faithful to discern against or make distinctions with those who would pervert it. So discerning love, the title of our message. Loving somebody, again, does not involve accepting everything they believe, say, or teach. God wants you to apply biblical principles while exercising discernment at the same time. So the biblical principle is love one another, but do that while exercising discernment. Love others, yes. Love the lost, yes. But do it with discernment as you're walking in truth. You see, walking in truth is incompatible with welcoming teachers who deny the person and work of Jesus Christ into your midst. You couldn't be walking in truth and inviting that messaging into your church, into your home, into your thinking. Doing so is not a valid expression of love. So don't be confused about that, John is saying. Love has to be qualified with discernment. See, Christians corporately have no business intentionally associating, supporting, or providing an audience or platform for false teaching, especially regarding the heart of the gospel. And this is also true to a lesser extent, but individually it's true as well. Exercise caution when you entertain those who are promoting a different gospel, another message. What's an example of that? One example of that could be you have somebody stop by your home who asks you if you'd have a few minutes to talk to them about the things of faith. Sometimes that could be, well, we don't even have, it could be Jehovah's Witness. It could be a group of young Mormon men. It could be a guy from the community church down the street. It could just be your neighbor wanting to give you a gospel tract that they picked up. Okay, so as you invite them into your home to have a conversation with them about the things of faith, exercise caution. The odds are much more likely that the message they have to proclaim include adding something to the gospel instead of faith alone, by grace alone, and Christ alone. How do we know that? Because men love darkness rather than light. The road is broad that leads to destruction. The path is narrow that leads to eternal life. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your Son. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for this time that we have to even share a meal together. Pray that we would enjoy that time. Pray for the Christmas program that practice that will be happening afterwards and even the Christmas program coming up next Sunday at four o'clock. Pray that we can invite many of our friends so that they could hear the gospel message presented clearly. I pray for or thank you for all those that contributed to even us being able to have a meal those that are working hard to prepare it behind the scenes thank you for them and their ministry of love toward us thank you for those that were ministering to our children pray that we you would just work in their lives to give them energy give them encouragement give them clarity even as they go about continuing to be missionaries to children in our Sunday School ministry. Pray for the youth event here from two to six o'clock at the Lions House. Pray that many young people could go. Pray that there would be safety there and that you'd get a hold of their thinking while they're there. Thank you for your great love. In Jesus' name, amen.