Well, we're back into our Through the Bible series, and it's in 2 John. I'll just read verses 4 through 6. Hear the word of God. I rejoice greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth as we received commandment from the Father. 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, that we love one another. This is love that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment that, as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. Father God, we come to examine your word, to delight in your word, to worship you through your word, to recommit our hearts to your word. And I pray that you would anoint my lips as I preach your word, that I may do so faithfully, that you may be glorified in each one of your people built up. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Let me start with a few introductory comments on this book. The word Antichrist only occurs in this book and 1 John. It doesn't occur in Revelation, where everybody talks about it. It doesn't occur anywhere else in the Bible. And what's especially strange about that is that when you read books on the Antichrist, they're delving all over the Scripture. They rarely talk about the verses. in 1 John and 2 John, and the reason I think is pretty clear, pretty obvious, and that is that in 1 and 2 John, the Antichrist was already present in the first century. And they're wanting to see the Antichrist off in the future rather than in the past. And he talked about the emergence of the Antichrist spirit, the Antichrist humans as being a first century phenomenon. I'll give you just one example from each book. In 1 John 4, 3, he says, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming and is now already in the world. So this demonic spirit had been unleashed upon Israel and Israel was using its influence with Nero to do everything in their power to destroy Christianity. Three times in 1 John the Apostle made it crystal clear that this Antichrist spirit was already at work, and this is why they knew that it was the last hour for Israel. 1 John 2.18, verse 22, 4.3. Of course, that doesn't mean that demons can't do similar things in other ages. They can, but that's not what was being prophesied. What was being prophesied was clearly first century. And by the way, that does not make it irrelevant for us. It gives us a philosophy for understanding how to gain the victory over any kind of demonic influence that is in a culture around us. So 1 John points out that the emergence of the Antichrist was not proof that Israel would win in its persecution, quite the opposite, that this was the last hour for Israel, 1 John 2.18. Very encouraging words. Well, 2 John 7 also points to the present existence of these antichrists. It says, for many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. And literally, it's even the antichrist. the Antichrist was there when this book was written. And this is one of several evidences that the Book of 2 John was written within weeks or months of 1 John. It was probably written in late 65 or the first two months of AD 66, right around there. But 2 John doesn't just deal with these heretics that had left the church and were trying to undermine the church. It also gives the same three tests that you find in 1 John, by which you can discern the difference between true Christianity and false Christianity. And he lists those three tests as holiness, love, and pure doctrine. And he hammers those three tests over and over in 1 John. He does the same here in 2 John. These are the tests, holiness, love, and pure doctrine. Now, he does go on to talk about church discipline as well, so that's one of the marks of the church according to the Reformation. And I'm not going to take you through any more background research on the connections between those two epistles, but anybody who has studied those connections, it raises a question in their mind. Well, actually a couple of questions. One is, why do we even have a private epistle in the canon? But it is crystal clear that this woman was a part of one of the churches that John had planted where 1 John was already read. So why is he repeating himself in this personal letter to this woman? Isn't it enough that she's already heard 1 John being read from the pulpit? Well, apparently not. We're going to be seeing how this book models what eldering really looks like, as well as what submission to eldering looks like. And Acts 2, verse 46 sets the pattern for elders when it speaks about ministry in the temple, that was the public ministry, and then ministry from house to house. And Paul also modeled the same personal ministry in addition to his public preaching. For example, Acts 20, verse 20 says, I kept back nothing that was helpful. but proclaimed it to you and taught you publicly and from house to house." Well, that's exactly what the Apostle John is doing right here. He's engaging in one-on-one ministry with a female head of the household. And in 3 John, he's going to engage in one-on-one ministry to a male head of a household. And here's the problem. The heretics also understood the power of this one-on-one household ministry. And so they didn't get detected very quickly. They did not engage very often in this public preaching or preaching their heresies in front of a big crowd, because they could have been spotted and pointed out right away. Instead, what they did is they snuck into households, engaging in one-on-one ministry. Now, this tends to take place nowadays through Facebook and podcasts and, you know, emails and TV and radio and all of this kind of stuff. But the engaging in a one-on-one ministry is really a very, very powerful part of church ministry, and many churches do not engage in it. 2 Timothy 3, 6 speaks of heretics, quote, who creep into households and make captives of gullible women. Well, 2 John is helping one such gullible woman to not be taken in by these heretics. Apparently, she had been welcoming these people. She was very hospitable, and she thought she was doing a good thing, ministering to these teachers who claimed to be teachers of Christ. And the apostle John is telling her, look, you are aiding and abetting people who are antichrists. Don't you realize what you are doing is a horrible thing? Jude 4 speaks of these heretics who have crept in unnoticed. 1 Timothy 5.13 speaks of those who went from house to house undermining the work of Timothy. And so this woman didn't even realize that she was helping the heretics out, and he warns her in verse seven, they're deceivers, they're antichrists. If she gives them hospitality, she will lose her rewards in heaven, verse eight. Verses 10 through 11 say, if anyone comes to you, 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. So here's the point, the reason I'm bringing this background material She heard the public ministry of the Word, many of the things that are said in 2 John, in 1 John, when that was read from the pulpit. But a lot of people don't catch the significance always of all of the changes that need to come into their lives, and this is why there needs to be one-on-one shepherding. This is why Scripture says that the ideal is that there should be 10 families per elder, In our church, man, we are way, way, way over that 10 families mark now that Rodney's gone, so pray for us. But this is the kind of healthy relationship that occurs. Now, that explains, by way of background, why this letter was needed for this particular lady. But why did God include this particular letter in the canon for us? If it's a personal letter, why not keep it personal? And there are a lot of scholars who have wondered the same thing. Why a personal letter in the canon? To me, it's pretty clear because this letter brilliantly instructs us on the ministries, jurisdictions, limits, and authorities of all three governments. And let me quickly outline the three governments that are displayed here. He starts by saying, the elder to the elect lady and her children. Now by calling himself an elder or the elder, he is clearly taking off his apostle's cap and he's putting on an elder's cap, at least in terms of modeling. He obviously is still an apostle, right? But he's putting on the elder's cap And like Paul and Philemon, like the book of 3 John, he's writing to a family in one of his churches, and his relationship to that family is not as that family's personal apostle or confidant or friend or advisor. He could have written from a variety of capacities, but by God's inspiration, he writes this as an elder to model to us elders what it means to minister in this kind of a situation, and what it means to be under the authority of an elder, even in a single mom, single parent home. And here's why it is important. I cannot imitate John's authority as an apostle or a prophet. He functioned as both, but both of those offices ceased in the first century. I cannot write Scripture. However, I can imitate the things which John does which are specific to his office as an elder. In this book, he is a role model for us elders. And this book shows that the family should be under the authority of elders. In fact, if you read, there's a number of scriptures, 1 Peter 5, 3, Zechariah 8, verse 23, that's one of the passages talks about 10 being the ideal number for one elder. And other passages indicate that every family needs to be divided up under the elders of a local church An elder who gets to know them and love them and interact with them during the week. This book is not friendly to the concept of families worshiping all by themselves out from under the shepherding care of the elders. And it's not friendly at all to the megachurch concept. People just get lost in the crowd, right? So church government is the first government addressed here. The second government, that of the family, is addressed in the next phrase. to the elect lady and her children. Now, I will admit there are two theories as to who this elect lady is. One of the theories is that it's just a symbol of the church as being the bride of Christ, and I'm not going to get into all of the reasons why I'm 100% convinced that that is a false theory. I'll just give you two reasons. That ought to be sufficient for you. First of all, if this were the bride of Christ, as some people say, my question is, who is her sister in verse 13? Who's the sister of the bride of Christ? Some people backtrack and they say, well, in verse 13, that's another sister congregation, but you can't have it both ways. You can't switch back and forth. And nowhere in the rest of scripture is a local congregation called the bride of Christ. I challenge you to find a single verse that shows that. It's always the bride as a whole, I mean the church as a whole that is a bride. And so if it was local congregations he's talking about, then Jesus is a polygamist. He's married to an elect woman over here and a sister over there. And anyway, I think that verse 13 is fatal to the view that the elect lady is a metaphor for the bride of Christ, and I don't have time to amplify on that. Let me give you the second reason. Verse by verse, there are many strong parallels between 2 and 3 John. In fact, the two books are almost identical in their greetings, mannerisms, structure, style, and conclusion. And since everyone agrees that 3 John was written to a literal individual, I think the burden of proof rests upon those who think this is not being written to an individual. And I've read all of the commentaries on those. There's not a single commentary out there that I've run across that meets that burden of proof. For example, John plans to visit this person and speak face to face with her in verse 12. It is identical language to visiting face-to-face with Gaius. Everybody agrees the second one's dealing with a literal face-to-face meeting with an individual. Likewise, just like Gaius and third John, the elect lady is said to own a house. And in verse 10, to extend hospitality in that home. And I'm not going to go through any other reasons, but here's the bottom line. Once you are convinced that 2 John is being written to a literal lady, a single lady with some children, this book comes alive. It's just an amazing book. It's rich in instruction. Verses 2 through 6 indicate it's not just fathers who instruct their families in the Word of God. Mothers have a role as well. This book indicates that there are limits to a family's authority. Just as one example, it's clearly in the family's authority, their jurisdiction to be extending hospitality within their home, who they're going to do and who they're not going to extend hospitality to. But that does not mean that they can extend hospitality to anybody that they please, including heretics. No, church elders can come along and say, no, no, no, you cannot extend hospitality to that Mormon. You cannot. You'll be in trouble if you do. Verses 10 through 11 say, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house, nor greet him, for he who greets him Shares in his evildoes. This has nothing to do with inviting a Mormon to your church. This is inviting a Mormon into your house Okay, this is a personal ministry take that literally do not invite Mormons or JWs into your home because when you do so you are aiding and abetting their heresy you're encouraging them and You're also inviting demons into your home, because these false teachers are loaded with demons. And when you invite the heretic in, contrary to God's word, you're giving those demons legal ground to be in your home, to be messing with your kids, to edge their way into your home's life. It's a dangerous thing. So the bottom line is that John is not overstepping the church's jurisdiction and making that demand or implying that she will face the same discipline that they faced if she ignores this admonition. This means there are limits to the family's authority. So one of the themes in this book is the limited jurisdictions of individuals, families, and churches. All three you go through from Genesis to Revelation, have very specific, carefully limited, laid out jurisdictions. And this book corrects the gross violations that are constantly going on today. It's a much needed book. But this book also shows the power that a family-integrated church can have in transforming a broken home like hers. Her home was not an ideal home, not at all. We're going to be seeing in a moment that some of her children were not obeying the Bible. They were not walking in the truth. They were trouble. They were trouble. And we could hardly wish her single mom status on anyone. And yet this book illustrates every one of the NCFIC, that was their former name, principles of the balance of jurisdictions between family and church. It's a marvelous balance between self-government, family government, and church government. And in modern Christianity, you see extremes that focus on only one of those governments to the exclusion of others. Let me give you a preliminary introduction to some of those extremes that our churches had to deal with. Anarchism is the first extreme. It is sometimes known as radical individualism. Murray Rothbard's writing, he's a genius, you know, in terms of economics, but he's one of the ones that have influenced many Christians actually to go in a hyper individualistic direction, an anarchistic direction. It is so focused on the individual and of self-government that it severely undermines the jurisdictional authority of the family, of the church, and the state. And this is a great corrective to that problem. Anarchists reject authority, don't they? They don't mind getting advice, but if that advice has any teeth in it, then they consider it a violation of their right to self-government. But the word elder speaks of an office of authority that intersects with self-government. The kind of church discipline against heretics that is mentioned in verses 7 through 11 is the exercise of authority that anarchists bristle against. But anarchists don't just bristle against church authority, they bristle against family authority too. And yet this woman clearly has authority within her jurisdiction, and John wants her to exercise her authority. She is not a helpless woman as a single mom. John expects this woman to bring correction to her children who are not walking in the truth, and he calls her the lady of the home. Now that word lady is the same word for, it's the feminine form of the word for Lord. Okay, the lady, she's the Lord, she's the curia of that home. Now she doesn't have a husband, but she's considered the Lord of that family. She is the authority over her children and John does not overstep her family authority. So word by word, phrase by phrase, you see this interesting interplay between two authorities. And I'm not going to have the time to outline everything that's in this book. It'd be, I think, a cool book to go through and do about 10 sermons on. There is just a boatload of information here. But there's one more set of anarchists, her children. Why do I know that? Well, it's because in verses four through six, John was saying that only some of her children were obeying the truth. The other children knew better than mom. They knew better than Elder John. They knew better than the Scriptures, apparently. But John was patiently bringing this family to leave anarchism behind as a deadly sin and to rejoice in the authority of Scripture, to rejoice in the authority of this mom's leadership, to rejoice in the authority of the leadership of Elder John, and in a few minutes we're going to be looking at what needs to be in place in the church to have this kind of joy, incredibly joyfully entering in to that relationship. Now let me quickly mention an extreme on the other end of the spectrum, and that is abusive shepherding that goes beyond the Scripture. Now thankfully her church did not have abusive eldering because John was her elder, But in 3 John, the apostle mentions another church that had been planted, that he had planted, apparently, where the elder deatrophies had become a paradigm of the abusive eldering that goes on in some churches. I know plenty of elders who really are deatrophies, and it's no surprise to me that Nobody is allowed into that church except for people who just line up perfectly with that pastor, Deiotrephes, that particular elder. Everybody's a clone of Deiotrephes, or at least pretends to be. I want you to notice it's not John's own opinions that he is imposing on this woman. The only authority that he exercises is the authority of scripture, what he calls the truth, the commandments of God, and the doctrine of Christ. Now here's the thing, he's an apostle. And anytime he wrote scripture, obviously, he is exercising magisterial power. He is the very voice of God. But now, because he's modeling eldership, he does not bring his own apostolic magisterial power. He only brings the scriptures that have been written. He says, I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. By pleading, he's exercising ministerial power, not magisterial power. By appealing to scripture, he's exercising ministerial power, not magisterial power. By engaging in church discipline, in verses 7 through 11, he is exercising the same ministerial power that we elders have. By warning her that she needs to honor that discipline, he's simply applying the authority of scripture to the church. Now I bring this up because there are many elders in Protestantism who have been exercising magisterial power. They don't think they are. Hey, we're not Roman Catholic. We don't exercise magisterial power. But anytime you allow any commandments that are not found in the Bible to bind the consciences of men, you are de facto exercising magisterial power. I think most churches in America are doing this when they bring counseling. I mean, psychology is their exclusive source of wisdom for their counseling. Or when they demand that their widows go on to welfare, get food stamps. It's like, what gives the church authority to command that? Or when they reject the regulative principle of worship. Or when they apply the findings of sociology to justify having women elders. And there's a host of other areas. So really what it amounts to is imposing one authority. In this case, it's the wisdom of man instead of the scriptures. We cannot do that. Now that the prophets and the apostles have passed away, all that is left for the church to exercise is the ministerial power of applying the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. This is why Paul told the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 4 that they cannot go beyond what is written. They cannot go beyond what is written in the scriptures. As one old Puritan worded it, The only voice that should be heard in the church is the voice of Jesus speaking through the scriptures, okay? That's where our authority comes from. That's why the Westminster Confession, in opposing Roman Catholicism, says we can never demand implicit faith. The Roman Catholics said, even if you don't understand it, even if it's not in the Bible, you gotta believe it, because we said it. That's magisterial power. Let's look at a third extreme. If we're to have the kind of transformational church that John had, and if we're to succeed in integrating single moms into this church, we must avoid hyper-patriarchy. Okay, now I'm a patriarchalist, because the Bible is. The Bible uses that word. But a hyper-patriarchalist, it's the Greek word hupere, beyond, a hyper-patriarchalist goes beyond the scripture and takes away liberties that God has clearly given to women. I'll give you some examples. I know of a pastor who acts as if he is the main authority in the homes where there is no dad, where there are single moms. The elder John does not do that. He acknowledges her authority, not just by calling her lady of the home, but by expecting her to discipline her children, to instruct her children, holds her accountable for her children's actions in the same way we would hold you men accountable for your children's actions when they're acting up. in this church. John doesn't discipline her children, nor does John call her children our children. In verse 1, he calls them her children. In verse 4, when addressing her, he calls them your children. He is her elder, not her husband. Believe it or not, in some hyper-patriarchal circles, When a woman is widowed, they say that the elders need to function as a surrogate husband to that woman. And I say, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Many other indicators throughout the book that her family is intact. She has authority as the head over that family, even though she does not currently have. Now, the Bible does, I'll hasten to say, the Bible does give provision, especially if a woman is poor, that it's good to come under the protection of a male, of a father, come under the protection of a brother. I mean, John became kind of a helper, an authority figure over Mary. But here is the point. The family is not dissolved when they come under that protection. It's not mandatory, but it is a helpful thing. And if that family that you are living with as a single mom is overstepping the bounds of your family, dissolving your family, it's time to leave. That's really the bottom line. Now let me give you a fourth extreme. There are churches that have overreacted to the extremes of anarchism and hyper-patriarchy, and they have made the church the primary authority in all of life. It's a church-centric view of life. Now, this extreme believes in big government with all kinds of programs for every need. And here is the irony. At least some of these big church people are very opposed. They're conservatives. They're very opposed to big government and civics. But they have adopted all kinds of bloated church programs, and they have become big church government. They're engaged in all kinds of things. The Bible is never authorized. They reject civil socialism, but they engage in church socialism. They engage the church in ministries that 1 Timothy 5 explicitly gives to the family and says the church should not engage in. Explicitly says the church should not engage in unless there is no family. There are no other resources. Okay, so it really is a tricky thing to be Figuring out all of these balances and living by them. Most of the ministries in our church are simply families ministering to other families. And people wonder, Pastor Kaiser, how come we don't have all of these programs that we're used to having in other churches? And my response is because we're not authorized by the Bible to have those programs. Where in the Bible does it authorize us to do that? We are not program driven. We get behind families and their ministries. And some people in our church have a hard time wrapping their brain around this concept and think that the church, you know, Dominion Covenant Church doesn't do very much. Because we don't have all of these programs. And I say, oh no, our church is doing a ginormous number of ministries, but it's all flowing from the families. What we are doing as elders is we're equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. We're not substitute ministers. We're equippers, right? We're equipping the saints for the work of the ministries. And here's the problem that happens many times in program-driven, church-centric approaches. The single moms are cared for, and they appreciate the fact that they're being cared for, but they now become just as dependent upon the church as they used to be upon the state. That's the problem. And our approach to church government forces families to grow up quickly and to make the most of being a family. Church-centrism is not the answer to family-centrism. And this is especially true in the area of authority. It just boggles my mind. Let me give you a quote. This is a direct quote from what one elder said to a child in their church. I think you're going to be astonished by this. He said, quote, the church has more authority over you than your father does. The father's authority is derived from the church, seeing as he is under the authority of the elders. That's just downright bizarre. The family does not derive its authority from the church. They are separate jurisdictions, and we need to keep them as separate jurisdictions. So anyway, one church that held to this philosophy, he regularly spanked kids in his church. And when he was confronted on it, he says, well, you don't have to be a member here, but if you're coming under my authority, I have the authority to discipline your children. I said, no, you're failing to understand these jurisdictional And so another pastor said that when a family walks through the doors of his church, they cease to be a family, and the church relates to each one individually, unmediated by the father. Unmediated. And by the way, this does not just happen in non-democratic churches. This happens in egalitarian churches as well, where everybody gets to vote. R.L. Dabney said that when you have universal suffrage, it evaporates the family. It evaporates the family. Just study that sometime. We can't get into that. I'm probably getting into too much this morning, but I was shocked when, well, I won't get into that even. You've had enough shocking this morning. Last extreme is ignoring church authority. And it can be manifested in two ways. First way is to call all legitimate exercises of church authority as abusive and authoritarian. And I think those terms are thrown around way too loosely. They don't define it biblically. But the other way that this problem could be manifested is when elders fear the label of authoritarian so much they fail to exercise the church authority that they have. When Elder John respected the authority of this woman's family, he did not take a hands-off approach to the problems that existed in her family. A church will not experience transformation of broken families if it does so. I want you to notice that John addresses her directly in verses 1, 4, and 5. He says, I rejoiced that I found some of your children walking in the truth, etc. But he also addressed her children. This is interesting. He addressed her children directly in verses 1, 6, 8, 10, and 12. Verse 1 indicates that this letter is addressed to the elect lady and to her children. He wants this letter to be read to her children. In three verses, the plural you is used to address everyone in the family. For example, in verse 12, he says, having many things to write to you, and that's the plural, having many things to write to y'all, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink, but I hope to come to y'all and speak face to face that our joy may be full." So he's planning to talk to all of them. That is appropriate, that it does not in any way overstep the jurisdiction of a family. Why? Because the mom's there. He hears what she's saying. I tell people, when I'm saying things to your kids that you as a father disagree with, you have the privilege to go home and to say, kids, we respect Pastor Kaiser. We want you to respect him. Here's the reasons, though, why we don't agree with what he said on that particular thing. You can intervene. But when you've got an age-segregated church that's secretly teaching your children, the parents don't have a clue what's going on, that does violate, I think, the church and family jurisdictions. So let me just flush this out a little bit. The Word of God must be applied to everyone from the pulpit. And when you see a child acting dangerously, this is outside of the pulpit, rebelling outside of the sight of their parents, it's perfectly appropriate to say no to that child. And if need be, take that child to a parent and tell them about it. It could be a teaching moment. I would never discipline the child, but I have no problem rebuking a child who is being disrespectful to property and or to an individual and taking the child to a parent for discipline. Love does indeed cover over a multitude of sins. And we emphasize that fact in this church. We put up with a lot, right? A lot of differences out there. But the elders have on two occasions had to tell visiting parents that they are no longer welcome to continue to visit this church because they refused, repeatedly refused to discipline their children, even though those children were kicking and biting and destroying property. I remember confronting one dad And it's the woman who kept talking to me. The dad was just meek as a sheep. I guess some sheep aren't meek, but anyway, he didn't say anything. And she just said, well, we don't believe in spanking. We don't believe in discipline. We just like to talk to them. I said, well, you aren't talking to him right now. But anyway, as we dialogued, it became very clear that she did not believe in discipline, and she was not going to do anything about this child, who was right then kicking some people. And so I said, you are not welcome. I want you to leave right now. Now, some people say, you don't have the authority to do that, Pastor Kaiser. You do not have the authority to tell people they cannot be members of your church. And we can talk about that later. I do have the authority. I do have the biblical authority. People are not willing to submit to the authority of the elders. They are not welcome in the church, period. OK, we get into the exegetical side of that, but that's really going down a rabbit tail. How did I get into that? Anyway, here's the bottom line. Second John is a brilliantly constructed book that outlines all of the foundational principles that the NCFIC, National Council of Full Family Integrated Churches, which sadly has changed their name to something generic, Church and Family or something like that. I like the old name. And I believe family-integrated churches are in the perfect position to integrate and transform broken families. I think we're in a far better position than non-integrated churches are. And I believe the principles of this book, most of which we cannot get into, are absolutely imperative for the success of the Great Commission. Okay, having dealt with the jurisdictional issues, let's move on to at least, in the second half of the sermon, at least outline a few of the practical issues that most of our churches face. I'm going to give you 14. I've got 97 in all from this book. I'm only going to give you 14. Be pleased I'm not giving you all 97. First issue, pretty obvious, don't avoid messed up families if those families are willing to submit to the church's authority. Now that's hard for some people to value when they've got such a sweet, tight fellowship and they don't have any bad habits, ha ha, and they don't have any messed up kids, ha ha. But anyway, they're used to it. They're a nice, comfortable thing, and new people come in with kids who aren't quite, and it's difficult, I will admit that, but this is the kind of church that needs to welcome people who have broken, hurting families. And we're gonna look at several principles that help us to do that. We've already dealt with the fact she's a single mom. We're not told why she was single. It may be that her husband died. It may be that he divorced her. That many times happened when women became Christians. It may be that she divorced him. Maybe it was an ungodly divorce. We're not told. 1 Corinthians 7 says there were a lot of difficult situations that churches faced back then, including people who had unbiblical divorces. Now that might preclude them from being an elder or a deacon, but it sure doesn't preclude them from being members of a church. Any church that's so perfectionistic that they will reject this woman is not a biblical church. We've got to be welcoming. We've got to reach out to people. They're going to need tender, loving care and patience from the body. Second, value the truth more than comfort. John says to the elect lady and her children whom I love in truth and not only I but also all those who have known the truth because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever. John loved her And the whole church loved her because they valued truth more than comfort. They valued truth more than having a church that looks perfect. They valued truth more than having a facade so that people can think we're all put together. Our church strives to maintain a safe environment where we can be open and honest about our failings and our strugglings, and yes, even our differences of opinion. Now, sometimes people get a little bit riled up and they want to shut down somebody who's got a bad political opinion or whatever. And I say, ah, just chill. You know, the Holy Spirit's a much better way of convincing other people than you are. And I'm all okay about a free market of ideas. There are limits. You can't preach heresy. We've had a few people who were trying to preach transcendental meditation and stuff. No, no, no, no, no. That is absolutely non-kosher here. But, you know, as you're working with the Bible and you're dialoguing back and forth, you can trust the Holy Spirit to be working these things. We don't impose those things on people. I like a free market of ideas. But when you have facades, you don't tend to welcome people who don't fit the stereotype. John's church welcomed this broken family. They loved on them, but they did so in the truth. And by the way, they expected this family to value the truth, too, and to grow in the truth. So it's not as if they kept quiet about issues, not at all. There are some people who come into churches simply to suck the church dry, and when their welcome wears out, then they move on to another church to suck that church dry. They're parasites. They are not willing to minister, they're not willing to serve, and those kind of families would not last very long in John's church. Not at all, because he had a tough love. He loved them in the truth. It was not a flabby love. And when you define love by the Scripture, And everybody knows you want this family's best interest. You want them to grow, but you're not going to do it and just, you know, let them run roughshod over everybody. Everybody feels comfortable, okay? Everybody feels comfortable. Now, third, value people more than programs. This is a balance of the previous point. John said that their whole church valued her family. And let me assure you that families who are struggling with issues will be able to tell if you value them or whether you're just putting up with them, or maybe not even putting up with them. They can tell right off the bat whether they're just barely being tolerated. How do you love such a family in the truth? Well, I would say it's the same way that, you know, Sermon on the Mount says you love people outside the church. It's a supernatural love. You love the unlovable by God's grace. And if you only have the kind of love that any tare—you know what a tare is, right? It's a false believer—could have, you need to ask God to be doing a work in your heart. We need to have supernatural love for each other. So when you walk in the Spirit, you will value people more than programs. The fourth thing that must be shored up in our churches is communication. And I will admit, we elders are not always the best at communicating. We try. We really try and fail and try harder, but communication is a very important part. This is not just communication on Sunday, but communication during the week, just like what was happening here. And too many churches are shy about communicating with broken families on the good progress that has been made, as well as the things that continue to need to be shored up. In this letter, John communicates about holiness in verse 4. The need for her children to be more loving in verse 5. Defining exactly what that means in verse 6. Warning her about heretics in verses 7 through 9. Telling her she needs to stop extending hospitality to such people in verses 10 through 11. And in verse 12 he indicates, oh wow, I'm gonna quit, but I got a lot more things to tell you when I come. So obviously, he was going to be engaging in even more communication. Now, here's the thing, he does so in a very upbeat way, and we're gonna be looking at that in a moment, but he communicates tough things. Without such communication, how will families grow past their hurt and brokenness quickly? We cannot be shy about communication. And these verses speak of two ways of communicating. There's face-to-face and there's written face-to-face communication and written communication. And I breathe a sigh of relief when I read this and say, Oh, thank you, Lord. Because in some of our churches, people are commuting. What, an hour, an hour and a half, two and a half hours? It's just really hard to have regular visits to their homes. And as Jay Adams has told me in the past, he's passed away now, he said, Phil, use the phone, use email. There is no reason why you cannot shepherd using technology. I think, thank you, thank you, Lord. That's what John was doing. He was using, well, it was pretty ancient technology, but he was writing a letter, right? We do emails. Now obviously some communication can happen on Sundays, but our Discord channels have been fantastic vehicles for communication. I never thought that I would love Discord as much as I do. I wish we had a little bit more secure thing than Discord, but hey, at least there's communication going on. Now obviously verse 12 indicates he was planning to visit her home. Home visits are important, but if home visits are the only shepherding oversight we give, I think our people will be shortchanged. He wrote letters. Using emails to pastor to shepherd is not without precedent. So Gary and I, wow. And Rodney too, we write a ton of emails every week, and we rejoice in the privilege of doing so. So if you are not getting as many visits and interactions as you need, just send all your emails to Gary. I mean, he's a great communicator. No, write to us. We will be happy to dialogue with you. Now, I will hasten to say it's not just the elders and the deacons who communicate. We try to encourage all of our people to be, like Roman says, competent to counsel, competent to exhort and to encourage one another. And the more healthy the communication of the whole body is, I think the more we'll be able to quickly grow. But man, I just really have been enjoying this Discord channel. That's not the right word for it. Discord app with a bunch of channels and not everybody's on every channel. But fifth, we should make sure that love in the truth is present and constantly being affirmed. So he affirms that love in verses one, five, and six. He shows the love just by taking the time to write the letter, by knowing the state of her family and showing interest in her family. And I will admit, I think Gary does the best of all of us in relating to other people. Rodney said, you know, he's kind of the heart. I'm the egghead, but he's kind of the heart of the session. But we're all trying to grow in this. So pray for us that we would do better in these areas. Anyway, he shows love by warning her about the heresies, verses seven through nine. There was a lot of love going on here. And there's many other ways of affirming love. We're a hugging church, right? Some of you need to hug a little bit more, I think. Get out of your shell, get used to it. But I've heard one of the things that newcomers have said is it's obvious that our people like hanging around together, not baking a beeline for the door five minutes after the service is done. That's a good thing. That's a wonderful thing. Sixth thing that must be present in a positive and affirming atmosphere, and this is so critical. I've said in the past that the Apostle Paul was a genius at this. You know, even in the letters where he's giving a congregation a royal chewing out, Those letters are so full of praise, affirmation, encouragement, that it makes the rebukes a little bit easier to swallow, right? So there's a good, healthy balance there. And I think John displays that here very well. Let's read verse 3 because it gives the foundation for this, even though you see it throughout the book. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. Notice that he said, they will be with you. This is an affirmation. If you are a Christian, these will be with you. Now, why is that even significant? Because she's overwhelmed. She is so discouraged that her kids are not, some of her kids are not holy. Some of them are not very loving, that she's got a messed up family. And he says, God's mercy, grace, peace, all of these things will be with you. That's a very good positive affirmation. He's like being a cheerleader in her life. Let me outline six things in this book that are found here. You knew I was going to cheat and not have 14 points. These are additional sub points, right? Six sub points. First essential for developing a positive atmosphere in a church is that it be grace focused and grace saturated. John says, grace will be with you. Now the margin of the New King James Version says that both the NU and the majority text have the word us. And if that is correct, which of course it is correct, I'm a majority text man, right? Then this is really encouraging. That means we're all on the same boat. This woman is saying, oh good, I'm not the only one that needs grace. John needs grace too. We're all in this together. We all have our issues. But either way, John promises grace. We must constantly give hope to broken families. People can't fall so far that God's grace can't reach them and solve their problems. The second word in verse three, The develops a positive atmosphere is mercy. John is guaranteeing that God's mercy will continually flow into our lives, which implies what we all deserve judgment. We all need mercy. But he says it's going to flow, which means we're undeserving. Again, we need to be cheerleaders of God's mercy like John was. Lamentation says that if it was not for God's mercies, we would all have been consumed long ago. Now, here is the question I have for you. Do you really think you're that much of a sinner that you would have been consumed long ago? If you do, and you should, you're going to be merciful to other sinners. You're going to be merciful to other Christians. You're going to be working with them, less judgmental. The church is not designed to be a holy huddle of people excluding sinners. God's peace is the third word, and it's also critical to a healthy atmosphere. Dictionary defines peace as to be complete or sound. The general meaning behind the word shalom is of completion and fulfillment, of entering into a state of wholeness and unity, a restored relationship. So he's cheerleading that they can be made whole, subjective peace, objective peace, the restoration of everything that was lost in Adam. And that's exactly what broken families long for, isn't it? Peace, wholeness, restoration. The moment they walk through the doors of this fellowship, they should feel like they're entering into a sanctuary and out of the battlefield. Okay. Hopefully we can engender that kind of an atmosphere in this church. But all of this needs to be given definition by the bookends of love and truth. Otherwise, you have a false peace that excuses sin. Verse 3 says, grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. Everything discussed in that book is conditioned by truth and love. Now, people think they're being gracious when they excuse sin. That's not being gracious. That's the exact opposite of grace. Grace saves us from our sin, right? So they think they're being merciful when they become enablers of their drunk spouses, or they become enablers of other sin. That is not mercy. It's not grace. It certainly does not lead to peace. Now, it may lead to false peace occasionally, what Ken Sandy calls faking peace, but not true peace. And in the so-called gracious churches, many times, it's just the covering over of sin, and it's never leading people to holiness. So true grace enables us to grow in holiness. True mercy forgives our sins and gives us another chance to strive for holiness. It never enables. Love is the other bookend. I think I've dealt with that adequately. Love is not gonna let people rush headlong into sin. But John is not telling them to be optimistic by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. No, he's telling them to look up. These things come from God, the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father. So we teach people, broken people, not to look to us, to look to God. Anytime people come for counseling, you got to help me, Phil. I say, oh, I can't help you. and I immediately teach the gospel to them, because I want them to be looking not to me as an expert, I want them to be looking to God, who alone can dispense grace into their lives. The moment they see us as the experts, it puts pressure on us that we cannot, and it robs them of grace, ironically. So even when talking about simple things like you're counseling somebody on how to keep their kids from being wiggly and noisy, in a long sermon by Phil Kaiser, how on earth can we do this? Well, you just share with them some of the things that God's worked into your life in the past. Again, even there, you're directing the glory to God. Another way in which a positive and affirming environment is maintained is by acknowledging accomplishments that these families have made. I think this is huge. Don't focus on the problems. You don't ignore the problems, but don't focus on them. Um, verse four, I rejoice greatly that I have found some of your children walking in the truth. This is so good seeing your children growing. Now, some of them weren't, you know, but he's focusing on the positive and I think it's, it's, we ought to do the same. It's easy to focus on where people are messed up rather than on what they're doing good. Now, one other thing that develops a positive atmosphere is patience. And we see this illustrated in verses five through six. Now, let me caution you here. Some people misinterpret patience as ignoring issues that need to be dealt with. But the last half of verse four sets the standard, as we have received commandment from the Father. So John continues to hold a standard out in front of them at the same time that he's being encouraging. So some people act as if patience has no standard. No, patience implies you're persevering in moving people toward the standard, toward maturity. And you recognize this is going to take a long time. You've seen the signs, be patient, God is not finished with me yet. Some of the people that have those signs, they have no intention of growing. They have no intention of moving. That is not biblical patience, not biblical patience at all. So you do hold out the standard. but you also encourage them and you're a cheerleader and you give them goal and a hope that the goal can be achieved and acknowledging the progress and encouraging her by affirming his life. I think this whole book has such neat balance in it, I love it. Now let's move on to the seventh thing that needs to be in place. It's imperative that we saturate the church in Scripture. Depending on how you count it, there are at least 13 times that John brings this woman's attention back to Scripture. And of course, this is Scripture that he's writing, so it's even more. But in our church, we have scriptural promises, scriptural readings of the law. We sing scripture, have scripture prayers, scriptural affirmations of the gospel. We've got two sermons. And when we're fellowshipping around the dinner tables, many times you hear people discussing scripture. I think this is something that needs to be cultivated, and we could probably be better at it having Sabbath conversation, this truly Sabbath conversation. But here is the thing, your testimony or your stories about your life are not sharper than an intuited story. The scripture is. Now, your testimonies are wonderful if they're lining up with the scripture, they're illustrating the scripture, then it has power. But we need to be a scripture-saturated church. And it's astonishing to me to see how many churches will go through an entire counseling session with a person using only psychology, never mentioning the scripture. And yet they claim to be Bible-believing churches. Now, Scripture must be the atmosphere that a church breathes if it's to be transformational. Eighth, see, church discipline is an incredible blessing. The Scripture ties church discipline to the growth of the body. Did you know that? When evangelical churches do not exercise loving discipline, it is no wonder they are not transformational. Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And that's where everybody stops quoting. But I want you to notice this next phrase. He's not finished. It's still part of the same sentence. And being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. What's the context of that incredible passage on spiritual warfare? It is church discipline. One of the reasons that the churches and the tribes we grew up with in Ethiopia were so transformational was that they took church discipline seriously. The keys of the kingdom admit to communion and membership, and the keys closed the door to people who will not submit. Verse seven says, for many deceivers have gone out into the world, implying what? Implying they were once members of the church. They've gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. So excommunication of heretics is one form of discipline. Actually, it's designed to restore them, bring them to repentance so they can be restored. But even if it doesn't accomplish that, it purifies the church. But another form of discipline is simply warning. Verse eight says, look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we work for, but that we may receive a full reward. Now, a lot of people think of discipline as only the final stage, but the vast majority of discipline is just listening to the Word and obeying it. The Reformers said that most discipline is sitting under the discipline of the Word, is the way that they worded it. God's Word brings correction. We exercise self-discipline. That's all it amounts to. It's only when 0% self-discipline is in evidence that the church finally concludes, okay, there cannot be any grace in this person and he is excommunicated. But usually just hearing from the word what is wrong is all the discipline that most people need. They self-correct with self-discipline. And unfortunately, too many elders lack the courage to bring the kind of loving discipline that verse 8 brings, warnings. Occasionally, someone will need a rebuke. Occasionally, someone might need a brother or sister going privately and seeking to reason with them. But because our church believes in Matthew 18, praise God, we elders are usually the last ones to hear about it because you're obedient, you go and you meet with them privately. You take care of it. They repent, praise God, we don't ever have to hear about it. That's why we think this is such a perfect church. Because we never hear about all your problems. No, that's not true. But it gets dealt with one-on-one. That frees up the time of the elders. Matthew 18 is part of God's design for turning families right side up by His grace. They are marks of love and care. At least they should be. And I'll grant you, there are churches that exercise church discipline in an unloving, brutal way. And that's really sad. Just like the rod can be used to abuse within the family church discipline. But Paul said, if you don't use the rod, you don't love your child. And I would say the same about churches. If churches do not use their form of discipline, they don't love their people. It's just bottom line. They don't love them enough to discipline. Ninth is a word that postmodernism hates. It's antithesis. Being willing to not just say, this is good, but also say, that is bad. Postmodernism has no problem affirming all kinds of things. Yeah, I'm OK with that. They don't necessarily believe it. I'm OK with your doctrinal statement. But as soon as the doctrinal statement says, but we anathematize, or we absolutely disagree with and say, this is wrong, that's when the fur begins to fly. It's because John cared so much that he warned this lady of the dangers of heresy in verse 9. 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. That warning about the bad things that are happening in Protestantism today is a negative ministry. But as Francis Schaeffer said, you aren't truly preaching the truth until you're willing to reject the error. That's antithesis. And that's why we have warning labels on medicine. We don't just say what it's good for. We also say, you know, don't take three of these pills or you're going to die. You know, you're swallowing poison pills, so to speak. Why were the families in our Ethiopian churches growing so incredibly when we grew up? It wasn't because we told them only what was good for them. It was because we warned them of the dangers of their old lifestyle, their old methods of disciplining children, their old methods of finances, their failure to honor their wives. In fact, some of them regularly beat their wives, which could not be tolerated. Their old views on sexuality, present-orientedness, many demonic cultural artifacts that they had to get rid of. Many churches refuse to do that because they want a positive ministry. They want a positive ministry. They don't want to warn of the destruction being brought into the church through feminism, socialism, evolutionism, and other errors. And you will never have a transformational ministry like John had without antithesis. Now, will you be criticized if you have that? Yeah, Steve and Gary and I, we all know, we get criticism all the time. You're not positive. It's like, what do you mean we're not positive? We preach grace all the time. We love you guys. We hate the fact that you're falling into such disaster. But you will please God. You'll actually help people rather than making them comfortable in their sins. Tenth is joy. If a church does not overflow with joy and laughter, people will eventually get discouraged and leave. And John Piper is a genius at this. I sometimes say John Piper plays a one-string fiddle, but he plays it exceedingly well. He does such a good job of getting people to be joyful. Verse 12, having many things to write to you, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink, but I hope to come to you and speak face-to-face that our joy may be full. Okay, here's the thing. If your face-to-face relationships in this church produce full joy, you know you got something. Something good is happening. You got a church that will be a magnet for those who long to have what you have. And this whole book radiates joy. You know, Nehemiah said that we ought to not be mourning too much. We ought to focus on fighting for joy because he says the joy of the Lord is your strength. It is a spiritual joy, takes people through pretty rough waters. 11th verse 4 hints that we should not ignore the children in our preaching. References to our children occur over 1300 times in the Bible. God has an interest in our children and we should too. Now some people think But having an interest in our children means we need to have a segregated Sunday school. And the Bible would say, actually, it's really the opposite. You know you value the children when the adults want to be around the children. So when adults can be fun enough that the children want to be around the adults, and the youth activities can be fun enough, and welcoming to the adults, I think you've got a good thing going on there where adults and children enjoy in a family integrated way doing everything together. By the way, thank you to the children, some of you children who ministered to my mom when she was here. She just loved it when you'd come and talk. Twelfth, we should help the members of our churches to take parenting seriously. There's nothing worse than having little kids terrorizing a house and the parents being oblivious to it and everybody pretending hard that it isn't happening. So John encourages parenting in verse four, pleads for better parenting in verse five, instructs from the word, the parents must parent. And if you're one of those parents who is saying, I don't know, how do I do this? I say, talk to Deacon Brian Fox and tell him, okay, we're ready for your parenting class. He's not going to do his parenting class if people aren't wanting to do it, right? So ask him, be bold, ask him, say, I can't figure this out. The 13th characteristic may seem puzzling, grounding families in good doctrine. Why would doctrine be important in turning broken families right side up? Well, when doctrine is properly taught, it is transformational, not just for the family, but for culture as a whole. And I'll just give you some hints because I can't get into this. I would recommend that you have two books on your shelf. One is for culture as a whole. It's by R.J. Rushduni. It's called The Foundations of Social Order, and he showed how the creeds of Christendom absolutely transformed cultures. Any portions of culture that adopted the wrong view of God automatically went into tyranny or into other forms of problems. It's just incredibly beautiful. It's hard reading, but it's a good book. Here's an easy reading book that you could start with for your family. He's a Reformed Baptist, I believe. Is Bruce Ware a Reformed Baptist? Okay. Bruce Ware's book, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity as Theological Foundation for Family Ministry. Here's the thing, without even realizing it, your view of God will affect your view of love. your view of parenting, your view of delegation, your view of leadership, your view of so many things in life. It just begins to wash over you and change you without your even realizing, but it is so important that you be studying doctrine. If you want to be practically changed in life, start studying covenant theology. Post-millennialism, I mean, I talk about, you know, there's some Armenians talk about their first blessing. What's the term? Anyway, I've had many second blessings. Oh, that's what it was. I've had second, third, and fourth blessings. My second blessing was five points of Calvinism. It revolutionized my life. Then my third blessing was coming to understand the law of God applying, the biblical blueprints applying to all of life. And my fourth blessing was presuppositional apologetics. It blew me out of the water. And then when I became post-millennialist, it's like I died and gone to heaven. It's like this revolutionized everything. It gave me faith in everything. I no longer gave up. It didn't matter how hard it is, I'm gonna keep going on because I know my labors in the Lord are not in vain. I'm never gonna get done with this sermon if I keep going down rabbit trails. Okay, 14, John encourages this lady to avoid contact with dangerous people in verses seven through 10. When families aren't making good progress, help them figure out the bad influences. It might be the games that you play. You know, some of the games that Christians play out there are downright demonic. They're inviting the demonic right into your home. You've got to analyze the games that you play. Or it could be the homeschool co-ops that you were a part of. Bad company corrupts good morals. And some of these homeschool co-ops that people go to, you know, other kids are showing your kids pornography. I mean, there's all kinds of bad stuff that can go on in co-ops. The movies you watch. Oh, my. Some of the movies that some of you people watch are having an incredibly bad influence on you and upon your children. You've got to be careful. You're bringing into your home bad influences. Now, we don't have time to get into verses 7 through 11. and show how John avoided being too controlling. We don't want to be a controlling church, okay? Being too controlling on the one hand or leaving her to her naivete on the other hand. And the way I see the balance is, you know, I give warnings to people from the pulpit, but I give you the freedom to disagree with me. Okay, you can be Bereans. The Apostle Paul, he trusted the Holy Spirit to let people be Bereans, to study out what he had to say, compare it to Scripture and see if it was right. So there's going to be a free market of ideas in this church, but I'm never going to stop preaching the truth. And you, you have a right to disagree if you don't see it in the scripture, but do take it seriously when I preach on these things and especially warnings about games and movies and things like that. Okay. He warns her avoid certain people and teachings. Now those were heretics. That's obviously on the outside. That's pretty easy. The last point is hospitality. And I found this one interesting. Here was a broken family that was being admonished in the best ways to show hospitality and how not to show hospitality, but it assumed that hospitality would be a part of her life even though she was a single mom. Very interesting. He didn't feel sorry for her, oh, you can take a sabbatical for 10 years from hospitality because you're a single mom. No, he expects her to engage in it. 1 Timothy 5 expects even widows with very limited resources to engage in hospitality. That was one of the conditions of them even coming onto the number, that they had engaged in hospitality. Even if you are bedridden in a hospital, your attitudes toward visitors, nurses, and doctors can show hospitality. We should involve people even down and outers who come into the church to engage in some kind of ministry that reaches out in hospitality. This is how the book of the Bible ends, you know, the Spirit and the bride say, come. That's the whole bride, everybody in the bride. You need to be teaching your children from a very early age to be hospitable, welcoming people in, to notice, oh, there's somebody who's lonely in the back. I need to go over and tell them to come into our group. And we need to not be in holy huddles, little cliques that exclude people. We need to have hospitality. You've got to train your children in hospitality. Some of the single men in our church in the past who have not known how to cook have brought some of the favorite foods, you know, the junk foods, the cheese crunchies that I like, you know. When a church is given to hospitality, it becomes a hospital where broken people can heal. From start to finish, this is a book that illustrates the pervasive doctrine of the family integrated church, and I have barely scratched the surface, believe it or not. I may, I've been debating whether to put up in brief form, not big form, but brief form some of the 97 I might just put it up with this sermon onto the web, but this is a book that I take a lot of interns through just to teach them. So if I put it up on the web, I'll have to pick a different book because they'll cheat. But teaching them how to look for application. Pastors don't know how to apply. They give you a theology, but they don't show the 40 ways that this point of theology impacts your life. We've got to learn how to read a scripture and then start applying it in our family devotions for our kids. Anyway, I've said enough. Let's end. Father, we thank you for this beautiful book, this personal letter. We want to appreciate your whole Bible, but this is a book that has been especially precious to me. And I thank you, Father, for blessing the elders and the deacons here with a very loving church, a church that cares, that reaches out, a church that really does desire and in many ways exemplifies the principles of this book. And I thank you for that, and I pray that we would keep growing in that. But Father, would you be glorified in our actions, and would you empower us to do these things, not in our own strength, but through the strength of your Holy Spirit, by your grace? I know this has been a long sermon, but Father, may it be a sermon that would impact us and that would help us to become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ, a friend of publicans and sinners. And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.