1 John 2:18-27 Together

Truth and Unity in the Church

Welcome to Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where we are growing in faith, community, and service. This is a message from the series called, In the Light, out of the book of 1 John, by Pastor Don Filsack.

If you'd like more information about our church, please visit us on the web at www .recastchurch .com. Here's Pastor Don.

Now, let's turn our thoughts towards the message for the morning. We're going to be carrying right forward with 1 John. I want to start off with an unfair question. I like to do that to you sometimes.

I'm going to ask you an unfair question. I'm going to tell you up front that it's unfair, so that you don't just blurt out an answer, because it's a trick question. When it comes to the church, which is more important, truth or unity?

Truth or unity? Now, can you imagine a situation where those two might come in tension? Where the truth is in jeopardy? The truth is being compromised for the sake of unity. Can you imagine a context where that might happen?

Or can you imagine a situation where unity is being compromised, because the truth is in jeopardy? Are you getting what I'm saying? Well, that's what we're going to be dealing with in our text this morning, when we dive into 1 John here.

I want to point out to you that both, in a sense, truth and unity are connected to our core values. Now, truth, you can see our core values, except for the word reproducing. We've got reproducing, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.

I always put reproducing kind of floating out here in the air, because it's not on our walls, so we don't want to confuse people when they first walk in the doors and see reproducing on the wall. But reproducing, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth, core value, so you see that one right there.

Unity, I have to kind of, I'm not finagling, because I really think this is genuinely a major part of what we have here at Recast. But the word authenticity, can you imagine a context in which you could have authentic relationships with others in the church without unity?

That's going to be tough, right? I mean, the very basis of our willingness to share our hearts with one another is that there's a sense of unity in Christ together, that there's trust being established.

And so, in a sense, unity ties in with the core values here at Recast as well. It's not really a fair question, which is more important, truth or unity, because both of them are essential in the church.

And yet, the disciple John found himself in the middle of a church split, and in our text this morning, he's going to give encouragement to those who remain. Now, some people are going to leave the church, but those who remain and stay behind, he's going to give them encouragement to stay strong in the truth.

The entire letter of 1 John is set in the context of a church that's holding on to the truth by a thread. The church has been ravaged by false doctrine, by dissension, by strife. So John has been seeking to reground those who remain in the centrality of the gospel, to bring them back to the things that matter most, and make sure that they recognize their roots in that which is central to our faith, that which is central truth.

I'm grateful that we're not going through a church split. Anybody agree with me on that? I'm just grateful. I am impressed by the unity that God has given us here at Recast. I don't ever hope to go through a church split, but by the end of this text, I think we're going to find that John is strongly telling us that there are doctrines worth going to the wall for.

And that's going to be pretty clear when we get down to actually what those who left the church were actually saying about Jesus Christ. So open your Bibles, please, to 1 John chapter 2 verses 18 to 27.

You can find that on page 878. If you take that paperback Bible out, 878, clear in the back, that 1 John. And we're going to read 1 John 2, 18 to 27. Follow along as I read, please. Children, it is the last hour.

And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that this is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

But they went out that it might become plain that they are all that they all are not of us. Did you guys get that? We'll get there in a minute. But you have been anointed by the Holy One and you all have knowledge.

I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.

No one who denies the Son has the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.

And this is the promise that he made to us, eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you, but the anointing that you receive from him abides in you and you have no need that anyone should teach you.

But as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as I have taught you, abide in him. Let's pray. Father, I ask that you would move in our hearts by the anointing of your Holy Spirit to understand knowledge this morning, to understand your word.

Father, that you would help us to remain in you, to abide in Jesus Christ and to recognize that in abiding in Jesus Christ we are connected to you and restored with you. Father, I pray that you would protect this body from disunity and equally that you would protect this body from forsaking the truth.

But Father, that you would hold us firmly with both of those intention. Father, that even as we have an opportunity to sing truth to you and be united together in worship, that our hearts would be rejoicing in you, would be rejoicing that you've brought us together with your people for the sake of honoring you.

Father, I pray that you would be indeed honored as we lift up our voices and sing praises to you for you are worthy and you are awesome and it really is all about you. In Jesus' name, amen. I really appreciate the band for leading us in worship and just that notion of God speaking to us.

That's our hope this morning. That's my hope as a pastor is that God would speak through me and through his word to us to actually give us something fresh and new for us to come alive this week and to be resting in him.

I encourage you on that note to keep your Bibles open. Make sure you've got a Bible open in front of you so that you can see that we're walking through the text of God's word here and the reality is I want you to have the Bible open in front of you because particularly with 1 John, is there anybody who would be honest with me and say the first time I read the paragraph to you or the first time you read a paragraph from 1 John, you have to kind of go, what?

Like, uh-huh. Like, huh? And you have to go over it again and you have to go over it again and you have to go over it again to the point where you're kind of like, I think I'm getting the notion of what he's saying here.

So I want you to see that what I'm getting is coming out of this text and I'm not just kind of inventing it on the fly. So having that open to 1 John 2 18 to 27 helps. John's letter is very difficult to outline.

Like I said, sometimes it's hard to understand. Just you take a paragraph and you read it and you're like, what did he just say? I got to go back and kind of take that apart and figure out how it's all connected and stuff and but it's hard to outline in the sense that if you were to take, if you were to go down to Family Christian stores and grab a handful of commentaries off the shelf, you would find literally five different outlines for this book.

I'm talking about like where the main headings and what paragraph they put with what and all that kind of stuff because he basically writes like a flow of consciousness. So he's basically writing what comes to mind as it comes to mind and then he's like, oh, I'm over here and then I'm over here and it's almost kind of like maybe you're struggling a little bit with ADD, but he's just kind of like, he says something and it's like, oh, that reminds me to talk about this and oh, that reminds me to talk about this.

Oh, I need to get back to this point. And so it's like he talks about like, if you were to just follow the theme of love, for example, through the book of 1 John, you're going to have to turn over to three or four different paragraphs where he's going to address love, but it's all spread out.

Are you getting what I'm saying? And so to outline the book of 1 John can be kind of tricky, but throughout the letter, he sprinkles in this phrase, little children, dear children or children. And so a lot of people have broken down and that's kind of the outline I'm following is where he starts to address them by title or by name.

That's kind of where the paragraph and the headings go. And so you'll see that even in verse 28, if you're looking at your Bible there, if you look at verse 28, he says, and now little children again.

And so there's a break there. I'm not going to cover the last two verses in chapter two, because I'm convinced that those go with the next chapter. And so we're going to take those next week, but we see him address them.

And I just want to say this again, I'm probably going to sound like a broken record, but when he talks to them as little children or children, it's not a condescending thing, but it's demonstrating the compassion, the care, the love that he has for them and the sense of responsibility that he feels for his church.

This church is going through some hard times. We're going to see that throughout this text that there's been some difficulty. And it's kind of like, I want to be like a father to you. Now, some of you, when I say like, when you talk about God as father, or when you hear the word father, it evokes some pretty dicey memories of issues with your father or parents or something like that.

But we kind of know what a father ought to be. And think of some of the functions of a father, the function of provision, the function of protection, the function of love and care and compassion and concern, but also a sense of bringing down the hammer when the hammer needs to be brought down and some of those kinds of things.

And so there's a balance in all of this. And he's saying, I'm loving you as a church, like a father cares for his children. He's compassionate. He's concerned for them. He wants to protect them. As a matter of fact, what we're going to see here in a moment is it's like, he's a father who is just protecting his children.

Like they, he feels that they are threatened. And as we go through this text, you're going to find that this man is, he's going to be kind of aggressive as we go through it. And there's good reason because he sees them as his children.

The Last Hour and the Urgency of Christ's Return

John starts off by telling his children a startling thing. Children, it is the last hour. How many years ago was this written? About 2000 years ago. Anybody find anything somewhat humorous by the statement to his church, 2000 years ago, you're in the last hour.

Anybody kind of like, anybody, is anybody wondering what that's about? Like, how could he say to people 2000 years ago, you're in the last hour? Does that, does that rub anybody kind of like, you're curious?

Five of you are curious. So the rest of you can take a break while I talk to those five who are curious about what, what is going on here. He says, you're in the last hour. Now that might seem laughable to us who are 2000 years ago, or those of us who lived 2000 years after that's written.

But if we don't understand the Jewish understanding of history, if we don't adopt that and understand how they were thinking of this, we will miss what John is saying. You need to remember that the early church was mostly comprised of people who had come from the Jewish faith into the Christian faith and had acknowledged Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

That was the bulk of the church. And so they were approaching things, John himself being a former Jew, right? So understanding the way that Jews understood the flow of history helps us to understand what he means by this final hour.

And by the way, final hour, last days, final week, all different kinds of terms are used for this. Do you think that when John wrote this letter, just to, just to clarify, do you think he handed it to a courier and said, hurry, run quick.

You got 60 minutes to get there because Jesus is coming back in an hour. I think that's what he meant. Or do you think he's using a figure of speech? He's using a figure of speech. And so we know that already built into this, that there's a sense of a figure of speech that's coming here, but the way that Jews understood, because they, they followed the old Testament, they read it, they acknowledged it.

They saw history flowing in chunks, not just like a river flowing, but like a river with ice chunks flowing in it. And each chunk represents an epic or an era, which was designated as a way of God interacting with the human race.

Okay. And the way of people interacting and who was God using at the time so that you could break down history in the Jewish mind to pre basically prehistory or pre patriarchal time with Adam and Eve and Noah and the tower of Babel and all of that.

And then, then you flow into the time of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. There was the mosaic period where God was primarily working through Moses. And were there other things going on in the historical scene throughout around the world at the time of Moses?

Were there other things happening? Yeah. But what did God tell us about in his word? What did he reveal to us about history that was significant during that era in that time? The Exodus and the things that were going on with his people.

And so those are the things that, that are kind of like signposts that designate these chunks of history flowing forward towards something in the end. There was the, the time of the Kings where God was working through chosen Kings like Saul and David and Solomon in his kingdom.

And for the early Christians, they adopted this understanding. Would it make sense to see the life of Jesus Christ on this planet as one of those epics, as one of those chunks? Would you say that those 33 years, give or take, that Jesus was alive on this earth were, was a significant epic in the global history of this world?

That God came in flesh and lived among us, showed us what a righteous life looks like, then died as a sacrifice for us and rose again three days later. A significant epic on the world scene. But every Jew understood that there was going to be a final era, a final chunk of time, a final way of God working with us as a human race.

And then came the end. The Bible leaves no room for the idea that the world is just going to continue on forward in its sinful ways forever and ever. Just last week, John told us that this world system is passing away, that desires of the flesh, desire of the eyes and the pride of life is on the way out.

That one day, one great and glorious day, those fleshly, earthly, human desires, that appetite for more and more and more and the dissatisfaction that comes with the human heart embedded in sin is going to be done away with and obliterated on one fine day when Jesus Christ is going to return for his people.

A glorious, glorious day. And now he's saying, he's following that notion up that those things are going to be done away with. Desires of the flesh, desire of the eyes, pride of life. That's going to be done away with by saying that we are currently in the final movement of God.

John, I want to point out, doesn't tell us when this era is going to end. Does he tell us how long? No, we just said the hour is a figure of speech. He uses various phrases for that. He'll call it the end of days or the end of time or all different kinds of things or the last days.

Have you heard that phrase, last days? All of those are synonymous terms in the Jewish mind, even in the Greek language, for the end of days or this final epoch that's rolling up right now. He doesn't tell us when the era is going to end, but he does suggest to us that it could be any time.

The symphony is in its final movements and all that needs to happen is the instruments to stop playing. The last quarter of play is where we find ourselves. He doesn't tell us how long the quarter is going to be, but he tells us all that needs to happen next is the final whistle.

You're getting what I'm saying? So does that provide a sense of urgency? Should that provide a sense of urgency for us? John is suggesting that. Jesus suggested that. Yes. When it comes to our understanding of the end times, I want to point something out.

Now, how many of you have read the Left Behind series? Those of you who have read, how many of you know what I'm talking about when I say the Left Behind series? Some of you have read it and so that really flavors your view of the way that the end times is going to go.

There's a variety of different opinions and thoughts. I want to suggest to you that a lot of this is on the very outskirts. If you think of doctrine and correct thinking as a bullseye with the gospel in the center, I would put end times doctrine out here on this third tier.

You're going to get some points for shooting it right, but in the end, it's not worth fighting about and worth really getting all up in a bunch about it. Because when it really comes down to it, how many of you know that we live in West Michigan?

Did you know that? We live in West Michigan and there's a variety of thoughts out here. Some of you were raised in reformed churches. Some of you were raised in Catholic churches. Some of you were raised in fundamental Baptist churches.

Coming from a variety of different backgrounds, there's a lot of different views about the way that it's all going to roll up in the end. But there is one thing that I would suggest to you is important for you in your understanding of end times.

This one thing that shines over across the entirety of the New Testament that you need to embrace, and that is that Jesus communicated, John communicated it, and it is urgency and imminence. Urgency and imminence.

Urgency that we ought to live in a way that it could be any time. Imminence, it could be any time. So the belief and the notion that Jesus could return in the next five minutes ought to flavor our next five minutes.

The notion that he could return next year ought to flavor this year with urgency. Jesus taught this about his own return. Jesus said, I will return soon. John says, we're in the last hour. Jesus will return, he said, like a thief in the...

Did you guys prepare for that? You're prepared every night, I'm sure you're ready for the thief to come through, and you're just like, it's going to be tonight. If you are, you're paranoid, and you have another issue.

Or maybe you've been broken into before. I mean, I would think that that would provide a sense of urgency as well. But a thief in the night, he's going to surprise us. How many of you would be surprised if it was in the next five minutes?

I would be, and I'm preaching about it, okay? I'm preaching urgency, and it'd be like, whoa, whoa, it's really happening, you know what I mean? But I mean, the funny thing is, ironic, God knows us, God understands our heart.

He says constantly, be alert, be ready, be prepared, but by the way, you're going to be surprised when it happens. Does he understand how our hearts work, how our hearts get caught up in the things of this world, and how we're not going to be expecting it when it happens?

Because in all honesty, we are people who get so bogged down and slogged down in the day in and day out. The sun rise, the sun rose yesterday, and it set yesterday. The sun rose again today, and we expect it to set again today.

We get in these cycles, and these routines, and these patterns, and we expect week to follow week, and day to follow day, month, year, and on and on. We expect things to be pretty normal, but the scripture says it's not going to be so.

There's going to be one glorious day where he returns for us. The very next thing, the whistle blowing on the end of the game, is the return of Jesus Christ. And we can get into all the details of rapture, and all of that kind of stuff, and what happens in the tribulation, all that.

I don't have room to preach on that. John did write the book of Revelation, where we see a lot of that revealed, and a lot of it in figure of speeches, and different things. But when it comes down to it, knowing imminency, John is saying that to his church, and he's impressing on them imminency, and urgency.

That it could happen any time, and that should have an impact on your daily life. John here is saying, look at the things around you, and let them teach you about urgency. John was given significant insight.

Like I said, he wrote the book of Revelation, and he identifies for us that in the end, a shady character, the shady slippery guy, is going to show up, and he is going to be called the Antichrist. He's going to appear on the world scene.

He will lead many astray, into thinking that he is indeed the Christ. He's going to perform miracles, and do amazing things. But in the end, he's going to prove himself to be a tool of Satan, of the evil one.

So there's this character Antichrist that John is talking about. How many of you just, when John mentions Antichrist, you're like, oh my mind kind of melts a little bit, and I don't really know what he's talking about.

All of a sudden, it can be kind of a tricky thing. But John John's readers had heard of the Antichrist. One who would come as a culmination of sin, and one who would be probably very powerful on the world scene, that would oppose Jesus, and ultimately set himself up as a ruler in his place.

His readers had heard of him. You see that in verse 18. Children, it's the last hour. As you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. He says, the reminder of the fact that you know that the Antichrist is coming, you need to be, you need to live with urgency, recognizing that many Antichrists have come, and they've come even within the church.

They've even been there. We should look around at the world, and let the events teach us that the end is indeed imminent. It could be centuries off, but it could indeed be today. And let that motivate us to utilize the time that we have for the honor and glory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Not a nail-biting, oh no, it could be today, but a rejoicing celebratory focus on the mission, the glorious gospel that he's entrusted with us, to share it with as many as we can. This is not just a, this is not like a, oh no, he's going to return.

This is a, he's going to return for us, and a sense of urgency for the mission that he's left us here right now. You are existing for the purpose of the glory and honor of Jesus Christ. That's why you're here.

So that urgency and that sense of, let's get after it. Even seeing people in the church who began to oppose Jesus reminded John of the era in which he lived, an era in which the next big thing was the return of Jesus Christ.

Denying Christ and the Father

So I want to point out that John slaps on these people. Some people have left his church, and you'll see that in verse 19, they went out from us, but they were not from us. He's talking about a group of people who have split the church and left.

Okay. And they've actually tried to win some people. We're going to see that later. They're still trying to win people to their cause and to their side, but they've left the church and he slaps the word antichrist on them.

I mean, is that a good practice? Somebody leaves your church and you're antichrist. Obviously you didn't stay with us. So you must be. I don't believe, I don't believe for a second that John is suggesting that we use that title.

We're going to see what their offense was here. I'm not until we get down to verse 22. Are we going to see what, is he going to openly say what they've done wrong? And then you're going to see that the title antichrist fits for them.

This is not a division over the color of the carpet or whether or not to take out a loan on a new church building, or this is not that kind of an issue. This is a severely significant core doctrinal issue that this church is going to divide over.

It is capital T big central truth that is going to cause this division. But he does indeed call them antichrist. John was not afraid to identify these people as being in opposition to Christ publicly, publicly calls them antichrist.

I don't think John was a particularly mild-mannered individual. I don't think that's the way he rolled. As a matter of fact, I don't know, do you think in terms of the author of this being the disciple John, like if you go through the gospels and you go through the gospel of John, go through the book of John, go through the revelation of John, go through the letters, as you go through those and then go through Matthew, Mark, and Luke to see where John appears in there, you get a pretty good notion of who this guy is.

Did you know that the creator of the universe, the one who holds it all together, Jesus Christ himself had a nickname for John? Did you know that? How many of you think that you ought to listen up if God gives you a nickname?

He called him and his brother sons of thunder, sons of thunder. Do you think these guys were like chess beaters? They're like, and they came into every situation and they totally owned the situation, totally commanding and loud and boisterous.

And probably if John had an opinion, you knew it. Okay. That's the impression that I get of this guy, John, who's our author here. And now someone has threatened his church. Now he's already proven himself in this letter, by the way, if you just take what we've read so far, he doesn't mind calling people liars.

Did you notice that? He's been pretty direct with that. He says, if, if, if you, if you say you have no sin, liar, he says, uh, if you say you walk in the light and you don't love your brothers and sisters, liar, liar, pants on fire.

Like he likes to, he likes to say this stuff to people. So do you get, do you get a feel for John in this? Are you getting to feel like who this guy is? Son of thunder to the son of God, son of God calls him.

I created thunder and I like that illustration for you, John. I like, I like to use that for you. Something about this guy's personality that he's, they left us antichrists. Well, you're going to see why.

So the stage has been set John's first statement to those who remain at his church is that those who left them are in opposition to Jesus because they're opposed to us. They're antichrist. And they, and their presence is a sign of that ultimate antichrist who will eventually show up on the world scene.

That's his logic so far. But now he moves on to provide those who remain, not those who have left, but those who remain with some encouragement. He says, those of you who remain, you have been anointed by the Holy one and you have knowledge anointing throughout the old and new Testament is often associated with the work of the Holy spirit.

When a person in the old Testament is anointed regular and routine that the Holy spirit comes upon them, not in the same way that the Holy spirit seals you and me and comes to reside permanently in us as a down payment and earnest payment of our ultimate redemption, our ultimate presence with God in heaven.

But an illustration of that would be Samson, right? The Holy spirit comes on him. He's anointed with the Holy spirit. And what does he do? Rips down the city gates and carries him on his shoulders up a hill and leaves it.

And then the spirit leaves him. And then the spirit comes on him again and he picks up a, a jawbone and slays a thousand Philistines. And then, um, then he's, then he's done. And the spirit leaves him.

And the spirit is kind of like this come and go thing in the old Testament with, uh, with the anointing, but not so with us, the Holy spirit comes to reside in us at our new birth. And we are anointed John's main point.

If you look at verse 20 and 21, but you have been anointed by the Holy one and you have all, you have all have knowledge. I write to because you do not know the truth, but because you know it. And because no lie is of the truth.

He's in essence saying you who are genuinely in the faith, those of you recast who are sitting here, who are genuinely in the faith are genuinely in Christ are saved. You have everything that you need.

You have everything that you need. You have been anointed by the Holy spirit and you have been knowledge. Where's the knowledge come from here? And what is the Holy spirit's role in that to open our eyes to it?

Illumination. You have an anointing on your life. If you are given by Christ, if you are, if you've given your life to Christ, if you are all in with him, then you have this anointing of the Holy spirit and you have been given the knowledge that you need to grow.

I think John's role here is one of confirming them and encouraging them to walk in that which they already know. I think a pastor's role is confirming to you what you do know to be true and letting the spirit of God as we study this together, letting the spirit of God bring it alive in your life.

You know that I can't find an application in this for every one of you, but the Holy spirit can, but you can walk out of here with conviction that you have heard from God because you've interacted with his word, not because you've interacted with me, not because I told you to go do something, but ultimately in the end, I desire strongly that the spirit would reveal in your heart as I'm talking about the word, what it is that he wants you to do.

How does he want you to walk in this? What does he desire for you to do? And that might look a lot different from the, from you to the person sitting next to you. And by the way, one of the worst things that you can do sitting out there is, is let the Holy spirit or yourself be the Holy spirit for the person sitting next to you and let them know what they need to do this week.

And that can happen sometimes, or you're thinking about that coworker, boy, if they could have just been in the sermon this week and heard this, uh, or you know what I'm saying? Um, we can apply it to other people's lives, but really I'm talking about the knowledge, the anointing of the Holy one, the Holy spirit who lives in you, revealing with knowledge that which you are to go and live out and to do all genuine growth in relationship with God is going to be the result of the Holy spirit applying the truth of God in our lives.

These two in tandem, the word and the spirit, the spirit and the word, the anointing and knowledge, the knowledge and the anointing together, the spirit and the word working together in your life and mine.

He said, you've got that people. That's what he's saying to those who have been left behind. Those who, those who have stayed and remained in the church in the truth. And, and, and many have departed in error and theological error about Christ.

The phrase no lies of the truth seems pretty, uh, self-evident, right? Look at verse 21 at the end there, no lies of the truth, but I just want to point out that the truth there is I'm convinced the word of God.

And he's saying, you can verify that is as much as you get to know this, you are basically error proofing your life. The more you get to know this, the more you study it, the more you research it, the more you depend on the spirit to reveal and open eyes and things like that.

And, and you really dig into it to know who Christ is. Then the lies will become more apparent to you. Do you understand what I'm saying? I mean, it's the age old illustration. I mean, pastors use it all the time, but the whole idea of counterfeits, you don't train people to identify counterfeits.

You train people to know the true thing. So $20 bills, you train people how to identify a true $20 bill, and they'll be able to figure out which one's fake. Are you getting what I'm saying? Rather than training people in the error, training them to identify the lies, how many of you know there's a lot of lies and there's some brand new ones coming up today?