Stick to the Basics (1 John 2:24-27) | Adult Sunday School

Come on in, get settled down, find your seats. Good morning, everyone. It's good to be in the house of the Lord, right? We're gonna be in the book of 1 John. Kind of pick up where I left off last time I was here, about, I can't even remember how long ago now.

Been a while. Our focus is gonna be on verses 24 to 27 in chapter two, but for context, we're gonna read verses 21 to 27 in 1 John chapter two. Start in verse 21. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.

Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also.

As for you, let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise which he himself made to us, eternal life.

These things I have written to you about those who are trying to deceive you. And as for you, the anointing whom you received from him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as he has taught you, abide in him.

False Teachers, Christology, and the Need to Stick to the Basics

Before we get going, let's go to the Lord.

For a word of prayer.

Father, thank you so much for your truth in scripture, for the ability to gather in the church and to be able to be among the saints today. And just thank you so much for the word of God that brings us clarity in our thinking and so much truth and gives us the ability to live our lives in a God-honoring way and gives us a roadmap to do that.

Thank you for salvation, the ability to be saved and to think about this as just an amazing concept. And just pray for wisdom as I teach this morning, Lord, help your word to go forth and accomplish your will.

In Jesus' name, amen. So this book has been teaching us a lot about false teaching and the ability to distinguish between true and false converts. The reason for that is because false teachers have entered into the church in Asia Minor and were teaching doctrine contrary to the Bible and it was causing doubt and confusion among the saints there.

And I really appreciate how John starts off and he emphasizes Christ right from the very beginning in this book. And it's the characteristics of true and false converts. And he uses a similar introduction here as he does in the gospel of John.

In John 1, 1, it says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. So in the beginning and talking there about the eternal word being with the Father before creation even was.

And then in 1 John 1, 1, it's a little bit different. He says, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and touched with our hands concerning the word of life.

And in that particular passage, what was from the beginning is the beginning of the ministry of Christ. So it's a little bit of a difference there in introductions, but it's got the same similar conceptual ideas.

And he wastes no time in keying in on three of our five senses in the first verse in 1 John 1. He says, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have touched. And I just find that interesting that the Apostle John paints such a vivid picture of his being with Christ.

These are firsthand authoritative teachings that he is writing about in this book. And he says he proclaims these to us. It's authoritative, it's strong, and it's something that we should be able to listen to.

And remember, he's writing from Ephesus in Asia Minor, and that John is around 90 years old. So he's getting up there in years. He's the elder apostle. And it just, because there seemed to be some doubt about their faith and whether or not they truly were saved.

I think this book is a great book. This is a great book to take someone through if they're unsure about their faith. Because there are a number of tests that qualify believers in this book to be able to dissect it, whether you're a true believer or a false believer.

And the tests were needed because these false teachers had entered in to the church. And so John is contrasting, the false teachers are doing these things, but a true believer really does these things.

And so the focus is there for him to focus on the teaching of Christ and not the Gnostic teaching that was entering into the church at that particular time in this book. And I don't know about you, but have you ever noticed that when false teaching seems to enter in, it always seems to denigrate Christ?

That's usually the first thing that they focus on, isn't it? It's like, how can we separate people from the love of Christ? And of course, Satan hates Christ, so it makes sense, right? It makes sense.

But I think oftentimes, people don't necessarily connect the false teaching with the deeds of darkness. And by that, I mean, especially the motives behind the teaching. It's one thing to say, hey, don't follow Christ, but the motives behind it is something altogether different because if you were to accept that, what does it do?

It separates you from Christ and puts you on a different path that leads you to a different destination. And so I think it's important for us to stay focused. False teachers under the guise, really, of getting us closer to Jesus are actually driving people further away from him.

They're driving them further away from him. You can see this lived out today as we learned last week with the prosperity gospel. You can see it lived out there, which really isn't a gospel at all. Kosti told us those things.

But yet, the deception enslaves so many people that are well-intentioned and leads them down a different path. And you can find that in almost every false religion is that there's some type of issue with Christ.

I was looking at some things this week and the New Age movement has their own Bible. It's called A Course in Miracles, if you've ever heard of it. And it's their Bible. And in it, they say this, quote, "'The crucifixion did not establish the atonement.

"'The resurrection did. "'Many sincere Christians have misunderstood this.'". You see, the fact that the New Age Bible dismisses Christ and all that he did to sacrifice on the cross, and it's just another example of how false teachers, you know, denigrate Christ to try to bring him down.

They place a focus where it doesn't need to be. And you can be sure that in this book, these imposters were doing the same thing. They were coming in, teaching something other than Christ as God, and it was dividing people.

They denied that Jesus Christ was God. And that's the challenge, isn't it? Is to be able to rightly discern the truth. This message today is just simply titled, Stick to the Basics. That is the basic truths of our faith that John writes about in these verses today.

Abiding in the Gospel You Heard from the Beginning

The first basic truth is, let the truth of the gospel abide in you. Let the truth of the gospel abide in you. Verse 24 says, "'As for you, let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.'".

So as for you, John here is separating out the false teachers from the previous verses, because he says in verse 18, it's the Antichrist's children. He says in chapter two, verse 18, "'It is the last hour, and just as you have heard, that Antichrist is coming.

Even now, many Antichrists have appeared. For this we know, that it is the last hour.'". And then in verse 22, he's talking about who is the liar, but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, this is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.

These Antichrists were disrupting the church with the teaching, denying the deity of Christ. But John is saying, don't listen to them. "'As for you,' he said, "'reject this teaching. Focus on what you have heard from the beginning of your faith.'".

So he says, whatever you heard from the beginning, we're to abide in that. We're to abide in the things we heard from the beginning. So naturally, we have to ask, what is it that they heard from the beginning?

And what beginning is John speaking about here? Because in 1 John 1, it says, "'What was from the beginning? What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and touched with our hands concerning the word of life.'".

In that verse, he's referring to the beginning of Christ's earthly ministry, as I mentioned at the beginning. But remember, in verse three, he said, "'What we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also.'".

So the emphasis on our verse in chapter 20, or chapter two, verse 24 is, "'As for you, believer, focus on what you have heard from the beginning.'". And what did they hear from the beginning? What was it that they heard?

It's the same gospel message that John heard from Christ as he was walking and talking with him. There's an emphasis on hearing here, what you have heard from the beginning. And so there has to be someone speaking the truth.

We oftentimes give an intellectual assent to our faith, but there comes a time when we actually have to communicate that back into words and be able to share to someone what the hope is that is within us.

And you think about what John heard. He heard the teaching of Christ, heard the teaching of the apostles. So there's a hearing element to it. It's not just reading only. And we have to have that answer.

Whatever that is to be able to share the gospel to everyone that gives an account to. 1 Peter 3 .15 tells us that. "'We don't get a word from the Lord and are saved. "'We preach the gospel. "'People hear it.

"'It's not some mystical thing. "'Take the word of God, we rightly divide it.'". It's think about back to your own faith. Someone somewhere was speaking those words to you, shared the gospel with you, and you learned that the wages of sin is death, and you yourself got saved.

You realized the difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow. You repented from your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ. Someone had to preach that word to you, and they heard that. It's an important element.

And now, what is it? You're a new creation in Christ is what the word of God says. And so, I would say for us is to get that gospel presentation within us so we can clearly, you know, say that to someone that needs to hear it.

The impostors, though, denied the deed of Jesus, and therefore the gospel. That's the issue here is that we're supposed to focus on the gospel. We're supposed to abide in those things in the beginning because these false teachers were coming in and denying the deity of Christ in the body.

The very thing that could save them, they rejected these false teachers. We let the truth of the gospel message abide in us to avoid being led down the wrong path. In verse 24, I wanna draw your attention to that little word let.

Let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you. And let is don't prevent it or forbid it, but to allow that word to continually abide in you. We are to let God's truth live in us. We should never do anything that hinders that or prevents us from abiding in the truth.

This is an active faith. We have to do things to continually focus our attention on the Lord because there's things as Christians that we can do that does prevent us from abiding in the truth. There's things that we do.

I mean, you can think of it. We dabble in sin. What does it do? It moves us away from studying our word, from praying, from going to church, all of those things because darkness doesn't like the light.

And so when sin is present, we tend to focus on other things. And it's definitely not the pure truth of the word of God. And so we move away from it. The other thing that John tells us that prevents us from abiding in the truth is that people begin to love the world.

And we see that in verse 15 of chapter two of John. He already warns us about that where he says, do not love the world nor the things in the world. Mark writes about this also in the parable of the sower.

You can go down through that and see that. In verse nine, chapter four, verse nine of Mark, he says, but the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for anything else enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.

You see, that's what happens. We begin to love the world. It chokes the word out in our lives and we become unfruitful for the Lord. And that's the issue, right? We're not remaining and abiding in the word of God.

And we allow the false teachers that are around us then to potentially lead us astray. So look at the second half of verse 24. It says, if you are saved, what you heard from the beginning abides in you.

You also will abide in the Son and in the Father if you are saved. Then the teaching about Jesus lives in you if you are saved. And I think about this a lot because you've probably run into people over the course of your Christian walk that say they're Christians, but they still have some doubts.

They still have some confusion maybe that they are saved or not saved. And I think they struggle at understanding that. How do you know if you heard what you heard when you were 15 or 17 or 18 really was authentic Christianity?

And I think John provides us an easy way to tell in this book. That's why I love this book so much because it's like you take them to this book and you can show them the difference between true and false believers pretty easy.

So let me just recap for you. In chapter one, verse seven, do you walk in the light as Jesus did? Do you have sweet fellowship with other brothers and sisters yet walk in the darkness? It gives you a clear picture there.

In chapter two, verse three, do you keep his commandments, his word? Do you keep his commandments, his word? Chapter two, verse 10, do you truly love your brothers and sisters in Christ? That's chapter 2 .10.

Chapter 2 .15, do you reject the world's influence? That's what you would say to someone that is doubting. You go down through these things. Do you do these things? Are you seeing yourself in the scriptures this way?

And I think you can be sure if you answer yes to all those statements that you're one of the children of God because true believers remain in the truth and they live out their Christian walk in a way that is tangible.

We can see it because it lines up with the word of God. And that's what we're supposed to be doing, looking at that. So that's the first basic truth. Are there any questions on remaining in the gospel?

Want to open up if you have any questions or talk about it because I've been rambling on for 10 minutes now. Any questions on that? Keep rambling?

All right.

The Promise of Eternal Life as Christian Hope

The second basic truth is the promise of eternal life provides hope. The promise of eternal life provides hope. And we see that in verse 25 where it says, and this is the promise which he himself made us, eternal life.

A promise isn't much good unless the one who made the promise can deliver it.

Right?

I mean, we see man, oftentimes the promises go unfulfilled. I mean, someone tell you, hey, I'm gonna be over there at three, they pick you up, we're gonna go fishing and they never show up. That happens.

Man's promises get broken, they get unfulfilled, but that never happens with the Lord. That's the beauty of it is whatever he promises is going to come to pass. And when he said he promises us eternal life, this should be something Christians think about because it drives behavior.

It drives behavior. During difficult times, we can look at it from an internal perspective that no matter what happens in this life, we always have a future and a hope with Christ. And because of Jesus, it's possible for us to know and to have eternal life.

John 17 three gives us this ability and this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. See, we possess a quality of eternal life now. We possess it because we are believers in Christ.

We emulate the characteristics of God because we are children of God. Well, we do what we see the Father doing and that is love our brothers and sisters in Christ. We do that. We practice the fruit of the Spirit, forgiveness, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Eternal life is a present blessing. And of course, we're gonna possess an unending life in the future. We share by faith in God's eternal being. And I think the idea of eternal life flies in the face of the Antichrist in this book.

I really do. Because they were trying to introduce a system of salvation by works. They did not possess eternal life. When John brought this up about eternal life, he exposes the imposters for what they were.

And that's an important concept because unbelievers don't really understand eternal life. They're looking at it from a worldly perspective and they can't really see what that hope is for the true believer.

And I do some counseling things and I was reading some stuff on psychology this week and I came across this quote and I thought, well, that's pretty timely. It fit into this particular concept here. This is from a psychologist named Martin Hoagland and he wrote a book, This Life, Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom.

And according to Hoagland, he wrote this about eternal life and I quote, "'Eternal life would actually be terrible. "'It would entail an ever-expanding vortex of emptiness, "'a gaping, bottomless pit of meaninglessness.

"'It would spell the end of caring, "'the end of hoping and the end of appreciating, "'of celebrating, of exerting, of accomplishing, "'of committing, of loving. "'It would mean despair beyond despair, "'indeed, a fate worse than death.'".

That's the unbeliever's perspective of eternal life. I truly feel sorry for people with that kind of a perspective because it just means that they need to hear the gospel. They need to understand the truth to be able to open up that world of hope and understanding that they don't have currently and I think it's an emptiness that many unbelievers possess and this kind of false view about eternal life is just devoid of hope.

But for us, eternal life is our hope and strength to know that no matter what happens to us in this life, we will spend eternity with Jesus. We will not be spending it in some meaningless, bottomless pit as this psychologist has stated, but with Christ ruling and reigning from Jerusalem and then eventually on to the new heavens and the new earth.

If that's not a hope for us, I don't know what is. That's exciting to think about. We're spending eternity with Christ, but we have to be mindful that unbelievers do not understand that and for us to be able to continue to preach the gospel to them.

These deceivers were trying to steal that hope away from these readers. They were trying to steal this away from them. We see that in verse 26 as we have a warning here from John. These things I have written to you about those who are trying to deceive you.

He says, this is an active deception. This is what goes on. It's an active deception. The Antichrist to lead a way to destroy the many and you can see it all around us. We are in an onslaught at all times with deceptive, deceptive words that try to lead us away from Christ.

I mean, everywhere you turn, you start to see that. And John is strengthening our faith here. We have to be mindful of it, but the goal is to stay close to Jesus, to be able to identify the false teaching when it happens.

And I think that's the key is we continue to re look at our faith, the gospel message, what that means about Christ as deity, the holiness that he brings, the fact that we are different and we need to keep focused on that because it just brings our thoughts back to eternal life and what we have waiting for us, but also a responsibility while we live.

So that's the second basic truth. Any questions?

Yeah.

That guy had it right.

Right, that psychologist did have it right about eternal life because without Christ, that's your perspective.

Yeah.

That is so true. I was talking to one of my coworkers a couple of weeks ago and I was saying, well, you know, in heaven, you get a new body and she said, well, why would I want a new body? I don't like the one I have now.

Different perspective. Anybody else have any comments about it?

All right.

The Holy Spirit as Teacher and Anointing

Onto the last basic truth that we're gonna talk about in this particular passage is that the Holy Spirit is our teacher. The Holy Spirit is our teacher. In verse 27, and as for you, the anointing whom you received from him abides in you and you have no need for anyone to teach you, but as his anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as he has taught you, abide in him.

When you think about the anointing, I think my mind obviously goes back to the Old Testament. When you talk about anointing, we see the priests, prophets, and kings being anointed in the Old Testament.

Leviticus 8 .12 says, then he poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron's head and anointed him to set him apart as holy. That's kind of the idea. It's setting something apart for holy. The anointing set them apart into whatever God's purpose for them was, and for us, the anointing is the Holy Spirit.

It's really the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives, if you look at that. An amazing act of love happened to us at salvation,.

Didn't it?

It's kind of interesting to think when you try to explain this to somebody that God lives inside of you, it's hard to comprehend, isn't it? But at some point in time, when we repented of our sins and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of us, that's life-changing, that's life-altering, and I feel like at times, as I've seen Christians live their lives, it's almost like it's a discounted thing.

They don't necessarily bring that out and feel like it is God living inside of them, and there's hope, there's no hope, there's despair, there's depression, there's all these things present in a believer's life.

The Holy Spirit should enable us to live quality lives. Not that those things can't be present, obviously, from time to time, but by and large, we should be relying on the truth there. But it's an amazing act of love, and I like this in Ephesians 1 .13.

It mentions that you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, Ephesians 1 .13. That seal of the Holy Spirit means that you belong to God. He owns you because you have been bought with a price, and you don't have a choice to live any different life now.

Your old life is dead. That person that you were isn't there anymore. You're not that person anymore. You've been raised up to new life in Christ, and that's the exciting part about this. Then it says, you have no need for anyone to teach you.

What does that mean? Some believe that they should only read the Bible and no other books because of this verse. They look at this and go, hey, I don't need anybody else, and I've heard people tell me that.

I don't read any of the books because the Bible tells me that I don't need to. Well, that can't be true because, I mean, you can look in the qualifications for elders, and it says they receive double honor for preaching and teaching.

We're supposed to have an answer. All these other verses that contradict people's thinking that you shouldn't read any other books, there's nothing wrong with that. Reading books on sound doctrine and brings great encouragement, and what would Jim do without being able to quote Spurgeon?

I mean, we've gotta have this. But the Holy Spirit helps us to discern biblically-based things. I mean, it gives us insight and wisdom that we might not have just on our own power. Then it says the anointing teaches us about all things.

Does that mean everything? Does that mean the Bible's gonna teach us about everything, like trigonometry and algebra? Because I hate those things, and I don't wanna learn them. So it's not about every last detail, but it is about the things that we do need to know that enable us to live our lives for his glory, because the Holy Spirit illuminates the scriptures before us, helps us to have the wisdom and revelation about Christ, and it always drives us back to the scriptures, right?

Always puts us right back into the word of God. That's where we need to be. And then notice it also says, "'But as his anointing teaches you about all things, "'and is true and is not a lie.'". You see, the Gnostic teachers were driving people away from the truth.

These are the liars and the antichrists, but you can be sure that the Holy Spirit is never going to guide you into a lie. The Holy Spirit is going to guide us into the truth and help us to see that and to not be led astray.

It's like when you say God led you to a church that teaches some truth and some error, you can be sure the Holy Spirit probably didn't lead you there, because he's not going to lead you into error. Many out there do not want to lead us into error, and they don't want to teach us lies, but we need to be comforted to know that our God will never lead us somewhere that teaches the word falsely.

There's no need for these believers in Asia Minor to listen to these false teachers when the Holy Spirit resides in them to teach them. That's the point, right, is that the false teachers were teaching these lies, and why would we rely on these men that are false to teach us these things when we have God living inside of us to teach us the truth that we need to have?

And so the proof of their faith lives inside of them. No false teacher has that kind of anointing. That's amazing to me. So before I conclude, is there any questions? Any thoughts about that, yeah?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the true Christian life, eternal life, that perspective drives behavior. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, it should humble us, should make us want to be obedient to the Lord. I think that's true.

Anybody else?

All right, I'll ramble it out. So wrapping it up today, sticking to the basics is really to abide in the doctrine contained in Scripture. That's what it is. The basic truths that we see, let the truth of the gospel be visible in your life.

That's the idea, so that you don't get led astray in any kind of teaching that rejects Christ. And it's a lifelong study to study Christ, and the Trinity, and all these things that we're never fully gonna understand.

But the more that we do, and we abide in that kind of teaching, the quicker we're gonna be able to identify any kind of false teaching that comes our way. And that's the goal, is to stay away from the poison that could taint us in some way.

What we see at times, at least I do, is professing Christians being led astray because they don't know their Bible. That's usually what happens. Instead, a lot of people follow preachers, emotionally driven, and sometimes they just get led into the wrong things.

For us, though, we should always remember what Paul wrote in Colossians, that he said in Colossians 3 .16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. I mean, that's an abundance, just overflowing, just living in it, breathing in it at all times.

We must stay close to the words of this book right here. This is what we have to do. And it's not always easy, but it's worth it. The promise of eternal life is to be lived here and now with an eye toward the future.

This is what we're supposed to be doing. As we see the world getting colder, I don't know if you've noticed that lately, but I have, our lights for Christ must shine the brightest when it's the darkest.

And I think that just is, for my own self, I think it's just not being afraid to say things, that could cause problems at work or wherever it might be, because what can they do to me?

What can they do to me?

We can lose all of our material possessions, but we can never lose eternity with Christ, and that's our hope. No matter what happens, we have that secure idea. And like we learned, we talked about, it's all made possible because the anointing of the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us as believers.

You think about this, the apostles had Christ for a period of time to teach them, and he wanted them to know when he left that he wasn't gonna leave them alone. And he said in John 14, chapter 16 through, or chapter, or verses 16 through 18, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he may be with you forever.

The spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him or know him. You know him because he abides in you and will be in you, and I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.

I love that verse, because I will not leave you as orphans. You have me here today, but I'm not gonna leave you as orphans, I just think God shows care and concern for the disciples, that he wasn't gonna just abandon them.

And I think it goes the same for us, it's comforting that we have the Holy Spirit. We don't have the visible manifestation of Christ here today, but we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us, and we're not orphans, it should be comforting that we have that wisdom that we can live in.

The Greek word allos is used to describe the Holy Spirit here, and it means another helper. Another helper. That is another helper exactly as the same essence as Jesus. That's part of the Trinity. That anointing happens when we repent of our sins and place our trust in the perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

The Holy Spirit literally comes alongside of us to help us, to enable us to live our lives in a godly fashion, that's what it means. Come alongside of us. We have God himself helping us to navigate our lives.

We need that anointing, Christ in us, because true believers are on the narrow road. We're on the narrow road. That means sometimes the potholes seem bigger than they may appear, so narrow. John encourages us to live our lives in a very basic ways, and yet they are extremely difficult to live out, right?

Sounds simple, but it's not exactly easy. Nevertheless, we are not to deviate from the path laid out before us. When something new and shiny comes along, we're to go back to the basics of our faith to keep away from danger.

That's really the message, to stick to the basics. Any new truth is an old lie that we've heard from way back when, in the very beginning of it all, did God really say in the garden? There's nothing new.

If they do say it's new, it's a lie, because we have the words right here. So the closer we stay in contact with scripture, the clearer we see the magnificence of the Lord. We learn of his incredible character, how his divine providence and holiness can get us through the ups and downs of life.

We can read how the saints were delivered from danger by our amazing God. Think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and all the saints that Jim has been preaching about in Hebrews chapter 11. What a testimony to the perseverance and the faith of these amazing people.