I Found Your Children Walking in Truth

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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If you have your Bibles, please turn to the second epistle of John.

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Just before the season of Advent, we completed our study in 1

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John, so it follows that we would continue on through the epistles.

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I'm going to read the entire book. This is God's holy and infallible word.

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The Elder, to the elect lady and her children, whom

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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, grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the

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Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father in truth and love.

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I rejoice greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth as we receive commandment from the

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Father. And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which you have had from the beginning, that we love one another.

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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.

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For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh.

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This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we work for, but that we may receive a full reward.

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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

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Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him.

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For he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. Having many things to write to you,

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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.

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The children of your elect sister greet you. Amen. Please pray with me.

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O Lord, we thank you for your authoritative, sufficient, inerrant, and infallible word.

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We thank you for short books like the Second Epistle of John. We ask that you, in the power of your

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Spirit, would illumine our understanding, that we might grow in our faith in Christ and be more prone to walk in his ways.

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We ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. Thank you.

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The title of this message today is, I Found Your Children Walking in Truth, and that is taken from verse four.

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I found your children walking in truth.

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There are three divisions that we'll be considering in the book, and I'm only taking one of those today, and I will take the others in succession.

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There are three little themes within this short book. The first one is

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John's commendation of the elect lady. That's what we're going to focus our attention on.

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But he also, in the book, and we need to have that in view a little bit about what he's going to argue.

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There is an exhortation, and it's a very familiar sounding exhortation, is the second one.

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We'll talk about that next week. And then finally, a warning.

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Accommodation and exhortation and a warning. And then we have a farewell greeting, which includes a desire for in -person fellowship.

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A desire for in -person fellowship. So let us consider the commendation of the elect lady by John.

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Now, if you are reading through that, you said these words sound awfully familiar.

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It seems as though eight of the first of the 13 verses in 2

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John were written by John in 1 John. He repeats some of the same language almost verbatim.

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You might ask yourself, well, what would be the value of writing the second epistle?

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And who is the elect lady? And what is this about elder? Why is it structured in this way?

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These are some interesting questions. Now at first glance, it seems as though, and I think you'd be right to think, that John is the elder.

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It's almost an important universal consensus on it. I believe our forefathers, not everything is a controversy of some unknown author.

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I believe this was written by John. Sounds like it. But why does he use the word elder?

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And why does he address the letter to the elect lady and her children? Well, let's get into the language of the text.

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And this might provide some clues to help us understand. First, the elder.

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The word for elder is presbuteros, is where we get the word Presbyterian from.

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This is a word that is very familiar throughout the scriptures.

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And John is likely, as I mentioned in Sunday School in another context, the last living apostle at this time.

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So there'd be a certain weight and honor associated with the beloved disciple,

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John. It's important to remember that John was an incredible man.

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He was the youngest of the disciples. He was seemingly the favorite of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, if there could be such a thing. And he was revered for both the office he held, the last living apostle, but also for the weightiness of his character.

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It's one thing to hold office. And it's another thing to fill it.

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Husbands, you have an office. You need to fill that office.

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Fathers, you have an office. You need to fill that office.

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John is writing, it seems, in a little bit of code. And this makes us wonder if maybe there's some persecution afoot.

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Maybe he's writing in these veiled terms because of persecution. I hold to the position that this is written to a church and the church body is who he's referencing here.

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But if it's written from John to an individual lady, it doesn't really change its application in the life of the church.

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Let's dig a little deeper now and see if we can understand this here.

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Look at verse one again. It says, The elder, we believe it's

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John, the beloved disciple, to the elect lady and her children.

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Election is an exciting thing when you're coming to a reformed understanding of soteriology, if you were raised in something else.

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And the word is used to denote those who are chosen or selected by God for a purpose.

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We generally associate with salvation, chosen by God for salvation or service.

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But it also means, and here it may refer to, the best of its kind or class.

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It represents an excellence or a preeminence of position.

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So imagine a woman, a woman of distinction, known for her reputation of godliness.

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And maybe John's writing to a lady like that. Certainly could be true. But I think there's also some evidence to suggest, we'll explore it in a little bit, that this is probably a church and this is referring to a congregation.

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He says to the elect lady and her children. He uses the word technoi, which is that word that's often associated with child and descendant.

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But it really emphasizes the relationship between the parents and the children.

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It was used in John extensively to describe the relationship between the spiritual leaders and their disciples, both positively and negatively.

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The false teachers have technoi, they have people following after them.

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We need to follow after Christ and we need to hold to the apostles doctrine. It also means, and I think this is important, this is anyone living in full dependence upon the heavenly father.

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They are those who are relying upon God in glad submission.

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Is that the quality and description of your life? You are the children of God.

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You are in a loving relationship with the father, united to the son, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit. Are you living as those who are dependent on God?

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Are you relying upon him in every circumstance? Are you characterized by a glad submission to his will?

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Well, these words all kind of shape the language that's used in the second epistle.

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But he continues, he says to the elect lady, whether it be a lady or a congregation and her children, whom

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I love in truth. The love and fellowship that we have for one another is not just in shared interests.

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In fact, it it far transcends that you and I are in fellowship with one another because we know the truth about truth himself, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot be divided in one sense because we are united to him.

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And so John says, I love you in the truth.

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It's one thing for a husband to love his wife, but what a thing it is for a husband who really loves

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Christ to love Christ as Christ loved the church. You see that distinction? These aren't people that John just gets along with.

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John loves these people because they're united to Christ. They're in the truth.

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You and I are those who have been brought into the truth of Christ.

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That's why we can love each other so freely and easily. That love is

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John's favorite word, that agape love. It's selfless, selfless, sacrificial.

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It's the love of God that he has for his people. It's the corresponding reciprocation of God's love, the people's love for him.

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And also, John has drilled home in First Epistle, it's the love that believers ought to have for one another.

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It's a God induced love, it's a God facilitated love, it's a Holy Spirit enabled love.

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This is the love that he describes. John loves these people, whoever they are, in truth.

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Now, what is truth? I remember some years ago when post -millennial, excuse me, what's it called?

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Can't think of it now. There were all these guys, these theologians, questioning and really loving and gobbling up Pilate's question, what is truth?

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It sounds so sophisticated and philosophical, doesn't it? Postmodern. Thank you.

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Instead of trying to be cool and say, you know, I don't really know what truth is.

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You and I stand on the truth, we stand for the truth, we stand in the truth, we are sustained and upheld by the truth.

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The truth of Jesus Christ, the truth of God, the truth of the gospel.

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The moral standards and precepts of God. But also.

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The divine truth revealed in Christ and the scriptures, there's another element of truth.

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Now, Reuben may appreciate this and Ashley, maybe

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Ryan and Mitch interested in classical education, but embedded in this truth is the idea of sincerity, integrity and faithfulness.

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So we in the reform world, we love the truth, we love assent, we love to be able to know things.

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But real truth acquisition is also to be something because of the truth.

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To have an earnestness and sincerity, a profession, a integrity, a faithfulness.

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And so the elect lady and her children are loved by John in the truth.

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You and I ought to really love one another because we are in the truth. And he says, and not only

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I, but also those who have known the truth.

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He seems to be identifying this group of people with the broader church.

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I think this may be helpful for us to understand the second epistle of John.

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Maybe a big circular letter comes to all the churches in central

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Florida. And it's passed around and everybody gets to read it and there's still some problems happening.

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There's still some trouble in that little congregation down there in Longwood. John maybe writes this very similar letter to them to say, you know, not only is this for the church, as we say about the sacraments, this is for you.

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I'm writing to you in your situation. What great pastoral love from John to encourage this lady to commend her, to commend her children.

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Can you imagine an older lady hearing from the most notable

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Christian man you can imagine and for him to say, I love you in the truth.

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I know your reputation, you're a woman of great character and great standing. What an encouragement this must have been for her.

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And we must be those kind of people who are willing to commend one another in their good character and their

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Christian faith, encourage one another to say, you know, you're really doing a great job there, brother or sister.

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It's the kind of people we ought to be. The last half of verse one, this reputation of this woman and her children are known to the larger and broader body of Christ.

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Look at verse two. It says, because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever.

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Jesus said in his gospel, I am the vine, you are the branches, abide in me, produce good works.

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How do we abide? We stay. Husbands, you need to stay in your marriage.

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Wives, stay in your marriage. Children, stay under your parents authority until it's appropriate to leave in marriage.

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Abiding is an essential Christian principle. The truth is such that it conquers a man, a woman, a child's heart, but it also it lays hold of them and it grips them and it won't let them go.

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Genuine, real faith always perseveres and endures to the end.

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Stay close to God. Stay close, cleaving to Christ.

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Come to the church, read your Bible, pray, participate in all the spiritual disciplines that you might abide in Christ.

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This is how you keep the truth. And it's because of the truth, the reality of the work of Christ, the heart of a man, a woman, a child that we are able to stay.

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It's kind of an interesting relationship, isn't it? Because of the truth, we can abide in the truth.

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And because we abide, we stay in the truth and the realities that we have been brought into in Christ will be with us forever.

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It's interesting, he now gives his greeting in verse three, take a look at verse three.

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We pass over epistolary greetings. We see

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Paul write grace and peace to you, we kind of just roll over that. And these greetings are actually important today and every

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Sunday, I say something like grace and peace to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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I don't need any filler for this very extensive liturgy. I don't need any extra words.

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I really want the grace and the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ to be conferred upon you.

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That's why I say it. John isn't just trying to say, well, I have to say, dear elect lady.

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He doesn't say these words just because it's a proper format. He says them with purpose.

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Grace, grace, grace is favor, kindness, blessing.

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Could you use some of that in your life? Do you want any of that? Grace is a gift or blessing brought to man by Jesus Christ.

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It's favor. It's gratitude. It's worthy of Thanksgiving.

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It's the kindness of God. So when we say grace to you, we're saying all of the weight of that.

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We want all of this to be true for us. I want all of this to be true for you.

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And John says grace, God's favor, his kindness, his blessing.

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And by the way, it's not based on human merit. Oh, our friends who are those

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Catholics try to be Orthodox. They're going to merit

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God's favor. Grace is

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God's favor unmerited. If there be any merits, the merit of Christ, that's it.

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The merit of Christ bestowed upon us. This is what grace is.

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It's why we're so committed to the doctrines of grace, not only for soteriology, but for the whole of the

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Christian life. It's an outworking of God's grace, his kindness, his blessing.

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That word is pretty familiar to us. The second word is mercy.

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And this word is also understood to be compassion and pity.

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Christ has looked upon our pitiful condition and he's had compassion.

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God in his holiness looks upon sinners and said they're worthy of my just condemnation.

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But I am a God of mercy. It's the compassionate treatment of those in distress.

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This example has been shown to us by Christ, and it should be the way that we relate to other members of the body of Christ and also to hurting people at large.

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Paul prayed about a great forgiveness given a wicked servant. How much mercy have we been showed in Christ?

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Therefore, we ought to be merciful. It is treatment of those in distress.

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What it is in one's power to punish or harm. Last Sunday.

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And he was in there on Saturday, and I wish my wife was here. She had to take Johnny home because of a severe earache that just came upon him.

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But. My wife and daughters were going to get in the car and there were two, we had the cars open, we're cleaning the car if we do some on Saturdays.

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And there were two lizards in the car and I tried to grab the lizards to take them out of the car.

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So that my wife and daughters wouldn't freak out when the lizard appeared at an inopportune moment.

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And as it turns out, they eluded me and crawled under the dash.

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Now, you should know that a husband in these moments has has to discern what information he needs to share with his wife.

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She didn't ask me again about the lizards, so I didn't tell her that they're still in there. And they drove uneventfully and came home, but we get to church on Sunday.

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And Johnny and I are going out to the car. And one of the lizards is on the seat.

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And he was very evasive. But I captured him. And he was terrified and he was angry and he was resistant.

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But I set him out by the playground where he could start a new life in Longwood.

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But he didn't want to receive it. He thought

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I was going to hurt him. I did a merciful act because that other lizard, if it's still in the car, is going to die of thirst or lack of food or something.

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Isn't that a picture of us? We would resist this salvation if we're up to us.

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We don't want God's intervention. We want to stand on our own feet. We want to make it on our own.

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And God says, no, you're pitiful and I'm compassionate to you in your pitiful condition.

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In Christ, I have the ability to punish, to harm, to judge.

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I decide, I delight in mercy. So you see, these greetings are they're full.

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There's a lot there. And of course, because we just studied it, I'll go quicker on this one.

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The idea of peace, the shalom. More than the absence of conflict or strife, it encompasses a whole sense of well -being and fulfillment.

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So when I say grace and peace to you, I'm not just saying I hope your life doesn't have a lot of strife in it and you're

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OK. I'm saying I want the completeness, the wholeness, the welfare, the safety of union with Christ.

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I want you to have all of that. So when you hear these blessings and these things, you see a little liturgical element.

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You have to understand the force and weight of them is far greater than you can imagine.

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John really wants grace, mercy and peace to be upon the elect lady and her children.

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And he, as the apostle says, I confer these blessings because they come from God, the

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Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. And I am the minister of God.

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He says the last phrase of verse three, in truth and love, that word combination in various orders is very central to the second epistle of John.

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Paul says we are to speak the truth in love. We can sometimes speak the truth without love.

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We can be very harsh and we can tear down. We speak the truth in love. We build, we reconcile.

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We restore. We're peacemakers. John's love is rooted and grounded in truth.

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His truth is rooted and grounded in love. And this is what the Christian life and the

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Christian community should be like, reflecting the perfect embodiment of truth and love.

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The Lord Jesus Christ himself. And now we get to the main point of our text today.

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Look again at verse four. My wife showed me a post from a young man who's about 30 years old,

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I would say, or 29. And this young man was a child in our church.

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It was Johnny Bulkey. See, how old is he? Same as you? 29.

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And I saw the post and Johnny Bulkey is now married to a beautiful redhead.

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He followed my example. He's got a bunch of kids, got three or four kids following my example.

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And I'm jokingly taking credit for it. But he was spitting fire, as the kids say.

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Online about truth. And I don't know if you remember it. Some of that he heard here at this church.

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And I can't take credit for it. I'm not trying to take credit for it. But I can tell you what I felt in my heart was

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I was rejoicing that this young guy who was a kid in my church before he moved to Indiana was walking in righteousness, standing for the truth in the face of opposition.

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Not backing down. So I understand when this happens. Sometimes I get a glimmer of this in my own natural children.

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I see something in them or someone reports something to me about my own children. And so I understand what

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John is saying in verse four. Let's look at it again. It says, I rejoice greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth as we receive commandment from the

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Father. It should be noted. I don't think he's saying that only half of them are and aren't.

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He has been exposed to some portion of the children and he's seen them walking in truth.

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Now, parents, would there be any great stamp of approval on your life?

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They just say when your children are grown, that they're walking in righteousness, walking in the truth.

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This is what I'm living for. This is what I'm hoping for.

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This is why we have these children. This is why we believe in the covenant faithfulness. This is why we do all the crazy things we do, because we want covenant faithfulness.

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We want our children's children's children to be walking in the truth. Everything is built for that.

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So we have to ask the question, are you doing the things today that will make it possible for that to be said in the future?

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Rejoicing, when I think of it, I think sometimes in the outward expressions of joy.

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But I think real the deepest rejoicing is an inner joy and delight. I think grammatically it's supported by that language here.

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It's associated with celebrations and victories. Certainly, it's the joy that believers experience through their relationship with Christ and the hope of salvation.

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But I think it's also, I wonder, when my great -grandmother said when

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I was nine years old that you're going to be a minister one day, and I laughed, the most ridiculous thing,

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I wonder if that would be a source of her joy if she knew that that prayer was answered.

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Maybe in contradiction to my own desires. Do you really want to pour out your life?

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Do you want to make some real noise for the kingdom of God? You need to raise godly children.

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And to pair that with the corporate, we have to make disciples. Do you imagine a young man you disciple becomes a discipler of other men who disciple the value of that, the weightiness of that in the kingdom?

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John is not selfish. He loves to see the spiritual prosperity of others.

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I saw a funny quote, and I know this to be true. Men are so competitive.

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They want to always have a leg up on one another and to overachieve one another and do more than one.

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Have more money, more status, more power. Your father wants you to surpass him in every way.

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That's what your dad wants. Your spiritual father should want you to eclipse them in every sense.

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To stand on the shoulders, the foundation that has been laid. John says,

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I saw some of your kids walking around. I found them to be walking in the truth.

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That word walking means a continuous action.

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It was the way that they got everywhere. And you know from the

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Hebrew, and we talked about this recently in another context, it was their conduct, manner, and course of life.

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Their walking, their continuous action was in the truth.

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So it tells me today that we have kind of a singular duty as an application of this.

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We have to walk in the truth. So we have to search the scriptures and know what the truth is.

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It mostly gets us there in the revelation of Christ. But the outworking, the practical discharge of those duties, we have to labor to understand those.

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If you're not diligently seeking and studying the scriptures today, in the

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Sabbath afternoon, you better start. If you haven't been, wake up tomorrow morning and start.

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If you haven't been, if you've been neglecting this duty, you have to know what the truth is that you could walk in it.

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And second, it's good to start a new workout plan, a new eating plan, a business idea.

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It's far, it's a whole different other thing to see it through to completion. Apparently, this truth is conducive to longevity.

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The truth abides in us and will be with us forever. Verse two. So it seems that we need to be a source of rejoicing to our parents, our spiritual forefathers, to our fellow brothers and sisters, because we are walking in truth, walking in the revelation of Christ, walking in His ways, putting sin to death and loving righteousness.

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All this we have received as commandment from our

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Father. Well, Paul says, and I'm paraphrasing, we need to live in a manner worthy of our calling.

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We need to live as the forgiven in Christ, as the bride of Christ, as the people of God who live and die by the truth of Christ.

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We follow Christ's precept and example.

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John said, I rejoice greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth.

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May it be said of us and our children and our children's children after us that we be found walking in truth.

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Amen. A couple words of application and we'll close. We need to search and study the scriptures.

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I've already alluded to this. We need to participate fully in the life of the church. We need to seek many counselors.

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I'm thinking more of the dead ones, the doctors of the faith throughout church history.

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We need to be sharpened as iron sharpens iron with one another. Are you committed to the truth?

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Second, I don't think we have enough holy ambition.

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You have ambitions, but not enough holy ambition. Be nice if somebody would go to your gravestone and say that was a mighty woman of God, mighty man of God.

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That would be a good thing. I think you should live a life worthy of commendation.

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You should be like the elect lady, both individually, familially, and corporately.

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Wouldn't it be great if they said, oh man, that church in Longwood was so small. The pastor was weird.

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They changed the world. Wouldn't it be wonderful to say. Third, we need to pursue the full maturity and discipleship of our children, both natural and spiritual.

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You know, we often enjoy the cute little kid phase. We love those early stages.

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But what we're really after is maturity. God doesn't freeze children in toddlerhood.

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They grow up. And they mature. Maybe instead of us, that we are laboring and striving to inculcate this most holy faith into our children and teaching them at appropriate levels in time to take another step of maturity, to take on more

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Christian responsibility in their lives, not to cover them up their whole life and bubble wrap them, protect them from all harm, but to send them out into the world appropriately to advance the kingdom of our

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God. Isn't it true about our spiritual children? Don't we want to make every man complete in Christ?

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That's what Paul calls us to. That was Paul's mission. So I myself need to be laboring to be more sanctified.

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And I need to be inviting the church and her members and leadership to say, you know, grow me up in Christ that I might fulfill my calling.

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This is what people do who are hungry for the truth, the truth that is in them because of Christ.

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Let's pray together. Oh, Lord, we thank you for the second epistle of John.

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And we ask that we would be people who would lead commendable lives, not that we would get glory, but that your name would be honored.

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We know that there if there be any good thing in us, it's a work of your grace and in the power of your spirit.

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And so, oh, Lord, I pray that you would produce the fruits of the spirit in us. That the radiance of Christ's glory would shine on our faces like the sun does when it tans us and turns us a little red.

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Oh, Lord, let that be true of us. They could see the radiance of Christ's glory in us, the filling of the spirit that they could discern that these are the people of God.

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That we would be faithful to preach the gospel and to disciple them. Oh, Lord, do not let us neglect the duties of our discipleship at home.

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Help us to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and teaching them the truth and living and walking in it.

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Through precept and example, just like you have done for us, Lord Jesus. We pray for your blessing upon our study.