Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 12, 2017 | Route 66 - 2 John

Transcript

February 12, 2017 | Route 66 - 2 John · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: How you doing?
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to, oh my goodness.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: You guys over College Avenue building are just out of luck because we've got like three million teenagers sitting over here.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: You heard it, believe it.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Stage left.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Gonna be fun.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna take this is the last time I'm looking at them.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: It's over.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: So we're in a series, if you're just visiting today, it's called Route 66.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: We've been going through about a year and a half.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: We're taking a road trip through the Bible.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: We take one book each Sunday, and so as a result, it's pretty much of a wide-angle lens thing.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: If you go to a church where, you know, pastor preaches the Bible, you usually use a magnifying glass, get down real close, you look at five, ten, fifteen verses, you know, you look at them close, take a worm's eye view.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: When you're going through the Bible one book on a Sunday, like you take, uh, say, Gospel of Matthew, 28 chapters, over a thousand verses, you know, you gotta do the wide angle lens thing, right?
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Except that we've come to the last four books of the New Testament, and this week and next week, the two shortest books of the New Testament, books of 2 John and 3 John, and so the wide angle lens thing and the magnifying lens thing, they're the same.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get to read all 13 verses of this book, about 300 words, and we're gonna talk about it.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: Now, 2 John is one of those books that's overlooked, considered insignificant, nobody really cares about it, preaches about it.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna suggest to you that it's super, super important.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: I've decided to entitle it Lion and Dove.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: And when I do that, I'm thinking of lion in the way that down through history, the lion has sort of stood for the truth.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: St.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Augustine, back in about 400 AD, said the truth is like a lion.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to defend it, let it loose, it will defend itself.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking of a dove in the way that the bird has been considered for 2,000 years as sort of a picture of love, right?
2:05
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking here about truth and love.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: And I want to suggest to you that this short little book addresses a modern issue which you faced, and if you've not faced it recently, you're gonna face it really soon.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: What I mean by this is that someone will come to you with a question about someone that, let's say, they love or have a close relationship with who's approached them about something that sort of they're afraid is not close to the truth.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: This book, in other words, addresses that question you sometimes ask what do I do when someone I love has drifted away from the truth, either in what they believe or how they live, and has asked me to give them a thumbs up or join them.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing someone has approached you at some time, perhaps, and she said to you, You're my best friend.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: I've decided, I need to let you know, I've decided to go live with my boyfriend.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And I know you're a Christian, and so you tend to be a little judgmental, but I really need you to support me in this.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: What do you say?
3:23
SPEAKER_00: What do you say?
3:25
SPEAKER_00: You have gotten stuck right at the intersection of truth and love.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you've had someone come to you that asks for advice like this.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: He said, or she said, he said, my sister's a lesbian.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, this is R-rated this morning.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: My sister's a lesbian, and she's decided to marry her partner.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna get married, and they have asked me to stand up in their wedding.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: What do I do?
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe a guy's come to you as he's come to me and said, you know, my father and I have always been really close, and you know, I'm out outside of the home now, guy in his 20s, and and but my father's told me he's decided to leave mom and he's gonna marry this younger woman that he's been having an affair with.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: My dad and I have always been super close, and my dad has basically told me that our friendship is off unless uh unless I uh approve, unless I support him in this.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have had someone come to you and ask you in this the last story, just ask your advice in their church.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: They say, you know, I'm struggling with my church.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't really want to leave it because my friends are there, my family's gone there.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: I've been going there for like decades, I mean, the longest time, but the church has changed over the years.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Now it seems like all that they talk about is environment and immigration and AIDS and racial issues and so forth.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: And and last Sunday the pastor even said from the pulpit that if you opposed gay marriage, you were unchristian.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: But I hate to leave here.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I talk about some of us have talked about leaving, but everybody says, no, you're too important, you've got to stay.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: What do I do?
5:11
SPEAKER_00: All four of those illustrations that I gave you are illustrations that I've faced in the last year or so, and so I mention those because those will happen to you.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Stuff like this happens to me all the time, and that's what I believe 2 John addresses.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Though it's a tremendously simple book, 2 John and 3 John, the easiest books to read in Greek in the New Testament, and they're supposed to be read actually before 1 John and John because they're so simple, they're sort of a stair step.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: They just deal with basic Christianity, they deal with two words, truth and love, and I believe they address these very modern, very sticky questions.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: So let's walk through this book and let's see what they say.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: The book actually starts like this: the elder to the elect lady and her children.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: What in the world is that about?
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, the elder isn't all that hard.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: If on the front of your bulletin day I had signed not Jim Congd, you know, I write a note to the church every Sunday about the sermon to sort of whet your appetite, and I usually sign it with my name.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: If I'd signed it the pastor, you'd have known who that was.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: And people call John, he's an old man by now, and so he's an elder in a couple of ways.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: John doesn't get out from his home much.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: This is late in his life.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Most of the other apostles and their sidekicks, like Paul, Timothy, Titus, they've all died by now, Peter.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: John's still living, but he's not traveling around anymore.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And what has happened is that he wants to write a letter.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: It's exactly the same length as most first century letters, fills one page of papyrus, 13 verses here, and he wants to write a letter to a church that years ago he helped found, and he's sort of overseen.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: But what's happened is some people from that church have apparently visited him and told him what things are happening at the church, and he's kind of bugged by it.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: He's bothered by it, and so he's writing a letter, and so he just uses his title, The Elder.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: They have elders at their church, of course, but he's older and he's sort of, this is sort of an honorific title.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they call him the old man, because that's also what this means.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: And so then he writes to the elect lady and her children, which sound like he's writing to a family, to a woman without a husband with children.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: But the if you read carefully in this and the next epistle, it's to a church.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: He's really saying to the church and her members.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: And you have to realize that throughout the years, churches and organizations and countries have oftentimes been, you know, considered women.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem's called a virgin, she's called a princess in the Old Testament, she's called a widow.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: In fact, though in America we think of ourselves as Uncle Sam, which is masculine, Great Britain has always called herself Britannia.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: So she's like a woman.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: So when when John writes this church, he calls her a lady to the chosen lady and to her children.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, I love all of you in the truth.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: So already you have his two key words in that first line.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think he just means I love you truly, I truly do.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: I think he means I love you in Christ or I love you in the truth we both believe.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: And not only I, not only do I love you in the truth, but everyone who's come to know the truth loves you that way because of the truth that remains in us and will be with us together forever.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: So here you have the two key words of the book.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: He introduces them right away, and he even throws them into the salutation in verse 3.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: So the way they began letters in those days is the way Paul began letters, grace and peace.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: John adds the word mercy, grace, mercy, and peace.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: Will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: And then he continues, in truth and love, lion and dove.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: And now he gets into the real issue.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: He says, I was very glad to find some of your children walking in the truth.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: He means the visitors from that church.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't mean that he visited the church and pews 3, 5, and 7 were walking in the truth, and everybody else was trashed.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: No, I just met some of your children.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: It was really cool that when they came, I found that they cared about truth and they were walking in the truth.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: And then he moves into, in keeping with a command we received from the Father.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: So now I urge you, church, dear lady, not as if I were writing you a new command, but one we've had from the beginning, from the upper room, Jesus gave this command in John 13 that we love one another.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: And this is love, that we walk according to his commands.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: This is the command, as you've heard it from the beginning, walk in love.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: And so we really have an emphasis on being loving, and he needs to set that as a stage because now he gets to the real point.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: They don't confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: This is the deceiver and the Antichrist.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, stop for a minute.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: What you need to understand is there were no motel sixes in that day.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: There were no hotels, and so what happened is that uh when you traveled around from town to town, you had to stay with somebody.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Paul always stayed with somebody.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Once in a while you'd find an inn, like the inn at Bethlehem, remembering Joseph and Mary couldn't sleep there.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: But inns were famous.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: They wrote about them in Roman days as being, you know, places where there was thievery, you'd get robbed, there was prostitution, and there was filth everywhere.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: And so nobody stayed at inns in those days.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have motels, so you stayed with people.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: And of course, what happened is if you like to travel, then you might take advantage of that.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Might knock on somebody's door and ask for a place to stay.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: And in those days, it's like, for instance, if you go to an Arab country today, they're so hospitable.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: You walk into a place town in Morocco, for example, you knock on the door, they'll go, please eat supper with us, please stay overnight with us.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: And in those days, some people would take advantage of it, and if they also wanted some money, they might say, Why don't I teach in your weekly fellowship?
11:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty good at that stuff.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: And so they would let them teach, and they'd pass an offering plate, and they'd get an offering.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: And what had happened is that as itinerant preachers and teachers and evangelists went through this one town, for example, they were starting to teach things that this that seemed strange, very different from what John had taught.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: And John's sitting there, this old man, this great old guy, and they're saying, now, you know what they're teaching?
11:48
SPEAKER_00: They're teaching that Jesus Christ probably really wasn't the Son of God, probably really wasn't the Messiah, not even sure, you know, he was fully divine, fully human, and maybe he did die, but he sure didn't rise from the dead or whatever.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And John's going, whoa, whoa, whoa.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: These people are deceivers.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: They're pretending to be sheep, but they're actually wolves.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: Because they don't confess that Jesus Christ came as the Son of God in the flesh.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: And after his resurrection, he rose in the flesh.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: And he says, This is the deceiver, because they're they're faking you out.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, they're the Antichrist.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: And you go, what do you mean, the Antichrist?
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll show you in a minute what he means is they're like the future great Antichrist in that they define, they they they disagree, they they they they they argue against the major issues about Jesus Christ, which are at the heart of our faith.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you a question.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Has it ever occurred to you that Christianity stands or falls with the person of Jesus Christ?
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Judaism, friends, could survive without Moses, Buddhism without Buddha.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Islam could survive fine without Muhammad, but Christianity would not survive without Jesus, fully divine, fully human.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: God's son come in the flesh, who lived a perfect life, died for our sins, then rose again in the flesh.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Which is why John talks about this so often.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in his last letter, 1 John, he says in chapter 2, 18, as you've heard, Antichrist is coming one day.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Hey, even now many antichrists, small A, have come.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: We know from this that it's the last hour.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: There are deceivers in the world.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: There are people who pretend to be one thing, but they teach air, and you and I need to watch out for them.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul was even stronger about it.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: He wrote in Acts 20, he said to the elders at Ephesus, after my going away, oppressive wolves will enter in among you and won't treat the flock with tenderness.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Even from among you yourselves, men will rise and speak twisted things to draw away the disciples.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: So here in 2 John, John's bothered by the fact that these itinerant people who are traveling around are coming in and they're getting the pulpit in order to make money and get free room and free board.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're standing up and they're spouting stuff, they're calling themselves progressive and advanced Christians and they're teaching falsehood.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, many of them have gone out in the world, but here's how you identify them.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Listen, church, you need to watch yourselves.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Watch yourselves so you don't get succored, so you don't lose what we worked for, so that you can receive a full reward.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: Listen, anybody who doesn't remain in Christ's teaching and the stuff I've told you about about Jesus, but goes beyond it, you know, because they're progressive, because they're advanced, doesn't even have God.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: They've lost connection with the God who saved them.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: They've drifted away.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: And the one who remains in that teaching has both the Father and the Son.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Don't tell me you're close to God.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: If you've succored and started believing what these false teachers are teaching, stay in the word, stay true.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: And then he comes to the most controversial statement in the whole book.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: This is one I get asked about regularly.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: If anyone comes to you and doesn't bring this teaching, do not receive him into your home.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: And don't say welcome to him, for the one who says, welcome to him shares in his evil works.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: It's about when I get phone calls saying, just had Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door, other cultists come to the door, and I didn't know what to do, I didn't want to be mean, didn't know whether to invite him in, or I invited him in, and gave him stuff, and then I couldn't get him out, and you know, whatever else.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: And so the question comes to me: should I slam the door on him?
15:46
SPEAKER_00: What should I do to these people?
15:49
SPEAKER_00: After all, doesn't the Bible say don't welcome them, don't receive them into your home?
15:56
SPEAKER_00: And the right answer to that is to, well, first realize the difference between what he's talking about here and what we're talking about.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: He was talking about don't give them room and board, don't welcome them in, feed them, keep them overnight.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they stayed for weeks and so forth.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about people who come to the door who want to convert you to their religion in 15 to 30 minutes, give you literature or whatever.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
16:21
SPEAKER_00: So it's a slightly different thing, but he does say, don't even say welcome to him, for the one who says welcome shares in his evil work.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: So the bottom line here, I tell people, is that you mustn't encourage people who are trying to proselytize you or teach you falsehood or convert you.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Don't encourage them in what they're doing.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Don't side with them.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, that can mean a number of things, but one thing for sure it means is don't, I mean, after you turn them away, don't go, hey, good luck today.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Hope you convert some people.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Or, hey, hope you go next door.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: You need to get them in one of your Bible studies.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: That's tempting with some of your next door neighbors, you know.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: But but you know, that's you don't want to encourage.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, I tend to generally go out on the porch if I want to talk to them, you know, not invite them in.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Partly that's because it's really hard to get them out sometimes if you've invited them in.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I'll say, no, I don't want your literature because after all, JWs especially are taught not to take anything that you would give them.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: So why should you feel like you have to take their literature just to make them feel good?
17:28
SPEAKER_00: So uh the real issue here is in being nice to anyone who knocks on your door and being a good Christian, you need to realize that you mustn't encourage people who are going around teaching false doctrine.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: If you just find one of them, by the way, if you're sitting beside one of the airplane or whatever, by all means, please talk to them because they're just like you.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: They got money problems, they got family problems, they don't, but I was a salesman door to door.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm you're not gonna you're not gonna tell me anything at the door that's gonna convince me to change what I'm doing because I'm selling you.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: All right?
18:06
SPEAKER_00: So that's the point here.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: And then he concludes the book by saying, though I have many things to write to you, I don't want to do so with paper and ink.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I want to come see you face to face.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Our joy will be better that way.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And your sister church, the children of your elect sister, sends you greetings.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: So now what do we draw from this that's really practical, that'll help us?
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, number one, number one in the in the first paragraph, you need to own who you are, Christian.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: You are both lion and dove, truth and love.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Don't give me this uh, you know, I'm a dove.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm just nice, and so I'm gonna let my my spouse or my friend, I'll let the other people be mean.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna love everybody.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: No, no, his point is no.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: No, what?
18:51
SPEAKER_00: The truth, verse two, the truth now is in you.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ is in you.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: He is both lion and dove.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, don't try to give God your personality profile when he tells you that your spiritual profile is that you have Christ in you who's both truth and love.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And if you tend to be a truth lion, don't say, well, I'm just gonna blast people out of the water, and I'll let other people be nice to them.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't work either.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: So you need to own who you are.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: X-ray shows that you are both lion and dove.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: You didn't know you had those things inside, but but you have those things inside you because Yeshua, that is Jesus Christ, is inside you.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: He is both lion and dove.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Own it.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: That's who you are.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Second, live the truth, meaning love one another.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Let your truth issue in love.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: I urge you, he says, love one another, walk in love.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Now, the important thing here is to realize as we approach Tuesday and Valentine's Day with those little hearts and the red stuff and all of the mush and the romance and so forth, that love in the Bible is an action word.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: It's not a noun that just sits there.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: It's not gooey, you know, like dear, like Abby said when the woman, young woman wrote her and said, I have fallen in love with this married man who has three children.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: What do I do?
20:17
SPEAKER_00: And in her response to her credit, Abby said this line.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: She says, You don't fall in love, you dig your way into it.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And that's what true love is.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Love is an action word, it is a verb, not a noun, Agape is in the New Testament, and therefore you walk in love by looking out for other people's best good.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: So, my question to you this morning is does my truth, ask yourself, flow out into love?
20:49
SPEAKER_00: When I'm sure that I know the truth, do I express that in love?
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Does it flow out in love?
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Am I like Jesus Christ, truth of very truth, righteousness incarnate, never did anything wrong, lived in a world that was filthy, where everybody did stuff wrong, and yet somehow the whole world saw him and came to him as this loving, loving person.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Because listen, truth without love is brutality.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Some of you sadly know that from your father.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: You've realized that what he said to you was true, or you learned about it, you know this from your coach.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: You know he was right now that you've gotten a little older, you know that what he told you is true.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe a school teacher, right?
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Or a Sunday school teacher, or a pastor, and you now realize you know they told you the truth, but they did it in such a harsh and loveless way that it felt brutal.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the middle section of this uh of 2 John says.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: There's got to be love, as C.S.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Lewis put it.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: Love is not an affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: As it can be obtained.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Or, in my words, love is sincerely wishing the other person their very best, God's very best, in taking whatever action is necessary to bring that apart, to bring that about.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: This is love.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: This is the love focus in this little book.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Because Francis Schaeffer was right when he said biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have faced that.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have come from churches that felt that way.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: But then he concludes: protect the truth from love.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Say that with me.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: Love.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: You didn't do well enough.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Do it again.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: Love.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Because this is a sort of an idea about love that is sort of like a goosebumps.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: It's all romance.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: It's not real love.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's the love is that kind of thing that makes you say, you know, come see, come sah, whatever floats your boat is just fine with me.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're okay, I'm okay.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: And he says, no, no, no, no.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not what I'm talking about.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: That's the deception.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: That's people who come to you and expect you to just open up your house, home, heart, and mind and believe whatever they say.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Peter Craft, he's probably the C.S.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: Lewis of America philosophy teacher at Boston College, puts it this way.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: He says, God is love, but love is not love.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Love is not nice.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: Love is a fire, storm, earthquake, volcano, lightning, and hurricane.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Love banged out the Big Bang and endured the hell of the cross.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Next time you hear all you need is love.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Try to imagine the captain of the Titanic singing that to his passengers.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: As for me, I'd rather have a lifeboat.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: So what we have here is the question: does my love flow out of truth?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Does my love flow out of truth?
24:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's important because love without truth is sentimentality.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: That's all it is.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: It's the same as Neville Chamberlain in 1939, the British prime minister going and uh, you know, going to Hitler and then announcing to Europe, Hitler's such a nice guy, I'm sure he won't do anything mean.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: That's sentimentality.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And that's what love is when it's divorced from the truth.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: No less than Maya Angelou, the famous poet, put agrees with this.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: She says love liberates love, not sentimentality, not mush, but true love gives you enough courage that you can say to somebody, don't do that, baby.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And the person will know you're not preaching, but teaching.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: So let me return to the stories, the illustrations I gave you at the beginning.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: You have a friend, maybe your best friend.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: She says she's gonna go live with her boyfriend.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: And what do you think?
25:16
SPEAKER_00: She knows you're a Christian, and so she's scared of what you'll say.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: What do you do when uh when it's your sister who tells you she wants you to stand up in her lesbian wedding?
25:28
SPEAKER_00: What do you do when your father says he needs, he demands your approval for leaving your mother and marrying someone else?
25:36
SPEAKER_00: What do you do when someone comes to you and says, we don't want to leave our church, but we want to leave our church because they seem to have drifted from what they used to believe?
25:47
SPEAKER_00: What do you do there?
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, frankly, I do not give a one-size-fits-all answer when those people came to me and when others come to me.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Because every situation is slightly different.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And so what I always end up asking the people are the questions of 2 John.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Where in your response, the responses that you've listed, I've had you list here, the types, the different things you can do, where in your response does that reflect truth?
26:18
SPEAKER_00: And where in your response are you showing love?
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Where are you showing truth and where are you showing love?
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Because this book says you need to live in that delicate balance where the circles of love and the circle of truth intersect, realizing at all times that love without truth is mere sentimentality.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: But truth without love is brutality.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, as we come to the Lord's table, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ, who is the great lion and at the same time the dove of love.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: And we thank you for him and ask that we would see him in a new way this morning, and then go out into the world and live each day this week, each hour, combining these two great principles, these two divine rules of truth and love in Jesus' name.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: So uh guys will be coming forward and uh they'll be serving you bread, you know, crackers, unleavened bread like Jesus and uh and the cup, and you just take, break off a piece of cracker, drink the cup whenever you're prepared.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: But here's here's the deal.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: When you take the Lord's table, who is it you're thinking of?
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Right, it is the Lord.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think of the Lord this morning.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
27:48
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is both lion and dove.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: The embodiment of truth, the embodiment of love.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: And what happened is this because of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, because of the revolt and the rebellion in your heart, truth demanded death.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: Truth demanded your death, truth demanded the death of mankind.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ came to earth as the lion, but also the dove.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And he said, put me as the lion on Aslan's stone table.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Cut me apart as the dove, as the lamb.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: I'll give my life in their place.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: And then the last night before that happened, he said, I think this is so important.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: You ought to remember it forever.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: So just break the bread, my body, drink the cup, my blood, and remember that, what I did for you.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: So see Jesus this morning.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: Will you?
28:40
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us to see Jesus this morning as we take the bread and drink the cup, to look at no one else other than Jesus, and to see him, our Savior, truth and love incarnate in Jesus' name.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Amen.