2 John: Truth Matters - 27: The Letters That Define Us, Message 20

are you ready for another great week at north coast church larry osborne's got a great message on second john as we're continuing through our 27 series but we have something important for you check this [Applause] this is out forever dude where's val we're supposed to start any minute hey um who are you hey you can't go on without a lead because we have no choice kind of thing [Music] [Music] hey looks like he's done this before no but i went to livescript last week okay that's ridiculous but life groups are not they are an essential element for us at north coast church we care deeply about your spiritual growth more than clicking on this video or attending or giving we want to make sure that you're growing it's why we provide consistent messages uh for your discipleship and we think being a life group is a key part of that discipleship journey so we want to encourage you go to our website click on the life groups banner and find a group that might be right for you whether you want to find a group that's uh in person we have those options or maybe you're meeting someplace around the country or you are looking for just an online group i think we might have a spot just for you and if you can't find it we encourage you click on one of those banners make a meeting with one of our pastors or send a message to our help desk we want to make sure that we're finding the right group for you well we want to make sure that you're prepared for today's message as well by downloading the notes you can do that on our website or by going to our north coast app there you'll also find an option to be able to give it's a way to be able to support the ministries of north coast church but honestly it's a spiritual act of worship just like how we live our lives or how we sing during this period of time the worship team leads us it's an element for us to be able to submit towards god and make sure that we're recognizing that he ultimately is our provider so we want to encourage you to do that today as well well let's go ahead and go to worship and hear an amazing message from larry osborne [Music] um [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] like a river in the deserts [Music] [Music] there is no one like [Music] there is no [Music] no [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] now [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] call me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] every day [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] like [Applause] [Music] no [Music] [Applause] no [Music] [Applause] [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] every day [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh god there is no one like you no one more worthy of worship than you god [Music] our hearts exist lord for the very purpose of giving you worship lord to be known by you and to know you or we give you praise if the stars were made to worship so we're live if the mountains [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] still fall shy [Music] 100 million times [Music] [Music] he was one of the 12 apostles but a rather hot-headed one so much so that jesus gave him and his brother james the nickname sons of thunder in fact one time when jesus was heading to jerusalem and the apostles were with him as they came to a area called samaria they were taking a shortcut through there they found that people suddenly put no room in the end no vacancy signs up everywhere because the samaritans and the jews hated each other and they had discovered that jesus was going to jerusalem well john was so ticked off he went and asked jesus hey you want us to call down fire from heaven remember he'd seen all those amazing miracles jesus had already done and jesus had to pull him aside and and rebuke him it's like no i have not come to call down fire from heaven to bring judgment i've come to bring salvation from judgment so it's ironic that as time would go on and he would mature in the lord that eventually he would be known as the apostle of love he's actually the writer of five books uh in our new testament the book of revelation which is a promise that in the end we win and some signs for those who are alive at that point that we're going to cover as our final book in this 27 series he also is the author of first john that chris walked us through last weekend the telltale marks of genuine christians the fact that we walk in love and we walk in obedience and then he wrote two of the five postcards little one chapter books that are found in our bible uh philemon first john ii john jude and in the old testament obadiah he wrote second john that we're looking at today and we're going to see it's about com combating the rise of uh counterfeit christianity third john that we're going to look at next weekend that talks about confronting a domineering and egotistical leader and how spiritual leadership is supposed to really be and he wrote what we call the gospel of john matthew mark luke and john the four jesus stories in our bible and john's gospel is kind of the one that fills in the blank it's very different than the others now i want to just quickly put up on the screen something that i've shown you in the past and that is the the purpose and audience for each of the four gospels matthew mark luke and john and that will help us see where john's kind of focus is and help us better understand the book that we're going to look at today called second john so it kind of goes like this you've got matthew and and matthew was a jew a former a jewish tax collector who collected taxes from his fellow jews to give to the oppressive roman government what a strange thing and the lord calls him not only to salvation but puts him on the inner circle as an apostle and matthew wrote his book to the jews and he's saying throughout that book jesus is the promised messiah so over and over he references the old testament to show how jesus fulfilled prophecies and then you have mark and mark was written to romans and he's trying to show them that jesus is indeed the son of god it's the shortest pithiest most straight added gospel of all four of them a little bit of see jesus see jesus run and its main idea is no this is the son of god then you have a matthew mark and luke and luke was written to gentiles luke was a gentile who became a jesus follower and also a medical doctor and a historian and he researched whereas matthew and mark were with jesus and he's trying to help the gentiles understand that jesus was a man not a myth a real person that actually lived flesh and blood and then you have john's gospel and it was written to both jews and gentiles after the first three were written that are so similar they're even called synoptic gospels because besides the eyewitness accounts that they use there's some points where it's pretty obviously they're they're using their colic cue sometimes in academia they're using a source that they all three quote along with again uh for matthew and mark their eyewitness accounts and and john has written to jews and gentiles and his major point is this jesus is god god in the flesh jesus is god it starts out in his gospel with that and it ends in his gospel with that and that's going to help us understand a little bit better this book called second john as we look at the who the what and now let me explain the why because he's writing it to address the rapid rise of counterfeit christianity just like today there were always people who figured out they know a little bit more than god and they they take what god has given us in scripture today and add to it well they took what the apostles were teaching not in scripture it hadn't been written yet but in their teaching as they planted the churches they go well that's a good start but you need to understand a little more and there was this rapid rise in counterfeit christianity now as we read it we're also going to see there's two key words and i want to talk a little about them before we actually read the passage two key words that when he spoke of them were obvious to his uh readers but not so obvious to us today because over time the use of words and languages change wonder brill a prosciutt if i say that you look at me like is he praying in a tongue a prayer language well like what's up with that it just simply means when the april showers come but that's how it was written and spoken back when the canterbury tales were first put together now today we see the same thing we see it in the lifetime of folks folks uh my say my folks age there was a period of time where when you said something was stupid you meant it wasn't very good now you go oh man what a stupid move that uh was and what you mean is it was incredibly great just awesome and we've got the same thing say say the word bad where in some context now it means man that was one bad move that means it was a great move you see so you always got to ask about a word well what does it mean in its context and so the word love is one of the key words in this passage and the word truth is another one we're going to see in a moment but let's talk about love when john uses the word love which like truth he's going to use five times in the first six verses he's not talking about love as we use it today when we talk about loving people today we think more of a feeling that we might have but love biblically is not a feeling that we have it's a commitment that we make we choose to love someone now that might be a result of a feeling that we have at one point but biblical love goes far beyond beyond how you make me feel to what i'm committed to do for you and for john and his readers love was the kind of love that jesus showed us and he commanded us to show others first john chapter 4 verses 10 to 11 the book we looked at last weekend this is love this is what i mean well not that we love god but that he loved us and sent his son as a tony sacrifice for our sins in other words the love he's talking about is a love that is sacrificial a love that takes a first step and notice this not that we love god but he loved us and sinned his son as an atony sacrifice we were enemies of god and he came to us to pay the price for our sin that's the love that jesus had for us that's the kind of love that jesus calls us to have for others and what john has in mind not just helping your neighbor catch this this is so important new testament love not just helping your neighbor you know that was in the old testament love the lord your god with all your heart mind soul and strength we were told uh and then in leviticus told to love your neighbor jesus was asked what's the greatest commandment he put those two together and he said man that fulfills everything then they said well who's my neighbor and he said no that's actually loving your enemies so that's that's the love of scripture but before jesus went to the cross as he gathered his apostles together for the last supper and his his last time of prayer with them and teaching with them he said this a new command i give you that you love one another well what's new about that that was in the old testament even loving your neighbor that was during part of his teaching but then he said this that you love one another as i have loved you not just helping out but laying down your rights your privileges meeting the needs of others even those who do not want anything to do with us because remember judas was in the room when he taught and he said that so that's love when we read it sacrificial love that puts the needs and interests of others absolutely first now the second key word is truth and once again john's use of the word truth we're going to see in this book is very different than how we use it today in a generic sense he's talking about spiritual truth now the weird thing today is that when you and i talk about spiritual truth we're living in a world where most people think that there is something that's true and false but when it comes to the spiritual realm it's really very subjective your truth is your truth my truth is my truth and who can question anybody on that uh and it's kind of like i said it's goofy it's totally bizarre because in no other realm of life do we think that truth is whatever you sincerely believe if i sincerely believe that this medicine will help me and by mistake i take the wrong medicine it could kill me it doesn't matter how sincerely i believe something it matters whether something's true or not but in a weirdest way we've come to believe that in the spiritual room that realm that's not how it is it's just if you're sincere it all works out but i want you to know what jesus said in terms of himself being the truth john 14 6. now remember this is why i'm saying john has his definition in his gospel this is what he says of jesus jesus quotes is quoted as saying i am the way not a way i am the truth not a truth and i am the life no one comes to the father except through me so when he speaks of the truth when we read it just a moment he's talking about jesus and following jesus and letting him be the one that pays for our sins and the one that we trust in for our eternity so with that said pretty long intro but i think it will help us now read these 13 verses and understand them better go ahead and find first john way in the back excuse me ii john way in the back of your bible and use that table of contents if you don't know where that is and find uh second john and we're going to start by reading these verses let's see what it says about truth and love to the elder from the elder rather to the lady chosen by god and to her children it's a house church he's speaking of whom i love not just i feel warm for towards but i am deeply committed to your good whatever it takes whom i love in the truth in jesus and not only i but also all who love the truth love jesus and because of the truth jesus and his his holy spirit which lives in us and will be with us forever here's what i hope for you he says in verse 3 grace mercy and peace from god the father and from jesus christ the father son now catch this will be with us in truth and love look at your text there grace mercy and peace we all want those he says they will be with us in truth and love in other words if we don't have truth and we don't have love we don't have both of them we will never be able to experience all of god's grace all of god's mercy and god's peace in our life both are incredibly important they are found and will be with us what in truth in following jesus in love in responding to others as jesus has called us to do and if either one is missing grace mercy and peace won't be there you know every now and then i'll come uh come across some people go well i'm not as loving as i should be but at least i'm right i remember one radio preacher hearing him say well i'm not very loving at times i realize that but man i am right with scripture as that's it's like amazing to me are you are you kidding me because scripture says that if i've got truth without love jesus is going to walk away from me we'll see that in the book of revelation when we come to that in one of his letters to a church called ephesus where they have all kinds of passion all kinds of great doctrine and teaching and and works and their the determination they don't give up when everybody else gives up but lord says this i have against you you've lost your first agape your first love you're not loving one another and if you don't repent get back and restore to what you were and do what you did i'm not showing up anymore you see i can't just have right beliefs if i don't have right relationships but it's also important in a day and age where sometimes we think you can believe whatever it is you want as long as you've got right relationships but if i've got right relationships but i don't have truth all i've got is sentimentality oh i've got warm feelings but i'm heading down a path that will not take me where i sincerely hope and believe it is not only the path of truth will take me there now we pick it up in verse 4 where he says it has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth that that that they are walking with jesus just as the father commanded us and now dear lady i am not writing you a new command but one you have had from the beginning and i ask that we love remember this sacrificial love one another and this is love what's love look like that we walk in obedience to his commands that we love not with our definitions of love but with jesus definitions of love what it looks like and how it responds as we have heard from the beginning his command is that you walk in love so now let's move on to verses 7 to 13 because he's setting the stage in these first six verses with some praise about the good they're doing and some reminders they need to keep walking in this truth and in this love and now he moves to his concern what prompted him to write the letter his concern about counterfeit christianity and how to recognize it verse 7 i say this because why am i talking to you about the importance of truth the importance of walking in love i say this because many deceivers who won do not acknowledge jesus christ as coming in the flesh have gone out into the world now any such person is a deceiver in the antichrist so you watch out do not lose what you've worked for but that you may be rewarded fully don't buy this lie and we'll come back and look at it in just a moment verse nine the second thing these deceivers do anyone who runs ahead they run ahead of scripture they add to it as we will see and three does not continue in the teaching of christ they change the message to their own liking their own comfort he says anyone who does these things does not have god and whoever continues in his teaching has both the father and the son so he gives them another warning in verse 10. if anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching the teaching we've brought of truth and love but they're bringing their own version of who jesus is and what he wants and how we're to live do not take them into your house by that he means their house church don't give them a platform or welcome them because anyone who welcomes their shares in their wicked work you're helping them out as they bring falsehood i have much more to write you but i don't want to use paper and ink instead i hope to visit you and talk with you face to face so that your joy may be complete the children of your sister the sister church who was chosen by god send their greetings so now we've been showing you how to mark up your bible and so i i kind of at the beginning of a chapter uh yeah so i want to put it up here how to mark up your bible when it comes to second john and we've seen these two things the first word is right uh thing to do is write this there are two key words love and truth two key words in this book love and truth they are the vital things and write down this its purpose its purpose is confronting the rise of counterfeit christianity which we will do if we stay in love and truth and if we don't give a platform to those who come with a different message so that's second john the background on the guy who wrote it how it fits together with his other books first john ii john third john the gospel of john the book of revelation and what his warning is all about so we've read them and seen them but how does that really apply to us today like what are we supposed to do with this why did god say print it and put this one in the bible when it was a a little letter to one church well because the problems they were facing are the same kind of problems we continue to face today and have for 2 000 years and so in the rest of our time the balance of our time what i want to do is i i want to talk to you about three lives that you want to run from and they spring out of this short book whenever you see them in the spiritual realm whenever you see them in a book you read a podcast you listen to a blog you read a pastor you hear a bible study leader there are three special lies you want to run from and i want to remind you that satan is a father of lies it's his native tongue according to jesus and he's a great liar you know his lies are not obvious and in some corinthians it even says his messengers come as a messenger of light you know they they don't come saying hey here's a message that'll destroy your life here's here's a message that will cause you to lose everything you've got no they come and they say man this is a message of truth this is a message of life this is a message of freedom that's what they've always done and that's why john has to warn them and that's why they were so prone to fall into it then and we're prone to fall into it today so here are the three kind of lies that were messing up that church then can mess us up today and you want to watch for you want to run from the moment you see them and the first one is this when someone comes bringing a different jesus they bring a different jesus you see in in the passage we just read he put it this way i say to you many deceivers have come who do not acknowledge jesus christ as coming in the flesh and they've gone into the world what does he mean they they were saying that the jesus of the bible the jesus that we've told you about is is kind of a myth not the real deal and it's it's kind of a mash up of of of teachings and and insights and and they come up with a a different jesus we run into that today uh people will say well he's a really good teacher or there's some really great insights or he's one of the spiritually connected people throughout history but the problem is jesus doesn't give us that option remember we put it up on the screen a little bit ago and it's it's on your note sheet under this passage first john 14 6. jesus said i am the way not anyway i am the truth not a truth i am the life not a life and no one no one can come to the father except through me you see the bible makes it incredibly clear and john did in all of his writings and jesus did in his teaching that jesus is god in the flesh he's not our consultant where we pick and choose what we're going to do and what we're going to listen to he's not one option he is god and when he says jump we have only one response how high on the way up you realize why he was killed jesus was killed for one reason and one reason only you do not kill mr rogers he was not killed because he said all these things about loving your enemies and this nice stuff he was killed because he claimed to be god that's what the religious leaders of that day understood you might circle on your note sheet and i'll put it up here on the screen john chapter 5 verse 18 where the the religious leaders of that day yeah they were very upset about the way he didn't keep the sabbath and how he hung around with people that they didn't think were spiritually qualified all kinds of reasons but they didn't have a history of killing people for that they had a history of cancer culturing them ostracizing them but when it came to jesus it says this for this reason they tried all the more to kill him not only was he breaking the sabbath which upset them but he was even calling god his own father domestic making himself equal with god long ago a brilliant apologist named c.s lewis wrote of the fact that when it comes to jesus we've only got three three ways we can respond he's either a liar a lunatic or the lord that he claimed to be this idea that well well jesus you know he was a really great teacher i want to pick and choose some of his stuff you know i i i am a jesus follower i just don't kind of do what he said well excuse me he is a liar why in the world would he call him a good man or do anything that he says he's a liar if he wasn't gone he ran around saying i am god the father and i are one you've seen me you've seen him that's a liar or if he didn't know better and he wasn't god he's a crazy man he's an absolute lunatic or maybe just maybe he's lord exactly who he said he was god in the flesh living as a man therefore able to pay for our sins because he was sinless the way the truth and the life and i just want to make crystal clear because we live in this day again back what i said about uh truth earlier that if you sincerely believe we think all roads lead to the same pla place jesus doesn't give us that option if you want to say you don't believe he's a messiah you don't believe he's god you don't want anything to do with them well i'll go okay you're making the wrong choice but you're at least intellectually honest but if you want to honor him in any way short of being lord there's no intellectual honesty in that because he doesn't give us that choice and neither does the bible acts 4 12 salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved the book of galatians we saw chapter 1 verses 6 and 9 paul says even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel a way a good news a way to come to god other than the one that was preached to you a different jesus let them be under god's curse literally in the greek let them be damned verse 9 as we have already said just in case you miss it so i say it again if anyone is preaching to you a gospel a path to god a so-called good news other than what you accepted let them be under god's curse a different jesus is not just a small little mistake the core of what jesus did the core of salvation the core behind his teachings especially all those that are so counterintuitive like love my enemies do what with my money all of those things they make no sense if you've got a different jesus than the jesus of scripture that's why john warns them watch out don't give them a platform have nothing to do with them now there's a second lie we have to watch out for that was common then and today and i'm calling that a different dictionary and what do i mean by a different dictionary i mean we come along and we twist the clear meaning of jesus words the clear meaning of scripture into whatever it is we want it to mean let me give you an example uh in the old testament one of the uh 10 commandments 10 of the 603 that are found in the old testament you have a command thou shall not murder the hebrew concept is murder there the translation of the old king james was thou shall not kill and next thing we know people are doing all kinds of things with that and it's like well no it doesn't say anything about a military situation it doesn't say anything about capital punishment it doesn't say anything about what you eat or animals or whatever it says thou shall not murder and people come along and in sixth uh uh well 1611 when the king james was written kill was taken as murder there and they'll come along and they'll go well here's what it really means or here's what it means to me and folks we have done that in so many areas of our lives today we've done that with our definitions of sexuality the bible is so clear on sexuality and on moral purity and yet we'll go well in this situation it's really okay for me to do this or someone else to do that or we we just explain it away well what it really meant was and there are whole books written it takes a whole stinking book to take a sentence or two of jesus to somehow convince people well he didn't really mean what he said now please understand me you don't just take one sentence of jesus out of context you've got to see all that he said in case there was something he clarified here that he had said here but when you take the sayings together we can't just come along and go well what he really meant was come up with her own dictionary run from that run from that because it will lead you astray as he says in the verses we've just read a little bit ago you don't want to lose what you had once gained let me show you how i love the way isaiah puts it in terms of twisting the meaning isaiah in the old testament said this woe to those who call evil good and good evil who put darkness for light and light for darkness who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter you see there were old testament prophets in the uh that were true prophets and false prophets and and one of the things god had said very clearly to to moses as he led them out of slavery in egypt and into the promised land as he gave them their new rules as a new nation called israel he uh he says this if you'll follow these commands i'm going to bless you if you don't follow these commands here's what's going to happen to you including i'm going to let for a period of time you be dominated and and conquered by neighboring nations if you want to chase after their gods i'll let them rule over you well as the nation of israel over time kind of turned away from god and began to pick and choose on what it was going to do and and no longer was walking in obedience honoring god god allowed other nations to rise up and as they would kind of march up against jerusalem or israel these false prophets would cry peace peace safety safety no god loves us and they would pick and choose the verses that that said about his protection and they would just kind of whitewash and get rid of the ones that talked about his judgment and that's a context in which isaiah is writing he he he's saying man these people are coming along and they're changing the meaning of what god has said throughout the prophets and in what we call today the scripture he says run from them woe to those who say well i i i i know this used to be called bad but it now that we know better it's really good i know we used to call this darkness but it's really light i i know we used to call this bitterness but it's really sweet it's a different dictionary we saw back in second timothy when we were working through that one i believe that was one of the books i had the privilege of teaching through and uh we we saw that paul wrote to timothy and said you know the time's going to come when people will not put up with sound doctrine solid teaching instead to suit their very own desires they'll gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear and they will turn their ears away from the truth and they'll follow after myths that's what happens when the dictionaries change now let me get real practical here and talk about what happens throughout the centuries and still is happening today when we twist jesus words we end up with two things either legalism or license so let me define each of them because you can you can see how they have flowed throughout history and they're still around today so so it always results in either legalism or license so let me define legalism first legalism is when i add to god's commands so the old testament command was you're not to work on the sabbath you get a day off the uh so uh pharisees and religious leaders decided well god has a fence here let's add a couple more fences so nobody goes after over god's fence and they went all the way back to these ridiculous things that you could and couldn't do on a sabbath and and and so if your animal fell into a ditch you could pull them out on a sabbath but if a friend fell into it you couldn't pull them out you couldn't do any medicine on sabbath he couldn't do this couldn't do that but when i was a young lad people tried to keep the sabbath even though we're not under that law and and so you could read your bible you could go to church but you couldn't play football in the afternoon and it's like where is that written or or or there's there's ones with about what you can eat and drink and taste and all that and the scriptures say for instance you are never allowed to be drunk where to be filled with the holy spirit well then just in case you can't have a beer uh you know what you're you're not supposed to in any way kind of hold on to evil so therefore you can't go into a movie theater because somebody might not know which movie you're going to see and and all we're doing is is god has a fence which we never go over because he's god and he's right and we put extra offenses to it to so-called protect people and all we end up doing is replacing the commands of god with the traditions and commands of people i love colossians chapter 1 verses 20 to 21 because i grew up in a very legalistic background where we had more rules than jesus could have ever thought of just in case and i came across this passage as new christian loved it marked it up really quickly since you've died to christ in christ and with christ to the elementary spiritual forces of this world is colossians 1 20-21 why as though you still belong to the world do you submit to worldly rules things like well don't handle that don't taste sad don't touch this now listen carefully what he says about these man-made rules not god's rules in scripture the man-made extras these rules which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use they're just material things are based on merely human commands and teachings they take a bible verse and build on it but it's not found in the bible what they're telling you to do verse 23 such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom oh they look wise with their self-imposed worship their false humility their harsh treatment of the body all those people are committed but here's what he says but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence they do zero good one of the things you want to run from is anytime people come along and say well i know god has said this but let me give you three extra fences just in case never let the traditions of man the traditions of our era of our age the ancient traditions be in the place of the commands and teachings of jesus well it's not only legalism there's another thing called license and license means it gives you license it gives you freedom and it's the idea of taking away from god's commands and man that's what the enemy has done from the very beginning uh in the beginning god left adam and eve in the garden of eden he said you know you can eat of anything that is here except for this one tree over here it's fruit because it is the knowledge experiential knowledge of good and evil and i want you to know about good and evil i do not want you to experience evil well in genesis chapter 3 the third chapter of our bible satan shows up in the form of a serpent and he asks this question did god really say you can't eat from any thing in the garden of course he hadn't said that he said one tree and then he goes you're not gonna die and he basically is saying god didn't mean what he said and this rule that he has laid out doesn't really apply to you and because of that we have this world today in second peter when we are looking at that he talks about people who promise them freedom but they're actually slaves to their lusts and their desires and that's what's happened throughout history the more we teach and and preach and proclaim and academia runs towards it wherever it is in christian circles non-christian circles the more we give everybody license just do whatever you feel good about whatever you have a good conscience about not god's word but just kind of be your own truth your your your own wisdom the end results of that is never the freedom joy and peace that we want it is always a slavery it's an addiction that destroys our life every single time so run run run as fast as you can when that happens and here's the third one people come with a deeper message you know back when we were looking at at the verses here uh he he said this there are those who don't acknowledge and then he talks about those who add to which we just looked at and then he says those who don't continue uh which we've looked at and not only a different dictionary we get this idea of a deeper message they run ahead is what john says what do i mean by a deeper message what did john mean by running ahead well basically it comes in the form of new insights kind of a deeper hidden message that only the few and the deeply committed and the really bright understand long-term christian such a trap it plays to our pride and i want to remind you the gospel the good news about jesus is a simple message in the words of jesus so simple a child can grasp it circle on your note sheet first corinthians chapter 1 verses 19 all the way through 29 where the apostle paul talks about the wisdom of man is a foolishness to god and how simple the gospel the good news and of jesus and the bible is in fact i've mentioned to you before that the new testament was actually written in a language called greek but a special kind of great koine greek the common language of the day that was understood by people for whom greek was the marketplace language but their second or third language natively why did god put the bible in such a simple simple language because it's a simple message it's not designed for those who are like i said more committed than others smarter than others want to dig in deeper than others as i said that just plays to our pride i want you to see what second peter chapter 1 verses 3 and 4 says his divine power has given us notice everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him here's what you want to run from there's an awful lot always has been always will be and there will be into the future books speakers insights where people come and say hey the bible's really good but you need x y z to understand it thank god for xyz teacher who has studied the greek in the hebrew so much that they're opening my eyes to all of these things no one else has ever seen oh thank you so much this bible teacher out here who's read the book of revelation and study prophecy so much that they're seeing all of these things that only his followers or her followers are able to see oh i am so thankful for this book it just opened my eyes and now i'm on the inner circle of knowledge no you're following the dead in detour of a deeper message that goes beyond what the scriptures say and what jesus taught run from those folks i want to put a couple of last verses up on the screen for you one of them is uh found in uh ii corinthians this is what paul says about the letters he writes the very letters that people dig so deeply in and do a word study of great depth and follow over here and add this and add that so you feel like oh man i'm so bright now here's what he says we don't write to you anything you cannot read or understand if you read the context around that passage he's talking about the simplicity of his message how he had made up his mind to not know anything else but jesus and present nothing else but jesus there is nothing written between the lines it's all right there or take a look at proverbs chapter 30 verses 5 and 6. and let's see what it says every word of god is flawless he's a shield of those who take refuge in him do not add to his words do not add to his words or he will rebuke you and you will be found to be a liar john wrote because there was a problem that had come up a counterfeit christianity that took jesus as a starting point and added to him because there were people who came along and decided to redefine the moral code that he taught in terms of sexuality or or also in terms of love he said no this is what we do in love and we look around and we go yeah but that won't work and so we fight fire with fire rather than fire with love we treat our enemies with what we got to make sure they're no longer in our way rather than as jesus taught us to a new dictionary and the danger of a deeper deeper message there is no such thing there's simply the gospel and here's my closing encouragement to you oh church let's keep it simple in this day and age where everybody's chasing after every different theory every different idea where we don't agree on all kinds of things and there's this conspiracy here and that conspiracy here and you think those people are crazy or you think they just don't have any wisdom or you think they haven't studied it like you've studied it wherever it is let's get back to the simple thing the jesus flag first walking in spiritual truth that jesus is who he claimed to be and therefore we do what he called us to do love one another not just when we agree not just when you were right not just when you've got all your beliefs lined up love one another as he loved us father help us to take this simple message this little tiny text message from john and to see the gold in it and to live it out day in and day out that we would remain in the truth and that we would walk in love to your glory and fame amen okay it was a great message but don't click off just yet have you signed up for a life group or have you filled out your connection card we would love to be able to pray over any prayer requests you might have and you can do that on the connection card or just scroll down a little bit further and look at our life group banner and sign up for a group today we look forward to seeing you next week

Channel: North Coast Church

Views: 2,461

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: north coast church, larry osborne, pastor chris brown, north coast, churches near me, christian, bible study, jesus, god, bible

Id: lFEykyosJ5c

Length: 51min 42sec (3102 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021