(cheering) - Good morning, welcome to Bridgewater. So glad to have you here with us this morning. My name is Kurt, I'm one of the pastors here. And as I watch this video here, I think my kids would sort of respond the same way, although they might make fun of us a little bit longer if my wife and I were dancing. But that was Pastor Aaron and his wife, Amanda, at our Vestal Campus, doing that wonderful dancing for us this morning. Last week we began this mix tape series, which is a mix of some smaller books of the Bible. Last week we talked about the book of Jude. Phil talked about who you listen to, influences what you do, and what you believe determines how you behave. And today we're going to be getting into the book of Second John as we talk about truth and love. We're gonna take a minute, we're gonna watch this video and you can let me know which way this guy is leaning towards truth or towards love. - That you wish to address. - Oh, okay, well, I have this fear of being buried alive in a box. (audience laughing) Just as I start thinking about being buried alive and I begin to pack. - Has anyone ever tried to bury you alive in a box? - No, no, but truly thinking about it does make my life horrible. I mean, I can't go through tunnels or be in an elevator or in a house, anything boxy. (audience laughing) - So, what you're saying is you're a plus a full? - Yes, yes, that's it. - All right, well, let's go, Katherine. I'm going to say two words to you right now. I want you to listen to them very, very carefully. Then I want you to take them out of the office with you and incorporate them into your life. - So I write them down? - Well, if it makes you comfortable, it's just two words. Most, we find most people can remember them. (audience laughing) - Okay. - You ready? - Yes. - Okay, here they are. - Stop it. (audience laughing) - I'm sorry, stop it. Stop it? - Yes, S-T-O-P, new word, I-T. (audience laughing) - So, what are you saying? - You know, it's funny. I say two simple words and I cannot tell you the amount of people who say exactly the same thing you're saying. I mean, this, you know, this is not Yiddish, Katherine. This is English. Stop it. - So, I should just stop it. - There you go. I mean, you don't want to go through life being scared of being buried alive in a box, do you? I mean, that sounds frightening. (audience laughing) - Then stop it. (audience laughing) - I can't, I mean, it's been with me since trial? - No, no, no. No, we don't go there, just, just stop. (audience laughing) - All right. Now, sometimes I really like to play that video 'cause it's the polar opposite of how I am in counseling. You'll not hear that, at least in that way for me. (audience laughing) So, people don't expect that from me. Is it true that if she could just stop those things that she would improve, yeah, really, but that's objective, that's harsh, and that's demanding, right? It's not loving and it's not kind, right? So, today as we jump into the book of Second John, we're gonna learn about truth and love together. Now, the author of this letter is the Apostle John. He's the same Apostle who is the brother of James, and they are the sons of Zebedee. James and John are referred to by Jesus as they're referred to by Jesus as the sons of thunder because of their passion and zeal for leading other people to Jesus and, of course, speaking their mind. And one of the themes throughout the Apostle John's writings is that of love and intimacy with Jesus. He refers to himself in the Gospel of John as the one whom Jesus loves. He's not bragging here. It's just he's in awe of the fact that God loves him. In the same Gospel, chapter 15, he talks about abiding in or remaining in Jesus. This theme of love and intimacy continues in first, second, and third John as, this is the point, and we have this intimacy with Jesus, and it flows into how we treat other people. Let's dive into the book here in Second John and read verses one through three. This letter is from John the Elder. I'm writing to the chosen lady and her children who my love and the truth, as does everyone else who knows the truth, because the truth lives in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace, which comes from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, will continue to be with us who live in truth and love. So the chosen lady here is likely a reference to the church or a specific local church at the time. In the Bible, the church is called the Bride of Christ. Again, we're referring back to that intimacy I referenced earlier. And whenever a letter is written in the Bible, it's written to a specific person as to a broad person. So it's likely that this book was written specifically to the church, the believers in the church. How many in here would like to feel more grace and mercy in your life? Raise your hand. How many would like to feel more grace and mercy in your life, all right? All right, quite a few there. How many would like to feel peace? How many would like to feel peace? Oh, even more hands there. All right, now, let's take a look at verse three here because this is prescriptive. Take a look at verse three. It says grace and grace, mercy, and peace, which come from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father will continue to be with us who live in truth and love. Now, one thing I wanted to point out here is that number one, it comes from God the Father and from Jesus Christ. That is the source. The source of grace and mercy and peace is God the Father in Jesus Christ, all right? So first we need to understand this. And second, it says, notice how it says continue to be with us who live in truth and love, right? That means there was a beginning, right? It says continue. So that's assuming there was a beginning. If you have never experienced grace, mercy, and peace ever in your life, then you need to ask yourself, has there been a moment in your life where you've put Jesus, you've trusted in Jesus as your forgiver and leader? Has there been a moment where you have done that? Because if there has been, then in that moment you will have peace. Because Jesus gives peace. Secondly, for those who have trusted Jesus as our forgiver and leader, it says, for those who live in truth and love. Living in truth means loving people. If someone were to walk around with each of you during the day, would they come to the conclusion that you love people? We can come up with all sorts of excuses not to love people, but not only is it a command, but we see in this verse here, it's also a pathway to experiencing grace, mercy, and peace. But it can't stop there. We simply cannot just love like the famous Beatles song, you know, all you need is love, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, you know, I don't know if that's how it goes, it's something like that, right? Maybe it's on your mixtape, I don't know, but you need more than that, right? It's, you need more than love, more than just a fun song, like that one, right? So number one is living in truth means loving people. So verses one to three, living in truth means loving people. Let's continue in this chapter four to six here and see what that says. How happy I was to meet some of your children and find them living according to the truth, just as the Father commanded. I'm writing to remind you, dear friends, that we should love one another. This is not a new command, but one we have had from the beginning. Love means doing what God has commanded us, and he has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning. John is expressing here how pleased he is that the followers of Jesus are living according to truth. John is connecting the two concepts here of truth and love. He's happy that they're living according to the truth. And we continually see this in this text where truth and love are intertwined. We cannot have one without the other. This reminds me of a study that I did many years ago. I did this study on loving God and loving others. And one of the things I did, I was like, all right, let me put loving God in this category and loving others in this category. And guess what happened? It didn't work because why they're connected. Every, all these passages I would go to, it would connect loving God with loving others. In the scriptures, they're not separate. If you love God, you will love others. Loving others is a natural outflow of loving God. If we don't love others, we are not loving God. And that's the conclusion I came with that, the study of loving God and loving others. And the same is true here. We cannot put truth and love into different categories. They must be together. Our Father in heaven desires for us to live in truth and love. He knows what's best for us. So which one is more difficult for you? Speaking the truth to someone or loving them. We tend to be drawn to one or the other a little bit more. Have you ever felt like the need to choose between truth and love, right? I've sort of told you already that I lean on the love side. So if I ever have to tell you a hard truth, trust me, it's really hard for me. Okay, so I lean on that side. So I wanna ask you guys this morning, you could take a look at the screen behind me. We have truth and love. So truth is objective, it's facts. It demands its head knowledge. It's calculated and it really can be harsh, right? Love is subjective feelings, understanding, heart, caring and gentle, right? So I'm gonna ask you this morning, how many of you lean towards the love category? All right, all right. So I'm gonna go to you first, no, I'm just kidding. So there was quite a few there. How many of you lean towards the truth category? Okay, all right. Did some of you raise your hand twice? (audience laughs) Okay. You're not through the application yet, right? All right, so truth and love, right? So we tend to have to lean towards one or the other. And I love this quote related to this, it's a tough quote, but by Warren Wiersby, he says, "Truth without love is brutality, "and love without truth is hypocrisy." So that leads us to that, our second point, which is living in love means truthing people, all right? And for all of our grammar people out there, I'm sorry, I know that's incorrect, all right? But you'll remember it that way, right? So living in love means truthing people. We're gonna speak the truth to people, even when it's grammatically incorrect. So that comes in those verses four to six. Now, let's jump into this next part where John is giving the reasoning we need to be living in truth and love. So verses seven through 11. I say this because many deceivers have gone into the world. They deny that Jesus Christ came in a real body, such a person as a deceiver and an antichrist. Watch out for that, you do not lose what we have worked so hard to achieve. Be diligent so that you receive your full reward. Anyone who wanders away from this teaching has no relationship with God. But anyone who remains in the teaching of Christ has a relationship with both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to your meeting and does not teach the truth about Christ, don't invite that person into your home and give any encouragement. Anyone who encourages such people becomes a partner in their evil work. Wow, that sounds pretty intense, right? So this is a warning that there will be those who come into the church to deceive and that we do need to be careful. If you know me, you know that I really like to have conversations with people no matter what their belief systems. I will talk for hours with people. I enjoy it, all right? So over the years, there's sometimes people that walk down the street and knock on your door and they want to come in your house and talk to you about stuff, right? And so, historically, I'm like, yeah, let's do it, you know? And so, I have the conversation and everything. But one of the things I learned is that what will happen is what they're trying to do is create a common ground. They're trying to create this common ground and say, see, look, we believe the same thing. You believe that and I believe that, too. And you almost want to walk away thinking, oh, they don't believe very much differently than I do, right? And then, but then when you bring it back to what we're talking about here, when you bring it back to Jesus, Jesus is the Son of God that He is Lord. He died on the cross for our sins and He rose again and He can forgive us for our sins. You start talking about Jesus, and that's where they get uncomfortable, right? That's where they get uncomfortable. You bring it back to that. No, we don't believe the same thing. Because if we don't believe the same thing about Jesus, then we do not believe the same thing, right? 'Cause Jesus is Lord, He is God. He came to this earth to die on the cross for our sins and to rise again so that we could have life, right? And so, that's what this is talking about here. It's like to not be deceived. We need to be careful. We're called to love everyone who comes through these doors and everyone who we interact with every day. But loving doesn't mean that we accept things that do not align with God's word. Because we work hard to pursue a relationship with God. We find that peace and that grace and that mercy that comes from knowing Him. But that peace we have sought can be quickly pulled away. So the question is then, how do we live in love and truth? How do we live in love and truth? As I said before, I generally lean on the side of love and the whole truth, love, balance. The general concept of love, the concept of love and truth is pretty basic, right? What is difficult is the specific application of love and truth? What is the loving thing to do right here and right now? To answer that, you have to know what is true. How do I know what's true? That's the question. It's answered in verse nine. It says, anyone who wanders away from this teaching has no relationship with God. But anyone who remains in the teaching of Christ has a relationship with both the Father and the Son. How do I know what is true? The teachings of Christ. If you don't accept what Jesus teaches is true, then not only do you not know the truth, but you don't know God either. What if you don't believe the Bible to be true? Well, there's only three other options for that. Nothing is true, individuals determine truth, or a group determines truth. Both mean changes and truth groups will be at war about what is true with one another. But if the Bible is true, it is our compass on what is not only true, but what is loving as well. What is the most loving thing to do if your child decides he or she wants to be the opposite sex? Do individuals determine truth? Do groups, does everyone vote and decide whether something is true? Is nothing true so it doesn't matter what you believe anyways? Or is there a truth from God that informs us what love looks like in that situation? Sometimes hurting helps, right? You go for surgery, right? How many just love to go for surgery? Yeah, that's great, that's wonderful, all right? No, nobody likes that. Well, I don't think so anyways. But it hurts, like it hurts. So that hurt is helping in that case, right? You go through that hurt, and so sometimes having a conversation with somebody hurts, but it can help if you're doing it in a loving way, just like surgery. Now, sometimes you can take in a way the pain hurts, but it's in a bad way, like somebody, for example, who chooses to use heroin to take away the pain. Now in that case, the heroin takes away the pain, but it only absolutely destroys that person's life and probably people around them as well, right? So how can we know which is the loving thing to do? God, right, it's a simple Sunday school answer, right? Jesus, if there's no God, there can be no right and wrong. There's no difference between hate and love. We're just random atoms colliding together with other random atoms. But if we believe in the God of the Bible, how can I be truthful and loving to someone I disagree with? Let's look at verse 10 again. If anyone comes to you, you're meeting, and does not teach the truth about Christ, don't invite that person into your home or give you any kind of encouragement. Anyone encourages such people who becomes a partner in their evil work. I mean, that doesn't sound very loving, right? But what's the alternative? If you assist people to spread lies about Jesus, you're encouraging more people to go to hell. Cheering someone as they run into hell is definitely not loving. The most loving thing you can do for someone who runs toward a cliff of lies and judgment is to tell them he or she is wrong and needs to stop. It's better if people hate you for loving them than to have people love you for hurting them. How do we balance this truth and love? As we discussed earlier, you tend to go to one direction or the other, but you really, biblically, can't have one without the other. First Corinthians 16, 13, says this, "Be on guard, stand firm in the faith, "be courageous and be strong." If we're gonna speak truth, if we're gonna speak to someone with truth and love, then we have to be serious about it. We can't just be like, oh, I think I know what the truth is. Yeah, maybe I'll learn that, or we can't just be, I guess I'll try and love them. It actually needs to be an effort that we make, right? So we need to be on guard. We need to stand firm in our faith and be courageous and strong. So how do we stand firm in our faith? Romans 10, 17. So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. We stand firm in our faith through knowing Jesus Christ and knowing this book, what's in it, right? Knowing what's in this book helps us to strengthen our faith so we can know what the truth is. There's all sorts of stuff out there, right? So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. So that's where we know, can know what the truth is. And then as we tie it together with 1 Corinthians 16, verse 14, and do everything in love. So once again, we can't separate it, right? We have the truth and then we have the love that are intertwined, they come together. We need to do everything in love. And I love this quote sort of pulls it all together. It says this, "Truth is the foundation for love "and love is the visible expression of truth." That's what it looks like when it's put together, is that truth is that foundation for love and love is a visible expression of that truth. Now, for application today, you're gonna be receiving on your way out a two-sided card to help you in interactions with people and how to speak the truth in love. And so I'm gonna explain a little bit of that with you this morning. The first part is observation interpretation clarification. So you're gonna verbalize, you made an observation. I saw, I heard John said, right, whatever it might be, you're gonna, you make an observation, you have a conversation, you communicate what you heard or observed, step two, you offer your interpretation. Try and come up with some positives before you say the negative thing you're thinking, right? At least try, right? It could be that you had a bad day. It could be like you didn't get your coffee that morning. I don't know. Try with some positive things before you're accusing in that interpretation part of it, okay? And then last one, ask for clarification, get their perspective, get their feedback. Okay, what do you think? What's your interpretation of what happened here? And you get clarification and then, can you help me understand what happened? And it's very important that before engaging in that conversation that you check your heart and motivation and these questions on the other side of the sheet that you'll get help you to do that. So six questions to ask before bringing up a difficult subject, do I have the facts straight? Really important before you have a conversation, a difficult conversation because sometimes there's facts and then there's what we feel emotionally and we're all charged up and sometimes the facts get lost and all that, okay? So make sure you have the facts straight. Should love cover it. Is this something I need to have a conversation about? Should I actually have this conversation or not? Or should I just, should love just cover it and I not take action? And then it's my timing right. Is it an appropriate time to have that conversation with that person? Are they running out the door? That might not be the best time to have that conversation or does something just happen in their life where it's not really appropriate? And then is my attitude right? Is my attitude that I just wanna like, I wanna give it to this person right now. Probably not the best time to have that conversation. You wanna get your heart right before God, before you're having that conversation. Are your words loving? Are your words loving? Sometimes I'll see this where people will put out, I mean this in a loving way and they'll preface as they just like drill the person, like, you know, I mean this in loving way, but ah, you know, they like go after him and it's like, wait, that doesn't count. You can't say, I mean this in a loving way and then excuse yourself for your words, right? You can't do that. So are my words loving? It's very important that the words are loving and then have I prayed about it? Like take the time to take it to God, let the spirit of God work in you so you're responding in the spirit and not in your flesh. So make sure that you've prayed about it. So you'll get to take that home with you today. And so now before I close, I wanted to share an overall application of love and that is through Be The Church. So next week we will not be meeting here. Okay, we will not. So if you come, there'll be crickets when you knock on the door. Okay, so don't come here next week. Come to 119 South, 119 State, right? South 92 there, yeah. So it's just past Duncan on the right hand side before the ball fields on 92. Duncanic and Elk Lake locations will be doing to Be The Church. So if you are on the Pioneer list for Elk Lake, you've received an email. And so they're doing their own Be The Church and Duncanic's doing their own as well. So we're just gonna be all out in the community in a big way. So Duncanic, beginning at 845, we're gonna have a short time of worship. I'll do a little pep talk in a prayer. And then we will, you'll get your shirts, you'll get connected with your team that you're going with, that you signed up for. And then you'll leave to go to the project that you're going to. We have the garbage disposal, the car wash, the mail labeling. If you don't get around that well, we're gonna have the mail labeling over there. So you can sit down in air conditioning and do that. That's fine. You're encouraged to find projects where your kids can help you out. We will have a small Woodlands program over there. So that means infant to pre-K. We will be offering that over there. If you're above that, if you're kindergarten and above, you'll expect that the kids will come with you to your project. And then Dolby Community invites. Next week, you're gonna be given invites in your group. So those that you serve with in the community, you can invite back for the picnic. So if you go do the carnival prep, invite all the firemen back, right? I think we had like 12 firemen last year come to our picnic and that was awesome. So if you're doing the dumpster part, right? That's an exciting job, right? The dumpster, right? If you're doing that, like people that dump their trash, invite them to the picnic, hand them an invite to the picnic so that they can come no matter what project you're doing, if you're helping at somebody's house, invite that person to come to the picnic afterwards. The picnic will be there at 12.30. I think you get the idea, invite to the picnic. So it's very important when you have difficult conversations with others that you speak the truth in love. But it's also important you examine your heart and ask yourself the questions we just talked about. Remember, when the Bible says to speak the truth in love, the truth has its basis in God's word, not in us being offended or our feelings hurt, or someone doing something that's different from our personal agenda, as the scriptures say, to seek God first in his kingdom. Seek to know and understand his priority and it will become easier to be loving and to be truthful according to God's word. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you that you love us. I thank you that you are the source where we can experience race and mercy and peace. God and I pray that we would pursue that in our relationship with you, God, and then that we would share that with others, that we would speak the truth in love and that that way we would lead more and more people to you. I pray that next week as we do be the church, God, that we would truly love on people. And they would know it. And I thank you, God, that you've loved us first. And we pray these things in your son's precious name. Amen.
