"Truth and Love"
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An article I read in Christianity Today. While an estimated 74 percent of Americans strongly agree that "there is only one true God, who is holy and perfect, and who created the world and rules it today," an estimated 65 percent either strongly agree with the assertion that "there is no such thing as absolute truth."
How can this be? The only way we could actually do this is if there is something wrong with either what we think about God or what we think about truth. And family, some very bizarre thoughts about truth have been there for many years of recorded history. Cultures and communities have become disillusioned and even dis enchanted with the word … truth. Do you remember when Pontious Pilate and his sarcasm of the culture when it comes to truth.
Pilate said, “So you are a king?”
Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”
“What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime.
In the realm of academic western philosophy we find an abundance of thought experiments. We find the correspondence theory, coherence theory, pragmatism, redundancy, deflation, semantics, and even possible world theory. We struggle today even to find a clear and concise definition of truth. We struggle to define it. So in a way we have not progressed any further then those of Greek and Roman philosophies of the time of Pilate. There is so much involved in just making a statement … snow is white. If myself being a guy … were to say that all men are liars, then if it is true the statement is false, but if the statement is false then the statement is true.
Now just getting a hold of the concept of truth is hard enough, now lets make things more interesting. We live in a culture where lying is rampant. Our world lies all the time. People just don’t trust anymore. No one knows who is telling the truth. Many get caught in the lie, many don’t get caught. I read in the 90’s a book by Douglas Grootis from Denver Seminary called truth decay. It was discouraging as to how we are seeing fallacy, falsehood, deception, creeping its way into the church. I mean we seeing lying all day with politicians, advertisements, the news, pandemic news, used car salesmen, motivational speakers, employees calling in sick, first thing in the morning when your wife asks where you were last night, those mirrors in clothing department stores, when your mom who has been feeling depressed all week gets her hair done and its hideous and asks you if you like it. The stuff in the world… lying is understood, but lying in the church?
Evangelastic event numbers, it was awesome and life-changing, pastors now plagiarizing sermons and books, preaching and teaching lies to tell people what they want to hear to build ministries and make more money. Ah but this is not new… the scriptures warn us that this would happen.
For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths.
We should not deceive ourselves today. This is happening right now. The time is here. It is rampant today. It is an epidemic. It is pervasive. Truth is being destroyed. They don’t care they got your money. I find myself saying it all the time… “who told you that?” “Where did you get that from?” “Ai ya yi ya yi.” The concept of truth is being destroyed. I remember an elder friend of mine was trying to get me to come be the pastor at this church. No no no I got commitments I made at my current church. But you don’t understand… we got to the final moments with a guy who made it all the way. We were about ready to vote to call him when we found out that he did not believe the Bible is the word of God just a bunch of myths and stories. Then they started the interview process with clearing up what pastoral candidates believed about truth and the Bible and they could not get past the first interview. He said many just don’t believe it anymore. One candidate even told them… do you wanna hear truth or do you want your church to grow.
He’s not wrong… many people today do not want to hear the truth they just want to hear what they want to hear and be told its the truth. If a lie gives me hope and gets me up in the morning to pursue what i gotta pursue, then so be it. I remember a conversation I had with a lady at a conference where I told her that the preacher she watches on tv tells serious lies… what was disturbing was that she told me she didn’t care, what she says makes her feel good. But its not true, thats ok. I hope we see how serious the truth decay is in the church and the scriptures warn us about this.
We do not take our cues from the world. Our beliefs and foundations come from the source of all truth, that is the scriptures. And how important is the truth, the Apostle John teaches us just how vital it really is. Let’s take a look.
This letter is from John, the elder.
I am writing to the chosen lady and to her children, whom I love in 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 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.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
The Chosen Lady
Truth and Love
The Way, Truth, and Life
The first thing we will look at today is the identification of who John is addressing as the Chosen lady. Second we will see the clear relationship with both truth and love in the Christian Community. And finally, we will see how we find hope in Jesus being the way, the truth, and the life
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world may cause us to despair with indifference in the church community, it is the truth of scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit that will cause us to know the truth and be in the truth finding ourselves in Christ and in Christ alone.
I. The Chosen Lady
- The Church.
A. You know whats funny, is that the Bible gets accused of mysogeny… or disrespecting the importance of women. One of the main reasons for this is the use of pronouns. Keep this in mind. The first issue to deal with is the identity of the chosen lady and her family that John is talking about. How are we to deal with Eklekte Kuria?
B. Some early writers have suggested that he is writing to an actual Babylonian lady named Eklekte Kuria. Some suggest that kuria is a polite way a saying lady so maybe her name is Eklekte and he is calling her lady Eklekte. Verse 13 is problematic for this understanding of her being an actual lady named Ekelete
Greetings from the children of your sister, chosen by God.
C. He is addressing her sister. Adelphe Eklekte… so does she have a sister with the same name Eklekte? Unlikely.
D. Is he just addressing a woman and her children and decided not to name her or them? Also improbable to be that Generic.
E. More famously, it is asserted that he is addressing Mary the mother of Jesus because tradition says that she did reside in Aisa Minor or even Martha because Martha in Aramaic for lady. But many scholars namely John Stott will say that all of this is pure conjecture. What makes more sense is simply understanding the writing style of John the Apostle. Does he not call christians little children?
F. I have always said in my experience in translating… John was always easy to translate but hard to interpret. Just the opposite for Paul. John is hard to interpret because he uses alot of figurative language and in this case a clear personification. He is talking about a church community and her members. And the sister is another congregation. This fits the connection better. But this is not just John Peter refers to the church as a her.
She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.
G. We always have to remember that figurative language is used even in epistles which should not complicate, but adds beauty to the communication. This helps us to understand John’s letter. This was not written to a person, but it is to a church congregation. It means that what he is gonna say concerns us. It concerns us today. The insights we have here does not just concern a certain individual and her family, but all the children of Christ all who are part of the church. And on a side note.
H. Here is another instance where the scriptures are using feminine pronouns to identify females as well as males. The church, we are referred to as She. One lady got upset with me one day when preaching in Galatians where the Apostle calls us all Sons of God and she did not like it. I said man, get over it. Do you think I like being called the bride of Christ
II. Truth and Love
- A community of love.
A. All church members will make it very clear that love within the community is something that is very much desired. It is clear that love in the church is what our Lord intends. Loving one another is very much desired by many who are looking for a church home.
B. What we see here is that John is saying that he loves the church because of the truth that is in him, but he goes on to say that they are also loved by others, but these others love because the truth is in them too.
Dr John Stott writes, “Truth is the ground of reciprocal Christian love.”
C. Truth and love are not colrellary truth, causes love. What John makes clear in these verses is that we love each other not because we are in personality, in temperament, and in special interest compatible, or because we are naturally drawn to one another by unseen forces, but clearly because of the truth which we share.
D. Another thing we can glean from this passage. So long as the truth endures, so long as the truth remains, so long as the truth abide in the community in us and with us, so long shall our reciprocal love also endure.
E. This is why truth is important. This is why it is something we gotta fight for. We cannot allow our current culture to diminish its importance or even its existed. This is why we cannot abide by the there is no such thing as absolute truth anthem to live in the church. Without truth there can be no real Christian love for each other in the church community. Sure there can be love for each other when there is mutual compatibility or natural connectivity. But the real Holy Spirit empowered community is founded upon the truth of the gospel and scripture.
F. It was always the intention of our Lord for His people to have a kind of loving community that would set us apart from the world.
Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
Love for each other is common even in the worlds circle. Natural affection with friends and family is common even in the world, by people who are not disciples of Christ. What kind of love and community intended by Christ would get the worlds attention. Love between two people who have lots in common, same interestes, shared the same experiences, show compatibility, show attaction, feeling of affection is what we see among all peoples. But what about the love between two people who were natural born enemies will to die for one another. This is the Holy Spirit empowered, truth founded love that Christ intends for His chosen lady and her children.
G. If we are feeling like a christian community is lacking love, it is not diminishing of truth that will make it better. It is the maintenance.
Dr. John Stott writes, “Moreover, since Christian love is founded upon Christian truth, we shall not increase the love which exists between us by diminishing the truth which we hold in common. In contemporary movements towards church unity we must never compromise the very truth on which alone true love and unity depend.”
H. This is why the… Hey Shane all doctrine does is divide. Doctrine divides. We need unity in the church stay away from divisive topics. It will not work. All it will do is give a false unity. Unity not based on truth in the church, but unity based on commonality. I have had people say I don’t wanna come here because there are too many people that are not in the same season of life that I am at. Too many old people. I wanna go to a church that has more young people. I wanna go to a church that has more people that have the same things in common with me. Sure there will be more unity, but it is a unity based on commonality. If it is a unity based on truth then none of those other things matter, because Christ showed us that they don’t.
I. The disciples were so different. They were men with different upbringings, different career paths, different seasons in life, different family dynamics, different ages, different personalities profiles, different temperaments, different tastes, and different politics. Yet the unity and love that they were to have for each other would be the comfort that they would get when Christ left them.
So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.
J. I am leaving you now. I have to go and you will not be able to come with me. And in a sense he is saying, the comfort that you will have while I am gone is each other. Love each other like I have loved you. Love each other. And that is exactly what they did. Their unity was not based on social commonality, but their commonality of the truth being in them.
K. And what was the truth that binded them all together.
I. The Way, Truth, and Life
- Christ and Christ alone.
A. The truth that binds us all in love the the belief that Jesus is the way the truth and the life.
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
B. And the truth of the gospel continues to bring life, hope and love in the community. The goods news continues to bring life and life more abundant. It is the truth and the truth brings freedom.
And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
C. Jesus died for our sins accoring to the scriptures and he was buried.