Truth Creates a Gospel People and Pattern

And so in other words, what is it that actually makes a church solid? Right? What makes a church stable? What makes a church the kind of church that can withstand pressure that hits the surface. That's where John's taken us in these opening verses. He shows us that a church will stand firm against deception when the truth of the gospel has become strong enough beneath the surface to create a new kind of people with a new pattern of life. [00:56:57] (28 seconds)  #RootedInTruth

A trail gets formed when you're hiking because people keep walking the same way. You know? And step by step over time, a real path starts to appear. And in the same way, I think a gospel pattern gets formed when people who love the gospel and who've let that settle in them deeply make choices regularly day by day to keep walking in that same pattern of truth and love and obedience. The church doesn't all of a sudden just become stable in one night, you know, with some dramatic experience or moment. Stability is formed through repeated steps of faithfulness. You want stability in your relationship with God. Do you want consistency, right, in your commitment to the gospel? Well, it's just repeated steps of faithfulness. [01:16:29] (47 seconds)  #FaithfulSteps

It guards us against both division and deception. Right? It guards against division because a lot of times churches are torn apart not just by, like, false ideas that show up in the abstract, but more so by pride and by selfishness and by bitterness, suspicion, impatience, lovelessness. You can be a church with a lot of orthodox theology on paper and still be fragile in your practice if you're not walking in love and obedience. But when the truth is shaping the church's life, what happens is it it makes us a people who have this practiced pattern of humility and of patience and of faithfulness that helps us preserve unity when the time comes. [01:18:40] (40 seconds)  #UnityThroughHumility

Because it's possible to look solid for a while. It's possible to have the language, the activity, the programs, the relationships, even the right doctrinal instincts and be standing on something that's a lot thinner than we actually realize. And I think that's part of what makes deception so dangerous is that it's not usually gonna expose itself by attacking our church at its strongest point, but by pressing on the places where the church was already unstable. And so John is helping us see that churches won't become vulnerable just because they failed to identify error. They become vulnerable because they weren't rooted deeply enough in the truth of the gospel to be held together by it and to be shaped by it. [01:21:31] (37 seconds)  #SurfaceVsSubstance

And that phrase matters I think because it shows us that the truth isn't just something that the church like professes and that we all agree upon. It's something that we practice. It's not something you just store up in the mind. It's something that directs your feet. Right? It's one thing for you to say that you believe something's true. It's another thing for you to actually put your weight on that, right, and to actually start walking in it and on it. Right? So John, he he's saying the truth is not something that just remains like a framed statement that hangs on your wall, you know, that you admire and that you point to. It's meant to be this like road beneath your feet that you actually walk. [01:11:37] (34 seconds)  #TruthInPractice

The truth creates a gospel people, and the truth creates a gospel pattern. And the same gospel that brings us together is the same gospel that teaches us how to live together. And so the call of this passage is not really just to watch out for deception. It's a lot deeper than that. We just have to become the kind of church that's a lot harder to deceive. Become the kind of church where the truth of Christ runs so deep that it's actually holding us together the way that it promises it will. Become the kind of church where the love of Christ has taken such visible shape that the truth and love and obedience that are called for in this passage are just the normal pattern of our life. [01:23:09] (37 seconds)  #GospelFormsCommunity

And and it guards against deception I think too because your conviction will always grow stronger when your truth isn't just confessed but embodied. People who walk in the truth become a lot steadier in the truth, more confident in the truth because it's a settled pattern for their life. You get these like spiritual reflexes, you know, that that are shaped by the gospel. And so a deceptive voice shows up and maybe tries to separate truth from love or love from obedience or Jesus from the life that he calls his people to live. Well, that church is a lot less vulnerable to that deception because it's already been trained to walk in the truth that it's received. [01:19:20] (41 seconds)  #EmbodiedConviction

And I think that matters because if we were in John's shoes, most of us are thinking, well, how can I help them spot the false teaching? Right? How can I help them point out the error? And those things matter, and John's gonna talk about that in the second half of this letter. But but John shows us that the real issue, the most important issue is something that runs much deeper than that. The real question is not just whether or not this church can recognize a lie when it hears it. The deeper question is if the church has been so formed by the truth that it's not easily carried away by deception in the first place. [00:56:25] (33 seconds)  #FormedNotJustInformed