Sometimes, It is Okay to Be Intolerant

How many of you read the back of the bulletin…really read the title screen?

We hear a lot today about “tolerance.”

Tolerance is a major buzzword in almost every area of society, including the church.

Tolerance has morphed now into not just something that is talked about, it is expected.

Just simply watching a sporting event on Television, you expect to be confronted with commercials that want to sell you something. It is not long into the event when you see an obvious same sex couple joyously interacting with one another leaving you wondering what that had to do with the product they are selling!

We are conditioned to feel guilty if we do not tolerate the latest fad or social change.

A dictionary definition of tolerance is: to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference...

Where we are as a culture now is that society labels believers as intolerant unless we formally and fully endorse practically every alternative lifestyle and worldview. There can be no dissent from that which society has deemed normal and acceptable.

Postmodern View of Truth

We live in a time that can be classified as postmodern…in other words, what used to be wrong is now right and what used to be right is now wrong.

The postmodern definition of tolerance says it’s OK to hold any opinion or belief you like, but when you suggest that only one belief system is universally true and morally binding on everyone, you nullify the belief system of others, you are intolerant, a hater!

So the believer has to make a decision: Is there only one source of truth?

If your answer doesn’t fit what society deems is an appropriate answer you are now labeled intolerant.

Our culture now says truth exists only in the eye of the beholder.

“That’s true for you but not necessarily for me.”

Truth becomes an entirely private affair with no implications for society at large.

Sadly this school of thought has infiltrated the church…there are no moral absolutes amongst some who claim to be Christian…the truth of the text of Scripture has no meaning outside your own personal experiences.

There are no theological absolutes

Even in mainline denominations you will find churches that compromise the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman.

In some churches, the way of salvation is no longer paved with the blood of Christ, we each have a “spiritual journey” we must undergo to find our way to God who will accept everyone with open arms because God is love!

This 21st century, postmodern world is not willing to accept what Jesus said the night before His crucifixion.

John 14 6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

So I ask you today, in light of what Jesus says in John 14:6:

Are you willing to risk being labeled as unloving and intolerant?

To answer that question let’s turn to the book of 2 John. This brief book is part of a new series entitled Small Books with Big Messages. Over the course of the next few weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and Advent, we are going to be examining 3 of the smallest books in the New Testament: 2 John, 3 John, Jude.

These books are often neglected in pulpits across our nation. God saw fit to include them in the canon of Scripture, so we would do well to study them and glean life altering principles from them.

It is my prayer that our study of the book of 2 John will provide us with enough instruction for us to answer the question “is there ever a time when I should be intolerant and unloving?”.

Background of 2 John

There are several key themes and contrasts in this short letter:

Themes in 2 John

Truth occurs 5x in the first four verses

Love occurs 4x in verses 1-6

Command occurs 4x in verses 4-6

Commanded to continue to love one another (5-6)

Commanded to be on the look out for false teachers (8)

Commanded to reject false teachers (10)

Walk = addresses your entire lifestyle and behavior, occurs 3x in verses 4-6

Teaching occurs 3x in verses 9-10

Contrasts in 2 John

Those who walk in truth vs those who deny the truth

What was received in the beginning vs going beyond

Deeds worthy of reward vs evil works

Those who reject antichrist vs those who receive antichrist

One other theme that is discussed in 2 John is Christian hospitality.

Explain historical setting and the need for hospitality!

Here is that powerful message:

Big Idea — Truth Determines The Boundary of Love & Unity.

Isn’t that what being tolerant is about…to find unity regardless of what one believes and practices?

We want to seek to answer the question What expectation does God have for me regarding the truth and those who deny it?

Read 2 John 1-13. Two expectations...

The first expectation God has for you regarding the truth is...

Believers are Commanded to Practice the Truth (1-6).

A. To Practice the Truth You Must Love It (1-3)

Embrace It (1-2)

John says “whom I love in the truth” but also those who know the truth.

This speaks directly to the postmodern thought that truth cannot be known

Knowing the truth is not just a mental acceptance of the truth, it is also an experiential knowledge.

His readers had come to the place where they experienced the love of Christ and accepted the truth of the gospel and committed themselves to the gospel as truth!

John says he writes for the sake of the truth.

Take time here to go after the source of the truth for most…sufficiency of Scripture.

As we will see later in this text, John feared the false teachers would lead some of them away and he wanted to instruct them about the importance of truth.

John’s use of this word includes an intellectual element referring to the truths of the gospel which believers have accepted and which also are guiding principles for our lives.

It not only accepts the facts, it implies a very personal commitment to Jesus Christ and His work…John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Knowing the truth is the basis for unity!

Enjoy It (3)

Truth here has three companions: grace, mercy and peace.

Why? Because its source is God!

God is doing for us what we do not deserve — grace

God does not do to us what we deserve — mercy

God provides a personal wholeness and well-being in all of life — peace — Romans 5 1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,”

John says here we experience these in the context of truth and love because they all flow from God and Jesus Christ.

John begins his letter this way because he wanted to emphasize the equality of Jesus the Son to God the Father

The false teachers he will deal with later denied the deity of Jesus.

God’s blessings of favor (charis/grace), compassion (mercy) and inner harmony and tranquility are enjoined in an atmosphere where truth and love are in control.

B. To Practice the Truth, You Must Live by It (4-6)

Vance Havner (1901-1986) was an evangelist and preacher from North Carolina. He often said “What we live is what we really believe. Everything else is just so much religious talk”

The apostle John would agree with that!

Unless truth reaches and affects our hearts, the inner man is of no value, regardless of what it does to our heads!

In other words, if our belief in the truth of the gospel does not change us from the inside out, then it is useless to say we believe in the gospel!

John uses the word walk 3x in these verses = used to refer to expected behavior.

John had encountered members of this church somewhere and was delighted to see them obeying the Scriptures.

Somehow they were showing love for one another and that made John very glad.

This was not something new they discovered, it was simple obedience to what God already commanded them to do.

We don’t have to search for some new and improved means to reach the heart of God…simply obey what He has already commanded!

2 Peter 1 3-4 “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

God links our love for one another to our obedience to His word. A believer who truly seek’s God’s best for his brothers and sisters can only do so by obeying what God has commanded him to do.

Love that is not directed by the truth can easily degenerate into an acceptance (tolerance) of what God strictly forbids.

John makes it very simple here: Walk in truth, Love one another…Practice the truth!

The second expectation is...

Believers are Commissioned to Protect the Truth (7-11).

A. Protect the truth by recognizing the deceivers (7).

This verse is closely connected with verse 6

We must walk in the truth because many deceivers have gone out purposed to evangelize the world with their evil system.

Just as Jesus says in John 17 that he is sending out his disciples, Satan as the great deceiver, sends out his disciples.

Here’s the rub: You might occasionally come across someone who openly admits they are a follower of Satan, but the deceivers don’t wear a t-shirt that says I AM A DECEIVER!

The message of these deceivers is that Jesus is not the Messiah. There is no acknowledgment that Jesus is God in the flesh.

They deny the gospel.

They deny the incarnation.

The deny the uniqueness of Jesus that He is both fully God and fully man!

At the heart of all false teaching is a defective view of Jesus.

They distort who He is and what He has done.

Without accepting the truth of Jesus as it is revealed in the Scripture we have no faith!

Back in 1998, this group known as “Jesus Seminar” released a book called The Acts of Jesus. In this book, they arrogantly proclaim that the resurrection of Jesus did not involve the resuscitation of a corpse, that belief in Jesus’ resurrection did not depend on what happened to His body. His body decayed like all other corpses and that the resurrection was not an event that happened on the first Easter Sunday. They explained that it was not an event that could have been recorded by a video camera. In addition, they assured us it is not necessary to believe in the historical veracity of the resurrection narratives.

This is what John would call “the deceiver and the antichrist”

Antichrist = means against or in the place of Christ

Many people expend countless hours seeking to identify the Antichrist of the future as some political figure today when they don’t take the time to stop and consider that his minions are already amongst us and have been with us since the first century!

This term is used to describe people are radically opposed to the absolute truth about Jesus.

“They are not called to universal acceptance of anyone who claims to be a believer. Love must be discerning. Hospitality and kindness must be focused on those who are adhering to the fundamentals of the faith. Otherwise, Christians may actually aid those who are attempting to destroy those basic truths of the faith. Crossway. ESV MacArthur Study Bible (Kindle Locations 8217-8219). Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. Kindle Edition.

The deceivers are many. Listen carefully to what they say about Jesus. Listen carefully to what they say about the Scripture.

B. Protect the truth by watching yourself carefully (8).

Watch yourself is a present imperative. It means to continually be on guard.

This is a strong warning!

Don’t go to sleep on your watch…as Pastor Matthew brought out last week in our conclusion of Malachi…Believers need to wake up!

Why the need for such a warning?

Their full reward is at stake: Do not lose what we have accomplished

This is not a loss of salvation. Scripture teaches that our salvation is eternal.

This is a reference to losing progress in our growth, to be sidetracked and not receive the full reward for remaining faithful.

Loving someone biblically does not mean you are to be naïve, uncritical or undiscerning.

Believers cannot embrace any of the deceptions or deceivers that are in the world.

Those who are committed to biblical truth cannot fellowship with those who pervert it.

Not talking about refusing to fellowship with other genuine believers simply because their understanding of certain issues might be a little different

We are talking about those people who deny the truth…deny the deity of Christ…

The word “deceiver” translates the word which literally means “a wanderer”

It refers to those who wander from the truth, corrupt it, lead others astray from it, Impostors

Everyday we must be on our guard to resist the destructive powers and philosophies of the world that deny the truth about Jesus and want take us off course.

These philosophies attack the authority of the Scripture as absolute truth that is revealed to us by God is worthy of our obedience!

These philosophies attack the person and work of Jesus Christ to perfectly atone for our sins because we could not do it ourselves.

These philosophies deny his sinless perfection, deny His virgin birth, his bodily resurrection, his future return in glory.

These philosophies deny that salvation is a free gift received by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone!

C. Protect the truth by denouncing “Progressive theology” (9).

“Anyone who goes too far”

Explain the battle John had with Gnosticism

This is what we would call progressive theology…you need more than what has been given to you.

The phrase “…goes too far” means to go beyond the established bounds of teaching with an implication of a failure to properly obey.”

In other words…those who go beyond the Scriptures…seeking to define truth by any other standard...their message is not from God and is to be rejected.

You guard the truth by not allowing dangerous spiritual deception to gain a foothold in your life.

As a church we must protect the truth of Scripture by refusing to allow false teachers to infiltrate our homes and influence our thinking.

Being hospitable to those false teachers only helps perpetuate their deceptions.

Please don’t mistake this for progressing in our walk.

We need to constantly make progress in the process of maturation into Christlikeness.

Ephesians 4:22-24 “that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”

2 Peter 1:5-9 “Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.”

Progressive theology is the “Bible plus or Jesus plus” doctrines.

People who leave the basic, biblical truths about Jesus and claim to offer something new, something better.

John says they are lost.

He is not vague in his description. Notice he doesn’t say they might be lost, or he is not sure if they are saved. He is very clear.

There is no having God the Father without Jesus the Son. There is no other road to God than that which is paved by the blood of Jesus.

John 14 6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Acts 4 12 ““And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.””

What does Progressive Theology look like?

It really is not as complex as you might think.

All liberal theologies and modern philosophies share the same strategy:

They want to add extra-biblical sources of authority (“experts”; professors; celebrities)

They deny the person and work of Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God and find his work of redemption inadequate.

Create division among God’s people by questioning the existence of absolute truth and that truth cannot be known.

Think of the folly in their position: they say absolute truth does not exist and cannot be known and yet they are absolute in their belief…ABSOLUTELY WRONG, yet absolute in their resolve.

Salvation is works based.

The last half of this verse presents the same truth from a positive perspective.

The one who continues to live according to the correct teaching will enjoy a personal relationship with God the Father through Jesus.

D. Protect the truth by rejecting that which is dangerous (10-11).

Anyone = comprehensive.

Teaching = our doctrine, what we believe and confess concerning the gospel and the person and work of Jesus.

“Do not receive him”

These false teachers were carrying on a regular campaign to destroy the basic, fundamental truths of Christianity. Complete disassociation from such heretics is the only appropriate course of action for genuine believers. No benefit or aid of any type (not even a greeting) is permissible. Believers should aid only those who proclaim the truth (vv. 5–8). Crossway. ESV MacArthur Study Bible (Kindle Locations 140220-140222). Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. Kindle Edition.

We are not to give the false teachers a platform, a base of operation from our home.

We are also not to welcome them as friends

give him a greeting — v. 10

greeting = word meaning rejoice, be glad; same word John used in verse 4

Implication is that of someone being welcomed into your home, to treat them as friends and fellow laborers for the truth of the gospel.

This is where understanding the background of the first century is necessary…EXPLAIN HOSPITALITY was needed for genuine believers who travelled from city to city either for work or ministry

It was an act of brotherly love to allow other fellow believers to stay in your home

give him a greeting — v. 11

greeting = meaning to say or tell

Would be equivalent to us saying “God bless you in your endeavors”.

What is the meaning of all this?

Some have misunderstood this text to teach that we cannot allow them in our home at ALL.

We are not talking about simple acts of hospitality.

If your neighbor who does not know the Lord appears on your front porch asking to borrow a cup of sugar, it’s not like you have to say...fine, but stay here on the porch while I get it for you because the Bible says you can’t come into my house…

We are not talking about minor theological disagreements

for example, I mentioned one of those minor ones at the beginning of our time together

good people may differ on whether this book is written to an individual or to a church

its not like the next time you are thinking about having someone over to your house, you say to them, now before we go any further, what is your view of the recipient of II John, because if our views are different, the Bible says I shouldn’t have you in my home…

this is speaking about those whom you allow to influence your opinions and beliefs and lifestyle and decisions...

THINK ABOUT THIS

We are at a point in our culture right now where false teachers do not have to come knocking on our front doors. We can very easily be in violation of this command by listening to them on the internet, watching them on Television, subscribing to their publications, supporting their efforts financially.

We are neck deep in a culture where the desire of many churches is to be THAT church with a CELEBRITY PASTOR. Many churches today seek that preacher who will tickle their ears and instead of hearing what they need to hear, they hear want they want to hear…You’re All Good and God is Just Waiting to Bless You with Open Arms.

My calling from God as your pastor, Matthew’s calling as your pastor, is not to tickle your ears with fluffy stories that make you all warm and fuzzy, our calling from God is to teach you the truth of God’s Word, knowing that truth will set you free, and that true freedom comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone!

Please listen carefully! There are many churches and ministries available today pleading for your financial support that look good and meet social needs that obviously need met.

However, brother and sister, before you ever commit a single penny to that ministry you need to heed the warning of 2 John here and research the belief and practices of those you support. They very well may meet that important social need but are in fact rejecting their greatest need…the truth about Jesus.

You participate in his deeds = by welcoming the false teacher into your home, you provide that false teacher with a means to not only draw you away from the faith but to also reach your neighbor… EXPLAIN!

Life Steps

Doctrine matters — We cannot accept the mantra that “it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’re sincere” — people can be sincerely wrong about how they are going to get to heaven. There is a great difference between truth and error, and believers need to know truth and live by it.

Commit to knowing and living the truth

Seize every opportunity afforded to you to learn the Scripture and how to apply it…small groups

One of the ways you can live out the truth is to grow in your compassion for one another...Genuine love for one another cannot be overemphasized. Especially in this present culture when believers are labeled bigots and intolerant for holding to absolute truth, the fellowship of believers needs to stand true and encourage one another.

Be Discerning — The danger we face in not wanting to be labeled as unloving is to err on being tolerant of everything. God calls us to be discerning. Our love must be defined by the truth. We can love those outside the fellowship without compromising truth. We can and ought to love everyone regardless of whether they think like us or not. We love them, the way God loves them. We share Christ with them.

God calls sin for what it is and holds people accountable for sin. God does not tolerate sinfulness. Neither should we.

We cannot tolerate it in our own lives, therefore we are to be seeking to grow and change from it!

We cannot tolerate it in the lives of others, therefore we speak truth in love with a desire to see everyone reconciled to God!

We cannot tolerate those who distort the Word of God, who deny the truth regarding Jesus, therefore we cannot support in any way those who seek to destroy our faith and draw people away from God!

Truth Sets the Boundaries for Love and Unity!

It is okay to be lovingly intolerant of those who seek to destroy our faith, who distort the Word of God, and who deny the truth of our Savior.

Are you Practicing the truth?

Are you Protecting the truth?