Sermon Tone Analysis

A woman brings a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon.

As she lays her beloved pet duck on the table, the vet puts his stethoscope to the bird’s chest and listens carefully.

A moment later the vet shakes his head and says sadly, “I’m really sorry mam, but your duck, Cuddles, has passed away.“

The woman becomes quite distressed and begins to cry.

“Are you sure?” she says with tears flooding from her eyes.

“Yes mam, I am sure” the vet responds.

“Your duck is definitely dead.“

“But how can you be so sure?” the woman protests.

“I mean, you haven’t done any testing on him or anything have you?

Perhaps he’s just stunned or in a coma or something.”

The vet rolls his eyes, then turns around and leaves the room.

A few minutes later he returns with a black Labrador retriever.

As the duck’s owner looks on in amazement, the Labrador stands on his hind legs, puts his front paws on the examination table and sniffs around the duck from top to bottom.

He then looks up at the vet with sad eyes and shakes his head.

The vet pats the dog on the head and takes it out of the room.

A few minutes later the vet returns with a cat.

The cat jumps on the table and delicately sniffs at the bird from its head to its feet.

After a moment the cat looks up, shakes its head, meows softly and strolls out of the room.

The vet looks at the woman and says, “Look mam I’m really sorry, but as I said before, this is most definitely a duck that is no longer of this world.

Your duck is dead.“

The vet then turns to his computer terminal, hits a few keys and produces a bill, which he hands to the woman.

The duck’s owner, still in shock, looks at the bill and sees it is $150.

“$150 just to tell me my duck is dead!” she shrieks with incredulity

The vet shrugs his shoulders and says, “I’m sorry mam.

If you’d taken my word for it, the bill would have been $30.

However with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it’s now $150.“

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- Well, I hope you enjoyed that little piece of animal humour

- But on a serious note, though, there was no reviving the dead duck or even believing it could be ok

- In this Epistle, heresy means the death of the church & the death of reconciliation with the Father– it’s that serious

- In this Epistle, John the Apostle reinforces the foundations of the church which is so vital for its on-going health

1.

The Apostolic Foundations

- Foundations are vitally important

- When I was a building inspector, I inspected a house slab in Runaway Bay, Qld

- It was all set & ready for the concrete to be poured, but I discovered that the boxing which was to hold the concrete in place until it cured was too low

- It meant that the floor would only be 50 mm thick rather than the required 100 mm thick

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- The men doing the job said that they would correct the problem & raise the boxing up so that the floor would end up the required 100 mm thick

- Having been in the building industry for a long time, I realised the inconvenience of having to put off the concrete pour, book another building inspection & then to re-book the concrete & all the workers again

- So I said that I would give them a conditional approval on the basis that they would do as they had said & raise the boxing, & I would allow them to pour the concrete the next day

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- It so happened, not so fortuitously for this sub-contractor, that I was inspecting another house slab preparation the next morning which was right next door to the one to which I had given a conditional approval

Q. Have you guessed what happened?

- They poured the concrete but did not raise up the level of the boxing so that the floor would be the required thickness

- I had no choice but to slap a defect notice on it which caused them no end of trouble & it was very disappointing having given them a helping hand only to have them ignore the agreement

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- You can’t mess around with foundations

- You would have to say that they are the most important part of a building

- Sorry ladies, it is not your beautiful en suite or kitchen – or guys – your garage or pool room

- If the foundations are broken, then nothing you build on top of that will last

- This is why the apostle John Is so adamant about the foundations of Christ

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- The apostle John seems to have settled in Asia Minor & he refers to himself as The Elder in 2nd John & 3rd John

- He’s in his later years & after his imprisonment, he is pastoring the churches in the Asia Minor area

- Remember he was exiled off Asia Minor to an island prison called Patmos where he received his revelation of God’s present & future history

- The book of Revelation was the result of those visions that God gave him while in prison on the Isle of Patmos

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- John is writing to these churches in Asia Minor & combating a destructive heresy that threatens to destroy the church & they are doing that, by turning the foundations of the Gospel upside-down

- John’s one big point throughout the Epistles is that of holding to the foundations

- These foundations are about the real & true history of Jesus Christ

- He typically uses the expression, “from the beginning” to reinforce the Gospel foundations that he witnessed & can attest to

- This is the critical foundation & the church must not depart from it

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- In today’s passage, he gives some reasons for why he is writing to the churches & singles out some groups for special mention

- Let’s go through these…

- But before we do, have you noticed that he mentions 3 groups starting with the words - “I am writing” & then mentions the same 3 groups again with the words “I write”

- Restating his purpose is him just reinforcing their importance to these people

a. “Little Children”

1 John 2:13 (ESV)

13 I write to you, children, because you know the Father.

Q.

Who are the children or little children?

- It’s the whole church community

- John is their spiritual father in the faith & is calling them his children

- Jesus also used this term

- Little children expresses the relationship of trust they have in their leader

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- John reminds the church that our sins have been forgiven – but isn’t that a given?

- Well, no! Remember I mentioned last week that there are splinter churches that have been formed & are espousing views that are contrary to the truth – contrary to the true foundations – which is the apostles’ or apostolic Gospel

- They are saying that if John’s churches (that he oversees) in Asia Minor don’t come over to their way, then John’s church’s do not have their sins forgiven & do not have eternal life & they cannot know the Father in heaven

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- Through the possession of this secretive, esoteric knowledge of the things of God these cults say that John’s churches that he oversees, cannot participate in knowing the Father nor in experiencing sins forgiven

- Interestingly, John says that the segregation of these cults is akin to hate & those who hate are in darkness

- In their boasting of their esoteric knowledge, their elevated possession of these so-called divine secrets, in their mind, even makes them sinless

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- But John says they are delusional – all do sin & to claim otherwise makes you out to be a liar

- However, the true Gospel, deals with reality – that we do sin, but that our sins through propitiation are forgiven

- Jesus” death on the cross is sufficient to cover the sins of the whole world should they choose to submit to Jesus – there is no lack in His atoning sacrifice

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- To propitiate means to have satisfied the just demands of God’s holy anger & righteousness against sin

- It means that through His death on the cross, Jesus drew away the wrath of God against man

- God, therefore, decrees that all who follow Jesus & believe in Him will be able to have their sins forgiven which ultimately reconciles a person to God the Father

- If sins are forgiven, then we can be friends with God

b.

Fathers

- Next he addresses the fathers – but these “fathers” are not guys who have had children, although, I would imagine that most of them do

- These are the men who were, let’s say, first generation Christians

- In other words, these are the ones who experienced life just after Jesus’ resurrection &, perhaps, some may have even met Jesus

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- What we can say here, is that these men got to sit on the original foundations – they know it as they got to be close in time & history to the real event of Jesus

- They know the beginnings of the Gospel & of the life of Jesus Christ

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- John repeats the line twice – “I am writing to you fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning”

- It’s a good reminder to these older people of their original faith that made them Christians & secured them in the Father

- They better not get troubled by the false & fake or else they will lose what they have

c.

Young Men

- The young men represent the future leaders of the church & of church families

- These are not 1st generation Christians who shared in the very beginnings of the church, but all subsequent generations that have the responsibility of preserving the truth of the Gospel foundations & passing them on

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- In this address to the young men, John reminds them that the word is not found in these new cults – with their so-called esoteric, secretive knowledge of salvation

- But, it’s found in the original, faithful word that abides or remains in them

I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.

I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.