Sermon Tone Analysis

Pancakes or Waffles?

Can you lose your salvation?

I wrestled a lot with this section of scripture.

Upon reading one might assume that John is addressing His letter to 3 differently aged audiences.

Children, young adults, and parents.

People of differing maturity.

But a have found an interpretation that Church history has backed up and a find very helpful.

That each of these addressees is actually referencing just the recipients of this letter, Christians in 3 different ways.

We are children because our sins are forgiven and we know the Father.

We have been born again.

Now characterized as children of God the Father.

We are Fathers or Parents in that We know Him who is from the beginning.

We have saving knowledge of Christ, the one who is from the beginning, the eternal one who stepped into our temporal world, and as parents raise up their children and pass on knowledge, we pass this saving knowledge on to others.

Finally, the Young adults.

As people more mature in the faith, through the word of God abiding in us, we are no longer of the world, but residents of the kingdom of God.

Referencing back to how Jesus, as a young man overcame Satan in the desert answering back with the word of God.

We rest in the power of God and the saving work of Christ our savior to overcome the evil one.

Here we see the instance in which the word World represents all that is opposed to God, not every single man woman and child.

Do not love the world, the sin that runs this world or the ruler of this world, Satan.

Because if you love these things, a world that is opposed to God, then you clearly don’t know the Father.

Because Everything the world love the Father hates, and everything the Father loves and Adores the world hates and tries to destroy.

However, this love and hate of the world is not just to show alignment inside or outside of the kingdom of God, this is also practical advise.

The world is passing away.

Putting your hope in the desires of this world and off your sinful flesh may satisfy for a short time or season but will leave you empty, longing for the next thing and the next thing.

However, following the will of God, and His desires, having been enabled by the Holy Spirit, you find satisfaction in something eternal, never changing, and never disappointing.

Christ.

Now we are about to get into a bit more of a serious topic.

What does it mean to be a false teacher and why are they dangerous?

John and many of the New Testament Authors speak of the last Hour, or it is also mentions as This age and then there is an age to come.

The last hour mean the time between Christ’s Life, death, Resurrection and ascension and His triumphant return.

As foretold, there will be people who rise up to oppose God and His Christ.

These people know as antiChrists, children of Satan, the original one opposed to God.

This verse lays out a very reassuring doctrine for the Church.

In response to these people rising up that were in the Church, leaving and opposing the Church, John tells us this.

These people went out, they left us, but they weren’t really one of us.

They were not a true Christian.

Because if they were a true born again believer, they would have continued with us.

But they went out, they left so that it might become plain that they are all not truly of us.

They were never truly Christians.

Ladies and gentlemen.

This verse shows us that in regards to Salvation, if you have it you’ll never lose it, and if you lose it, you never had it.

A non Christian can become a Christian.

One opposed to Christ can come to Christ and be redeemed.

Once redeemed, once saved, once you have eternal life, you can’t be unsaved, you can’t be unredeemed, and you can’t lose eternal life.

Because then it wouldn’t be eternal life, it’d be temporal life.

Frail and Fragile.

Friends lets take a quick detour to another book written by John, His gospel.

Friends if you could lose your salvation, you would.

Because you aren’t saved because of your obedience.

You aren't saved because you prayed a prayer one time.

You aren’t saved because you were baptized.

You aren’t saved because you hold tight Jesus.

You’re saved because you are secure in His hand, and He isn’t letting go.

He started a work in you and he will finish what he started.

John’s next verse carries on this idea.

Following up his spiel on people who walked away from the faith, he assures those He is writing to.

You have recieved the Holy Spirit.

The seal of your salvation.

You have recieved saving knowledge of the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus Christ the righteous.

You have a new heart and new desires, you are a new creation.

You now no longer want the things of this world, but that of God and eternity.

You now have saving knowledge that only comes from God.

Paul is showing the danger of a false teacher and how to identify one.

In contrast to those his letter is addressed to, Christians, those that know the truth, those who do not know the truth spread lies.

The lie in view here is that Jesus is not the Christ.

He is not the messiah, the anointed one sent by God to redeem His people from their sins.

This is what makes someone an antichrist, He who denies the Father and the Son.

Because no one who denies the Son has the Father, but who ever confesses the Son has the Father also.

The hinge here being Jesus, because as we saw earlier in this chapter He is our advocate, our intercessor, the only mediator between God and man.

That is why modern day Jewish people are not saved, Muslims are not saved, they may read the old testament and believe in the Father but have rejected the Son and in doing so have rejected the Father also.

There are not multiple ways to heaven.

That is why Jesus says:

One way to the Father, through Jesus.

Anyone else is still in sin and in desperate need of the Gospel.

We had established earlier in this chapter that what John is referencing to here is the Gospel.

If the gospel abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and the Father.

As Jesus taught, He is the vine, and if we as believers abide in him, we will bear eternal fruit, and if we do not, then we will be chopped off and thrown into the fire.

This promise that was made as a result of repenting and believing in the Gospel, Eternal Life.

Life everlasting in perfect unity with each other and God.

John now zero’s in on why he wrote this past section.

To show his addresses those whoa re trying to deceive them.

But the anointing, the spiritual regeneration caused by the Holy Spirit, that you recieved abides in us, Christians.

And you should have no need that anyone should teach you.

Guess i’m out of the job.

No, John here is not saying that there is no need for good teachers in the life of a believer, as teachers are one of the blessings that Jesus has blessed the Church with, and John himself is teaching by writing to these believers,

and there is a need for better teachers in the 21st century church.

You can see by the next 2 sentences what John has in mind here.

The Holy Spirit teaches us everything and is true, is no lie, abide in Jesus.

We have no need to be taught by false teachers, but by the instruction and conviction of the Holy Spirit brought about by the Word of God.

And if anyone teaches anything contrary to this or apart from this, they are a false teacher and there is no need to be taught by them.

But you, believer, who come to church every Sunday, maybe you were raised in the church, you come in and out each week and receive knowledge from the Word and pray with the fellowship of believers.

I’m going to show you a well known passage of Scripture, known as the great commission: This is Jesus Speaking

Not every one of you in here is called to be a pastor, and indeed many of you should not be, James tells us that we will be judged more harshly.

But all of us are called to share the gospel and tell others everything that Jesus has told us, everything that Jesus has commanded us.

We as the body of Christ have the great commission as our mission.

My high school friends, Go out this week.

Walk in the light and reflect the light as you go into this world of Darkness and lies.

Confront error with truth.

Confront Hatred with love.

Warn people of the bad news and proclaim with all authority the good news.