This is NO Picnic

There's an ever-present danger that the church needs to be on guard for.

Stephen Davey describes it like this. Watch yourselves that you do not lose what we have accomplished. Beloved, let me tell you, none of us should ever consider ourselves beyond the reach of false teaching.

None of us should ever doze off thinking, I got that nailed down. The history of the church is one deception rising up after another. Hello and welcome back to Wisdom for the Heart. Today, your Bible teacher, Stephen Davey, is talking about a battle. It's not a battle that involves nations and armies. It's a battle that each of us face in our Christian life. Throughout Scripture, we're charged to put on our armor and use every weapon that the Lord has given us for spiritual battle. As we continue through our current series from 2nd and 3rd John, John warns us to stay alert. He wants us to not lose the ground we've gained or forfeit our full reward in heaven. Stephen's teaching today contradicts the claim that some pastors make. They say that coming to Jesus will solve all your problems.

Well, following Jesus might actually cause your problems. This lesson is called, This is No Picnic. Well, I read recently of a bright Sunday afternoon. This idea sort of caught among many of the families and individuals living in Washington, D.C. And they packed their picnic baskets and loaded their families into carts and buggies.

The date was July 21st, 1861. People from the area around Washington, D.C. rode their horses and buggies to Manassas to watch their union soldiers bring to a swift end what they thought would only be a brief skirmish. And they actually unfolded their blankets near the battlefield, ate their chicken sandwiches and whatever else they packed away and prepared to cheer from a distance. One soldier described them as, quote, a throng of sightseers that came in all manner of ways, some in stylish carriages, others in buggies, some on horseback and some on foot.

It was Sunday and everybody seemed to have taken a general holiday, end quote. A reporter from the London Times happened to tag along and he wrote, the spectators were all excited. There was even a lady with an opera glass and she was quite beside herself the sound of an unusually heavy discharge of cannon.

And she said, oh my, is that not splendid. It wasn't long before reality rushed in with the sound of combat, the sight of blood, the screams of wounded soldiers. People soon realized this was no picnic. Fathers grabbed up their children, husbands called for wives and they all rushed to their wagons and buggies and horses. One reporter noted that many of them were caught in a stampede of retreating Union soldiers.

In fact, one spectator among them, a congressman from New York, was actually caught by Confederate soldiers and kept prisoner for six months. That was the last time onlookers took picnic baskets to a battlefield. Or was it? Is it possible that the average church and the average Christian today make the same mistake? Do we embrace as if it were reality this false assumption that Christianity is more like a picnic than a battlefield?

And you know, it's not really working out, the sun's not shining, my lunch is stale and this isn't for me. Instead of a place of battle and combat. The apostle Paul warned the believers living in Ephesus that they were in a battle.

One author paraphrased it, this was no afternoon athletic contest, I just inserted my own paraphrase, this was no picnic. I've combined their paraphrase of that classic text so that it reads, In conclusion, Paul writes to the Ephesians, be strong, not in yourselves, but in the Lord, in the power of his boundless resource. Put on God's complete armor so that you can successfully resist all the devil's methods of attack. For our fight is not against any physical enemy, it is against organizations and powers that are spiritual. We are up against an unseen power that controls this dark world with spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil. So take everything the master has set out for you, well made weapons of the best materials and put them to use so you'll be able to stand up against everything the devil throws your way.

This is no picnic. You're up against far more than you can handle on your own, so take all the help you can get. Every weapon God has issued, truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, they're more than words. Learn how to apply them.

You'll need them throughout your life. God's word is an indispensable weapon in the same way prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other's spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

One of the reasons for the assembly is just that. It's exactly the heart of an old apostle named John whom we've been studying. If anybody gets it, he gets it. This formerly exiled, persecuted, church planting pastor. This original disciple who, by the way, was the only one of the original 12 to go up that hill and stand there by the cross and watch Jesus die. He was among the first to arrive at the tomb and see that empty cocoon shape of those grave clothes, those linen wrappings already hardening, although probably sunken in at the chest.

No body in there. With a head napkin folded nearby, the gospel tells us he, seeing that, believed. He's the first of the 12 to believe in the resurrection. He will be the disciple who will live the longest. He will suffer the longest. He will see some of his fellow comrades executed. He will see the early church scattered, blood stained, and weary. Now he writes one of his last letters preserved for us in scripture. He writes to an unnamed lady that Christianity is no picnic.

Are you ready? It's a battlefield, so keep your eyes open. In fact, let's go back and rejoin our study at verse 8. We moved past this. I thought we'd get a little further than this verse, but there's too much here. Let's not hurry on.

2 John, verse 8, the apostle writes, Watch yourselves that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Watch yourselves. You could render that, look out, and you could put at the end of that an exclamation point. There are three exclamation points in this little letter. This is the first of three, an imperative.

This is not a polite suggestion. This is an emphatic warning to watch out. Keep your eyes open to those false teachers. Keep your eyes and ears open to detect false teaching. Watch your step, the verb blepo.

This command means to observe accurately, to contemplate earnestly, listen carefully, keep watch. Why? John is going to point out at least two reasons. Number one, so you don't lose forward progress in maturity. John writes that you do not lose what we have accomplished. John is talking about losing forward progress in spiritual growth. You stop moving forward. We tend to call that in the south backsliding.

Whatever you call it, it means you're not heading in the right direction. That you do not lose, that you, by the way, it's plural. John is including, no doubt, this woman and her children. I believe that he's also including the church that meets in her home more than likely to whom this letter will be shared.

Look out, false teaching, false teachers can lead an individual Christian astray. By the way, as we'll see, they're not just knocking on her door. They want to stand behind the pulpit. They want to teach that house church. Be careful.

We'll have to deal with that a little later on. Watch your step as he writes to this woman, her children, and her church. Watch yourselves that you do not lose what we have accomplished. Beloved, let me tell you, none of us should ever consider ourselves beyond the reach of false teaching. None of us should ever doze off thinking, I got that nailed down. The history of the church is one deception rising up after another. What's he doing today? I remember a seminary professor looking at us in class saying, the church in every generation in some way is wrong.

Do you men know where it's wrong today? If you're leading a Bible study, you think about the people in that Bible study that way. You don't want it to be wasted. Lord, please don't let me waste their time.

Don't let this be wasted on them in their lives. You're a small group leader, a discipler, or whatever. You know what he means here.

You get it. We agonize over that. I have to tell you, I have been over these now nearly 33 years, been involved in personally leading people to Christ, baptizing them, discipling the men, many men, spending hours with them, only to see some of them become enamored with some aberrant teaching and just sort of slip away. Others get tangled up in some sinful temptation and derail. Others with fruitful ministries getting involved in a divisive, disunifying distraction in the assembly, and they walk away and never regain the potential of their ministry.

They literally lost ground. That's the concern of John, the apostle for you and me. He doesn't want to see it happening in this woman's life, in her family as well as the church in which he has invested so much. Phillips, in fact, paraphrases this phrase in 2 John to read this way. Don't throw away all the labor that has been spent on you. You fall into false teaching. You stray, and you're going to waste the work you've personally invested in your Christian experience. If you've been saved for any length of time, you know it isn't a picnic.

That's why we call things spiritual disciplines. They're difficult and challenging, but you're also going to waste the work invested in you by disciplers, friends, Bible study teachers, parents. This was the same concern of the apostle Paul or the Galatians, who were leading into this errant teaching that had evidently been delivered by supposedly some angelic vision. And he said to them, you're straying from that which was first delivered to you, and he says, I fear for you that perhaps I have labored in vain over you. Galatians 4-11. Now keep in mind John and Paul are not talking about somebody losing their salvation, which is impossible. In fact, John has already referred to this lady and her children as being in the truth, verse 1. He's already talking about them abiding in the truth which is in them forever, verse 2. John is simply concerned about them as believers backsliding, getting off track, being distracted, ignoring God's word, choosing to be self-centered, choosing sin, hiding our testimony in fear, refusing to serve others, and on and on and on and on and on.

He goes and you know the drill. This is the apostle Paul writing to a young man he discipled in the faith, oh, Timothy, guard that which was entrusted to you. Timothy, guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure that was entrusted to you. Continue. Keep going in the things which you have learned.

1 Timothy 6, 2 Timothy 1, 2 Timothy 3. Keep moving forward. Be prepared this isn't a picnic. It's a battlefield.

Keep your eyes open first so that you don't lose forward progress and maturity. Secondly, so that you don't lose a full reward in glory. Now this is a confusing text to some. Some will use it as a proof text that he's talking about salvation. He isn't telling them they're going to forfeit their salvation. He's telling them they're going to forfeit their full reward. So let me just kind of pull off on I-40 for a minute, okay? And let's make sure we get this theologically straight.

If I've had a conversation with a truckload of people over the years, it's this conversation. Let's make sure we separate saving grace from good deeds. Not that they aren't supposed to be related, but in theological terms, saving grace is not the same thing as good deeds.

Let me give you a couple of statements. Salvation from sin, judgment in hell, is by grace through faith in Christ alone. It isn't the result of works, makes it very clear in Ephesians 2, it is all of Christ and faith in him alone.

Secondly, salvation is actually initiated by God since you're dead in sin and trespasses. What does a dead person do? Nothing. What do they respond to?

Nothing. They're dead spiritually. You can't even begin to respond apart from the initiating gift of faith, Ephesians 2, 1 to 5.

In fact, listen to John's recording of Jesus' words where he writes, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish. Nobody forfeits this. Nobody loses this.

Why? Because no one's going to snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me. By the way, beloved, have you ever thought about the fact that you are both the bride and the wedding gift? You are the gift of the Father to the Son that makes you the bride and the gift. He has given them to me, Jesus says, is greater than anything or all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

I and the Father are one. So, to lose your salvation would mean that something God the Father planned from eternity past somehow didn't last. It would mean that even though God saved you, he couldn't quite hang on to you. That would mean that God's efforts proved futile. He failed as it relates to you.

No, God loses none of his own. See, this is John's point earlier. I mentioned it in his first letter about these false teachers. You remember he wrote, they exited from us.

You remember that? They left us. They went out from among us to show that they really were not of us. They didn't lose their salvation.

They never had it. If I run into somebody, I'm not going to try to talk them into just believing that they were saved because they signed the card. If they say to me, you know, and I did that back then, but I don't care about Jesus. I don't care about the church. I don't care about his word. In fact, I don't want to follow him.

I'm looking forward to this weekend following my own lusts. I'm not going to say, well, I'm just glad you prayed that prayer. They're giving evidence that not that they lost it, but that they never had it. Why, God loses none of his own.

I don't care what they prayed. So you don't do good things to get saved, and you don't do enough good things to stay saved. How good have you been lately? I mean, I know you're in church.

You look really good, too, by the way. But you know. See, becoming a Christian is not a reward we deserve for cleaning up. I've had people tell me, you know, I just need to take a few more steps in the right direction before I get saved. Then I'll be ready.

Oh, that's deception. Maybe you're thinking today that, well, I'll become a Christian one day when I deserve it a little more. You know, maybe when I clean myself up, maybe when I make myself a little more presentable to God.

I mean, how embarrassing would it be for me to come to God now when I am such a mess? Are you a great sinner? Great news, because God has yet to save a good person who was good enough. He only saves sinners.

He will save you, and he will keep you, not because you're good, but because of his grace. Becoming a Christian has nothing to do with what you do for God. Now, here's my point.

I'm going to get to my point now. Becoming a Christian has nothing to do with what you do for God. But behaving like a Christian has everything to do with what you do for God. And what John is doing now is reminding us there is coming a day when he will reward us for the good we did. Doing good, not so that we can go to heaven, but because we are. Not so that God will be more pleased with us and loving us and grateful that we're in the family. No, but because we are in the family.

But we're talking about this battle. It involves resisting sin. It involves confessing when we don't resist sin. How quickly does it take you to confess?

Please, by confessing early, quickly. It involves studying the word of God. It involves praying, even the day that the word I hear, it won't be something that I'm simply hearing. That I'll not just be a hearer of the word, but a what?

A doer of the word, James 1.25. So watch out, don't backslide, don't lose ground in spiritual maturity. John says, watch out, don't lose your full reward in glory. Notice verse 8, but that you may receive a full reward, John is pointing way out into the distance. Paul describes it more fully as that moment of rewarding the believer when we stand before him.

This is a personal encounter. We're not even told exactly when it'll take place, but it'll definitely take place when we stand before him at some point. And it might surprise you to find what he honors, anything.

I think, frankly, we're going to be surprised that he backs the truck up. It's anything that you're doing in obedience to that which he calls you today. What is it? A diaper pail?

Dirty dishes? Discipling someone this afternoon? Acts of obedience and surrender and serving him and the community in his book entitled, in fact, this came to my mind as I was studying this text, so I went looking in my library and I found it. Wonderful little book by John Piper called Don't Waste Your Life. If you've read it, you'll know he opens his book by talking about a couple of events. I'll bring one to your mind for today that marked his young mind. His father, also a pastor, preacher, used to tell the story of an older man who was converted to Christ in his old age. Church had prayed for this man for decades. He was resistant. He was stubborn. But one Sunday, for some reason, he showed up and John wrote that his father preached.

At the end of the service, to everyone's amazement, as they were being dismissed, he came and took my father's hand and they sat together on the front pew of the church and God opened his heart to the gospel of Christ and he was saved. But, and this is the part that marked what he referred to himself as Johnny's young mind, this man sat there after becoming a believer and sobbed and sobbed and his tears flowed down his wrinkled face. He repeated these words, I've wasted it. I've wasted it. Piper writes, more than all the stories of young people who died in car wrecks before they were converted, that old man weeping with the recognition, yes, saved, but he'd wasted his life, awakened in me a fear and a passion not to lose or waste mine.

I think you can boil verse 8 down to that. Don't waste your life. Are you on the sidelines? Get in the game.

You haven't been kicked off the team and you didn't lose your spot. Get in the game. Has it all begun to circle around you? Tell the Lord, I'm going to die to self today. I'm not going to receive the fullest potential. Frankly, I need to make up some time. See, John wants us to be on the alert.

He's writing to believers. The battle is in your front yard. It isn't over there somewhere where you cheer it on and every once in a while you hear a little cannon fire. Isn't that marvelous?

I went to church today and heard about the battle. Get in it. Get involved. Don't stop progressing in spiritual maturity.

Work toward receiving the fullest possible reward as a good steward of one talent or three talents or five talents or ten. John doesn't just want us to look around. He wants us to look ahead. Be alert and also anticipate.

Look all the way to the Bhima. Anticipate that moment where he will say, as we've heard sung today, welcome home. You were in the race that I planned just for you. You ran it.

You didn't run it perfectly. You fell often. Confessed regularly. You limped a lot. You complained of cramps often. Sometimes it was harder than others. But you didn't leave the race. You ran and now you finished it.

I have some rewards for you that are probably going to surprise you. You remember the diaper pail? You remember the dirty dishes?

You remember that disciple? This is for you. Jesus will say to you and me, his beloved, and this is just another staggering demonstration of his grace.

He's going to say to his sheep where he can say it and all of us will hear it. He finished. Well done. Well done. Well done. Thanks for joining us today in this lesson called This is No Picnic. It might be that as Stephen was teaching you thought about the battles in your life and realized you don't feel quite prepared to face them. Well, our mission here at Wisdom International is to equip and encourage you.

And we have hundreds of resources designed to do that. Please visit wisdomonline.org to learn more about the messages, books, and other resources we have available for you. If you'd like to send Stephen a note, you can address it to info at wisdomonline.org. And join us tomorrow for more Wisdom for the Hearts. Thank you.