Integrating Broken Families and Single Moms Into Family-Integrated Churches by Phillip Kayser. Do we need special ministries? How do we, as a church, love broken families? John instructs us to love one another. (2 John)

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Phil Kiser with the following message entitled, Integrating broken families and single moms into a family integrated church. Let's go ahead and begin with a word of prayer. Father God, I thank you that you specialize in saving and in restoring the lives of difficult people and I pray that the church would not avoid the discomfort of being instrumental in your process of changing these people and I pray that we would find great joy in being a part of this glorious work. We commit this time to you, ask for your guidance, ask that you would be pleased to stir up our souls with the glorious work of the Great Commission and it's in Jesus' name that I pray this. Amen.

Well welcome, my name is Phil Kaiser and let me give you just a tiny bit of background on myself. I'm one of three elders in a family integrated church. I'm also the president of Biblical Blueprints. I've been involved in mentoring church planters and elders in various churches both in China, India, as well as in North America, and I love this work. And it's been wonderful to be a part of this marvelous conference.

I grew up in Africa, where my parents were pioneer missionaries in six tribes that had never heard the gospel before. And when they first went to these tribes, there were no family integrated churches because there were no Christians. Let me tell you something, there were a lot of messed up people in those first churches. In fact, some of the people would have made our family integrated churches a little bit nervous. For example, there were men who had more than one wife.

What do you do with that? Obviously they couldn't be elders, but we integrated them into the kingdom, we discipled them, and we helped them to mentor their children so that their children would not make the same mistakes that they had made. And so there were orphans, there were widows, single moms, drug addicts, and people who were guilty of some pretty serious sins. But, and I love the glorious buts of the gospel, but 62 years later in the year 2012, all of the tribes have really progressed, but two of the tribes are over 90% Christian right now. We're talking about really solid evangelical Christian, and they've got solid families, they've got joyful well-behaved children, and these wonderful churches are that way because they weren't sophisticated enough to realize that you really need to have a special support group for single moms or their feelings are going to be hurt, and you need to have a special ministry to divorcees, and you have to have special ministry to misbehaving children, dismiss them from the regular church, let them be a part of the children's church where they can act up.

They didn't know about all of that. Back then, they were kind of stuck. And I say stuck with the simple gospel. And when I say simple, I don't mean simplistic. I don't mean naive at all.

I mean that it was simple in the sense that it was the power of God in the hands of ordinary citizens that many Americans would consider simple people, and yet it transformed lives. They didn't feel like they had to be experts in order to apply the scriptures. It was simple in the sense that it did not need to be added to. You don't need to add to solo scriptura because Peter says that God has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness in the scriptures and Paul has told us that the scriptures are sufficient to equip the man of God thoroughly for every good work. They did not need to add to sola gratia because the grace that empowers the Great Commission is a grace that we saw last night turns nations upside down.

Actually it's right side up isn't it? And it does so family by family. It's simple in the sense we don't need to add to faith because Ephesians chapter 1 tells us that God has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We've got a full bank account up there and all we need is faith to sign the spiritual checkbook in the name of Christ and we have those spiritual resources at our disposal. We do not need to add to solus Christus because Christ has promised to be with us even to the end of the age, and these people would not even dream of adding to soli Deo Gloria because as dark as their lives were and as revolutionized as their lives had become, they gave all the glory to God.

Now they probably hadn't even heard of those five solas, they didn't know Latin, but they believed in sola scriptura. They believed scripture alone, Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, and to the glory of God alone. I started with that story from Africa, not because I'm going to give you a bunch of stuff from Africa, I'm not, but to encourage you that you too can integrate broken families, messed up lives, into the family integrated churches right here in North America. And if you take this conference on the Great Commission seriously at all, you're going to be having messed up people coming into your congregations. It is guaranteed that that is going to happen.

And if those messed up people are not to be made to feel like lepers, you know, that are not welcome in our perfect little churches, then we're gonna have to have some attitude adjustments in the people in some of our churches. And if those people are not supposed to throw up their hands in despair, get discouraged because of how far they have to grow, and they do have to grow a long ways very quickly, we've got to ramp up in our churches and be able to take people from A to Z very quickly in a mentorship kind of a style, just like Jesus did. By the way, on my Biblical Blueprints book table there's a couple of books, one for men, one for women, that go through the wide-ranging areas of life that we need to be involved in mentoring our people into. Over 600 diagnostic questions, and you can download those for free from the website. But here's the encouraging part.

The challenge that we face in our postmodern, messed up America is not nearly as difficult as the challenge that those pioneer missionaries faced in Africa. And if they could integrate broken families and make them strong, we can as well. In fact, I believe that we can do so far more effectively than the mega churches can do. I think the family integrated churches are positioned perfectly to be able to minister to our incredibly problematic society and have a huge impact on broken families. And I believe that 2 John, if you happen to have your Bibles, we're going to go through this whole book, is a practical manual for how to minister to broken families without overstepping the jurisdiction of the family.

And that jurisdiction is key. In fact, that's where we're going to be starting. I could spend five hours in this wonderful, wonderful book, but I'm just going to give you some highlights that will hopefully open the book up for you and give you a framework for making sure that our churches are more effective in the Great Commission. Now there are three governments that are intersecting in the book of 2nd John. There is church government, there's family government, and there is self-government, and he starts this book with church government.

Two words, the elder. The elder. John was this single mom's elder. John could have written this epistle simply to give Scripture because he was an apostle. That's how come he could give the scripture, and he could have given this by way of oversight to the church, but he was not writing to the church.

He was writing to a family, just like in 3 John he was writing to a family, and just like one of Paul's epistles in Philemon. He could have written this in his capacity as an apostle, and obviously the very fact that scripture comes from his capacity as an apostle, but he doesn't emphasize that fact. He could have written from his relationship as an advisor, a confidant, even a fellow saint like in Philemon, but by God's inspiration John writes in the capacity of a church elder and he exercises eldership authority over her and over her family. Now I cannot imitate him and his apostleship or as a prophet. I believe that those offices have ceased, so I cannot write scripture.

However, I can imitate Paul as he functions as an elder. He's modeling for us what it means to be as an elder and this is a role model for us elders. And this book shows that the family should be under the authority of elders. In fact, I think the pattern that was set in 1st Peter chapter 5 verse 3 and Zechariah 8 verse 23 and a number of other passages is that every person in the congregation should be distributed amongst the elders so that every family has an elder that can lead them, guide them, love upon them, minister to them, communicate to them during the week. This book is not friendly to the concept of families worshiping alone in their houses and being out from under the shepherding oversight of the elders.

So church government is the first government addressed here. The second government, that of the family, is in the next phrase, to the elect lady and her children. Now there have been two theories that have been proposed as to who this elect lady is. One of the theories is that this is a metaphor for the bride of Christ as a whole, for the church. And because of lack of time, I'm not going to go through all of the reasons, and there's a lot of them, as to why I think this is very, very unlikely.

In fact, I think personally it's impossible. But let's be humble and say it's unlikely that this interpretation is true. But let me give you just two, two samples of the various reasons that are out there. If this were the bride of Christ as some people say, then who is her sister in verse 13? Well some people backtrack at verse 13 and they say well that must be a local church, but you can't have it both ways.

It's either the bride or it's a local church and nowhere in Scripture is the local church spoken of as a bride. Otherwise you got Jesus a polygamist, he's you know married to the elect sister over here and to another sister over there and you got a lot of sisters out there that he's married to. And verse 13, I believe, is fatal to the view that the elect lady is a metaphor for the bride of Christ as a whole. There's other reasons that you could nail that point down, but I just want to give you some pointers. The second reason is the strong parallels between 2 John and 3 John.

Now since everyone agrees that 3 John was written to a literal individual, I think it would have to, I think the burden of proof is upon those who say that 2 John is not written because they're almost identical and they're in their beginnings and their mannerisms and their conclusions. Let me just give you a couple of sample ideas. John plans to visit this person and speak face to face with her in verse 12. Now everyone agrees that exactly the identical language in 3 John is John going to visit a literal individual. Okay, likewise just like Gaius in 3 John the elect lady is said to own her own house in verse 10 to extend hospitality in that home.

And if we had time we could go through a numerous various grammatical and cultural and historical aspects that I think definitively prove that this was being written to a lady who was a single mom. And when you once grasped that fact, this book just comes alive. It is just rich in instruction. One of the themes of this book are the limited jurisdictions in family, in individuals, as well as in the church. All three are given very limited jurisdictions by God, and this corrects a lot of the gross violations of those jurisdictions that you see going on in the church, especially in North America.

But this also shows the power that a family-integrated church can have in transforming a broken home like hers was. Her home is not an ideal home. We're going to be seeing in a bit that some of her children are not walking in the truth. They're not loving each other like they should be, and I don't think anybody would wish her single mom status upon anyone. That's a difficult position to be in and yet this little book illustrates every one of the NCFIC foundational principles for family integrated churches.

It's just a marvelous balance between self-government, family government, and church government. And in modern Christianity, you see extremes emphasizing one, sometimes almost to the exclusion of the others, and it creates havoc. It creates a great deal of problem if those extremes are present. And I won't be able to deal with all of the extremes that are out there, but if they're present it's extremely unlikely that our churches are going to be as successful as those two African tribes were in integrating broken families and broken people into our churches, and I want to just give you a few highlights on the extremes that are out there. The first one is anarchism.

It's sometimes known as radical individualism, and it is so focused upon the rights of the individual, upon self-government, that it severely undermines jurisdictional authority of the other governments. And I think this book is an incredible corrective to that. Anarchists do not like authority. Now they're quite willing to get advice from you, but as soon as that advice has any teeth in it, they're going to bristle against that. And yet the word elder that's in those first two words there speaks of an office of authority, and that office of authority intersects with self-government and with family government.

The kind of church discipline that he brings against heretics in verses 7 through 11 is an exercise of authority that anarchists bristle against. But anarchists don't like any authority, even family authority, they bristle against, and yet this woman here clearly has authority within her jurisdiction, and John wants her to exercise it. She is not helpless in her single mom state, Not at all. John expects this woman to bring correction to her children who are not walking in the truth and he calls her the lady of the home. Now the word lady in the Greek is the feminine form of the same word for Lord.

The husband is not there and yet she still has authority. She is the Lord, she is the lady of that household. And some of her children were by nature anarchists. And why do I say that? Well because we all have a depraved nature, but in these verses we're going to be seeing, especially verses 4 through 6, that some of those children are not obeying the truth.

Some of them are obeying the truth, and he's rejoicing in that. He phrases it in a positive way, But that implies some of them are not obeying the truth. They know better than Mom. They know better than Elder John. Apparently, they know better than the scripture.

But John patiently brings this family to leave anarchism behind and to rejoice in the authority of the scripture, to rejoice in the mother's leadership of her family, to rejoice in the Elder John's leadership as well. And in a few minutes, we're going to be looking at a number of things that need to be in place if we're to do that. But right now, we're just dealing with the jurisdictional issues. Let me quickly mention an extreme on the other end of the spectrum that makes it unlikely that a local church is going to be transformational, and that is abusive shepherding that goes beyond the scripture. Now in my notes here I've actually titled it as magisterial power.

Now thankfully her church did not engage in that because she was blessed with having Elder John as her elder. He was an apostle, he wore a number of different hats, but in 3 John the apostle mentions an elder who was indeed an abusive elder. His name was Diotrephes. And Diotrephes, he's kind of the paradigm for the abusive elder syndrome that you see going on and I know plenty of elders like the autrophies and it's no surprise to me that the churches never are transformational of broken families because they like to keep those kind of people out. Everybody's a clone of Diotrephes.

At least they pretend to be. Not everybody's a clone, but they pretend to be a clone. And you'll have to read 3 John for yourself sometime and see why it is that Diotrephes' perfect little church that he controlled like a tyrant would never be able to achieve what I hope all of our family integrated churches will be able to achieve. I want you to notice that it's not John's own opinions that he is imposing on this woman. The only authority that he exercises is the authority of Scripture, what he calls the truth and the commandments of God and the doctrine of Christ.

Now because he's an apostle, obviously, he does have magisterial power. He's written Scripture. He is the direct mouthpiece of God. His word is binding. But I find it interesting he's modeling eldership here, and because he's modeling eldership he does not use his magisterial power even though he has it.

In fact he says the exact opposite in verse 5. He says, And now I plead with you lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. By pleading, he's exercising Ministerial power, not magisterial power. By appealing to scripture, he is exercising the same ministerial power that we elders do. By exercising church discipline in verses 7 through 8, he is exercising a ministerial power that scripture has given to every elder, but not magisterial power.

And by warning her that she needs to honor that discipline, he's simply applying the authority of Scripture within the jurisdiction that God has given to him. Now the reason I bring this up is that there are too many elders who were trying to exercise magisterial power that goes beyond the scripture. They don't recognize it because they say, hey we're not Roman Catholics, we don't exercise magisterial power. But anytime you are enforcing commandments that go beyond the scripture, de facto, you are exercising a kind of magisterial power. In fact I would say most churches nowadays are doing that when they use psychology for counseling because it's the wisdom of man that they're imposing on their counseling not the scripture or when they demand that their widows get on welfare and apply for food stamps, or when they reject the regulative principle of worship, or when they apply the findings of sociology to say that women can be elders and in a host of other areas.

It's the wisdom of man substituted for the wisdom of God. We don't have magisterial power anymore. Now that the apostles and now that the prophets have passed away, the only power that we have as elders to minister is the ministerial power of applying the Word of God in the congregation. We can't force people's consciences, and this is why Paul told the Corinthians that they could not go beyond what is written. I love the way one old Puritan worded it.

He said, the only voice that should be heard in the church is the voice of Christ speaking through the scriptures. Now let's quickly look at a third extreme. If we're to have the kind of transformational power that John had, And if we're to succeed in integrating single moms into the church, we should avoid hyper-patriarchy. Now I'm a patriarchalist because the Bible is, but hyper-patriarchy goes beyond the scriptures and takes away liberties that the scriptures has explicitly given. And I don't care how logical a person's affirmation of patriarchy is, if they make Lydia to be in sin when Paul did not, they've gone too far.

And hyper patriarchy manifests itself in a number of ways. I have a friend who emphasizes patriarchy so strongly that he believes when a woman loses her husband that she must. Not may, I'm okay with may. In fact I even encourage it, It's a helpful thing. But he says, not may, he says the woman must have a man step in to take over the functions of husband and father, and says that if there is no relative to do so that an elder must step in, even if she's not cool with that idea, that she has to have some authority over her.

The elder John doesn't do that. If you notice here, he acknowledges her authority, not just by calling her the lady of the home, but by expecting her to discipline her children, to instruct her children. He holds her accountable for her children's actions, just like an elder ordinarily would do with a dad, when the dad is around, okay? John doesn't discipline her children for her, Nor does John call her children our children. In verse 1, he calls them her children.

In verse 4, when addressing her, he calls them your children. He is her elder, not her husband. And there are a lot of other indicators throughout the book that her family is intact and she is the authority and the head over that family, even though she doesn't currently have a husband. Now, there is a place for bringing women, and I think it's a very wonderful thing when women are needy and they need the help bringing them in under the authority of a parent or some other male relative. But I think we're going beyond the scripture when they say they must be there, even against their wills.

It's very important, even when we do include them under the authority of some other male figure, that we not act as a substitute husband, it's more of as a protector, and that we not dissolve the authority that she has within that family. Let me give you a fourth extreme. There are churches that have overreacted to the extremes of anarchism and hyper patriarchy, and they've made the church the primary authority in life. It's kind of a church-centric view of life. And these are the ones that are probably the most reactionary against our family-integrated movement.

I just keep telling them, hey we're just bringing the church and the family back to the way they used to be, but they really get on our case about this. But some churches have big government and it's ironic to me. These are the very people who speak against big government and civics and yet they have big government in the church. They hate, you know, big government socialism out there and they substitute a big government socialism within the church. They engage in ministries that First Timothy 5 explicitly gives to the family and says the church may only take on if there is no family present and so it is an issue.

Most of the ministries in our church are simply families ministering to other families. We get behind families in their ministry. We're not program driven. We equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And there's quite a difference, because one approach tends to make people just as dependent upon the church as they used to be upon the state and the other forces them to be families and to walk within the authority that God has given to them.

So church centrism is not the answer to family centrism and when it this is especially a problem when it comes to authority. Just boggles my mind, but one elder wrote to a child in his church a letter that contained this statement. The church has more authority over you than your father does. The father's authority is derived from the church, seeing as he is under the authority of the elders. And I would say, absolutely not.

That is blurring the distinctions of the separate jurisdictions of family and of church. I actually know one pastor in Iowa who said, when you walk through, when your family walks through the doors of this church, they cease to be a family. We relate to each individual unmediated by the family. Now that's just absolutely horrible and the elder John did not do that. I know another pastor who routinely spanked children in his church without asking for the parents permission on that.

He obviously needed a little bit of instruction on jurisdictions. So when the kids acted up in this book, where does Elder John go? He goes to the parent, right? He goes to the mom, and he respected her authority over that family even though it was a broken family. This is kind of introductory material, but these jurisdictions are really important to understand before we get into the practical stuff.

I'm just going to deal with one more extreme before we move on. The last extreme is ignoring the church's authority. And it can be manifested, actually, in two different ways. The first way is calling, and you see people doing this all the time, they call legitimate exercise of authority as being abusive and authoritarian, and then there's the reaction on the part of the elders. They don't want to be called authoritarian or abusive, and so they'll back away from exercising any church authority.

When Elder John respected the authority of this woman's family, he did not take a total hands-off approach to the problems that existed in her family. And if you do that, you'll never experience transformation of these broken families. I want you to notice that John addresses her directly in verses 1, 4, and 5. Let me just read one example. I rejoiced that I found some of your children walking in the truth.

But he also addresses her children in verses one, six, eight, 10, and 12. Verse one indicates this letter is addressed to the elect lady and to her children. So he wants his letter read to the children. In three verses the plural you is used addressing everyone in the family. For example in verse 12 he says, having many things to write to you, and that's plural, to y'all, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink, but I hope to come to y'all and speak face to face that our joy may be full." So he's planning to talk to all of them.

And that's very appropriate. That is not overstepping the family's jurisdiction since the head of the household, this is key, since the head of the household knows everything that he is teaching. Now if we have age segregated education and you're secretly teaching things to the children that the parents don't have any clue about, well yeah that is overstepping the parents jurisdiction, but this does not. The Word of God must be applied from the pulpit to everyone. And when you see a child acting dangerously or rebelliously outside the authority or outside the sight of his parents, perfectly appropriate to take that child to the parents and explain the situation, use it as a teaching moment.

Very, very appropriate. I'd never discipline a child, but I frequently do speak to a parent about what they're ignoring in the child's life, especially if it is serious. Now we emphasize in our church the verse that says that love covers a multitude of sins. We want there to be such a loving atmosphere that we're not nitpicking at every little detail. We don't want people to feel that at all.

Love covers the most of them, right? It covers the multitude of sins. But I have had to, at least on two occasions in my 25 years of ministry, I have had to tell visiting parents that they are no longer welcome to come to this church because when we confronted them their kids were kicking people and destroying property and when we said are you going to discipline your child oh no we don't believe in discipline I said but they're hurting people yeah but they are going to be hurt themselves if we discipline. And we tried to work with them, tried to work with them, and they absolutely refused to receive any kind of instruction from the scriptures. And they said, basically, it's none of your business to tell us we need to discipline our children." He said, well I think this is not a good church for you.

This is not a good church fit. So we asked them to walk. And so there's really nothing that says because somebody wants to be a part of your fellowship you have to let them be a part of your fellowship. You need to exercise your church authority, and that's imitating John. And so when the balance of jurisdictions that 2 John exemplifies are consistently lived out, you've got a much greater chance of seeing success.

Now obviously there's a lot more we could say about jurisdictions, but hopefully I've said enough where you can see this really is a beautiful book for articulating the kind of balance that NCFIC has talked about for a number of years now. I believe family integrated churches are in the perfect position to do the kind of work that we are that we're talking about, in fact far better than the the mega churches. Okay, having dealt with jurisdictional issues, let's move on to the practical issues that most of our churches face day in and day out, and I think the first one should be pretty obvious. Don't avoid messed up people. Pretty obvious.

If they're willing to submit to authority, don't avoid messed up people. Now that's hard when you love the coolness of your fellowship and everybody's so like-minded and the kids are so well behaved and then a family like this woman comes in and half of her kids are not obeying the truth, they're not loving each other, and it's difficult. I admit it. I admit it, and that's why it's critical that we take all of these principles into account and we get that family up to speed fairly quickly. And by quickly I mean in the realm of months.

Now we've already dealt with the fact she's a single mom. We're not told why she is single. It could be that her husband died, but 1 Corinthians 7 talks about pagans who have divorced their wives, and there were messy divorces back in John's day and Paul's day the apostolic age. And we're going to find them today as well. We've got at least one family that's had three divorces and remarriages, and they're not biblical divorces and remarriages.

They're obviously not qualified to be elders, but again we have tried to work with them. They've repented of that. They've committed to not going down that road ever again, and we're mentoring them. We're trying to model for them to make sure their children don't follow in their footsteps. Other families have come with kids that are undisciplined.

Now they already know that their kids are not like our kids and they're very motivated to get their kids up to speed, so it's very easy to teach them. It's a very natural process, but it does take tender loving care and patience from the body. Second, value the truth more than comfort. Get your whole church to value the truth more than comfort. Verse 1, to the elect lady and her children whom I love in the truth, and not only I, but also all those who have known the truth because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever.

John loved her, and the whole church loved her because they valued truth more than comfort. They valued truth more than having a church that looks perfect. They valued truth more than having facades, you know, where everything looks like it's put together. Our church really strives hard to have open relationships where we're honest about the struggles that we are going through because it's really important to model that for the new people coming in or they're gonna be so discouraged thinking you're perfect, which you aren't, you already know that, that they're gonna leave. And we've had that in my previous church.

They just felt this is a perfect church. We don't fit. I say some people hide their sins a lot better than others, you know. But When you have facades, you don't tend to welcome people who don't fit the stereotype, and John's church welcomed this broken family. They loved on them, and they did so in the truth.

Now that assumes, though, that you expect this new family to love the truth, too, right? They've got to love the truth. They've got to be willing to grow in the truth as well. There are some people who come into churches simply to suck the church dry, and when their welcome wears off they go to another church to suck that church dry, and those kind of parasites would not last very long in John's church because he expects them to change, right? He expects them to grow in the Lord.

So John is not modeling a flabby love, but a love that is defined by the truth of Scripture, and when you define the truth and they see, look, this is in your best interests. We're doing this because we love you. Those who aren't interested in change, the bums, they're going to be leaving. And you're going to be working with those who really do want to grow in Christ. So it's exercising a tough love that moves families to maturity, but we all must value truth more than comfort.

Third, value people more than programs. John said that their whole church valued her family, And let me assure you that when a family is struggling with issues and struggling with their children, they can sense very quickly whether you love them and value them or whether you're just putting up with them and maybe not even putting up with them. You know, you're not tolerating them. They can tell. So how do you love a family like that?

Well, the same way that you fulfill the commandments Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount to love those who are outside the church, who Christ says We must bless when they curse. We must do good to them when they do evil to us. That takes the supernatural grace of God. In fact, if you read the Sermon on the Mount, just with the understanding that He is raising the bar on these people and saying, look, this is going to cut the feet out from under the Pharisees because the Pharisees simply cannot fulfill the Sermon on the Mount, which by the way is an accurate exposition of the Old Testament. It's not doing away with the Old Testament, it's correcting their misinterpretations of it.

But you cannot love your enemies and those who persecute you without God's supernatural grace. And so what we need to be casting into our congregations is what's already being cast in this conference, a dependence upon God's grace, where you are doing what no tear can do. Okay? So it's looking to the Lord's supernatural grace. The fourth thing that must be shored up in our churches is communication.

And this is not just communication on Sunday, but communication during the week like happened here. Now too many churches I think are shy. They're shy about communicating to broken families, yes that they have been growing like he does here, but also reminding them of the things that they still need to be assured up on. In this letter, John communicates about holiness in verse 4, the need for her children to be more loving in verse 5. He defines what that means in verse 6.

He warns her against heretics in verses 7 through 9. He tells her she needs to stop extending hospitality to such heretics in verses 10 through 11. In verse 12 he says, hey, I've got a whole bunch more things I need to talk to you, but I'm just gonna come to your house and I'm gonna talk to you guys face to face. In other words, he's saying the kind of tough things that need to be said. He says them in an upbeat way, and we're gonna get to the upbeatness in a bit.

That's so critical. But he is saying things that need to be said, tough things, and you're never gonna get people from A to Z, brokenness to wholeness, if you are too shy about doing that. Now these verses speak of two ways of communicating, face-to-face and written. Some of our family integrated churches have to, people have to drive up to two and a half hours away and it's almost it's brutal to try to visit them on a regular basis home to home. It is really really a tough thing, but that's not the only mode of communication that you have to engage in.

Some of the communication can take place on Sundays. Obviously verse 12 indicates even with people who are distant there needs to be in-home visits, but if home visits are the only kind of shepherding that elders engage in we're really shortchanging ourselves. John wrote letters. Shepherding by email is not without precedent, okay? The busier an elder becomes, the more he's going to have to think outside the box and how do I communicate adequately with my sheep?

I can't drive everywhere, be with all of my sheep all of the time. Jay Adams says we need to use technology. The telephone is a marvelous device where you can talk with people. The using email as well, it speeds up the sanctification process and the integration process, and if we had time I could talk about how the whole congregation really needs to be a communicating congregation. As Romans words it, able to exhort, able to encourage one another in the Lord.

Fifth, we should make sure that love in the truth is present and is constantly being affirmed. John didn't just love this woman and her children in the Lord, he affirmed that love. He said, I love you in the Lord, okay? I love you. Verses 1, 5, and 6, he showed that love by taking the time to write that letter.

He manifested love by showing he knows the state of her family. He shows an interest in her family. He showed love by expressing the concern that heresies were having upon her mind in verses 7 through 9. If the whole church does not overflow with love, then the needed correctives that we need to bring into broken families are not going to be received as well. But when they know we love them, they know we care about them, much more receptive.

And there's lots of ways of affirming love. We're a hugging church. In fact, some of us even give one another a holy kiss and some of them, oh, we're not up to that, but we give them a holy handshake. But we're a hugging church. There's lots of ways to express love, and when people come to our church, one of the things that they say that just blows them away is they've never seen a church that they can tell people love hanging out together and doing work projects together and speaking with each other and having each other to each other's home.

They can tell that there is love that is going on. My current church is the first North American church where I think I've witnessed that we've had love in others, but this is the first one with a degree of love where I think the kind of transformation that happened in Africa, it was happening in John's church, was possible. I think it's in part because we have been willing to implement all of the principles that the NCFIC has posted on their website. The sixth thing that must be present is a positive and affirming atmosphere. I'm going to hit this one up hard.

I think Paul was a genius at this. Even the churches that Paul was chewing out royally, I mean they were in real trouble. 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, are just filled with praise. I mean, he points out all kinds of good things that are going on in their lives. And it really does make the rebukes easier to swallow, but I think John displays that here as well.

You can see it throughout the book, but I'm just going to focus in on verse 3. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. I want you to notice that he says, will be with you. That's an affirmation. If you're a Christian, these things will be with you.

Now she is probably just overwhelmed, discouraged with how bad her kids are compared to everybody else's kids and the fact that she's a single mom. And yet, what John does here is he casts hope into her life. Now the first essential for developing a positive atmosphere in a church is that we need to be grace focused and grace saturated. John says grace will be with you. Now the margin of the New King James Bible has says that the NU and the majority text have with us.

Now if that's correct, then John is saying, hey I'm in the same boat with you guys, we all have sin, we all are in need of grace, we're all in need of mercy, so that's an encouraging thing. People are realizing, hey I'm not the only one with a problem here, we all are problems before God's grace. But in either way he's promising grace and we are constantly having to give hope, cast hope into people's lives that God's grace is sufficient. It doesn't matter how far you've fallen, how messed up your lives are, God's grace can change you and it can cause you to triumph and it's just thrilling for me as an elder to not only cast this but see the grace transforming people's lives. Second word in verse three and that develops a positive atmosphere is mercy.

John is guaranteeing that God's mercy will flow in their lives, which implies what? That we're always in need of mercy, always in need of mercy. Lamentation says if it were not for the Lord's mercies we all would have been consumed long ago. So again, what he's doing, he's becoming a cheerleader for God's mercy in this woman's life, and the more we realize how every one of us needs God's mercy, the more tender-hearted we're going to be to each other. The less judgmental we'll be when people mess up and they have difficulties.

The church was never designed to be a holy huddle of people excluding those who are broken. There's a sense in which all of us are broken, growing more and more into God's grace. God's peace is the third word and it's also critical to healthy atmosphere. Let me define that from the dictionary. It says, to be complete or sound, the general meaning behind the word shalom or root shalom is to be, is completion and fulfillment of entering into a state of wholeness and unity a restored relationship so John is cheerleading that they can be made whole and this is what broken people long for they they want peace inward peace outward peace restoration of everything that was lost in Adam, and if we could be cheerleaders of this, we're going to be magnets.

Our churches will attract more people because they're going to be testifying, this church really helped me to transition from a messed up state into into wholeness. Now all of this needs to be given definition by the bookends of love and truth and because of lack of time we're gonna skip those I've already touched on love and truth to some degree, but really really important. He says it needs to be done in love and truth, but John is not telling them to be optimistic by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. He's telling them, look up. He says these things come from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father.

So we teach people to look up, not look to us. They should not see elders or the church as their Savior. You allow them to do that, you're gonna put all kinds of stress on yourself and you're gonna rob them of God's grace. So even when we're talking about practical things like kids, you know, learning not to be noisy and wiggly in church, you know, we go to them and say, let me share with you some of the steps that God's helped me with and we're again directing their attention to the Lord. Another way in which a positive and affirming atmosphere is maintained is by acknowledging the accomplishments that these families have made.

Okay there may still be major problems and appears that there are, but he doesn't focus on the negative. It's just a wonderful thing. Verse 4, I rejoiced greatly that I found some of your children walking in the truth as we received commandment from the Father. And again, because of lack of time, I'm gonna have to skip amplification on that, but we have got to learn not to focus on, wow, your kids still are messed up. You kids still have so many things that they've got to go through.

Now, encourage them on what they have already accomplished. They already know they're messed up, right? They want to grow in that, but if we emphasize the positive, it'll help. And then one last thing on this point of being positive is patience. Now some people misinterpret patience as ignoring issues that need to be dealt with.

But I want you to notice that the last half of verse 4 says, as we have received commandment from the Father. So John continues to hold the standard out in front of them at the same time that he's giving encouragement to them. So some people act as if patience ignores the standard. But patience is saying, we're still going to be moving you toward that standard of maturity, but we realize it's going to take a lot of time. If you don't have patience you're going to discourage the newcomers.

If you don't hold out the standard you're going to discourage the group of people whose lives are much more put together, the people who are already members of the church. When you hold both together everybody is encouraged and everybody is moving forward. So it's just such a neat balance I love this book and I've spent a lot of time on this this point but it is an important one okay seventh thing that needs to be in placed It's imperative that we saturate the church in Scripture. Now depending on how you count it, there are at least 13 times that John brings this woman's attention back to the Scripture, and of course the whole book's Scripture too, isn't it? In our church we have scriptural promises, we have scriptural reading of the law, we sing the scripture, we preach two sermons, you know after the service people are talking about the scriptures with each other.

Now it takes hard work to get people to do that and to get people to to focus in on the scripture but it will pay off. And let me tell you something, your word, your testimony is not sharper than any two-edged sword. Scripture is. And we've got to saturate our churches in Scripture if we're going to see the kind of transformation that we saw out in Africa. So make sure you accompany your testimony and your advice and everything else with Scripture.

I'm just shocked at how much psychological counseling goes on where not a single scripture in a whole hour of counseling comes out. That does not transform. Scripture does. Okay, we've got to make sure it's an atmosphere that we're just literally swimming in, swimming in Scripture. Eighth, see church discipline as an incredible blessing.

The church ties, the scripture ties it to the growth of the body, and when most evangelical churches do not exercise loving discipline, it's no wonder to me that they are not transformational. You see the same problems in the church, you see in the world, and they're not changing. Let me just give you a scripture from 2 Corinthians 10. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." And now I want you to notice the sentence is not finished.

Let me keep reading on that sentence. And being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. People never quote that because it's kind of negative. They like the first part they don't like the second. But what's the context?

The context of that incredible passage on spiritual warfare is discipline one of the reasons that the churches were so transformed and the tribes that I grew up in as they took Church discipline seriously the keys of the kingdom are admitting to communion admitting to membership they're excluding And if you take a look at verse 7, it says, For many deceivers have gone out into the world, which implies they weren't in the world before. They were in the church, right? But they were now put out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an Antichrist. So excommunication is one form of discipline, but another form of discipline is simply warning.

Look at verse 8. Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we work for, but that we may receive a full reward. Now a lot of people think of discipline as only the final stage, but as the Puritans pointed out, when you're sitting in the pew every Sunday you're sitting under the discipline of the word, okay? By far the vast majority of discipline is your self discipline. Sometimes it involves a rebuke from another person.

Matthew 18 says it may be just one of the members of the church. Taking a person aside, I'm really concerned about what you're involved in here in pornography or whatever it may be, a lot of the problems in our church never get to us elders. Why? Because the body is engaging in discipline. They love each other enough to speak the word into their lives.

And I don't think it's a loving church when there is no discipline. That's true, there is abusive discipline out there that's not done in love, but just like there is abusive discipline of children with a rod, right? But Hebrews 12 says if you don't discipline your child, you don't love them. And in the same way, a church without discipline is a church without love, and so again it's no wonder most churches don't transform broken families. They do not love them enough to discipline.

Now the ninth word that postmodernism hates is antithesis. Being willing not just to say this is good but to also say this is bad. Postmodernism is willing for you to affirm anything you want. If you want to believe that, that's just great so long as you don't say what the other person believes is heresy. What the other person says is bad.

But John cared so much that he warned this lady of the dangers of heresy in verse 9. Whoever transgresses does not bide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. People think that warning about the bad things that are happening in Protestantism is a negative ministry, but as Francis Schaeffer used to say, you aren't truly preaching the word, the truth of God, if you are not willing to reject error. Okay?

That's antithesis. That's why we have labels on medicine. It's not enough to say this medicine is good for something, you also have to say it's bad for something. You put a label on there, said don't take this whole pill bottle, you know, or you might die. And there are metaphorical pills that we should not be swallowing.

And it was because the reason, one of the reasons why the African churches grew so much as they had antithesis. They were willing to warn of not only what is good, but warn of what was bad from their old lifestyle, their old methods of disciplining children, their old methods of finances, their failure to honor their wives. In fact, a lot of them beat their wives and that could not be tolerated, their old views on sexuality, present orientedness, demonic cultural paradigms. Now many churches are not willing to engage in that kind of a negative ministry because they want to have a positive ministry and so they will not oppose feminism, socialism, evolutionism, or all the other idols that have been gripping our society. You will never have the kind of transformational ministry that John talks about without antithesis.

Now will you be criticized on the web if you engage in that? Absolutely yes you will. You'll be criticized big time, but God will be pleased with you and you're going to be helping people to get past their problems. They're going to be blessing you as well. Okay, tenth is joy.

If a church does not overflow with joy, people will eventually get discouraged and leave. Verse 12, having many things to write to you, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink, but I hope to come to you and speak face to face that our joy may be full." When face to face communication within your church brings full joy, you know you've got something. You've got a magnet. Other people are going to want to have what you have. They might not like every aspect of what you stand for, but they say, I like the joy you have.

I want the joy that you have. The joy of the Lord is your strength, is what it says in Nehemiah, and it's spiritual joy that takes people through some pretty rough waters. 11th, well I should just skip over that because of time. Preach to your kids. Verse 4.

12, we should help the members of our churches take parenting seriously. It's nothing worse than having little kids terrorizing the house and the parents are totally oblivious to it and everybody's trying to pretend like it's not happening, right? So John encourages parenting in verse four, pleads for better parenting in verse five, instructs from the words that parents must parent. The thirteenth characteristic may seem a little bit puzzling, grounding the family in good doctrine. Now why would doctrine be important in turning broken families right side up?

Well, doctrine when it's properly taught is incredibly transformational not just for family but for the entire culture. If you don't have the book because I don't have time to get into it, this is a shorthand, read Rushdoney's book Foundations of Social Order. It shows how the early creeds of the church absolutely revolutionized culture. It's just an amazing book, amazing book. Or read Bruce Ware's book, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, as a theological foundation for family ministry.

Without even realizing it, Just your view of God is going to impact how you love. It's going to be totally different than Islam, totally different than polytheism, how you love your leadership, your view of family, so many different things. And so John taught doctrine, he insisted she learn proper doctrine regarding Jesus. Fourteenth, John encourages this lady to avoid dangerous contact with dangerous people in verses 7 through 10. When families aren't making good progress, help them figure out what the bad influences are.

Okay? Now we don't have the time again to get into verses 7 through 10 and show how John avoided being too controlling on the one hand, that is a problem, and leaving her in her naivete on the other. But he warned her to avoid certain people and certain teachings. And the last point is hospitality. Here was a broken family that was being admonished in the best ways to show hospitality and how not to show hospitality, but he assumed she was going to be in hospitality even though her family was broken.

And you know 1st Timothy 5, Paul expected the widows, even though they were impoverished, to engage in hospitality. It was a requirement. We don't let anybody off the hook in our congregation. Everybody must be involved, even the down and outers. We give a ministry.

They're not going to grow if you don't give a ministry. And so some of our singles, they don't know how to cook, but actually they bring some of the most popular food. Nobody else brings the junk food. They bring the cheesies, you know, and the fun things to eat. But when a church is given to hospitality, it becomes a hospital where broken people can heal.

So from start to finish, this is a book that illustrates the pervasive doctrine of the family integrated church, and I pray that God would prosper the efforts of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches as they seek to bring the church back to the five solas, back to being the kind of transformational churches that John describes in this book. So if you take the Great Commission seriously at all, you've got to put 2 John into your paradigm. And as always, thanks for watching. And to the establishment of biblically ordered churches. For more information, resources, and products, please visit our website at www.ncfic.org.

You