Meeting: Welfare Service
Date: 29 Dec, 2024
Message:
Ministers: Pastor Olaide Olaniyan
Sunday Message (Pastor Olaide Olaniyan)
(2 John 1:1-4) “1 The elder [of the church addresses this letter] to the elect (chosen) [a]lady and her children, whom I love in truth—and not only I, but also all who know and understand the truth— 2 because of the truth which lives in our hearts and will be with us forever: 3 Grace, mercy, and peace (inner calm, a sense of spiritual well-being) will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, in truth and love. 4 I was greatly delighted to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father.”
The Lord wants to raise a community of those whose interactions are based on truth – the truth in Christ and the truth in God. God desires to raise these kinds of communities. The church John was writing to, was a community established upon the truth found in Christ and the truth found in God.
There are different types of love. There is what they call love in truth, and there is a love that comes as a result of being favoured or people having a good disposition towards you.The latter kind of love kind can be injurious to the soul. A person who loves you in truth is not just concerned about prosperity in the natural, but after the spiritual aspect of your lives.
For the apostle John to love in the truth, it means first of all that he has known the truth. We must strive to know the truth and love in it. Even as believers, it is possible for a husband to not love his wife in the truth, it is possible for brethren to not love themselves in the truth; this is because they do not know the truth. To love in the truth is to be raised by the desires of Jesus and to be wholesomely rounded in Christ.
When we know the truth, there is a way we would love differently from others who do not know the truth. For instance, a person who hasn’t known the truth can love by the laws of reciprocity – when people show love to the person, the person can reciprocate that love. However, this is not what it means to love in the truth. When one loves in the truth, they are able to show love even when they are not getting any in return.
When we live and relate by the truth that is in the lord Jesus, then we are loving in the truth. Loving in truth isn’t just our response or demonstrations, much more, it’s our desire towards others that they will be found total and complete in Christ. When we desire the best thing we know or imagine for others, then we can say we love them. To be favourably disposed to someone is what it means to love. So to love in truth is when all our desire is that others will grow and be made perfect in truth. That desire towards people is what will affect our actions and reactions towards them.
When we love our parents, we should love according to the truth, when we love our pastor, it should be according to the truth – anything apart from this kind of love borne out of the raising of truth still has darkness in it
Just like in 2 John 1:1 (1 The elder [of the church addresses this letter] to the elect (chosen) [a]lady and her children, whom I love in truth—and not only I, but also all who know and understand the truth.), a whole community can love in the truth. There are levels of truth: the first is the truth in Christ. As a Christ company, we should use truth to live. In interacting with one another, brother to brother, we should act according to the truth. It’s sad that most of our interactions, about 90% of them, when x-rayed, fall short of truth.
(2 John 1:2) “2 because of the truth which lives in our hearts and will be with us forever.” The reason for love according to this scripture (as we can see) is for the truth’s sake, not for our good behavior or our good records – the love here is for truth sake. The apostle John loved all the children of the elect lady, even though some of the children weren’t walking in the truth. We could see that he (John) rejoiced when he found (out) of her children walking in truth. So the Apostle couldn’t but love all the children which is because of the laws of truth that have been written on his heart.
Truth is actually faith. Truth is a calibration of faith.
The Apostles are dangerous, they have used and eaten Christ so much that all they can give is truth. Grace and truth is the property of a person – “14 And the Word (Christ) became flesh, and lived among us; and we [actually] saw His glory, glory as belongs to the [One and] only begotten Son of the Father, [the Son who is truly unique, the only One of His kind, who is] full of grace and truth (absolutely free of deception).” (John 1:14) “21 If in fact you have [really] heard Him and have been taught by Him, just as truth is in Jesus [revealed in His life and personified in Him].” (Ephesians 4:21) Truth is the material that made up Jesus, and we are supposed to receive learnings and measures of the truth. The gospel of Christ is the truth curriculum that a person should learn from faith to faith. The allocations of truth can be seen in the new and living way. The new way is the truth found in Christ in the holy place – the living way is the truth found in the Father in the most holy place. “6 Jesus said to him, “[a]I am the [only] Way [to God] and the [real] Truth and the [real] Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)
Part of the truth found in Christ is to forgive. We should be able to forgive people even before they offend us. We should be like Jesus who is the embodiment of truth, who doesn’t relate with us based on anything we do, and forgives is beforehand, even before we sin. We see the truth of forgiveness animated in Matthew 18:21-35. This is how God expects us to forgive – meaning – regardless of whatever our brother does, we have no right to take it to heart, but rather forgive from the heart. We should obey the law of forgiveness until it’s impossible for someone to offend us. This is a good way because by the time we are bringing forth corrections to that person, we aren’t doing it out of pain and anger, rather out of love and desire for the offender to change. We can get to a place in which the only thing founting from us is the love of truth. We can keep the law of forgiveness which is truth that it alters the ability to be offended at people’s actions. That even before people apologize, we are have forgotten what they have done.
The truth of Christ can be so raised in a soul that the value for the corruptible will be eradicated so much that we will start placing the right value that heaven places upon a soul. Somehow, God paid the price of Stephen to earn a Saul, and Stephen also has been raised not to seek his own. Despite all that was done to Stephen, he asked the Lord not to lay it to their charge – Stephen making this prayer of selfnessmess in his pains was what the Lord required as a legal ground to raise Paul. We need to learn to say prayers of blessings to the lord in the midst of our troubles. The beginning of the reigning of the law of truth in a man is the declaration of the things of Christ. We don’t know anything until we come to Christ. Before Christ, every man believed what they chose, but in Christ we are all gathered in one level ground to see the very content of a person of Christ and it’s when we know the truth we truly begin to live.
(Psalm 51:6) “Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part [of my heart] You will make me know wisdom.”
Man is tripartite: inner man is the spirit, inward man is the soul, and outer man is body. The hidden part is the inward part – it is also the hidden man of the heart. But, there is what God desires to be in the inward parts, which is truth. God desires truth to be our inward parts. The soul should be framed by truth and truth should be the commodity we use to live. We can use truth to do business. We can use truth to raise a child, we can use truth to raise a family. Truth is not just the opposite of a lie, but it’s a law of life loving in Jesus Christ which should be written in every one, for every soul to obey.
In the curriculum of truth, we have to start from the truth in Christ which is the new phase of the new and living way.
(Malachi 2:4-5) “And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts. [5] My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name.”
God doesn’t delight in the death of any sinner, but God was pleased with Phineas because of the fear he had before his name. We saw that Phineas killed two people but rather Phineas stopped God from killing a whole generation, which he did in the fear of God. So, God made a covenant with Phineas because of his zeal in turning away God’s wrath from his people and was afraid before God’s name.
Covenant of life is the covenant of righteousness. Romans 8 tells us that the spirit is life because of righteousness, so life is righteousness.
(Malachi 2:6) “True instruction was in Levi’s mouth and injustice was not found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from wickedness.” There is a difference between mouth and lips. Mouth is used for various purposes in the scriptures. When scriptures are talking about speaking and saying, they refer to tongues and lips, but the mouth is beyond what we speak according to scriptures. When scriptures say that the book of the law shall not depart from our mouth, it doesn’t mean we should be quoting scriptures. But the mouth is the vehicle that governs utterances, first from the soul, then to other parts of the body. (Joshua 1:8 – “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall read [and meditate on] it day and night, so that you may be careful to do [everything] in accordance with all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will be [a]successful.”)
The law of truth was found in his inward parts, in the mouth of his soul then Iniquity wasn’t found in his lips. Phineas wasn’t just acting based on flesh, but because a law of truth has been raised in his soul. He didn’t kill Cozbi and Zimri because of priesthood, but rather, because the law of truth has been raised in him and by the virtue of that, he can’t stand inquiry.
The end of holiness is everlasting life. A person can serve obedience but falter when it comes to serving righteousness due to his inability to transition into righteousness (Romans 6:16) – “Do you not know that when you continually offer yourselves to someone to do his will, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, either [slaves] of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness (right standing with God)?” To serve obedience is to obey obedience, and obedience is meant to take us from the end of a journey unto righteousness.
There are obediences we keep that are really not the obediences of righteousness in Christ. This also doesn’t mean that they are Christ, but they are the obediences that will bring us into righteousness. One of these obedience is prayers. It is not a path of righteousness in Christ, rather, it is a major obedience to accessing or transitioning into the obedience in Christ. These obedience have their exercises in the soul they give singleness of heart.
(Acts 2:46-47) – “46 Day after day they met in the temple [area] continuing with one mind, and breaking bread in various private homes. They were eating their meals together with joy and generous hearts, 47 praising God continually, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord kept adding to their number daily those who were being saved.”
To be single in heart is to focus on one thing despite not understanding it. The believers in the book of Acts continually kept obedience because there is a requirement of the law they should keep. Some of us believers today, if our pastor tells us that the lord is asking that we should empty our bank accounts and bring the money to church, we can’t keep that obedience. We must be careful in keeping the instructions of the Lord, regardless of how foolish they may seem, or who it is coming from, because we don’t know which carries life.
When spiritual authority gives some instructions, we must be careful not to despise them, in order not to miss out on life.
(Romans 6:17-19) – “17 But thank God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient with all your heart to the standard of teaching in which you were instructed and to which you were committed. 18 And having been set free from sin, you have become the slaves of righteousness [of conformity to God’s will and purpose]. 19 I am speaking in [familiar] human terms because of your natural limitations [your spiritual immaturity]. For just as you presented your bodily members as slaves to impurity and to [moral] lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness, so now offer your members [your abilities, your talents] as slaves to righteousness, leading to [a]sanctification [that is, being set apart for God’s purpose].”
Righteousness is a revelation of faith. Obeying the doctrine of christ is the faith that brings us into the righteousness of things in Christ.
(Hebrews 1:1) – “God, having spoken to the fathers long ago in [the voices and writings of] the prophets in many separate revelations [each of which set forth a portion of the truth], and in many ways.”
(Genesis 5:20) – “So Jared lived nine hundred and sixty-two years, and he died.”
Christ is a law – we see this in Galatians 6:2 (“Carry one another’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the requirements of the law of Christ [that is, the law of Christian love]”). Christ isn’t a body of commandments, he is a law of righteousness, he is a law of peace. Romans 8:2 (“For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”) tells us that Christ is the law of the spirit of life. What Christ shows is weakness and meekness. Christ produces a meek man that can obey God. To raise a man that can serve obedience into righteousness. This is the essence of the wilderness training, it is to see whether we will keep the commandments of God – “And you shall remember [always] all the ways which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart (mind), whether you would keep His commandments or not.” (Deuteronomy 8:2). After a man is exercised in wilderness, heaven begins to reveal the righteousness which is in God, which are also the ways of God. God’s righteousness are His ways. There is a mindset we have that makes us think God’s ways are the spectacular manifestations around Him but they’re not. The manifestations are the things around God but they are not God. This is why most of us will be disappointed like Elijah when we see God, because he saw demonstrations of fire, earthquake etc but God wasn’t in them, rather God revealed Himself to Elijah in the still small voice. “12 After the earthquake, [there was] a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire, [there was] the sound of a gentle blowing. 13 When Elijah heard the sound, he wrapped his face in his mantle (cloak) and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19: 12-13)
(Matthew 11:28-29) – “28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavily burdened [by religious rituals that provide no peace], and I will give you rest [refreshing your souls with salvation]. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me [following Me as My disciple], for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest (renewal, blessed quiet) for your souls.” This scripture shows us a definition of righteousness. To be meek and lowly in heart is righteousness even though they may not look like righteousness to many people. To some, equality is righteousness, but that’s not so before God. Our Lord Jesus is meek and lowly in heart. So righteousness is a thing of the heart. The Lord will have us meek and lowly, and to reduce our age in the spirit so we can gain entrance into the things of God
Our conversion to a meek and lowly being is healing for the soul. It is in this realm heaven begins to address our age. We should desire a change in our soul, even a change of heart.
(Psalm 51:10) “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a right and steadfast spirit within me.” Truth is not just what we say, it is the program to reconfigure the man within into a new man. The man within is old, to make him renewed, the truth of God’s word has to be proclaimed. The truth in Christ Jesus is the tool used to reduce our age and convert the old man within us into a new man.