21 - Walking In Goodness - BridgeWay Christian Church

21 - Walking In Goodness

3 John 9-15

December 4, 2022 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • 3 John 9–15

Putting John's three epistles together, most commentators agree that there is one theme that emerges between them: John wants all Christians, everywhere, to walk in truth and love. It’s not enough just to walk in truth. That truth has to be governed by biblical love. And it’s not enough to walk in love. That love has to be rooted in biblical truth. And when the two are brought together in a Christian, he or she is walking in biblical completeness. To show what this type of behavior looks like in a Christian, John introduces a man by the name of Demetrius, whose love for truth is juxtaposed against a man named Diotrephes, who loved only himself.

01 - Introduction: Walking In Truth & Love

May 29, 2022 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann

The three small letters written by the apostle John—1-3 JOHN—were written to the third-generation church in around Asia minor who had lost the conviction of the first-generation church (and even struggled to maintain the beliefs of the second-generation church). John saw flagrant deceptions accepted as gospel truth and a lazy church that was slow to correct and quick to capitulate. Out of his remarkably retentive memory—no doubt quickened, inspired, and energized by the Holy Spirit—John wrote 1-3 JOHN to remind his readers about what it means to walk worthily in the manner of Christ.

02 - The Word Of Life

June 5, 2022 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • 1 John 1:1–4

In the person of Jesus Christ there appears to be a living dichotomy, where two contrasting things exist in one man at the same time. That is, Jesus has both a divine nature and human nature. As such, he is the God-man who, as the 'word of life', brings life everlasting to those who believe in him as the Word of God made flesh. But how, exactly, does this wonderful truth affect and effect believers? In 1 John 1:1-4, the apostle John reminds us that the 'word of life' allows us to be in fellowship and communion with God whereby the life and likeness of Christ in us becomes more evident to those around us.

03 - Walking In The Light

June 19, 2022 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • 1 John 1:5–10

To have genuine fellowship with a holy God, we must walk in the light, as God Himself is in the light. It’s easy to claim to have fellowship with God—as so many self-deceived people do—but it’s another thing altogether for it to be true. And so, in 1 John 1:5-10, the apostle John provides a litmus test that, to his inspired way of thinking, was sure to separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the tares, the straw from the chaff, and the authentic from the inauthentic. Let he who has ear to hear, let him hear!