Transcription
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All right. So, we are finally into the second letter. We are in the series called the letters of John. And we've been dealing with with the first letter for quite a while. But now we are in week eight. We are dealing with the second letter. And this second letter is kind of like that friend who doesn't speak all the time, but every so often will interject and everyone listens because you know that they don't talk very often. And usually it's full of wisdom. It's full of truth. They've heard all the different sides of the story. That is like second John.
Now, this is something maybe none of you, maybe some of you have never done this. Maybe you've never read an entire book of the Bible. Let's see a show of hands. Have you read an entire book of the Bible? Maybe you haven't done that. Now is your chance. You can read this entire book of the Bible for in the same amount of time that it takes like toast in your toaster to toast. Like that. That is kind of or your coffee to brew. That that is the amount of time it takes to read this entire book of the Bible. And I'm going to give you that opportunity here right now. And so, we're going to read this entire book of the Bible. Let's jump into Second John. It reads like this.
I What I love is that there's not even there's not even chapters in this. It's it's just one continuous thing. 13 verses. Here's what it says. The elder to the lady chosen by God and to her children whom I love in the truth. and not I only but also all who know the truth because of the truth which lives in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son will be with us in truth and love. It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth just as the Father commands us. And now, dear Lady, I am not writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, this command is that you walk in love. I say this because many deceivers who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever continues in the teaching has both the father and the son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring his teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work. I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face so that our joy may be complete. The children of your sister who is chosen by God send their greetings.
There you have it. You You did it. That is a book of the Bible. You hammered it. You got it done. And so, we've we've officially read a book of the Bible if you've never done that before. But don't let the size of this book, like the entire book book is is 13 verses there. There's a lot of meat in here, it's kind of like the bottle of hot sauce and if and if you put a little bit too much hot sauce, you're like, whoa, it blows you away. This is the kind of stuff here that that John is addressing that he's talking about. And he is older. He is he's a senior. He's a seasoned believer. And he writes here to the chosen lady and her children. The chosen lady and her children. And we're like, who is this? Who are you talking to, John? This is kind of kind of weird. Like, I don't know who this is. And we we're not going to find that out. We don't know if this is a specific person that he's addressing. We don't know if this is kind of a metaphor for the whole church. We don't know if he's addressing the whole church here. We don't exactly know what this looks like, but we we do know he wants to address a few things here today. And he wants to give a message that is relevant to whoever it was written to. It's a relevant as as it was then as it is today. Like it's it's a message for us. It's about walking in truth, walking in love, and don't not being like spiritually naive.
And so we know that he's writing to a specific person, a specific group of people. And and he begins by emphasizing something that we might feel, something that is maybe close to us. Now, at first glance here, it might be it might be intentional this this idea of truth because we we see him mention this time and time again in the truth. It's like he's he he's he's banging and he's kicking this dead horse like over and over and over again. We see this this word truth. He he's mentioned it in in the first uh book here in in the first letter of John, but we hear the se theme over and over again about others who know the truth in the truth walking in the truth. It's about the truth that lives in us and will be in us forever. And so he wants to to make sure that we hone in here that we understand this is a major theme. This is an important uh uh idea that we need to address that we need to all be on the same page here. And and in just the first few opening lines, as you might have noticed, he repeats this again and again and again. It's it's it's foundational for everything that follows. It's like it's like Jenga, and you're you're playing the game Jenga, and it really matters how that base is is is foundational for the rest of the tower, right? And so he's saying this is the important stuff. You need to understand this. And this is where we get our main idea for this first section of the letter. This idea that truth is not optional. It it is foundational. It is the foundation for everything that comes after this. We really need to get this right.
He's not talking about random debatable facts. He he's not talking about whether you like this kind of pizza or that kind of pizza or what kind of sports you like or or what is your favorite film. It's it's nothing like that. He's they might they might spark like debate within Christian circles or or with within different people groups. He's talking about a type of truth that is not debatable. Something that deeply lives within you. It it is foundational to who you are, how you function, how you live your life. It shapes your thinking. It makes your decisions for you, your relationships, your character, the words that you use. It's the kind of truth that that that doesn't just like visit once a week on a Sunday. It it's an day in and day out. It it's it's when you're waking up, it's when you go to bed, it's all the time kind of truth. And he's saying that truth is not just some idea that that someone has made up here. It is a person. And I'll just remind you of John 14:6, right? Very familiar passage for us. I am the way, the truth, and the life. That everyone come who comes to the father, he go they go through Jesus, right? That this is his idea. And so when John speaks of truth, he's ultimately pointing us to Jesus himself. It's not an idea. It's it's it's something that lives within us and it's the personhood of Jesus. And that means we don't just believe truth like intellectually that we know it's some kind of idea or or thought process or educationally we understand it. This is this is a relational component of everything that we that we do. We walk in truth. We live in truth. We we we love in truth. We correct in truth. We we we live this thing out. It's not your truth versus my truth. It is a way of life. And and and John's words I it it cuts through a world that doesn't understand this that a world that says that truth is kind of objective that the truth is an idea that your truth and my truth are are different and truth is something that that that that if it feels good that that is your truth. But John is saying something different here that it's foundational and and John moves from this idea of foundational truth to the to the next major theme here in this very short letter. And and ideally it is love. It's almost like we we know what it's going to be. And and he says this in 2 John 6. And this is love that we walk in obedience to his commands. And and and the main idea I I think we could summarize it like this that love is not just a feeling. It is obedience. It's not just a feeling. It is obedience. And that that's that's difficult. We don't like that word obedience. That that kind of rubs us the wrong way. And we've never really heard love as a definition of love uh obedience mentioned. And in our world, it reduces love to kind of like this emotion, this emotional state, something that is warm, something that is sentimental, something that is fleeting though, right? It it's the feeling that you get when someone makes you happy, when someone agrees with you, when someone gives you a compliment, that kind of thing. But but feelings, we know they are unreliable, right? My feelings change from when I wake up till after I have my coffee. They they they change based on my experiences throughout the day. And so and so it's not really fair to define love such such an important idea and concept. You can't really identify it as a feeling. It has to be something more important, more certain than something that I feel on a day-to-day day basis. And John, he he wants to talk about that. He he wants to say that love is is far more than than just a feeling, but it's more more more an action. He he wants to define it as obedience, something that we do, something that we choose to do. And love is is demonstrated through obedience to God. You want to do this. You want to obey God for who he is and what he's done. And so Jesus himself has defined it in in John 14:15. He says this, "If you love me, keep my commands." It's Jesus words himself say this. He he says this is an action step. This is something that you ought to be doing. It's not just a feeling. It's something that you live out. And it's not a version of love that you like always prefer. It's it's an obedience step. It's it's a it's a mustd do. And and so imagine telling someone like, I love you deeply. I I love you so much. My love for you is unending. You are my soulmate. You are whatever. I I confess my love to you. I just don't want to listen to anything you have to say. It doesn't really go hand in hand, does it? And Jesus is saying like this does go hand in hand. If you love me, if you are sincere about this, then listen to what I have to say and live in accordance to what the word of God says. It is an obedient command. It's it's kind of like being a part of a gym and saying, "Yeah, I'm part of Anytime Fitness or whatever your closest gym is. I am I pay my membership fee. I do this. I'm a part I got my key. I got my fob to get in there. I just I've never gone there before. I got my membership, but I don't follow through with actually going to the gym and working out. Jesus is saying, you got to go to the gym. You You got to exercise this thing. You got to live this out. And yet, we sometimes approach God in that exactly same way. Like, I'm a part of this thing. I'm a part of the Christian community. I'm a part of the Christian circle. And I I I love you, God. I love you, Jesus, but I'm not going to listen to your guidance. I I love you, but I'm not going to follow through on your commands. I love you, but I'm not going to, I don't know, get baptized. I love you, but I'm not going to make this corrective action step in my life. I'm not going I love you, but I'm not going to forgive someone. I love you, but I'm going to talk behind people's back. I love you, but I'm not going to live it out. And John is saying it's it's not right. That's not what love is. Love is obedience.
And then almost abruptly he changes the tone of this letter and it says this in 2 John verse 7. Many deceivers have gone out into the world. Many deceivers has gone out into the world. And and he brings up this third kind of idea here in this in this book. Deception is real. Don't fall for it. Deception is real. Don't fall for it. Now, now we've talked about this in John's time. There were there were teachers. There was people of influence. There was popularity contest. There there was people who were saying that that Jesus was sometimes he was sometimes supernatural and sometimes he was not. That he would come in and out of his supernatural ability. And sometimes he was completely human and sometimes he was God. But he was never both at the same time. It was kind of like coming and going some some bizarre kind of mythological type of thing going on. And and and and it's important that it is addressed because because if Jesus wasn't fully human, then he could not truly suffer and and he did not truly die and he did not truly accomplish what it means for us to have salvation. And so we have to understand that and that was an issue in John's day maybe not so much an issue in our day but we got different kind of issues don't we this idea that maybe Jesus I like Jesus but I don't like the church I like Jesus and he was a great teacher I just don't think that maybe he was God and there are other great teachers maybe the idea that there are many different paths to the same God it doesn't really matter which one I go. Maybe the idea that if I'm just a good person and I do enough good that that I will get to heaven. May maybe it's the idea that truth is whatever feels right to you. And and those ideas, they sound they sound inclusive, right? Like everyone's invited, everyone is welcome. We we love everybody. We don't want to offend anybody. We want to make sure that everyone is is a part of this thing. And and here's the deal with deception. Deception is this idea that not everything that sounds good is true. Deception rarely presents itself as something bad. In fact, deception generally presents itself as something good. And and it is usually only a few degrees away from something good. It's just not not not truly good. It's almost there, but but it's not fully there. It's almost right. In fact, it's usually wrapped in something that looks right. It's close enough to the truth to be convincing, but far enough away to be dangerous. Are you getting that? Does that make sense? It's meant to deceive. It's meant to pull off course. I It's meant to capture your attention, but mislead you into destruction. It It's like drinking drinking. Here's what happened. At our house, we went away. We were gone for almost 3 weeks. And we came home. My kids don't know this yet, but we came home and one of them poured a uh they had a bowl of cereal and they poured milk into that cereal. And uh I noticed that some of the milk was gone and I had forgotten to throw the bag of milk out. It had been sitting there. It was expired. One of them ate the cereal, ate the whole bowl of cereal. And and and and that's not something that we do, right? Like we don't want to drink sour milk. We sniff that milk. We check the date. We want to make sure that that milk is totally totally fine. But it might look fine. It might might smell maybe fine. Maybe maybe it's just a little bit off, but soon as it's off, you can tell, hey, there's something not right about that milk. If it's contaminated, you don't want to go through with it. You don't want to fall for it. And John is kind of giving you that warning that even if it's a few degrees off here, it it's it's dangerous.
See, John gives us this clear and practical warning in verse 8 here. He says this, "Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for. We've worked for this. You you you've come so far from who you used to be to who God intended you to be. You've you've come so far in that. And so stay grounded. Stay alert. Fight for this thing. Stay rooted in what you know to be true. Faith is not something that you can put on autopilot. You need to get up a every single day and decide to do it to decide to live in obedience. Fight for obedience. Choose what is good. It requires attentiveness. It requires intentionality. And this leads directly into this this final idea that John wants to hone in on. Discernment matters. Discernment matters, especially at your front door. And he writes something that can feel uh like like surprisingly strong here. And in fact, verse 10, he says this, "Do not take them into your house or welcome them." Man, that sounds kind of brutal, right? That's a little harsh in our world to say something like that. It might seem even unloving. But understanding the cultural context here, it does help us a little bit because because basically what this saying is is at the time if you invited someone into your house, you were endorsing them. You you you were you were saying I agree with them or or I I I I believe in you or what you say like it's it was an endorsement of another individual to help spread their influence. And John is not telling people to be rude or to be cold-hearted. He is warning them not to confuse kindness with agreement. I if if a Jehovah Witness person knocks on my door, which they have in the past, they don't anymore. But but if they knock on my door, I've never let them into my house. I can I can treat them with kindness. I can love them, but I do not let them into my house. You you might have chosen to do that. I don't do that. And here here's one of the reasons that I don't is because I have neighbors who live all around me and if they see the pastor inviting a Jehovah Witness into their house, then they might also themselves think that that's a good idea. And and I don't think it's a good idea. And so the the front door is vitally vitally important here. And there's a difference between loving someone and affirming everything that they say. You don't have to be a cheerleader of someone you you disagree with. You can still love them. And in today's world, we might think of of that as like being like hateful or you're a bigot or whatever that is. But but John is saying something different. He's saying, who are you giving a platform to? What voices are are are being allowed to shape your thinking or our she or our thinking? But what ideas are welcome into your lives without question? Because your how your life is like a house. A and you need to be careful what comes through the front door. Not every idea deserves a seat at your table.
Now, now, now my house, we have all kinds of windows around that house. And we have a couple front doors, like one to the mud room, one to the front front of the house. and and and we have we have cameras on those doors so I can see who's there. I'm pretty protective of of my home and my family. I want to protect them at all costs. It's not just anyone that comes into our house. We I make sure like this is kind of our castle. This is our home. It's got to be a safe place. And and I feel like that's part of my responsibility. What comes in and out. And we don't just like sleep every night with all the doors unlocked and completely open and taking the doors off and letting anyone come in and all the windows are open and we don't have screens and just like, hey, it's a free-for-all. Whoever come every whoever wants to come in, you know, just come in. And and God is saying Jesus is like that door. You you put a door on your house for a reason. It's to guard your family. And God is saying that that people only come to God through Jesus. And so we need to understand that people we we've had all kinds of people over the years live in our home. There there was a series of years probably I don't know seven or eight years where we had people living with us non-stop and there were great people. We we we we loved it. It was a great time in our life. We enjoyed having it. But there was a point in time where we had to re-evaluate and say, you know what, this has been a season in our life. We are glad and we are happy for this season. But there's there was a time that we needed to set a boundary in place for our family. And that needed to be the main focus in this next season of our life. And sometimes we hesitate to set boundaries in our lives because we worry that maybe that boundary is going to seem unloving. But boundaries when they're when they're rooted in the truth, when they're rooted in obedience, when they when they're rooted in actual expressions of wisdom, they're good. They're they're good things.
See, e even Jesus, who loved perfectly, did not give equal access to every single person or every voice of influence. He invited a few into his inner circle because discernment I it means knowing what to receive, what to reject, when to say it's not something that I can welcome in or now it is time to welcome this in. It's not about fear. It is about being faithful. And yet, despite all these warnings, John's ultimate goal is not to leave us like full of anxiety or suspicious of every single person that we talk to, he ends this letter in a deeply relational, hopefilled way. He says this, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face so that our joy may be complete. See, even in a letter that addresses truth and love and deception, the destination is joy. It's not a fleeting joy. It's not a partial joy. It's not a fragile joy. It's a consistent joy. It's a deeprooted, deepseated joy. A joy that comes from living in alignment with who God intended you to be, fulfilling your purpose, living this thing out, a good and lasting impression.
And so as we as we take a step back from second John, this this book that we that we read here today, the invitation is it's simple and it's it's deeply profound. Number one, build your life on truth. Not not on shifting ideas. Not not on not on hearsay or or feelings or anything like that. Build it on truth. Set your love may may that be expressed. May May your love be expressed through obedience. Not just intentions, but actual living like follow through. Number three, stay alert to deception. Even when it appears to be good, e even when it's subtle, e even when it's appealing, be careful. And number four, practice discernment. Guarding your heart and your mind. Align align who you are and what you believe with the word of God, maybe with godly influences in your life. And if John were actually speaking us to to us today, he he would say just stay grounded in Jesus. Look look at look at the world through the lens of Jesus. Allow Jesus to be the front door of your heart. Because in the end, if we allow what we allow into our lives, it it shapes us. It it it makes us it it it molds us. But when truth and love when they walk together, what what you find is real and lasting joy. And and John, he he wants you to know that that deep joy can be found in loving God back.
Let's pray. Father, we uh we we thank you for this just the sec second letter here. It's just short, but it is packed with stuff. And uh we we are grateful for it. And and Father, we want to live this thing out in in in guarding our heart and our mind, allowing Jesus to be the door of of our lives. And and uh God, that that we would be protective over that and we would look at the world through that lens of Jesus. And so help us to live this thing out. Give us the strength to walk in obedience to to live out our love in the everyday. Uh we pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.