Well, good morning. It’s good to see you. You know, I am a melancholy person. I like rain. I like it when it’s cloudy. That’s my kind of weather. But I, I like to see the sun out today. So that means we’ve had a lot of rain. So I don’t know how long it’s supposed to last, but boy, it was nice to walk out the front door and see the sun shining on everything. So instead of going to my car, I just walked down the street for a while. I thought, I’ve got to go to the church. So I turned around and went back to my car. So it’s a nice day to just be outside and see the Lord’s creation.

We’re going to be in 2 John this morning. I invite you to turn there with me in your Bibles to John’s second letter. We’ve been going through Matthew slowly and seeing everything that’s there. And I don’t know what it was like to listen to the Beatitudes, but to preach, it’s sort of almost like a marathon. So I think we need a break from Matthew for a little bit. And I suppose the Lord laid 2 John on my heart. And so I just want to share with you what we’d find in John’s second letter. So we’re going to have an easy win. We’re going to go through an entire book of the Bible this morning. It’s going to be all of 2 John.

2 John, I’m going to read the whole letter for us here, starting in verse 1.

It says, The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son in truth and love. Now I rejoice greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were walking in the truth. Just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you, dear lady, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, such a one, is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

Though I have much to say, to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

The children of your elect sister greet you. I’ve always heard the way that you know a bill is counterfeit, not by finding what the counterfeit bill looks like, but by studying the original. And I was thinking about that, and I was wondering if that was true, so I tried to do some research on it. And sure enough, a popular blogger that I like had the same interest to see if that was actually true. So he called up the Bank of Canada where he lives and got an interview with a counterfeit specialist. And sure enough, when he sat down,

this counterfeit specialist brought out the real plates and fake ones. And she put him to the test, let him study the real ones to see if he could identify the fake ones. And she says, here’s how you do it. You’ve got to tilt it this way. You’ve got to turn it this way. Look at it. Look through it. And so she showed him all these different things you’ve got to do to know what the counterfeit is when you see it. And he said what was interesting was he discovered it’s actually not hard to recognize the counterfeit when you know what you’re looking for.

When you know what the real thing is, it’s very easy, he said, with just very little training, to even know what’s fake.

And that is the Apostle John’s concern when writing this letter. There is the Gospel. There are all the doctrines as delivered by Christ, as delivered by his Apostles. And then there are things that look an awfully lot like the Gospel, but they’re not the Gospel. And his fear for them is they’re going to take on what’s not genuine and so believe it is and lose what they’ve been given in Christ.

John’s concern here is truth in love. Truth in love that’s genuine. Truth in love that’s unadulterated. The truth in love as it was shown, as it was given in Christ. So that’s his heart, is do not forsake, do not give up the Gospel itself and the doctrines that accord. Do you know the original? Do you know the real thing? What is real truth? What is real love?

So John’s right. He’s writing and he doesn’t refer to himself. He doesn’t say, I, the Apostle John. He says, the elder. Now why does John say elder? Well, John is the only and last Apostle who’s alive at the end of the first century. So he’s an old man, yes, as an elder, but he has a lot of reverence in the church. Everyone knows who the Apostle John is. There’s no question that he’s the one writing this letter. Same things run through it. It has run through the other epistles of John and also John’s Gospel. So John is using this informal term. Elder, because he’s writing to people that he knows very well. And so John, the elder, is writing this affectionate letter to the elect lady in her church. Who is that? Her children.

So it’s been thought, well, maybe there’s a lady whose name was Electa and he’s writing to Electa and her children or maybe her name’s Curia. That’s the Greek word for lady. That’s not what’s happening, though maybe that could have been possible if you think about the whole of Scripture, the church is referred to as the children of God, referred to as the bride of Christ, the sheep of Christ’s pasture. So what’s happening here is he’s being inconspicuous, probably on purpose, but also he’s using dear affectionate terms to write to a church he’s personally involved with and the church’s children, the members of that church. So it’s to the elect lady and her children is who he’s writing. But to whomever it is written to, it has very useful instruction for us as Christians everywhere, for the church everywhere. And that’s what’s important. And John says to the elect lady and her children, he says about them that I love them in truth. And he says not only I, but everybody who knows the truth. So now what kind of love is this? Because I think we all come to the table with different ideas about what love is. This is not the emotional feel-good love, like I fell in love and it’s romantic or we fall out of love. That’s not what this kind of visceral love is. This love is a sacrificial commitment. That’s what John’s talking about. He’s talking about one who would deny their own self-interest for someone else’s best. It is the deepest of affection. It is the deepest of care. This very Greek word love is the same love Jesus used when he washed the disciples’ feet right before he is crucified. So John says we have this kind of love on account of the fact that we have this kind of love. On account of, because of, in light of a certain truth that we all know. And when he says truth, he’s not saying cold doctrines that we all agree to. He’s not saying what’s simply right, what’s simply wrong. Here’s all the rules and laws we all think are correct. He’s talking about a whole brand new reality that shapes the way they would think, the way they would feel, the way they act towards one another. This is an entirely raised quality of knowing, knowing and living based off of this truth that has been revealed to them. And he said it’s not even just us. It’s anybody, it’s everybody that’s known this truth. And this word known does not mean simply to know with your head. It means to have experienced. It means to grasp through knowing it in the senses. So this is a truth that’s radically shaped their whole life.

And John is telling them because of this truth, and we obey it, we abide in this truth, we’re able to love one another with this really special kind of love that only we and other people who know this truth about Christ together can do. And he says this truth, it’s unchanging. It’s going to abide in us forever and it’s never going to change. So forever, this unchanging truth produces an environment for this kind of real love and it’s never going to change and it’s never going to leave us. And if that’s not enough, he colors in what does this love look like? He says it’s graceful. Grace, mercy, and peace. God’s unmerited favor.

God’s mercy that He did not do to us what we deserve. That we have peace with God and man and a true rest in our hearts, John says. And note this, he says this kind of love in this truth that so much looks like grace, mercy, and peace we all get to experience together. He says it’s para, it’s from, not just the Father, not just the Son. He says it’s from both equally here. The Father. And the Son. That’s who it’s from and that’s the heart of the problem in this letter and we’ll get to that here in a little bit. It’s from the Father and it’s from the Son. And then he anchors once again. He says this grace, mercy, and peace is possible at the end of verse 2. He says because of the truth that abides in us in verse 3. In truth and love. So in truth and love. What do we see John saying? We see John saying it is inescapable. If you’re gone. If you’re going to consider the truth, you must consider love. And if you’re considering real love, you must accompany with it the actual truth. Those two for John are inseparable.

The truth as the reality in which they live, if it’s altered, so goes love. And that’s John’s concern. That’s why he’s writing the letter of faithfulness to this kind of love and truth together. So here’s what John does. John gives two warnings. He brings to them. And I want us to pick those up. If we’re going to keep love and truth intact, here’s what John says we can never do. Okay, here’s the first thing we cannot do. We cannot forsake faithfulness to what we already know. We cannot forsake faithfulness to what we already know. Look at verse 4. He says, I rejoice greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you, dear lady, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but it’s the one that we’ve had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you heard it from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. So what is the commandment? What is this great truth that John’s talking about? Well, it’s not less than the promise God made in the garden that through the woman a seed would come to deal with the sin problem and to deal with the infirmity.

It’s not less than the promise God made that through Abraham someone would come to bless the nations. It’s not less than all the laws and rules and regulations God gave through Moses. It’s not less than everything the prophets talked about, about a coming King and Messiah. In fact, all those things are bits and pieces, they’re shadows, they’re foretellings of the greatest truth to ever come. And the greatest truth to ever come is the person Jesus.

Jesus in His life, in His ministry, His death and His resurrection, He was that seed that dealt with our sin problem and crushed the enemy. Jesus is the one who blesses the nations by calling all people to Himself. Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament law by living up and observing the law perfectly as no one else could. Jesus was the one everyone prophesied about coming. So Jesus showing up on the scene is truth showing up.

Throughout human history, God has never left us in the dark. We in the New Testament, we have a very great clarity about the truth, don’t we? It’s the cross. It’s Christ. Now in the Old Testament, they didn’t know, hey, Jesus is coming, He’s going to die on the cross. But what they knew is God’s Savior is going to come. Jesus Himself said, Your father Abraham saw my day and was glad for it. So by faith, the people always knew we’re going to trust in God to be our Savior. God has never tried to keep His people in the dark. He’s never tried to keep His people in the dark about who He is. So Jesus, God’s Son, God’s King finally arriving, is the truth showing up. Who Jesus is. What Jesus said. How Jesus lived. Jesus is the greatest prophecy. He’s the greatest law. He’s the greatest revelation. And the last revelation to ever come from heaven. Whatever He said, however He lived, was the truth. There’s no higher truth for us to attain in this life. This is the most explicit truth. Truth. And that’s the truth that the elder and the elect lady and her children have in common. Because of Jesus, we’ve been redeemed to a right understanding of who God is. And given a right understanding of who God is, it enables us to do what? Live right in front of God. Love Him. Love His ways. Love people the way He designed us to love people. It’s only by that truth. It’s not according to my standard. But here’s what we’re going to have to grasp. And it’s been true. Throughout church history. It’s true for us in the 21st century. There’s nothing new to get. And I think we don’t think about that enough. We have everything we need. God has not held anything back from us. There’s nothing greater to discover than the person of Jesus. What He has said and everything the scriptures would say about Him. So if we want to find the whole truth. And if we want to find real love. Friends, go nowhere else but to the cross. The cross of Jesus Christ. It’s the only place to go to find real truth and real love.

And the elder says, so it’s not a new commandment. And the old commandment is the love. And here’s how you love. You obey the commandments. And it sounds kind of squirrely, doesn’t it? It’s an old commandment. The commandment is to love. Here’s how you love. You obey the commandments. Oh well, yeah, and the commandment, it’s not anything new. And what does he mean by that? What Jesus claims, clarifies for us what that means.

Matthew chapter 22,

verse 34, it says, But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him. Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And He said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and prophets. So the religious leaders, they’re doing what they do. They’re trying to trip up Jesus. Let’s catch Jesus in some kind of riddle. He’ll look like a fool. We’ll ruin His ministry. So this is what they’re all about. And they think they finally got that question. This is the one.

And it makes sense they would ask Him something about the law because that’s what they’re supposed to specialize in. They’re supposed to be the one who’s going to do it. They’re supposed to be the keepers of the law, to know the law of God very, very well. Yet it’s the thing that they know the least. And Jesus answers their poisonous question with wisdom and knowledge that confounds. And it confounds because it’s loftier and it’s higher than they are. All that God ever taught His people in the laws, all that God ever said through the prophets, it was all to do this. Help us love God and love people. That’s why God gave them to us. But for the religious leaders, their relationship with the law was to produce a self-righteousness. Their use of the law was to lord it over other people, not to learn how to love their God, not to learn how to love people so they don’t know anything about the very thing they’re supposed to be the keepers of. But this Jesus, because He alone perfectly observed the law, means this. He alone has perfectly loved God and man. So if I know this Jesus and not just know, but if I experience this Jesus, I will then be taught the whole truth about what it means to know God, love God, and obey people. By receiving this Jesus, I receive all truth, I receive all love to receive it and to give it back out. That’s the truth about Jesus and His life and His death and in His resurrection.

And here’s what this means for us. It’s the same thing that John meant for his readers. No truth, no love. When you manipulate the truth about Christ, you’ve spoiled the love that manifests itself from Christ.

In short, friends, the Gospel and the Scriptures, they must remain dear to us if we are to remain in them. And I think you have to ask yourself your motivation for being a Christian. It cannot be, well, because this is the West and most people are Christians and we’re in the Bible Belt and so I go along with it. And I learn some good things here and there. It cannot be, well, because my parents were Christians and, you know, I’m just keeping the family tradition going. Those are horrible reasons for being a Christian. And your commitment to Christ, even if you don’t realize it, it’s non-existent. There’s one good reason for being a Christian, a Christ follower. By grace, you’ve discovered the truth about God, the truth about life, the truth about love, freedom and forgiveness is only found in this Jesus, who He is alone and exactly. That’s the one good reason. And if that’s your one good reason, we must do what John is commanding us to do. Abide. Remain. Keep on. Don’t stop. Stay faithful. In short, again, we must not forget. Don’t lose what you’ve already been given. There’s nothing new to discover. There’s nothing better. It’s just this Jesus. Jesus.

Stacey Irvine, ate almost nothing but chicken nuggets for 15 years. She never tasted fruits or vegetables. She occasionally supplemented her diet with french fries. One day, her tongue started to swell and she couldn’t catch her breath. She was rushed to the hospital. Her airways were forced open and they stuck an IV in her arm and started pumping nutrients she needed. After saving her, the medical staff sent her home, but not because she was sick. It was before they warned her that she needed to change her diet or prepare herself for an early death.

I’ve heard people call it a famine, a famine of knowing the Bible. During a famine, people waste away for lack of sustenance and people die. Those who remain need nourishment. They need to be revived.

Like Stacey, we’re killing ourselves. It’s surely not for lack of resources. Nevertheless,

we are starving ourselves to death. Christians used to be known as people of one book. Surely they read, study, and shared other books, but the book they cared about was the one more than any other. It was the Bible.

Memorized, meditated about it, talked about it. We don’t do that anymore in a very real sense. We’re starving ourselves to death. And that’s crazy when you think about, again, Venezuela seems to be getting worse and worse. They turn the lights off and they say they’re in the dark because they cannot help it. They’re literally starving to death. Yet you think about here in America, and I was with a guy trying to raise money to work for Wycliffe yesterday,

and it reminded me, we have in our language 400 translations, 400 translations of the Scriptures, and there are thousands of people groups that have none whatsoever yet biblical illiteracy. It’s high among us, and it’s chosen. It’s chosen.

The Apostle Paul says, study. He says if you studied the Word, you’d be trained up in the truth. You’d be trained up in righteousness. The psalmist says meditate on it. Remind yourself of what you already know. Preach the Gospel to yourself. And I’ve said this before, but friends, the Gospel’s not just for lost people. You need to hear the Gospel. You are prone to wonder, Lord, I’m prone to wonder. I need to come back to that great truth, that satisfying truth I already have. Paul says examine yourself. Hold yourself up against that truth. Does my life look like the Jesus in the Scriptures? And so I will concede some of its methodology. I think some people come to the Scriptures and it’s intimidating. They don’t know what to do with it. Well, let that not be a reason, friends. I would be more than glad to. I know that there are men in this church that would be more than glad to sit down with you and show you how to rightly handle the Word of God. But even in addition to methodology and knowing how to approach the Scriptures, there’s got to be passion and sacrifice.

Nothing comes easy that’s worth having. And certainly we would concede knowing Christ, the whole truth, not forgetting it, remembering it. Friends, is this not worth the sacrifice of time? Is this not worth learning how to do things we don’t know how to do? Is it not worth giving our lives away to know this truth and live in this life? Love. When the church was first born, the Spirit fell, it says they regularly gathered to fellowship and to hear the apostles’ teachings. They were a Word-saturated people. Friend, are you a Word-saturated person? Know the Word. Let’s know the Word in community. And so let me plug it. Keep coming to church on Sundays. Not because, you know, you’re supposed to go to church on Sundays, but because by God’s design, He’s given us pastors by God’s grace to say, away things from the Word that are going to change our hearts. So preaching the Word is not one man teaching you some stuff. Preaching, done right, is the Spirit of God applying Christ to your heart and mind. That’s what preaching is. It’s a supernatural thing. And it’s a humbling thing. And it’s a scary thing to do when you realize what it actually is. It’s not a self-help book. It is Christ being applied to your soul. So there’s great value then when we honor and obey the Scriptures in gathering to consider the truth of the Word and the truth of the Word. And that’s what we’re doing. In the power of the Spirit. That’s a church that will not forget what God has spoken to them. The truth about Jesus. The truth about love.

Look back at verse 7 with me.

John says, For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. And the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting. For whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. So John says,

hey, here’s the next thing. If you’re going to protect it, you’re going to keep truth and love intact.

Don’t forsake protecting what you’ve been given. Don’t forsake protecting what you’ve been given. So he’s going on to address the threat here. And he says, many, many deceivers have gone out. So they were once inside the church. They were hanging out. They were coming on Sundays. They were doing Bible study. Everybody thought, hey, there’s, there’s a Christian. Yet they weren’t truly a part of the church. Why not?

Because they didn’t hold to the gospel as taught by Christ, as delivered by the apostles. They took the unadulterated truth of God’s Word. They did some tinkering and made it look like something that was genuine and real. That’s what they did. Now, John’s writing them for this problem. It’s called docetism. Let me define it for you. So this is John, addressing their issue at hand. Docetism is the doctrine that our blessed Lord had a body like ours, but only in appearance, not in reality. The rise of this notion was very early. St. Jerome scarcely exaggerates when he says that while the apostles were still surviving, while Christ’s blood was still fresh in Judea, the Lord’s body was asserted to be but a phantasm. Daniel Aiken, his commentary says, influenced by Neoplatonic dualism, docetism taught, that a dichotomy existed between evil matter and good spirit, which had significant implications for Christology. The Christ spirit, or the Son of the Father, could not be contaminated with evil flesh. At worst, it was only assumed temporarily at best the Christ spirit would give an appearance of the physical. In reality, it was just an illusion or apparition. So the teaching here, heavily influenced, as he said, by Neoplatonic thought, is that if God, was really God, there’s no way He would come in a real flesh because physical matter is bad and God wouldn’t touch physical matter. So this is a doctrine that’s swirling around in the very early church. Now, of course, we talked about this several weeks ago, if you remember. Friends, if we lose the whole God, a full nature of God and a full nature of man being in Christ, friends, we lose the gospel. It has to be the power of God perfecting our human nature. The power of humanity so that Jesus could be the mediator to take our flesh perfected back into the presence of God. So you see what they’re doing. They’re picking away at this mysterious gospel message and they’re ruining it for everyone.

And he says, these teachers, their teachings are so deadly, they deny union of God, the God nature and the human nature in Jesus. They’re not just deceivers. He says this is an antichrist. Now, you can’t get a more stronger term than calling somebody an antichrist. But he’s saying those who would deny that union of the God nature and the man nature in Jesus, let that person be called a deceiver. Let that person be called an antichrist. You say, well, wow, we don’t deal with that stuff today. That’s not true. Throughout human history and certainly today, there are many deceivers and antichrists. People who don’t proclaim the gospel. So because it is that way, here’s what John says to his people and here’s what we need to hear. He says, watch out. He says, you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to pay attention. Don’t be naive. Don’t think that’s going to happen somewhere else. I think the best rendering there is you better beware. John Stott says, neither Christian believing nor Christian loving is to be indiscriminate. In particular, Christian faith is not to be mistaken for credulity or believing anything easily. True faith examines its objects before, before opposing confidence in it. And John in his first letter says, test every spirit. Just because a spirit says it comes in the name of Jesus does not mean it actually comes in the name of Jesus. So John says, look, you don’t want to lose what you have because you were neglectful of it, but you don’t want to lose what you have because you didn’t protect it. You want to do what? Win the full reward. And what is the full reward? He says, the full reward is God for us. He says, but if you go outside, you go on ahead of the teachings of Christ, you go on ahead of what you’ve already, already been delivered. He says, you lose the reward. But those who abide, those who remain, those who stay in what’s already been fully and freely delivered, they will receive the reward of not the Father or the Son, but of the Father and the Son. So remember, they both equally gave it in the beginning. Who gave that grace, mercy, and peace? The Father and the Son. So you abide in the truth and love. What happens? You always get the Father and the Son. And the truth and the love that comes from them. So John’s working that theology out for us to see how we’ve got to remain so focused on an unadulterated gospel message.

The rewards of the Christian life isn’t something greater or better. Truth and love aren’t stepping stones to something I’m going to get someday. It’s what I have right now and it’s satisfying now. And yeah, as time goes on and as eternity rolls on, I’m going to grow in a deeper knowledge, a deeper love of this gospel, message, and these doctrines. But I’ve already been given everything in Jesus, so I need to watch out for what I’ve been given that was so precious. But here’s what I want you to see. At some point, your Christian life has got to stop being about you getting to the finish line. And it’s got to start being about us getting to the finish line.

And you can sense in John this very pastoral heart. Let’s not lose the reward that we’ve worked for. John’s discipled them. John’s poured into them. And they’ve discipled one another. They’ve labored. Paul says, let your labor not be in vain. So friends, when you consider a cancer as false teaching, it’s not, oh, that’s going to affect my faith. There should be enough love for the person sitting next to you. You say, oh, that’s going to affect our faith. I don’t want us to lose what we’ve gained. So is your Christian faith so narrow it’s just about you? I mean, I’m going to get home to glory and I’m keeping myself. It’s, you know what? Christ taught me how in truth to love these people. So I’m mindful of these people. I’m mindful of us staying pure. I’m mindful of us remembering. I’m mindful of us protecting the gospel so that we make it home together. That looks a lot more like the gospel than selfish individual spiritualism. And I would say, I think the gross individualism of the 21st century, it doesn’t help us pursue that kind of otherness in the church today.

Now, I do think one voice could say, well, isn’t it for pastors to kind of be the key keepers of doctrine and theology? Like, isn’t that why you guys exist? You know, do that stuff. Yeah, it’s biblical. But you know, what’s biblical is a good pastor who keeps right doctrine. He’s going to teach it and instill it in his people so that we can keep right doctrine. What good is a pastor if he’s the only one that knows this stuff? Where’s the fun in that? It’s fun for you to grow in doctrine. It’s fun for you to grow in the truth of God’s word. You to be a keeper. You to guard one another. It’s a team sport growing up in Jesus is. So, take up the mantle of what you’ve been given in Christ to remember and protect for yourself and for one another the truth of God’s word. Daniel Aiken says, to maintain a healthy and growing community, the church must exhibit a fidelity to the truth that knows no compromise. And they must love one another in a way that knows no boundaries. Grace, mercy, and peace flourish in an environment where truth and love prevail. Truth unites the Christian community when it finds and faces the common foe of falsehood. It is evident among Christians when they demonstrate their unity in showing love toward one another. And so that makes me want to talk about the prosperity gospel. Let’s talk about how there’s so many preachers telling you, man, if you name it and you can claim it and you give me just a little bit of money, you can have whatever you want. That’s why God exists. It makes me want to talk about self-helpism. The Bible is just a book of some, you know, moralism to help you get through the day and be a better person. It makes me want to talk about a variety of questions and cults and a variety of things that look like Christianity and they’re not and how they deceive. It makes me want to talk about so many things and I wish we could do it in one moment, but we can’t. You know what we’re going to have to do? We’re going to have to make a long-term commitment to one another that we’re going to take life as it comes. You can only live life. That’s all you can do. We can’t do it in one sitting. So as long as we abide in this life, we must abide together and address heresy and address issue and address things as they come so that we will stay pure and stay right together. That’s what a community means. A community is not intermittent. If your community is intermittent, your community is not real. So John is writing those who want to stick together in the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace.

And he says, so don’t even receive this person here. Don’t even greet them. And again, I think the 21st century, our sensibility, so that’s a little harsh of John, isn’t it? You know, well, John’s not saying if someone’s, you know, dying on the ground, on the side of the road, don’t help them, even if they’re a heretic. What John is saying is don’t aid in abet their message. Don’t do anything that’s going to help them spread further this filth. Only even think about it. Only think about that. Only care about that if someone’s soul, eternal soul, is on the line. If someone believes a false gospel, is their eternal soul on the line? Yes.

So John says, don’t do anything that looks like helping such a message flourish. Do you love the gospel you’ve received? Do you love the people enough around you to take it that serious?

And I think we have to be honest again with our times. And I, you know, I say this in humility, but it’s difficult not to think about the Methodist church and the vote they just made in the general conference.

Barely did they uphold a definition of traditional marriage and really, that was people around the world that wasn’t even people here where we live that were wanting to uphold that. So it was barely beaten out. And I read articles saying people were heartbroken, disappointed, angry, hurt. But those weren’t people outside the church condemning the church for staying faithful to God’s word. Those were the voices of pastors inside the church. So what kind of upside down world do we live in when the people who are supposed to be keepers of the word aren’t encouraging us to live it in a very different upside disobedient way?

So we have to listen to John. We have to watch out. Please don’t take everyone that says that they’re a Christian preacher to be a Christian preacher. Even myself, hold up what I say against the word of God.

Don’t trust everyone you hear on the internet.

Do I need to say anything else?

Don’t trust every book that sits in the window at a Christian bookstore. Pardon me, wanted to make a list of names and a list of books and a list of books and say don’t read these, don’t listen to these people but I’m not sure that I should do that, you know. But everything you hear, everything you learn, hold it up against the gospel you’ve already been given. Because what you’ve been given is good. What you’ve been given is enough. And I want to say this, passing on the orthodox faith to our children is the next best way to preserve it.

So teaching your children what the scriptures say, teaching your children right doctrine, raising them up to know it, to memorize it, to love it, that’s going to preserve the orthodox Christian faith for the long haul. It’s not just about you. It’s about you making disciples of your children and not to go on a rabbit trail but I’m very grateful for our ladies that work in children’s ministry. I’m very grateful for the curriculum we have because it does that. It takes meaty doctrines of the Christian faith and it takes scriptures and it puts it in our children’s ministry. It takes it in our children’s head so it can grow seeds for God to do work years down the road. So see your children as a very real opportunity to protect the faith.

Verse 12.

John says, Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to come to you and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete. The children of your elect sister greet you. And John’s saying, I want to see you face to face. Face in Greek, it’s an expression that means mouth to mouth. So look at what John said. And it is the deepest term of affection he could have given. He said, My joy, your joy, our joy be full. It means like a cell that’s full of wind. It just can’t take anymore. It’s filled up. Our joy is complete when we can see one another face to face. When we can talk. Mouth to mouth. That’s the kind of deep love and fellowship John is writing to preserve for these people. That’s how much he loves them. That’s how much he loves to see them walk in the truth of the gospel. But not because this is something John’s produced. John wants this intimate fellowship with them because John first received this intimate fellowship himself. I want you to see what John writes in his first letter. In 1 John 1,

he says, That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life, the life was made manifest. And we’ve seen it. We’ve seen Jesus. And we testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which is with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father

and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

John, by God’s grace, has the joy of living in the truth and love of fellowship with the Trinity.

And he’s saying to them, don’t forget how precious this is. Go back to it. Remember it. Love it. Live in it. Don’t let someone else tell you there’s something better. Protect it. Guard it. Keep it. Christ is our life. Christ is all we have. Is it so very precious to us? Are we so very precious to one another that we’ll guard it and keep it? Do we look forward till we know it fully someday?

And friends, I say lastly, if we love this fellowship, are we inviting others into it that don’t know it yet? Are we proclaiming the gospel of this Word, this living, breathing Jesus Christ who is God in the flesh, who laid down His life so that we could have life and love in Him? So that’s the good Word that John’s writing to them. Don’t let go of what you have. You have love. You have truth in Jesus. Remember it. Protect it. Live in it. Call other people to it. Let’s pray.

Father, we thank You for Your Word.

We thank You that Your Word doesn’t return void. We thank You that it doesn’t rest on the power of man, but rather it rests on the power of God.

Lord, we thank You that when we consider Your Word, Your Spirit is faithful and mighty to teach us and to apply it to us, Lord.

Father, my plea this morning is that we would as a community, Lord, us in this room, those who are part of this church, Providence, that we wouldn’t just be a church somewhere, that we would be a fellowship, a fellowship in Your Son, Jesus. Our community, our fellowship would be real because it’s full of Your love that You’ve shown us on the cross.

Love that died for us

so that we could be called out of darkness, out of the lies of this world, away from the punishment we deserve and we could know the truth, love the truth, abide by the truth, Lord. I’m just praying, Lord, this morning that our hearts and our minds would just be refreshed with the truth of the Gospel. Lord, that You would stir up in us a passion and desire to go deeper into it. Lord, to love the Gospel, to love the Scriptures, to find our life in them, that they would be our true food, that they would be our true drink, Lord. Wake us up. Lead us to repent. We’re lazy in our pursuit of Jesus. Give us passion for the name of Jesus, Lord. Let us devote our whole selves, our lives only to knowing Him.

Lord, I just pray every heart, every mind in this room would be surrendered to Christ.

That Jesus would be Lord.

That Jesus wouldn’t be some religious figure. Jesus wouldn’t be a good person. Jesus wouldn’t be anything but who He said He was. And He said that He was God in the flesh.

By grace taking us to Himself and to His Father. And so we don’t want to lose You. Be our only reward, Lord. Be our only reward.

We just love You. We just bless the name of Jesus.

We just pray that in His name.

Amen.