2 John

Introduction

The NT has a series of 3 letters, all by the apostle John. The first one is a general reminder to Christians that our life in Christ calls us to love others well. To love in grace and truth, or delight and wisdom, loving them toward God in Christ.

We are reminded that all love leads somewhere. John has been stating all along, love is not an independent idea. It comes from somewhere and goes somewhere. And the Christian is called to define both well

I was married 22 years ago yesterday. And thinking about my marriage got me thinking about my bachelor party. Now it was not that crazy but…

I met up with a number of good friends and we were going to go out to eat and then hang out at a friends house.

Before we got to the restaurant I was suddenly blindfolded and my hands were tied up in front of me.

The group I was with, my dear friends, told me that they were going to take me on a trip. They put a cup of water in my hands that were tied up and told me not to spill it.

They put me in the back of a pickup truck and started driving all over town. I was in the bed in the back sitting up, blindfolded, with a cup of water in my hands, driving for about 30 minutes, and no one who passed by seemed concerned enough to call the police.

They stopped the truck and started leading me somewhere. I was walking through mud for awhile and eventually they stopped. I heard them yell as they ran away that I could take my blindfold off, and did. They had walked me into the middle of an empty field and had run back the truck and took off. They left me to find my way back.

These friends of mine very specifically led me somewhere.

But it was not anywhere helpful.

We are called to be aware, be watchful, pay attention to what we believe, because we are all being led somewhere, and our passage this morning helps us to see to who we are being led.

Christians are called to pay attention to what we believe through the act of humble conviction.

We are called to hang on to what we believe with trust and passion. But we are also called to do so with humility.

We are going to look at three ways we are called to live with humble conviction

1)We trust that God has given us enough for belief and practice

2)We recognize that while God is a perfect speaker, we are imperfect listeners.

3)We responsibly hold onto our beliefs

God has given us enough for belief and practice

In 2 John we are reminded again the point of abiding in Christ and to guard what we know because our beliefs will lead us somewhere.

It’s a very short book, just a few paragraphs. It is a letter that John writes to a particular group

2 john 1

2 John 1 ESV

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,

He calls them the “elder and elect lady and her children.” This may have been code for a local church. He is reminding them that love is something we do because of who we belong to.

That God teaches us what love is and that we are called to do what God has first done.

But John is careful to call them to understand what they believe as well.

Be led, he tells them, but don’t just be led anywhere.

We are reminded to pay attention to what we have learned, and as we will see, pay attention to what is forming our beliefs.

Keep Watch

2 John 8–9 ESV

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.

John is telling this group of believers to pay attention to what you believe. watch yourselves. This is not a singular check out where you are at any given point. This is a be on the watch. Pay attention. Look around.

We are called to understand what we believe. And then called to understand how things around us affect that belief.

Do you know what you believe?

When someone asks about what gives you hope, how do you answer? How much does it have to do with Christ’s actions on your behalf?

That is why we do things like baptism and communion and the Apostle’s Creed. We constantly have to remind ourselves of what we believe.

Because it is easy to lose your place, like losing your place in a book or movie and you drop your bookmark or the movie doesn’t pick up where you left off.

You have to page through or scroll through to find out where you are.

We have to go back to what we believe. To understand who Christ is

Because we get tired

or scared

or angry

or depressed.

And if we have a half baked image of Christ then we will think He can’t respond to that or that He has left, or that He hates us, or that He is not strong enough.

We have to be reminded of the person of Jesus, who He is and what He has done.

That is why John keeps coming back to the incarnation. He isn’t trying to create or communicate anything new, he is reminding them of who Christ is.

Because John is reminding us where love comes from and where it goes.

We’ve mentioned that love always has a source and it is always going somewhere else.

To understand what we believe as Christians is to define the source and the end of love.

That’s the call of the church. To understand the source and end of our actions.

AW Tozer said, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."

Philippians 2:5–10 ESV

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

John tells us to watch. To pay attention. To reflect and keep watch

God is a perfect speaker, we are imperfect listeners.

This letter is a warning to pay attention to what we believe and to resist any false teaching. John, throughout his letters has warned against what was called a gnostic gospel. It was a teaching that completely separated out the physical and spiritual. IT denied Jesus fill incarnation into our world. So throughout these letter John focuses on the physical and spiritual aspects of Christ.

people who talk about God but don’t know HIm. People who use the name of God in Christ, but don’t follow Him. He says there are false teachers and decievers

That is why John is very clear in his letters about the incarnation of Christ. That He has entered our world. John is communicating a truth about what the church believes, but in doing that, He is communicating what they don’t believe. He is pointing to this idea of Gnosticism and stating that it doesn’t work to use the name of Christ and hold onto any kind of Gnostic sentiment.

This passage is drawing boundaries around what it means to be a Christian because of Christ’s work on the cross.

it is important to be able to understand what we believe. Because what we believe will determine where we are led

The importance of understanding what it is we believe is in some ways like keeping a garden. In a garden, you create boundaries around where you want your garden to be. You then take care of all the soil inside that garden. You care for it, till it, prepare it.

You know where you plan the carrots and beets and potatoes and zinnias and so on. You know what the seedlings look like you know what the finish product looks like. So if you begin to see something sprouting that is different than what you planted and what you were told would be there, you can act on it. If you see something being eatenby a rabbit or so, you can act on it. Help determine where to pay attention and how to understand whether something is growing properly or not.

understanding all the ins and outs of a garden is like being able to understand what it is we believe. Then we can begin to understand when weeds get into our beliefs. When predators get into our beliefs.

We live in a world where there are a lot of Christians in name only. they have their ideas of what they would prefer and how they would want life to be like and then they add Christ’s name to it and call it good.

if Jesus is a promotion and not the end. if he is the means and not the end, question if that belief is a weed.

christian please keep in mind is not just a theological statement

it is a sociological one

and a political one

and do you know what else? It is a consumer category

there are a lot of beliefs that want to promote Christ. But only one that will give Hi, glory

It is a very dangerous game to play to add the name of Christ to an opinion or a preference we have. we should probably be a lot more careful about what we add to our belief.

Humility comes in knowing we have not heard perfectly. But that God has spoken adequately. Knowing that helps us to be responsible with what we believe.

We responsibly hold onto our beliefs

Notice the order in this passage.

2 John 5 ESV

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.

Before our beliefs about God were formed, we had a commandment before that. Christ speaks first, we respond.

We are told to find Christ first, follow His commandment to love one another, source and end in Christ. And then from that we form our additional thoughts. Christ gets first dibs on your belief and your opinions.

so keep watch. Don’t take your eyes off of Christ. He is the One worthy to watch because He is the only one who hasn’t taken His eyes off of you.

This is why we recite the Apostles Creed. It is in effect the garden of Christian belief. There are a number of other really good Scriptures to understand and know. That is why we do ground floor to figure out how to express our belief in our culture.

In the next few weeks I will be starting a series on the Sermon on the Mount. We want to see what does Jesus tell us about life in Him. If you want to know what kind of life a Christian is called to, the sermon on the mount is the frame to see that.

Lets apply this message by standing and reciting the Apostles creed.