2. Walking in truth and love - 2 John (August 31, 2025)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
On April 14, 1912, as the Titanic was sinking, wireless operator Jack Phillips had limited battery power and time. His final transmission wasn't about the ship's luxury or passenger manifest - it was the essential, urgent information: their position and "We are sinking fast." When time and space are limited, only the most vital information is sent.
Second John is a brief letter which could have been written on a single sheet of papyrus of standard size. One sheet didn’t give much space to write, and John had lots of things he could tell his readers:
12 Having many things to write to you, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.
But just as Jack Phillips chose what was most important and urgent in his final message from the titanic, John chose truth and love as his essential message to a church facing spiritual danger.
The Priorities of Truth and Love
The Priorities of Truth and Love
1 The Elder, To the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all those who have known the truth, 2 because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever: 3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. 4 I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received a commandment from the Father.
The priorities
The priorities
What are the priorities he wrote about and who was he writing to?
Verse 1 tells us John, the Elder, is writing to “the elect lady and her children”.
Some scholars suggest the elect lady is a specific lady along with her physical children. A few say it is Mary, the mother of Jesus. But the content of the letter strongly suggests John is writing to a church congregation rather than an individual. The chosen lady would then be a local church chosen by God, and her children are the members of the church.
John makes his priorities clear by repeating two words in the first few verses:
Truth - mentioned five times in the first four verses.
Love - mentioned twice in the first four, and then another twice in verses 5 and 6.
5 And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. 6 This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.
TRUTH
TRUTH
When he writes about truth, he is not talking about being honest. He has in mind the truth. The truth of the good news of Jesus Christ as God Himself come into this world.
It is the content of that truth that is important. It is centred on Jesus Christ. John wrote these words of Jesus:
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
To know the truth is to know the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father.
In verse 2, the writer says the truth he is writing about abides in us and will be with us forever. This is using similar words that Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit in the gospel:
17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
So when he writes in verse 4 how he rejoices that some of them are walking in truth, he is talking about them walking daily with the living Lord Jesus Christ and following His commandments.
LOVE
LOVE
The Greek word John uses for love is that word for God’s love - agape.
Agape love is not sentimental affection. It is the love that causes a person to choose to take action to help someone, even if it involves the person giving something up valuable.
John defined this kind of love in His gospel:
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
In this letter, John’s priority of love is not so much God’s love for us. It is our love as followers of Christ for one another.
5 And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another.
The importance
The importance
Why are truth and love the most important priorities for a Christian? John explains that truth and love are the basis for experiencing God’s grace, mercy, and peace in our walk with Christ, the Son of the Father.
3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
Outside of the truth of Jesus Christ, and of love for one another, we cannot experience God’s blessing.
Truth and love in a Christian work together - love without truth becomes sentimentality, truth without love becomes harshness.John doesn’t ask us to choose one or the other. But calls us to both truth and love.
The urgency
The urgency
Wwhy was it so urgent to write a note about truth and love?
In verse 4, who is walking in truth?
4 I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth,
Notice he says Some of your children. There were some not walking in truth.
John hints later some may not be walking in truth because deceivers had come to the church.
Towards the end of the first century AD when John wrote this letter, the gospel was spreading rapidly. House churches were springing up throughout the Roman empire. Some writings of the apostles were beginning to be circulated, but the apostles themselves had mostly died. When John wrote the letter, he was the only remaining member of the 12 disciples.
God raised up pastors and travelling preachers and missionaries to continue to build His church. But the careful oversight of the churches described in the Acts of the Apostles was no longer possible.
Unfortunately, the message of some of the teachers did not ring true to the gospel. Some teachers no longer taught the truth of Christ as God’s Son who saves us, nor of Christ’s commandment to love one another.
Some in the church were in danger of believing them.
So John goes on to encourage his readers to keep on walking in love and in the truth.
Continue in Love
Continue in Love
5 And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. 6 This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.
First, John pleads with the church to continue to love one another.
I read about a Christian mum called Amy who started a new daily practise with her children. Every night at bedtime, the would gather some coloured pencils and paper, and light a candle. Asking God to light their way, thet would draw or write answers to two questions:
When did I show love today?
When did I withold love today?
Love takes shape in action: sharing an umbrella, encouraging someone who is sad, cooking a favourite meal. Witholding love also involves action: gossiping, refusing to share, spending our time and money on ourselves without thinking of others’ needs.
Jesus commands us to show love to one another.
This is not a new teaching, but something Jesus spoke to His disciples about from the very beginning.
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
But what does it mean to love one another? John says
6 This is love, that we walk according to His commandments.
A Christian who truly seeks God’s best for his brothers and sisters in Christ, can only do so when they follow what God has commanded him or her to do.
We often struggle to obey this command to love to one another. Sometimes our walk with Christ just becomes a grinding duty.
John in his first letter wrote
1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
Obedience to God is the prerequisite for loving one another.
Love for God is the prerequisite to obedience.
But what if our love for God is faint? How do we increase our love for God?
John again covered this in his first letter
19 We love Him because He first loved us.
We go back to the truth as God has given to us in His Word, the Bible, and remind ourselves of God’s greatness and character and His great love for us. We go back to the cross
who loved me and gave Himself for me.
We remember that God cannot love us more than does and will never love us less than He does
3 The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.
The Holy Spirit then takes those things we read and pours into our heart the love of God.
5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
ILLUSTRATION: This week my dog Holly was very ill. She seemed to have almost given up and wouldn’t eat. What could I do? I made her some special things to eat. Turkey steak, hot dogs, mince and gravy. A little three times a day. Gradually she began to gobble them up and her appetite and vitality returned.
When we find it hard to love for one another, we must feed ourselves on those scripture passages that talk of God’s unfailing love, amazing grace, and keeping power. Until our spiritual appetite returns.
Continue in The Truth
Continue in The Truth
Having encouraged them to continue in love to one another, John encourages them to continue in the truth of Christ.
John says they are to do two things: “look to yourselves” and “do not receive them”
Look to yourselves
Look to yourselves
7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. 8 Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. 9 Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son.
The plea to continue in the truth is urgent, because there are many false teachers. These people who were brought up in a church, but went out from the church into the world because they rejected the truth of the gospel .
The particular deception the church was facing was to do with who Jesus is. The false teachers did not believe Jesus is coming in the flesh. They denied that Jesus the Son of God took on fully human nature and is continuing in it.
From church history, we learn some believed that Jesus’s body was not truly human. It just appeared that way. This heresy was called Docetism. Others believed that God only descended on the human Jesus at his baptism, and then left Jesus before the cross with its suffering and death.
The root cause was they were trying to apply their own human philosphy and reasoning to what they thought should happen. For example, they thought all matter was bad and only spirit was good, so no way could God become a material human being. They put their wisdom above God’s revelation.
But the truth is not what we reason or think should be true. The truth is what God revealsto us in the scriptures. God through John wrote:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
and
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
The truth is that Jesus was fully God in heaven, and when He was conceived of the virgin Mary He fully took on human nature including a physical body in addition to His deity. And so He became the God Man for eternity.
The tragedy of their false belief about Jesus is that they cannot trust Him as the One who died for our sin in our place.
21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
John tells us they are lost.
9 Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son.
They are antichrist, literally “against Christ”. We have people who are antiwar or antiracism, meaning they speak and act against war or against racism. So these deceivers, despite their claim to be Christians, were against Christ because they did not confess the truth about Him.
So John says to the church, look to yourselves. Watch out for these false teachers. If you don’t watch out, you may fall for their deceptions and so our service for Christ will not receive the full reward God wants to give.
How can we tell whether someone we hear, perhaps on youtube or the TV, is of the truth? By asking, who do they say Jesus is?
In our church, we make sure we know what people believe before they teach or preach. We might know because they are church members and have agreed to the church statement of faith. If they are completely unknown to us, we may give them a copy of that statement of faith to get their agreement before they speak.
There will always be differences between what Christians believe. Many differences are of secondary importance, such as in the way the church should be organized or governed. The existence of multiple Christian denominations shows these differences are real. But if thedifferences are only these secondary matters, such congregations could join together for evangelism because they preach the same truth.
But for a church to walk in the truth, it cannot associate with those that reject the central doctrines of the Christian faith, such as the deity of Christ, the way of salvation by grace through faith, the nature of scripture as God’s Word.
Do not receive them
Do not receive them
10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; 11 for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.
John pleads with his readers, do not receive them.
In John’s day, travelling teachers would visit a church and use it as a short term base for their operations. The church would provide food and lodgings for them.
John tells them that if a teacher visits who is not teaching the truth, they are not to let them use their church as a base for operation.
They are not even to greet them as fellow labourers and brothers and sisters in Christ. The word translated greet here has the idea of blessing. Like “God bless you”. The KJV version translates it do not bid them godspeed.
In 1962, John Glenn made history as the first American to orbit the Earth. As the rocket ascended, ground control said, “Godspeed, John Glenn.” “Godspeed” means “May God prosper you.”
John is not saying “Do not say hello to false teachers”. But do not speak God’s blessing or financially support their endeavours.
To do so is to share in their evil works.
John is not being unloving or unkind. We cannot enjoy God’s blessing if we welcome those who deny the truth about the Lord. As Jude says, we are to contend or fight earnestly for the truth.
Remember the house John refers to is the place where the church is meeting. John is not saying that we cannot as individuals invite someone who knocks on our door into our home for a cup of coffee where we share the gospel of CHrist with them.
Christians we should always be kind, be a good listener, pray for them, and love them.
One approach might be: give them 5 or 10 minutes uninterrupted for them to tell you what they believe you must do to be forgiven and go to heaven when you die. Then ask them to give you 5 or 10 minutes to tell them how you believe a person can be saved and go to heaven when they die. Then pray with them, sharing the gospel in your prayer. Then invite them back to do it again.
Application
Application
John has chosen in this short letter to share the two top priorities for a Christian: truth and love. He has lots more to talk with them about, but it can wait until he gets to see them face to face. But these are the two most urgent and important things the church needs to hear. We are to:
Persevere in love for one another by obeying God’s commandments because we love Him.
Persevere in the truth of who Christ is, watching out for those that might deceive us about who Jesus is and not welcoming those false teachers as brothers and sisters in Christ. They are lost, and so we are to share the gospel with them.
