2 John 1-6 What Is True Christianity?

A lack of discipleship has left most Christians with an unclear picture of how to actually grow in their faith leaving believers to always look for the next thing.

The next sermon. The next experience. The next book. The next conference, the next anything that will put the feet of their faith on solid ground.

Because most of us are too ashamed to admit it, but when we read how Paul says immature Christians are tossed to and fro by the waves most of us want to say that’s exactly how I feel.

We feel adrift. Aimless. Tossed about. We feel like we are missing something in my faith and somewhere out there, there is an answer.

What does it mean to be a Christian?

We need to answer this question for several reasons:

Knowing the answer to that question gives us assurance of our salvation

So that we can look at our life and see the powerful grace of God at work in and through us.

It also helps bring clarity in a world of confusion and false teaching.

Without having a clear definition of what it means to be a Christian, anybody can come along and say, “This is true Christianity!”

And false teachers who come preaching that message are able to lead many astray because people have not been discipled in what true Christianity really is.

Finally, knowing what it means to live the Christian life gives the church our marching orders for glorifying God and being a light for the gospel to a world lost in darkness.

So what does it mean to be a Christian?

2 John 1-6 gives us a simple and clear definition for what it looks like to follow Jesus and live the Christian life.

A Christian is someone who believes the gospel, walks in the truth, and walks in love for one another.

Let’s begin reading verse 1 where John says first and foremost...

I. A Christian Believes the Gospel

2 John 1-3 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, 2 because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever: 3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.

So let me give you a little bit of background for what is going on in this book.

The elder is John the Apostle. The beloved disciple. The same one who wrote the Gospel of John, 1 and 3 John, and Revelation.

It is likely that 1, 2, and 3 John traveled as a package of letters to churches around the area of Ephesus.

1 John was John’s theological argument against false teachers that had risen up in the region and was written to a network of churches.

3 John was written to an individual in one of these churches named Gaius who was dealing with a man named Diotrephes. Diotrephes was using the confusion the false teachers had brought into the region to feed his pride and set himself up as a mini king in the church.

If 1 John was John’s theological treatise against the false teaching that was plaguing the churches near Ephesus, 2 John was his practical instructions for how one of these churches, perhaps one of the influential ones in this network, should deal with these false teachers.

That’s why John says to the elect lady and her children.

The elect lady is not an individual, but a church. The word lady is the feminine form of the word Lord which in the NT is used to describe Jesus.

So by calling the church the elect lady, John is hinting at the church being the Bride of Christ chosen by God’s sovereign grace.

The children then, are her members. They are individual Christians within the congregation. They are members of the body.

And while not the main focus of this verse, this points to the fact that a Christian should belong to a church.

The NT doesn’t allow for a Christian not to belong to a local church.

And we know John is talking about a local body of believers as opposed to just the universal church in general because at the end of the letter he says, The children of your elect sister greet you (2 John 13). That’s a sister church. Another congregation.

So what that means is to be a child of the elect Lady, to be a child of the Bride of Christ, is to belong to a local body of believers.

This is why we practice biblical church membership. Because just coming to church on Sundays isn’t what makes you part of the body.

The brothers and sisters, the children of this church are the members who have committed to the church and one another in church membership.

Its that commitment that that takes us just from being a group of people to a family. To use an imperfect analogy, its our commitment to the church and one another that makes us brothers and sisters of the same household and not just distant cousins of the same family.

So for some of you, God might be asking you to join this body. That might be the step of obedience you need to hear from this book.

The Christian life was never meant to be lived on our own. We need one another. But the only way we can receive all the spiritual blessings that come with being a part of a church is through the mutual commitment we have to one another.

If you don’t belong to a church, you are missing something essential for your faith. So whether its here or even another church, one of the first steps in following Jesus is joining a church, and here that means church membership.

John continues, 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.

So almost immediately, most of you have probably already noticed how John is hammering away at this idea he calls “the truth.”

Well its crucial to understanding this letter, and the best clue we probably have to tell us what John had in mind is what he said about the false teachers he’s writing about.

Verse 7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those that do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

Here’s what John was dealing with. There were false teachers who had gone out of the church, remember when John said those who went out from us were not of us, its the same language here, and these false teachers were saying that Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh.

That Jesus was not truly and fully God and truly and fully man.

So the truth John has in mind is the truth of the person and work of Christ.

Its that Jesus is the Messiah. The one sent by God to save his people by suffering in the flesh through his death on the cross. That Jesus, the eternal Son of God, suffered and died as man for the sins of everyone who believes in him.

To say it another way, the truth is the good news of the gospel.

Because what these false teachers did not understand is that Jesus had to come in the flesh or else none of us would be saved.

Gospel

God created mankind to live for his glory.

To worship him and celebrate all of his goodness by living all of our lives for him and obeying all of his commands which God gave us for life.

He was our Creator and he knew that the only way to truly live was to live for him.

But we sinned against God. We disobeyed him and broke his commands, and made ourselves his enemies.

In our sin, we deserved God’s wrath and judgment. God had warned us that death would be the fruit of our sin, and because everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God everyone of us is born under a death sentence.

But in his love for us, God gave us grace. God sent his Son, the eternal Son of God, to be born of a virgin and live the sinless life we failed to live, and die the death sentence everyone of us deserved to die.

He fulfilled and perfectly obeyed all of God’s commandments as a man, and he suffered and died the due penalty all our sin deserved as a man.

Jesus came in the flesh to die as our substitute, and he rose again three days later to free us from all our sin and reconcile us to God.

And through faith in his Name by believing the truth of that Gospel, Jesus promises that even though we deserve eternal death, he will give us eternal life.

And John says it is that truth that abides in us and will be with us forever.

That through faith, all the blessings of the gospel are ours in Christ and they are ours forever.

That’s why right after saying that the truth will be with us forever, John says Grace, mercy and peace will be with us.

By repeating those words, will be with us, John is saying is that through faith in the gospel, God will bestow on us all of his grace, mercy, and peace.

Grace is God’s unmerited favor and kindness. When we were dead and guilty in our sin, God sent his son to die in our place and save us from our sins.

We did nothing to deserve it. Nothing in us made God save us. He only did it because it was the good pleasure of his will to show kindness to sinners.

God’s mercy is his pity and compassion. It is his mercy that restrains the wrath that we deserve for our sin, and instead pours it on Christ in our place.

Then there is peace. It is this idea of wholeness. Harmony. Rest. Safety. A restoration where everything is right and everything is as it should be.

The Bible talks about us being hostile to God. That we were God’s enemies and the God of all the universe was set against us.

But in his grace and mercy, God reconciled us to himself and now we have peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

When you put all three of these together, Grace, Mercy, Peace, what you have is the fullness of salvation.

So what John is saying in his greeting to this church is that through faith in the truth, through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the good news of his gospel, you and I have the fullness of salvation, and that salvation is ours forever, and ever, and ever!

God has given us eternal life.

And John closes out his greeting by saying that Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us…in truth and love.

If grace, mercy, and peace, is John’s way of saying the fullness of salvation, then what he means is that true genuine salvation, genuine faith in the person and work of Christ will always lead to the fruit of truth and love in the life of the believer.

The first thing is not what you do or how you live. It is what you believe.A Chritian is someone who has died with Christ. who has entered the narrow gate and left all their sin ambition self righteousness and said all of my life is for Jesus because he died to save me.

The first thing is that you must believe and that this truth must abide in you. live in you. Work itself out in your life. All of your life is now driven by it.

as Jesus said, you must be born again. You have a whole new life.

you will be free indeed (free to walk in truth and love. The truth will set you free

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II. A Christian Walks in the Truth

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III. A Christian Walks in Love for One Another

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Conclusion

simple: faith and obedience

Truth and love note

Let’s Pray

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