2 John

Well, good morning to everybody. So glad to see you this morning. I have a tendency to read a little bit broadly. Sometimes, I read, you know, I read from journals, or periodicals, or whatever, some of which that I, you know, have confidence in, some of which I don't have tons of confidence in, but I kinda like to know what's out there sometimes. So I read a little bit broadly, and I came across an article that was in "The Washington Post," and it was about the war between Russia and Ukraine. And I care about that because we've got people that we know and that we love that are involved in ministry there, a number of different folks. And the article was actually focused on the recovery efforts in Kyiv. And so I kind of paid attention there. It's the capital city of Ukraine, and although there are less bombings now, they're still active, but there's less bombings there now. They were also talking about some other issues that they were facing as a community in the kind of surrounding areas outside of the capital city. They were, you know, talking about some kind of ancillary issues besides the bombing. One of those ancillary issues was is that there are wild boars that are going around in a lot of the village areas and stuff that are very dangerous and can be hurting people and property as well. So they're actually really concerned about these wild boars that are traveling in kind of packs and are affecting a lot of what's going on over there. And so they introduced or they interviewed a number of different people that were around the area of the capital, and there was one lady who was identified as Grandma Halya, and they interviewed Grandma Halya. And they asked her, they said, "How are you living life here? Like what does day-to-day look like for you?" And here was her answer. It's very straightforward. She says, "I just keep walking and watch out for the boars." It's literally what she said. "I just keep walking and watch out for the boars." Now that caught my eye. I'll tell you why in just a moment as to why that phrase actually caught my eye. But I would remind us that regardless of where we are, even though Ukraine in that area is in an actual physical war right now, that no matter where we are in the world, including in the place that we are right now, we are in a spiritual war, and there are bombs and boars that abound. Everywhere that we are, we can see it. Here and in other parts of the world. Our brothers and sisters in India, who I have great love for and affection for. I've been to the country a number of different times. We've got a number of people in our church that are from India. We have partnerships in the gospel through our Kingdom Come, partnerships that are in India. And we're seeing Christians that are being persecuted and killed for their faith in Jesus, particularly pastors and leaders, churches that are being burned to the ground in some of the areas. And in many ways, it's a war of truth because they feel threatened by the gospel. In many ways, they feel it's a threat to their culture. And in that particular culture, they don't want the gospel bringing that message into their culture. So they're fighting. It's really a war of truth that's happening. There's another country that I won't name that is a significant in size, one of the largest in the world. And it has a particular regime that is oppressive to the Christian faith. And what they're doing is another war of truth because they are actually, and you can actually look this up and figure it out and find out, but many specific mission organizations and tons and tons of news outlets have reported on the fact that this government is working on a multi-year plan to work on rewriting portions of the Scripture for the sake of getting people to be more obedient to the state as opposed to the gospel. And this is a war of truth that's happening in the world that we live in. Even denominations that are in the United States and in other parts of the world, but in the United States like that initiated here in some ways, some full-blown denominations in the United States are now embracing things that are antithetical to the gospel and antithetical to the truth of Jesus Christ. And they're embracing those things. Bombs and boars abound everywhere we are. So how do we live in a world like this? How do we live in a time like this? How do we live in a setting like this? Well, I think a little small book called 2 John helps to answer that question. And for us, it could be just as simple as taking Grandma Halya's advice because I think 2 John teaches us this. Keep walking and watch out. Keep walking and watch out. You see, when I read that phrase, I thought to myself, that's what 2 John is actually saying almost exactly. Keep walking and watch out. And this is what this little book teaches us. Now, if you haven't found 2 John, I would encourage you to try and find it, it's right after 1 John and right before 3 John. Did that help you? If not, what you can do is just go to the end of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, it's the very last one, back up a couple of books. You'll back up to Jude, and then to 3 John, and then to 2 John, and boom, your home. Now it's a very small book. In the English language, it's 13 verses that make up the entire letter of 2 John. It's likely written at the latter part of John's life and is probably at the end of the first century roughly. And to orient ourselves to the book, even though the content of the book is gonna shape out exactly what I just said. It's gonna be basically keep walking and watch out. That's how the book breaks up. That's the content of the book. But to orient ourselves as to who's writing and who's being written to, let's just open up to 2 John and look at the first couple of verses to begin orienting ourselves to the book. 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." So this is the very beginning of the letter called 2 John. And the writer names themselves or calls themselves the elder. This is just the term that the Apostle John used for himself, the elder. And it's a term that could be used in two different ways. It's either because he's old, and the likelihood is that he is. Just like Paul last week, when we were reading the Book of Philemon, Paul referred to himself as an old man. Well, John here is referring to himself as the elder and that could be indicative of his age, that he is very elderly at this point. But secondarily, it could be referring to the authority that he has. You may remember that when the church of Jesus Christ was born, it was born in Jerusalem. And most of those were Hebrew Christians, you know, Jews that came to faith in Messiah Jesus. When the persecution began to go, then everybody began to spread out, including the apostles, and they were all over kind of the known world at that time. What the apostles had a tendency to do now that they were mostly spread out is that they were kind of taking charge of or oversight of a number of different churches in a number of different places. John the apostle is probably writing from the City of Ephesus where he was located during this time, but was also probably overseeing a number of other churches that were in different cities, and thus, he was writing letters to them. Peter did the same thing, by the way, Paul did the same thing, by the way. So the apostles had a tendency to do this very thing. So John is noting not only that he's an aged man, but also probably, it has to do with the authority that he has in speaking into the lives of some of the churches that he's helping to shepherd and to oversee. So that's who's writing, John the Elder. But who's he writing to? He's writing to someone who is designated as the lady chosen by God. Some of your translations may say the chosen lady or the elect lady, the lady chosen by God. Well who is this? I'm not sure exactly. It's one of two. Either A, this is a literal woman to whom John is actually writing. That is certainly a possibility. And she would either be likely a prophetess or a patroness, which means that she would show great generosity to the move of God in the place where she was, maybe even hosting a church in her home. That is certainly a possibility. It's also a possibility that maybe this woman, if it is an actual literal woman that is being written to, it's maybe also possible that she has a sister that is in Ephesus and this sister in Ephesus has passed along to John that her sister in this other city, which is not named, has heard about maybe some bad teaching that has gone on and she's written to John to find out a little bit about it. The reason that we talk about this idea of her having a sister is because the way the letter ends in verse number 13 says this simply, "The children of your sister who is chosen by God send their greetings," right? So I'm not just making things up, it's possible that this is the case. But it's also possible that this is not talking to a specific woman in a specific place, but is talking to the church of Jesus in a specific place and that the lady chosen by God is simply code or is a metaphor for the church of Jesus Christ in that area. And part of the reason that could be the case is because unlike Philemon, as we studied last week, after Paul does some greetings and some introduction, he writes in the singular for the rest of the Book of Philemon when he's writing specifically speaking to Philemon, but here, after the introduction period of time, in the content of the book, Paul writes in the plural, which gives you an indication that he's writing to a larger group of people, possibly, talking about maybe the church that is in existence there. And he also uses a term where he talks about children in this letter. And when he's talking about the children of your sister, it's the same exact word that he uses in 1 John. And when he is using it in 1 John, he's actually talking about the church. And so we know from 1 John, he uses children to reference the church and maybe that's exactly what he's also doing in 2 John. But maybe a third reason that this could possibly be the case, and I kind of lean this direction, by the way, thinking that this is the church and not a specific individual, although scholarship is actually not unanimous on this, and I don't know for sure, so I wanna make sure that I say that. But I lean in this direction for these reasons and for the fact that Paul chooses to, I'm sorry, John chooses to bring in this idea of truth into what he's writing, and he uses it in a metaphorical sense. See, truth is not just ethereal. Truth actually has a name, Jesus. Truth can also be ascribed to the Holy Spirit because as we read this, John writes very interestingly, he writes in verse number two like that you're looking at, right? He says, "I'm writing to the chosen lady whom I love and 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." Remember those words, "which lives in us and will be with us forever." You see, what John is doing here is he's introducing us to the reality that truth actually has a name, and John in his gospel has already said as much. Listen to what John quotes Jesus saying in John 14:6. "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the,'" what? "The truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus has said point blank, "I am the truth." The truth is not just something that's floating around in the ether. Jesus says, "I am the truth." And we're also told in John's gospel that this can be ascribed to the Holy Spirit. In John chapter 14, Jesus says, "I'll ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever." Listen to these words, "be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him," watch this, "for he lives with you and will be in you." So in this very passage of Scripture that John the Apostle wrote in his gospel, he's talking and quoting from Jesus about how the Holy Spirit lives in us and will be with us forever. And what does he do in his introduction in 2 John? He talks about truth that lives in us and will be with us forever. So because of all of those things, I think that really that John the Elder, is writing to the church and reminding them of Jesus and reminding them of the presence of the Holy Spirit who brings truth to life. And then he says in verse number three. "Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, will be with us in truth and love." Now this is interesting because John in verse number one said that he loves them in the truth, he loves the children of the lady in the truth. And then in verse number three, he brings back truth and love. So John is setting something up in the opening verses about truth and love because this is a standard formulation in the ancient world. You see, Paul used kind of a formulation like this. Paul usually uses grace and peace, and John uses grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ. And then he adds will be with us in truth and love because he's setting a seed for what he's going to unpack in the remainder of this very, very short letter. And what is that? What is it that he's about to unpack? Two things and I've already told you what they are. Keep walking and watch out. That's what John's really saying. Keep walking and watch out. So let's start to look at that. Here's the first, right? Keep walking in what? In truth. That's what John is telling us. Keep walking in the truth. Listen to what verse four says. It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the father commanded us. You know, what was John's great joy? It was to see believers walking in the truth, that the children of God were walking in the truth. And by the way, when John uses the phrase walk in the truth, he's talking about walking with Jesus because Jesus is the truth. Truth has a name, right? There is no greater joy for John than to know that those that he's invested the gospel into are walking in the truth. And brothers and sisters, we should have no greater joy than those around us are walking in the beauty of relationship with God through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I can tell you as a spiritual leader, and this is what I've been doing for a long time, I have been investing the ministry of the gospel into people's lives for decades. Roughly 30 years, right? That I've been investing the gospel into people's lives. People from Georgia, people from Florida, people now from Western New York for the last 21 years. And do you know what makes my heart beat more than anything else? Do you know what gives me the greatest joy? It's not when somebody stops me and goes, "Man, you were on today. That was awesome," and gives me a high five. I'm grateful for that because you're endeavoring to encourage me, and I thank you for your love and your kindness in that regard, but it doesn't make my heart beat. You know what makes my heart beat? Hearing and seeing the people of God walking with Jesus, walking in the truth. It's the thing that makes my heart beat. It's the greatest joy is to watch the people of God living out and walking in the truth. And I love when I stumble upon that sometimes, unbeknownst to you. It is awesome. When I run into people, and they'll say, "Hey, so and so go to your church." And I'm buckling up, buckling up. They do, they do go to my church. So what's the story? And then they tell me this awesome story of how God has used them in great ways, and they've shown the love, and the grace, and the truth of Christ in a particular situation. And I want to jump out of my skin because we've had the opportunity to invest the gospel and God is building the people of God walking in the truth. But you know it's interesting in verse four? 'Cause your Bibles are open, and you have this in front of you. He says, "It's given me great joy to find that some of your children are walking in the truth." You know, this could be one of two things, by the way. It could be John just talking about the children that he knows and that they're walking in the truth, and he's overjoyed by that. But it could also be a reminder that what is the greatest joy, seeing the children walking in the truth, the children of God walking in the truth, that the inverse of that is also the greatest heartbreak, is that when we see the children of God not walking in the truth. If you wanna know what the hardest thing is for a pastor or a spiritual leader, it's to hear stories of people that have had the gospel invested in their lives who are not walking with Jesus, who are not walking in the truth. Those are the hardest things to be able to hear. So John tells us that what we wanna do is we wanna keep walking and what? Keep walking in the truth, but he also adds to that because he's telling us to keep walking in love. Remember he was setting this up in the greeting, and now we're going to see it play out. Look in verse number five. Says, "And now dear lady, I'm not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another." You see, the reminder that John is giving is that hey, this command to love one another is not new. He said it's been from the beginning, and he could be referring to the beginning of the church because he's referring to Jesus' very words. You remember what John's gospel records Jesus saying in John chapter 13. Jesus said, "A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another." You see, I don't know if he's talking about since the beginning of the church with Jesus where he talks about this new command, I give you to love one another. He could be talking about the very beginning of time, and I think maybe he probably is talking about both. The reason that I think that is because John in his gospel starts his gospel with the words in the beginning. And he teaches us something about both truth and love, or as he phrases it in his gospel, truth and grace. Listen to how he begins the gospel of John, John chapter one. He says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made." And then verse 14 says, "And this Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." He's full of both of these things, grace and truth. And so what John is doing now to the church that is listening, he's saying you've got to keep walking in the truth, and you have to keep walking in love because both truth and love are synonymous with the life of Jesus. But he also says, "You got to keep walking in obedience." And let me make sure that this is kind of really a subset of walking in love, and I'll explain why because John says it very clearly in verse number six. Listen to this. John's about to define love for us. "And this is love, that we walk in obedience to Jesus' commands. As you've heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love." This is love, that you walk in obedience to Jesus' commands. See, love's not just whatever we make it to be, love's not just something that we feel. Love is actually defined here as an obedience to Jesus. And by the way, why is John saying that? Because Jesus said that, that's why. In John's own gospel, he records Jesus' words. And here's what Jesus said in John 14:21. "Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father and I too will love them and show myself to them." Jesus is the one who said, "Here's what love looks like. You obey my commands. This is what love actually looks like." You see, friends, here's what we all need to understand, is that love and truth actually go together. They cannot be divorced from one another, or you don't get where you're trying to go. It's not really the life of Jesus living out through us if we have one to the exclusion of the other. Love and truth belong with one another because they are synonymous with the life of Jesus. Let me ask you a question. What is love with truth? It's just sentimentality. Love, as we define it, without truth, love that's not grounded on the foundation of truth is not actually love. It's just sentimentality. It's that tacit approval or acceptance that we give to everything and everyone because we wanna make sure that we are loving. But we allow for our brothers and sisters to walk in the opposite way of the truth. And because we have this idea that we've got to be loving and we have to be accepting of everything that they do, now you know you don't do that in any other part of your life, right? Like if your kid picks up some poison and is gonna drink it, you don't go, "You know what, who am I to judge?" And it's gonna kill them, right? Love without truth is just sentimentality. And in the culture that we live in, everybody wants to talk about love and doesn't wanna talk about truth. And the second that we bring truth into the conversation about love, we're called haters. But love can't be divorced from truth because love without truth is just sentimentality. Let me ask you this, what is truth without love? Truth without love is coldness and harshness, and it also is incomplete and not as it should be. You see, all too often Christians, they can't defend the truth in love. They can't defend the truth in love because maybe the truth is just something they hide behind with their own hate. And so sometimes, Christians are called hateful because they speak the truth, and maybe at times, it's true. There's other times it's certainly not. But we have to be people who speak the truth in love instead of being harsh and being cold. You know, you can be right about the truth and wrong with how you appropriate it. You can be exactly right about the truth and exactly wrong in the way that you demonstrate it. We cannot divorce these two things. Let me tell you why. Because they interact with one another. I'm gonna show you from other parts of Scripture, let me show you real quick. First of all, truth points to love. That's what it does. Listen to how Paul instructed Timothy in this regard. He said, "Timothy, oh, I've given you all these commands," right? He says, "The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a sincere faith." You see what happens is this, is that truth actually points to love. And so sometimes, Christians are called hateful because they speak the truth. And maybe at times, it's true. There's other times it's certainly not. But we have to be people who speak the truth in love instead of being harsh and being cold. You know, you can be right about the truth and wrong with how you appropriate it. You can be exactly right about the truth and exactly wrong in the way that you demonstrate it. We cannot divorce these two things. Let me tell you why. Because they interact with one another. I'm gonna show you from other parts of Scripture. Let me show you real quick. First of all, truth points to love. That's what it does. Listen to how Paul instructed Timothy in this regard. He said, "Timothy, oh, I've given you all these commands," right? He says, "The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a sincere faith." You see what happens is this, is that truth actually points to love. But you know what else? The inverse of that is true. Love points to truth. In fact, when Paul was defining what love is for us in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, notice what he says. "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." You see truth points to love, and love points to truth, but truth also informs how we're to love because these things are supposed to be wedded together. Truth informs how we're supposed to love. Listen to how in 1 John, how John wrote this. "Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth." That the grounding of our love is actually in truth, so truth informs us how we are to love. But do you know what love does? Love informs how we're to speak it. Love informs how we're to speak the truth. Paul told the Ephesian church this in Ephesians chapter four. "Instead speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ." Do you notice the connection between maturity in Christ and speaking the truth in love? It's a remarkable union. So these go together. So maybe I would say this to us, friends, brothers and sisters, beloved of God. Maybe some of us need to worry less about owning someone in an argument about the truth and maybe need to think more about how we demonstrate love while we're talking about the truth. Or maybe, maybe we need to worry less about how our friends perceive us and whether or not they think we're nice and sweet, and we may need to think about how we help them walk in the truth that we've been avoiding doing. Love needs truth, and truth needs love. This is what John is teaching us. Keep walking in the truth. Keep walking in love, and this is how you'll know because you're obedient to Jesus because truth and love is synonymous with his life in us. So he tells us to keep walking, but the second part of the letter, he tells us to watch out, and he's prepped us by saying, you got to learn how to walk in the truth, you got to learn how to walk in love in an obedience to the commands of Jesus because you need to watch out. What are you watching out for? Well, for deceivers. That's the first thing that John points out in verse number seven. Here's what he says. He said, "I say this," I say what? To keep walking in the truth, to keep walking in love, to keep walking in obedience to the commands of Jesus. "I say all 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." And you're like, "Wait, man, did we just go to antichrist here in the middle of this little letter? Are you talking about like the one great evil?" Nope, it's not what I'm talking about. John uses this term, and he uses it in other places as well. And he actually uses it in the plural form a number of times. There are many antichrists. John uses that term. It just means opposing Christ against Christ. That's what the term actually means. These deceivers were deceiving people in the body of Christ around something very specific. John says it. He says, "They don't acknowledge that Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh." So what they're doing is they're undercutting the idea of incarnation. Incarnation just means the putting on a flesh, okay? That's what incarnation means. The putting on a flesh. To incarnate is to enflesh, okay? And John says, "You better pay attention because there are people that are basically teaching you about a different Jesus, and you're somehow maybe in a position to receive that if you are not careful. You need to watch out and make sure you're walking in the truth." Now you're talking about, in other words, were they saying that they don't believe that Jesus came in the flesh, was born of a Virgin Mary and that like that was Jesus Christ? Sort of. There was Gnostic philosophy that was developing in the late first century. And Gnostic is from the Greek word gnosis, which just means knowledge, right? And this idea of Gnosticism was a separation of spirit and body. Body is bad, spirit is good. And so there was a guy named Cerinthus and Cerinthus was sending out missionaries, Gnostic missionaries during this time. The reason we know that is because he's a real historical person that we know about. And Irenaeus, one of the early church fathers, actually wrote and said that John wrote these epistles to refute Cerinthus. So we've got an early church father actually recognizing some of this and saying his belief was that John wrote these because of Cerinthus's awful stuff that he was perpetuating among the churches. In other words, Cerinthus would say stuff like this. Jesus is who died on a cross, but Christ did not. He separated them, right? And he's made them very different. One's human and subject to error, one is divine, and they kind of... John's saying, "People that are doing that, they're deceivers." They're taking away from the reality of who Jesus is enfleshed. And it's really interesting here because as you can see in your text as well, he says in verse seven, "I say this because many deceivers who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ," watch this, "as coming in the flesh." Now because you were reading this in Greek before you came in here, you know this already, but that's in the present participle. Remember, remember? It's in the present participle. I know you're just going, stop nerding out. Here's why this is important. Because the present participle actually includes everything about the nature of Jesus' incarnation. In the past, he was born in the flesh, and then he died in the flesh, was resurrected in the flesh even though it was a resurrected flesh. And he's going to come again physically in his resurrected body. And basically, what John is doing is he's encompassing all of that and say, anybody who teaches you something different than this is a deceiver and is working against the nature of how God has revealed himself in Christ. And that's why he's saying these people that are coming around like Cerinthus and his missionaries that are coming and teaching all this, you've got to be walking in the truth to be able to discern what has been happening here. You see, there are deceivers in the world that we live in, and they come, sometimes, under the category of, you know, spiritual leader or somebody who's speaking for God. But if we don't have sense enough to understand and discern where deceivers are trying to slip into your podcasts, where deceivers are trying to slip into your entertainment, and they're doing it in the name of God, but they're bringing a different Jesus to you, you've got to be discerning enough as you've walked in the truth to be able to watch out for them. Secondly, he says, watch out for a loss of reward. Not only watch out for deceivers, but watch out for a loss of reward. Listen to what verse eight says. "Watch out," see, this is where I get my stuff. I'm just lift it from the text, right? "Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully." What does a reward look like following Jesus faithfully? I don't know for sure. I don't know what all that's gonna play out, right? Here's what I know. There are rewards, and I don't know what they look like, and I'm not sure what all of that means. I want one, I'm interested. You say, "Well, is that selfish to be interested in that?" No, no, if it was selfish, he wouldn't have included it and said, "This is something you want." And if it was selfish, John wouldn't have said, "Be careful that you don't lose it." And he's also saying, "By the way, as apostles, we've been investing the gospel into you, be careful that you don't lose what we have been investing into you because rewards can be gained and lost." This is not talking about salvation gained and lost. This is talking about rewards being gained and lost. Much like when Jesus was offering the letters to the churches in the Book of Revelation. Maybe you remember this statement that he made in Revelation 3:11. He said, "I'm coming soon. Hold on to what you have so that no one will take your crown." In other words, there are rewards for walking faithfully, for walking in the truth, for walking in love, for walking with Jesus. And John's saying, "Watch out. Watch out for deceivers. Watch out that you don't lose your reward." He also says watch out for our relationship with God. Watch out for our relationship with God. Look in verse number nine. "Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God." That is a strong statement. "Whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son." So what John is saying here is the idea of running ahead means to work beyond Jesus, to work beyond what God has revealed of himself through his Son and through the Scripture that he has given us, preserved by the Holy Spirit. When we start running ahead, listen to this, and saying, we're now working beyond Jesus. We've got technology, and technology's going to save us. We've got new age divine principles that are mystic, and they're beyond Jesus, and they're beyond all of this stuff, and we can operate in that. We now are working be beyond because now there's this mystical political power. And if we just get the right politician in office, then everything's going to go according to plan. When we're working, listen to this, when we're running ahead, and we're working outside of God's revelation to us in Jesus, by the Word of God, we are missing it. Here's why. Because to bypass Jesus is to bypass God. No one who bypasses Jesus has God. That's what John is saying. So we have to watch out, we have to walk in the truth. Keep walking in the truth, keep walking in love, keep walking in obedience. Why? So that we can watch out for our relationship with God. And we have to watch out for our relationship with others. Listen to verse 10 and 11. John writes this. "If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work." Now let me tell you what he's not saying. He's not suggesting to be unloving. He's already talked about that, right? He's already said, "Hey, here's the command. You got to be loving," right? He's also not talking about, you know, those people that come around to our houses and apartments and knock on our door, and I wanna tell you about some stuff, you know, that's really not the gospel, but I'm gonna tell you about some stuff. You know what I'm talking about? Everybody clear? Am I making myself clear? He's not saying you're not allowed to speak to them, or if you invited them in and gave them a glass of lemonade and wanted to share the gospel with them, he's not saying you're not allowed to do that. That's not what this is talking about. You see, in the ancient world, these teachers would travel and then they would find lodging for themselves of people who gravitated to their message and would put them up, and would not only put them up, would give them access to their relational community so that they could teach something. So basically to receive somebody into your home, to put them up, to feed them, and to let them stay there for a period of time was fundamentally an acceptance of what they were teaching and would be an indication of access to the rest of the community that you would want them to influence. And here's what John's saying. Don't do that. People that are bringing teaching that is inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ, do not commend that. Do not allow that into the context of your church. Don't do it. You say, "Well, is that loving?" It's absolutely loving. Do you know why? Because it is loving to be able to say no wolves allowed. You are going to eat the sheep. Well, you know, but I don't know, I don't know. I mean, wolves just eat sheep. That's what they do. I don't know if I should be the judge of that. Wolves just eat sheep. Not here, they don't. Not in the church of Jesus, they don't. Because the sheep of God are to be cared for and protected by the truth of God and the love of God. And those that are leading, and teaching, and protecting have that responsibility so that wolves are not allowed to infiltrate what is going on in the body of Christ. So keep wolves at bay, keep wolves out. It's the most loving thing you can do. And then he ends the letter this way, verse 12 and 13. "I have much to write to you, but I don't 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." Isn't it interesting that John cares so deeply about embodiment and about presence? If John were writing this today, he might say something like, "I've got much to email you, but I don't wanna do it on a computer. I don't wanna do it on a direct message. I wanna see your face." 'Cause embodiment matters to him. It's what matters in the teaching of Jesus. That Jesus is fully man and fully God, that God has enfleshed himself in Christ. This is what matters to John so greatly. So let me ask you, what might the Spirit be saying to you today? What might he be saying to you? Might he be saying that you live more in one sphere than in the other? That for you, it's not about the fullness of both truth and love, but you really live in either one or the other? Maybe you're a parent, maybe you're a new parent, maybe you've been a parent for a little while, and you just really wanna be liked by your kids. You wanna be known as the cool mom or the cool dad, and you want your kids to just like you, and think you're awesome and tell their friends, "My parents, they're the coolest." And so they're in high school, and they wanna have a party, and you say, "Yeah, you can have a party here, and I'll even buy the alcohol, and you guys can hang out here, and, you know, 'cause I'm cool." Really? Have you ever thought about the fact that your kids need the truth? Not just that you are working off of some brokenness or some deficit you had in middle school or high school, not being accepted yourself, and now you've got to be the one that finds all of your affirmation from your kids when instead you've got a job to do? Hmm. Or maybe it's like that in your neighborhood. You just wanna be a neighbor and want all your neighbors to like you and think you're awesome, but you're too afraid to ever bring the truth into any conversation because you just wanna be liked, and you just wanna be, you know, known as the a cool neighbor, and nice, and all that kind of stuff. Well, I'm just trying to be a good witness. Is it a good witness to never tell them about Jesus? Is that a good witness? I'm just gonna be nice. Will nice get them to heaven? It will not. Nice is better than mean, by the way. Just a heads up, right? But nice doesn't do it. We have to be able to be people of both truth and love. 'Cause oftentimes we're working on a wrong definition of love. That love is just the tacit acceptance of everything that anyone ever does, and we just go, "Well, you know what? That's awesome for you. That's so great. Your truth is your truth." What, what, what, what? What are we doing? We've got a wrong definition of love at this point, but maybe your problem's not on that side of being all sentimental in the way that you treat people without the truth. Maybe your issue has more to do with the other side. Maybe, in fact, you're actually potentially so biblically illiterate that you actually don't know how to discern the deceivers that are trying to come for you. And you realize you don't know enough of the truth. Or maybe you think you know the truth more than anyone on Planet Earth, and you are God's appointed person to tell everyone the truth, and you don't care what they feel, you don't care what that means, you don't care about thinking about their lives, you don't care about loving them actually. You just want them to be a target for your truth. And what it may be is it may be an ability to hide your hate for their lifestyle that you hate. I don't know what the spirit of God may be be saying to you. Here's what I do know. If you want to understand the beauty of what truth and love looks like, look no further than the cross. When you look at the cross, here's what you learn. We learn the truth about us. That we are sinners who cannot save ourselves. That the Son of God had to come and die for our sin because we are sinful and the wages of sin is death, and we couldn't save ourselves. That's the truth that's told to us about ourselves. But we also learn the truth about God. That God is holy, that God won't wink at sin, that God will judge sin, and he did. He judged it on Jesus who was undeserving of that. We were deserving of that, but he took upon himself our sin, and God judged sin on Jesus that should have been judged on us. We learned the truth about God. God is holy, God will judge. And that even while he is those things, he is also immeasurably loving because God demonstrates his love for us in this while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We need look no further than the cross. I can't think of a better demonstration of that than the meal that Jesus gave us to signify his body and his blood broken for us and poured out for us. So if you have your elements that were passed out when you came in, I'd ask you to open up the top portion and take out the bread. Paul wrote this to the Corinthian church. He said, "The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it. And he said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'" Lord Jesus, we recognize that when we take of this unleavened broken bread, that we are reminding ourselves of the truth about us, and we are reminding ourselves of the truth about you. That you never back away from truth. You will judge sin as it is and you have because our sin was put upon your Son. But you have also shown us the incredible grace and love that is beyond our ability to conceive that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, offered his body, the bread broken for us. For that, we are humbled, and we say thank you to you. Now brothers and sisters, take and eat. If you'd open the cup as well. Paul writes in the same way after supper, Jesus took the cup saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Lord Jesus, we know that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. We know that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. We know that you have demonstrated your love to us by pouring out your very blood so that we may live. So we drink to remember because we are reminded now of the truth of who you are. The Son of God who can save, fully man and fully God at the same time who offered himself up. The Word made flesh who dwelt among us, whose glory we be held full of grace and truth. And you demonstrated it to the extent of shedding your blood so that we might be able to experience forgiveness of sin by faith in what you have done, not of our works, but by your grace. Thank you for the blood that was shed for us and that now by your blood, we can be forgiven, accepted, beloved children of God. Brothers and sisters, take and drink. In a moment, you'll take these plastic empty receptacles out with you and deposit them. But before we leave, I'd love us to just take a moment with our heads bowed, and I'd like to just simply speak to two groups of people. The first, you may be here and never have before turned from your sin and put your faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. What I would encourage you to do is when I say amen in just a moment and we dismiss, there'll be some men and women that'll be right down front. They'd love to take a moment, speak to you about what it means to have a relationship with God through his Son Jesus. You can't earn it. It is by grace, but you can receive it 'cause God loves you. And he's demonstrated that love in his Son who died for you. So in a moment when we dismiss, if that's your need, I would encourage you not to leave this building without settling that in your heart, and speak to one of these men or women who'll take a moment and pray a prayer of faith with you to receive Christ and send you home with something that's gonna help you in your journey of faith. And if you need a Bible, they'll be able to send that home with you for sure. But maybe you're here and the Spirit of God has spoken to you about the fullness of truth and love in your life. I hope that you'll listen to what his voice says to you 'cause this isn't about balancing truth and love. This is about the fullness of truth and love. We beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of God, full of grace and truth, full of love and truth. You see, when Jesus' life is living out through us, we are fully loving and fully truthful at the same time. This will be the witness to Christ's life. So Father, I pray by your Spirit, you would speak to each of our hearts and that we would allow the mirror of your word by the power of your Spirit to shape us more into the image of your Son, so that as you look upon us, you see increasingly the beauty of the Son of God. Would you do this by your Spirit for your glory and ultimately for our good and for the good of the world that needs to see this kind of beautiful, mature witness to Jesus? I ask you to do this in Christ's name. Amen.