Dr. Blair Smith | Where Truth and Love Meet

2:46 Let's pray. our heavenly father we thank you for your word found in big books like genesis like luke like acts found in smaller books even very tiny ones such as second john we thank you that these words are inspired by your spirit and they are for the church in the first century and they are for the church in the 21st century. I pray that you would enable me to preach a better sermon than what I have prepared. May your spirit know exactly what needs to be heard by each of us in this sanctuary in order that we might be perfected, that we might grow, that we might more and more reflect the image of your perfect son, Jesus Christ. So be with us, be with me, we pray. We pray these things through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. So in one of the closets of the Smith home, we have a small black briefcase. It's fireproof. Inside are several documents, birth certificates, social security cards, passports, small papers. But they're in a fireproof case because they're enormously important. In some cases, they would cost a lot of money and time to replace. And their importance is backed by something far greater than their size. A little blue book, for example, a passport with all the verification behind it lets us cross international borders. In fact, earlier this month, our family crossed an international border, and that trip was momentarily up in the air because there was a delay in our five-year-old receiving her passport.

4:41 To cross that border, we needed the weight of the United States government standing behind us, And that weight is contained in a little blue book, barely the size of my palm. Small doesn't always mean small. Sometimes the smallest things carry the most weight because of what stands behind them or is packed inside of them. One of the most influential speeches in the history of our country is the Gettysburg Address. The Gettysburg Address can be read in about two minutes. One of the most consequential documents in the history of the church is Martin Luther's 95 Theses. The 95 Theses, which helped spark the Protestant Reformation, they can be read in three to four minutes.

5:34 2 John, by verse count, as I mentioned, out of all 66 books of the Bible, it's the shortest. compared to an Isaiah, compared to a Matthew. It's minuscule. But don't let that fool you. Like Genesis, like Romans, this book is God-breathed. It is an infallible, inerrant revelation from God. And packed into these 13 verses is core Christian doctrine about God and his son, about the incarnation, and vital teaching for discipleship on truth and love. When we read this letter, one of the things that jumps out is how familial, how relational the language is. In the opening verses, there's talk of children, of God the Father and the Father's Son.

6:34 There's language of love and of the home. And in the closing verses, there are allusions to visiting, to face-to-face fellowship. And this highlights something central to our faith and to the context in which we're called to live it out. And that is that the church is family. The church is a family. So don't let the letter size fool you like that little blue book. It carries far more weight than its size suggests. And what it shows us is what it looks like to be a family gathered by the truth, walking in love, guarding the sun, and enjoying fellowship. That family thread is going to run through these four points this morning. A family gathered by the truth, verses 1 to 3.

7:32 A family walking in love, verses 4 to 6. A family guarding the son, verses 7 to 11. And a family enjoying fellowship, verses 12 to 13. So this letter, this letter begins with the elder and the elect lady and her children. There are a few ways to take these references, but the language, you know, it's a little indirect, but I think the references are actually rather plain. The elder here is the apostle John. He's the beloved disciple. He's the one who, in addition to 1 and 3 John, also wrote the gospel of John in the book of Revelation. And by calling himself the elder here, he does so in 3 John as well, John is asserting real pastoral authority while also at the same time communicating personal, familial closeness to this congregation. He's not writing as a distant apostle.

8:34 He's a shepherd who's seeking to know the sheep. Now, he was likely in Ephesus when he wrote this letter, and we know from Acts 20 that Ephesus had its own elders, men that Paul himself charged to care for the church of God. So John, writing as the elder, fits this local pastoral office. It's not a title of distance. It's a title of interest and of care, and he's communicating that throughout this letter. 2 John is what's called a Catholic or general, Catholic small c, or general or universal epistle. That is, it's not like a 1 or 2 Thessalonians, which Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica. Or it's not like Paul writing to the Philippians, which he wrote to the church at Philippi.

9:31 This is written to the church, and it seems there's a specific congregation in mind, but it's left unidentified. This lack of name means the letter was meant to travel. It was meant to circulate. It reflects a concern for the whole church, the whole church then, the whole church now. And so when we read this letter, we're not reading someone else's mail addressing someone else's problems. It's addressed to the church then as well as now, including us here today. Now, the way John refers to the church here is striking. He calls her the elect lady, and then he adds her children. By having this double reference, the elect lady and her children, it's a reference to the whole and the parts, the congregation and her members.

10:30 It's not the language of sort of corporate entity and her employees or a firm and her clients. This is chosen, beloved lady and her children. John is using family language from the very first line of this letter. And this continues as John says, he loves the elect lady and her children in truth. And not he alone, but all who know and love this truth. Already in verse one, John introduces a pair he often highlights in his letter. It's in the title of this sermon. This pair of truth and love, truth and love. But notice he doesn't say he loves them merely as fellow believers, those that are involved in a common cause. He loves them in the truth.

11:26 He loves them in the truth. It's the abiding truth itself that makes this love he has for them possible at all. We'll look more closely at the character of this love and truth in a moment. But even here in these first three verses, John is showing us something very foundational. It's truth that creates fellowship among Christians. It's truth that creates fellowship among Christians. Think of college athletics. We're done sort of as Americans now with this thing called soccer, World Cup, and many of you enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, but a lot of you in this room are like, phew, we can move on to the real football. We're moving into the fall, right? If you think about college athletics, what creates a fan base?

12:21 You have shared colors, a mascot, rivalries, winning tradition maybe for some of you, years of memories tied to a campus, a stadium. And the church has some of that too. We have a shared history, for example. We might have shared memories around a place or a building. But none of that is what makes us a family.

12:45 Building a fan base is very different than building a church. What makes us a family is truth. So what is this truth concretely? John begins to show us already in this greeting that we have here in verse 3. Grace, mercy, peace. Now think about that sequence. grace, mercy, and peace, but think about it from the end to the beginning. We have peace with God through the Son, Jesus Christ, because he has shown us mercy. And we have mercy because mercy has been born of his grace. So for Christians, truth is not an abstract thing. It is universal, meaning it's for all people, but it comes very specifically from the Father through the son. The one who said in the gospel of John, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, is the truth that creates fellowship among us. And such truth is not merely acknowledged as real, it's not merely sort of assented to with our reason, it's lived, it's lived. And that's our second point, a family walking in love. We find this in verses four to six. John carries this truth and love pair into this section, and now he addresses this church personally. Remember, he's already identified himself as an elder, one given an office, you know, like those installed in our service today. Elders are not a privileged caste set apart on their own. They're called from a congregation by God, but they are called by God back to that congregation to lead and to serve, to know, to encourage, to challenge, to personally shepherd. So it's as an elder, personally connected in some way to this church that John says he rejoices. And he doesn't just

14:53 rejoice he rejoices greatly he rejoices exceedingly he's moved by this church but but but at what is he so moved by them it's not that they teach the truth of god that's important it's not that they believe the truth as vital as that is it's that they live it they live it the father has commanded obedience to the truth and here the children are not wayward they're they're not rebelling they are obeying and John as an elder is rejoicing do we rejoice similarly when we hear of the faithful walk of fellow believers one of the things John highlights here is essential to Christian discipleship. Right belief and right conduct are interconnected. Not orthodoxy alone, that's right belief, but orthodoxy which bears fruit in orthopraxy, that is right and godly conduct.

16:02 These two go together. The New Testament frequently uses this metaphor of a walk to describe day-to-day Christian living. For example, in Romans 6, 4, Paul calls believers to walk in newness of life. Second Corinthians 5, 7, he commands them to walk by faith. Galatians 5, 16, walk by the Spirit. Colossians 2, 6, walk in him. John here, he rejoices exceedingly that the children of the eternal father are walking in the truth, walking in the truth. So why walk? Why do Christians sometimes when we're checking in with one another sometimes ask, how is your walk going? Think about it. The spirit's choice of this metaphor in scripture, it's powerful and it does many things, but I want us to think about three things that this metaphor does that John highlights here. First, walk. It highlights ordinariness. It highlights ordinariness.

17:13 Walking is extremely ordinary. Almost all of us do it every day. We walk to the fridge. We walk to our cars. We walk through our neighborhoods. We walked into the sanctuary this morning. And so just as walking is ordinary, so is the Christian life. And that ordinariness is kind of the point. The Christian life is not primarily lived on the mountaintop. We can say it's lived on the sidewalk. It's lived on the pathway. Now, there may be mountaintop experiences, and these are moments of profound change and progress, and we give thanks to God for those, But most of the Christian life is built from our daily habits that reveal our true direction. So often we're after a high, but what God wants from us day by day is one step in front of the other, walking.

18:16 We need to think and act in the ordinary. So let's ask ourselves, how is our daily walk? Second, this walking metaphor highlights direction. It highlights progress rather than perfectionism, rather than perfectionism. Walking is getting from point A to point B. That's essentially what walking is. Not perfectly, but progressively getting from one point to another point. Perfectionism, especially as we look at, say, perfectionism in the Christian life, it says I must never fail I must never stumble and how devastating it is then when a Christian does fail or stumble because when we sin or stumble we think it's it's all over and this whole thing is a lie the Christian life is not about perfectionism it should be though about progress one step in front of another sometimes some steps back yes we repent but over the course of a life progressively getting closer from point A to point B. The Christian life, though, is also not about complacency, as if growth doesn't matter. We are called to move toward Christ, and so there's direction. There's a call to growth. Walking highlights that. But third, walk is picking up something very profound from the Old Testament. Walk, to use that language, to use that image, is picking up a profound idea, reality from the Old Testament, because walking is covenantal language. Walking is covenantal language. From Genesis 3 onward, we get pictures of God walking with his people. So when we walk as Christians, we do not walk alone.

20:11 We walk empowered by the Spirit, united to the Son, obeying the Father. What the covenant teaches us is that God desires to commune with his people. He says, I will be your God and you shall be my people. And he walks with us and we with him.

20:36 But that covenantal walk with God, it's not an aimless journey or wander throughout the woods. It's a walk in truth commanded by the father. So to carry this metaphor forward, the truth of God given in his commands is our pathway as we walk. The truth of God, which we see in his commands, that is our pathway as we walk as believers. Now, John highlights a particularly important part of that pathway, and it's a theme that's significant in his writings, especially 1 John as well. If we're going to walk in the truth, we must love one another. If we're going to walk in the truth, we must, as believers in the church, love one another. As it says in the Gospel of John, this is how it will be known that we are the disciples of Jesus Christ, that we love one another.

21:34 Why? Why that we love one another? Because this love for one another that we're called to is a reflection of God and the very love that he has given to us. What's more, our love for one another is a reflection of our love for God. Remember Jesus himself said in John 14, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. If you love me, Jesus is saying, you will keep my commandments. We cannot love Jesus, love God, and be indifferent to the pathway that he has set for us in his truth. so love for God it's not a fuzzy feeling of affection there is feeling involved but there is also this divine defined pathway to it our love for God it's shown in a repentant obedience here that in second John that is to love one another not a perfect obedience of love, of course, but a heart longing and desire and attempts to obey according to the truth. So truth defines love. Love adorns the truth. Truth and love, these two, they belong together. It's often been observed, truth without love will harden.

23:03 love without truth loses any shape or substance and will eventually dissolve. The two go hand in hand, and John highlights that for us. So thus far, John has communicated his love, his joy, his encouragement, but in verse 7, we come to a sudden change in tone. There's a sudden change in tone in verse 7. What we find here isn't a warning against this congregation. He has nothing but to commend them. They're abounding in love, walking in the truth. They're a family healthy. They're a family thriving. John, in one sense, is writing to them as a beaming father. But he's wise, he's discerning, and he needs to highlight something very important for them and for us here. Now think of the opening scenes of Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring.

24:07 There's the idyllic shire. There's Bilbo's birthday party. There's laughter. There's music. There's feasting. And yet we know, even as we read it or watch the movie, that there's a darkness that's already afoot. Sauron has arisen. the ringwraiths are searching. There's real danger in the mood, in the atmosphere, even before the hobbits realize it. That's the first thing we see in this section. Danger can move very quietly beneath real joy. But John doesn't leave it there because he wants to highlight very specifically where the danger is, where that danger can strike. Earlier this calendar year, I traveled to Auburn, Alabama, and I was there to visit some alumni of RTS and speak at a campus ministry on the campus of Auburn. And I mentioned college fandom a few moments ago. There's a dark side to it as well, especially where rivalries run deep. And some of that are invested in the Alabama-Auburn rivalry know where I'm going. In 2010, an Alabama fan by the name of Harvey Updike drove to Auburn's campus after Auburn had beaten his beloved Crimson Tide, and he poisoned the roots of two historic oak trees at Toomer's Corner, where, you know, Auburn fans gathered for generations to celebrate their wins. Quite unwisely, he later confessed to this deed publicly on the radio.

25:57 Despite years of effort to save them, the trees died and they had to be removed. Motivated by hatred for his rival, Updike knew exactly where to strike. Literally at the roots. Not the leaves, not the branches. Dumped herbicide into the roots of this iconic symbol of his rival. Out of hatred for God and his people, the great deceiver and his servants know the same thing. If they can poison the root, our life with God himself, decay will spread, and it'll spread from the inside out in a church and in Christians. So what is this poison specifically? John doesn't mince words, does he?

26:52 These deceivers, these antichrists, and they're antichrists because their teaching is against literally Christ, they sow one very particular lie. Their lie is that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, did not come and did not take on flesh. He did not dwell among us as the Son of God. They denied that the Son, the second person of the Trinity, truly took on our human nature. Remember Jesus' words in John 14, 6. I read them earlier, but I didn't finish them. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one, no one comes to the Father but through me. So you want love, you want truth, you want life.

27:50 It comes from the Father, but only does it come through the Son. To have God is to have the Son. To have the Son is to have the one who took on our nature, who lived a perfect life, who died for our sins, who rose in victory over sin, death, and the devil. He is the one who mediates our relationship with God. If we don't abide in his teachings, John says, we do not have God. But if we hold to Christ, we have both the Father and the Son. The great deceiver, Satan, his allies, and those that would deceive through his lies, They know where to go. They know where to strike.

28:44 They know how to turn down the music for the Christian. They know how to starve the feasting, stamp out the joy, turn sick the healthy, poison the root, target the true source of our life. And that source is the good news that we're not left in sin and darkness, but that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him would not perish, but would have life everlasting.

29:22 Deceivers go after the gospel. They go after Christ because they want to take away that life, that life that you and I have, and if you don't have it, you can have by repenting of your sins and putting your faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal son of God. so as we think about this deception that john is so strong in his opposition to and his warning what would that look like for you and me a simple question can help us identify it is is we're considering are we at times tempted and deceived and that question would go along the lines of what takes away from Christ in our lives, what takes away from Christ in our church, what twists or obscures his truth and his beauty among us, what confuses our knowing him and abiding in his teaching.

30:25 now John doesn't want us anxiously hunting for heresy under every rock I don't think he's a realist but he's not seeking to be an alarmist here grace and mercy and peace truth and love these are true these are real these are meant to be enjoyed by us as Christians But deception, deception is also real, and it's on the march. So the church and her leaders especially are wise to be on watch for it because it threatens the very family of God. So that's why we guard the son. Not that the son needs guarding any more than a lion needs looking after, but we do guard the teaching of the son because that teaching is what we have to give to the world it's that teaching which sustains our spiritual lives and is going to carry us all the way home to the new heavens into the new earth and john takes this so seriously this teaching and and the warning against those deceivers that would take it away he takes it so seriously that he gives a very hard instruction here. He says, if anyone comes bringing false teaching about the incarnate son, do not receive him into your house. Do not even greet him, lest you share in his evil work. Now we might ask, why so strong a command over something as small as a greeting here? Well, I think one thing we need to consider is that in John's day, the church primarily gathered in homes. To welcome a false teacher into your house was to open the door to the church itself. John's not asking or commanding here that we be rude to strangers.

32:31 He's warning them not to hand deceivers a foothold in the family of God. do not give deceivers a foothold inside the family of God. And that pattern hasn't changed. Deceivers still seek entry into churches. They still arrive with something that seems new, perhaps, and fresh teaching about Christ and salvation. And John's charge to us, as it was to them, and I would say that charge is to all of us, but especially leaders, especially elders. It's plain. Have no part with them. Have no part with them. Discern the deception. Protect the family. This is love. This is love. Love for God. Love for his people.

33:22 Love for the truth of Christ that actually unites us. A love that will say no and that will seek to discern what is taking away the flock from what is true. well john closes his letter in verses 12 to 13 with a longing for fellowship that longing is our fourth and final point a family enjoying fellowship and what he communicates here may seem kind of basic but but i think it's especially important written forms of communication matter. Letters like this one, handwritten notes that you've shared over the years, emails, even texts. These are real forms of communication. But when it comes to, say, enriching fellowship, to sharing Christian love, is a text to be preferred over face-to-face communication?

34:22 Is a phone call to be preferred over a shared meal? John very wisely, he has a scale of communication. Some communication is better than nothing. So students going off to college soon, texting your parents is better than no communication at all. Phone calls even better. but better than a text is that phone call better than a phone call is seeing a face on a screen and for christians when it comes to our faith and our life together as the family of god better than all of these is face-to-face fellowship it's in personal fellowship that christian joy reaches its completion john can open this letter rejoicing that these believers are walking in the truth, but as long as he's only writing and not with them, that joy that he has is in some way incomplete. Being with them is what completes the joy. So as Christians, we shouldn't forsake meeting with one another for all sorts of reasons.

35:38 One of them, John would say, though, is your joy. Go to church, he would say, as if your joy depended on it. Go to church as if your joy depended on it. Pursue fellowship with believers as if the vitality of your faith were on the line.

35:59 Christian truth creates real communion, and that communion is best shared face to face in the presence of one another. This, after all, is the pattern that the Son himself took, who did not remain distant in heaven, but came near, who took on our flesh, who dwelt among us face to face. 2 John, only 13 verses, small but powerful, economical in scale, yet profound in its teaching. John would have the church be a family gathered by the truth, walking in love, guarding the sun, and enjoying fellowship. But notice that what's behind each of these points, what's behind each of these points is a person because it is Christ who is the truth that gathers us into one family in the first place it is Christ's own command and Christ's own love for us that that we are called to walk in it is Christ the son himself that we guard even as it is his teaching that guards us from every deceiver who walks among us. And it is Christ, the eternal son, who did not remain in heaven, but personally came near and who is the pattern and the promise of that fellowship that we long for. If you take Christ away, if you take Christ away, there's nothing holding these four points together. You have no true substance to John's teaching at all without Christ. But held together in him, these four are simply what it looks like to belong to God's family. So it's a small letter, but it tells of a great Savior, a Savior in whom truth and love meet. May we be that family gathered by him, walking in him, guarding what he taught,

38:11 enjoying life together with him until that day where we are face to face with him for good. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you and we praise you. For you have sent your Son, and he did take on flesh, and he dwelt among us. He lived a life that we cannot live, an obedient, perfect life. He died a death that we deserve, all that we might have his righteousness, and that our unrighteousness might be judged in him and that we might be declared forgiven, declared righteous, that we might have everlasting life with you. May we walk in that joy and that confidence. May we teach that truth. May we share that truth each with the other.

39:04 May we be discerning about those that would take away the richness of who Christ is and everything that he has done for us and diminish this and take away our joy. May we be on watch. May we warn. But may we also revel in all the joy that we have in Christ. And we thank you on a day such as today, Sunday, that we can do so together, face to face, enjoying fellowship, but also worshiping you. And so be with us now as we close this service, lifting high our voices, giving you praise. We pray in Christ our Lord.