Amen. We're going to continue
this morning in John's epistles and we're going to go straight
into 2nd John. Now, I know that many of us just
don't read these letters. We just sort of skip right over
them. And then some of us read these letters too much. We read
too much into them. There's something that needs
to be understood about a proper hermeneutic. Now, what is a hermeneutic?
That's a fancy word for saying the science of interpretation.
That's hermeneutics. It's the science and the process
of interpreting anything. So if I write a letter down,
and I'm talking about contextually, not handwriting. I can't read
your handwriting. And you try to interpret what
is being said, the process of that is hermeneutics. All right?
A proper hermeneutic is to understand how language is assembled, just
literally, pun intended, how language is assembled, how words
work together in what we call syntax, and they grammatically
create ideas, and those ideas teach, those ideas engage, those
ideas come to a place where they begin to change the way
we think. So if we come to the Bible, excuse me, if we come to the
Bible and we don't have a proper understanding of how to read
the text, we're going to come away with our own interpretation. And for those of us who've been
together on midweek, you know, I took a little time out of Hebrews.
We'll be back in Hebrews again this coming Wednesday. But I
took a little time out of Hebrews and I specifically focused on
a couple of things related to how the church ought to live,
how the church ought to understand the therefores of the gospel.
And part of the reason that we get together is that we can learn
to read the Bible. There's not a person standing
in the room today or sitting in the room today or online with
us in the audience today who's an expert in scripture. Now,
I know a lot of people who are experts in language. I know a
lot of people who are experts in grammar. I know a lot of people
who are experts in a lot of things. But nobody is an expert in scripture.
As a matter of fact, the very nature of scripture just requires
no one to be an expert. If we have to dig into the Bible
in such a way that what is not evident is hidden and that we
need to figure it out, then we've misunderstood the Bible from
the beginning. The Bible is not mysterious. Some people say,
well you know the scripture says that they shall be taught by
God and only the Holy Spirit can reveal. Yeah, the Holy Spirit can reveal
through regeneration what saving faith is. Resting in the simplicity
of the gospel. Taking away the flesh and its
authority and its ability to do anything that warrants righteousness. This is what the good news of
grace is all about. Is that when God grants saving
faith as a gift to his people, they're able to read the Bible
with new eyes. They're not able to read the
Bible with eyes that are deeply spiritual, that they can see
things that the person standing next to them can't see in the
grammar. There's nothing hidden in the Bible. What's hidden is
the face of Christ that's very clearly proclaimed in the Bible.
And that's a spiritual, a judicial blindness that even the elect
have until God the Spirit opens their eyes to let them see. But what we find in our culture,
what we find around us today, I can't speak for every country,
but I can speak for several different countries where I have brothers
in the faith across the globe. But for the most part in America,
we look at the Bible through many lenses. I wear glasses,
I'm several years out on prescription upgrades, so sometimes I wear
two sets so that I can see certain things. And when you go to the
doctor, they've got this machine now that they can just sort of
put you on and they can get real close to you. They don't even
have to do all the stuff they used to. They can put you pretty close
to your prescription. And then they fine tune it. And when they
fine tune it, they put this big Benjamin Franklin looking apparatus
from like 1800, 1700s or something like that. And it just goes in
front of your face and is pieces of glass and they, this one or
this one, this one or this one, this one or this one. And they
all look the same to me, you know? And I'm thinking, here
we are. flying to Mars and we can't get
a better thing than a bunch of glass, which is better. And sometimes
I say, put them all down. I just want to see. I mean, I,
you know, it doesn't, it doesn't help me a whole lot, but that's
sort of how we look at the Bible. We're trying this lens, we're
trying that lens, we're trying this, we're putting them all on, we're
taking them all off. And beloved, we can't do that. We need to
look at the scripture through the simplicity of the gospel
by the spirit. We need to expect, when we open
the Bible, Father, you are my father, I am your child, you
are not trying to trick me or hide anything from me, but by
boldly proclaiming the truth, we stand before others, we stand
before God, that's what Paul says 2 Corinthians 4, and we
don't have to worry about what anybody else thinks about what
we say the Bible says. Why should I say that? Because
this is one of the most controversial, teensy little tiny pieces of
writing in scripture. There are so many volumes of nonsense,
and I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you, volumes of nonsense
written about 2 John, that people have created entire doctrinal
distinctions based on their crazy lenses through which they're
reading the Bible. And it's not just this text, it's every text.
They read the text that way completely. And let me tell you what John
is doing. John is continuing to write the same thing he wrote
in 1 John in a real short way of reminder. Remember we talked
about Peter last week? Peter said, I mean to stir you
up by way of reminder of the things that you know, that you
are found in the truth that you have, you are in the Christ.
But now I want to remind you because the Lord told me that
I was short in this world, that my life was almost done. So I
don't want to leave without knowing that I've written it down for
you one more time so that you may know Christ and that you may
share it with others and simply teach the gospel. And most importantly,
that you may live the gospel as a people for his own glory.
That you may live it. Sometimes we have an improper
hermeneutic. When we look at the Bible through the lens of doctrinal
headiness rather than practical living. And see, for me to say
that, it took me a long time to get there. But see, what I'm
not saying, a lot of people hear what I'm not saying. A lot of
people hear me at words and they go, I know what you mean. No,
you don't, you're a liar. You don't know what I mean until
you ask me what I mean. Until you hear out of my words, out
of my mouth, and if you don't believe my testimony, you are
still a liar. You see? A false False brother,
false sister to not believe the truth. You have no love. The
love of God is not in you when you do not believe all things
according to the counsel of the scripture. And this is where
we get in trouble. This is what John is writing
about. Believe the gospel, hold fast to the confession of the
hope that is yours in Christ Jesus, who is righteousness. Do not let revisionists come
along and guard under you a net of safety in any direction that
would take your eyes off the finished work of Christ alone.
And when they do, and they get flustered, and they leave out
from you, they are not of you and were never of you. And the
word for that is apostate. See, some people say, well, apostate
means that they stop believing the gospel. No, that's not what apostate
means. Because for someone to abandon
the body who has been saved by the gospel, never had the gospel
to begin with. So apostasy is typically seen
when someone is brought in the context of correction. No, sister,
that's not correct. Let me show you simply what this
means. Oh, you know what? That's improper
attitude. That's an improper action. Don't
slap somebody. I mean, isn't it like training
children sometimes? Don't slap your sister. Well,
she looked at me. That's how it works. No, you
can't do that. Well, she spit on me. Well, you know, I'd probably
slap her too, but you see, I understand why, but this is the way we have
to behave. People apostate when they're
called to the carpet, when they're corrected. And beloved, I mean,
and some of you have been praying for this already. We need to
pray that we can all have the humility of Christ when we're
corrected. Not run, not hide, not apostate. You apostate when
you abandon the body of Christ. And people will say what they
want to say. They can say, well, they're not the body. Baloney.
That's demonic. That's not saying, well, I know
I married my wife 25 years ago, but she just looks different
now. Her hair's not quite as dark as it used to be. She's
not my wife. Boom. Covenant is covenant is
covenant and the relationship in marriage and the relationship
in the body of Christ in the local assembly as God has ordained
it and put it together so simply and so powerfully for his purposes
is a picture of the gospel and when those who are filled with
the Spirit of God blaspheme those institutions and those I don't
want to say organization, but the organization and the establishment
of these things, they blaspheme Christ and said they spit literally
in the face of Christ while he says it is finished. They spit
in his face. And he says it is finished and they spit in his
face again. And that's what's happening. That's John's occasion.
People spitting in the face of Christ and they are demanding
their own way They're demanding their own version of the gospel. They're demanding their own establishment
of what love is supposed to look like. They're refusing. What
does Paul say to the Corinthians? If anyone among you does not
do what we tell them to do, A, B, C, in this letter, do not
count them as a brother. Treat them as an unbeliever until
they come back to the truth. Have nothing else to do with
them. You see? Because they apostate. They refuse to be part of the
family with whatever excuse they have because they will not listen
to the counsel of scripture. That's John's letter. Don't worry
about this. Hold fast. Don't let this stuff
touch you. Walk in a manner worthy of the
Lord. You can't worship Christ or love Christ until you are
together and loving and serving one another. in the way that
I, God, if God were speaking through the apostles, He does.
I, God, have commanded you, not the way you want to be done,
you see. There's always something
that evidences pride. I know it doesn't in my life.
When somebody tells me how to do something that I already know
how to do. I think I mentioned this Wednesday night. What you
need to do, James, is this, and I'm thinking, you know, I mean,
my face doesn't show it, but this is what it's looking like.
You know, my eyes arcing. I go, man, don't tell me what
I know. I know how to brush my teeth. I know how to tie my shoes. You ever had a grown man tell
you that you didn't tie your shoes right? I've had somebody
tell me that before. Well, son, I mean, three years
older than me now, son, son, you see that lace on that shoe?
It's turned sideways. You should tie your shoes this
way. I don't even know you. Who do you think you are telling
me how to tie my shoes? But what did I do? Well, show
me, sir. Oh, I appreciate that. Is that what I wanted to do?
No. I felt odd letting another man
teach me how to tie shoes when I was 26. And what did the children say? I know,
I know, I know. Beloved, if you find yourself in the teaching
of this letter to say, I know, or that ain't right, This is
wrong without peacefully considering that it is a continuation of
1 John. I'm going to warn you that's pride. And I'm going to
warn you that there are a lot of demonic doctrines that come
out of this text. I'm just going to go ahead and
tell you right up front. There is nothing hidden in 2 John.
There's nothing mysterious. There's nothing we have to go
figure out. We don't have to go to Malachi or Samuel. We don't
have to go to Psalms or Proverbs. We don't have to go to Revelation.
We don't have to go anywhere but 1 John, 2 John, 3 John. And people say, well, what else? You know, who made you the expert? That's the point. I'm not. We're
going to read it as it's written, and we're going to receive it
as it's written. As a boy, I used to love certain types of cereal.
And I remember one time there was this cereal that I enjoyed.
I don't even know if they make anymore called Cookie Crisp. It's basically
chocolate chip cookies in a bowl. Little ones. Very healthy. Vitamins
and minerals, it said on the box. And the guy that was on
the front of the Cookie Crisp box at one time in my life was
like a burglar. I mean, he's a thief. Isn't that
cool how you have the thief? Wasn't that what it was? Thief. Looked like Robin or Batman,
but it was really a thief. He was stealing cookies, I guess. I
don't know. So, there was one time in maybe elementary school,
and I'm eating this, and in the box is this really cool set of
glasses. You put the glasses on, and then you look at the
back of the box, and there's this discovery. There's stuff written on there
that you can't see without the glasses. Oh, dude, I thought
I was like Detective I cut that thing out took it to school and
then all my friends started cutting it out before long We had all
the clues and we knew where the cookies were, you know silly
stuff Sometimes people think that's how you have to read the
Bible You have to have some kind of special glasses and and and
and you got to figure it out You know, it doesn't pop John
doesn't mean I rejoice greatly. There's something else he's saying
and if you notice that if we look at the Bible that way we
often will look at each other that way as well and We'll hear
somebody say something and we will not take them at their word.
We will speculate that what they really mean is this. And that's
why for over 18 years now, I've said, I don't know if I've said
it before that, but I remember the first time I said, hear what I'm saying,
don't hear what I'm not saying. Because sometimes people had
rather impose the antithesis or their assumptions and assumption
by and large is just, is just sin. So when we get to this letter,
I want you to consider it as a small postcard to reiterate
what John has already written to the elders of the church in
his first letter. Now think about this first century.
The only apostle that's alive at the time is John, when 2 John
was written, the only one. Why? Because they killed them
all. Who? Rome and Israel and the church's
enemies. People hated the way of Christ.
They hated the way of Christ because it destroyed their self-righteousness. It destroyed their religion.
It destroyed their hermeneutics. It destroyed their biblical experts. It destroyed everything and the
wisdom of man was brought to nothing. Greeks and pagans who worshiped
false gods and many gods all of a sudden were granted faith
in Jesus Christ alone and all things were great. Imagine Ephesus
for a minute. You know Ephesus. We see Ephesus,
we see Timothy as one of the chief elders in Ephesus. A young
boy, a protege of Paul. And I love, I'm gonna teach through
First and Second Timothy after we're done with John's letters.
I love the language of Paul, fatherly affection he had for
this young man and taught him in the faith and the spirit of
God and the moving of the emotions of Paul, it moves me. It moves
me to hear him speak intimately to this boy as someone who has
cared for him and shared the faith and grown him to be the
pastor that he would be of one of the greatest churches in the
first century Palestine, Ephesus. Yet there were many, many in
the church of Ephesus. And it is Timothy's church, and
it is Paul's baby. You know, he planted it, and
all of these things take place. And we see Paul and Barnabas
and some of the other apostles in Ephesus, and we see what happens
when the gospel comes alive and God is granting salvation to
his elect there, and they are believing. They set aside a lot
of their pagan practices. See, it was no big deal in a
philosophical community to just change gods. It's no big deal.
It's no big deal in a pluralistic society to come to a different
idea or a lagnostic, a higher understanding of specific wisdom
or hidden wisdom. It's no big deal for someone
to sit in Ephesus in a Greek culture and say, you know, I
think Jesus, this guy, was a god too. No big deal for that. But when people began to understand
the centerpiece of what true adoration and thanksgiving and
worship really was, we saw in the book of Acts what happened,
didn't we? Paul never preached against idolatry. Ever, ever
did he go into the Greek culture and say, look at all your false
gods, you pagan Satan worshipers, rah! He didn't say that. He actually
went into these communities and he walked into their own temples
and said, look here, you guys are wise. Was he saying that
they were wise? No, but they're wise in their
own eyes. He wasn't being sarcastic. He was just saying, y'all have
thought of everything. You have literally sat down and you've
thought of everything. You've even thought of every god, except
here, you know that you're not so wise to have gotten all of
them, and you have one little place set up here for the unknown
god, and I'm here to proclaim who this one is, and not only
is he the god that has made himself known, but he is the god above
all gods. He's the God who created everything,
and the gods that you do worship are no gods at all. You see how
he did that? Positive doctrinal proclamation of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, and the antithesis of that is obvious, and people
aggravated by it, but he never then says, so now, go home and
throw all your stuff away, and don't ever do this again, and
get rid of all your friends who are pagan worshipers, and don't
ever, ever, ever, matter of fact, let's move out of Ephesus. No,
it didn't happen like that. culture over a period of time
began to change because people stopped worshiping the God of Ephesus and they started
worshiping Christ and it was evident by their intimacy. They
begin to serve one another and love one another and grow together
through the apostles teaching together with the oversight of
those who were called and bound by the call of God to care for
their souls and their spiritual well-being, Timothy and men like
him. And many people came and went
in the midst of all that. So we see Paul writing to Timothy
about what he should teach and how he should replicate himself.
We see the apostle Paul and the other apostles and we see what
happened, it almost caused a riot. But they were logical people.
They were rational people. And they called, the leadership
of Ephesus called them down and says, brothers, I know we're here and we're upset
because Artemus is being defamed, but Paul and these men have done
nothing to cause this. These are your kinsmen who have
changed. They've not promoted this. It's the consequence thereof.
You all are about to be in trouble for acting like idiots. You all
are about to be felons for causing a riot. You are wrong, not Paul. And then in John's vision, We see Ephesus again, don't we?
We see Ephesus, and Ephesus was the church that Jesus commended
and condemned. He commended them for their stoic
way in which they stood fast to the doctrines and the purity
of the Christ and the gospel. He commended them because they
would not allow false teachers to come in and try to divide
the church. He commended them because they were steadfast in
the faith and all these other things, but he says, but I condemn
you for this. You've forsaken your first love. You have no
love. And Jesus is in the business
of taking the lamps, turning the lights out for congregations
who have lost love. What does that mean? That means
he will let the sheep die out and fill the pews with false
converts over time. He would change the hearts of
the people because they won't love Christ through love for
one another. Instead of humble selflessness,
they have arrogant selfishness. And John says in his first epistle,
they have gone out from among us because they were not of us. I was reading a story last night
about a man who, because of the stress of life, left his daughter
and wife when the daughter was like three. And there was this
reconciliation taking place. Why did I read it? I don't know.
You know how things pop into your face. And I'm thinking to
myself, how could I do that? Just envisioning my children
thinking that I just abandoned them breaks my heart. I've never abandoned
them at all, but sometimes I feel like I have. I'm going, my goodness,
if I feel this way, having always stayed, what would it be like? You see, it's a difficult thing.
But the gospel sings greater than that. So even in those circumstances,
we have a heavenly father that never leaves us. We have a heavenly
father who is greater than a brother. We have no earthly relationship
that will ever last perfectly except one. And that is the relationship
we have in the truth of Christ by the Spirit in the local assembly
of believers. And the cool thing is we won't
be sitting with our earthly families in the assembly of eternity because
we'll all be one. And the practice therein of worship
and praise and love centers on those relationships. And John continues to teach that.
And at this point in history when 2 John was written, I know
I've said a lot, not necessarily to the text, but there's not
a whole lot that I want to talk about today except verses 1 and 2 of 2 John. Let's read it and then I'll continue
because I want it in your head as I continue to talk right now. 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 because of the truth that abides in us and will
be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace will
be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's
Son in truth and love. I just want to stop. This is
very out of taste for John, which is one of the reasons why our
critics say, this is not John. This is not canonical. It is
John. Because he was the only one other than Paul's writing
to the Hebrews, which Peter references in his second letter to the Jewish
Christians in the Dyspersia. John was the one who never signed
his letters. Why? Because he was the beloved
disciple. He was the one whom Jesus was known to love. And I wanna say that this way,
just for clarity, the most. There was a great intimacy that
John and Jesus had, above all the inner circle of even Peter
and James, and above the 12 completely. Why? Because that is what God
has established. There was, in the essence of
their relationship, John, by the will of God, would be the
last living apostle. And by the will of God, 60 years
would pass before he wrote his letters. You know what that means? He didn't write them in youthful
ignorance and zeal. He wrote them truthfully after
much time. that all the other apostolic
writings had been disseminated and given to all the churches
that existed and that the Word of God was continually working
to bring the elect to the knowledge of the truth. And then John steps
up on the scene and he writes his letters. And he gets his
vision and he dies. He dies. So John has written
this letter and he calls himself the elder. Now this is not an
odd thing to say. What is an elder? Two definitions,
old person or overseer of the body. Which one do you think
he's talking about? Both. He's an old man in his
nineties and he's also an overseer of
the church. But he's an apostle. But why
is it that he doesn't do like, you know, others? Well, Peter
calls himself an elder. He says, an elder, a fellow elder. So we saw that like Peter, what,
he was an apostle, but what did he do? He took on oversight of
the local church in Jerusalem. He became an overseer of that
church. But as an apostle, he could write
to other churches, but he didn't. He just wrote to the church in
Jerusalem. He wrote to those in the dispersion.
Because the elder, the elder, an elder, has a responsibility
to the local assembly. That's the calling. The, an elder. But John here says the elder. Now some of you may think, well
this is just not, I don't see it. There's a big difference
in writing anonymously to say an elder to the body. Which elder? What elder has oversight of our
body, just our elders? What does oversight mean? Responsibility
to follow the call of God, to care for the flock, to watch
over the flock, to teach the flock, to be part of the flock,
and many, many things. But John calls himself the elder. Now, I find this significant
because John, according to history, did not have a congregation.
And there is no, there is nothing in the Bible that teaches denominational
oversight. Nothing. Nowhere, other than
the apostles, is there denominational oversight that is continued after
generation, after generation, after generation. There is no
such thing taught anywhere. The way we continue to propagate
the church, or the Lord does, is that he continues to preserve
his word, the apostles' teaching, and the elders and the congregation
that submit to them continue to affirm them and vice versa
for the sake of holding fast to the apostles' teaching. So
when John said in his first gospel, we know Christ, you know Christ,
we are together. They are changing the way that
they talk of Christ and they're changing the way that they live
according to Christ. They are not of us. Paul says
it, Peter says it, John says it. When someone wants to hold
authority according to God, All they need to do is to take the
pure context of the apostles' writing and throw it out there. God himself commands anyone who
hears his word, whether a cat speaks it, a parrot speaks it,
a puppet speaks it, or I speak it. A Satanist could read the Bible,
and when you hear the words of the Lord, you are subject to
it. Not him, Christ. Unbelievers preach the gospel
all the time in the first century when Paul was put in prison.
Read Philippians. A bunch of crazy folks realized
how lucrative it would be because people followed around these
preachers and just took care of their needs, gave them some
money for the next town. They were jealous of Paul's,
what's the word, fame. They sure didn't want his infamy. And they were upset about that,
and Paul says, just let them preach. They're teaching the
truth. I don't care why they're doing it. Let them do it. God's
Word's going to do what it wants to do. Balaam's ass spoke the truth
of God. But he was not an elder. He was
not an apostle. He was not God, you see. And
so when we look at this text, we all of a sudden realize that
John has taken on this as the only apostle, his care for the
church. He was the last one to actually
be an elder of elders. He was the last one to be an
apostle. And so when he uses this title,
THE Elder. THE Elder. I am THE Elder. He's not said an elder, one of
the elder, chief elder. He doesn't say apostle. He wants
to emphasize his pastoral love and affection, and most importantly,
his pastoral care and direction to the church. And that's what
this letter is. This second and third John are letters written by an elder.
A pastor's heart, a shepherd's heart. Why do we teach? Because we care. What do we care about? The joy
of the saints, the unity of the saints, the peace of the saints,
the purity of the saints. We care about the care that you
need to rest today, and it's not gonna be enough for you to
rest tomorrow, and it's not gonna be enough for you to rest on
Tuesday. You have to continue in the faith by continually to
be cared for through the word of God together. An elder is
not professor. Professors are powerless. Professors
are useless in the kingdom of heaven. I'm going to say that
again. Powerless and useless in the
kingdom of heaven. I've sat in, I don't know how
many literal hours, but oh 90, 30, 70, I don't know. Let's say 350 hours, credit hours,
of course work. That's a lot of teaching That's
a lot of learning. That's a lot of nonsense. And it's a lot of
people talking to me. None of them loved me. None of them shepherded me. None
of them cared for me. It was all about the data. It
was all about the doctrine. It was all about the hermeneutic.
It was all about the homiletic. That's how you present what you've
learned and teach. The science of oratory. to which the Corinthians just
love to compare the Apostles. They love to compare the stutterer
Paul who could barely get his words out to a movie star who's been on
film for his life, you know, been on the stage his whole life
and can eloquently direct his words. Paul says to the Corinthians,
I'm glad I didn't baptize none of y'all. It's only part of your idolatry. John is the elder, according
to this letter. And beloved, there are no more
the elders. There are many elders, undershepherds,
but John was the last one. John was the last one who could
write to any congregation pastorally and apostolically. See, Paul
even says that, doesn't he? Paul says over and over again,
I long to see you. I love you. I long to hear about
what's happening. I thank God for you. I'm thankful
that, I mean, what does he say to the Colossians? You know,
I can't wait to come again. He says at the Church of Rome,
Lord willing, I'm gonna come on my way. He's trying to go
to Spain. Never went. His plan, not God's. God's plan
prevailed. But there is a constant care
And nowhere in the pastoral heart of the New Testament is there
ever a time where any of these apostles, now emphasizing their
elder hearts and their elder call, none of them have ever
condemned the saints. Ever. None of them have ever
been harsh with the saints. Well, Paul was pretty harsh with
the Corinthians. No, he wasn't. He was firm. Firm is not harsh. We gotta grow up, y'all. I have a very loud voice. I have a loud voice. Because
when I was younger, I was told to speak up all the time. So
I started speaking up, and then I was told to be quiet. Calm
down now, you're too loud. You're too loud. I have a loud voice. So when I'm
talking to people sometimes, specifically my children, Daddy's
mean. I mean, you know, why are you
mad? I'm not mad, I'm just stating the facts. Well, listen to my sermon from
last Sunday. Is the tone that I spoke to the church that I
love not the same tone that I just spoke to you whom I love? I mean,
I've told them to do that before. So when I'm yelling in anger,
am I really? Why don't you take it like that
when you're sitting here? Firmness is not hatred. Lording over people is bad. being
aggressive, being condemning, belittling people, being sarcastic,
calling people names, being arrogant and unwilling to listen. This
is a disqualifier all the way from the very beginning. No,
you can't do this. John never did that. To say these
people are not of like faith is not hateful. To say these
morons are idiots and they don't believe, that's hateful. And
see, that's more indicative of what I want to say. But it's
not becoming of a believer. So this is John's letter as an
elder. He wrote the first John as an
elder too, but he emphasizes it, and not just an elder, the
elder. He is the elder over the churches. And he wrote this in
a general way. Now why would he do that? Because
persecution had gotten so bad by this time that the interception
of these letters, had they been specific, ha, the apostle John
here writing to the church at such and such, not only would
it have been seized, They would have sent authorities into those
places to get the people that the letter was addressed to.
So there is an ambiguity to this letter for the sake of the safety
of the saints. It's simple. Otherwise, it's
some mysterious thing that we've got to go home and burn some
incense and, you know, put our face in the frying pan or something
so we can get the focus of what he's trying to say. It's not
the case. And he says, the elder, I, the elder, write to you, the
elect lady, and her children. Now, there are two possible logical
things at work, but context teaches us what is exactly here. The
possible number one, This is some old man writing
to a lady who's in the faith and the children that live in
her house. We don't know who they are, where they live, or
what they're talking about. We don't know who wrote it and
we don't know who received it. The second thing is, we could actually
be right, and if that's the truth, then it has no authority over
us whatsoever, and it shouldn't be spending our four Sundays,
it's gonna take us to go through this letter. Yeah, I started
to say 40 just to see y'all gasp, but four, four or five, maybe
six, I don't know, four to six, let's put it that way. We should just ignore it. We're
not gonna ignore it, it's John's letter, he wrote it, it's congruent
with his first epistle, It's a pickup from that. It's a way
of reminding a church. But he also wrote it in a general
sense. A general epistle is a letter
that's written, that is desired. It may have been written to an
initial audience, an initial church, an initials person, but
its desire, its design rather, was that it would be copied and
sent to all the congregations. And this is a general letter.
That's what the word epistle means, by the way. It's a fancy
way of saying letter. John's letter, second letter.
And so we look at this letter as a general letter written by
John ambiguously from its direct recipient and as an author so
that it could be disseminated to go amongst all the churches
without fear of persecution, death, and obstruction. But it
is just a recapitulation of 1 John. It's a tiny little recapitulation
of 1 John. That's all it is. The only other way to read it
then, in that context, where the proper hermeneutic is, the
elder John to the church, to the elect lady. Peter talks about
the church being an elect lady, an elect lady. Paul talks about
the church being the bride, the woman. So it's nothing new, it
was very, very common. And then we have these personal
single pronouns. Lady, I love in the truth, et
cetera. And then we move on down and
we have these plural pronouns. You all, you should put this
into practice among all of you, et cetera. So very apostolic,
very plural. So this letter was written to
the body of Christ somewhere in the world of first century
Palestine, Asia Minor. And it was intended and was by
the fourth century in every city that there was a church, in the
hands of every congregation, along with the list of letters
that John kept until his death that we have, we call our New
Testament today, without exception, perfectly. And so he addresses
this church, the elect lady and her children. I mean, can you
imagine that? Do you see the imagery there? He's already talked about it.
Beloved children. Who does John call children?
The church. The members of the church. Individually,
collectively children. But what does he call the church?
The bride, the lady, the elect of God. The body of Christ. So this letter is written by
John pastorally to the church at large and all those who are
the elect assembled together. And look what he says after that. He says, whom I love, whom I
love. What causes us to understand
how we love or if we love? I mean, let's think about that
for a second. We tend to love people, or we
call this love, we tend to call love in our own hearts and minds,
the feeling that we get, or the security that we get, or the
emotions that we have, or the thoughts that go along with the
positive flow of endorphins, when we're with people who provide
security, intimacy, affection, productivity, and I could just
make a list off the top of my head that could go on for minutes.
God, this person makes me feel this is love. It's not love.
I promise you. I promise you. Psychologically,
I could do a little test here, but I wouldn't do that. I mean,
I could have a small little noise that Wesley could do in the sound
booth every time I said a certain phrase, and that noise could
be subtle, and then every now and then, and the phrase could
be related to something that made you feel incredibly good.
And then we could play that noise later and you'd feel incredibly
good. You would think you loved that noise. Don't believe me? That's just stupid. You got a
song that takes you back. That's just a noise. You got
a scene in a movie, you just still get chills when you see
it. Superman shows up. You know? Moses Parts the Red
Sea, Charlton Heston, I mean, whatever movie it was. You see
the emphasis on certain sounds, on certain experiences, certain
smells. We call that love. We tie that chemical response
to something that we call love. Beloved, when John said he loved
the church, he loved the church in Christ.
He loved the church in truth. That means he loved the church
as Christ loved the church. So what was love to John? He's
sitting in prison on the Isle of Patmos wondering if he's going
to live tomorrow and the only thing that he can do is get out
his paper in his elderly state and write a letter to the elect
that he loves. Paul's the same. Peter the same way. It is not fun, most of the time,
to love people. It is not easy. It is not rewarding. But when we love each other in
the truth, We trust in that which God has granted us to know and
the sovereignty of God working in the body for His glory and
the purposes therein are simply experienced over and over again
through the good and the bad and the bad and the bad and the
bad times. Did I say bad times? That's what
we're going to experience. Love settles the covenant and
says, as Christ gave himself up for me, his enemy, a sinner,
deserving of his righteous wrath, I too will love his body. Next question, I got this question
for next week's. How do we know who are the body?
How do we know who are the beloved? I don't know, how do we know
who are the enemies? We're to love the enemies too. Because in loving the enemy,
we could actually also be loving the elect. We don't get to decide. And when we make a promise over
here and break a promise over here, no matter the reasons,
we are a liar and we do not love. And the good thing is, is that
our sin and this violation of trust was put on Christ who never
violated anything. Christ never lied. Christ never
forgot. Christ never fell through. Can
you imagine the disciples? I would love to be on the road
with these men with hindsight and go back and like when they
saw him at the well at Sychar and they've been looking for
him. And when he vanished in John 6 after feeding the multitudes,
how many times that happened? And you know, people like Judas
especially, and Peter probably jumped right in there, yeah,
I hear ya. Why does he always disappear and leave us alone?
What's he expect us to do? He dragged us out, we left our
homes, we hated, we got wanted posters all over the place, and
then he does something crazy and then leaves us here to handle
it. Peter's like, you know, I'm gonna talk with him. I'm gonna
straighten him out. And Peter did that often, didn't
he? You don't have to die now, Jesus. That's what happened. And what did Jesus do? He laid
down his life for his sheep. Love lays down. Love does not
get its own way because love does not want its own way. So, The elder, the caretaker
of the body, the elect of God and all the children of God whom
I love in truth. Is that not what he wrote his
first letter about? Is that not what he wrote? To
the point where he would say that when we see our brother
in need and we close our heart to them, the love of God is not
in us. What in the world have we done
by thinking that only matters for a dollar or a pair of socks
or a hamburger? That includes walking the hard
road in the midst of doctrinal differences, in the midst of
personal differences, in the midst of relationship differences,
Christ is not a respecter of these things. He didn't get on
the cross and die for the elect if or the elect who. He died for the elect. He died
for His people. All that the Father had given
Him. And in turn, How can we be in
Christ and have so little love for one another? Some of the brothers gathered
yesterday and we worked in here and got lights now and we got
all sorts of stuff. We got steps in the process for
the wedding that we're going to have here in 48 days or whatever. I don't know the number of days. And I said to one of the brothers
as I walked over there and we were moving scaffold, thankfully we
didn't have to go to a building committee to get all this stuff
going. Y'all remember those days? Building Z, building Y. What color is the scaffolding?
I don't care. I don't care how big are the
steps. I'm just gonna put some steps
up. See, that's not the ministry. That's just administration. We
got to do that at the house, or the restaurant, or the bathroom,
or in the car, or whatever. We just got to do what we got
to do to get things going. But the point is, we're a family.
We have to tend to each other's needs. And if the steps fall
apart or the lights get burned out, then that's just too bad.
They're not as important as we are. We're not second to the
property. But yet, a lot of congregations around
the world would say different. Burn it down, Lord. We'll still
worship You. And that's figuratively speaking.
But His will be done. We love in truth. And that's
not parsing out some propositions. That's saying, Christ, I am the
truth. Quit making Jesus a Sunday school
lesson. Jesus is not a lesson. Jesus
is not a system of doctrine. Jesus is God who is also man
and He is the second person in the Trinity. And all that we know of Him has
been revealed to us through His Word alone and only by the Spirit
of God. So we love each other in Him,
in Christ. And all the truth that He is,
that He reveals to us clearly. the simple truth of his redemptive
work for his people at regeneration, and then all the other things
that we grow to understand after that. As we love each other,
as we lay down our lives, and we do it together. One of the
greatest evidences of bold, self-righteous arrogance that is deceitful and
blinding to the church today is when we would pray, thank
you God that I've got the truth and I'm not like that guy. See
what I think, that's a song of praise. That's a condemnation. That's a hymn of damnation. Because that's not to the praise
of his glory. He wants us to praise His glory. I have a responsibility
with the truth who is Christ and I see because of His mercy.
Let me show others also. And it starts in the family of
faith. We don't quit with the gospel just because we all come
to say we believe it. Because beloved, some people
don't see it. Some of us see it, and there's
some Judaizers on our tails. Some people see it, and there's
some Legalists on us. Some people see it, and there's some Baptists
after us. There's some Methodists after us. There's some Sovereign
Grace guys after us, or some, you know, Reformers after us.
And we have to hold the line and be at peace. Those who I
love in truth, in Christ, and not only I, it's not just me
loving you, but also all those who know the truth. That which was from the beginning,
that which we have seen, which we have heard with our ears and
seen with our eyes and touched with our hands concerning the
word of life, the word of life which was manifest and we have
seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life
which was with the Father and was made manifest to us that
which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you so that
you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship
is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ and we are writing
these things so that our joy may be complete. Beloved, he's
saying the exact same thing right there in one line, one few words. The elder, the caretaker of you,
the elect of God whom I love in Christ and not just I, but
all who know Him. All who know Him. Who confess
Him, who profess Him, who possess Him, who He has. How do we know
that we are in Him? And how do we know that we love
in Him? And how do we know that we know
Him because of the truth that abides in us? You see there? Context is king after king. Context wears all the crowns.
Christ is the truth and the context of His word establishes everything
that we need to know within the letter that we're reading. We
don't have to go anywhere else to figure out what's being said.
Because of the truth that abides in us. Jesus Christ is the truth. The Spirit is the Spirit of truth. The truth of God abides in us
because Christ is in us. The fullness of Christ. And not only is He in us and
abiding in us, but He will be with us forever. I hear that. So before John says anything
else, He's saying right there, those who have been saved by
the mercies of God through Jesus Christ, those elect who have
been born again to the knowledge of this truth, those who profess
to know the Lord, we love one another because we are the body
of Christ. And I know in America, we have
a terrible, terrible, terrible thing where we look in the mirror
and we hate what we see. because we compare ourselves
with everything else and we hate all the freckles and the frowns
and the lines and the nose and the ears and the mouth and if
we had what we wanted we'd look like a freak and so individually we hate unless
we're narcissistic and then we absolutely love it which is another
issue but doesn't work for my illustration so we'll go to the
first one So there's always exceptions. Illustrations do not make truth. What was I saying? Oh, yeah.
But we're not supposed to look at ourselves as part of the body
of Christ and hate us. We don't hate ourselves. Paul
says in Ephesians 5 that, you know, no man hates himself. He
bathes himself and tins himself and clothes himself. Now, we
may have a little bit of vanity, but we take care of ourselves.
Even people who abuse narcotics and who don't do anything, they're
still looking out for themselves. Filling the need that they have
for themselves. I've never gone to my hand and
say, you know, I wish my hand was, you know, about three inches
longer and I could play the piano a little bit faster. Because
it's not, I'm just going to cut it off. When the arthritis gets
in the elbow and the joints and the wrist and the ankle and I
feel like, you know, I'm doing some monster mash dance, getting
up out of the chair, I don't despise myself and destroy my
body just because some parts of it hurt or some parts of it
don't work. My soul isn't destroyed if I
lose a limb or an eye or my voice. But it hurts me as a whole. Beloved,
we are the body of Christ. We are abiding in Him. He is
abiding in us. And He has restored us to righteousness
through the giving of his own perfection to our account. He
has restored us to righteousness by establishing, I mean our guilt
is erased. So there's no sin that we can
commit. No sin whatsoever that we will
be judged for by the Father for it has all been poured out on
Jesus Christ. See the very measure of grace
requires the truth that God's wrath is satisfied. So God is wrath for His elect
to His Son. Think about that for a second.
God destroyed Jesus in His grace
toward us. Because it's going to balance
out. Justice will prevail. So we love Christ. You see why
we can't say we love Christ if we hate one another, if we don't
long suffer together, if we don't set ourselves aside for the sake
of the body? And we can't decide who is and
who is not our brother and sister except by the confession of the
gospel that they speak. And when they align themselves
with us as a family and they start acting crazy or they start
saying that we correct them with gentleness, we do not implicate
them beyond that correction. That is the end of it because
that is the end of what the scripture requires and gives us the authority
and the privilege. It is a privilege to be part
of growing together. And God's Word has promised that
there will always be factions amongst the body. There will
always be divisions. There will always be opinions. The question, well, the Bible
answers it this way. Those who remain have been steadfast
in the love of Christ. Those who remain, what? Together.
Now, I'm not saying we all just go crazy and we believe in a
false gospel. Yeah, we're together in that,
but we proclaim the truth and Christ will be with us forever.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. And look at
verse three, and I'll preach verse three next week. It's grace,
mercy, and peace. Now, nothing else that John has
ever written has used that phrase, but it's very common amongst
the other apostles. So grace, mercy, and peace will be with
us. You see the promise? You know,
we've got the old Sunday school answer of teaching children,
just the general thing, you know, God is all around us, He's always
with us. And people, you know, kids when
they're two or three years old, I don't see Him. I thought God
was bigger than the world. Are we like riding on His head?
I mean, you know. Makes sense. No, He's got the
whole world in His hands. Does God wash His hands, Dad?
Is that why San Francisco smells so bad? I mean, you know, stuff
like that. Kids are always going to find an answer. God's presence
with us is grace, mercy, and peace. and other things. My joy I give you, Jesus says.
My peace I give you. My love I give you. It is not
like the world's love. It is not like the world's joy.
It is not like the world's peace, but the one that I give you abides
forever because I give myself for my sheep and you and I are
one. See, that's the beautiful picture
of the gospel. So grace and mercy, and some
people conflate that and they mean the same thing, but there's
a There's a general sense, and we'll talk about it more next
week, there's a general sense in which these things can be distinct, but ultimately
this is not a list, this is just a church to be encouraged. The
grace and the peace and the mercy of Christ will be with us. And where does it come from?
It comes from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ the Father's
Son, in truth and in love. So right there we have the introduction,
the welcome, and he's outlined his first letter perfectly right
there. Just the basic, I want to teach you these things that
Christ is truth, the truth of Christ's righteousness, the truth
of God's redemption, the truth of God's love. Now we love according
to the truth of Christ. And we live according to the
truth of Christ. And if we walk away from the truth, doctrinally,
of course, that's apostasy. But it's people who walk away
from the love of the saints are also apostate. Because they're saying they know
the love of God and that they know the light of God, but they
refuse to stand in the presence of God's grace, mercy and peace
with the people of God. And that God sometimes gives
some people, Gnostics specifically, this divine knowledge that supersedes
that which is written in the Bible. And they feel superior,
and they feel better, and they feel like they've got the answer.
And these poor blind folks are just devil worshipers. That's
what the revisionist would say of the church, of Jesus Christ.
John says, no. He abides with us forever. Grace,
mercy, and peace be with us forever. Well, what about those who just
don't hold fast and aren't correctable? Then we discipline and correct
until they stomp their feet and then we dismiss them. Why? Because that is the remedy
that God has given to the church. We are not called to labor over
heresy and over poor actions to the point that we can't go
out in public. You know what I'm saying? We can't take this
child out. No, everybody's gonna do their part. Or they can do
it alone. What does the restoration look
like? When God takes the heart of the one who has left, takes
the heart of the one who can't love, and takes the heart of
the one who has, refuses the instruction of John the Apostle,
thus the Lord Jesus Christ, and brings them back to a place of
brokenness and says, I want to be with my family. Step one. I want to be with my family.
That's the point. And beloved, I want you to pray
because, you know, we've had some disciplinary issues in our
body over the last nine years and we're going to have some
more that we need to deal with in the next few months. We just
have not been together enough to do it. So be in prayer. What is our
hope? The gospel, the grace of God,
the peace of God, the Son of God who is with us. And beyond
all that, we know that this grace and this mercy and this peace
comes through the blood of Jesus Christ who gave himself, that
we would be his righteousness. And we are his righteousness,
even when we're dirty on the outside, we are clean on the
inside, not like the Pharisees who were clean on the outside,
but dirty inside. And so as we prepare the Lord's table, let's
keep that in mind. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for the grace that has given us. in Christ. Lord, I thank
you so much for this family, Lord, for those who have been
able to come back and those who are still at large. But, Lord,
we love them and we miss them. We long for the day when we're
able to stand together and fellowship together and eat together and
pray together and and just enjoy life together in a more intimate
way like we were. But, Father, we pray that it
wouldn't be the way that it was, but it would be better than it
ever has been. And until then, Lord, we know we are together
in spirit. Father, I pray as I do always for the broken, for
the sick, for the hurting, for the obstinate, for the confused,
for the deceived. Lord, I pray that you would just
restore relationships, that you would restore right thinking,
that you would restore marriages, that you would restore hope to
your people. that you would not allow fear of this uncertainty
of this world and the pundits that are always ready to speak
that which is not true but sounds authoritative, Lord, that you
would help us to cleanse our eyes and ears of such things
and that we would not give time to these discussions or these
broadcasts or these words, but that we would focus our hearts
and center our souls on the gospel, the gospel of grace. The gospel
of mercy, the gospel of peace, because the blood of Christ has
surely set us free. Help us to be free and to be
at rest, to not labor in our own souls and minds to the point
that we feel as though it is up to us to fix anything. Father, I almost said out of
all my mouth, all my own mouth that, well, we feel powerless,
but Father, that's what we need to be reminded of, that we are
powerless, that you are powerful and that you are all powerful
and that we do not need to rise up in our own strength or our
own understanding to satisfy these things, to settle these
things. But we can wait patiently and
you will do that which you have decreed to do before the world
ever began. And in that we rejoice, Lord,
because it gives us so much rest. So help us to think on these
things as we take the table together this morning. In Christ's name,
we pray. Amen.