As you are seated, go ahead, and take your Bibles with me and turn to the book of 2 John. We are continuing our series through the Johannine Epistles. And that leads us today to the second of those epistles, the book of 2 John, a book about “truth” and “love.” 

A few years back Gary Chapman published the best-selling book, the Five Love Languages. That book has sold millions of copies, and I think met a need in our culture and in our churches. And the premise of that book, if you remember, is that there are certain ways that people give and receive love. And Chapman puts forth five categories: 1) Physical Touch, 2) Words of Affirmation, 3) Quality Time, 4) Acts of Service, and 5) Gifts. And what Gary Chapman encourages couples to do is find the “love language” that best communicates to your spouse and use that method of displaying love more frequently. And when you start to implement this in your marriage it proves quite helpful, but it’s not an exact science. For instance, my wife receives love in at least four of those five categories, and they change depending on circumstances. One person told me that his wife’s love language is whatever love language he’s not speaking to his wife at that time. So, she keeps him on his toes. 

So here’s a question for you, church. What is the Apostle John’s love language? What’s his love language? Here it is. It’s “truth”! “I want love displayed in healthy doses of truth,” says the Apostle John.

Now this is interesting to me, because outside of Jesus, John is the most loving person in the Bible. He loves Jesus, and he loves other people too. He’s always talking about love in his writings: loving God, loving one another, loving the gospel. And he’s the one that’s described as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 20:2; et al.). He laid his head upon Jesus’s chest at the Last Supper. He loved Jesus that much. And Jesus loved him too!

And yet, when John talks about love, it’s not the way that love is often described in our world. John doesn’t embrace an “anything-goes” kind of love that would ignore the truth of God’s Word. In our day, we are so accustomed to thinking about love in selfish and worldly terms, that we’ve got to overhaul our entire thinking so we can start to understand love the way God intends it. Craig Blomberg says this: “The need for Genuine Christ-like love remains as great today as ever. Yet one of our greatest problems is defining love. Popular culture – in literature, music, advertising, and the visual arts – uses the word [love] to mean just about everything except what the Bible means by it. So even Christians are easily misled into thinking love is primarily a feeling, something you fall in or out of. We equate it with lust or sexual intercourse itself, speaking of one’s ‘lover’ or of ‘making love.’ But …throughout Scripture, love is first of all an action, an unconditional commitment, a promise that is never broken.”   

You know Aristotle spoke famously about the fish many years ago. And he said that the last creature you should ask about being wet is a fish, because he has no idea that he is wet. And I think that’s a good description of our world today and their understanding of love. We have been swimming in a sea of false love for years. And we are constantly divorcing love from truth. And when the world thinks about “love” they imagine it as something that is self-serving and emotionally-charged… something that is much closer to sentimentality or infatuation than it is to the Biblical definition of love. This is the sea that we are swimming in today. This is the wet that Aristotle talked about. And the Apostle John, this great man of love is having none of that. And so, what we need to do is extract ourselves from that sea of wetness and examine our situation objectively in light of God’s Word. And 2 John is going to help us do that. 

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So here we go. Here’s your outline for today. I’m going to give you today, Five Truths about Love from 2 John. And here’s the first truth:

1) Love starts with God’s love towards us (1-3)

God’s love for us is our starting point for understanding love. God’s love is love demonstrated par excellence. And when you try to remove God from the love equation, you end up with something that is not love at all. It’s a perversion of love. 

John starts his letter this way. He says…

1 The elder to the elect lady and her children, 

By the way, all that I said about 1 John several months ago is true of 2 John. In other words, I believe that 2 John was written by the Apostle John, late in his life. It was written sometime near the turn of the first century. Some have even conjectured that 2 John and 3 John were written before 1 John. I doubt that’s the case, but that’s impossible to verify. What we can say with confidence is that 1–3 John were all written by the same person, John the Apostle, and that person refers to himself as “the elder” here in verse 1.

And that designation is apropos for John. He’s an old man at the time of this writing. He’s the most long-lived apostle. Remember Jesus told Peter that he was going to be crucified and die a gruesome death. Peter was like, “What about this guy, John? Is he going to live a longer life than me? Is he going to die a gruesome death too?” Jesus said, “don’t worry about him, Peter” (cf. John 21:20–24). John did end up living a longer life than Peter, several decades longer than Peter in fact. And here is John writing as an old man to the church.

The “elect lady” here is a term of endearment for the church, the bride of Christ so to speak. In this case, John is writing to a particular church, probably a church that he oversees in some capacity as an elder. And her children are the members of that church.

So John writes,  

1 The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, 2 because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever: 

John is a dense writer, so he can pack a lot of ideas into a few words. This letter, 2 John, was so small that it actually could fit on one sheet of papyrus. But John makes the most of this space here. And notice his repeated reference to the truth. 

Whom I love in truth, … Not only I but also all who know the truth, … Because of the truth that abides in us,

This truth-talk continues in verse 3.

3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love. 

Do you think John is trying to emphasize something here? Do you think truth is important to John? What is the truth that John is referring to here? What does it mean that he loves them “in truth” and all who “know the truth”?

Well, do you remember in the Gospel of John when Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, “I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth… everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37)? Remember that’s when Pilate responds to Jesus by saying cynically, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). What is the truth that Jesus came to bear witness to? It’s the truth of the gospel. It’s the truth that we are sinners, and we are condemned before a righteous God, but through faith in Christ, we can have our sins removed. That’s the truth that is above every other truth. 

So, when John says, “whom I love in truth,” he means I love the church because of the gospel. When John says, “not only I but also all who know the truth,” he means all who believe the truth about Jesus’s death for our sin.

 Our love for one another is based on that truth. Verse 2 says that truth abides in us and will be with us forever.  

The truth, church, is that without Jesus you would have died in your sins. You would be lost for eternity. And because of God’s great love for you, he sent Jesus to die for your sins. That’s why John says in verse 3, 

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.

Our love originates from God’s love. Our love for each other is bound up in the truth of God’s demonstration of love for us at the cross. If you don’t understand the cross, you can’t understand love. 

It’s like this. Let me illustrate it this way. If you and I were walking outside on the road together. And I said, “I love you. And I want to show my love for you.” And right then, I just jumped in-front of a car and died right there. You wouldn’t say, “O Pastor Tony loved me so much he jumped in front of a car for me.” No! You’d say, “Pastor Tony was deranged. He’s messed up in his head. Why did he do that?” 

But if a car came barreling towards you and was about to demolish you, and I pushed you out of the way and got hit by that car instead of you, what would you say? You would say, “Pastor Tony loved me. He sacrificed his own life for mine, so that I wouldn’t die.” That’s the truth about what Jesus did for you. That’s the basis of love. We deserve death. We deserve hell. And Jesus took that upon himself. That’s truth. That’s love. “Love has to start with God’s love towards us.”

Husbands in this room, how does the Bible teach us to love our wives? Does it say, “Love your wives like the latest rom-com coming out of Hollywood?” “Does it say overwhelm her with your good feelings and schmaltzy sentimentality?” No. It says love her like Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her. God is the standard of love. 

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Go ahead and write this down as #2 in your notes. Here’s a second truth about Love. 

2) Love promotes obedience to God’s commands (4-6)

4 I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. 

That’s the great joy of every parent in this room… finding their children walking in the truth. That’s the great joy of every elder in this room… of every small group leader… of every “Children’s ministry” volunteer… seeing the children of God at every age, from 0-100, walking in the truth. John sees that happening in this church! John sees it and he says, “that causes me to rejoice.”

5 And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another.

“You are walking in the truth, Dear Lady. That truth-walking should lead you to even greater love for one another than you already have. That’s a reflection of your commitment to the truth, that you love one another.”

You guys ever seen those churches that are all about truth, truth, truth, and yet it just seems like they hate each other? How does that happen? That’s not the way it’s supposed to happen according to John. John says here that your commitment to the truth should lead to greater love for each other. And your love for each other should lead to more walking in the truth. Truth. Love. Truth. Love. They flow together. They work in harmony together. That’s the Christian life.

I was saddened a few years ago by the death of Warren Wiersbe. Maybe some of you heard about that? Wiersbe is one of my favorite pastors to read. He was a godly man who served the LORD faithfully for many years at Moody Church and elsewhere. And one of my favorite Wiersbe quotes is the following: “Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.” 

  I love that quote, because I think it perfectly illustrates the goal of the Christian life: Truth and Love working together in harmony. And the world wants to pit truth and love against each other. They say, “You have to be loving or you have to be truthful. You can’t be both.” And the Apostle John says, “No. Love and truth are not enemies. They work in concert with one another. They balance each other in a way that is healthy and good.” The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, that great chapter on love, “[Love] does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth” (13:6). 

And you know what, church? That’s what our world needs to see and hear from Christians right now. They need to see us lovingly holding to the truth. They need to see us truthfully loving them, not affirming their sinful ways. Not affirming their lies like gender is just a social construct… and other lies like marriage commitments aren’t binding and unborn babies aren’t worthy of being protected. Affirming lies isn’t loving! That’s not how God loves us. 

 Not only is love committed to truth, but it’s also committed to obedience. Look at verse 6.  

6 And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. 

Do you think about obedience as an act of love? Do you? There’s a really amazing passage in Isaiah 1, where God essentially says stop bringing me your sacrifices! Stop bringing me your worship! I don’t want your worship! I want obedience to my commandments. The Israelites were living lives of wickedness and disobedience and trying to cover over it by bringing more sacrifices. And God says, “Stop!” “Dead animals don’t mean anything to me. I want your heart. I want you to walk according to my commandments!” 

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Now so far in this letter, John hasn’t rebuked the church, like Isaiah rebuked Israel in the OT. There’s actually a positive tone here in 2 John. It’s almost like John is saying, “Keep doing what you are doing, Elect Lady of the Lord. Keep walking in the truth. Keep loving one another. Keep obeying God’s commandments.” “Attaboy, church. Attagirl, Elect Lady!” “Keep up the good work!”

But John’s tone is about to change in verse 7. And he’s about to get straight with this church about some areas where they are falling short. And you guys know how it is. No church is perfect. And what John says next has a “but-I-have-this-against-you” quality to it. 

Before we get to that. Write this down as #3 in your notes. Here’s a third truth about love.

3) Love demands a clear rejection of error (7-8)

Alistair Begg said about verse 7ff., “It’s as if the Apostle John is putting a skull and crossbones over the passage indicating ‘poison.’” Here’s the poison.

7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.

So, here’s the error that we need to reject, according to John. I don’t know why John addresses this here. Maybe it was because the church that he was writing to was ignoring this error? Or maybe they were tolerating this error in the church? Or maybe it was just so prevalent at this time, sixty years after Jesus’s death, that John had to address it? Whatever the case, John says, “Don’t be deceived, church! Don’t let anyone tell you that Jesus didn’t come in the flesh. Don’t let anyone corrupt the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, the second member of the Trinity, came to earth and took on flesh and really suffered and died on the cross for us. And besides that, he’s coming back again in the flesh. Don’t let anyone deny this!” 

The reason that I think this was a prevalent issue at this time is because John addresses this issue repeatedly in his letters. The first time was in 1 John 2:22 – “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.” Then later in 1 John 4:3, he writes, “and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.”

What John is referring to here are people who have denied the truth about Jesus and have led people astray from the truth. These are the antichrists, in the sense that they are “anti-Christ” in their beliefs and in their actions. They are a type of the future antichrist who will come and set up a world-wide kingdom. See the Book of Revelation for more on that. 

And in John’s day there were these false teachers and proto-Gnostics who viewed Jesus as a “phantom being” who only appeared to suffer on the cross. In fact, there was this gnostic story about Jesus that circulated in John’s day that said, “when Jesus walked on the sand, he didn’t leave any footprints on the sand, because he … he was a phantom being.” In other words, Jesus wasn’t really human! And of course, that’s a total heresy! The truth is that Jesus was fully human and fully God. And even now Jesus is fully human and he is fully God! To deny Jesus’s humanity is to affirm doctrinal error, as is the denial of Jesus’s deity, by the way.

Listen, church, unbelief as a Christian is just as important as belief. Did you know that? John Stott writes, “Unbelief can be as much a mark of spiritual maturity as belief. We should avoid both extremes: 1) the superstition which believes everything and 2) suspicion which believes nothing.” You’ve got to un-believe some stuff about Jesus. When Jehovah’s Witnesses come to your house and tell you that Jesus isn’t God and never said he was God, you’ve got to un-believe that. When Mormons teach that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and Satan and Jesus are brothers, you’ve got to un-believe that. When prosperity preachers tell you that God’s utmost purpose in your life is to make you healthy, wealthy, and happy, as long as you have faith, you’ve got to un-believe that. Everyone with me? 

And by the way, that’s the most loving thing that you can do for those who are caught up in the lies of these false teachings. Don’t affirm them. Don’t say, “we believe in the same God.” That’s not true. And don’t say either, “You believe what you believe. I believe what I believe. Let’s just hold hands and sing 

‘kumbaya.’” No. Listen to John here. 

8 Watch yourselves, 

That’s the word βλέπω in Greek. It means “look” “see” “pay attention.” It’s the same word that Paul uses in Philippians 3:2 when he says, “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.” Both John and Paul are adamant here—don’t let yourself be duped by false doctrine and false teachers. Watch yourselves. “Watch yourselves” says John, 

so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.

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And as part of that, John says in verse 9.

9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 

Now that’s one of those passages that just makes you stop and scratch your head and say, “Huh? How does a person go on ahead and not abide in the teaching of Christ? How does a professing Christian say, ‘oh I’m one of those Christians who doesn’t hold to Jesus teaching now’? ‘I’m a Christ-less Christian’”? That is nonsensical. There must have been some serious confusion in the churches in John’s day. 

And that confusion has perpetuated for the last 2000 years. Joseph Smith went on ahead and did not abide in the teachings of Christ. He had to add something to it. And now Mormonism leads millions of people away from the truth. Charles Taze Russell went on ahead and did not abide in the teaching of Christ. And now Jehovah’s Witnesses lead millions of people away from the truth. Mary Baker Eddy went on ahead and did not abide in the teachings of Christ. She had to add something to it. And now Christian Science leads millions of people away from the truth. Confusion. Confusion. Confusion. You better watch yourself, Christian. You better know the truth and believe the truth and be on alert when error gets propositioned to you.

Speaking of confusion. I was listening to a podcast a while back. It was Al Mohler’s “The Briefing.” And Mohler mentioned that a major lobbying group with atheists, humanists and other nonbeliever member organizations has hired a Christian as its new executive director. A man named Larry Decker, a confessing Christian, is now the executive director of “The Secular Coalition for America.” But come to find out, Decker was just raised Christian. He doesn’t believe in the tenets of Christianity. He doesn’t believe the Bible. He doesn’t believe any of it, but he still retains the designation “Christian.” Mohler calls Decker “one of those [new] kinds of Christians that doesn’t believe in Christianity.” Try to wrap your head around that nonsense.  

I think we’ve reached a point in our nation’s history where the word “Christian” is so doctrinally ambiguous that it can be used for anything. I actually think that dealing with JWs and Mormons is pretty easy. They’re not the ones I worry about. I worry more about those who call themselves “Christians” and try to associate with the historical church, but are doctrinally heretical. And this is the world that we live in now. And we, as genuine Christians, genuine born-again followers of Christ, can’t afford to be gullible or undiscerning. We need to be wise. And that’s why John tells us in his first letter to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1). And that’s why he says in this letter, look at verse 10.

10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, 

That is the teaching of Jesus… that is the teaching that Jesus took on human flesh and died on the cross for our sins… that is that Jesus was raised from the dead and is coming back again… 

10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, 11 for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. 

Here, write this down as #4 in your notes. Here’s a fourth truth about love.

4) Love rejects those who pervert the gospel (9-11)

You might say, “but John, that’s so unloving! Don’t receive them into your house. That’s not very loving, John. That’s not very kind.” Actually, it is loving, in the biblical sense. It is kind in the grand scheme of things, because love rejoices in the truth. Human love is derived from God’s love for us. So, if someone perverts God’s love for us… if someone changes or distorts the gospel… you are obligated in love to reject them. 

And I know, that’s entirely countercultural in our day. We’re too wet. We’re too much like the fish in Aristotle’s analogy. We’re too inundated with the world’s view of love to embrace this. But love has to be committed to the truth. It must be. 

Now just some historical background here and some practical considerations. I want to be clear about this. In the ancient world, to receive someone into your house was a symbolic gesture of commonality. Teachers and Christian leaders like John and Paul and others would travel around and preach in churches and share the gospel. And there was no Hotwire or Priceline in that day. They didn’t stay at public houses or inns, because those were notoriously brothels and “houses of ill-repute.” So, traveling teachers would stay with believers. It was a show of hospitality. It was a sign of brotherhood. And what John wants here is there to be a clear line of demarcation between good teachers and false teachers… between shepherds and wolves. “Don’t greet wolves on the street and show the world that there is solidarity between you. Don’t welcome wolves into your homes and confuse people into thinking they are shepherds.”

So practically you might ask me, “Pastor Tony, should we allow JWs and Mormons into our house? They come to our neighborhood all the time. Should we greet them? Should we be kind to them?” Well, it depends. Are you welcoming them into your homes as fellow believers? Or are you welcoming them into your homes to try to witness to them and convert them? Just make sure you have the right mindset going into it. And make sure there’s no confusion with your children or with your neighbors or with “them” that they belong to you, and you belong to them. In other words, make sure you don’t violate 2 John.

And if you do talk to them either inside or outside your house, don’t call them brother, don’t ask them to pray for you, don’t assume that the God that they speak of is the God that you are speaking of. It’s not the same God. They don’t worship the same God. They have rejected the truth about Jesus Christ. 

I don’t think we need to be rude or hateful, either. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, “Love is not arrogant or rude” (5-6). That’s not John’s intention here. The purpose here is clarity not rudeness. We need to show them and the world clearly that they don’t belong to us, and we don’t belong to them. There needs to be a clear line of demarcation.  

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And one final thing. Thankfully John closes this letter on a lighter note. There’s one last Truth about Love that John elucidates here in this book. Here it is. Write this down.

5) Love receives fellow believers with joy (12-13)

John says, 

12 Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, 

The Greek here says literally “mouth to mouth” not “face to face.” But I’m glad the ESV translators translated it the way that they did. Because “mouth to mouth” means something different in English than what it did in Greek. Mouth-to-mouth means either giving someone CPR or some guy making out with his girlfriend. That is definitely not what John is talking about here. 

What he’s saying here actually has a lot of tenderness in it. John is saying, “I want to see you face to face. I want to talk with you face to face. I don’t want to write everything down here because that’s less relational than talking with you in person.” For what it’s worth, I’m glad that John did write this down with paper and ink, because now we can benefit from this 2,000 years later.

I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

Love receives fellow believers with joy. And then John writes…  

 13 The children of your elect sister greet you. 

In other words, John is saying, “a sister-church where I am staying now greets you.” I think I’m going to use that line the next time I preach in Croatia at my brother-in-law’s church. I’m going to say “The Children of your elect sister in San Antonio, Texas, greets you.”

Love receives fellow believers with joy, church. Love receives fellow believers with joy! Do you love your fellow believers, church? “No, Pastor Tony. I love Jesus. But I don’t like Christians.” No, you don’t. If you don’t like Christians, then you don’t love Jesus. The Bible says that it’s impossible for you to love Jesus and not love Jesus’s followers. You better love fellow believers, church. You better love them… because you’re going to be spending eternity with them. 

Do you love your country? I do! I praise God all the time for the United States of America. I love this country. I love the history of this country. I even love this country now despite its many flaws and imperfections. But we’re not taking this country into eternity. Eternity is not a democracy. It’s a monarchy. Jesus is King and we will bow before him in worship forever. You won’t take the United States of America into eternity. But you will take fellow believers with you. You got to learn to love them. For what it’s worth, I love you guys. I love this church and the people that make up VBVF. Each of you in this room brings me joy seeing you face-to-face… 

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I’ll close with this. This book, 2 John, is about Love and Truth, so I’ll close with an illustration of Love and Truth. In 1962, The great German theologian, Karl Barth, came to the U.S. to give a lecture at an American university. Barth was an older man by this time. He had opposed Nazism and Hitler during WWII. And as a scholar he had written tens of thousands of pages on sophisticated and learned theology. Some consider him one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. 

Well, after delivering one of his lectures, Barth was asked to summarize all of his great learning. He was asked, “Of all the theological insights you’ve ever had, which do you consider to be the greatest of them all?” This question piqued the interest of the entire audience, and they waited with great anticipation for his answer. Karl Barth closed his eyes and thought for a while. And then he smiled, opened his eyes, and said to the young seminarians, “The greatest theological insight that I have ever had is this: ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!’” That’s it, right there, church. That’s it. All love in this world, true love, flows from that truth. Do you know this love? Let’s bow together in a word of prayer.