Mirrors and Sponges
It’s been said that if you want to know who you’ll be in five years, look at your friends and the books you read and that’s what you’ll become. These things will shape your life more than anything else. The things I’m thinking about and aspiring to and longing for and praying for are in large measure shaped by whatever I’m reading or whoever I’m spending time with.
Of course, if you’re married, your spouse will have the most profound influence on your life because there’s no one closer to you than them. But your friends, whether people or books, are also constantly shaping your thinking. My sermons naturally flow out of what I’m reading and thinking about. Hopefully you can see why a steady diet of reading the Bible and time with Christian friends is so important. We inevitably become what we see and hear. We’re mirrors.
But we’re also like sponges, designed to be filled and formed and cultivated, just like the earth. God didn’t create us as finished products, but as works in progress. This means there’s tremendous potential in every human you know. There’s a powerful God-given potentiality in each of us to become something we never thought we could become. This is amazing!
Walk in Truth and Watch Yourself
Today we’re going to look at the short letter of 2 John and the main thing I want us to see is that who we let close to us will shape us, one way or the other. In 2 John, we’ll see a lot of what we’ve already seen in 1 John. But there’s the added focus on how false teachers will use the kindness of Christians against them in order to gain influence among them.
John says that Christians should be picky about who they associate with, about who they let into the “house” of their lives. John tells us to “watch ourselves” so that we don’t lose the things we love the most.
John wants us to know that we can’t start coasting as Christians because there are dangerous deceivers in the world who want to lead us away from the truth. So he says we have to “watch ourselves” so that we aren’t led astray.
John’s main point in 2 John is that Christians should walk in truth and watch ourselves. In verses 1-6, we see the exhortation to walk in truth. In verses 7-13, the exhortation to watch ourselves. Today we’ll do verses 1-8. Next week we’ll do 9-13.
“The Elect Lady and Her Children”
The “elder” is likely an affectionate and respectful title for someone who was the principal authority in his circle, like we use the word “pastor.” The “elect lady and her children” is best understood as referring to the same thing, a specific local church and its members. “The children of your elect sister” in verse 13 are the members of the church the elder is writing from. I see no good reason to think that the “elder” isn’t the apostle John, who would’ve been advanced in years and who would’ve had a special authority in these churches.
John loved these folks because they were “in the truth” (v. 1), and he says that the truth lives in them and will be with them forever (v. 2). He’s referring to the Holy Spirit (1 Jn. 5:6). So John writes to encourage these people whose faith was unsettled because of false teachers, telling them that they’re in the truth and that Jesus’ presence is with them and will be with them forever no matter what happens.
The Spirit applies God’s grace, mercy, and peace to our hearts, and creates a people who live “in truth and love” (v. 3). A well-balanced Christian life is one where these two things live in harmony.
Love First, Watch Second
In verses 4-6, John says he wants them to keep walking in a relationship of mutual love, which was under threat because of the false teachers.
I really like the NIV’s translation of these verses:
“It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”
Interestingly, in a letter primarily written to warn this church about the danger of welcoming false teachers, John starts by talking about love. Why? Because the stronger our love for one another the less likely we’ll leave one another for something else. If you want to build a sturdy ship, you focus on the strength of the materials being used to build it, not on the strength of the waves. Love is what strengthens churches, not fear.
Love is so basic to the Christian life that John says that it’s part of the deal “from the beginning” (vv. 5-6). It’s not a new commandment, but an old one (1 Jn. 2:7-8).
John is encouraging them to push forward in their love for one another. John starts with these reminders about loving one another because he knows that a church that keeps walking in love will ordinarily keep walking in truth.
Think about it. If you really love someone, you want what’s best for them. You don’t want them to pursue harmful things. You want them to grow and flourish and mature and reach all the potential God has put inside them. So if anything comes along that will hinder this growth, you’ll speak up, you’ll do what you can to keep them from harming themselves. You’ll grab them before they step over a ledge.
Love is a commitment to the good of someone else. It’s not an emotion. If we didn’t love each other, we wouldn’t care about what kind of things were influencing us, what things we were believing, what we were doing. If a parent didn’t love their children, they’d let them do whatever they wanted. But real love comes with boundaries, with the willingness to say, “No, this thing will hurt you, and it will hurt us.”
John wants this church to keep walking in love because he wants them to keep walking in truth. Christians who genuinely love one another will care deeply about each other’s soul.
This is one reason we take church membership seriously here. Our church covenant says, “We covenant to walk together in Christian love, to exercise an affectionate care and watchfulness over each other and faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require.” Affection and watchfulness aren’t mutually exclusive. We love first, then we watch. Or, better said, we watch over each other because we love each other. It’s not legalism to want, expect, and help Christians to live like Christians. It’s love.
Deceivers and the Deceiver
This leads us to the second section of the letter, verses 7-13, where John says that these Christians need to watch themselves. These sections are connected by the conjunction that begins verse 7, “For…” John is saying, “I want you guys to keep walking in love and truth, because many deceivers have gone out into the world.” He’s saying, “You can’t start coasting as followers of Christ. You have to keep walking in love and truth because there’s evil out there that wants to take you down.”
The “deceivers” who’ve “gone out into the world” were traveling teachers who’d probably left the church. These traveling teachers were denying “the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh” (v. 7), which is a shorthand way of saying that they denied that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, come in the flesh, whose death was an atoning sacrifice for sins. They were driving a bulldozer into God’s house because they were denying the basic tenets of the gospel.
John calls them “the deceiver and the antichrist” (v. 7). By using the singular forms of “deceiver” and “antichrist” John may be implying that, while “many deceivers” have gone out into the world, they’re doing the work of the deceiver, the evil one himself. In Revelation 12:9, John calls Satan “the deceiver of the whole world.” Here in 2 John 7, he’s saying that this “deceiver,” i.e. Satan, is also at work in the churches.
It’s instructive that the way the Deceiver deceives isn’t through subconscious work in the mind, but through teachings. In 1 Timothy 4, Paul says that “some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared” (vv. 1-2).
Paul and John both believed that demonic teachings circulated through churches through real people animated by evil spirits. These teachers present themselves as one thing but are in fact something else. Their consciences are so cauterized that they think they’re teaching truth, or so callous that they don’t care.
Although the “whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 Jn. 5:19), the devil and his demons are actively working to disrupt and destroy churches through false teaching.
Do you see how important it is to pray for the elders and other teachers in the church, for elders to be examined before they become elders? Do you see your responsibility as a church member to guard the church from false teachers? If you ever have to call another man to be your senior pastor, do you see your responsibility to make sure he’s theologically orthodox?
Watch Yourselves
In verse 8, John tells this church to “watch yourselves.” The demonic threat is real so church members need to be awake and watching. Interestingly, he says, “watch yourselves.” Of course, as I’ve said, we’re to watch out for one another. But our watchfulness starts at home.
It’s easy to be the theology police for everyone else while ignoring our own heart. I’d argue that those who’re super passionate about making sure everyone else is correct in their doctrine and applying their doctrine in all the right ways, have pride growing in their heart that needs to be checked lest the evil one targets them and makes them a tool to divide the church. How many churches have been hurt by people who elevated every doctrinal issue to that of “first importance”? By those who assumed they were right on everything and didn’t give other Christian’s space to exercise the freedom of their conscience on secondary and ancillary matters?
Take a look at Andy Naselli’s book Conscience or Gavin Ortlund’s Finding the Right Hills to Die On for help in thinking through these things. Our ability to do “theological triage” and our willingness to honor each other’s freedom of conscience is a primary way we love one another, guard the truth of the gospel, and build unity in the church.