This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Sermon Series: 1, 2, & 3 John

“Balancing Love and Truth"

Last week, we finished the letter of 1 John and explored how to have “A Confident Life: Absolute Assurance.”

 1 The elder,

To the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth— 2 because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:

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

4 It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. 5 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. 6 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.

7 I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8 Watch out that you do not lose what we[a] have> worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. 9 Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. 11 Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work.

12 I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

13 The children of your sister, who is chosen by God, send their greetings.

Opening Prayer

From its shallow headwaters on Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, the Mississippi River meanders southward to the Gulf of Mexico, spawning and sustaining life along its nearly 2,400-mile journey. To many, the river is a gentle giant, an untiring benefactor of good gifts. The mighty Mississippi is a bountiful, self-replenishing storehouse of nutrients for farmland, a habitat for wildlife, and a busy highway for barges. However, if it escapes its well-defined boundaries, that gentle giant becomes an unwieldy monster.

More than forty dams and about sixteen hundred miles of levees attempt to control the mighty tide, but there are frightening times when Old Man River puffs up his chest and pushes over these meager defenses. Disastrous floods turn prime riverside property into lakes, whole towns are erased from the map, and levees in multiple states are wiped out. Without its boundaries, the river brings destruction, not blessing.

In many ways, love is like the Mississippi River. Love flows with life-giving power, but without boundaries, it can do significant harm. This may sound strange at first, but it’s true: In the name of loving sinners, we can go too far, to the point that we tolerate, accept, justify, and—in recent years—even applaud sin. This kind of love calmly sets others adrift in dangerous waters rather than moving them from death to life.

The little letter of 2 John shows us how to keep love within safe boundaries by building into our lives two solid riverbanks—truth and discernment.

1:1–3

As we discussed at the beginning of 1 John, we already determined that the “elder” is the apostle John’s reference to himself. It’s quite evident by the personal tone of the letter that the recipient knew the author personally and would have identified him immediately. So why call himself the “elder”? Why not “the apostle”? Or simply “John”?

By using the title “elder,” John conveys a greater sense of intimacy and warmth in his letter. It would be similar to a modern-day minister writing a note to their congregation while away on a mission trip and signing the personal letter simply with “Your pastor.” John wasn’t giving himself a demotion, as if he had resigned from his position as apostle. Even the apostle Peter referred to himself as a “fellow elder” of the church leaders he addressed in one of his letters (1 Pet. 5:1).|

|The recipients of the letter are “the chosen lady and to her children” (2 Jn. 1:1). I take the position that the “chosen lady” is a literal individual, not a figurative personification of the church as a whole. |If this is the case, then the reference to her “children” could be addressing literal children or even spiritual children for whom she was responsible. Was the chosen lady a widow with a large family? A single woman devoted to caring for orphans? A diligent worker in the church who labored at ministering to younger members of the body—her “spiritual children”? We don’t know the details. Whatever the case, it remains true that much of what John writes is intended for a larger group (“her children”), even though the letter draws attention to this individual (“the chosen lady”).

John’s love for the chosen lady and her children is grounded “in truth.” And he’s not alone—all who know the truth have a love for them (2 Jn. 1:1). Yet John is writing “because the truth lives in us and will be with us forever.” (1:2). Notice that in 1:3, John inseparably links “truth and love” to the Grace, mercy, and peace, which come from God the Father and from Jesus Christ—the Son of the Father. Firm conviction in a saving knowledge of the truth should always be accompanied by love, just as unconditional love for others should be extended within the bounds of doctrinal truth. Maintaining a balance between these two requires discernment. Commentator John R. W. Stott puts it well: “Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth, and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love.”

1:4–6

It’s always encouraging when you see children and grandchildren walking in the faith in which they were raised. That he or she has maintained a Christian walk and is living their faith and passing the faith on to their own children. It doesn’t always work that way, and there’s no guarantee that all our children will faithfully walk in the truth.

The apostle John puts it a little more realistically. He says to the chosen lady that “some” of her children were walking in the truth. The way the Greek reads, the “some” who were faithful to their spiritual roots could refer to a majority or to a minority. The fact that John is overjoyed at what he has learned, though, suggests that the faithfulness of the lady’s children was the rule rather than the exception. Still, not all of them were faithful.

This highlights an important principle of spiritual nurturing and discipleship. Both our physical families and our spiritual families will have members who deviate from the teaching of parents or mentors. I’ve experienced this firsthand and have seen it in countless families throughout my life. It breaks our hearts when it happens. It drives us to prayer in the hopes that those children will one day return. However, when some go astray, we shouldn’t lose sight of those who remain on the “truth walk.” John didn’t dwell on those who had taken a spiritual detour but on those who had received the commandment of living according to the truth (1:4).

It doesn’t have to be one or the other—either standing strong in the truth or showing love toward others. In actuality, the test of true love is whether it leads us closer to Christ. It never compromises Christ’s standards for the sake of a loosely defined unity. It never consents to sin in the name of grace and tolerance. This point bears repeating: Unconditional love must be balanced by discerning truth.

1:7–11

Love is like a hinge on which the door of generous hospitality turns. But doors also have locks and peepholes … and some even have alarms. So it is with authentic Christian love. Think about your own home. An open-door policy of hospitality toward friends and neighbors doesn’t mean you leave the front door unlocked at night. Nor does a generally welcoming attitude toward strangers mean you’ll fling open the door to a home invader bent on harming your family. True love never opens the door to a predator. This is the thrust of John’s instruction in 1:7-11.

If the “chosen lady” was prone to err on the side of openhearted hospitality in showing love to all who passed her way, the potential was great for allowing dangerous spiritual pathogens to get through her wide filter. Cautiousness was especially necessary when poisonous heretics were on the prowl, eager to infect well-meaning but unsuspecting believers wherever they could. John knew for a fact—both by experience and by word of mouth—that “many deceivers have gone out into the world” (1:7). They were guilty of denying the Incarnation. Jesus Christ, the true “Son of the Father” (1:3), Jesus Christ came in a real body (1:7). This is an essential foundation of Christian faith. Though the false teachers may have talked about “Jesus Christ” to get their feet in the door, they were deceivers—in fact, antichrists (1:7).

Most likely, John had in mind a heretical movement that was still in its early stages of development in the first century but would spread widely by the second century. This heresy, often called Gnosticism, was based on the Greek dualistic notion that spirit was good and matter was evil. The Gnostics believed that Christ could not have come in the flesh; otherwise, He would have been tainted with evil. Instead, they argued that Christ only appeared to take on human form.

When we stand before our Savior and Lord,/Christ will not judge believers to determine innocence or guilt—heaven or hell. That judgment of “not guilty” was already rendered when God declared us righteous at our conversion based on the saving death of Christ (2 Cor. 5:21). Because of the finished work of Christ, received as our own by faith, that is our loyalty in Him, our resurrection is guaranteed and our place in the kingdom of heaven is permanently assured (2 Cor. 1:21–22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13–14). However, at the judgment seat of Christ, our future reward, or actually our position in the kingdom of God, will be determined by the quality of our deeds and the motives behind them (see 1 Cor. 3:10–15; 4:4–5). Thus, John says, we must take seriously the balance between unconditional love and discerning truth in this life. If we allow the truth to be compromised (even in the name of love), then we open ourselves up to being led astray, which can have serious consequences (1 Cor. 3:12-15).

Of course, some go “too far” and fail to “remains in the teaching of Christ” (2 Jn. 1:9). That is, they are not guilty simply of being deceived or falling into sin; instead, they have completely abandoned the faith they once professed. They have demonstrated, through their actions, a total disregard for God’s truth and> love. In such acute cases, John says, such people “has no relationship with God” (1:9). Such a person is a deceiver and an antichrist (1:7).

John treats this kind of apostasy in more detail in 1 John 2:19, where he asserts that such false teachers never truly experienced the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Those who so radically depart from the core teachings of the true Christian faith demonstrate that “they never really belonged with us” (1 John 2:19). Had those antichrists been truly united to Christ by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, “they would have stayed with us,” with the true church. Their departure makes it clear, however, that “they did not belong with us” (1 Jn. 2:19).

Again, this isn’t talking about Christians who entertain doubts, backslide into sin, or even temporarily stray from the right path. John’s definition of “antichrists” in 1 John and 2 John speaks to something more serious than the everyday struggles of faith we all experience. “Antichrists” are guilty of outright heresies that deny the core doctrines of the faith and fully embrace a lifestyle of sin contrary to God’s commands.

The world is full of deceivers—people who would lure us away from the truth and our eternal reward. Most false teachers use the very same Bible we use. But they twist it, adding to or taking away from its true meaning. John refers to “truth about Christ” (2 Jn. 1:9-10). We are to abide in the teaching. Those who do not bring this same teaching should be shown the door—or better yet, not invited into our homes (1:10).

What is the content of this fundamental Christian “teaching” to which John refers? Though this list is not exhaustive, the following fundamentals of our faith form a good checklist by which we can test the teachers who knock on our doors or come into our homes through TV, radio, print, or the Internet:

the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21)

the fallen condition of humanity and the need for God’s grace ( 3; Rom. 3:23)

the Virgin Birth, the full deity and the full humanity of Christ, and His sinless life ( 7:14; Matt. 1:18–25; Luke 1:26–38; John 1:1, 14; 8:53–58; Col. 1:15–20; Heb. 1:3, 8; 4:15)

the substitutionary death of Christ for our sins, and his miraculous, bodily resurrection ( 5:6–8; 1 Cor. 15:1–11; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 9:22, 26; 1 Jn. 1:7, 9)

the literal, future return of Christ to the earth (John 14:1–3; 1 Thes. 4:13–18)

False teachers will never stand up and openly declare, “We twist the Scriptures.” No cultist knocking on your door will say, “We use ‘Jesus’ in our literature, but truth be told, we actually preach a different Jesus.” No flashy TV preacher will look straight into the camera and shout, “I’m a heretic, but send me your money anyway!” Given that deceivers are skilled at concealing their own beliefs and practices, we require discernment. And as soon as we catch a whiff of their putrid doctrine, we need to keep them at arm’s length. John puts it even more bluntly: If anyone comes to your meeting and does not teach the truth about Christ, don’t invite that person into your home or give any kind of encouragement. 11 Anyone who encourages such people becomes a partner in their evil work. (2 Jn. 1:10–11).

That may seem harsh, but think about it. John is using the second-person plural, indicating that he is now speaking to the chosen lady and her children, who are walking in the truth. If the lady had a problem with overemphasizing love and downplaying truth, the children would have also had an undeveloped understanding of the truth, thus lacking discernment. When a person is new to the faith, it’s always best to shield them from false teaching, to protect them from antichrists who aim to confuse and lead people astray. I’m not saying evangelists, apologists, and trained teachers should shy away from confronting the errors of heretics; but effectively engaging false teachers requires a significant amount of training and experience, which most young believers don’t have.

Until we learn how to properly balance love and truth, the best policy is to simply close the door on those conversations that could poison believers who have not yet developed the spiritual strength to resist infection.

1:12–13

John ends this tiny letter with some personal greetings. The warmth of his affection comes through as he expresses his earnest desire to see the chosen lady and her children “face to face.” He had so much more to say, but paper and ink weren’t the proper medium. What a great endorsement of the need for personal, in-the-flesh, life-on-life interaction! Even in his old age, John wanted to make the trip to be present with his brothers and sisters in Christ. This is a lesson all of us could learn in our impersonal world of texting, e-mail, and social media. Personal presence matters. Only through face-to-face interaction would John be able to say Then our joy will be complete (1:12).

Finally, John extends warm greetings from “the children of your sister,[f] chosen by God.” (1:13). This might imply that the sister herself was no longer living, and that her children, dwelling in the city of Ephesus with John, wanted their aunt to know of their love for her. However, without more definite details, we can’t be sure. In any case, this letter, which began with words of tender love, concludes with the same warmth of affection.

APPLICATION: 2 JOHN 1:1–13

Principles for Balancing Love and Truth

Although only thirteen verses long, 2 John contains three principles we can spend the rest of our lives putting into practice. These aren’t complicated, but they are difficult, because navigating between unconditional love and discerning truth will always be a challenge for believers striving to live a balanced Christian life.

First, loving others is a fundamental expression of authentic Christianity. The chosen lady and her children were excellent examples of this kind of loving hospitality and welcoming spirit. Nowhere does John seek to downplay or dismiss the need for this kind of open-armed love. One of the greatest witnesses we can have in a world of hate is to show love and charity toward both the family of God and those outside the church. Therefore, let’s walk in love.

Second, embracing the truth is equally essential. The one who loves you the most is the one who tells you the truth. If I’m engaged in destructive behavior, I would hope somebody loves me enough to tell me. It isn’t loving to let a person go to hell because we don’t want to offend them. This means we need to know the truth, grow in the truth, and study Scripture and sound theology for the rest of our lives. If you don’t know what you believe and why, you won’t know where to stand on any doctrinal or moral issue—at least not with any solid conviction. Therefore, take time to study and be strengthened in the truth.

Third, when error is discerned, love must be kept within its bounds. The challenge today is to know the truth and take a stand for it without backtracking, compromising, or downplaying it. At the same time, we need to be gracious and winsome in our witness. We must always be ready if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. “But with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet. 3:15). We must stand for the truth, but at the same time, we must extend love and walk in grace. We must love within the banks of truth and discernment … and learn to live in the dynamic tension between grace and truth. Therefore, learn the language of “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) to both believers and unbelievers. Therefore, Speak the Truth in Love.

Next week, we will focus our exploration on the letter of 3 John. Our message for next week is “A Confident Life – Balancing Truth and Love.” Our Core verses for next week will be:  3 John 1:1-15

Closing Prayer