"Walking in the truth" by Rod Bayley, 24 October 2010, John 2

[Danny]

I’ve just finished reading ‘Open,’ the autobiography of Andre Agassi,
the American tennis player who won eight grand slam tournaments in a
stellar career. It has been a controversial book due to his
discussion of a dishonest letter he wrote to tennis authorities over a
failed drug test, which saw him avoid a 3 month suspension. But what
actually stands out in his rollercoaster life is the theme of
loyalty. His most difficult opponent was often himself, and so he
built up a team of people around him, an entourage who supported him
through thick and thin. His often lonely and pressured life led him
to depend on his support team, and so he felt personally betrayed when
anyone was disloyal and left his group. When his coach, Nick
Bollettieri, decided to quit his role, Agassi wrote the following
about his reaction : “I’m sipping my first cup of coffee, flipping
through USA Today, when a headline catches my eye, because my name is
in it: ‘Bollettieri parts ways with Agassi.’ Nick tells the newspaper
he’s done with me. He wants to spend more time with his family.
After ten years this is how he lets me know. Minutes later a FedEx
envelope arrives wtih a letter from Nick. It says no more than the
newspaper story. I go to the mirror - I don’t feel all that bad. I
don’t feel anything. I’m numb. As if the cortisone has spread from
my wrist injury to engulf my being.” What makes the situation seem
even more like a betrayal, is that Agassi soon learns Nick has
actually swapped to coach one of his arch rivals, Boris Becker, who
dislikes Agassi. In Agassi’s mind, Nick has sided with the enemy.

As we consider the letter of 2 John this morning, we confront a
similar theme of loyalty. The apostle John primarily wrote this brief
letter to warn his readers about certain false travelling preachers,
and of the consequences of assisting such people. It seems that some
false teachers had come amongst one of the house churches that John
had planted or had oversight over, and that John at least feared that
their relationship was in danger of being betrayed, or at least
damaged, because of the influence of these deceivers. That is why the
letter also has a related purpose of reminding the readers of the
command to love one another, so that both John and his readers might
persist in their relationship of mutual love. But of course it’s
bigger than personal loyalty to John. The letter is a call to loyalty
to the gospel and to ongoing fellowship with genuine disciples and
leaders such as the apostle John.

But before we get to the heart of the letter, notice how John begins
and ends his letter. We’ve reached the first point on your outline:
‘Greetings and goodbyes.’ Notice again what is recorded in verse 1:
“The elder, to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the
truth - and not I only, but also all who know the truth.”

Unlike 1 John, this letter doesn’t begin with the usual A to B
greeting formula, and so although the author does identify himself, he
doesn’t explain things as clearly as we would like. He introduces
himself as simply ‘the elder’, and is writing to the ‘chosen lady and
her children.’ The elder is believed to be the apostle John, mainly
because of the style of writing and the themes of the letter, which
match both John’s gospel and his longer first letter. The chosen lady
and her children has been interpreted various ways, but most
commentators agree that is simply a metaphorical way of addressing a
local church and its members. This is reinforced by the goodbye or
farwell in verse 13: “The children of your chosen sister send their
greetings.” This is a way of conveying greetings from John’s
Christian community to his readers in this other community or house-
church.

Returning to John’s opening greeting, the main themes are truth and
love - themes which will be developed throughout the rest of the
letter. But what exactly is John saying about truth and love in these
verses? Well, firstly, John is saying in verse 1 that he loves these
other believers in the truth - that is, he loves the readers, who
like him, are in the truth. ‘In the truth’ here refers to those who
faithfully adhere to the gospel, the truth concerning Jesus Christ
which they have known from the beginning. And as John goes on to say
in verse 1, it is not only he who loves these fellow believers he’s
writing to, but all other Christians. Here is the bond that all
believers have - we are united through the truth of the gospel, and so
we love one another as children of our heavenly Father.

Truth and love are therefore inseparable in the Christian church, and
John takes this connection a step further in verses 2 and 3. Notice
what he states:
“because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever.
3Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the
Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.”

On the surface it seems like the truth of the gospel message has been
internalized by believers so that it ‘lives in’ them. However, the
text is probably pointing to Jesus as embodying the truth - for
example like John 14:6 where Jesus says: “I am the way and the truth
and the life.” He lives in believers by His Spirit who will be with
us forever. You can’t know the truth without knowing the person of
Christ who is the truth. And in verse 3 Christians will receive God’s
grace, mercy and peace “in truth and love.” In others words, these
spiritual blessings are experienced by those who continue to hold to
the truth and show love to one another.

How do we apply this first part of the letter to ourselves? Well,
truth and love are inseparable - love for others flows from knowing
the truth of the gospel, from knowing Jesus. You can’t have a
knoweledge of Christ the truth which doesn’t issue in love for others,
particularly fellow believers. Knowledge without love simply leads to
cold, legalistic relationships, not a community of mutual love and
care. Knowledge of the truth must lead to action. It would be a very
anaemic Christian community if it didn’t issue in abounding love for
others, in extraordinary lives that are motivated and empowered by the
gospel. We should not live like everyone around us, conforming to our
self-absorbed society that often values material things more than
people.

I don’t know if you saw the 1989 American film ‘Dead Poets Society’
starring Robin Williams. It was set at a conservative and aristocratic
boys prep school, and it told the story of an English teacher who
inspired his students to change their lives of conformity through his
teaching of poetry and literature. The teaching methods of their new
English teacher were unorthodox by the school’s standards, including
whistling the 1812 overture, taking them out of the classroom, or
standing on their desks to get a new perspective on the world. The
teacher John Keating, played by Robin Williams, says to his students
at one point: “carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives
extraordinary.” He’s effectively saying, ‘Don’t just gain an
education or knowledge, don’t just talk about your plans, go and live
life, do great things.’ How much more should that be true of
Christians, who don’t want to leave their mark on the world, but
rather leave Christ’s mark on the world; who aren’t motivated by some
altruistic belief that they’ll make this world marred by sin perfect,
but who are motivated by the truth of the gospel that causes them to
love others and share the truth; who aren’t seeking their own fame or
status, but who are seeking for Christ to be honoured, for the glory
to go to God.

This brings us to point two on your outline: ‘Walking in the truth vs
denial of the truth.’ Notice again what John states in verses 4 to 6:

“It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in
the truth, just as the Father commanded us. 5And 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. 6And 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.”
Having spoken about truth and love in his opening, John now expands on
these themes. Notice how John especially focuses on the theme of
‘love’ in verse 5, and talks about reissuing a command that they have
had from the beginning. The command of course is to “love one
another,” something which Jesus had instructed his disciples to do as
he approached his death. In John 13:34-35 Jesus famously said:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so
you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are
my disciples, if you love one another.”

John reminds them of this command in verse 5 and makes a specific
request that the church persist in their love for him, that they might
all persist in their mutual love for one another. It seems that the
deceivers that were coming in amongst his readers’ church were
reducing, or likely to reduce, their love and ongoing relationship
with the apostle John. And so he calls his readers to an ongoing
solidarity with him.

But how does this relate to his call to walk in the truth? Twice John
uses the phrase ‘walking in truth’ the second being in verse 6 which
literally says ‘walk in it’, but which the NIV errs in translating
‘walk in love.’ Given the context and what follows in verse 7, the
‘it’ is most likely ‘truth’ again. John is really excited about some
of the believers he’s writing to in verse 4, because they are ‘walking
in the truth’ - he speaks of finding ‘great joy’ in their progress.
But what is this ‘walking in the truth’, and how does it relate to
loving one another? To walk in the truth means to live in accordance
with the truth of the gospel, as it was received in the beginning.
Notice that they are said to be walking in the truth, holding to the
gospel of grace, “just as the Father commanded us.” John here is
saying that the gospel message, the truth that Christians must
continue to walk in, is itself the Father’s command. It is a similar
command to 1 John 3:23, where John says: “And this is his command: to
believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another
as he commanded us.” Here is how walking in the truth relates to the
reminder to love one another. It’s the same connection we saw in the
opening greeting - one must lead to the other. To know Christ, to
have the gospel truth, will lead to love for fellow believers who also
know and hold to this truth. It’s part of walking in the truth of the
gospel.

In his autobiography ‘Long walk to freedom’ which was published in
1995, Nelson Mandela writes: “I have walked that long road to freedom.
I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I
have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only
finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment
here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me,
to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a
moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not
linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.” Mandela’s walk to freedom
refers to his battle for personal freedom from prison, along with the
freedom of the black people of South Africa from apartheid.

Our walk is in the truth of the gospel, but like Mandela’s walk to
freedom, this phrase‘walking in the truth’ implies action. Among
other things, ‘walking’ implies progress - going from one place to
another. It is a continuous regular action, a habitual way of life, a
journey that encompasses our whole life - we must keep going until the
finishing tape, living out the truth that has saved us until we die or
the Lord Jesus returns. Notice that we are commanded to do this, ‘to
walk’ - we have a role to play, to love others as God has loved us by
giving us his Son the truth, and so saving us from our sin.

We love Phil and Miriam, perhaps because we’ve formed a friendship
with them and have known them for many years, but above all because
they are fellow believers who know the truth of the gospel. And that
knowledge has issued in a love for not only fellow believers, but for
those outside God’s people. As a church we want to uphold them and
partner with them in taking the gospel to the working class people of
Taiwan. We want to be in contact with them, and the house churches
which they may plant in time, and to fulfil the ongoing command of
loving one another. We need to not only support them financially and
practically as one of their two sending churches, but to uphold them
in prayer. They are on the same life-long journey of ‘walking in the
truth’ as us, but their walk will occur in a different place, in more
difficult circumstances with less support than ourselves, surrounded
as we are by many Christians in Wollongong. Their journey could be
very difficult, the cost to such discipleship perhaps much higher, and
so we want to walk with them in partnership. Just as they may well
inspire us through their devotion and service of our Lord, so we can
encourage and refresh them in our love and care for them as part of
our devotion to the Lord. I challenge us all today to commit
ourselves to praying for this couple and their two children, Denali
and Noemi, that we might also find great joy in hearing of their
progress, as the apostle John expressed. We look forward to hearing
how they’re walking in the truth, and spurring them on through our
love.

In verses 7 to 9 John turns his attention to those who are not walking
in the truth, to the travelling false preachers who are deceivers,
those who deny the truth. The key heresy that is named is their wrong
theology about Christ. In verse 7 these deceivers “do not acknowledge
Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.” When compared with similar but
longer statements in 1 John, we can grasp that what these false
teachers denied was that Jesus was the Son of God in the flesh, that
he was fully man, and that his atoning death was a reality. The focus
here in 2 John is Christ’s humanity, his coming in the flesh, but this
can’t be divorced from the purpose of his coming in the flesh - to die
for sin, to give himself as an atoning sacrifice for our rebellion
against God. If Christ was not fully man on earth, then he couldn’t
properly represent humanity, he couldn’t qualify as our substitute who
bears our sins. And because such false teaching strikes at the heart
of the gospel, at the heart of our salvation, John terms such false
teachers “the antiChrist.” It is in the singular form here, so it
implies that while many deceivers have gone out into the world, what
they are doing is the work of THE deceiver, the anti-Christ - Satan
himself. In verse 8, one possible result of such deceivers is that
they will lead people from the truth, because they have left the
apostolic gospel behind (v9).

This leads us to the third and final point on your outline:
‘Hospitality and heresy.’ Notice again what John says in verses 10
and 11:
“If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take
him into your house or welcome him. 11Anyone who welcomes him shares
in his wicked work.”
We firstly have to understand what welcoming and hospitality meant in
the first century. We need to grasp that it involved hosts in
guaranteeing their guests as worthy individuals to the rest of the
community. They were provideing them with patronage so that they
would have standing in the community, though a guest. Otherwise, they
had no rights, not standing in the law of the local area. It was
therefore more than just offering them a meal or a place to sleep for
a night. The teaching John is referring to in verse 10 is the
teachings of Christ that he has just referred to in verse 9. If
anyone comes with a gospel different to the one they received in the
beginning, they are not to offer hospitality. Here is John’s
application following his discussion of the false teachers that deny
the truth - don’t help them, or else your complicit, your partners in
spreading their heresy. Don’t welcome them into your house, or into
your house-church and give them a platform to promote their false
teaching - don’t help deceivers.

In summary, John wants his readers to hold to the truth, and not be
persuaded by those who will deceive and threaten their salvation.
John is calling for love and support for those who hold to the truth,
and a rejection of those who distort the gospel by misrepresenting
Jesus. We are to walk in the truth, and it’s a narrow path that will
face threats and deceivers, for there are many more who are travelling
the broad road that leads to destruction. But as Robert F Kennedy
once said, “Fear not the path of truth, for the lack of people walking
on it.”