The Big Little Books of Truth and Love - Part 2
I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father. Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it. 2 John 4-6 (NASB95)
Intro: We are now ell into our series “The Big Little Books of the Bible.” This is the fourth message on the Big Little Books of 1 & 2 John, and we are just now getting to verse four! Evidence that my title was correct. These books of two chapters or less are chock full of truths and precepts we shouldn’t miss. Last week the apostle John, the elder, taught us about truth and love in relationships with God and each other, today he’ll teach us the command of love and the walk of obedience…
I. The command of love
I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father. Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. 2 John 4-5 (NASB95)
Just as a parent rejoices to see their children growing up and maturing so does a pastor his congregation. Some believe John points out their walk in truth because he had knowledge that some were not. “Walking” in truth means that they were not just holding to right doctrine but they were living out what they believed. It made it from their heads to their hearts to their souls. Vance Havner used to say: “What we live is what we believe. Everything else is just religious talk.”[1]
John reminds the church of a love command which was given “from the beginning.”
What commandment? He may mean in the book of Leviticus where God commanded the Israelites to…
‘…love your neighbor as yourself” Leviticus 19:18 (NASB95)
Most likely he had in mind the command given by Jesus…
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35 (NASB95)
We would do well to put our elbows on our knees, our chins in our hands and think about this a while. Our Lord, our Savior, our Master said that His disciples would have one distinguishing characteristic: His disciples would love (agape: self-sacrificing, actively demonstrating love) one another.
All of us are aware of the stories – I call them preacher stories – where some church gets into a knock-down drag-out over some inconsequential thing. Or they treat a pastor or someone in the congregation with downright contempt. I have a pastor friend who has invested nearly 20 years into a congregation (loving, holding their hand, sacrificing himself) and instead of letting him retire there, they want to get rid of him. He’s had fingers pointed in his face. He’s been slandered and maligned. And all of this not by the devil’s children, but those who claim to be God’s!
I read about a church in Wichita, Kansas where four the members have been disrupting services. Bishop Graze Kinard says the four have run through the sanctuary moaning and shouting while he tried to conduct services.
He alleges that they shut the pastor’s Bible while he was preaching, took away the pastor’s microphone and hit him over the head, and pinned down the pianist’s arms. Police have had to step in several times, and the congregation has dwindled from 600 to fifty because of the trouble, complains the bishop. The trouble apparently stems from a battle over control of the church, say police. —Christianity Today[2]
We’d like to think that the early church was immune to this, but it wasn’t. The letter of Paul to the church at Corinth was aimed at bringing a fellowship of believers back together. They were fighting and suing and taking sides and acting very ugly towards one another. And it is no accident that in a letter to such a church Paul wrote the famous “love” chapter, a detailed description of what God-like, agape love is like. Let’s read it…
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails... 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 (NASB95)
I am so proud of our church…
One person summed up the love command this way: “Love is not a feeling or emotion, but a way of life that manifests itself concretely in its concern for ... Love circumscribes the whole of life and ought to permeate the actions and attitudes of the Christian person.”[3]
The proof is in the pudding. I don’t know where that saying came from or exactly what it means. But if we were to apply it to John’s word to the church it would be that the proof of our relationship with Christ is love for our brothers and sisters in the kingdom.
The old apostle spoke of the commands of truth and love and then he elaborated. When we love God, we obey God. Love leads to…
II. The walk of obedience
And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it. 2 John 6 (NASB95)
There are many reasons why we may obey someone, including God. Some obey Him because they have to; their motivation is fear. Others obey Him because they want to get some kind of benefit (kind of like being nice to the aging aunt you can’t really stand because she has a timeshare in Cancun you’d love to inherit when she dies); they obey Him because they desire a reward. But our motivation for obeying God should come from a love for Him and His Son.[4] This was Jesus’ motivation for obeying God…
but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here. John 14:31 (NASB95)
And it should be our motivation. Jesus very simply and plainly said…
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. John 14:15 (NASB95)
The sign of a Christian is love for one another and it is the keeping of Christ’s commandments. John wasn’t wishy-washy about the genuineness of a believer’s faith like so many today. You would never hear him say, “Maybe so-and-so was a Christian. I know he drank and cheated on his wife and never went to church and had absolutely no spiritual fruit in his life whatsoever, but you never know. That’s a matter between him and God.” No! John had a number of tests to apply. They are the faith factors of his first letter. And one of them was the test of obedience…
By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. 1 John 2:3-6 (NASB95)
John could not envision someone who had the love of God poured out in his heart through the Spirit, someone who had been forgiven and cleansed by the sacrifice of Christ (the ultimate demonstration of love), yet did not obey the commands of Christ. We are not talking about sinless perfection here. We are talking about a walk where there is a deep desire to obey Christ born of a love for Him, even though there may be failure at times.
Conclusion : The result of truth (gospel, doctrine, person) and love (self-sacrificing, actively demonstrating) is obedience. The walk of truth and love ends up manifesting itself in our behavior. Next week we’ll see how belief plays an equally important role but today I want you to let this question sink into your heart…
What kind of walk do you have?
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[1]Daniel L. Akin, vol. 38, 1, 2, 3 John, electronic ed., Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001), 225.
[2]Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations : A Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastors, Teachers and Christian Workers (Garland TX: Bible Communications, 1996, c1979).
[3]Marianne Meye Thompson, 1-3 John, The IVP New Testament commentary series (Downers Grove, Ill., USA: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 2 Jn 4.
[4]Michael P. Green, Illustrations for Bilical Preaching : Over 1500 Sermon Illustrations Arranged by Topic and Indexed Exhaustively, Revised edition of: The expositor's illustration file. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989).