Comm-unity: People Growing Together July-August Sermon Series Kenwood Baptist Church Pastor David Palmer August 8, 2021

TEXT: 2 John 1:1-13

Good morning, Beloved. We continue this morning in our summer series on “Comm-unity: People Growing Together.” We’re looking at the general letters, sometimes called the catholic letters, meaning letters that are written to large sections of the Christian church. This morning we look at 2 John. Second John is nearing the end of the New Testament. As we look at this letter this morning, I want you to think for a minute about the structure of letters, communication that you receive. I want you to think about the structure of an email. When you get an email, you know a number of things. When you get that in your inbox, you see the sender, you see yourself as a recipient, and you know the date and the time that it arrives, although some people do those crafty things where they manage the distribution of those to make you think they're working in the middle of the night. You see the subject line, and you usually make a decision: Do I want to read the body of that email or not? The average length of an email is 75 to 100 words. It takes less than three minutes to read. When you pile all of those three-minute reads up, that accounts for why email can sometimes feel like a huge waste of our time. We make decisions on whether we will read those or not. The structure of an email or communication of this type is familiar to us.

Twenty-one of the 27 New Testament documents are letters, and they are letters with a structure to them. Now, it's not often that we can see the whole structure, the whole letter on

Page 1 of 12 a page, but such is the case with 2 John. I want you to keep this open, this document, this piece of the New Testament, this letter—it's all there on one page. I want you to notice the structure. The basic structure of a New Testament letter has three parts. First is the introduction. In the introduction, you identify the sender and the recipient. There's an opening greeting and often a thanksgiving to God. The second part is the main body to the letter—the thesis, the main point, the topic of the letter. That topic is developed, often leading to an exhortation to put this thesis into action. Then the third part is a final greeting—personal greetings and a blessing.

Second John is just a little bit longer than many of your emails. It's 245 words. It takes two minutes to read the whole letter out loud. John says in the ESV translation of 2 John 1:12: “Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink.” But what he would have written on was papyrus. The term used here is “papyrus.” Papyrus was first century paper and was inexpensive to produce. It was made by slicing thin strips of the papyrus plant and then folding them at 90° angles and pressing them into dry sheets of paper—papyrus. New Testament letters look like this: a papyrus letter. We have, amazingly, hundreds of examples of New Testament papyri. It's amazing when you think about it. Paper usually doesn't last that long, and yet we have hundreds of examples. The earliest piece of the New Testament that we have is a piece of papyrus from the ending of John's Gospel. It's within one generation of the composition of John's Gospel. It was already circulating in rural Egypt. This is what the recipients of the New Testament letters would have held in their hands—a piece of paper. It was written on papyrus, written with ink, in all capitals, no spaces between the letters, and no punctuation. Keywords are abbreviated, and you can see those key words with a line above the cluster of words. There’s an introduction, a main body, and a final greeting—a letter.

Christian community is sustained, cultivated by this kind of regular communication. The content of this communication guides our life together in faith, so let's look at this brief but powerful little letter. Let’s look at the introduction together. In 2 John 1:1, we find out right away the sender. First century letters tell you the sender. Bible trivia: the first word of all of Paul's letters is the same—Paul. The first word of Peter's letters is to identify himself as the sender. There are no return envelopes in first century papyri documents. We don't have a papyrus envelope to stick it in. So the writer identifies the sender and then the recipient. In 2 John 1:1, we read:

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“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.” The sender is identified as the elder, the recipient as the elect lady and her children. “The elder.” In contrast to Paul's letters and Peter's letters, this letter does not name the sender, and yet this gives us a strong connection with the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John, John takes great pains never to name himself. He describes himself only as just “a man whom Jesus loved,” not as we would tend to say: “I'm the guy Jesus loved.” That's not what it means. He means, “I am simply a person for whom Jesus gave His life.” John, in narratives that are similar in the other gospels where John is named, just described himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He wants all the attention to go on Jesus, so he doesn't name himself. He doesn't posture himself or name-drop his identity as one of the close followers of Jesus. Instead he just refers to himself as “the elder,” meaning a person with a responsibility to a group of people.

The style of language is so similar to John's Gospel and to the book of Revelation. Note key terms, like “love,” “truth,” “life,” and key verbs, like “abide,” “remain,” “believe.” The elder is the Apostle John and the recipient, the elect lady. Some scholars have wondered if this is just a prominent woman in the early Christian church, and yet the content of the letter is addressed in the plural. It seems to speak to the needs of a whole group of people. We recall the expression in 1 Peter 5:13: “She who is in Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings.” This terminology of an elect lady is often used to describe a congregation, a family. The people of God are sometimes likened to the community of God, a chosen people, but they are sometimes personified as a woman. As in Isaiah 54:5-6, Israel is personified as a woman: “For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of Hosts is His name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth He is called. For the LORD has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God.” The people of God were likened, personified, in this way.

In the New Testament, the church is often described, personified, as a woman, the bride of Christ. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:2: “For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” In Ephesians 5, the church is likened to the bride of Christ. In Revelation 19:7, the people of God are described as His bride: “Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready.”

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In the ending of the Bible, the people of God, as the bride, celebrate the imminent return of our Husband, Lord Jesus.

The sender is John, and the recipient, a local congregation. The greeting is in 2 John 1:3: “Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love.” The greeting is filled with these keywords: “grace” and “mercy” and “peace.” Greetings from God and from Christ. In 2 John 1:4, there is the thanksgiving, thanksgiving is John's praise to God: “I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father.” The tension between “some of your children walking in the truth” and the pastoral longing that all of them would be walking in the truth is a note of tension that will be resolved in the main body of the letter.

Do you see it? It's a joy to be alert to these opening sections of the New Testament letters—the introduction to tell you the sender, the recipient, a greeting, and then some form of thanksgiving. It's worth structuring our own emails today in a similar way. We often identify ourselves, the recipient, and we just get straight to the “ask.” We often omit the greeting and omit some note of thanksgiving to God. But, early Christian writers couldn't get into the main topic without first giving a greeting from God and a thanksgiving. I want to challenge you, just on John's example of communication, to make sure that your communication follows this pattern of including the greeting from God and a note of thanksgiving to God for what you see Him doing in the life of the person that you're about to speak with.

Let's go to the main body, starting in 2 John 1:5. John writes: “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.” We’ve been looking this summer at “Comm-unity: People Growing Together,” and these little words like “we,” “us,” “brother,” “sister,” and expressions like “one another,” because according to God's design, we are called to live in Christ as a people who show love to one another. The Christian life cannot be carried out—it really cannot be lived—as a solo endeavor. Remember Genesis: “It's not good for man to be alone.” We are designed and created for community. We can't fully obey Christ alone. We cannot love one another by ourselves or from a distance. The command to love one another was a moment that was forever sealed in John's memory. A night in his own life that he never forgot was the night when Jesus washed the feet

Page 4 of 12 of the disciples. John was leaning on Jesus' chest in the context of that later meal. Jesus washed the feet of His disciples and served them. He spoke to them this new commandment to love one another as I have loved you. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” This command in John 13, to “love one another as I have loved you,” was a word that he never tired of speaking.

Jerome recalls a famous story about John the Gospel writer. In his old age, he had left Jerusalem after the Jewish war. He ministered in the city of Ephesus, and as he grew older, he became so infirm that he had to be carried in to the congregation by his disciples. He spoke only one sentence: “Little children, love one another.” That was the Word that John said, “We’ve had from the beginning.” He never moved beyond that. In his later years, as he was carried into the church, he would repeat the same line: “Little children, love one another.” Finally, the congregation at Ephesus became somewhat weary at this pastoral repetition and asked him, “Master, why do you always say this?” He replied, “It is the Lord's command, and if this only is done, it is enough. Little children, love one another.”

“Love one another.” We've heard this from the beginning. John never tires of writing it and urging us to follow Jesus. In this short letter, written a little earlier than that incident, he explains a little more about love. “Love” is a word that we use often today. It's a word we use for all kinds of things that are beneath the biblical vision of love. We say we love this or that, this product, this team, this cause, this shampoo. We use the word “love” somewhat recklessly, but John says in 2 John 1:6: “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.” Jesus had told the disciples that night, “If you love Me, keep My commands.” Love is walking according to Jesus' commands. “This is the commandment,” he writes, “just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.” Walk in His commandments, walk in His ways, walk in the truth, walk with God.

This idiom, “to walk with God” or “walk in the commandments,” tells us that John is a Hebrew speaker. This is not a Greek idiom. No one walks with Zeus, for many reasons. Number one, Zeus has a lightning bolt in his hand. Number two, you never know if Zeus is for you or against you. No one really wants to get close to Zeus. They just don't want Zeus to harm them. But in the Bible, we are invited to walk with God. We walk with God in Genesis. Adam and Eve walk with God. The idiom “to walk with God” is used to describe Noah as a man who walked with God. It's used to describe Abraham and Enoch. When the Septuagint translators rendered the Bible from Hebrew into Greek, they realized that the idiom “to walk with God” would not make

Page 5 of 12 sense to a Greek readership, so they chose the translation decision of dynamic equivalence. Instead of a literal translation, when you read these passages in the Septuagint, it says that Adam and Eve, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and others were pleasing to God. That's how they rendered it. But we know that John is a Hebrew speaker, because he feels that idiom within him. It's what linguists call a calque: when you take the idiom of one language and bring it over to another. John uses this idiom “to walk with God” to describe the concrete life of faithfulness. It's a deep biblical idiom. It is a critical idiom in Judaism. The way of life of following God in Judaism is described in one word, as the halakhah, the way of walking. Early Christians chose this idiom “the way” as their own first choice before the surrounding culture gave us the nickname “Christians.” The way of walking, to walk with God, to walk with Him personally, to walk in the truth, walk in the light, and walk according to His commandments.

Walk with Him. Don't go on ahead of Him. Don't lag behind Him. This is a powerful image to walk alongside the Lord God Almighty, in step with Him in the world. Not only is this an idiom in the early parts of the Bible, but this idiom of “walking with God” is the precise idiom that launches a massive hope and expectation in the Bible. Ezekiel 36 is a passage we’ve mentioned many times of late. When God pours out the Spirit, takes out our stony heart and gives us a heart of flesh, the Lord says: “I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes.” This is the biblical hope. When the Holy Spirit comes upon you and me and fills us, we begin to walk, not in our own way, but we begin to walk in God's ways. Micah 4:2 looks ahead and sees a dramatic change coming in all the world. He sees that one day the nations of the world will stream to the Lord with the request “that He may teach us His ways and that we may walk in His paths.” Beloved, the biblical hope to walk with God and keep His commandments is fulfilled every time we come to faith and every time our lives move from disorder to order, from disobedience to obedience. This is the great longing of 2 John.

The sermon we heard last week urged us to love one another. This week, John builds on that command and says, “Love one another and walk in the truth, walk in God’s commands.” The transformation from walking in the way of the world, or in our own way, to become a person who walks in God’s ways is powerfully illustrated by the example of Enquedi. Mincaye was born among the Waodani people, nicknamed the Aucas, meaning savages, in the Amazon rain forest of eastern . Every encounter with the Waodani had ended in death, from the 16th century conquistadores to 17th century Jesuits to 19th century gold and rubber hunters and to 20th century . On January 8, 1956, five American missionaries were speared to death by the Waodani tribesmen, including Mincaye. Jim Elliott, , Ed McCully, Peter Fleming and were attacked and speared to death after trying to reach these tribal peoples with the good news of Christ. The world recoiled at the news. The headlines broadcasted: “Five Missionaries Speared to Death.”

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Many years later, it became clear that their death was only the first chapter of a breathtaking story that God was writing. In 1958, the widow of Jim Elliott, Elizabeth, whom I had the privilege of meeting in person in her kitchen in New England, and the sister of Nate Saint, Rachel, returned to Ecuador as missionaries to live with the Waodani. They returned, and they lived among the tribal people who had killed their husband and brother. They learned the language, they befriended members of the community, they taught them the Bible, and they formed friendships, and God's Word began a powerful transformation. Mincaye, one of the men who had killed the missionaries, came to faith in Jesus Christ. His new life was a testimony of God's redeeming power. He said himself, “We acted badly. We acted badly until they brought to us God's carvings, the Bible. God's carvings showed us His good trail, and now we live at peace with everyone.”

Many years later, Mincaye met , the man standing next to him in the photograph. Steve was the young son of Nate Saint. Because Mincaye had killed Steve's father, he felt a special responsibility to help raise him. In 1995, when Steve was older and brought his family to live permanently with the tribe, Mincaye considered Steve's children as his grandchildren. Steve Saint called Mincaye “father,” and Steve's children called him “grandfather.” Years after the killings that took place alongside the river, Mincaye, who had become an elder and a preacher among the Waodoni, baptized Steve in that same river. The man who killed his father became a Christian and a leader in the community and baptized his son and his grandson. Only the gospel can do works like these. Steve Saint said, “I have never forgotten the pain and heartache of losing my dad. I have known Mincaye since I was a little boy when he took me under his wing. He was one of my dearest friends in the world. Yes, he killed my father, but he loved me and my family, and what Mincaye and his tribesmen meant for evil, God used for good. Given the chance to rewrite the story, I would not be willing to change it.”

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Mincaye went to be with the Lord last April. Before his death from this life, he reflected on his conversion. He said, “When I killed Steve's father, I didn't know better. No one told us that he had come to show us God's trail. My heart was dark and sick in sin, but I heard that God sent His own Son, His blood dripping and dripping to wash my heart clean. With that same blood, the Father Creator can wash our hearts clean like the sky when it has no clouds in it, so we can see His trail. You just have to follow His markings.” I commend to you Steve's book Walking His Trail—Signs of God Along the Way.”

Beloved, we are called to love one another, and we are called to walk in God's trail. We have to follow His markings, which are recorded for us in His Word. John longs for us to love one another and to walk in truth, walk in God's commandments. We can be part of stories like this one, bounteous redemption. The urgency of following God's trail, of walking in His ways, is because there are malignant voices in the world. There are hostile powers. There are hostile powers today. There were hostile powers in John's day, and he knew it. Even in this short letter, with that command and main topic to walk in God's commands, walk in the truth, walk with God, the urgency of walking with God is underscored in 2 John 1:7: “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.”

How can you tell true and false? Sometimes it can be hard to know who's telling the truth. John gives us tests of the Spirit, and in 1 John and 2 John he makes it very clear. Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, they are deceivers. The deceiver, the antichrist, is any voice that's moving you away from the centrality that Jesus Christ came, for real, in the flesh. He lived, died, and is raised. Any voice that is seeking to occupy space in the affections of your heart that rightly belong to Jesus is a wanderer. It's the spirit of the antichrist to tell you or suggest to you that someone, something, is ultimately more important, more worthy of your attention, of your affection. It’s not simply a predication here about the incarnation. It's a summary statement that Jesus Christ came. I need to be reminded of this daily, and I suspect you do as well. The most important thing that ever happened in the world was that Jesus Christ came. Voices in your life that help you to see that, realize that, embrace that—those are voices worth heeding. Voices that seek to put Jesus in second place, or lower still, are voices that should be shunned. In John's day, one of his great theological enemies was a man named Cerinthus. Cerinthus denied the reality of the incarnation. He taught a set of mystical speculations and encouraged people to follow him. This is always dangerous. Christianity is not built around a cult of any

Page 8 of 12 personality. It's built around the right worship and adoration of Jesus Christ. One day John was going into the bathhouse at Ephesus, a place like the public swimming pools of the ancient world. He looked across the bathhouse, and he saw that Cerinthus was in the bathhouse. He got up, rushed out and said, “Let us flee, lest the bathhouse fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is in here.” That's the kind of guy that I would like to go to the public swimming pool with, one with zero-tolerance for entertaining voices that would lead me away from the centrality of Jesus. So he says in 2 John 1:8: “Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.” This is the danger of any speculative kind of teaching. Whenever someone says, “Oh yeah yeah, Jesus, but now let me tell you this,” that's a deceptive spirit. We will never reach the bottom of the depths of the riches of the glory of the fact that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. We will never exhaust that topic. John says in 2 John 1:9: “Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God.” He continues in 2 John 1:10: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring teaching that leads you to Christ, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting.” Don’t receive him into your home, which was probably the setting of the church gathering. It's impossible to entertain such voices without following those voices into places of disobedience.

The last section of this short letter is the final greeting. We've already mentioned it. In 2 John 1:12, he says: “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, so that our joy may be complete.” Christian community is sustained by communication, and the highest form is face-to-face. He closes the letter with a greeting from “the children of your elect sister,” probably a neighboring congregation. What does this short, powerful letter, call us to do this morning? Let me give four reflections, four calls to action:

Number one: I want you to communicate. The example of this short letter reminds us of the power of this kind of regular communication. Christian community is sustained by regular communication. I want to challenge you. You can take this easy first path: send five texts to people that you’ve lost track of or haven't heard from. It could be simple like: “Just thought of you today and want to know how you're doing.” It could be something a little more

Page 9 of 12 sophisticated like: “I was challenged by the sermon today and wanted to reach out to ask, ‘How are you?’” If you want to move further, though, make three phone calls. It’s a little higher leverage communication: “I’ve been thinking of you. God brought you to my mind. How are you doing?” If you want to go even further, how about a handwritten letter? A handwritten letter slows us down, reaches our hearts. It blesses the recipient and gives you as the sender room to really share. The highest leverage of all is a personal visit, face-to-face. Is there someone that you need to see? Christian community is sustained, it’s cultivated, with this kind of regular communication. We see this before our very eyes in this short, profound letter.

Number two: Let's walk in the truth. Let's love one another by living according to God's commands. When you think of walking through this world, let walking with God, walking in His commands, be the guidepost, be the pace and the pattern. I'm walking with God. I'm looking to God's Word for how I should act and what I should think or say. I'm in step with my Heavenly Father. I'm walking His trail, following His carvings. I love that image.

Number three: I want you to protect the sacred spaces of heart and home. Although Christians are known for their hospitality, and that's a vital expression of New Testament love, there is also a guarding of heart and home that is necessary. John will have us keep zero-tolerance for welcoming deceptive voices into our head and heart or our home. This is important with what we read individually. It's important with what we watch in our homes. When we have guests in our home, I take care to give a reminder to guests who might use our TV to watch a movie or stream something. I want to guard that space to say, even for guests when I'm not here, we don't allow certain things to take place inside this house. That might come across as stiff or rude. But, if John could leave the bathhouse because he was afraid that it would fall down, I want to guard my heart and my home. This is sacred space. You're welcome inside the space, but give no foothold for the enemy, give no room on any device, give no room in any publication to welcome a deceptive spirit into your head, heart, or home. That takes courage, but it's better to fight the enemy at the gates than inside the castle. Listen to voices that will take you away from the centrality of Jesus and keep them at a distance.

Number four: Abide in the teaching of Christ to gain full reward. Let your soul marinate. Let your mind soak in the Scriptures. Abide, remain, in Christ’s teaching, so that His Word will shape your imagination and your expectations in this life. None of us truly knows what tomorrow will bring, do we? We don't know when a major life event is coming. We can't see around the corner, but the Lord is guiding our lives, so when all of a sudden you turn that next corner, you'll be ready, walking in step with the Lord, letting His teaching shape your thoughts about what's coming next. All of us live this life just once, and so, at a certain level, every experience we have is a new one. Every tomorrow is a new one. And yet we step into it with His

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Word shaping our response.

This past week, the Lord kept bringing to my mind Pastor Alex Aronis. His name just kept coming to my mind, and after the third time, I thought I could just call him. For those of you who don't know or didn't know him personally, Alex served as the pastor here at Kenwood for twelve years. As one of my mentors, he taught me a tremendous amount about following Christ. His health is starting to fade. He is now in San Diego, and I just called him. He was there in the hospital. There were all kinds of alerts going on in the background, nurses coming and going, and we just started talking. “How are you?” We started talking a lot about the New Jerusalem and what it would look like. We talked about it as if we had planned a trip together to a destination that we were both anticipating. We were sharing what we knew about it and what we had heard. We were talking about it like such a real place, with eager expectation. Nurses were coming and going and taking different vital signs, administering medication, and we just kept talking about Jesus Christ and entry into the Heavenly City, because it was more real than anything else that was happening in the room. I was so blessed by that conversation. I told him what was happening here. I told him about our family, told him about Magnify. He said, “I pray for you, for God's blessing on the ministry of Kenwood, and that everything that happens there will be for the glory of the Lord.” We ended, and I said, “Pastor Alex, I don't know if something will happen to me tomorrow, and if I get there before you do, I'll be looking for your arrival. If you get there before I do, please look for me when I come, walking in step with the Lord, not losing full reward.” I was so blessed to hear how the Word of God was shaping his affections and expectations of what was coming next. He said, “David, I’m willing to do this one more procedure. The children want me to do it. But I'm ready; I'm ready to see the Lord.”

Beloved, abide in the teaching of Jesus. Love one another. Walk in the truth and gain full reward. As we sojourn through this life, leading to that great day where we see Him face-to-face and one another forever. Let's pray.

Lord God Almighty, we thank You for including this 245-word letter in your New Testament. We thank You for the repeated admonition to us this morning to love one another. We thank You, Lord, for the living example to communicate regularly and often in the body, so that we can love one another and walk in the truth. Lord, we ask Your forgiveness this morning, where we have given ground to the enemy, where we have knowingly or unknowingly welcomed deceiving voices. Help us, Lord, as priests of heart and home to banish the enemy from the spheres You placed us in charge of. Let us instead, Lord Jesus, abide in Your teaching. May Your Word flood our hearts and minds, control our affections and imagination, our expectations, our ambitions and our dreams, and lead us, Lord, so that we can walk in Your trail, attentive to Your

Page 11 of 12 carvings all the way, till we see You face-to-face. May all that we do here together be for Your glory.

We pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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