2 John 7–13

0:00 Well, friends, in case you hadn't noticed, March Madness is just about upon us. Woo, I heard that. Which means, you've just proven my point, some of you are about to get super passionate about basketball. Now, I know that passionate about basketball is not really a thing in Louisville, Kentucky these days. We're passionate about future years of basketball, but I know from living here for something like 22 years now, that when March Madness rolls around, Louisvillians, Kentuckians, Indianans, all of us tend to get really passionate about March Madness. A lot of you are going to do that. You're going to fill out your brackets, and you're going to check all the power rankings, and you're going to complain about the seedings, and there's going to be a lot of stuff that you do. You're going to show up at church in your sweatshirts or your t-shirts of your favorite team. You're going to root and holler for your team when they win, and you're going to cry when they lose. You're going to get passionate about it. It seems like a pretty universal thing that people get fired up about sports. I mean my

1:01 son Jack and I were on his senior trip in Rome a couple of weeks ago. Did a whole senior trip to Athens and Rome and one of the things that we did other than looking at ancient sculptures and cathedrals and all the rest of it is that we went to a professional European soccer game which if you've ever been to one of those is just electrifying. You got 70,000 fans packed into Rome's Olympic Stadium, and they don't stop screaming and yelling and singing and chanting. This section over here even set something on fire at one point in the middle of the stands. They're so passionate about it, waving their flags and singing the songs, that the organizers of the game actually have to leave a section in between the away team and the home team so that they don't fight and hurt one another. It's electrifying how much energy is in that stadium. Maybe sports isn't your thing, right? But I bet there are some things in your life that you do tend to get passionate about.

2:06 Maybe last week it was the Oscars. Maybe you get really fired up about who's going to win those little golden trophies. I had a roommate in college who the thing that she got most fired up about in the course of the year was the Oscars. In fact, she would decorate her apartment for the Oscars like it was Christmas, only it was in black and gold to celebrate the Oscars instead of red and green and silver and gold. She decorated for that and had special food and everything because she loved the Oscars. It's also, in case you hadn't noticed, 2024, which means that it is a presidential election year. And my guess is that there are a whole bunch of you in here that I could have a conversation with and you would get pretty fired up about your opinions of who the next president of the United States should be. We humans have a capacity for being passionate about stuff. The problem is we're not always very thoughtful about the things we get passionate

3:08 about. We're not always very thoughtful about what deserves our passion and what doesn't. Well, that's what we're going to talk about today as we look at the second part of 2 John. Let me invite you to take a Bible, turn over to the book of 2 John. You know, it's like my little town in East Texas. If you're going too fast, you're going to blink and miss it because it's really, really tiny. But if you find, say, you know, the New Testament first, go to page 1024 at the end of 1 John and then look across the page and you'll find 2 John. At least that is if you're using one of these Bibles that you can find in the pews in front of you. 2 John is one of a series of three books or letters that the Apostle John wrote were actually not 100% certain that it was the Apostle John who wrote these because none of the three books actually named John as their author. However, the evidence is really strong just based on vocabulary, writing style, the themes that the books are talking about. The evidence is really strong that those three books were written by the

4:09 same guy and that the guy who wrote those is the same guy who wrote the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation. It just, it just fits. And so we think that probably what was going on with these three books, or two of them are letters, 2nd and 3rd John are letters, we think probably what was going on is that John, the apostle, who was a pastor in Ephesus at the time, got word that some local church somewhere was being rocked by false teaching. Some people were, had turned out to be false professors of Jesus Christ. They were professing faith in Jesus, but they fell away from that. And some of them had even become false teachers who were trying to pull other believers into their false understanding and away from the church. And so John writes three things, probably packs them in the same, you know, leather satchel or whatever it was, sends all three of them to the church at the same time. So you've got first, or last actually, in third John, a letter probably to the pastor of that church. It's at least one of the elders of that church. A man named Gaius, we don't know who he is, but he's clearly one of the leaders of that church. And so John writes him

5:10 a personal letter in 3 John. It just encourages him to carry on in the work of defending and pastoring this church. 2 John that we're studying now is a letter written to the church as a whole. So it was meant to be read to the church. It's short because you can look down at the end of the letter and see that John is planning to go visit this church. He wants to go talk to them face to face about what they're experiencing and the hardships that they're having with false teachers. But before he goes, he writes them this letter to say, you know, just kind of hold on. I want you to hold on in your faith in Jesus and hold on in your love for each other until I can come visit you and say more. That's what he says at the end of the book. Then 1 John, the longest of them, is really not a letter at all. It's a sermon. That's what it is. It's John preaching to these people in order to try to settle their hearts. That's what he's trying to do in 1 John. He wants to tell them, look, you guys are all worried that you might turn out to be like those false teachers,

6:10 the ones who fell away. Well, don't worry about that because look at them. What they've done is that they've abandoned the church, they've abandoned the truth, and they've become friends of the world. That's what they've done. Now look at yourselves. You haven't done any of those things. You're still here. You're still holding on to the gospel. You're still loving the brothers and sisters in Christ. So let your heart be settled. I write these things so that you may know beyond a shadow of a doubt, he says, that you have eternal life. So that's what these three books are doing together. He's encouraging this church to hold firm. So we're looking for two weeks, last week and this week, at the middle letter there, 2 John, the one that's written to the whole church. So last week we looked at the first six verses of this letter, about half the book, and we saw that John's purpose there, as we've said, was to call this local church wherever it was. We don't know where it was. We don't know any of the circumstances, really, other than what we're told. But he's calling them to continue on in obedience to the two great commands of Jesus, which

7:12 is something John talks about all the time throughout 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, even in his gospel. He says there are two great commands of Jesus. One of those is to believe in him and the other is to love one another. He talks about that again and again and again and so he calls them to do that. Hold fast to the truth of the gospel. Remain firm in your belief in Jesus and love one another. That's what happens in the first six verses. Well, starting in verse 7, he now turns to the main reason that he wrote the book in the first place.

7:42 And that is to warn this church, the people who are left of it, not to have anything to do with those false teachers that were causing so much trouble and that had abandoned them. That's what he wants to do starting in verse 7. So let's read it. The book is actually short enough that we're just going to start in verse 1 and read the whole thing. So you can get the gist of the whole. So 2 John, verse 1. John writes there, 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, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever.

8:18 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son in truth and love. I rejoiced greatly to encounter some of your children walking in the truth just as we were commanded by the Father. 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. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments. And this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

8:52 Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting. For whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

9:25 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. The children of your elect sister greet you. All right. Well, again, kind of like last week with the exception of verse 6, it's not that hard to get your head around what's going on here. The text from verse 7 all the way down through 13 is structured very simply around a statement of fact in verse 7. There are a lot of false teachers out there.

9:56 That's the statement of fact. There are a lot of false teachers that have gone out and they're bad. Statement of fact. And then based on that statement of fact, you've got two imperatives or commands, the first of which is in verses 8 and 9, and then the second of which is in verse 10 and 11. So statement of fact, command, command, and then, of course, this wrap-up, this conclusion in 12 to 13 where he says, I'm writing shortly to you just to kind of flag you about these issues, but I don't want to do this on paper and ink. I'm going to come to you, and then we're going to talk face-to-face.

10:27 And then in 13 there, he says, the children of your elect sister greet you. In other words, the church that John is pastoring greets the church there that he's writing to. That's what that means there in verse 13. Here's what I want you to see, though. And here's what I think can strike us in our modern day as a little bit odd or maybe even off-putting about what's going on here in these verses. And that is that John is obviously white, hot, passionate about the truth of the gospel and the well-being of this local church.

11:03 He is white, hot, passionate about it. He cares about the gospel. He cares about the church. He's fired up about them, even to the degree of saying some things that leave us kind of going, really, John? I mean, does it really call for all that? If somebody's a false teacher, verse 10, we're supposed to not welcome them? We're supposed to not greet them? We're supposed to slam the door in the face of those people? Is that what you're saying, John?

11:36 Well, if you've been a Christian for long, especially that verse 10, ought to just kind of strike you as weird. Because that verse really does go against every impulse in the Christian heart and a whole lot of Christian teaching that we, as believers, are supposed to be hospitable. We're supposed to be kind and winsome and loving. We're supposed to try to win people to the truth. But John is saying, no, when it comes to these false teachers, slam the door in their face.

12:10 Now, we're going to talk in a little while about exactly what door he's talking about. Because it might not be the door that you're thinking. But before we get to those details, I just want you to feel this tension that's here in this text, even before we dive in. John is fired up about defending the gospel and defending the church. And that, I think, is the main idea of the text. It's what John is encouraging these people to do, to join him in being fired up about that. So here's the main idea. Protect the gospel. Protect the church.

12:42 Protect the gospel and protect the church. Both of them are worth defending. They're worth some emotion even. They're worth some passion. And they're worth some action. Protect the gospel. Protect the church. So two points to the sermon organized around those two imperatives in verses 8 and 10. And both of these are going to kind of work together, I hope, to encourage you to do what I've just said. Protect the gospel and protect the church. Here they are. Number one, John tells us that in order to protect the gospel and protect the church, We ought to watch out for falsehood.

13:15 Watch out for falsehood. And then second, he tells us that we are to not give falsehood a foothold. Don't give falsehood a foothold. My prayer here is that as we study this text, as we kind of look at John's heart and see what he calls this local church to do, my prayer is that we'll sort of catch John's heart, right? You know, that we'll see it and we'll sort of catch it, that it'll be infectious. And what we see in John will take root in us and cause the same kind of value of the gospel in the church.

13:47 I hope you'll feel how much John values the gospel, how much he values the church, even to the point of acting in its defense in some ways that surprise us. My prayer is that we as a church will cultivate that same kind of godly passion in our own hearts. The gospel is worth caring about. The church is worth caring about. And that's what I want you to see. So point number one, watch out for falsehood. Watch out for falsehood. Okay, so verses 1 to 6 kind of came to their conclusion there in verse 6.

14:22 That was the climax of the whole thing. It's what John had been sort of driving at through all of those verses. And in verse 6, you've got this tight little logic bomb that essentially calls Christians to walk in truth and love. So the way it works is that to love Jesus is to obey Jesus, to obey the commandment, right? And the commandment that Jesus gives that we're supposed to obey are that we are to, what John says, walk in it. And we talked about last week how the it probably refers to truth and love. Because those are the two great commandments that he recognizes.

14:54 We're to walk in truth, hold fast to our confession of Jesus, believe in him, right? This is the work that my Father has given you to do, to believe in the one whom he has sent, right? That's Jesus' first command. And then the second one, love one another. a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you, right? So those two commands, that's probably what walk in it means, truth and love. Now, if that's not clear to you, if you look at verse 6 and, you know, maybe you weren't here last week and you're scratching your head and saying, I really don't see all of that in there. How'd you get that? I promise you, you're not alone.

15:26 We spent a whole lot of time getting to that point, looking at specific words and phrases because, frankly, verse 6 requires some explaining, right? And so we spent some time doing that. So don't feel bad if you don't see all of that there. You'll just have to trust me for now that that's what it means. Right on the heels of verse 6 comes verse 7. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

15:59 Okay, so let's look at that verse in a little bit of detail because the words are important. First of all, why would this thought about these false teachers that have gone out into the world, why would that thought start with the word for? You see that in verse 7? The whole thing starts with the word for. Now, for in the Bible, we don't use it much in normal, you know, English talking. But it means because.

16:30 We use it a lot more in writing. We don't say it much in speaking. You know, you don't say to your spouse or to your friend, hey, I'm going to go to the store for I need to pick up some apples. You probably don't say that. You say, I'm going to the store because I need to pick up some apples. But the for there means because. So the thinking is that that little for or because ties verse 7 logically to verse 6. You see that? They're tied together. They're not two separate thoughts. And the thinking is, you ought to do what I said in verse 6 because verse 7 is true.

17:09 So, in other words, you should obey Jesus by believing in him and loving each other because there are a lot of false teachers out there. If you run it in reverse, the way it works is there are a lot of false teachers out there. Therefore, you ought to obey Jesus by holding fast to the truth and loving each other. Now, you run it that direction, and I think it's not that hard to see what the logic is. It's dangerous out there. There are a lot of false teachers out there who want to pull you away from the faith.

17:42 Therefore, you ought to love one another and hold fast to the truth in the face of that danger. So you see the point there? The church holding fast to their belief in Jesus and the church loving one another is a defensive maneuver. Against the threat of false teaching. I mean, it's like what John is calling them to do is to be like a Roman legion snapping into formation, right? With their shields locked together and each soldier protecting the guys on either side of him and being protected by them in return.

18:16 And that's what John is calling these Christians to do. He's calling them to protect one another from false teaching. Protect one another from deceivers who would pull them away from the true faith. It's a fascinating image, isn't it? That the church is supposed to be like a roman legion locked into place defending each other against deceivers and false teaching but but think about it how does it work i mean holding fast the confession how does that serve to protect other people in the church it seems like a pretty individual thing right you can protect yourself by holding fast the confession of your faith you can protect yourself against false teaching but how does your holding fast the confession of jesus protect other people in the church. Well, I mean, you think about it just a little bit, it's like everything else in human life. We, as believers, are strengthened to hold fast our confession when we can be confident that we're not alone in it. Right? I mean, that's why we praise the courage of people who stand alone,

19:20 because it's not easy to do that. We all know that there is strength in numbers. There's safety in a crowd, which is partly why it's so encouraging to come here every day, every Sunday, every Sunday, every Sunday, week after week after week in order to hear, you know, hundreds of people singing praises to the same Savior that we love. It's encouraging to do that. It's encouraging to go to a conference like the CrossCon back in January that some of you went to or Coram Deo just this past week and be with hundreds or even thousands of people from across denominations doing that very same thing. We as believers are encouraged. It's just natural. We are encouraged by seeing others hold tight to the same faith that we do. So hold fast to your confession, brothers and sisters, not just for your own sake, though that's true. Hold fast to your confession for the sake of your brothers and sisters in Christ. You should not think, you should never think, in fact, that your faith in Christ is just a personal, individual thing. It is a personal and individual thing, but

20:24 it's not just that. It's not merely that. When you hold fast to your faith in Jesus, that helps to defend and strengthen other Christians. And when you don't, it helps to dislodge Christians from their own faith. The same thing's true with our love for each other, right? That one's a little bit easier to see just immediately. That our love for one another, our caring for one another, helps to protect us from the allure of falsehood.

20:57 It protects us from straying away from the faith when we care for each other, when we're together. I'm sure all of you have seen, you know, the Animal Planet things or Discovery Channel or whatever where the, you know, usually it's a British guy who's explaining to you that, you know, the leopard is trying to isolate one little elk from the herd. You know, he's going after the weakest and the slowest and the rest of the herd goes on ahead and they isolate the little guy and they take him down, right? That's how animals hunt. It's also how Satan hunts.

21:29 That's why another place in the New Testament calls him a lion that's prowling about looking for someone to devour. But friends, when we love one another, when we realize that we are a herd in some ways that is under assault from Satan and when we bind together and lock those shields in place in love, we are protecting each other from that raging, roaring lion. We love each other, and therefore we protect each other. So that's his point here. That's his point, moving from 6 to 7. Hold fast to the truth, love one another, because it is dangerous out there.

22:08 All right, well, let's look a little more closely at the precise danger that he's talking about. There in verse 7, he says, There are many deceivers who have gone out into the world. It's interesting that that phrase gone out into the world is also used of the apostles and of evangelists in the world. So this is a kind of mirror image of what's going on in the proclamation of the gospel. Just as the gospel goes out and is proclaimed among the nations in the world, so there is false teaching and heresy that goes out into the world in order to try to mess it up.

22:41 It's interesting that he uses that kind of mirror image. Gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Look first just at the bare bones of what he says about these people. He calls them deceivers two different times. Do you see that? Many deceivers have gone out into the world. Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus in the flesh. Such a one, he says, is the deceiver. Calls them deceivers twice because they're peddling falsehood. They're saying false things that are untrue and that are lies about who Jesus is and what he's done.

23:15 So he calls them deceivers. He also calls them the Antichrist. It's an interesting word, isn't it? Such a one, it's the very last word of verse 7. Such a one is the deceiver and the Antichrist. It's a very interesting word. It shows up several times in the New Testament. And as you study it, the word Antichrist seems to have a couple of different but related meanings to it. It's talked about in kind of two different but related ways. One of those meanings, I don't think it's the one that's here. But in other places in the New Testament, that word is referring to the fact or, you know, the suggestion.

23:51 We're not exactly sure about a lot when it comes to this. But it seems like sometime before Jesus comes back, the Bible seems to teach that there's going to be revealed a particular individual figure who stands as an obvious and strong enemy of Jesus. The anti-Christ, the one who is against Christ, the opposite of Christ. And he's a shadowy figure. And you kind of see him show up in the letters to the Thessalonians, Revelation.

24:25 Also, he's shadowy. We don't know much about him. We don't know who he is. We don't know if he's been revealed. Yet, lots of people over the last 2,000 years since these books were written have made guesses and identified a lot of people as being this anti-Christ figure, the singular person at the end of history. But whoever that person is, whoever that person is going to be, the word is used also in the New Testament in another sense of a kind of more generalized spirit of Antichrist. So it's almost as if all the white hot rage and opposition that's going to be in this one figure at the end of history, it's almost like it's being foreshadowed through all the centuries leading up to his revelation.

25:10 It's almost like there are going to be multiple things happening that show the spirit of that one raging guy who is the enemy of Christ at the end of time. And so that's what's going on here. What John is saying here is that these false teachers, just as is true of false teachers across history, these false teachers are one of those foreshadows of that guy. They're animated by the same spirit that's going to animate him. They're just little miniature versions of it. but they're doing the work of Antichrist.

25:41 They are opposing Jesus. Okay, well, there in the middle of verse 7, you get a summary of what these guys were actually teaching, what they were saying that was so offensive to John. Do you see that? There are many deceivers that have gone out into the world. They're a mirror image of what's happening in the proclamation of the gospel. They're the Antichrist. They're working against Jesus. They're deceivers. They're lying. And what they're doing that's so bad is that they are those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

26:14 See that? They were not confessing the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Now that wording is a little bit confusing because it sounds like it could just mean that they were just not confessing it, right? Like they were saying nothing. You know, somebody comes up to them, grabs them by the shirt and says, confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. And they just go, no, right? Seems pretty passive. That's not what John means. What John means is that they were denying it. They were actively teaching that Jesus Christ had not come in the flesh.

26:45 They were teaching its opposite. Jesus did not come, and Jesus was not coming in the flesh. Okay, but what does that mean? To deny the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, or to confess the opposite of that, or to teach the opposite of that. What does that mean? Well, look at it. Just on the surface, it sounds like it could mean something like, look, we're okay saying that Jesus was God.

27:16 What we don't want to say is that he was in the flesh. He was God, but he wasn't really a man. That's what it looks like it could mean. So what you would have there is a kind of, you know, what theologians and historians have called docetism, which means that Jesus only seemed to be human. That's what the word doce or doce means in Greek. It seemed this way, but it wasn't really. So docetism, docketism, you know, you could just translate it as seemsism. There's a group of people who thought, you know, Jesus just seemed like a human, but he really wasn't.

27:50 It sounds like that. It was a common heresy in the centuries after the apostles died. And that's what you get from that phrase if you put the emphasis on in the flesh. Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. That would be a shot at docetism. But what if you put the emphasis a little bit different, like this. They do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. What if you put it like that? It changes it a little bit, right?

28:22 It changes it. If the focus is on the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh and not the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, Well, then you're denying something else. You're not necessarily denying that Jesus was in the flesh. You're denying that he came. Now, that's interesting because that is technical theological language for the incarnation. It's the way the Bible talks about the eternal son of God becoming man, taking on the nature of man. He came. I mean, usually you and I don't talk about human beings like that, right?

28:57 When we're talking about conception, we don't talk about someone coming because that would imply some sort of a pre-existence, right? It would mean that somehow the little baby's, you know, soul somehow was up in heaven and he came into the womb, right? That's what that would imply. And we don't believe that that's true. The Bible doesn't say anything about the pre-existence of little baby's souls. No, God creates them in their mother's wombs. And yet the Bible again and again and again will refer to Jesus as coming to the virgin's womb. It implies a preexistence before there was a body, before there was flesh.

29:32 In other words, what it implies is Jesus' divinity. Okay, so you see the point? This little confession that John's got here. These are those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. It's really a denial of several things if you deny that. It's all wrapped up together. You're denying the coming of Jesus Christ, which means that you're denying his divinity and his preexistence, and you're denying Jesus Christ in the flesh. In other words, you take it all together and you're denying that Jesus was, is, the God-man, the Theandros, you might say, Theo and Andros, the Anthropos, the God-man.

30:14 That's what you're denying. And notice that little word Christ in there, too. You're not confessing. You're denying the coming of Jesus, Jesus in the flesh, and Jesus as the Christ. You're denying the office that he held as messianic king and champion and representative of his people. So you see the point? When John takes that little phrase, you're denying the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

30:46 What he's saying is that you're denying everything. You're denying his humanity. You're denying his divinity. You're denying that he's the God-man. You're denying the work that he did as Christ and his king. You're denying everything. And that's exactly what these false teachers were doing. They're rejecting the gospel in its entirety. Look also at verse 9 because John underlines there the importance of this. Look what he says. So he gives the imperative in verse 8, watch yourselves, right?

31:18 So that you may not lose what you've worked for, but can win a full reward at the end, on the last day. Then he goes on in verse 9 to talk about why this is so important. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, in other words, that little confession that he's just laid out, the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, if you don't abide in that, you do not have God. But whoever abides in that teaching, whoever stays in that teaching, So if you look at verse 9, that little phrase, going on ahead, that's a really interesting phrase.

31:53 Because what it means is to run on ahead of everybody else. It means to get out ahead in the race, to go on ahead, to not stay in one place, but to run forward. And probably because that's such an unusual word, it's an unusual phrase, we're thinking that John may be kind of mocking the false teachers, who very likely could have been saying things like, come on, guys, we're going to run on ahead from this elementary junk that you're all stuck in. All you want to talk about is Jesus Christ, but we're not staying there.

32:24 We're running on ahead. And John says, if you run on ahead like that, you're not just abandoning the church. You're abandoning God. It's when you don't run on ahead, but you abide in the teaching. When you stay, that's when you have father and son. That's when you have God. well why is that how does how does that logic work why is it that abiding in the teaching the confession gives you the father and the son why do you have god if you're abiding in and holding on to that teaching well it's tightly connected to that to that confession in verse seven right the reason you can't have god without embracing jesus as the god man and the christ is precisely because it's the God-man, Jesus, who stands between us and God, who mediates between us and God, who heals the rift that exists between us and God because of our sins.

33:23 You probably have heard of the three offices of Christ, right? Prophet, priest, and king. There are three sort of offices that Jesus holds and that he executes in our behalf. There's prophet, priest, and king. And in every single one of them, It's critical for Jesus to be able to be prophet, priest, and king to our benefit. It's critical that he be the God-man. You see why? Well, think about it. Prophet. Prophet. What does a prophet do? A prophet reveals God. He reveals God's ways.

33:54 He reveals who God is, his nature and his character and his personality. And that's what Jesus as the God-man does perfectly. You look at Jesus and you're seeing God in a perfect reflection. What about priest? What does a priest do? Well, a priest stands in between God and man. He's a mediator. He offers sacrifices. Heals the breach that exists between God and man. And it's only as the God-man that Jesus was able to act as priest and lay down his life for us.

34:30 As a perfect sacrifice. Nobody else could do that. Nobody who was just a man could have stood between us and God and laid down his life as a sacrifice. Why? Why can't just a man do that? Because a single man's life is not infinitely valuable. It's valuable, but it's not infinitely valuable. And it took an infinite price to be paid, to pay for the infinite offense of our sin against God. The God-man had to die for you or you'd have never been saved.

35:03 Same idea with the office of king. As king, Jesus is our champion. He's our representative. He stands in our place as our substitute, and he saves us. So you see what John is saying here. This is the white-hot center of the gospel. It's the fact that we are sinners, and Jesus is the God-man who steps into roles as prophet, priest, and king, and he saves us. It's an incredible thing that he's talking about.

35:34 And all of that is what John says there in verse 8. Watch yourselves. Because there are people who are trying to drag you away from those things that are true about Jesus. And what happens is that once you get dragged away from that confession, you lose God. Because you've lost your prophet. You've lost your priest. You've lost your king. You've denied him. And so he says, watch yourself. Don't get dragged away. Look, the thing is, and the reason John has to tell these people to watch themselves, the thing is that somebody who winds up denying the faith usually does not do so in one spectacular collapse.

36:16 It usually takes time. It usually takes a little bit of time, and it's a slow process for somebody to deny the faith. That's why Hebrews, for instance, tells us to be very careful not to drift away. That's the word that it uses. Don't drift away from the faith. It's a terrifying word, right? Because it's slow. It's almost imperceptible. You almost don't even notice it until you're a mile away. And some of you have been on beaches or out in the ocean, and you're just kind of lazing there on your inner tube or whatever for a few minutes.

36:49 Maybe you doze off as the waves are rocking you, and you look up, and all of a sudden you're 500 yards off of the beach where you thought you were, right? Because the currents have taken you away, and you didn't even notice it. Now, that may not be a terrifying image to you because that's fun. But imagine if the drift were not down the shoreline but out to sea. And imagine if the fog rolled in. And when you open your eyes, you can't see anything because you're too far gone. That's the drift that Hebrews is talking about. That's what John is telling us to watch out for.

37:23 A little compromise here, a little compromise there. Maybe the Bible gives me just a little bit of wiggle room, a little bit of maneuvering room on its teaching about sexuality or human nature. Maybe the Bible doesn't really say or really mean, or maybe it's just not that important when the Bible says, I shouldn't marry an unbeliever. Maybe it's not serious about church discipline. Maybe it's not serious about the qualifications for an elder. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.

37:55 And before you know it, one compromise has led to 100 and you're adrift. Or even a whole church is adrift. Take care, brothers and sisters, that that does not happen to you. Take care that it does not happen to us as Third Avenue Baptist Church. Look, the Christian life, church life, is one that requires constant vigilance. Constant vigilance. So I know a lot of times we'll talk about how you should overlook an offense, how you should not have that conversation with that person because they might be offended, all of that.

38:31 Well, I want to take just one moment here to do what John is saying, and I want to tell you to have those conversations with each other when the need arises. Correct, rebuke, and encourage, as the case shall require. That's what our covenant says. You've got to do that with wisdom, but we've got to do it. So if you hear one of your friends saying something that doesn't line up with what you know to be true about the gospel, talk to them about it. Just say, brother, I don't know that you want to state it quite like that. Maybe you should, you know, or what's behind that?

39:01 Like, why did you say that? Because that's something Christians are pretty clear on, right? Have those conversations. You don't have to be mean about it. Just question a little. I mean, does somebody say they're, you know, they're really enjoying this book or that book by so-and-so and author and all of your alarm bells go off? Well, ask them about it. Brother, you do know, don't you, that that author espouses and teaches something that's a far cry from the true gospel. You do understand that, right? So I hope your antennae are up as you're reading that book.

39:34 Friends, it is not meddling to have those conversations with each other. It is what we are called to do. In truth, in love, but to have them. Watch yourselves. Here's the second thing. Don't give falsehood a foothold. Don't give falsehood a foothold. Well, that leads to the second command that John gives here, verses 10 and 11. He says, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, in other words, doesn't confess this, if they're denying what these people are denying, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting.

40:13 For whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. Now, at first glance, I think these are pretty shocking verses right here. I think they're pretty surprising verses because there are so many other places in the Bible where Christians are commanded to do, it sounds like kind of the exact opposite, to be hospitable, to be kind, to be a lover of strangers, to receive strangers and care for them, even to correct error, right? And yet here John is saying, at least it looks this way, that when it comes to these false teaching, teachers, we should slam the door in their faces.

40:49 So, I mean, just to take it down to a very concrete level right off the bat, what does this say about what we as Christians are supposed to do when, for example, a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses show up at our door or Mormons show up on our doorstep? Just to be clear, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons deny that confession of faith right there. They do not believe it. They do not espouse it. They do not believe it. What are you supposed to do when they come to your door? Now, my guess is a whole bunch of you at various times, I have, have said, Ha ha, glad you're here.

41:20 Come on in. Let me pull out my Greek Bible and teach you some things, right? My guess is you've done that. Are you supposed to do that? Or are you supposed to slam the door in their face? Jeopardy theme song right here. What do you think? Well, I don't think we're supposed to slam the door of our houses in their face. I don't think we are. Now, let me tell you why. The reason I don't think that's what this verse means is that I don't think, in fact, I'm pretty sure, that this is not talking about individual Christians' houses.

42:00 It's not. It's talking about the church. It's talking about the institution of the church, the gathered body. That's what it's talking about. Now, there are several reasons to think that. First of all, you've got to keep in mind that this second letter of John, I guess it's the first letter actually. But 2 John is written not to an individual Christian, not even to individual Christians. It's written to the church as a whole. That's who it's written to. You see it up in verse 1. The elder, that's John, to the elect lady, to the church and her members.

42:32 It's written to the church as a whole. And verse 10 is also written to the church as a whole. In fact, that you there, if anyone comes to you, that's not a singular you. That's a plural you. And English is a very poor language for not having a second person plural. Texan is much better. Because what we would say is if anyone comes to y'all, and it would make a lot more sense. If anyone comes to y'all, church, and doesn't hold to this teaching, don't receive him into your house or give him any greetings.

43:06 So that's one thing. Second thing, look at the phrase your house. Do not receive him into your house. The word your there is not only not singular, it is also not plural because it doesn't exist. It's not there. There is no your in the Greek text. It's just if anyone comes to y'all and doesn't espouse this teaching, don't receive him into the house. That's what it means.

43:38 In other words, the house that you gather in as a church. All these churches were gathering in houses at this point. You'd have a rich patron who would make their house available for the 60 or 100 or however many people to gather in their house. And it's saying, if somebody comes to y'all, to your church gathering, and wants to espouse this junk, don't let them in the house. Don't let them in. That's what he's saying. In other words, you can have the Mormon into your kitchen for coffee. You can be hospitable in that way and try to teach them the gospel.

44:10 But I, as the pastor of this church and the guy who's usually kind of, you know, running things on Sunday evening, I am not going to invite that Mormon up into this pulpit to talk to you about his faith. Don't give him that kind of greeting. Don't bring him into the house in that way. Here's another reason to think this. Look at that phrase, who does not bring this teaching? Who does not bring this teaching? John, in that phrase, is being very specific about what kind of person falls under this command. It's someone who is bringing a teaching, kind of like a merchant brings his goods to try to sell them to you, right?

44:48 A bunch of us were in Thailand for a teaching retreat and went to a market out there. And what those people will do is they will bring their goods and their food, and they will put it out on the table in front of you, and they're trying to sell it to you, right, at the market. But they bring them, and that's what that means. They're bringing this teaching to you in order to try to sell it to you and get you to buy it. That kind of person, that kind of teacher and bringer of falsehoods, John says, you should not consider to be welcome in the life of the church. It's pretty clear.

45:19 There are tons of implications of this. But let me just put your attention on a couple of implications. For one thing, it is this kind of command right here. If anyone comes to you and doesn't bring this teaching, denies this confession, do not receive him into the house or give him any greeting. For whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works, right? You don't want the church taking part in wicked works. It's that kind of command right there that underlines why we do church discipline here at 3rd Avenue.

45:51 It's why when somebody stops confessing the gospel of Jesus and denies the truth of it, much less that they're running around trying to convince other people to deny the truth of the gospel, That's why we have to say, essentially, look, we can't any longer allow you to be a member of this church. We can't allow the imprimatur, the sort of seal of approval, to be on you from this church saying that you are a professor of Jesus Christ. We can't do it. We can't continue to affirm that your confession of Christ is right and true. And so we take the action on a Wednesday night of voting to remove that person from the church.

46:26 So you see what that's doing? You see what that's doing? I mean, it's sort of an act of love in both directions, right? Both for the person being excommunicated and for the rest of the church. Because for the person being excommunicated or church disciplined or removed from membership, however you want to think about that, just by the way, excommunication is not a magical thing. It's not like, I know the Roman Catholic Church uses it in kind of a way, you know, that you're being cut out of the blessings of eternity and all the rest. That's not what we mean here. Excommunicate just means out of communion.

46:56 Like you're out of fellowship. That's what that means, ex communio, right? So that's all it means, just being put out of fellowship with the church. But when that happens, it's communicating to that person that to deny the faith of Jesus is a serious thing. It's a thing that requires a kind of forceful putting out of the fellowship. And in that way, it's an act of love. It's done in hope that that person will see the seriousness of abandoning the faith and come back.

47:30 That's why we do it. But it's also an act of love for the church as a whole because it is a defensive action. It's a defensive action by the church to defend itself against falsehood, essentially to say this that this person is espousing, this that this person is saying is not safe. This is spiritually dangerous. This is the kind of thing that destroys spiritual life And we don't want that in here spreading among us like a disease.

48:02 It's a defensive act by the church, and it's why we do something like church discipline. I want you to see something else here just kind of before we leave. I just want you to see in these verses John's passion for the truth of the gospel and the well-being of the church. I mean, you can just feel it in what he says and how he says it. He cares about the gospel. He cares passionately about the church. And when the church is put in danger, and when the gospel is denied, it riles him up.

48:35 It sparks his emotion. It ignites him to action, even forceful action. So, friend, here's a question for you. Does the defense of the true gospel and the defense of the church ignite your emotions? like that? Does it ignite your passions like that? I know certain things do. And there may be a few of you out there who say, yeah, I don't really get passionate about anything. But there aren't many of you like that. I know that your emotions and your passions are ignited by certain things. I mean, think about it. Just like we talked about in the introduction to this sermon. Maybe it's your kids that gets you riled up and passionate.

49:21 Maybe it's politics. Maybe it's sports. Maybe you've got opinions on who should be the next UofL basketball coach. My guess is most of you have some kind of opinion on who should be the next president of the United States and you probably get pretty passionate making that case. Now we can get fired up about all kinds of things. But brothers and sisters, is the same thing true when it comes to the gospel of Jesus and the church of Jesus. When you hear someone deny the gospel, does that have the same effect on your soul that the feeding committee of March Madness messing up on your team has on your soul?

50:04 When you hear somebody clawing at the church or saying things that are gonna hurt the health and unity of the church, does that have the same effect on your soul that the academy not giving the award to your favorite movie does? Are you passionate about the gospel and the church in the same way John is? Or are you more like a guy who's just, you know, or a woman who's just like, eh, I'm sure it'll be fine. No need to get all riled up about that. My wife and I watched on Friday night, I believe, again, the four-hour extended version of The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.

50:43 And there's a scene in there, of course, when the living trees, the Ents, are having a committee meeting to decide what they're going to do. And the whole world is, like, starting to burn all around them. And there's this sense of urgency in the movie. Like, we have to go take down the enemy who's invading the forest and burning and hacking and gnawing and chewing and all that stuff, right? We've got to do something quickly. And the Ents are just not having it. The trees, they are just slowly talking. And the little hobbits are sitting there going, what in the world? And they sit there for hours and hours and hours. And finally, one of them says to the tree, the main tree, he says, so that's it, right?

51:18 You guys are finished. You've made a decision about what you're going to do. And he turns around and he says, no, we have only just finished saying hello. And then there's another time when they're kind of walking through the forest and he says, the tree says, we mustn't be hasty, must be careful, right? The movie's making fun of them. The movie at that point is making fun of the trees because you want some haste there. You want some passion there.

51:49 And it's a huge relief in that movie when the trees finally decide to go to war. Friends, the gospel is worth going to war. The church is worth going to war. It's worth being passionate about. It's worth your emotion. It's worth your action. Pray, pray that the Lord would make you value the gospel and value the church. the same way John does and even more importantly the same way the Lord himself does let's pray our Lord we honor you and we praise you as the great king the head of the church the one who is our Lord and our Savior and our Redeemer and our God Father we thank you and we praise you that you love the church of your son and Jesus we praise you that you love your church whom you bought with your own blood.

52:43 Spirit, we praise you that you love the church which you brought into life by the power of your word. Oh, our Lord God, we ask that you would ignite in our souls the same passion for the church and the same passion for the gospel that John obviously has here. Lord, we want to serve you, and we want to serve you well. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord. Amen.