Walk In It

The elder, to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all those who have known the truth, because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father. And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

Those who truly know Jesus, the Truth, are enabled by His Spirit to walk in genuine love—for truth and love can never be separated.

Coming to the Outtakes of the New Testament

For more than ten years we have worked our way through the New Testament every Sunday, beginning back in 2008 with the book of Acts. Acts is the history book of the New Testament, covering roughly the first thirty years of Christian history after the Ascension. As that chronology progresses, many of the New Testament letters fall at certain points along its timeline, so we have studied through the New Testament chronologically wherever those books land.

Our chronological study now brings us to what are probably the very last works of the New Testament: these two small letters, 2 and 3 John. When you look at them together, they are fairly similar—no doubt written from the same place, likely by the same person, at nearly the same time. They were probably written from Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, most likely from the city of Ephesus, around AD 92 to 95.

Ephesus stands out in the New Testament. In Acts 18 and 19, the Apostle Paul preached the gospel there, and a church was established that became one of the most influential churches of the early period. From Ephesus other churches were planted—when you read Revelation 2 and 3, the seven churches like Smyrna, Pergamum, and Thyatira were probably planted out of Ephesus. Paul spent much time there, wrote the letter to the Ephesians, and later Timothy pastored that church. Now, about thirty years after Paul's death, John lives out the last days of his life in that same city.

Who Was John?

Most commentators and scholars believe these letters were written by the Apostle John. About sixty years later, Irenaeus, one of the influential church fathers, wrote that these letters with 1 John were written by the Apostle John, and the early church bound 1, 2, and 3 John together as one unit. John also wrote the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation.

By the time he writes this letter, John has been following Jesus for more than six decades. He began as a teenager, perhaps as young as fifteen, the son of Zebedee, likely the younger brother of James. He grew up on the Sea of Galilee, probably in Capernaum, taking on his father's trade of fishing. He and James were partnered with two other brothers, Andrew and Simon, whom we know as Peter. Then a rabbi from Nazareth named Jesus came through, and these men took to His teaching. Finally Jesus said, "Come follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men," and they followed.

John was the youngest of the disciples and one of the closest to Jesus. In the Gospel of John he refers to himself five times as "the disciple whom Jesus loved"—which he wrote about himself, so I don't know if you can quite get away with that. He also tells us that when news came that the tomb was empty, he and Peter ran to it, and the disciple whom Jesus loved outran Peter, so he was faster too. He was the only one of the Twelve who saw Jesus on the cross with his own eyes, and there Jesus commissioned him to care for His mother, Mary. Church tradition holds that he cared for her until she died, probably in Ephesus, where John himself ultimately died.

Why These Letters Were Written

When John writes, he is the last living apostle. Bartholomew, Thomas, Peter, Andrew, James—all had died, most by martyrdom. John alone is still alive, advanced in age, as the first century draws to a close. By now the church is almost seventy years old, and false teaching is already creeping in—exactly as Jesus said it would. In the Sermon on the Mount and in the Olivet Discourse, He warned of false Christs and false prophets. Paul warned the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 that after his departure savage wolves would come in and not spare the flock.

John writes in response to what he sees—false teaching, false teachers, heresy. This heresy, which we call Gnosticism, took root around AD 90-95 and flowered into full bloom about sixty years after John died. Church fathers like Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Rome dealt with it, and documents like the Apostles' Creed and the Council of Nicaea responded to it. The bulk of John's response is in 1 John. Now, sometime after distributing that letter, he writes these last two short letters as an exhortation to keep walking in the truth and in obedience to Scripture. I'm calling this series "Outtakes" because these are the final two letters of the New Testament.

Loving in the Truth

The elder, to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all those who have known the truth, because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever.

Notice how often the word truth appears—at least three times. John wants us to understand where he is going. It was customary in the first century to announce yourself at the beginning of a letter, as Paul does: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ." John does something similar, but instead of his name he simply says "the elder." This tells us the recipients had an intimate relationship with him and knew exactly who he was. At this point he is likely the oldest believer in that area, the elder statesman of the faith.

He addresses the letter "to the elect lady and her children." This phrase has invited much commentary. Some think she is an actual woman, even named Kyria, because the Greek word for lady is kyria. Others think John writes to an unnamed woman and her family. But the most common view, and the one I hold, is that the elect lady is a church, poetically described, and her children are its individual members. The strongest reason is the last verse: "The children of your elect sister greet you." Another church and its members send their greetings.

We don't know why John keeps this somewhat veiled when in 3 John he names Gaius directly. Some say it was for protection during persecution, but that's mere speculation. We know the what, not the why. We must be careful not to get stuck on a speed bump and miss the forest for the trees—missing what John actually wants to teach.

Christ in Us Produces Genuine Love

Here is the first point: those who know the truth of God will genuinely love those who also know the truth. This raises a question—what is the truth of God? The truth is not a thing; it is a Person. In John 14:6 Jesus says, "I am the truth." John 1:14 says God became flesh in Jesus, full of grace and truth, and John 1:17 says the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. So all who know not just information but Him who is the truth will, by the very fact of that relationship, genuinely love others who know Him.

But what does it mean to love in truth, or to genuinely love? To love genuinely is to love in accordance with what love truly is. The best description is 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: love is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful or proud, not rude, does not demand its own way, is not irritable, keeps no record of wrong, does not rejoice in injustice but rejoices when truth wins out, never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures every circumstance. Genuine love is not merely sentimental; it is devotional and practical, demonstrated through selfless kindness and humility.

Why will we love this way? John says, "because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever." That truth is Jesus. This is the second point: Christ in me produces genuine love for others. Galatians 5:22 says the fruit of the Spirit is love. The evidence that the Spirit of truth resides in me is the production of love in my life—love that is patient and kind, not rude or irritable. That description doesn't fit Miles DeBenedictis in and of himself, and yet it is produced in us by the Spirit of God.

Working Out the Love God Works In

This genuine, practical love is generated in us by the Spirit according to the gospel of grace. God makes it possible for us to love with kindness and patience—toward those nearest to us in the body of Christ, toward our neighbors, and even toward those who regard themselves as our enemies. I do not have the ability in myself to do this, but God enables it. And because the fruit of the Spirit is love, I have a call from God to walk in that love—to work it out.

Paul says it in Ephesians 5:1, "Be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love." To imitate God is to love others as He has loved us. This brings up my favorite verse in the whole Bible, Philippians 2:12-13: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." This is the great mystery of the gospel—God works in us, and He calls us to responsibly work it out. As John ends his ministry and his life, he says: walk in love and work this out.

Grace, Mercy, and Peace—In Truth and Love

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

The third point: we have, and will continue to enjoy, grace, mercy, and peace from God in Christ. Through Jesus, because of God's great love, we have already been given grace, mercy, and peace, and we will continue to enjoy them because of His finished work. This is not new if you've been around the Bible a while, but it needs to be repeated and meditated on, because so many things—including our own sinful actions—can discourage us from realizing its fullness. We can start to think we must do something to earn it, but it is fully given.

What are grace, mercy, and peace? Grace is receiving a gift you don't deserve—salvation, forgiveness, redemption, adoption, inheritance, all that Paul describes in Ephesians 1. By grace we are saved through faith, and that not of ourselves; it is the gift of God. Mercy is not receiving what we do deserve—the judgment our sin warrants. Because God is rich in mercy, He has not given us what we deserve. And because we have received grace and been spared judgment, we now have peace with God: a restful assurance of our standing before Him, based not on our works but on His finished work.

John says these are given to us "in truth and love." You cannot have this grace, this freedom from judgment, and this peace apart from God the Father, outside of Jesus His Son, and independent of truth and the love of the gospel. Christians often grasp the love of God in the gospel, because the gospel is the demonstration of His love: "God demonstrated His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). But what about in truth?

Truth and Love Are Inseparable

This is the fourth point: when the truth of God is shunned and the love of God rejected, then the grace of God is of no effect. You will not willingly accept the love of God in the gospel until you accept the truth revealed by the gospel. And what is that truth? My condition is sinful, and my need is that I am lost.

Many people would not be against receiving the love of God—that concept may even be inviting to them—but they reject the truth of the gospel: their sinful, lost state because of disobedience. Most people, and we ourselves before receiving the gospel, would say, "I'm a pretty good person; I'm better than that other person." We must come to the place where we recognize our need and our sinful condition before we can fully receive the love of God. Truth and love together are inseparable.

Walk In It

I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father. And now I plead with you, lady... that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

When a person accepts the truth and walks in it, there is great rejoicing. John says he rejoiced greatly to find individual members of the church walking in the truth, and now he pleads with the church: love one another, for this is love—that we walk according to His commandments.

The fifth point: we honor God by walking in the truth as we love one another. John is looking at a church bombarded by false views, false gospels, false teaching—fake news, if you will—that would lead them astray from walking in truth and love. His final outtake, his last word of exhortation, is this: walk in the truth, walk in love, fulfill these commandments of God. To walk in love is to demonstrate the love of 1 Corinthians 13 toward those nearest to us, those a little outside that circle, and even those who are enemies.

Loving the Unlovely

At this point an honest listener objects: "Pastor, I have some really difficult people in my life. I don't know if I have the ability to love these unlovely people, to be kind and patient and not irritable with them." On this point Jesus gave us something simple to remind us—a sacrament: a little piece of bread and a cup of juice to remember His body broken for us and His blood shed for us, showing how much He loved the unlovely. "He demonstrated His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

So when we say, "I don't know that I can love this unlovely person," Jesus would answer, "I am abiding in you by My Holy Spirit. Remember how I loved you." God loved you when you were unlovely, and God in you will enable you to love the unlovely. Our culture tells us we must set aside truth in favor of love, but as we'll see next week, that is not the case—truth and love are united together. We speak the truth, but in love. And first we must understand how much God loved us when we were unlovely, so that we can reach out to love those who are unlovely too.

Closing Prayer

God, we thank You for Your grace toward us. I pray that even now, as we prepare our hearts for communion, You would remind us of Your love for us and the greatness of it. And God, do a work by Your Spirit as we remember and think on this, that Your love would compel us to reach out with love to others, to walk in the truth, and to walk in love—for Your glory and for the good of the gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.