Tweets From God (Part 3: 2 John) Series

Tweets from God: 2 John

Scott Bayles, pastor

Blooming Grove Christian Church: 5/29/2016

A couple of weeks ago I began a series I’m calling Tweets from God. What we’re doing is going through the five shortest books of the Bible. Each of these books is a single chapter and can be read in less than three minutes. Like a tweet on Twitter, these bite-size books of the Bible are short, to-the-point, messages from God to his followers.

The first of these brief books is Obadiah—a quick prophetic word regarding the nearby nation of Edom. And it’s not good news for Edom. If we summarized the book of Obadiah in one tweetable sentence, I think it would be this: God always sticks up for his children! Similarly, the book of Philemon, written by Paul to a fellow Christian named Philemon about his runaway slave could be summed up: Faith in Jesus leads to true freedom!

As we come to the third of these one-chapter books we discover a short simple letter to young Christians just learning how to walk.

We’ve got a few fitness enthusiasts here who enjoy walking and even running for exercise. I don’t know how you feel about walking, but it’s not my favorite thing. I did come across a cute list of indicators, however, that let you know it’s time to take up walking. You know it is time to take a walk when…

• You get winded just saying the words "5 K Run."

• You come to the conclusion that, if God really wanted you to touch your toes, He would have put them somewhere around your knees.

• You analyze your body honestly and decide what you should develop first is your sense of humor.

• You step on a talking scale and it says, "One person at a time, please."

According to the Mayo Clinic there really are a lot of benefits that come with walking even just a mile a day. For example, regular brisk walking can help you: maintain a healthy weight, prevent or manage various conditions (including heart disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes), strengthen your bones and muscles, improve your balance and coordination, and even improve your outlook on life.

As important as physical walking can be, your spiritual walk is even more important. That’s what John writes about in the brief epistle aptly titled Second John. If you have a Bible or app on your phone, let me encourage you to open it there.

John wrote this letter to a particular church, but we’re not sure which one because it was written during a time of Roman persecution when churches were forced to meet in secret, similar to the underground churches in China today. So John spoke in code. He refers to the congregation as “the chosen lady” and its members as “her children.” In his closing he refers to the congregation he is with, saying, “The children of your sister, who is chosen by God, send their greetings” (vs. 13). In other words, the people in John’s congregation send their greetings to this other congregation.

It also seems that this congregation had a lot of new and young believers who were just figuring out this whole Christian walk. So John writes to them, encouraging them to walk in three ways—in truth, love and obedience.

First, John urges these Christians to walk in truth.

• WALK IN TRUTH

John begins this letter with a heavy emphasis on truth. He writes, “I am writing to the chosen lady and to her children, whom I love in the truth—as does everyone else who knows the truth—because the truth lives in us and will be with us forever” (vs. 1-2 NLT).

He then goes on to say, “It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us” (vs. 4 NIV). Walking in truth may sound like a foreign concept to some people because we live in a post-modern culture where the very notion of truth is under attack.

Ravi Zacharias has said, “The single most important question any human being can ask is the question, ‘What is truth?’” The answer is—truth is that which corresponds to reality. Truth isn’t subjective or situational. It’s not shaped our beliefs; rather, our beliefs ought to be shaped by truth.

The question then becomes—how do we know what’s true and what’s not. Notice that John said he was happy to find “some of your children walking in truth.” That means even in the church not every believer is conscious of and committed to the truth.

John actually follows this up by saying, “I say this because many deceivers have gone out into the world. They deny that Jesus Christ came in a real body. Such a person is a deceiver and an antichrist… If anyone comes to your meeting and does not teach the truth about Christ, don’t invite that person into your home or give any kind of encouragement” (vs. 7, 10 NLT).