“Love and Truth” 2 John 5-8

Well, turn with me in your copy of God’s Word to the book of 2 John. We started 2 John a couple weeks ago, and we really introduced the letter and talked about the first four verses where John really kind of gives us a summary of what he is about to speak on. And we talked about how this 2 John and 3 John are both very brief letters. They’re really more of a postcard, as we mentioned. And this letter of 2 John is all about the truth. It’s written by John as we talked about. He announces himself as the elder in verse 1 and it’s addressed to the elect lady.

We talked about the different opinions about who exactly that is, whether it’s a specific lady or whether it’s a reference to a church. and whether either one are correct is really immaterial to the meaning of the letter, what John is trying to communicate here. He’s writing for the sake of the truth. And we can be instructed by this short letter. We do not sacrifice the truth for the sake of love. We must love, and we will talk about that this evening. We need to love one another. But we cannot love truly apart from the truth. And it’s only the churches and individual Christians who are firmly rooted in the truth that will be able to withstand the different storms and temptations and attacks from the devil that constantly confront Christians.

If you don’t have the truth, you won’t stand. You can have what is claimed as love all you want, but if it’s devoid of the truth, you won’t stand. No church will stand if they are not fiercely defending and proclaiming the truth. And as we’ve been studying church history in our Sunday school classes this summer, I hope that one of the main takeaways for everyone is that God’s people have always been willing to fight for the truth. That’s been a theme through every era that we’ve looked at.

There are always those, through the centuries, even in the darkest hours of the church, there’s always been those who were faithful to hold to the truth. to evangelize the lost with the truth of Christ. These people gave their lives for the truth. They searched the scriptures until they understood the truth, and they defended the truth. Many of the ones we’ve looked at are merely a taste of the thousands and thousands of people who’ve given their lives over the years for the truth. They’ve labored for decades translating the Bible so that people could hear the truth, so that they could read the truth, so that they had the truth for themselves. This morning we looked at many of those people who sacrificed so much just so that people they never heard of before, people who didn’t even want to accept them, who were hostile to them, these people gave their life to bring them the truth.

We looked at David Brainerd and William Carey and Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and these great names of men who sacrificed so much that it seems impossible but they were committed to the truth. They had this zeal for the truth that John has. They traveled to dangerous places. They lived in threatening circumstances just to reach difficult places with the truth of Christ. They gave up so much. They battled so much. It was all because of their unwavering commitment to obey. They understood what God’s word says, and they obeyed it. They took the truth, the gospel, to the ends of the earth. These people and many, many others, for generations, they are a representation of the church.

They are what the church is to be doing, standing for the truth. giving our lives for the truth. This letter is about this very thing. It’s about the truth. It’s about loving in the truth. It’s about knowing the truth and upholding the truth and living and walking for the sake of the truth. It would really be impossible to overemphasize the importance of God’s truth in this world. We looked at last week in our introduction what the Bible says about truth. That God is a God of truth. Jesus Christ is the truth. He is full of truth. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. Scripture itself is the word of truth. Our whole lives as Christians must be centered on the truth, especially in the world we live in.

We live in a world that’s full of lies. We live in a world that is under a dark cloud of deception, and they cannot see the truth of God. But believers, on the other hand, we live in the truth. We must live in the truth. We are people characterized by the truth. It’s necessary for every part of our Christian walk, from our salvation to our sanctification. We need to give great attention to what is true and what is not. The Bible is our barometer for the truth. And we have to defend it. We have to uphold it. We have to proclaim it. And again, the reason John is writing this letter is for the sake of the truth.

See, there were many who were going out, these deceivers, as we saw in 1 John. They went out from us because they were not of us. And now that they’d gone out from us, they’re coming back again. And John is writing to address the invasion of these false teachers once again. And apparently, there were those who were welcoming them into their homes. These were hospitable Christians. But they weren’t being discerning. They were loving without the truth. They were opening their homes to those who claimed to represent Christ, those who claimed to preach Christ, and they traveled around as these missionaries for this new gospel that they had. And this left these Christians vulnerable to these false teachers who claimed to be of the truth, but were obviously not.

They claimed to represent Christ when really they represented Satan. And these false teachers played on these Christians. They played on their love. They played on their hospitality. And so John is writing to warn them about this tactic of these false teachers. It’s a warning against being hospitable. to those who do not represent Christ, those who falsely claim to represent Christ, but in fact are of the Antichrist.

Really, this is a letter about discerning, discerning the truth. And the only way you’re going to be able to discern the truth, the only way you’re going to be able to distinguish between that which is true and that which is false, is when you yourself know the truth. The only way they could have known that these false teachers were in fact false teachers is if they remembered what John told them in the first place, who Christ is. And we’ll see that tonight. Because truth is the basis of our fellowship, but truth is also the basis of our separation. It must be. Truth must be the basis of our separation. And as the church, we used to be a lot better about separating over the truth.

Now we don’t desire separation, but we must separate from lies, from false teachers, from heretics. But there’s been many within different church movements that want to have a big tent Christianity where they’ll welcome any and all as long as we can agree on the things we agree on and just don’t talk about the other things. And that can be helpful in some things. But when you start to deny the basic fundamental truths found in scripture, that’s when this becomes dangerous. That’s when you’re welcoming wolves into the sheepfold. And that’s what John is talking about in this letter. We are saved by an understanding of the truth and we are sanctified by the truth.

The truth unites and the truth divides. And we saw in the introduction last week the four benefits of walking in the truth like we must be. John said the truth unites, the truth indwells us, the truth blesses us, and the truth controls us. And we saw that in the introduction, the first four verses. And this evening, as we come to this portion of the letter, verses five through eight, we’ll be focusing on two inseparable aspects of our walking in the truth. And that is love and truth. We must have love. We are people of love. We must be loving and we must love one another, but we must also have the truth. Love separated from the truth is not love.

So as we’ll see in our passage this evening, verses five through six show us that we must love in the truth, and verses seven through eight show us we must hold on to the truth.

So allow me to read our passage this evening, 2 John, verses five through eight. Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. See to yourselves that you do not lose what we accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.

As I said, the first two verses here, verses five and six, are focused on love in the truth. In some of your versions, verse five begins with, and now. because verse five is linked to verse four. And in verse four he said, I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we received commandment from the Father.

So this whole letter is really under the heading of walking in the truth. John’s great rejoicing to hear that some of them are walking in the truth, which implies not all of them are. But some of them are. And he rejoices over that. And then he comes to verse five and he says, and now, now that I’ve commended those walking in the truth, now I must address the purpose for my writing. And he says, now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have from the beginning, that we love one another. Can you tell now why we know that the elder is John? This is identical to John’s other writings. 1 John 2.7 is almost identical. It says, Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard.

So John is using that same phrasing here in 2 John. And in one sense, as we looked at this in 1 John, but in one sense, what John is writing is not a new commandment. This is not anything new. And the word new here doesn’t mean new in time, it’s new in character. It’s not something that you’ve never heard before. This commandment to love, to love one another. This isn’t like, oh, now it’s the New Testament, so now we should start loving one another. Now that Christ has risen from the dead, now we really ought to start loving one another. No, this is an old commandment. This is a commandment from the beginning. Deuteronomy 6.5, you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And then Leviticus 19.18 follows that up with you shall love your neighbor as yourself. God’s people have always been called to love.

And when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, In Matthew 22, he said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. And then he gave them a little more. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets.

So he was asked, what’s the greatest? He gave him the first and the second greatest. But what does he mean on these two hang the whole law and the prophets? Well, what Jesus is saying is, if you want to get the whole spirit of God’s law, what God wants from his people, the standard he calls them to live out, love God, love your neighbor. It’s really that simple. The Ten Commandments are a summary of the law. And Jesus says, well, you can boil it down even farther to two. And that’s because the first five of the Ten Commandments teach us how to love God, and the last five teach us how to love our neighbor.

So it’s love God, love your neighbor, right there. That’s why Paul says in Romans 13, 10, love is fulfillment of the law. So how do you keep the law? That’s the very thing we fail to do. Ever since Adam and Eve in the garden, the very thing we fail to do is love God and love our neighbor. We fall short of the law because we don’t love. But Jesus came and he perfectly fulfilled the law. We use that terminology in church a lot. He fulfilled the law. What does it mean he fulfilled the law? He loved perfectly. He loved perfectly. From the very moment Adam and Eve sinned, everyone following them failed to love God and love their neighbor. Then Jesus came and there was never one moment in his life where he was not loving God and loving his neighbors perfectly. And they still killed him. Because they didn’t love God either.

But Jesus fulfilled the law by living in perfect obedience to the law. And now when we trust Christ as our savior, his perfect obedience is credited to us. He stood in our place so that we could receive his blessings. Christ was obedient in his life and in his death. And it’s because of both of those things that we are now seen as righteous because of our faith in Him. Because of what He has done for us. And because of what He has done for us, He then calls us to His standard. We’ve read this passage several times coming through John’s letters, and that’s from John’s Gospel in John 13. John 13, 34 and 35, Jesus is speaking to his disciples and he says, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. You could say that this characterizes all of John’s life and ministry. Everything that John writes and says could be summed up in these words of Jesus.

A new commandment I give to you that you love one another, even as I have loved you. that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Jesus offered us an example of what it is to love one another. And now because of him, we can love like he called us to do. Through the power of the Spirit, we can love one another. It’s not impossible for us. Romans 5.5 says, the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

So if you are a believer, this is who you are. This is what we are called to be. We are people who love one another. That’s how we know who is a disciple of Christ. So what is love? What does it mean to love? What does loving your neighbor look like? Well, there’s a lot of ideas about this. And there have been a lot of things claimed as loving your neighbor.

However, unfortunately, many of the times that people use this terminology, they have an unbiblical standard of what love is. Love is often simply selfish. People use the terminology of loving your neighbor to justify their own selfish demands of you. If you love your neighbor, you need to accept them the way that they are. If you love your neighbor, you’ll be pro-immigration. If you love your neighbor, you’ll be pro-choice. If you love your neighbor, you will be tolerant of all. And these are real things that are said by people who claim Christ. If you love your neighbor, then whatever I am demanding of you, you must do. And these ones are easy for us to recognize. These are quite obviously unbiblical standards.

But how about some from the recent history? If you love your neighbor, you will wear a mask. If you love your neighbor, you will get the shot. Didn’t think we’d remember? But all of these things are external rules that people make to serve themselves. No, whether or not they are good or bad or indifferent is a personal opinion. But people make rules to bind your conscience and make you obey them.

And let me just tell you this, when you tell someone loving your neighbor is X, Y, or Z, Whatever you are saying loving your neighbor is, you are equating it with the law of God. Loving your neighbor is what God demands of us. Loving your neighbor is fulfilling the law. So if you are saying this is loving your neighbor, what you are saying is therefore you must obey it. You’re equating whatever you say after loving your neighbor with the law of God.

So you better be very sure that that’s true. Because there are instances where we can put application to loving your neighbor. But you better be very sure that that’s a true statement that you’re following that up with. Loving your neighbor is conscience binding. It must be. If our conscience is informed by scripture, we know that we must be loving our neighbor, therefore, we have to love our neighbor.

So be careful what you tag onto loving your neighbor. Don’t require something that God doesn’t require under the heading of loving your neighbor. Because what you’re really doing when you’re saying, if you love your neighbor, you’ll do whatever I want you to do. What you’re doing when you say that, you’re taking God’s name in vain. You’re adding God’s authority, God’s name to what you want. You are elevating your desires to what God desires of his people. You have used God’s authority to serve your own ends. You have tagged God’s name onto something that he didn’t.

That was the original purpose of the commandment to not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. We often think of it as the language we use. Don’t say God’s name inappropriately. And that’s a good application of that. But what the law wanted Israel to not do is don’t do things in the name of God that God wouldn’t want you to do. Don’t do things and claim this is what God wants because we’re God’s people when it’s not really what God wants. A good example of this is the Crusades that we talked about in the church history class. They went out in the name of Christ to do things that Christ would never want them to do. That’s taking the name of the Lord in vain. So don’t do that.

And when you say that something is loving your neighbor, make sure that it is. Make sure that it is. So what is love? What does love look like? Well again, God doesn’t leave us without answers. Because John tells us in verse six, and this is love. That we walk according to His commandments. This is love.

You mean it’s not ambiguous? It’s not something we just make up as we go? It’s not something that I get to define the way I want to? Nope. This is love. Obedience. When we obey God, we automatically will love our neighbors. Obeying God’s commandments is what love is. This is what Moses explained as he preached in Deuteronomy 11.1, you shall therefore love Yahweh your God and or by keeping his charge, his statutes, his judgments, and his commandments all of your days. How will you love the Lord your God with all that you are? Do what he says. Obey him.

And then in Joshua, after Moses passes from the scene, and Joshua himself is about to pass from the scene, in Joshua 22, Joshua says to the nation of Israel, only keep yourselves very carefully to do the commandment and the law which Moses, the servant of Yahweh, commanded you, What was the commandment? To love Yahweh, your God, and walk in all His ways, and keep His commandments, and cling to Him, and serve Him with all your heart, with all your soul. How do we love? We keep His commandments. We obey His word. You see, the reason that God gave the law is because He knows us. He couldn’t just say, love God and love your neighbor and figure it out. He knows that we do this very thing. We like to redefine things the way we want.

So he put it in writing. Jesus says, if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. He didn’t say, keep your own commandments. He said, keep my commandments. Well, what about those things that God’s word doesn’t specifically speak to? What about the things God’s word doesn’t specifically mention? Like some of the things we talked about just a minute ago. The things people like to tack on to, love your neighbor.

What about those things? How do we know what to do there? That’s what we have a conscience for. When our conscience is well informed by God’s word, when we are saturated in God’s word and we live and breathe God’s word, we can trust our own consciences. And we can trust each other to follow their own conscience. And you might say, well, he’s not doing what my conscience tells me is right. Well, that’s okay. Love him anyways. Because that is specifically commanded in scripture. And you are not responsible for his actions, you’re responsible for yours.

We need to obey the explicit commands and we need to be so saturated in God’s word and informed by his truth that we can trust our conscience with the rest. This is love. And John closes verse six by repeating himself because this is that important. He says, this is the commandment. Just as you have heard from the beginning that you should walk in it. This is the commandment that we love one another. He almost seems to be making a circular argument here. He says, This is a commandment we’ve had from the beginning, in verse five, that we love one another, and this is love that we keep as commandment.

So we love one another by keeping the commandment, and we keep the commandment by loving one another. Well, it’s not a circular argument, they’re just inseparable. You can’t do one without the other. We must love one another, but we must love in the truth, which comes to our second division in this text, which is, We must hold on to the truth. We must keep the truth.

Because, John says in verse seven, for, many deceivers have gone out into the world. He just got done talking about loving one another, keeping the commandment, and keeping the commandment by loving one another. Then we see a four. Why is this important? And John’s getting to the heart of the matter here. This is the reason why he had to write his letter. For this very reason. And more specifically in verse 10, it’s because they were not being discerning about these deceivers who were going out into the world.

Biblical love does not mean naivety. It does not mean being uncritical and undiscerning. Doesn’t mean blindly accepting anyone who claims to represent Christ. So, after stressing the importance of love, in verses five and six, John now puts limits on it. Our love is not boundless. It’s not unlimited. It is guarded by the truth. It is directed by the truth. Believers cannot, in the name of love, embrace these false teachers, these deceivers, who’ve gone out into the world.

Followers of the true Christ cannot love antichrists, not by blindly accepting them. Those who are committed to biblical truth cannot have fellowship with those who pervert it. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 6, verses 14 and 15. Some of the harshest words for believers in the New Testament, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What fellowship has Christ with Antichrist?

This word deceivers here in this 2 John 7. It comes from a word that means wanderers. It’s the word planao, and it’s the word we get planet from. And back in that time, they believed that the planets were just floating and wandering. Now, there would come those who would discover the solar system and how they’re actually not just wandering, actually. God actually has an ordered system the way this works. But the way the word was originally used It’s like they’re wandering, drifting off in space. That’s what these deceivers are. They’re not anchored to the truth. They’re wandering after anything.

It refers to those who wander from the truth of Scripture, who corrupt it and lead others astray. Because as we’ve seen over the last decade or more, with some of the bigger names in evangelicalism or in Christianity, Those who, well at first it was just little minor things that they were going astray on. You’ll see this with those who were propped up early on as the big names in evangelicalism as women preachers. And at first, yeah, they preached a pretty good gospel. It sounded pretty good.

So a lot of people, well, yeah, I mean, I know what the Bible says, but at least she’s preaching the gospel, right? I mean, it’s the truth. At least she’s speaking the truth. So I guess it’s not that bad. But each and every one of those who they propped up early on, they have gone so far astray. They have crumbled on doctrine after doctrine because When you’re not grounded in the truth, when you start to give way little by little on what God’s word says, what justification do you have to stand for anything else? When you start to drift, where are the brakes? Those who do not stay anchored to God’s word will drift farther and farther.

We talked about this in depth when we were in 1 John, because the same word is used there. And we know these deceivers are out in the world. And we are warned over and over in Scripture. Last week, Pastor Pye was in 1 Timothy 4 verse 1, where Paul warns of this very thing. He says, but the Spirit explicitly says that in the later times, some will fall away from the faith. paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. These are the deceivers John is talking about. These are the wanderers. The book of Jude is written solely for the purpose of addressing false teachers.

In Galatians, Paul says that these deceivers should be accursed, sentenced to hell. And again, we are warned over and over and over again in scripture that we need to know the truth so that we can be on guard against those who deny it and twist it and distort it against these very deceivers. And John defines what he means by those deceivers who have gone out into the world. He says, those who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. They do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. He’s very specific. He didn’t say they don’t confess Jesus Christ at all. He said they don’t confess Jesus Christ coming in the flesh.

These are those Gnostics that we talked about. We won’t go in depth into what that is, but basically, they were saying that Jesus only appeared to be human, but that he wasn’t really human. He only looked like he had flesh, but he didn’t actually come in the flesh, because anything physical or material is evil, and the spiritual is what’s good, and that’s where they derive their whole system of thought from.

So Jesus couldn’t have come in the flesh, because flesh is bad, spirit is good. That’s what they were saying, and that’s why he is so specific. They deny that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. That’s heresy. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.

This is satanic. Why? Because Jesus had to have come in the flesh. One of the church fathers, Gregory of Nazianzus, said it this way. He said, that which he has not assumed, he has not healed. And that’s a profound statement when you think about it. That which he does not take on himself when he comes, he cannot heal it. So if Jesus did not come in the flesh, he cannot heal our flesh. He cannot heal our bodies. But also, if he didn’t come in the flesh, he couldn’t die. If he just remained a spirit, if he just remained the spirit of God, God is immortal, God cannot die. But it’s because he took on flesh, because he really became a human, that he could die. And if he didn’t die and rise again, What hope do we have?

Jesus had to take on everything that we have in order to redeem it. He took on our flesh. He took on a human will. He took on a human mind. He took on a human heart and soul so that he could redeem our flesh and mind and will and heart and soul. Jesus had to come in the flesh. Anything else is a satanic deception.

And so, knowing this, John says in verse eight, see to yourselves that you do not lose what we accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. See to yourselves, or watch yourselves. Watch yourselves. These deceivers have gone out into the world, and this is what they’re saying, therefore, watch yourself. You need to be watchful.

The church, all Christians, always need to be watchful of ourselves and of our doctrine. We cannot let our guard down. We need to be discerning, because as John says, the truth is at stake. And John wanted them to see the fruit of faithfulness. He doesn’t want them to lose their reward by drifting away after these false teachers. No, that does not mean he’s concerned that they’re gonna lose their salvation. But he says, we’ve worked hard to bring you along in the truth. We don’t want you to lose that.

He says that you may receive a full reward. The church today has a legacy to preserve. We’ve been looking at that legacy in our church history. Preserving the truth has come at a cost. It was not easy. The reason we have the truth today is because God has used men from the past who gave their life so that you and I could have the truth. So we need to be willing ourselves to sacrifice to keep the truth, to preserve the truth for ourselves and for the next generation, the next generation of Fellowship Baptist Church. We too want to pass on a faithful legacy.

It’s like Paul says to Timothy. In the end of 1 Timothy chapter six, oh Timothy, Guard what has been entrusted to you, turning aside from all godlessness and empty chatter and opposing the arguments of what is falsely called knowledge. The way you guard the truth is you oppose arguments that are falsely called knowledge. People that think they’re pretty smart because they’re smarter than God. The way you guard the truth is you oppose that fiercely.

And this happens so often today. People try to make the Bible fit with science. Well, creation couldn’t have been six days. That just doesn’t make scientific sense because we found these fossils that are hundreds of millions of years old. Just trust us. Because the science that we’ve created says so. So therefore, the Bible can’t really mean that. We have to make it mean something else so that it fits with science. Are we opposing arguments that are falsely called knowledge?

And in 2 Timothy 3.14, but you continue in the things you learned and became convinced of. knowing from whom you learned them. Continue in them. We need to hold fast to the truth. We need to continue in the truth. We continue in the things we have learned from God’s word. And the Bible says that we will be rewarded if we do so. Now this isn’t just talking about eternal life. We will have eternal life because of faith in Christ and what he’s done for us. On top of that, there’s a reward for faithfulness. Faithfulness to the truth.

One of the clearest places in scripture where this is explained is in Colossians. Colossians 2.18, Paul says, let no one keep defrauding you of your prize. by delighting in self-abasement in the worship of angels, going into detail about visions he has seen being puffed up for nothing by his fleshly mind. That’s one of these deceivers. And the false teachings he has. Paul says, don’t let him rob you of your prize of remaining faithful to God’s word.

There will be a reward for keeping and guarding the truth, preserving the truth. Believers must be discerning. And we must reject deceitful false teachers. No matter how loudly they preach, no matter how much they preach love and tolerance, that they preach the truth.

One of the most useful things that you can develop as a practice in your life, is to continually ask the question of everything you hear, is that true? Even if it sounds good, even if it’s something that I want to believe, is that true? Whether you hear it on the news, whether you see it on social media, in some news story or some headline you read, and you wanna take it and run with it because that sounds really good, and that’s what I want to happen. Is that true? And most of the time, we can’t know for sure. So be careful. Don’t spread things that you don’t know for sure are true. Don’t make demands of people that you don’t know for sure are true.

Continually ask the question, is that true? That should be a rerunning question in your mind. And if you can do that, and you have the standard of truth of God’s word, you can learn to be discerning. Sometimes the answer is yes, that is true. And that’s great. Oftentimes, the answer is either no, obviously, or I’m not sure. But that’s how we live discerningly. Loyalty to the truth demands we fight for it. And we ask the hard questions. And the consequences of not doing so in this life are that we begin to erode the truth, the doctrines that we stand on.

When we’re not discerning and we let false claims or false ideas creep in because they look harmless. It’s not a big deal. They start to eat away and eat away and eat away. And what does that look like a generation from now? Two generations from now? What do you want Fellowship Baptist Church to look like in the future? Because that will be determined by the way that we fight for the truth now. And the consequence of not doing so in eternity, as John says, is we’ll lose our full reward. So there’s a twofold reason here why we need to be fighting for the truth, both now and in eternity. And John is warning us about this in this letter. We must love one another Because that’s the commandment. But we must love in the truth. And we must keep and fight for the truth.

Let’s stand and close in a word of prayer this evening. Our God, we are challenged by a letter like 2 John. We’re challenged to be more discerning, to take seriously the things that we hear, and to measure them by your truth. We thank you for the provision of truth that you’ve given us in your written word, and that we know that we can trust it. And I pray that we would do the work of discerning the truth by your word, that we would not fall for false ideas or things that sound good, but we would measure all things by the truth. Give us the strength and the commitment and the energy to fight for your truth. Give us the motivation as we look to the legacy we want to leave as individuals, as a church, but also as we look forward to our reward when we see you face to face. that we can say that we stood for your truth, and that you might say, well done, good and faithful servant. We thank you for who you are. We thank you for what you’ve done in giving us the truth, not only in your word, but in your incarnate Son. And we pray all of this in Christ’s beautiful name.