I definitely appreciate the warm welcome that I've gotten since I made it to Owasso, and I've really enjoyed every person that I got time to talk to. You are very welcoming, hospitable, loving, caring, but I know that at the end of this, the family's calling back home, so tomorrow I will be heading back to my wife and two kids, so thank you for making my stay here in the U.S. bearable, and so I'm grateful for that. I also bring you greetings indeed from Christ Baptist Church, Christ Seminary, all the ministries of our church, and we do appreciate greatly your partnership with us. So many of us would not be able to go through a theological training had it not been because of churches like you that supports our men. So many who can go, but they don't have the means to do so. And we do appreciate that out of what the Lord gives you, you are able to share that with Christ Seminary so that we can train men. So I am the product of that help, and I'm grateful to the Lord for that. So this morning, I would like to invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me to 2 John. That short epistle of John, Second John. This letter is just about walking in truth, or if you want, protected by truth. That's what John will present to us this morning. I am sure that we are not alone in South Africa, but that you are also part of the apparent confusion which happens, and not so much outside the church, but among Christians. And I would like to address this apparent confusion, and if I may, give you counsel. So take this as a counseling session for us here this morning. The confusion lies between the warning of scripture, as we will see in 2 John, watch yourselves, and the command to love or to be kind or to be compassionate. We often look at the two things, warning, watch yourselves, and the command, love one another, or be kind, or be compassionate, and we confuse the relationship between these two words, or these two statements. And that happens because Christians are generally soft-hearted, and we are called to do that. We are loving. We want to be hospitable. But in trying to love and be hospitable and welcoming people or being kind to people, some Christians fail to strike the balance between truth and love. What adds to this confusion are worldly slogans such as, as we would say in South Africa, all you need is love. Not sure if that is expression here. Or you find people saying love is blind. Others would tell you that love does not judge. So how can Christians love and watch at the same time? That's the question. So in this short epistle of 2 John, John will show us that love is not blind, nor is it all you need. But love has boundaries. And here is the counsel I want to give you from this short epistle as we think about the boundaries for love. Truth, brothers and sisters, sets boundaries for our Christian love. The truth of the Bible sets boundaries for our Christian practice or actions, which means Christians who walk in truth and understand the boundaries that are set by the truth are bound to judge. We will have to make judgments because we are guided by the truth. So let's listen then to John, the elder, as he sets Christian boundaries, or boundaries for our Christian practice. So we have only a short letter here, a one-chapter letter. It will do us well to read through this book. So let's do that, 2 John. the elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father. 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 had from the beginning, that you should walk in it. Verse 7, for many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. The one who abides in the teaching, he 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 and do not give him a greeting, for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds. Though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with paper and ink, but I hope to come to you and speak face to face so that your joy may be made full. The children of your chosen sister greet you. Beginning with some observations concerning this letter's background, we see that John calls himself an elder, and I believe that's a reference to both his age and his office as an elder. We also see that he writes to a lady and her children. And I would submit that although it is possible that John has a specific person and a family in mind, it is more probable that the chosen lady and her children are used metaphorically to refer to the church here. What we see about this is that John loved these believers as we see it in the description, whom I love in truth. He definitely loved these believers. But John, as we see, was not the only one who loved these believers. He mentions also all those who know the truth loved this church or these believers, the lady and her children. Another observation that I want you to pay attention to, because this will form part of our message this morning, is the observation in verses 1 to 4. You would notice that John repeats the word truth five times in those four verses. In verse one, you have whom I love in truth. And you also have all who know the truth. In verse two, you have for the sake of the truth. And in verse three, you have in truth. And verse four, you have walking in truth. I want you also to note the word love, which is repeated four times in verses 1 to 6. In verse 1, John and all who know the truth love the church. So that's with love. In verse 3, he speaks about grace, mercy, and peace will be with us in truth and love. Again, the word love and the word truth. In verse 5, John asks that we love one another. And in verse 6, John defines love as walking according to their father's commandments. Surely with those two words, as we observe their repetition, we can conclude that truth and love constitute the main idea of this short epistle of 2 John. And this is where my proposition comes this morning for us. The proposition is that truth sets boundaries for our Christian love. Why do we need these boundaries, one may ask? Well, we do need these boundaries because of the reason John gives in verses 7 to 11. Listen to those reasons again, the reasons again. He says, That's the reason many deceivers have gone out into the world. Those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. And he goes on to set these boundaries. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. The one who abides in the teaching, he 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. and do not give him a greeting, for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds." This is where we see the confusion. We say, but I am supposed to love and not judge. So why can't I be kind and hospitable to all people, John? If people come my way, why can't I welcome them into my home to show them love, to be kind, and to be hospitable? Well, the answer is a loving and kind and hospitable Christian is not blind. But he is objective. He or she understands that God has given us truth to set boundaries for our actions. We act within the parameters of God's Word. Amen? That's what we need, is the truth of God to guide our actions, our love, and our emotions, and our feelings. So with the time that we have, remaining. I want us to look at these verses here. I'm hoping I can get to verse 6. But we'll see if we can get there. But you will get the message this morning. So in these six verses, I'm hoping that we will discover the boundaries that the Bible sets for our Christian love. Truth sets boundaries for love. We see that in verses one to three. Or put differently, we will see in these three verses that love is grounded on the truth. Love is the basis for, truth is the basis for our love. We act because of what we know. Listen to verses 1 to 3 again. The elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I but also all who know the truth. for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. So let's focus on that word truth. What does it mean? In this passage, the word truth refers to the content of Christianity. what we believe as Christians to be true, what we call our Christian doctrine, our theology, what is in the Scriptures, the Bible that we believe. That's what John means by truth in these verses. And this truth is what distinguishes Christianity from false religions and cults. If you want a distinction between Christianity and other religions, it will be this Bible, this truth, these doctrines that we believe. In the context of 2 John, the word truth is used in contrast to deception, as we see in verse 7, that John warns of the deception of many deceivers who have gone out into the world and they do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. Those are lies in contrast to the truth that John wants us to know. The mission of the deceiver and the antichrist is to mislead by teaching false doctrine. And they do it deliberately. These false missionaries go out on this mission to teach the false Jesus. These are antichrists. They denied the incarnation of Jesus Christ. That's the main doctrine that they are denying and they go around deceiving, speaking lies about who Jesus truly is. They do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in their flesh. This form of belief is often known as Gnosticism. Those who study theology will know about this Gnostic teaching. Because they want to try and protect Jesus Christ and His holiness, Gnostics believe that matter is evil. And because they believe that matter is evil, they do not want to associate Jesus Christ, the Spirit, with matter, the body, because they would think He will be evil. Some people buy into that because they think these guys are sincerely trying to protect Jesus. But that's actually a lie. Because the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. It is because of this heresy that John writes, 2 John, to warn believers never to receive such heretics into their own homes or to give them a greeting. And may I say that it doesn't matter whether the heretic come from Africa or from America, you don't welcome them into your house in the name of love. John tells us why we should not welcome this heretics and why we should not even greet them. In verse 11 he says, for the one who gives him a greeting, participates, fellowships, that's the word there, shares in his evil deeds. You become complacent, you become one with hospitality and greeting of false teachers, deceivers, make you one with that false teacher. So greeting or being hospitable to people who deny the truth has consequences. But our culture would say, but that's rude and unloving. Are we not supposed to love and not judge? Doesn't love mean tolerating everyone, welcoming everyone? The answer is emphatically no. We do not. We have boundaries. Love has boundaries. And those boundaries are set by the truth of God's Word. In 2 John, the doctrine of Christ, especially His humanity, sets boundaries for who you can associate with, for who you can fellowship with. It is really not a matter of how you feel. It is a matter of what the Bible teaches. The Bible clearly says Jesus Christ was fully human. He was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit without the help of Joseph. He was born by a virgin Mary. He grew up in the house of his human parents, Joseph and Mary. He experienced human weaknesses and temptations and the Bible tells us yet he remained sinless. He was crucified on the cross as a human being and he shed blood for our sins, real blood. His human body was buried in the grave. And we know as well that God raised him from the dead on the third day. After 40 days, he ascended into heaven in his human body. All of these statements that I've just mentioned here require Christ to be truly human for these statements to be true. He must be human to go to the cross and die. And let me emphasize this essential point about the humanity of Christ, that without the humanity of Christ, without His incarnation, if Christ is not truly human, fully human, there is no death and there is no resurrection. There are implications with that. Because without the death and the resurrection of Christ, there is no atonement for sin. We're still dead in our sins and trespasses with no hope. We need the death of Jesus Christ and his resurrection for our sins to be forgiven, for us to be justified. Christ has to be the sacrifice. He has to be truly human, fully human in order to appease the wrath of God. So we have no hope for salvation without the humanity of Christ. Do you see what's at stake? That's the reason we cannot compromise truth. So with these facts squarely facing us, we must understand why we cannot be sympathetic to the heretics who go out on a deliberate mission to teach people that Christ has not come in the flesh. To welcome such people in the name of love is to deliberately disregard the boundaries that God's word sets for our Christian love. Christian love, argues John, is grounded on truth. Note, that's what he says in verse 2. is a causal phrase in 2 John verse 2. For the sake of the truth, according to the NASB translation, because of the truth, according to the ESV. This causal phrase gives you the reason or ground for love. Remember, John said he loves the chosen lady and her children in truth, in verse 1. And he concedes that he is not the only one who loves them, but also all who know the truth love these believers. Then he tells us why there is this mutual love. Why this love unites us. He says, because of the truth. So that phrase there gives reason for verse 1. the ground for love in verse 1. This leads us to this proposition that we cannot love without the truth. The truth has to define love for us. The truth has to tell us what love is. Love is based on objective truth. And I would submit that this objective truth is the gospel truth. You ask, what is the gospel truth? The gospel truth confesses that Jesus is fully and truly God and fully and truly man. It begins with understanding that, that Jesus is God, who came into this world, took on flesh so that he can die as a sacrifice on our behalf. That's the gospel truth. Any confession that ignores this biblical truth is not a confession unto salvation. This John warns, or this is the warning John gives believers. If you were to go back in 1 John chapter 2, notice the warning that John gives believers. And this is the distinction This truth of Jesus Christ having come in the flesh should not be taken for granted because, again, it gives a distinction between true believers and those who are false converts. Verse 18 of 1 John 2 says, Children, it is the last hour. And just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have appeared. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us. Notice, those are false converts. They can't stick around anymore. They went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth." And now John asks, who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also. As for you, let that abide in you which you had from the beginning. If what you had from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And so we can stop right there. Just think about that. What John is saying is basically the beginning. If you want, you can go and read 1 John 1, where John talks about Jesus Christ and Him coming in the flesh. He says we have had Him, we have seen Him, we have touched Him, we have fellowshiped with Him. Again, they're establishing the importance of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Now John does not only give warnings, but he also gives assurance to those who are truly believers. Those who have believed Jesus Christ. And we see this while we're still there in 1 John. Look at chapter 5. And I will read from verse 5. And I want you to listen to the argument that John is building for the incarnation of Jesus Christ. These phrases or statements here are building the case for the fact that Jesus was truly man. John asks in verse 5, 1 John 5, Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? That's the deity of Christ. Verse six, this is the one who came by water and blood. And here he's beginning to argue for the incarnation of Jesus Christ. This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies because the Spirit is truth, is the truth. For there are three that testify, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and the three are in agreement." If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son. We can skip the remaining verses and go to verse 13. It gives assurance. It says, these things I have written to you. Everything about Jesus, His deity, His incarnation, all of these things John says, I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. That's assurance. We can only know we have eternal life. if we have this truth. We're given the truth. So we have the warning and we have the assurance if we believe the truth about Jesus Christ. Him being God and Him being fully man. Now for this truth to guide our Christian practice, John also shows us that it must be in us and it must be with us forever. Notice that again in verse 2. It says there in 2 John 2, for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever. The truth abides in us and it must be with us forever. So biblical truth we can take from those phrases that it does not change, it's not fluid, it is not determined by situations, it's not relative as our post-modernistic mindset would want us to teach, but truth is absolute. It is constant. It remains the same. And we praise God that the Bible does not need to be edited. It is perfect as it is. It is an absolute truth that Jesus is both God and man. It is absolute truth that Christ is the only way to God. He's the only way man can be made right with God. And I need to say this, and we need to remind ourselves of this, that the fact that we do not understand the union between the deity and the incarnation or the body of Jesus Christ, the fact that we do not understand that should never lead us to denying that this is true. Yes, we have finite minds, we don't know everything, but our lack of comprehension does not change the facts. We are not called to fully understand this to believe, but we are called to believe Jesus Christ by faith. We are called to trust the God who gave us this truth, that Jesus is God and man, and we are to believe him who said, believe. If we know and trust God, we will trust him even if we do not understand everything. And we can search the scriptures for understanding because that's where the truth and the answers lie. Note next in verse 3 that God's blessings are with us within the sphere of truth and love. So that truth and love sets boundaries for so much in this text. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, he says, in truth and love. One commentator wrote that grace, mercy, and peace flourish in an environment where truth and love prevail. In other words, we need grace. Why do we need grace? We need grace because we are guilty, undeserving sinners. We know that's what grace means. It means unmerited favor. It means we do not work to earn God's salvation. We do not work to earn God's favor, but in His grace, He grants us salvation for free because Jesus paid on the cross. So we need grace because we are guilty, undeserving sinners. We need mercy because we are helpless and we are miserable. We need God to help us, to be merciful to us. And he speaks about peace here, which should be understood to be the result of God's grace and mercy. Where God has shown His grace and mercy, there is peace. Because we are no longer enemies with God. Being justified by faith, Romans 5, 1, we now have peace with God. And if there would be an invitation for us this morning to be with that, do we have this peace with God? Or are we still enemies of God? If you haven't come to God and have come to confess your sins, come to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and bow your knee before him, you do not have this mercy. You do not have this grace. And that means you have no peace with God. You are enemy of God. Now here is the truth. Grace and mercy and peace cannot be with you unless you belong to both the Father and the Son. Why? Because these blessings of grace, mercy, and peace originate from the Father and the Son. They are from the Father, from the Son. These three blessings can only be ours if we are in Christ Jesus, who is the embodiment of truth and love. He embodies them. We find grace and mercy in Christ Jesus. Grace, mercy, and peace are confined also in truth and love, meaning that God does not cross the boundaries of truth and love to release sinners from their guilt. And that's the reason it's impossible for anyone to be saved without Jesus Christ or outside of Jesus Christ. God is not going to cross that boundary. He says your only way of salvation is Christ. There is no other name given to man under heaven by which we shall be saved but through Jesus Christ alone. That's how we can be saved. Brothers and sisters, that means we are to be exclusive because the way of salvation is exclusive. Many would say, how about the Jews? How about the Muslims? How about the Africans? How about these, those who sincerely believe? Well, God is not going to cross the boundaries of his truth. He has said, he has given us a way of salvation. Jesus is the only way of salvation, and that's how we will be saved. So grace, mercy, and love are found within the confines of truth. and God's love. God has set boundaries, and the boundary for these blessings is the truth of the gospel. God demonstrated his love through the death of his son, Jesus Christ. Why would we want anything outside of that? We must therefore draw a warning from this truth in order to watch ourselves against deceivers. And here is the warning again. Do not compromise the truth because you want to be gracious. We say God is gracious, let us be gracious. What does it mean? We should never compromise the truth because we want to be gracious, or because we want to be merciful, or because we want to encourage peace, world peace. Only if, have you had that argument? Only if we did not have religion, we would have peace? Well, there is no peace outside of God. And peace, true peace, is found when we all would come and submit to the truth of God's Word. That's when we will have peace. So no compromise. Because God does not compromise the boundaries he set for these blessings. Grace, mercy, and peace are enjoyed within the confines or boundaries of his truth and love. Now, in our first session, we were not able to go to the next verses, but I want to touch on this next verses, verses four and six, but we'll do so in less detail. When you look at verse 3, you would notice that the word truth and love there prepares us for verses 4 to 6, which tells us that truth does not only serve as the ground for love, but it also defines love. Truth defines or tells us what love is. And at the same time, this truth gives us guidelines for how to express this love. In verses 4 to 6, John says, I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father. 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. Now, understand biblical definition of love. It's given here in verse 6. And this is love that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have had from the beginning, that you should walk in it. So John says love is that we walk according in alignment, in conformity to God's commandments. So we cannot make love to mean what we want, but we should understand love as God defines it. Love means aligning with God's commandments and obeying them. We see this in these verses 4 to 6. If you were to observe again in these verses 4 to 6, you will see the repetition of the word commandment is repeated there four times, and the word walk is repeated three times, which means that God gives us his commandment to obey. We are called to obey God's commandments. Verse 4 says to walk in truth, or to walk according to His commandments in verse 6. That means to obey God's divine guidelines. And this is where love finds its expression, or where love expresses itself. How does love express itself? By conforming to God's revealed guidelines. That's how we express love. Listen to the emotion in John's heart when he writes verse 4 again. commanded that we walk in truth. And John says, I was glad to find that some of you are doing that. Now with that little word, some, it could mean that these are those that John came in encounter with, and he found them walking in truth. Or it could mean that there are those who have followed heretics, but only some are following the truth. I don't know which one it is, but it gives John great joy that there are those in this church who are walking in the truth just as the Father has commanded. That's how we walk. We obey God and we put this truth to practice. That's why we have the truth. In 2 John verse 5, John now focuses on love and makes this request to the congregation that he metaphorically calls Lady. He says, 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. John's request is that we love one another. John likes those simple statements. Those who have read John will tell you he's a spiral writer. He goes up and down around the same thing. By the way, that's how you write to little children, don't you? And that's us. We need that. Now, besides the fact that love is one of John's favorite themes, we must ask again, why does he make this request in the context of 2 John? Why this request that we love one another? Well, I will suggest two reasons. First, this request ties truth to love. I think that's why John makes this request. He ties truth to love just as he prepared the reader for the relationship between truth and love in verse 3. So the relationship between truth and love leads to this conclusion. You cannot practice the truth without love. And you cannot have love without the truth. See, you need both. You cannot put truth to practice without love. It just comes to my mind as I think of 1 Corinthians 13, that chapter that we call the love passage. Paul includes 1 Corinthians 13, they're all about love because the Corinthians were so loveless in their practice of gifts. They were so self-centered, misusing and abusing the gifts to where they would go around speaking in tongues or prophesying or doing whatever they did for showy purposes. without regard for how people are being edified. And so Paul writes 1 Corinthians 13 that this is how you are to use the spiritual gifts. They need to be operated from love, otherwise you become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. So therefore, we can conclude that John does this here, tells us to love one another because we cannot practice the truth without love, nor can we have love without the truth, because the truth defines love. Secondly, I think John has this request here because of what he wants the believers to know of the meaning of love and what this love implies in their relationship with one another. Definition of love again in verse 6 is this is love that we walk We, all of us, walk according to His commandments. If love means that we are to collectively walk in the Father's commandments, then we will lovingly hold each other accountable when we are not obeying the Father's commandments, isn't it? We will call each other out. If this is what love is, love means I will love you enough to tell you you are going the wrong way. to tell you this is the way you are to take. It is not unloving to tell the truth. It is not unloving to call a fellow believer out when he or she is living in sin. That's love. That's rescuing. South Africa, we have lots of poisonous snakes. And you find them everywhere. I would not be loving if I see a cobra coming towards my daughter and I think, oh, let me not bother her. Love would mean go grab and pull her out of the way. That's what love is. Love is calling each other to the truth so that we can walk. according to the commandments of God. In 1 John 5, 2 and 3, John says, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe his commandments. Love always comes with obedience to God's truth. Verse 3 says, for this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not bad and some, because they have this relationship with love. So we are not called to only obey the commandments, but we are also called to protect and to keep them. We are not practicing biblical love if we are not obeying God's commandments as they are revealed in the Bible. So that's how we can be protected by the truth if we are going to take heed of the boundaries that the truth sets for our love. That's how we can actually protect our lives against this emotional manipulations brought to us or bombarded by the culture. If we get to learn to know the Bible, we will know how to react when we are told we are not loving, we are judging, or we need to be blind to other things. Truth says we cannot be blind. So I pray that we will understand love within the confines of God's word. Let's thank him for his truth together. Father God, we thank you that you speak, you are not silent, and that your word is so clear, the Bible is understandable. You have given us your word in the languages that we can understand, and we do pray that we will always stand on the solid, firm foundation of your truth. that whenever we exercise love, we would do so within the perimeters of the truth revealed in scripture. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.