2 John 1

I've been in youth ministry now for over 10 years. For the last five years I've been a pastor. One of the interesting things I've discovered over the last few years is that I don't have many new things I want to teach students. I don't have many new principles I want to communicate.  

I want to communicate key truths better in order that they get the most important truths.

In writing 2 John 1, John is doing something similiar.  He doesn't want to communicate something new.  He wants to communicate something they have heard from the beginning.

2 John 1

4 It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. 5 And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 

John goes back to the absolute basics.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

 This seems like such a basic idea, but it's so easy to find excuses to not love one another.

• They wronged me!
• They don't love me!
• They don't care about me!
• It will cost too much!

We make excuses constantly for why we don't have to love someone, but there's one problem with this idea...

In light of the love that Christ showed us, we lose our excuse not to love one another.

• If Christ loved me when I was unlovable...
• If Christ loved me when I was sinning against Him...
• If Christ loved me when I was running from Him...

I lose my excuses!

• I lose my excuse to withhold love from the unlovable.
• I lose my excuse to withhold love from people who have wronged me.
• I lose my excuse to withhold love from people running from me.

But John isn't content to merely command us to love, he wants to give us a useful definition of love.

6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

So often in our society we talk about love as if it's a feeling.  Or we define love as being tolerant of whatever a person is doing.  Christ called us to a higher standard than simply following our feelings or tolerating one another.  Christ called us to get involved in each other's lives. 

Christian love involves "[walking] in obedience to [Christ's] commands."  

Christ had a lot to say about how we should treat one another!

THE QUESTIONS FOR YOU:

• How are you doing loving the unlovable?
• How are you doing loving those far from God?
• How are you doing keeping Christ's commands?
• How are you doing serving one another?

Sean Chandler | Associate Pastor

Sean has been a part of the association of Hill Country Bible Churches for over twenty years. He received Christ as a youth while attending Hill Country Bible Church Austin. He attended Hill Country Bible Church NW from 1989 to 2002. At that time he began attending HCBC Pflugerville. He served as a student ministry intern there for two years. In 2008, Sean graduated from Columbia International University with a double major in Bible and Bible teaching. Sean married his wife, Jennifer, in 2006. Their first child, Liam, was born in 2012, and their second, Chloe, was born in 2014.