Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

In the opening of his book, The Unquenchable Flame, Michael Reeves says, “Looking back today, it feels [nearly] impossible even to get a sense of what it must have been like in [the pre-Renaissance, pre-Reformation] era.

‘Medieval’—the very word conjures up dark, gothic images of chanting cloister-crazed monks and superstitious, revolting peasants.

All very strange.

Especially to modern eyes: where we are out-and-out democratic egalitarians, they saw everything hierarchically; where our lives revolve around nurturing, nourishing and pampering the self, they sought in everything to abolish and abase the self (or, at least, they admired those who did).

The list of differences could go on.

Yet this was the setting for the Reformation, the context for why people got so passionate about theology.

The Reformation was a revolution, and revolutions not only fight for something, they also fight against something, in this case, the old world of medieval Roman Catholicism.

What, then, was it like to be a Christian in the couple of centuries before the Reformation?”[1]

Well, a very brief and surface-level answer might be that the last of the Medieval period, at least in Western Europe, was marked by widespread religiosity, deeply divided classes, and comprehensive superstition.

To say that every European in the 1300s and 1400s was religious is not to say that all were sincere and/or faithful, but it is to say that religion was pervasive in European society and politics and culture in such a widespread fashion that every European thought of himself in terms of “Christian” more than anything else… not Bohemian, not nobleman, not peasant… but a Christian in Bohemia, or a Christian landowner, or a Christian peasant.

Therefore, just prior to the Renaissance and the Reformation, people identified themselves with the Church of Rome much more than they did with any particular nationality or class.

Having said that, Medieval society, politics, and religion was also deeply divided by class.

The world was separated between the “haves” and the “have nots,” those with money and/or power and those without.

Landowners and warriors, merchants and politicians, these were the people who ran the world… sort of.

The clergy of the Roman Catholic Church – especially those in the highest positions – were also landowners and politicians, and these “holy” members of the upper class were in a constant dance of power with the “secular” ones.

Not only was the world divided between the “haves” and the “have-nots,” it was also divided between the “secular” and the “sacred,” the “profane” and the “holy,” the “material” and the “spiritual.”

The Church and those who had some formal role in its structure (bishops, cardinals, deacons, friars, priests, monks, and nuns… just to name a few) delt with the “sacred” things and were themselves designated as “sacred” or “set apart” unto special service for God.

Everyone and everything else were “secular” or “profane” or “worldly.”

Because of this hard bifurcation (or division) between the “secular” and the “sacred,” the Medieval era was also marked by comprehensive superstition.

It’s been said that one cannot understand Martin Luther’s world (the late Medieval world) unless one first expects to meet a goblin or a fairy when walking in the forest.

Good and evil spirits were everywhere, and the Roman Church had perfected an entire system that took advantage (intentionally or otherwise) of a thoroughly superstitious people.

For growing hair or crops, you could pray to a Saint.

For years off of purgatory, you could visit a relic (or a hundred of them).

For salvation and good standing in the Church, you simply observed the priest when he transformed bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ and consumed the Eucharist at the front of the church building… which some did every single day.

The church members never drank of the cup themselves, and they only ate the bread once a year… They were “secular” and “profane,” and we can’t have a clumsy church member dropping the body of Christ on the ground.

The world was fixed… the Church was holy… and the average person was profane.

The devil and his imps ran wild, and the sinner could expect nothing but Christ’s judgment, both in this life and in the one to come (for hundreds or maybe thousands of years).

It was in this world that the reformers lived and worked and learned and taught… and they rediscovered a message of fantastic news for guilty sinners.

The gospel was not lost altogether from 500 AD to 1500 AD, there were many within Christendom who preached the biblical gospel throughout history, but when the reformers of the 1500s promoted the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone in the person and work of Christ alone, that message had become hostile to nearly everything that called itself “Christian” in Western Europe.

But how did the light of the biblical gospel shine forth on such a dark scene?

From where did the light shine?

And who lit the candle?

One way to answer these questions is to say those who preached and taught… and those who wrote pamphlets and books… and those debated and fought… in short, those who “protested” were the ones God used to shine the light of His gospel upon a dark world.

Another way to answer these questions is to simply point to the Bible itself.

The reason there was such a thing as a “reformer” is because the words of Scripture became accessible in such a way that people started to see discrepancies between what they read in the Bible and what they saw in the Church around them.

In the early 1500s, the Bible was rediscovered, and those men and women we now know as reformers were those who studied, taught, preached, and aimed to live according to the words of God… rather than the words of men.

In church buildings, many reformers removed the statues and paintings, and all of the reformers removed the altar.

In the place of all the imagery, and in the place of a sacrificial ceremony, they erected a pulpit.

Often large and always elevated, the pulpit was the place where the minister would ascend above the congregation with the Scriptures, and his job was to preach the Bible to those under his care.

From that perched place, the Bible took center stage.

The reformers believed that the right preaching of God’s word was and is vital to the church itself… Where the Bible is faithfully preached and the ordinances are rightly administered, there is a church.

Today, we’re going to read the second letter from the Apostle John… all 13 verses.

This letter was written to “the elect lady and her children” (v1), which was probably John’s poetic way of referring to a church and her members.

You’ll see how he sends greetings at the end of the short letter from “the children” of an “elect sister” (v13), which is also likely referring to another church.

At any rate, let’s listen for the way John emphasizes the “truth” and the “commands” and the “teachings” of Christ as that all-important focus for churches and for Christians.

Scripture Reading

2 John 1–13 (ESV)

1 The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, 2 because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever: 3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.

4 I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father.

5 And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another.

6 And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.

7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.

8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.

9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God.

Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, 11 for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

12 Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink.

Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

13 The children of your elect sister greet you.

Main Idea:

The Bible alone is the word of God, which gives life to sinners and sustains Christians through to the end.

Sermon

1. Starting from the Text

In this letter, the Apostle John rejoiced in the fact that “some” Christians were “walking in the truth” (v4).

But he also warned of “many deceivers” who had already “gone out into the world” (v7).

So, he urged those who would read his letter to “watch” themselves “so that [they] may not lose” what he and they had “worked for, but may win a full reward” (v8).

And the “truth” in which he called them to “abide” – that standard by which they might judge between the good “teaching” and the sort that is “wicked” and not to be “received” – was the “teaching of Christ” or the “commandments” of Christ (v6-11).

That was the “truth,” according to the Apostle, which “all” must “know” and in which all must “abide” (v1-2).

The Scriptures, then, wherein the teachings of Christ are made known, are the rule and the safeguard for Christian faith and practice, for belief and behavior.

The God-breathed text was revealed over time through “men [who] spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet.

1:21).[2]

And it was this text that the Apostle John charged Christians to know and to keep.

So too, the reformers, during the time of the Protestant Reformation, renewed this Christian commitment to know and to make known the Scriptures.

Such an emphasis was the beating heart of so many reformers across Europe.

For example, Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin all centered their teaching, preaching, and writing on the Scriptures.

Many of their books and sermons are available to us today in English, and you can read for yourself how thoroughly biblical these men aimed to be.

Their writings are soaked with Bible!

But I want to focus our attention this morning on three English reformers.

Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were both burned to death on October 16, 1555, by order of “Bloody Mary.”

And almost exactly 19 years earlier (Oct.

6, 1536) William Tyndale faced the executioner by order of King Henry VIII.

Tyndale, Latimer, and Ridley all died as martyrs because they would not stop their efforts to make the Bible known among their fellow Englishmen.

Brothers and sisters, one of the reasons I am fascinated by the Reformation is because it reminds me that I am merely an inheritor of something that’s far bigger than I am.

It also helps me gain what I think is a good perspective, and I hope that we will all benefit from the way I’m presenting this topic today.

2. The Word of God

In 2 John, the Scripture says that Christians are those who “walk in the truth” (v4)… those who “love one another” (v5)… and those who understand that “love” is “walking according to [God’s] commandments” (v6).

The “truth” of which John speaks is synonymous with the “commandments” of God, and both of these words are synonymous with the words of Scripture itself.

Jesus said, in John 17, in a prayer to the Father, “Your word is truth” (Jn.

17:17).

The Psalmist spoke of the “word of truth,” which is the “rule” or the “law” or the “testimony” or the “precepts” or the “commandments” of God (Ps.

119:43-47).

The Apostle Paul said that the “gospel” of Christian “hope” is the “word of truth” (Eph.

1:13; Col. 1:5).

And James wrote that God Himself brings sinners into the light of salvation “by the word of truth” (James 1:18).

All of this is to say that the “truth” of God is the “teaching” of God, which are both words referring to the word of God.

Friends, it is the word of God which must come to us as children of error and wrath and darkness… and the word of God must speak a message of grace (Eph.

2:1-3).

Before any of us were children of God, we were first descendants of Adam with a taste for sin and a love of darkness (Jn.

3:19).

But God showed His love for us in that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom.

5:8).

Therefore, the good news of the gospel is an announcement that God is and has already been gracious toward those He came to save! Jesus Christ has already lived and died and conquered death, and everyone who turns from sin and trusts in Him will be saved from God’s wrath and adopted into God’s family!

And you can know that this is true because it is the promise or announcement or word of God!

Romans 3:22-25 says, “the righteousness of God [is] through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”