Sermon Tone Analysis

Hospital moving dirt around…

Over by where I live, a new hospital is being built.

It’s been in the planning for quite some time.

And it seemed to me that for the longest time, all they were doing was just moving dirt around.

Nothing was actually being built.

In fact, only recently within the last few months has any actual building structures begun to take shape.

But most of the months upon months since the construction fences went up, all I’ve really seen them do is push dirt around from one spot to another.

They appeared to be digging everything up, putting pipes and concrete and columns into the ground, and then covering it all back up again.

They’ve spent the better part of a year only working on foundations.

Maybe for those of you in the engineering profession this would be pretty exciting stuff.

But for someone like me all it looked like was lots of big trucks moving dirt and burying stuff.

For all I could tell, they weren’t actually building anything at all.

But now that I see the size of the hospital building as the steel beams go into place, I understand a little bit about just how important some very carefully placed foundations are essential to the building.

It took a long time.

And hopefully they didn’t take any shortcuts, but did the job right.

Any building that’s going to stand properly for a lifetime must have carefully placed foundations.

As we are going to see from the Bible today, the same thing is true in our faith.

To have a faith that stands properly for a lifetime must have carefully placed foundations.

Background

If you have been with us for the past few months here at Horizon, we have worked our way through the letter of 1 John.

And we just wrapped that up last week.

Today we are moving on to take a look at the letter of 2 John.

It is the shortest letter in the New Testament.

The entire letter is just 13 verses.

So, we can look at the entire letter of 2 John here in one message.

Before we read the letter, it might be helpful to have just a little background.

Scholars pretty much all agree that the three letters of John are all in chronological order and are all connected.

In other words, 2 John was written as a follow up to 1 John.

The apostle John, who wrote these letters, very much seems to assume that his audience in this letter has all the background information of what he wrote earlier in 1 John.

So, since we have spent a few months going through 1 John, we have the background information.

When we read 2 John, it is assumed we have already read 1 John and have all that information already.

Light of truth | love one another

In case you haven’t been with us, here’s a quick 30 second refresher on 1 John?

We saw themes such as walking in the light of truth, and avoiding darkness of false beliefs.

We saw John’s instruction to love one another as God loves us.

John is encouraging his church to stay unified together in love because there are those seeking to tear this church apart with teachings and beliefs that are twisted and self-serving and not in line with the true message of the gospel of Jesus.

Apparently, by the time we get to this second letter, the situation in John’s church is getting worse.

Those who are leading these Christians astray continue to infiltrate the church and create division.

We can almost read a tone of desperation in this letter as John gives some pretty stern instructions.

Let’s take a look.

2 John (NIV)

2 John (NIV)

1 The elder,

To the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth—2 because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:

3 Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.

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.

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.

7 I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world.

Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.

8 Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.

9 Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them.

11 Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work.

12 I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink.

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

13 The children of your sister, who is chosen by God, send their greetings.

Gnosticism

In some of our recent messages from 1 John we touched on the teaching of Gnosticism that was invading the first century church.

It is these gnostic beliefs that John is railing against here again.

It was a group of traveling teachers who would come into one of these first century house-churches, gain their hospitality, and then spread their gnostic teachings that Jesus was never actually a human being in the flesh—that he only appeared human, but was actually a spiritual being.

John says to those in his church, “throw them out!”

These teachers are the antichrist.

They are invading the church with their message that sounds so good and so appealing, but denies the gospel.

This is what is tearing the church apart in John’s day.

This is why he uses such strong language.

This is the background of what John is addressing in these letters.

Laying a foundation

So, what’s the strategy of his response?

I think this is pretty important stuff for us today.

Maybe we don’t face divisions in our churches because of things like Gnosticism anymore.

However, our churches today most certainly do face divisions.

That is certainly something that has never gone away.

And let’s push it even one step further from the church.

We don’t just live in a culture where Christians are divided.

I think we all pretty obviously know that we live in a world where communities are bitterly divided by all kinds of things.

And in times of shifting unrest, it is only natural for us to search for stability.

We all need some kind of foundation to stand upon.

We all need some place to throw an anchor and know it will hold fast.

Anchor, stability | GenX vs Millennials | shifting foundations

I’m in my 40’s.

So, I am a part of what is known as Generation X—or Gen X.

One of the popular hashtags of my generation is to label and identify everything that Millennials are killing.

Entire industries are going out of business and being blamed on Millennials.

For example, some are saying that Millennials are killing fabric softener.

Meaning, Millennials are not buying fabric softener for their laundry the way that generations above them have done.

But if you ask a Millennial, they would say that the world is changing and that there are some things that just need to go away—apparently, like fabric softener.

They don’t need it, so they don’t buy it.

Fabric softener is not foundational to their methods of doing the laundry.

Millennials are cord cutters, meaning, they don’t subscribe to cable television packages.

Millennials are killing cable and satellite TV.

But they don’t need it.

It’s not one of those staples of everyday necessities for the way they live like it has been for other generations.

For people in our world today, there is a shifting of what we are seeing as foundational necessities for the way we live.

We all have foundations of different types in our lives.

Maybe for some of us we have a secure foundation of a strong family.

Many of us here do not see our families as a place of strong foundation.

Others of us see our careers as a solid guarantee that provides a foundation for what we do.

Then there are those here for whom a career has not been secure.

Maybe some of us have life-long friends who have always been there through thick-and-thin.