Presented to Swift Current Corps 08 May 2011
and 14 May 2017 at 11am service of 614 Warehouse Mission
and 14 May 2017 at 11am service of 614 Warehouse Mission
By Captain Michael Ramsay
To read the 2017 version, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2017/05/1-samuel-218-21-2-john-1-13-love-and.html
Today is Mother’s Day: traditionally the busiest day across the country for Sunday brunch, so if you haven’t made reservations you may be in for a bit of a wait today. Anyone here who hasn’t called his or her mother yet, should probably do that right after church today.
A couple of big events have happened pertaining to our nation since I last preached here. We had a federal election, of course, where we returned a government to Ottawa. Also in the news, there was the marriage of a probable Canadian future Head of State. Prince William, second in line to the Canadian throne (as we are a part of the Commonwealth) just got married. He, of course, in all likelihood in some of our lifetimes here will be Canada’s Head of State – exactly when and for how long depends on whether his father is blessed with the same longevity of grandparents and his great grandmother.
I don’t know how many people watched the Royal Wedding. My mother and my aunt actually headed over to London to see it. I wasn’t going to watch it live on TV but I did watch the re-runs on-line with my girls. Today is Mother’s Day and weddings are often a time when particularly moms are really quite happy with all the planning and pageantry and everything involved in weddings and Prince William’s mom had passed away a few years ago but certain acknowledgments of her were even made throughout the event. Marriages are special around Mother’s Day but another neat thing around Mother’s Day is when someone becomes a first time mother.
My mom had her first Mother’s Day in the hospital, I was born a couple of days prior and in those days, apparently you were left in the hospital for a few days after giving birth rather than these days in maternity where they have the quick, ‘catch and release policy’ as it has been called.
The birth of your first child and grandchild is important. I remember when Rebecca was born, my folks were quickly in the hospital to see us and Susan’s parents stayed with us for a while afterwards and when Sarah-Grace was born my folks were kind enough to come and look after Rebecca while Susan was in the hospital with baby Sarah-Grace. That was when we lived in the same city as they did. Just this past year when Heather was born my folks came again for a couple of weeks planning to help out after the baby’s birth but apparently Heather and the doctor disagreed as to what her due date actually was and she arrived quite a few days late so my parents just got to introduce themselves to Heather before they had to return home.
Mother’s Day is an appropriate time to remember some of these important events around giving birth. My mom always tells the story about how important it was to my dad that I was born. It was so important that my dad actually made time to come down to the hospital and see me arrive, even though on that very same evening there was… a Stanley Cup play-off game on. And it wasn’t just any play-off game, it was the final series when I was born and no I wasn’t born in July. The finals actually used to be in early May.
Now for Mother’s Day, today, I thought we would look at 2 John. 2 John is a neat letter and this is how it opens: “The elder, To the chosen lady and her children whom I love in truth – and not I only, but also all who know the truth – because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever (2 John 1-2).” 2 John says it is addressed specifically to a mother and her children. This seems very appropriate for today. Now scholars like to research and talk about things and apparently either of the Greek words ‘chosen’ or ‘lady’ here, Electa or Kyria could also be translated as a proper name, so the opening of this letter might be ‘to the chosen Kyria’ or ‘to the Lady Electa’ but for our purposes on Mother’s Day we’ll deal with it as it is written in our pew Bibles as ‘to the chosen lady and her children.’[1]
One more thing before we move on to that too: I don’t know how many people here know a little bit of Greek. Do you recognize the word ‘Kyria’? The male form of this word ‘Kyrios’- do we know what that is often translated as, what it means? ‘Kyria’ means ‘lady’ and ‘Kyrios’, the masculine form of the word, means ‘lord’ and is often used in the NT to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ himself.[2] As a result many famous commentators take this phrase ‘to the chosen lady and her children whom I love’ to refer specifically to the church rather than to a certain lady.[3] This may well be the case but either way, whether this lady referred to is a local church or whether she is a lady who heads up a local church there is a very important message in this short letter for us on Mother’s Day.
John[4] writes this letter to ‘the chosen lady and her children whom I love in the truth.’ And in it is an important message. 2 John 4-6, records,
It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. 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. 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.
John assures them and us that God desires us to continue loving and obeying Him. This is what I want us to remember today: God loves us and He wants us to continue experiencing that joy that comes from loving Him and the author of this letter, the presbyter, the elder mentioned in Verse 1, John tells the chosen lady that it gives him great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth.
Now this letter was probably – like most of the NT letters circulated around the churches in the Roman province of Asia, which –for those of us who have been attending Tuesday night Bible study – is roughly what contemporary country? (Turkey). This Roman province of Asia, Turkey, converted early to Christianity and ran as a near theocracy, a government dedicated to the glory of God, for the better part of a millennium (324-1453 CE): theoretically a millennial reign of Christ.[5] The children of this lady in Asia here and many of her children’s children, and her children’s grand children, and her grandchildren’s grandchildren and so on all experienced the joy and the blessings that come from continuing to love and obey the Lord. This is exciting. This is the same for many of us – though not all of us - here in Saskatchewan today too. Because of the faithfulness of our mothers and our grandmothers, much of Saskatchewan (unlike many other parts of this country) is faithfully following Christ today.
From history too I think of St. Monica of Hippo. No, just in case you were wondering, St. Monica of Hippo isn’t the patron saint of hippos. Hippo is the name of the Carthaginian city she came from. St. Monica was the mother of St. Augustine, also of Hippo. We know who St. Augustine was, right? Much of western Christianity has been interpreted through the lens of his theology. I hope that some here may have even read a book or two of this ancient Carthaginian Christian academic. He wrote, most famously, ‘Confessions’ and ‘Of The City of God’. Augustine was one of the most important people to early Christianity and he was not originally a Christian. He was a pagan but his mom, Monica, prayed for him every night. She prayed for him every day. She prayed for him faithfully. St. Monica prayed for her son and she actually lived to see him transformed into a new creation as a follower of our Lord Jesus Christ. What a Mother’s Day present that would have been for her, if they had Mother’s Day back then to see her son give his life to over to God’s will to have him continue to love and obey the Lord.
The same is true today of any mother who has ever prayed persistently for her children and then seen them come to the Lord and the same must be true of the lady in our text today as some of her children are continuing to walk in love and obedience to the Lord (2 John 4). If we love God and love Christ, we shall show it by keeping His commands (John 14:15, 21; 15:10; 1 John 5:2–3). As we do, we will love our neighbour for ‘he who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the law’ (Rom 13:8).[6] But there is some bad news in this too as sure as some of her children are continuing to walk in love and obedience to the Lord by implication then some are not. Some are no longer walking in love and obedience to Christ (cf. TSA doc. 9). Can anything be more sad for a mother or a father? After all, what good is it if your son or daughter gains the whole world and yet forfeits her very own soul (Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36)?
Some of this lady’s children, who were raised in the truth; some of this lady’s children, who saw the power of our resurrected Lord; some of this lady’s children, who experienced the blessings of growing up in the church and in a loving Christian home; some of these children – Verses 7-11 – some of her children have fallen pray to deceivers and antichrists who – Verse 7 – say that Jesus Christ never came in the flesh (cf. TSA doc. 4).
This is like a mother duck watching her children fly towards a wooden decoy only to be shot down by the evil one and delivered to their end in his dogs teeth. This is tragic. John warns all us Mother and Father Ducks here. John warns us loving parents, Verse 8 he writes, “Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.” Be careful not to let your ducklings walk towards the decoy, if you can. Verse 9, John warns us, “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. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work” (cf. TSA docs 8, 9). If we make provision for the dogs of the enemy, if we support antichrists as they attack our Lord, do not be surprised if they carry off our very children as their prey (cf. Deuteronomy 7:3-5). I think there are many ways that we fall into the trap of inviting the enemy into our homes and make provision for them in this day and age. I think there are many ways we can abandon our ducklings to the dogs of hell in this day and age. I think that if we leave our children alone in front of the TV or Internet then we are leaving them open to attack, unsupervised as the enemy is prowling around (1 Peter 5:8). I think that if we don’t spend time talking to our children about their day and their lives than we don’t know if they are wandering too close to one of the devil’s decoys. I think if we don’t read the Bible with and pray with and for our own little ducklings than they will have no idea how to recognize the devil’s decoys that will inevitably come floating by on the pond one day. If we don’t spend time in the truth with our children and our Lord then they will have no idea how to continue to walk in love and obedience to the Lord, like God desires of us (cf. Deuteronomy 4:9-10, 5:29-6:2; Proverbs 8:32, 14:26, 19:18, 20:7, 22:6, Micah 6:8; Ephesians 6:4).
That is sad because God really does love us and He really does love our children even more than we love our children and God wants us to continue to walk in love and obedience to the Lord so that we too can be safe from the enemy’s attack; we too can be saved. So, as we do read the Bible with our children; as we do continue to pray for; and as we do continue to pray with our children; as we do, ourselves, continue to walk in love and obedience to our Lord as God desires of us, then who knows maybe even our loved ones who are presently not walking in love and obedience to our Lord; maybe even still they will recognize the decoys of the enemy before it is too late, turn and be saved. After all that is why God sent his one and only Son so that whosoever may, will turn and be saved. John 3:17 tells us that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn that world but he came into the world that the world might be saved through him. God loves us even more than any parent or any child ever could. So this is my prayer for us today on this Mother’s Day. If there are any of us who are not right now continually walking in love and obedience to the Lord, I pray that we will turn (repent) and return to the safety of our Father’s nest. And I pray that if any of our children have began to wander astray after the many decoys of this world that indeed they will turn around and be saved before it is too late.
Let us pray.
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[1] C. Clifton Black, The First, Second, and Third Letters of John (NIB XII: Abingdon Press: Nashville, Tennessee: 1998), 449. cf. also D. Moody Smith, First, Second, and Third John (Interpretation: John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky: 1990), 139 and John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1988 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 19), S. 210
[2] D. Moody Smith, First, Second, and Third John (Interpretation: John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky: 1990), 142
[3] Glenn W. Barker, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM: 2 John/Exposition of 2 John/I. Introduction (1-3), Book Version: 4.0.2
[4] Cf. C. Clifton Black, The First, Second, and Third Letters of John (NIB XII: Abingdon Press: Nashville, Tennessee: 1998), 49 for a good discussion of this authorship.
[5] Cf. Steven Runciman, 'The Byzantine Theocracy' (Cincinnati, The Weil Lectures, July 1977) and Medieval Wall, 'The Rise and Development of the Byzantine Empire', http://www.medievalwall.com/general/rise-development-byzantine-empire/
[6] John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1988 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 19), S. 210
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