2 John 5-6 — You can say the word all day. But if it never gets past your lips

and into your feet, the Bible has a name for that: not love.

⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • August 27, 2026.

📚 Part of our verse-by-verse expository series through 2 John

This expository preaching message walks through 2 John 5-6, where the aged apostle John — near the end of his life, having buried every other apostle — hands a grieving church one final, unoriginal command: love one another. Not a new commandment, but the oldest one there is, traced back through 1 John, through John 13:34, all the way to the garden. This sermon makes the case that biblical love is not a feeling you wait to arrive — it is a walk you're commanded to take, starting today.

If you've ever wondered what the Bible actually means by "love" — whether it's the warm feeling that rises on a Sunday morning or something else entirely — this verse-by-verse exposition of 2 John answers it directly. John refuses to let love and obedience be torn apart. He defines love as walking after Christ's commandments: not talk it, not feel it, walk it. That means loving your spouse when the romance has gone quiet, loving your brother or sister in the church when it costs you something, and loving Christ on a Tuesday when nobody's watching, not just on Sunday when the choir stands.

This message connects 2 John 5-6 to John 13:34 ("A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another"), 1 John 2:7, and John 14:21 ("He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me") — showing how the same command is both ancient and always new: old in what it asks, new every time you're asked to do it.

This expository preaching walks through 2 John 5-6, explaining:

- Why John calls a command "old" that Jesus called "new" in John 13:34

- How church tradition remembers John's final sermon: "Little children, love one another"

- Why walking in the Bible means direction, not a single act

- The difference between obedience from fear (law) and obedience from love (easy)

- Why love doesn't count the hours it costs

- Real-life pictures of love that talks but never walks

- Why obedience without love is bondage, and love without obedience is empty

- What it means to "walk toward" a brother or sister who wronged you

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