3 John

Intro to text

This is both a short letter and it is a personal letter. IT is written from John to Gaius. The only example in the NT of one person to another person.

The content is minimal, but the encouragement is large.

John is reminding Gaius to be faithful to fellow believers as they enter into and move on from their journey.

Missionaries have come into the fellowship of his church and have gone out again. And in this Gospel traffic, John is reminding them to receive them in and send them out with your entire support.

There are passages that will call us to remind ourselves what kind of community, what kind of church we are called to be.

And we get there by understanding what kind of God we serve

God invites us in, embraces us, and then blesses and sends us according to His will.

Our role, as a collective, is to reproduce that.

This is the heart of God that we know

John 17:20–23 ESV

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Are we a church that embraces, blesses and supports those called by God, inviting them in through embrace and through by blessing?

To embrace and send is to be a church that is on the lookout for others, and is looking out for others.

What does a church do?

In order for that to happen we have to see what the church is for, and what it is we are called to do.

The church is the gathered body of Christ. A picture that God is the willing part and the church is the walking around part. He is the head, we are the movable limbs.

We necessarily gather to encourage one another that there is no better than Christ. That you and I are exactly where you need to be right now. The walking around part then, when we leave, go into our various parts of the region and city to represent Christ in our own worlds.

so we as a church community gather and we go. we weekly practice ways of embracing and sending .

and it’s not just us

From that place, people will come in from around the world or the area, they will go from us to the community and to around the world.

And because of who God has called us to be as a local church, people who come in can be embraced and supported. People who go from here can be blessed and sent.

But we get stuck in our own routines

But we so often get stuck in our own routines and methods and ways that we forget people need to come in and people need to be sent.

Churches can easily feel like that. It’s like the difference between a line at a fast food restaurant and a home cooked meal.

People come in and out all the time at a fast food restaurant. They wait in line, get what they need, and leave. We hope people come in the door but hope they don’t stay too long.

That has been the unfortunate state of the American church. Come on in. Get what you need and make sure you leave so we can turn the table for someone else.

What matters in the fast food line is the amount of people in the line.

If the church is a fast food line we are focused on how many people in line, not where they came from or where they are going.

But the church is called to be like a home cooked meal at a table

The focus is not on numbers as it is in lines. Or on producing food. The focus is getting everyone around the table. The focus is making sure everyone has enough. There aren’t lines because we are sitting together and looking at each other.

when someone comes in the issue is not to deliver for them everything they want In an efficient way, it is to make sure there is room for them at the table

Beacuase it is At the table, we care deeply where people come from. We are looking for them, opening the door for them. And we care deeply where they are going to. We focus on the embrace and the blessing.

it’s at the table where we embrace and send

because it’s at the table where we see people for who they are and care about where they came from and where they are going

this is the nature of Christs church

to be like the table

caring about where people came from and where they are going

when that is happening, embracing and sending becomes normal practices

This pertains to sending and embracing every week. Or on someone’s first week, or on someones last week. It’s weekly, its first and final.

While This pertains to anyone who enters or leaves our church body. But John is talking about those who are coming in as missionaries and those who are called and leaving as such.

So while all this applies to how we handle each other in daily relationships we are going to focus on those who sense a call of God’s work in thier lives for vocational ministry.

We don’t want to miss God’s activity in the lives of those around us. So we have to build routines to make sure we are catching it as much as possible. That we are recognizing one another and blessing and supporting each other

We embrace and support those on the way in

3 John 5–6 ESV

Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God.

In order to embrace someone you have to see them. That sounds obvious but we have to know who people are to embrace.

To embrace someone is to expect them, to be looking for them.

And people come in through many different ways in the church

maybe they are trying to figure out who God is.

Maybe they just moved

Or they have experience Christ and are figuring out what to do next

Maybe they are visiting

or returning for the 100th time. maybe they are traveling through while on home assignment

Because we aren’t a fast food line we don’t just wait for people to come in the doors, we expect and look for them. We embrace them (maybe not literally right away) but we recognize them and appreciate their being here.

To embrace someone is saying that it matters that you have come here. It matters that you have arrived.

Look for that in others when we gather. It matters that we gather. This is a sit down meal not a line. It matters that we are here. We want to pull out the chair for you and invite you to sit with us.

To embrace is to begin the idea of support.

To support is to, with your strength, help hold up something else.

We use our strength to strengthen others.

Hebrews 10:24–25 ESV

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

We take what strength we have together, whether it is physical, spiritual, or financial and we support those who have come in.

While people are at the table with us, we want them to rest and as well be trained and know who God is. As we spend time together, at the table not in line, maybe you have had a sense of what God is calling you to.

There may be people here who sense a call of God in their lives. To go out and do the vocational work of ministry. If you sense that God is calling you into ministry, that He is leading you into a vocational sense of His work in the world, we want to support you. We have seen missionaries and pastors be sent from this church. We want to send out a new generation. As we think about those coming in, who have been serving around the world, we also want to think about who is coming up that will be going out.

Whether you are 5 or 50, we want to follow Christ well in this world. Some of you are called into vocational ministry, take some time to pray about what God is calling you into.

To embrace is to support well. We want to support those who are starting in Christ and those who have spent thier lives in vocational ministry.

So when people enter in we want to embrace well.

I want to take a look at a list of the people we support. These are workers all around the world that you and I both give to for their mission. If you have given to FAC you have given to the international workers.

These are people that have been to our church, or are members at our church, and have gone into the world to serve Christ well. When John is mentioning people coming into the church, this is what he means. He mentions strangers, and the call is to care for these itinerant workers as family.

These people aren’t strangers to many of us but for those that may not know them, we are still called to embrace and support on their way in.

The Walkers (Stan, JAynee, Caleb).

Senegal.

Charlie Klepadlo

Cru in Baltimore and DC

The Greenfields.

Tori and Daniel

Urugauy

John and Betty Arnold

Have been in Burkina.

Joanna Gregg

Guinea W Africa

She will be with us in Oct

Jess Bryant

Japan.

Sent from our district

Dawn Mattera

Love from Above. Romania

She’s here!

These are the people John is talking about to embrace well. As people from the district come in we want to embrace them well. As pastors and leaders come in we want to embrace well. That happens not because we are looking for just pastors and missionaries but because we are already embracing well. We are looking for others, recognizing them and telling them that it matters they are here.

We bless and send those on the way through

And because of the nature of the work. While people are here they are embraced, but as they go, we want to bless and send them.

3 John 7–8 ESV

For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

We support them through our collective strength, but we send them as well.

to bless and send is to commission people to live in the fullness of what God has for them in the place that God calls them

If you have noticed we try and commission people for service here.

If we know that someone is going on a missions trip or is moving we want to bless and send them.

We will bring them up at the end of the service and commission them

To commission means to mission together.

When we commission them we bless them by saying you are going with our support and encouragement. We want to mission together, that they aren’t going alone but are with the church.

This is a reminder that none of this is done outside of Christ’s embrace and sending of us as His church. He entirely embraced us in salvation and then after His resurrection, He called His church to go. We have been sent.

Matthew 28:18–20 ESV

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This is the life we are called to. We have a God who embraces us and blesses us. To be witnesses of What Christ has done and is doing. Most of us will do that here, in Attleboro. And each week we get to embrace and be sent to do His will in our lives.

Robin and I were sent from an Alliance church in Mequon WI, 23 years ago. It still makes a considerable mark on our lives.

But as people come and go, we want to embrace and send them.

It means we remind people that it matters that they are here. And it is the blessing to tell them that it matters where they are going.

We can be a church that is on the lookout for others and is looking out for them in embracing and sending.