3 John | So where are we?

Intro

Hey Y’all how is everyone? Is everyone good?

How was break?

Anyone go anywhere cool? Do anything fun?

Slept for 12 hours a day?

Cool cool.

So before we get in to this, this is gonna feel more like a teaching than straight preaching. My goal is to take the text and see how does this equip us to go out into this world.

So question for you.

Who watched the UGA v Tx game on Saturday night?

Most of us,

great game, for Georgia.

so when you were watching the game what did you notice about the commercials?

They were all political,

i didn’t count how many, but it was ton.

We were even getting political ads from Texas,

so much LL and I were like why? but then I realized it was cause people in Texas were watching it.

This has kinda got me thinking.

What is the point of the ads?

cause at this point there are probably no undecided voters.

Everyone knows who they’re voting for.

Like you aren’t gonna see one of the ads and go, ya know i think I’ll change my mind.

No, let’s vote and get it over with.

But back up, I know most of y’all can’t vote, but you still see the ads,

and yeah they’re trying to get votes, but like they are play another game.

They’re playing the influence game.

Most of y’all can’t vote can’t vote, but they’re still talking to you. They’re wanting to get to your head.

we’ve been talking about spiritual formation in here a ton

they’re playing the formation game too So here is what we are going to be looking at tonight, this idea of counter formation.

Last week we finished up the book of James, we had been in that book for a while, and we really hit on this idea of having a faith that works, having a real faith.

Being spiritually formed

Cultivating steadfastness.

And so this week was kind of a free week.

Next week we are going to look at some politics stuff cause the election is soon.

cause I think evan though you can’t vote you need to know what’s going on and how to think about it

But I want to Segway not straight in to that, but I want to give us a reminder of where we are in the world.

How this world is set up to work.

What the culture we live in wants us to do.

So tonight we are going to be in 3 John. We are going to do the whole book.

Which sounds like a lot, but, the whole book is 15 verses.

But here is why,

I want to remind ourselves that what we do, how we think, how we act matters.

That everyday we face a battle of a culture that wants to make us life itself or the steadfast desire to follow Christ.

In our culture there are competing world views.

This is why I brought up the ads,

they’re trying to sell you on a world view.

Not just people who can vote, but you, middle and high schoolers.

They want you to buy into their world view, because you become voters. You become consumers of the party politics.

And so, this letter gives us pause to think and reflect, what are we up against.

Where are we culturally and what do we do about it?

SO, let’s get in to it,

IF you have a bible go ahead and flip to 3 John, it’s just after second John, near the end of the New testament.

If you need to use the table on contents to find the page number no shame, it probably one page in a 2500 page book.

So, if you need it, use it.

Also if you need a bible, throw a hand up, there are some on the edges over there.

So, let’s red this whole book and then talk about it.

But be fore we do that, let’s pray for out time in the word.

Pray

Read this with me.

3 John 1–15 ESV

The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 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. 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. I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true. I had much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends, each by name.

Context

okay so, whatS the context here?

So, 3 John is a letter, a short letter to a man named Gaius.

Soj the John writing this is the john of the Gospel of John, he knew Jesus, followed Jesus around.

Was a disciple of Jesus.

He write John, 1-3 John and revelation.

He was one of the early church leaders, that’s why he refers to himself as the Elder.

And this letter takes place probably 40ish years after Christ’s death and resurrection.

The church is still growing underground.

But the Romans have noticed Christianity.

Vespasian is the Emperor most likely, which doesn’t matter, except that Jerusalem had been sacked by Rome at this point and the temple has been destroyed.

SO that’s the world John is writing this in, hostile to Christianity, Nero had previously as emperor persecuted them and then the persecution will get more ramped up as the emperors son, Domitian really comes after Christians.

So what makes this letter interesting is who it is written to.

a guy named Gaius.

So who is Gaius and why is John writing to him.

We don’t really know who Gaius is, but with that name we can make a pretty good guess that he was a pagan turned christian.

Gaius was a super popular name during this time in Rome,

so Gaius is a Roman, not like Paul where Paul was a Jewish Roman,

but this dude is a Roman Roman, grew up as Roman in a Roman culture.

Like for us, we are Americans. We grew up as Americans in a world where American culture is the dominate factor.

It’s not like we were born somewhere else and then moved here, no we are American through and through,

SO Gaius is Roman.

Which means,

the Christian faith has grown. And that Jewish Christians are discipling gentile-Christians.

The Faith has grown like it was supposed to do.

SO this letter gives us some reminders.

This letter is asking us to level set where we are as Christians in an increasingly hostile culture.

And it makes us think about what we face as Christians,

So here is what we face, a lot of the time what happens is the world reaches us way better than the church reaches us.

So all of James we talked about spiritual formation.

The need for spiritual formation.

So what I want to look at this idea of counter formation.

That we are being formed in response to how the world is trying to form us.

So this is what I mean, one of the biggest media companies in the world is fantastic at this,

Think about Disney.

Anyone have a favorite Disney movie?

So think about this, growing up, did any of you have dreams about being in a Disney movie, like actual dreams, went to sleep and dreamed about something from a Disney movie?

Or like Halloween costumes, kids are still wanting to be Frozen Characters, frozen has been out for 11 years now, I had just graduated College. Some of y’all were in kindergarten.

A pastor in New York, Jon Tyson, put is like this,

How well are you winning the formation battle in culture when you have kids dreaming about being Disney Movies.

Like think about it, how good are they at that when people are legit dreaming about things they’ve created?

Like I’d bet no one in here was like, “yeah last night I was on the Ark!”

So this is what I mean by counter formation.

That we are being formed in a response to the predominate cultural formation process.

So, I know I just said a whole lot, but you need to hear me.

Cause here is the practical out work of this,

How do we contextualize the Gospel without compromising our convictions.

P1 - Gaius is the example of contextualization.

This is the key, if we are going to be a people who are cultivating steadfastness, if we are going to be a people able to reach this culture.

What happens a lot of the time is we go to reach the culture and the culture ends up reaching us.

We have to be able to contextualize the gospel to our current Culture.

SO what do I mean.

Sounds weird. Cause we can really mess this up.

Contextualize means making the gospel understood in a culture.

Now here is how we can mess this up,

In wanting to make the culture understand the gospel we can actually distort the gospel message by trying to make it more attractive.

We aren’t trying to make the gospel more attractive or make it trendy or relevant,

We are trying to make the gospel understood.

We want to remove obstacles to the gospel without the gospel being influenced by the culture.

Here is an example of not doing contextualization well.

Our culture loves the idea that you can do and be whatever, and that your identity is what ever you say you are.

A bad way to try an contextualize the gospel, or make the gospel understood is to down play the idea that there is brokenness and there is a right way to live, that there is absolute mortality.

When you do this you water down the gospel.

If you try to make the gospel just about good vibes, and easy life,

If you downplay the role of sin in our life, you down play the good news of the gospel.

Gaius in this text is an example of contextualization of the gospel.

Look at verse 7-8

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.

I know this says Gentiles in the ESV but I actually like the CSB translation of this, Gentiles is translated as Pagans.

What John is describing here is, People have gone out, for the sake of Christ.

For the sake of the name, for the sake of who Christ is.

They’re going in to towns, cities and preaching the gospel, but they are not using the pagan infrastructure to propel the gospel.

This would be the easy thing for Gaius to do, he Roman,

hit up the temple of Zeus,

Talk about how Jesus is like Zeus, but he died for you.

Good to go.

But that isn’t the way.

That is not how the kingdom is built, the kingdom doesn’t need worldly help to gain power.

It already has power, our job is just to show people the life changing power of the gospel.

The world’s power means nothing.

P2 - Diatrophes is the example of compromise.

Here is the example of the compromising our convictions in the text.

Look at verse 9-11

3 John 9–11 ESV

I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

Diotrephes, looks like he is similar to Gaius,

a Roman, but he has taken the bait of the culture.

He’s wanting to use the worldly power structures to try and bring the kingdom power.

But all he has done is bring himself power using the name of Christ.

And that is the real temptation.

WE love a good short cut, but all we do is end up looking on different from the world.

This is why we need a good idea of counter formation.

Of taking an active role in our spiritual formation.

To fight against the way culture wants to bend you And mold you.

Our formation must be stronger than the formation of the world.

have you ever heard of the pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Probs not, may adults have.

But he Was a pastor in Nazi Germany.

and this was the state of the church in Germany during Nazi rule.

Most of the churches had bought into the ideas and beliefs of Nazism.

They agree with Hitler.

But not everyone, and as any totalitarian state does, it rounds up disinters and shoots them.

Bonhoeffer was a part of an underground pastors school.

All of his family thought he was crazy for doing this, they knew he would get killed.

He brought one of his friends deep out in the remote German forests, to a place called finkenwalde, that was the name of the seminary.

And what was wild was it actually wasn’t too far from a German air base, it was across the lake, but you could see it.

You could see the Nazis and you could see the training and teaching at the airbase.

His friend asked him. Why are you out here doing this, what do you seek to gain?

Bonhoeffer told him, basically,

This, the training the school was doing, must be stronger than that, pointing to the Nazi air base.

“This has to be stronger than that.”

It so simple, but it is so true.

P3 - implications - world view / goal of FBC Gray Students

So here are the implications of this,

what it means for our formation to be stronger than that.

How we think matters.

At the start of this, we talked about opposing world views.

That the predominate cultural world view is fighting hard for your mind.

The culture wants you to think like the culture.

The world is discipling you. Whether you know it or not.

We talked about that in James, all of us are being formed one way or another.

It is fighting for you mind. Fighting to change your world view.

Don’t let it.

We have to guard our minds, and our hearts.

How we think matters.

So we have to have a world view based on the truth and ultimate realities of scripture.

So what is our goal Here at FBC Gray?

Our Goal is that when we send you out, you aren’t just a student who attended church, we want to send out formed missionaries in to this dark world.

We want to send our people who are going to be a force for the gospel. Because where most of y’all are going when you graduate is college, which is a mission field.

And it’s a hostile mission field.

SO how do you do this?

You have to filter everything through the lens of scripture. We want you to be able to read the Bible for yourself, and read it well, be able to understand the truth with in the text, not the feelings, but the truth.

So how can you do this?

First, to have a biblically grounded world view.

Know you identity. Know who you are in Christ.

Not create your identity.

Know your identity, the one that Christ has called you to.

You don’t have to flip one there to it,

but Paul in Colossians writes,

Colossians 3:7–11 ESV

In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

you were saved to be like Christ, your ultimate identity is in who Christ is.

Once you know who you are in Christ, the world view becomes second nature.

your formation then become to daily put on the new self.

So this asks, how can you leverage who God has made you to be, with your talents, passions, how can you leverage your life to life missionally,

to reach the world with the Good News.

Then second, you need a community to walk with,

if you have heard me say this once, you have heard me say this a thousand time.

you need a community to follow Jesus with. There are no lone wold Christians. That is not how the Christian life was designed to be lived. We were designed to be walking in community.

We are stronger when we are formed together.

This needs to be stronger than that.

Just look at this whole book, it is a letter from a mentor to a student.

It was a letter written to a friend, by a friend and deliver by a friend.

This letter was a community effort.

Today we take for granted how easy it is to communicate with whoever we want when ever we want.

This letter had to travel in a hostile world.

This letter took a community to exist.

The gospel flourishes in community, and it especially flourishes in a community that is walking together, in spite of the world’s best efforts.

P2Christ

And so here is the invitation.

Pick your head up out of the dark world we live in and breathe in the fresh air of the kingdom.

Come and see that the Lord is good.

Ps. 34:8 describes the table of the king, that everything from Him is Good.

Psalm 34:8 ESV

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Come and take refuge in who Christ is.

I want to invite you to come and see the gospel of Christ.

The good news that Christ is on the throne.

That the kingdom is here, and that we can join it.

That we can have an eternal hope and joy in Christ.

That the kingdom is coming to redeem and restore all things.

So what we are going to do it pray, confess and sing, while we are doing that, ask yourself,

do you know him? And like actually know him, do you know Christ.

If you want to talk about it, come snag me.

Come see Christ as Lord, come see Christ as king.