Sermon Tone Analysis

FOR THE SAKE OF THE NAME - used 5 times - , , , )

, this parrallels the usage here in 3 John.

Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, 6 who testified to your love before the church.

You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. 7 For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles.

8 Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

().

Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

At the risk of sounding pretentious, I want to tell you in all sincerity, that my goal this morning is to give you a gift.

The desire and prayer that has been forming in my heart over the last few months as I have prepared for this time is to pass on to you a gift that was given to me.

I received the gift I am talking about when I read four little pages at the back of very important book.

The book is the Missions Classic, “Let the Nations Be Glad” by John Piper.

I hope everyone here will read it.

The four little pages at the back are by John Piper’s longtime co-Pastor and a current Dean of the Bethlehem College and Seminary, Tom Stellar.

Stellar’s little four page chapter is called, “The Supremacy of God in Going and Sending.”

The gift this little chapter gave to me was a vision for sending international missionaries in a “manner worthy of God.”

I don’t remember if I read this little chapter just before or just after I became a local Church Pastor, but as far as I can remember the vision of these four little pages to form a local Church that would send international missionaries in a manner worthy of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit has been with for my entire local church ministry.

To my mind the gift of having a vision for sending missionaries in a “manner worthy of God” is the gift that keeps on giving.

Sending missionaries in a “manner worthy of God” has given my life a God given sense of significance.

What could be more significant that having the priviledge of sending and sustaining the army of Lamb who are out win all of the people from every tribe, and every tongue, and every nation that the Lamb has bought with his own blood.

A vision for sending missionaries in a “manner worthy of God” has connected me to some of the most exemplary people I have ever had the chance to meet in my life.

There’s Matt who recently asked an Imam if he could teach the Bible without apology through the Mosque and after we prayed the Mosque said ‘yes’.

There’s Andy whose convictional plodding transformed an oversees Church with corrupt leadership to one with a healthy plurality of godly indigenous Elders.

There’s Lisa whose evangelistic gifts and cultural wisdom dance through the streets of one of the most lost nations on earth.

I would not have known these people unless I had been given a vision for sending in a “manner worthy of God”.

Sometimes I walk down the hallways at Immanuel and I hear the sounds of our missionaries over skype talking to our staff and I think I would not know these people in Africa, Asia, Europe, Central America, unless I had read those 4 pages.

Not only has a vision for sending in a manner worthy of God given me the joy of significant work, and the joy of gospel friendships, but it has also allowed me to taste more of the joy of answered prayer.

I remember sitting in a meeting with two other Pastors.

We all saw that our missionaries needed more care, but we were frustrated that none of us had the time to do it.

We were frustrated, almost mad at eachother, and then we decided we better pray that God would provide for the missionaries we believed he had called us to care for in a manner worthy of God.

Later that day, after our frustrated prayer, a man stepped forward and said he would like to donate enough money so we could hire a missions Pastor to help us to care for those we had tried to send out in a manner worthy of God.

Stellars 4 pages are based on 4 verses from the shortest book in the Bible, the book of 3rd John.

In those 4 verses John commends a Church Leader named Gaius for the care he has given to gospel preachers.

He not only commends Gaius for His care in the past, but he calls him to care that is worthy of God in the future.

John’s 4 verses to Gaius could be applied to to itinerant preachers we send out as local Churches, they could be applied to Church Planters we send out as local Churches, and they could certainly be applied to international missionaries we send out as a local Church.

In our ministry we try to apply these words to all three groups, but this morning, remembering that you can never say anything, I want to apply this passage to International Missionaries.

If someone wants to come up to me after this sermon and say, “You should have brought this or that emphasis out of the text, I’ll just remind you of the words that that late Elder DJ Ward said from this pulpit, ‘Brother, when you preach the text you can bring out that emphasis.”

Anyway, there is so much we could say but I want to limit my applications to sending and supporting relationship of the local Church with the International Missionary.

Let me begin with 5 simple observations from the text.

Local Church Faithfulness Includes “Many Efforts” for the good of gospel missionaries.

Of course you can see that in the text.

It is the central thing that the Apostle John is commending in this Church Leader Gaius.

He says in verse 5, “Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are.”

Gaius had received itinerant preachers from John.

He had cared for them.

Of course he knew these men were faithful since they had come from John but he did not know them personally, they were strangers in that sense.

None the less he exerted many efforts towards them.

Undoubtedly he provided them with a place to stay, food to eat, perhaps money for their journey home.

We can imagine sheets were changed, a market was visited, maybe a kid gave up their room, a trip to the bank was made, the spiritual gift of hospitality was prayed for and exercised.

And we notice he did not do one thing, but he did many efforts for these laborers in global Christ’s field.

This the Apostle John calls these many acts faithful.

Faithful New Testament leadership is more than just preaching, praying, appointing Elders, and discipling the saints, it includes a commitment to the care of those who have been sent out.

Throughout the NT we see those sent out being cared for.

The Phillipians sent money to Paul.

Timothy transported Paul’s cloak and his parchments.

Just like the women in supported our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully out of their own means, it is a mark of NT faithfulness to support those sent out to advance the gospel of Christ.

Let us beware of any definition of faithfulness that stops at the walls of our local Church, NT faithfulness calls us to care for those who have gone out beyond our four walls, we are called to “many efforts” on their behalf.

New Testament Church Life Included A Pattern Of Hearing Missionary Testimonies.

Not only were these missionaries treated well, they were given an opportunity to talk about it in front of the whole Church.

Notice that they “testified to” Gaius’ “love before the Church.”

The whole Church that John Pastored heard about the love of this sending and supporting Church and they heard it from the missionaries who had been sent and supported.

It was a common NT practice for travelling preachers to get to speak to the local assemblies.

They would tell the churches what they had seen the Lord do.

In when Paul and Barnabas were sent “on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenecia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers.”

Notice they did not bring great joy to the brothers by preaching the Word (though I am sure they did that too), but notice the joy came from hearing about the advance of the Word, the conversion of Gentiles, this testimony became a source of great joy in Phoenecia and Samaria because they got to hear detailed conversion stories.

It is amazing how theology is never dry when it is fleshed out in biography.

When theology becomes testimony it has a unique power to bring joy to Christian souls.

We all John had no greater joy than to hear that his children were walking in the truth, well joy is meant to be shared with entire congregations as they get to hear the testimony of gospel missionaries.

Again, New Testament Church Life included a pattern of hearing Missionary Testimonies.

There is a right way and a wrong way to send gospel missionaries.

Notice that John calls

Gaius to send these brothers out in a manner worthy of God.

Perhaps we should say there is a worthy way and an unworthy way to send out gospel missionaries.

This word worthy is not talking about Gaius being worthy of God, it is not speaking of being good enough for God.

He is talking about something very different.

The most potent way I know to express this word worthy comes from another time it is used in the book of Ephesians.

The word, significantly, is used at the mid point of the book of Ephesians.

Paul has just described the might work of God for the Ephesians, what he has done for them in calling them to Salvation, how he chose them, and redeemed them, and sealed them, and illumines them, and raised them from the dead to be the very temple of God and now he says in chapter 4, “Walk worthy of that” Walk with equal weight to what I have already given to you.

I have died for you husbands so love your wives in a way worthy of that.

You get the idea, to walk worthy means to live a life of equal weight to all that has been done for us by our GodF, and here John says, “send missionaries out” in a way that is worthy of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

This does not mean Missionaries always have to stay at a five star hotel, they can stay in the kinds of homes and hotel rooms the Bethlehem born Lord Jesus stayed in but them be cared for that acknowledges them to be ambassadors of the Savior of the World.

The right way to send missionaries is to send them in a way that is worthy of God himself!

4. Faithful congregations will only be eager to support a particular kind of gospel missionary.

A reason is given for why these missionaries are supposed to be supported, two reasons actually.

First, they went out for the sake of the name and second, they accepted nothing from the Gentiles.

To go out for the sake of the name means to go out to make Christ known.

You are not trying to get a missionary biography written about you, you are trying to write Christ onto thousands of hearts.

You are not, like John Wesley, “Going out to see the heahen saved, when you yourself need to be saved.”

You are not going out as work which will earn you a place in heaven.

You are going out because there is one name under heaven by which men can be saved.

You are going on for the sake of the name by which there is forgiveness of sins, and the name that is above every other name.

And finally, you are not going out to get money.

Now, many would think if you are trying to get money why would you be a missionary.

Well its true that there have not many in the history of the world have become millionaires by becoming missionaries, but being a missionary can be a place where lazy men collect a steady check or regular love offerings.

The mission field, like the Pastorate can be a phenomenal place for lazy men to hide.

They are always strategizing, always finding the soil hard, always fund raising.

The kinds of men that Gaius was called to support were not simply willing men, certainly not just breathing men in warm bodies, but they were men of a central gospel passion and willingness to embrace gospel sacrifice.

They were a particular kind of man.

Third Culture Kids/ They go out for glory (BM)

5. Faithful gospel missionaries and faithful local congregations enjoy a sweet spiritual fellowship in gospel work.

Notice that John lays down a command, a duty if one can still use that word.