The Church Today in Three Guys

The Church Today in Three Guys 3 John 1-13 For the next three Sundays of August, I wanted to highlight some seldom used scriptures we may not be familiar with. Before we get started though, I wanted to ask a couple questions. One, what do you think is the shortest book in the Bible? The 10 Shortest Books in the Bible are: l. 3 John with 1 chapter, 14 verses, 299 words; 2. 2 John with 1 chapter, 13 verses, 303 words (four words more); and third, Philemon with 1 chapter, 25 verses, 445 words. In the Old Testament it is Obadiah with 1 chapter, 21 verses, 670 words; Haggai with 2 chapters, 38 verses, 1131 words; and Nahum with 3 chapters, 47 verses, 1285 words. There are others that fill out the 10 shortest, Jonah was number 10, but you get the picture. Now what might be the 10 Longest Books in the Bible? They are Psalms with 150 chapters, 2461 verses, 43,743 words followed closely by Jeremiah with 52 chapters, 1364 verses, 42,659 words, only 84 words less than Psalms, which I found surprising. Third was Ezekiel with 48 chapters, 1273 verses, 39,407 words and the list goes on, with Luke being the only New Testament book at number 10. The most referred to book in the New Testament is Isaiah, referred to 419 times. Now, what do you think is the most referred to New Testament book in the Old Testament? Zero, silly, the NT wasn’t written yet. So let’s look at Third John, verses 1-13. (In my research I found a sermon from Ray Stedman Ministries, an evangelical organization in California. Rev. Stedman attended Dallas Theological Seminary and was a pastor and author in the 1950-1990’s.) Third John gives us an intimate glimpse into the life of the early church. It was written to a Christian man about how to handle the problem of personalities within the church, and three people are mentioned here. There is a man named Gaius (Gay’-us or Guy’-us), to whom this letter is written; another man named Diotrephes (Di-o’-tre-phes); and a third individual named Demetrius (De-me’-trius). These three men are like three kinds of Christians found in the church in any age. First, there is the man named Gaius. This may be one of the three Gaiuses mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament, although Gaius was a common name in New Testament times, as is John or Jesus, for that matter. In any case, John evidently knew him and addresses the letter to him in a warm and friendly way. We can gather from the letter that Gaius was a genial, gracious and generous individual. Three things that John says about him are important to notice. First, he was strong of soul; that was what warmed John's heart. He said, “I pray you may enjoy good health, even as your soul is getting along well.” That is a wonderful thing to say about someone, isn't it? "I wish you could be as strong in body as you are in spirit." It would be interesting to apply this test to people today. If your physical appearance reflected your spiritual state, what would you 2 look like? Would you be a robust individual -- strong and virile? Or, would you be a weakling, barely able to move? Well, Gaius was the sort of man about whom the Apostle John could say, "I pray your physical life were as strong as your spiritual life." Further, Gaius was consistent in his actions. John says, “I greatly rejoiced when some of the brethren arrived and testified to the truth of your life, as indeed you do follow the truth.” He was not only honest, he showed truth in his life. What impressed John was not that he knew the truth, but that he followed the truth. He lived it. He had a consistent life. He did not preach cream and live skim milk. He walked in the truth of Jesus. Finally, he was generous in his giving. One of the signs that a person has really been genuinely touched by God is that his pocketbook loosens up. His giving becomes generous, gracious, and cheerful. Gaius is regular and systematic in his giving. He does not just give when his emotions are moved, but he plans his giving, and he carries it through, faithfully continuing with the work that he has promised. It is clear, too, that he gave cheerfully, because John says he gave "in a manner worthy of God." God does not want us to give because we feel we have to or because somebody is taking a special offering, or to feel that if we do not, we will be looked down upon. Gaius gives because he delights in giving. Di-o’-tre-phes is the bad guy. He “likes to put himself first” and does not acknowledge the authority of the apostle. This is the first example in the New Testament church of a church boss ― someone who tries to run the church. He may have been an elder or a deacon or perhaps a pastor. But he was someone who conceived of his role as that of telling everyone else in the church what to do. This early church apparently had some kind of a membership roll; and if Diotrephes did not like somebody, he would scratch his name off the list and put him out of the church. John strongly objects to that and indicates here that Diotrephes was guilty of four particular wrong attitudes and actions. For one thing, John says that this man was guilty of slandering the apostle, "gossiping maliciously about or against us." He refused the authority of the Apostle John. We know that the apostles had a unique role in the history of the church. They were to lay the foundations of the church and were given the authority to settle all questions within the church. It is this apostolic word that has become the New Testament and holds authority for Christians. So here was a man who not only disregarded the authority of the Apostle John, but he even spoke against him. He said slanderous, evil things against the apostle. In a way, he was an antichrist, self-serving in his own power. Secondly, Diotrephes is refusing to welcome others who came to visit and share the truth of God. Diotrephes would have nothing to do with them. He turned them aside and refused to allow them to speak in the church. I wonder how his church grew? 3 A third thing is that he also puts people out of the church who would have taken these men in. He indulges in what we would call today "secondary separation." He not only objected to the men who came, but he objected to those who would have received them. This has been one of the curses of the church ever since. Because of this tendency to refuse fellowship to someone who likes someone you do not like, a wide divisiveness has come into the church, doing injury and harm beyond recall. For example, in our church today, if a gay person or black or brown or Asian or Native American or a person with pink polka dots tattooed to their bodies comes into the church and I were to welcome them and for that I was no longer welcomed myself, that would be "secondary separation," and that is what Diotrephes was doing. But of those three offenses, none was as severe as the thing John puts first. The most serious problem Diotrephes had was that he put himself first. He loved to be first, his philosophy of life was – me, me, me. In doing that, he was robbing the Lord Jesus of His rightful position. He should be first and foremost, but here is a man who put himself first, and that is the really serious thing. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who are too self-important. They want to be first. They want the glory. They rob God of His importance, stealing that which alone belongs to the Almighty. There’s a story about an outstanding leader among the Southern Baptists and a great Greek scholar who once wrote an editorial in their denominational magazine about Diotrephes. Later, the editor reported that 25 deacons wrote to cancel their subscriptions, feeling personally attacked. His editorial hit too close to home. So what does John counsel in this situation? Well, he does not advise Gaius to organize a split away from the church. Rather, he says, “Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. He who does good is of God; he who does evil has not seen God.” In other words, do not follow persons who want the preeminence. If you see somebody who is always jockeying for position in Christian relationships, always wanting to have attention directed to themselves, do not follow them. They are only following their own way and not God’s. There is, finally, a third generation mentioned here, Demetrius, and all we know of him is what John says. “Demetrius is well spoken of by everyone and even by the truth itself. We also testify of him, and you know our testimony is true.” Now that is a recommendation to put on one’s resumé. Here's a man you can trust. He is a man of the truth. He has borne testimony from all, that he is to be trusted. I want to go back to verses seven and eight for a minute, as they speak about Demetrius, but more importantly about what we would call “Ministry Shares,” supporting ministries and missions beyond the local church. “It was for the sake of the Name, (capital N), that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans. We ought to show hospitality, to support them, that we may work together for the truth.” 4 These words describe the first group of traveling missionaries. As they went from place to place, they would enjoy the hospitality of the various churches. They labored as evangelists in that area, reaching out into places where the church had not yet gone, being supported and strengthened by these various churches. The Apostle John says three things of them. He says that they have gone out; they have left things behind; and they gave up their income and their work and went out to obey this higher calling. Not everyone goes, that was true in the early church as it is today. There were some, such as Gaius, or you and I, who were to stay to help support these persons. But there were others to whom the Holy Spirit said, "Come, I've called you to a special task." Their motive is simply, "for His sake," literally, for the Name's sake, the name of Jesus. In the New Testament, then, that Name is that of Jesus. The Apostle Paul says, “God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11). Respect for and the re-presentation of his Name was the underlying motive for missionary work in the first century as well as the 21st century. It is not the need of people that calls us out to different places in the world to preach the gospel. Need is abundant everywhere. Everyone without Christ is in need. Sometimes the most pathetic cases are not those who have physical needs, but those who have everything materially, but who are miserable in their inner spirit. “So we ought to support such persons, that we may be fellow workers in the truth,” John says. Wouldn't it be wonderful if, after you passed into glory, God wrote "FWT" after your name, as the capstone of whatever degrees or adulation you may have earned during your life? FWT - Fellow Worker in the Truth! Now that’s a degree to have! John closes his letter with these very personal words: “I have 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 together face to face. Peace be to you. The friends here send their greeting. Greet the friends there by name.” What an intimate little letter. It seems as though it came not only from John, but from the Lord Himself, as if it is reflecting what the Lord Jesus is saying to His own church. He is saying to us, "There is much that I'd like write to you about." Well, He’s done that. He has written a whole book here, 1,189 chapters, 31,173 verses and over 807,000 words, and He has much more to tell us about, but He says, "I'd rather not write with pen and ink. But I hope to see you soon, and we will talk together face to face." Today as we come to share in Holy Communion, we may not yet be face to face with Jesus, unless, you see Christ in each other’s face and in these elements of His body and blood.