Truth and Love (III John)

We love God because he first loved us.

The third declaration in God's order, we love one another because God loved us. God loves us because he loves us, we love God because he first loved us, and we love one another because God loved us. And the fourth thing I want us to think about there is we love one another as Christ loved us. You see, the reason for love is from God, and the measure of love is God. It's important for us to think about because we too often think we're in charge of our relationship with God as if we initiated it. No, it's God who loved us and we get to love him because he first loved us. And then we pretend we can be stingy with our love. No, it's God who loved us so we love one another. God who loved us, that's how we love one another. It fights against our pretending we have some kind of sovereignty and it fights against our individualism. I want us to look here, that's what love and truth, I believe, looks like, at least those four principles. But notice how love has a practice in verse two. Love is expressed in practice with prayer. Now when you're praying for somebody, you're not immediately expressing directly to them your love. It is important that we just don't say, well, I love them, so I'm praying for them. No, love needs to be expressed to the person you love, So much of love is done without the other person knowing what you're doing. Prayer is one of those things that is one of the most emphatic and important ways we can love one another, and that is by praying to our Father for one another. Think about all the ways love is expressed, but not expressed directly to the person. Just take a parent. A parent who cooks, cleans, shops, does the laundry, That is all done with a love towards a child. How often does a child go out of their way to thank the parent for all those acts of love? Not often enough. How often is that aware until you're a parent how much you're doing that the other recipient of that love isn't getting it directly? The prayer of believers is one of the most important in absolute necessary ways we show love. Love really begins with prayer for one another, especially if it's somebody who's difficult to love. We pray for one another. That's one of the most important ways we express our love. So I ask, Christian, do you pray for fellow believers? One of the practical ways you can do this, every Wednesday night we take a few folks from our membership list and we pray for them. You can take a directory home and you can start walking through and just praying for a member a day or however you want to organize. You can create a spreadsheet and get really organized. Whatever that looks like, just making sure you're thinking about how you can be always mindful of those other believers and showing love by praying for them. Here, we have lots of prayers that can be imitated. Paul has a number of them. We pray that the love of God would be more known to them and they would know God's love more. Pray that they would have the eyes of their heart illuminated so they would see the calling and the inheritance promised. Here, John's prayer is pretty simple and straightforward.

I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health as it goes well with your soul.

That it may go well with you, that you will be blessed. John has a desire for the well-being of his fellow believer, praying for their prosperity. We don't have to be so anti-prosperity gospel that we actually don't pray for each other in our health, in our success, in our well-being. Here, it's modeled for us. Good health, good soul, the two go together. You may have good health, that it may go well with your soul. Now, okay, we could have body, soul, spirit. We're not gonna get into that right now, but what we have to see is that you're not just a clump of matter. God has made you in his image, and he breathed life through his own spirit. There has to be a body and a soul. If we're just clumps of matter, that is a frightening determinism. Here, very clear, there's a body and a soul. By the way, God designed us, God made us, and he prays that we would have good health. We can't adopt some body versus the soul. No, it's these two things go well together. These two parts of us must be good and in good order together. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones was a medical doctor who became a pastor. And when someone would come to him and describe what we would call depression, his first question was,

how are you sleeping?

Recognizing that the physical body and the way God designed us to rest and to need sleep and how restoring that activity is, he would first want to know what the physical practices are. We can walk through and think through a number of things that really matter physically. We can't be some kind of Gnostics that deny the importance of this body that God designed to be fit for this earth, to be used for his glory. Pray that we would be physically well. A few things that we should be thinking about how physically well we are. What do your eyes see? What do your physical eyes see? That's important because you're downloading things for your soul to think about. What are you constantly putting before your eyes? What are your ears hear? What are you allowing to penetrate your heart that'll affect your desires? What kind of chemicals, substances are you partaking in that will change the way your brain works, how your body works? What do you eat? Why do you eat? How much do you eat? Are we eating for energy and to rejoice in the Lord, or there's a warning about eating just for comfort or self-indulgence? How much do we sleep? God designed us to have lives. Real physical patterns, which are good for our soul. Spiritually, I see over and over again, when someone's spiritually dry, they try to find some kind of satisfaction in physical things that are meant to be good, but we use them in the wrong way. Or when we're overwhelmed, we want to take control with some kind of physical activity. We think about these prayers for ourselves, for each other. Christian, how was your prayer life? Are we praying for one another? Are you hoping for the blessed life for other believers? Do you pray for each other? Now notice the transition. He says, I pray for you, but verses three and four emphasize a new word here, rejoice and joy. The same root there is behind each word.

For I rejoice 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 my children are walking in the truth.

From this week and last week, I hope we can see John has some idea and notion that other believers are part of your joy. I don't like the false dichotomy we oftentimes have with happiness versus joy, as if happiness automatically means it's some kind of fleeting thing and joy is some inner deep peace. No, here joy has something to do with our circumstantial relationships with other people. Joy here is dependent upon other people. How would John get such a notion? Is this just a gospel for extroverts? No, John 15. Jesus gives the command to love one another. He calls us to abide in him and to love one another as he has loved us. And in so doing, in verse 11 of chapter 15, in John's gospel, Jesus says his joy is complete when we love one another. What a participation in the joy of our Savior. And in loving one another, our joy will be full. The recipe for joy, the equation for joy requires other believers. I hear people say that misery loves company. I do think folks who grumble like to have others who are going to enable and encourage the grumbling, but misery typically likes isolation. I see more and more that misery really doesn't want other people involved, especially if you're a believer in misery, you want to keep other believers at a distance. Misery likes barriers and boundaries. Here he's declaring, there's no greater joy than to hear my children are walking the truth. There's no greater joy to have invested and participated in somebody's life to the point that You know them and you long for them to rejoice. Is that for real? It makes sense if we believe the gospel that we're all sinners who've rebelled against God and he's shown us his love to call us back to himself. And being called back to himself means we're also called to be with one another. You see, I'm pretty convinced that Lisa and I are rooting for our kids more than anybody else's. They're our children. There's a necessary family relationship where we're rooting for them and rejoicing for them more than everybody else. It's natural according to God's design. But here, John is telling us we're all a family. Adopted by God. The gospel demands this kind of rejoicing with and for one another. I praise God for that because it means my children have so many other people rejoicing with them and for them. The only competition that's supposed to be in the church is outdoing one another and showing honor. Familial love, it's intentional, it's inconvenient. But what a high calling of God to just step back for a moment who loves us, who calls us to know him and to love him, to love one another, and to make his love known. That's a recipe for joy. Important, we also see another word repeated throughout verses three and four. The rejoicing isn't just in the person, but it's rejoicing that he hears the testimony. They're walking in the truth. Notice, there's a testimony that you're walking in your truth and the truth. Now, we gotta be very careful with the idea of your truth today. This doesn't mean each person has their own personal truth and we're all just gonna embrace whatever you think your truth is. No, it's the truth of Christ has come. And we have believed that together. We have a very divided society. We have a very divided culture. And we have to realize that that is an opportunity for the gospel to shine brightly in the church. The early church was also started in a very divided culture where men and women didn't typically eat together in a social setting. Different people in classes would not ever socialize together. There was a very divided society, economically, socially, according to gender. And one of the great testimonies of the gospel was that you had people who had never spent time together coming together in the truth, under the truth, because of the truth, because God loved them with that truth. The healthy church that comes together and sets aside all the things that separate societies and sin unites us. to be a healthy United Church so that we can actually be part of that greater kingdom mission? Do we have Christian relationships like this where we're rejoicing with one another and longing to hear their walking in truth? Do we long to have the kind of friendship where we're so close and so near that we're burdened when other friends are burdened? We rejoice because they have great rejoicing. If you lack joy, it isn't Christ that's failing you. You have to ask, are you actually doing the things Christ has said brings joy? I do get it. The isolation seems safe. Anybody who's been in a church very long and tried to have that kind of partnership, When you love somebody, you make yourself vulnerable. A lot of pain comes from Christians and so-called Christians. I get it, but the recipe for joy is to know how to forgive. The recipe for joy is to let love cover a multitude of sin. The recipe for joy is to know how much God has loved you, and that is why you can love one another even after being harmed Love the truth. Love one another in the truth. And the practice is prayer and rejoicing. The second beloved, verse five. Here we see support. And Gaius, he's been prayed for, for his health, for his soul. He's rejoiced over because he's walking in the truth. Now he's encouraged, because of what he's doing.

Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testify 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.

He transitions in the declaration and this is part of what he's guys is doing and walking the truth. He's, he's being faithful and providing for others. Notice the word effort in verse five. Christian, the word effort and duty, they're, they're in scripture. Those aren't out of bounds words for Christians to use. If you're not putting forth effort, probably means you're coasting. If you're coasting, you're going downhill. The goal is to go up to see God. His faithfulness is quite a testimony. The guy is here as a model, as a member of a church who loves others. And notice the description in verse five. It's faithful because of all your efforts towards these brothers, even though they're strangers. There's a real gospel weight there. It's not the guys thinks are so appealing because they're just like him or he knows him from way long in the past. He doesn't know them. All he knows is that they're going out for the same name he's been saved by. They're under the same God, believing in the same truth. They're united with him in Jesus Christ. It's because they're brothers that he is going to go out of his way to make great effort to love them, to send them on their journey. Now these folks who are strangers to Gaius, but brothers who are going out, they're going out either to plant a new church, go check on a church work, to do what our guys are doing now, to go and participate in another church's work of encouraging them and evangelizing with them. The idea is they've left their homes, they've sacrificed to leave all the comforts and securities, and they're going elsewhere for the sake of the name. Verse six, you will do well to send them on a journey worthy of God. We see this kind of exhortation in a few places. Walk worthy of the calling. Walk worthy in a level or another in a manner that's glorifying to God. Here it's sending someone out who's going to proclaim the gospel in a manner worthy of God. What a high calling that must be. What'd it look like? Well, somebody who's on this kind of mission, we wanna make sure they're well-supplied, they're encouraged, they're not exhausted. I want us to think about this, especially as we are beginning to think about what our mission partnerships look like and our budget and our commitments for next year. A healthy church cannot be a cul-de-sac. A healthy church that's just inward-focused, close-handed, calculating, not generous, it becomes dangerous. Here, a church that's seeking to send out from itself and to bring others in to send out is a healthy church. Just this past week, we were able to donate a piano to another sister church. to encourage them because they needed a piano and, well, we have plenty. A faithful church is a cheerfully giving church. I want us to intentionally think about how we would be a place where missionaries would want to come. When missionaries come back on furlough, they're typically exhausted because they have to go and check in at every church that gives them a little bit. When we think about partnership, we wanna make sure it's a few faithful that we can give a whole lot to so that when they come, we also are able to invest in them and know them. I wanna be a church, we should wanna be a church that our missionary partners are longing to come because it's refreshing to reconnect. It's refreshing because they get to enjoy time together as a family here with us. One of the things here he's committed for is the way he supports them. Here's a few ways you could think about if you wanted to be more active in our mission partners. Choose a mission partner. Commit to some kind of monthly communication. Just a monthly communication. A letter, an email, a care package. Embrace them, know them. Don't let them remain strangers. It's commending that you would love a stranger like a brother because of Christ, but here, lean in and get to know one of our missions partners. If you don't know who our missions partner is, find me afterwards. One of the ways we could bless our mission partners and other missionaries, they need vehicles when they come back. We could provide a vehicle for them. We could purchase a van that would allow our mission partners to not have to rent a van each time they come back. This is one of the ways, when I asked, they told me one of the ways we could support them. Another way is to make sure they have housing. Now, this is as turmoil for me because I love cramming all the columns in my basement. Because then we get to have them for like the 48 hours they're here, but they only want to be here for 48 hours because they're crammed in my basement. to make sure they know when they come, we're gonna find them somewhere they get to spread out, make their own for however long they would want to be with us. Make sure when they come that they're not packed in, sleeping on the floor, but they're cared for, provided for in a way that they would want to stay longer. Now, those things cost money, and I can hear that sounds very sacrificial. I also wanna encourage you members, as we think about the support, Five weeks ago, I wrote a letter to the church just asking that you would give faithfully. Our giving these last few months have been irregular, up and down and down and down. When I asked that you would give faithfully, the last five weeks have been so encouraging. If we were to continue whatever that faithful giving is, if that's what it looks like, we're able to do this and more. A church that's giving faithfully, seeking to support faithfully, all the ministries are fully provided for and we're able to do so much more in a way that Gaius is being commended for. Verse seven, he gives the reason for they've gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles, that is, unbelievers. This is what makes these folks so significant. They've left homes, they've left comfort, they left livelihoods. They are now dependent and because they're doing this for the name, the church or churches should seek to support them. It's important here that the mission is to make the name known. If you're not a believer here, this name is Jesus Christ. It's the name above all names. It's the name leaving homes for to proclaim. But for you, I want you to hear something else. It's the name that you can confess your sins to. It's the name that you can speak to honestly because he knows your sins better than you do. You're not hiding anything from Jesus. He's almighty God who sees all and knows all. And what's amazing about that God is knowing all and seeing all. He said, I'll die for your sins. If you confess your sins, I'll forgive you. That's the name. That's the name that Christians desire to make known because it's the only name in which there's salvation. This morning, the invitation believe in that name. First say believers, therefore, we ought to support people like these fellow workers. Last week, there was a concern that with the love of one another command that there's a danger, those who would not profess that name properly, those who would deny his deity or his humanity. This week, it's not protecting and keeping people out who would cause trouble in the church. It's, no, bring them in, support them, and send them out faithfully. What a wonderful world the gospel gives us. To be regularly reminded, we can look past our noses. We can look out and see what God's doing. We can participate in the full work of God and the kingdom by participating with other believers who are doing that work, and we should be doing it here. A couple ways in which God has blessed us recently to think about how to participate and work outside of these walls. We've been able to send somebody weekly to Coaseville Baptist Church. They do not have a pastor. Praise God, we've been able to send somebody down to preach there weekly. We've been able to do so again with Rockfish and Nelliesford, and they've asked that in October we would start sending somebody regularly as their pastor will be moving to Georgia. Right now in Lusaka, Ben and others have been preaching and teaching, walking alongside of other church partners there to proclaim the gospel. The Kellers just came back from Columbia a few weeks ago where they got to partner with other churches training up teachers and pastors. Our focused attention is in Lisbon, Taipei, Singapore, Gothenburg. Praise God that we have been able to build these relationships through your efforts and care and support. I wanna draw your attention to something else right now though. In this next week, thousands of young adults are gonna be coming to this city, from all over this nation, from all over the world. You don't have to go out of your home to be a missionary. You just gotta walk on the grounds of UVA. The nations are there. They're coming to us. It's here we should be thinking Jesus' words, the harvest is plentiful. I just got to spend lunch yesterday with our campus outreach team and what an encouraging group of laborers. What an opportunity for us to pray, to encourage them, to support them. We really gotta praise God here. I have personally been praying for campus outreach for 12 years. And it came at just the right time, as God always does. Our own member gets to lead the thing with our own students who have been faithful with us. They are going to be on the front lines of what God's doing with the nations. We live in a very opportunistic place. Do we see the opportunity where the harvest is full? Lift up this team, lift up Matt. The harvest is plentiful. One more thing we need to be doing, and that is praying for our own members and the children who are being raised in the church, that they would be sent out. Yes, the opportunity's right there, but are we willing to pray that our own members and children will be sent out for the name? Love rejoices, love supports, Now there's a warning. And notice he takes a different transition here. There's a love warns, and this is our third point. I have written something to the church. Now he's writing to Gaius. We're not sure what this is. I don't believe it's second or third John. It must be something else he's written, but it's about another individual. And I want us to see in verses nine through 12, Diotrephes is really contrasted with Demetrius. The main point is who are you letting be your model? Is it Diotrephes, who appears to be the image of what evil is, or is it Demetrius, who would be a model of what goodness is? Now, we have Gaius who's already been declared in some good practices. We see an open heart towards the beloved brothers who are even strangers, an open wallet, an open hand. a support, we see him doing the things of love. Demetrius, we don't have any activity recorded of him, but it's a good testimony he has. He's walking the truth. Well, Diotrephes, he's the one who gets the description, and so it's a warning about him. Notice there's three things. Let me read verse nine and 10.

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.

Diotrephes, he's controlling. He loves me first. He wants preeminence. He wants his opinion and his ways to be prioritized. He's refusing the authority of John, who is the elder. He's a gossip. The word here actually could be he's a tattler. Speaking wicked nonsense. And third, and this is where we see this contrast, by putting himself first over the elders, he's putting himself first among the church. He's putting members of the church out. He's not welcoming the brothers. We see a significant problem. There's characteristics of diatrophies that are dangerous in a diagnosis. James 3 tells us that wisdom from below is selfish ambition, bitter jealousy, falsehood. That seems to be true of diatrophies. One last thing to be clear about is the concern is to the church regarding diatrophies. Notice he didn't say, I wrote to the elders about diatrophies. He wrote to the church. We mentioned this last week. Church, you're responsible for the teaching of ministry of the church. You're responsible for the membership of the church. Here there's a member, Diotrephes it appears, who's being abusive among other members. He's rejecting the truth. So Diotrephes, he's a bit of a case study for us. A.T. Robertson is one of the great Greek scholars. He's a professor of the seminary where I was at. Well, he passed away way before I was there. But he wrote an article in a Baptist newspaper that was published throughout the United States, and he called it, Diotrephes the Church Boss. And the whole point is, there's no such thing as a boss in the church. Crisis ahead, and we're all members working together to proclaim him and know him. Well, Robertson shared that after the publication, over 20 deacons from all over the country wrote in a complaint that it was a personal attack on them. Of course, what he did was just describe some dangerous behaviors, and 20 people took it upon themselves to write. Who knows how many more actually thought this was the case? But this can be a dangerous pattern. First, he loves to be first. He insists on his own opinions. Now, this is John, the evangelist, John, the writer of the gospel. 10 tells us that John and his brother once went to Jesus and said, we wanna sit closest to you. We wanna be first and second, they're brothers. Remember what Jesus said. You have no idea what you're asking for, guys. The kind of suffering it will take for you to have that kind of place in the kingdom, and you will suffer. It is not mine to give, it's the Father's to give, that kind of place. John had been given a specific correction on this kind of thinking of, I want to be first, I want to be great. And Jesus made it clear, as the head of the church, I am gonna die to ransom. Those who want to be first will be those who serve the most. This is what's so dangerous about Diotrephes' mindset that he wants preeminence is it's so antithetical to our Savior and to the discipleship model of deny yourself, carry your cross and follow me. This is why he must point this out. He's given Gaius this declaration and we get to see as members what we should be longing for to be like Gaius, but here's a warning of this kind of first mentality. Dr. Fies is dangerous because he wants to be in control. He doesn't respect others' authority, doesn't respect the church. He's probably somebody who sounds really spiritual until you disagree with him. You do learn that you see somebody's maturity when in disagreement how they behave. Something I want to wrestle with, and I believe here, again, Diotrephes isn't a believer. He is a model of what evil is described as in verse 11. The whole goal is that the church would recognize who to follow as a model, who not to follow. Diotrephes, he does evil. And based upon verse 11, he doesn't know God. He hasn't seen God, so he can't make him known. Believer, there's a... We're still sinners who still long to be first in different ways. That's why it's an important question for us as believers. Who has permission to correct you? That's one of Dr. Fee's main problems. He doesn't respect authority. He doesn't respect even the church. He's in control. It's very important to be correctable. Titus 1.9,

an elder must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught.

You can't teach unless you're teachable. lead unless you're correctable. I believe we all should long for correction. The more we see our sin, the more we long for accountability. There's people I go out of my way to make sure that if they correct me, I try not to be defensive. I trust you. We should trust one another enough to know we're brothers and friends who desire to see each other growing up in Christ. We have to have a culture, not where we're constantly trying to sniff out sin, but we're constantly willing to let others speak truth in our lives. Verse 10, he talks wicked nonsense. He's a gossip. He likes to speak. And this is just classic playground behavior. How do you make yourself look good? By making someone else look worse. Everybody recognize that one? So you talk wicked nonsense about somebody else, and so they look worse, so you can look better. The way to make sure you are elevated is by putting others down. That is not the way of the Christian. The way of elevating one another is by elevating Christ so that we're all drawn up to him. And the last description, and not content with that, He refuses to welcome the brothers. So it's not just a problem with the authority, it's anybody who would deny him his opportunity to kind of control. He refuses the brothers. And I believe this must be those on the mission. And also stops those who would want to and puts them out of the church. He practices his own church discipline. He decides who's in and out by himself. And praise God, that is not what scripture tells us. He wants to be the boss. He, when given the opportunity, would cause all kinds of disorder. Notice John's primary application, beloved, verse 11. Notice how dangerous to atrophies is, but the number one application here is do not imitate evil. Those descriptions are all evil.

But imitate good.

Why?

Whoever does good is from God. Whoever does evil has not seen God.

We see a clear distinction. The church who is loved by God is walking in his truth and should not be behaving like diatrophies. He presents another model. There is something wonderful we're supposed to be teaching, modeling, practicing with one another. Godliness must begin with faith, but it's something practiced. It's really easy to find bad models. We should be longing to be the kind of friends that others trust and want to be models. We need to be aware of this danger, but I want to draw us back up and see the whole declaration. The church on mission becomes very insular under diatrophies. the church on mission becomes paralyzed with diatrophies. You're not welcoming others, you're not sending others. You kind of become this cul-de-sac that eventually becomes a swamp because of selfishness. But the open-handedness that receives the love of God, the open-handedness that gives that love of God back to others, all that beautiful picture of supporting, sending, being fellow workers, being friends, being a family, That's the high calling of the church. That is what helps the church be on mission. So three applications. Prayer. Prayer. Praying that we would remain, all of us, individually and as a church, would remain focused on the mission of making Christ known to one another and to this world. Second, rejoice. learn how to come around each other, and we will have grief with one another, we will go through burdens and trials together, but we'll learn to rejoice with each other in Christ. There's a way in which we're gonna be generous in support of the work God is doing, not just here, but across the street and around the world. And then we're gonna protect the unity of the family. Pray, rejoice, support, protect. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you, Lord, for your kindness. We all have loved to be first, and even while we were loving ourselves, in such sin and hating you, you loved us. We thank you that your love heals the heart, redirects the heart. Lord, we pray we would know how to love you because you first loved us. Lord, we pray we would know how to love one another because and as you've loved us. And Lord, we pray we would know how to make the name of Christ known. that our neighbors, our friends and family who don't know you, those we get to share the gospel with at work, those who we partner with, who they share the gospel with, that Christ would be exalted, and the gospel of Jesus Christ would transform lives. We thank you, Lord, for the invitation to love you, love one another, and make that gospel known. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.