3 John - No Greater Joy than This…

We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.

We have extra copies.

If you didn't bring one and you'd like one to follow along, just raise your hand up real high.

Somebody will drop one off at your row, your aisle as well.

You can look up on the screen there.

You'll probably see the QR code.

And if you are familiar with such things, you can uh go online there.

You can download the uh sermon notes and quotes.

I think you'll be able to find an online Bible as well.

Uh the network uh information is up there as well.

Uh we are finally at 3 John.

Some of you know we had two weeks where we had to kind of go over here, and then we had to go, hey, over there, you know.

And we had a lightning strike, we had uh people got sick, just different things happened.

And it just reminds us that we always need to remain fluid, dynamic, and flexible, nimble, ready to uh move as uh is needed, as is called for.

So I think, if I recall, somebody helped me out, but I think we did 1 John, and then I think we did Ephesians 1, and then I think we were gonna do 2 John again, a second time, but instead we did Jude, and then I think we did 2 John, and so here we are today at 3 John.

And uh, Lord willing, we'll be able to get through.

This is the shortest book in the New Testament.

Um, it doesn't mean it'll be the shortest Bible study that you've ever been to, but uh it is uh 14 verses here, about 300 words or so.

And as you might expect, uh as we close out these letters of John, as we've called it, um, there are there's some overlap to some of the themes.

And so this week especially I was pouring over this and thinking to myself, how do we, you know, approach this and not sound like we're saying exactly the same thing we've said, you know, for Lowe's uh past uh couple of months that we've been in the letters of John.

At the same time, I'm very well aware of the fact that I don't always get it on the first reading.

And I don't always get it on the first hearing.

Perhaps you're like me in that regard.

Sometimes I need to be told something and then reminded of it.

Oh, and then reminded of it again, you know, and uh maybe uh maybe that's something that you can identify with as well.

Um we see the repetition in themes, little terms and phrases like beloved, what a beautiful word.

It's agape, and it he uses it four times in 3 John alone, which again is a short, short little letter, but he is a pastor, he's an apostle, John is, and he loves his people.

He says things like you can know, you can love, uh, you can know the love of God, you can walk in the love of God, you can walk in the truth.

Or other terms and phrases um he uses like little children, um another, and these repeat over and over again, so it's really uh wonderful to see that it as as he doesn't even use his name to identify himself, we're still pretty confident it's the same guy writing because he tends to use these familiar terms over and over again.

We've summarized uh the letters of John, especially the first John, as uh him wanting to say there's a God.

And he wants us to rejoice in the knowledge of his love, not just the wish, not just the hope, but the knowledge of his love.

Wants you to know that, yes, you, you, no matter who you are, in here or online, he actually loves you.

And it's not because you're so lovable and you've done so many great things and balanced out the moral scales, it's because it flows from his heart of love.

So you didn't earn it, but guess what?

You can't lose it either.

Because it's coming from him, it's sourced in him.

And that is expressed most vividly in the personal work of Jesus.

And then we've been told over and over and over again that this love we receive from vertically from the Lord as he sets his love upon us is also to be shared with one another.

And a great part of the message, especially of 1 John was this one-anotherness of the whole thing.

Let me pray and then we'll read uh 3 John here together.

Lord, uh, as we come to study your word, uh keep us from being satisfied with merely being warmed, inspired, or affirmed in our preferences today, Lord.

Uh we would like to be stirred and awakened, comforted, yes, but also convicted and compelled.

We want to be taken in and taken over and transformed in the process, Lord.

Come, Holy Spirit, teach us, soften our hearts, do a restorative work within us, and then send us out to do a redemptive work through us.

We pray this in Jesus' name for his sake.

Amen and amen.

So 3 John, uh, kind of to the end, to the to the right in the end, if you don't know exactly where it is, uh, it happens to be um uh let's see what page number is that, 1229 in my book, which was printed in 1973.

So it's pretty sure I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be the same page number for you, but that's how far deep into uh my Bible it is.

And the third letter of John, uh probably written from the Isle of Patmos.

Some of you have heard of that before.

We hope to uh take a trip and go and drop by Patmos uh in the next year or two.

Uh if you're curious about that, stop by and uh leave your name, and we'll go on a little journey through the footsteps of Paul and as well John here.

But here's how he begins: the elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.

Now, some of your Bibles, your English Bibles might have the definite article T-H-E, in the truth, but it's actually not there.

Um, it's there sometimes and not there, but here it's not there.

Um the elder is his uh way of not saying his own name.

John's a little, he's not a big self-promoter in contrast to somebody else we'll read about in this particular uh letter.

He's not that way.

Um he called himself the beloved or the elder in the previous letter as well, in 2 John.

So here we're in 3 John, he's he starts saying he's the elder, he's the old guy, yeah, that's true, but he's also a responsible person for some of these churches.

And he's writing to this beloved, and he does use this same root word agape, which is this deep love of God, this unconditional love that God has for us, um, to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.

Gaius, very common name.

It's kind of like Ryan.

You know, we have Ryan up here, okay?

It's like Ryan.

We got a lot of Ryans in the world.

We've had three Ryan on staff here, and um, and you know, it's like a name that's fairly common, and we aren't used to that name.

So I wanted you to know that.

It's not just a who's Gaius?

There could only be one.

No, there's lots of Gaiuses back then.

And uh this guy in particular is one of, I think, five that are mentioned in the New Testament.

So um, this guy in particular, though, seems to be in some kind of leadership role and uh with uh uh a church.

And he, John, seems to have some respect from Gaius, and that will be in contrast to someone else mentioned in this letter as well.

He loves him in truth.

Beloved, I use that same word again.

I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.

What's interesting, the order there, the sequence, the priority, if you will, is the priority of a prospering soul.

But it does remind me it's okay to pray for prosperity in general, and it's okay to pray for health in general.

Matter of fact, the Lord invites us to bring our requests to him, to make our supplications and our thanksgivings known to him, Philippians chapter 4.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

That's not a problem at all.

But notice that he's saying, what I'd love is for your material prosperity and your physical health to be as strong and vibrant and vital as is the prospering of your soul.

I don't know if we have that order right in our own day and time.

I don't even know if I have that order right in my life.

Am I more concerned about the prosperity of my soul?

And do I want the other things to, you know, use that as the standard for real prosperity?

The condition of your soul.

It's really good once in a while to do a little bit of self-evaluation.

We don't shy back from that here at the village chapel or highlighting that.

He wants, he wants, uh, John wants Gaius to prosper materially and in good health, according to the prosperity of his soul.

I was very glad, verse 3, when brethren came and bore witness to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth.

And again, it's not if you're too modern, too postmodern with your mind, you're gonna hear this as that's my truth.

That's your truth.

As if we are shapers, creators, and in charge of this concept called truth.

We are not.

Um, we can do a whole lot of things to fool ourselves, we can lie to ourselves, and nobody lies to me more than me.

Nobody lies to you more than you.

But there are a whole bunch of people lying to you all the time.

You just need to know that.

A whole lot of voices telling you things that aren't true all the time.

So that's why we study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.

We want to get to this gospel, this good news that's declared, this truth that is from God.

Jesus said, I'm the way, the and the life.

And so he's the source of all three of those things.

And if we're looking for those three things, which I think most of us should say we are, interested in life and in truth and in and in finding the way to walk through this life in truth.

And so Gaius is very glad that these folks have come in verse 3 to him and told him that Gaius, or John is very glad that these folks have come and told him that Gaius is walking in truth.

And that means he's walking in the matrix of the gospel, with the context being all that the Lord has taught.

All that the Lord has said.

Not just, again, not just your truth, not just truth as you see it, not just truth as you want to shape it.

And see, this has led us to a bunch of nonsense in our this immediate era that we're in right now.

People thinking they're you know, because we can put it in a video form, we think we can actually recreate reality itself.

And we fooled ourselves.

Because we can play with toys does not mean we can actually change reality itself.

The truth, the truth, is very persistent and ends up surfacing.

It's a very tenacious thing.

And I don't know about you, but I'm actually glad for that.

I I I've I see the recklessness and the wreckage of a culture that thinks it can be its own God, its own reality creator.

And it's just ruining, especially our young ones.

And it breaks my heart.

You know?

So let's just get back to here.

I don't want to get too crazy off into He says verse 4, and this is really, I think, the verse of the of the letter for me this week.

I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.

Ah, that's so good.

I totally love that.

And I relate to that as a pastor.

Uh, last Sunday night, I had no greater joy.

I couldn't think of anything all week long than the faces that came up out of the water.

You know?

You gotta go up on the website.

I think, I think we got a camera angle that was like right across the water as these folks came up out of the water and to see the joy on their faces as they professed their faith in Jesus.

How they wanted to commit themselves publicly to follow Jesus, how they were united with Christ in his death, his burial, and his resurrection to newness of life.

And it was a joyous occasion.

And I'm with John.

I go, man, there is nothing greater.

I mean, there's a whole bunch of great truths about the Christian faith.

But when you're in a church community, whether you're the pastor or not, you should have seen everybody in the room.

We all hung around for a long, long time because we just kept talking about how powerful that was and how joyful it made us to see people who wanted to commit themselves to walking, that is, going through life within the matrix of the gospel.

Verse 5.

Beloved, there it is again.

You're acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish for the brethren, and especially when they are strangers.

In other words, when they come through, they're traveling through, they bear witness to your love before the church.

You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God.

For they went out for the sake of the name.

And by the way, Jesus isn't even mentioned in this letter.

It's really interesting that Jesus Christ, not even mentioned in this letter, but here's what we get: the truth.

The name that's attached to the truth.

And this is John's third letter, so anyone who read his second letter or his first letter or his gospel would understand what he means by the name.

There's no other name.

And this is the name he's referring to.

They went out for the sake of the name.

In other words, their motivation was the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles, no bribes, no, nobody's gonna buy them off and change their message so that it accommodates their cultural milieu, whatever.

Therefore, we ought to support such persons, such people, that we may be fellow workers with the truth.

In other words, we would like to align ourselves with the matrix of the truth of the gospel as well.

And therefore, we want to support those who are doing the same kind of thing.

I wrote, listen, a big change here, verse 9.

Look at this.

In contrast to all of what we've just read, okay?

I wrote something to the church, and we don't know what he's referring to here.

It might be a lost letter somewhere along the way.

But Diatrophes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say.

Okay, so see the pivot here?

I wrote something.

Gaius, good example here, all right?

Diatrophes here is going to serve as a warning.

I wrote something, but this guy, Diatrophes, who loves to be first among them at the church there, does not accept what we say for this reason.

If I come, I will call attention to his deeds, which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words, and not satisfied with this, neither does he himself receive the brethren.

And he forbids those who desire to do so, and puts them out of the church.

In other words, this guy, Diatrophes, is not only rejecting John and John's message, the matrix of the gospel, let's call it.

He also rejects anyone that comes in the name of that gospel, and he also excommunicates members of his church who actually believe or are open to that gospel and that message.

You see what's happening here?

We got in Diatrophies, what we have here is somebody who is completely addicted to ambition, and he is also addicted to autonomy.

He would have made a perfect postmodern, actually, I kind of think that would be the case.

I'm ambitious for me, myself, and I, and I am the only and final last word.

And again, we get programmed to think that way out there.

You may be, it may be happening to you passively, you may not be aware of it, but we're constantly being programmed with that kind of messaging.

Um, and here's diatrophies serving, I would say, well, or Gaius is an example.

This guy's a warning.

Would you wake up?

Is this happening to you?

This is one of those times where, you know, when somebody says, Who's the fool in the room?

And if you don't think it's you and everyone else is thinking it's you, it's you.

You know.

This is one of those moments, diatrophies.

I'm diatrophies sometimes.

We are diatrophies sometimes.

Let's be awake.

He's a warning to us.

Um, we tend to want to be in charge.

We want our own way.

That's really the root cause of my sin.

I want what I want, and I want it when?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I actually want you to want what I want too.

I want my preferences to be the way we do things.

And uh you want that too.

And so uh, John, uh, the wise, the sage, the elder, says this, verse 11, beloved.

And I love that, I love that his warning begins with his love.

You know?

Because one thing people don't like is they don't like to be told what to do.

Unless they know you actually love them.

And you're telling them something for their good, for their highest good.

Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good.

The one who does good is of God, the one who does evil has not seen God.

All right, so we've had uh an example in Gaius, we've had a warning in Diatrophes, now we have a testimony in Demetrius.

Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, from the truth itself, and we also bear witness, and you know that our witness is true.

I had many things to write to you, as he closes out, but I'm not willing to write them to you with pen and ink.

I hope to see you shortly, and we shall speak face to face.

Peace be to you.

The friends greet you, greet the friends by name.

Wow, I just love this.

This is such a great So here.

He's talking about this matrix.

I'm gonna just clear up a couple of the terms, just to amplify them a little bit more, this concept of truth.

We read it over and over again in 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John.

And for John and for us, what he's trying to convey to us, that he would like us to be able to walk in truth.

Uh, and you can put the definite article in there if you want.

The he wants us to walk in the truth.

And he says that that very way in verse 4.

You are, my children, no greater joy than seeing you walking in the truth.

And that's not just, again, it's not just truth as anybody, any one person wants to define it.

It's the truth and matrix of the gospel.

It's where profession turns to practice, creed turns to conduct, belief turns to behavior.

It becomes not just wooden doctrine, but actual living, practical theology that we actually can live out.

All right, a couple of points I want to bring out here before we wrap up in our study.

First of all, I think uh it was Socrates.

We're not 100% sure.

I couldn't find exactly what I wanted to in sourcing here, but you've heard us quote this before.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

And I think John has really been brilliant in all three letters at helping us with the examined life.

Um we have repeatedly brought up this uh sort of three tests, if you will, of um uh Robert Law, I think his name was, who helped us sort of see in the letters of John the three categories that John seems to uh give us for testing an authentic uh saving faith, if you will.

And so for the person who might be asking themselves, am I a Christian?

Do I really have saving faith?

Is the faith that I have the faith that John is talking about?

Well, we have the theological test.

Do we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God?

Or in 3 John's case, is Jesus the truth?

There is a is Jesus the name?

3 John, okay?

I say he is, yeah, I would say yes.

The moral test, are we growing in personal holiness?

Is that the case?

Um, that we can look over our shoulder and say, yeah, I actually am not the same person I used to be.

Um I I can see that I've moved out of mere cultural Christianity, or uh, as Diatrophy's case would be, me first ism of sort of my times, uh, or worse, just a constant stream of self-righteous virtue signaling, which we see everywhere in our culture right now, on every news channel and every every voice that is yelling and screaming out there in outrage has got a problem with self righteousness, and often with virtue signaling.

Um, is that all we're doing?

Or is there actually change?

Personal holiness, growth in that.

Um And here in 3 John, it's just these personalities remind us of the need for mutual accountability, of the need for aligning our lives with the truth.

And so that that's very helpful.

And the social test, of course, that we uh would ask along the way, as especially in 1 John, do we see ourselves growing in our loving and gracious attitude toward others?

More generous, kind, and civil in all of our engagements, especially toward those with whom we disagree socially, morally, theologically, politically.

Can you actually see yourself growing in your love for the people that might vote that way?

Good question.

I think it's good for us to ask ourselves.

Again, I think Gaius serves as an example, Diatrophes as a warning, and Demetrius as a testimony.

Which do you want to be?

Which would you like to be in this culture in which we live?

Man, when I thought of that through for myself, I'm like, ah, I can see why some, you know, like sometimes with when I was growing up, the little, you know, I was the two-year-old that arched his back and screamed and hollered, and you know, threw I had fluids coming everywhere.

I mean, I was a really nasty little brat.

And my mom's watching right now.

I love you, mom.

Um, you are a saint.

Um, but but you can kind of see where, and I'm she never said this, but you can kind of see where she might go, yeah, Jim, he's a warning.

Yeah, Jimmy, she would call me.

Jimmy, he's a warning.

Yeah.

Or he might be an example of what not to do.

You know, she might say that as well.

Um, but I I think with these folks, they're not the hero of the story.

Jesus is, always.

But that doesn't mean they can't be an example, a warning, or a witness, testimony, whatever you want to call it.

And I think that that's helpful for us along the way to think that through.

Uh many people today, I think, are merely letting life happen.

And then one day they wake up to the unshakable sense that they've been wandering aimlessly.

They've drifted off any course they were on, they feel lost, cannot seem to shake the cloud of despair that is smothering them.

Um is there hope for them?

Is there any way that in these letters or in this book we study every single week that they could find a way to a restored joy?

This joy that is greater than all others, because it's inexhaustible.

I think the Bible points us in the right direction here.

Because just as you heard earlier, we're gonna interview a guy named Brian Rosner on his book How to Find Yourself, and the subtitle, which I love, is Why Looking Inside Is Not the Answer.

I think that's brilliant.

In a day and age where everyone's telling you, look to your inner self.

And we're going, nah, the heart of man is wicked, Jeremiah 29.

Jeremiah 30.

We're not gonna, we're not gonna go there.

It's not where we're gonna look for the standard of what's good, true, and beautiful.

Um we're gonna we're gonna agree with the Bible that what we need is outside help, not inside uh self-awareness or realization in some way.

It doesn't mean that some of the self-evaluation stuff and some of that kind of um coaching and all that sort of thing.

It doesn't mean that's not good, it just means it isn't the ultimate thing.

And I think it's important for us to know that.

Um, Gaius' name means, which is I think really fascinating, uh, his name actually means happy, one who rejoices.

And verse 4, where he says, I've no greater joy than this, that my children are walking in the truth.

I love that about him.

It might be why John Bunyan, the 17th-century Puritan English writer, who wrote one of the best-selling books of all time, Pilgrim's Progress, decided that he would name his innkeeper Gaius.

I think that welcoming, joyful kind of person that has, no matter what's going on, has that ability somehow or another to allow the joy of the Lord to flow through them.

Um first thing I want to bring up.

What is your greatest joy?

I think it leads us to at least ask these questions.

What's your greatest joy?

Um, I I think that any one of us might be able to come up with a number of different things that we could say, you know, like if I let's say let's say I wanted you to pick four or five.

What would be on your list?

John says here, my greatest joy is to see my children welcome in the truth.

He's an apostle, pastor, that's why he saw that uh delight him so much.

Um I love the way Ella Wheeler Wilcox says this.

One ship drives east and another drives west with the selfsame winds that blow.

It's a set of the sails and not the gales, which tells us the way to go.

Now, this is a poet of the late 19th, early 20th century credited with the maxim, laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep.

Two of you know that, okay, alone.

Yeah.

Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone.

Um let's make sure nobody here weeps alone, first of all.

Secondly, if we're on the journey in search of joy and what's going to be the greatest joy in our lives, I love her little poem, this little, these lines right here.

Why?

Because she's basically pointing out we kind of want the same thing, it's just the difference that will be made in the way we set our sails.

So, how are you setting your sales?

I think John, in presenting Gaius to us, is saying, this is an example of how to set your sails.

As he says first about Gaius that Gaius has learned to walk in the truth.

And my second point, we'll spin right off of that in just a second.

But I do want to throw in this little thought by Tim on the sailboat, too.

He says, When we begin to live for God and follow his will, we find that we're actually becoming who we were meant to be, realizing our original design.

We're a sailboat finally being put out into deep water.

Someone may object that freedom should be doing what we really want to do.

The Christian offer, however, includes this, is not merely complying with the proper regulations of our Creator.

It also consists of new, growing inward passion to love and know our Redeemer.

In other words, for the Christian, what we really want to do has begun to change.

Why?

Because we're walking in the truth.

Not walking in the lies.

The lies are look inside yourself.

That's how you'll find your true self.

You create yourself or recreate yourself.

You, you, I I heard, I heard, and I know these sort of Disney isms are meant to be positive and all that sort of thing, but I almost choke every time I hear something like, you can be anything you want to be if you just put your mind to it.

And I go, okay, I'm gonna be an NFL quarterback.

And I just haven't been able to do that.

I believe I can fly.

And I just can't do it.

I will be hurt if I try without the aid of a 270-ton metal object that seems to be able to do it better than I can.

Um there's a lot in this world that we listen to all the time because it makes us feel good.

It's all good feels, but it's not true.

And I wonder, how long does it take a young, exhausted soul and mind to be worn out with lies before it starts chasing after this lie and that lie and this lie and that lie?

Warning for us.

We need to fall in love with truth again and with the reality of the truth of the gospel and with setting our sails in the direction of our Creator, the one who designed the ship, the one who created the ocean it sails on, the one that even makes the wind blow at all.

Let's get back there.

Secondly, what does faithfulness look like in our life?

Look at verse uh, where does it say that?

He's acting faithfully.

Verse 5, beloved, and this is so sweet because again, he's calling Gaius beloved.

He's using terms like that.

Doesn't happen with a lot of guys.

A lot of guys, we're not, you know, we're not all like that, but I think we need to be more like that.

Brothers, start saying that I'll love you to your brothers.

Beloved.

You're acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish for the brethren.

And especially when, even when they're strangers, they bear witness to your love for the church.

You'll do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God.

Look at the way we treat one another.

Is it a manner worthy of the love of God and the name of God?

Um look at the way he is extolling this guy, Gaius, for the way he treats the brethren and he acts faithfully.

Well, what does faithfulness look like in your life?

You have some souls that have been entrusted to you, so do I.

Um in different ways.

Some of you are parents, some of you are roommates, some of you are co-workers, some of you are neighbors.

Those souls have been entrusted to you.

You could have an impact on those souls.

Let me stir you, awaken you to think about that.

And how would the Lord perhaps want to use you in uh in some way to be faithful, to show them what faithfulness looks like?

I gotta keep moving.

Stott says, authentic Christianity is not a safe, smug, cozy, selfish, escapist little religion.

It's explosive, centrifugal force.

In other words, it explodes out in all directions, pulls us out from our narrow self-centeredness, and flings us into God's world to witness and to serve.

All right.

Let's do that.

That's what faithfulness looks like.

You want to get on board.

You do want to get on board.

And for you, the beginning of that and nurturing that in your life could look like joining a home group.

It could look like serving on second Saturdays of city service.

It could look like a lot of things.

Uh, we're not just saying it's one thing or another.

We're not trying to create rules for you to follow.

We're simply trying to stir you up and awaken us ourselves, even as a church.

Thirdly, what do we do for the sake of the name?

Verse uh seven reminded me to think that through a little bit as I was trying to think of a joy uh greater than none other, a joy that is this, this same kind of joy that John has.

Um, ask ourselves, what are we doing for the sake of the name?

What in my life can only be explained because of the work of Jesus?

And why am I so timid about saying his name?

You know?

Why so timid about telling others about Jesus?

Our high and privileged calling is to do the will of God and the power of God for the glory of God.

J.I.

Packer said it so beautifully, so succinctly that way.

Let's do it for his name.

That's how he gets the glory.

When somebody says to you, um, that was quite generous of you.

Um, you have an opportunity there.

Put the name on it.

You know?

You don't have to be, you don't have to be, you know, annoyingly, you know, ridiculous about it.

But find a way to, as we, as we said right up here a little while ago, the name needs to be a part of my sitting down, my waking up, my going out and walking down the road, my work, my play, whatever I'm doing.

I need to remember I'm representing Jesus.

And so I need to be aware of that and not afraid to say that.

And I love it that these folks, uh, Gaius and the others, are doing what they're doing, the missionaries that he's talking about coming through and that he's helping them along the way.

They're doing it for the sake of the name.

They're not doing it for the sake of the money.

They're not doing it for the sake of the glory, in contrast to Diatrophes.

They're not doing it for the sake of power.

They're not doing it for the sake of authority or ambition.

They're doing it for the right reason.

Some of us in this room have all been a part of churches where things weren't being done for the sake of the name.

They're doing more, it's almost like Diatrophes was our pastor.

Always wanting to be first, always wanting to be, you know.

And man, we got to run from that kind of stuff, including here at this church.

Very important.

Um, and then lastly, I was also drawn to think about in verse 11, he says, this imperative, he says, do not imitate what is evil.

After he talks about diatrophies, as he starts to talk about Demetrius, he says, do not imitate what is evil.

And again, with the imperative, he starts with beloved again.

I love the way he is so good.

I love you.

Don't imitate what's evil.

I love you, beware of this.

I love you.

You know, constantly saying, I love you.

Um, as so many loving parents can be uh like that so often.

And I think that is indeed a good and a wonderful way uh to be as leaders, as members of a church.

Yeah.

And um, it works, yeah, it really does.

Love is uh love is a very beautiful gift God has given us.

Um sometimes it's years later that you look back and you think about your mom or your dad and the patience they had with you, and you go, She's a saint.

She's beautiful.

You know, that that's really, really good, really important.

Uh Lewis, our imitation of God in this life.

And again, our heroes are in the Bible are um examples, but our only hero is really Jesus ultimately.

Our imitation of God in this life must be an imitation of God incarnate.

That's Jesus.

Our model is Jesus not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands, the surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions.

For this is the divine life operating under human conditions.

This is where the rubber meets the road.

This is where it works, in the disappointment, in the fear, in the loss.

If it doesn't work there, then what good is it?

But in the joys as well, and in the opportunities to see our children grow up loving the Lord as well.

This is really good news to me.

Uh David Jackman will be my closing quote.

The challenge to us now is how much we are really prepared to let Jesus change us.

Is it to be my will or his?

On this will depend the ultimate verdict, whether we prove to be frauds or followers.

Who's at the center of our lives?

Is it the self with this longing to be first?

To be number one, or is it Christ enabling us to keep faithful, to continue walking in the truth?

There is still no issue with uh there is still no issue with greater or more far-reaching implications for the church or for the Christian.

So, Gaius, Diatrophes, Demetrius, an example, a warning, a witness?

Who do you want to be?

That's a great question for all of us to ask ourselves.

And who do we want to be as a church?

Great question for me to be asking myself, even as a pastor and as a man, as a husband, as a neighbor, as a friend.

Lord, thank you for your word.

It's practical like this.

Thank you for our older brother John, how much he loved you, how much he loved whatever the name of the church was that he's writing to, certainly writing at least uh to us as well by extension.

And so I pray, Holy Spirit, that we would hear the words of three John, that they would sink deep into us.

Lord, that you would stir us up and awaken us to the truth, the matrix of the gospel at work in our lives.

And see every element of our lives brought into that sphere, that the that the gospel would influence and shape us uh in ways that uh will glorify you.

And and for the sake of the name, our lives would be transformed and changed.

Pray in Jesus' name, amen.

And amen.