How to Make or Break a Church

0:13 We are ending. This is, we are bringing the flight to a close for our short July series called Required Reading. Pastor Skip is back in town. Thank goodness. So thank you for those of you, if you've joined for this month, but we've looked at some books that are a little bit more obscure, books like Haggai and Philemon and Habakkuk and 2 Peter. and tonight we're gonna close out this series with maybe the most obscure book of all and that is 3rd John. 3rd John, so if you have your Bibles, which I trust you do, why don't you turn with me to the book of 3rd John. It's the third to the last book of the Bible. It should only occupy a single page in your Bible if you are using that one. But my son John, it's his birthday in a few months And he's the sort of kid that's talking about the next birthday about a year out.

1:11 So birthday is a big deal for him. But as is often the case, it's kind of a tradition in our household. We take the kiddo who it's their birthday. We'll take him to the store and we'll let them pick out a gift. When it's John's turn, we're going to be there a while. Like it's going to take some time. He is one where he has a hard time making decisions. So he'll be looking at different toys. We'll spend easily 30, 40 minutes in between the different toy aisles as he's wrestling and waiting and trying to make a decision between which toy, which one does he like, what's better, what's not. Fact is, we are going to read about a lot of choices in this book tonight, choices. And here's some choices that maybe all of us wrestle with. I have it on screen, the state question, red or green? Red or green?

2:04 I'm going to say this. The answer is it depends. Not Christmas, because that messes everything up. Depends on the food, right? Sometimes it's green, sometimes it's red. What about this one? Dallas or Denver, right? So we got some strong feelings here. More honestly, we just have some sad people that if you support either of these, you're just sad. But if you're a musician, perhaps, then you might be wondering, what about Martin guitar or Taylor guitar? What's better? I'm team Martin all the way. But we're talking about choices tonight because we're presented with choices every day in our lives. And those choices, red or green, has very little impact on the way that we live. But there are many choices that we have to make that do. So I believe that our text tonight is going to present us with four choices to make. And the way that we decide is going to have a real impact on this congregation. So I'm going to call our study tonight, how to make or break a church, how to make or break a church. Well, like I said, we're in the book of third John. Um, like I said, this is the shortest book in the new Testament in Greek, in the language that it was written. It's only 219 words. It's very small. So if you compare this to Paul's magnum opus, the letter to the Roman church.

3:30 Think of that as almost like this is a podcast series. This is a multi-part podcast series. 3 John is more like a lengthy text message. It's really it. It's very to the point. It's very practical. It has no frills. There's no deep theological discussions to be had. It's very personal. In fact, it's the most personal letter in the New Testament because it really is only written to one guy named Gaius. Unlike Philemon, which was written to Philemon and his household and the church that was meeting there, this is primarily meant for one dude named Gaius. And it's addressed, it's dealing with the churches that are in Ephesus. And yes, I mean churches because in this day and age, there was not one single church in a city. In this point in church history, there were house churches all over.

4:27 As this new Christian movement was growing, there were little house congregations and the leaders of these different house churches had different ways of doing things, which is ultimately the point of tension in this text, that there's church leaders who have different ways of going about things. And John is writing to address that. We're not entirely sure, but the best guess is that John writes this before he goes to the Isle of Patmos, where he, of course, has the revelation of Jesus Christ. So this would probably date this book to probably the mid to late 80s in the first century. That's our best guess. But just like we did with Philemon, just like we did with 2 Peter last week, we only have half of the conversation. So we're gonna do our best to reconstruct the most likely circumstances for what precipitated John to write this letter.

5:23 And ultimately, we're going to see that 3 John is more focused on right behavior than it is with just having the right beliefs. John is very focused on making sure that the people in the churches at Ephesus have good behaviors, not just good beliefs. You can look at verse 11. We're going to come back to it a few times. But verse 11, beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God. And I would say that often in the evangelical church, we are very focused on people having the right beliefs, right? That's why we have our doctrinal statements. Can you tick off the boxes on the doctrinal statements? Do you agree with the right things? Do you disagree with the wrong things? That's not as much John's point.

6:18 If anything, he takes it further. He says, I'm actually more concerned that you have the right behavior based on the beliefs. And it's not just important that you believe the right thing. He cares that you're doing the right thing in light of those beliefs. That's John's point, as we will see. And like I said, there are no deep theological discussions. There is no deep, difficult grammar with obtuse theological concepts. This is very straightforward, very simple, very personal. John doesn't even address any specific false teaching. Last week, we talked about the danger of false teaching. There isn't really even the danger of false teaching at play here. Bad doctrine is not really the issue at hand. As we're going to see, what is more important is the way that we treat one another. That's what's on John's heart.

7:15 And as it turns out, churches are fragile things. Think of them like plants. I'm notoriously bad at killing plants. Like you will give me a plant and in short order, I will kill it. It's not because I'm not trying, I'm trying very hard, but for whatever reason, I have the opposite of a green thumb. Whatever green thumb is, I have the opposite. I touch a plant and it dies, right? But plants are so sensitive to changes in their environment. If you give it too much water or too little water, you can kill it. If there's too much sunlight or too little sunlight, you can kill it. Churches, much like plants, are fragile things sometimes.

8:00 Just like a plant is dependent on how I take care of it, the church, the health of this church is dependent on how we behave while we're here. The health of this body, this congregation, is directly related to the way in which we behave. So like I said, this text is gonna give us four choices that we're gonna make. So here's the first one. We need to choose between integrity or inconsistency. Let's dive into verse one. The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. I don't wanna park here. There's a couple times throughout this day we're going to have to park here on a word or a phrase. The elder. This is John speaking, but John doesn't write in the way that we might expect John writing. So he doesn't say the apostle John, you know, called by the Lord Jesus Christ to the churches that are in Ephesus, grace and peace. That's more of a Paul thing. That's a Paul way of starting a letter. John simply just says, the elder to the beloved guys whom I love in truth. He's very simple. He's very straightforward.

9:07 word. And it reminds me of how John writes when he writes the gospel, right? He refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved, right? And sometimes we'll kind of rib on him for that. It's like, okay, John, do you think that you're better? Do you think that Jesus loves you more? I don't think so. I don't think that's the case. In fact, I think that John is a man of deep humility because he doesn't write as John, the leader, the last apostle, guys. I'm the only one left. It's like the last beetle. I'm the last apostle guys. Listen to me. He doesn't say that. He just says the elder in gospel of John. I'm just the disciple whom Jesus left in the ancient world. It was not a meritocracy. It was about who you knew, who you were close to. And John was in Jesus's inner circle. It would have made sense for him to leverage that. Hey, Jesus, I'm like his bestie. like I we go we go way back he doesn't just the elder I'm just the guy that Jesus loves just simply being the person that Jesus loves was enough for John but we know that this letter is written by John and it's so obviously John's writing because he John has this very black and white way of thinking he loves contrast he loves dichotomies he loves talking about light and darkness. He loves talking about light and love and hatred, truth and deception. We see that same way of writing so clearly in this short letter. But it is worth looking at this because in this very, very short letter, John uses the word truth. Aletheia in Greek, he uses it seven times, sometimes multiple times in a single verse. So clearly this was important to him, the idea of truth. But it's also important to him is the idea of love because the word for love, agape, is mentioned six times in this letter. And I think that gives us the perfect balance. John is a wise, sage pastor at this point in his life. He's been doing ministry a long time. He understands that

11:17 love is not real love if it's not grounded in truth, but he also understands that truth must be communicated and presented in love. He keeps those things in perfect balance. Gaius, the one to whom this letter is written, we would guess, we would assume is likely a leader of one of these many house churches in Ephesus. So he's leading this. Look at verse two. Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers. Once again, we kind of have to hit the brakes here because over the last 60, 70 years, this verse has been twisted by people who propagate what's called the prosperity gospel, the word of faith movement, that basically that God's will for your life is good times, favor, wealth, health, success all the time, everywhere in your life. That is not true. That is heretical. And like we talked about last week, heretics ruin everything. That is not what this verse is about. This verse is not promising believers good health, financial abundance all the time. That's not what this is. In fact, in a very Jewish way, John is expressing his desire for shalom, for Gaius. Because shalom, we would translate that as peace out of Hebrew, but it means more than peace. It's not just lack of conflict, it more communicates this idea of mental and physical and spiritual wellness, well-being, that your whole existence, your whole person is doing well. That's why they will wish people even today, shalom, that's a greeting. John is wishing shalom for his good friend, guys. That's what's happening here. In fact, imagine a compliment like this, that the apostle John himself would say, I know that you are so spiritually mature. I hope that the outside looks as good as the inside. Talk about a compliment, right? But do you have a Gaius in

13:25 your life? Do you have a John in your life? Somebody who you have known for such a long time that you have been through thick and thin with. You've been serving together. You've wept together. You've rejoiced together in the Lord. You've been worshiping together in church for decades. Do you have somebody like that who could write these things about you the same way John writes them about Gaius? The reason I ask is because there is a danger that I see a lot of Christians fall into, and it's the danger of church hopping, where with the best of intentions, Christians will move between churches almost like we move between streaming platforms. Like, well, today I'm going to watch this show on Netflix, and I'm going to go over to HBO Max, and I'm going to go watch, well, I'm gonna go watch a show on Amazon Prime. And that's fine for entertainment. It's less fruitful, I would say, for us as Christians because we need to have at least a community that we're rooted in.

14:21 Go to as many churches as you want, but at least make one community. This is my home church. These are my people. You need to have roots. You need to put down roots in order to have a reputation like Gaius's because the reputation that John is talking about is one that took years to build. this relationship that he has with John, this close friendship, this ministry partnership took years to build. That requires you putting down roots where you're at. You have to put down roots in a community to really receive the fullness of life that's there. If you want to have a good reputation, that requires you to be rooted somewhere where people know you. But you might say, ah, who needs a reputation, right? I don't care what people think. You might say that and I get where you're coming from because on one hand, that's good. That's a good thing to say. I don't care what people think about me because it means that you're not basing your identity off of what people say about you. That's a good thing. You know who you are. You know what God has done for you and you're content with that. That's good. But sometimes I'll see people say that. I don't care about what people think. And what it really is, is it's an excuse for them to be unkind.

15:35 I don't care what they think. So I'm going to be unkind. I'm going to be rude. I'm going to be harsh because I don't care what people think. And that's where I'd say respectfully, maybe you should actually care about what people think. Because Solomon in Proverbs 22, one says this, a good name, a good reputation is to be chosen over great wealth. Favor is better than silver and gold. Do you have people around you who know you well? Just like John knows Gaius, what do they have to say about your way of living? What reputation do you have with those who know you best?

16:14 Or do you even have people who know the real you? Or as is often the case, have you presented different versions of yourself to different people at different times, right? You're one way with your friends at work. You're one way with your friends when you're not at work. You're one way at church. You're one way at home. And all of those people are different people so that nobody other than God himself knows the real you. Unfortunately, I think social media has shaped the way that we often interact with people. Cause I mean, let's be honest, social media is kind of a highlight reel, right? You don't post it on Instagram when you dump coffee on your nice white shirt, right? On the way to a meeting. You don't do that. You don't post on Instagram after you had a fight with your spouse. No, you post the highlight reels. You post the trips, the vacations, the pretty pictures. And often we can curate our relationships in the same way where we're presenting only the best version of ourselves to people so that nobody actually knows what is really happening. We also see the problem of anonymity, that people feel comfortable being something they're not usually because they don't have a picture of their face or their real name on it. And I'm sure you've experienced this too. Some of the meanest things that I have ever heard said to me were said by somebody who does not have a photo of themselves. It's a picture of a cartoon cat and some fake name. And they feel the boldness to share the rudest, most unkind things.

17:48 There's no accountability. They're comfortable being somebody completely different online. That's where this idea of integrity comes in, that you are the same person in private and in public. Integrity is becoming a lost virtue in our day and age. And I've shared with you several times throughout the series that I have a deep and abiding love for musical theater. I love musicals. I was raised on them. And one of my favorite modern musicals is the musical Hamilton. Any fans? Hamilton, right? Great show, great musical. But near the end of the story, there's obviously, there's this tension, this back and forth between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. And when Alexander Hamilton, at the end of his career, is pressed to endorse either Thomas Jefferson or Aaron Burr for political office, this is what he says. I've never agreed with Jefferson once. We fought on like 75 different fronts. I'm not wrapping this. It just does not happening. But when all is said and all is done, Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none.

18:51 The whole point is that Burr would change and morph into whatever would get him popular support. He had no real conviction. He was not a man of integrity. And that's the same in our world that so often truth will give way to trend. Whatever is popular, whatever's hip, whatever is in vogue at the moment becomes truth and people will quickly trade away their convictions in order to be accepted. Truth often gives way to trend. So for me, I read this and what a fresh breath of air this is to read this. Look at verse three. For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth. Talk about a testimony, Talk about a compliment to have the apostle John talk about you like this. Shouldn't that be all of our goals that somebody who knows us well, even strangers who we meet are able to talk about us that man, they are defined by the truth.

19:56 They love the truth and they walk it out. They're authentic. They're real. They are the real deal. And as we're going to see for the rest of our time tonight, third John is uniquely focused on how traveling itinerant missionaries and ministers were treated. And again, that might sound kind of strange. It's like, we don't really have that. Like we don't really have people who just go from place to place to place. But again, you need to remember in the first century, there were no mega churches. There were no mega churches. Between the kind of intermittent waves of government persecution, the political instability, um, most, most churches didn't, you know, the, the lead church leaders had to hop between congregations. So treat teachers would circle the congregations kind of doing a circuit like the circuit riders in the, in the 18th century would, they'd go between different churches, sharing the gospel, preaching the good news, ministering to the people in different congregations.

20:58 And when they would come to your town, they would stay with believers in town. This is why, because they couldn't just like rent an Airbnb. They couldn't just go to an inn. They did have inns in the ancient world, but they weren't good places. They were sketchy. Most inns moonlighted as brothels at night. So a good self-respecting Christian is not gonna go stay there. Instead, they would do what traveling rabbis would often do, which is I'm gonna find another believer in town to stay with. Another believer in town who can take care of me, who can feed me and give me a roof over my head and a bed to sleep on. But in that culture, to prevent abuse, to prevent moochers from just showing up and taking advantage of you, many times these travelers would come with a letter of recommendation. So to the household that they're going, they'd have a letter from somebody that the person in that household knew, in this case being John, recommending this traveler, recommending this visitor.

21:54 In fact, it's likely that 3 John is a letter of recommendation for this guy, Demetrius. Look at verse 12. Demetrius has a good testimony from all and from the truth itself. And we also bear witness, and you know that our testimony is true. It's a letter of recommendation. Demetrius is coming to town and he has this letter from the old aged apostle John as testimony that he's the real deal as he asked to stay with Gaius. And clearly as Gaius has had other traveling, visiting ministers, they've all brought the apostle John a really good report. Man, hey, Gaius, he's legit, dude. He believes it, he preaches it, and he practices, right? John says that just as you walk in the truth, you don't just speak the truth, you practice it. People know that you're the genuine article. All of this paints a picture that Gaius was a man of deep integrity. Gaius was a man of deep integrity. For him, the gospel wasn't just a set of intellectual beliefs.

23:00 This was his lifestyle. You knew that if you were with Gaius that he was going to practice what he preached. That was a rare thing in the ancient world just as it is today. But can the same be said of us? Can the same be said of you and me? Are we so consistent in our walks? Are we so full of God's truth that it just spills out that going to church, being a Christian isn't just a matter of believing certain things, we practice it. Those beliefs that we read about and we hear about from a pulpit shape and change our lives. Can that be said about us? Or are we social chameleons? Where depending on the context, depending on the venue, we might shift what we believe and how we act. Because if that's the case, that's not integrity, that's inconsistency.

23:54 Look at verse four. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. This verse expresses, I think, the heart of any Christian pastor, any Christian parent, to hear that your children are walking in God's truth. We don't know how many children John had. It's likely that he had some. Most people did back then. But what we do know is that John had spiritual children. He didn't just have biological children. He had spiritual children. And I say that because I know that there are some of you in this room who, for whatever reason, God has not given you biological offspring.

24:35 And as painful as that has been for you, you haven't stopped. That hasn't stopped you. You have sought out people who are spiritually fatherless. You've been father. You've been spiritual mother to them, mentoring them, training them, discipling them. And so this verse, no doubt, resonates with you. that when you see those people, whether it's your actual children, your spiritual children, walking in truth brings you joy to see that they have carried on the torch that they are continuing to practice what you taught them. That's why ministries like Calvary Kids or Calvary Youth are so special. You could see these young people at such a young tender age grow and mature into a faith of their own. There's nothing like it. christians with integrity are christians who make churches they're faithful they're consistent they're regular they're dependable everything we would want from somebody in church they have integrity they can be counted upon but christians who are inconsistent all they do is they bring chaos because you can't depend on them you can't rely on them they're not faithful with what you give them. So they bring chaos to a congregation. Choice number two is open hands or closed fists.

25:51 Will we have open hands with what God has given us or will we be tight-fisted with it? A couple of weeks ago, we talked about this idea of suffering. We read through Habakkuk, talks about suffering. And one of the ways in which I suffer regularly is in dealing with door-to-door salespeople and fundraisers. I don't know why God has called me to this type of suffering, but he has. Because once or twice a week, I hear my doorbell camera go off. I go to the door. You hear the spiel. And it happened to me last week. There was somebody who came. They were representing a large charity in town, a large charity in the state. They start their spiel. They're identifying all the things that their charity does. And what I do is I cut them off as nicely as I can. But here's what I tell them. I kind of have a line because it happens so often. I tell them, I know that your time is money and I respect your time. And I, so I have to tell you, you're not going to make any money here. I would just encourage you just move on to the next house.

26:50 You're going to have better luck there. This person kept pushing and pushing and pushing. It's like, Oh, I know that. But it's like, no, I don't think you know that. I just told you I'm not buying anything. I'm not supporting this fund, this charity. Move on. There's lots of houses. Just keep going. Why are you wasting your time? You're not going to get me to budge. But that's because where our wallets are tends to reveal a lot about what we believe. So the simple fact is, it's kind of implied, the reason I'm not supporting your charity is, if I believed in it, I'd already be supporting it. I'm not. I don't really support what your charity does. I'm so glad that you're doing it, and I wish you well. You're not going to get any money from me. We need to understand this in reading a book like 3 John is that ministry isn't just for ministers. There are no professional Christians to whom we get to delegate the Great Commission. Oh, they got it. Looks like they got it. They're the professional Christians. I'm going to let them carry out the Great Commission. I'm going to let them do that.

27:54 my friends Christianity is not a spectator sport it's not a spectator sport it's beautiful that we're all in this room together but I can promise you God's plan for your life is not simply that you park your rear end in a seat once a week that's that's not that's not all that God has for you there's so much more we are all participants in this mission. Yes, it starts by going to church, but it doesn't end with sitting in a church seat. Gaius understood that Christianity was not a spectator sport. He understood that to further the mission, that he needed to tangibly support those who were accomplishing it. Look at verse five. Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers who have borne witness of your faithful love before the church.

28:48 If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well because they went forth for his namesake, taking nothing from the Gentiles. Again, we really have to get kind of our heads into this, what church was like in the first century because resources were limited. You remember the Christian movement was maybe 50 years old at this point. There wasn't much to go around. Again, these are house churches. These are small congregations, maybe of a dozen people. That's about it. Small house churches. Again, we can assume that when Paul wrote his letter to the Roman church, the biggest city in the empire, there was maybe a few dozen, maybe a hundred at most Christians in the entire city. Probably the case in Ephesus now, there's several dozen Christians spread across a few different house churches.

29:41 There's not many people, meaning that every Christian had to pull their weight. They understood that they played a role on the team. They were not just sitting on a bench. They were part of the team. They were playing the game. They understood that. Every Christian had to pull their weight. Those who could go went. And those who couldn't go gave.

30:04 Those who were able to go on the road to evangelize, to go witness, they did that. And those who were not able to do that, they supported. They gave their time, they gave their resources. And when we talk about this idea of hospitality, it can be difficult for us to wrap our heads around because hospitality isn't that big a deal in our day and age. It was back then. In the ancient world, hospitality, as it is in many cultures across the world even today, hospitality was a sacred duty. When somebody came to you, to your house, to your home, it was your duty to care for them, to support them. If you watch Christopher Nolan's movie, The Odyssey, that idea of hospitality is a key part of the story. And we see this as what the Greek philosopher Plato said, strangers from abroad should receive all proper kindness.

31:01 Cicero, the Roman politician said this, the whole matter of hospitality is of the greatest importance. and Seneca. Seneca said a lot of wacky things, but I do like this that he says, wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness. Hospitality was a critical piece of the ancient world. The early church didn't have online giving. It didn't have 501c3 tax exemption, right? You couldn't just Venmo Paul a hundred bucks for dinner from a thousand miles away. The reason the gospel spread the way it did wasn't just because of missionaries, even more so it was because of the people behind the scenes who were funding those missions. That's why the gospel was able to spread in the way that it did. And Gaius understood this need for sacrificial generosity, sacrificial hospitality.

31:58 and it's just as true in our day. When Christians are mission-minded, we get to share in the blessing. We get to share in the blessing. When we are of one accord, we understand that the main thing is the main thing. We want to see people meet Jesus. We get to participate in the blessing when we contribute to the Lord's work, however we do that. Look at verse eight. We therefore ought to receive such, a more literal translation is, we are indebted to support people like those itinerant ministers that we may become fellow workers for the truth. When you and I move from spectating to participating, we get the blessing of being fellow workers in the truth. That the truth that those who are going out are proclaiming, we are a partner with them. It's not just about them, it's about us. We are partnering, We are supporting.

32:58 We're co-workers. That's how Paul often refers to his supporters, co-workers in the gospel. The blessing in this book is just as much for those who give as it is for those who go. and the reality is if people didn't support Paul's mission trips, he would never made it out of Jerusalem. The only reason we have all these stories in the book of Acts is because there was a lot of Christians who pooled their resources together because they believed in the mission. Same with Jesus. You may not know this, but his ministry was funded in part by a group of very wealthy women who believed that he was the Messiah. This is what it says in Luke chapter eight. It'll be on the screen. Afterward, he was traveling from one town and village to another, preaching and telling the good news of the kingdom of God. The 12 were with him and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses.

33:54 Mary called Magdalene, seven demons had come out of her. Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's steward, Susanna, and many others who were supporting them from their possessions. A group of very wealthy believers, specifically women, said, we believe in Jesus's mission, so we're gonna write some checks. That's how we can support Jesus. We may not be able to join him on the road, but we can write some checks. We can contribute because we believe in this ministry. So if you're in here and God has blessed you with an abundance of resources, praise God. You don't have to be ashamed of that. Praise God for that. But my exhortation is that you are allocating those resources to accomplish kingdom goals, that you are being generous and supportive with what God has given you. But even if you don't have an abundance, you can still be generous with what you do have. Let me tell you this. I've made some dumb financial decisions in my life. Like I could take the rest of our time just to detail all of the dumb money mistakes that I have made in my life.

34:58 Let me tell you this. One of the ones that I have not, that I do not regret is that my wife and I have made a commitment that every paycheck, we give money back to the Lord. God has blessed us. He has never failed to bless us. Have we given and then what all the prosperity gospel preachers promised that like millions of dollars are hitting our bank account? Absolutely not. But we've always had what we needed. God has always provided enough to get us through. That is something that that is a testimony that my wife and I have, that when we have been faithful to give, God has been faithful to bless, even when it is very little. Open-handed Christians, Christians who hold what God gives them with a loose grasp, are Christians who make churches because they realize that money comes and goes, time and energy come and go. But there's a deeper purpose that we've all been called to. So it's easy for them to be generous.

35:53 but on the flip side when people are tight-fisted when they're closed-fisted with the resources that God gives them they miss out on this opportunity to be fellow workers with the truth they never get to hear that they never get to be co-workers in the gospel because they're so tight-fisted with everything they're so afraid that they're not going to have enough that they never get to trust in God's provision. And so they miss out. Be generous. Be generous with your time. Be generous with your energy and your efforts. Be generous, yes, with your finances. Give when you can, what you can, where you can. Yes, be wise. Be thoughtful. Be prudent. But also remember who you're giving it to because ultimately all of it is Jesus's money. All of the time on this earth is Jesus's time because he's the one who puts breath in our lungs. These are Jesus's resources that he's lending out to us that he wants us to steward well. When we give it back to him, even if it's what seems like a small gift to us, look at what he can do. If Jesus can take a few loaves and some fish and feed a multitude of thousands, when we are generous with what God has given us. Same thing. Jesus multiplies it. Jesus accomplishes his goal. And the best part is we get the blessing. We get to share in that blessing. Third choice tonight is we can either choose to be deferential or we can choose to be domineering. Will we be deferential or will we be domineering? And I'm sure many of you know this, have experiences that nothing will bring down an organization faster than a control freak. Nothing slows down the progress of an organization like a control freak. I remember early in my career in the corporate world, I had the opportunity to work for such a control freak individual. Not a bad person, not a bad person,

38:00 but she didn't know anything about the work our team did. And she wasn't really able to accomplish anything. She didn't have a good understanding of anything we did unless we sat with her and explained it to her step by step. So she didn't know much about what we actually did for work, but heaven forbid, you walk back to your desk a minute after your break, you'd know about it. You'd get an email. You'd get called out for it. She was so, so, she exerted such control over those things. And I think, honestly, again, I don't believe she was a control freak because she was a bad person. In fact, quite the opposite. When you would talk to her about non-war things, very kind, very, very, very warm. But I believe that she coped with her insecurity, and in this case, her ineptitude, by being a control freak, by trying to exert control on what she could control. And it made her a difficult person to work with. It wasn't that she was a bad person, she was just plain bad at her job. So enter diatrophies. Look at your neighbor, say diatrophies.

39:00 It just rolls off the tongue. Diotrephes. Diotrephes is the antagonist in this story. Look at verse nine. I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us. And once again, as we have gotten very comfortable with studying these epistles, we don't know much about Diotrephes. We don't know what sort of person he was. We don't know. There's nothing in the text that would suggest outright that he is a heretic, like we talked about in 2 Peter. There's no indication that he has bad doctrine. So let me share with you my theory. This is my theory. So you can feel free to disagree with me. This is just what I believe. I believe that this letter was written probably maybe 10 years, 15 years prior to the book of Revelation. And in Revelation, Jesus writes a letter to the same Christian community in Ephesus. This is what he says in Revelation chapter two, verse four.

40:03 Nevertheless, I have this against you that you have left your first love. He goes on in the following verses to say, but you do not tolerate false doctrine. You have a good hold on good doctrine, but you're really lacking in the love and the zeal department. The love that we had at the beginning of our relationship, you don't have much anymore. So this is my theory. the problem with Diotrephes was not that he had bad doctrine. I think that he believed all of the right things on paper, but he had none of the right behaviors to go along with it. So he could tick all the boxes on a statement of faith. He'd ace a theology test. But when it comes to walking out that faith, to walking out those solid doctrines, he would get an F. we probably met people like that right curmudgeon christians christians who know the right things they know your bible they know the bible better than you do but when you talk to them there's not a sense of warmth or kindness there's not there's not a felt sense of wow i can really see how the grace of jesus has transformed you they know the right answers but they're unkind in every conversation you have with them. And I think like Jesus's words to the Ephesian church about a decade later, about that these Christians have let their love for him grow stale despite having good doctrine, I think that Diotrephes was a curmudgeon Christian, that he was a self-appointed theological fault finder. Nobody asked him to guard sound doctrine. He just went around pointing out everybody's theological problems. Very unlike Gaius. Gaius had this reputation, again, of being warm and welcoming and hospitable to all of these traveling ministers. All John says about Diotrephes is that he loved the preeminence. In other words, he loved the spotlight. Diotrephes

42:11 loves to be the center of attention. Diotrephes loves to make it about him. In other words, He's a doctrinal diva. for whatever reason, Diotrephes is refusing to receive the same guess that Gaius does. We don't know why. We don't fully understand it. But ultimately, we know that John takes this as kind of a personal insult. Verse 9, it says, but Diotrephes, at the end of the verse, does not receive us. Diotrephes doesn't receive us. And that's because in the ancient world, when you rejected a guest, you were rejecting the one who sent them. If you were rejecting an emissary, you were rejecting the person who sent them. In this case, it's the apostle John himself. Diotrephes rejects John's authority. His problem is with John. So he is not going to receive or accept the people that John is sending. He has no interest in that. He has no interest in sharing the spotlight and giving a platform to the people that John is sending. And we don't know why. The text doesn't tell us why that is. So maybe it was a personality clash. He and John just never got along. Maybe it was a doctrinal dispute. Again, I would hate to be getting in a doctrinal debate with the apostle John, but maybe that's what happened. All we know is that he does not allow himself or his church to support these traveling missionaries. He has no interest in that. But sadly, he doesn't stop there. It says this in verse 10. It says that he is parading against us with malicious words. So not only does he not receive these people, he's a gossip. He has taken what is a personal disagreement with the apostle John, and he's broadcasting it to all the Christians in Ephesus. He's taking a personal beef and making it public. He's going around slandering John instead of resolving their differences. He's not reaching out to smooth things over.

44:22 He's slandering John publicly. And if you've been in ministry in any capacity for long enough, you've experienced this, right? Where people who ought to say something to your face don't. they go around, they go behind you and they share it to everybody else except you. I've felt like that. I'm sure many of you have felt like that. John certainly has felt like that. Just because gossip and slander might even be the norm in our day, it's kind of taken for granted in contemporary Christian circles. Just because it's the norm doesn't mean that it's okay. That God winks at it. It's destructive. Diotrephes has resorted to slander, but John being the better man is not gonna deal with it that same way. Instead, he wants to confront it. Look at verse 10. Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds, which he does.

45:16 John has it in his mind. This is old man John. He's not a spring chicken, but he even recognizes, I need to go talk to diatrophies face to face. That's how I'd like to resolve this conflict. nothing can slow down can hinder can halt a move of god faster than gossip and disunity nothing can bring a move of god to a close faster than when his people start gossiping and slandering one another nothing will bring it to a close faster and that's why john wants to address this personally. He wants to nip this in the bud. But again, Diotrephes isn't content with gossip. Look at verse 10, the very, very end of it. It says, and not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren. He forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church. He doesn't receive these people. He slanders John. And then if there's people in his church who might want to hang out with these leaders, he kicks them. He excommunicates them.

46:21 Diotrephes is by definition a domineering leader. He's a toxic leader. He thinks he knows better than everyone else, right? Imagine thinking you know better than the apostle John, but Diotrephes does. You take issue with anytime somebody chooses to do something different than the way you would do them. And then if you dare to disagree with the almighty Diotrephes in his home church, you're kicked out, you're expelled. He's a domineering leader. And one of the things I like to do when I'm studying a passage of scripture before I teach is I'll usually try to print out the passage on a piece of paper so I can kind of take notes and highlight. And as I was highlighting, I was highlighting all of the mentions of diatrophies in his name read. All of the things that he did in the short letter read. And so if you look at the page, it's a literal stain in the middle of it.

47:17 That there's this otherwise very positive, very encouraging letter but then there's this red stain where diatrophy shows up. power hungry, controlling Christians are a stain on any congregation. They're a stain. Where likewise, they choose to make their own personal grievances public with everybody. They make division happen. They force the people around them to take sides. And they love to have the preeminence. They love to be first. controlling power hungry christians are a stain on any congregation and in my experience control freaks usually are operating from a place of deep insecurity deep fear because for whatever reason they are fearful about life they are insecure about themselves and their place in life so how do they respond? They grip everything. They've tried to force reality to be what they want it to be. Because if that happens, if their plan comes to fruition, then they tend to think, okay, everything's fine. Everything's safe. I'm going to make my world safe by making everybody around me do what I want them to do. It usually comes from a place of fear.

48:38 And they get very frustrated when life doesn't go along with their plan. When you don't allow with what they want to do, they get frustrated and angry. Reality is controlling people can be, and again, it's, it's much of it is well-intentioned. I do believe that. Regardless, control freaks can be some of the most destructive people to have on a team. Jesus tells us this, John, I'm sorry, in Mark chapter 10, verse 42, I'll have it on the screen. Jesus called them over and said to them, you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. And those in high positions act as tyrants over them. But it is not so among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant. And whoever wants to be the first among you will be a slave to all. For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

49:39 the same scarcity mindset that can drive people to be tight-fisted with what they have is often the same mindset that drives people to be controlling. It comes from the same place in the human heart of fearfulness that you won't be enough, that life, you can't control it. So what do you do? You grip it. You grip it tightly. The people around you, if you have influence over them, you hold them down. You try to control them. But what's so ironic is the more control you try to exert, the less likely you are to get the desired result. I remember when I was learning to drive as a high schooler, I was driving with my parents learning, and I was so scared, right? Like all of us, we get in the car for the first time, we're freaking out. What do we do? We white knuckle the wheel. We're just gripping it so tightly, like that your arms hurt after driving for five minutes, because you're gripping it so tightly, you're afraid of how to drive this machine. But what's fascinating is the tighter you grip the wheel, the harder time you're going to have driving it because you're going to start driving erratically, right? You haven't developed this looser grip on the wheel. So you're grabbing it tightly, fearful that you're going to lose control. Controlling leaders, controlling people, control freaks have that same way of living.

50:53 They're so afraid they're going to lose control. So they grip everything and everyone around them tightly. domineering believers can break a church. Domineering believers can break people faster than you believe. But on the other hand, deferential believers, people who might even know that they have a better way of doing things, yet nonetheless, they know what Paul says in Ephesians 5.21, that submitting one to another in love submit to one another in love. They understand that deferential believers are the ones who can make a church because they're not competing for preeminence. They understand the bigger mission. They understand what we're all here to do. Those are the sorts of believers who build a church, who make a church strong enough to weather any sort of personal conflict.

51:53 and it's worth reflecting, are we like diatrophies? Are we searching for preeminence? Are we looking for influence that we don't have? Convinced that if we could just control everything, it would be so much better, or are we just faithfully serving with the influence that God has given us? Are we searching for more? Are we content with the circle of influence that God has given us and we're making the best of that. Choice number four and finally, we need to choose between connection and exclusion. Connection and exclusion. John closes this letter by offering Gaius a choice. Look at verse 11 once more. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God.

52:51 It's possible that Diotrephes and his ilk were exerting pressure on Gaius. They know that Gaius is the guy who's going to receive these travelers, who's going to take care of them. We don't like that. We want to put a stop to it. So maybe Diotrephes house church is putting pressure on Gaius's house church. That maybe the same slander and gossip has crept its way into Gaius's home congregation. And maybe he's facing pressure. There's people in his congregation who are saying, you know what? I think Diotrephes has a point. We don't like those people. We shouldn't let them in here. They're different than us. We don't like the apostle John. We don't like him telling us what to do. We're our own church. And those voices start to creep in. And Gaius is feeling the pressure. And then it comes to a head.

53:45 Look at verse 12. Demetrius has a good testimony from all and from the truth itself. Here comes Demetrius down the road. Got a letter from the apostle John. Now Gaius has to make a choice. Have another traveling minister, another visitor from John. do I receive him or do I give in to what Diotrephes wants me to do? Do I placate him? Do I exclude Demetrius from this? I'm not going to act with integrity and welcome him as I have welcomed everybody else. I'm going to silence the critics by doing what they want me to, and I'm going to exclude him. Gaius has that choice. It's fascinating. Last weekend. I had the incredible privilege as I did a year ago of joining our indigenous outreach team as they went to Shiprock, New Mexico, had an incredible event. But what always strikes me when I'm there, it's a very different culture from what I was raised with, is how strong the community ties are. People in that town know each other. Everybody knows each other's names.

54:52 There's lots of relatives in that town. And I think that there's something that much in our Western world has lost, those deep ties, those deep abiding community ties that other people, other cultures have. Sociologists will talk about this idea of atomization, atomization, that because of social media and technology and the internet and all these various other social factors that the bonds that have held humans together for millennia are breaking apart, that we are all falling into our individual isolated boxes and we're losing touch with one another. We're losing touch with our heritage and our roots. We're losing touch with all that. We're being atomized. That's why I love, I think this is a helpful cure. Look at verses 13 and 14. I had many things to write, but I do not wish to write them to you with pen and ink.

55:47 But I hope to see you shortly and we shall speak face to face. Peace to you. Our friends greet you. Greet the friends by name. And once more, we need to hit the brakes because I just read verse 14 and I ended the book. And you might be thinking, well, my translation has verse 15. What's going on here? Is something fishy happening? No, let me assure you this. There's no fishy business happening here. Nobody is removing verses from the Bible. Nobody's adding verses from the Bible. The verse numbers that we have in our translations are a pretty modern invention. They only entered the Bible about 800 years ago. For the first 1,200 years of Christian history, we did not have verse numbers in our Bible. What has happened is that the editors working with the Greek manuscripts, it all says the same thing in Greek. Some of them thought that this last set of statements should be two verses.

56:41 And then some editors said, no, I think this is just one verse. So if you have a new King James or a King James, it has 14 verses. If you have a more modern translation, it has 15. It doesn't matter. Same content. Same content in English, same content in Greek. It just differs on how it's organized. Because that's a common thing that I'll hear. It's like, oh, modern translations remove verses from the Bible. No, they don't. No, they don't. If somebody says that and really believes that, I'd love to talk to them. We can talk about Greek. But nonetheless, that's just something that I want to address because I do hear people talk about that. But ultimately, John at this stage in his life, he's old. he's been doing this a while. He took the time to write this letter, but apparently John wasn't a guy for long letters. Yeah, he wrote the gospel, but even first John is pretty short. Like I don't think maybe the guy didn't have the attention span for writing letters. He wasn't like Paul, just sitting down writing these massive 16 chapter volumes. He was short. He was sweet. He was to the point. And maybe it's just because he was in that season of ministry. He hadn't been exiled to Patmos yet, but clearly he was close enough to the church in Ephesus that he could just go there.

57:54 Hey, I'll just meet you face to face. That's what he says in second John two. You know, Hey, I have a lot of things I'd like to say to you. I'd rather say him over coffee. Let's go have lunch. I'm going to come to town. We'll talk. That was John's way of doing things. And I just want to focus on the last two sentences in this book, whether it's verse 15 for you or 14 for me, our friends greet you, greet the friends by name. The friends was a term that John is using to speak to believers. Greet the friends by name. Can you do that? Honestly, in this church right now, can you do that? Can you follow John's command to greet the friends by name? it's an honest question do you know the people around you who sit in church with you every week who serve with you on a team who hold the door open for you do you know their name could you greet their name are you known enough where they might even know your name because here's the deal this is this is not the this is not the ephesian church this is a large church a lot of people here in case you hadn't noticed it's a big building it would be very easy for you to slide in and slide out and not get to know anybody not have any relationships with anybody and you might be saying well i just can't find community here well have you tried introducing yourself have you said hi to anybody around you you can't complain about not having community if you're not seeking out community from the people who are around you. Can't complain that you don't have connection when there's people who would love to connect with you. But let's flip this around. Maybe you're the sort of person, you have your clique, you have your circle, and so you never venture out of it. You see a stranger come to sit by you, you ask him to move, or you scooch away from them, or you don't talk to them. Why? Because You got your people.

59:42 You don't need any more people with your people. So you're good. We were created for connection. That's how God made us. We were created for connection. And that's why John makes this point to say, I got so much to say to you, but I'm gonna save it. We're gonna talk face-to-face in person. And it might shock you. So this is shocking news I'm about to drop. Churches are made up of people. Churches are made up of people. I'm sorry if you're still wrestling with that idea. Churches are made up of people. Well, I don't like people. Well, you're people. And sometimes we may not like you either. Sometimes it's feelings mutual, right? Sometimes you're bringing some, you know, Diotrephes energy to this Gaius gathering. But God has called you to this place, to this congregation for such a time as this. I believe that God called you to this room for a reason, for a purpose.

1:00:41 However long you're here, make the most of it. Get to know people around you. Have coffee with them. Get to know them, learn about them. Because guess what? Community can be messy, yes, but it's also beautiful. There is power when we surround ourselves with Christians, including Christians who have different experiences, different backgrounds, and we get to sharpen and strengthen one another, it is worth the risk to be able to greet the friends by name. The church is made up of people. We're people. Each of us has an individual life, but the way that we live and we carry out our individual lives impacts the whole. That's why Paul calls this a body. When one body part is doing well, all the body parts are doing well.

1:01:33 When one body part is not doing well, all of the body parts are not doing well. We exist together. We are individuals, but we are individuals that are part of a broader community. Jesus's church will not fail. The gates of hell will not prevail against his church. However, congregations will either be made or broken by the way that people behave in them. the way that we behave will determine whether this congregation will be healthy or not. We can have strong doctrine, praise God for that. But equally important is that we have strong practices of that doctrine where we practice what we preach. So let's close verse 11. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good.

1:02:28 He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God. Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you for your word. The big books, our favorite books and our least favorite books. We thank you for the long letters and the short letters. But nevertheless, God, we believe that every word is inspired and is beneficial for teaching, for correction, for training in righteousness, God. So train us to be the people that...