3 John 1-15 (A Faithful Church From Top To Bottom)

It's a rare thing when a preacher can cover an entire chapter of the

Bible in one sermon. Some do, but I say it's rare for me to be able to do something like that.

I would say it's an even rarer thing to try to attempt to cover an entire book of the Bible in one sermon, but that's exactly what we're going to try to do this morning.

Now thankfully it is the shortest book in the Bible, 3 John. It's not Isaiah, we would be here a while.

It's 219 words in its original language making it the shortest book in all of the Bible. But what

I want us to do is I want us to zoom in to what's going on inside this church. I want us to look at the problems that they were facing and I want us to understand how

John the Apostle is going to show them how to be faithful. Now the reason we're covering this is because if we were to go back to John this week, then we would be in John this week, not in John, and then back in John.

So I want to just save John for whenever we're jumping back into it and we'll do that in November. But since we covered the idea of what it means to be a faithful church last week, especially faithfulness while we wait on Jesus to return,

I also wanted to follow that sermon up with this in 3

John because 3 John is going to teach us even more very practical information on how to be a faithful church.

And the way that he's going to do that is he's going to teach us through three examples that we're supposed to follow.

He's going to teach us by three men that he's going to cite in the narrative of the text, Gaius, Deiotrephes, and Demetrius.

And each of these is going to teach us some aspect of what it means to be a faithful church. One of them is going to be a faithful pastor, so we're going to have to understand what it means to be a faithful shepherd, a faithful elder, a faithful pastor in a local church.

One's going to be an unfaithful leader in the church, and then one's going to be a faithful congregant of the church.

And in the midst of all of that, I think we're going to understand very clearly from Scripture what does it mean for us to be a faithful church.

Now if you were to just give a theme to the book of 3 John, the book of 3 John is about how do you have a faithful church.

Now from my heart to you, I think that we have a faithful church. I think that we are faithful to the word.

I think that we are doing a lot of what this says, but one degree off for a long enough time, we can be miles off course.

I think I shared an example a couple weeks ago. If I walk to the end of my driveway, I'm maybe inches away from my target, so it's easy to course correct.

But if I were to be one degree off from here and go all the way around the world, I would end up somewhere south of Miami, just by one degree off, and it's harder to course correct when you've become that far off.

So what I want us to do today is I want us to continue to cling to the vision of what it means to be a faithful church. I want us to continue to pray that the

Lord would keep us as a faithful church, and I want us to do that through the book of 3 John.

So let's pray, and let's open God's word together. Father, thank you so much for the fact that we can be here today to open your word.

Lord, just five, six hundred years ago, that prospect was not even the case, where we would have to go to a priest in order to hear the word of God.

We couldn't even meet and gather and hear the word in our own language, and Lord, what a privileged position we have right now, living where we live and when we live, that we can own a copy of the scriptures for ourselves, that we can go to a

Reformation church that proclaims the truth of the gospel and hear it in our own language and not in the language of the priest and in the ivory towers.

Lord, help us to never take for granted what faithfulness means. Lord, let us never take for granted what it means to give you all the glory and all the honor.

Lord, let this church never, ever, ever be focused on ourselves, focused on our own way, our vision, our thoughts, our ways of doing things.

Lord, let us constantly and forever and always be focused on you and giving you glory.

We don't exist for ourselves, we exist for you. So Lord, even in a sermon like this where we're going to be looking inward, where we're going to be looking at what a church is, how a faithful church is,

Lord, let us remember that all of these things are simply for us to take them, hold them, and give them back to you.

Lord, you deserve all praise, all honor, and everything that we have to offer.

Lord, it's in Christ's name we pray, amen. Just as a way of a little bit of background, the book of 3

John is written in the twilight of the Apostle John's ministry. There's some debate, but I think that debate is mostly irrelevant.

I think the Apostle John wrote this book, and he wrote it in the waning years of his ministry career. He's likely, at this point of time, already authored the book of John, the gospel that we've been walking through verse by verse.

He's probably already written the other two letters, 1 John and 2 John, and it's likely that he's written the book of Revelation at this point as well because of what's been going on in the church.

Many of you may have heard that John wrote the book of Revelation in the 90s. I disagree with that strongly.

I think there's good reasons for that. New evidence has come out for that, and if you'd like to talk about that, we can talk about that later.

All that to say, I think John is finishing up his writing career with this book, and he's writing to a church that he's planted.

You see, John was a faithful pastor. After Jesus rose from the dead, he found his way to this little region called

Asia Minor where John was doing most of his ministry. If you look at the book of Revelation, all seven of those churches that he's writing to were real churches.

They actually had pastors and elders there, and John is functioning as a sort of a presbyter, which means he's a sort of a bishop who's overseeing these seven churches, and maybe even more churches than that.

But John is likely the one who at least planted these churches or was involved in planting these churches.

So he's writing in this letter, 3 John, to a church that he knows very well, that he knows the leadership, that he knows the elders, that he knows the congregation.

And he's writing to address a couple of things. Now, the question is, who is he writing to?

He's writing to the church, yes, but the book as you read it is actually, it's written to a single person in the congregation.

It's written to a man named Gaius. Now Gaius was a leader in the church at this time.

I'm not sure if he was the only pastor. I'm not sure if they even had a system like that. They had a plurality of elders who each took turns teaching and leading the congregation.

So he's one of the elders in the congregation, and he's writing to him as a dearly beloved friend.

The tone of the book actually has this warm, friendly, affectionate tone that John is writing to someone who he dearly cares about.

But the tone of the book also has severity in the fact that there was a major issue that was going on.

There was one leader who was seeking Christ and who was trying to be faithful, and there's another leader who was selfish, self -centered, and causing damage in the church.

And that's at least our first two examples that we're going to look at in this book. So with that background, let's turn to the book itself.

Let's read verses one through eight, which is the first example. We're going to see a man named Gaius, and he's going to teach us what is faithful leadership in the church actually look like.

This man is going to teach us that. So this is what the word of the Lord says. Beloved, you are acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish for the brethren, especially when they are strangers and they have testified 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, accepting nothing from the

Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support such men so that we may be fellow workers with the truth.

Now, there's going to be seven character traits in these verses, these eight verses. We could explore them more.

We could mine this out to 10 or 11, but I tried to pare it down because we're covering a whole book here, and you don't want to be here all day.

Although, what better thing that we could possibly do to be here all day listening to the word? Amen.

I'm glad you said that. There's going to be seven character traits that we look at Gaius.

Gaius is a leader in the church, and we, our purpose today is to try to understand what is a faithful church, and we're going to start with what is faithful leadership.

And the first aspect of faithful leadership is that he is a beloved member of the community. He's a beloved member of the community.

The letter begins, the elder to the beloved Gaius. Again, John the elder is the one who's writing this book to a man named

Gaius, and he's addressing him in the letter, which lets us know that he is a leader in the community. But he's not just any leader, he's a beloved leader.

He's a leader who is loved by John, loved by the community, loved by the entire Christian church. He's a prized member of this community.

Now that itself doesn't entail that he's a faithful pastor, but the reason that he is beloved is the reason why it entails that he's a faithful pastor.

He is loved well because he is a pastor who loves well. That is the point that John is getting at.

He's not a man who's up in his ivory tower, aloof from the congregation. He's a man who loves his people.

He's a man who cares for his people. He's a man who knows them by name, knows what they're struggling with, and they held him in honor because he loved them really well.

With great affection and gratitude in their hearts, the congregation cared for him as he, with great affection in his heart, cared for them.

This word beloved is used 65 times in the New Testament. It comes from the word love, and while we can't cover all 65 of those occasions, there's three examples

I want to show you so that you can get an idea of what this means. First, beloved. Who do we think of when we think of beloved?

We think of Jesus Christ, the beloved one and only son of God, who came down and was adored by his father, who had the love of God poured out onto him as Jesus reciprocated that love by always doing and obeying what

God said. He's the beloved son of God, so beloved means to be special.

It means to be significant. It means to have someone else pouring out love onto you as exampled by Jesus, who

God, for all of eternity, has been pouring out his love onto Christ. This word is also used to describe

Christians in the New Testament, that we are beloved. Isn't that a fascinating point? That the same title given to Jesus Christ is given to us because now in Jesus, the love of the father is being poured out onto us from now until forever.

This word also is used of Paul and Barnabas, who were leaders in the Antiochian church.

They're beloved members of the community, so beloved, in fact, that they didn't want to give them up. They knew that they needed to go plant churches, but they had to gather together, lay hands on Paul and pray for them in order to send them off.

And still there was joy and excitement, but you know there was also tears because Paul and Barnabas were beloved members of their community.

They were special. They were set apart. That is what this word is talking about with Gaius. Now whenever we read the

Bible, we have to understand why is this passage here. It's there to, number one, first and foremost, let us know what was happening then.

We can't skip that. But the Holy Spirit also included this passage for us. He left it in the

Bible, which means that he wants us to read about Gaius, which means that he wants us to understand what faithful leadership in the church looks like.

Why? So that we can be a part of faithful churches. I mean, I wish that somebody would have told me this three years ago.

There's churches I would have left faster. Ten years ago, there's churches I would have left the first time

I visited. This is extremely practical information for us to understand on what a faithful leader in a church looks like so that we can judge everyone that we sit under according to Scripture.

That man must be loving. That man must be able to extend the grace of Christ to those who are hurting.

Throughout this sermon, you're going to hear that I'm saying that man, that man, that man. It's because women are not called to the office of pastor.

We don't have time to get into that in the sermon, but I'm just letting you know why I'm saying that. Another sermon at another time.

They must be patient men. They must be kind and considerate men. So much so that a congregation grows to trust them and care for them as they have cared for the church.

Again, you think about the Trinity. For all of eternity, God the Father has been pouring out love unto Jesus. Jesus has been reciprocating by praising his

Father. That is what a church is supposed to look like. We read earlier that Jesus loves the church, gave himself up for her.

What's the church supposed to do? Praise Jesus. We are to imitate in the church what Jesus and God have been doing for all of eternity.

So the leadership ought to be at least pointing the congregation to the praises of God and not to anything else.

That's the first aspect of what a faithful leader looks like according to the Bible. The second aspect is that he has to love truth.

He has to love truth. The Bible, this is what verse one says again, to the elder, to the beloved

Gaius, whom I love in the truth. John's not saying that I love you because we're homies or we're besties or we're whatever else.

He's not saying that I love this man because he has a winning personality and a $10 ,000 smile.

He's not loving him because he's talented in ministry. He's not loving him because he's a great preacher. He's not loving him because he's an empathetic pastor.

He's not loving him because of all of his skill sets. He's loving this man in the truth.

This man loves the truth. And what is the truth? The truth is the word of God. This man has ingratiated himself in truth so that he can share that truth with the congregation.

He's not a spineless coward that bloviates sweet nothings with ear tickling precision. That's what we have a lot of today.

He's a man of truth. He declares the whole counsel of God's word to his people.

He's a man who preaches about sin and hell, even though that's not fashionable. The Bible says preach the word when it's in season and also preach the word when it's out of season.

We're in an out of season time right now for sin and hell, but we preach the word whether it's out of season or not.

This man points men and women away from themselves to the old rugged cross so that they can understand that life is not about them.

Life is about Jesus. He reminds them of the perfect spotless lamb that was slain for our sin because that is the only good news.

If your entire time in church is focused on you and focused on how you can be a better person and how you can be a

David if you just grab your rock and kill your giant and your giants maybe that you don't have enough food on the table or whatever else it is, you have a promotion opportunity coming up.

If all the sermons about you, then you have to be the one who saves yourself.

But if all the sermon is about taking your eyes off of you and putting it onto the cross, there's hope in that because only

Christ can save. The faithful pastor points to Christ.

He doesn't wear the nicest sneakers that end up on Instagram or parade around in kids clothing that was meant for teenagers when he's 50 years old.

The faithful pastor points to Christ. The faithful pastor is not doing things that are trying to invite attention upon himself.

Faithful pastor says, don't look at me. Look past me. Look to Jesus because he loves

God's people so much. That's the second aspect of what it means to be a faithful leader in the church.

The third is that they actually lead a life that is worth imitating. They actually lead a life that's worth imitating.

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

Now it sounds like John is switching audience here when he says beloved, I pray that in all respects. It sounds like he's moving away from Gaius to talk about the congregation, but he's not.

There's two reasons that we know that. He's already called Gaius beloved in the beginning of the letter. So he's talking to the same man and he's given us a point of connection.

This man is his beloved friend, but also the pronouns in this passage are all singular.

None of them are plural. In English that can get really confusing. It could say beloved in all respects you or beloved in all respects you see it can in English it's, it's a little bit complicated unless you're from the south, which it's actually better in all respects you.

Okay, I get it. You're talking about me in all respects. Y 'all, I don't know why people make fun of this.

I make fun of the south a lot actually, but that is smart in grief.

It's not as complicated. You can tell a singular you looks different than a plural you.

And these are plural use. I mean, these are singular use. So he's not talking to the whole church. He's talking to the leader. He's saying beloved guys,

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

Now he's not saying that guys, I hope that you have health, wealth, and a

Maserati. That's ridiculous. That's a modern thing. He's saying guys,

I hope that you prosper physically. I hope you take care of yourself in ministry because ministry is hard.

He's saying, I hope that you prosper mentally. You take breaks, you read good books, you get some time to yourself every now and then

He's saying, I hope that you have a family that's worth replicating because that's your first and primary ministry that the

Lord God has called you to. He's saying, I hope that your soul prospers because you have to take care of your own walk with the

Lord before you can care for someone else. He's saying, I hope that in all respects of your life that you are worth imitating, that you're an example to the congregation.

Now, we know that Gaius is not a perfect man.

No one is perfect but Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is not your pastor. If he were,

I would sit down and shut my mouth and I would listen. But as it is, you have to deal with me.

Every person who ever has stood up in front of a congregation to share the word of God is standing on a firm foundation that's

Christ and not themselves. They're standing on the word's authority and not their authority.

They're standing on Christ's righteousness and not their righteousness. And if ever they get confused about that, they're going to bring damage into the church.

It's what John is trying to help them understand that if the church is going to be faithful, then they need to stand on the rock that is

Jesus Christ from the top all the way to the smallest infant child.

And while Gaius is not a perfect man, he is a man who's striving to grow in his walk with Christ.

And because of his increasing character, he's been set apart. And the congregation has been invited to follow him as he follows

Jesus. This just means that he's growing in all respects of his life.

And it would be very helpful in America and in the modern church if we took a little bit more time developing people's character before we put them in positions of authority so that they can fall, so that they can be hurt, and so that they could hurt others.

You have to live a life that's worth imitating. That's the third point. The fourth point is that he blesses outsiders, or he is a blessing to outsiders.

Verse three says it like this, for I was very glad when brethren came and testified to your truth, that is how you are walking in the truth.

I'm so glad that the Holy Spirit didn't stop with your truth, because there is no such thing as your truth, my truth, his truth, her truth, there's only the truth.

The Holy Spirit confirms this in saying that your truth, that is how you are walking in the truth.

So I just want to clarify that when you see that word, don't be triggered. There is no your truth, there's the truth.

And that is what this company of brethren who are from outside of the church noticed that was going on in Gaius' life, noticed that was going on in the congregation, and they were blessed by the fact that this church clung to the word of God.

The simple point is that Jesus is the all -radiating, ever -growing, ever -satisfying, all -encompassing truth, and if you hold fast to that truth, it will not stay bound inside these walls.

If we cling to the all -satisfying truth of Jesus Christ, it will end up affecting outsiders.

There will be brethren who come and who tell us, I've heard about you. I've heard about what you're doing in Chelmsford.

I had an email this week that said, we've been listening from Indiana and we're praising God for you. And I'm like, how's that possible?

On our website, at least one sermon has been heard in 49 out of the 50 states right now.

And I'm like, I don't know people in 49 out of the 50 states. So the word of God is not bound.

When we preach the word of God, it goes out. It multiplies. It blesses the outsiders.

John is overjoyed in the fact that this church is clinging to the truth of the gospel, and it's going out, and it's blessing the whole church.

You see, part of being a healthy, vibrant ministry is to realize that we're not the only church. We can often talk about the fact that there's not many faithful churches in New England, and that's true.

But we are a part of a 2000 -year -old bride that we're connected to, that Jesus died and made us a part of, and we are not the only ones.

This week, recently, actually the last two weeks, I've been in situations where I get to see other men who are serious about the word of God, some from New England, some from not.

But I had to repent a little bit, because how often do we say to ourselves, God, am I the only one?

Are we the only one? How often have you said that? Come on. But we're not. He says to Elijah, I've got 7 ,000 that haven't bowed the knee.

He's got people all over this country who don't even know that they're a Christian yet, but he's going to save them. This ministry, because of the way that Gaius was leading, was a blessing to outsiders.

That is a very important point for us to realize, that if we want to be a faithful ministry, we need to be a blessing to the whole church, not just our church.

That's the fourth. The fifth is that a faithful pastor, a faithful leader, will lead other people to walk with Jesus.

It says in verse 4, I have no greater joy, that's John saying this, I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

So this man, Gaius, is not just leading the church to be a blessing to outsiders. We don't want to say that that's the only blessing that there is.

There's a tremendous blessing to the congregation when a man will get and say, it's not about me, it's about the

Word of God, and when I preach the Word of God, it's going to bless the congregation. The congregation will be blessed when the

Word of God is preached. Gaius is not a man, like we said earlier, who sits hidden away in his study.

He's not obtuse, aloof theologian who has no time for other people. I heard a missionary story one time when

I was in seminary. This dear, dear Nigerian brother came to me and he asked me, he said, how are you doing?

And I said, oh, I'm okay. And he said, what is it with you Americans? He said, you say that you're okay, but I can see that you're not, and you don't love me enough to tell me what's wrong.

And then to make matters even more intense for me, he said, let me tell you a story.

And I was already late to class, and I was like, I don't know, I should feel convicted right now, but I'm really struggling with the fact that I'm late for class.

He said, there was a missionary that came to my town, and he sat in his tent all day long preparing his really, really good message.

Every point was precise. Every transition was perfect. He cited the perfect Bible references, and it was just an amazing sermon.

He said he sat in his tent all day long preparing this wonderful sermon. He came out of his tent, he delivered the sermon, and then he walked right back in his tent and didn't say hello to anyone.

The man's preaching didn't line up with his character. If we're going to be a faithful church, we can't just have right doctrine.

That doctrine has to actually meet our practice. That doctrine has to actually come to bear in our lives.

There has to be love in this community between all of us so that we can grow in the truth of the gospel. Gaius was a man who embodied that.

He was a faithful pastor. He wasn't spending the majority of his effort working on his mechanics and his delivery or what outfit he was going to wear.

You guys are lucky that I even color coordinate. I don't know how to do that. I don't care about that.

I think a faithful pastor doesn't give a rip about performance. He doesn't care about how his voice is modulating.

He doesn't care about his presentation style, in a sense. He cares about the gospel. A true pastor has the word of God bubbling up inside of his bones, and like Jeremiah, it's like a fire that has to get out and be declared to the people of God because he loves them so much he just wants to share it with them.

All this other stuff that we add to it is just, what's the point? You can tell what a true pastor is about by what he cares about.

What does he care about? Does he care about the truth? Does he care about sharing the truth with God's people, or does he care about attention, fame, glory, and everything else, and if he does that, he's a misguided buffoon.

If a pastor is not concerned with equipping God's people to love God, worship God, and give

God glory, then he's disqualified from his office and he needs to go do something else. A pastor should say, don't look at me, look at Jesus.

It's a very humbling thing, actually, to stand up here knowing how wretched I am, knowing how broken

I am, knowing how I'm going to have to be held account for the things that come out of my mouth.

It's a very humbling thing to say anything that would be of any value to you.

That's why it's so important that we cling to the word of Christ and we don't cling to our silly words and our fables and our opinions and our points.

We have to look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. That's it. That's what Gaius did.

The sixth characteristic of a faithful leader is described also in verse four,

I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth. Sorry, verse five, beloved, you are acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish for the brethren, especially when they are strangers.

Faithful pastor is a faithful neighbor, and this is something that I'm convicted of. Because John says that you're faithful in everything that you do.

Not just preaching. Not just counseling. Not just being a nerd and studying.

Not just praying and doing all the spiritual stuff. But you're faithful in the way that you prepare spreadsheets, and you're faithful in the way that you submit budgets, and you're faithful in the way that you work on the website, even though no one in seminary trained you how to work on a website.

You're faithful when you polish off the audio files and upload them. You're faithful when you take phone calls and manage your time.

You're faithful when you spend the church's money. There's so much that goes in a ministry that we are called to be faithful to if we're going to be a faithful church.

And most of it is seen on Sunday, but there's a lot of it that's not seen that a pastor has to be called to be faithful to.

And if he's not, he needs to repent. Faithful with family. This is a conviction point, because we're a young church.

And it's easy sometimes to say, well, there's things that need to get done. No one else is going to be able to do them right now.

I have to do them. I'm the one who's technically paid to do these things. I have to do them. And it's easy to say, well,

I'll go home in 30 minutes, or I'll go home in 15, or I'll go home in an hour. And then your family suffers. A faithful pastor has to also budget his time and make sure that he's caring for the one church that God gave him, which is his wife and his children.

Callings in ministry can fade. Being a pastor to your wife and to your children is a calling that lasts forever.

And it's convicting. No one can do this.

The only person who can do this is Christ. So, if we're going to do this work that he's called us to do, we have to rest and trust in him.

This leads to the final point of a faithful leader in a church, which is they're mission -minded.

They're mission -minded. Verse 6 through 8 says, and they have testified to your love before the church.

That's the brethren that came earlier. And 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, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore, we ought to support such men so that they may be fellow workers with the truth.

These missionaries that visited this congregation came because they heard that the word of God was being proclaimed in this particular church, and they wanted to see it for themselves.

But they also came to be equipped by the church. And I'll just say this.

If a church doesn't have a heart for missions, then there's something else going wrong inside that church that's under the surface that maybe you can't see.

A church that has no heart for evangelism and seeing the lost saved, or a church that has no heart for missionaries being raised up and sent to China or sent to Somalia or various other places, if a church has no desire to equip and empower their linguistically intelligent people to, hey, maybe you should join

Wycliffe and be a translator of the Holy Scriptures. If a church has no vision for how to get involved in the mission of God, then there's something wrong with the way that they understand the gospel.

Gaius is a biblical model of faithfulness who's beloved by the people that he serves because he loves them well.

He's a man of truth. He's a man who can be imitated. His ministry blesses outsiders.

His ministry builds up insiders, and he's faithful in all of his labors, especially not forgetting the mission of Christ to the nations.

Now let's get even more practical. I want this church to be a church that raises up future leaders.

So if you're feeling, and I use that word very carefully because I don't want you to feel almost anything,

I want you to ground it in truth. Our feelings are fickle, right? But if you're feeling like the

Lord has set you apart for something, then that's a good thing. And I want you to see

Gaius as an example of what faithful leadership looks like. And if your life doesn't measure up to that yet, pray, repent, go to Jesus, who's the author and perfecter of our faith.

But it's a good thing that you would be feeling that. Go to the scriptures, run to the scriptures, and when it's the

Lord's good timing, he will bring that calling about, if it is from him. When I first felt a call to ministry,

I was so discouraged because every time I would tell a pastor, hey, I'm called to ministry, can

I preach? That's probably the first thing you say to a pastor, right? He's like, what's wrong with this weirdo?

Almost every time I did that or had conversations, God was closing doors left and right.

I finally became a leader on a volunteer team at a church, and then they asked me to step down, not because of anything

I did, but just wasn't a good fit. I was so discouraged. I remember I was working at the jail at the time.

I was a guard, and I was mopping the floor, which I hate, mopping the floor in the jail.

I was like, you know what, God? If this is all you've got for me is mopping the stupid floor, then

I'm going to be joyful. That sounded like it, didn't I? I knew that God had put a calling on my life, but I was getting in the way.

It was about me at that point. I wanted to do something, I, I, I, I, I, and God had to break me, and it took 18 months for that to happen before finally

I surrendered and said, if you never call me to ministry, I'm going to be happy because you are my God. A pastor told me, he said,

Kendall, why do you keep looking for another calling when you're not even doing the one that God has given you? Love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

If you're not doing that, why are you looking for a second calling, right? But in that, as I surrendered my will to the

Lord, the Lord did open up doors, and one door at a time led to where I'm at now, and this calling is temporary.

There might be a day where the Lord calls me away from this, but every day that I'm going to be accountable to what the

Bible says, and this is a wonderful chapter of what the Bible says. Now, if you have absolutely zero aspiration whatsoever to leadership in the church, the first question you should ask yourself is, is why, and make sure that that reason is biblical.

Maybe it's fear, maybe it's something else, but if you have absolutely no aspiration to leadership in the church, you don't feel like that that's what

God would call you to, then I do need to remind you that this is a wonderful book of the Bible that can teach you what a faithful ministry looks like.

Although it wasn't written to you, it was written to a man named Gaius, it will teach you what a faithful church is supposed to look like so that you will be at a healthy church, at a faithful church, which will be a blessing to your life.

So that's the first character example in this book, is Gaius, the leader. Now, we're going to look at a bad example, a man named

Demetrius, sorry, Diatrophes, sorry, who's a negative example that we should not imitate.

This is what the word says in verse 9 through 10. I wrote something to the church, this is

John writing, but Diotrophes, who loves to be first among them, 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.

He himself does not receive the brethren either, that's the missionaries that came, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church.

Diotrophes was another leader in the church, and there was this schism that was happening. Gaius was attempting to lead the church in a faithful way.

Diotrophes was selfish, self -centered, me -centered, and he wanted to do things his way, and he was causing division and damage in the church.

The first reason that we know that, there's five character examples of the negative, false leader, is he's a lover of himself and not

Christ. He was more in love with himself than God. Any time that you have any leader in any church that's more in love with himself than God, run from that place.

And the spirit of Diotrophes is all over the fabric of American Christianity.

Instead of seeking Christ, they seek what Christ can give to make them look more glorious.

Men who do everything with themselves in mind, they push and shove their way to the top of the pyramid of church leadership so that they can do what they want to do upon the people of God.

There's a book that I read called Let Us Pray, P -R -E -Y, and it's got a big wolf on the cover of it.

There's as high as 25 % narcissistic personality disorder pastors who, because they love to prey on other people and because they love to eat the sheep, feed off the sheep, abuse the sheep, they rise to the highest levels of the church, and then they act out their dysfunction upon the people of God, which is wicked, to say the least.

A faithful minister wants God and wants to see the reality of the triune God accepted and worked out in the congregation of God, but the unfaithful minister only wants himself.

He wants money to live a carnal lifestyle. He wants praise to prop up his tender ego.

He wants clothing that makes him feel relevant and cool. He wants influence to make him feel important. He wants clapping hands to make him feel like he's accepted.

He wants book deals and conference speaking engagements to make him look intelligent, and he wants multiple campuses to make him feel significant.

Whatever selfish, disgusting, sinful thing that we bring into the ministry that we're not willing to repent of by the power of the

Holy Spirit will cause damage and brokenness in Jesus' church. Everything.

Because that person is not looking for Christ, he's looking for himself, which is the picture of idolatry.

It's worshiping a false god with you on the throne. And when that happens, it hurts people.

That's the first character trait, is a person who loves themself more than God.

The second is they reject spiritual authority. They won't listen to anyone but themselves. They think that they're the ones that's always right.

Every single argument, they're the one that's got to win. There's no grace. There's no charity. There's no, hey, maybe

I'm wrong about this. It's a rigid commitment to I'm the smartest person in the room. And that breaks apart the church.

It causes elders to go to war with one another. It causes churches to be at odds with their denomination.

And it doesn't just affect leadership, it affects the church. Imagine if you're a member of a church and you see something that's going on in the church and you're like,

I need to say something about this. But when you go to the pastor, he says, you don't know what you're talking about. This is the way that we do things.

Basically, sit down and shut up. How are you going to feel? Are you going to feel like you're loved? Are you going to feel like you're cared for?

Are you going to feel like a man who sits with Jesus has just interacted with you? When a pastor fancies himself a king, he becomes a tyrant instead of a servant.

The spirit of diatrophies is within congregations as well. Let us not pretend that know -it -all personality disorders only exist within the pastorate.

There are many men and women in churches across this country. Thankfully, we're immune, right?

Many men and women who have the spirit of diatrophies in their behavior, they always have a grievance no matter what happens in the church.

They're always the one that's going to judge everything around them through a negative lens. They're always the one who's creating factions with other people.

They're the ones that cannot be pleased and always are complaining. They're the ones that are promoting gossip, disunity, slander, rebelliousness, and the things that God hates.

And they latch on to every single unnecessary controversy to cause division. The church needs to remember what it means to discipline those types of things.

The church needs to remember that we hold fast to unity. Christ prayed for our unity. And if we are unwittingly or purposefully causing disunity in the body of Jesus Christ, we need to repent.

This man is not like Gaius. He's actually imitating Satan, which is our third point of what it means to be an unholy leader in a church.

It says in verse 10, For this reason I came, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words.

That word accusing is an important word in the Bible because the word Satan actually is not a name, it's a title.

And the title means the accuser. So this pastor, this elder, this leader in the church is not acting like Jesus.

He's acting like Satan. Accusing the saints like Satan does at every moment of our day.

We go through our lives and we think I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not this, I'm not that.

That's Satan accusing you in your faith trying to get you to stop believing the gospel and start believing a lie about yourself.

And how dare a pastor stand up in front of the people and accuse them as if he is the enemy of our faith.

Just like Satan brought damage upon the world when he did that, pastors who act like that bring damage upon the body of Christ.

And I would hate to stand before the bridegroom, Jesus, and explain why you attacked his wife.

Whether you're in the pulpit or whether you're in the congregation. The fourth is that they are unwelcoming.

Says, not satisfied with himself, he himself does not receive the brethren either.

They're not concerned about missions, they're not concerned about welcoming people into the church. I know we've been to churches where you walk in and no one says a word to you, no one looks at you.

Maybe you're young and you have a child but your spouse is not there with you and you get the dirty look. Where they don't care about you because they are trying to define you based on who they think you are.

That sort of spirit is wicked in the church. The fifth, again, is they're not concerned with mission.

John tells us he forbids those who desire to do those things and puts them out of the church. Let's not spend any more time on this.

There is a wicked type of leader that the Bible is talking about who is selfish, who rejects spiritual authority, who imitates

Satan in all of his actions, who is unwelcoming to the people of God and culminates in a hatred for missions.

May the Lord spare us and may the Lord spare his church from these monsters getting into the pulpit. Now let's transition to the final part of the sermon.

Because John is going to, you remember in the Bible it says you can't bring up a charge unless you have two witnesses, right?

John is going to focus the primary portion of his letter about this is what you should be instead of what you shouldn't.

He takes one example to show what should not be happening, but he takes two examples to show us what should.

So the tenor and the tone of the letter is this is what we ought to be.

So let's leave diatrophies behind and let's move on to the final person that we're going to be examining, which is

Demetrius. To anyone who aspires to leadership, to anyone who aspires to be a healthy church,

Demetrius is a wonderful example. Verse 11 says, Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good.

The one who does good is from God. The one who does evil has not seen God. So what he's saying is that Gaius and diatrophies are diametrically opposed.

And we must cling to the behavior and the character of Gaius and the behavior and the character of Demetrius if we want to be a faithful church.

In leadership and in the congregation, every congregation has to worship something.

And we must commit to worshiping Christ rightly in this church. We must not imitate evil in anything that we do.

The world is full of examples of imitating evil. It must not be so here. We must not walk in Adam's footsteps any longer because, dear beloved, we have been forgiven by Jesus Christ, the true and better Adam.

A godly church is one that imitates what is good, and a godly church is one that imitates this man named

Demetrius. Verse 12 says, Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, from the truth itself, and we add our testimony.

And you know that our testimony is true. Demetrius was a man who carried the letter back and forth between John and this congregation.

He wasn't a special person. He wasn't. He was just an average guy. He was blue collar. He wasn't a leader.

He was just a member of the congregation who, because of what was happening in the church, he took the report to John.

And he said, John, this is what's happening in the church. This man named Diotrephes is causing all of this pain and all of these problems.

John, help us. And John sits down and writes the letter that Demetrius carries to the congregation so that he can read it to his brothers and sisters in Christ.

He's a member of the church. But the reason that the Holy Spirit includes this man in this passage is not because he was significant, but the truth behind this man is what was significant.

And it's going to teach all of us how we can be a faithful congregation who loves Christ. Blue collar, average people, people who don't stand out, people who worship quietly, privately.

We have a wonderful faith, but yet we have a purpose and a mission to understand what it means to worship

Jesus faithfully, and we learn that from Demetrius. The first point that we see is that a godly church member has a good testimony.

A godly church member has a good testimony. It says that Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone.

That means that John, the elders, other people in the church, they knew about this man and he had a good testimony.

There is value in having a good name in the church. Having character that matches up with your name.

Now, I'm not going to tell you that a testimony will save anyone. If you ask me how do you share the gospel, I don't tell you to share your testimony.

I tell you to share the gospel because your testimony can't save. But your testimony is a good thing. Your character is a good thing.

This man is an example to all of us to have a good name. A name points to the fact of who we belong to.

You think about the Garden of Eden. Adam walks around the garden and names the animals. Why do you think he did that?

Because he liked taxonomy? No. Maybe. We don't know.

The Bible doesn't say. It's ownership. He's naming them because he's saying, they belong to me.

When Christ Jesus gives you his name, he's saying that you belong to him.

Your behavior, your character, every aspect of your life, every second that we take for granted belongs to him.

All of our life should be a blessing. All of our life should be submitted unto the lordship of Jesus Christ. And when you do that, when you live that way, it's not for your credit, but it is a blessing to the church.

If we have a church filled with Demetriuses, who love Jesus above all else, who love

Jesus more than they love themselves, who love Jesus more than everything, we'd never have an issue in this church.

And the gates of hell would tremble because of this church. And the foundations of New England would be shaken loose because of this church.

A good testimony is a litmus test for who you are. That's the first. The second is that a godly church member will have a life that's measured by the truth.

It says Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone and from the truth itself. Now we know that the

Bible didn't open up and say, that guy Demetrius, pretty great. It does now, we have 3

John. But John was still writing that book. The truth is testifying to Demetrius because Demetrius is a man of truth.

His life is in accordance with the truth. His life is measured against the truth. His life is consistent with the truth of the

Bible. That's what it's saying. If we want to have a faithful church, then we need to have pastors who will proclaim the truth and Christians who love the truth, who cling to the truth, who know the truth.

And the only way that you're going to know the truth is be in the truth. One of the easiest ways, one of the easiest ways to have an encouraging

Christian life, regardless of what happens to you, is just to read the Bible. It's one of the easiest things.

Wake up in the morning, grab your cup of coffee, splash some water on your face if you're not a morning person.

Do whatever you've got to do, but get into the Word. And one of the easiest ways to be a discouraged and beat -down

Christian is to just neglect the simple means of grace that He's given us, the Word, prayer, worship.

It's very simple things that we can do together to be a faithful church, but we have to commit to doing them.

The third, as a godly church member, will be a joy and a blessing to the leadership. Demetrius has received a good testimony, it says, from everyone and from the truth itself.

And we add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true. John is saying that even the leadership has heard about this young man.

And he's a blessing to the leadership. There's various different ways that that can work itself out in the modern church, but here's ways that you can be a blessing to your pastor.

Pray for him because he's sinful too. Lift him up before the throne of grace because he's weak.

And on Saturday evenings, I'm not speaking from personal experience or anything, Saturday evenings, quaking in fear because he has to stand in front of the people of God and deliver the

Word of God, and that's a frightening thing. Pray for your pastor. Don't disparage your pastor if it's not true.

If it is true, go to your pastor first and talk about it because maybe they will want to repent. There's just simple things that if we just do these things together, we can be a faithful church, and I think we are, but I think we always need to remember what faithfulness is so that we never get off track.

Here's a simple standard. If any action that you're thinking about doing in the church is not a blessing to God, His church,

His people, or His ordained servants, then just don't do it. It's a simple standard.

But now, I want to end with the gospel because we know, we've talked about this, even at the beginning of service, we can't do the things that we know we ought to do.

I've just basically preached, we'll be optimistic and say 30 minutes, I really doubt that's true, but I've just preached and shared with you things that we should do.

These are things we should do. We should do this, we should do this, we should do this, and maybe you're saying, gosh, the list is building up on top of me and I don't think

I can do these things. I don't think I can even do one of them. Let's remember the gospel, that we are not saved by what we do, we are saved by what

Jesus Christ has done. There's nothing good inside of us, not even one thing. If the church builds itself upon the gospel, then we will not fall apart because it's the gospel that empowers us to be faithful, not our performance, not our obedience, none of those things.

So if you're like, diatrophies, and you're causing damage in your family, or you're causing damage in your relationships, or you're causing damage in the church, the gospel says that Jesus Christ 2 ,000 years ago came for you, and He came to rescue you, and He came to forgive you, and there's no one outside of the pale of God's grace because He forgave a man like Saul, who was murdering

Christians. And unless you came in today having murdered Christians, then you are not beyond the pale of grace, and even if you did, you are not beyond the pale of grace.

If you're causing brokenness and disruption, and if you're all the things that we talked about with diatrophies, repent and turn to Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ can save.

He's the true shepherd that can lead you. He's the true king who can make you His citizen. He is the one and only, and He came and He died for you on a cross, your cross, the cross that you are destined to die on, the one that your sins nailed

Him to that cross. He died to take your sins, to give you His righteousness, so that you don't have to stay as a diatrophies for the rest of your life.

You don't have to stay as a troublemaker. You don't have to stay broken. You don't have to stay bruised. You don't have to stay abused.

You don't have to stay the one that continues to cause dysfunction because Jesus died and took your place.

Now He can take your place, and living through you by the power of the Holy Spirit, repent and turn to Him, and trust in Him, and cling to Him, and He will make you new.

If you're Gaius, if you're like the man named Gaius, and you're a leader, or want to be a leader, or aspiring to be a leader, remember that it's not about you.

Don't kowtow to your flesh. We need redeemed men, forgiven men, regenerate men, men who

Christ died for, who are willing to set aside all of their pride and serve Him.

If you're a man like Demetrius, and you're in the congregation, and you are just trying to be a faithful Christian in your church, then trust in the one who died for you.

Don't ever believe that you can do anything in Christianity on your own. You can't.

Trust in Jesus Christ and His power of His resurrection, and in the Holy Spirit who is inside of you, and live every day to the glory of God, and you will notice that you will change.

But you won't be changing by your power, you'll be changing by His. And that is certainly encouraging.

When this happens, when we trust in what Christ has done through the gospel, we won't have deatrophies in this congregation or in leadership.

We'll have men who are like Gaius, and men and women who are like Demetrius, and this church will be healthy.

And this church will be healthy for a hundred years. This church will be a church that we can hand to our grandchildren.

And this church will plant churches that will plant churches that will plant churches, and we will see New England changed because of the truths that are revealed to us in 3

John. What we have to remember is that we trust in Christ and His gospel, and He can do these things for us too.

Let's pray. Lord, thank

You so much for Your Word. And Lord, I think all of us have a desire that we want to be a faithful church, and we want to be a long -standing, centuries -long faithful church.

But Lord, we also need to remember that Gaius and Demetrius and John, they didn't trust in themselves.

They didn't trust in their power. They didn't trust in their ability. They trusted in Christ. So as we examine together,

Lord, what it means to be a faithful church, it means to cling to Christ. Whatever our station, whatever our position, whatever moment that we're currently in,

Lord, I pray that You would help us to trust in Christ. Lord, I pray for anyone here today who's broken, who's going through pain, that they would trust in Christ.

Lord, I pray for anyone here who feels betrayed, that they would trust in Christ. Lord, I pray for anyone here who's causing the damage,

I pray that they would trust in Christ. Lord, I pray for anyone who's fearful about the state of society and the world and all of that,

I pray that they would trust in Christ. And Lord, I pray for Derek, for myself, for any man in this congregation who's feeling led towards leadership in the church, that they would trust in Christ.

Lord, I pray that all of us, and You know each of us by name, You know every hair on our head, You know everything about us, that each of us, by the power of the

Holy Spirit in this room, would trust in Christ. And Lord, as we trust in Christ, that we would learn what it means to truly and joyfully worship