Love for the Saints

All right, I love technology. I had a small panic because I thought

I had saved my sermon online and we don't have internet here, so I grabbed my laptop just to be sure.

We were good. All right, let's begin. So I asked

Ross about preaching again in May, thinking I might preach at the end of June, but he didn't need coverage until this

Sunday, so I had eight whole weeks to prepare. Unfortunately, it didn't help any, and I still started preparing about 10 days ago.

My first idea had been to preach a sermon on, you know, lust focused with the guys and modesty focused with the ladies, but I figured

I was bound to get myself into trouble with that topic, so I decided to move on. My second thought was on hospitality, as that's one of those subjects like prayer, you can never hear enough sermons on hospitality, so I was thinking that was a safe subject to go with, and so I started looking through the

Bible on what, you know, what verses I should consider, and so I went through the direct commands like 1

Peter 4, 9, be hospitable one to another without grumbling, Romans 12, 13, distributing to the needs of the saints given to hospitality,

Hebrews 13, 2, do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels, right?

We have Timothy and Titus and the requirements of elders to be hospitable, and in many other verses, right?

We have the narrative stories, right? We have Lydia and Acts and the Philippian jailer and Philip the evangelist,

Publius, all these different people are showing hospitality, mostly to Paul, but to many different people throughout the

Bible, right? We have Jesus' parables on the friend who comes at midnight, on the king having a banquet, we have the examples of Mary and Martha, Matthew and Zacchaeus hosting

Jesus, in the Old Testament we have Melchizedek showing hospitality to Abraham and the returning kings,

Abraham and the angelic messengers, Lot, Laban, Samson's parents,

Elisha and the Syrian army, I mean there is a lot of examples of hospitality in the Bible, and as I looked through the various verses on hospitality, nothing was really jumping out at me, and then

I got to the third letter of John, and noticed that it does speak about hospitality, and we will be talking about that today, but it also speaks about loving the saints, and what that looks like, and I really think that's what the heart of hospitality is all about.

So I decided to preach through third John. My hope is to talk about and highlight how we ought to be loving one another.

One of those ways will be to show hospitality, but I think it's more than that. Third John speaks about actually many things, and I think some of these things, it will be good for our church to be reminded about.

Loving one another in truth, obviously showing hospitality, sharing the gospel, taking joy in one another, conflict resolution, things to avoid like pride and backbiting and gossip, and so as I was thinking over the last eight weeks, the

Lord had been showing me, which I think is what kind of brought me to this, is that, and I've shared this with a man on Saturday mornings, that as our church, it is humid in here, as our church continues to grow, and as we seek to get outside these four walls and start impacting the community around us, reaching out to other churches,

I believe we are beginning to catch the attention of the devil, right, and I've talked to many people who have said they really have felt the spiritual battle increase in the last couple of months, and I've even started to see it a little bit in our church, and again,

I'm not trying to be dramatic here, I don't think there's anything terrible going on or anything like that, but I have heard of issues, people having interpersonal conflicts and things like that that are just a little bit of struggle, so I was hoping that this would be an appropriate message, because obviously we don't want to give the devil a foothold in this church.

So let's read through the letter. The title of my sermon is Love for the Saints. The Elder to the

Beloved Gaius, who I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers who have borne witness of your love before the church.

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. We therefore ought to receive such that we may become fellow workers for the truth.

I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us.

Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds, which he does, pratting against us with malicious words and not content with that.

With that, he himself does not receive the brethren and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church.

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. 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.

I had many things to write, but I do not wish to write to you with pen and ink. 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. By way of background, 3

John is the shortest book in the New Testament. It technically has one more verse than 2 John, but 26 fewer words in the

Greek. It was written by the elder, and some scholars have tried to argue that this wasn't necessarily the

Apostle John, but most commentators point out the fact that there is no record in church history of either 2 or 3

John ever being credited to anyone but the Apostle John. And then when you look at the language and the style of the letter, it just so closely resembles 1

John and John's Gospel, who we know were written by John, that it just, we should have full confidence that the

Apostle John is the author of this letter. However, determining the specific date or the location of the author and the recipient is difficult, because in 2 and 3

John, the details just aren't there. Most believe that the letters were written between 90 and 95

AD, and possibly in and around Ephesus, which is where John is reputed to have lived and died in extreme old age.

The title, the elder, in Greek simply means an elderly person. But most commentators point to evidence in early church history that this became a title to the early, the surviving

Apostles and those who handed down the Christian traditions. And then it kind of held an authority similar to a bishop.

And then when we talk about this being the elder, it makes a lot of sense that it would be the Apostle John, because from church history, we know he was the last surviving

Apostle. We also don't know who Gaius is. The name

Gaius was very common in the Roman world. It's like, you know, William or Joshua today, right?

And so even though there are at least three or four other Gaiuses in the New Testament, there's no evidence to link this

Gaius with any of them. So we just don't know who he is. The general context of the letter goes like this.

John is writing to Gaius to encourage him to receive Demetrius and assist him on his mission for the church.

Most believe Demetrius brought the letter that was written from John. He is writing to both commend

Demetrius and because Diotrephes has been refusing to allow people in the church to show hospitality to those traveling preachers and is even putting them out of the church.

John also assures Gaius that he will deal with Diotrephes when he comes. So I hope to cover this letter in three parts and then just kind of sprinkle in application throughout.

The first part will be John's love for Gaius. The second part is Gaius's love for the saints.

And finally, Diotrephes' love of himself. And then I will conclude with the overarching application of this letter, which is from verse 11.

Do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. So we start out with John using the word beloved.

He actually uses it four times in the letter. Every time he addresses a new topic with Gaius in verse 1, in verse 2, verse 5, and verse 11, he starts with the word beloved.

The words mean someone who is dear to us, cherished, sometimes preferred above all others, or treated with partiality.

God considers us beloved. We read in Romans 1 -7, to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 3 -12 says, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, and longsuffering.

And 2 Thessalonians 2 -13 says, but we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved by the

Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the

Spirit and belief in the truth. It is very clear that Gaius and John are close friends.

So I want to ask you, do you have a beloved friend? Are they in this congregation? Think on that person.

What do you love most about them? What do you cherish about them? What makes them special?

I can honestly say that my most beloved friends are in this congregation. Why? It is that I share life with you all.

We pray for each other, we worry about each other, consider each other, support each other, but it is more than that.

You know, you guys know my friend Evan, right? I have dinner with him once a month. He is probably my closest non -Christian friend.

But even with Evan, there is something fundamentally missing in our friendship, and it is a shared love for God in his ways.

Ephesians 1 -3 -6 says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace by which he has made us accepted in the beloved.

We love Jesus and we share life together. I can't think of how I could love anyone more.

John goes on to, in a standard greeting in these times, wish

Gaius good health. Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers, verse 2.

It is not wrong for Christians to wish and pray for prosperity and health. John MacArthur says concerning this verse,

John's concern for Gaius is a pastoral desire that he be free from the turmoil, pain, and debilitation of illness, so as to be unrestricted in his service to the

Lord and his church. This attitude mirrors God's concern for the physical health of his people. But keep in mind the priority that John places on things.

However, when he says, just as your soul prospers, John knows that Gaius' spiritual health is excellent and so he hopes that God will grant him physical health and prosperity to go with it and so that he can further serve

God. If Gaius' spiritual health was not good, this would probably have been a very different letter.

Paul talks of this when he says, but reject profane and old wives' fables and exercise yourself towards godliness.

For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things. Have in promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come, 1

Timothy 4. And Charles Spurgeon says concerning this, oh, that our friends were well in soul.

We are not sufficiently concerned about this best of health. When they are well in soul, we are grieved to see them ailing in body, and yet this is often the case.

The soul is healed and the body is still suffering. Well, it is by far the smaller evil of the two.

If I must be sick, Lord, let the mischief light on my coarser nature and not on my higher and diviner parts.

Do we have this priority in our lives? How much time do we spend on our spiritual health versus our prosperity and our physical health?

It is not an either or, but a both and, and we need to examine ourselves in this area. We should examine our prayer life in this area.

We talk about this all the time, right? We're really quick to pray that someone's not feeling well or what have you, but do we remember to pray for each other's souls?

Next we move on to the subject of truth. Truth is huge to John, not only in this letter where he mentions it six times, but in general with John.

For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth.

So what is this truth? John talks about truth more than any other author except Paul, right?

In the New King James, truth appears 105 times in the New Testament and a full 40 % of those instances is in John's writings.

So let's look at the gospel of John. It's actually really cool when you look at the word truth through the gospel of God.

John 1 .14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the

Father, full of grace and truth. John 3 .21, but he who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen that they have been done in God.

John 4 .24, God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

John 8 .31, then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

John 14 .6, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 16 .13, however, when he, the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will tell you things to come.

John 17 .17, sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth. John 18 .37,

Pilate therefore said to him, are you a king then? Jesus answered, you say rightly that I am a king.

For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.

Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. And then finally John 19 .35, and he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.

John is rejoicing that he hears from others that Gaius is walking in the truth. The truth is the gospel in all that means.

Gaius confesses Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Gaius does so openly that others clearly see it.

Gaius walks as a Christian in a way that is clearly seen. Gaius sacrifices for the saints.

Gaius provides for the needs of the saints. Gaius loves the saints and seeks to support them as they spread the gospel.

Gaius lives the one another's of scripture. Let's rehearse some of the one another's to get an idea of how

Gaius lives. Mark 9 .50, salt is good, but if salt loses its flavor, how will you season it?

Have salt in yourselves and have peace with one another. John 13, if I then your

Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. John 15 .12,

this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Romans 12 .10,

be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor of giving preference to one another. Romans 14 .13,

therefore let us not judge one another anymore. 1 Corinthians, all the brethren greet you.

Greet one another with a holy kiss. That one's for you, Mike. Where's Mike? Oh, is he not here today?

Oh, there he is. Let's mention five times in scripture, brother. Just saying. Anyway, Galatians 5 .13,

for you, brethren, have been called to liberty. Only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Ephesians 4 .2, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long -suffering, bearing with one another. Be kind to one another, tender -hearted, forgiving one another.

Let us consider one another. Do not speak evil of one another. Guys, it goes on and on. I just,

I had to cut off so that I didn't, I would sit here all morning reading one another's. If you guys have an opportunity this afternoon, go to BibleGateway .com

and put one another in quotes and see how many verses come up. It's incredible.

So Charles Spurgeon summarizes this for us. Why when a preacher sees men thus walk in truth, may he make it his great joy?

Because this is the end of our ministry. It is this we aim at. We do not live to convert people to this sect or that, but to holy living before God and honest dealing with men.

This is the grand thing, and when we see this achieved, we have no greater joy. This is the design of the gospel itself.

Christ loved his church and gave himself for it, that he may present it to himself a perfect church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

A holy people are the reward of the Redeemer's passion. Well may they be the joy of those friends of the

Bridegroom who stand and rejoice greatly because of the Bridegroom's joy is fulfilled. The holiness of Christians is the great means of spreading the gospel.

Beyond all other missions I commend the mission of holiness. They preach best for Christ who preach at the fireside, who preach in the shop, whose lives are sermons, who are themselves priests unto

God, whose garments are vestments, and whose ordinary meals are sacraments. Give us a holy, consecrated people and we will win, for these are the omnipotent legions with which the world shall be conquered to Christ.

We joy in a holy people because they bring glory to God." That's an awesome quote.

Alright, so that was John's love for Gaius. Let us move to section 2,

Gaius' love for the saints. Verses 5 -8. Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren, for strangers, who have borne witness of your love before the church.

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. We therefore ought to receive such that we may become fellow workers for the truth.

So as we said before, Gaius' love has hands and feet, right? And he has taken seriously the commands in scripture that I spoke of earlier related to hospitality.

He's already been doing this, right? There has already been those who have returned to John and testified of Gaius' love in hospitality.

John acknowledges that this is something Gaius has been doing and he encourages him to continue it. He has been so faithful in this that when the brethren returned,

I guess he stepped on my notes, that they witnessed to the church that Gaius was showing this hospitality.

He hasn't been doing this for personal gain, he does it because the love of God has been poured out in his heart.

Alright, if we had Google reviews back in Gaius' day, he would have five stars, right? The only reason you leave a review is if you have exceptionally good service or exceptionally bad service, right?

So Gaius would have had excellent reviews. They would have said, oh, he put us up in a comfortable bed, he gave us an amazing meal, he sent us on the way the next day after a wonderful family worship, he shared good scripture with us, he gave us some food for our journey and even a little bit of money so that we could handle ourselves, right?

The preachers of the gospel who have come to Gaius on their way to other places have praised the care that he gave them.

And so why is John exhorting Gaius in this way? Back in biblical times we didn't have hotels in every city and town like we do today.

Inns were few and far between and were often, as one commentator put it, little more than vermin -infested brothels and their keepers dishonest and of ill repute.

Travelers often had to depend on people opening their homes to them. Christian preachers also had an additional reason.

They did not want to be seen as peddling the gospel for money, so they depended on other Christians to meet their needs in a foreign place so that they were not a burden to those sharing the gospel or who they were sharing the gospel with.

Right, Paul often talks about this, right, that he provided for his own needs either by working himself or by getting offerings from other churches.

He never wanted to be seen peddling the gospel. And so this became the norm of gospel preachers in the early church.

There's actually an excerpt from the Didache, which is an early church manual, and it talks about hosting and how traveling preachers are to act.

But concerning the apostles and prophets, that's apostles, lowercase a, so we do ye according to the ordinance of the gospel, let every apostle when he cometh to you be received as the

Lord, but he shall not abide more than a single day or if there be a need, a second likewise, but if he abides three days, he's a false prophet.

And when he departs, let the apostle receive nothing save bread until he find his shelter, but if he asks money, he is a false prophet.

Right, and so they were very concerned about these things in the early church. The preachers of the gospel needed a place to stay and often needed food while they stayed and food to hold them over until they got to their next stop.

John gives a final reason for Gaius to continue his service to the saints through hospitality. We therefore ought to receive such that we may become fellow workers for the truth.

As we help Christians in their ministries, whether by hospitality, by financial support or in other ways, we become partakers of the gospel with them.

Remember Jesus' words, and the king will answer and say to them, assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it for me.

Do we realize that when we serve this church, right, if Gaius was in this church, he would not be complaining about cleaning up kids' food underneath the tables, right?

He'd be the first one to grab the tables underneath the stage and set up. He'd be the first one to help clean up, right?

Are we doing that? Because this church is a ministry for God, right? And when we are serving it, it's a wonderful thing that we now have more families helping with opening and closing the church and we have gentlemen back there keeping us safe, right?

These are all serving Christ, and we should do it with joy, right? It is a wonderful thing.

We're building treasure in heaven. And so how are we to be hospitable, right?

We don't have traveling preachers anymore today. You know, if a church – if a preacher comes to this area for a conference or something like that, usually the conference is paying for a hotel room for them, right?

So what are we to do to be hospitable? First of all, we need to be opening our homes to one another, right, to the brethren who are in this church, right?

I can tell you that Melanie and I absolutely love opening our home and having you guys in our homes.

And there is nothing sweeter than having a family in your home. It helps you to get to know them better.

You feel more comfortable with them. You end up learning more about them because as much as – I'm not in any way disparaging the fellowship that we have or will have after church today, but it tends to be more, you know, high level, tends to be more small talk as we move around and try and see everybody in a day.

But when you have someone into your home, you get an opportunity to just talk with them more, get to know them more, right?

I've always seen that my desire to pray for folks that we have in our home increases. We just love each other more.

And that helps us tremendously as a church, right? It would be both – it's easier to understand where each other is coming from the closer we are to one another.

And if we need to speak into each other's lives, the closer we are with one another, the easier that makes it, right?

When you have to go to somebody because you need to talk to them about something, if it's the first time you've talked to them in a while, it's probably not going to be received as well as if you are regularly in their lives and they know that you love them, right?

So we need to be practicing this hospitality among each other. We need to show hospitality to people who visit, right?

We don't often get guests, but we do sometimes. And we should be really making a point to try and find out who these people are, have them into our homes if possible.

You know, Ross and I were talking a few weeks ago about the atmosphere of our church, right?

Which is both a wonderful thing, but it does have some negatives, right? And again, I'm not apologizing in any way for the way this church is.

So for example, we all, for the most part, homeschool here, right? That's part of the atmosphere of that church, our church, and it's a wonderful thing.

But if a family comes into this church who have their kids in the public school, they're going to immediately feel like an outcast when they start realizing like, holy cow, you guys all homeschool?

Are you guys a cult? And again, obviously they're wrong. Obviously we don't apologize for these things.

But at the same time, if we can have those folks into our homes, it gives them more opportunities to ask us questions.

Why is it that you homeschool? What's so important about this? Why do you care about these things?

And it can help them to understand us and be more comfortable with us, right? Oftentimes when we're witnessing the community, one of the things we're trying to do is get people to come to church with us.

But I would argue you should get people to come to your house first, right? Have dinner with them. Get to know them a little bit. Build a relationship with them.

And then at that point, as you start to get them to come to church, you have more of an opportunity to minister to them and help them to feel comfortable when they're here.

And again, I am in no way advocating for seeker -sensitive ways or anything like that, but just to obviously smooth some of the edges, you know.

We should always be ready to host if the need arrives. If we do have a family that comes from North Carolina or from Maine or whatever, we should always be ready to open our home to them, provide for them.

As a matter of fact, there's a Christian ministry started by a homeschooling family in, I think, South Carolina.

It's called a Candle in the Window Hospitality Network. If you Google a candle in the window, you'll find them.

They're actually still going strong. They have families all across this country. For basically $50 a year, you can become part of the network.

And if there's a Christian family who's traveling to the area, they can actually look you up. They can contact you through the network, and you can give them a night's room and board and have a meal together and things like that.

And then you can use that whenever you travel. If you need to go somewhere, they actually have families all over the world.

It's really cool. You should look into it. I've been meaning to join it for years, and I keep forgetting. And then finally, the last one that I would argue for is the pop -in.

All right, the magazines love the pop -in, and I'm not just saying that. Melanie loves it, too. If she was here, she would amen me. But we love the pop -in.

We welcome all of you guys. Pop in on us anytime. You don't have to call first. It's totally fine. I'm not going to lie.

You may come down the driveway and find a half -naked boy peeing down the driveway, but short of that, it'll be fine.

But we have Kenny stop by all the time. We have Tony stop by. In fact, we popped in on the

Carlsons a few weeks ago. I was taking the boys out for a bike ride and just say, hey, let's go over to the

Carlsons. It was great. Pam made me a coffee. Gave the boys a snack. These are the little things we need to be doing to be in each other's lives.

That's how we should be showing hospitality to one another. Okay, let's move on to section three.

Diotrephes' love of himself, verses nine and ten. I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us.

Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds, which he does, pratting against us with malicious words.

And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren and forbids those who wish to putting them out of the church.

So now we are introduced to someone who is the opposite of Gaius. Instead of humble service, we have an arrogant, prominent person who loves being a prominent person, right?

He actively resists John and traveling preachers who are coming. We learn that John has written to the church, but Diotrephes is not paying any heed to John and appears to be spreading rumors about him, right?

We don't know what this other letter John has written is. Commentators do not believe it was 2

John or anything like that. We would imagine Diotrephes probably destroyed that letter and that's probably why we don't have it.

Some commentators say that Diotrephes is an elder because he is putting people out of the church, but others say that he may not be an elder, but just an important person.

Maybe he's wealthy and the church meets in his home, but whatever the case, he has the ability to put people out of the church.

It is also unclear if Diotrephes and Gaius go to the same church or not, but it seems that Diotrephes is part of the reason why

John is encouraging Gaius to continue his support of preachers. Diotrephes is showing himself to be an enemy of God because he does not only resist

John, but he refuses to help gospel preachers and is actively working against the spread of the gospel. Simon Kistemaker says, not only are

Diotrephes' words vicious, his deeds are equally reprehensible. He willfully breaks the rules of Christian hospitality by refusing to receive missionaries sent out to proclaim the gospel.

By denying them shelter and food, he hinders the progress of the word. In brief, Diotrephes is thwarting

God's plans and purposes, and consequently, he faces divine wrath. Additionally, John is not condemning

Diotrephes as a false teacher, as he spoke about in 2 John, but for his pride in maliciousness, right?

There's nothing in this letter that suggests that Diotrephes is teaching things that he shouldn't be, but just that he desires to be in control of everything, and anyone that threatens that control, he is either maligning or putting out of the church.

Finally, John states that if he comes, he will publicly rebuke Diotrephes and will use his authority to deal with him.

I want to draw two applications from Diotrephes. The first is pride and how destructive it can be, even to those who call themselves

Christians, and certainly how it can cause great damage to a church. So, we often read in Hebrews 11, or we refer to Hebrews 11 as the

Hall of Faith, right? We look at the biblical examples of how through faith the saints of old did great things.

Well, I introduce to you the Hall of Pride. Now, pride is a source of all rebellion against God, for by it the devil and his angels fell from grace and are reserved in chains until the judgment.

By pride, Eve took of the forbidden fruit and gave it to her husband, who was with her. By pride,

Cain murdered his brother because he thought God should have had respect for his offering. By pride,

Lamech boasted to his wives Ada and Zilla of killing a boy for wounding him. By pride,

Nimrod, who was a mighty one on the earth, led the building of the Tower of Babel to make a name for themselves in the heavens.

By pride, Pharaoh refused to acknowledge the God of heaven and hardened his heart to the destruction of his nation. By pride,

Nadab and Abihu offered profane fire before the Lord, wanting to worship him in their own way. By pride,

Aaron and Miriam rebelled against Moses and brought judgment upon themselves. By pride, in the days of the judges,

Abimelech, the son of Gideon, murdered his seventy brothers in order to become king. By pride, both

Absalom and Adonijah exalted themselves against their father David and sought to take the throne.

By pride, King Uzziah was not content to be king, but sought to offer sacrifices to God and became a leper for the rest of his days.

By pride, Haman, the enemy of the Jews, sought to destroy them all because Mordecai refused to bow to him and he ultimately got himself killed.

By pride, Nebuchadnezzar took the credit for his great kingdom and was made to eat grass like cattle and was made wet by the dew of heaven.

By pride, King Herod Agrippa was struck dead when he did not rebuke his subjects for calling him a god.

And by pride, the leaders of the Jews handed Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified and asked for a murderer in his place.

Now the time would fail me to speak of the families that suffer, the kingdoms that are destroyed, the churches that are ruined due to the terrible sin of pride that affects us all if we do not keep watch over our souls.

Pride does great damage. In this church, we must always humble ourselves. When we go to a brother or sister, we must remember to examine ourselves, take the plank out of our own eye, leave our offering on the altar, consider the word of God and pray before we seek to confront a brother or sister on the issues we have with them.

Let us not be like those in the hall of pride. The second application

I'd like to make is related to grumbling and backbiting. Diotrephes was pratting against John with malicious words and while I don't see us doing that in this church, we must be careful of it.

If you are talking about someone you are having a problem with and they are not part of the conversation, we need to examine ourselves and ask, are we grumbling?

Are we backbiting? We may not be, but we have to be careful with it. I can tell you

I've fallen into this sin and nothing is more humbling than having to go to a brother or sister and confess that you've been speaking about them to others.

We must remember Matthew 18 and go to the brother or sister to whom we have an issue and address it with them.

We also must be a people who when someone comes to us with an issue, our first response should not be to defend ourselves, right?

But to ask ourselves and God, do I have sin in this, right? Think of Moses' reaction to Aaron and Miriam when they stood up against him.

He fell on his face in humility when he had every right to say, do you have any idea who I am? But we need to be a humble people not only when we go, but also when we receive from somebody else.

It is extremely rare that when two people have an issue, the sin is 100 % on one side. I'm not saying it could never happen, but it's the extreme exception to the rule, right?

If two people are having a problem, there's almost always sin on both sides of the equation and we need to make sure that we are dealing with our sin.

And then I just threw in some additional scriptural things related to conflict because I thought they'd be valuable.

Ephesians 4 .31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

James 1 .19 and 20, know this my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Luke 17 .3 and 4, pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.

And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times, saying I repent, you must forgive him.

Matthew 7 .12, so whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets.

Proverbs 10 .12, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins. And then actually

I love 1 Peter 3, 8 through 11. I think it just perfectly sums up how we need to be dealing with each other.

Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

For wherever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.

Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. Peter wasn't writing this to unbelievers in the interest of converting them.

He was writing this to Christians, alright, so we are all capable of these things. And then finally

I want to move to the idea of imitating what is good. The overarching verse of the whole letter is 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. John has been exhorting Gaius to continue in doing good, and now he contrasts diatrophies with a man named

Demetrius. Now Demetrius appears to be a man much like Gaius. He has a good testimony from all, similar to the testimony that Gaius has had from those he has helped.

He has a good testimony from the truth itself, meaning that he walks according to the word of God, as Gaius has been doing, and he has a good testimony from John and those with him, as does

Gaius. Demetrius is well known as a Christian worthy of being imitated. The fact that there was not more put into the letter about who

Demetrius was almost begs the idea that his reputation precedes him, right?

He is well known as a man who loves God. The threefold testimony of Demetrius is meant to give someone for Gaius to look to and to assure

Gaius that showing Demetrius hospitality is a good thing, and he who does good is of God.

Imitating what is good is a big theme in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 4, Paul talks about, for though you might have 10 ,000 instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers.

For in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel, therefore I urge you, imitate me. Again he says, imitate me just as I also imitate

Christ. And in Hebrews 6, and we desire that each of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope till the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Each of us needs to be people to imitate in the faith. Each of us need people to imitate in the faith.

We need a more mature Christian brother or sister who we can observe to see how they live the Christian life. Even with all the good things

Gaius has going for him, John still wants to commend Demetrius to him as someone who could be imitated. We also need to be those who are worthy of imitation.

That is a humbling thing, because I know for myself I often observe my own behavior and hope nobody's watching, right?

Also, I would say to those who perhaps consider themselves young in the faith, I used to use that as an excuse.

In fact, only a couple of years ago, I've been walking with the Lord 14 years now, and only a couple of years ago I realized that I'm supposed to be a mature

Christian now. And I always used to be like, well, you know, I haven't really arrived there, but I'm still young in the faith, right?

That's not what Scripture says, right? Scripture says we are all to be striving for maturity.

So even if you are two days old in the faith, you should still be looking to live in such a way that could be imitated, right?

And you have the perfect example in Christ, right? Here's an even more humbling thing.

Someone is watching you, and I don't mean God, although he certainly is as well. But if we are

Christians, we almost certainly have someone looking to us on how we walk in the Christian life. Whether it's a child, a spouse, a brother or sister in the faith, we are being observed, and we need to strive to be those worthy of observation and to seek to not be a stumbling block to those who are watching us.

The elders were very concerned about this when counseling Ben Joe and I on becoming deacons. We are going to be looked at as people to imitate, and we don't want to be a cause for someone to stumble.

Now, this of course doesn't mean that we have to walk around hiding who we are and our struggles in order to look good in front of others.

We are not looking to produce Pharisees here, but we must be willing to humbly walk with our God in repentance and faith, seeking to obey him and asking forgiveness when we don't.

Those who are parents know we are not perfect parents, and we will sin against our kids, but if we ask for their forgiveness when we sin, we take a potentially damaging situation and we restore it.

We turn it into a situation to be imitated, right? A situation where we yell at our children for the wrong reason could be very damaging, but if we then get down on our knees with our child and say, please forgive me, it becomes a situation that's a positive, right?

First of all, our children will forgive us like that when we ask them for forgiveness, but we show humility.

We show what it means and that we are sinners in need of Christ and that we need to repent of our sins.

We turn a negative into a positive when we do that, and so that's how we should be walking among ourselves, right?

And I say that because especially with the ladies, I've noticed that we have this need to really want to be proper in front of everybody else, and I would say that that almost makes you more unapproachable, right?

If you look perfect all the time, there's no one's gonna talk to you, right? Because they're gonna be like, no, no, no, no, no, that person, no,

I'm way too sinful to talk to that person. They're way too holy, right? So by showing who we are, meaning sinners, and being repentant of those ways, it makes us much more approachable, right?

Melanie and I get approached all the time. I think that's probably because we're clearly sinners. Anyway, all right, in conclusion, how am

I doing on time? I'm really fast today. Okay, this is gonna be short. We're gonna be eating lunch soon.

All right, John concluded this letter similarly to 2 John, not wanting to write more, but desiring to talk face -to -face when he comes to see

Gaius. He wishes him peace and extends greeting from their mutual friends and asks him to greet their friends by name, or the friends that are with Gaius, right?

And by name is a personal thing, right? Saying that John wants them greeted by name because he cares about each one of them.

So we need to look to the examples of Gaius and Demetrius to understand how we should love the saints, and by loving the saints, love the

Lord Jesus Christ himself. Let us look to the example of diatrophies and avoid pride and slander in our church.

Let us pray for God's grace and protection for this congregation, that as we work to bring the gospel to the nation, we are not hindered by strife between brothers and sisters.

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

For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you, O God, for this letter that you've given us. We thank you,

Father, for John's words. We thank you for how we see the life of Gaius as a

Christian who is walking faithfully with you, who loves the saints, and who desires to glorify your name.

Lord, I pray that this church would have a testimony like Gaius's, Father, that when people come to this church, they would say, it is clear that we love one another.

It is clear that we love God. It is clear that we are sinners, and yet we are sinners seeking repentance, seeking to walk in faith and truth and show our love to God through our holy living.

Father, we pray, O God, that you would help us. We pray, Lord, if there is any strife in this church today, if there is anyone in this body who is holding anything against another, that you would place it upon their hearts, that you would enable them to reconcile,

Father. Lord, keep the devil from us. Protect us, O God. We are a weak people, but Lord, we stand in faith, for we know that it is through your hand that this church was formed, and it will be through your hand that it is sustained.

Father, we thank you, O God, for that, and we ask you, Lord, to help us to continue to grow, continue to be used by you to further your kingdom and to glorify your name.

And Father, help us to impact the communities in Barrie and Hubbardston for your glory. We love you,