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's 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 that's in 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'll 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 the men 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.

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, you know, 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.

John’s Love for Gaius and the Theme of Truth

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.".

Now, 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 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 and 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, having 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?

Walking in the Truth and Living the One Anothers

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 giving preference to one another.

Romans 14 .13, therefore let us not judge one another anymore. First 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. I'm 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, tenderhearted, 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, all right? 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.

All right, so that was John's love for Gaius. Let us move to section two, Gaius's love for the saints, verses five through eight. 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's 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's 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 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, right? If we had Google reviews back in Gaius's 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's 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 all 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's 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, right? 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 in 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'm 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, 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. 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,.

Additionally, John is not condemning Diotrephes as a false teacher, as he spoke about in 2 John, but for his pride and 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 Zillah 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.