Open your Bibles with me to the book of 3rd John. Right before Jude and Revelation. John's third epistle. And as you see, 1st and 2nd and 3rd John, we've gone through 1st and 2nd John. They're short epistles. 2nd John, as I mentioned last week, is probably the fewest words of any book in the Bible in the New Testament. because the one I read at the beginning, Psalm 133, certainly has fewer. But you remember what I said about these three epistles, these three letters, that the Apostle John was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write to the church or the churches to us, that there's a theme that rides across from.

And of course the gospel is the theme of every book of the Bible. Christ crucified, buried, risen from the dead, seated at the right hand of the Father. The gospel salvation conditioned on Christ who by himself as our surety, our substitute, our redeemer fulfilled all the conditions to put away our sins and to establish a perfect righteousness by which God is just to save us and to keep us and to justify us. And that's the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel as per Romans 1, 16 and 17. And that's the theme of the whole Bible.

But there are specific issues that are addressed in each book, most of them several issues. But these short epistles, you know, in 1 John, what John was doing by inspiration of the Spirit was setting forth what I call the benchmarks of Christian fellowship.

In other words, for you and me to have true fellowship, spiritual fellowship, not just, you know, let's agree to disagree or anything like that. That's not fellowship. You know, somebody says, well, I believe Christ is this or I believe he did that. Well, I believe otherwise. Well, that's not fellowship. What I'm going to be talking about today is walking with brethren in truth. Our fellowship has to be established in the truth. John basically brought forth three benchmarks of fellowship in 1st John. It's light is first. We walk in the light. That light means truth. That's not talking about light bulbs. It's talking about well a light bulb that goes off in your head sometimes. It's truth.

Who is Jesus Christ? Do we agree on that? Now there are denominations that call themselves Christian who do not agree with us on that and they don't agree with the scripture. who is Jesus Christ? He is God manifest, that is made known in the flesh. He is Emmanuel, God with us. He is the eternal word, the second person of the trinity, the word made flesh and dwelt among us.

You see, the reason that that's vital is because that's the kind of person that it takes to save sinners like you and like me. He has to be both God and man. He has to be God because he has to keep the law perfectly and bring forth a perfect atoning work, which we can't do. And he has to be man because he has to die to satisfy justice.

That's what the atonement was all about. That's what reconciliation is all about. Salvation was conditioned on this person. God manifest in the flesh, Jesus Christ. If it were conditioned on you or me, as good as we think we can be, we will always fall short.

That's why it means when you read passages like Romans 3.23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We always come short. The best of us, the worst of us, and everybody in between. We always come short. We cannot satisfy God's justice.

And I often use this illustration. If you and I could start now living a perfect life which we cannot, if we could start now and live it right on, we still couldn't act out and perform and accomplish righteousness because of our past sins. And that really began in Adam. We fell in Adam and we're born spiritually dead. That doesn't mean that we're gonna all rob banks and murder people and all that. It means we don't measure up. That's what iniquity is all about. You've heard the word iniquity? It means inequity.

No matter how good we try to be, no matter how successful we are at it, we still fall short of the perfection of righteousness and satisfaction that can only be found in one person, this person, Jesus Christ. That's why he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. So if the Christ you worship and follow is not both God and man in one person, you're following a counterfeit, and you're not in fellowship with the people of God. And then John brings out the work of Christ.

What did he accomplish when he died on the cross? Well, he accomplished the purging of all the sins of his people. That means he satisfied the justice of God. He satisfied it, paid the price of it, that's called redemption, and propitiation, you've heard that term. He didn't just try to save them, he didn't make them savable, he saved them. His name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And that's the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed.

That's Christ. That's his obedience unto death. And from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. So what did he accomplish? He accomplished the salvation of everyone for whom he died. They will be saved. There won't be anybody in hell for whom he died. How do you know that if he died for you, you will be born again by the Spirit and you'll be brought to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works?

Well, these are the issues that John raised in the gospel of John is the issues he raised in first John, that light. Our fellowship is a fellowship of light, not light mixed with darkness and not darkness, but just light. And then the second benchmark is love, or righteousness rather, because we who are in Christ are perfectly righteous before God, not based upon our works, because we're still sinners saved by grace, but based upon the work of Christ. And that's the imputed righteousness of Christ.

That's the term that people don't know today. I remember I was out at the gym working out, and the guy working out beside me while we were riding the bike, he was talking about the gospel. And I told him, I just said, he was asking me some things, and I answered him. I said, have you ever heard the term imputed righteousness? And he said, no. And I said, go learn what that means. I told him a little bit about it, but I haven't heard from him since.

But the doctrine of imputation, what it is, it's a legal forensic accounting of the merit of Christ's work to his people. I stand before God, and the metaphor goes like this in the Bible, clothed in his righteousness. That means the merit of his work, as my sins were imputed, charged to him, his righteousness has been charged to me. so that I'm saved and perfectly righteous based upon a work that I personally had nothing to do with, he did it all. That's what it means when Christ is all in all.

I stand in him. And that's why Paul wrote in Romans 4, 6, of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works. Well, how can he do that? Where does he find righteousness? In his son, in Christ, and that's it. That's righteousness.

So if we're believers, we're sinners saved by the grace of God but we stand before God legally in the righteousness of his Son and that's what we'll plead at judgment. That's why we don't have to fear judgment. Somebody says, well he's going to outweigh your good works with your bad works. Well if he does, you're a goner. I don't care how good you think you've been. No, no. My only plea Christ died for me. My only plea. What can wash away my sins? Nothing, nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

So think about that. And then the third benchmark is love. That is love of Christ, love of the truth, love of the brethren, and John deals with that. Well, second John deals with those whom we should not have fellowship with. Look at second John nine.

He says, whosoever transgresseth, now we think of transgression as sin, but what it literally means is it goes too far. abideth not continues not in the doctrine of Christ," Those benchmarks. "...hath not God and he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ he hath both the Father and the Son and if there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God's speed He's talking about people who come to you seeking fellowship on a religious basis, not in your home. Of course, if they do it in your home, you're not to receive them.

But he's talking about the house here is the church, the house of God. Somebody comes in here and says, I want to join your church. The first thing I got to ask them is, what do you believe? Yeah, well, they might say, well, I believe the moon's made of green cheese. Well, that's not a way to get into this church. If you want to join this church, you're already a member of God's church because he's brought you to faith in Christ.

So he says, for he that biddeth him Godspeed is a partaker or a fellowshipper of his evil deeds. Well, third John is to show us who we are to have fellowship with. Now I'm going to basically major on just a few verses, but I want to read through the whole little epistle here. Listen to what John says in third John, verse one.

He says, the elder unto the well-beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Now, Gaius, apparently, he might have been the pastor of this church. He might have been an elder. He was evidently somebody that John was close to. And John had a love, he was in fellowship with this brother, Gaius, in the truth. Now, some translations will say truly, and that's okay, John's point in the context of the whole little epistle here is that our love is an offshoot of the fact that we know the truth and believe the truth.

We're together, we're in fellowship and that's what brings us together and without that there's no fellowship. Now you can call it fellowship Like I said, you can go to a church where you have all kinds of different beliefs. In fact, there's a church in town here told somebody that I know, said, we don't deal in doctrine here. Well, if you don't deal in doctrine, you're not a church. Because the pinnacle, the form of doctrine is what establishes the church. And we get our doctrine from the scriptures.

We don't get it from the opinions of people. I used to be in a Sunday school class when I was lost. We'd read a verse, and then everybody'd go around the room and say, what does that mean to you? Well, I've learned since, who cares what it means to you? What does it mean? That's what I wanna know. What did God intend it for? Well, I see it this way. Well, I see it that way. Well, big deal. That's not what this is about. The opinions of men do not establish a church and they do not establish fellowship.

I'm not making light of this whole thing, but I told you about Alex Wages who passed away. And Alex was a big Georgia Bulldog fan. And the families requested that people wear red and black. to the funeral. Well, I'm preaching the funeral. And I'm not a big Georgia Bulldog fan. I'm from Kentucky. I'm a big blue guy. I do root for Georgia when they're not playing Kentucky, I do. I'm just teasing. But I said, I gotta wear red and black. So I'll get me a red tie or something. But see, there's no fellowship between us on that ground. Because I like one team, you like another.

But my point is that gospel fellowship, spiritual fellowship, is love in the truth. And that's where it's got to begin. He goes on, he says in verse two, Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. You know, we know God's in control. We do know that. The Bible teaches that. There's so many places in the Bible you can read about that.

But think about Job. Remember Job? God put him through the test and boy what test he put him through. Listen, nobody suffered like Job they said. He lost his whole family. And his wife turned to him and said, why don't you just curse God and die? But Job said, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Now he said that and he wasn't being stoic, he wasn't being hard-hearted, he just recognized a reality that we have to live in. You don't have any choice there, I didn't give myself arthritis, I'd take it away. The cancers and the heart disease, all of that, we don't, we're not gonna bring that on ourselves.

And God has a purpose for it, I know that. And all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to his purpose. I believe that, you do too. But we pray, Johnson, I pray that you prosper. There's nothing wrong with that. Now, if tomorrow you lose everything you got, you know, that's God's will. I know people can't accept that.

You say, well, why did God do this? Why did God do that? Okay, you want to debate with God? Here's the first thing you have to settle. And this is what Job had to confront. Where were you when God framed this world and put Leviathan in the sea? and established the goings-on. Where were you? Well, you were nowhere, except in the mind of God. What the point of that is, is you're not equipped to debate with God. There's an old poem I learned in high school, and it had a line in it. It says, your arms are too short to box with God.

And that's the truth. He's wiser than us. He knows better than us. But we pray that you prosper, we pray for your health. These people on our prayer list, and some that are not on our prayer list, we pray for their health, don't we? Number one, I pray for their spiritual health. But I pray for their earthly health, that they prosper. Knowing full well that the time of their death is appointed by God.

So John prays for that, he loves this man. He says in verse three, for I rejoiced greatly when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. There's that benchmark of fellowship right there. The brethren came and told me about Gaius. Gaius believes the gospel. Gaius believes in the sovereignty of God. Gaius believes that salvation's conditioned on Christ and based on his righteousness alone. he walks in the truth. He not only claims to believe it, he walks in it, he conducts his life by it.

In verse four he says, he says, for I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. The apostles often referred to those who were brought to faith under their preaching as their children, not taking the place of God as their only father but just taking taking the reality that God used me to bring you to faith in Christ. You remember Paul called Timothy his son in the faith. So I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. Now I would have no, I'm sure that John would say I have no greater joy than to hear that you're prospering, you've got a lot of money, your health, your picture of health, but here's the real greater joy, that you're walking in truth, no matter what your earthly situation is.

Verse five, beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers. Now strangers there, refers to believers, a lot of times they would travel around the area, some of them preachers, missionaries, preaching the gospel according to their commission, but the local body of believers there may not know them. Some of them were sent out by the apostles. Paul sent out some, John sent out some. And so these strangers, it's not just embracing everyone without any understanding of what they're preaching or what they believe.

Just like John said back up in second John, if they come to you and bring not this doctrine, don't support them. Now you can feed them if they're hungry or you can house them if they're cold, but don't get, don't involve yourself in religious fellowship with that. Tell them the truth, you're lost. You're preaching a false gospel.

So understand that. And he says in verse six, which have borne witness of thy charity before the church, they took in these strangers and they treated them right, whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort. Now that's the key. You're going to help them and bring them forth on their journey, but not just anybody, it's after a godly sort in godliness. Here's a man who believes the gospel, who preaches the gospel.

I've had people call me on the phone. And you know we have our TV program, and we have our internet service. And that internet service, you know how that is. That goes all over the world. I mean, I've got people from Africa, from Scotland, England. And I'll have somebody call me, and they'll say, Brother Parker. And I say, yeah, this is so and so from such and such England. I've been listening to you over the internet for years. And I love your message.

They're a stranger to me, but I'll get to know them. And we established fellowship on the gospel. Now granted, they could be lying to me through their teeth. I don't know. I don't know why anybody would make a phone call like that and do that, but we've established fellowship. And you know, we have members of our church who live far away from here, but they don't have a local body of believers where the gospel is preached consistently without compromise. And we get to know them. And that's what happened here.

And they brought them forward on their journey words, they bid them God's speed which John says not to do if they don't bring this doctrine, but they bid them God's speed after a godly sort thou shalt do well. Look at verse seven, because that for his name's sake, for Christ's sake, for his honor, for his glory, for his truth, they went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles and what he's talking about there is unbelievers. The Gentile world was generally in unbelief, there were some Gentile believers but there are very few and Paul was the main missionary to the Gentiles. As you know, he raised up the church, God used him to raise up the churches of Galatian, Ephesians, Ephesus and Thessalonica, Colossae, those things.

So he says in verse eight, we therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth. There's your key. walking with brethren in truth, being a fellow helper of the truth. Those who preach the gospel, those who preach the doctrine of grace, those who are not, they don't hold back on the sinfulness of man.

That man is totally depraved, without spiritual life until God intervenes by the Spirit from Christ and gives them life in the new birth. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, they're spiritually discerned. You must be born again or you cannot see or hear or enter the kingdom of God. God elected a people from the foundation of the world in Christ, read Ephesians 1. Alex's dad, Jerry, told me that Alex's favorite scripture was Ephesians 1, 3 through 14.

I said, well, that's good, because that's one of my favorites, too. How God chose us in Christ, predestinated us unto the adoption of children, all based on Christ. How we're accepted in the Beloved, which is Christ, and we have even the forgiveness of sins based on His blood, His righteousness, and not our works. Remember what Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 says, for by grace are you safe through faith. That's not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. So you realize that if you're a believer, you're a miracle because God created us. not just in physical life, but in spiritual life too. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, not because of, but unto good works, which he hath ordained before ordained that we should walk in them.

That Christ's death is not a blanket pardon that man can take and reject. No, sir. It's the sure salvation of all whom he represented all for whom He stood surety, their sins charged to Him, His righteousness charged to them. Of all whom He substituted Himself in His obedience under the law and His death on the cross, of all whom He redeemed by His blood, paid the price, they're His. He said, I lay down my life for the sheep, my sheep hear my voice, I know them and they know me. all whom He arose again, ascended unto the Father, sat down at the right hand of God ever living to make intercession for us, all those whom He preserves. And that those whom the Holy Spirit calls with that holy calling will not resist because He convinces us and that we persevere in the faith.

Well, in the last verses here, I'll go through these quickly. was a man in the church who claimed to be a believer who was full of himself and he wouldn't even receive the one the preachers that John sent down. He wanted the center of attention, his name was Diotrephes. Look at verse 9, I wrote unto the church but Diotrephes who loveth to have the preeminence among them receiveth us not. His preachers sent down from the apostle John, but Diotrephes said, no, don't receive them because Diotrephes wanted to have the limelight. Verse 10, John says, wherefore, if I come, if John comes there, I will remember his deeds, which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words.

Diotrephes had a foul mouth on him. And not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren. Forbid of them that would, he wouldn't receive them, and if you would, he'd forbid you, try to. And casteth them out of the church, threw them out.

Beloved, verse 11, follow not that which is evil. That's what John calls, that's evil. But that which is good. He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil hath not seen God. If we do anything good, it's of God. We can't boast in it and claim credit for ourselves. And then he mentions a man named Demetrius in verse 12, hath good report of all men and of the truth itself. Yea, and we also bear record and you know that our record is true.

I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee, But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name. So it's a great little book, isn't it? Walking with Brethren in Truth. All right.