Take some time out and go into
some Old Testament for a couple of weeks as I prepare for the
letters to Timothy. So you're going to have a different
flavor of things. Third John. Let's not forget
that the reason that John wrote this letter is to correct a problem.
So by the very nature that we have New Testament letters that
correct problems, we need to remind ourselves that there are
always going to be problems. Not just in life, but in the
church. Anyone who thinks that the body of Christ is going to
walk around all serendipity and excited and everything's going
to be smooth, it's just a fool's idea. Now, of course, in the
fairy tales it may be that way, but ultimately the good news
is that we're all God's people, but the bad news is that we're
all people. We're people and we're going to have disagreements,
we're going to have misunderstandings, we're going to have knuckle-headedness,
we're going to have sin, we're going to have wickedness, we're
going to have false professors. That doesn't mean like people
who shouldn't be teaching and don't know their subject, but
people who profess a false gospel. And all of those things, whether
it be a gross sin of sexuality, whether it be robbery,
whether it be hatred or murder, or whether it be false teaching,
we address these things according to the prescription of the Bible.
We don't get to determine how we handle things. We don't get
to determine the timeline in which these things are done.
The scripture does these things. And when we decide that we know
better, we actually, as I said for the last two weeks, we make
ourselves God. We make ourselves out to be God.
We make ourselves out to be like God because we in our wisdom
and our experience know better. But beloved, as we've been now
two weeks on Wednesday night in the book of James, we know
that wisdom is a very delicate flower. Wisdom is so delicate
that I would go so far to say that there's not a human being
in the sound of my voice, including me, who even has the stem correct
in the context of wisdom. That is why Paul tells the Corinthians
that Christ alone is our wisdom. So as we look to how Christ acted,
as we look to how Christ spoke, as we look to how Christ most
importantly taught and commanded, therein then we see the apostolic
succession of the Lord's ministry now written down for us to continue
to seek after Christ as his people And beloved, I will tell you
all day long, you need to seek after Christ. And that scares some people to
hear that. But to be scared of that is nonsense, it's immaturity.
I'm not telling the world to seek after Christ, I'm telling
the church to seek after Christ. Because the world can only come
to the Christ that they create. But the church can come to the
true Christ and then seek after Him and long for Him and invest
themselves in the lives of one another for the sake of Him.
We need to do that in the good times and the bad times. And
so when we come to this text and we see it, it's very difficult
to say, well, where is all this application? Well, let's just
take a moment. It takes wisdom. It takes wisdom
in my mind, in the mind of the elders of this church, to say
to ourselves, what is it that Grace Truth Church needs to know
concerning this text? It doesn't mean that there's
something here that someone else may not see, but there's so much
here that we would never finish it. And we're not trying to finish
any letter anyway, are we? We're trying to get familiar
with these letters. We're trying to establish in
our hearts and minds as a spiritual family, the foundations of the
teaching of God, which is the Bible, and that in our lives
together, which is soon to be 10 years, as a body, for some
of us, we have a foundation. And then we grow from that foundation. We continue to learn. When I
teach myself something, and you notice how that, how haughty
that sounded, right? When I teach myself something,
I feel like I know it, right? You ever gone to YouTube and
found something on there, and I don't know how to do this.
So you find a guy or a gal on YouTube, and they show you step
by step, and you're like, now I know. Now I know. Couple of
months later, you try to do it again, and you're like, not even
close. I did not nail this. It is not right. So you have
to find that expert again, and you look at them again, and again,
and again, and again, and again. I cannot tell you how many years
I have been shaving saxophone reeds and filing them. Years.
Used to do it in my sleep. Used to do it in English literature
class. Why do you have a knife in class, son? I don't know.
I got jazz rehearsal afterwards. This is almost right. But after
a year of not doing it, I go, do I cut here? Do I cut here? You have to go back. The Bible
is no different. We have to continue to go back
because God has not granted us all wisdom and all knowledge
and all discernment and all truth and all everything to stay with
us all the time. We have to hold the Word of God
in our hands. We have to hear it with our ears.
We have to meditate on it with our minds and we have to make
sure that we hide it in our hearts. But the problem in the American
church of which we are part of, not holistically but in the context
of our proximity, we have adopted a lot of cultural ideologies
from our kinsmen. And that is, hiding the word
of God in your heart is to memorize a bunch of Bible verses. That's
the furthest from the truth. We don't need to memorize Bible
verses, we need to know the essence of everything taught in every
letter of the Bible. We need to know. Is it wrong
to memorize? No, not at all. But for some
of us that's as far as it goes. Everybody knows John 3.16. Every
pagan knows John 3.16. Every heathen knows John 3.16.
Every atheist knows John 3.16. Every Braves fan knows John 3.16.
But they don't know 17, 18, 19. They don't know what Jesus has already said to
Nicodemus, they don't know the context, so they don't know John
3.16. Therefore, when they have it in their hearts, they just
make up what they think it says in context or application. So,
beloved, we're together every Lord's day that we may grow in
our understanding of how to read the Bible, how to apply it, and
how to live it. We need to learn it, not learn
about it. We need to learn Him. And these
letters are written for our good, for our correction. So anytime
that Grace Truth Church doesn't have a need for correction is
the very first day of its demise. I will say that again. The very
first time that Grace Truth Church as a people are not in need of
correction is the very first day of our demise. That means
the Bible has no relevance to us anymore. that we've learned
it all, and that we've lived it all very well, and that our
doctrine is without error, and that our hope is without doubt,
and that with our lifestyles are without hiccup. And we know what Jesus said through
John's writing in his revelation to the church of Ephesus. We
know what Jesus says, you are pure in so many ways and you
stand on the truth of the gospel. You have no problems whatsoever
in your theology, but your love is gone. Your love for me is
gone. Beloved, we can love the study
of Christ more than Christ himself. I'm gonna say that again. We
can love the study of Christ more than Christ himself. And
I will tell you, and my experience is of no consequence to you,
but I've had doctoral professors who loved the study of Christ
and were lost as a goat. As one of my mentors said years
ago, lost as a ball in high weeds. Didn't know where they were going,
but they knew the material. Beloved, we need to intimately
enter into the assembly, preparing to have correction, preparing
to have encouragement, preparing to together walk in unity around
the gospel. It's a given. And I'll be honest
with you. Yes, I'm verbose. Yes, I can't
explain the alphabet in 26 letters. I have to write 17 or 18 pages. I know that I have a problem,
and there's nothing that's gonna change that, and the older I
get, the worse it gets. So if I were to write as an apostle,
there would be a lot of, there would never be a problem of people
not being able to sleep. I'll just read the book of Pastor
James. You ever been told that? Are you going to read through
the Bible? Having problems sleeping? Just read numbers. That doesn't make
me fall asleep. I'm like, oh goodness, now I've
got to go look that up. Now I've got to go look this
up. Now I've got to go figure out what's going on here. Now what's going on
there? What's going on here? But some of us, you know, go
read Leviticus. There's some gospel stuff in
Leviticus. It's all over the place. So when I think about
John's letter, this third letter, he's already written his first
epistle, he's already taught the churches under his care about
the gospel, they know it, he's already instructed them about
their foolishness and how they were acting inappropriately toward
one another, how they were not loving one another, and he continued
to harp on this reality. And then he wrote that general
letter of 2 John to an ambiguous church, and these letters are
circulating. Then he heard about diatrophies,
so he wrote the church there about diatrophies, and we know
the context. Somehow, in some way, diatrophies intercepted
the letter of John. We don't know. We don't know.
Maybe he took a job as the mail boy. I don't know. We just know
he had turned the church upside down on its head. Now, when the
church gets turned upside down on its head, when people are
being excommunicated outside the authority of the elders,
when people are being corrected and told to do certain things
in the context of the local assembly and the whole church is not involved,
And then people are fearful to say anything, fearful to follow
anything, fearful to do anything because they don't want the backlash.
Don't you think that if the Apostle John were to write a letter about
all of that, it should be a little longer? Don't you think it should be
at least like Galatians, a little course? Paul's first letter,
the letter to the region of Galatia, Asia Minor, all the different
churches in that region. I mean, it's a hard swallow.
It's probably the harshest letter in the New Testament. People
think 1 John and James, no, James and 1 John are some of the sweetest
encouragements to my soul. I am lifted in my, I am not rebuked
and sat down. But beloved, I'm rebuked and
sat down when I get to the first chapter of Galatians. And then
made aware, wow, better pay attention to what Paul's got to say, because
he's being ugly. He's not being ugly, he's being firm like a
father. Some of you dads, you ever had
your children say, don't yell at me, and you weren't yelling.
You're just being firm. I have a firm voice. I have a
preacher. I have an open air street preaching voice. That's
how I started. I have an open air, starting reading scripture
in large places without microphones. That's why a monitor is necessary,
because you couldn't handle it. And my voice would leave. It
really does. If I can't hear myself, I'm going to get louder
and louder and louder. But we get into this place when
I'm excited about things and my temperament and my personality
is different than everybody else's. So when I'm excited, I'm talking
excitedly. When I'm being firm, I'm being
firm. And my face, firm. This is firm. This is OK. I don't want to see this again.
It's not anger. It's not yelling. So when my
children have said that to me through the phone, don't yell
at me. I'm like, I wasn't yelling. Would you like me to show you
what yelling looks like? Have you ever been there, parents?
There's this yelling. I mean, you know, oh, mommy,
daddy's being mean. I mean, you know, I'm not being
mean, but I'll show you what being mean looks like. I mean, John, come on, yell a little
bit. What's wrong with you? messenger of God according to
the riches of the grace of God's glory in Christ alone. Why are
you not yelling? Why are you not making a fuss?
Why are you not kicking rocks? Why are you not throwing shade? Why are you not putting people
in their place? Because he's an apostle of God
and God Almighty did not endorse or ordain that kind of behavior
from any man of God. That's why Paul took seven, eight,
nine, ten months to write the letter to Galatia. There's nothing hasty in shepherding
God's people. And when we act out of shortness,
we are nothing but a puppet with the devil's hand doing this 1,000%
of the time. We take our cues from the Lord
and we take the Lord's cues from his apostles in their writing
only. Why in the world are you talking
about this? Because this is what John is doing. John is rebuking
Diotrephes to a man named Gaius because Gaius is doing the work
of the ministry as is prescribed by the scripture through the
teaching of the apostles and Diotrephes is trying his best
to stop him. And Diotrephes does not have
that authority, nor is he correct in his estimations and judgments.
But Diotrephes would go back to 2 John, and Diotrephes would
go back to 2 John and say, nope, nope, nope, I'm correct in my
observations, and I'm correct in my application. Because if
we greet anyone, whoever abides in teaching and the teaching
of Christ abides with God, and blah, blah, blah. I'm not mocking
the Lord's word, I'm mocking Diotrephes. The devil always,
let me show you this. The devil always uses scripture
to prove his point to the people of God. The devil always uses
his puppets to come in with scripture to say, this is the Lord's word. In Genesis chapter one, the enemy
came into the garden using the word of God against God's people. Beloved, I think 3 John is one
of the most powerful pastoral letters I've ever read in my
life. Because of what's not there. Because of the simplistic way
in which John, and this is, let me tell you something, y'all
don't know, you don't know, you may say you know, you don't know
how hard it is to bear the burdens of people. a war zone, an attack, a car accident, a
street brawl. You ever been shot at? I've been
shot at. You ever had a gun put in your face? I've had a gun
put in my face. You ever been beat up? Many times
over. That was not in Kung Fu class. Those are nothing compared to
the spiritual burden of laboring over the joy of God's people.
Nothing. Because I know, and I'm trained,
and I have an understanding of how to handle some of these things.
It takes great wisdom to handle what God has put on the overseers
of his body. And it's not a whining session.
It's just an observation. It's just a simple truth. And
I'll tell you, beloved, I labor to the fault, to the fault of
my home, to the fault of my health, to the fault of everything and
every fiber of my being. I labor wrongly and sinfully
and doubtfully over the intimacy of this family. And so when 3 John comes along,
and it's just a note, John is focusing on that which
is happening. He is focusing on that which
is positive. He is focusing on that which is absolutely encouraging. He is praising God for the whole
shebang and he has established in his heart by the Spirit of
God the very thing that he can control which is to thank God
for the ones who are being faithful to the church. And he's not ignoring diatrophies,
but it's not Gaius' business how John's gonna deal with diatrophies. That's busybody gossip. Think about the reality of what
marriage is in the context of the gospel. And I think about what some people
would do. And I've had it happen to me,
beloved, I'm gonna tell you. I've had people come up to me
in the body and try to tell me what's really happening with
my family. Seeing us 60 minutes a week and
they're gonna tell me what's really going on in my household.
And two things that I've responded to in that over the years. You
planting cameras in my house? Or is God giving you the divine
eye of prophecy? Because if neither one of those two are true, you
are dumb as a bag of potato chips and don't know what you're talking
about, you see? Now, I don't say that, but that's what I'm thinking.
I'm just being honest. What I want to say is ungodly. What I want to say is ungodly.
Imagine someone coming up to you and telling you, husband,
how you ought to be doing to make your wife the person they
think she ought to be. or wives, what you need to be doing to
make sure your husband is the man he ought to be. Not from
the Word of God as an encouragement generally, but specifically.
I've noticed, you ever heard that? You ever heard somebody
say, I've noticed? And that's a comedy sketch coming
out, I could just goof sideline stand up right here. And you
know we laugh at that which hurts us most. I've noticed that your
Husband comes in late to church every week. And I tell you, a godly man ought
not be doing that. He does not set a good example
here in the church for our ladies. Well, why don't you stop looking
at my husband? That's what you should say. I want you to stop
looking for him. You see what I mean? This is
the kind of demonic stuff that's going on in the church, the subtle
things. And if I were to respond to these things, oh my goodness,
beloved, this letter encourages me because John just deals with
the positive of what the church is doing and he addresses the
negative and he is going to address it when he gets there. It doesn't
have to be fixed in a month, a year, two years, ten years,
decade, a lifetime until God Almighty gives John the wisdom
to deal with the issue outside of his fleshliness. Because I
will promise you all something. Let me just be very candid with
you. If any of you ever see me in
my fleshliness, I will never stand in this pulpit again. I could never in good conscience
ever stand in this pulpit again. I would delete my social media
pages, I would delete every sermon I've ever preached, and I would
wipe myself from the entirety of the world of ministry. Because
once you see that ugly, you can never unsee it. Now, the Bible
doesn't say that when a man fails that way, he should be out of
the ministry. That's my conviction because
I know the ugly. And if I ever act in the flesh,
so I'm encouraged by John and his patience because I'm not
a patient person. I'm not a patient person. Many
of you aren't patient people, right? I'm not a patient person. Some of you are not paid. Some
of you are so patient. Are you not upset about this? Yeah, but
I had a friend back in in 1996, actually. And his name was Morris
and Morris got really upset at somebody one time. And he comes
in there. And he hasn't changed, his facial
expression hasn't changed, and he just, somebody just cussed
him out, and he walked back in there. I said, Marsh, you all
right? He says, James, I'm mad. I'm very, very mad. You mad? You calling yourself mad now?
I mean, yeah, I'm just angry. I could just kill somebody right
now. I'm just so, I'm so angry. What you doing for lunch? I mean,
you know, I'm going, dude, that's amazing. How do you do that?
Well, I just, I've just learned not to just not get upset, but
I'm very mad. When I'm mad, I don't hide it. I hide. Because the boogeyman comes out. You see? Oh, the Bible says pastors
should not be given underage and anger. Absolutely. That's
why I avoid it. And the qualifications for the
elders are equal qualifications for a church member. The elders
have to exemplify those things, live them out before the church,
but the church is equally obligated to be in like manner as an elder
is, see. So before we throw rocks, let's
put them in our pockets and walk around with them for a little
while. See how good our belts work, you see. John is an amazing
apostle. I don't wanna praise John, but
it's one of the things that I love about John, he is so humble.
And it's what I've always prayed that the Spirit would give us
humility in all things. And yes, it's not going to make
correction better. Nobody, even in the most humble
ways, likes to be corrected, do they? They don't like it. It's not fun. Oh, here comes
my daddy. I'm in trouble. I'm so glad. No, we hide. I mean, how many
TikTok videos or YouTube videos or Facebook videos have we seen
where kids are kicking the ball or hitting the golf ball and
it goes through the plate grass window and everybody runs? Where are
you going? Where are you running to? The ball didn't fly through
the window. It's your ball. You were in the yard and it's
on video. You were live streaming, dummy. You're gonna get called,
mama's coming, daddy's gonna be home in a little bit, and
you're gonna answer for it. Nobody is excited about that.
But yet, if we look back and we look at real correction, we
look at real encouragement, we look at real direction, the blanket
word for that is discipline, we look at real discipline, it
is always and at all times, if it is biblical, loving. Because
what's the antithesis of discipline, of correction? Justice. Recompense, wrath. But Christ
has taken the recompense of the Father for His people. Christ
has taken the wrath of God the Father for His people. Christ
has taken the justice for His people so that we can just receive
discipline. If we are not God's children,
we will not be corrected. If we are not God's church, we
will not be corrected. If we are not the church of the
New Testament, we will not read correction from the word of God.
And I've said this a thousand times if I've said it once, and
I've said that a thousand times if I've said it twice. That there are many people who
love to hear good preaching but don't want shepherding. And if you don't want shepherding,
you can't be here. You can't be with us. If I don't want accountability
to my wife, then I can't be her husband. If my children are not
willing to be submissive to me, they can't stay in my house.
You see, if we aren't willing to what? To be encouraged and
corrected and to be shepherded and to be not given unto busy
body, but if we're not willing that the word of God teach us
the right way, then we have no business together. We have no
business together. I can just create theological expositions
only and put them on YouTube and we can watch them at our
leisure. We don't need each other, see, but we need each other,
beloved. We take the Lord's table every week as a practice in this
church, and it's so good to be able to bring that back, because
it was one of the things that we missed so deeply during the
pandemic, not just the fact we weren't together, but the fact
that we could not take the Lord's table together. But that is a
reminder that Christ has given himself up for his bride. So there's one of the simple
applications and one of the simple implications of the gospel of
free and sovereign grace is that we are together as a people.
We are one body and there's not one person in the family of faith
here, known as Grace Truth, who is more important than another.
There is not one person whose needs are not as important as
the others. But at no time should our needs in our own heart and
mind be more important than the guy next to us. And so if we
learn these principles, if we learn to be corrected, if we
learn these things through time and are patient with one another,
we all will grow. and to understand life together
as the body, as the church. But see, the world in which we
live, there's no culture that I know right now, and I don't
know every culture, but there's no culture that I know or am familiar
with that has true ecclesiology right. And ecclesiology is the
doctrine of the church, the teaching of what the church is, the assembly.
Life together, koinonia, fellowship. You ask most American Christian,
what's fellowship? Well, we got a potluck on Sunday
afternoon. Well, can fellowship happen at a potluck? Yeah, but
fellowship can happen in a parking lot, and fellowship can happen
on a telephone call, and fellowship can happen in a home, and fellowship
can happen at the grocery store, and fellowship can happen. The
question is, is it intimate, and is it intentional around
the gospel? Are we looking to meet each other's
needs while never laying down the necessity of teaching the
gospel to one another? Of helping each other. And it
may be wrong, but for me in my life, I have always, and I wasn't
taught this, it just sort of came naturally for me because
I was an inquisitive person, but I've always asked questions. So some of you philosophers out
there, you would say, well, you know, the Socratic method of
inquiry, the Socratic method of teaching. And then I look
at Paul, and I see Paul, and he rhetorically writes question
after question after question after question after question
after question. And Peter infuses questions. James, what causes
quarrels and fights among you? So I've learned to just sort
of mimic that, and in turn, it works well, because it's a very,
It's a lighter sense in which we can communicate intimately,
especially on negative things and correction. And you know,
John doesn't do that. He just gets straight to the
point. This is the point, this is happening, we'll deal with
it when I get there. But let's go to that for a second.
Let's go to verse nine to the end. And I've been talking about
this text, but as you see, there's not a whole lot. We have to pull
some things out here. I've written something to the
church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not
acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up
what he's doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not
content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers and also
stops those who want to and puts them out of the church. Beloved,
do not imitate evil, but imitate good. Whoever does good is from
God, and whoever does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has received
a good testimony from everyone and from the truth itself. We
also add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true.
I have much to write to you, but I would rather not write
with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face
to face. Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet
the friends, each by name. I've already talked about this.
We've been preaching through the same text for several weeks.
And we see this continued thing. And it's funny, isn't it, that
we like to emphasize the negative. I said this last week. We love
the negation. We love the negative. We love
the antithesis. We love to pump up the problem. And in doing so, we make the
problem bigger than the point. John doesn't do that, does he? John gives a clear, clear thankfulness,
statement of thankfulness that he is glad and he prays for the
church. He's including diatrophies in
that prayer. Then he commends Gaius for what he's done, then
he condemns diatrophies for what he's doing and then he says he'll
fix it when he gets there. Right now the point of John and
the point of the church is not to fix every problem because
not every problem is fixable. Some people refuse correction.
But sometimes we put the correction ahead of the ministry. Sometimes
we put the correction ahead of the unity. Sometimes we put the
correction ahead of the intimacy. And so the preaching and the
teaching and the life together and the ministry of the saints
is derailed because everybody's looking at the problem, waiting
on the problem. We can't do anything until the
problem's done. Well now what's the big problem? Now everybody
in the church is equally in sin because we're all waiting. Remember
the Thessalonians? You don't get to get off the
hook to not do what's required of you because you want to see
a problem fixed. That's wicked. Well, little Johnny wrote on
the wall, and until your daddy gets home, I'm not cooking food. and you're gonna sit right there.
What are you doing, kids? Turn the TV off. We're all gonna
sit right here until this problem's solved. Three days later, what
are we gonna do about this problem? How about you just wipe off the
wall and get on with your life? You see that? You think I'm making
that up? Just read the New Testament,
people. It is the absolute mathematical prescription. It is the one plus
one. It is what the Bible commands
of us. We will deal with these things But we are focusing, what
is he focusing on? The fact that Gaius is doing
the work that Diotrephes is trying to hinder. We need the work to
be done. We need ministry to take place.
We need teaching to happen. We need needs to be met. We need
prayers to be prayed. We need worship to be done. And
anyone who cannot worship with the saints because of their focus
on a problem is the problem. When there are true saints present
and the true gospel is present. And that might offend some of
your conscience, which is not of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, correction, correct?
Correction. Why? Because we have so much
to do. One of the biggest problems that
I have as a pastor is that I think it's my job to do it. It's my job to teach you to do
it. Ta-da. And you think after 22 years,
I would know that by now. Well, I know it, but I haven't
come to know it. I'm Superman. We think we've got it all on
our own plates. And it's interesting that 99%
of everything that I put out on social media is just a notepad
of the things that I think about relating to my own life and ministry.
And my grandmother Tiffins used to always say, a hit dog always
hollers, son. And if you don't know what that
wisdom means, that means you know when a dog's been hit by
a car, cause it yelps. Or been hit by a limb or a brush
or a switch, it yelps. Don't call PETA, we're not beating
dogs around here, it's just an expression. And people and their blind idols,
when we step on those idols, You realize idols are deceiving.
We don't have a secret compartment of idols. I hope the church doesn't
see my idols. Look at all these idols. No. All the idols we're calling Christian
work. Gospel ministry. godly things. We think they're godly. That's
the whole point. Well, the Pharisees, they thought their stuff was
godly. They thought they were honoring God. What did the apostles say?
People will take you and kill you thinking they're doing the
Lord's service. Nobody in the Bible thought they were doing
the devil's work. They all thought they were doing
the work of God Almighty. And they were using the Bible
1,000% of the time every time in their pretext with their own
assumptions, with their own misjudgments, with their own fleshly conscience.
And they were making these judgments and they were doing it. John
knows this is what's happening with the atrophies, but John
says, I'll bring it up if I come. Right now, I want the ministry
of the gospel to continue. Diotrephes is just a fool, and
he's going to get what's coming to him eventually. But right
now, we cannot halt God Almighty's work in the body for the sake
of this one knucklehead who is turning it upside down. Because
typically, how would you handle that? How would you handle somebody
like Diotrephes? What does the scripture say?
It's not a Matthew 18 issue. But even if you followed Matthew
18, it comes to the same result, don't it? We sit down and say,
correct this behavior, then we can deal with this issue. Diotrephes
had a conscious objection for helping people who were preaching
the gospel, because he probably misinterpreted 2 John. That's
my assumption. And he was so fearful of disobeying
Second John, that he even now, when John came back and says,
no, you gotta do this, what did he do? He usurped the authority
of the apostles, and the very thing that he was trying to hold
to, saying he was honoring God through the apostles, he said
what? I no longer acknowledge the apostles' authority. So I'm
gonna live by the standard that the apostle John wrote to me,
but I'm not gonna live by the standard of apostle John anymore
that he wrote this time. You know what that's called?
Stupid. And you know who are guilty of
it? We all are. It's placating in our own brains
to like what we like and to dislike what we dislike, to affirm what
we like, and when that thing that we affirm and like doesn't
agree with us completely on certain things, or even see eye to eye
in the way we're trying to speak, we begin to throw the whole thing
out. I'm a fool about carpets and
floors and stains. And I will throw a rug away if
I can't get a stain out of it. I can't look at it. I'm sorry. I tell you, one day they're going
to drive up here and get me while I'm talking. But sometimes I can see in my
own life where I will burn the entire house down because of
a stain on the rug. Ever been there? You walk into a house
and all you can see is the stain. You walk into something. I mean, there are places. And
I renovated my house eight, nine years ago. And it was in bad
shape. It's a 126-year-old house. And
it was a lot of work to do. And we worked very hard. And
there are some things inside the walls of that house that
I just let go. One specifically is when I put
my gun safe into my study. There were five or six of us.
I think my brother was there that day. And we took it off
the trailer. And it sunk that far into the grass out front.
We're like, oh, we're in trouble. We're in trouble. And it put a little divot in
the pine floor. And then when I got into the
back of it and we laid it back, my back hit the wall. And behind
my safe that weighs 1,500 pounds is a hairline crack that long
in my sheetrock. And every time I walk into my
study, I go, I hate this place, that crack in the wall. I can't even see it. I can't
physically see it. There's no way for me to even look at it.
I can't see it. It's no structural problem. It's
just a crack in the sheetrock. Guess what? There's a crack in
the sheetrock in my bedroom now. Up at the ceiling at the nine
to 10 foot level because the house is old and it settles.
That doesn't bother me. That's just natural. But I broke
the back. We gotta fix this. You see how
silly that is? But that's exactly how some of us are. We can't
get past Well, let's just do it this way
from the positive. We can't get to the instruction of the scripture
because we can't get over ourselves. Beloved, I can't get over myself. It doesn't mean that it doesn't
need to be fixed. It doesn't mean that diatrophies isn't causing
havoc. But beloved, the question is, what does the scripture teach
us to do with people like diatrophies? Well, the scripture says that
the church comes together and the church talks about diatrophies
and the church corrects diatrophies after he has been tried to be
corrected. So if we follow Matthew 18, we see that we're to go and
to talk. And what's the timeframe between
these things? I don't know. But the Bible teaches us that
love believes all things. What did you mean when you said
that? What did you mean when you did that? Why did you do
that? Did you know you hurt my feelings when you did those things?
I'm sorry. Please forgive me. That's the
end of it. Well, five months later, I saw
it again. What did you see again? That's
a record of wrong. That's a record of wrong. Do you want a record of wrongs
kept for you? I don't. The Bible says there's
no record of wrong. Do you know God has no record
of wrongs? James Tippins is justified before the Father as a holy and
righteous man, perfect in all his ways. walking in a manner
congruent with the very righteousness of God himself. How is that? Because my righteousness is not
my own. It is an alien righteousness. It is a righteousness credited
to me graciously for the sake of God's promise. Where did it
come from? It's Jesus himself. God is not tricked. He is not,
I know the truth, but oh well. We're not putting a safe in front
of the crack. Jesus isn't the safe. Jesus was
crushed for our iniquities. He was destroyed. He was put
forth by God the Father to satisfy His wrath. The wrath of God is
satisfied in Jesus Christ, beloved. For every sin of every elect
person who will ever live and ever have lived, Jesus cried,
paid it in full. When I try to explain this to
my kids, when they're younger, they don't get it because they
don't understand debt. But by the time they're four
or five years old, they understand debt very well. And they learn
that lesson the hard way. Because we let them go in debt
with us. I want to buy this. You don't have enough money.
You want to go on credit? Yes. But it's not a revolving
account. You have to pay it off before
you can use it again type thing. So those five or six weeks or months,
they just burn, and Abigail's learned hard. No, I'll just save. But if Abigail owes me $30, and
her granddaddy pays me $30, said just pay off her account, does
Abigail owe me $30? No, because the debt's been paid.
Jesus paid the debt of his people. We talk about John's gospel,
and we love, love, love, love, love, love to hear the truth
of the gospel, as we should. And we forget that John says, God
the Spirit says through his evangelist, in John 1, he says in verse 14
that the Word, the living God of the creation, the creator of all things, the
creator of life, who is the light of creation. The whole reality
of the fall of the enemy and creation and the Sabbath rest
and all of these things, this is all part of election. This is all part of sovereign
grace. It's a picture. Became flesh. This God became
flesh and dwelt among us, and in the visible reality, divinely
granted, when we see Jesus Christ, we see the fullness of all that
God ever has revealed concerning Himself. That's what glory means. To see
God's glory is to see God in all that He is. all that He will ever show us. And the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory. Glory as of the only
Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. For from His fullness we have
all received." What does it say? What does verse 16 of John 1
say? You want to memorize a verse?
Memorize that one. John 1 16 says, for from his
fullness we have all received grace upon grace. Seeing Christ by the Spirit of
God is to see God Himself in all that He is and everything
that He wants you to know concerning Him and everything related to
what He is and who He is has everything to do with Him saving
His people by Himself. Are you listening? The false Christianity of our
culture would make this a very personal message. Not that it's
not personal, but it would make it such a personal message that
it would de-emphasize us. Jesus saved you. Jesus saved us. The manifold
wisdom of God is displayed in the church to Satan and the fallen
angels. The devil knows that God is successful
in redemption and revealing himself for who he really is, even though
he will accuse us all. And rightly so, we are sinners,
but that sin has been paid through Christ. So beloved, everything
rises and falls in the display of God's glory in this life by
how we maintain reconciliation amongst each other. And Paul would say, as long as
it is up to you. See here, wherever this church
is, Diotrephes has done such a stinky job of keeping things,
or he's done such a good job of keeping things stinky that
the whole of the church has now fallen in line either by fear
or by fellowship with him in their practice. And John's like,
this cat is doing evil. This cat is doing that which
is not biblical. This person is starting stuff,
dealing with things, not listening to the apostles' teaching. That's
really the problem. It wasn't the fact that he did
something wrong, it was the fact that he refused correction. You
understand that? Dr. Fuse refused correction.
He likes to put himself first. What does it mean to put yourself
first? We've talked about this. It's my way, my thoughts, my understanding,
my explanation, my desires, my stuff, my church, my ministry,
my interpretation. Beloved, that's not okay. That's
not gospel. puts himself first and does not
acknowledge our authority. So when people came up to Diotrephes
and said, you know, John's already written about how we deal with
these things. This is not exactly what he meant. Instead of saying,
okay, I submit to the writing of John, Diotrephes said, well,
who is John? He's wrong. John's not wrong. The word of God is not wrong.
And beloved, it doesn't, the letters don't need interpreting.
You don't have to interpret a recipe. Well, did he really mean a half
a teaspoon? Or is that one or two teaspoons?
Did he really mean chopped spinach or could we just put the whole
leaf in there? I don't know. You want spinach dip with a leaf
in it? Well, look at this spinach dip. You ever eaten a spinach salad
with the leaves not chopped up? And it's big, not baby spinach,
big spinach. You look like a cow. Trying to put that thing in there.
You don't have to interpret it. You just do it. You just follow
it. Then this, then this, then this. And the most tricky thing
about a recipe is there is some preparation. And maybe you have
to preheat the oven. Or maybe you have to prepare
something else ahead of time and chill it. I don't know. I
don't cook. If my wife dies, we're eating Subway for the rest
of our lives. or bologna. But Dr. Fee says, I don't care
what John has to say. I don't care what John has to
say. I don't care what the apostles have to say. And he got that
so much that he began to say to others, nonsense, wicked nonsense
about them. Wicked nonsense, assumptions. What happens when we assume?
We put ourselves first, our ideas and thoughts come out of our
mouths, and that's putting ourselves first. We're so certain of them,
right? It's not like we're intending
to be wrong, but we think we're right, and we put these things
out of our mouths. Other people hear them, and then
they make judgments, and then they get concerned, and then
they begin to say, okay, I'm gonna agree with that or not
agree with that. Very few people are like my friend Morris and
go, hmm. Yeah, that's bad. That's real
bad. Nope. We usually fall into one category.
We either agree or disagree, and then we divide. And then deontrophies would hear
and people would say, well, you know, John, well, I don't, I
think John's this and I think John's that, and I'm assuming
that John is this. And then all of a sudden those
assumptions and those accusations became truth to him. And those
assumptions and accusations then become, then wrote itself into
a narrative that was not true at all because of what? How he processed what he was
doing and justified himself before the church and before God in
his own conscience. Beloved, that's exactly what every one
of us do. John says, I'll bring this up
when I get there. Now the cool thing about it is,
we can stop and we can take ourselves and go back 2,000 years and say,
well, you know, that would be cool if John or Peter or Paul
or somebody, you know, it would be Peter, I mean it would be
Paul for us. And he goes over there and starts knocking on
the door, and, oh, hey, Paul, how's it going? Yeah, man, when
you get through, I need a few minutes. And I have to give it
to him, right? No other place in the world, no other time in
the world that anybody had that kind of authority to come into
a local assembly and shut down the elders and say, I need a
few minutes. Nobody in the world has that authority but an apostle
and another elder, you know, in the local assembly. I need
to say some things to the church. So when we sit down and imagine
Paul saying, well, there's a problem here and all of you know about
the problem because you've witnessed the problem, not that you've
been told about it. You've been told about a problem, you're
a murderer because you listened to the gossip. And if you told
the problem that wasn't witnessed, then you are also a murderer
because you've told the gossip. But it's true, gossip is gossip. Because here's what happens.
Somebody does something to me, I go home and whine and cry to
my wife, because she's always got my back. She's always got,
I don't care if I'm in the wrong. Well, they shouldn't have been
in your way. You have a right to slap them.
And then I reconcile with that person and then three weeks later,
I'm going to lunch with John. After all he did, oh yeah, we're
cool now. She's not cool. She didn't reconcile with John. You see how that's destructive.
So there's no room for the Lord to fix anything when I've told
everybody everything. Because now I've got to go back and un-gossip
everything. And then I'm gossiping again.
And I'm just like, what am I going to do? Diotrephes has ruined
this congregation. And John's like, I'll deal with
it. Now, some people might say, well, how do we have the apostles
show up? They're here now. John is interrupting my teaching
for this special announcement. He will not acknowledge our authority,
so if I come, I'll bring up what he's doing. Beloved, do not imitate
evil, but imitate good. John has just interrupted my
commentary. The apostle has just tapped on the door and said,
man, I got a few things to say. So the apostles still hold the
authority over the church through the written word. You see that?
No matter who teaches it. Lost men should be left alone
when they teach the gospel. Don't worry about their lostness
if the gospel is true out of their mouths or their charlatans
getting rich off the gospel. Let it be! It's not our job to
deal with it. That's God's sovereignty at work
right there. That through Balaam's ass comes
prophecy. that through a bush comes the
word of God. Quit trying to put the fire out. See, that's what,
that's a fire. I can see Hollywood having a
fun time with that in a comical way. But people who were saying,
well, I'm just going to do what's right, deatrophies was stopping
them. Gaius went against all odds to
do what was right. He had more intention to do what
was right and to continue to do the work of the ministry instead
of bothering himself with trying to fix deatrophies or fix the
church. That's not his job. The Word
of God does that. And the elders oversee that.
And I don't like it. I wish John would just come on
back. And I could just sit down and just bask and be corrected
myself. Well, he can. The Lord has spoken. And we can rest in it. Don't
imitate evil, but imitate good. Because we know that those who
are doing good, they are doing the Lord's work. They have been
sent by God. But those who are not doing good, they are not
sent by God. They don't know Him. They don't
understand Him. Diotrephes, though he was not
a lost man, was in a position to where nothing he said or did
should be listened to because of how he was destroying the
fabric of gospel intimacy. The testimony of Demetrius has
told us what you've been doing. You notice Demetrius goes to
John and says, guys, you will not believe what's going on,
let's just call it Let's just call it Simple Town. Demetrius goes and says, you
won't believe, John, what's going on in Simple Town. You know,
the church where Diotrephes is and all that trouble? Oh, yeah.
How's it going, John asks. Man, we went there. And we were
expecting to really starve to death. We didn't know what we
were doing. We were rationing our food and water on the way because we had
heard that when we get to a simple town that diatrophies was going
to kick us on right out. But you know what? There was
a guy that met us on the outskirts of town named Gaius and he brought us
in. He gave us food. And he gave us shelter. And a
lot of people were nosy and they were sticking their... Gaius,
why are you buying bottled water? Gaius, what's those little love
offering baskets for? You know? I've noticed. And Demetrius gave the praise
report of what Gaius was doing, not the complaint of what Diotrephes
was doing, because why? Beloved, we see what we're prepared
to see. And we can find what we're looking for. Don't believe me? Go to law school. I promise you. You can learn to take and make
the lie work. You can try to say, this is the
outcome I want. Let me take the narrative, not
fabricate it, but let me take the pieces of this narrative
to put together to make a straight line. that gives me what I'm
looking for. That's what we do in our flesh,
rather than just being submissive willfully and simply to the scripture. But don't do that to yourself.
It is not joy. If you are fearful, if you are
suspicious, if you are worried, if you are scared, if you are
upset and uptight, that is not of the Spirit of God. The Spirit
of God does not give you fear when He says, I am the sovereign
God Almighty. Rest. And the Lord will work
these things out to His glory. He is working these things out
in our lives right now no matter what it be. And I don't know.
I'm not looking out there going, I'm talking about you. I mean,
I don't know what's going on in all of our lives. I don't
know what you're fearful of. I don't know what your worries
and your burdens are. It may be in the context of the church.
It may be in a relationship. It may be in the sense of your
own health. It may be something that doesn't
know. It may be your future. Maybe you're scared to death.
You don't know what tomorrow brings. But you do know what tomorrow
brings because the Bible has already said, don't worry about
yesterday and don't worry about tomorrow. Now is the day that
you've been given and Christ is still on the throne of glory
and you are seated in the heavenlies with him, beloved. So let's encourage
each other in these truths. And that is our job as a people
to maintain this sense and this pulse of joyousness. How can
we be joyous? If we can't be joyous in the
midst of things, then why in the world do we even come together? That's why it's so easy for unconverted
people to gather in the name of a false Christ and encourage
each other to put forth a good effort to make things better,
you know? Things are not always gonna be better, but they can
always be joyful. And I think I read 1 Peter last week. If
not, I read it Wednesday night. I don't know. All this is running
together right now. I feel like I'm preaching James and 3 John,
but they do collide. I mean, the Word of God does
collide, and this testimony of Scripture teaches
us where we should really emphasize our time and put our focus, and
that is on what is doing well in gospel ministry. We don't
ignore issues. but we don't make them the issues. You see, don't hear what I'm
not saying. Because a lot of times people think that of me.
But beloved, I cannot get excited about things. I cannot be fleshly. I've already given that warning.
If I ever become fleshly, I will never stand here again. And that
is not hyperbole. I am not. You can't put that
ugly back in the bottle. It's hard. In 2001 at a meeting, demonic meeting, I hit my hand on a table. I might
have told you all that story one time. It took five years
before those people ever respected me again. Because it's smugly. I have the ability to look at
people and make them cry. It's like Medusa. Instead of stone, you just weep. Most of them are my children
and my wife. Why are you looking at me that way? You see, there's things that
if we know we do and sin, we should not do them. God will
never lead us into temptation. He will never tempt us. But beloved,
our flesh loves certain things that keep us riled up. Being
riled up is not of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is
never found in the Bible. The Spirit is the Spirit of riled
up, zeal, excitement, fear, frustration, envy. No,
those are the things we're to put down. We're to rest. We're to rest. And the preaching
of this letter is just the beginning. The preaching of the Bible is
just the catalyst. It sparks the fire and then the
Spirit of God fans into flame all of these good deposits, as
Paul would tell Timothy later. And there's a context there that's
not what I was just talking about. Beloved, until that time comes,
we are able to just sit still and know that God is God and
know that He has all of this in His hands for our good, whatever
it may be. So do not let this weariness
overtake you. You can't stop it, right? I have
been very weary this year, many times over, last year as well.
Many things. And many times I think, I just
want to just disappear. I want to leave the world. You
ever felt that way? You just want to leave the world.
I don't want to die. Because that would be too good. I don't,
you know. I just want to vanish. Mission Field, West Africa. That
sounds good. You know good and well I'd be
miserable over there. How many stains are on the carpets
there? No carpets. No floors. No stain, nothing
to stain with, dry air. I mean, nah. But you, many of you, without
even your knowledge, you have encouraged me to continue in
the path, to continue in the faith. And I pray that I have
also and we together have encouraged one another. It is what we're
all about. And encouragement is necessary in times of discouragement. Strength and strengthening one
another is necessary in times of weakness. Correction is necessary
in times of sin. Truth is necessary sometimes
because there is error. So let us just receive one another
in that line. Let us receive one another as
if we really do love each other, as if when someone asks a question
or inquires, let it be from a loving inquiry, not a witch hunt. Let it be from a position of
grace, not of hatred. And let us all be patient and
rejoice because Christ has shed his blood for us, for us, his
children. Let's pray. Father, we do know
that the testimony of John is true. For he gives us the testimony
of your son as you have given it. Father, we know that because
the gospel is true by their hand, they have written it for our
salvation and for your glory and for our growth and joy. That
we can trust the other things that they write to us from your
hand and for our good and for our joy and for your glory. Lord,
help these little things and phrases not to be cliche bumper
stickers in the life that we live, but Father, let them be
the bedrock of everything that we are. So that we could truly joyously
be at peace. That we would not worry. Even
when we have burdens and concerns, Lord, let them not turn to worry
and fear. Help us to walk together intimately
as we help each other. Lord, there is no expert amongst
your people. And so we yield to your word.
And sometimes, Father, that word comes through the least likely
of saints. Sometimes it comes through the babes. And sometimes
it comes through the elders. So help us to be discerning,
to hear the word when it comes, that we have already been given
ears to hear your voice, so Lord, let us not turn a deaf ear when
it doesn't suit our fancy. And Father, we don't know anything
about what happened with Diotrephes, but Lord, we know that John's
biggest desire was to correct him, not destroy him, not to
excommunicate him, but to just bring it up so that he could
be restored and that the people of that church would be in unity
again, not only in the gospel, most importantly, but also together
in love and unity, the cause of Christ. And so, Father, let us keep that
top of mind forever before us by your grace alone to us. In
Christ's name that we pray these things. Amen. Let's prepare our
hearts for the Lord's table.