Everyone, let's turn together
to the third letter of John. The third letter of John, and
let's continue to discuss and unpack these things as they unfold. And let's not forget that the
pulpit is a sounding board. The pulpit is a teaching place.
The pulpit is an announcement platform. The pulpit is a corrective
pedestal. The pulpit is a place of humility
and wonder in all. And of course, those are all
metaphors, but the reality is that the teaching to the church
from the word of God is to be our center. It is to be that
which we look for so that we may live accordingly. We may
live accordingly, and sometimes when I say those words, I get
pushback. I really do, not from you all
as much as I do from the world at large. But I get pushback,
we go, oh, you're trying to tell us how we ought to live, you're
teaching us works. Of course I'm teaching you works
and I'm teaching us how to live because that's what the word
of God does. These works have no guarantee of anything, these
works have no power to say, these works and these things that we're
called to do are not effectual before the Father to say, look
a there, you're just doing so good, I'm just gonna let you
on into heaven. I mean, this is not, we know the gospel. We
know what Christ has accomplished. We know that the atonement is
effectual. We know that Jesus Christ, the
Son of God eternally, came to the earth, made himself a body,
lived fully and wholly and truly as a human being, while never
ceasing to also be God. Yet the human nature and the
divine person of Jesus never became intertwined as this one
mega man. He had two natures. while on
this earth, he had a human will, he had a human body and he today
has two natures in the context of his humanity, glorified but
also now is fully operating and without any restraints in the
context of his divine being, his essence. And these are, wow,
we're not supposed to pick all that apart right now, it's just
not a seminary class and this is not systematic theology. Yet we find that people push
back on some of these things. Well, that's the reason John
wrote these letters. The people already knew the gospel. The
people already understood the truth. The people that these
apostles wrote to were established in the truth already. And these
men wrote by the Spirit of God to reinforce this truth, to remind
the body for the truth, and then to get to the therefores. The
point of the writing is to get to the therefores. Because Christ
saved us by grace, therefore walk in a manner worthy of the
calling. Therefore, love one another as
I have loved you. Therefore, put the brother out
who is not loving. Therefore, correct those with
gentleness and all patient who are straying from the truth. Why? Because these are the promises
of God that if we follow these precepts as God's elect, as the
regenerate family of Christ, then God has promised through
the Word that if we do these things and only if we do these
things will He bring restoration to us. You know the reason that so many
people never have their prayers answered? Because they don't
pray. So many reasons people don't
reconcile relationships is because they don't do it. The reason so many people don't
live in joy is because they walk around in pride. And beloved,
we have to listen to the get-tos and the therefores of the text.
And we don't need to find some magical, mystical undercurrent
of Christological theology underneath every word. We don't need to
find a hidden message in the Bible. There's no such thing
as a hidden message in the Bible. For the Spirit of God to plainly
teach us very clearly what is being said, that anyone can understand
in its grammar or syntax, but only those who have been saved
by grace, only those who have been born by the Spirit of God
can actually understand the difference between these imperatives and
these indicatives. Only the Spirit of God can give
us the rest to hope and to sit still and to not work ourselves
to the bone for our salvation and for the sake of trying to
appease God. As brother prayed already, Christ
is the appeasement of God's wrath. Christ is the fulfillment of
God's justice. Beloved, we are set apart in
Christ. We are holy this very moment
and we are not going to be anymore set apart in Christ a thousand
years from now. But in the time in which God
has allotted, we will be set apart with Christ. And it is
such a certain reality that the scripture says that we are seated
with Him in the heavenlies today. We are seated with Him in the
heavenlies. It is a done and finished work. We're not working
to get there, we are there. And because we are there, we
have a great responsibility to the name of Christ. And that
responsibility 1,000% has to do with how we relate to each
other, how we live together as the saints. That's it. And I
know that it hurts the high horse headiness of all these high point
theologians who love to get the rile up and everybody excited
about certain doctrinal clarities. Doctrinal clarities are important,
but if doctrinal clarities don't come with life changing intimacy,
they're worthless. because the Pharisees had doctrinal
clarity. A lot of people throughout history have doctrinal clarity,
but ultimately the doctrinal clarity comes undone. We really
see what truly they have been given by the Lord when they refuse
the instruction, the simple instruction of the scripture. And if you
don't like that, may the Lord open your eyes and birth you
anew. You have not been born again.
if you do not yield to the authority and the submission. Now you may
not like it and you may know in your mind, I'm not gonna listen
to that right now, I'm being obstinate. That's fine, but you
cannot subject your mind, we cannot subject our will and our
opinions over the instruction of scripture. Scripture alone
is the authority. I said it last week. I'm gonna
say it over and over again. And beloved, I've been studying
the last two, three weeks and getting preparation for our midweek
in the book of James. In the book of James, if you're
not prepared to sit still and to rest in the sufficiency of
the gospel, and you are not really firmly planted in understanding
the reality of what Christ has done for you, if you read the
letter of James in a fleshly way, you will be horrified. Just like with John's writings.
You will lose your joy, you will lose your center, but beloved,
we must consider how we are honoring God every day, every moment of
our lives. And I'm gonna tell you right
now, if we're not investing, let me say this positively, investing,
that statement has a positive connotation. The opposite of
that would be wasting. If we're not investing in the
lives of one another, we're wasting. If we're not encouraging, we're
destroying. If we are not edifying, we are
murdering. You see these opposites? If we
are not considering, we are ignoring. 3 John. That's why I wrote it! Where are you getting all this
stuff? From the Bible! You know where you won't find
it? In any commentary ever printed in the world. Why? Because commentary
is not authoritative. James Tipton's preaching and
thoughts are not authoritative. The Word of God is. An exposition
is a real-time, experienced, one-on-one, one on thirty, one
on a thousand, thousand on a thousand, whatever it may be in our relationship
intimacy exposition is experienced in real time coupled with the
real reading of the Word of God in your life every single day
carried along by the Spirit that your spirit that is the same
as my spirit our spirit together agrees with one another because
it is the Spirit of God when the Word of God is unpacked.
You don't need to know what someone 1,000 years ago thought about
3 John in order for you to understand it today. God the Holy Spirit
will teach you very clearly. And if you do need to know, then
those commentaries and that historical theology is more authoritative
than the Word of God itself, and I say burn it to the ground.
It's a hobby horse, beloved, at best. Now see, I cannot stand
in this pulpit and tell you that Christ is preeminent and then
tell you that you must buy my book in order to understand Christ. Or to tell you that if you just
follow the footprints. Don't follow the footprints of
men. The only men that you can follow are the apostles and the
only letters they wrote is right here. Now, when we get to James and
when we get to 1st and 2nd Timothy in a little bit on Sunday mornings,
that is going to become so amazingly annoying to us that Tiffin's
just gonna, I mean you guys have a lot, I'm just gonna come in
about 12 minutes after the service, after the preaching starts, so
he can get through with this little diatribe about the sufficiency
of scripture, and then I'll come in, you know? Some of you are
gonna wanna come in late. Live stream, okay, still going
on about the soul of scriptura, and about right now, you know?
And I'm saying that in a joking way, but beloved, why are we
such idolaters? And even worse than that, sometimes
we become idolaters to think that we know more than the Bible. Listen, how many times have I
read the book of James? I don't know. It's the number of times
you read the Bible. I've had a man, a man in his
70s, appeal to the authority of the sufficiency of the number
of times he read the Bible. And that when I became his age
and had read the Bible as many times as he had, I would know
better that what I was saying was nonsense in relation to the
grace, free and sovereign of Christ. I read the Bible over
400 times. Whoop-de-doo. I've eaten 50 billion
M&Ms, but you don't see me walking around with chocolate hands.
You know, what's it got to do, it's irrelevant. What does it
have to do? I don't know how many times I've read James. It's
probably one of the first books I read when I learned to read.
It was my name. So I've been reading, I've probably
read James at least once or twice or three times a year since I
was able to read. And I could read at three, so
we've been reading a long time. What does it have to do with
anything? Nothing. What's authoritative? This guy or this guy? This guy. John, it is my thing. Of all
things that I neglect in scripture, I do not neglect John's writing.
The Yohannan epistles, the Yohannan writing is my deal, it's my job,
it's my graduate work, it's my post-graduate work. I love it.
I love John and I love John's writing. I could just have, well
I do, I have books, I have bound books of just John's stuff. John's
gospel, John's letters, and the apocalypse. And I read it over
and over again and every day of my life I read something out
of John. Every day. every day. That doesn't make me right. It
doesn't make me the expert. It doesn't make me, well, because
I've studied, John, you know, 75,000 times, I know what I'm
talking about. No, that don't mean nothing. How many doctors
have been studying medicine 75,000 times and they're still giving
you the silly old stuff that doesn't work for your silly old
problems? How about mechanics? How many times do we take the
car back for the squeaky noise? How many parts do we need? How
about eyeglasses? I'm finally going to my little,
what do you call those things? Old man glasses. They're in the
mail. Because I got to the point a couple of weeks ago, I'd have
three pairs to see here and there and the other way. I just don't,
you know, I finally went to the eye doctor Monday. Mr. Tippins,
you got three options. You can buy three pairs of glasses
and do like this, or you can get the ones that have different
degrees depending on where you're looking. So I'm probably gonna
have to get something like Sally Jessie. Move them down like this, anyway.
They can't get it right. Things are going to change. The
Word of God is the authority. And one man's interpretation
is not authoritative, because the Bible has not changed one
bit since it was penned. The Word of God remains forever.
Now, do I read? Let me just go ahead and settle
this. Beloved, I don't read as much as I used to, but there
was a time I read a book a week. There was a time I could literally
read 50 to 100 books a year. Because I can read fast. I taught
myself how to speed read. I can read very, very fast. Very,
very fast. Does it make me special? No,
it makes me waste a lot of time. Because it's not beneficial. If it's necessary, then you must
have it. If it's authoritative, you must
read it. If it will give you clarity,
then you better grab a copy. What do you want? The foundation
of the truth being taught by the Spirit of God. To walk together,
I think every generation ought to start fresh. I know that sounds
stupid, but every generation ought to start fresh and see
what is being shown in the Word of God. Because that's half of our problem
now. We walk in this world as if we
know something when all we're doing is regurgitating somebody
else's journey. We're just a slave to another
man's ideas, slave to another man's prayer life, slave to another
man's worship, and we call it our own. You don't think I like
Plummer and the Psalms? Yes. Oh my goodness, I can weep
and cry. But you know what's crazy? I
can weep and cry when I read his commentary, but when I read
that Psalm, I don't see it the same way. So until I read the
Psalm and it gives me the same heart, I should stay away from
Plummer. Just an example. Just an example. Don't listen
to me, listen to the Christ. Don't listen to me, listen to
the word. Let's hear the word of God this morning. The elder
to the beloved Gaius whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that
all may go well with you and that you may be in good health
as all as well with your soul. For I rejoiced greatly when the
brothers came and testified to your truth as indeed you are
walking in the truth. And I have no greater joy than
to hear that my children are walking in the truth. Beloved, it is a faithful thing
you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as
they are, who testified to your love before the church. You do
well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God, for
they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing
from the Gentiles. Therefore, we ought to support
people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. I'm going to stop there. I'm
not going to go beyond that today. I might be there again next week. So
we looked last week. We reminded ourselves. We're
reminded here. We need to learn to read the
scripture and just think about it. Just listen. Listen to the
word of God. What is being said? The elder
to the beloved Gaius. This is a letter written to a
specific man. We already know that John in
this letter already says, I've written to the church already.
He's already written a general letter to this church, but Diotrephes
won't listen to me. You know what that means? Diotrephes
probably got the letter and as one of the elders of the church,
he hid it. He probably wouldn't let the church hear it. Because
when the church hears the apostles and the elders are going against
the apostles, the church has got to say, Foul, what do you mean by that?
Explain what you're trying to say. Would you clarify? Maybe
are you in error? You know, it's okay to have these
conversations. We're not gods. Elders are sheep
tasked with an impossible task that only God himself can do,
which is to cause us, through migraines and frustrations and
everything else, to stand before the church and to prepare our
hearts to teach and to expound upon scripture. Not to make life
application out of every pack of Kool-Aid. Not to make pleasantries
out of every verse, but to emphasize the finished work of Christ in
every breath that when we get to these teachings, we know why
we're doing them and to what end and to whose glory. And so
when we see that John addresses himself as an elder, we need
to think about what elders are. We need to think about what elders
do. When we think about Gaius, we don't have to know who he
is. It's not important to know where he is in the historical
timeline. He's not an important figure, except that he's the
elect of God and the sheep of Christ that John loved in truth. You know, we worship in spirit
and we worship in truth. We love in truth and we learn
in truth. This is not new. This is why
we went through the gospel of John before going through the
epistles of John, because in order to understand the foundation
of what John is writing, we have to have already understood the
gospels. And moreover, we need to understand
John's writing because his audience didn't change. I'm not preaching
to a different congregation every week. I'm teaching and talking
to you. I'm having a conversation that
seems one-sided, but it's not one-sided. The Spirit of God,
through the exposition of the Word, is causing you to think.
It's rhetorical. It's not interaction, but it
is interactive. And the Spirit of God teaches
us. So we see these words, I love in the truth. Oh, he said that
in 2 John. Oh, Jesus said that in John's
Gospel. Beloved. So we have no way of
saying that Gaius was evangelistic. No, it's not evangelistic. He
didn't say heathen, unconverted. He didn't say, Gaius, you dumb
as a bag of tater chip, lost man. He didn't call him a goat
or a dog or a pig or anything else. He says beloved. Beloved
Gaius, beloved. I'm praying for you. This is
what elders do. They pray for the body. They pray for those
who they care for. They're not concerned with their
own lives as much as they're concerned with the lives of those
that they care for. Shepherding is an intimate spiritual
praying and caring and overseeing through the teaching of the word
and it is not fun sometimes. It's not fun. When I wake up
and my inbox is slammed with ultimatums It's not fun. But when my patience runs out,
I don't move. Why? Because I've been commanded
by God to shepherd and to correct with all patience, that means
it never ends, and all gentleness, and all longsuffering. Because
it is Christ and the Spirit of God, it is God the Father, it
is God who will transform the hearts. Elders have to be reminded in
the brokenness that God brings us sometimes, the humility that
God bestows upon us in our own lives. where we know we will
accomplish this, and we do the little addendum like James says
to do, if the Lord wills. But this is just lip service,
beloved. I'm being honest. I'm gonna do
this. Oh, if the Lord wills, and then when it doesn't go,
Lord, what's wrong with you? I mean, you know, we are liars to our
own soul sometimes. It's like sometimes people say,
we're just gonna claim it in the name of Jesus. No, I'm not gonna claim it. I'm
going to claim the will of the Lord, because whatever the will
of the Lord is, I don't want to claim anything against His
will, because I promise you, as much as I would like A, if
A is not the will of the Lord, I don't want it. If God has X
for me or Y, then I'll take that. I don't want it. I'm not going
to act like I'm just all spiritual. Yes, whatever you have, Lord,
I'll take. I mean, there's trepidation in a prayer like that, right? But we pray for one another.
Are you praying for one another? Are you praying for one another?
Beloved, pray for one another. Pray for us, pray for the elders
and leaders of your church. Pray for each other, what? That
we may go well in life, that we may love one another in truth,
that we may be humble and quiet and serving. See, the joy of the elder, I
could go to Hebrews 13 right now and really talk about that.
I mean, what does it say? And it sounds so sad to say this
because it seems self-serving, but it's not self-serving, it's
self-deprecating. It says, Obey your leaders, verse
17 of Hebrews 13, and submit to them. For they are keeping
watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account
to God. Let them do this with joy and
not with groaning. For that is of no advantage to
you. Why? I said this last week. Because
when I'm groaning, I don't pray. I'm just gonna be honest with
you. When I'm groaning, I don't pray
because everything in my tongue is imprecatory. In my conscience. Lord bless them. That's code
word for destroy them. I mean, you know? We can say the right
thing, but sometimes we're deceived. We don't really know what our
heart really says. So we have to be honest with the Lord by
being honest with ourselves, by being honest with each other.
And there's this weird idea in our culture that pastors are
these extremely spiritually calm people. We have to do that. We have to practice that spiritual
calmness. But we still have flesh. Jesse and I spoke for a few hours
yesterday, and I said, Jesse, I'm telling you, brother, sometimes
I need to remind these people that I've got a flesh. He said,
don't do it. You know, don't do it. But I hear you, brother.
I mean, if I had the authority to make a whip, see, I'm grinning
on the inside. I can't stop. I mean, that would
be so funny, wouldn't it? It wouldn't be funny for some
of us, but I mean, One of the greatest damages that I ever
did to another brother in the faith is when I was in a meeting
and I had just remained silent for weeks and weeks and weeks
and this ridiculous, I mean, stupid division was going on
with personalities and people accusing, nobody's sitting down,
and we're having this meeting and there's 100 people in there,
and I finally just stood up and I pounded my hand on the table
and I said, I've had enough! See, now that was an act right
there, but it made you jump. Well, what the world. And this
man, this dear brother in the faith, got up and walked out. And I hurt his conscience because
I acted in anger. It's like Moses, you know? So what should I have done? Well,
I was 20... I don't know how old I was. 23? Shouldn't even have been in the
ministry. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Oh, you want to pray, son? Ordained. I can take a break. I mean, you
know, that's how people looked at it. What I should have done,
and what I would do now, is to say, guys, let's just pray, hear
the word of the Lord, and then we're gonna dismiss. We'll talk
about this another time. Before I get out. Who are you? Well, you can stay and fight
if you want. I'm going home, and everybody else can leave.
You know, there's no fight when everything's dismissed. When
the bell rings in the ring, the referee goes, and if you keep
fighting, you disqualify. That's what I should have done,
but I didn't. But I hurt the man's conscience because I was pushed,
and then I just let it roll, and I felt good for a moment,
and then I felt horrible for three years trying to reconcile
with this guy. He never saw me the same way. See, if elders
get in the flesh, they're not praying, they're not wishing
well. It's not good for us when we are causing stress and aggravation
in the body, and that's the context of this letter. And some people
are saying, wow, this seems like some of the things that are going
on among some of us. Well, guess what? Nothing's changed in 2,000
years. It's the same junk that went
on in the garden, the same junk that went on with Cain and Abel.
Why did Cain kill his brother? Because his brother's works were
righteous, and he hated it. Well, wait a minute. How can
brothers hate one another? Because sometimes our flesh just
says, I'm sick of this guy. But what does the elder rejoice
in? Verse 3, I rejoice greatly when the brothers came and testified
to your truth. Now, we already know the context.
We already see 2 John. 2 John was dealing with the learning
aspect of holding fast to the true gospel and not being willing
to tolerate by saying, oh, it's okay. No, it's not okay to have
alternative gospel truths. that violate the truth of Christ.
We can be patient, we can correct, but when people double down on
their error, we can't allow them to continue to teach it. But
who in their pocket or their pocketbook has right now the
timeline of measurement to when God says that's enough? Who has
that app on their phone? The God patient app. Well, what
is it, a thermometer? And as it gets up, God's patience
is out. When he gets to the top and dings,
he's like, okay, that's all that the Lord's gonna allow. What
is seven times 70? That's 490 for those of you who
don't know. Seven times seven is 49 plus a zero. That's 490,
that's even if a literal time, I don't know anybody in my life
who's sinned against me 490 times. But it's perfection of perfection
is what that means, continually. 7 is a perfect number, 12 is
a perfect number, 11 is a perfect number, and Semitic languages
and history and writing and all those types of things. So just
keep forgiving because what does 1 Corinthians 13 say? What does
Paul command? Love keeps no record of wrong. So when someone else comes and
is walking in the truth and they sin against us, we have clear
things that teach us how we're supposed to handle it. And then
when we resolve this issue, and a few months down the road, this
same issue is coming up again, we what? We treat it as a new
issue. And there are some exceptions
to that. There's some undercurring things that have to be handled
swiftly. But who gets to oversee that?
The word of God gets to oversee that. Who gets to administrate
that? The elders get to administrate
that in wisdom. Otherwise, we're all working
through emotions. The learning of the gospel is
not what John is really rejoicing in. He's rejoicing in that this
man, Gaius, was walking in the truth. Not only did he know the
truth and proclaim the truth and have the truth, he was walking
in the truth with God's people. So he was walking together in
intimacy. He was with Diotrephes who was doing the exact opposite.
But Gaius was not causing problems by continually dealing with the
fact that Diotrephes isn't doing his job, he's not being nice,
he's being ugly, he's acting strange, he's keeping things
for himself. I mean, did John write a letter
to the whole church? No, he wrote a letter to another
man, another leader in the church, Gaius. I didn't get any response
from Diotrephes, and I've heard through the grapevine that he's
doing all sorts of crazy stuff in himself and won't acknowledge
our authority, so now I'm writing to you, beloved. And I'd say it probably took
eight to nine months for that exchange to take place. Patience. Elders rule and oversee and lead
and shepherd by example. And the primary example there,
first and foremost, is the truth of the gospel. And the second
example is humble patience. When I lose my patience, I destroy
the foundations of everything around me as a human being. I'm serious. And for those of
you who've known me my whole life, There's a reason there
is the word, Tippin's Fit. It's not something that you will
ever get over. By the Lord's mercy, I want to stay humble
and calm, patient. I rejoiced. You're walking in the truth.
You should rejoice even in... How is it that we get to walk
in the truth of love? How do we get to do it? Is that when
everything's going good? No. When everything's going good,
it's fake. It's false. See, that's the love
we have at the ball game. Go, go, go. Oh, we love you. Love you too. What's your name?
Whatever. And we hate the opposite side,
but they love each other. They hate us, you know, the red
and the blue. The bands are playing, and there's
a contest on the field. You get in the parking lot, throwing
eggs and rocks, slicing tires. I've seen that. That's what sporting
events do after a day at the ball game. Brings out the best
in humanity. There's not love. Oh, I love,
you know, whatever. It's not love, it's an affinity.
It's a temporary psychological ecstasy. It's some type of endorphins
and things going on in the brain that makes us feel this closeness
to somebody that we don't even know what they look like if we
saw them tomorrow because their face is painted today. Same thing online, same thing
in everywhere. Listen, you wanna know if you can love somebody,
get close to them. Be in covenant relationship with
them. And the one moniker, the one
reality, that's our moniker, the one reality that is guaranteed
amongst the body of Christ is that we're going to have 99% of the time something to not
love about one another. I promise you. I promise you. So when we walk in the truth
of love, When we walk in love, as John's epistles are really
emphasizing, it is because we have opportunity to have division.
Love is the covenant commitment like Christ and his covenant
commitment to the elect. We also have a covenant commitment
to one another. And even when one of us is knuckleheads,
we don't get to make judgment on their souls. We can judge
their profession, we can judge their lifestyle, we can judge
their attitudes, but we don't pass judgment against them. And when you can't get anywhere
on your own, then you obey the oversight of the elders who are
teaching the truth in love, you see. And that's John tried to
get that going here in this first letter to Diotrephes, and Diotrephes
said, I don't like John anymore. I'll just, this is the way I
think about it. I'm just gonna do it my way.
Now beloved, I'm just gonna do it my way is the American dream. Isn't it? I'm gonna do it my
way. Is it Frank Sinatra that sang
that? I'll have it my way. You know,
I can see him singing it. That's not the Christ's way.
Christ said, my way is your way, Father. The body says, my way
is your way, Lord. And love says, I don't demand
my own way, 1 Corinthians 13. It says it right there. I'm not
making this stuff up. And see, that's one of the reasons
you need to be reading the Bible. Because if you're not reading
the Bible, and I'm reading the Bible, and I'm talking about things
that are biblical, and then all of a sudden you're not reading
the Bible, you don't know if I'm talking about things that
are biblical or not. Don't take my word for it. Never take my word
for it. Ever. I mean, you should trust,
based on the decades of evidence of things, you can have a good
high probability Tippin's probably is telling me the truth, but
I just want to make sure that I know what he's saying. Because
guess what? If I teach you something and
you haven't seen it in the Word, you haven't learned it. You just
know what I think. Let me say that again. If I say
something, you go, yep, I agree with that, and then you go out
and you share it, you haven't learned it, you're just repeating
it. I could teach you some French
phrases today, but you don't know French. You might not even
know what it means. And they have some crazy stuff.
It's not what we do. All languages have weird colloquialisms,
that if we translate them literally, like what? You gotta be in the
culture. The way of love. The way of love
is patient, kind, does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant
or rude. It does not insist on its own way. You see that? We don't insist on our way. I
want this house to be the way I want it. I want this whatever
to be the way I want this food to be the way I want it. I'm
just gonna take that for a little bit. We treat each other, we
treat the world sometimes as Christians as if we deserve to
get what we pay for. We don't. Do we? There's nothing wrong with saying
this is incorrect. Be kind about it, be patient.
We don't know what these people are going through. I know all
the wait staff in this entire county. By first name. And I know a lot of what's going
on in their lives. I could never be rude to any of them. Because
I don't work as hard as they do. I really don't. Physically. It is not irritable. See, that's
when you know you're sinned, when you're irritable. How fast
do you get irritable, you know? It's not resentful. It does not
rejoice at wrongdoing. It rejoices with the truth. It bears all things. That means
it holds it. It just stands under it. It doesn't
have a limit. It bears all things. It believes
all things. If somebody tells you something,
I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry.
I believe this way. I'm sorry. I misunderstood you.
You believe it. We believe it. We accept it. Otherwise, we're the deceiver.
By saying, yes, Christ laid His life down for me, but I'm not
about to believe what just came out of your mouth. It rejoices. It believes all
things. It hopes all things. It endures all things. It never
ends. Preaching will end. Tongues will
end. Knowledge will end. When I was a child, I spoke like
a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, but
when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. That's funny that
Paul puts that in the midst of that instruction there about
love. And he's talking to the biggest knuckleheads of the entire
New Testament, and that is the Church of Corinth. who when you
say dumber than a bag of potato chips makes the potato chips
look bad because they were acting and living in a manner non-congruent
with the gospel at all. They were not bringing in heresies
concerning the person of Christ. They were not being inundated
by the Judaizers or the Gnostics or any other that nonsense. They
were literally arrogantly hating one another and tolerating destruction
of intimacy through sinful behavior. So we've got Galatians, where
they were doing some, they were inviting, or not, they weren't
inviting, they were considering and adopting heretical gospels. And then Corinth, when they were
tolerating and walking in heretical living. And then you've got John. See, John's the smartest of them
all. Why? Because he lived the longest. He was the oldest one. He's the
only one that didn't die of a martyr's death. And he wrote after years
of reading all the other letters. And he was an old, old, old,
old man. It's a lot of wisdom there. I have no greater joy than to
hear that my children are walking in the truth. Beloved, if that's
true of the elder, what is true of our Lord and Savior? No greater
joy than to see my children walking in the tree. And people have been arguing
recently, well, that's not what it means. Yes it is, it says
it right there. In the context, Beloved, verse 5, Beloved, it
is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers.
The faithful thing that you do by walking in love is to serve
each other. serve each other. And at the
minimum we can pray, beloved take out a napkin and write down
a few names in the morning when you get up that come to your
mind and just pray for them. You can just say, Lord see this
napkin, see these people here, I don't know what to pray, I
don't know how to pray, please God just in some way cause me to be considerate
of them that you may have your will in their lives. Or if you
know some specifics, Father help them in this circumstance. We
have a lot of people in our congregation that are hurting emotionally
right now. Loss. and pain, fear. We don't have time for petty
stuff that can be handled patiently through intimate teaching and
correction. And don't ever, ever think it's
okay to give an ultimatum to Jesus Christ. Well, if this is
the way it's going to be, I'm not, don't ever say that to me
because I will get in my flesh. And then you won't know it. And
then I'll calmly say what I'm screaming behind my mind. That
is selfish. You see? See how quick that is?
It's like a piece of tissue paper. That if I spit too hard, it's
going to break through. We have to be careful, brother.
We don't give ultimatums. It's wicked. We are not God's soldiers. We are God's children. Work it out. It's a faithful
thing you do in all your efforts with these brothers, strangers
as they are. See, this isn't even an issue
of the local church. But here's the crazy thing. What
Diotrephes was doing in his refusal to love the missionaries, the
saints abroad, the saints on Facebook, The saints down the
street, or if you can find them. But those who profess the gospel,
he was refusing to love them out of some sense of pharisaical,
this pharisaical attitude of like, well, I'm just gonna be
so pure, I'm not gonna allow any evangelists. You ever felt
like that? I felt like that. I mean, I probably get, I don't
wanna exaggerate, let's just say three a month. I get three
emails a month from the church website, people inviting themselves
to the pulpit. And I get probably four times
a year FedEx, like next day delivery, these packets of things that
come and they're supposed to be handed out in the assembly,
both in inserts. They're either political or whatever. And sometimes I get letters in
the mail from people that want to come share the gospel with
the church. And I'm thinking, we share the
gospel every week. Why do I need you to come? And
so when someone calls me and makes himself available to come
share something, I automatically think, Heretic. I'm not gonna lie. Heretic, salesman,
charlatan, liar, idiot. I mean, this is my thinking.
I don't wanna put these idiots in here. And by the way, I'm
not talking about anybody who sent me an email or message this
week. I'm just saying in general. I haven't read my messages this
week, so you're off the hook. So you can't even say anything
today. But I think that's where Diotrephes was. But more importantly,
I think it suited him better in this way. And we'll see this
next week. It suited him better because
there's nothing worse than having the senior elder show up who
has more wisdom. Can you imagine John showing
up? And James Tipton's like, I've been reading your writing
for 30 years. I'm not letting you teach. You
see, I'm not giving you support. No, we're not supporting John.
I mean, I'm more of an expert than he is on himself. I mean,
that's the arrogance of our world. That's the stage, the grandstanding
of ministry. Beloved, don't esteem me except
that I esteem Christ, please. And don't take that as a humble
brag. I know my flesh. But Diotrephes likes to put himself
first. And we've corrected that, but
he doesn't like our authority. So now I'm telling you, Gaius,
you take the mantle. You serve these evangelists.
You take care of them. They're strangers. Much worse
would this letter be. It would not be so quick. All
John wanted is Gaius to support these missionaries and to make
sure he understood that Diotrephes was acting like an idiot. Selfish. That's all they wanted. Had this been an issue of infighting
in the church? Had there been division? Had
people been coming against? It would have been a whole lot
longer. It would have been 1 John all over again. Which John deals
with that, doesn't he? They testify, who were these
people? The report came back to John, verse six, these strangers
that you didn't really know, but they're faithful brothers,
and you've loved them. This is what I'm talking about,
John says. You're walking in the truth.
This gives me great joy to know that you are taking care of these
people, even against somebody else who says you shouldn't.
And they have testified to your love before the body, before
the assembly. You see, I've had many conversations
throughout the years about how should like-minded congregations
associate and affiliate and have intimacy with one another. And
everybody wants to do some formal something. There's no such thing
as a formal something. That's why I'm at the end of
my wits with denominationalism and affiliations and associations
and labels and all these things. They don't mean anything anymore.
Do we believe the gospel? Are we the people of God? Do
we hold to the very next thing? Do we hold to the faith once
for all delivered to the saints? The very next letter, you know,
verse 3 of chapter 1. Do we hold to that? Praise the Lord, we're
the saints. Oh, you do too? Well, we're a
family together even though we have different locations, different
issues different, we're together. So we can pray for one another,
we can send to one another, we can do different things together
in the context as God has opened the door of opportunity, but
we don't need to create them. We don't need to create them. When's the last time you heard
from another congregation testifying to the love of another congregation
that wasn't in some denominational newsletter. And only then it
was because they took up an offering and it got put on the front page. There's a groundbreaking ceremony.
There's a new orphanage. And I'm not belittling these
things. I mean, these are necessary things that we should do as human
beings. But when was there a time where a church without was supported
and helped by a church with? You would do well. I find this
interesting. Beloved, verse two, I pray that
all may go well with you and that you may be in good health
as it is going well with your soul. You are well in your soul,
you have the truth, you are well with Christ, I pray that your
life and your health may go." That's a good prayer. Now all
of a sudden we see the latter part of verse 6, you will do
well. You will do well to send them
on their journey in a manner worthy of God. Now think about
that for a second. How are we to do anything worthy
of God? What does the gospel say? What
does the good news say? The good news says that Christ
gave all for the sake of the elect. Paul reiterates that continually
and it was compulsory for him. He had to. He couldn't help himself.
He would endure all things for the sake of the elect. He would
endure all punishment, all ostracization, all imprisonment, beatings for
the sake of the elect that their joy may be full. As we get into the letter of
James, midweek in a few weeks, and we go into Timothy, we see
Paul writing to Timothy. We see Paul writing in his second
letter where he says, I'm being poured out as a drink offering.
I'm at the end of my life. I'm at the end of my ministry.
I have so much to do. He pleads with Timothy to bring
John Mark, who he sort of debated with what? He sort of debated
with Barabbas, I mean Barnabas, excuse
me, not Barabbas, with Barnabas about John Mark's presence on
the back journey through their missions. He was concerned about
his presence there, this new guy. Because planting churches
in the first century was not this extremely exciting, publicly
accepted thing. It was an incognito type thing. It was something that had to
go on sort of like guerrilla style. You got in there, you
got it going, and as it grew, it got attention, and when it
got attention, they were arrested, killed, and martyred. So you
didn't put an ad out saying, we're looking for church plant
families. Do you believe this gospel? Then meet us here tomorrow.
They had secret symbols that they would use for underground
meetings and things of that nature. He's saying, do well. You do
well to send them on the journey in a manner worthy of God. Christ
gave His all. The apostles gave their all.
They wrote and said, hey, pray for me, pray for the Lord to
give us, what does Paul write often? A clean conscience. Paul
suffered covetousness in his spirit. And God would not remove
covetousness from Paul's spirit. So Paul prayed often that he
would have a pure conscience and be content. See, he asked
him to pray for that. The grace of Christ is sufficient
for me. So then he says, what does he say to the Philippians?
Then I can endure all things in Christ who gives me strength.
All things. We've all got our sins. And those
sins take precedence oftentimes over and beyond our intimate
obligations to be in the assembly, to help each other as the assembly,
to encourage one another in the truth, because that's what Christ
has done for us. Christ has given His life for
us. Send them on their journey in
a manner worthy of God. Verse seven, for they've gone
out for the sake of the name, they've accepting nothing from
the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support
people like these that we may be fellow workers in the truth.
See, remember the last letter? If we support false teachers,
we're actually supporting false teaching. If we bring attention
to false teachers, we're actually supporting their false teaching. We support truth and true teachers,
we're supporting true teaching. We need to give all of our time
and all of our prayers to the positive approach of edifying
the body and proclaiming the gospel, not the not gospel. correction comes as the gospel
is proclaimed and someone else comes up proclaiming blah blah
blah wait a minute that's not right I find it very odd in our
culture that there are more people with more knowledge of error
than there are with people with the knowledge of truth and the
only knowledge that they have of truth sometimes is that it's
not this So their knowledge of the truth is the antithesis of
what is not true rather than the clear teaching of scripture.
So now we go right back to my introduction which is why I'm
gonna beat this horse till it comes back to life. We must be
in the Word of God. How many times this week have
we read the Bible? Not enough, I don't care how
little or more you read it, it's not enough, it's okay, this is
not a guilt trip, this is a promise. See that's the point. That's
the cool thing about the Word of God even in this. This is
not a guilt trip. Love one another as Christ has
loved the church. Well, I can try. How about I just do when
I have opportunity? And if I don't do for a week
and I do for one day, great, I've done that. We don't have
to do so much to the point that we're laboring to sickness and
to mental health problems and everything. Rest in the gospel
and the Lord will take care of the rest. If we read the Word
of God, the Word of God promises the Spirit of God will teach
us and then we will be what? We will be encouraged to be.
And we will grow in the knowledge of grace. We will become worshipers. In a greater way. What is the
whole idea of worship? It's about gratitude. Thank you
God. Worship is thanking God. Praise
is thanking God for who He is. Acknowledging Him for who He
is and what He's done for us. There is so much praise to be
done. And the living sacrifice of that
praise for the elect is when we are living in unity in the
gospel and we're living in intimacy even when things get hard. But we live in a culture that
says, I don't have to do that. That's the spirit of diatrophies. I don't have to do that. I don't
care, is what it really says. I care more about Jesus than
I do about you. How's that sound? Does that even sound right? It's
anti-Christ. Christ gave his life for the
church. Sometimes we think, well, we
got some knuckleheads in the church. Good, they're still here.
And when we stir the pot at the cost of the peace and the hope
of the rest of us, we are the dividing ones. And beloved, it makes the elder. Christ. Christ has done it all. He has
set us apart, made us holy. That's the same word. He has
justified us. He has sanctified us. We are
holy because He took our place. We are righteous because He credited
us with His own righteousness. Do not imitate evil but imitate
good. That's John's exhortation in verse 11. We do not need, we do not need
to be like the world. We do not have to be like Listen not to our own passions
and logic and reason, but let us listen to the gospel of free
and sovereign grace. Let us listen to the truth that
Christ is our righteousness and that what he has done has brought
us together for the sake of his glory. Beloved, it is a fragile
thing, this intimate earth dwelling that we have called life. But eternal life is not fragile
at all. It is secure. It is certain. And it is a guarantee. Let's prepare our hearts for
that as we consider each other. Let's pray. Father, help us to not follow
the ways of this world Jesus taught us how to pray when he
said to ask you to lead us not into temptation but to deliver
us from evil. Father to remind us that we are
forgiven in Christ. Lord as we take the Lord's table
each week we know that in our limited understanding of the
amazing glory that is revealed in the death of Christ Father,
we were not there, but yet we can see clearer than those who
were. Father, help us to be at peace
in our hearts with the joy that is ours in Christ. And Lord,
help us to be sufficiently at peace in your sovereignty over
all the matters of life and faith. Your divine power is all we need.
and your divine power is found within the pages of your word
that is written to your people for our good and for your glory. Cause us to meditate on it day
and night that we may be fruitful for the kingdom, which means
fruitful for one another in the faith. Father, help us to take this
table as a reminder of whose we are and what it costs. And Lord, more importantly, or
as important, that we are one body in Christ Jesus. While there are so many that
claim your name who do not know the truth, Lord, we alone should
be those who are closest to one another. So that when we preach our gospel,
there is an uncanny resemblance to the love of Christ that we
have for one another. And so, Lord, we pray these things
in the name of Christ. Amen.