Generally, when I teach the Bible here, we go right through books of the Bible in an effort to be as accurate as possible, okay? This summer, we’re doing a series of 1, 2, and 3 John. I’ve been working in 1 John. You’re stuck with me. I’m gonna do 3 John, which I’ve been just really preparing for this morning, and be kind and gracious. We’ll see how it goes. So I’ll pray, and we’ll go through 3 John together. We’ll finish up 1 John in the coming weeks and beginning in the fall, we’re gonna do the book of Genesis together, which I hope you’re excited about because I sure am. So good to see you all, especially family and friends and good to celebrate what God has done, and we’ll talk a little bit more about that from the Scriptures.

Lord Jesus, thank you so much, first of all, for the kind of God that you are. You’re not the kind of God that any other religion or philosophy has invented. We could not conceive of a God that is holy and is good and is wonderful as you are, and Lord Jesus, we thank you so much. You have revealed yourself to us in the Scriptures so that we can read about your words and your works and your ways. We thank you for seeing that demonstrated in the lives of people today, individual people that you love very dearly, and the Bible says that you seek and save.

Those are the people that it speaks of, and when it says that you forgive sin, those are the sins that you’ve forgiven, and when it says that you love, those are people that you’ve loved. Jesus, we thank you that what we read in the Scriptures, we see in our lives and we see in the midst of our church. Jesus, we ask today that as we study the Scriptures, that you would help us through the Holy Spirit who has inspired the writing. We ask, Holy Spirit, that you would come and illuminate our understanding of the Scriptures so that we could be a church that glorifies you, Lord God, that could obey you, that could follow you, that could point others to you and when we err and stray and make mistakes, that you would bring us through the Scriptures back to repentance, back to you, and back into the light.

Jesus, we ask that as we study today that we would be more closer to you when the day is done than when it started, that we would love you with new hearts, and that our lives and our church and our city would reflect the good things that you have done for us. We seek this in your good name. Amen.

So we get into the book of 3 John. If you’ve got a Bible, it’s a little book. It’s just one page, and I’ll tell you about the book itself a little bit. First of all, it’s written to one individual, a man named Gaius. Isn’t that great? Isn’t that great that God is such a loving and personal God that he would have a book of the Bible written to one person? You know, sometimes you look at your life and you say, “I don’t know if I matter. I don’t know if I’m important. I don’t think I’m significant. There’s a lot of people on earth, billions of us. I don’t know why God would be concerned me. It’s a great mystery, but the truth of it is he is concerned about you.

He does love you very dearly. The Bible says that he knows each of our names, that he knows every hair on our head, that he knows every day of our life. That God is an attentive and watchful God, that God is very much concerned about you. He loves you very much, so much so that even there’s one guy here in the Bible named Gaius. He’s probably a regular guy. We don’t get the indication he’s a pastor. He’s not a particularly prominent man in his day. He’s not likely all that wealthy or fluent.

He just seems to be a regular person, but he gets a book of the Bible written to him because God loves him so much and God cares for him so deeply, and that letter. This book of the Bible is written by a friend of his, a guy named John. John had been one of the inner three disciples that was closest to Jesus with Peter and James. John was there for all the stuff we read about in the Bible. Everything you read about Jesus in the Bible, John was there. He saw those miracles. He heard those sermons. He was present for Jesus’ life and ministry.

They spent three years together as best friends, and the Bible is clear that John was Jesus’ dearest friend on earth. So you’re getting a letter from Jesus’ best friend to a man who loves Jesus, and this is long after Jesus had lived without sin and died for sin and risen, and then, ascended back into heaven. This is some years later. All of the other apostles had been murdered at this point. John is the last living apostle, disciple, eyewitness, if you will, of Jesus, and because of that, he is a man who has a great deal of influence in the early church. He trains all the pastors. He’s highly influential.

I would say that there’s probably only one man that I can think of in our day that has this kind of prominence and respectability and that would be Billy Graham. Billy Graham is sort of like the John of our day, and he’s at the season of life that is the same as John, who writes here. He’s been walking with God for a lot of years. God’s used him in some significant ways, and there’s no denying that this man is a man who loves the Lord. No, he’s not perfect. He is indeed faithful.

Billy’s at the season of his life now, too, where if Billy Graham tells you to do something, you should probably do it. I had a privilege of meeting Billy Graham a couple years ago. I was working at a Marriott Hotel down by the airport paying my way through college, and I was schlepping bags by the café. In the morning, I look over. There’s an old guy reading a newspaper with big glasses on and a Minnesota Twins ball cap, and I thought, “That looks like Billy Graham.”

So being the shy person that I am, I walked in the café, and I looked over the paper. I said, “Hi, are you Billy Graham?” He’s like, “Yes, I am.” I sat down and interrupted his breakfast. He was very, very gracious and very kind. I thought, “I’ll never get a meeting with Billy Graham, but I got him now. He’s all mine. So I got to talk with him for a little bit. Just ask him, you know, “I’m a new Christian going into ministry. You know, you got a pretty decent resume. Any advice?” Because of all the people that I can think of, who do you respect more than a guy like that? A whole life of loving his wife, preaching the Gospel, loving Jesus.

You know, John’s at the same season of his life, an older man who has high regard and high respect among people in the church, and he writes this letter to this man named Gaius, and the last thing I’ll tell you is why he writes this letter. It’s because Gaius is having a hard time. Gaius is having a hard time spiritually and physically. Spiritually, not so much personally, but in his church. There’s a lot of strife and grief and chaos. There’s a lot of problems in his church, and he’s being faithful, but he’s really have a hard time dealing with all this nonsense that’s going on in his church, and the thing that also is making it hard for Gaius is, physically, he’s having some trouble.

He’s not doing so well physically. He’s got poor health. I’m sure the stress isn’t helping. So John writes to him because John loves him, but I would say this. Some of you have a very negative view of church because you’ve seen hypocrisy, people who said they loved Jesus but didn’t because there was abuse of spiritual power, and you know what? The Bible agrees with you. I just want to say that. The Bible is a very honest book. It doesn’t tell us the church is filled with all the good people, and everything else is filled with all the bad people.

It shows us that the church has sinners and bad people and people that are in process. It has non-Christians who say they’re Christians. It has all kinds of problems. Just like on Jesus’ own team, he had Judas. Good team, people who loved him, each made their mistakes. None of them was perfect. Their humanity is very apparent to us as we read the Bible, but there’s Judas on the team. In this church, too, that he’s writing to, there’s a Judas on that team as well, a betrayer, a person who claims to love God, but just doesn’t.

Some of you may have given up on church or you’re not devoted to church or you don’t like to even be in any sort of organized religious community because you’ve seen hypocrisy or abuse of spiritual power. The good thing is this: The Bible recognizes that. It’s honest with us, but it teaches us how to get beyond that, how to get to the place where there is love and joy and hope and peace and friendship, and the fighting and the backbiting and the gossip and the meanness and the false agendas and the abuse of spiritual power can be overcome so that God’s love for us and his work in us and his work through us can continue unabated, and so in that way, when the Bible speaks of spiritual leadership, in summary, it basically says that spiritual leaders exist to help Godly people and Godly ideas.

That’s basically what spiritual leadership is. Ungodly spiritual leadership helps Godless people implement bad ideas, and that’s why there’s a conflict in this church, but you’ll see that the spiritual leadership of John helps override the spiritual abuse of power by another man that you’ll meet named Diotrephes. So we’ll launch in. It’s John, older man, kind of like Billy Graham in his day, writing to his friend, Gaius, who’s in a church that’s just embittered and embroiled in controversy and conflict.

Some of you may have been in a nasty church fight or split at some point, and this might make a lot of sense to you and hopefully heal a few wounds. First, he says, “The elder.” John starts off with this title. He declares his authority. He’s an elder. This word is synonymous in places like Acts 20 and 1 Peter 5 for a pastor. So it’s like saying a pastor. It’s the same vernacular, same meeting. John is a pastor. That’s what gives him authority, and he needs that authority to untangle the mess that he finds in this church, and he’s writing to “my dear friend, Gaius, whom I love in the truth.”

Wouldn’t you love to hear that from John? Wouldn’t you love to get a letter from Billy Graham that says, “Hi, just touching base. Love you, proud of you, praying for you.” Will you put that one on your wall? That’s what he’s getting. The thing with Gaius is this: Gaius is in a really lonely season of his life. There’s a lot of conflict and problems in his church. His health is failing. He’s a little lonely, little insecure. He’s having kind of a hard season of his life, and he gets a letter from John. Now, how busy is John? John’s a busy guy, planting churches, writing books of the Bible. I mean you talk about pressure. That’s a lot of pressure writing books of the Bible.

You got to nail that. You know, you got to get that right. John’s a busy guy, a lot of pressure. Gaius is over here in this church, serving the Lord, regular guy, maybe just a union plumber or drywaller or a guy in a cubicle, just a guy who loves Jesus doing his part. Gets a letter from John, and here’s what John says. “You’re my friend, and I love you in the truth.” Okay, let me just simply stop there and encourage you this.

Who do you know that’s a faithful person that either physically is going through a hard time or spiritually in their ministry our church? It’s a hard season for them. Okay, we should learn from John’s example that sometimes just sitting down to write a letter or a note is incredibly important. It’s amazing because a lot of the books of the New Testament are letters written from one person to another person or one person to a group of people. You and I have a great opportunity to just sit down and write. When’s the last time you actually got a letter?

We don’t do that anymore. We call or we email, but you don’t really get a handwritten letter. There’s not that thoughtful personal touch. I really appreciate the fact that John takes the time to write to Gaius. There are certain people in your life who you need to encourage. You need to inspire. You need to share your love, your appreciation of. People who are walking in the truth, they love the Lord. People that are your friends. He says that Gaius is his friend. People that you appreciate that it is good for you and I to get into the habitual practice of writing them.

It’s not bad to call. It’s not bad to email, but to write them, to write them. How many of you still have certain notes and cards from people that you really love, friends and family and loved ones, people that you appreciate admire or respect who have written you something, and you’ve kept that for years? Some of you have those things tucked away in your Bible or tucked away in your purse or tucked away in a drawer at home or maybe a memory box. When Grace and I started seeing one another, my wife, I went off to college, and we were separated, and we would write back and forth, and I kept all of her letters. I’ve still got all of them in a box. It’s very important to me.

Occasionally, I pull them out and read them. You know, you want to be the person who encourages their friends. John could have said, “Well, I’m really busy. I’m very important. Gaius loves the Lord. He’s walking with the Lord. He’ll be okay. No, I want to touch Gaius today, just want to extend a love and a grace to him that he desperately needs right now,” and I would say this, too. Sometimes you just don’t know how important it is to know that someone else loves you, cares for you, is encouraged by you, considers you a friend, and is praying for you.

You should get in the habit of having a certain bit of stationary or cards or whatever works for you just always on standby so that as God brings people to mind or as people you hear of have need, they’re able to just simply write to them. It’s a lost art, but it’s very important. One of my favorite preachers in the history of the church is a guy named Charles Hadden Spurgeon. I read all of his biographies, and he preached, and he taught a lot. He was very busy man. He started a number of organizations, and he also write a wide number of books, and he had a physical problem with gout.

So he was bedridden a lot, and I thought to myself, “How did he grow his ministry and touch such a wide number of people when he’s studying a lot? He’s very busy and he’s physically sick,” and as I was reading one of his biographies, it was talking about how he made it a practice every day to write letters, brief letters. He got this from reading the New Testament. “Oh, Paul and John and others are writing letters. I should be writing letters.” So he just started writing letters to people. He knew that he couldn’t take the time to go visit them or maybe, physically, he was incapable of getting to them, but he knew that for five minutes of work, he could still touch them emotionally and spiritually from his heart through a letter, and so now there’s whole books that are nothing more than compilations of letters that he’s written to people.

As all of these people kept the letters from Charles Spurgeon because they really meant a lot to them. You know, you and I, we should aspire to be like John. People who love and encourage, who write, who express that, and who write it down so that someday when we die, or the people we love die, there’s still memories of the relationship intact, and it captures vignettes and moments and seasons of life. This is the letter that John’s writing to Gaius, and Gaius, being in the circumstance, I’m sure it meant a tremendous amount to him, tremendous amount to him to know that he is loved by John, that John’s thinking and praying for him.

So he goes on. “My dear friend” – great way to start a letter. “I pray.” Nice to know that your friends are praying for you, isn’t it? Sometimes, your friends say, “I don’t know what to do. I can’t fix it.” You don’t need to fix it. Can you just be praying? Just to know that your friend is praying for you sometimes is all that it takes. “I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” What he says is this: “Physically, I know you’re having a hard time, but spiritually, I know you’re really healthy.”

We have physical and spiritual health. This man, though he has spiritual sickness, maybe he’s older. Maybe he’s injured. Maybe he’s got some sort of debilitating ailment, but physically, he’s sick. He’s having a really hard time physically, but spiritually, he’s very, very strong. He loves the Lord. He’s growing in the Lord. He’s making progress spiritually. For those of you that are ailing, you have physical ailments. You have injuries. You’re having a hard time right now with your physical body. Don’t think that just because you’re sick, it necessitates that you’re a Godless person.

Gaius is a Godly man who’s spiritually strong and healthy, but physically, he’s still sick. Occasionally, even the most righteous people get sick. They get injured. They get hurt. Don’t allow yourself to think that just because you’re in a place where physically you can’t do all that you aspire to do, that spiritually you can’t be making progress, but we’re in a weird culture, aren’t we, where when it comes to the spiritual and the physical health, this culture really only appreciates the physical. Exercise, diet, and nutrition, cut the carbs, you know, that’s the world that we live in, and I’m not against physical health.

I believe this body is a gift of the Lord, and we need to steward it well. I try to watch what I eat. I just got back from vacation, and I got to go back to the gym. It’s been a few weeks. I’m not against physical exercise. What I’m saying is this: That between your body and your soul, your spirit, you also need to cultivate the inner self, the spirit, the love for God, the relationship with God. We live in a day where people judge one another by appearance.

“Oh, they’re slim. Oh, they’re healthy. Oh, they’re strong. Oh, they’re attractive,” but we don’t have any way of really gauging someone’s spiritual fitness and their degree of health. Do they love the Lord? Are they convicted of sin? Are they filled with faith and kindness and hope and love and joy? We don’t really worry about those things. You don’t see whole magazines on love or joy or hope or for the forgiveness of sin or conviction of sin. We see whole books on, you know, working your inner thighs and getting rid of your love handles and the joy of plastic surgery so that you can look like you went to the gym, but you don’t have to sweat.

You know, we live in this world that has an exceeding desire for at least the appearance of physical health, but really not a great value on spiritual health. What he says to this man is, “I’m encouraged because even though, physically, this is a hard season for you, spiritually, you’re doing very, very well,” and ultimately, that is the one that counts. I mean, again, I don’t want to denigrate the human body. I believe that God made the body good. He made very good, it says in Genesis, that the life is from God.

I’m not denigrating that at all, but at some point, this body will die. It will go into the ground, and it will die, and I will be resurrected in a new body. The one thing that will be consistent, though, is my soul, my spirit. “That to be absent from the body,” Paul says, “is to be present with the Lord.” So when the body reaches it’s expiration date, it’s the spirit that goes on to be with the Lord. So we need to cultivate our spiritual inner soul, not just our external physical body.

He goes on to say about his dear friend. “It gave me” – Verse 3 – “great joy to have some brothers,” and those are Christians. I love the Bible. It uses those words. Some of you have brothers and sisters. That’s great. It’s a blessing. It’s an honor to be part of a family. Some of you don’t, but in Christ, you have spiritual brothers and sisters. There’s like a big extended family called a church, and they came and told him about faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth.

“I have no greater joy,” he says, “and hear that my children.” That probably means that John maybe led this guy to the Lord or shared Jesus with him, and now he’s like spiritual offspring. He’s a child of John spiritually – “or walking in the truth.” Now here’s the good thing. Sometimes, there’s people like Gaius who love the Lord. They serve the Lord. They walk with the Lord. They’re faithful to the Lord, but nobody pays any attention to them. They’re just simple, faithful, regular people, but then, there’s a few people around him, Christian brothers who say, “You know, that Gaius is a wonderful guy. I mean he loves. He serves. He prays. Physically, he’s having a hard time, but he’s not complaining. He’s not whining. He’s not giving up. He’s not giving in.”

Word gets back to John. You know, you and I should be about speaking well of other people who are doing well and encouraging them with our words, and don’t you love this about Gaius. Gaius is a guy who he is continuing to walk in the truth, reading the Bible, trusting in Jesus, walking with God faithfully, confessing his sins. I mean he’s walking. This is a lifestyle, a habitual practice of being in the light, and Jesus is the light of the world. So basically, he’s walking under Jesus, but it’s interesting because if he didn’t want to, he would have at least – we can infer from this text – two good reason to justify and excuse himself.

He could say, first of all, “Well, I’ve tried walking in the light. I’ve tried being faithful. I’ve tried giving. I’ve tried serving. I’ve tried caring.” We’re gonna see it in a moment, “but my church isn’t going well. Everybody’s fighting. Everybody’s divided. People are leaving. It’s a lot of conflict. You know, I tried, and it didn’t work.” Or he could look at his physical health and say, “You know, I love the Lord. I serve the Lord. I’m faithful to the Lord, but physically, I’m not doing well. I’m falling apart. I got aches and pains or injury or sickness.”

Maybe he’s even bedridden. We don’t know. Gaius could be a guy who looks at the condition of his church and the condition of his body, right, the place where he dwells physically and the place where he dwells spiritually, and he could throw his hands in the air and say, “Well, God, I’ve been faithful to you for a lot of years. I’ve given a lot of money. I’ve prayed a lot of prayers. I’ve read a lot of verses. I don’t see you keeping up your end of the bargain. So that’s it. I’m gonna go into sin. I’m not gonna walk in the light. I’m not gonna be close to you. I’m not gonna read the Bible or pray or trust you. I give up,” but he doesn’t.

That’s why John gets so much joy and encouragement and inspiration from Gaius, despite what’s going on in the church and despite what’s going on in his physical body, Gaius loves Jesus and spiritually, just keeps on keeping on. I want you to know that you and I, if we seek out reasons why we can be unfaithful to God, we will always find them because life is imperfect, and people are imperfect, and church is imperfect, and nothing is ever perfect.

So if we’re critics looking for reasons, excuses, justifications to enable us in our own mind to walk away from God and church and Scripture and Jesus, there’s always going to be an opportunity for those who want it. Not that God is bad and their reasons are legitimate, but some people will try for a short season, and if doesn’t go the way they were hoping, then they give up. Gaius isn’t that man.

Church is in a hard place. Body is in a hard place. His soul is in a good place. He loves Jesus, and he’s walking in the truth, and everybody sees it and everybody knows it. He goes on. “Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing.” Wouldn’t you love to hear that? It’s what Jesus said. He’ll tell us at the end if we have been faithful. “Well done, good and faithful servant.” “Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love. You will do well to send them on your way in a manner worthy of God.”

“It was for the sake of the name they went out receiving no help from the pagans.” Those are the non-Christians. “We’re out, therefore, to show hospitality to such men so that we may work together for the truth.” There’s a lot to unpack here. John started a church. He’s pastoring that church, and from that church, he’s training young pastors. He’s giving them money and people and training and blessing, and then, he’s sending them out. This is because John is doing exactly what Jesus told him to do.

Jesus said at the end of Matthew’s Gospel before he went back into heaven after his resurrection, “Go forth into all the nations preaching the Gospel.” Basically, go, get going. Go tell some people what I’ve done, and then, he gives further insight on that in the opening chapters of Acts where he says to go first to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, ends of the earth. Basically, start here. Then, plant a church here. Plant some churches here. Plant some churches here.

What he’s doing is Jesus is saying, “Start here where we’re at. When you plant this church, then from that church, send people and money out to start another church, and then, just keep going all the way around the world.” Okay, that’s what the church is supposed to do. Churches are supposed to produce churches, and from one church, should go a wider circumference of influence to the planting and beginning of other churches.

Did you know that three and a half thousand churches die and close in the United States of America this year? Did you know if we took all the non-Christians in the United States of America and put them together, they would be the 11th largest nation on the earth? Did you know that Seattle is the least church city in the United States of America? Did you know that there is nowhere in the nation that a young man between the ages of 18 and 30 is less likely to go to church than Seattle?

Who’s supposed to plant all those churches? The young men. Well, where are they? They’re not in the church, and so the church is not healthy. It’s not growing, and there aren’t other churches. Now I’m not saying there’s not any good churches other than Mars Hill in the Seattle area. There are good churches. There are for sure. Many of the pastors that I know do love Jesus, and they’re doing a good job, but I think they would all agree with me.

There’s just not enough churches. You could get a map of the Puget Sound. Throw a dart, and if you don’t hit blue, they probably need a church there. That’s the place that we’re in. John knows that in his day. So he takes his church, like ours, and he trains people and gives them money and gives them blessing and gives them people and says, “Will you go 20 miles east? You go 20 miles west. You go 20 miles north. You go 20 miles south. You guys start your churches. When they get big enough, you get some people. Give them some money, and send them 20 miles out from this place that you’ve planted your – and we’re just gonna keep going until we go all the way around and we bump into one another when we hit the Chinese guys, right? We’re just gonna keep doing this,” and that’s the way that it’s supposed to go.

That’s the way that it’s supposed to go. This is truly my heart. We started this church. It will be eight years in October with nothing. We’ve grown, and fortunately, we’ve been able to help start other churches. We give 10 percent of our money away every year to help plant other churches. So this year, we’ll give away $250,000.00. We’ve been privileged. We don’t plant the churches. The leaders do, but to come alongside good leaders, we assess them. We train them. We’ll give them money. We’ll give them people, and we’ll send them out.

This year in the United States alone, there’s about two dozen churches going up, starting, which is great, which is great. Okay, this is really our heart. This is how we do missions as a church, and this is exactly what is going on. John, he help started all these churches, and then, he sends people and money to go to those churches to get more people and more money to pull out from there and to go start yet more churches, and when they up at that church, who greets them? These missionaries, these church planners. Gaius, Gaius is the guy, right? Gaius is the guy that John will send a letter ahead and say, “I’ve got Missionary Mike and I’ve got this Deacon Daisy” – I can’t think of a name – “and I’m sending them down, and they’re going out of Smithville Bible Church, and they’re gonna go plant Smithville Community Church, and here they come, and Gaius, you know they’re coming.”

So then, Gaius is waiting, and here comes Mike and his wife, and they show up, and Gaius says, “Hey, good to have you. Come stay at my house. Have a bite to eat. You guys need money? Let me write you a check. How can we be praying for you? My Bible study gets together every week, and if you could let us know what to be praying for, we’ll be praying for.” That’s Gaius. That’s Gaius. Gaius is the guy who welcomes people who love Jesus, who writes them checks, who prays for them, who gets behind their work, who is really happy to be involved, and he says why.

“So that we may work together for the truth.” There’s two things on this. One, Gaius is treating these great Christian leaders the way that Jesus’ friends treated him. Do you know that this is how Jesus got his work done? Jesus was a homeless guy, and he was unemployed. Contrary to what every get rich quick preacher tells you, Jesus was a poor homeless guy, and he would travel, and he lived off of the kindness of others. So people like Mary and Martha and Lazarus would bring him in.

They’d house him. They’d feed him. They’d love him, and they would care for him. Gaius is looking at it saying, “You know, I don’t think I’m the guy to go out like Jesus. I think I’m the guy to stay home like Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.” Some of you are frontline. You’re gonna go plant a church. You’re gonna go to a medical mission. You’re gonna be in Mexico or Haiti. You’re gonna go to Africa. You’re gonna get Ebola for Jesus. You’re gonna have a big story. You’re gonna make CNN.

It’s gonna be great. Good for you. I’ll be here, and some of you that are frontline. That’s great. Some of you are supply line, writing checks, sending money, praying prayers, sending support, bringing reinforcements. Is Gaius frontline or supply line? Supply line. What’s more important? Well, actually they’re equally important. We tend to think of frontline as most important, but if a person goes into a place that there’s never been the preaching of Jesus, they need somebody to write them a check.

They need somebody to pray for them. If somebody’s gonna go start a church, well, you’re starting from nothing. You need money. You need help. You need prayer. You need support, and the thing that John loves about Gaius is he’s a giver. It says in the Bible that God loves a cheerful giver. Gaius knows, “I can’t go out and do all that. That’s not me,” but I can participate, work with them financially, prayerfully. I can have them into my home. I can cook them meals. I can love them. I can support them.

You who are supply line are as important as those who are frontline. Those of you who come to this church and help prayerfully and financially support other church planters are incredibly important because without your kindness, their work has no ability to get started. That’s why John loves this guy so much, so very, very much. I’ll tell you a little story. I don’t even mean to, but we have a gentleman named Chris Swan. He’s planning a church over in Bremerton. He moved over without knowing a human being.

He’s never been a pastor. He’s gathering his core. He’s working really hard. He’s flat broke. He found a building that he totally loved, little building that needs a lot of work. He’s gonna launch his church in September, great guy, loves the Lord, loves his wife, loves his kids. They need to raise $10,000.00 for a down payment on the building, which for them was enormous because it’s like 40 or 50 people in this initial core group, and then, word got out in our church that they needed prayer and money, and people started sending him checks, people he never met and praying for him, and he said he’s had work parties the last few weeks.

People from the church that have either been over there or traveled over there are just going over to the building just to encourage him. People that I didn’t even know is what they were gonna do. That is the spirit of Gaius. That’s our brother. He’s serving the Lord. He’s working hard. Let’s send him a check. Let’s pray for him. If we get a shot, let’s just drop by and tell him we’re excited. That’s the spirit of Gaius. That is the sweet spirit that causes churches to grow, people to be blessed.

These are the kind of people that are just an amazing gift to us all, and I’ll tell you what, too. As we’ve planted churches, I’ve been amazing to see there – out of those three and a half thousand dead and dying churches in the United States of America, I’m starting to see the heart of Gaius in a lot of people. A lot of older generations whose churches are dead and dying and their buildings are becoming vacant, we’re finding that they are giving their whole buildings to young pastors.

In the last 18 months, I can count out about $10 million of real estate that has been given to church planners that we work with, young men who love Jesus and older churches that are dead and dying just giving them the facilities saying, “You know what? You love Jesus. Have a building.” A couple guys have gotten buildings that seat 1,500 people. That’s the spirit of Gaius. That’s the heart of a guy like Gaius. He’s a giver. It’s all about Jesus. He just wants people to love Jesus. He wants people to be involved as much as they can.

His church is a mess. His body’s a mess, but his checkbooks open and his prayer life’s good, and if you show up in town, you knock on Gaius’ door, you’re gonna get some soup. You’re gonna get some prayer and a good night’s rest. Guys, that is something that we all can do, right? We can’t all be Billy Graham and fill up the stadium with 60,000 people, but we can have an extra bedroom, and we can put a little more potato in the soup, and we can love those people who love the Lord, and coming here in November, I’ll plug this, too.

We got Pastor John Piper coming in doing a conference here on theology. We’re gonna have about 4 or 500 young pastors from the United States of America for training. Many of them are too flat broke to have a place to stay. So you’re gonna house them. You’re gonna go Gaius. You’re gonna make them soup. You’re gonna fluff their pillow, give them a mint, pray for them. You’re gonna go Gaius, and if you want to write them a check, great. Write them a big check.

Okay, I could tell you give lots of money to this other guy, and then, he won’t question my intentions. Okay, so that’s what I’m saying. Be generous to somebody else. That’s fine. Okay, love, pray, encourage, and serve. Now wouldn’t it be great if that’s all we had here was these eight verses and we said, “Well, that’s it. That’s the church. Godly people giving money, making soup, giving away buildings, helping, loving, giving, praying.”

Great, why do we need heaven? We’re there. You know this is coming. There’s a jerk in Verse 9. Here he is. “I wrote to the church.” John says, “I wrote this letter to the church saying that Missionary Mark and Deacon Daisy were coming, but this other guy, Diotrephes, who loves to be first will have nothing to do with us.” Diotrephes is the church jerk. Some of you go, “Hey, I’m in the Bible.” Yeah, that’s not good, though. That’s bad. He compares and contrasts Diotrephes and Gaius.

Now Diotrephes is a guy who’s sort of appointed himself in the church as a leader. There’s two kinds of leadership in the church. There is official leaders and unofficial leaders. Official leaders are people that are respected. Unofficial people are people who are loud. They yell, intimidate, bully. They just get their way. Nobody wants to deal with them because they’re overbearing or they’re very foul-tempered.

Diotrephes is that guy. He’ll have nothing to do with us. So what happens is John would send a letter. “Hey, Missionary Mike and Deacon Daisy are coming. They’re gonna go plan a church. They’re gonna stay with you for a month. They need a place to stay. They need some money. They need a little bit of training. They need a little bit of prayer, little bit of love.” So they show up with the letter all bright-eyed fresh out of Bible college, love Jesus. We’re gonna go get him, knock on the church door.

Who answers the door? Diotrephes. He’s got a WWJD shirt on. You think that looks good. You read the fine print. It says, “What would Judas do?” You go, “Uh oh, this is gonna be bad. This is bad.” “Hi, I’m Missionary Mike. This is Deacon Daisy. We’re here in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We got a letter from John.” Whack, shuts the door. Knock again. “No, we’re not the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We’re on your team. John said there would be some soup and a place to sleep. We just got out of Bible college. We’re flat broke. You know, we’re getting skinny. What are you doing?”

“No, we don’t help people here.” “No, we’re missionaries.” “No, we don’t do missions.” Just very what the, very negative, very antagon – that’s that guy. He won’t have anything to do with us. Now who does the us include? John, John. Right, it’s like, you know, “Diotrephes, maybe you heard about him on Sunday when you study the Bible that you wrote.” This is John. If John gives you a letter, you do it. If he says, “Stand on your head and eat your shoe,” guess what you’re doing?

You know, this is John, Jesus’ best friend. I mean if I get a letter from Billy Graham saying, “Eat the baptismal,” there will be no baptismal. That’s what Billy says, right? You just – you got to respect a guy like that, but he doesn’t respect John. Something’s seriously wrong with this guy, and John tells us why. He loves to be first. Oh, this is very important. Some of you don’t like churches, don’t like Christianity, don’t like it because all you’ve seen is megalomaniac power struggles and control.

Okay, so we got to talk about this, and the truth is that sometimes in churches, people that are official or unofficial leaders just love to be first. That’s why they’re in charge. They love the power. They love the control. They love the attention, and don’t think that I’m not an arrogant guy who occasionally really struggles with his own pride. You’re all looking at me now. I kind of like that. I do.

You know, this is a huge problem. Now what it doesn’t mean is that we shouldn’t’ have leaders because we have to have leaders because if we have a mission, we have to stay on the mission. The leader’s job is to point out the mission and keep us on the mission of bringing people to Jesus, but a leader has really got to be careful that their motivation’s not that they want to be first.

I’ve seen it so bad to where I’ve seen certain churches where the church’s website, it’s domain name is the pastor’s name. That’s a bad sign. If that guy gets in a car wreck, we go home. Like there’s more to the church than just a guy or a gal. People who love to be first sometimes, not all, sometimes though churches stay small because someone is so controlling. They won’t allow anybody to do anything. “You’re not allowed to teach. You’re not allowed to serve. You’re not allowed to lead. You’re not allowed to make decisions. You’re not allowed to do anything.”

“Why?” “Because I’m first here. I’m preeminent. I’m prominent. I hold all authority. I do all teaching. I control all things. I’m sort of Lord and God and Sovereign here, and I sit on a throne, and everybody here is part of my fiefdom, and you can do something under two conditions. One, it’s not a bigger deal than what I’m doing, and two, providing it makes me look good.” That’s the abusive spiritual authority. Positive spiritual authority says people who are qualified and love the Lord, have good ideas are gonna get time and energy and money, and we’re gonna get behind them and let them go.

That’s what John’s doing. That’s what John’s doing. That’s what Gaius is doing. Positive use of spiritual authority. A negative guy like Diotrephes, he just restricts good people because, “Well, we can’t let them go. They’ll be bigger than us.” I dealt with a church not too long ago. They had sent out a young church planner, and all of a sudden, there was conflict and friction, and I asked the church. I got together with the pastor. I said, “Honestly answer me this. If the friction and conflict not because the young man is not doing a good job, but because his church got bigger than yours. You sent him out, and he boomed, and are you jealous because now he’s more prominent than you because his ministry’s going faster and further than yours.”

The guy looked at me and said, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, I appreciate that. That’s honest. That’s repentance.” We all got to be honest about that, but there is a competitiveness that can come among people who are even in spiritual leadership where they’re acting in carnal ways. They have to be first, which means if I’m not doing it, it’s not important. If I didn’t bless it, it’s not legitimate. If I don’t want it, it’s not a good idea. If I didn’t come up with the idea, it’s not a good idea. If it doesn’t make me look good, then why would we do it?

Some of you come from backgrounds where there was an abuse of spiritual authority. Some of the best leaders in this church left their last church because they wanted to do something. It was a great idea, but the pastor wouldn’t let them do it because of two things. One, he didn’t come up with it or, two, it didn’t make him look good. Who’s supposed to be first? Jesus. This is very simple. The question is always, “Will this make Jesus the center of attention, the place of prominence and preeminence. Will this exalt and honor and glorify him?”

That’s the question. The question is not, “Will this make Deacon Dan or Deacon Daisy or Pastor Frank look good?” That’s not the question. The question is, “Is this gonna honor Jesus? Is he gonna get lifted up and exalted? Is he gonna get his glory and his credit for who he is and what he’s done? Is he first? Is he first? Is he first?” I mean, you know, honestly as a leader, this is a hugely important question, hugely important question.

Mars Hill is at the point that there are so many people doing so many things that there’s no way to even really, for me, to control anything of what we do. I don’t know the code to get into the building so I can’t come in unless somebody’s already here. I was meeting with a guy this week, and he started asking me questions about the church, and I started laughing. I said, “I have no idea how we do that, but I know that the person that loves the Lord is doing it so I’m sure it’s done well.”

You know, when things were small, I think I had a real fear of letting go of power and control because you want things to be done well, and you want things to be done Biblically, but what you find is over time. There’s other people that love Jesus and have gifts. It’s really humbling. It’s really true. There are other people that love Jesus and there are other people that can do things.

This guy, Diotrephes, does not care. He thinks he’s the only one that loves God. He thinks he’s the only one that has the ability. He thinks he’s the one that needs power and control, right? He wants to be the guy who’s the center of all the attention. Do you get jealous when somebody else exceeds at something? When somebody else accomplishes something, do you snipe or undermine or undercut them, say negative things about them in order to sort of knock them down a little bit so that you can still be first?

That’s the spirit of Diotrephes. He can’t rejoice with those who succeed. He has to take them down so that he can pull himself up. It’s a sickness. It’s an illness from a person who is trying to get their identity from what they do rather than from what Jesus has done for them. That’s an inversion of their identity. “So if I come” – Verse 10. Here’s a little – this is sort of old man John. He’s still got a little fight in him. I like that. Some say, “Oh, we shouldn’t fight.” No, we should fight the bad guys and win.

We shouldn’t just pick fights, but Diotrephes keeps ruining this church and hurting the missionaries and hurting Gaius and sending away church planners. So John says, “You know what? I might come on down.” Wouldn’t that make you – if you were Diotrephes, even if you were a little arrogant and full of yourself, you think, “Man, the guy who wrote some books of the Bible is coming. That’s not a good – I think I’m in over my head now.”

He says – here’s what we’re gonna talk about. I will call attention to what he’s doing. “Let Diotrephes know John is coming. We’re gonna have a meeting about Diotrephes,” and old man John, he doesn’t see well, but he still shoots straight. He’s coming to town. I just get that feeling he would show up to the church meeting in that sort of good Western music, just be in the background. You just hear his spurs. You know, here comes old man John.

He just – he’s got that. I love that about him. We’ll call attention to what he’s doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Who’s Diotrephes undermining? John, John. Now at this point, John has probably written the Gospel of John. He’s come to the point where he is questioning Bible authors. “Who’s John think he is? I’m Diotrephes.” Well, John was Jesus’ best friend. He wrote books of the Bible.

You know, that count – that’s a good resume. That’s good. He loves Jesus. Everyone else has been murdered. They tried to kill him. He’s still going. He’s an old man. He’s been at it his whole life. He just says we should help people go tell other people about Jesus. This doesn’t seem like we need to vote on it. All in favor of people hearing about Jesus, you know, like do we need to vote on this, but you know what happens sometimes in churches, friends?

If people who have authority want control, they will oppose even very clearly good ideas. “We’re not doing small groups.” “Why?” “I can’t teach them all.” “You don’t need to teach them all.” “We’re not doing worship.” “Why?” “I can’t sing.” “You don’t need to sing. Other people can sing.” “Well, we’re not doing missions.” “Why?” “I don’t want to go anywhere.” “You don’t need to go anywhere.”

You know, just because one person doesn’t get behind something doesn’t mean that the whole church should stop doing what God clearly said should be done, but sometimes it happens. Over how many of you have seen – you don’t need to raise your hand – but things that are obviously supposed to be done in the church resisted by a church because one guy was about power and control and authority and not influenced in love? Happens all the time. Not satisfied with that, Diotrephes refuses to welcome the brothers.

He also stops those who want to do so, and he kicks them out of the church. “I heard you had a missionary over for dinner. You’re gone.” “I had a missionary over to dinner.” “You’re gone, man. We don’t do that here. You didn’t get a note. The deacons didn’t vote. The committee that oversees the subcommittee that oversees the sub-subcommittee did not have that in the policy manual. There will be no soup for missionaries.” “What the?”

You know, sometimes you just do what’s right because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s in the Bible, and what could be clearer than, “People who love Jesus are coming to town, be nice to them”? How many of you have really been turned away and burned out of a church because you were doing something that was pretty simple like praying and reading the Bible and being nice to people, and somebody’s threatened because, “Uh oh, people are starting to love you. They can only love me.”

Very sick culture that creeps into the church. So here’s where he goes with Verse 11. “Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good.” Here’s your decision. There’s Gaius, Diotrephes. Guy who loves the Lord and is faithful, doing what needs to be done. A guy who is unfaithful and opposing what should be getting done. You and I are now left with a question from Pastor John.

What are we gonna do? Are we gonna imitate what’s good, the example of Gaius or imitate what is evil, the example of Diotrephes? Some of you love the fact that you’ve had some abusive spiritual authority in your life where someone’s taken advantage of you because it gives you an excuse to imitate what’s evil. “Well, they were mean to me. I’m mean to them. You know, they don’t care about the church. I don’t care about the church. You know, they don’t help people. I don’t help people.”

Don’t imitate what is evil. “They don’t talk to me. I don’t talk to them. They don’t take care of me. I don’t take care of them.” Don’t imitate what is evil. Imitate what’s good. Well, Jesus loves people. I should love people. Jesus forgives people. I should forgive people. Jesus is patient with people. I should be patient with people. Your example has to be back to Jesus and people like Gaius who are following Jesus.

You need to ask yourself, “Am I gonna imitate good or evil,” and it’s really incumbent on you. You know, we’re adults. Even if you’re, you know, an early teenager, you’re still spiritually responsible as an adult. I’m gonna imitate what is good. Maybe my friends or family or church or tradition or background is very negative and off track, but you know, I’m gonna imitate what’s good. I’m gonna read the Scriptures.

There are people like Gaius in there that love the Lord. John loves the Lord. Jesus is God. He lived a perfect life. I have people that I can imitate for good. Here’s something else, too. Anyone who does what is good is from good. Anyone who does what is evil is not seeing God. Is according to that definition, Diotrephes a Christian? No. Some of you, doesn’t that clear it up? See but he’s in the church. Guys, Judas is in the disciples’ ranks. He’s not a Christian. Diotrephes is in the church, but he’s not a Christian. Now because he’s in the church, everybody thinks he’s a Christian because he’s put himself in leadership.

Everybody thinks he’s a Christian. Because he has strong convictions, everybody thinks he’s a Christian. Well, you got to look at his life. Is he doing what is good? No, he’s doing what is evil. He has no idea who God is. Do you know that sometimes Satan will send in the leadership a non-Christian who will rise up in leadership? They will completely decimate God’s work in the church so that then people have a foul taste of Jesus and will have nothing to do with church and ministry every again.

It’s a tactic by Satan to destroy God’s work. That’s why he sent Judas on the Jesus team. It says that Satan, in John’s Gospel, filled Judas’ heart. He worked through Judas. Here he’s working through Diotrephes. How many Christian pastors do you think aren’t Christians? We read all this stuff in the news. All these pastors had ongoing affairs. How could a Christian do that? Were they Christians? I’m not God.

I don’t play duck, duck, damn, and I don’t fill up the seats in musical chairs in heaven at the end of the game, but if this verse is true, I don’t want to automatically say, “Well, they’re Christians because they said so.” All these pastors molested all these children. How can a Christian do it? Now wait a second. Are we certain they’re Christians? Because I’m not. I’m not saying that a leader in the church is perfect and without sin, but I am saying that when there’s a habitual life practice that looks nothing like Jesus at all, just because they say they’re a Christian doesn’t mean – I mean I could tell you I’m a basketball player.

You know, I could tell you I’m a duck. You know, I could tell you I’m a Humvee, but you got to look for the evidence. You know, you got to see if there’s any reality to these claims. I have met a good number of pastors who are not Christians. I have met some pastors who are not Christians and know it and will tell you. I met one guy at a conference. He was arguing with me on something, and it was _____, and I finally looked at him. I said, “Let’s just start over. Do you believe Jesus is God?”

He said, “I don’t think so.” I said, “You’re a pastor.” I said, “How big is your church?” He said, “About 300.” I said – I mean it was just stunning to me. It was the first it ever dawned on me. There are people who are in leadership, either appointed or self-appointed that don’t even know God. You say, “Well, why in the world would they take a job as a pastor? Why in the world would they lead a Bible study in church? Why in the world would they get on a worship team? Why would they get in a position of authority in a church? Why would they?”

They love to be first. It’s just a place to be somebody. It’s an opportunity to be important. That’s all. They could do that in the ____ or rotary or Boys and Girls Club or you can do that, you know, in a booster team for the Hawks or you could do that in a church. You find an organization where you get to go be somebody very important and tell people what to do and boss people around and exercise your opinion. That’s all. Guys, don’t think that just because it’s a church, it’s any different.

For some of you that have been abused by spiritual authority, some of you that have been abused by people who claim to know God, I’m not judging their hearts, but I’m saying this. Don’t automatically assume that they were a Christian. Don’t automatically assume that what they were doing is what God sanctioned because it’s not necessarily true. So you need to imitate what is good, and he ends on this positive note, and I appreciate this. “Demetrius is well spoken of by everyone and even by the truth itself. We also speak well of him, and you know that our testimony is true.”

Here’s Gaius over here, loves Jesus, physically ill, writing checks, making soup, loving people, getting it done. He’s a lonely guy because Diotrephes has kicked all the other people out of the church who are faithful. Now what do you think that says about Gaius? He’s next. This guy has no right to kick people out of the church, but he just is, just bossing people around. Gaius is sitting there thinking, “Man, I’m next. I’m gonna get kicked out of the church for helping missionaries. What has this come to? This is ridiculous. I’m sick. I’m lonely. I’m hurting.”

This is what John says. “You need a friend. There’s a guy named Demetrius. Demetrius is a guy. He’s faithful. He loves the Lord. He’s just like you, Gaius. You’re not a perfect guy, but everybody knows he’s a great guy. Don’t believe all the hype from Diotrephes. Diotrephes will just tell you he’s a bad guy. Diotrephes says everybody’s a bad guy. If Diotrephes says he’s a bad guy, he’s a good guy because Diotrephes is Satan, okay? So if he doesn’t like him, you should elect him to the elder board, okay? The more Diotrephes hates somebody, probably the Godlier he is.”

Okay, just because you hear rumblings about somebody, don’t believe anything. Some people are just jealous. Some people aren’t even Christians. Some people are just insecure. He says, “You know what, Gaius? You need a buddy. How about Demetrius? You guys go hang out. You be friends.” Jesus sends his disciples out two by two. Gaius, you need a buddy. It’s not good to be alone. You need a buddy. You need a buddy. You need a buddy. If you love Jesus, you need somebody who loves Jesus to be your buddy so you can walk with, pray with, talk with, hang out with, process with and when Diotrephes comes, one of you creates a distraction while the other one whacks him. You work together. All right, it’s diversion, and you need a buddy.”

That’s the point Biblically. We need friends to walk with. So the last thing he says is this: “I have much to write to you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink.” He says, “I could write you a long letter. So I’ll tell you I love you, have a buddy. I’m coming to town. I’m gonna get there. I’ll take you out to dinner.” Sometimes, you know what? We need to write letters to our friends. Sometimes, we need to take the time to actually go see them.

Get on a place. Get in the car. Take the day. Go see them. Just, “Hi. Just want to surprise you. How you doing? Good to see you. How are you doing? I know you’re sick. I know church is a mess. I know – how are you doing? How can I pray for you? You want to go a game? Want to go golfing? You know, want to go eat some meat? What do you want to do? How you doing? Can I love you? Can we get some time together?”

And you know what? Sometimes, it’s easy to overlook guys like Gaius, women like Gaius because you say, “They love the Lord. They’ll be fine. They’ll work it out.” John took some days off, said he wanted to come see Gaius. You know what? It’s really about people in the end, and you want to take time to go love people. “I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. We’ll just work this out, you and me, brother to brother. Then, we’ll go find Diotrephes. Old man John’s coming to town,” and I love this word “peace to you.” Peace to you.

Guys, when conflict comes, when strife comes, when the wrong people are in leadership and they’re taking things the wrong way and things are swirling, I’ll tell you what. As a pastor, the last few weeks, I think in particular, God has really been drilling on me on this issue of peace. I tend to get stressed – I don’t know about you – when there’s conflict, when there’s division. It hasn’t really been in the church. It’s been outside of the church, but there’s a situation I’m in that’s really hard for me.

It’s really major conflict, and what I find is I get really anxious. I get stressed. My blood pressure goes up. I get flashes of anger. I stay up late at night. It cuts into my sleep. I’m tired all the time, and boy, when you don’t sleep and you’re agitated, doesn’t that just make you more chipper and Christ-like? Doesn’t that fix it? Well, I was mad and angry and I didn’t sleep, and now I’m just like Jesus. You know, I’m just loving and patient, and so I find it kind of feeds itself with me, that I get sort of escalated, and I discovered this over vacation because I was supposed to be sleeping, and a certain thing had just kept me agitated, kept me awake at night and cut into my sleep, and I was praying it through.

I was thinking, “God, I don’t really have a good handle on peace because in the middle of this, I’m in turmoil.” If physically, I’m not doing well or church-wise, things aren’t doing well, I don’t have a lot of peace. My physical, my body, my spiritual, my church, when they’re not together, I’m not in a place of peace. You know, and so I’ve been praying a lot with the Lord, and the thing that I keep getting from the Lord is, first of all, faith, that I need to trust that even when it’s out of my hands, it’s still in his hands.

And I feel like the word the Lord gave me is that everything that I struggle with or I’m in the midst of is resolved in his heart and mind. It’s resolved in the heart and the mind of God, but I have not yet seen that come to fruition. So what I need to do is not get agitated, not push harder, not get more angry because then I’ll follow the example of what is evil. Somebody will attack. I’ll attack back. Somebody will get personal. I’ll get personal.

I’ll start imitating evil for evil, and instead, I need to take it to Jesus who’s the prince of peace, and I need to get some peace from God that he has it in his hands that he has it resolved in his heart and mind, and I just need to trust in his timing and walk with him until it’s done because at this point, too, Gaius. When Gaius gets this letter and goes to church on Sunday, will Diotrephes still be there? He will.

See John hasn’t come to town yet. Diotrephes has not yet been dealt with. Everything’s still a total mess. Just because he reads the letter, he’s still physically a mess, and his church is in shambles. He hasn’t fixed everything, but in the middle of it all, there’s peace as God is pulling it together and working it out and fixing it, but sometimes it takes a while for God to pull all these loose ends together to do it well.

So in the middle, until God’s done with his work and he’s worked at all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, Paul seems to indicate that the only thing we have in the middle of it is the pursuit of peace, peace, peace with God, peace with the person we’re in conflict with, peace with the situation that we find ourselves in, peace with the circumstances that are beyond our control, peace saying, “I trust the Lord. I’m gonna imitate what is good. I’m gonna do what I need to do, and I will just be at peace with that.”

I love that ending, very convicting for me personally, very convincing for me personally. What I find as a leader in the church and as you people are leading ministry and families and business, that if we don’t come to that place where we get our peace from God, we will never have peace because sometimes the circumstances do not afford us peace because they’re still in chaos and shambles, and if we will only wait until resolution to have peace, then it will affect our decision making.

In the middle, we’ll be working out of anxiety and fear, not out of peace and faith. So I just call you all to Jesus, the prince of peace, to get your peace from him and to trust that whatever is out of your hands is in his hands, and that way together, we can do as he says. We can have friends. We can greet one another, get to know one another. That peace allows us to do the most important thing, which is to continue to build the friendships with the people that we love, not being sidetracked and distracted by the frustrations and the conflicts that surround us.

There’s a peace through it all. Okay, I’m not saying it’s something that I have fully learned yet. I think it’s something that I’ve become fully aware of very recently, very recently. So I’m gonna pray for you, pray for me, pray for us, pray that God would raise up leaders like Gaius and John and Demetrius. Aren’t you glad that at least three-fourths of the names here are good? There’s one meathead named Diotrephes.

For those of you that are like that, that you would give up power and prominence and jealousy, and you would make Jesus first, and if that means you get to be like John and well known, well, great. If that means you’re simple and regular like Gaius, then great. As long as Jesus is first and praminent and prominent, then we’ve all done our job and we’re all happy.

For those of you who are not Christians, I don’t want you to excuse yourself from not reading your Bible, praying, going to church and pursuing the things of God because you’ve seen an abuse of spiritual authority. I’m not saying that everything that happens in the church is even done by Christians. I’m not gonna advocate us of responsibility. I’m not going to blame someone else, but at the same time, many things are done in Jesus’ name that has nothing to do with Jesus, and done by people that have nothing to do with Jesus, and I would just bring you to the point of examining him for yourself.

He said he was God. He proved it with his miracles and his resurrection. He alone is the one that can give you peace and love and grace and forgiveness, and if you want to imitate what is good, you really need to get to know him, and that’s what we encourage you to. For those of you who are Christians, you’re welcome to partake of communion in a moment, which is where we confess our sins and remember Jesus’ death on our behalf and his body and blood shed for our sin.

That’s how we get our peace with God and our peace with one another. God forgives us so we can be forgiving people. We give of our tithes and offerings. If you’re not a Christian or you’re a first time visitor. Let us be like Gaius and practice hospitality and pick up the tab, and then, we’re gonna sing and celebrate. The way we culminate our service is we celebrate Jesus. We sing to him. We adore him. We thank him, and today, we come to him in particular seeking peace as he works out the details of our lives, and we invite you to that as well.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for being the prince of peace. Lord Jesus, I am just more convinced than ever that there is truly no lasting, enduring peace apart from you, that lives and even churches are filled with sin and sinners. God, because of that, there’s chaos and there’s conflict and there’s misunderstanding and there’s accusation and there’s jocking for power and preeminence. God, we’re all fallen sinful people. If we examine our hearts, we know that oftentimes, our motives are no better than Diotrephes.

We ask you for the kind of grace that would love us and forgive us and save us. We thank you for the kind of grace that empowers us to serve and enables us to believe, and Lord Jesus, we thank you as the prince of peace. You have peace to give, peace with you, peace with one another, peace within ourselves, peace within our lives and circumstances. God, I pray for all who are leaders in this church that we would have the spirit of John, the spirit of Demetrius, the spirit of Gaius.

We just love you and imitate what is good and do what is right. God, we pray for protection against men like Diotrephes and Judas, whom the enemy would send to oppose even very good things that are clearly commanded in your word, and God, I pray for us all, that we would have peace, peace that surpasses understanding. I trust in your Sovereign hand, that you are a good God, that you are in control, that you are working things out according to your plan, and that in the end, all things will be made new.

And so we bring our cares and our concerns and our pride and our jocking and our wrangling and our insecurity and our conflicts to you, and we lay them at the feet of you, Lord Jesus, the prince of peace. Amen.