3 John 9–15

0:00 You know, Easter, at least as our culture thinks about it and celebrates it, is full of a bunch of nonsense. You ever notice that? Eggs and chickens and bunnies and little plastic grass that you stick into a basket that then gets everywhere after your kids tear it apart. Thankfully, my kids are beyond that stage, but they weren't always, and I know that you're still finding little plastic grass in your carpets and around your house in like July after Easter happens.

0:36 And it's all nonsense. I mean, the eggs are nonsense. The bunnies are nonsense. Y'all do know that bunnies don't actually lay eggs, right? I remember a few years ago, I'm embarrassed to say when exactly it was, but I can tell you that I was a fully functioning adult when I realized that the eggs and the bunnies have no connection whatsoever. It's all nonsense. I mean I suppose the theme is something like newness or maybe the circle of life or something like that right spring is coming and so we have this spring festival in the same way that we have a winter festival at Christmas and so Easter has gotten chalked up with all of these symbols of newness so little chickies are symbols of new life and eggs are symbols of new life and bunnies are symbolic of something I don't know why they're symbolic of new life But somehow they are.

1:28 It's a festival of spring, of the moving of life, of a new cycle of birth and death and birth and death. But for us as Christians, that's not at all what Easter's about. Easter's not about just the cycle of life, birth and death and birth and death. Easter is a celebration of the end of death. of the conquering of death in the grave by our Lord Jesus Christ. In that sense, it really is a celebration of new life.

2:02 It's not just the life of eggs and bunnies and chickens, though. It's the new life of those who have been saved by the resurrected one. And what we proclaim as Christians is we gather here on Easter, and really every Sunday, every Sunday you realize is Resurrection Sunday. We gather here on Sunday because that's the day that Jesus rose, and every Sunday we're celebrating his resurrection. But every Sunday as we do that, what we're proclaiming is that you can have newness of life, not just in the sense that the leaves on trees are newly budding outside, but that your soul can be brought to life.

2:38 Your sins can be forgiven, and the light of eternity can be ignited in you. That's what we mean by Easter. One of the things that this newness of life does in us, though, is that it transforms us. It makes us different. Not just refreshed in a kind of, you know, spring scent sort of way. It makes us different. It makes us what Paul calls a new creation. It transforms us. And that's what we're going to talk about today as we look at these last few verses of 3 John.

3:10 We're actually finishing up a series this morning that we've been in for the last three weeks, I believe, in 2 and 3 John. We didn't do 1 John because I preached that one some years ago. You can find that on the website. if you want to. But we've been studying through the books of 2nd and 3rd John, which are the two shortest books in the New Testament. They are, in fact, the two shortest books in the Bible. And so this has been a fairly short series in the books of 2nd and 3rd John. If you've not been with us for whatever set of reasons, let me get you up to speed on what these books actually are. They're letters. They're not books, so to speak. They are letters written by the Apostle John to some church that we don't know the identity of sometime in the late 1st century AD. So That would be like 90 or 95, year of our Lord, 90, 95, something like that.

3:57 So you're looking at 1925, 30 years ago, something like that, is when these letters were written. And John wrote them, really all three of them, 1st and 2nd and 3rd John, we think probably to the same church, just different people and for different purposes within that same church. So the book that we're looking at today and have been for a couple of weeks now is 3rd John. It's a personal letter written to a guy named Gaius who is obviously a very close friend of John And is probably from everything we can tell a leader of some kind in this church to which John is writing Second John which we studied a couple of weeks ago for for two sermons Is a letter again from John that's written not just to one or two people though It's written to the entire church and it was meant to be read to the entire church and it encourages that church to carry on in truth and love, walk in truth and walk in love.

4:50 That's what he encourages them to do. Then 1 John seems to be not a letter at all. There's no greeting to it. There's no ending to it, nothing like that. John doesn't even identify himself other than just in what he says about himself. But it seems to be more of a sermon. It seems to be a sermon about living the Christian life. And in fact, it seems to be a sermon that's meant to settle the hearts and the consciences of these Christians in this church which had been unsettled by some false teaching and they had been left wondering am I really a Christian am I am I really someone who is a believer in in Christ really deep down in my heart and John seems to be preaching this sermon to them to say settle down you know look at your look at your life you're not doing what those false teachers are doing you are in fact a Christian and so he says I write these things so that you may know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life so all three of these letters have their purpose and they all have their audience. Probably they were all delivered at exactly the same time. They seem to have been all, they seem to all have been carried by one guy

5:51 who delivered them all. One to the church, one to this guy Gaius, and then maybe he read the sermon in front of them. We don't know exactly what happened with that. The letter that we're looking at today though, the very end of it, is 3 John, the one written to Gaius. Last week we looked at the first half of this third letter of John, which is this personal letter to Gaius. We saw how John loved Gaius four different times. He calls him the beloved, or it was just a normal way of speaking in the ancient world, but it kind of means my dear friend, my beloved one, the one that I love.

6:25 So he loves Gaius. He honored this man's hospitality that he had shown to missionaries that John's church had sent. Even so, for all that John says here about Gaius, we don't know much about him. It's possible, maybe even probable, that Gaius was an elder in the church that John is writing to. Maybe he's not an elder at all. Maybe he's a kind of influential member of that church. Maybe he's a wealthy member of that church who has a house that's big enough to show hospitality to missionaries. Maybe he's just a member of it. He doesn't show up anywhere else in the New Testament. There are several Gaiuses in the New Testament, but as far as we know, you can't identify any one of those with this particular Gaius.

7:06 It was a very common name because of Gaius Julius Caesar. Like everyone wanted to name their kid after Gaius Julius Caesar. So you got a bunch of Gaiuses in the ancient world. It's hard to say anything much else definitive about him. What we can say is that John very much saw him as an exemplar of what it means to be a Christian. He saw him as a man whose life matched his profession of faith in Christ. A man who was marked by devotion to the truth and by love for other Christians, particularly these missionaries who were going out to preach the gospel in other places.

7:39 That's what we learned last week. Well, today we're going to look at the second half of 3 John. We're going to be looking at verses 9 through 15. And before we even read them, I want to kind of flag you to what they're doing so that when we read it, you know, those things will kind of take root, like grappling hooks in your mind. And you'll be able to say, ah, yeah, I see where that was coming from. So in these verses, 9 to 15, the letter takes a very surprising turn. Now, it's a surprising turn because up until this point, for the first eight verses, everything in the letter has been positive.

8:11 John has positive things to say about Gaius. He's got positive things to say about the church. He's got positive things to say about the gospel. It's just good, good, good in the first eight verses. But then in verse 9, it changes. The tone changes. The purpose changes. Everything changes as John turns his attention to a problem that has apparently been brewing in the church due to a man named Diotrephes. Now, we're going to talk more about Diotrephes later because he's an important character in the story, as little as we know about him.

8:46 But what we know about him from this letter is really all we know about him. Again, there's no other diatrophies that we can point to in the story of the Bible or in ancient history and say that's the diatrophies we're talking about here. We just don't know. But it was obviously a nasty little dispute that had developed between diatrophies and John and had sort of embroiled Gaius and a whole bunch of other people in the church. Now, on the surface, just so you can be aware of it as we read it, on the surface, the dispute seems to have been that Diotrephes had done exactly the opposite of what Gaius had done when these missionaries from John's church showed up.

9:27 So Gaius received them, he welcomed them into his home, he probably gave them food and lodging, he may even have given them some money on their way out to go preach the gospel wherever they were headed. Diotrephes, on the other hand, had rejected them. He had refused to welcome them. He had refused to show hospitality to these missionaries. And that was the surface of the problem. But that was just the surface. Underneath the surface was the fact that this refusal to receive the missionaries was really an affront to John himself.

10:06 It was a rejection, John even says, of his own authority as an apostle. And maybe even a rejection of his fellowship as a Christian. And that was an insult that John wasn't going to let stand. So, in the second half of this letter, John writes to warn Gaius, essentially, about Diotrephes. To encourage him very strongly, really in extremely strong terms, not to follow Diotrephes' example. But rather to look at somebody else as an example. And that's the guy that's probably carrying these letters, a man named Demetrius.

10:38 So, let's see how John does this. We're going to just read the entire letter. It's not too long. So starting in verse 1. 3 John, verse 1. The elder, that's John, 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 it goes 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. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do.

11:11 In all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testify to your love before the church, you will 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, and therefore we ought to support people like these that we may be fellow workers for the truth. I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us.

11:43 And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate evil, but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God. Whoever does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony. And you know that our testimony is true. I have much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink.

12:14 I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends, each by name. So I think if you read these seven verses, the second half of this letter, 9 to 15, that's what we're going to be looking at. I think it's pretty easy to see the structure of it. So you've got the conclusion of the letter there in 14 to 15, which is more or less the same as the end of the letter in 2 John, and more or less the same thing that you would see thousands of times in ancient letters, like most everything that he says in 14 and 15 was just standard, boilerplate, this is how you end a letter.

12:54 But there is something interesting in it that we're going to talk about later. Then in 9 through 13, the main body of what we're looking at today, you've got this contrast contrast that John draws between these two men, Diotrephes and Demetrius. So Demetrius is talked about in verse 12. He's got a good testimony basically from everybody. We'll talk about what those testimonies are a little bit later. But he's talked about in verse 12. And then you've got Diotrephes being talked about negatively in verses 9 to 10. And then that whole thing, Demetrius good, Diotrephes bad, right? That whole thing is balanced on verse 11, which becomes the sort of hinge of the whole thing it's the center and point of everything John is saying here beloved do not imitate evil but imitate good whoever does good is from God whoever does evil has not seen God now your Bible if it's like mine sticks verse 11 together with verse 12 that's probably not the right structure 11 kind of needs to be its own paragraph so if you want to sort of mark that

13:55 somehow and make it clear because it's just as much referring to what he says about diatrophies as it does about what he says about Demetrius. You can't stick it with the, you know, verse 12 and leave it off of verses 9 and 10. It's the sinner. Because that's what John wants Gaius to do. He wants him to continue doing good and not to do evil. And he bases that exhortation on really the very essence of what it means to be a Christian in the first place. You are from God or of God. You have seen God as a Christian and therefore you should do what is good and not what's evil.

14:28 And specifically what he means is that you shouldn't do evil in the sense of following Diotrephes' example. Don't follow that guy. He's doing what's wrong. He's got it bad. Don't follow him. What you should do rather is follow a man like Demetrius. A man who has a good testimony from everyone including the truth itself. Okay, now before we dive into it, I realize that this might seem a little bit tedious. It's a little bit like looking over the shoulder of this man, Gaius, and reading his personal emails, right?

15:00 You just don't do that. That's what it feels like, though. But there's a reason that this letter, this personal letter, has been preserved for us for 1930 years or so. There's a reason that the church, throughout all ages, has recognized this little letter as being inspired by God and as belonging to the canon of Scripture. And that's because even though it's a personal letter to one particular man, Gaius, it has things to teach us too. I think the main idea that it's trying to teach us, trying to teach Gaius this first, but us now that we've got the letter is this, the main idea.

15:36 You have been transformed, made different by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let that be obvious in your way of life. You've been transformed. You've been made different. You've been made a new creation. You've been regenerated. However many different ways you want to say that theologically, it's happened to you if you're a Christian because of the gospel of Jesus. So let that be obvious in the way you live your life. All right, two points to the sermon, just looking first at John's words about diatrophies and then looking second at what he says about Demetrius.

16:12 Here are the two points. Number one, the way of self-glory. That's thinking about verses 9 and 10. And then number two, the way of truth. That's thinking about verses 11 and 12 and one little thing in 13 through 15. So the way of self-glory and the way of truth. My hope this morning, even as we've gathered in this place to celebrate Easter, is that you will see in crystal clarity the difference between Diotrephes and Demetrius. And that you will determine, like Gaius, that you're going to abandon the way of self-glory and follow the way of truth that the gospel of Jesus calls you to.

16:49 That's my hope. All right, number one, the way of self-glory. So last week we saw in verses five through eight, John commended his friend Gaius for showing hospitality to these missionaries who had come through their city, whatever it was. The best guess, just by the way, if you're curious, is Pergamum. That's the best guess that we've got. It's not based on anything in the Bible. It's based on sort of extra biblical stuff that came later. But Pergamum is the best guess that we have. Who knows if that's true or not. Anyway, these missionaries had come through the city, maybe Pergamum. on their way to preach the gospel in other places, or maybe on their way home to Ephesus where John was from preaching the gospel.

17:26 But they came through the city, and Gaius received them. And so John honors him for doing that. He thanks Gaius for receiving them, for giving them lodging, for giving them food and maybe even money. And he gives several reasons in 5 through 8 for why Gaius should continue to do that. You remember those? We should support these missionaries because they're going out for the sake of the name. The name of Jesus, we should support them because they're not going to get support from the Gentiles. They're not going to be like the normal itinerant teachers that were running around all over the Roman Empire sort of selling their gods.

18:00 That's not what we're about. They should be supported by churches. And then he says you should support these missionaries because that makes you, when you do that, a fellow worker in the truth. A fellow worker in the gospel. It's not just that they're doing the work and you're supporting it. You're actually working with them in the truth, in the gospel, when you support them. So he gives all these reasons for why he should continue to do that. Now, up to this point in the letter, if you're just reading verses 1 through 8, you could easily think that this is just a routine kind of thank you note to one particular guy who did a nice thing.

18:35 It just looks like a thanks for what you're doing, appreciate it, please continue to do it. But in verse 9, it becomes clear that there's more going on. It's more than just a thank you note to Gaius. Because Gaius is actually doing these good things that he's doing in the face of some significant opposition. And that opposition is coming in the form of this man named Diotrephes. Now, often in reading the letters of the New Testament, you kind of have to do some sleuthing to figure out the backstory.

19:13 to see what's really going on and why the letters were written in the first place. I mean, one of my favorite sort of sleuthing projects that I've ever done in the New Testament is sort of figuring out the backstory between 1st and 2nd Corinthians, right? Because there are actually two letters that are missing. What we have is 3rd and 4th Corinthians, actually. No, it's actually 2nd and 4th. But there's a first letter that Paul wrote, then there's a third one that he wrote, and we don't have those anymore. But you can tell by reading those letters and by reading Acts what was going on. You can sort of sleuth the story together, pick up the pieces and put it all together.

19:46 And that's the case here, too, with 1st and 2nd and 3rd John. There's nowhere in Acts, there's nowhere in these letters themselves that you just kind of get a synopsis of what's going on, right? It's a shame that John doesn't write us an introduction to the letter. Dear Christians, 2,000 years from now, here's what was going on. And, you know, it would be awesome if he would do that. He didn't do that. And so we're left just to kind of put it all together. He just dives right into what he wants to say, leaves us to sort of put the pieces together. And the fact is, for all the pieces that we can put together, we don't know a lot about what's going on.

20:19 In 1 and 2 John, you've got one problem taking shape. And that is that these false teachers have been teaching things that are contrary to the gospel. And that's unsettled people. And John is trying to settle their hearts. You really are Christians. Now continue to walk in truth and walk in love. That's what's going on in 1 and 2 John. Here, it seems that there is a different problem going on. It might be related, but it also might just be a sort of unrelated problem to that first one in the church.

20:50 Because if you look at it very carefully, you look at 9 and 10, where John is really lighting Diotrephes up, it doesn't seem to be a doctrinal dispute. You notice that? Almost everywhere else in the New Testament where you've got a dispute that's happening between an apostle and somebody else, it's doctrinal. They're denying the gospel, you know, they're denying justification by faith alone. They're preaching a false gospel and let them be accursed. That's usually what's going on. It doesn't seem to be the case here. And if there's some doctrinal dispute that's going on underneath, that's at the core of the whole thing, you just would not expect John to ignore that when he's talking about it.

21:27 No, it looks more like this is a problem of unchristian behavior. Of acting in a way that is unworthy of one's profession of faith in Christ. Diotrephes isn't necessarily preaching a false gospel. He's not even necessarily one of the false teachers who's unsettled the church. That's not necessarily who he is. He still has a position in the church. He still has some authority in the church. You can see that in verse 10. But John accuses him of unchristian behavior, of acting in a way that's unworthy of his profession of faith in Christ.

22:07 Okay, so what can we say about Diotrephes? Well, Diotrephes, it's an ancient name. It goes way back into Roman and Greek antiquity. And it means something like Zeus-born. That's what it means. If you just translate it, it means Zeus-born. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. All of your names have, you know, some meaning underneath them, and it doesn't necessarily say anything about you that you're called that. So Gregory, for instance, comes from the Greek word gregoreo, which means watchful one, right?

22:37 One who sees. And if any of you know anything about my declining eyesight, you know that that doesn't say anything about me at all. But all your names have meanings. Diotrephes' name had a meaning. It means something like Zeus born, and what that tells us is that it's an ancient name, So he's probably a descendant of a very old Greek family. That's probably what it means. He's probably a descendant of a very old Greek family. But we don't know that for sure either. Beyond that, everything we know comes from what John says about him in these few verses. And the picture that he paints of this guy, Diotrephes, is one that is worth our striving not to paint in our own lives.

23:17 Do not be like Diotrephes. That's like the whole message of this portion of this book. Don't be like that guy. So let's look at the picture that John paints of him and then flee from it. John accuses Diotrephes of six things that we should not do or be. Six things that we should not do or be. First of all, if you look there in verse 9, he says that Diotrephes likes to put himself first. I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. Now, that's just one word in the Greek language. A better translation of it would actually be, he loves to put himself first. He loves to have the preeminence.

24:09 So, I think the ESV is probably under-translating that phrase just a little bit. It's not just, he likes it. You know, it's something that he prefers. It's something that when he gets a chance at it, he'll take it. No, he loves it. It sets the agenda for his life. It creates his behavior and it drives his actions. He wants to be first. He wants to have preeminence in whatever situation or context he's in. He loves to be at the top. He loves to be recognized as the leader. He loves to be seen as the top dog. Now some people have read that as John implying that Diotrephes was some kind of an imposter, right? As if maybe he was someone who insisted on having a position of influence or power in the church when he really didn't, when he had not been appointed to it or elected to that kind of authority. I don't think that's accurate though because it's so hard to square, both with what's said about him in verse 9 and what's at the beginning, and what's said

25:11 about him at the end of verse 10. Because this man really does seem to have some sort of formal authority to act or to prevent action in the church. So if you look at verse 9, one of the things that tips us off to this is that John says there, I wrote something to the church. It's not I have written, as if he's got it in his hands. It's just a flat, you know, past tense. It's just I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, doesn't acknowledge our authority. So probably what happened is that sometime prior to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, John wrote another letter that's lost to us, to this church, and Diotrephes refused to accept it, right?

25:48 It may even have been when the missionaries showed up. John may have sent a commendation of the missionaries. You know, here's our letter of commendation, and Diotrephes says, no, I'm not receiving that, and he prevented them from being received by the church at large. And Gaius took him in instead. It may be, who knows, it's all speculation, but it may be that that's the case. But it looks like he's got some authority to reject a letter that John wrote. I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes wasn't having it. Diotrephes wouldn't receive us. That's verse 9. The other thing that clues us in that he's got some sort of authority is that very last phrase.

26:21 He puts them out of the church, which is the word that's used for putting someone out of the synagogue. It's also, you know, what we would call church discipline. excommunication, right? He's putting them out of the membership of the church, and somehow he's accrued enough authority to be able to do that without the rest of the church calling foul, right? So, you know, we'll talk about this more later, but just to make it clear to you, you know, you guys would cry foul if I just started unilaterally excommunicating people, right? I just, I have no authority to do that, and if I tried it, you guys would throw me out in all kinds of different ways, and that would be right of you to do that. But Diotrephes has accrued this kind of authority to himself. So I don't think that he's just an imposter. I think he's got some sort of real authority in the church. He likes to put himself first and have preeminence. Either way, though, Diotrephes had proven himself to be a man who loved power,

27:22 who loved authority, who loved the trappings of authority, who loved to be recognized as a person authority and who was using the authority that he had accrued to abuse other Christians and to pursue his own self-glory. So this church was in a sad situation and yet this church was in a situation that has plagued churches for 2,000 years now. I mean you read about Diotrephes and you think he may have been one of the first church leaders to abuse the authority that a church had given to them, but he's certainly not the only one. There have been so many little diatrophies running around the church for the last 2,000 years. He's got plenty of descendants through the centuries. So what should we do recognizing that? Recognizing that even in the early days, even when an apostle was still alive, you had some leaders of some churches who abused the authority that was given to them. What do we do with that? Well, first of all, to you 14 other

28:27 brothers who along with me are elders, watch yourself. Watch yourself and defend your own heart against the desire for self-glory. Do not let yourself love the attention and the approbation that come to you because you are an elder in this church. And when you find your heart leaning in that direction. Stop it. Brothers, we as elders are under shepherds. And when you describe yourself as an under shepherd, don't do it like this. Don't say, I am an under shepherd of the church. Say, I am an under shepherd of the church. And use your authority the way Jesus uses his authority for the good of people and not the glory of you. And what about all of us as members? Well, brothers and sisters, pray that this church is never, ever marked. Pray that this church is never marked by this kind of false, ungodly

29:32 leadership. Pray that the elders of this church, the pastors of this church, whether it's, you know, the 15 of us right now, or, you know, however many we wind up having at any given time, or however many sort of cycle through, pray that the elders and pastors of this church are never men who are in it because they love to put themselves first, because they love to be preeminent and love to be seen and treated as preeminent. Now, pray instead that the men who serve this church's elders do so because they want to serve, because they want to be under shepherds of the Lord Jesus Christ, because they really do, right down at the bottom of their hearts, want to encourage this church to do what's right and to follow after the one who is truly and alone preeminent, the risen Lord Jesus Christ that's the first thing John accuses him of he loves to be preeminent he loves to put himself first he loves to be the top dog second John says here that Diotrephes is abusing his authority specifically to pursue a beef with John himself he's abusing this authority specifically

30:39 to pursue a beef with the apostle John himself. So you can see that in verse 9 when he says, you know, I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes doesn't acknowledge my authority. He wouldn't receive what I wrote or the people who brought it. Now, there's been a good amount of a discussion about what exactly John's talking about there. I kind of alluded to it a little bit earlier. Some people have said, well, it's 2 John. He's talking about the second letter in this series. Probably not. That's probably not the case because 2 John doesn't seem to be about the same thing, right?

31:11 It's encouraging people to walk in truth and walk in love. It's not talking about hospitality to missionaries or it's not a commendation of any missionaries, nothing like that. So it doesn't seem to be 2 John. It's just a letter that he wrote earlier that's been lost to us. Like I said, probably a commendation of missionaries asking diatrophies and other people in the church to receive them and help them on their way. But the result, John says, is that diatrophies just wouldn't do it. He rejects it, doesn't acknowledge John's authority. The phrase there is literally, he doesn't receive us, by which he means he doesn't receive me.

31:42 Now, why does John make that logical connection? Diotrephes doesn't receive the missionaries, and therefore he doesn't receive me. Why does he do that? Well, he makes that connection because in the ancient world, that's just kind of how it worked. If you're a person in authority and you send someone to someone else, for that person to refuse to receive the person you sent was for that person to refuse the sender as well. So what John is saying there is it's not a leap of logic.

32:13 It's the way people thought, and it's a perfectly logical way of thinking. So Diotrephes, rejecting those messengers, was a personal rejection of John. It was saying that John himself isn't welcome here. His authority as an apostle, his authority even as the one remaining living person who knew Jesus personally is not recognized here. Now, we don't know why Diotrephes was acting that way toward John, but he was. That's the second thing John dings him for. This is not a good faith thing. You are rejecting me personally.

32:46 We don't know why, but his animosity toward John was deeper than just rejecting the missionaries. And that's the third thing that John charges him with. So he charges him with putting himself first, loving to do that. He charges him with, you know, your motives are bad because your beef is with me. And now, third, he says that Diotrephes was talking wicked nonsense about John. Don't know what the wicked nonsense was. He's making some accusation against John that John obviously believed he could easily refute. And he says, when I come, that if there is an if of kind of this is my intention.

33:20 When I come, I'm going to set things right. I'm going to rebuke him publicly. He says he's going to bring up what Diotrephes is doing by spreading these wicked rumors about John. So you see the picture so far? This is a man who loves preeminence. This is a man who has a beef with John. And this is a man who's trying to undermine John broadly by spreading what John calls this wicked nonsense. Fourth, he says there, charges him with what we've talked about over and over again. He would not receive the missionaries.

33:53 Fifth, he was somehow preventing others from doing so. It's probably not physical, right? He's not like restraining them with ropes or locking their doors or something. He's probably preventing them by moral persuasion and by the threat of the sixth thing that John charges him with, which is the threat of excommunication. If you disagree with me, if you do this in spite of me telling you not to, I will put you out of the church. Now, that's interesting. Told you a little bit earlier, put out is the same word that's used of the synagogue, right?

34:25 If you've done something that warrants your being excommunicated from the synagogue, that's the word they used. Put out is what we as a church would call church discipline, excommunication. So Diotrephes is able, apparently, by some unilateral action to put people out of the church, to remove them from the fellowship of the church all by himself. And the Apostle John is obviously incensed by that. Now, why is John incensed by that? Why is he incensed by the fact that Diotrephes is unilaterally putting people out of the church?

35:00 Well, part of it is most certainly that it's Diotrephes, the bad guy, who is doing this. He thinks he's putting them out for reasons that John would honor them for, right? John would honor them for receiving the missionaries. Diotrephes is acting against them for receiving the missionaries. So there's that. but there's probably another reason that John is incensed by this so he doesn't say it here but it would be clear throughout all of the other writings of the new testament and that is that nothing in the bible nothing of all the letters that John would have been aware of from Peter and from Paul and the other gospels nothing in the bible teaches that church discipline is something that can be done by one man.

35:45 It just can't be done. And I don't just mean here at Third Avenue. I mean across the board. Anybody who calls themselves a Christian church, if you want to obey the Bible, excommunication, church discipline cannot be done by one man. So in the 16th century when the Pope would write out these things and excommunicate the reformers, he has no authority to do that. When a bishop excommunicates someone from the Catholic church unilaterally, they have no authority to do that if they want to obey the Bible.

36:21 So where is that authority? Biblically speaking, where is the authority to put someone out of the church? It's in the assembled church. When church discipline is done, it's done by the church. So just to bring it right down to our context, this is why we don't stand up at an annual members meeting once a year and just tell you all the people whom the elders have removed from church membership. We don't do that. No, rather we meet monthly and when that need arises, we bring that to you as a church and you take the action as an assembled congregation of putting someone out of the church when that's necessary.

37:00 That's true in Matthew 18, if you look at it. The final action is taken by the church. It's true in 1 Corinthians 5. Paul even says, even though I'm an apostle, I'm not going to do it. You have to do it when you're assembled together. It's true in 2 Corinthians 2. This action is taken by the majority of the assembled congregation. It's all done by the church. So I don't have authority just to, you know, look at you and say, you know, you're out. I can't do that. The elders can't vote to put someone out of the church. The church has to do that.

37:32 The whole church. I mean, just by the way, I, you know, I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about that. But this is a really good example of why good rules in a church are so important. Good bylaws, good constitutions, you know, good rules are really important in a church. Now, what do I mean by good? Well, the first thing I mean is that they've got to line up with Scripture, right? So you can write as good a rules as you want to in a worldly sense. But if it gives me authority to excommunicate somebody, those are bad rules because they're in violation of the Scriptures.

38:04 But another thing that I mean by good rules is just that they're very clear about who can do what, when, and under what circumstances. You want good rules that say who can do what, when, and under what circumstances. Somehow, somehow Diotrephes had aggregated all this authority to himself. Even authority that was unbiblical. And had the church been clear both about the Bible and about its own practices in its sort of rules, they could have prevented that kind of thing from happening.

38:40 Look, here's the point. The picture that John paints of this guy Diotrephes is one of a self-glorying man who had pulled to himself as much authority as he could possibly pull and who was now using that ill-gotten authority to defend and expand his own little kingdom. He didn't want John interfering with it. He didn't want John's authority meddling in it. He didn't want Gaius meddling in it.

39:11 He didn't want other members of the church meddling in it. He was going to brook no opposition at all to his little kingdom. If you disagreed with him, you're gone. I mean, in other words, this church, wherever it was, Pergamum or elsewhere, had basically let a petty little tyrant grow up right under its nose. My brothers and sisters, that's the kind of leadership we as a church should always, always, always be on guard against.

39:43 And if you see that kind of selfishness and self-glory and the use of authority to defend little kingdoms, if you see any of that in our elders, remove us. You know how easy it is to do that. We do have, I think, good rules that say who can do what, when, and under what circumstances. And you know what the who, when, and under what circumstances is for removing an elder? It's really, really fairly easy. At a members meeting, you need a motion, a second, and two-thirds of those present to vote to do it.

40:21 And boom, the elder board's gone. Now, I'm not asking you to do that right now. I hope you do not see in the 15 of us a whole bunch of little diatrophies as I pray that that is not the case. But brothers and sisters, if you do, because we are a congregational church, elder-led but congregational. We are not elder ruled. Because we are a congregational church, if you do see that kind of leadership in the elder board, you should confront us, rebuke us, and if it doesn't change, remove us.

41:00 I mean, another corollary to that, of course, is always be on the lookout for elders who will lead And shepherd with the kind of strong humility and humble strength, love in truth and truth in love that the Bible calls for. Be on the lookout for men like that. Diotrephes failed in every respect on that. Pray, brothers and sisters, that the elders of this church would not be marked by that same self-glory. Pray that we wouldn't walk the way of self-glory.

41:31 Instead, pray that we would walk, point number two, the way of truth. The way of truth. So, when you first read verse 11, it seems, if you haven't read verse 12, then verse 11 seems like it's a kind of wrap-up of what John's been saying about diatrophies in verses 9 and 10, right? This is a bad guy, Gaius. He's bad for these six different reasons. He's doing these things. He's a bad guy. Now, my dear friend, do not imitate evil, but imitate good.

42:03 Whoever does good is from God. Whoever does evil is not seeing God. In other words, don't imitate diatrophies. That's what it looks like. And it is, but as you read on into verse 12, you realize that it's a hinge, right? So you shouldn't imitate diatrophies. You should, in fact, imitate this guy that I'm going to tell you about now in verse 12. Imitate Demetrius. So it functions as a hinge or a fulcrum between these two sections. Don't be like this one. Do be like this one. Let's look at verse 11 in a little more detail. He says, beloved or my dear friend, do not imitate evil, but imitate good.

42:39 Whoever does good is from God. Whoever does evil has not seen God. You notice there how he describes those who do good. He says that they are from God. And then in a kind of mirror image of, you know, what an evil person is not. He says that those who do good have seen God. They are from God or of God, right? And they have seen God. What are those phrases? You are of God, from God. It's probably more like of.

43:10 You are of the character of God, not that you were sent by him, right? But what does it mean to be of God and to have seen God? Well, John uses both of those phrases throughout all of his writings. So in 1 John 4, 4, he says, little children, talking to the members of the church, little children, you are of God. You are of God's character. You are now, as Peter puts it, a partaker of the divine nature. Your soul has been regenerated. And as Paul puts it, you're a new creation now.

43:41 You got one foot here on earth and one foot in eternity. You are of God. And when that happens, when you experience the new birth, when your soul is brought to life, when you're regenerated, your eyes are open to see God's glory. You behold him. You see him. You see his beauty, you see his majesty, you see his love and his mercy and his compassion. And you run to him in faith. That's what happens. And then having seen that vision of God's glory, having seen the beauty of Jesus Christ, that changes everything about you.

44:18 It changes your desires, it changes your goals, it changes your behavior, it changes your loves, it redirects the entire trajectory of your life. And that's why so much of the world around us looks at the way we Christians live, and they say, that's crazy. That's crazy. Do you know why they look at us and say we're crazy? It's because we see things that they don't see. We acknowledge truths that they don't acknowledge.

44:53 You've seen God. You're of God, John says. Therefore, do what's right. Do what's good. That's what had happened to Demetrius. You can see how John describes him there in verse 12. He doesn't really say a whole lot about him. He doesn't even give us any of Demetrius' particular virtues. He just says, Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true. So you don't get any virtues here.

45:24 You don't get a description of his character. You just basically get a description of what other people say about him, right? Three different things. I mean, the first thing you've got there is that Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone. So in other words, he's well thought of by everyone who meets him. Now, that doesn't mean every particular person. It just means in the main. It may mean John's church. It may mean John's church plus people in the city. We don't know. Elders are said to need to be well thought of even by outsiders. Demetrius may be that kind of guy.

45:55 We don't know. But he's received a good testimony from everyone. Everyone sees what a good man he is. What about that second phrase there? He's received a good testimony from the truth itself. Weird little phrase, right? How do you receive a test? And that's the gospel. We've talked about that several times. How do you receive a good testimony from the gospel itself? How do you get the gospel to talk about you? Well, it's a strange way of saying it. But what John means there is that Demetrius' life lines up without question with the truths of the gospel and the kind of person the gospel creates.

46:33 When you look at the gospel and hear what the gospel would have to say about the kind of person that ought to be created by its work in a person's life, what it's talking about, it turns out, is Demetrius. That's what it means. He's received a good testimony even from the gospel itself and what it says about what it does in someone's life, his life lines up. And then the last part, we also, and John's using the kind of apostolic or, you know, the royal we there. He's talking about himself, because he switches back and forth, you can see, between I and we.

47:06 But he's just talking about himself. We, I also add my testimony, and you know that our testimony is true. This is a man who lives in accord with the gospel. Okay, if that's true of Demetrius, then brothers and sisters, is that true of you? Do you receive a good testimony from basically everyone around you? If John knew you, would he say of you, this is a person, this is a man, this is a woman who walks in accord with the truth and in accordance with love.

47:45 I will put my testimony with everyone else's. And then I think that most interesting one. If the gospel of Jesus Christ could give testimony about you, what would it say? Would it say that you're a person who walks in the truth? That you're a person who walks in love? That you're a person who welcomes others with no thought of self-glory?

48:21 Would it say that you're a person who serves others instead of building your own little kingdom? Or would it say, no, you're motivated, you're motivated by things other than the gospel. You're motivated by your own glory. You're motivated by your own way. You're motivated by your desire to be seen as preeminent. You're motivated by building your own kingdom. Friends, those are critical questions. Has the gospel created in you through its work a life that the gospel itself would recognize?

48:57 It's a critical question. Look at the last few verses of this letter, 13, 14, 15. Sort of the sign-off of the letter. I mean, for the most part, this is all very common, usual stuff in ancient letters. You got the same phrase there as in 2 John that he says he has more to say, but he doesn't want to do it with, this time it's pen and ink, not paper and ink. But same idea, right? He doesn't want to write everything that he's got to say. He wants to do it in person, right? He says to Gaius here, I hope to see you soon, and we'll talk face-to-face.

49:30 It's interesting, the phrase underneath face-to-face is actually, we'll talk mouth-to-mouth, right? It's just a common phrase. That's what they said back then. Not that you'll see each other face-to-face, but that you'll talk mouth-to-mouth, right? That's what that says there, interestingly enough. You got the final greetings, where John says that the friends greet you. That's a reference to his own church. This church greets you. And he says, then greet all the friends, each by name, each personally. So it's all pretty boilerplate type stuff, pretty common stuff.

50:03 But there's one phrase that is unusual. One phrase that does not, in fact, show up in other ancient letters that are not Christian. And yet it's a phrase that shows up repeatedly in Christian letters. It's that phrase, peace be to you. Now, where does that come from? Where does it come from and why is it unique to Christians? So last fall, we finished up studying the gospel that John, this guy, wrote.

50:39 And we talked about all of those stories where Jesus appears to his disciples. What does he say when he appears to them? Just about every time. Three different times. Peace be to you. That's where John got it. He heard it on the lips of Jesus. He heard Jesus proclaiming his victory, proclaiming an end to the enmity between God and man through his death and resurrection.

51:10 He heard Jesus say it, and he said, I'm using that. And so he did. He lived for another 65 years or so. And again and again and again, what he told believers when he saw them was, peace be to you. It's an amazing little phrase, isn't it? Because it doesn't just mean, I hope your circumstances are good. I hope you feel good. I hope your emotions are in the right place.

51:42 No, what it means is a reminder that you have peace with God. And so everything else is going to be fine. See, at the end of the day, that's really what underlies everything John is saying here. You're a Christian. You have peace with God. Your enmity with God is over. It's ended because of what Jesus did in the cross, on the cross, and in the resurrection.

52:16 It's over. And you have peace with God. Now, live your life in such a way that people will see that. That they'll see that you are a friend of the King of kings and Lord of lords. You're a Christian. Make sure your life reflects it. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we praise you again this morning as the resurrected and reigning king.

52:48 Lord, you are the one who has saved us. You're the one who has brought our dead souls to life. And now, Father, we pray that you would cause us to live in such a way that our lives would be worthy of this calling that you have given us in your Son, Jesus Christ. Help us, O Lord, to live that kind of life, to not do, not imitate what is evil, but to do and imitate what is good because we are of you and because we have seen you. We pray all of that in the name of Jesus. Amen.