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Illustration: "The Table” at Kingswood. We hung out together so often that we began to almost speak our own language.

3 John 1–15 CSB

The elder: To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Dear friend, I pray that you are prospering in every way and are in good health, just as your whole life is going well. For I was very glad when fellow believers came and testified to your fidelity to the truth—how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in truth. Dear friend, you are acting faithfully in whatever you do for the brothers and sisters, especially when they are strangers. They have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God, since they set out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from pagans. Therefore, we ought to support such people so that we can be coworkers with the truth. I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have first place among them, does not receive our authority. This is why, if I come, I will remind him of the works he is doing, slandering us with malicious words. And he is not satisfied with that! He not only refuses to welcome fellow believers, but he even stops those who want to do so and expels them from the church. Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God. Everyone speaks well of Demetrius—even the truth itself. And we also speak well of him, and you know that our testimony is true. I have many things to write you, but I don’t want to write to you with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends send you greetings. Greet the friends by name.

The simple fact of the matter is that we become like the people we are closest to. We begin to subconsciously imitate their behaviours and quirks, and start to adopt similar ideas and so on. That’s why it’s essential to make sure that we use wisdom in choosing our spouse. That’s why we take care in who we develop close friendships with. And that’s why we are careful who we give positions of influence to in the church. If we want to be godly men and women than we need to seek the influence of godly men and women and not those who would lead us astray from the truth.

That’s where this letter from John comes in. Unlike many of the letters of the New Testament that are written to groups, like all of John’s other writings, this one is written to an individual. A man named Gaius. To Gaius John chiefly writes concerning what he has heard about Gaius and about how to respond to two other men, Diotrephes and Demetrius. All three were at the very least men of influence in the church. The question was, what kind of influence were they being? What were they doing to shape the men and women in their churches? Were they helping them to become more and more like Jesus, or were they leading them astray from the right path?

Let’s look at this letter and each of these men in turn and ask the question of what their examples mean for us as faithful disciples today. The Holy Spirit inspired this letter and God ensured it would make it into the canon of Scripture for a reason. Though perhaps John meant it primarily for the instruction and encouragement of one individual, God meant it for all of us, because we believe that all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for growing us up as disciples to be more like Jesus and to better help others become disciples.

Illustration: The year after I graduated and was taken in by David and Grace Armstrong while I looked for a place to live.

3 John 1–8 CSB

The elder: To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Dear friend, I pray that you are prospering in every way and are in good health, just as your whole life is going well. For I was very glad when fellow believers came and testified to your fidelity to the truth—how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in truth. Dear friend, you are acting faithfully in whatever you do for the brothers and sisters, especially when they are strangers. They have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God, since they set out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from pagans. Therefore, we ought to support such people so that we can be coworkers with the truth.

I mean, wouldn’t you love to be described in the way that John is describing Gaius here? To be well known as an example of not just faithfully holding to the truth of the gospel, but living it out in your daily life? We should all desire not for the compliments themselves, but to live lives of the same quality as men like Gaius lived. A tough calling, but one that’s helped by surrounding ourselves with people like him. Remember that we become like the people we are closest with, so becoming close with people of this quality can help to produce this faithfulness in us.

So what is it that Gaius has done to receive such commendation from John? He has practiced Christian hospitality for missionary evangelists. A word of explanation first. In the time of the writing of this letter there were some Christians who made it their life’s work to travel and spread the gospel. Where often today Christians who work as missionaries and evangelists fundraise in order to do the work, this wasn’t really how they did things in the first century. Instead they relied on the generosity of the churches where they were going. Like Paul, these travelling evangelists rightly didn’t charge the gentiles they were sharing the good news with for their message 3 John 7 “since they set out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from pagans.” Instead they were hosted by believers who supported them in their work. They provided not only a place to stay, but also fed them and were often expected to give them enough food and provisions for them to reach the next town where they were spreading the gospel.

So this is what Gaius had done for some of “the brothers” when they were travelling in the city where Gaius’ church is. He gave them a place to stay and food to eat, even though as John says they were strangers to him. Likely they would have come with letters of recommendation from whatever church they were sent from, or possibly even from John himself considering the personal stakes that John seems to place on this issue. John says that by helping the evnagelists in this way we become their fellow workers in the truth, meaning that the work they do for the kingdom is in part credited as work that we have done.

So how do we follow Gaius’ example? Well things aren’t quite the same today as they were at the time of this letter. Now inns and hotels are readily available for travelling evangelists. That doesn’t mean we can’t host travelling evangelists if we know that they are preaching the true gospel of Christ, but in my opinion today the more practical approach is to support missionaries financially. That doesn’t necessarily mean oversees missions, but perhaps missions in our own backyard even. I know when I worked for Youth for Christ we considered ourselves missionaries to the local youth, and rightly so. So John encourages us through lifting up Gaius as an example to support those who do the work of ministry and so share in the labor of the kingdom through our material means.

Illustration: Lucy likes to imitate Owen, and sometimes Owen likes to imitate Lucy. Though mostly cute, this is not always a good thing.

3 John 9–10 CSB

I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have first place among them, does not receive our authority. This is why, if I come, I will remind him of the works he is doing, slandering us with malicious words. And he is not satisfied with that! He not only refuses to welcome fellow believers, but he even stops those who want to do so and expels them from the church.

I’m sure you get the impression from that short passage that we don’t want to be a Diotrephes. While Gaius and Demetrius serve as our good examples to emulate, Diotrephes serves the opposite example in this letter. John lifts him up as an example to be avoided at all costs.

So what did Diotrephes do to earn such disapproval from John the apostle? The first and perhaps most serious strike against him is that he rejected the authority of John, an apostle. This is pretty much the equivalent to rejecting the Scriptures today, since the New Testament was still being written by the apostles and they carried the highest position of authority in the early church. Then he not only refuses to support this missionary evangelists that John is endorsing, which is bad, he goes so far as to forbid others from supporting them. Even throwing some of them out of the church for it! Why would Diotrephes do such a thing? Well it all seems to be rooted in John’s description of Diotrephes as someone who “loves to have first place among them.” A desire for power and authority has clouded his mind. Perhaps he resents John for having more authority than he does.

In any case the desire for power is not something to be emulated. Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 20:25-28

Matthew 20:25–28 CSB

Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Which doesn’t mean that Christians can’t ever hold positions. Clearly the apostles exercised oversight over the early church and appointed Elders over them. It means that we shouldn’t be seeking power out and grasping to it. It’s worth noting that if Diotrephes was able to cast people out of the church than it seems pretty likely that he was an elder. Let this be a caution to be careful who we approve to have the position of elder, and to ensure they have the quality described by Paul which include not being arrogant or a bully.

So what do we learn about discipleship from Diotrephes’ bad example? To guard ourselves carefully against pride. To remain humble servants of God who put the gospel first and are willing to submit ourselves to the authority of the Scriptures and to God and support others who do the work of ministry. To be like Jesus and come with a willingness to serve over a desire of being served.

Illustration: Advertising is a massive industry, but still nothing beats word of mouth. The same is true for people. What is the word of mouth about you?

3 John 11–12 CSB

Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God. Everyone speaks well of Demetrius—even the truth itself. And we also speak well of him, and you know that our testimony is true.

I’m not sure about you guys, but I know that I’ve heard a lot of messages telling me that I shouldn’t care what other people think about me. Just be yourself and do good and don’t worry about what everyone else thinks. While I believe there’s certainly truth to that, we shouldn’t for example let someone’s judgment keep us from doing what’s right and following God, we shouldn’t completely dismiss our reputation in public. It can make or break us in some cases. A bad reputation can do significant damage to our ability to share the gospel with others for example.

Demetrius is an example of someone who came with a good reputation. John gives Gaius a summary of the man’s reputation by providing three witnesses to his good works: the opinion of other believers, his conformity to the truth of the gospel, and John’s own testimony to his quality as a disciple. Now who exactly Demetrius is isn’t exactly clear in this letter. Likely John felt it unnecessary to explain who Demetrius was to Gaius. Possibly he was one of these missionaries that John was encouraging the church to suipport, possibly he was simply a good example to contrast with Diotrephes, or possibly he was the one that John sent with the letter. In any case what matters is that there was a great deal of evidence to corroborate the quality of Demetrius as a follower of Jesus.

The Bible says a lot about the need for a good reputation. In fact a good reputation is listed as one of the requirements to be an elder, and if it’s a good quality in an elder surely it’s a good quality in the rest of us? Not to mention all these places that talk about having a reputation for righteousness:

Matthew 5:16 CSB

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

1 Peter 2:12 CSB

Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits.

Proverbs 22:1 CSB

A good name is to be chosen over great wealth; favor is better than silver and gold.

So we should each ask ourselves, “what is my reputation?” If John was writing a letter about me, would he have three witnesses to speak to the fact that I do good and speak the truth? I certainly hope so. Let us strive not to have a good reputation for the sake of applause or clout, but in order to help us in the work of sharing the gospel with others.

So then what have we learned from our three examples that John writes about in 3 John? From Gaius we learn the importance of supporting those who work for the Kingdom of God and especially of theose who spread the gospel. From Diotrephes we learn the importance of running away from pride and a desire for power and towards humility and an attitude of service towards others. From Demetrius we learn the value of a good reputation for helping us to reach the lost for the cross of Christ. With those things in mind, let’s reread 3 John:

3 John 1–15 CSB

The elder: To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Dear friend, I pray that you are prospering in every way and are in good health, just as your whole life is going well. For I was very glad when fellow believers came and testified to your fidelity to the truth—how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in truth. Dear friend, you are acting faithfully in whatever you do for the brothers and sisters, especially when they are strangers. They have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God, since they set out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from pagans. Therefore, we ought to support such people so that we can be coworkers with the truth. I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have first place among them, does not receive our authority. This is why, if I come, I will remind him of the works he is doing, slandering us with malicious words. And he is not satisfied with that! He not only refuses to welcome fellow believers, but he even stops those who want to do so and expels them from the church. Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God. Everyone speaks well of Demetrius—even the truth itself. And we also speak well of him, and you know that our testimony is true. I have many things to write you, but I don’t want to write to you with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends send you greetings. Greet the friends by name.

At the end of the day we were all saved when we put our faith in Jesus and repented. Everything we do now is not to earn a place with God in eternity, we have that, it’s to hear from the lips of our King when we see Him on the other side, “well done good and faithful servant.” So then let us surround ourselves with those who are generous and supportive of the work of the Kingdom, those who are humble and seek the Kingdom over power, and those who have a good reputation in their community for the sake of the Kingdom, so that we may imitate them as they imitate Christ and become more like them every day.

But above all, let us pray that the HOly Spirit would give us direction and power to do all the things that God has called us to do.

Support the Faithful

Introduction

Gaius

Diotrephes

Demetrius

Conclusion