A Charitable Church

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in 3rd John this morning. 3rd John, I’ve been reading through John’s letters lately, and this one this week just kind of struck me as being pertinent to things that are going on in churches today. 3rd John is one chapter, we’re going to read the whole thing and then focus in on about five verses.

But it’s a very short letter that he’s written to a church, we don’t know exactly which church He wrote it to where the church was located. We know that one of the elders of the church was a man named Gaius, who was somebody that John was fond of, who was a faithful man, not only in doctrine, but also in his behavior as well. And he writes the letter of 3 John to Gaius and sends it to him to sort of encourage him for the way that he’s behaved.

But all through the thing, there’s this comparison and contrasting between Gaius’ church and a church headed up by another man named Diotrephes, who was sort of the opposite in terms of his behavior, in terms of the way that the church acted as a result. I’ve heard it said, and I don’t know if it’s true in every circumstance, but I’ve heard people say for many years that a church will eventually take on the personality of its pastor. I don’t know how true that is in every circumstance, But in a lot of cases, what’s important to the pastor is what he’s going to talk about.

That’s what the church is going to study. So it’s normal. One instance I can give you, as we’re going to talk about the difference between these two churches a little bit and then focus on the encouraging one, an example I can give you, because part of what he talks about this morning is the charity of the church, the fact that Gaius’ church was charitable. It was a loving, caring, generous church, and that’s what we’re going to focus on here in a little bit.

Just to give you an example, when it comes to missions, because that’s one thing that he does talk about is supporting the work of other people. I have pastored churches where we lost some people and finances were struggling, and the first thing somebody said was to get our finances back in shape. Well, let’s cut support to missionaries.

Let’s just not send any more money. And over my protest, they did that, and we continued to lose people and continued to lose money, and it just didn’t work out. I went to Fayetteville.

And this is not bragging because there were things I probably should have done differently. There were problems in the church, too. But I think that when a church demonstrates a love for missions and a love for sharing the gospel, I think God blesses in spite of ourselves, and that’s what we saw happening.

So please don’t take this as bragging. but one thing I said I wanted to do when I came to the church at Fayetteville was to increase not only our giving to missions, but really our, I lost the word, but the profile of missions, the awareness of missions, that’s the word I was looking for, was to increase our awareness of missions. And so some of this took the form of every time somebody’s on furlough, we’re going to invite them to come and speak to us.

These new people going out on deputation, we’re going to invite them to come and share with us. Because I remember being a state missionary and going around to the churches, and whether they gave us money or not, we were excited just to share what God had laid on our heart to do in Norman. And I knew it was the same for these people.

Whether we were able to give them money or not, they were going to be thrilled at the opportunity to come and share with us and to pray. And so we started inviting missionaries in every time we could, showing hospitality, and the church ended up starting to support these missionaries. And by the time I left, I’ve lost count, but I want to say there were eight or nine missionaries that we were supporting on a monthly basis above and beyond the check that we were sending to Little Rock.

And God blessed in that. God blessed in that not only in growing our church spiritually as people began to know these missionaries, began to regard them as friends, began to keep up with what they were doing, began to pray for them, and began to give to them as well. But also, God started adding people to the church.

Funny how that works. we weren’t doing anything differently in Fayetteville than what we had been doing. But God, because of what we were doing in, or what we were contributing to in Africa or in Romania, God was bringing people to us in Fayetteville.

And we had people visit our church who would say, our church doesn’t do anything for missions. What percentage of your budget goes to? And we’d tell them, and people would come.

And it was incredible to see that just one little change like that, just trying to be generous. And generous is not even the right word, because it wasn’t our money to begin with. It was God’s money that he’d entrusted us with to use for his purposes.

That just being a little looser with the checkbook, just that one little change, God began to bless things. And now this is not a message this morning about, you know, you may already be given as much as you can. I’m not trying to squeeze more money out of you to give to the church or for the church to squeeze more money out of the church for missions because it’s not just a matter of money.

God wants to see a generous charitable church. And I believe that he’ll bless that. It does have to do with money.

That we give money to help those who are in need. Money to the support of missionaries. I believe this church already does that.

Y’all were just raising funds for walk of faith. But it also has to do with, okay, not only is our money not ours. It’s just money that God, it’s God’s money and he’s entrusted it to us.

And by the way, that goes for our personal finances as well. That is a hard thing for me to remember. The balance in my checking account is not my money.

It’s God’s money that he’s allowed me to use. And you know what? If he makes the whole thing go away tomorrow, he can do that.

And I have nothing to complain about because it was his money. That’s a hard thing. I worry about money, if I can just be honest. And that is a hard thing for me to get through my head.

But it’s all God’s money. But on top of that, in terms of being charitable, in terms of being generous, it’s not just God’s money. It’s God’s time.

You realize that? The time that we have on this earth is a gift from God. And I can easily spend it worrying about the things I want to do and what I want to do with my time, or I can realize that every second, every heartbeat, every breath is a gift from God and use it for the things that he’s.

. . Use it to be generous to other people with my time.

Time is very often harder to give to people than money is. In the fast-paced world we live in today, time is of more value a lot of times than money. Now, that’s not always been the case in my life.

You know, I’ve learned to lay floors. I’ve learned to rebuild the engine on my car. I’ve learned to grow a garden.

I’ve learned to do all sorts of things because I’ve always had more time than money. You know, I like my hundred dollars more than I like the idea of hiring somebody to come and fix my air conditioner. I’m going to do it myself.

But time is a very valuable thing to be able to give to people. And a church can be generous with its time. A church can be generous with its other resources.

A church can be, some of you may have seen it on the internet, there was a letter that was written to Southgate that was posted on the internet from some pastor up in Enid who had never heard of Southgate and had never been there, thanking the church for their generosity at just opening their facilities for the funeral of that woman who was beheaded in the attack of it more. She had no connection to the church whatsoever. They just opened their facilities as a place big enough to accommodate everybody.

And that spoke to the community. Evidently, they were approached by the city officials and more, because after the tornado, they said what church would be willing to open their doors, and they thought of Southgate. It’s a good reputation in the community.

It didn’t cost them anything to do it. We can volunteer our talents. We can be generous with our talents.

All sorts of things that God has blessed us with, all sorts of gifts that we have, God wants to see a charitable church that takes the things that he’s given us, and rather than storing them up for ourselves and saying, no, this is for me, this is for me to use, holding these things very loosely and saying they’re God’s to do with as he chooses. And that’s sort of the distinction here between Gaius and Diotrephes, as we’re going to read through the chapter here, through the whole book, and see the difference between these two men. One church was very generous, and I’m sure it was not just with money.

every time we talk about charitable behavior every time we talk about generosity we think money folks that’s only part of it we need to get away from thinking that’s the only thing there is they were generous whereas Diotrephes was stingy not only with his support of these missionaries but just he was stingy with ministry and sometimes we can get our hands on ministry and say well this one’s mine and we can complain that we don’t have any help but it’s because we never let anybody help I tell you in Fayetteville I ended up doing the bulletin and really didn’t enjoy doing the bulletin. But it was left to me when one of the men went off, went to another church to fill in there and left it with me. And then there came the time when I realized I can’t, even you wouldn’t think bulletin is ministry, but it is.

People, once you get used to it, people miss it once it’s gone. And so I took on this ministry, really didn’t enjoy it, took it on out of necessity, but people offered to help me with it. no, no, I’m going to continue doing it because I wanted it done my way.

I wanted to be the one to do it. And I realized, even in something like that, I’m holding on to this ministry, and I need to let somebody else take it and run with it. And we can do that in the preaching.

We can do that in the music. We can do that in nursery. We can do that in whatever your area of ministry is, inside or outside the church.

We can hold on to those things very closely. And what we need to learn to do is be a charitable church and share the talents, the time, the resources, the money, whatever God’s blessed us with. Share it openly with the realization that it’s his to do with as he chooses.

So we start in verse 1. It says, The elder unto the well-beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

Now that’s a pretty good wish for somebody to be able to say. You know, we could look at most American Christians and say, I wish your soul would prosper as well as your prospering materially. We are a very rich and spoiled country sometimes.

Guys, I love America. I’m as patriotic as the next guy. But this is not the way we were founded.

This is not what we were set up to be. And we are a very rich and spoiled country. And even the poorest among us here, I heard a statistic on the radio and take it for what it’s worth, but even the poorest here, our poverty line in America, if you’re living under the poverty line in the United States of America in 2014, you’re still better off than 80% of the people in the world.

Now, that was not 80% of the poor people in the world. That was 80% of the people. That’s pretty incredible to me that we are such a prosperous nation.

And we could look at most people, maybe even including ourselves, and say, I wish we were prospering spiritually the way we prosper materially. Because, boy, then we would be in good shape. But Gaius was prospering spiritually.

He was a man of strong faith, of firm conviction, obviously. and somebody who was growing spiritually. And John wrote to him and said, I wish that you would prosper and that you would be in health even as your soul prospers.

I wish the rest of you was doing just as well as your soul. And again, I think we could turn that around and pray. I wish the rest of us, I wish our souls were doing as well as the rest of us.

He said, for I rejoiced greatly when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. Now these two, verses three and four here have become some of my favorite verses in the Bible in the last couple of years. I rejoiced greatly when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth. Now, Gaius was probably not John’s biological son. What he’s talking about is his son in the faith.

And those of you who have taught either in church or in school know as well as I do that it makes it all worth it. you can be down and defeated and just feel like, why do I even get out of the bed in the morning? When you teach and teach and teach, and it seems to go over everybody’s head, whether you’re talking about teaching again in church or in school, whether you’re teaching fractions or whether you’re teaching discipleship, and it seems and it feels like week after week, day after day, month after month, nobody is listening.

And then there’s that one person who, they get it all of a sudden. And they can multiply those fractions with the different denominators, and they get the answer right. They didn’t just write down a number to get done with the paper.

They got it. And you think, yes, it was worth it to get out of bed this morning. Or you teach in church, and you teach for weeks and weeks, and they say, why are we still on prayer after all these weeks?

Because we’re not doing it the way we’re supposed to yet. I’ll stop preaching about prayer when we start doing it the way we’re supposed to. And you feel like, or anything, discipleship, any number of things that I’ve taught a long series of lessons on until we get it right.

And it seems like nobody’s paying attention. And then somebody comes to you and says, you know what you said last week? I got it.

Let me show you how it applied to something I did this week. You think it’s all worth it. With your children, and they all had their little milestones.

One of the biggest early on for me was being able to hold the bottle. Because both of my kids were in the NICU for at least a week, the neonatal intensive care unit, for at least a week after they were born because they were born so premature. And so in the NICU, they feed them every two hours.

You don’t feed babies every two hours usually, as far as I know. I’ve been told it’s more like three to four. They wake them up and feed them every two hours, day and night.

So they get out of the hospital and they come home and what do they want to do every two hours? And you get up and you make the bottle and you feed the baby, you sit there with the baby, You burp them. You change them.

You do all of this. It takes 30 to 45 minutes because they’re slow little ears. Then you go back to sleep, and an hour later, it’s time to get up.

That is no way to live. Those of you who have had children know what I’m talking about. That is no way to live.

And the day that you see them hold the bottle for themselves for the first time, it will bring a tear to your eye. Because you think, I know you’re not supposed to, but my parents did it with me and I survived and my grandparents did it with them and they survived. You know I can get up, change them real quick, give them the bottle and go back to bed.

And they will eat and they’ll drop their bottle when they’re done and praise God I can get a little more sleep. It was a milestone. Seeing them come to the point after several months that they’ve now learned on their own to do this baby step.

It’s great. And then you see them walk. Benjamin has started being able to trace his name and recognize the letters.

I know it’s such a small thing we take for granted, but I just swell with pride. But to see our kids learn, to see the people that you’re teaching day after day, learn it and start to actually get it. It makes everything else we do worth it.

And he says that of spiritual things. He says, I have no greater joy than to see that my children walk in the truth. And as a pastor, I can tell you that is absolutely right.

No pastor worth his salt is in it for the money. We’re in it because God has called us to do it and because of the joy of seeing God’s people grow. And I know it’s a strange thing to say because most of the people that I have ever pastored are two to three times my age.

But especially being in Arkansas for three years, I got to know and love those people and feel about them similarly to the way that I feel about my children. And I know that sounds strange. Some of y’all are looking at me like, Yes, I have 80-year-old children.

But I would hear of, you know, there was one lady who was being given the runaround at the computer store because they figured she’s 60 years old. She doesn’t know what’s going on. I said, I’m going down to that store with you, and we’re going to straighten it out.

Nobody’s going to treat my church members that way. And I was very nice, but we dealt with it. And the people you teach, you grow to love them in that way.

And to see people start to get it and apply God’s word to their lives and to see them grow brings you as much joy as seeing your children take their first steps or hold the spoon for themselves or say their first words. And in saying that, I don’t mean to talk down to you like you’re my little children. I just want you to understand what he’s saying here and what I feel, what every teacher of God’s word feels when this goes on.

I rejoiced greatly because not only had John taught them, but then John left. And there’s the old saying, when the cat’s away, the mice will play. This was not going on.

John was excited to find out, not only are you learning and getting it while I’m there, but now in my absence, you’re continuing to walk in the truth. And I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth. So he says in verse 5, Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers.

excuse me, a little tongue time, which have borne witness of thy charity before the church, whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well, because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers of the truth. I wrote unto the church, but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.

So he’s gone through and he’s talked about Gaius and his church. He’s talked about the way that Gaius has grown in God’s word, that he’s continued in the truth, and the result of that is that it shows outwardly that he’s got a close walk with God and a growing walk with God, and it manifests itself in the way that he behaves. Shouldn’t that be true for all of us?

If we have a close walk and relationship with God, it ought to be visible. And so he says because of this, you act in a certain way, and you and your entire church are charitable, and you support the teaching and preaching of God’s word, and you support these missionaries, and you’ve got this reputation for it. And he says, in contrast, in verse 9, I wrote to the church where Diotrephes is, but because he loves to have preeminence, he receives us not.

That’s pretty gutsy to say, you don’t need to hear from John, because you’ve got me. Wait a minute. The same John who spent three years with Jesus Christ. That John?

Yeah, that John. The same one who was eyewitness to his resurrection. The same one who is the last surviving member of his called apostles.

That John and you Diotrephes, who are mentioned just here in the Bible, think you are so big and important that your church doesn’t need to hear from John because they’ve got you. That’s what I was talking about with stinginess with ministry. Oh, no, no, I’m not going to let my people hear from anybody else because they’ve got me.

I’m not going to share the glory. I’m not going to share the spotlight. I’m not going to share the teaching responsibilities.

It’s all me. Where would you be without me? Oh, that’s something that John points out as a negative thing.

He’s not looking at diatrophies and patting him on the back for being the hardest working man in show business. He’s saying this is a problem. And this is the opposite of what’s going on at Gaius’ church.

He says, Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds, which he doeth, priding against us with malicious words, and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church. So this guy was so out of touch with God’s word and so out of touch with what God wanted him to do, that not only did he say, we’re not going to listen to John’s letter because you’ve got my teaching, but when John sent missionaries through to teach, he wouldn’t let them teach. When John sent missionaries through and said, would you put them up as they’re on their way, he wouldn’t allow them to be shown hospitality.

And if anybody did take them into their homes, he was going to put them out of the church. I was reading, somebody had a copy of the trumpet sitting in the pew this morning, and I started to read a little bit of an article by Jeff Franks. They’re supposed to be on deputation, or not deputation, furlough.

Furlough sometime this year, I believe. Can you imagine, can you imagine, Brother Shank, if you were to invite Jeff Franks to come stay with you while they’re on furlough, and I were to say for that, you’re excommunicated, you’re out of the church, and get the church to vote you out. What kind of monster would I be?

By the way, not going to do that. Now, if you put up Joel Osteen, we might have a different discussion. That’s what he’s talking about, though.

I mean, put it in today’s terms. That would be one of our missionaries coming through, whether they were coming to preach here or not, say he’s on his way to Texas and says, hey, I’m from Oklahoma. Maybe somebody at one of our Oklahoma churches would be willing to put me up. And they came to stay for the night with Brother Shane.

And I said, oh, no, you’re out of here. First of all, I couldn’t do that. Second of all, I wouldn’t do that.

Third of all, he shouldn’t have done it either. And so he says in verse 11, Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil have not seen God.

And he does not go to the extent here of calling Diotrephes evil. That’s certainly the implication because his behavior was evil. But he merely throws out this statement, this true statement, not to follow evil, but do what’s good instead.

because he that does good is of God and he that does evil has not seen God. And let’s the reader draw their own conclusions because there’s obviously a contrast drawn here between Gaius and Diotrephes where he says one person’s doing right, one person’s doing wrong, now draw your own conclusions and we can see what that is. He says Demetrius hath good report of all men and of the truth itself.

Yea, and we also bear record and ye know that our record is true and in all likelihood Demetrius is the man that he’s sending this letter with and commending, saying, listen to Demetrius and all he has to say. I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee. But I trust I shall shortly see thee and we shall speak face to face.

Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.

Okay, so he talks about there’s more that I have to tell you, but instead of writing it all down, he says I’m going to try to come there to see you. But he also says in verse 10, if I come, I will remember what Diotrephes has done and I can’t imagine anything more embarrassing for Diotrephes than to have the Apostle John show up at his church and say, here’s where you went wrong, buddy. Here’s the list. But he draws it throughout the letter.

He draws this contrast between Gaius and Diotrephes. And that’s probably not to say that Gaius’ church was perfect or that there wasn’t anything good that went on in Diotrephes’ church. But there is a clear contrast here between the two.

And he tells the readers that they need to be like Gaius and his church. And that extends to us as well as the readers 2,000 years later. We need to be more like Gaius and his church.

And they were called a charitable church. I’m going to go through this very quickly because most of this stuff is straightforward. It should be easy to understand.

It’s going to be hard for us to do, but it should be easy for us to understand. So he writes this and he starts in verse 5 and says, Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers. And the first thing to know about a charitable church is that a charitable church cares for members and strangers alike.

God’s churches are supposed to care for members and strangers alike. Now, that gets hard to do in a world where we don’t know who we can trust. I may have told you before the story about pastoring in Bethany, and the man called the church, and I was brand new in pastoring, and kind of dumb, and naive may be a better word, but dumb seems to fit so well. I thought, I just want to be here and help everybody and do whatever I can, day or night.

That lasts a little while. I still want to help people, but you get a little bit cynical and realize not everybody’s on the up and up. So what I did was we had an answering machine at the church, as most churches do if you don’t have somebody there all the time, and I put the outgoing message on the answering machine, but also said, if you have an emergency, here’s my cell phone number.

So I started getting all kinds of calls. I got a call from one man in particular who called on a Wednesday night and said, you know, he needed, he was, he was stuck in town. He needed food.

He couldn’t afford food. He was at a seedy motel down by I-40. And one of the men, I got him to come with me and we went and bought some groceries at Walmart, just a few little things, stuff he could eat in a hotel room, some fruit and some things and took it to him.

Well, he took it and just opened the door and saw that we brought him food instead of money, took the food and slammed the door. I started getting calls all the time. Well, I’m down here at the pizza joint.

I just need somebody to come buy me lunch. I feel real shaky. Okay, not doing that.

I discovered really quickly that he was trying to take advantage. And it gets to be really hard to know outside the church who can you trust. And the best thing I can tell you is follow the Holy Spirit. If he tells you you help somebody, then you better help them.

If he tells you not to, I don’t care how nice they look, you better not do it. And sometimes you’re going to get taken advantage of. I hate it.

But sometimes, even doing that, I’m going to get taken advantage of. Now, that doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit was caught off guard. It means God wanted me to give the money regardless of what it was for.

And as mad as we get sometimes in those instances, we have to remember, God told you to give it, and it was his money in the first place. But we take care of our members and strangers alike. Now, obviously, our first loyalty is to each other.

Within a church, our first loyalty has to be to each other. And so when a member says, I lost my job, I’m having trouble paying my rent or my house payment this month, I’ve got something lined up, but I’m not getting paid, we need to take those requests seriously. And many is the time in Fayetteville that we paid somebody’s house payment or bought somebody groceries.

But also among your members, people don’t ask unless they really need it usually. Even then it’s like pulling teeth to get people to ask when they need help. But our first loyalty is to each other.

But there’s still the matter of taking care of people outside the church. The church is not an ATM where people just come get money whenever they need it or feel like it. But when there are legitimate needs that the church has the capacity to meet, we should be meeting those needs.

And guys, again, it’s not just about money. If some lady down the street, 90 years old, has trouble getting out and mowing her yard, and there are men in the church who can do it, then by all means, the men in the church should do it. We did some of that in Fayetteville, too.

And by the way, this is not all about, the point of today’s message is not, here’s how you need to be like Fayetteville. I’m just speaking from experience and my longest pastorate was there. So that’s what I know most about.

If somebody needs a ride to the doctor and calls the church, that’s something we can help with. Just because they’re not members of the church doesn’t mean that we shut them out. Say you’re not eligible for our help, whatever it is.

Because he said, beloved thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers. And to strangers. Now, some of those strangers were going to be missionaries and traveling preachers who were sent by John and other apostles and other churches.

But some of them were going to be the strangers in their own town. And he says, you’ve done for brethren and for strangers. And he commends them for that.

You know what? It’s still commendable today when the church takes care of brethren and strangers. Because the world looks at churches that are building multi-million dollar facilities.

And you know what, if you’ve got the money for it and there’s a need for it, then there’s nothing wrong with that. But building multi-million dollar facilities just to have them or to say, this is my church, look what we did. Or because, or the church looks, or the world looks at churches paying multi-million dollar salaries.

While some statistics say that one out of four kids in Oklahoma goes to bed hungry. I don’t know if it’s every night, but routinely goes to bed hungry. The world looks at that and obviously has some skepticism about the church and its motives.

But when the church behaves charitably and takes care of its people and takes care of strangers and takes care of the widow down the street, th