Postcards

And if you'd like to take your bibles, we're gonna have 2 readings.

The first 1 is gonna be from, Matthew chapter 25. And then, Haram is gonna come and read, 3 John. So, the first 1 is Matthew 25, and we're reading, verses 31 to 46. It's not on the screen, so you're gonna need a bible. A proper 1.

Right? Yeah. So get it. I'll give you a chance to run and get 1 if you're sitting at home. After 25, verse 31.

When the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people on 1 from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed by my father. Take your inheritance.

The kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was ill, and you looked after me.

I was in prison, and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him, lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we when did we see you ill or in prison and go to visit you? The king will reply truly, I tell you, whatever you did for 1 of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

Then he will say to those on his left depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was ill and in prison and you did not look after me.

They also will answer. Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or stranger or needing clothes or ill or imprisoned and did not help you? He will reply. Truly, I tell you. Whatever you did not do for 1 of the least of these you did not do for me, then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

Now Haram's gonna come and read 3 John. The elder to my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Dear friend. I pray that you may enjoy good health and that you may go well with you just as you are progressing spiritually. It gave me great joy when some of the believers came and testified about your faithfulness.

To the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. Different, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love, please send them on their way in a manner that honors god. It was for the sake of the name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans.

We ought therefore to show hospitality to such people so that they may work together for the truth. I wrote to the church, but deotrephes, who loves to be the first, will not welcome us. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that. He even refuses to welcome other believers.

He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. Dear friend do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. Anyone who does what is good from is anyone who does what is good is from god. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen god. Demetrius is well spoken of by everyone and even by the truth itself.

We also speak well of him, and you know that our testimony is true. I have much to write to you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you, the friends here, send their greetings, send their greetings, greet the friends there by name. Thank you, Haram.

Good evening. Welcome from me. My name is Rory Kanard. I'm 1 of the members of staff here at Cornerstone, and let us pray for god's help as we look at his word. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much, for your words. We thank you, for this series of of short books, and we thank you for this 1 tonight. We pray father that as we examine it, we will be and more in love with the lord Jesus. Our hearts will be filled with him. Our hearts will be filled with joy, and it will cause us to want to live for him as we serve 1 another.

And so he prayed these things in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we've been going through this this series, of postcards, through the Bible and it's these sort of chapter long, books that are the shortest books in the Bible. And actually, this is, I think, the shortest book in the whole of the Bible, which you're probably all rejoicing, but look, there's so much in it. I would be, I would actually get your knees to start praying now if you want to get out of here early. In fact, this is even shorter than the 1 we just did last week, which which was to John.

To John only has in the original 245 words. This only has 219. And, and so we've been calling this the postcard series, and now we we we don't really send postcards any any longer. I actually looked, looked up how many people does that I know Tom did this in the first 1, but can you put your hands up to say have you ever sent a postcard? Oh my goodness.

Oh, okay, but yeah, not now. Yeah, we're not now. We're in a church service. That's ridiculous. Yeah.

I don't think I've ever sent 1, but only, apparently, only 18 percent do it now. I think now, or when I was growing up, we would use social media posts. I actually tried to find old social media posts of me and Jerusalem, but it there was such rubbish there that I had to troll through that I couldn't find Eddie. I'm sure she's much happy, that much, much, very happy that, that I didn't find Eddie. But it's usually sort of things like, oh, I'm re I was really missing her when I was growing up.

We were young people, young lovers, but young lovers, that's not right. We were in love from a very young age, and we had to send messages from Wales to to England, and it was like, oh, how are you doing? How's everything going with you? Tell us a little bit about you. That's kind of what we do.

Right? We send we send to our loved ones. My dad, before he even ever ever had a conversation with my mom, used to write letters to her. That's weird, isn't it? And he's still that's the only way he communicates with them.

Dear Linda, can you put on the coffee? Yeah. So postcards are usually written to loved ones. And and that is no different to this this letter here from John. It's written to his loved 1.

It's got don't know if you, as you, as we read it, you saw the, the warmth and the joy in it, and, and, and, a repeated phrase throughout this letter was, my dear friend. My dear friend. The actual the the way the ESV translates it is beloved. My beloved. You're you're a Christian.

You are 1 of Jesus' own. I I love you like Jesus loves you and in verse 1, you'll see to my dear friend Gaius whom I love in the truth. I love you. In fact, it could be said, I truly love you as I love you in the truth. It's like a it's a bit of a pun for those who love puns.

And throughout this book, all the way to the final greetings, you'll see words of warmth and of joy. We've got brothers, and partners, and friends. And to the end, he goes in verse 13 to 14, I wanna see you face to face. I don't wanna use ink and paper. You might you might have done this when you were when you were sending your social media posts or your postcards.

Yes. I wanna I wanna contact you, but really I desire to be with you in the physical. And John desires to be with Gaius and to to see him face to face and to encourage him face to face. So what is this letter? Well, this letter is a letter to Gaius, and it's to encourage, well, 1 he's encouraged by guys.

He's so he's so encouraged by guys, but also that he can encourage him to keep serving the people of god as he walks in truth and love. He would have seen that word truth throughout about about 6 times truth or true. And love, it's a it's a key theme of John. If you looked last week, it was all about truth and love and walking, and we have these 3 themes going throughout. So what is this letter then?

Let's have a look at it in parts. Here's my first point. It's a happy filled prayer. Happy filled prayer. Verse 1 to 4.

Let's read that again. The elder, which is how he introduces himself last week as well. To my dear friend Gaius whom I I love in the truth, dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you just as you are progressing spiritually. They gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness in the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. I have no greater joy.

Than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. See, here is, a man, the apostle John, whose heart is filled with joy. He's filled with happiness, and a happy filled heart produces happy filled prayers. And so look at his greeting. It's quite a traditional greeting.

This is how you would usually greet someone in in these days. He says, I pray that you may enjoy good health, and that all may go well with you. It's like, I hope you're doing alright, mate. Yeah. You know when you go past someone, the British way, you nod your head, you say, alright.

That's kind of what the the that's the equivalent of this here. Except he adds something on, did he see what he added on? Because it was it it it didn't just stop there. He says, just as you are progressing spiritually, or or the ESP says, as it goes well with your soul soul. Now, that is unusual.

Because usually when we greet each other, we say, how are you getting on? You know, physically you well? Are you are you well within yourself, whatever that means? Yeah. How's how's how's the family hope hope hope you've got all the, you know, all you've got all the money sorted out, whatever.

We we care more, and we're more concerned about the physical and the materials. Yep. John, says, actually, I care more about your spiritual, and then secondly your physical. He says that I hope that just as your spiritual life with Jesus is going brilliantly, your physical will be just as good. If if your spiritual life is anything to go by, then your physical, if it's the same.

Whoa. That's what he's saying there. Now Pete this morning was talking about going to the gym, and he was talking about being all he was talking about himself being incredibly mus muscly, which is a very odd image of my head, sort of a tongue Pete, anyway. Yeah. He's saying, look, if you're it I know you're spiritually progressing gaius, you are spiritually going for it.

And if that that's how you're going, I hope you're gonna be as physical. He he could run Ultra Marathans if he's if he's has physically fit as he is spiritually. So I wonder if your physical was like your spiritual, what would you look like? Would you be rippling or would you be a dweeb Now how does how does John know that Gaius is spiritually going well? What are the muscles that are showing that he's worked out spiritually that prove that he's going well.

Well, look down with me verse 3 to 4 again. It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth telling how you continue to walk in it. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. See, what's happened here is that there are these believers that have come to John and come to the church and said, you should have heard, you should see how old Gaius is getting on. He is excellent.

They have commonly reported, and they're saying, this is a brother who has committed to the truth. He is faithful in the truth. He is continuing to walk in the truth. Here is a man who is so in love with god's worth. Is so in love with Jesus.

He's so committed to listening and, and, and reading and meditating on, on god's words. And ultimately, that trans- transforms his life that he continues to walk. It's like if you wanna do exercise, you wanna be strong in your exercise, you need to feed yourself good protein and carbohydrates. You need to nourish yourself so that you're able to walk strongly as you walk along. Well, how do you walk along spiritually?

You need to nourish yourself with spiritual truths, with the truth of the gospel so that you are strong spiritually. And nothing could make John happier than this. See that in the best war. We'll come back to that. Now I wonder if someone came to us and reported about you, what a horrible question.

What would they say? What would they say? Would they say that spiritually you are progressing? Would they say that you're committed to the truth and you're living it out? Now, what is the evidence that this is true of Gaius?

What is the evidence? I mean, this could just be an empty report, like, I was gonna say, when I, as a teacher, you might just write a nice report. I don't do this, by the way. I'm very honest. As a teacher, you write a report, and you don't really want the the parents to come back to you and, like, bother you.

So you just say, oh, he's fantastic, and, and then that'll be it. That sort of it. Is that what what's going on here? Are these believers just scared of gaius? No, there there is evidence here.

So look with me secondly. Hospitality, faithfulness proved. Hospitality faithfulness proved. That's 5 to 8, dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love.

Please send them on their way in a manner that honors god. It was it was for the sake of the name that they went out receiving no help from the pagans. We ought therefore to show hospitality to such people so that we may work together for the truth. So here are the muscles that have been worked out. They are rippling through his tight t shirts.

This is the evidence that he is faithful because you are doing what you are doing for the brothers and sisters. He is putting in the effort for the brothers and sisters He notices that there are people that have come to his area that are brothers who have been blood bought, that are fellow of family in the lord Jesus Christ, and he says, I'm gonna put effort in for them. And the great thing about it is he's never met these guys in his life. Do you see that? They're brothers, but they're strangers.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but someone walks through the door. You've never met them before. And they're a brother or a sister, but I've never met them before. They're strangers. But the, but this is this is 1 of the incredible things about the gospel.

It's so unites. I mean, there's some people here today. You might be Christians. I've never met you. I've never met you, but we're so connected.

The the lord Jesus, we're so united because what Jesus has done in shedding his blood for us that we're now we're we're we're now family, brothers and sisters. Hello? And so because even though I've never met you, because guy even though guys has never met these people, he can call them brothers, he can call them sisters, and he can look after them. And that's what he does. In these days, we, they had these itinerant preachers, that's traveling preachers.

They would go around and in these, in these at this age. Remember, the gospels just exploding across across the world, and they're going around faithfully preaching. You'll notice Dean was trying to, you know, give you some sort of mystery. It was for the sake of the name. It's for the sake of the lord Jesus, they're going around telling people about Jesus.

And they're doing a great work in sharing the gospel of Christ to people. And so Gaius is saying, these these people need welcoming, these people need support. And so he loves them. Verse 6, they have told the church about your love. He's loved.

And so John says, keep loving. Do you see that in the second part of 6? Keep loving. Please send them on their way in a manner that honors god. In a manner that honors God.

So you've looked after them. I'll send them on as they go to preach the gospel in other areas. Go and send them on the way. Support them most definitely in a financial way. Give them money so that they're able to take it and to support themselves.

So that they may preach the gospel free of charge, because that is what they're doing. Did you notice that in in verse in verse 7? It was for the sake of the name that they went out receiving no help from the pagans. To, here they are. These guys are going around and they're saying, look, we wanna give the gospel free of charge.

In those days, the sort of pagans or the gentile speakers would often ask the money of all people. Give us your money. The false teachers would certainly try and take money of people. But these brothers, these preachers that are like Paul who who consider it as a joy to say, look, I'm gonna give you this free of charge. I don't want your money.

I don't want your money. I want you to know the lord Jesus Christ. And so it is Gaius's great joy. That he can look out for these people, that he can support them financially. I mean, can you imagine that these, like, they're traveling around, they're preaching the gospel with all their heart they might face flack.

They might face persecution. They might face suffering. They're gonna be knackered. And so they come to this place, and Gaia says come in. Let me maybe bandage your wounds.

Let me offer you some food and some drink. Let me offer you a bear to lay your head on. Let me pray with you so that I can support you. Let me give you money so that you're able to support your ministry and carry on the way. What a joy it is for guys to do that verse 8 we ought therefore to show hospitality to such people so that they may that we may work together for the truth.

Look at the the blessing it is. For guys to do this. It's not just a bed and breakfast. This is a partnership. This is a sharing in the gospel ministry.

This is we're working together. I'm gonna help you so that together, we will work in order that the salvation may be preached to people, that Christ may be preached to people. And so it is a duty, but it is also a blessing that guys can show hospitality and that he can be a partner in the gospel. And so just as the gospel of love has transformed Gaius, may it transform us as Christians too? See, just as a minor minor point There'll be times where we have strangers coming to our church that we've never met, and they may stay all alone.

It'll be easy for us just to gravitate to the people that we know. The people I like, the people I serve with, the people that I understand. But the the the heart that's transformed by love says, no, I must go and look after the stranger. If you're here thinking, well, that's just for those people who are extroverts who know what they're saying. No.

That's not true. This is for everybody. See Christ Christ Christ came. For strangers. And if you are someone who is shy and a little bit scared, well imagine what that stranger is feeling like.

I remember hearing him, Don Carson, he was dog Carson, when he was a kid, came home to his mom and said, no 1 talks to me. I feel all alone. I feel like nobody talks to me and his mom had no pity for him. His mom said, well, if you think you're lonely, go and find the loneliest looking person in the room and speak to them. That's a gospel shaped attitude, but also let us be those who pray and support and show hospitality for those who preach the gospel, for those who are missionaries, for those who are evangelists, for those who will go into our country and in the various subcultures to preach the gospel to unreach people.

Let us be those who are generous givers. Let us be those who are willing to open up our homes and to allow people to come in and to share with us. See, that that's a live transformed by love. That's a that's a life that's transformed by the fact that Christ is 1 who puts the needs of others ahead of himself as he goes through a cross. And so as I look at Jesus, who puts the needs of others above himself, as I look at him, may I be transformed by that that love that the lord Jesus Christ has for me and who may I out pour love for other people.

That's what guys is doing here. See his attitude and his behavior. Let us have those sort of attitudes Like Matthew 25, that's why we read it, that that feed, that shelter, that look after the people of god. Not like what we see in the next verses. And that's my third point.

He loves first place. He loves first place. Look at verse 9 to 10 with I wrote to the church, but diotrephes who loves to be first will not welcome us. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that.

He even refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. Now, these verses seem a little bit jarring, don't they to what we've just seen? We've we've just had love and like looking out for people and looking at and looking after people. And now we get these verses, and and and it's the complete opposite.

It's a contrast here. Is it? Diotrophies is like the opposite to gaius. Now, why is it we have this? Because it seems like this letter is meant to fill our hearts with joy and fill our hearts with warmth, and then we get this little terror, little toe rudge.

Why we got him diotrophies? Why is he here? Well, I think 2 reasons really. Number 1, I think love calls out. Love calls out wrong.

And number 2, diatrophes highlights us what love really looks like. See, this is a a man diotrephes, who is a leader of a church, or a leader in a church, and he is a total opposite, isn't he? He's what, you know, you know when people, they they feed themselves, they get all the protein shakes, so they if they just drink protein shakes and then don't exercise, do you know what happens to them? No? They get absolutely fat.

Yeah? So if you looked at him spiritually and he was to match his spiritual life, he would be an absolute obese man. Yeah. He'd be absolutely huge. Unhealthy.

That's that's diotrophies. See, John's written to this diatribe. He's written to the church to say, look, here are some brothers. They're going to preach the name of Jesus. Will you welcome them?

Dialatribe gets this message. He says absolutely not a chance mate. Not on your not on your whatever. He's completely rejected it because why? Because, look at the verse, he loves to be first.

This is a man who does not love the truth. He does not love the people of god. He loves to be first. It's my way or the highway. I'm the boss here.

And so he so he he got no time to acknowledge John. He's got he he's got no time for John. He he he says, not for me. He refuses to welcome that the believers, that's because he desires to be first. He will not he will not submit to an authority above him.

I don't know if you ever tried to tell a child off or just an arrogant person or ask them to do something. No. Brilliant. That's that's that's that's diotrophies. Not shut no.

I'm not doing what you tell me to do. His desire to be first means that he slanders John he maliciously slanders John, the apostle John, the the John who walked and talked and and felt and listened to the lord Jesus himself, the 1 who who carries the apostolic authority himself. He says no. Must if I wanna be first, John can't be first, so I must slander him. The word is prating.

It's kinda like gossiping and and and evil talk about John. And and not only that, not only will I will I dismiss the apostle John, but I'll I'll also make sure that I don't welcome other people as well. I actually think I'll separate from everybody. What you believe that? Oh, not for me.

And that person believes something slightly different about verse 9 of 1, John 3 or whatever, and and that person just we'll separate from them. We won't welcome them. We'll reject them. We'll reject them. We'll reject them.

We don't like the look of them. Sorry, I didn't mean to look at that. We don't like the look of them. We reject them. And if you disagree with me, And you decide to try and welcome people, you're out of here.

You are out. Here we have a spiritual bully We have 1 who is domineering. We have 1 who completely abuses his power. And the result of the abuse of power and no love apart from the love to be first is that a church is crushed. And the devastating thing is that historically, this has happened up and down this country and across the world, where there are people that apparently know the truth on an intellectual basis, they can articulate the truth.

Yet they will slander anybody who disagrees with them and maliciously say things that aren't true to dismiss people. That refuse to listen to anybody else because their church is more successful than anybody else's churches. That if you disagree with me, you can get out of this church chuck them under the bus and we'll go across them. And so they are enacting Machu 25, but the opposite And so diotrephes rejects the brothers who are preaching for the sake of the name by rejecting them He rejects the apostolic Authority of John, and by rejecting the apostolic Authority of John, he rejects Jesus. So Jesus does not hold first place in diotrephes' heart, but he holds first place.

See, diotrephes isn't necessarily a false teacher in his doctrine, like we saw in to John. Theotrophies might not necessarily have fallen in a sexual nature or been about financial gain. But here is a man who has abused his power and he absolutely needs calling out and removing. And so John says I'm gonna come, and I will discipline him. Did you see that?

Verse 10. When I come, I will call attention to what he is doing He's gonna come. He's gonna discipline him. He's gonna call him out, but it's gonna be in a godly fashion in the way that Jesus prescribes in in Matthew. And so why is he why is this here?

Well, guys, he's saying, guys, maybe guys was kicked out for for this reason. He thought, well, maybe I shouldn't welcome people. And, maybe I'll be persuaded to stop welcoming if that might get me back into the church. He say, no, guys, don't be persuaded. Don't be tempted.

To be like, but be like diotrephes. Gaius, this is how we need to deal with people that are abusing their power. We need to call them out. Gaius, guard your heart, church, guard your heart. Don't have hearts that are are so divisive and and are so about putting myself first.

Church desire leaders that are so committed to the truth, and are transformed by the truth that they seek to love. They won't get it right. No. No doubt they'll get it wrong, but they, they, at least, they see to love in in truth and repentance, and they walk in obedience to the lord Jesus Christ. And so that leads me to my fourth point, who's patterned to follow?

Who's pattern to follow. I've tried to do her her prefer the whole way through. I don't know if you noticed, and I thought I've done it. And then I realized that this is oh, no. I did I did a her for her, and now it's her prefer.

Sorry. I only realized about 10 minutes ago I was devastated, but anyway, here we are. Who's pattern to follow? Who's pattern to follow? When we, when we, when we teach, we often give, example answers.

I give exemplars, and they that here's an answer for you to follow. If you want to get the grades in in history, just write like this. Just copy my answer down. It's absolutely marvelous. You might scrape a GCSE or or or or we have people that everyone has examples that they follow that he inspired to be.

And, there's, there's, there's, there's, if you wanna be a famous sports star, you might follow your favorite sports star. Or you've gotta, someone that you look up to, but there's bad examples, and there's good examples, aren't there? Now, you look at young people and you think, pick your, pick your examples wisely. If you're looking up to this lazy violent person. That's not a good example to follow.

But if you look up to Harry Glenn, hi, Harry. Harry's wonderful. He's a wonderful man. Yeah. Great.

What an example to follow? Christian Lads loves the lord, follows Jesus works hard for the glory of God. I'll follow him, even though he's younger than me. And so that's what John's saying. He's saying in verse 11, dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good?

Anyone who does what is good is from god, anyone who does what is evil has not seen god. See, don't be those who imitate evil. Don't have as your exemplar Diotrephes. That's evil. And that's not of God.

He's not seeing God because he doesn't, he doesn't follow in the example of the lord Jesus Christ, but but follow good. Like Gaius as we've seen, like John as we've seen, like demetrius verse 12. Did you see demetrius? I mean, look at his references. You know, when you apply for a job, you have to provide references.

He's got fantastic references. First 12, Demetrius is well spoken of by everyone. And even by the truth itself, we also speak well of him and you know that our testimony is true. That's triple triple. That's a trinity of references.

That that that everyone, the believers are so amazed with demetrius that he is living for the lord Jesus, that his life is reflected, that the gospel is reflected in his life, the truth. And the apostles themselves are saying this is a man worth worth imitating. So who you're gonna follow? You're gonna follow the gospel shaped man. You're gonna follow the the bona fide, the faithful, the the real deal.

The 1 who's seeking to follow the lord Jesus. So you're gonna follow the bully. He loves to be first. So we've been given I don't want us to focus too much on diotrophies. We've been given 3 amazing examples of people to follow.

You have Gaius, you have demetrius, and you have the apostle John. And there are 3 men there whose hearts are filled with the truth, and therefore are filled with love, whose lives reflect the truth because they love. They're the patterns that we want to follow. They're the ones we should want to imitate because they're their eyes are fixed on the lord Jesus, and they're trying to live like him. And so will you pray for your leaders?

Will you pray for your leaders? These are the these are the leaders that we should want to be and who we should want to follow. Will you pray that you will model just as Paul's exhausting guys to model Christian living? Or you pray that you will be a happy filled person in love with the lord Jesus Christ. And so fifthly, and I wanna swing back to this.

No greater joy. No greater joy. Isn't that an amazing sentence in verse 4? I have no greater joy. What is it that gives you the greatest joy?

What is it that gives you the greatest pleasure? Is it Is it when your sports team scores or scores that point? Yes. Is it the the great holiday where you don't have to do anything, but lie on a beach for 2 weeks. Is it that promotion that you've you've worked so hard to to attain and maybe get that pay rise?

Is it the fact that you've got into the university of your dreams? Is it the fact that your kids has done so well in their exams, and they got into the university of the your dreams. Is it the fact that you are loved? That you hold first place in the hearts and minds of people for. What is what is it that John says he has no greater joy in?

He has no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in a truth. That is what gives him the greatest joy. See, he, he, he so loves the the children of god, and he so identified with the children of god to find out that they're still going for the lord jesus Christ causes him elation. Is that what gives you the greatest joy? It's like Paul, Paul, when he writes about the greatest pain.

What gives him ceasing, un ceasing sorrow and anguish really is that there are people that go away from the lord Jesus Christ. I've been doing, I've been doing youth work for, well, I don't know how long, how long now, 15 or 16 years. I've done kids work longer. 1 of the greatest pains I ever had was was texting 1 of my 1 to ones and asking them how church was going. And then he said, I'm not going to church anymore.

And it completely broken. But what gives me greater joy than the pain is they will now see youth still serving the lord Jesus Christ. This morning, I saw Joanne still going to church. Fantastic. I see kids that I was that I saw in camp, and they're going for the lord Jesus Christ.

There's no creative joy. I hear of people coming to know the lord Jesus Christ. There is no greater joy. It fills my heart with joy. It fills the apostle John with joy would have filled gaius and demetrius with joy.

Why? Is it that this should be when I'm in tune, why is it that this is the thing that should fill me the most with joy? Because it means that my heart is in line with the lord Jesus Christ at the cross. Why is he on the cross for the joy that you might be 1 of his, and that you may follow him all of your days? He hangs upon a cross to win you, to be his children, and that gives him great joy.

And that should give us great joy. And maybe you don't know that joy yet, that lord the lord Jesus Christ hung upon a cross, and he shed his precious blood so that you may be in his family. Well, give us no greater joy today and come and now Jesus as savior and as lord and follow him for the days your life. What is the greatest joy for you? May your heart be filled with the joy of the lord Jesus Christ?

May his truth set your hearts fire, and may you love like him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this very, very short letter, but we thank you for all that it speaks to us. About the lord Jesus Christ. And so we pray father that as we look at him, as we look at these examples, that you'll be helping us to be those who walk by the truth, and in love towards 1 another.

Help us to have no greater joy than seeing people come to no crisis sake and to follow him the rest of their lives. We pray these things in Jesus 9, our