10-26-14 Are you a Diotrephes or a Demetrius?!

3 John

 

Luther's song how it is - how it might have been originally

 

A mighty fortress is out God                 A bulwark never failing

Hey buddies, let’s all go to the bar.       And I will drink you under the table

 

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How many think we should have never gotten away from the King James bible?

How many think we should have never gotten away from hymns?

How many think we should never have gotten away from church on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night?

How many of you think Jesus read from the King James Bible?  How many of you think Jesus sang the hymns you love so much?  How many of you think Jesus went to 3 major religious services a week?

How many of you know that Martin Luther was Catholic?

How many of you know that Martin Luther loved the Catholic church?

How many of you know that Martin Luther wanted to make the Catholic Church more accessible to the common man?  He wanted people to know that biblically, salvation comes by faith through God’s grace and not by works or through buying your way into heaven.  He wanted the bible in the people’s language so they could read it for themselves.  He wanted the music of the church to match the secular music culture of his day so people who were inside and outside the faith could relate to it.

Do you know who hated Martin Luther? The leadership in the Church; but many people in the church as well.  Many others in the church loved him and millions of people who were outside the church then and now owe their knowledge of salvation to Martin Luther, because the ideas that got him excommunicated and the ideas that formed the Lutheran church are still carried out by many today, unfortunately, many Lutheran churches stopped with what happened in Luther’s day and missed the point.  The gospel never changes but the translation of faith through grace; of scripture; of music…never stops changing.  The church used to have to change its methods and modes of worship very slowly as society changed very slowly.  Today, not only do we have to change more often but as soon as we begin to change the change we are changing for is moving away from us and by the time we get there, something new is already before us.  Do not think that being a pastor in the new millennium is an easy job.  We have to never compromise on the gospel and  honoring the heritage of the older saints while never stop changing for the sake of the lost. This is compounded for pastors in churches who have people not willing to change – but moreso with people who are unwilling to see the need for change – CHANGE = TRANSFORMATION – or as it was called in Luther’s day – REFORMATION.  What is a reformation? A reforming of how things are done.  It is not making something totally new – it is reforming that which has been.  The gospel is constant = the way it is related too and delivered is always changing. If it is not, then the gospel will remain hidden.  I care more that the gospel be presented to the generations of people who do not know Jesus then those of us who do and those who are less likely to come to faith in Jesus.  An overwhelming majority of people who come to faith do so before their 21^st birthday.  Why do you think I plug away at technology – because I like it or have a natural gift for it?  NO WAY.  Why do you never hear me complaining about what style of music we do? Because I like it? Some, yes – but I love hymns and more than anything, I love the Christian music of the 70’s and early 80’s, the music we almost NEVER do.

KIETH GREEN

Swallowed into earth's dark womb / Death has triumphed / That's what they say
But tried to hold Him in the tomb / The Son of Life / Rose on the third day

Just look / The gates of hell / They're falling / Crumbling from the inside out
He's bursting through / The walls with laughter (Hah!) / Listen to the Angels shout

IMPERIALS

Sail on / When the water gets high  /  Sail on / When the wind starts to die
Sail on / It's just a matter of minutes / Till His ship comes to get us / And we'll all get in it

It seems that we have always had a battle in the church from the hardline traditionalist on one end and the anything goes non traditionalist on the other end.  Here is the truth – it is not about me. It was about me almost 40 years ago when I heard the gospel – and I will tell you more about that next week.

Luther lived (1483 – 1546) and was a Augustinian German friar (monk) of theology and central figure of the 16th-century movement in Christianity known later as the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased. He confronted the indulgence system – buying trinkets for forgiveness of sin, with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.

          In light of all of that, let’s look at our text for today: 3^rd John, written by John, the disciple whim Jesus loved and the author of 1 & 2 John the Gospel of John and Revelation. He was encouragement to believers to stay strong against false teachings.  We will look at that in detail next week with 2^nd John. For now, let us hear what he wrote in this 3^rd letter to the believers.

3^rd 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 all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. 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 (likely led to the Lord by John) are walking in the truth. 5 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 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.  (No one way of sharing Christ is best – there are many ways and always new ways-we should support one another in those efforts)

9 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.

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.  (We now know what happened when the Catholic Church put Martin Luther out of the church – imagine what the Catholic church might be today if they had listened to and worked with Luther)

(Do we have an example of good among these believers?) 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.  (We have Demetrius and Gaius – more good examples than bad in the church.  I believe that to be true of the church today.  The bad ones just tend to be more vocal. Which are you, a Diotrephes or a Demetrius?  Pry that the Demetrius will stand tall and the Diotrephes will have a change of heart and become a demetrius)

13 I have much to write 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. Greet the friends there by name. (Greet one another by name)

CONCLUSION

Remember John is writing to encourage the believers of his day to stand strong in the face of false teachings. Content is always first.  To fight for methodology is ludicrous if we don’t get the content right. Know that any time I talk about change – it is because I want to get the good news of the gospel to people who won’t hear it by the methods that worked for me or you = or at least by the same style that worked for me or you.  Don’t hold methods and programs as sacred – they will always come and go and more quickly than ever before.  With the content correct – Faith through Grace in Jesus alone is the way to heaven – let us always be a Demetrius church looking for the best ways to reach lost people. Remember that new wine requires new wine skins – otherwise attempting to put new wine in old wine skins will make the skins burst and all will be lost.  That is why “A mighty fortress is our God” is far from the only Christian song that borrows style from the world – there is our decision song that comes from an 8^th c poem.  To be heard by new wine, it had to be put in a new wine skin – the poem was set to an Irish folk tune in 1919called “Slane”, and you love it as one of the great hymns of the faith that you assumed had been around for centuries in the church – not so – let us sing it as a commitment to have our only vision be that of Jesus Christ –

High King of Heaven, my victory won, May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!  Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.