It's been a great privilege to have Mark and Tricia Bates here with us this week, and Mark, if you'll come on up, Mark is the MTW's Senior Director of U.S. Operations, and he's been challenging us all weekend, so come and preach the word, brother. It is a privilege to be here. Some of you know this, but my parents used to be members of this church, and you're in their seat. They're right there, so they're supposed to be sitting there, but they passed away a few years ago, but this church was their home, and you loved them and cared for them well, and I just want to thank you. As a son, knowing that the body of Christ is looking after your folks is just such a gift, and you did that for us. It's been great for us to be here. Obviously we've known of Chestnut Mountain for so long because they were here and we live in Colorado and we'd come back and visit, come here often. But also there's so many people that I could greet. I ran into Ralph Kelly the other day, he says hello. Ali Hazrati, she's doing great out in Colorado. And then all these missionaries that you support and that you are well loved by MTW because you have loved our people well. Well, this morning, I'm gonna do something. I've been a pastor for over 30 years, and I've never, ever done this. I'm changing what I'm preaching on right now. I just told Dio I'd do this a little bit earlier. We're gonna look at Romans 10 tonight. This morning, we're actually gonna look at 3 John. 3 John, it is near the end of your Bible, 1025, something like that, the page of your Bible, something like that. But we're gonna look at 3 John. Verses 1 through 10, you know the letter's short when it doesn't have any chapter divisions. So it's 3 John verses 1 through 10. And I wanted to look at that this morning because it addresses how all of us can join in this mission of God that he's given to his church. So let me read for us 3 John verses 1 through 10. The elder 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're 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 that you do 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. Therefore, we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. I've written 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, 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. This is God's holy and inspired word. Let's pray. Father, as we look at your word this morning, we come as your people needing to hear your voice, And so, Holy Spirit, we pray that you would come and be with us, that you would open our hearts to receive the word. Father, we pray that the word that goes out from my mouth would be truth, would be in conformity with the word that you have revealed here to us. And we pray, Father, that you would apply these things to our heart. Holy Spirit, stir us up. Awaken us. We need your reviving. We need your renewing. And we pray that today you would begin to do that work in us, that we might glorify you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. When the COVID pandemic first hit, obviously it was bad for everyone. But in certain parts of the world, it was particularly severe, particularly for the poor. And that is because the poor live day to day. They get enough money that day to buy food for that day. And when the country shut down, they could not go to work, which meant they could not get paid, which meant they could not eat. And so at Mission to the World, we collected a compassion offering. And my guess is you participated in that as a church and gave to that offering. And that offering went to the areas of most need. And so one of the areas was one of our partners in South Asia. And he took the money and he bought enough food for, when I say food, I mean like lentils, beans, rice, salt, and began to distribute those things to 561 families in this community. Many of the Muslims and Hindus who are struggling to find enough to eat by September of 2020 by September 2020 143 Hindus were baptized into the church Now the reason I say baptizing the church is significant That's because oftentimes people will make some sort of profession but the marker and this is biblically true by the way also the marker of of entry into the church is baptism. That means a break with the old way of life and it's starting of the new way of life. Then after that, later on, a year later, four Muslims were baptized and became part of the church. Now, I know what some of you are thinking because I was cynical about this. I said, of course they became Christians, we bought them. You know, we fed them. And so, you know, we paid them up. That's not what happened. I called up the gentleman who wrote this article. I said, this sounds too good to be true. Tell me what really happened. He goes, no, this is exactly what happened. In fact, it's even more dramatic than this because in this area where these Hindus and these Muslims came to faith in Christ is an area where Christians are under intense persecution. Christians have been persecuted, churches have been burned to the ground, and Christians have been murdered for their faith. So by converting from Hinduism to Christianity, they were not making their lives better, they were making their lives worse. They were joining the persecuted crowd. Now you're thinking, why would anyone choose to make their lives more difficult? Because they saw the love of Christ through the church and they believed the gospel message. your giving transform lives. They said the generosity of people who aren't even on their own continent giving to them and they're seeing this love for people who don't believe what they believe and they said their gospel, their God must be real. The gospel must be true. Our giving makes an impact. It changes lives. Now when we think of missions, oftentimes many of us think of missions as the work of missionaries. They're the ones who do the work. But that's not how the Bible talks about missions. Mission is the work of the church. The other night, Friday night, we said that the mission of the church is one thing. The church does lots and lots of stuff, but the church only has one mission, and that one mission is to take the gospel to all people in all places till all the earth is a temple to the Lord. And that's not just the mission of our missionaries. We all are part of that mission. We all have a role. And so today, this morning, we're looking at one of the shortest books in the Bible. It's a personal letter from John the Apostle to a friend of his named Gaius, and it's to encourage Gaius and the church that he leads in the support of missionaries. It's actually a missionary support letter in many ways. And so in this brief letter, John outlines for us some of the characteristics of a church that is aligned with the heart of God by engaging in his mission. And the first characteristic we see of the church is it has a commitment to truth. A commitment to truth. Did you notice as we read those verses how often that word truth pops out? I mean, it's over and over. So what has happened here is some missionaries had gone to Gaius' church, and the church did not know these missionaries previously. They were going out to the Gentiles, to the nations. And Gaius, they said, had welcomed them as a man who was full of love and walking in truth. But while Gaius welcomed them and supported them, there was another man in the church, another man who saw himself as the leader of the church, Diatrephes, who did everything he could to make life difficult for these missionaries. He refused to support the missionaries. He even kicked them out of the church. That's how poorly he treated these missionaries. And so for John, this mistreatment of the missionaries was not merely an affront to God's mission, it's also an affront to God's truth. It wasn't just they weren't engaged in mission, he was opposing the truth, and so we see this. In this letter he encourages the churches to support missionaries, yet in only 15 verses he uses the word truth six times. Verse 1, twice in verse 3, verse 4, verse 8, verse 12. And the point of this is clear. If you're committed to God's mission, you'll be committed to God's truth. And if you're committed to God's truth, you'll be committed to God's mission. Now what's interesting is John never explains what he means by the word truth. Verse 13, it sounds like he's kind of short on ink. He doesn't have time to explain everything. And so he just says truth. And so what does he mean by truth? Well, truth is one of John's favorite words other places too. He uses it a great deal in the gospel, in his gospel. And so in John 16 and 17, he connects the idea of truth with the message given to the apostles by the Holy Spirit. So the truth is sort of shorthand for the apostolic revelation, what we have now for us in scripture. So for church to be faithful to God's mission, it must be faithful to the apostolic word. And so we say that the Bible is our only infallible guide for what we're to believe and how we're to live. The Bible, therefore, is God's truth, and it is the only authority, the ultimate authority for how we're to believe and what we're to live. And so ultimately, we see that the Bible is true for all people in all places at all times. It doesn't change. We don't adapt the Bible. And so if the church compromises on the truth of God, it will compromise on God's mission. On the other hand, if it compromises on God's mission, it's compromising on the truth. Now the reason I say this is because oftentimes the idea of God's mission and God's truth are put into conflict, as if they're in some sort of tension. And so what will happen sometimes is some will so focus on truth and making sure we're pure that they neglect to engage in God's mission. They just want to make sure you're pure, pure, pure. And they forget that we're to be engaging in the world. Others will be engaging in the world, but they'll say, you know, we need to be relevant. We need to kind of get up to date. If we're going to connect with people, we need to change some of the things that we do. And they compromise the truth. And we see that either of these things is a neglect of God's truth and God's mission. And of course, we've seen that in our day, haven't we? We see that in our day now. We see, and sometimes in our own tradition, people are committed to the truth to such a degree, I wouldn't say to such a degree, but they're committed to the truth, and then they neglect God's mission. They're not doing anything to reach the lost in their community or in the world. And others we see who compromise on the truth, and we've seen that. We see what's happening in the church in America and around the world. But the Bible, Not only in this letter of John, but also throughout, we see that these two things are never in tension. Particularly in the book of Acts, we see that the church is to be committed to God's truth, so that the word says is true for all people in all places at all time, yet what we see is the church is incredibly flexible in how it goes about its mission. It's incredibly flexible. We see this in the very beginning with the book of Acts. So as the church begins to grow, remember the church when it starts off is all Jewish, essentially. And culturally, it's Jewish. But the gospel starts going out to the Gentiles. And the Jews are happy with this as long as the Gentiles start living like Jews. And so this starts to cause a tremendous amount of tension. So much tension that the church is about to blow up. It's about to split, and they have their first, what we'll call their first general assembly. All the people from the church come together, and it is not peaceful. They are at odds, and it is tense. And one side is saying that the Gentiles are welcome into the church, but they've got to be circumcised, and they've got to eat kosher food. No more barbecue. And we're not having that. No shrimp. And the other side is saying, wait a second. That's not right. God is going to the Gentiles. And so it ends up the Holy Spirit works through the deliberation of the saints there, of these elders at the church, and they say, you know what, Gentiles, You can live like Gentiles, but you still have to live according to God's law. You gotta put away the sexual immorality and the idolatry, all those things, but you can go out and you can mix your wools and cottons and it's gonna be okay. You don't have to be kosher. And so the church settles this thing and says Gentiles do not have to be circumcised. Now what's interesting, that's Acts 15. In Acts 16, the Apostle Paul goes back to Jerusalem And as he goes back to Jerusalem, he takes Timothy with him on this mission trip. So Timothy is going with Paul on a mission trip back to Jerusalem, where they're all Jewish, and Timothy hasn't been circumcised. And Paul says, I got bad news for you. Before we go, you're going to have to be circumcised. Now, what's interesting is Acts 15 said, do you have to be circumcised to follow Jesus? No, you do not. Timothy did not have to be circumcised to follow Jesus. But Paul said, we're going to the Jews. You've got to get circumcised. In other words, we're going to adapt to the cultural setting where we're going. We're not going to compromise. We do not compromise the Word of God at all. The Word of God is true for all people in all places at all times. We never compromise on that. But at times our methodology will change. By the way, there are many, many differences between Christianity and Islam, but Christianity has always been multicultural in a sense, in its application. Islam is monocultural. Like, you really can only read the Quran in Arabic to be truly, truly, so it's a full culture. But Christianity is diverse in its cultural expressions throughout the world. And so we see it doesn't compromise on, the church does not compromise on the truth. And so the church has always shown tremendous cultural adaptability, but never compromises on what the Bible teaches. The Bible properly understood is binding on all people, at all times, at all places, but there's flexibility in how the church goes about its mission. But then the idea of truth, though, is even more than just the Bible in general. But John, in his letters, focuses on a particular aspect of the truth. And by the way, we sang about it just moments ago. His robe for mine. is the gospel message. And it's this aspect of the truth that John is highlighting because the tendency is for everyone to take the religion of Christianity, that our faith, and our faith is simply this, that we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, and to take out that word alone. and add some mixture of works to that. And we have this tendency to think that our standing with God, what we'll call our justification, how we are right with God, is based on what Christ has done and on our works to some degree. And this is an adulteration of the gospel, and every time the gospel gets perverted, that is happening in some form, every single time. And John is saying we have to stand on this, that we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. And what that means is that in Christ, we have had this great exchange that we sang about moments ago. And here's what this means, Christian. I don't know what state you are coming in to church this morning, how you feel about how God feels about you, but my guess is for many of us, we walk into this building and we assume that how God feels about us is based on how well we've been performing. If I've been a good Christian this week, then God's smiling. If I've been a bad Christian this week, then God's frowning. That's not the gospel message. The gospel message is that Christ gives us this righteousness, and here's the image, is that we have a robe on us that is full of sin and dirt and our guilt and our shame, and that robe has been taken off of us and has been laid on Christ. And when Christ died on the cross, he paid the penalty for our sin so that the penalty for all that we've done has been satisfied. Therefore, there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is therefore no condemnation. And so that's the gospel message. So we walk into the room knowing as we go before the Father that he is no longer angry with us if our life is in Jesus Christ. But it gets better than that. Not only is there no condemnation, but not only do we give Christ the robe of our sinfulness, but he gives us the robe of his righteousness, which means we stand before God glorious and beautiful. I think this is an idea that we often miss. You're not just a forgiven sinner. That is not who you are in Christ. You are righteous in Christ, adored by God. I've done a lot of weddings in my day. I did a wedding at one of your missionaries, Ben and Anna Coppedge. It was a lot of fun. And they do RUF at the University of Georgia. And I remember, it's in Athens, we did this wedding, and I remember being at the front of the church with Ben, And I think ministers, we have the best seat in the house at weddings. Because we're here at the front, I'm standing next to the groom, and we get the first glimpse of the bride at the back. There has never been an ugly bride, ever. And I see the bride, and I look at the groom, and I see the groom look at the bride, which is just fun. And he's just thinking, you know, they're always thinking this, wow, I can't believe she's marrying me. And I look at him and I say, I can't believe she's marrying you. I mean, I don't know how this happened. I mean, look at her, look at you. I mean, it just doesn't make sense to me. The way the groom looks at the bride is how the father looks at you. The way the groom looks at the bride is how the father looks at you. That's the gospel message. It is not based on your performance. It is based on the righteousness of Christ given to you that you receive by faith alone in Christ alone. That's the gospel message. And by the way, people talk about Christianity going out and how Christian Africa is and how Christian Latin America is. Oftentimes, that's not the gospel message that's being preached. It is a gospel message of works and performance and prosperity gospel. And yet here, John says, the key to this is the truth. If you're committed to the truth, you'll be committed to God's mission. If you're committed to God's mission, you'll be committed to the truth. And so that leads us to the commitment to the truth. Secondly, a commitment to sending. A church that's committed to the truth is committed to sending. So what's happened is these missionaries are going out to a region where there is no church. There's no one there. And so to do this, they need funding. I mean, someone's got to pay for all this. And so they need funding. So in verse 6, John tells us that Gaius, he tells them to send these missionaries on their way. And by sending them on the way, he doesn't mean just simply say, send them on their way, you know, thanks for stopping by. What he means is provide for them, give them the provisions necessary to do the work. That's the church's responsibility. The missionaries go, we provide them, we give them the provisions. So they need money and accommodations, probably letters of introduction, maybe even companions for safety to get them there. That is, the church wants to do everything it could to send these missionaries so that they are prepared for the mission. That's the job of the church. Now, one of the questions I often get asked is why send missionaries overseas when there's such great needs right here, right? You know, it's not exactly like things are going great right around us. There are lost people all around us. Do we consider this area Metro Atlanta? I grew up in Dunwoody. This seems like a long way from Metro Atlanta. But if you consider Metro Atlanta, there are just a lot, a lot of lost people, right? And so why go to Japan? You know how expensive it is to go to Japan? That's a lot of money. Why go there? You can do a lot cheaper reaching people here, a lot cheaper. So why do that? Well, there are great needs here. Here's the good news. We've already got lots of missionaries for here. Look around the room. We've got all we need. We don't need more missionaries in Atlanta, or Brazelton, or Flowery Branch, or Auburn, or Dekula, or anywhere else. We've got plenty. We just need to get out and do the work. But you go to Japan, there aren't plenty. There aren't plenty of missionaries in places like Japan. You know, you think of Japan's, say, less than 2%. I think it's more like less than 1%, isn't it, really, of Christian. Consider England. England is officially a Christian country. England is officially a Christian country. Less than 5% of the people go to a church of any kind, of any kind. Africa, South America, countries that are now considered a majority Christian, but mostly Christianity in these countries is work-based religion, prosperity gospel full of legalism. In other words, people have exchanged one form of bondage for another. The people of Germany, Cambodia, Lebanon, they're not going to pay for missionaries to come to their countries. Someone has to do that. And we get the privilege of doing that. We get the privilege of sharing in that work. And our motivation is not merely one of duty. Our motivation, we see, ultimately, is the heart of God. In verse six, John says that the thing that the missionaries averred most about Gaius was his love. It's his heart. You know, raising kids is expensive. I mean, it just cost a doggone lot. And yet, at the same time, I think almost every parent I know would say, I wouldn't have it any other way. I wouldn't have it any other way. Because it was such a joy, a privilege to care for my children. It's what you wanted to do. And the same thing when your heart is engaged with God's heart, when you remember how much He loves you. then your love for him is just going to spill out in generous sacrifice. So Gaius is a loving person. He's a loving man because he's gripped by the truth. The gospel has gripped him. As John said, he's a man who walks in the truth. So notice the chain. Those who walk in truth will love, and those who love will share. The more we walk in the truth and realize what Jesus has done for us, the more we'll love God and others, and genuine love always results in practical commitment to God's mission. As John says in 1 John 3.16, not John 3.16, but 1 John 3.16, by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. Jesus gave his life for us, therefore we have the joy of sharing and supporting of others. Which is the third point, commitment to truth, a commitment to sending, and third, a commitment to supporting. Look again at verse eight. He says, therefore, we ought to support people like these that we may be fellow workers for the truth. Now, that word ought can also be translated oh. It is an obligation. It is not optional. So, for example, when my mortgage company sends me a notice about my bill, it's not a suggested donation. That is what I owe. I've got to pay. It's owed to them. And that's the word that is used here. He says that we actually owe it to missionaries. This changes our view, I think, of supporting missionaries. We look at it as something, you know, like we're being extra generous to do. And you are. By the way, this church is so generous. So please don't hear me saying anything other than that. I want to encourage you to continue is what I want to say. But it is an obligation. It is an obligation we have as the people of God to engage in this work. And not only that, verse 6, John says that we should send them on their mission, do you notice this? In a manner worthy of God. That is, they're to do their work to the glory of God, but we're to support them in a way that honors God too. So what's a manner worthy of God? How do you care for somebody? I'm gonna support you in a manner worthy of God. That implies incredible generosity, making sure their needs are met. So mission is not the work of missionaries, it's the task of the people of God. It's the task of the people of God. And here's where the finances are so critical because as you think about how the work of God's church has happened over the ages, you know, have you ever heard of a man named William Tyndale? William Tyndale was one of the first to translate the Bible into English, and the Bible is distributed. We know Tyndale. Do you think Tyndale paid for those Bibles? Tyndale didn't pay for those Bibles. There's a man named Humphrey of Monmouth who funded that. The gospel went out in England, not just because of Tyndale, but because of Humphrey of Monmouth, Martin Luther. Martin Luther, we all know Martin Luther. Martin Luther could not have done what he did without the support of Frederick the Wise. I mean, just could not have happened. And so our giving enables the gospel to go out in tremendous power and has tremendous results. Several years ago, NFL quarterback Derek Carr, he was playing at that time, it was the Oakland Raiders, And he was playing for the Oakland Raiders, and he signed a contract, at that time, was the highest contract for any NFL athlete. It was for $125 million. $125 million. That's been surpassed, by the way, now, by a long shot. But it made him the highest paid player in the NFL. And a reporter said, what are you going to do with all that money? I mean, that's a lot of money, $125 million. Here's what Derek Carr said. He said, the first thing I'll do is pay my tithe, like I've done since I was in college. That won't change. I'll do that. Then he said, I'll probably give my wife something nice, you know, even though she begs me not to. But the exciting thing for me, money-wise, honestly, is that this money is going to help a lot of people, and I'm very thankful to have it, that it's in our hands because it's going to help people, not only in this country, but a lot of countries around the world. He gets it, right? $125 million, what are you gonna do? I'll get my wife something nice, but it's gonna help a lot of people. I'm gonna tie it, and then I'm gonna send a whole bunch more out to bless the people around the world. You know, 125, that's a lot of money, but the average American worker will earn about $2.7 million in her or his lifetime. 2.7 million, that's a lot of money. My question is, what are you gonna do with all that money? What are you going to do with all that money? The average evangelical Christian gives 3.2% to charity. By the way, that's far more than any other category. Evangelical Christians are by far the most generous people. And yet, still it's only 3.2%. Half give less than 1%. Of those who give 3.2%, 95% goes to home-based missions here in the US. Only 4.5% goes to cross-cultural missions. And of that, only 0.5% goes to reach the unreached people groups. People like Japan, people in the Muslim world, and unreached people groups. So that's a lot of math. Let me break it down for you. If someone makes $100,000 a year, $16 goes to the unreached. We've all been given a lot of money. All of us have been given a lot of money. What are we going to do with all that money? Oftentimes we say, I can't afford to give more. What we mean is I can't afford to give more without changing my lifestyle. Jonathan Edwards, early American preacher, observed this. If you say, I can't help someone, what you usually mean is I can't help someone without it cutting into how I live my life. He says, quote, if we are never obliged to relieve others' burdens, but only when we can do it without burdening ourselves, then how do we bear our neighbor's burdens when we bear no burden at all? In other words, he's saying, if you can bear one another's burdens, it's going to be a burden. It's going to be a burden. And if our workers are going out to sacrifice for the sake of the kingdom, then the call for the rest of us is, can we lower our lifestyles a notch? Can we live more cheaply? Can we change what we do so that they can be engaged in the work? Can't we give generously? Not just because they need it, but for the glory of God. He's not receiving the worship that he deserves. And out of his love for us, we respond by loving others and by giving generously. During World War II, England needed to increase its production of coal, and it was a major issue for the battle. And so Churchill called together the labor leaders to enlist their support for this effort. And at the end of his presentation, he told them to imagine a parade that would happen when the war was finally won that would be held at Piccadilly Circus. He said, first would come the sailors who had kept the vital sea lanes open. Then would come the soldiers who had come home from Dunkirk and then gone on to defeat Rommel in Africa. Then would come the pilots who had driven the Luftwaffe to the sky, out of the sky. And he says, quote, last of all, he said, would come a long line of sweat-stained, soot-streaked men in miner's caps. Some would cry out from the crowd, and where were you during our critical days of our struggle? And from 10,000 throats would come the answer, we were deep in the earth with our faces to the cold. We're the miners. That's our job. So the workers can go out. We're going to put our face deep into the coal. You may be a sailor, a pilot. You may be a business person. You may be retired. It may be whatever it may be. But our calling is today. to join in the work of God by giving generously to the work that he is doing around the world so that we may share in the victory that he is winning. Join me as we join in the work that God has given to us. Let's pray. Our Father, we do thank you that you are a generous God to us, for we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for our sakes, he became poor so that we, out of his poverty, might become rich. And so, Lord, may that be our motivation. May we remember that you delight in us, not because of our giving, not because of our works, not because of our performance, but because you have given us his robe for ours. And we pray that we would so rejoice in that truth. that would spill out into love for you, love for others, and love for the lost. And we pray that out of that love, that we would give generously and sacrificially in ways that change even how we live today, so that the work can go out in powerful ways to the gospel, the gospel to the nations. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.