All right, we're in 3 John. Last Sunday, we got into an introduction to the book, saw some details, got some application. Today, we're getting into the first verses of the book. So if you turn to 3 John, we're going to look at the first two verses. And it reads here, the elder unto the well-beloved, I'm gonna say Gaius, because I looked up in the Greek, it's actually Gaius, 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. Okay, so when we read these verses, and we read even verses 3 and 4 and just consider it, what I see here in verses 1 through 4 is the attention to the general welfare of our fellow saints. the attention to the general welfare of our fellow saints. And you do see this quite often with the apostles and any of the writers of epistles, that they often start their epistles with some commendation or some thankfulness, some prayers they have. for the audience, the recipients. So here we have the similar thing with the Apostle John when he's writing to Gaius. He's writing in a way that he's thinking of the man he's writing to. So now, as we read through this portion and as we go through the exposition and the application, I want us to have the intention not to think of how others think of our general welfare, okay? Because we can often think, oh, that's a nice application for someone else. No, the application is always for us, ourselves. So it's to think of how can you seek the general welfare of your fellow saints. It's also to engender a general concern for the physical and spiritual welfare of your fellow saints. It's also to engender a genuine excitement over the spiritual increase of your brother or sister in Christ. It is also to prove in words and deeds of your desire for the general welfare of your brethren." Now, me being a history teacher, you hear general welfare, you know, I'm obviously I'm being very witty here. Okay, so, what I mean by general welfare is you're thinking of the well-being of your fellow saint. So, not thinking in a political way. All right, first of all, we see the writer and the recipient in verse one. And first of all, we see here that the apostle calls himself the elder, which is in the Greek presbyteros, the elder. The term is a term of rank and office, speaking of years and advancement in maturity and experience. It can also apply to those who are physically advanced in life, such as we think of a senior. But church-wise, we are more so speaking of someone who has more than enough experience in the spiritual things of God's institution, namely of those who preside over church assemblies. And that's what John is seeing himself as here, as someone who has a say. Someone who has a voice that has, you could say, seniority in what he's saying to this man, Gaius. It's a common term referring to the office of the pastor, and there's a slew of passages where you see that. And it's interesting to see John applying it to himself, seeing he's in the office of the apostle. Okay, he's the office of the apostle, but yet he's calling himself the elder. So, obviously you can see here that the term is not, it's also, you know, terms are sometimes qualitative. You say, what is that? Descriptive. I mean descriptive. And so in this sense here, I think John is using the term in a descriptive sense of describing his position of life, his position in writing these letters. So we're not touching whether or not either the pastor or the apostle has a higher ranking office. That's not what we're looking at here. What we can say is that they were different offices with two different functions, and both were necessary for the growth of the early church. Yet John called himself elder in both second and third John. And so it seems that he was fulfilling a role that was needed for those churches at that time. But we're not quite sure, though. We don't know all the back story. We don't know all the ins and outs of the historical data of why he's calling himself the elder. We can only speculate and go based on the word. Furthermore, the term elder is also synonymous with the term bishop or overseers, another title for pastor. And we see it in other passages, Acts 20, 17, 28, and then Titus 1, 5, and 7. Even in 1 Peter 5, 1, you see the term elder being used. where the duty of the elders bears a description that is close to what a bishop would do, which is feed the flock, which is leading the flock. And so that leading, that oversight, is something that an elder does as well. But what's the difference between the two? Well, the word bishop, the term bishop, can be more about function. Function, what does he do? Elder can be more about dignity, dignity, how much honor and respect he has. And so here, John is seeing that at this point of his life in his ministry, he has this honor and respect, and he knows it. And so he calls himself such, and he sees him in this position to be able to write this letter and to speak what he speaks. So this was John as he wrote this letter. He was coming to it as one with dignity and honor and position of respect and wisdom and tender care for those whom he has guided in the Christian life. So you see there's a relationship here in verse 4. It says, I have no greater joy than to hear my children walk in truth. John had a ministry to various people. And we see in 2 John that there was some spiritual relationship between these people that he had. And he had a ministry. And he was ministering to their growth and helping them along through their Christian life to be more of what they needed to be. So the elder. That's who John is, the elder. And then we see the well-beloved. That's Gaius, the well-beloved. He was the recipient. His name Gaius is a Roman name, as we said already, and it means lord. It means lord, like a landlord or a lord who is in charge of people, a boss. The word well-beloved means beloved, esteemed, dear, and favorite. It was a term of endearment among Christians that showed mutual love and often a tender address to a brother or sister in Christ. And this was how John was describing Gaius. This Christian was a well-loved saint in the eyes of John, very dear, highly esteemed, highly respected, seen as a grand asset to the Christian faith and ministry. And as we note this, two notes I can gather from this, this is how you should want to be thought of by others who serve in the ministry. You want to be thought of as well-beloved. You say, no, I'm going to be humble. I'm going to say, I'm not well-beloved. OK, no. You do want to be well-beloved, well-loved, very dear, to everyone that's in the church and especially to the leaders in the church. That's what you want to be thought of. A second note is this can be a way you think of other Christians around you. You can think of them as well-beloved. But that one person, well, they can be well-beloved. You just got to sometimes think hard. They can be well-beloved though. And so when we think of our fellow Christians, we need to think of how dear they are to us, how much we love them, and how much they are our favorites, as opposed to what you can have in the world. As Christians, what do we really have in the world? I mean, we have acquaintances, right? We have maybe work friendships or whatever. But it's not the same. It's definitely not the same. I'm sure some of you who are out in the world, you see it. It's just not the same. And to have what you have here, don't take it for granted. These people are very dear to you. These are, Mrs. Brandt, your people. They are your people. And this is where we find our friendship. Attached to Gaius was another description in the way of a relative clause we see here in verse 1, whom I love in the truth. John here used the personal pronoun for I, which provides emphasis to the personalization of this love for this man. John made no mistake that he indeed, he indeed, did love this man. In addition, this love for Gaius from John was an ongoing relationship because he uses the present tense, whom I love. I am loving in the truth. This was no stop and go, stop and go. Sometimes I love him, sometimes I don't. It wasn't like that. I always love him. I will always love him. It's that kind of love. And that's the love of the brethren. It's emphasized here that we indeed do love them. And it's persistent. It's a love that's persistent and never-ending in that we indeed do love the brethren. So that's some characterization to loving the brethren. I know Brother Marlow went through a lot of that in 1 John, but those are some characterizations of true love for the brethren. Furthermore, John's love for Gaius was in the truth. It says here, in the truth. Which most likely comes from two understandings. Two ways to understand what we're reading here. I believe both are true. First, it carries the idea of sincerely and truthfully. Sincerely and truthfully. The understanding of truthfulness, veracity, sincerity, free from falsehood, free from deceit, pretense, and stimulation. A good example of this usage is found in John 4, 24, where it says that we worship God in spirit and in truth. in truth, in sincerity, okay? In truth is the same phrase as here in 3 John 1, 2. And it's the idea of realness, sincerity, truthfulness, without hypocrisy and without deceit. Now the second understanding, and I believe this goes along with it, it's paired with it, in our Christian attitude. Second understanding of John's love for Gaius in the truth is a sincerity of character in harmony with the divine body of truth. It's in accordance with the truth. The truth. Okay? That's true love. So we see this in verse 3 here. It says, For I rejoiced greatly when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. That means in accordance with the truth. And also, you know, it's a real walk. It's a sincere walk. But a sincere walk can only be sincere as it's walking this way. the habit of thinking and acting in congruity with the truth. That's the idea here. Therefore, we see both understandings of John's Christian love for a saint. He loved Gaius sincerely and truthfully. No fooling, no hypocrisy, it was real. Secondly, he loved Gaius according to a divine and biblical love, a Christian love that is in accordance to biblical truth. So such is the proper description of Christian love. First, it ought to be a love without dissimulation. And we find this in Romans 12. It's got to be real, not faked or plastered. You know, you give your fake smiles. Then behind your back, like. Okay? It can't be the professional smile. You learn this in customer service. You get that professional smile, the courtesy smile. But deep down inside, you're like, you really are driving me nuts, customer. All right? It's that professional smile. Obviously, that gives a show of love. It's giving a show of, you know, Okay, well then I'll show my real feelings. Okay, hold back though, just rain back first. Pause, P-A-U-S-E, pause. What I'm saying is, it's gotta be real. It can't be skin deep. Otherwise it's just a shell with a hollow love. Christian love must be deeper than the skin and more than a shell. It must flow from a wellspring of the heart that is hopefully, hopefully overflowing with the love of God. And again, Brother Marlow had talked about that in 1 John, where the love that we show is only a reflection of the love of God within us. And so that love of God within us ought to be a wellspring that overflows and shows forth itself even to our brethren. It's that overflowing of the understanding of the love of God. And if you are ever struggling with your love for the brethren, just do a study on the love of God for you. You might be refreshed. And you'll see how much you are loved. You are loved. and then you ought to think how much I should love. So, and it's always, you know, a good refresher to go back and, you know, we'll probably, we'll see some of that tonight as we go through that message, which I'm looking forward to. But you see here, the love of God flows out of us. Secondly, Christian love is true love. That is, it is actual love. It is a love built with biblical principles. and in no contradiction to biblical truth. The world has its own warped definition of love. And we do no help to our brother or sister in Christ when we implement the world's kind of love. Christian love is sanctified from the world. It is a deeper and long-lasting love. The loves of the world, again, they're skin deep, They don't go very far. They're short-term, short-tempered. They don't go very well. But a Christian love is deeper and long-lasting. It is a love that can endure the hardest things in relationships. And relationships can be very hard, even among Christians. But true love can endure the hardest things of those relationships. It is a love that surpasses all kinds of love found in the world. I mean, consider, again, God's love. How much He endured us. How much He does endure us. And He still loves us, you know? He endures so much. He puts up with so much. And He loves us so much. In that same way, that same love will flow out of us towards each other. At least it should. This love, this Christian love, finds its generous source in the love of God, which is the best of all of His examples of real love. And since Christian love is sourced from divine love, it will be a love that holds fast and employs practices that the world could never do and will never do. So if we implement a divine love towards our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, we can truly say we have loved them in the truth. So here, John is being, first of all, truthful about his love, but his love is a Christian love. It's a real love. It's a love that surpasses everything. So in the next verses here, we see John showing this great Christian love for Gaius. How do you actualize it? How do you exemplify it? How do you see it in real life? Well, John is providing a good example for us in the following verses of how this love flows out, of how this love transpires. And so we consider this now, and it can be an example of how we can, forward this same love to our fellow saints. So in verse 2 we see here the wish for saints. The wish for saints. And first of all, we should wish the physical best for our brother or sister. We should wish the physical best to our brother or sister. The word beloved here is the same word used as for well-beloved, same verse, same word in the verse 1, but this time John was using it as a term to call Gaius. It was now giving Gaius a new name. Your new name now is Beloved. I'm just going to call you Beloved because that's what I think of you. John did not call him Gaius, but Beloved, again as a way of endearment. So there's no problem with addressing our fellow saints with terms of endearment, or with entering our conversations with one another with a spirit of endearment, or words that carry forth endearment towards one another. It gives a sense of a close brotherhood and sisterhood among us. This is a love that the world does not know, nor can have, nor can give. The love that we have here in our congregation is unique. It's unique because it's holy unto God. And that's what we ought to display. That's what's exemplified for us in scripture. That's New Testament. It's New Testament Christian church life, is that we show this way of endearment towards one another. And we may not be calling, you know, dearly beloved. Sorry, it's not a wedding. Dearly beloved. No, you don't have to use that exact term. But you may come up to someone like, hey, how you doing? I really like you. I care about you." And you start the conversation like that. And then you get into your conversation, you know? So things like that, you know, where we are having this sense of endearment to one another, that we're caring for one another as saints, as brothers and sisters in the family of God. Now, it says here, above all things, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health. It can mean that the preposition here that's used can mean, on account of all, or for the good of all, or as one said, as respects all things. It's clear here that the wish was one of physical concerning Gaius. So it's a physical wish that he has here, may his prosper in being held. And some expositors and commentators have tried to clear the meaning of above all things so as not to elevate the physical things above the spiritual things which were mentioned in the latter part of the verse here. You see both the physical and the spiritual mentioned in verse 2. Prosper and be in health even as thy soul, thy soul that's spiritual, prospereth. Okay so we see both and say, well, which one's more important? And so commentators, expositors, like to wrap their brains around this and say, OK, well, he's not saying that physical things are more important than spiritual things. He's actually saying, well, It's a strong drive for the Christian world to demote the physical things and the physical affairs of this life. I get that because we often see the pull and allurement of physical things in this life and how it draws Christians away so much. this mode into us that we like to shrink and demote the importance of physical things for Christians because we don't want it to be an allurement or an attachment or temptation for Christians to be drawn after it. I get that, okay? I do agree with the fact that spiritual things ought to take precedence over physical things. You have numbers of verses where you see that. However, we should be careful in this passage by placing a viewpoint that may not be there. We want to look at what it's saying. You don't want to come with what you think and then put that in there to say what you want it to say. No. You always look at a passage and say, OK, what is it saying? What is it saying? No, not what I want it to say. What is it saying? And so here, we've got to think, what is it saying? Now, surely the preposition, which is peri, where we get perimeter, around, can be used in different ways. A lot of the Greek prepositions can be used in so many different ways, so many different fashions. And that's where you've got to look at context. And these King James Version translators, these guys were smart guys. Have you ever looked at the history of them? Some of these guys knew Greek and Hebrew when they were four years old. How do you know Greek and Hebrew when you're four years old? Jade, knowing Greek and Hebrew at four years old? I doubt. Highly, highly, highly, highly, highly, highly, highly doubt that. No. But these guys were smart. These guys were brains, scholars. When they were translating these words, it wasn't just one. They had teams. They had teams, very intricate teams, and they were all counseling and advising each other on what they should do with the translation, with a particular word. So they're very, very careful in their choice of words here. So they chose here, above. as opposed to other words that could be used to describe how this preposition is being used in this context. They chose above as opposed to other words. So could there be a note in this passage that the physical gain and health of Gaius in this particular matter, in this particular situation, was utmost in John's mind? that in the case of Gaius, in this particular situation, as John is looking at it, and as he's thinking of this man, we're not thinking generally, we're thinking about this man, Gaius, John is thinking, this man's health, this man's physical benefit is of my utmost concern right now. I'm concerned, okay? I'm concerned. So can there be this here. Yes, it can. It seemed that at this junction, Gaius' life, John wished and wanted the best for Gaius physically, already knowing that Gaius' spiritual well-being was favoring well. You see that in the last of the verse, even as thy soul prospereth. His soul is prospering. His spiritual walk is going great. He's doing well. He's doing well spiritually. But his physical life, I don't know. It seems like there's something here that John is concerned about. Now, there's a popular heresy in John's time, and we know it quite well, with the Gnostics, the separation of the spirit and the body, the separation of the spirit and matter. Matter is things you can touch. The spirit is something that's intangible, immaterial. And so there is a heresy in John's time that said that there's a separation between the spirit and the body and that there should be the despising of the physical part of life, which led to two ways of practicing. First, some thought that neglecting the body and its health was being spiritual. That if you neglected your body and was ascetic and became weak and unhealthy, You must be a very spiritual person. You're very spiritual. Because look at you. You don't care. You don't really care. When you look at Berkeley, they don't care. They care and they don't care. What do you care about? I don't know. But they think that's spiritual. It's nirvana. But some, on the other hand, thought it was OK to indulge in fleshly desires, no matter what. No matter what. Because it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. The physical doesn't matter, so might as well just indulge. Doesn't matter. Makes no difference. So you had two extremes. John, through his epistles, was one to expel these ideas from the Christian thought and practice. Christians are neither. We care about the physical, but we also discipline our bodies in order to serve the spiritual things of the Lord. That's the Christian way of thinking. So it's not one or the other. Both are interconnected. The spiritual is connected to the physical and vice versa. You can't divide the two. Now the Greek syntax, say syntax, what's syntax? Structure, structure of a sentence, structure, grammar, okay, if you want to use that word. The Greek syntax of John's wish here is actually an accusative pronoun, accusative if you know English, be like you're a direct object kind of deal, but it's an accusative pronoun with two present tense infinitives. You say, what is that? That's just like, right over my head. My hair's gone. It went so fast over my head. Basically, it's forming a noun clause. That's what we're seeing here. It's forming a noun clause, which gives us the content of John's wish. So if I just simplify it for you, it's giving you the content of John's wish. What is John's wish? It's this. It says here, that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers. That's his wish. The idea of mayest prosper is a present passive infinitive meaning to be prospered, to be made successful. to be caused to succeed in business affairs and even your normal day-to-day affairs. It's used in the Old Testament, the Greek, the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It's used there in Joshua 1.8, which is a verse we know, and I'll explain that a little bit here. Joshua 1.8, Proverbs 28.13, 2 Chronicles 13.12, And then 2 Chronicles 18.11. But John 1.8 we know pretty well. Joshua 1.8 we know pretty well. It's that long verse. You're meditating on God's word and you'll have success and all those things. Well, success is spoken there. What is that success that God was promising Joshua? Well, in the context of the book, what was the mission? To conquer Canaan. It's success. And even as you read it in the Chronicles passages, you see this idea of success being used again. What is it connected with? Physical deliverance. Physical deliverance. Things going well physically. OK? And that's the idea here. The success spoken of in the context of Joshua was the success he would have in physical battles in the land as God commanded the children of Israel to conquer the people of Canaan. So by Joshua meditating and obeying God's command to conquer the land and to fulfill this mission, he would be successful in his endeavors to do this in life. So, in that context, it meant physical deliverance. And of course, such physical deliverances would increase Joshua's spiritual walk. And we see that throughout the book of Joshua, that his spiritual walk got increased as he flourished in his obedience, in his physical walk of life. In the New Testament, it's used in another passage. 1 Corinthians 16.2. You might want to look at that one. 1 Corinthians 16.2 says, Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. What is he talking about? Well, in verse one it says, now concerning the collection for the saints. What collection? Collection of money. Collection of offerings that would be then given to another church. So, like we said, money doesn't grow on trees. You actually have to work for your money. But who prospers you in your day-to-day life, how do you get that paycheck every week or every month? It just happens? Because I worked for it. Okay, that's true. But who's prospering you? God is. And how is he prospering you? He's prospering you with physical gain. Physical gain, physical benefits. which then can be used to minister to others here, as we see in this passage here. So, I'm going back to 3 John. What is John talking about here when he says, mayest prosper? He's talking about physical gain, physical benefits attributed to Gaius. Another way to give its meaning is a prosperous journey through life, having an easy and direct way. So having this prosperous journey, this, you say, smooth way of life that's provided for you. And so that's what is John's wish. John is wishing for Gaius to have a prosperous journey through his life, things that go smoothly in his life, physically, physical gain, success. Maybe Gaius had a job. And John wished that everything would go well for his daily affairs of life. Now, there's the second infinitive here. It says, and be in health. Well, what is that? Well, that's about physical health. It literally means to be in sound health, to be well, to be in good health bodily. Now, it's used in Luke 5.31, Luke 7.10, and Luke 15.27. Notice that I said Luke, Luke, Luke. You know who Luke was? He was a doctor. Oh, yeah. Well, a doctor would always be talking about spiritual, physical well-being, right? OK. Luke was the physician. He was one who would speak about physical health. In all of those, it is the actuality of a good physical health. It's used in different ways in Luke's gospel. But in all the cases, it's talking about physical health. sometimes borrowing the analogy of physical health to explain some spiritual message that Jesus would use the idea of physical health to explain something spiritually. But it's all talking about physical health. Also, You can say it's talking about a good and safe livelihood. Because you see it in the parable of the Particle Sun in Luke 15-27, where he says that he's safe and sound. Safe and sound. So another part of this is safety. So good physical health and safety. This is what John wished for Gaius. These things were the focus of John's concern for dear Gaius. And it was not to override nor to ignore the wish and want for the spiritual benefit of Gaius. But at this point, at this point when John is writing to this man, it seemed that Gaius' well-being and physical health were somewhat suffering, maybe. Or John was concerned that it might lead to physical suffering and affliction that his health would somehow go downhill if he just kept up his way that he was going here. And you do see Paul talking to young Timothy. Remember Timothy as a pastor? take a little wine, take a little grape juice for your stomach's health, for the health of your stomach. So you see these apostles being concerned about the physical health of these people. John wished for those things to go the best that they can for Gaius. And just as a note here, it is okay to focus in on and care for a Christian's physical well-being at times. It's okay. It's okay. But I only want to be spiritually minded. That's good. I only want to focus on the eternal things. That's good. That's good. but we are also living this physical life. Whether you want to live in the clouds or whatever you want to do, we are still living this life. Sorry, come back to reality. We are living this physical life and we do have needs. Could it be times that we will focus in or on the physical benefit of a dear Christian over the spiritual benefit? Could there be times where that does happen? Could there be times that a Christian's livelihood and physical health is faltering due to the service of the ministry and this matter needs attention? Could those cases come up? They could. As rare as they may be, it could happen. As in the case of Gaius, It was a dear Christian who spent so much time and energy with serving the needs of others, he did it at the expense of his own life and his own cost. It cost him something. And it seems like here, it probably cost some of his health in doing all this. It was commendable and praiseworthy. But how do we show love as John showed love to Gaius? Well, in this case, it might behoove fellow Christians to seek the general physical welfare of this kind of serving sacrificial saint. We see that in the passage on the widow, a true widow. What do you see there? Someone who has served long Throughout her life, and now she's in the end of her life, what does she need? She needs physical help. She needs care. Physical care. This is a similar thing here. This can happen. And I will say that there are a handful in our church who expend themselves serving the needs of others so much that they will neglect their own needs and at their own cost. And we're very thankful for that. It costs them money. They just give them this. It costs their money. It costs them time. It costs them even their own physical health and much more, many more things. Because they give, give, give, give, give. They serve, serve, serve, serve, serve so much. It's like they expend all their energy. They don't have any energy for themselves. Like they give, give, give, give, give. They can't even do their own laundry, okay? All right? All these things. This is when my heart goes out to such a sacrificial Christian. And then my desire is to provide means for that Christian to serve his or her own needs. They like to say, OK, this time, let's have someone else do it. I want you, this time, to think, what can you do at your own house? Because I want you to take some time to think and care, even for your own physical well-being. I mean, there are times where we think about that. And again, it's not to say, oh, I don't want you to serve. No, we want people to serve. Some people are more gung-ho than others. And they just go after it. And they just are after it over and over and over, but at the expense of themselves. And that's where our heart goes out to those. And we want to be a help to them. Say, how can we help you now? You've helped so many people in the church. Let's pause. How can we help you now? How can we help you? And so, having these thoughts, and there's many more thoughts I have here, but for sake of time, I'm gonna stop it there. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for giving us these passages, helping us to understand the New Testament life, and how we ought to behave ourselves within the church. I pray that you would grow our love here, that our love would abound for one another, and that we'd have this care, this endearment for one another as we see here in this passage.