There are 21 New Testament letters, which means out of the 27 books of the New Testament, turning to a new one, chances are you're going to be opening to a letter, with the exception of a few Gospels, Acts, and Revelation. And a few of these letters are actually written to individuals. Normally you have either regions or churches. The Ephesians, the Philippians, the Thessalonians. A few of them are individual letters like first and second Timothy. Two letters to Timothy from Paul. One from Paul to Titus. One from Paul to Philemon. So four personal letters come from the Apostle Paul himself. But outside of Paul's letters, the only other private personal letter you get is this one, the letter of 3rd John written to an individual. This is a postcard epistle. I called 1st John, nope, I called 2nd John a postcard epistle last month because it could fit in its brevity on one side of a sheet of papyrus. And so if you bought a postcard somewhere and Scribbled a little note and mailed that off. You get the idea of something brief, one-sided, and they get sent for the purpose that's there. You're not writing a theological treatise when you're writing something so brief. You're getting to the point, in fact, Third John has several reasons why it will be so brief and several functions we'll note in a moment. I do think there are features of the letter worth noting. Number one, It is the only book in the whole Bible with the designation 3rd in front of it. There are some occasions where you'll have 1st because there's a 2nd. So you have 2nd Corinthians, 2nd Timothy, 2nd Chronicles. But there's only one book in the whole Bible that actually has 3rd something, and it's this book. It's also the shortest book in the whole New Testament. In the original Greek text, there are only 219 words. This can sometimes look misleading because there are more verses when the versification was added in 3rd John than in 2nd John. But don't let that misguide you. Word count, in the end, is what determines the length of something, not just the verses that someone added later. And with word count, you're looking at only 219 words in the original Greek. Not only is it the shortest book in the New Testament, number three, it's the shortest book in the whole Bible. And again, by word count. So even those small minor prophets like Obadiah, 3 John is smaller than that little minor prophet. Number four, it's the only New Testament book that doesn't mention Jesus by name, which is surprising, because you would expect that the writers would be talking an awful lot about him. And yes, they do. There is an ambiguous reference to Jesus, and I don't mean it ambiguous in a negative way, but there's a reference in verse seven to people going out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. And that name there is probably, by implication, the name of Jesus. But it is the only New Testament book that does not mention him explicitly. The other 26 New Testament books do. I should note, number five, it has words and themes that are similar to 2 John, which we spent three weeks in last month. Some similarities include the following. The author describes himself as the elder in 2 John 1 and in 3 John 1. The recipients are people whom he loves in the truth. That language of in the truth and love in the truth is used in both of those letters. He speaks of great rejoicing, great rejoicing that he experiences in 2 John and in 3 John. His recipients walk in the truth. That brings him joy in 2 John and in 3 John. The elder, this writer, has received good reports. He's received a good report in 2 John that leads him to say things, and the same thing in 3 John. He's received a good report. Both letters contain a warning. Both letters report his desire to see them face to face in some upcoming visit. And then at the end of both of the letters, people send greetings through him to these other individuals. So 2 John and 3 John have a remarkable set of similarities, and that's just a chunk of them. There are more. And lastly, the structure of 3 John is very similar to 2 John. If you were to take the pattern and the flow of the letter and then pull out some of the meat of 2 John and fill it up with 3 John, it would almost overlap very nicely with the order in which he addresses and encourages and expresses certain things. There's very much a similar structure. So by God's own design, we've got this personal letter. But it's not written to me and it's not written to you initially. My name is not Gaius. Now some people say Gaius or Gaius, you see people pronouncing it both ways. Later in verse 12, there's this guy Demetrius. That's pretty much the only way you'll hear it pronounced. But then in verse 9, there's this guy named Diotrephes. So is it Diotrephes, Diotrephes, Diotrephes? People have all kinds of different attempts because we're trying to speak this word, and we might not know anyone with that name. I'm going to say Diotrephes, Demetrius, and Gaius. And if you've heard or been persuaded similarly, I hope you know who I'm talking about. That's all I'm saying. But we've got this personal letter to Gaius. And according to 2 Timothy 3, Paul says that all scriptures God breathed and is profitable for teaching and reproof and correction and training in righteousness." If we apply that statement to the entirety of these 66 books in our canon, then we don't want to neglect 3 John. We want to instead ask, what can we learn and what will be profitable for us in the little letter of 3 John? It is a letter of commendation and recommendation. John is writing to commend an individual he mentions much later in the letter, a guy named Demetrius. So he's writing to someone, commending someone. He's also going to write about a third individual in a negative way. But he's wanting to exhort this recipient named Gaius to continue in certain behavior that apparently has been reported to John. Gaius has been hospitable. Gaius has been receptive to what John calls some brothers in verse three. And these brothers who experienced such warm hospitality from Gaius have returned to John and they've just sung the praises of this guy named Gaius. They've talked about how much he's loved, how much he has been walking in the truth, but they don't only have a report about Gaius, Apparently Gaius wasn't the first guy whose home they went to. Apparently these brothers first went to a guy named Diotrephes in verse 9. who did not receive them, who rejected John's authority that they came in, and who apparently made such a negative impression that the brothers came singing the praises of Gaius who received them and complaining, not in a sinful way, but speaking critically about the behavior of this Deatrophis. And so what John is doing with this letter is he's sending more. And he's sending them back to Gaius. Don't fix what's not broken. He received them the first time. Even someone else was unwilling. Gaius received them. And now these people have come, and this man Demetrius is there in verse 12. It's possible that Demetrius is the bearer of the letter. We don't know when this letter was written, possibly before the temple's destruction in AD 70, possibly between 85 and 95 AD, near the end of the first century. Those are the two main options. But the letter bearer is probably the guy Demetrius in verse 12. It's very common in the ancient world to have this kind of private letter, a letter of recommendation. So let's say you were applying for a job, or you were looking into getting into a school, and you had to contact someone and say, I need you to recommend me. They don't know me, but you know my character, or you know my work ethic, or you know this experience that I've had, and you could be contacted to provide a recommendation that I would fit, that I'm not going to be a mistake in the long run. What we would need to recognize about the ancient world is that nobody has encounters with and connections with every believer in the ancient world. People are traveling around and are relying on the hospitality of people they don't know. So very commonly what you would have is they would bear a letter that someone wrote for them. And it would be a letter of recommendation. And it would need to be from someone you know. Well apparently this guy Gaius in verse 1 and John know each other. So up walks Demetrius with this letter. Demetrius has a recommendation. And Gaius is encouraged to receive these new brothers, maybe they're missionaries, traveling evangelists, itinerant speakers, whatever they would be. John wants Gaius to receive them in again. And so I think Third John has a few functions. We could identify four specific functions about the letter. Number one, it's to encourage Gaius. He might not have been the first home that was an option for the people to stay in, but Gaius received them when it came down to it. He stood up even against what Diotrephes was encouraging people to do, namely to reject the missionaries or itinerant evangelists. So John wants to encourage Gaius. Gaius is walking in truth. He is holding to the faith. He's engaged in hospitality. In the ancient world, that was important. You didn't have hotels on every corner, okay? And I want you to think about the reality of the ancient world. It would not have been safe in many respects to travel anyway, especially by yourself or even in small groups. There were robbers and bandits who were eager to take advantage of people who were older or traveling by themselves or who looked weak. It was very common in the ancient world to view travel as you were just traveling by faith and you hope you got there and you hope you got there in one piece. But just simply by the fact that there were hotels or motels in those regions or inns for people to stay in, didn't mean those were safe places either. The best option for traveling missionaries was to go to the house of another believer. It was very and very much made sense in the risky travel of the ancient world. The second function of the letter is to commend Demetrius. So Demetrius is likely the letter bearer, and it's a letter of recommendation, and he's gonna give it to Gaius, so that even though Demetrius and Gaius don't know one another, John is simply saying, with this letter, you can receive this guy, I vouch for him. That's a good thing, you'd want someone to vouch for you in the ancient world. Number three, the third function, to identify a troublemaker. Okay, so all is not well, there's a problem, And where you find problems, you often find people. And there you have this guy, Diotrephes, and he has been a troublemaker there in the region. So John is going to identify him by name. This is the only place in the whole Bible Deatrophis is named. Can you imagine being the guy who goes down in the biblical canon in a negative way? I mean, you basically have described of you and characterized this idea of arrogance and wickedness and evil actions that are not to be imitated. This is all we know about the guy, and it's not good. It's not good. This is what he's enshrined in and inscripturated with his name as a lesson of who not to be like. Oh, what a way to go down in the biblical canon. Rather than having a positive example to imitate, he's someone you don't want to be like. But here's the fourth function of the letter. To prepare for an upcoming visit. At the end of the book, he says in verse 13, I had much to write to you. I'd rather not write with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon and we'll talk face to face. You can see why this would be a good strategy to end with, too. If you want Gaius to act in a certain way and you remind him at the end, hey, I'm coming soon. That would probably help, at least just a little friendly pressure that you would do the right thing. Because in the end the Apostle is going to show up at your doorstep and you're going to have to answer. Not only would it be helpful for John to put a little bit of pressure on Gaius, If Diotrephes knows that John is coming, that might help him alter course as well. Even though we don't know how that turned out in 3 John, hopefully, with John's arrival imminent, Diotrephes would get his act together and become someone to imitate and quit such what John calls wicked nonsense. I love the way the ESV translate that. They're in verse 10. He's talking wicked nonsense against us. All right. So here in verse 1, we're going to see the author and the recipient. The author is called only the elder. I argued very in a lengthy opening, I think, to 2 John series last month, that this elder is likely the apostle John. I've even been using the name John in my opening remarks this evening. I think that it's still John in this letter, as it was in the other letter. the author of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, the author of the Gospel of John, the author of the Book of Revelation. He's contributed the widest variety of genres to the New Testament. This is the disciple whom Jesus loved, according to John. We do see John as among the three, Peter, James, and John, who experienced special teaching and revelation from Christ, including the transfiguration in Matthew 17. and various privileged opportunities like that, including in the Garden of Gethsemane, where they separated from the other majority of the disciples to go a little bit further with Jesus. And every time Jesus went to check on them, they were sleeping. But nonetheless, this is that John. And it tells us he's writing to the beloved Gaius. Even the opening flourish and the fact that John's writing to him again, this indicates that their relationship has been established. John will call him later his child in the faith, or his child that's walking in the truth. And I take this to mean that John and Gaius, while not in the same latitude and longitude, they've got a relationship, spiritually speaking, and so John is writing with gladness to someone he calls the beloved Gaius. Now, that name might be familiar to you if you've recently spent any time in 1 Corinthians or Acts. There are a few people named Gaius. But here's the problem. Gaius was one of the most common names in the Roman Empire. So some people wonder, well, what about this guy in 3 John? Is he the Gaius from Acts or the Gaius from 1 Corinthians? Maybe. It's impossible to know. It's just impossible to know. It could overlap with one of those guys at some point. but it's impossible to conclude with certainty. There are several men then that seem to be different Gaiuses in the New Testament. This may be an additional one and not one of the same, given how common the name was. But Gaius is a man, according to this letter, who is true to the faith. And friends, that is the kind of man or woman you want to be known as. You want to be known as someone who is faithful to the truth. And when these brothers who didn't know Gaius came and Gaius received them, that was their testimony when they went back to John. They said, this guy is faithful to the truth. He walks in the truth. So John, calling him the beloved Gaius whom I love in the truth, apparently has a lengthier relationship, more established in terms of time. These brothers, in a short time of being with Gaius, are saying the same thing. So people who know Gaius briefly, and people who know Gaius over a longer period of time, are saying the same thing about this guy. the beloved Gaius whom I love in the truth." So he's personally known. He offered hospitality that was apparently very substantial. He was widely respected in verse 3. The brothers came and testified. So more than one individual came with a positive report. And it seems that he exercises influence in the church. I want us to imagine this plausible scenario. There aren't church buildings separate from homes in the ancient world. The early church met in house churches. What's likely is that Diotrephes has a home where the church is meeting. And so here come these missionaries, and they're coming to Diotrephes, who's apparently some leader or person of influence in the church, and they come and they intend to receive hospitality from this fellow brother. but he rejects them. So another person in the church who knows Diotrephes, this guy Gaius, he opens his home. He might not have been the place where the church normally meets and assembles, but he is someone who receives them with hospitality, and so John writes to him. and calls him the beloved Gaius. That's quite a term, beloved. I just want you to scan with your eyes for a moment. In verse one, he calls him the beloved Gaius. In verse two, he says, beloved, I pray that all may go well with you. In verse five, he says, beloved, it's a faithful thing you do. And then in verse 11, beloved, do not imitate evil, but imitate good. He uses the word beloved or dear friend, your translation may say something like that, Four times in association with this guy. Four times in a little over a dozen verses is a lot because word count matters with a postcard letter. And so this man is beloved in the faith. He's a dear friend and a brother. That's what he means in verse one when he says, to the beloved Gaius whom I love in the truth. The truth is not abstract in first, second, and third John. It's very clear in the context of the letters that truth means the gospel truth. This means Gaius is a believer, John is a believer, and they have common bond of love as Christian brothers. That's the love and the truth he's speaking about here. So we look then at the author and the recipient. Look in verse two, the author's prayer. He says, 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. He's wishing that all would go well with him, which is a phrase that is a metaphor for a journey, maybe the journey of life, but oftentimes if someone was traveling, you would pray that all would go well with them on the journey. Well, he seems to be using that phrase as a metaphor for his current life trajectory. Whatever Gaius has going on, whatever challenges, whatever direction his life is taking, John is praying for him that it go well. I wanna note a couple things about this verse. Number one, it was common in the ancient world, even for a pagan author, to wish you good health. John is not breaking rank from that in his letter. He's adapting a common convention and praying good health for his reader as well. But it's not merely conventional. It's more than that. And so secondly, I want to note that when the New Testament authors use a common letter writing convention, they adapt it and apply it with Christian purpose. After all, the pagans would pray that the gods would show favor and the fates would shine brightly upon the lives of these people. But John knows the true and living God, not the idols of the pagans. So when he's praying that all would go well, there's a significance theologically here beyond just a convention of letter writing. It's like if we were to say to someone, you know, Godspeed, or, you know, good luck, or something like that, you often hear phrases like that when someone is parting, or when you're greeting someone and wishing them well. John's language here is, I pray that all may go well with you and that you would be in good health. We're facing a fork in the road here as to what we can determine about Gaius. Is he in good health? And maybe he's just wishing that this continue. John is just praying that you may be in good health from here on. Or is he not in good health physically? And the brothers who've returned to John have informed John about that. We stayed with Gaius, and Gaius is not well. He was hospitable, but my goodness, probably beyond what he should have been physically. It may be that John is writing about a situation with prayer here that he found out about. It's unclear. It could just be general prayers for someone's physical prospering. It does note here, at the end of verse 2, that you would be in good health as it goes well with your soul. Let's combine two things in our minds about what John is praying. John is praying for the spiritual and physical flourishing of Gaius. In fact, he already knows that it goes well with Gaius' soul. It is well with my soul. John is writing here to a man who has received people hospitably, sent them back to John, and those people have come with such spiritual, honoring words, honorable words about Gaius, that John's conclusion is, Gaius' soul is well. What I wanna note here then, is that people can have their soul going well and physically not be doing well. And that may have been the case with Gaius. He could have things falling apart outwardly, and inwardly resolve to make much of Christ and honor the gospel. It is no guarantee that if it is well with your soul that it will be doing well for you physically, or that if you have enough faith in Christ and the gospel that in some way your sicknesses or your diseases will all be overcome. It is possible to think of a category biblically of the righteous sufferer. You think of a man like Job. Job feared the Lord. Job interceded for his children. Job sacrificed and offered things on behalf of his children lest they had sinned against the Lord. And yet Job underwent great physical trials, but not because he had brought it upon himself, despite what Job's three friends had insisted Job must have done. You must have sinned, your children must have sinned, and brought this on yourself. There is a biblical category of the righteous sufferer. a righteous sufferer. And so Gaius here, we don't know how he's doing physically, but we should not presume that spiritual flourishing will necessarily mean physical comfort and ease. In fact, many of the saints the Lord has used mightily throughout the history of the church have been greatly physically and emotionally weak at many seasons of life. including Luther, and Calvin, and Spurgeon, and Edwards, and all kinds of what are known as theological giants in church history. These were men who kneaded the Lord's hand on their physical bodies desperately, again and again and again. Even Paul, who in 2 Corinthians 12 says, a messenger of Satan has been given, a thorn in my flesh, and I prayed three times for the Lord to take it away. It's not wrong for someone to pray that the Lord take it away. It's not wrong that John pray that his beloved Gaius be in good health. But it's no guarantee that that's what's going to happen. You can be spiritually thriving and in physical difficulty. But we are so designed and wired together as people, surely we can recognize that when we are not doing well physically, that can be spiritually challenging. You might be less motivated to read your Bible more than any other times when you are not doing well mentally and physically in life, when you are just strapped. People have testified to me that some of the most spiritually frustrating times for them have been healing in the hospitals where they have been so full of pain and full of medication and they don't feel like they're themselves. It can be very difficult spiritually when you are not doing well physically. And so I think we just have to be honest that as people in a fallen world, we have all these dynamics at work within us, right? Okay, so some decades ago, this guy named Oral Roberts opened his Bible one morning. He had been on the way out the door and forgot to read it. When he gets back into his house, real quick, to basically say, I forgot my Bible verse for the day, I'm just gonna open to whatever I can and whatever my eyes see, and that's what it's gonna be. In a biography about Oral Roberts, he runs back into his house, his eyes fall on 3 John 2. And Oral Roberts takes this verse, and establishes it for a ministry of what he calls whole person prosperity. And 3 John verse 2 became for Oral Roberts what he calls the master key to his health, wealth, prosperity ministry. and other health-wealth gospel teachers, false gospel teachers, have followed suit with Oral Roberts, including Kenneth Hagen and others, who use 3 John verse 2 and distort it. And they treat 3 John 2, maybe you have heard them do this if you have flipped through the religious channels and heard them try to make biblical cases for why, if you have enough faith, God wants you to be healthy and God wants you to be wealthy. And they point often to 3 John 2. That is a terrible abuse and misapplication of this verse, isn't it? It's outrageous. And yet it propelled the healing, financial prosperity, false gospel ministry of Oral Roberts for all of those years. And it is very, very important to Pentecostal charismatic circles who hold to this version of Oral Roberts' teachings. So we must tread carefully, shouldn't we? John is praying that just as Gaius' soul goes well, that he might physically go well as well. Maybe that would even mean material blessing. But that is by no means John saying, hey, this is going to happen for you because this is God's will for you. If you're sick, that's not God's will for you. You need to be made well and healthy and you need to claim this promise. All that kind of nonsense that you hear spouted over and over again. It makes me want to yell at the television screen. Have you ever done that when these are on? It's so frustrating to see such distortion of the Word of God. 3 John 2 is one such verse. Let's be quick, then, to give a response. Should any conversation come up where someone with a mistaken view of what the gospel is says, Well, you know what 3 John says? Because if that comes out of their mouth, they've heard that before from someone who has misused it and misapplied it. The author's prayer is that all would go well with you and you would be in good health as it goes with your soul. Consider what this means for our prayers. We should not adopt the mindset that, hey, only praying about spiritual salvation needs is important. Material and physical and health needs don't matter. You know, it's the soul that matters more. I understand the sentiment behind that, and I've heard that kind of thing over the years. I just want to point to 3 John 2, and to say, here's John not only wanting spiritual flourishing, but physical well-being as well. And he's praying that Gaius would experience that. It is not wrong to pray for that. Paul prayed for it. John's praying for it, the psalmist prayed for it, and of course it doesn't mean that we are in some way fixated on temporal matters and lose eternal perspective. You can, with eternal perspective, pray for someone's physical well-being. That does not mean you're missing the main thing. We should pray that the Lord keep us physically strong as much as we are able to glorify Him and honor Him in such a state. And so it is a good thing. And I think it's an example here of how we might be able to pray for others. I think we would want to note that our soul's state before the Lord is the most important thing above and beyond. But there are tiers. Couldn't we acknowledge that there are tiers? Not just a one thing. It's not a false dichotomy. We can recognize multiple things that are legitimate concerns and places for us to intercede. So let's do that for one another. We do that on Wednesday nights. Hopefully you do it more than just on Wednesdays during the week, where we're thinking of each other not only in a spiritual soul sense, that we would be doing well, but that we would thrive physically as well. Verses three and four is the last part of our passage tonight. The author's joy. He says, with a reason for this prayer, for I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth as indeed you are walking in the truth. He says, I rejoiced greatly. This is exceeding joy. He doesn't say, well, you know, I was mildly interested, somewhat encouraged. This cluster of words here, this exceeding joy, speaks of someone who is coming off the couch, who was jumping up and down with joy. This is excitement. You know, when your team that you're hoping for scores those points that you're hoping, John is more excited than even then. He is thrilled and rejoicing. Why? Because the brothers came. They came back to him. The ones who had been sent out, they've returned. They came and they testified. And what did they testify? To your truth. Which here means Gaius' commitment to the gospel. What he believes. The truth of the gospel is the context for such language. They came back and they said, this guy holds to the gospel, as indeed you are walking in the truth. This wasn't just something Gaius professes then. Gaius lived it. Gaius was making sure it was working out in his life. He was hospitable to these believers, these brothers who came. I wonder, would someone be able to testify of your truth and love? It's an important question for us to ask tonight. Would someone be able to testify to your truth and love? Does your commitment to the truth and your walking according to the truth so evident to people that someone would commend your faith and love to others? That's an important question. I would hope we would all want that said of us. That our devotion to the truth and our devotion to the love, however imperfect it is, is such nonetheless that someone would testify that this person, this man, this woman of God loves the truth and loves the brothers. Here in 3 John 4, he says, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. It's this verse that leads me to say John may have had a spiritual parentage or fatherhood for Gaius. Perhaps John had been instrumental in Gaius coming to know the Lord. That's the way this language is used in Paul's letters when Paul talks about one of his children in the truth. That's because in his mission work, that particular individual was brought to the Lord through Paul's ministry. Well, he says here, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. So he may not just refer to the people of God in general. He may have a special relationship with Gaius because Gaius has come to know the Lord under John at some point. And here's what thrills John's soul, that though they're not at the same latitude and longitude, Gaius is holding to the truth. He has not forsaken it. And not only would he be professing to know the truth, Gaius is living it out, and other people who encounter Gaius come back to John and say, that man loves the truth! That man loves the saints! I just imagine the joy that must have filled John's heart in hearing that report, especially after learning that some knucklehead named Diotrephes had refused them and rejected John's authority. How absurd is that? Rejecting the authority of an apostle of Jesus Christ? That is not something to trifle with lightly. So it's a metaphor, I think, for conversion. John had in some way engaged in spiritual care and fatherhood over Gaius. And this child is walking in the truth, bringing John great joy. Joy is part of the Spirit's fruit. We're gonna see this this coming Sunday morning. Love, joy, second one that Paul mentions in Galatians 5.22. Praise God, it's a fruit of the Spirit. But I wanna note here that Gaius is walking in the truth, Gaius would be experiencing the fruit of the Spirit, and it brings John joy. So the work of God in the life of Gaius is increasing the joy of another person. Now I want us to ponder for a moment that joy is part of the Spirit's fruit in the life of the obedient saint, but our obedience increases the joy of other people as well. Our joy as believers is so intricately connected that when you hear of someone who is holding to Christ and is maybe facing great challenges and circumstances that are against them, but they're prayerful and they're looking to Christ and they're walking in the truth and they're trying to hold firm and they're wanting to persevere, Doesn't that bring you joy? Don't you marvel at that? Don't you give praise to God for such perseverance? So here's Gaius bearing fruit, and that obedience is bringing John joy. And I want to be, and I want you to be the kind of person that wants to walk in the Spirit so that not only are we experiencing the joy of walking with Christ, but our obedience is increasing the joy of other people around us. Let's be Christians that pursue that. That's amazing. And I love that John says, I have no greater joy. How definitive is that? Well, what about this, John? Nope, I said no greater joy. Well, had you thought about? Nope, not that either. There's no greater joy that I have than this. That my children are walking in the truth. Now why would John speak such a statement? Is it hyperbole? Is he just exaggerating? What if he's saying this because he recognizes that knowing Christ and walking by the Spirit is the greatest thing that there is? Knowing Christ is the greatest thing that there is. This is fitting for John to react this way. He has the greatest joy in response to the greatest thing. The greatest thing there is, is knowing Christ and walking in the truth. Everything else would pale in comparison to that. You just have to hear the words of Paul in Philippians 3, where he had all these other privileges in terms of his Judaistic practices and paths that were going for him. And he says, I consider all of that rubbish compared to one thing, knowing Christ. That's better than anything else I've got. Anything else that had ever been awarded to me, anything else that I had ever earned, this here, this by grace, through faith alone in Christ alone, gift of knowing Christ, that's better than everything. So John looks at the greatest thing there is, and he says, nothing gives me greater joy than that, the greatest possible joy in response to the greatest possible thing. Altogether fitting, isn't it? We should pray for our affectional and emotional life as believers, that we would have appropriate, proportional responses to the greatness of God's work. Here, John is saying, Boy, my joy is through the roof! What could compare with this? We should so want people to know and follow Christ, That when they do, we should so long for them to worship Christ and honor Him with their lives, that when they do, we experience exceeding, surpassing joy. That's what we want for them. And I would suggest to you that if seeing others walk in the truth, and if obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ that we would see in our midst, If that doesn't fill you, thrill you with joy, then perhaps what you're wanting for others is not what you ultimately ought to be wanting for them. Because of perhaps a lessened, or in some way underwhelming, response of heart. We should want the fruit of the Spirit in our lives to walk by the Spirit so that we would increase the joy of others and not only attend to our own. And we should do so because knowing Christ is the greatest thing there is deserving of the greatest response of joy we can muster. We praise the Lord for this. John spoke to Gaius in glowing terms. He was so commending of this man's actions for what he did. It was well with his soul. Gaius might not have been doing well in other areas. Maybe physically he was not well. But regarding his soul before God, he was holding to the truth. He was walking by the truth. Other people saw it. Other people testified to it. And that, friends, is what we would hope would be true for our own lives as well. And by the grace of God, may it be so.