Church you may be seated. And as you are being seated, go ahead and take your Bibles with me and turn to the book of 3 John. You probably noticed during the reading of 3 John, that the themes and the language of this book are very similar to 2 John… and 1 John for that matter! But there’s a particular distinctive in this book that differentiates it from 2 John. That distinctive is found in verse 11. 

11 Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

That statement right there synthesizes the overall message of this letter. “Imitate good, Gaius. Pursue that which is good,” says the Apostle John. “Turn away from evil. Reject evil. Run after good.” You might even say it this way—Be like Demetrius and don’t be like Diotrephes. That’s a pretty basic command, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Pursue good and put away that which is evil. That’s a good distillation of the Christian life.

When I was a kid, there were these commercials that came on all the time during football games and basketball games. They were automobile commercials. I don’t know why there were so many automobile commercials during sporting events. I guess people are more inclined to buy a new car after watching sports on TV. But the most memorable car commercials for me were the Lexus commercials. They were so classy. And the voiceover would always include the Lexus catch phrase, “The relentless pursuit of perfection.” 

When I think about that now, that’s kind of how I see the discipleship process in the Christian life. We are relentlessly pursuing Jesus. We are relentlessly pursuing perfection. But perfection is a bit intimidating. Perfection is not really attainable on this side of eternity, so, I’m going to tweak that expression this morning and give you this title: “The Relentless Pursuit of the Good.” That’s what we’re going for this morning. That’s what John would have us give our lives to. Here it is again. Here’s the command he gives Gaius. 

 11 Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

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So let’s get more specific here. What are some good things that we should pursue as Christians? I’ll give you four things from the text. And I’m going to call these… 

Four good pursuits for Christ-followers:

And here’s number one. 

1) Walking in the truth with fellow believers (1-4)

John starts this letter by saying, 

1 The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. 

This is the Apostle John, as an old man (the elder), now writing to a trusted friend, Gaius. Who is Gaius? We don’t know. He’s a man who is shrouded in mystery and lost to the pages of history. Someday we’ll meet him in eternity. The only thing we know about him is what John writes here. He’s probably a leader in the church. He may even be one of the leaders in the church that John writes to in 2 John. It would make sense to deliver these two letters together: 2 John to the “elect lady” (i.e. the church) and 3 John to Gaius, one of the trusted leaders of the “elect lady.” But of course, that’s speculation. We don’t know that for sure. 

But we do know this for sure. We know that John loved this man, Gaius. And we know that Gaius was a believer in Jesus Christ. You might say, “How do you know that, Pastor Tony?” We know it because John uses this technical term for Gaius: “beloved.” Q: Who is Gaius loved by? A: God. Q: Why is Gaius loved by God? A: Because Gaius has believed on Jesus Christ as his savior.

You know people often quote John 3:16 in reference to God’s love for the world, and that’s good. That’s a great verse. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” But let’s not forget what the Bible says right after that in John 3:18: “Whoever believes in [Jesus] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” So, God’s love is appropriated by faith. You believe in the Son of God, then you receive God’s love and forgiveness. And that makes you one of the beloved. If you don’t receive him by faith, you are in a state of condemnation. Gaius is “beloved” by God. He’s a believer. 

One of the reasons that I’m belaboring this in the first verse is because “beloved” is a repeated statement in this chapter. John repeats it four times in this short letter (verses 1, 2, 5, 11). And I want you to know that your relentless pursuit of the good has to start there. You can’t be good in order to be beloved by God. You have to embrace Christ by faith to be beloved by God. And then the goodness flows from that. Is that clear? 

This is not a small matter; this is an essential Christian doctrine. John’s challenge to Gaius to pursue good is anchored in the reality of Gaius’s “beloved-ness.” If Gaius wasn’t already a Christian, John’s letter would read a lot differently. He wouldn’t say “pursue the good”; he would say, “Gaius, you need to get saved! You need to embrace Jesus Christ by faith!”  

But Gaius is saved, and so John says this in verse 2,

2 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. 

Is it okay to pray for someone’s health? Is it okay to pray that “all may go well” with someone? Sure, it is. John did it. Does that make John a health, wealth, and prosperity preacher? No! It’s okay to pray for these things. We don’t demand answers to our prayers from the Lord. And we don’t lose faith if God says “no,” and doesn’t answer our prayers like we like. That would lead to error. 

But notice that John prays for Gaius’s soul as well as his physical health. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if John prioritized Gaius’s soul in his prayers even over his health. I’ll just let you know, that whenever I make a hospital visit or whenever I pray for someone here at church for a health-related matter, I don’t just pray for people’s health. I don’t just pray for their physical bodies. I also pray for their soul. I also pray that God would strengthen their faith and comfort them and encourage them through their physical struggles. I would commend that practice to you, church. And don’t just do it because I do it. Do it because that is what John does here in verse 2.

And then John says, verse 3, 

3 For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 

Truth, truth, truth. That sounds like 2 John! And there are corollaries between the two letters. But the hue of this book is slightly different. The focus here is on walking in the truth. The focus here is movement and maturity and motion. Walking implies progress from point A to point B.

And also, there’s more evidence here of Gaius’s salvation. Gaius is walking in the truth. Gaius has believed the truth, that Jesus died for him on the cross and rose from the dead. And other brothers who saw Gaius can testify to the fact that Gaius is walking in the truth. “O yeah, John. That guy, Gaius is legit! His faith is real. He’s growing as a Christian. He knows the truth. He lives out the truth.”

Let me ask you something, church. If ten Christians came over to your house and spent the weekend with you – ten Christians from different parts of the world – what would they say about you? What report would they bring back to their churches? 

Would they say, “O yeah, that Christian is walking in the truth! No doubt about it!” Would they say that about you? 

What does walking in the truth even mean? Movement, right? Growth, right? Progress as a disciple? Would they see progress and growth in your life? “O yeah, that guy from San Antonio... That gal from VBVF… she’s legit. She loves the Lord. He’s legit. He’s growing as a Christian. He’s growing as a disciple… as a Christ-follower.” I want that to be said about me. I don’t want to be a hypocrite. And I don’t want to be stagnant either. I want to be walking, walking, walking in the truth. Growing, growing, growing, in my relationship with Christ. Don’t you, church?

You might say, “Okay, Pastor Tony. I want that. But what does that look like… walking in the truth with fellow believers? That’s too metaphorical for me. How do I do that practically?” 

Here’s how you do that. You get to church and you worship Jesus with other believers. You study God’s Word! By the time you leave this building today, you will hopefully have some truth from 3 John that you didn’t have yesterday to live out and walk in. 

Walking in the truth means you get to church and worship Jesus, but it also means that you get your Bible open more than just once a week. It means daily time with Jesus in worship, prayer, and Bible reading. It means being a doer of the word, not just a hearer. It means going to small group and sharing your heart with other believers, so they can pray for you, and you can grow in Christ together. It means that you have more passion for Jesus and for God’s Word than you do your hobbies or your politics or your family or your favorite sports team! 

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Go ahead and write this down as #2. Here’s a second “good pursuit for Christ-followers.”

2) Showing hospitality to fellow believers (5-8)

John says this in verse 5, 

5 Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, 

Okay, let’s talk about this! Who are “these brothers” that John is talking about here? Well, these are the brothers in verse 4 who brought back a good report about Gaius to John. They told John, “That guy Gaius, he’s legit. He’s the real thing, a real believer who is walking in the truth.” Well now we get some more info on these brothers. They were actually strangers to Gaius before he met with them. 

And verse 6 says,

6 who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. 7 For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. 8 Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. 

So, here’s the cultural situation at this time. This is critical to understanding this passage. If you remember last week, in 2 John, John tells people to not be hospitable to false teachers. He said, “Don’t let them into your house. And don’t even greet them” (see 2 John 9-11). Because at this time there were these “teachers” going around, saying that they represented the church, but they were teaching false doctrines about Jesus. They were saying ridiculous stuff like Jesus was just a phantom being and never really took on human flesh. 

And John wrote these letters somewhere around AD 90, something like 60 years after Jesus’s death and resurrection. So, John may very well be the last living eyewitness to Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection. And John says to the church in 2 John, “Don’t you tolerate doctrinal error. Don’t you let people circulate lies about Jesus. Don’t tolerate it. Don’t let them teach in the church. Don’t even let them into your homes.” Because a show of hospitality like that would communicate to the churches and the world that “they are with us, and we believe what they believe.”

But John says here about good teachers, faithful and worthy teachers, “Pull out the red carpet for them. They are out there on the road preaching about Jesus. Support them. Help them. By all means, bring them into your homes.” And that’s exactly what Gaius did. Remember now, they didn’t have Hiltons or Holiday Inns at this time. Traveling preachers had to avoid public inns, because those places were dangerous and doubled as brothels. And traveling to other places to preach the gospel was dangerous, difficult work. Just read the book of Acts and see what Paul went through if you don’t believe me. And so, these teachers needed the help of the good Christian believers like Gaius to succeed. And John commends that. He commends the showing of hospitality to these fellow believers. 

Sanja and I were talking about this the other day. When Sanja and I moved to Chicago to go to seminary, we didn’t know anyone. We packed up everything we owned and moved a thousand miles away from our church, our friends, our steady jobs, etc. And my buddy, Lee Wilkinson, who I met in college, let us live with him for six months until we got on our feet. And that was an amazing act of generosity and hospitality. Would you do that for a fellow believer? Someone who maybe was called to ministry and the preaching of the gospel?

And then, six years later, when I took a pastorate in this small town of Arthur, Illinois, Sanja and I would drive down every weekend and stay with this empty nest couple, Maurice and Mary Bagley. We’d come in on Friday or Saturday. I’d preach. I’d lead meetings. I’d spend time with people. And then we drove back to Chicago on Sunday nights. We did that every week for about six months, until we moved down there permanently. And we had a one-year old baby with us at the time. I told Sanja, we have been the recipients of such wonderful hospitality. And that’s the way the church should be! 

And all that might sound intimidating to you, having someone live in your house with you for six months. I’m not asking you to do that. And I’m not sure John wants all of us to do that. You can start small by having another family over to your house for dinner and showing them hospitality. 

Hospitality is a lost art in America. It’s a lost art. Americans like to live in their castles with big fences enclosing their backyards and a two-car garage functioning like a drawbridge over a mote. But it doesn’t have to be like that, church. We can do better than that!

I know how it is. We as Americans love to be solitary creatures. We love John Wayne. We love the Lone Ranger. I get it. I heard once that Teddy Roosevelt didn’t want the Bald Eagle to be the national emblem of our country. He wanted it to be the Grizzly Bear—the strong, independent animal that lives alone and can thrive in isolation. That’s us. That’s America! And I’ve heard about Teddy Roosevelt, that sometimes he would just disappear into the woods of some future national park, even when he was the president. He would do that, and people didn’t know where he was! Can you imagine a U.S. President doing that now? 

John doesn’t commend Gaius for being a solitary individualist. And he surely doesn’t commend him for staying comfortable and not helping out a brother. He commends him for his hospitality! The traveling teachers had a need. Gaius had the means to meet that need, and he did it. That’s evidence of walking in the truth. That’s what a growing, mature Christian looks like… showing hospitality… to strangers even. 

By the way, that’s why one of the qualifications for eldership in 1 Timothy 3 is “being hospitable.” It’s not just because that was a practical need in the church for elders to open up their homes to traveling Christians. That’s part of it. But it’s also because hospitality is a sign of character and spiritual maturity. I don’t think we see it that way as Americans. I think we see hospitality as an optional, good thing, if you can do it or if you are good at it. But this is a worthwhile pursuit for all believers. Hospitality is a good pursuit for all of us.   

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Here’s another good pursuit for us. Write this down as #3. This is not an easy one either.

3) Confronting selfish behavior among fellow believers (9-10) 

You know John is the Apostle of Love, so to speak. He’s always talking about love. He was the one whom Jesus loved. He tenderly laid his head on Jesus’s chest at the Last Supper. But let’s not forget, John is also described in the Bible as one of the “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). John could be tough when he needed to be. John, the Apostle of Love, was not a “people-pleasing pushover.” And we saw that already in 2 John when John tells the church to toughen up and deal with false teachers in the church.   

Now John does something similar in 3 John, starting in verse 9. 

9 I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. 10 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. 

Now I don’t know exactly who Diotrephes is, but let me just make a few deductions about him from this passage. First of all, he must have been part of the church, because according to verse 9, Diotrephes, as part of the church received a letter John wrote. And he must have had some rightful authority in the church, at some point, because he’s interacting with John as a representative of the church. He’s making decisions about receiving people or not receiving them. And he’s even putting people out of the church! So whatever rightful authority he had at some point, as an elder or pastor, has been compromised now. And he’s abusing that authority. And John, the Apostle of Love, is determined to put a stop to that.

Now if all of that surprises you. “How could a leader in the church do something like that? How could this happen in God’s church?” If you have a response like that, that’s probably because you are very young. Or maybe it’s because you have an idealized picture of leadership in the church. For most of you in this room who have been around for a while, you probably read this and say, “Yeah, I could see that happening in a church.” 

And maybe there’s a little sense of comfort in that. John had to deal with unruly people in the church. John had to deal with believers behaving badly! So do we! There’s a line of continuity there going back two thousand years. We have to confront the sinful, selfish behavior of those in the church… but let’s face it… we have to confront the sinful, selfish behavior in our own hearts too. To fail to confront is not love. To fail to confront is destructive and hateful.

And what was Diotrephes guilty of? What did he do that was so bad that John has to come deal with it? Well first of all he was rejecting John’s Apostolic authority. That’s not good. That’s akin to you or me rejecting the truth of the Bible. John saw Christ, walked with Christ, and wrote Scripture as an Apostle of Christ. Where does this guy get off rejecting John’s authority? 

Not only that, but Diotrephes was deceitfully telling lies about John. He was “talking wicked nonsense against us,” says John. Again, don’t be surprised by that. That happened with Paul too several decades before this. Power struggles in the church happen. They happened twenty centuries ago. They happen now. If you surprised by that, again that’s because you are either very young or very naïve about the wickedness that can grow in the hearts of men, even sometimes confessing believers.   

Another thing Diotrephes was doing is he was refusing to show hospitality to good Christian leaders and teachers. And he was actually throwing people out of the church who were showing hospitality to these leaders. If you know anything about cults or even more generally about controlling people and leaders, the first thing that they do is consolidate the influencers. They close people off from their family. They reject any form of leadership, authority, or influence other than their own. That’s the playbook of a cult-leader.

And by the way, I don’t think that John is telling Gaius this just as a warning to him. I don’t think John is just sharing the latest news about the dysfunctional church and its out-of-control leader. I think John shares this with Gaius, because he wants Gaius to do something about this. He wants Gaius to be part of the solution. “Be courageous, Gaius! Help me with this. Help me fix this problem for the sake of the church and the people that are being victimized by this bad leader.”

And also, I think that John is telling Gaius about this (and John is telling us about this too) as a cautionary tale. “Watch yourself, Gaius. Don’t let power in the church go to your head! Don’t do like Diotrephes! Pursue good and not evil. Imitate the good and not evil. Confront the evil where you can and root it out of the church. Do that in your own heart even, Gaius. And protect the purity and integrity of the church.” 

Several years ago, I had a student at Moody who was going through some deep pain in his church. As a professor, sometimes I have to do some pastoral counseling. And that’s what happened with this particular student. And this student was part of a church that had an out-of-control leader who was domineering and manipulative. And the church was reeling. All the members of the church were distrustful of the leaders, and the name of Christ was being sullied by this bad leader’s actions. Sometimes that happens in churches.

Now I’m thankful that we don’t have elders like that at our church. And my prayer is this: “Lord please keep us good, humble, and godly leaders. Lord, please protect us from ourselves and the worst versions of ourselves!” 

And I think a big part of that is “confronting selfish behavior among fellow believers.” We deal with that in others’ lives. And we have to deal with that in our own lives. We need to deal with the sin that is in our fellowship before it becomes a monster that tears apart the church. 

Do we have the courage to do that with one another? To confront sin? Do we love one another enough to do that? Here’s the thing, church. I’m going to say one more thing about this, and then I’ll move on. This is going to hurt your feelings too. So, brace yourself. 

The truth of the matter is that there’s a little bit of Diotrephes in all of us. If you don’t know that about yourself, then you are naïve. Each of us has the capacity to selfishly and sinfully damage the church. Each of us has the capacity to damage ourselves. 

There’s a little bit of Diotrephes in all of us. So, let’s deal with it, church. Let’s pursue the good together. And let’s put to death the evil, selfish desires in our hearts. I’ll help you. You help me. We don’t have to do this alone. God gave us the church so that we can do this together. 

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And it doesn’t have to be just addressing the negative things in our lives either. Here’s another good discipline for us to pursue together. This one is more enjoyable and more positive. 

4) Encouraging righteous behavior among fellow believers (11-15) 

11 Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God. 

I think it’s fair to assume that Diotrephes was a believer behaving badly. And so, John’s going to go confront him and deal with that. But I think it’s also fair to say that Diotrephes may prove himself over time to be an unbeliever. If John confronts him and he doesn’t repent… if he continues pursuing evil and perpetrating evil against the church… then chances are, Diotrephes wasn’t a believer behaving badly… he’s an unbeliever behaving badly. 

John addressed that in his first letter. He says this about some people who appeared to be believers, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). This is part of what John Calvin and the Westminster Confession calls the “Perseverance of the Saints.” Real saints inevitably persevere in faith. They bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Otherwise, they were never really saved in the first place.

And speaking of bearing fruit, John writes in verse 12,  

12 Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true. 

John’s naming names here. But he doesn’t just identify bad actors. He also identifies good actors—like this guy, Demetrius. 

Now again we don’t know anything about Demetrius other than what John says here. He may have been the guy delivering this letter, and this was John’s way of affirming the letter courier, so to speak. But that’s conjecture. We don’t know that for sure. Again, we don’t know anything about Demetrius other than what John says here. We don’t know anything about Gaius other than what is said here. We don’t know anything about Diotrephes other than what’s said here. 

But we do know this! We do know that John wants us to be like Gaius. He wants us to be like Demetrius. And he does not want us to be like Diotrephes. The Holy Spirit inspired John to write this letter, and the Holy Spirit co-wrote this Scripture, so that we would imitate the good (i.e. Gaius and Demetrius) and not imitate evil (i.e. Diotrephes).

And what was good about Demetrius? He’s received a good testimony from everyone. He’s committed to the truth. He gets a commendation from John the Apostle. It’s kind of boring actually, this guy, Demetrius. There’s more drama and excitement with Diotrephes, right? Ignoring John! Throwing people out of the church! Dysfunctional, domineering leadership! That’s like prime-time television right there. Right? That’s like Reality TV. People pay money to watch that kind of stuff. 

But trust me when I say this. Our elders would much prefer boring Demetrius to the drama and dysfunction of Diotrephes. Boring is okay with us. A good testimony. A good reputation. People who love Jesus. People committed to the truth. People loving one another in the church and defying drama. That’s okay with us as elders. 

And then John writes this in verse 13. This letter ends very similar to 2 John.  

13 I had much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink. 14 I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. 15 Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends, each by name. 

Presumably, the friends that John wants Gaius to greet for him were the people in the church where Gaius is a leader. He may have even been the pastor. We don’t know. But we do know this. John gives Gaius four good pursuits in this book. Likewise, John gives us four good things to pursue as Christ-followers:

Walking in the truth with fellow believers (1-4)

Showing hospitality to fellow believers (5-8)

Confronting selfish behavior among fellow believers (9-10) 

Encouraging righteous behavior among fellow believers (11-15)

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Let me close with this. Today is January 24, 2024. And in just a few months, on June 6, 2024, our country will commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy. And if you’ve ever seen the movie “Saving Private Ryan,” then you have a sense at how horrendous and how devastating that day was for our country. Many soldiers died that day in order to protect our freedoms in this country.  

And speaking of “Saving Private Ryan,” some of you might remember that powerful moment at the end of the movie when Captain Miller says to Private Ryan just before he dies, “Earn this. Earn it!” That’s a really powerful moment in the movie. And you realize that this guy, Captain Miller, has just given his life, along with a group of other soldiers, to keep this kid alive. And his one request at death is “Earn this.” 

And then after that scene, the movie fast-forwards to Private Ryan who is now an old man, and he’s busted up about it. And he tearfully says to his wife at the end of the movie, “Tell me I’ve lived a good life! Tell me I’m a good man!” And he seems really troubled by this. Has he earned it, so to speak? Has he earned back what these soldiers did for him? Was he good enough? 

The reason I mention that movie… and it’s a great movie by the way… is to give you a strong contrast between the theme of that movie and what Christ has done for us. You know just like Captain Miller, Christ died to save us. But Christ’s dying words thankfully were not “Earn this!” His final words were “It is finished!” The payment for our sin was made. We don’t have to earn it. In fact, we can’t earn his grace and his forgiveness. It’s a gift. 

And so, the idea that you would turn to your wife and ever say, “Am I a good enough man?” “Have I earned Christ’s death for me?” is non-sensical. You never have to do that. Never! 

And so, this pursuit of the good that we’re talking about here in 3 John, I want to be absolutely clear about this before we finish. This is not a “do-good-so-you-can-earn-God’s-favor” message. And 3 John is not a “do-good-so-you-can-earn-God’s-favor” letter. John would never ascribe to that. No, John calls Gaius “beloved.” He’s already “beloved” by God. And that’s the key. 

We pursue these good things because we are loved. We pursue these good things because God loved us first, and in response to his love, we live for him. We walk in truth. We show hospitality. We confront selfish behavior among fellow believers. And we encourage righteous behavior among fellow believers. 

Christ loved us first, church. So, love him back! Love him and pursue these good things.