Which One Are You? Part 3 3 John 1:9-11

Transcription

1 Light of the Word Pastor Steve Mays Tape #: SM Category: Living in Truth Which One Are You? Part 3 3 John 1:9-11 Let s open our Bible to 3 John and we ll take a look at verses 9 through 11 today. Diotrephes, what an interesting name; I really want to call him Mr. D. because it s a hard name. I don t know why; but I think my muscles in my tongue won t let me do it; but Diotrephes, we re going to take a look at him. There are three interesting men that are mentioned here in this 3rd John. I guess that there s 4 if you want to add Jesus Christ in there; but really three and we mentioned to you that there are sometimes like the three people in the church; three different sects inside the church. And so, you have the one which is Gaius who is just a lover of man. He s able to have the gift of hospitality. He s able to do things I ve never seen done just from a point of view of teaching the Bible. My eyes are really open to this man and I d have to say out of everyone he had the gift of hospitality. You don t see that often but I ll tell you what. You go back and you study him. Four times he s mentioned that he is beloved by John. And we find that the church of Jesus Christ loved this man. His reputation went around the world, and everyone knew what he was good at. He was good at taking care of people. Even John said that he was hoping to go by his house because he needed to be refreshed. That is quite a statement. And so, he did basically four things. He would bring you into his house, he would then mend your clothes, he would wash your clothes, he would feed you, he would pack a little lunch for you; and he would give you some spending money to go on your trip. So, he would be what we would say is a great encourager. People left his house better than how they came. And that is really what Christians are to do. I think it is a shame that sometimes we use people s things and we don t leave them better than we find them. I think it s a horrible mark against Christianity. I think that first of all we really shouldn t borrow 1

2 things. But if you re going to or you have to then you ought to fill it up and bring it back better than you find it. And that s just ethics, that s just moral conviction in your own heart; and my own heart. And so, those are the things that are so important. So, because of that I believe that 4th service should be better than the 1st service. I think the toilet paper should be together, we should be together; we shouldn t have an attitude for service. We should be giving the very best. So, that means we have to ask God s help, that we have to pace ourselves and we have to look around. Because you get tired after four services and then you go home and then you have to really get together. And so, I think it s important that we do things really well. And so, we have the gift of hospitality, and that is such an important thing. I do thank my mother for that one gift. She did teach me that more than anything else. And I think we have a great reputation in the Calvarys and around the country of being a church that s able to take care of people. My mom one day took our turkey out of the oven and took it down the street and gave it away on Thanksgiving, and she gave us Vienna sausages. I ll never forget it. I mean those things; at least she could have cooked the Vienna sausages I guess. It was like okay we really didn t care, we were young; but she had a heart in just somehow just giving. So, she would do people s laundry and she would this and she would do that. My dad, he was kind of unique in a sense that his mother died when he was four years-old from tomato poisoning; and his dad was cut in half when he was twelve. He was an engineer on the railroad company. And so my dad stuttered really bad but he was raised by two sisters. Well, when I was growing up in their home my dad was always doing the dishes. Every night he would do the dishes, every night he would do the laundry. It was his part, and I never understood because I never saw another man do that. But my dad did it and it was no big thing. Well, it makes sense to me because he was raised by two sisters. But I do that now. I can do the wash; I can do that, no problem in doing things like that. I enjoy it, in fact. I enjoy doing that. You say, Are you weird? No, not really. 2

3 Anything I could do to take the burden off my wife. I think that women give far beyond and here s my wife having two ministries, you know, doing the children s ministry and the nursery plus running her ministry; and she s tired. And since I m so much younger than she is then I can help her. Anyway, I told you she wasn t here. So, you know, it s good to have that. But the second guy is just not much to say. He was a taker. He took. And the third one we re going to see this later on down the road, Demetrius. He was one that was a silent giver, he was able to minister and make people feel important. We re going to tune into verses 9, 10 and 11 to this guy called Diotrephus; and he was one that basically was empty and self-centered. The Bible does say that he was one who wanted the preeminence. Only one other person has that, Jesus Christ. In Colossians 1:18 it says that Jesus Christ, that in all things he might have the preeminence. He had to be number one and we know that is a very self-centered way. So, this is a very self-centered man, he would be a pastor or maybe he was an elder; we re not sure. He could have been a high roller. He could have been a very wealthy man or a board member. We just don t know. But he had power, he had authority and the reason we know that is because when John was coming he would not receive John. He had enough strength to withstand John and say, We don t need you here. I am taking care of everything. And by way, the letter you wrote I m not going to read it. They don t need to read what you have to say, they need to hear what I have to say. I can t believe this, but anyway; this guy thought he was really something. But that s the danger of conceit. Everyone knows you have it except yourself; and so when you become conceited, when you think you have it, when you think that people need to live around you and move around you; that is a tragic thing. You re never to do that. You re not to be the lord over people. You are to be a servant of all. 3

4 And Jesus said the very same thing. He said, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. (Luke 22:25-26) In other words, you ought to set the example. And then Jesus went on to say, For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45) And that s a calling of our lives that we re not here to receive like the Dead Sea. Why is it dead? Because it takes in but there s no outlet. Whenever you stop giving, whatever you take in and you stop giving you re going to die. But the more you give the more God s going to give to you. So, if you want to know what it means to be a Christian, it means to be refreshed, it means to give; and the cup begins to become empty but God begins to fill it. You have to keep it moving. So I believe with all my heart the real gift of giving comes through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That when all of a sudden I receive the baptism now I can begin to give and my heart becomes like a torrent of living water and I m able to give out to people. I m not worried about myself, I m not looking to me, but here s a guy that is. And very simply He s saying to you and me, If you want to be miserable do what he does. In other words, number one, you have to start thinking a little bit more about yourself. Think about yourself, it s something else. Look at it, look in the mirror. Just look at the thing that God made; just keep thinking about it. And not only that secondly, you better start talking about yourself. People who don t know who you are - talk about it. Tell everybody how great you really are. And then third how about this? Start looking out for yourself. Make sure you re not getting hurt, make sure no one takes advantage of you. And lastly, make sure you protect yourself. So, it s okay to be envious and jealous and grievous, and angry. That s terrible. But people live that way, they re so paranoid, so afraid that someone is going to take their ministry; and that is such a key in our life today. 4

5 If I can come into your life and say take a children s ministry away or a classroom away or take this away and you go crazy; praise God, you don t deserve it because the position is not more important than the Lord Jesus Christ. You hang onto a position because you ve lost a relationship. But if your relationship is in Christ then really pay attention to this because a truly spiritual man and a truly spiritual woman could care less what they do as long as they re serving God. You want me here; fine. You want me here; fine. You want me here; fine. You want to move me ten times; fine. I don t care. I m here to serve; not to criticize, but to make it better. If you think I m better here or there that s up to you. But if all of a sudden I become like, This is mine! Back off! Then there s more of a reason why we ought to take it away; because we re into blowing up kingdoms. There s one kingdom; that is the kingdom of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And boy, I ll tell you it really speaks to your heart when all of a sudden things begin to go wrong in your life. You begin to become selfcentered like, That s mine, don t touch it! That car is mine; this money is mine. Well, first of all it s not. Everything that you have belongs to God. God gave it to you. God gave you the mind, God gave you the heart; God gave you the ability to make money to do whatever. Not only that, but promotion comes not from the east or from the west; but it comes from the Lord. God s the one who ll give you a raise. You say, Well, why haven t I received a raise. Well, you've probably been here thirteen times. You ve been here one year thirteen times. So when you have been here thirteen times and you ve made it better for thirteen years then you should get a raise. But if you ve been here thirteen years but I can say to you you ve been here one year thirteen times that means that the first year everything was great. The last twelve years you haven t done anything. You have to keep making things better and bigger. That means you have to keep giving. What happens? People get hurt. People get sidetracked, and so they pull back and that s it. I m not going to give. That s not a servant. A servant is I m here to give. 5

6 If I get bit by that serpent like Paul did, I m going to shake it off. And people looked and said, Truly the gods are going to get you because you have made it through a shipwreck but now you got bit by a serpent. They are right on your tail Paul. And Paul shook it off, and when he didn t die; in the King James it says, they changed their minds... (Acts 28:6) In other words, your testimony if it s right, when you get hurt and things come against you and you don t move; people are going to change their minds about who you are. And they re going to see that you serve a God that loves you with all His heart. And so, you re here to be a blessing. It doesn t make a difference if it s big or small; you are here to do what God wants you to do. That is the purest way. And remember Jesus For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister (Mark 10:45) I came to lay my life down, not to hold back. I came to give you the very best. And so, He gave His very best. And I m coming back now to give you the Holy Spirit. Everywhere you look at Jesus Christ He s given you the very best. And so how much more ought I to give Him the very best? And so, when I look at this I begin to realize here s a man that absolutely was selfcentered. How could you 1) say no to John, the apostle of love at 90 years-old? 2) How could you say no to an elder who s over you and was established by Jesus Christ to be an apostle? 3) How in the world can you say no to the word of God being spoken at your church? 4) What in the world are you doing telling people that if they go listen to John you are going to excommunicate them out of your church? That s occult, that s absolute possession, and you have forgotten the most major rule of Christianity. These people are not yours. They ve been bought with a price, the blood of Jesus Christ. I have not given that blood, He has. This is not my church, this is not my body; you belong to Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I will answer for the way I take care of you, but I have no authority over your life to tell you who you should marry and what you should do. And there are pastors today saying, You should not get married until I give you my blessing. Number one, look at their marriage, it s probably lousy. You know, how dare they do that. 6

7 I mean, I don t know. I ve been married for forty-two years; I still can t figure her out. I mean honestly, I can kind of but I get thrown a curve every once in a while. She s a I Wow, where did that come from? Man, everything I ve done only lasted two days worth of credit? You re kidding me. I mean, I feed the ducks and it s only good for one day!? Man! Well, I think I ll forget it then. Well, the consequences are ten times worse. Okay, ducks great for one day, you know how it is, I don t know. But you just do the best you can and does a guy understand a woman? No. And does a woman understand a guy? You don t have any idea. Well, I ve got my guy. No you don t. He so out of it you don t even know what s going on, and he doesn t know how to tell you; and yet we make things back and forth, back and forth. The thing is, is that we have to die. If you really die to each other, do you really serve each other? And if you re ready to be servants of each other you fall in love with each other. And guess what? You fall in love with Jesus Christ. And then God shows you about each other. It s a good thing. And so in Colossians 1:18, And He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. Well, who else said that? We find that in 3 John 1, verse 9, I wrote unto the church: but (here it is) Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. That s a mouthful. He did not receive us and he did not read the word of God to us. In Matthew 20:26, this is what He says, But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, (shall what?) let him be your minister. Now, do I want to be great? Well, sure I do. Do you want to be great? Yes, you do. Well, how is it going to be done? By you serving one another. In verse 27 of Matthew 20, And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. There it is. If you re going to be on top you re going to serve, and that s what it means. A pastor or a minister is the guy that s at the bottom of everything. 7

8 Now in the old days they used to have these ships and they had the three oars coming out; one, two, three all the way across. So you could have like 27 oars on each side, you know, 3 decks of it. Now, what you would want is to be on top, you would not want to be at the bottom. That is the place where people would throw up, and you got the picture. That s not a good place to be at the bottom. But what Paul was saying is, I ll take the bottom one. He went on his own taking the bottom and I ll roll from the bottom. And no matter what happens in my life I m not going to stop because I know what I m in for and I know what I deserve, and I know who I m doing it for. Jesus Christ. And what it means is to push people up. It means I m going to push them as high as I can. I m going to take the body, and not fleece them, not take a part in their lives but I m going to build them up, I m going to equip them and I m going to help them become everything they need in life. That means I want to equip you, that means it s okay to step on me to get where you re going. So, it s not this pyramid that you ve been taught you re whole life. Pastors on top, and so, here s this pyramid. Well, guess what? He gets blessed. That s not it. It s the upside-down pyramid. You re at the bottom holding everything up so other people can serve God. Jesus came to hold you together. So, that s really the call of a ministry. When you find it the other way; the guy is looking to be praised, he s not the right guy. And that s what he is saying here in a profound way. And Matthew goes on to say in verse 28, Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. And then in Luke 22:24, And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. Now, this is common. I mean we do it, who s going to be the greatest, who s going to take over, what s going to happen? But Jesus was walking with them and Jesus asked them a question. What were you talking about? Oh, nothing. You guys are lying; you guys are point blank lying to Jesus Christ. You say you don t know what you were talking about? Well, we were just kind of talking about things here and there; you know, we re talking about the rocks, and you know, squirrels; you know, just chit chat stuff, Jesus. Really? Oh! Well, 8

9 why do I think that you were talking about who is going to be the greatest? Oh, we would never do that. I can t believe it. If you do it be honest. Yeah, I was talking about the greatest. Yes, I m thinking about it. Well, when mom came; the mom of James and John came, Can my sons have the right and the left hand of Jesus? Well, it was okay but when the others found out they got bummed; why? Because they thought of it; not them. So, there s that jealousy that Well, why didn t I think that way. And so, all of a sudden now we re looking to step on each other to get ahead; and so that s what we do. We hurt people, we step on people; we hope people fall so we can step up. We finally get to the very top and guess what? We have climbed the wrong ladder of success. It s over here. It s called humility; integrity, brokenness, and just letting God do the work. I m over here stepping on people, climbing as quick as I can, and all of a sudden I get to the very top and I am empty because I ve hurt a lot of people and behind me is a bunch of people that have been hurt. You think that s pleasing to God? No. Who shall ascend until the hill of the Lord? (Psalm 24:3) They that have a broken heart. So, we re talking about the humility of Jesus Christ. That s why He s the King of kings because my pride and your pride constantly are coming after us in a horrible way. And so He says in verse 25, And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. 26) But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. What happened to Peter? Jesus is talking to Peter one day and He says, This is what you re going to suffer. And Peter said, Okay, great. Until He looked up and he saw John; and what did Peter say? Well, what about John. What s he going to go through? Peter, mind your own business; don t worry about John. But it s important Jesus. Well, why is it important Peter? Because John talks about me all 9

10 the time. What are you talking about Peter? John said he was beloved, You never told him that; he just made it up. Well, I love him. Well, why does he write he s beloved? I don t know; he did? And why did he have to write that he out-ran me to the tomb and I was older and he was younger? Is that fair? No, it s not Peter. But he did. Yes. So, you have this rivalry going on until the day the baptism of the Holy Spirit fell. Then guess what? They re going to church together, they re praying miracles together; their whole life changes. That s what happens. When you find this edge, when you find this competitiveness, everything s happening; I need the baptism of the Holy Spirit to bring me down so I can do the work. He that ascended first descended; that s the way up is the way down and yet I can t get it through my head. I ve got to fight for the position here, I ve been here longer. It s not about how long you ve been here; it s about the calling of God upon your life. You could be here 20 years and you feel you have a right. Well, maybe not. Maybe this is where God wants you to be, but God has picked somebody else only two-months old to have that position. Well you get bummed, why? Did you not make a commitment to be a servant? Yes. Then be a servant. God will never make a mistake in your life. But you cannot have this attitude that the church owes me, the world owes me, people owe me. They don t owe you anything. You owe everything to Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And just the fact that there is a place in heaven for me is good enough. So, we need to go after this humility and this brokenness. This guy really messed up a lot of things. How can you say no to John? How can you say no to people hearing the word of God? And that s what happens; when I get prideful and things like that I can make decisions that keep people from the very best. I remember when I first got saved when I had a church, very young; forty years ago. I had to go on vacation so I got the worst speaker that I could ever find. It s almost embarrassing to say it. You know why, because I wanted them to really love me when I came back. Is that like selfish? Yeah. Well, you know the pastor had one arm and one leg, and one eye. You know that s terrible. I mean that is like, you know that s 10

11 just so sad. God should have got rid of me. Now, I want to give you the best that s what I should do. I should always give you the best, and they better be better than I am. But to give you somebody that s not so that I look better. God forbid. I want the preeminence, I want you to love me more than you love Jesus Christ. I want you to honor me, and if you don t out the door you go. You see, that is what he had. That is what dominates our marriages; self-controlling men. Men who are seeking power, women who are seeking to have a power and authority in the home; that s not pleasing to God. You are to be a blessing, you are to serve, and you are to set an example. And so, his desire was preeminence. He had to be number one, verse 9. He had to be number one, and so they were the loudest and sometimes they have to be noticed. And I think that sometimes in our life we want recognition, we want people to see us. Well, okay. Maybe you do. But, I ll tell you this. That type of recognition will just tear you apart. You want a recognition that God stops you and says, Well done thou good and faithful servant. You want a recognition that your eye is single and your body is full of light. And whatever you do you do for the Lord, Jesus Christ. And when you give you give to the Lord; and you left hand doesn t know what your right hand is doing. You do not want to dictate, or absolutely have to have your way. You want to trust God more and more in your life; and you have to be very careful because you have to see that whoever has money has power. And if you begin to control people with your money. That s wrong. You need to give it and thank God for it and keep on moving, and try to ask God to keep you humble in all that he s done. And we are driven by fear so often again we find out who s the best. It s not about being the best it s about being broken. Who s broken? And they want to be recognized and they desire that more than anything else. And yet, we see that when they finally came to Capernaum Jesus said to them, Now what where you guys talking about in that road back there? What are you talking about? He said in Mark 9:33, he said, And he came to Capernaum: and being in the house he asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? See, He adds that word, You guys were fighting? Oh Jesus, we re sorry, but are you getting tired; a 11

12 little sunstroke Jesus? No. You guys were fighting? No, we re Jews, we re just boisterous and loud! No, you were fighting. You see, we lie to Jesus, don t we? We do. We lie to God because He tells us our attitude isn t right and we shake it off because it s better than so-and-so s. We begin to make excuses for it, Well, it s because I have to work so much. Well, that s your choice, that s not His. You begin to do certain things and God begins to speak and you disapprove of what He s saying. And so, God says, Hey, what were you talking about?" You blow Him off, you just ignore Him. So, He comes back again, He says, Hey, um what are you guys fighting over the other day? Oh, nothing. Twice. I ve done that, you ve done that; we do it every single day. God says, Pray. No. God says, Let s pray with your wife. No. God says, Let s hold hands. No. Why no? Why are you telling me no all the time? Well I don t think it s necessary, Jesus; she knows I love her. Oh, really? Like God made her and God bought her and you know better than she does? I think Jesus knows better, don t you? Oh no. It just cracks me up. Peter, you re going to deny Me. I would never deny You Jesus. Peter, before the cock crows three times you are going to deny Me. I would never do that. Peter, Satan is going to wrestle with you, he s going to come after you but I have prayed for you. Remember when you get healed and you minister go back and touch your bretheren. Fine, but it ll never happen, Jesus. And then all of a sudden he said, I never knew the Man, curseth be the Man. And Jesus looked and Peter looked and their eyes hit each other, and the cock crowed. And Jesus knew and Peter knew; and he remembered the word of the Lord. He went away broken hearted, why? Because he argued with God; he called God a liar. He said, You don t know what You re talking about. I m in charge of my life. You see, that s a man that has to be in control. He s so afraid of letting go, so afraid of just trusting God. He has to be the guy in charge of his life to make sure nothing bad happens. Everything bad is going to happen if you do it. That s why you came to God. Because you needed something to rest upon; you needed a crutch. Don t be afraid of that. Every man and every woman has a crutch. You can t make it through life without a crutch. Some use drugs, some 12

13 use other things; we have Jesus Christ. I m not ashamed of that. It s a wonderful thing to have Christ to hang on to; but to lie to His face is so bad. It would be good just to say, We were talking about this and that. But they couldn t do it. Finally, Jesus said, Listen, the greatest in the kingdom is going to be those of you that serve each other here. And they couldn t get that through, they couldn t understand what He was talking about and so He nailed them. He says, You guys are fighting over who s going to be number one. That should never even come into your mind. You should be loving, and helping, and ministering; and if God wants to bless you, so be it. But your heart s not right. And that s what happens here. We give but we want to have recognition; we do, we want to be noticed; we give, and we want to be loved for it. No. Ananias and Sapphira did that. They played that game, and God killed them both because they wanted that recognition. God gets the recognition. And that s the problem with our marriages, and that s the problem with our single life. We want things helping us. And that s not what it s all about. It s about Jesus and Him crucified; and He is the Lord, and He is the God; and when He asks you a question you answer it. He said to Martha, Don t you know that I am the resurrection? (John 11:25) Oh, I know that Jesus. Okay, hold on to that thought Martha because I m going to come back to you. So, right there it goes on a little bit further and finally He comes there and standing before the two. Jesus said, Martha, uh roll away this tomb. But, he stinks. Martha, I thought you said you believe in the resurrection? You see, Jesus is never going to forget who you are. And He s never going to try to hurt you but He s going to put His finger on the area of your life that you keep fighting Him. And the reason you re fighting Him is because you want to be in charge; and He can t have that. He has to be the Lord. That s why we don t hear that phrase anymore, He is the Lord of my life, I ve been crowded into a corner and He is the God of my heart. So, He s the Lord of your life. The lordship, you have to get off the throne; let Jesus get back on that throne. It s a wonderful day when that happens. 13

14 And then, my goodness, please don t be deceived in verse 9 thinking that they don t need what another man has to say the word of God. John was inspired by the Holy Spirit. He wrote what he had to write, but here this man would not share it. You know, we do not share the truth because we re afraid. Because we don t live it, but if you live it you share it. Don t ever be afraid. And secondly, his desire for power, he had to control. Look at verse 9 again. He receiveth us not... (This is a) very powerful verse here. In verse 9, he goes on to declare, I wrote unto the church: But (The conjunction; he wouldn t do anything.) Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, (And check it out) receiveth is not. There it is. He wouldn t read our letter, he wouldn t have us; he didn t even meet us. He wouldn t even go out and say Hi and recognize the position God gave to us. Why? Because I am building my own kingdom and I can t have someone threaten me. These are my people; back off! Well, I ll tell you what God should take him away. Sometimes people beat their wives. Why would God give you any more sheep? I mean if you beat your wife, you re going to beat everyone else; so forget it. You have to love people, you have to be a shepherd. Peter, do you love Me more than these? What is the these? I don t know. It could be guns, it could be Tupperware; it could be you know a beauty shop, it could be a look. What is these? I think for Peter it was stinky fish, you know. I love fishing. Where s Peter? He went fishing. Did he catch anything? Not in your life. You can never catch anything when you re out of God s will. Peter, on the other side sunk his boat. You see, Jesus doesn t do that to hurt us. He just tries to share with you. You have a whole life you re throwing away laboring and you re not having any fruit, why? Well, I m doing it for You, God. Well, wait a second. If you did it the right way you re life might be full of the abundance of Jesus Christ. And so, I realized that he would not receive us. 14

15 Not only that but in verse 10, He doeth, prating against us. In other words, the word Prating is a cool word in the Greek. It means to bubble from underneath and come up and explode on top of the water. It s gossip. In other words, the words are like gossip; they come from hell and they come up through the water. And when they blow apart they just make all kinds of noise. He says, Not only that, but because you re not a godly man, because you will not let people hear the word of God, you are going to keep them away from us. That s a horrible thing. And so he says, Not only that, you ve made things up about John that are not true. And that s what we do. Well, how can we do that? I don t know. But when we get hurt we make up stories. When we don t like what God s doing we have to put somebody else down. It d be best to put ourselves down. It d be best to come and stop and say you know; it takes two. I cannot always be right my whole life. I have to be wrong sometime, and you re wrong all the time. These two are reckoned at the cross of Jesus Christ. And then, notice also in verse 10. It says he rejected our team. Neither doth he himself receive the brethren... So, he rejected John, he rejected the word of God, he rejected the team that went; and then, check it out also in verse 10, he rejected the body. It says right here in a very powerful way. Neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would They want to come and listen to John, and he says No, you re out of the church. You re out! You won t listen to me, you won t submit to me, you won t do what I tell you to; you re outta here! That is not a leader, that s a dictator. That is someone manipulating, not motivating. That should never happen in the church of Jesus Christ. And then lastly, it says in verse 11; kind of cool. He says a very interesting thing. He says here; he points back and he says, Hey John, I want you to look up remember Gaius. In other words, there s a better way to live your life. You could make a choice. And today, there s a better way. Do you really want to be number one? Is it that bad; is my self-esteem that bad? Well, first of all, I m made in the image of God. If God 15

16 loves you then you can love anybody. So no; think about it. Why am I so angry? Because you re resisting and resenting authority. Why? Because you think you are pretty important. Well, you re not. Only Jesus Christ is. And I can be replaced, just like Elijah was replaced, just like Isaiah was replaced. No different. So this is a privilege right here, and I can abuse it and lose it. This is not something that is mine. As long I do it God s way no one can touch it. But this is a privilege. It s a privilege to be a servant of the Most High God. It s an honor to give your very best. It s a great joy to sacrifice for the body of Christ. Closing Prayer: Father, I pray that You would help us to understand that there are different types of people in the body. There are some that give, and some that take. And God there are some here today that give, and some that take. And we ask that You would forgive us for being takers; that God never in our life do we have to get to a point that we have to protect ourselves, or take, or make sure that we re not going to be used. Jesus, I believe that You have that responsibility. And if we would just love You, give to You, minister to You; You would always make sure that even our enemies would be at peace with us. So God, make it easier. Sometimes this Christian walk is way too hard because we don t listen. Lord, we are nothing but in Your eyes we are everything and we have been given a gift. We have been given a ministry. And God, You have counted us faithful putting us into that ministry and You have anointed us to do the work of Jesus Christ. May we do it for Your glory and would people see Christ in us, the hope of glory. In Jesus name. Amen. 16