Does the Truth Speak Well of You?

Texts:    Psalm  1; 3 John 11-14

    BROTHERS AND SISTERS, HAVE YOU ever been tempted to fight fire with fire?  There's that coworker who always interrupts at meetings, why not be more aggressive and interrupt him back?  If someone is spreading nasty rumors about you, it'd serve her right if you let slip a few things about her.  Or maybe you've observed that if you really want to get things done in this world, it's best to imitate those who seize the reins whether they've got the right to or not.  Why not?  That arrogant, bossy person deserves to have a fall!  And wouldn't life be so much better if you and I were the ones with the power?

    Well, not exactly.  In today's passage from the Third Letter from John, the elder and apostle calls us by the Holy Spirit to refuse to be tied up with those who do evil, and instead to compare ourselves to and imitate what is good.

    Last week we learned about a bull elder named Diotrephes who was disrupting the local church by his tyrannical, arrogant behavior.  And there might just be a little part of you that envies a man like that.  Oh, you and I know we could never get away with it, but what if we could?  St. John knows his beloved friend Gaius is human.  Just possibly Gaius was entertaining visions of marching into the church and dealing with Diotrephes once and for all, the same way Diotrephes had served the missionaries John sent from Ephesus.  They didn't get a hearing, neither should this overbearing leader.  But John nips that in the bud.   In verse 11 he writes to Gaius, "Do not imitate what is evil."  Don't be like Diotrephes!  Do not do evil for the sake of dong good!  But neither is it enough for us to be glad we "aren't like that" and settle for the creeping comfort of our boring, humdrum sins.  No, if we want to be commended by the truth, we must go on to imitate what is good.  For, John writes, "Anyone who does what is good is from God."

    Oh.  That should be easy, right?  We all know all sorts of people who do good in this world, some Christian, some not.  Take this online community I belong to.  It's dedicated to cats and the people who like them, but the conversation isn't only about felines.  These people are good to one another; they've been good to me.  They're there with concern, good advice, and support in times of trouble. They donate money to help other members and their pets.  They visit one another in the hospital, even stepping in as advocates so sick and injured members get the best medical care. Going by the standards of the world, these are very good people.  Sometimes I compare the good they do with how badly a lot of church members treat one another, and it seems the church would be a lot better off if we were more like this worldwide community of cat lovers.  In many ways, we'd do well to imitate them.

    But is this kind of goodness enough?  Is this a perfect picture of the good the Holy Spirit commands us to imitate here in the Third Letter from John?  John the elder and apostle states that anyone who does what is good is from God.  May I conclude from that that my cat-loving cyber friends don't need the saving blood of Christ?  Some of them admit they don't believe in God, some are involved in anti-biblical sexual relationships and are proud of it.  Are they good enough for God?  Can you and I take a pass on telling our nice unsaved friends about the Gospel, since they're as good and helpful as we know them to be?  Or does this word "good" in this letter go way beyond simply being helpful and nice?

    We've seen these past two weeks that we need to understand the words John uses.  When he calls his friend Gaius "beloved," he speaks of no mere earthly love, but of the deep, unselfish, pure love of God in Christ.  When he speaks of "the truth," we are to think of the reality of all God says and all God is, especially as expressed in His Son Jesus Christ.  For St. John, "good" signifies the perfection of God demonstrated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and lived out by each Christian as we pattern our lives after His image.  "Good" is God's love in action, as John taught in his first letter, writing
    This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Well, thus far that sounds a lot like the good that unbelievers can show us and each other in this world.  But remember what Jesus Himself did with this word "good" in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and  Luke 18.  There was that rich young man who asked Jesus, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  And Jesus replied, "Why do you call me ‘good'?" or "Why do you ask me about what is ‘good'?  No one is good-- except God alone." Jesus was not denying being God, as some skeptics claim.  No, He was cautioning against using this word "good" lightly or in a purely earthly way.  God alone is the ultimate standard and perfection of goodness, and no one can claim to imitate the true goodness that is God without being good towards Him.  Remember what Isaiah the prophet said, that apart from God's salvation all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.  True goodness cannot begin until we have been clothed with the true goodness and righteousness of Jesus Christ who gave His life for us.

    In this letter, John writes to Gaius and to all of us who confess that Jesus is our Savior, not to those who don't know Him or accept Him.  Jesus is the Good whom we are to imitate.  When we as Christians do good to one another, when we return good for evil when unbelievers persecute us for the Name of Christ, we prove that we're telling the truth when we say we belong to the truth. 

    All of us will mess up at times.  We all struggle with the old sin nature and stumble in places along the road to God's perfect kingdom.  But if we persistently do evil; if we never care about one another; if we take pleasure in vicious gossip, egotistic power plays, and uncontrolled gluttony and greed; if we defiantly disregard God's gracious plan for marriage and sexual purity; if we refuse to worship Him as He deserves, we prove that we have not seen God.  The light of the resurrected Christ has never dawned in our hearts; we have no regard for the truth, rather, our "Jesus" is a god of our own making.

    John the elder and apostle knew we need models to imitate as we strive to do good in the name of Christ.  He calls Gaius' attention to a Christian named Demetrius.  We don't know if this man was a fellow-member of Gaius' church in that town, or if he was one of John's students, maybe the bearer of this very letter.  Regardless, John holds him up as someone worth emulating. 

    Demetrius, he says, is well-spoken of by everyone.  Now, Jesus told His disciples (in Luke), "Woe to you when all men speak well of you."  But St. John is not speaking here of "all men," but of sound Christian men and women whose good opinion is worth having.  If people like that can commend your attitudes and behavior, you can know you're on the right track.

    But there's a commendation more valuable still.  John says that the truth itself speaks well of Demetrius.  What does he mean?

    He says "truth itself," so most likely he's not saying he had a personal word from Jesus Christ in heaven about Demetrius' character.  But the truth is what we know of God, what He has revealed about Himself in His Law and especially in Jesus Christ.  Sometimes we can say about someone, "Oh, he's a wonderful Christian man" or "She's a remarkable Christian woman."  And if we're mature Christians and people look up to us, they might conclude that that person's actions line up with the will of God right down the line.  But we can get lazy and slip.  We can overlook things.  We can make allowances for little deviations and sins, especially when they're sins we share.  But what does the Bible say about that woman or man?  The New Testament is the faithful testimony of the apostles and evangelists to who Jesus was and what He did.  To say that the truth speaks well of Demetrius or anyone is to say that his life lines up with what the Word of God teaches us about Christ and His will. 

    Sometimes, often, if we want the truth of God to speak well of us it'll mean saying or doing what this upside-down world regards as evil.  We must put Christ and His holiness and glory first, even when the world says that's insensitive and intolerant.  It may call us humbly and lovingly to take a stand against popular lies about the nice, harmless Jesus who'd never, ever make anyone give up anything that makes them happy or makes them feel affirmed--!  And do it even though our very friends call us bigots and haters.

    And always, if we want to be well-spoken of by the truth, we will remain aware of our own sins and shortcomings and constantly run to Jesus for forgiveness and guidance in how to imitate what is good.

    John himself can vouch for Demetrius.  He knows him and his godly character personally, not merely by reputation, and John's own reputation for truthfulness is well-known.  Whenever you and I can forward someone's ministry by putting in a good word for them, let's certainly do it.  And let us strive to be the kind of people whose good word is valued and heeded.

    We see by verse 14 that John has decided almost certainly to come visit Gaius.  He will be able to encourage him face to face, and that will be better than mere pen and ink.  That's something to bear in mind in this age of easy electronic communication.  Good as we have it, nothing can replace being in each other's presence as we build up one another in the Lord.

    In the meantime, John closes with a benediction of peace, and sends the greetings of the friends in Ephesus.  The letter ends with a request that Gaius greet the friends in his town by name.  Each Christian is individually important to God, and we should be individually important to one another.  That is yet another way we imitate what is good.

    Life in the church isn't always easy.  It's not necessarily conflict-free to walk in the truth or to work together for the truth.  But if we strive to be spoken well of by the truth, together we will grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  And trusting in His goodness shown for us in His death and resurrection, we will know more and more the precious communion He promises us, until we enjoy it in perfection in His heavenly kingdom.

Working Together for the Truth-- or Not?

 Texts:    Acts 4:1-31; 3 John 5-10
  

    HAVE YOU EVER DAYDREAMED ABOUT the glories of the ancient church?  Oh, if we could've lived back then, when everyone faithfully drank up the apostles' teaching and the Spirit had His way in every heart and all believers worked together in love and unity to spread the gospel of Christ!

    But you and I all know that's nonsense.  Only people who haven't actually read the New Testament can get all dreamy and romantic about the early church.  They had troubles and conflicts just like we do.  Which works out well for us.  Really.  Because if they'd had no problems, we wouldn't have the Apostles' words written down for us to help us work out our difficulties. Because like our 1st century brethren, we too are called to keep on working together for the truth.

    As we continue our study of the Third Letter from John, today we'll be looking at verses 5-10. As we noted last week, this is a personal pastoral letter to a Christian named Gaius.  So John the writer, elder, and apostle, doesn't go into a lot of detail.  I'll try to flesh out the situation from what I've gleaned from the commentaries, and if the Holy Spirit commends my explanation to your mind and soul, good.  Take the best and leave what isn't accurate or helpful behind.  But this letter is in the Bible for God's good reasons, and when it comes to what is plain and open in the text, let's accept it gratefully so we may work together for the truth, as Christ's own church.

    In verse 5 John writes to Gaius, "Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you."  Who are these brothers?  We see from later in the passage that they were sent from John.  As I mentioned last week, John acted as a kind of presbytery executive, or, as Pittsburgh Presbytery is arranged, he was like the Pastor to Presbytery.  These days, it's only in times of trouble or transition that a congregation has much to do with representatives coming from presbytery.  But in Gaius' day the New Testament was not yet concluded.  The apostles-- who were eyewitnesses of Jesus and His works-- were still speaking to the church in the authority of Christ, and still teaching men (and yes, possibly, women) to carry on after them.   The brothers John sent would be his personal students in Ephesus, where he lived before he was arrested and exiled to Patmos.  They'd go out to the local churches as missionaries and evangelists, to build up the believers in the faith and help them settle disputes in the peace of Christ.  These brothers from John were not personally known to Gaius; they were strangers to him, as John says.  But Gaius was faithful in serving them, because they came with the Apostle's authority.

    What might Gaius have done for the brothers?  First and foremost, he probably provided them room in his home, or made sure someone else in the church took them in.  He made sure they were fed, that their worn-out sandals were mended or replaced.  He might arrange a time and place for them to speak to the members of the church-- not necessarily an easy matter, as we'll see pretty soon.  Whatever he did, we know he did it lovingly and graciously, because as we see in verse 6,  the missionary brothers had come back from previous trips and told the church in Ephesus all about his love.  Now John writes that Gaius will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God.  This tells us that a fresh team of missionaries is presently staying with Gaius, and brought this very letter to him.  When they finished their work in Gaius' town, with his help they'd go on to the next town or village on their itinerary, to preach the Word and strengthen the church.

    As Christians we should always do what we do for the church and its ministers in a manner worthy of God.  Remember that our God and Savior Jesus bought the church with His own precious blood, she is His, and when we serve the church, we serve Christ.  And keep in mind always the service God deserves in Himself.  His name is to be honored and feared, and, as John writes in verse 7, it is for the sake of the Name that these evangelist brothers went out.

    In our reading from Acts 4 we see how weighty it is to invoke the name of God in Christ, in the church and in the world.  Peter and John healed a crippled beggar and consequently preached  Jesus as the only Christ and Saviour.  For this the Jewish authorities threw them into prison and are now trying them before the Council.

    Peter and John aren't daunted.  They declare that it is by the name of Jesus that the man was healed.  Friends, the name of Jesus has power.  Peter maintains that there is no other name under heaven besides that of Jesus by which anyone can be saved.  The name of Jesus brings salvation.  The Council consult together and decide to order the apostles never again to speak to anyone in this name.   But Peter and John assert that to preach the name of Jesus is to declare the truth of what they had seen and heard of Christ and to obey what God has commanded them to do.  To speak in the name of Jesus is to declare what He has done.

    The Sanhedrin don't know what to do, and release the apostles.  When Peter and John return to the church, do they say, "Oh, guys, please tone it down about Jesus, you're going to get us all into trouble!"  No!  They recognise that the persecution the apostles have faced is just one more example of the unbelieving world's resistance to God and His Messiah, Jesus Christ.  And they pray that the Lord God will "Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."

    The name of Jesus carries His power and authority in this world, whether the world likes it or not.  For the brothers to go out from John for the sake of the Name is for them to speak the healing and salvation of Christ. It's to command obedience to His Word.  So it's only right for the church in each town to house and feed and worthily send on evangelists and missionaries who come in Jesus' name.

     There was a time during our Lord's ministry, before He died and rose again, when it was appropriate for His disciples to find lodging for Him with friendly folk who didn't yet understand who He was.  But now wherever Christ's church has been planted, it's not up to the pagans to support our travelling preachers and teachers; in fact, they might well refuse to do so.  No, it's the church's privilege and duty to receive and entertain those who come to us in the name of the Lord, whether they drive over from Pittsburgh or arrive from the other side of the world.  As John writes in verse 8, "We ought therefore to show hospitality to such men so we may work together for the truth."

    Think of that!  You don't have to be a missionary or evangelist to work together for the truth that is Jesus Christ.  Simply opening your home or helping at a church supper in support of a preacher or teacher is pleasing and profitable in God's sight!

    But even in the early church, not all hearts were willing to be hospitable.  John says, "I wrote to the church, but-- "

    Wait a minute.  In verse 6 John said the brothers had told the church about Gaius' love, but here he talks about writing to the church.  Which church, where?  From the context, the verse 6 church is the congregation in Ephesus, and here in verse 9, it's the congregation in Gaius's town.  But I think it's on purpose that John doesn't make the distinction.  For the Apostle, the church is everywhere that Christ is faithfully preached and believed, all one body united in His love. There are local manifestations of the body, but one church, one apostolate, one saving Word; one Spirit and one Christ, to the glory of God the Father.

    But too often there are brothers and sisters in the local church who want to make it their private kingdom.  Men like Diotrephes, who loved to be first.  We've all known some Diotrepheses, and Diotrephas, too, in our time.  Judging from the power he wielded, Diotrephes was one of the pastoral team or a ruling elder, but a Diotrephes doesn't have to be ordained.  He-- or she-- is distinguished by his attitude.  Your typical Diotrephes would never say, "Yes, I want to cause disruption and disunity in the church and destroy the faith of many, because it feeds my ego."  No.  He'd plead, "I'm only doing it for the sake of the church!  I work so hard around here, if I stepped back nothing would get done!"

    John says Diotrephes will have nothing to do with him and his apostolic circle.  Diotrephes would answer, "Apostles?  We don't need no stinkin' apostles!  We know everything about Jesus Christ right here, we're doing just fine!"  Jesus sent out His apostles in His authority to be heeded and obeyed, but Diotrephes refuses.  He doesn't merely ignore John and his emissaries, he says nasty things about him, not openly in the church as official charges, but as gossip behind the scenes.

    Friends, it's shocking the malicious stories people will spread about pastors and church leaders.  I'm sorry to say I had a Diotrephes once who falsely accused me of everything short of murder and child sexual abuse.  We can conclude that for John it's bad enough for himself to be slandered at a distance, but Diotrephes willfully extends that evil personally to the brothers John sends.  He refused to welcome them-- by which we know he prevented them from speaking to the church in the Lord's Day services--and he wouldn't even permit other church members to extend hospitality to them.  Members who did, he put out of the church.

    Which brings us back to Gaius.  It really appears that he himself has been excommunicated for welcoming the brothers from John.  Notice that John doesn't make a victim out of him.  There's no "Poor you, that mean Diotrephes has treated you so badly."  No.  He commends and supports Gaius as he does the right and godly thing for the brothers, as they and the other wrongly excommunicated members work together for the truth, despite the in-house persecution.  But because of Diotrephes' attitude, this indictment of his behaviour can't come to the church, it has to be addressed to faithful Gaius. 

    For surely Gaius knows from experience what this bull elder-- as my EP calls them-- has done!  John doesn't need to tell him!

    Yes.  Surely Gaius knows.  But unlike a lot of modern church authorities, John will not leave Diotrephes in the dark as to the charges to be levelled when the Apostle arrives to exercise church discipline.  No fake niceness.  None of this vague "Well, you're not a good fit for this church" or "oh, the dynamics here are just bad."  No, Diotrephes will know exactly what he has to answer for.  And if he will wake up out of his self-deluded blindness and humble himself to hear, he'll know what he needs to repent of.  For even Christians like Diotrephes are called to work together for the truth, who is Jesus Christ our Lord and the church's only Head.

    One thing more, then I'll close.  Don't be too quick to assume someone in the church is a Diotrephes.  Sometimes people genuinely believe what they're doing is for the best.  You do the church no good by gossiping about them or keeping your mouth shut as you drop your membership. If someone in the church is pursuing a policy that's unhelpful or even harmful, go to him openly and honorably and let him know.  Most of the time you'll come to a deeper understanding of one another and be able to work together better than ever.

    In his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes that we are all

    . . . fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 

    To work together for the truth is to support and uphold and proclaim the message that John and the rest of the apostles preached, that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, for there is no other Name under heaven by which every human being must or can be saved.  As we come to one another with this message, as we work to promote this true word, let us humble ourselves to serve and support one another.  May we welcome and be gracious to our brothers and sisters in the faith, whether they're sitting in the pew next to us or come from afar.  This is how we demonstrate the love of Christ that overcomes the world.  This is how we work together for the truth.

Walking in the Truth

Texts:    Psalm 26; 3 John 1-4

I WONDER, WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE if you thought a personal letter of yours would end up as Holy Scripture?  Maybe you'd work to pen something grand and glorious, with eloquent, soaring phrases fit to go down in history.

    On the other hand, if you were an apostle of Jesus Christ whose words were likely to go down in sacred history, likely you'd write just the way John does-- as a humble servant of God addressing the concerns of a brother in Christ. You'd look out for the good of Christ's church and always keep in mind the Lord you both served.

    These next three weeks we'll be looking at the third epistle of John.  Today we'll be focussing especially on verses 2-4.

    It follows the pattern of a typical letter from the 1st century A.D.  It begins by stating who it's from.  The sender doesn't name himself; he merely notes that he is "the elder."  Or, following the Greek, "the presbyter."  Nevertheless, there has never been any serious doubt that 1, 2, and 3 John were indeed written by the Apostle John, brother of James and writer of the gospel being his name.  We know this from unbroken church tradition, and the style of all four books matches so well, it puts it beyond all doubt.  So here we have the Apostle John writing a private Christian a personal letter.  Imagine, when John wrote to churches and individuals, he really could have thrown his weight around.  He could have given all his titles and reminded everyone who he was-- the disciple whom Jesus especially loved.  Instead, in both 2 and 3 John he chose to be known simply as "the elder."

    True, John wasn't just any elder.  As an apostle who walked with Jesus, John was rather like an executive presbyter or a diocesan bishop.  He had churches under his care and his joy and duty was to make sure they were fed and nurtured with the truth of Christ.  He also wanted the pastors and evangelists who served those churches to be received properly.

    He writes to a man named Gaius.  John doesn't identify who his friend is or even where he lives.  This is a personal letter, after all.  It appears Gaius had a position of some responsibility in his local church; possibly he was a ruling elder or a deacon.  In any case, we know that Gaius was a very dear friend to John, and not just a dear friend as the pagans might have, he was "agapete," beloved with the pure love of God shown to us in Jesus Christ.

    I'm sure you've heard before about the difference between the various words for love in Greek-- eros for romantic love, philia for brotherly love or close friendship, and so on.  The Church didn't invent this word "agape"; it was used in every day life before the New Testament was written.  You could use it to refer to the high esteem you had for some object you thought would make you very happy.  But more often it meant the love of man for the gods, the love of the gods for man, and the love of supernatural beings for one another.  Especially it meant to love someone more than one's own life, like a mother would love her child. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and by Jesus' own example, the New Testament writers took this word for love and made it the Church's own.  For what greater love could anyone know than the love of Christ shown for us on the cross, and what greater love could one human being have for another than to love one another in the agape love of our mutual crucified Lord?

    It's sad, but sometimes we Christians use the love of God as a substitute for really caring about each other.  I'm talking about those times when we say, "Oh, I love her in the Lord," but our hearts are not warmed with any affection for that sister and our hands aren't willing to do anything to help her. 
Christian friends, the agape love of God is not some pale substitute for human love and concern, rather it includes and transforms and makes holy whatever human love is appropriate in the relationship.

    And so John is concerned about his friend's welfare in all aspects of his being.  We see this in verse 2.  John notes that Gaius' "soul is getting along well."  The friend is trusting in Jesus Christ as his Savior, he's growing in the faith.  We'd expect a spiritual father to be concerned with this.  But John also prays that Gaius' bodily health and material circumstances are good, too.  "[T]hat all may go well with you" signifies financial security.  We Christians don't put our trust in earthly wealth, but neither are we called to despise the good gifts God gives us in this life.  Any religion that rejects the proper use and enjoyment of the good things of this world is not Christianity.  In holy love, John prays health and prosperity for his friend, even as he rejoices in his spiritual progress.

    And now (verse 3) John shares his joy in what he has heard from some brothers who had returned to him from Gaius' town.  Gaius, he has learned, remains faithful to the truth and continues to walk in the truth.

    But what does John mean by this expression, "the truth"?  It occurs four times in verses 1-4 and he doesn't go into detail about it to Gaius, because his friend knows what he means.  Let's make sure we understand it, too, so we'll get the good out of this passage the Holy Spirit intends.

    The best thing is to go back to John's gospel and see how he uses the term there.

    In John 1:14 he writes,

    "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

    Truth is an attribute of God, an expression of the reality of who the Father is, that Jesus the Word of God shares and brings to light in this world.

    In chapter 3, verse 21 Jesus tells Nicodemus that

    "‘Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.'"

    So the truth is something one can and should live by.  Our lives should match up with God's character, and when that happens, we don't have to be afraid to let Him see what we are doing.  Our actions and attitudes will reflect his glory.  More than that, when we live by the truth we will acknowledge that whatever good we do we do it through God.

    Jesus teaches the woman at the well in Samaria (4:24) that

    "‘God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.'"

    We know from this that truth, this same expression of the character of God, must characterize our worship.

    In John chapter 8 Jesus makes it clear that those who do not accept and love Him are children of the devil, who does not hold to the truth, for there is no truth in him.  So we see that to hold to the truth is to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of the Father, who was to come into the world to save it.  In 17:17 Jesus prays the Father that He will sanctify this disciples by the truth, for God's word is truth.  The truth, then, is what God is and does; and it's also what God says and has written by the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

    And most significant of all, in 14:6 Jesus tells the disciples,

    "‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.'"

    The truth is Jesus Himself.  Jesus wasn't just an example of the truth, he embodied it in this world, especially as He died for us on the cross.  He was and is the exact image of God the Father.  He continues to be the truth at the right hand of God on high, and the world will be judged by Him at the last day.

    Gaius is faithful to the truth: he is faithful to Jesus his Lord. He is not afraid to confess who Jesus is and what He has done for him.  He understands and accepts that the Son of God became flesh in this world to be the one true and perfect sacrifice for his sins.  His hope is in Christ and in Christ alone, even in the midst of a pagan society.

    There are those, even in the church, who love to remind us that people these days believe in many different concepts of God and often in no god at all.  So, they say, we should be loose and flexible in our commitment to Jesus Christ.  These are pluralistic times, things are different, and we shouldn't be so intolerant as to say that Jesus is the only truth who can bring us to the heavenly Father.  But don't they realize how pluralistic the world was when St. John wrote this letter?  Unbelievers back then thought Christians were terribly narrow-minded for not accepting  Caesar as lord along with Jesus the Christ.  But Christians like Gaius knew that faithfulness to the truth of Christ was essential to salvation.  Not only that, it was what our God and Savior Jesus Christ deserved. 

    Are you faithful to Christ as your only Lord, and is your Christ the One who is revealed to us in the writings of the Old and New Testaments?  It's crucial that we be faithful to Him and Him alone, and not make up false Christs and false gods out of our own desires or out of the pressures of popular culture.

    But Gaius wasn't merely faithful to the truth, he also continued to walk in it.  Now you know how old the expression is: He didn't just talk the talk, he walked the walk.  He carried out the duties and actions that belonged to a man of faith.  Psalm 26 which we read this morning describes what some of those behaviors might have been.  We can also turn to Galatians 5, where we read of the fruit of the Spirit.  To walk in the truth is to treat our neighbor with love, joy, peacefulness, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To use an old-fashioned phrase, it's to make our lives an ornament to the Gospel.  When we walk in the truth we encourage other Christians.  And we show the unbelieving world that the word of Christ dead and risen again really is the truth-- for them as well as for us.

    But to walk in the truth signifies something even greater than that.  We can do all sorts of good things in this world and our lives would still be a lie.  To walk in the truth as Gaius did is to live our lives in the strength and merit of Jesus Christ.  Not trusting in ourselves to please God in our own selves, but putting all our faith in Christ alone.  It's conforming our lives to His word and following the guidance of His Holy Spirit, giving all the glory to God the Father through Christ our Lord.

    This is what the brothers came and reported to John, and it gave him great joy.  His spiritual son was walking in the truth!  Those of you who have children are so happy when they grow up and keep on practicing the good habits you've taught them, even when they've moved away; how much more joy do fathers and mothers in Christ have when we hear that those we've discipled remain strong and committed to the Lord in word and deed!

    And you know who else is filled with joy when we walk in the truth?  God our heavenly Father.  St. James writes that God "chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created."  Psalm 26 says

    "For your love is ever before me,
        and I walk continually in your truth."

The agape love of God draws us on to walk in His truth.  In the love of God our Father, may we continually entrust ourselves to God's own truth, who is Jesus Christ our Lord.