3 John Faithfulness

 

Have you ever had a friend who hurt you? Maybe they shared something unkind about you with someone else, or maybe they ignored you at school or at a party and made you feel sad and like you’re not even their friend anymore? Faithfulness is one of those character traits that we look for in people because it shows that the person is mature and trustworthy. The Dictionary of Bible Themes defines faithfulness as “commitment to a relationship with God or fellow human beings, seen in that loyalty, devotion, and service which is a reflection of God’s own faithfulness. Scripture points to the faithfulness of Jesus Christ as an example for believers.”

Our faithfulness flows out of God, a reflection of his faithfulness to us. All you need to do to get a sense of how faithful God is to us is read the Bible, beginning in Genesis, especially Genesis 3 and then follow how God sticks with humanity even though we keep throwing his faithfulness to us back in his face time and again as we keep choosing other gods over God. I say ‘we’ because we’re no different than the people in the Bible. Tim Keller says that we tend to take the good things that God blesses us with and turn them into gods by making them more important in our hearts than God himself. As I look at my own life, I realize that it’s done so easily, without even knowing it at the time. It takes a deliberate choice each day to follow Jesus above everything else. It kind of hit me as I was studying for this sermon, that just as I feel hurt and betrayed when a friend or loved does something that makes you feel unloved or small, that God must feel hurt too when I’m not faithful to him and choose other things to love more than him. I think that many people forget that God feels things too; Jesus lived life deeply and emotionally. Faithfulness is a 100% commitment. For those of you who are married, can you imagine the response if you told your spouse that you figure 85% faithfulness is good enough? Yet we do that to God pretty regularly.

In John’s third letter, John’s writing to a dear friend, Gaius. We first meet Gaius as a travelling partner of Paul in Acts 19 and 20. Paul also mentions Gaius in his first letter to the church in Corinth, where we discover that Paul had baptized Gaius into the faith, “My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”  Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized in my name.” Paul challenged the people in Corinth to remember that Jesus is the center of our faith, not Apollos, Cephas or even Paul. Paul’s calling them back to faithfulness to Jesus.

Scott Hoezee writes about 3 John, “The major, major theme of John, and in the Gospel of John, too, and in I John, this whole idea of the truth; and the truth is, as we know, and as we will learn from other parts of this letter, the truth is the truth about Jesus, and the truth that He was God’s own Son, and the truth – that is the right teaching about Jesus – orthodoxy – leads to orthopraxis, which is to act in a right way. So, orthodoxy leads to orthopraxis – right teaching leads to right practice; and in Gaius’s case, this is an exercise of hospitality. Love – sacrificial love of Jesus – showing itself in hospitality to these people who have come to him and he has taken in.”

John shares with Gaius, “They have told the church about your love. Please send them on their way in a manner that honors God. It was for the sake of the name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans. We ought, therefore, to show hospitality to such people, so that we may work together for the truth.” Faithfulness to Jesus leads to faithfulness to others who are also followers of Jesus. We are called to live together in community together, to be family together as the church, to show the world what faithful healthy relationships look like in the kingdom of God. This is why John calls out Diotrephes who puts himself and his place in the church above being a blessing to others, even other followers of Jesus.

In John 14, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is saying that our life needs to be formed on his teaching and example, he is the way we should live; our life is based on the truth, on being faithful to him alone; and Jesus is the life that he talks about when he says in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Gaius, as John says, is faithful to the truth, walking in the truth. Gaius’ faithfulness to Jesus is seen in his faithfulness to these people who have come in Jesus’ name to bring the good news of Jesus to those who still haven’t heard of Jesus, or haven’t committed to following Jesus yet. This is what being faithful to Jesus is all about; it’s not simply believing the right things, it moves into doing right things; it’s about taking the command to go make disciples and making it central to our lives as we follow Jesus. It’s about commitment and faithfulness to the local church, committing to work with each other, using our gifts and resources to share the gospel, to be a blessing in our community, seeking justice and mercy for those overlooked and oppressed and being faithful to our community. Faithfulness is all about relationships of trust and commitment to God, each other, and the people of our community. This is at the heart of our faith and faithfulness to Jesus.

Faithfulness, as part of the fruit of the Spirit, and our character, shapes all our relationships. This is why marriage is often used as an image of Jesus’ relationship with the church, because marriage is a relationship fully rooted in faithfulness to each other. Some one asked me once why the church insists that couples get married instead of simply living together, at least at first to see if they fit together and I told the person that marriage is rooted in promises to each other, it’s a relationship based on commitment rather than feelings because feelings change, but commitment doesn’t, and because it shows that you recognize that marriage is about loyalty, devotion and serving each other. Living together only shows the other person that their commitment to your relationship is based on how long it satisfies them, makes them feel good, instead of faithfulness and sacrifice for the other person.

Faithfulness builds up the other person, leading us to say like John the Baptist does about Jesus, “He must become greater; I must become less.” The band Casting Crowns says it this way,

“Cause I’m just a nobody

Trying to tell everybody

All about Somebody who saved my soul

Ever since You rescued me

You gave my heart a song to sing

I’m living for the world to see Nobody but Jesus.”

Because we are all created in the image of God, we’re all called to be encouragers and builders up of all people, pointing them to Jesus where they can experience Jesus’ love and faithfulness to us. This is part of showing the world what the kingdom of God is all about, what faithfulness to God looks like.

Faithfulness to our communities flows out of our faithfulness to God. God has placed us where we are for his reasons, in a place to live out our faithfulness to him. We are all human beings created in the image of God. Faithfulness to Jesus means loving God with everything we are, seriously studying and knowing his Word so that we can live out his image and values in our community out of God’s love for them. By living out Jesus’ truth in love, we show our community what truth is, what truth looks like in a world muddied with many opinions based on how the person feels at the time, or on how it benefits them over others. Jesus reveals truth: we’re all broken sinful people who need a perfect saviour who is God and human to take our sin away and make us right again with God and each other. This Saviour, who is Jesus, then calls us to live out his truth love to Him and to each other through acts of sacrificial love through the good works prepared for us to do to show our faithfulness to God.