Sermon Tone Analysis

“Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good.

Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

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.”[1]

Modern Christians are poorly taught about missionary labours.

This situation is not wholly the fault of individual Christians; the subject of missions is often neglected from the pulpit.

This may be in part because contemporary Christians have been indoctrinated both by the world and by religious leaders to believe that missionary work is cultural imperialism.

Whatever our reason for ignoring the mandate of the Master to carry the message of life into all the world, the churches appear woefully ignorant of missions.

I want to suggest that one primary reason we do not witness the vigorous missionary advance that characterised previous generations, is that we do not know what our mission is.

Missions depend upon mission.

If our mission is to huddle in holy enclaves, than we are fulfilling in admirable fashion the mandate we received from the Master.

If, however, our mission is to make disciples, we are failing miserably.

On one occasion, Charles Spurgeon, the noted Baptist divine of nineteenth century London, preaching from the final verses of Mark’s Gospel, related the account of an exchange between an army chaplain and the Duke of Wellington.

This is a transcription of his illustration.

“An army chaplain once said to the Duke of Wellington, ‘Do you think that it is of any use our taking the gospel to the hill tribes in India?

Will they ever receive it?’

The duke replied, ‘What are your marching orders?’

That was the only answer he gave.

Stern disciplinarian as that great soldier was, he only wanted marching orders, and he obeyed; and he meant that every soldier of the cross must obey the marching orders of Christ, his great Commander.

Go ye, therefore, as far as ever your position and capabilities allow you, and tell to every creature the word of the gospel as it is recorded in my text, ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.’”[2]

Nothing has changed in the intervening years.

Christ is still on the throne.

The charge given to His disciples yet stands.

The world is still lost.

Mankind still teeters on the brink of eternity.

We who have heard the Gospel still have the message of life.

Christians are yet accountable to Him to fulfil His command.

Not only are we responsible to be on mission with God, but we are responsible to be missionary-minded.

We are accountable to God to pray for the Lord of the Harvest to thrust forth labourers into His fields, and we are responsible both to go and to assist those who go from our churches.

In this brief missive from the Apostle of Love, we saw that John registered not just disapproval, but something akin to horror at the thought that a church leader would not eagerly receive missionaries when opportunity was presented.

Moreover, word had reached the aged Apostle that the particular church leader in question had not only refused to accept itinerating missionaries in his church, but he had debarred members of the congregation who wished to receive them, even going so far as to dismiss them from the congregation in some instances.

Diotrephes epitomised evil, and John identifies him as evil; his actions were unconscionable and unworthy of the Master.

Contrasted to him was someone named Demetrius.

It seems appropriate to conclude that Demetrius was one of the missionaries turned away by Diotrephes—perhaps he was even the leader of the missionary band.

John speaks highly of him, holding him up as one worthy of receiving support from the churches because he had a good reputation with all who knew him, and especially enjoyed a good reputation with the Apostle.

Generally, those appointed to the Master’s service should be respected by all Christians, though that seldom works out in practise.

As an aside, if a young man considers the ministry of Christ, believing that he will enjoy the respect of others, he should find another calling.

The Apostles, the prophets and even those who have served as preachers of the Word, are often maligned and despised by the world.

Let’s look at the issues as presented in the Word.

*Demetrius Has Received a Good Testimony from Everyone* — “Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone.”

The statement is obviously exaggerated to provide emphasis.

It seems fair to say that it is doubtful that Diotrephes would have given him a good testimony.

However, for the most part Demetrius appears to have conducted himself with integrity and honour, and was therefore, held in esteem by most believers that knew him.

Even outsiders are compelled to speak well of believers who conduct themselves honourably.

We would each do well to remember the admonition that Peter gave to believers.

“Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” [*1 Peter 2:12*].

When we unpack this instruction we see that even unbelieving people know in reality the good that those who love God have done.

Though pagans delight to find fault with every servant of God, they are compelled by the evidence to grudgingly give glory to God for the good that is done.

They are incapable of explaining the benevolence done by servants of God.

While the sins of the professed servants of God are trumpeted abroad, little is said of the good that has been accomplished.

As one example, consider that recently the news media is taking great delight in exposing every real or imagined sin committed by homosexual Catholic priests.

This entity is but the latest in a string of religious organisations to receive such scrutiny.

Though the media are careful to speak of paedophile priests, it is abundantly obvious that the genesis of the problem was the admission of homosexuals to the priesthood.

I am not an apologist for the Catholic Church; however, honesty compels me to say that the percentage of priests that have been exposed as sexual predators is miniscule when compared to the numbers that seek to fulfil the work for which they trained.

Moreover, the same media that eagerly broadcasts the sins of these few is almost silent concerning an apparently greater number of sexual predators in the fields of education and politics; and accounts of the good that is quietly accomplished on a daily basis by Catholic charities is ignored.

The work of charities such as hospitals, crisis pregnancy centres, food banks, adoption agencies and multiplied other Catholic charities is ignored, except when such labours run afoul of political correctness.

The studied ignorance of the good work provided by essentially all Christian charities is evident.

Little was ever said of the labours of Mother Teresa until quite late in her service to India.

Scant attention is paid to Franklin Graham and the work of Samaritan’s Purse, except when Mr. Graham makes a statement concerning Muslim intolerance.

Few stories were ever written about Jerry Falwell’s provision of care for unwed mothers or his work to assist alcoholics and drug addicts to be freed of their addictions.

I recall no news accounts of the work of W. A. Criswell and the First Baptist Church of Dallas in ministering among the impoverished of Dallas County.

The fact is that we who are believers in the Risen Son of God do not serve in order to gain the accolades of this dying world in which we live—we serve because we are impelled by the Spirit of God who dwells in us and because we seek to honour Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.

In the course of serving God, we know that the pagans are aware of the good that we do, even if governmental policies sometimes seek to co-opt the work performed or if political efforts endeavour to compel us to agree with the evil that is officially promoted.

Ultimately, despite the self-serving condemnation arising from unsaved anthropologists or the blatantly ignorant ruminations of self-important politicians, the world knows that Christians seek to do good and that in the course of doing what honours God they will reveal and declare the grace of God and His salvation.

The unbelieving world is compelled by facts to acknowledge that we bless mankind because we seek to honour God.

As I prepared the message this week, I read an account detailing the labours of servants of the Saviour who toil in the shadows.

It is doubtful that you will ever read such an article in the mainstream media, much less hear an account on the nightly news.

However, the account details the heart-rending labours of believers who are ignored by the world.

Listen to this excerpt from a report published by Baptist Press.

“A baby girl, only a few hours old, is carried to her execution.

“The woman who holds her calls herself a midwife, but everyone in this Indian slum knows who she really is: the bringer of death.

“As the woman approaches the pressure cooker, the baby's mother does nothing.

She has already paid, after all, about 30 cents for her newborn daughter to be boiled alive.

“The woman lowers the squirming infant into the water.

The lid snaps shut.

The flames rise.

Then the infant's scalded corpse is tossed to the dogs for them to devour.

“Even more common, a mother refuses to nurse her starving baby until the ‘midwife’ arrives to silence her infant daughter's pleading cries with a bottle of poison and cold indifference.

“If the mother cannot find help, she kills the child herself.

Then she unceremoniously buries her baby beneath her house, perhaps beside other daughters discarded before this baby.

“How could a mother murder her own child?

…

“Such questions probe the depths of human depravity—and the passionate efforts of Christians who, at least in their small corner of India, may finally be turning the tide.”[3]

The account continues by telling how funds from Southern Baptists are funding the rescue of unwanted infants.

The formation of an ongoing rescue effort grew out of an after school program to feed and educate over two hundred children from the slums of an Indian city.

However, parents are still trapped in the old ways of doing things; they cannot afford to provide a dowry for a daughter, so they kill daughters in their infancy.

An orphanage for unwanted children is being built; it grew out of the heart of compassion of the Saviour.

The effort to save unwanted infants seems pitifully inadequate in the face of the overwhelming cultural attitudes of animosity toward females, but it grows because of Christian love.

A world which no longer values the life of unborn infants, and which is seemingly unconcerned about life for the elderly or those whose existence inconveniences others, takes scant notice of the work of these fellow believers in a distant land.

It is as though our attitude can be described by the sentiment, “So a baby girl dies!

It is one less mouth to feed.”

We have forgotten in our world that the services of compassion that are provided in this present world were not created by government.

It was Christians—believers in the Living Saviour who had received the grace of God and who reflected the love of God—who first established hospitals, orphanages, homes for the aged, food banks and multiplied services to alcoholics, street people and rescue ministries to women trapped in prostitution.

Whenever government has assumed responsibility for such services, they shortly degenerate into activities that are conducted according to accounting principles.

While church schools in Canada have taken a beating in the press in recent years, may I remind you that it was when those services began to be funded by government that they degenerated into something less than opportunities to demonstrate the grace and the goodness of God.

Make no mistake, when Christians conduct their ministries without accepting governmental control over their conduct and without accepting governmental funding, they bless the people whom they serve.

Whenever the people of God compromise their principles to accept government sponsorship, it has inevitably resulted in government control, and with government control has come spiritual accommodation and ultimately disappointment.

So long as the people of God conduct themselves according to the revealed mind of the Saviour, all mankind speaks well of them—perhaps grudgingly, but assuredly, all people recognise the good that we do.

“Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good” [*3 John 11*].

John’s statement is asyndetic for emphasis!

Christians must take account of the conduct of their lives to ensure that they imitate good.