Together for the Name
2024 Intro • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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The genuine article
The genuine article
Sydney olympic bag on a train in India 20 years ago - was a fake. Sydeny - like it was first announced
Genuine church loves and sends gospel workers
Genuine Christian loves and sends gospel workers
Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. 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.
This is normal. This is what we ought to do. This is the kind of love essential to being a Christian, to being the church.
Taking the truth of the name of Jesus out. And sending and loving those doing this work. Makes us co-workers.
Not going to deal with the controversies in the church of 2 John. 3 John. Not going through verse by verse.
What kind of Christian am I?
What kind of church are we?
we could do many things, be many things, focus on many things,
you can and may be involved in many causes, and give and give yourself to many efforts
but what must we do, what must we be?
Genuine Christians love and send gospel workers.
Not only is it better to work together in gospel work- it is essnetial that we do so.
3 moments
what drives this kind of love and support? how can this be made to matter to me?
to see that the foundation of this comes from how the material human body matters
to ask what this might mean for you and me, our church, our lives as Christians
My aim is to spur you on
// a church apology - ‘pure gospel’ preached… nope…
Truth and Love
Truth and Love
2 John 4–6 (NIV)
It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
Don’t get to be separated out.
Don’t get to be a truth kind of church, or a love kind of church.
In 2 John the truth is under threat:
I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.
These are the ones to show no love to. Not to give naive welcome to as if it doesn’t matter - can’t we all just get along.
This matters because the material matters. We’ll come back to this.
Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you.
Love in action for the truth speakers. Even possible when your church might not be healthy, might include ‘self-lovers’ like Diotrephes.
Hard in our climate to hear words like this:
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work.
‘I thought Christians were supposed to love everyone.’ ‘That doesn’t sound very Christian’.
There’s adanger to the church when love ejects truth.
Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.
Insead of rejecting the deceivers, showing naive love to false teachers, you could end up rejecting the genuine good news about Jesus.
// what does love and support mean? money? -
// gospel for asia group - don’t send people, send money…
(cynical doctor reflecting on central australia’s problems - you throw money at things you don’t care about)
What’s all this to do with mission, and doing it together?
Incarnate, corporate body matters matter
Incarnate, corporate body matters matter
It’s all about the body.
And it starts with Jesus
I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.
In the wake of Christmas season, this is a truth fundamental to ponder for mission, for thinking about being involved in mission - for understanding why and how we do it.
In the centre here, surrounded by deception, it the truth that Jesus showed up in bodily form. God the Son incarnate. Took on frail flesh to die. To rescue us humans in our frail flesh.
The body matters because the body matters to God.
Church father Gregory Nazianzus reflected on this in his words: ‘the unassumed is the unhealed’ - God must take on a whole entire humanity in order to heal humans wholly. It isn’t enoguh that God the Son might only have a human body but not a human mind, or only a human mind but not a human body - we are wholly fallen and need whole rescue.
God shows up. The body matters to God. Not a suit for God the Son to wear and take off at the end, but to take up to the Father so that we humans might know we can approach the Father now.
This is fundamental. There’s no progressing past that - in fact, 2 john is a warning against progressive Christianity that thinks it knows better than the gospel we’ve received from the apostles.
Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
Runs ahead is ‘progressive’.
You might think you’re gaining something but you’re losing God.
This message is the rescue message everybody in the world needs to hear. It’s why those messengers went out ‘for the sake of the name’ in 3 JOhn.
And how we deal with mission/gospel workers reflects whether we get this or not.
All through the 2 letters is an assumption that embodied love is essential. It’s not always noticed in the letters.
It’s where I want to draw your attention as we reflect on our own church, and our own Christian life:
showing up matters:
I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.
I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.
Face to face. He can write letters but full joy is face to face. Showing up matters.
body concerns
The children of your sister, who is chosen by God, send their greetings.
I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.
See how they know each other - across the churches, by name, with concern.
Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.
Note in his concern for Gaius it is not just that he is rescued - in fact that last bit seems a given - his prayer and concern is for physical well being. The body matters.
And back to where we began:
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.
There are gospel workers, who have left their homes for the sake of the Name.
They are doing work that no pagan, no unbeliever will support -
It is essential to us to work together with them - we ought to show hospitality.
Not praying only,
Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love. Please send them on their way in a manner that honors God.
Gaius is doing this even when his church is in conflict.
His money is involved. But it is his love that drives this.
Literally - send them on their way worthy of God.
Some reflections
I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.
There are still many deceivers, and lies about salvation - within and without the Christian circles.
Some pseudo Christians, some progressives -
Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
The risk is that Christians might lose - or some who aren’t yet Christians might never get the truth:
How might we be involved in protecting fellow Christians and rescuing the lost:
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.
Can you go? Might you go? What’s stopping you from going out for the sake of the Name.
Who might our church send?
How might we better love those we’ve sent?
This work for the sake of the name of Jesus is work that will not receive government grants, and very few unbelievers will support gospel declaring mission work. There are many causes for your giving - but this must be our priority.
Because the body matters the church will give to caring for those in physical distress - and especially to Christians in physical distress.
Because Jesus took on a body the church must give to declaring this news.
Will BCA field staff boast about your love for them? Will a CMS gospel worker tell othes of how you’ve loved them?
Is it not only that it is better to work together in the cause of the name of Jesus - but that it is essential to being a genuine Christian.
It is not an optional extra. Love and turth are hand in hand. Not disembodied love. But showing up love. No truthless love, but love that honours the incarnate son of God who showed up to rescue.
A church not involved in loving and sending gospel workers
A Christian not involved in loving and sending gospel workers
may not, maybe even is not the genuine article.
How can your church stand to grow in doing this? [changing the mission partners we have, better caring for the ones we do have, giving more sacrificially in their work -
How can you grow in responding to this? [could you go?, write to those our church partners with? prioritize your own giving, rewrite your will, join CMS, better care for Topher and Chica - ]