John Exposes Diotrephes, Part 2

This Sermon presents the second of six sinful characteristics of Diotrephes so that we can be a blessing to the church instead of a hindrance.

1. Diotrephes' Preeminence (v. 9a)
2. Diotrephes' Disrespect (v. 9b)
3. Diotrephes'  Slander (v. 10a)
4. Diotrephes' Selfishness (v. 10b)
5. Diotrephes' Dictatorship (v. 10c)
6. Diotrephes' Heavyhandedness (v. 10d)

Transcript:

It’s a blessing to be with all of you here today. If you would open your bibles to 3 John, verses 9 and 10. 3rd John 9 and 10, just one chapter in this book. John says starting in verse 9,

“I wrote something to the church, but Diotrophies who loves to be first among them does not welcome what we say. For this reason, if I come, I will bring to remembrance his deeds, which he does, unjustly disparaging us with wicked words. And not satisfied with this, he himself does not welcome the brothers either. And he forbids those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.”

Let me pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. I pray, Lord, that we would all be humbled by your word, humbled to your word, Lord, that we would all be eager to submit to your word, knowing that you are good and you have all knowledge and wisdom and understanding. And you've displayed that, Lord, in your word for us to read and to understand. You've given us your Holy Spirit that we might be illumined and sanctified by your word, Lord. And so I pray that right now and today and every day, Lord, we would be holding on to it tightly. We'd be eager for it, excited for it, Lord. That we would be be welcoming what you say through your apostles, through your word. Lord, please help us in that today for your glory. Amen. Amen.

Now if you remember from last time we've begun talking about diabolical Diotrephes and the name Diotrephes again is a combination of two Greek words “dios” which means of Zeus and Trefa which means to nourish and so you get something like nourished by Zeus which is a strange name for a Christian which also helps us to understand why during those times many Christians actually changed their name when they were saved. But Diotrephes didn't change his name. And we speculated and and thought, well, maybe that's because Diotrephes not only loves to be first in the church, but he also loves to be first in the world. He wanted to keep one foot in both and kept this name that means nourished by Zeus. And so we're looking at Diotrephes here in verse 9 because John uses him as the quintessential example of one who doesn't provide hospitality and John's talking about him because hospitality is one of the main themes of third John.

If you would look at what John says in verse 5, John says, "Beloved, you are acting faithfully in whatever work you do for the brothers and are doing this though they are strangers and they bore witness to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. For they went out for the sake of the name, receiving nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore, we ought to support such men so that we may be fellow workers with the truth." So we see there that Gaius is the opposite of Diotrephes and we remember that hospitality actually means love of stranger which we talked about how that extends to unbelievers in our evangelism and and we should be hospitable to the unbelievers around us inviting them into our homes and talking with them and developing friendships with them

But in this context John's talking about Christian missionaries and so we want to ask ourselves why doesn't he offer hospitality to these Christian ministries? Why does he not welcome the brothers at the end of verse 10 there? The answer according to verse 9 is that he loves to be first. He loves to be first. Now, you need to understand right off the bat that those who love to be first don't do much hospitality, right? And why is that? Because hospitality requires love and love requires sacrifice. Again, hospitality requires love. And we know all through First John and 2 John that love requires sacrifice, which means that hospitality requires sacrifice, right? It requires you to have people into your home. It requires maybe cooking something for the church. It requires going out of your way for strangers. See, hospitality requires you to put others first, right? And that again describes the sacrificial nature of love. And this is why you can't love others if you love to be first. Right? You can't love others if you love to be first. And sadly, just like Diotrephes, we all have a desire to be first in different areas of our life at different times. But John wants to help us with this by exposing Diotrephes. That's what I've named this sermon. And he's going to do that by exposing six sinful characteristics of Diotrephes so that we can be a blessing to the church instead of a hindrance. And we made it through the first point last time and today we're going to make it through the second point.

So we're moving slowly through this teaching here about Diotrephes. And last time we looked at Diotrephes preeminence. Diotrephes preeminence. That was our first point at the beginning of verse 9. And we said that preeminence carries the idea of supremacy or dominance or prominence. And all of that is encapsulated in the idea of loving to be first which all of which though all of those things are a spiritual poison to the church. A poison which will crush love which will then crush hospitality. And that's exactly what we see diabolical Diotrephes doing. And the phrase love to be first is actually a combination of two Greek words. Fileo and prouo. Fileo, you know, it means to love or or to have a strong affection for. And prouo means to be first. And so you put them together and you get loves to be first. And we talked about how that phrase, that idea is only used in one other place in scripture in Colossians 1:18 to describe the preeminence of Christ. And so ultimately Diotrephes desires to take the place of Christ in this church. And we talked about how just like James and John who brought their mom to Jesus and asked him about their desire about preeminence in the kingdom that we're really no different. We maybe were better at hiding it, more subtle, but we also desire to knock Jesus off his throne in our life as well. And that's why God, one of the reasons why God has graciously pre preserved this letter for us so that we could see his response through the apostle John to this kind of attitude. And so that's our first point, Diotrephes preeminence.

And now let's take a look at the second point, which is Diotrephes disrespect. At the end of verse 9, it says there that not only does Diotrephes love to be first, but he also does not welcome what we say. And this is a serious charge. A really serious charge. Diotrephes is rejecting the teaching of the apostle John. And by rejecting John's teaching, he's rejecting John. And this word welcome has the idea of receiving someone in a friendly manner. Receiving someone in a friendly manner. And I just encourage you, think about the people that you love to spend time with. You know what's it like when they show up at your house or you're meeting them at a restaurant and you see them getting out of their car. You know, you're excited, right? You can't wait to see how they've been. You're not looking to argue and fight with them, right? No, you're looking to be agreeable. You're eager to be agreeable. You're this is going to be a fun time, right? But see, Diotrephes does not welcome what John says. He's not excited to hear what John has to say. Instead, he's eager to disagree with John. and brothers and sisters, we want to get as far from this type of attitude as possible. Instead, we want to welcome the teaching of the church. We want to welcome the teaching of the apostles, which is the teaching of the scriptures. Now, to be clear, this doesn't prohibit honest questions or even small differences, but the prevailing attitude of church members should be to welcome the teaching of their church. That's what it comes down to. I mean, if you believe that God has you in a church, then for the most part, the teaching of that church is what God has for you. Let me just say that again. If you believe that God has you in a church, then for the most part, the teaching of that church is what God has for you. And if there's something you disagree with or you can't get on board with, then you need to have an airtight argument for that thing. Because it's not just a willy-nilly thing to say, "Hey, you know, I read the doctrinal statement. there's things in there I just don't agree with. I don't know what to think. All these different things. I mean, there's a there's a place for that for a time. But if you're going to stand on that and you're going to say, "Hey, I just can't get on board with that." You need to have conviction about that thing. You need to have a airtight argument for that thing. And so all of this, what it's saying is that what I'm saying is that you should give your church's teaching the extreme benefit of the doubt. The kind of benefit that makes any disunity a top priority. The kind of benefit that clarifies confusion. The kind of benefit that moves you off the fence. The kind of benefit that says, "I get my teaching from the church God has me in." Because who else are you listening to? What are their influences are you allowing into your life other than the local church? I mean, let's think about online teachers. That's the prevalent thing today. Where do they go to church? Do you know? Are they a member of that church? What does their life look like? What does their marriage look like? Are they a good father? Do you know? Do you know the answers to these questions? Because if not, why are you allowing them to influence you theologically, spiritually? Now, there's a place for online teachers that your elders approve of because they know their life usually, but outside of that, you're opening yourself up to all kinds of problems. All kinds of problems. So, that's online teachers. But what about people you know personally? The people outside your church that invite you to Bible studies, the people who send you videos, do they go to church? Are they members of their church? What does their life look like? Is this someone you want to emulate? Do you want your life to look like their life? These are all things you need to be thinking about when you allow yourself to be influenced by outside people outside of your church. Because the structure, the very design of the church that God has you and of really every solid church is that you do know the answer to those questions for the people that God has for you. I mean, if you're allowing people you either don't know or people whose life and doctrine aren't in order to confuse the teaching of your church, if you're allowing their teaching to keep you from coming to theological conclusions, that's foolishness that'll do nothing but stunt your grow growth and lead to spiritual decline. That's foolishness. Foolishness that'll lead to disunity in the church. That's foolishness that'll undermine the credibility of your elders. And it's your responsibility to avoid and reject the teaching of those who put their theological positions before people's growth and the unity of the church. And I pray brothers and sisters that you see how counterproductive all this is. See, you may be doing all kinds of wonderful things for the church, but in some ways, you're rowing in the other direction if you're allowing others to confuse the teaching of your church. Now, it doesn't make you a Diotrephes if you see these kind of tendencies in yourself. And I don't think we have any Diotrephes in this church. I don't think we have anybody even close to a Diotrephes in this church. And we can praise God for that. It's a beautiful thing. But if you have these kind of tendencies, you're going to want to eliminate them. And I'm hoping that this sermon will help you to do that because, at the end of the day, it's a serious and dangerous thing to be anything but fully welcoming of your church's teaching. It's serious enough to make it your top priority. Dangerous enough to get you off the fence, so to speak. This really is a situation where curiosity kills the cat because this isn't an issue of more information, right? Usually people have heard all the arguments when there's these type of things going on. They've been talked about ad nauseum. At the end of the day, usually this is a heart issue. This is a pride issue. And it's important to understand one thing about pride and that is that pride seeks distinction. Pride seeks distinction. Pride wants to stick out. Pride wants to be different. And this is where our first point, you know, Diotrephes preeminence. And our second point, Diotrephes disrespect, they blend together here. They come together. See, those who don't welcome the teaching of the church many times gain prominence and preeminence in the church. In other words, they become known for their different view. Right? Maybe it's because they people think, "Oh, well, they must be smarter or maybe they think they're smarter or they, you know, they just are more enlightened." But they become known for their different view. Now, this is not what you want to be known for in the church. Instead, you want to be known for your godliness and your service and your kindness and your hospitality. You do not want to be known for your theological differences.

And this reminds me of the story of John Wesley and George Whitfield. They were both preachers in the mid700s in England, but they had very different lives. Wesley was raised in a strict religious home where education was primary. His mother would literally test him and the rest of his brothers and sisters every day. While Witfield was raised by a struggling innkeeper father and widowed mother and spent his youth getting into trouble and working at the inn that his father owned, doing all kinds of manual labor. Wesley went to Oxford through his father's connections, while Witfield had to fold laundry and clean the shoes of the wealthier students to pay for room and board. Wesley led the Holy Club at Oxford where he and others believed that you could reach a state where you would no longer purposely sin. It wasn't sinless perfection, but they believed that you would get to a point where you would never purposely sin, which is obviously very wrong, very prideful. Whitfield actually joined this club at Oxford. And even though Wesley and Whitfield were good friends, over time, Whitfield started to fight against this position of that you could get to a point where you didn't intentionally sin. And up to this point, Wesley had been the leader of the Holy Club and by far the more prominent of the two. Everybody knew who Wesley was. But this changed when Whitfield started preaching to huge crowds outdoors.

And at this point, Wesley began to fight vehemently against the Calvinism of Whitfield. And while Witfield did all he could to deescalate this confrontation with someone who he considered a good friend, Wesley, threatened by Whitfield surpassing him in popularity, used Arminianism as a way to create distinction between the two of them. This allowed Wesley to maintain prominence both by disagreeing with the more prominent Whitfield at this point and by making himself the leader of a new movement called Methodism. That's where the Methodist church came from. And this was in stark contrast to Whitfield who vehemently opposed those who wanted to start a movement in his name. He wouldn't allow it.

And see Wesley is exhibiting Diotrephes-like behavior. Wesley was someone who loved to be first. And when God's providence exalted the humble Whitfield, Wesley no longer welcomed what he said and sought prominence by disagreeing with him. Sought prominence another way, by distinction. Pride loves distinction. And this desire to be first on Wesley's part along with an absolutely horrible marriage that should have disqualified him from ministry are two of the reasons why I and others doubt whether Wesley was even saved. Now that's a controversial thing to say, but that's I'm I high I doubt that Wesley was saved. There's other godly men that would disagree, but I'm showing you all of this because we can all be a John Wesley. We all have a prideful desire to play devil's advocate. We all have an unwillingness to submit like Diotrephes.

We all can seek distinction by being different. And the last thing we need is someone who encourages these kinds of sinful inclinations. We don't need people like that in our life. And this is why we need to mark and avoid those online teachers who are contrary to your church's teaching. And for those you know personally, if you have people in your life like this, there needs to be clear boundaries that take contrary doctrine or in some cases all doctrine off the table. You want to put yourself in the best position to welcome what your church says.

And I want to show you the importance of this from another portion of scripture. If you would turn to second Peter, almost at the end of your Bible, book of second Peter. And here we have Peter writing to a mostly gentile audience in Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey. Second Peter chapter 3. Second Peter chapter 3. And in this section, he's telling them to be on their guard against the error of false prophets. And while those we've been talking about, you know, they may not rise to the level of false prophet, but they share many similarities with these false prophets as you're going to see. Second Peter 3:16. Second Peter 3:16 says, "As also in all his letters, he's talking about the Apostle Paul. as also in all his letters speaking in in them of these things, Eschatology, end times is what he's what he's referring to there, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort as they do also the rest of the scriptures to their own destruction. So, the first thing that Peter tells us is that some things in scripture are hard to understand, right? We know this. This is why we study. This is why we have to think deeply about things. But the question is, what should be our response to these difficult things, these hard-to-understand portions of scripture? Should we be seeking clarity from people we don't know? Should we be seeking clarity from people our leaders don't approve of? Should we be seeking clarity from those whose lives and doctrine are not in order? I mean, I hope the answer to all those questions is no, right? And why should our answer be no? Well, because Peter says there in verse 16 that the untaught and unstable distort these hard-to-understand portions of scripture. In other words, the world is full of untaught and unstable men who twist difficult scriptures. I mean, this is what the cults do. Every cult is founded on this concept. Morgan's talked really clearly about that this in the past and the idea of the untaught carries the idea of being uneducated or ignorant some versions translated as and why are they uneducated because education takes a lot of hard work and deep thinking right and I'm not talking about going to seminary here that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about education that comes from your church and personal study education takes a lot have hard work and deep thinking. That's what it comes down to. Everything from getting up early for equipping to being committed to Wednesday nights. See those who are taught get their education from meeting with pastors on a regular basis. They’re discipled. They make personal worship non-negotiable. They make family worship the expectation in their house. But see all of that, that whole picture that I'm painting to you there, that's very hard work. That's very time consuming. So many of these uneducated men, again, I'm not talking about seminary or degrees, talking about people who don't work hard to learn. So many of these uneducated men, instead of thinking deeply and engaging in time-consuming study, they listen to YouTube videos of strangers. They talk to everyone under the sun but their own pastors. They don't want that accountability. They don't want to be discipled. And they're usually minimally engaged with their church, if they're engaged at all. And so these men are untaught. But verse 16 also says they're unstable. And this word characterizes someone who is weak. Who is weak. And it usually has to do with somebody who's mentally weak. and what it means is they tend to change and waver in their commitments. They're double-minded as James 1:8 says, they say one thing and they do another. They make a commitment and they break a commitment. They're double-minded.

And what do these untaught, unstable, and double-minded men do? Look at verse 16 with me again. And it says as also in all his letters talking about Paul speaking in them of these things Eschatology in which are some things hard to understand which the untaught and unstable distort. Just stop there. They distort the hard-to-understand parts of scripture. And what are some of the harder to understand portions of scripture? Well, in this case Peter is specifically talking about Eschatology. That’s one of the main reasons and you hear all this nonsense around Eschatology and just be encouraged, brothers and sisters, cuz we think we found an excellent series on Eschatology for the camping trip. So get fired up about that.

But what are some other hard to understand portions of scripture? Well, Calvinism, God, God's sovereignty and salvation, limited atonement. You know, these are not things you can just sit down like they just become clear instantly. Which is why it shouldn't surprise us to see so much nonsense swirling around these topics. Peter tells us clearly this is what the untaught and the unstable do. They want to distort the hard-to-understand portions. I mean if somebody came to you and said Jesus isn't God, you would just dismiss them out of hand. So instead, they want to talk about the nuances of eschatology, and they want to talk about the nuances of the sovereignty of God. And Peter goes on there at the end of verse 16. He says, "The false prophets, they also do it to the rest of the scriptures, to their own destruction." In other words, because they're leading others astray, it proves they're not saved. Now, maybe the people you're listening to aren't false prophets yet, but this is a very slippery slope, brothers and sisters. These are very dangerous waters we're swimming in. I can't tell you how many people start out with small errors only to completely apostatize. And again, what should our response be to this? Do we give these people an ear or do we stick to the teaching of our church? Well, let's see what Peter says in verse 17, if you would look at it with me there. Peter goes on to say, "You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, I'm warning you is what he's saying. knowing this beforehand, be on your guard, lest you, having been carried away by the error of unprincipled men, fall from your own steadfastness. See, so Paul's saying, you can't claim ignorance. I'm warning you about this in black and white. Be on your guard. Be on your guard. Be on your guard for these untaught and unstable men. And in the original, that phrase be on your guard is a single Greek word meaning to look out for or avoid. So you're to avoid these men who distort the scriptures, these unstable and untaught men. In the same way, I'm sorry, in the it's the same word actually used in 2 Timothy 4:15 when Paul warned Timothy to avoid Alexander the coppermith because he has he had caused Paul great harm. Paul says, "Timothy, don't go anywhere near them." And I said, "These people will cause you great harm, either intentionally or unintentionally." And Peter says, "You're to avoid them." But how do you know who's distorting the scriptures? That's a good question. And again, I ask, I think ultimately, does God have you in the right church? That's the question. If so, then trust the leaders who will be held accountable for your souls. Don't trust the guy online or the guy down the street or whoever he is. He's got no skin in the game. He says whatever he wants to say. He does have skin in the game. He's going to face a harsher judgment. Trust those whose life you know and want to follow. Don't trust your souls to online personalities and people outside your church. Don't trust the untaught, the unstable, and the double-minded. But what if you decide to ignore Peter's warning? You're still curious. You're not sure. What if you just can't make up your mind? Verse 17 says, "Be on your guard." Why? Why be on your guard? Lest you, having been carried away by the error of unprincipled men, fall from your own steadfastness. See, when you give ear to unprincipled men, you're in danger of being carried away by their error. Now, again, the unprincipled men in this verse, the specific context is false prophets. But I'm saying like if you have people in your life that have some of these characteristics, follow the instruction here. Because if you get carried away by their error, then you fall from your own steadfastness. But what does Paul mean by unprincipled men? Specifically, he means false prophets. But the Greek word carries the idea of someone who's lawless, unseemly, unruly. In other words, they're most likely going to have habitual sin in their life. They're going to have behavior or actions that are not proper or appropriate. Now, they may be able to pull it together from time to time or long enough to make a video, but Peter says there will be a pattern of unprincipled behavior in their life. And if you continue to entertain these unprincipled men, you'll be carried away by their error, Peter says. And carried away is translating the Greek word sunnapago. And this is a very interesting word. It has the idea of not just leading one person astray, but leading many people astray. See, unprincipled men cause many people to go from believing what is true to believing what is false. That's what unprincipled men do. And you know what happens if you listen to unprincipled men? You become an unprincipled man. And you start leading people astray yourself. Now, you may not intend to do this, but I've told you before that every person has a sphere of influence. Every person has a sphere of influence. And make no mistake, when you follow unprincipled men, when you don't welcome the teaching of your church, you're influencing others to do the same. It's a serious thing. new believers, young people, the immature, people you love, people you'd risk your life for while putting them in great spiritual danger by the example you're giving them. So, brothers and sisters, who looks up to you? Cuz you don't live on an island. Your decisions have consequences and your indecisiveness has consequences. Because Peter goes on to say at the end of verse 17, if you would just look at it there, that the result of allowing yourself to be carried away by the error of unprincipled men is that you fall from your own steadfastness. And you cause others to fall from their own steadfastness, too, by your example. And this isn't talking about salvation because you can't lose your salvation. Instead, it's talking about losing your stability, losing your stability, losing your steadfastness in doctrine, losing your steadfastness in truth, losing your convictions, losing your confidence. Brothers and sisters, there's huge benefit to being confident in your convictions. There's no benefit to being not sure, right? I mean, there's some humility in that, but the idea is not to sit in that state longer than you have to. The word of God has been finalized for 2,000 years. We can get to the bottom of things. And this is what I meant when I said that earlier what that your spiritual growth will either be stunted or reversed. There's no neutral. You're either growing or you're withering. And by following those you don't know, by following those who distort the harder portions of scripture, you're in serious danger of falling from your own steadfastness. And as I said, this is because the people who are distorting the difficult portions of scripture are very unstable themselves. They've fallen from their own steadfastness. They may not even be saved. In this case, the false teach the false prophets he's specifically talking about certainly not saved. But I'm applying some of these characteristics to people we all know, people we've all had in our life before because these characteristics are things we need to be aware of. But either way, the unstable are leading others into instability. That's what it comes down to. And so, let me summarize the four serious repercussions of following unprincipled men. Four serious consequences of not welcoming what your church says. First, when you listen to the unstable, you stunt or reverse your own spiritual growth. We've talked about that. Secondly, when you listen to the untaught, you stunt or reverse the spiritual growth of those around you. And you do this by lending your credibility to unprincipled men. You confuse the issue because those people who look up to you, who trust you, who see your life and say, "Hey, he lives a pretty good life and he's not a bad guy." Well, if he's listening to him, then that guy must not be a bad guy. You don't live on an island. You don't have the freedom to just do whatever you want to do. You're lending your credibility to unprincipled men. And this causes those whom you love to be carried away by the error of unprincipled men. Thirdly, when you listen to the double-minded, you enable and encourage them. You actually work against the soul of those unprincipled men. This is not a neutral thing. This is a hateful thing. A real friend would say, "I'm sorry, friend, but I get my teaching from my church. Would you please not engage on those topics with me again?" That's what love does in this situation. Fourthly, when you listen to unprincipled men, you hurt your church. And you hurt your church in at least three ways. First, you hurt your church by undermining the credibility of your elders. In other words, when someone doesn't welcome what their church says, they're casting doubt on the trustworthiness of their leaders. Because if their leaders are wrong in one area, maybe they're wrong in other areas. And of course, we we are wrong in some areas, and we're eager to figure out what those areas are and quick to repent and change our views. But, there's a wider net being cast here. when you don't welcome what your church says.

Secondly, you hurt your church by causing disunity in the church. And by now, we all know because we've been studying John for a long time, we know how important unity is to Christ. And this disunity comes because differing doctrine splits churches. Now maybe that doesn't describe you but you could influence a Diotrephes who could do a lot of damage. You could plant the seeds. So you hurt your church by undermining the credibility of your elders by causing disunity in the church.

And thirdly you hurt your church by misdirecting resources. See, because differing doctrine in the church is a is such a serious thing, leadership becomes very concerned about it. And that requires leadership to spend a lot of time thinking about how to help, which then results in many internal conversations and meetings with the person and trying to help that person and all these different things. And that's all fine because one of the purposes of the church is to help people. Like we're grateful for that. That's a good thing. But it's also time and effort that could be used to focus on other things. So when you listen to unprincipled men, when you don't welcome the teaching of your church, you hurt your own soul. You hurt the soul of those who you love. You hurt the soul of the unprincipled man. And you hurt your church. And all of this is counterproductive. All of this is rowing in the wrong direction. And so you have a responsibility to avoid these people as Peter said. Now in some cases you just don't watch those videos anymore. In other cases you have people in your life you just say I don't want to talk about those subjects anymore. And and because if by God's grace you're going to a good church, a church made up of principled men, then being carried away by the error of unprincipled men will result in you not welcoming what your church says. And this is exactly what we see doing. We see someone like Diotrephes not welcoming someone unprincipled, not welcoming what somebody principled, the apostle John says. someone like Diotrephes who claims to be a Christian, but he's continuously butting up against elders and/or the teaching of the church. He's someone whose pride drives him to seek distinction. Someone who seeks prominence, dominance, and supremacy. Someone who's threatened by maturity. See, someone like Diotrephes doesn't respect authority. And this is again why I've named this this topic this point Diotrephes disrespect.

He's like those Paul warned against in Romans 16:17. I'll just read this to you. Paul said to the Roman church, "Now I urge you, brothers, to keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and stumblings contrary to the teaching which you learned and turn away from them." Does that sound familiar? same thing uh Peter's saying. And what should be our response to those who cause dissensions and stumblings contrary to the teaching which you learned? He says turn away from them, right? And why is that? Verse 18, for such men are slaves not of our Lord Christ, but of their own stomach. And that's not just food. That's pride. That's a pet doctrine that's wanting to change people's minds. That's wanting to have influence. They're about themselves. They're not about Christ. He says, "For such men are slaves not of our Lord Christ, but of their own stomach. And by their smooth and flattering speech, they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting." See, many times people who spread teaching contrary to the teaching of the church, they're flatterers. They say all the right things. They say nice things. They want to be your friend. They want to draw you close. They want to influence you. But make no mistake, usually they care more about you adopting their position than they care about you. And you know that because if they if they cared more about you, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. And the moment they realize that you either can't be carried away, you refuse to be carried away, or you put boundaries on the relationship, things change. And maybe there's someone here today who knows their Diotrephes. Know you you've actually crossed the line and you are a Diotrephes that you are an unprincipled man. And if that's you, I would urge you to turn from your sins and your good works because your good works can't save you. Your good works cannot pay an eternal penalty. And turn to Christ. I know you may be religious. You may be devout. You may be sincere. But if you are someone who's leading people astray, you need to repent. If you're a slave to your self-interest and self-gratification, in other words, you're a slave to your stomach instead of being a slave of Christ, you need to repent. If you find yourself using smooth and flattering speech to try to gain influence over people, you need to repent. If you recognize that you are untaught and unstable, you need to repent. If you find yourself distorting the hard to understand portions of scripture, you need to repent. If you have fallen from your own steadfastness, you need to repent. You need to to turn from these things and turn to the only one who can ever be first, and that's Jesus Christ. The one who's first because he's God of very God. The one who's first because he's the creator. The one who's first because he's the only way. The one who's first because he's the one who can pay the only one who can pay for your sins. The one who's first because he wrote the scripture. You're distorting. The one who's first because he's the only one who lived a perfect life and died a substitutionary sacrificial death. The one who's first, Jesus Christ, because he's the firstborn from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. the one who's first because he's the most lovely, holy, righteous, wonderful God of all, the most forgiving, the most kind, the most patient. He's first placed in all of these things. He's perfect. He's first place in everything. And because of this, you should welcome what he says in his word. You should welcome what his apostles say, and you should welcome what his church says. Won't you turn from your rebellion and turn to Christ today? Won't you look to Jesus Christ who makes slavery, who makes being last the absolute best thing you can ever imagine? The one who turns this sinful world upside down. And brothers and sisters, I know we can resonate with these truths. I know we believe these truths, but we still need to be vigilant to follow Colossians 3:14 when it says, "Above all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." or 1 Peter 3:8 when it says, "All of you be likeminded, sympathetic, brotherly, tender-hearted, and humble in spirit." And I'm preaching to myself just as much as I'm preaching to you. or 1 Corinthians 1:10 when Paul says, "Now I exhort you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment." Brothers and sisters, you have to understand that the unity of the church is the greatest threat to the devil. And because of this, he wants to spread out your spiritual activity. anything but all of us rowing in the same direction with all that we have. Anything but that. He can't stand against that. Instead, he wants a a little contrary theological information over here. Going to a different Bible study over here outside of your church. Maybe a little desire for preeminence as we saw last time. A little bit of unwillingness to welcome the teaching of the church. Mix those all together and we'll get these guys all mixed up. They'll be going in all different directions. Don't fall for it. He's been doing this for 2,000 years. All of these t are the tactic tactics the devil uses to disrupt the unity of the church. This is why we all must be diligent to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:3.

Let me pray. Lord, we thank you for your clarity. Thank you for your warning in your word. Thank you for making us aware of these things. Now Lord, help us to heed these things, to obey these things, to take these things seriously, to take heed lest we fall. Let us not think that we are impervious to these things. Help us to not think that we are somehow above these things. Help us to realize with great clarity, Lord, that we could fall into any of these things at any time. And we need to be vigilant to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The unity we already have. All we can do is mess it up. All we can do is break it up. Let us not fall for these deceptions, these lies, as subtle as they are. The devil whispers in our ear, "Oh, it's your right to do that. You can do that. That's not that bad." Lord, help us to be wise and discerning. Help us to be full of love, Lord, for you and for your word and for one another. A love that will help us to stay focused, Lord, on the things that you've commanded us to do, on the mission, Lord, for your glory. Amen.