3 John 2 Are You Prepared to Receive?
A pastor was visiting a family one day. He knocked on the door but no one answered it. He knocked again and again, but still no answer. He thought he heard someone inside but they just wouldn’t answer the door. Finally he wrote a note and slipped it under the door. It was Rev.3:20 “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in.”
Four days later he received a note in the mail and it was Genesis 3:10 “I heard the sound of thee in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.”
3 John 2NKJ Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
3 John 2NIV 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.
Not much is known of Gaius, he was a faithful member in one of the churches of Asia Minor. The Apostle John conveys his own appreciation for Gaius by calling him “beloved,” 4 times in this one chapter. Some theologians speculate that maybe Gaius might have been weak and sick in his body, and John knew God could strengthen and heal him.
For the Apostle John to ask about Gaius’ health wasn’t uncommon in those days. However, for ‘one’ to compare a spiritual life with a physical was uncommon.
In this verse, John alludes to two kinds of prosperity:
1. There is spiritual prosperity- “just as your soul prospers"
2. And there is material prosperity- “that you may prosper in all things and be in health"
Gaius’ Spiritual condition was so excellent that John prayed for his physical health to match his spiritual vigor.
Q&A: What if someone were to pray for your physical body to be as well as your Spiritual? Would it be a good thing?
Gaius was favored and prospered. How? Two Key verses: 3 John 3-4NLT Some of the traveling teachers recently returned and made me very happy by telling me about your faithfulness and that you are living according to the truth. 4 I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth.
There’s at least 3 things you can receive out of this one verse.
First, “It’s God’s will that all may go well with you.” It’s God’s will for you to be found faithful!
The early church continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine (Acts 2:42). They were found faithful in…
• Christ (1 John 2:24);
• The Word (John 8:31–32; James 1:25);
• Faith (Acts 14:22);
• Grace of God (Acts 13:43);
• Love (John 15:9; Hebrews 13:1; Jude 1:21);
• Worship (Acts 2:42).
We must continue in fellowship (Acts 2:42)! Dr. Flavil Yeakley, Jr., studied fifty faithful and fifty unfaithful church members. He found that after six months, the faithful had made seven or more new friends in the church. Of those who had made fewer than three new friends, none were faithful after six months. 1
It’s God’s will for you to prosper; it’s God’s will for you to live in a continue state of blessings.
What does it mean to be found faithful?
1 Corinthians 4:2NLT Now, a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful.
Lawrence J. Peter said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” Spiritually, it is certainly true that if we don’t make preparations, we will end up somewhere other than heaven. 2
For the faithful believer living within God’s Kingdom, somehow every heartache will bring promotion.
Listen to Paul’s daily struggles: Romans 8:35NLT Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?
However hear Paul in two verses down Romans 8:38NLT No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
The fact is: “Most of us are more in tune with our physical bodies than our Spiritual.” What are you in tune with?
THE 40 MARTYRS
"History knows them as the forty martyrs of Sebaste. They were soldiers in the famed Twelfth Legion of Rome’s imperial army, around A.D. 320. One day the captain informed his troops that Emperor Licinius had sent down an edict commanding all soldiers to offer a sacrifice to his pagan god. Forty of the soldiers were followers of Christ, and they refused. 'You can have our armor and even our bodies, but our hearts' allegiance belongs to Jesus Christ,' they said.
"The emperor decided to make an example of the soldiers, so in the middle of winter he marched them onto a frozen lake and stripped them of their clothes. 'Renounce your God and you will be spared from death,' he told them. Not one man came forward. So he left them there, huddled together to contemplate his offer. Throughout the night the man stayed together, singing their song of victory: Forty Martyrs for Christ. When morning came, thirty-nine of the men had frozen to death. The one survivor finally relented and crawled to safety, recanting his confession of faith in order to live. The officer in charge that night had been so moved by the scene that during his watch he’d come to Jesus, so he broke rank and walked out onto the ice. Stripping his clothes he openly confessed his faith in Christ. The furious emperor demanded that he renounce Jesus, but he refused. When the ordeal was over, the Roman soldiers carried forty frozen men off of the ice.”(3)
Secondly, “God wants your body whole.”
The fact is you are sick, but the truth is God’s word will bring you health.
The fact is you have no money, but the truth is God will provide every need in your life.
The fact is you live with hardship, but the truth is you are more that conquerors.
“We must proclaim the blessing of God over the facts of life. The truth of God’s word will always prevail over the fact of man’s word.”
God wants you whole. Exodus 15:26NKJ and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
God wants you whole, Isaiah 53:1-6NLT Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.
Finally, God wants your soul to prosper- Your mind, will and emotions!
Romans 12:1-2NLT And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a-new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:1-2TM So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
This isn’t some pie in the sky teaching- “Jesus came to save those who were lost and to bring prosperity in every avenue of our lives.”
“So, are you prepared to receive?” P.H.
Benediction.
Endnotes:
1 1919–1990. An educator and management theorist best known for having formulated the Peter Principle (“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”)
2 Why Churches Grow.
3 (Ref: Lahaye, Tim, Jerry B. Jenkins and Frank M. Martin ed., Embracing Eternity, Living Each Day With a Heart Toward Heaven: The Persecuted, Matthew 5:10- February 15. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004.)
