Alba 11-17-2024
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU IMITATE
III John 9-14
In the late 1990s, aspiring actor and writer Johnny Knoxville had moved from Knoxville, Tennessee to Los Angeles, California, and landed work in commercials in order to support his wife and infant daughter. Among his ideas was one to produce an article that involved testing various self-defense equipment on himself.
In 1996, Knoxville was contacted by Big Brother, a skateboarding magazine for which Jeff Tremaine was an editor, and convinced Knoxville to do the stunt and film it. The stunt featured Knoxville testing out pepper spray, a stun gun, a taser, and a .38 caliber gun with a bulletproof vest.
Eventually this led to a TV stunt and prank show on MTV in the fall of the year 2000, and was given the name, Jackass (that seems appropriate). But a year later, Knoxville announced that the series would end after its third season aired because of discontent with MTV and the censors, who, from the start of season two, increasingly gave notes regarding what the show could and could not depict. Maybe someone was getting some sense.
At the time of its first broadcast in 2000, Jackass frequently featured warnings and disclaimers noting that the stunts performed were very dangerous and should not be imitated, and also advised viewers that any stunt video footage sent to the production company would not be opened or viewed. Such warnings not only appeared before and after each program and after each commercial break, but also in a "crawl" that ran along the bottom of the screen during some especially risky stunts, as well as showing their "skull and crutches" logo at the bottom right of the screen to symbolize the stunt performed as risky. Nevertheless, the program was blamed for a number of deaths and injuries involving teens and children recreating the stunts.
So you have to be careful who and what you imitate. The results could be deadly. In life there are good examples and bad examples. People need to choose between the two. But even with warnings against bad examples, some people just don't seem to learn.
That's why the apostle John wanted to be sure that his friend, Gaius, understood the difference, and gave specific examples to help him figure it out. In John's third letter, which is just before Jude and Revelation, after commending Gaius for his generosity and hospitality to the visiting teachers and ministers, he gives the warning in verse eleven, “do not imitate what is evil, but what is good.” The “evil” in that warning was an obvious reference to the actions of a man named Diotrephes. He was not someone to imitate. So be careful because...
1. There Are Bad Examples
And Diotrephes is an example of what not to do.
In Third John verses nine and ten John tells Gaius, “I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us. Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does, prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church.”
John says, don't imitate what is evil, but rather what is good. Sadly, even in the church and even in leadership one can find poor examples. Diotrephes is one of those. The problem centers around some traveling evangelists that John sent their way. It was the custom of the church that its members take care of the guest evangelists and missionaries. Apparently, John has written previously and asked that the church support them and take them into their homes for a time and help them along their way. This did not happen. Diotrephes made sure it didn’t happen. Only Gaius did it.
We do not have the letter mentioned in verse nine. Perhaps Diotrephes may have discarded it. Even though Diotrephes was a common name, it was found mostly among the nobility. So some think that perhaps he was a wealthy man who had considerable influence, and wielded his influence like a club!
He apparently claimed some mantle of leadership. But unlike the welcoming attitude of Gaius, Diotrephes hindered the work of the gospel. He was driven by some kind of personal ambition. He wanted to be the leader. He wanted to have all authority to himself. He wanted to have control.
A lot of us would like to think that church politics is an oxymoron—a contradiction in terms. We prefer to believe that church life is above the stuff that politics is famous for. But anyone who has been around church for very long knows better. Church politics exist. It always has. It always will—as long as there are people around.
Politics goes to church when individuals or groups show more concern for individual interests and opinions than kingdom matters. Politics takes over when church people or leaders see themselves as competitors and rivals instead of family.
Diotrephes saw each and every one of the visiting preachers as a threat to his authority, and he would not receive any of them. And he also excommunicated from the church those who did receive them. Look at the list of negatives that describe Diotrephes in these two verses.
- He loved to be first.
- He ignored John’s leadership.
- He maliciously gossiped about John and others.
- He refused to welcome the traveling ministers.
- He stops others in the church from welcoming the them.
- He puts people out of the church who do welcome them.
As one preacher said, “WOW! What a jerk!” Diotrephes was on a power trip. The fact that his attitude was one of self-centeredness and unsubmissiveness made him unfit for any position of leadership. He was a bad example.
He loved to have the preeminence. It had a “Me First” attitude. He wanted to be the top dog, the big cheese. He wanted things to be done his way or else. Diotrephes’ motto was, “My way or the highway”.
Someone said: “Something that is hard to keep under your hat is a big head.” And Diotrephes had a big head. It was obvious that Diotrephes was a man who was full of himself. This was not a good situation. It caused division in the church. It is a situation that John hopes to address face-to-face and with his own words if and when he is able to visit them.
Jesus said in Matthew 20:26-28, “whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
I don't think that any of us want to show up on Judgment Day being seen as serving ourselves when we will appear before the One who served others better than anyone else. Do you? Wouldn’t it appear a bit awkward to show up before the Greatest Servant of all time and say, “I didn’t get my way”? Diotrephes wasn’t a servant. He was self-serving. He’d forgotten who the Lord of the church is and what His agenda is, and had turned the church into a place to advance himself instead.
He apparently had not learned what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:3, “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”
He needed to follow the advice of Ephesians 4:31. “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.” But instead, he spoke evil, malicious words against the apostle John.
Why would Diotrephes have nothing to do with John? Wouldn't you imagine that when an apostle appointed by the Master spoke, church leaders would listen to what he said? Remember this is not the Son of Thunder anymore. No more calling down fire from heaven by this guy. He is the one now who says, “Little children, let us love one another.” How could Diotrephes, or anyone else, not want anything to do with John?
Well, he wanted to have all of the attention and control himself. We must always be careful not to follow his example. John gives good advice on how to stop a lot of conflict within the church. John’s counsel is to avoid people like Diotrephes and not imitate them.
But we would do well to look at ourselves rather than looking around at others in the church. The big question is not “Who is the Diotrophes?” in our midst; but “Do I have any Dioptrophes in me?” We easily can become like Diotrephes. It is easy to get an attitude like Diotrephes; the “Me first” attitude. It hurts the person who has it, and it is a bad example to others. So be careful what you imitate and look for something better because...
2. There Are Good Examples
And verse twelve introduces us to one. Demetrius. Verse twelve says, “Demetrius has a good testimony from all, and from the truth itself. And we also bear witness, and you know that our testimony is true.” Here is one who is the opposite of Diotrephes.
Who is Demetrius? We do not know that much about this guy, but what we do know is good. He may have been the bearer of John’s letter to Gaius. And it seems likely to conclude that Demetrius was one of the missionaries turned away by Diotrephes. Perhaps he was even the leader of the traveling 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 he was apparently well known throughout the Christian communities, for John says he “has received a good testimony from everyone.” Added to this is the fact that he has openly walked in the truth, living by that which is taught by our Lord. The apostle John also puts his stamp of approval on Demetrius, and basically says you can trust my testimony about him.
Isn't it interesting that Demetrius was well spoken by the truth itself. Wouldn’t that be a great thing to have said about us? We should all try to be like Demetrius, the kind of Christian, unlike Diotrephes, who sought to build up, rather than tear down, who sought to maintain God at the center of his life, as opposed to himself. If we, like Demetrius, conduct ourselves with integrity and honor, we will have a good reputation among the believers that know us.
Even outsiders will have to speak well of believers if we conduct ourselves honorably. Remember the admonition that Peter gave to believers in I Peter 2:12. “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
Do you know someone who obviously has some very good qualities in his or her life. Someone who lives by the truth in God's Word? Who is living out how we as Christians are suppose to live? If so, imitate that person.
John makes a most astonishing statement in verse eleven : “Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.” This is a strong statement. To say that the one who does evil has not seen God is equivalent to saying that person is not a Christian. Now, there may be times when we realize that we are not living up to all that we should be. But may it never be said that we are outside of God's calling on our lives.
We need to be careful what we imitate. There are bad examples and there are good examples. Ultimately we are to be imitators of our Lord. Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:1-2, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”
Jesus, who gave Himself on the cross for our salvation, is the example we need to keep before us continually. And, as we see that lived out in the lives of others, we can use their examples to apply God’s Word to our everyday living more perfectly. We must do our best to ensure that we imitate what is good.
And we also need to ask ourselves this question: “In ten years, will the things I am doing today have made any lasting impact for good and for God on this world? In twenty years, will the things I am now doing have shown others the blessing of living for Jesus? In fifty years, if Christ tarries, will my life have made a lasting impression for good in the lives of those who follow?”
Our testimony should be that we have done our best to follow the leading of the Lord. That we have done our best to show love, mercy and grace to others. That we have not followed the bad example of those whose hearts are hardened by the ways of the world. But that we have followed the good example of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
CLOSE:
Three churches all had revivals at the same time. After the revivals, the three ministers met for coffee and fellowship, and they were discussing the results of their revivals.
The first minister said, "The revival worked out great for us! We gained 4 new families."
The next preacher said, "We did better than that! We gained 6 new families."
The third minister said, "Well, we did even better than that! We got rid of our 10 biggest trouble makers!"
Diotrephes was a trouble maker. Demetrius was not. We must be careful which example we follow. Lets live for Jesus.
