“DEAR FRIEND, …”

Third John :11

The name of the friend is Gaius.

We find the skeleton for our sermon in the third letter of John.

We are told what to imitate and what not to imitate.

A.  “… DO NOT IMITATE WHAT IS EVIL, …”

A good sermon and a good story has a skeleton

“Journalists are people who take in other people’s washing and then sell it,” says the Australian writing team Marjorie Bernard and Flora Eldershaw.

“Maybe listening to the news once a day is enough.” Something like that said a visitor we had some time ago.

I remember also hearing over the news the word “copycat murder”.

 B.  “BUT WHAT IS GOOD.”

1.  The church of God in Corinth is told by Paul to imitate him (First Corinthians 4:16).

2.  The saints in Ephesus are told to imitate God (Ephesians 5:1).

3. We are learning that the church of the Thessalonians became imitators of Paul, Silas, Timothy and of the Lord (First Thessalonians 1:6).

4. They also became imitators of God’s churches in Judea (First Thessalonians 2:14).

5.  In this verse we find another “do not” and a “but”.

The readers of the epistle are told not to become lazy, but to “imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised” (Hebrews 6:12).

6. Here the readers are told to imitate the faith of their leaders ( Hebrews 13:7).

“Anyone who does what is good is from God.

Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.”