3 John 1:5-6 “Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love.”

We Christians don’t give the Apostle John’s third letter much attention. Chances are, you never memorized any passages from it. The whole thing is only 14 verses long. They form a personal letter from John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, to a dear friend, a lay person named Gaius. It seems Gaius had both a deep concern for the truth and a heart for mission work. If he did mission work himself, we don’t hear anything about it. Rather, John commends him for his faithful service at home. Gaius was supporting travelling missionaries by taking care of their day to day needs.  When they were in the area, he opened his home to them. When they left, he sent them off with food, money, or whatever else he could provide.

Gaius did this for them even though they were strangers. He may have known a few things about them. They had the Apostle John’s recommendation. They were full time workers in God’s Kingdom. He shared a common faith with them. But they were not people he knew deeply on a personal level.

We still work together in God’s Kingdom with this kind of faithful service at home. You likely support missionaries and teachers around the world through your gifts to your congregation, though you have never met most of them personally. They do the Lord’s work in places you and I are unable to go.

Sometimes it may pinch a little to support training schools and missionaries. But let’s not become so concerned about the work at home that we forget about spreading the Gospel around the world. Even in our mission work, a selfish spirit can creep in. We want to see big things at home. We want to be served at home. We feel less concern for billions of souls around the world who need the gospel, too. John would still say to Christians who support gospel workers they never met, “Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you.”

John would say that especially because of what it reveals. “They have told the church about your love.” The men Gaius supported recognized it wasn’t mere duty or obligation that moved him to do so. This wasn’t a stunt to win them as friends or a ploy to make them indebted to him. He wasn’t trying to make himself look good in the church. Gaius’s support was a product of love. His faith was expressing itself in acts of love.

That is not a purely natural thing. Faithful support of the strangers spreading God’s love in other places isn’t the result of heredity. Merely educating people won’t make them so smart they choose to do this. Naturally selfish people don’t fork over their hard earned dollars to support people they have never heard of. They want to know, “What’s in it for me?”

That was never Jesus’ question. He simply loves us. He didn’t live among us because there was something in it for him. He didn’t trade places with us and die for our sins because it was the natural thing to do. It was purely an act of unselfish love. He doesn’t continue to forgiver all our sins every day because he is somehow indebted to us. The debt runs entirely the other way. Yet he freely and willingly loves and forgives.

This love has the power to take hold of us. It transforms and leads us to do things we otherwise would never do. Now that Jesus’ love has set up housekeeping in our hearts by faith, we live for him. Gaius knew Jesus’ love. It gave him such a love for the Gospel that he opened his house to strangers who were leading others to Christ. He supported them from his own pocket.

You and I know Jesus’ love. It leads us to look beyond the narrow confines of our church’s walls. We work together with sister churches across our country and around the world.  In doing so we are participating in a world-wide mission even from home. Serving and supporting such strangers makes us missionaries with them, working together for the truth.

Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”

Do you ever find what you think and what God says going in opposite directions? Sometimes we look at God’s way and think to ourselves, “That’s not going to work.”  Bible history is filled with examples: the people who lived in Noah’s neighborhood while he was building the ark; the children of Israel waiting on the shores of the Red Sea; the people of Jericho while the children of Israel were marching around their city walls each day; Jesus’ own disciples just before he took five little loaves of bread and two small fishes and started passing them out to over 5000 people. But God’s way does work, even when it seems to defy our common sense.

Sometimes we want what we want so badly that we tell ourselves, “It won’t hurt anything,” even when God warns us not to. Again, the Bible is full of examples: Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit; Lot’s wife turning around to take a look back at Sodom and Gomorrah; Israel worshiping the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai; David committing adultery with Bathsheba. But ignoring God’s warnings always has consequences. We lose his blessings and invite his judgment– not just now, but forever.

This “Trust in the Lord” approach, then, will be tested in our own lives in many ways. If a financial crisis strikes, will you lean on your own understanding and give in to worry, or will you trust in the Lord and his promise to provide your daily bread? As you arrange your priorities, will you lean on your own understanding and arrange your life to maximize your personal comfort and enjoyment, or will you trust in the Lord and put him first in how you budget your time and other resources? As you raise your children will you lean on the understanding of so many others that you need to give them every toy and gadget, or participation in all the music or athletics they could ever want? Or will you trust in the Lord and make sure they receive God’s word above all else, and loving, godly discipline next to that?

The Lord has earned our trust in all these little details of our lives by his handling of the one great issue we had. If we were to lean on our own understanding in dealing with our sin, we would try to pay for it ourselves. We would try to earn God’s love and acceptance. And we would fail.

But the Lord has that covered for us, too. Who would have thought of asking God to save us from the sins we had committed against him? But that is just what he has done. Who would have thought of asking God to sacrifice the only Son he had to pay for those sins? But that is what Jesus was doing when he died on the cross. Who would have thought of asking God to make forgiveness and eternal life a free gift? But that is just the gift he has given to us.

The gift of God’s Son inspires us to trust in the Lord with all our heart, and lean on him, not just with our soul’s salvation, but in all the little details of life as well.

John 17:23b “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

How do you introduce people to Jesus? That is a big question for Christian churches at a time when churches are shrinking. How do we get people to sit still and listen long enough for us to tell them the good news?

A few will let us approach them as strangers and tell them why we have interrupted their lives. Over the years my own congregation has done a lot of neighborhood canvassing. We have knocked on thousands of doors. Perhaps half the time someone answers the door. Perhaps half of them take our information, but only a few people are interested in a discussion about faith. This kind of approach can be useful, but the percentage of people who respond to it is very low.

People are more likely to listen to a friend or accept their invitation to church. Once they get there, a sense of love and unity can offer a powerful witness. Nicholas, a member of a sister congregation in Ontario, invited his girlfriend Ambyr to church. Not everything made sense to her right away. She was nervous to be in a church. But she kept coming back because she found a community. She found people who cared about each other and cared about her. She saw that the church is not a big, scary institution. It is people who love Jesus and love people.

When she took the pastor’s class for inquirers, she learned about God’s free grace. Now she says that this church has changed her life. Ambyr is just 19 and has no car, yet she will pay as much as $40 for a taxi ride to get to church on Sunday morning if she has to.

Isn’t this the reason Jesus was praying for our unity? “To let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” There are days when I wish Jesus was still around, and I could lead someone up to him and say, “Friend, this is Jesus. Jesus, this is my friend.”

Jesus’ plan is to let people see him through our love and unity, and hear him through our words and witness. So he prays for the unity of all believers, because he uses it as a witness.            

Dear friends, today let’s be the answer to Jesus’ prayers.

John 17:22-23 “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity…”

Jesus’ glory is the source and cause of our unity. This glory is more than a bright, shining light. It is more than praise and popularity. It is what brings God praise and makes him distinct. God’s many mighty powers are included, but most religions conceive of their gods as powerful. Nothing so distinguishes the God who came to save us in the person of Jesus Christ as the love that led him to so humble himself, and join our human family, and live as servant of servants, and carry our sin, and finally sacrifice his life in our place.

Jesus gave us this glory first by doing it, by loving us this way. Then he gives us this glory by creating it, this same kind of love, in each one of us. As Christ-like love works through us, God’s own glory is at work in us. Then we are living as one with God and with each other.

So Jesus prays that we may be brought to complete unity. The word “complete” is related to the word “finished” he cried out from the cross just before his death. It says there is nothing left to do. The goal has been reached. Everything is perfect, just the way it is supposed to be. If we are so united to God by faith that he is always in us, and we are always in him, and the glory of his love always holds our hearts, and that love has taken over the way we live and treat others, then our unity is complete.

If you have kept up with me this far, you may be thinking that this makes your head spin a bit. It all seems so theological and theoretical. Let’s talk about what it means for you and me. Jesus’ concern is not so much a call to put an end to denominations and merge all the Christian churches, though it may have something to say about what it would take for that to happen. It is more about how we relate to the Christians we know. To put it another way, it is less about unifying the visible churches, more about being the One Holy Christian Church, the invisible Church of faith.

Do I have to point out that any time we take it upon ourselves to contradict God and his word, to adopt our own beliefs, to live against his commands, to withhold our love, we are essentially opposing Jesus’ prayer and whittling away at the unity we share? Some of the things Jesus teaches may not make sense to me. There is a scene toward the end of the movie Risen, in which this Roman soldier has been pursuing the disciples after Easter trying to find out what happened to Jesus’ body. He has finally come to believe Jesus is the Savior and did rise from the dead. He asks Peter a question about something that doesn’t make sense to him about Jesus, a hard question. And Peter has a great answer. “I don’t know. We are just followers.”

We may find it hard to make sense of some of the things he asks us to believe. That does not give us the right to chuck what he says, as though we know better than him, and adopt something that seems more reasonable. Then how are we one with him and his Father, and with the others who are one with him by faith? We are followers, and breaking with Jesus on some issue spoils our unity.

Sometimes Jesus asks us to do things, to live a certain way, that isn’t appealing. “Love your neighbor” sounds great until you actually have to do it. Then you find out this includes your unwashed, undeserving family members who are always taking advantage of you, and the busybodies who gossiped about you at church, and the committee member who essentially told you your idea was stupid, and the adulterous elder who has apparently destroyed his marriage.

And that’s just the people at church. Christian love, of course, extends far beyond other believers. But if we can’t love the people who share our faith, the same people Jesus loves, imperfect though they may be, we are tearing at the unity ourselves and further fraying our oneness in Christ. Jesus prays for the unity of all believers, that their unity may be complete.

Then let’s not forget the amazing privilege and grace that we have been included in this unity at all. We are one with Jesus, and with his Father, and with our faith family not because we are so good and perfect. Jesus incorporated us by forgiving our sins, and he keeps us plugged in by continuing to forgive us day by day. We have been loved into this unity with God and each other. It is here, in the unity of faith, that he intends to keep feeding us his love.

John 17:20 “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us…”

Before we can understand the unity Jesus wants for us, we need to understand the unity he has with his Father. This isn’t so much about the unity of great Christian institutions. There are over 30,000 Christian denominations in the world today. There are some things they must have in common to be considered Christian at all. Historically, creeds like the Apostles or Nicene Creeds, which summarize Christian teachings, have been seen as kind of a litmus test, the bare necessities, what C.S. Lewis once called “mere Christianity.” Deny and oppose what these say, and there is a good chance you are standing outside of the Christian faith. But beyond that limited and brief consensus among Christians, there are still these 30,000 flavors, each with some unique take on the things Jesus taught. Certainly that is not what he intended for the billions of people who claim to follow him.

But the concern of Jesus’ prayer is more personal, less institutional: “that they may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us…” This is something deeper, more profound, than a set of ideas we can all agree on, though it is not something less than that. Jesus and his Father are so united, so joined or combined as one, that they are never really apart. Jesus remains Jesus, and the Father remains the Father. Yet, where Jesus is, the Father is in him. Where the Father is, Jesus is in him. They share a oneness in their very being. It is more than the oneness of an old married couple. They have been together so long that they finish each other’s sentences. They sense what the other person wants before he or she even asks. They have adopted pretty much the same set of opinions and ways of expressing things. They even start to look like each other.

Yet husband and wife may still be parted by geographical distance, or by death. Jesus and his Father are one God, so they never are parted. They are connected, they are bound together, in a way that far surpasses our ability to describe or understand. They are connected, they are bound together, at a level of oneness, of all things held in common, that we will never share with another human being this side of heaven.

Still, Jesus says, “may they be one, Father just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us.” The oneness of Jesus and his Father is still the pattern for our unity. When we come to faith, we know that the Holy Spirit makes our bodies his temples. Christ lives in me and begins to live his life through me. The Father also makes my heart his home. God comes and lives in me, in us.

At the same, it is also true that by faith we are in him. God, so to speak, takes us into himself. We live our lives immersed in his presence, enveloped by his love, directed by his purpose. It is a oneness with God himself. Jesus is not merely saying that if we were a fish, God would be the water in which we swim, or that as land creatures, he is the atmosphere through which we move. Nor is he saying that we have become gods. We remain his creatures.

Yet by faith we have this intimate and unbroken connection with his whole being. We live and move, and his will is being done. His grace and promise are blessing us. His love is touching the people we help and serve, because he is in us, and we are in him.

John 15:27 “You also will testify; because you have been with me from the beginning.”

How many courtroom dramas haven’t you seen in which the outcome of the case hangs upon the testimony of an expert witness? His testimony about some little-known fact of medical science, or ballistics, or physics will convince a skeptical jury of innocence or guilt.

How many times don’t Christians face people harder than a skeptical jury to convince? Jesus warned his disciples that the world would be more than skeptical of their message. It would hate them for it, because it hated him first.

Somehow, people still hear his message and believe. We can be thankful that Jesus doesn’t send us out to face that world alone. We have his Spirit and his tools to make a convincing case.

It is a little hard to imagine what preaching must have been like for the Twelve Disciples. They had no written New Testament from which to work. I never get into a pulpit without a Bible text from which to preach. Admittedly, sometimes I preach on an Old Testament text. But at Christmas I preach on the Christmas story from Luke. At Good Friday or Easter I preach on one of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The first twelve men Jesus sent didn’t have anything like that.

They had something better. “You have been with me from the beginning.” They had their eye-witness experience of Jesus’ life and ministry. They told others the things that they themselves had seen and heard. As Peter later wrote, “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” They were expert witnesses because they had seen it themselves.

Today their written testimony and the Spirit’s ongoing work make us witnesses as well. So long as we are believers, that is more than a possibility. Jesus’ words to the Twelve, “you also will testify,” aren’t so much a command. They are a promise. This is an honor. “You ARE witnesses,” he tells them.     

We have received his grace. We have faith. We have his Spirit. We know his word. We bear the title Christian. We are Jesus’ force to bring his message of forgiveness, love and new life to the skeptical and hateful world in which we live. Armed with the Apostles’ words and the Spirit’s power, we have all that it takes to be Jesus’ witnesses today. Be who you are, and tell them what you know.

John 15:26 “When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father–the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father–he will testify about me.”

A number of years ago I was in one of those “just-getting-to-know-you” conversations with someone I had just met. “What’s your name?” “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” The person jokingly said of his little hometown that it was “a good place to be from.” You know the implications of that, right? There wasn’t much to his hometown. He didn’t have a lot of good things to say about it. He was glad he didn’t live there anymore.

Jesus sends us the Spirit from “a good place to be from,” from the Father’s side, but that has only good things to say about it! From the Father’s side the Spirit has seen and knows all that God the Father in heaven sees and knows. We couldn’t have a more knowledgeable Counselor to help us!

From the Father’s side he comes with the power of God himself. That is no pea shooter you are picking up and wielding when you take the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, on your lips and start sharing it with others. It’s more like a big bazooka. Even in your mouth, or my mouth, God’s words are explosive. Other words might have the power of persuasion. But God’s word has the supernatural power of his Spirit working in it, who comes from the Father’s side, able to work miracle changes in the hearts and heads of those who hear.

Jesus calls this One he sends from the Father the “Spirit of truth.” There is such a thing as absolute truth. You have it from the Spirit. You believe it through the Spirit. And you speak it with the Spirit’s power accompanying every word.

That flies in the face of majority opinion today. Less than half of American adults believe absolute truths exist regardless of cultural realities or personal preferences. Do you know one of the major reasons why?  Common sense ought to tell us that something is either true, or it’s false. It is either fact or fiction. Most people understand that. But people fear the concept of absolute truth because they are afraid of what it produces. They think it makes people mean, even encourages violence.

After the terrorist attacks on New York in 2001 the number of people who believe in absolute truth in this country dropped nearly in half. Apparently, they were bothered that the terrorists rationalized their actions based on their ideas of truth. People were willing to throw out the general concept of truth rather than judging the individual truth claims themselves.

The Spirit of truth teaches us the absolute truth. But he doesn’t make people mean. He makes them humble. He reveals the depth of sin’s hold on our own hearts that we could never know without him. We are sinful from conception. Every inclination of man’s heart is only evil from childhood. Those are the Spirit’s own words. He convicts us of the truth that we are no better than anyone else. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Like Paul, he teaches me to regard myself as the chief of sinners. There is no room for a self-righteous rampage against others in a heart convinced of truths like that.

Yet that is the lesser half of the Spirit’s truth. The truth Jesus mentions here is this: “He will testify about me.” The Spirit teaches us facts about Jesus’ life, to be sure. But more than that, he tells us what they mean. The cross wasn’t an accident, a horrible mistake, a miscarriage of justice. It is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. It is the source of forgiveness and every other blessing. It is the supreme demonstration of God’s love for you and me. It makes you a treasured and dear child of God. Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a hoax, a pious legend, or a freak of nature. It is God’s happy promise that death is not the end, that our bodies and souls will live forever and ever.

Truths like that won’t make you mean. They will make you free. No one knows better than the Spirit that this is true. No one is better able than the Spirit to convince us that this is true. This is the perfect Counselor Jesus sends.

John 15:26 “When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father–the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father–he will testify about me.”

Jesus refers to the Spirit as the “Counselor.” If you know the King James Version of the Bible well, maybe you remember that there this is translated “Comforter.” Or perhaps you are familiar with the Greek word behind these terms, “Paraclete,” from hymns or Bible studies that deal with the work of the Holy Spirit.

Most literally, this word refers to someone who is called to stand alongside of you. That could be your lawyer at a trial, standing beside you, giving you legal counsel, and arguing your case for you. That could be a friend who throws an arm around your shoulder and gives you a little comfort and support when things are tough. That could be anyone who rolls up his sleeves, stands beside you, and helps you through the task in front of you. One Central African translation of the Bible even translates using a term that describes a person who kneels down next to someone who has been seriously hurt to care for his needs and carry him to safety– something like the picture we have of the Good Samaritan.

Here is the point of all this: we are not alone in the work that God has given us to do. Sometimes we may fear that the task of spreading the gospel sits entirely on our shoulders. It is up to us to come up with a compelling argument to defend Jesus’ teaching. It is up to us to present the message so well and so precisely that people will have to believe what we say. The success of our preaching, teaching and witnessing begins and ends with me, me alone. No one is more tempted to think this way than Christian pastors, but all of us can be guilty of it, especially when there is someone or other we really want to come to faith.

If we think this way, we have intruded on God’s territory. What did the Apostle Paul tell the Corinthians? “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but the Lord made it grow.” That’s not saying we shouldn’t work hard, and make our best presentation. But if we cut God out of this, and put it all on us, we are setting ourselves up for a number sins.

One, we fall into worry and all kinds of false guilt when we don’t see the kinds of results we think we should.

Two, we are tempted to tinker and “adjust” God’s message to make it work better. But if people are believing something that God didn’t actually say, then it isn’t God that they are actually trusting, is it.

Three, when we do see success, false pride fills us. We take credit for God’s work, and we miss the fact that we didn’t make the person believe. God worked a miracle.

This is why Jesus sends the Holy Spirit. He calls him Paraclete, Counselor, Comforter, because he has something to say to us. He comes along side of us and throws the warm, comforting arm of the Gospel around our own shoulders. He assures us our God not only stands alongside of us. He stood in our place. Jesus stood with the weight of our sins on his shoulders instead of ours. He stood under the judgment our sins deserved, and died the death for them that we should have died. He stands alive today to promise that every sin is forgiven, our full debt is paid, all God demanded has been paid in full.

But his work with us hasn’t stopped there. He not only stands alongside us. He lives inside of us reaffirming our faith, giving us the tools for the task God has given us, even accompanying our words so that they hit home in human hearts. What did Jesus’ say about the word? “The words I have spoken to you ARE Spirit and they ARE life.”

You see, we are not alone (and that’s not just a statement about space aliens). We are working with the Counselor, who is beside us, even in us. As believers in Jesus, that is true at all times. The Spirit is living in us even when we don’t “feel” him. He hasn’t left us when we are sleeping. He hasn’t left us when we are concentrating on work or play or something that seems completely secular in nature. In fact, we should be careful not to confuse him with our own emotions or a rush of adrenalin. The Spirit may be capable of producing such things, but they are not the Spirit himself. So long as we still sincerely believe that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, the Counselor is with us, for “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

Revelation 7:15-17 “Therefore, ‘they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes”

            So much of heaven consists of acquired tastes. When I was a little boy, I didn’t much care for olives, or coffee, or other things that tasted bitter. About olives my mom once said, “You have to eat seven of them in a row before you will like them.” I don’t know if I ever did that, but as an adult I like olives. I also have a cup of coffee every day, and the bitter taste is something I have grown to appreciate. These were acquired tastes.

            I don’t know that most people sit around dreaming of standing in God’s presence, seeing him face to face, and living under the same shelter with him. Just what do we get out of that? I don’t know that even now, after I have acquired the taste, I can answer that for you too well. But the Scriptures consistently hold out this vision of God, this time in his presence, as heaven’s greatest joy. Think of Job’s great confession that his Redeemer lives, “And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes–I and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”

            My heart yearns within me, too. Maybe I can understand it this way: On earth there has been one person who has come to mean more to me than anyone else. When we are apart, I don’t sleep well. When she is gone and I am home, the house doesn’t feel right. We share common interests, and I love listening to her tell me about her day. Even if we are at home quietly going about our separate business, her mere presence just makes life comfortable and right.

            As we pass our years in faith, Jesus continues to capture our heart’s affection more and more. He created us for himself, and no one has ever loved us more than he has. With time I share more of his interests, and I love listening to what he has to say in his world. Maybe standing in his presence before his throne, serving him in his temple, and living under his tent will be finally realizing that we are home, truly home, and his mere presence makes life comfortable and right.

            This part of our Shepherd’s reward is, perhaps, less difficult to understand: “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

            It’s not a complete list, as though hunger, thirst, and scorching heat will be removed from our experience, but other unpleasant or painful things will remain. Big or small, you can take your least favorite irritations, your deepest sorrows, and freely add them to the list. For several years now my ears have been ringing constantly. The high pitch never stops. If I wake up in the middle of the night, it is there. My doctor says there is little that can be done for it. I have learned to tune it out for the most part. But I know that when I am standing before the throne, all I will hear is beautiful singing, or at times a perfect, peaceful quiet. Part of the Lamb’s reward is the absence of all that hurts or annoys.

            And in its place will be nothing but life. “He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” The idea of “living water” is water that gives us life. Fiji brand bottled water claims that it is “Earth’s Finest Water.” Perhaps. But it can do no more than any water does: hydrate the body and support life.

            The Lamb who is our Shepherd will lead us to water with the power of life in it, water that actually makes us alive. And home with him, truly living will be all we know.