- Well, good morning, Bridgewater Church. - Good morning. - Man, it's such a joy to get to serve with people who are all in. That was Pastor Kevin Stiles from up in our Hallstead campus. And my name is Pastor Kevin as well. It's a joy to get to serve with that guy and to just be involved with a church that is all in diving in and he did not wanna dance like that. But can you tell? No, and I love that. So, growing up, my family was always at church. We were just one of those families that just, it felt like never, ever left church. Kids, you with me? It's like, "Mom, can we leave already?" And all I'd meant, I probably wasn't the best sermon listener as a kid. We didn't have an awesome kids ministry program like we do here. So I spent most of the sermon time. I knew that I couldn't get in trouble if I was reading my Bible. So I was like, "All right." But then pretty quickly, the black words on a white background didn't really do it for me either. It was just about as boring as the guy talking into the microphone for endless hours on the stage. So I would flip to the back. My parents had gotten me a Bible with maps in the back. Yeah. And so I would spend all my time during the sermons looking at maps of Paul's missionary journeys and Palestine under Roman rule and Israel under the Maccabees and all of those. And if you look at a map of Israel, it's hard not to notice all the water that's around them. And there's three or a couple of main bodies of water that we see. Obviously the big one to the west is the Mediterranean Sea. And that was great for fishing and the great for trade and transport. But then the ones that were really primary and focused on within the Bible are up in the north, the Sea of Galilee and then the blue line connecting these two big bodies water is the Jordan River. And then down at the bottom, you've got the Dead Sea. And if you look at that for not too long, you realize that the Dead Sea is really big. Like that's really impressive looking, right? And you would think that centers of trade would be centered around that body of water because when you're in a desert land, water is kind of really important, isn't it? But not the Dead Sea. You see what we'll see is that the New Testament almost revolves around the Sea of Galilee, at least the Gospels. This, the Sea of Galilee, that tiny little spot at the top there is where Jesus calls his disciples. It's where his disciples spent their lives fishing. It's where Jesus walks on water and where he calms the sea with just his voice. The Sea of Galilee is full of life. It's full of fishing. It's full of commerce and trade and everything revolved around the Sea of Galilee. And what's crazy about these two bodies of water, they use the same water. The Jordan River feeds both of them. In fact, the Sea of Galilee flows down through the Jordan River and it feeds the Dead Sea. But one of them is full of life and one is very aptly named the Dead Sea because the Dead Sea is the saltiest body in all the world and it's so salty that nothing can live in it. If fish happen to overflow from the Jordan or from the Sea of Galilee and get there, they're gonna die pretty quickly 'cause they can't live in that water. No plants, only a couple of bacteria can live there. So what's the difference between these bodies of water? They're getting fed by the same source and they're in the same general area. They're both, they're the second, first and second, the deepest bodies of water, deepest points on earth, the lowest lying points on earth. So all of those things are the same. The difference is that the Sea of Galilee has both an inflow through the Jordan River and an outflow. The Dead Sea just stops. There is no outflow to the Dead Sea. It just, the water evaporates out of there and that's the only way it comes out. And because of that, it has become this salty, salty body of water because as that water evaporates, the salt just comes in and comes in. Maybe there's underground sources. I'm not a scientist or a geologist. I don't know how that happens. But the Dead Sea is dead because it's got no outflow. If there was water continually flowing in and flowing out, we would have a different story here. But that's not how it works. And unfortunately, some of us have a faith that looks more like the Dead Sea than it looks like the Sea of Galilee. Our faith, while it might look really impressive from afar, once you get up to it, it just kind of stinks. Another name for the Dead Sea that kind of went around in Jesus' day was the stinking sea because the smell around there, because of all those minerals and all the things that go into it and don't come out of it, it can have a really sulphurous smell. So although it looks impressive from afar, once you get up close to it, it stinks. And my hope and prayer is that, for everyone in this room this morning, you'll have a faith that's more like the Sea of Galilee, that's teeming with life and overflowing and feeding and nourishing those around you, and less like the Dead Sea, where you're getting fed all kinds of truth, but you're not doing anything with it. You're going fat on the truth of God's word, and you're not putting it into action. And we're looking like the second half of Wally up there. Have you guys seen that movie? Where people are just sitting around on this spaceship, nobody has exercised in years and years and years, and they're just sitting there consuming and consuming, consuming and not doing anything to contribute to anybody else. And that's the story that we're going to look at in the Book of Third John as we finish our series this morning called Summer Mix Tape, where we've been looking at some of the smaller books in the Bible and just seeing what God's word has to tell us through those. So the Book of Third John is really easy to miss. It's right before your maps. If you've got one of those fancy Bibles, it's one of the last books of the Bible. You've got Revelation, Jude, and then Third John. And it might literally be one page in your Bible, but there's so much truth stored up in this small set of words. In fact, the word truth is really important to this book. I looked at a word cloud of the words that come up in the Book of Third John, and the word truth comes up six times in 215 original words. Here's a pro tip if you're reading your Bible. If a word is repeated, there's probably a reason for it. God wants you to pay attention to it. And I think what Third John is telling us is we've all got this same inflow of truth. Just like the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea are fed by the same water, the question is what are you gonna do with that truth? Are you just gonna allow it to fill you up? Or are you gonna release it? And are you gonna do something with it? Put it into action. And John is gonna be writing to, well, he's writing to a man named Gaius, but he also is gonna talk about a man named Diatrophies. And these are two polar opposites. He's gonna start by praising Gaius' faith because he puts it into action. He doesn't just take the truth and soak and sour on it. He takes the truth and he sits in it. He soaks in it and he goes out and serves others. That's what the gospel calls us to. It calls us to a faith of action, of not just sitting silently and allowing ourselves to feel really good because I made it to another church service or look at me and look how spiritual I am. But let's jump into the text here, starting in Third John chapter one, verse one. This letter is from John, the elder. I am writing to Gaius, my dear friend, whom I love in the truth. Now, the name Gaius actually means rejoice. And I think that's what we see as we look at the life of Gaius is that he's truly rejoicing in what God has done and he's acting on the faith in the truth that has been given to him. Now, the man who's writing this is named, not surprisingly, John. He's also the author of the gospel of John, first and second John. And now third John, who's a really creative book titular. He did branch out with his final book. It's called Revelation, have you heard of that one? But that's who's writing to Gaius. And John is a pastor, he's pastoring these house churches all throughout the region of Ephesus. So along that Mediterranean coast there. But he's writing them letters from afar saying, "Man, I really miss you, "but I've heard some amazing things about you." So he says, "I'm writing to Gaius, my dear friend, "whom I love in the truth, truth counter number one. "Dear friend, I hope all as well with you "and that you are as healthy and body "as you are strong in spirit. "Man, wouldn't you love that to be written about you? "Hey, I have heard so many great things about you "that you are so strong in your spirit. "You are so strong in your walk with God. "I hope everything else in your life is going just as well." That's such a huge encouragement. He says, "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." Truth counter number two. I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth. Truth counter number three. So in the first four verses, John is harping on this word truth. Because he's saying, "The truth is what matters. "The truth is what we have in God's word. "But he's gonna start into," in verse four, he says, "No greater joy than to hear "that my children are following in the truth. "Because the truth does not allow us to just sit back "and kick back, knowing, "Well, I'm going to heaven, "so forget about the rest of the world. "The truth should impact our lives in such a way "that we go out and we live it out. "And that's what I love about being a part "of a Bridgewater church, where we go out, "we take a Sunday off to go out and be the church. "And last week, if you missed us, man, you missed out. "I know I talked to some of you of saying already, "I just can't wait to go out and do this again. "Can we cancel church again this week?" But it is so good to go out and put our faith into action. We've got our people watching with some cars here. I know we had, I don't know how many cars we had come in, but we moved a lady from down in Dallas, up into Tunkanic. We helped out at some family homes. We served at the park. We put together a float that we got to ride on and ride through town just on Thursday night. Anybody see us in that parade? We're going to have a whole lot of fun with that. We've got a foam party coming up to just go out and tell our neighbors, "Hey, we love you, we care about you." As we close out the summer, let's do something really fun together. So that's going to be coming up on August 17th, if you want to join us for that or help serve with that. But I love that I get to preach this book to a church that's already doing most of this. I love that I can preach this and say, "Thank you." And I hope that this is just kind of like a booster shot in the arm of keep doing what you're doing. But I know that there's some of us in here that need to hear the other side of this as well. Because it can be easy for us to get comfortable in what God has already done. And we forget to listen to what He's telling us to do now. So He's going to continue on in verse five saying, "Dear friend, you are being faithful to God "when you care for the traveling teachers "who pass through, even though they are strangers to you. "You're being faithful because these people "are part of the church." Many of you may not know this, but just a few weeks before being the church Sunday, Pastor Curt and I went over to the other building at 92 and it was an embarrassment. And I know there were Facebook discussions of, what are these people doing with these giant tubes out front? I can come pick them up because they look terrible. I'll take them to my house and have a sweet play place. And there are weeds growing up like almost over the building who is disgusting. We had a group of traveling, not teachers, but traveling middle schoolers from Lebanon County who had nothing to do with our church, except that they're part of their own church. And they recognized that just like Bridgewater, we're one church in many locations. And they said, "Hey, can we come help you?" And I said, "Yes, please." So a group of middle schoolers came and we did that whole area. They picked up those giant play place tubes and brought them into the building so that they wouldn't be a hazard to our neighbors or an eyesore to our neighbors. And they served, and we said, "Yes, please come serve because we know you're part of the true church. We know that your faith is bigger than just your boundaries. It's bigger than Lebanon County. Our faith is bigger than just Tunkanic and Wyoming County and beyond. And we want to be a part of what God is doing on the bigger level. These traveling teachers in verse six have told the church here of your loving friendship. Please continue providing for such teachers in a manner that pleases God. I know Phil just talked about giving and part of our offering at Bridgewater goes to support missionaries throughout the world. We sent a team to Guatemala that just came back and I got to hear some of the super cool stories from Pastor Bob of the people that they're serving there getting to introduce to the gospel. So yes, please go to the ends of the earth with the gospel. We need to do that in our own neighborhoods as well. In verse seven, "For they are traveling for the Lord "and they accept nothing from people who are not believers "because church we need to be a blessing "to our communities, not a burden." And that's part of our mission with Be the Church Sunday is to be a church that our community cares, exists. A church where if the question is asked, if your church sees to exist, would your community notice? I firmly believe if that happened in Tunkanic, if Bridgewater Church in Tunkanic stopped existing, our community would notice. Because you guys love your neighbors as yourselves. You do a great job of serving. Let's keep it up because our friends, our neighbors, our relatives and coworkers, they need Jesus. And as we get to go out and be the church together, it's not just one Sunday a year. It should be every single day of the week that we come into this building to get filled with the truth, but it's not the end goal of Christianity is not going to church. It's going and living out and being the church. Our mission, this is just a pit stop for us. We come together on Sunday morning. We get our tithes change, our oil change. We get some gas filled up so we can go back out into the world and love our neighbor as ourselves to bring the gospel to those who are far from it right now. In practical ways, in spiritual ways, emotional, physical, in every way possible because people need Jesus. And John continues in verse eight saying, so we ourselves should support those traveling teachers so that we can be their partners as they teach the truth. I wrote to the church about this, but diatrophies who loves to be the leader that refuses to have anything to do with us. Diatrophies, man, I would hate nothing more than for my legacy to be a butt diatrophies. We're doing this great work. God is doing great work all throughout the world, except for Kevin. He's a jerk. And that's what's happening in Ephesus at this house church, diatrophies is coming in and he says, I get to be in charge here. I'm the leader, you have to listen to me. That's not what leadership is. Leadership is serving others because we know that the gospel tells us even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And as I've been fascinated with this concept of leadership and been thrust into it in so many ways, one of the things that I've recognized is that there's people like diatrophies who love power. They love to put themselves first and they love to be in that seat telling people what to do. And I've found that those people who desire power, they desire position and desire leadership rarely deserve it. But those who deserve leadership rarely desire it. And that people who truly care about the gospel of Jesus Christ, they don't care whether they're first or last, whether they're on stage or cleaning toilets. They just wanna serve in whatever way they can that will make the gospel known. So it's not about me. Now our attitude must not be like diatrophies who loves to be first. But his faith looks like the Dead Sea. He's got this whole pouring in of truth, but he stinks. He's not doing anything with it. We need to live it out. We need to be the gayesses who rejoice in the truth, who love going out to the community and sharing the practical love of Jesus Christ because the point is that we need to stop being a lover of self if we're gonna follow Jesus Christ. We need to die to ourselves and put Jesus on the pedestal and allow him to do an amazing work. 'Cause it's not about you, stop being a lover of self. And John's gonna say, when I come, I will report some of the things he's doing and the evil accusations he's making against us. Not only does he refuse to welcome the traveling teachers, he also tells others not to help them. And when they do help them, he puts them out of the church. Diatrophies isn't welcoming people into the church. He's kicking people out of the church, saying, no, you're not good enough for me. That's not my kind of service. If diatrophies were to come to Bridgewater church, he would park wherever he felt was most convenient for him because he's a consumer. He just wants what's easiest for diatrophies. He would park up on the curb or in one of our handicapped parking spots. He would show up probably whenever it was convenient for him, maybe five, 10 minutes late. And he would come in, maybe grab a cup of coffee on the way, then complain about the cup of coffee. It's too hot, it's too cold. He would come in and look at you like, "Hey, you're in my seat." What are you doing in my seat? Well, you came in late. And then he'll complain about the seat. It's too hot, it's too hot, it's too soft. The coffee's too hot or too cold. Somebody ate all my porridge. (audience laughing) But that's the reality of living a Dead Sea faith. That it's all about me and we get this Goldilocks mentality of the church is there to serve me. And I've heard of too many people leaving churches because, well, I'm not being fed or whatever the case may be. And it's not about me though. Man, you can serve in any local church. But if you're going there just because it's all about me and what I'm getting out of it, they're not playing my style of music. The coffee's not right or they shouldn't be having coffee at all because this is a house of worship and a house of God. How dare we think about coffee. But the church is not about me, it's not about my preferences. It's about my neighbor who doesn't know Jesus yet. And it's about making more and better disciples. So that's our mission at Bridgewater is to make more and better disciples and we're gonna do anything and everything that we can short of sin to make that happen. Amen? And I thank you that I get to be a part of a congregation that knows this already because you've already taken this next step to choose to be a contributor. As so many of you showed up last week to put on those orange shirts and to serve the community, to lay down and set aside your Sunday to get sweaty and gross and covered in grass and dirt and muck because you love your neighbor and you care more about their eternal destiny than your own comfort. Philippians two, three puts it this way. And this is such a beautiful, simple way of saying it. It says, don't be selfish. Don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. That's what Be The Church Sunday is all about is putting other people first and saying, "It doesn't matter what I'm doing. "As long as I'm serving, "as long as I'm doing something to contribute, "doesn't matter what I look like." And John will continue in verse 11 saying, "Dear friend, don't let diatrophies "bad example influence you." I don't know that's hard to receive because there are so many bad examples in the church of people who have taken their positions of power and they've abused them. And if you've been on the receiving end of that, let me say, I am so sorry. I am so sorry that you've been hurt in the name of Jesus Christ. That's not the way that it should be. But please give him a second chance because God wants to work in you in amazing ways. So don't let those bad examples influence you. Follow only what is good. Remember that those who do good prove that they are God's children and those who do evil prove that they do not know God. Those men and women who have taken you farther from Christ, who have pushed you away from God and from his children, those people, the Bible tells us are evil. They don't know God. Follow those who are doing good. Follow those who are choosing to be contributors rather than consumers. And John's gonna talk about a man named Demetrius here and says, "Everyone speaks highly of Demetrius, "as does the truth itself. "We ourselves can say the same for him "and you know we speak the truth." And what I love about this is this man Demetrius is totally unknown otherwise. His name means earth lover if you care about that. Diatrophies name by the way means nourished by Jupiter, who is one of the Greek gods. And if you know anything about Greek and Roman mythology, the counterpart would be Zeus. They were really, really selfish gods. They just took and grabbed and ate and consumed whatever they wanted because it was all about them. Praise God that we have a God who is not like that. We have a God who came to serve the lost. And that's the God that we follow. We follow Jesus Christ who laid down his life for us and set this example. And if we're gonna call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ, the word Christians means little Christ. That means we should look a whole lot like him, right? We should lay down our own comforts and conveniences to serve rather than to be served. In verse 13 he says, "I have much more to say to you, "but I don't wanna write it with pen and ink. "I'm a pastor, I wanna come be with you. "For I hope to see you soon "and then we will talk face to face. "Peace be with you. "Your friends here send you their greetings. "Please give my personal greetings "to each of our friends there." So he says, "Man, we are one church in many locations. "I wanna come be with you "because I hear that God is doing amazing things in "and through you and I wanna empower and equip you "to do those even better and to challenge you "to walk even more faithfully to the gospel of Jesus Christ." Now the question, of course, is how do we live all of this out for ourselves? How do we live this sea of Galilee faith and not look like dead sea Christians? Well first, if you call Bridgewater Church your home, your home church, you better be serving. If somebody walks into your home and you stay seated on the couch, you don't even get up to welcome them in. That's not a home, that's a hotel. You can come into a hotel, you don't have to say hi to anybody, you can just go get your cup of coffee, you can do your own thing without interacting with anybody at all. But if somebody's coming into your home, you call Bridgewater Church your home, you better be doing something to serve them. You better be doing something to welcome people in because we've got guest services teams that are white. We've been doing three services for far too long for some of you. And I thank you for those of you who have been faithfully serving because you're committing yourself sometimes beyond your own abilities. But we need you to step up, if you call Bridgewater Church your home, to be part of the guest services team, to be part of our kids ministry team that are serving downstairs at the other side right now. And I see some of you with your big kids shirts on already and ready to serve over there with your bloom of white name tags on greeting people as they come in. But man, there is no shortage of opportunities to serve with those two especially. If you're musically talented or tech talented, we would love to have you on those teams as well. These guys do an amazing job week in and week out, and we would love to give them a break so they can continue serving longer as well. But here's some super simple things that you can do to be a contributor and not a consumer. The first one is just come early, okay? A friend of mine, they have a church down in the Allentown area, and they had a campaign a while ago that they called Make Room for Mike. And Mike was just this made up person that was their target market, so to speak, of who needs Jesus in our community. Let's just name him Mike. And this has become much, much more real to me because we moved into our home about a year ago to find our neighbor is named Mike. And so think about Mike, where is he gonna wanna park when he gets here on a Sunday morning? He's going on a park as close as he can. If you can't find a spot that's close, maybe he's just gonna keep on going. So come early and park far away. Park is far away as you possibly can. Some of you live close enough, just walk to church. That's okay. If you live out in falls by me, probably don't do that. You won't get here in time. Then sit close. Where's Mike gonna wanna sit when he comes in? Right here? This is a splash zone, by the way. That's why the front rows are empty, so I don't spit on you too much. Sit close, these seats are free too. Move to the center of the aisle so people don't have to climb over you to get in here. Mike's gonna wanna sit in the back corner. That's where he sat when he came the one time. And if he's gonna come again, that's where he's gonna sit again until God gets a hold of his heart and changes him. Stay late, okay? Come early, park far, sit close, stay late. Three minute rule, after the service, don't talk to your friends, three minutes. Tom, Kevin told you to. Kevin told me to ignore you, it's okay. (audience laughs) Go look for a face that you don't know, a name that you can't place to a face, and just say, hey, I am filling your blank. Don't say I'm Kevin, unless your name is Kevin. For three minutes, just look for somebody that you don't know and greet them. Hey, how long have you been coming to Bridgewater? Oh, this is your first time, fill out a welcome card. We'll get a $5 Dunkin' Donut cards in your hand. And then attend one and serve one. I know for some of you, you're already doing this. Maybe you're attending zero and serving three, okay? Let's lighten their load. We're doing everything that we can as a church organizationally to make this easier for you guys. 930 service, by the way, is our most popular service. Everybody wants to come at 930. So if you can, make it for the eight o'clock or the 11 o'clock, come to one of those and free up some seats in the 930. We could use some 930 energy in those services, right? I would love for you to be a part of that. But one of the super cool things that I get to share with you this morning is that just this past week, we have been making some major, major steps towards our Elk Lake Springville-Dimmick campus. And we actually had Dimmick Baptist Church given to us. So we've got a building now. This is where we clap and applaud and say, praise God. (audience applauds) I don't know, that's hard to understand. Wait, they gave it to us? Yes, because they saw that we're out making more and better disciples and that we are better together and that we can use that facility to reach the area of Elk Lake Dimmick in Springville with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so if that is your home area, I would ask you to prayerfully consider being a pioneer at that campus. If Elk Lake Dimmick Springville is closer to you, than Tunkanic is, consider that please. That'll help to make some room for Mike in here as well. And I know it's easy to look at that and get sour over. Well, we've got this building that's rotting away on 92. What is God doing there? I don't know yet. But God is doing something. There's a reason that we got that two years ago and have been sitting on it. And I can't wait to see what he's gonna do. Also, please prayerfully consider we're trying to make as much room for the mics in our community as possible. And we're looking at every opportunity to do that. The Presbyterian Church right in town is also available for sale again. So be praying over that. If God wants that to happen for us, God's gonna make it happen. And if not, well, I don't wanna be a part of it anyway. So God's got something awesome in store. Maybe it's one of those locations. Maybe it's something that we haven't even thought about yet. But what can you do this week to choose to be a contributor rather than just a consumer? Maybe God's putting that on your heart that you need to sign up for a serving team. I know Liz or any of the guest services people would love to hear from you saying, I can do guest services, I can smile. Everybody can do that, right? I can wave and I can say hi, you're qualified. Kids ministry voyager is gonna be starting up in a few weeks, we'll be meeting on Thursday nights for a kids ministry program in the middle of the week. We could use you there. That's a little bit of a harder sell. We gotta get some clearances on you. But if you love kids and can serve with them, we would love for you to be a part of that. Talk to myself, Sarah or Janelle on the other side. We would love to get you plugged in. But for now let's pray and we're gonna get to enjoy communion together. Lord God, we thank you that you are a God who came to serve, not to be served, that you gave us Jesus Christ to die on the cross, to live a perfect life and to be raised from the dead so that we could know you. And God, I pray that you will spur us to action because your word does not call us to a silent, stubborn, souring faith. You call us to serve. And God, help us to be faithful to you and what you've asked us to do. We pray this in the awesome name of Jesus Christ.
