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Once again, it is my great joy and privilege to be able to minister the word of God to you. We come again to Luke's gospel as our launching point for today. Under the heading "The Choosing of the 12," this is actually part four, we're going to be looking at John, let me read the text to you, which, as I say, is really a launching pad. In Luke chapter six, beginning in verse 12, we read,

"It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.

"And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose 12 of them, whom He also named as apostles:

"Simon, whom he also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James and John;"

We've looked at Peter and Andrew and James, and today we will examine John. But before we do, may I remind you of what my responsibility is to stand before you every Sunday morning, and beyond that, and preach the word of God to you. Please remember that my calling, as we would see, for example, in Ephesians four, as a pastor teacher, is to equip the saints for the work of service, to help us all attain to the unity of the faith, doctrinal unity, for the building up of Christ, for the building up of the body in Christ, and therefore understanding the knowledge of the Son of God, so that you will be equipped for the work of ministry, so that you will mature in Christ, and the means by which that occurs is through the systematic, in-depth teaching, preaching, and application of the Word of God. You simply will not grow apart from that.

And so, once again, we come to a passage of Scripture and a whole lot of other passages that we're going to be looking at to understand who John was; and as we do that, I hope that it is your prayer that indeed you will be equipped for the work of the ministry, that you will understand more of doctrinal truth, and have unity in Bible doctrine, and also have faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, so that you will become mature, etc. as Ephesians four tells us.

So, with that, I want to begin with some principles of Christian ministry that I see emerging from Jesus' choosing of the 12 and all that happened thereafter, and this will be kind of a long introduction to our examination of John. First of all, I want you to remember the context here. If we go, for example, to Matthew nine, beginning in verse 34, the whole context here is Jesus has been casting out demons, and the Pharisees are all worked up, and they say in Matthew 9:34, "'He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.'" So they're just not buying any of it, right? He goes on in verse 35, "Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness." And then we read this, "Seeing the people, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest and send out workers into His harvest.'" And so, what we see is Jesus looks at the distress of the people, and He has compassion for their lost condition. Mind you, these are the multitudes that are dogging him wherever he goes. The text says they are distressed, dispirited, like sheep without a shepherd. And indeed, these people have been literally ripped open and oppressed by the bondage of legalism. They have been deceived by self-serving shepherds, so to speak, the religious elite. They were like mortally wounded men that that are that are just face down in the dirt. People are overwhelmed with guilt. They're trying to figure out, you know, am I able to keep enough of the law to get into heaven? Can you imagine living that way? And frankly, every person in a false religious system has that same weight on them. As I say, they're not sure they're going to make the cut with their righteous deeds.

And other people that reflect that reject religion altogether still have to deal with the gnawing pain of guilt in their conscience and the reality that they know that there is a God and that they're responsible to him, as Romans one says, they have to "suppress that truth in unrighteousness" And because of creation, because of conscience, they are without excuse. So the only thing they can do is try to concoct lies to exonerate them, or embrace some cause and become activists in something, and therefore give them a sense of purpose and a feeling of righteousness, righteous indignation, or they just chase after the fleeting pleasures of this world. But Jesus saw all of this back then; he sees it now. Therefore, the first and the most fundamental principle of Christian ministry is compassion for the lost. Beloved, do you have a burden for the lost? To rescue people from divine judgment? And this should be at the at the core of every believer. You see, true ministry will always have, at its most fundamental level, a passionate concern and commitment to help sinners be reconciled to a holy God and be delivered from the wrath to come. And Jesus recognized their desperate state - he obviously knew it - and knowing their hard hearts of unbelief towards the gospel of repentance and grace, the Lord of the harvest looks at the harvest of eternal judgment, and he realizes their fate and the need for more workers, so he tells his disciples, the learners that are following after him, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest. Might I dwell on this just for a second? Let me put it very plainly: anyone who claims to be a Christian and has no burden for the lost, has no basis to claim genuine saving faith.

Well, a second key principle that emerges from all that we're looking at is that God chooses those who he wants to lead his body, the church. Indeed, here we read about the Lord of the harvest, the harvest of eternal judgment, and he really answers his own prayers. His prayer, you know, pray that the Lord of the harvest ascend out workers into his harvest (Matthew 9:38). And so what does he do? He begins by summoning 12 to start that whole process, Matthew 10 one says, "Jesus summoned his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits..." etc. etc. Also, in Luke six verse 13, that we've read, "He called his disciples to Him and chose 12 of them, whom he also named as apostles." So we see that that Jesus, now, he calls, he summons, he commissions 12 men to be his apostles. Apostles referring to those who will be sent, or who are sent, official representatives who have been commissioned to speak on behalf of the one sending them and accomplish the mission. And by the way, he continues to do that. You know, in in Ephesians 4:11, we read how he gave some to be apostles, he gave some to be as prophets, he gave some as evangelists, and he gave some as pastors and teachers, and so he continues to do that to this day.

Now, remember, the apostles first had to be called to saving faith, all of them except Judas Iscariot, and all these men had been following him as his disciples. His "mathētēs,” as learners, but now they were being called, shall we say, to an official internship to live with and be tutored by the Lord Jesus Christ himself - to learn by instruction and example. Can you imagine that? To be tutored by the incarnate God? And yet we have those resources right now in Scripture.

So the first key principle of Christian ministry is a heart of compassion. Secondly, I want you to remember that God still chooses those who will lead his church. But third, we see that leaders require much prayer. It's interesting, of course, Jesus was always committed to doing the Father's will, and therefore he chose 12 men, and he did that only after a long season of prayer. Luke six verse 12, "And it was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God."

Verse 13, then as we've read, it says, "He called His disciples to Him, and chose twelve of them." He chose them out of the many that were around, "...whom he also named as apostles." Now, bear in mind, his prayer was not just you know who should I choose here, but also he's praying for them. The Greek term when it speaks of "he spent the whole night in prayer", the Greek term carries the idea of enduring at a task during the night, and so I kind of think of it this way: the night's 12 hours, he picks 12 men. That's what's going on here, and see, he's praying for their spiritual growth and development. He's already mediating for them as their divine advocate, and it's marvelous to see even in this scenario the blending of Jesus' humanity and his deity. And certainly, we all need much prayer. All of us do, especially those in leadership. And by the way, I thank the people that pray before the services here every Sunday. I believe you call yourselves the Power Plant. Is that right? Am I right on that? The power plant used to be the heating plant off of Spurgeon's heating plant, but it's so hot around here, the last thing we need is more heat, but we need lots of power, and I got a little letter from you all saying that you've been praying for me, and that meant a whole lot to me. But we need that.

A fourth principle is that true ministry will always seem counterintuitive. It will always seem counterintuitive. I mean, the divine strategy for ministry makes no sense whatsoever from a human perspective. It's counterintuitive to human thought, certainly at odds with the modern church growth movement. And there's a lot that I could say about this; I've already dealt with it quite a bit in the past but just think of the message that we preach. Nobody likes to hear this message. Boy, that's a great sell, isn't it? First Corinthians 1:18, "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." In fact, as First Corinthians 2:14 says that "To a natural man," to an unsaved man, "the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing." The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; they are foolishness to him. Then it goes on to say, and they cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised. So we not only give people a message that they don't like, but we live a life that they don't like because they are constantly, as spiritually dead people, they are trying to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

By the way, any gospel that offers the spiritually dead that which they already crave is a false gospel. If I offer you success and health and wealth and prosperity and all of those, that's a false gospel. The good news of the gospel is that because you are dead in your sins, and you are hopeless to save yourself, God has made a provision for you to be reconciled to Him through faith in Christ. And when that happens, when you embrace that - sincerely in repentant faith - God will radically change you. Well, of course, people love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil and so forth, so they hate the gospel. It exposes the truths that men suppress. That's why Paul said in First Corinthians 1:23, "We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." So, true ministry is always going to be counterintuitive. It's like, why in the world would you try to sell something that is so offensive to people, to tell them that everything they do and everything they are, is fundamentally offensive to a holy God? But yet, that is what we are called to do, and look how it changes lives.

A fifth Christian principle of ministry, and you've seen this: God uses ordinary people to accomplish his purposes. I mean, think about this: given the enormity of the problem of sin on earth, you would think that the Father would have commissioned far more than 12 men. I mean, why don't we start with 12,000? Maybe you know, we need a whole lot more than 12, and one of them is a devil. And on top of that, they're just ordinary men. They're uneducated, untrained, common men. In many cases, they are hard-headed. They're prejudiced. They're impetuous. They lack spiritual understanding. They lack humility. As you read about them, they struggle with fear, a lack of faith. They're immature. They're unreliable. Really the most unlikely candidate to be divine representatives, but yet this is exactly the kind of people that God takes and changes. Just the kind of folks God loves to radically conform into his glorious image, and so they leave fishing careers. One leaves the tax gathering business and other pursuits that people had simply to follow Jesus, to walk along from village to village with him, to learn from him. And now, for reasons that God only knows, they became the sovereignly ordained emissaries to advance his kingdom. Just 12 plain ordinary men; not rulers, not rabbis, not Pharisees, not the rich and the famous celebrities. Again, not many noble, not many mighty, right? A bunch of clay pots, as we just read earlier. And the reason for that is so when the kingdom advances, as it will and as it does, God alone gets the credit.

I often think of the Apostle Paul in light of this, an apostle that came along later, he said in his testimony in First Timothy one, beginning in verse 13,

"I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief;

"and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant,  with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus."

Then he adds this,

"It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.

"Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life."

And indeed, because of Christ's superabundant grace and patience to pursue the worst of sinners, he brings glory to himself. Well, quickly, a sixth Christian principle that emerges from all that we're looking at is one that may seem a little odd to you - hopefully, I can explain it - and that is that depth produces breadth. Let me say it differently: concentration produces multiplication. The point here is what we see with what Jesus did with twelve, is he went deep with the few rather than shallow with the many. We see a transition from public to private ministry, at least temporarily, in what Jesus is doing here. And Jesus now begins focusing on those who were constantly around him, especially the twelve, and primarily three of them - Peter, James, and John. And it's fascinating to see this ministry principle, and I've seen it down through the years that depth produces depth, and it produces breadth. In other words, concentration - when you concentrate with a few; it will produce multiplication, though perhaps not even in your lifetime. I remember John MacArthur saying on a number of occasions, "You focus on the depth of your ministry and let God handle its breadth." That's really true, and that's what Jesus did. He didn't preach a bunch of shallow sermonettes. Obviously, he preached to the multitude. But what we see is he went deep with a few and look at the impact that that had. Jesus didn't go shallow with the many; he went deep with the few, and this is utterly contrary to modern evangelical pragmatism. It's contrary to all of the marketing strategies from all the gurus, and I get their information all the time, wanting me to come, as a pastor, wanting me to come to some big gathering that they have.  Jesus didn't promote activities. He didn't promote programs and food and clothing banks. Not to say that that's all bad, but he didn't tell us to you know set up coffee shops and have clever advertising. He said I just want you to preach Christ and him crucified. I want you to preach the Word.

What we see throughout the New Testament is what he wants us to do is focus on intense, precise, systematic, in-depth study and proclamation of biblical truth. And my priority for the 32 years that I've been here has been to do that. Most people don't like it; some do. There's still a few hanging around here, and a few keep coming. But I have tried to concentrate on the few who are hungry to learn, and in so doing, you multiply disciples; to immerse people in the depths of divine revelation, and that depth will cause you to be deep with others, and there will be breadth in that ministry over many years to come. And certainly, to pay special attention to some gifted men from among the group. Second Timothy 2:2 tells me, "The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." And if you think about it, those who have had the greatest effect for the kingdom of God down through redemptive history are those who went deep rather than wide. It's easy to go superficial and get everybody all emotional and hyped up, and not offend anybody. It's something else to go deep with them and to not skip over passages and to explain them all, knowing as I have known over the years, I'll come to certain passages and I think, oh, so and so is not going to want to hear that. But this is what God has said.

And then another thing I've learned is just the priority of prayer with preaching. That's why Paul said in Second Timothy four to young Timothy, "...preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction." And by the way, you're going to see now the apostles doing this more and more. And here's why:

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,

"and they will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to the myths."

The Greek grammar is interesting. The turning away is voluntary. The turning aside is involuntary. The idea is that they will be turned over to or turned unto myths or fables. Then he goes on to say, "But you," Timothy, young pastor, "be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." Beloved, we must all remember that we're at war here, and any pastor that is afraid of offending people with the truth - the only truth that can save their souls - has no business being in a pulpit. I tell guys like that, “You need to go work for a food bank or something. You don't need to be in a pulpit. Go work at a coffee shop if you don't want to offend people.” And it's not like, oh great, I get to stand up here and offend people, but the point is, when you preach what the word says, it is going to be offensive, and you trust the Spirit of God to work through that. That's why in First Corinthians 16:13, Paul says, "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong." What a great text, especially for you young men, and you young women too. That's the type of guy you want to marry.

Well, this is what the apostles had to learn, as do we all. If I can put it real practically, you know, it's really easy to draw a crowd, but it takes great patience to build a church; it's hard work, and I think of Calvary Bible Church. I mean, we have had 1000 people easily come and go. They'll come, they'll be excited about a few things and all of a sudden, they'll hear something they don't like, or they get confronted over an issue, and boom, they're gone. That's just how it's always going to be. Most people don't want what we do. Most people don't want what any church does that is, really being faithful to the word. They don't want to hear the truth.

Well, what we see is Jesus poured his life into these men that he called his apostles, and he did it primarily with three of them, and look what has happened, proving the principle that concentration produces multiplication, that depth will produce breadth, and it will produce more depth, and so forth.

One final thought is as we get ready to look at John here for a few minutes. Let's always examine our own lives here as we look at this. We all share certain temperaments, don't we and character flaws? In the horse training world, we always used to say that a certain horse had some holes in his program, all right? I got some holes in my program. You got some holes in your program, and we all need to look at these things and say, "Wow, I can see that I need to learn that very thing that John had to learn,” and so forth. And then, honestly, you know, just come before the Lord in repentance.

Now, with all of that, here we come to John. He was the younger brother of James, the second part of shall we say the dynamic duo, the "Sons of thunder," who shared the same traits. He shared the same traits as his big brother, and he, by the way, was the human author of the Gospel of John and the three epistles that bear his name, as well as the book of Revelation.  Next to Paul and Luke, the Holy Spirit inspired him to write more of the New Testament than anyone else, and this, of course, provides us with much information so that we can accurately assess the ways Jesus shaped him. Now, he  commonly refers to himself as quote "the disciple whom Jesus loved." The disciple whom Jesus loved. He always gave Christ the glory for loving such a man as me, as you might say, even in his gospel, he never mentions his name himself, never exalted himself. And unlike so many self-serving showoffs that we see in in Christian ministry even today, that like to tout their academic degrees and their accomplishments and the organizations to which they belong and all of this type of stuff, John never drew attention to himself. The first reference he made of himself was in John 13:23, and he says, "Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved."

By the way, the context there is Jesus just said that one of you is going to betray me, and there's an indication then that Peter kind of looks.... there’s kind of a way they would kind of be on one elbow, and they would be kind of in a U shape, and Peter's asking him basically who it is. So John would have been right next to Jesus, and so he would have been on his elbow, and he would kind of lean back to ask Jesus, and the text says that he asks him, know, "Is it I?” and so forth.

By the way, I've got to make this comment because this stuff always bothers me. It's interesting if you look at medieval art, which I don't do very much, but there's some that are pretty interesting. I remember I had art appreciation, and that was one of the hardest classes for me to ever stay awake in, and the prof had this air horn that he would hit, and if he saw you asleep, he would get fairly close to you and hit that horn, and it would wake you up very quickly. But anyway, in medieval art, they have picked up in a lot of paintings on this tender, loving side of John, and they often portray him as some docile kind of effeminate, you know, sissy boy. That's what it looks like. That stuff really bothers me. And he's staring at Jesus with this sentimental, self-effacing gaze. You know nothing could have been further from the truth. I mean, like all fishermen of that of that day, and I've talked about this before, he would have been a rugged outdoorsman, not some you know girly man with a limp wrist and a lisp. He was just not that kind of a guy. By the way, like you see in a lot of worship leaders today really bothers me when I see these guys up there, products of the feminization of the American male, brought about by godless feminists in our country, and sadly men of such demeanor betray just an idolatrous worship of self. First Corinthians 6:9 makes it clear that the effeminate and homosexual shall not enter the kingdom of God, etc. So anyway, don't see him in that way. John was a "Son of thunder." Okay? He would have been a vigorous, robust man of the sea. He outlived all of the apostles. He was not just some passive man. He was aggressive. He was zealous. He was ambitious. He was unyielding. He was self-assertive, and the Lord had to shape a lot of that and kind of hone off the rough edges, because as I say, every virtue is a potential vice. As we look at his life, along with some of the others, certainly his brother James, we see that he had to learn to rule his emotions rather than his emotions ruling him. Remember when he and his brother were wanted to call down fire on the inhospitable Samaritans in Luke nine? He also had to replace selfish ambition with humility. You recall the incident with his mother seeking the prominent thrones - we'll talk about that more in a moment, but the scripture provides us some remarkable insight into this tenderizing process of John's heart.

First, if we go to Mark nine, you know the context there is you have the Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. You got Peter, James, and John there together. Verse two says, "And He was transfigured before them; and His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them." So somehow, in a miraculous way that we cannot fathom, he peels back his flesh and he allows the effulgence of his Shekinah to blaze forth in that ineffable light. You might say the essence of God was materialized right before their eyes, allowing them to bear witness to his majesty and to his power and his glory - a foretaste of their own glory and ours, I might add. And in Mark nine verse four, we read that "Elijah appeared to them with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus." Verse six tells us that Peter, James, and John were so terrified they weren't even able to speak. That would have been a rare moment in their life. And then a cloud envelops them, and God thunders out of heaven. The text says, "'This is My beloved Son. Listen to him!'" There's a bit of irony in all of that, isn't it? And such an experience would have been terrifying, wouldn't it? I mean, beyond words. But it would also make you want to explode with excitement. It's like, where do you go from here after seeing that, after witnessing that?

And of course, naturally you would want to tell everyone, but God had different plans. In Mark 9:9 we read, "And as they were coming down from the mountain, He gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man should rise from the dead.

"And they seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead might mean."

Now we all know that we are all prone to believing what we really want to believe, and sometimes we believe things; as a matter of fact, oftentimes we believe things that has no bearing, no basis in truth. And they thought that the messianic kingdom, the earthly kingdom, was about to be established, and they were convinced that they were on the inside track, right? I would have been too. Man, I'm right here. I saw this with my own eyes, you know, with Peter and James, my brother. So that's what they're thinking. So they're thinking, ah, chief seats in the kingdom, right? But there's a big problem. Jesus...there's a right and there's a left, and there's three of us. So who's going to get the seats? Don't you know they were thinking stuff like that? Of course they were. Who's going to be greatest in the kingdom? So all of this is fueling that debate. And one principle that emerges here is, and I found this in my life, every spiritual mountaintop experience has the potential to breed pride and elitism, to get you to think things that you shouldn't be thinking, and great blessings tend to incite great arrogance, and we got to guard ourselves from that.

But notice what happens then in Mark nine, beginning in verse 33. The text says, "They came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them, 'What are you discussing  on the way?'" Of course, he knew,

"But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest.

"Sitting down, He called the twelve and said to them, 'If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.'"

Then this is fascinating. It says,

 "Taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, he said to them,

“Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.’”

And then it's interesting in verse 38. And by the way, verse 38 is the only time in the synoptic gospels, where John is recorded to speak alone. "John said to him, 'Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.'" By the way, that seems like a non sequitur, like right? It's like, what's he saying? Doesn't make any sense in context of what's going on here." Ah, but it does.

"But Jesus said, 'Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me.

“For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your names as followers of Christ, truly. I say to you, he will not lose his reward.”

You see, folks, there's something remarkable going on here in the text. Something remarkable is occurring in John's heart. He realizes that he's been caught up in this who's going to be first in the kingdom stuff, and then he sees Jesus dealing with this child, and then gently rebuking him. And I believe John is convicted as of his elitism here. He's convicted of his ungodly proclivity to be sectarian, to be bigoted, to be narrow-minded. You know, “Us four no more, bar the door.” So he's not changing this subject, but in the context of all that is happening here, he's really confessing his sin. “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name. We tried to prevent him because he was not following us. How do we deal with this?” So he learned the only legitimate test of another person's ministry and the truthfulness of who that person is, is their doctrine and their fruit. We should never reject people simply because they don't belong to our group. John had to learn that we separate from other people that claim to be Christians on the basis of the authority of Scripture and sound doctrine. We're not going to have fellowship, for example, with people that claim to be Christians but would so deny the authority of God that they would endorse abortion or the LGBTQ perversions or women pastors. Or like the church up in Clarksville I drove by. They’ve got a big sign that they're bragging about how they've got a Sunday where they're going to bless the pets. Where. do you come up with this stuff? We're not going to have fellowship with people that don't understand the gospel, that distort the truths of the Word of God, and so forth. But for those that that love Christ and honor Him in His in their life, we're going to embrace them.

By the way, if you haven't, and I hope you'll have a chance, but if you've never been to other parts of the world and met other believers, it is an amazing thing - even if you can't speak their language - there is a kindred spirit with all of those who have good, sound theology. They understand the gospel. They've been saved by grace, and they live lives that are honoring to Christ. You will immediately feel at home with them, even though they will do things in their worship services that will be very different from ours, and they will have different customs and you know so forth. But this is why we would reject, for example, ecumenism that is so popular today. I get these things all the time, wanting me to join with other people of faith in the area, including the lesbian pastors and all this-we're not going to have anything to do with that. Second Corinthians six verse 14 says,

"Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?

"Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?

"Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said,

"'I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

"'Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,' says the Lord, 'And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you.'"

So again, John is learning that the only legitimate test of another person's ministry is what they believe doctrinally about the gospel, about who Christ is, and the fruit in their life. And we don't reject people just because they're not part of our sphere of Christian fellowship. Later, he would write in First John four, beginning in verse one,

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

"By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;

"and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.

"You are from God, little children, and overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than He who is in the world.

"They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.

"We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of error."

There's the doctrinal test, but there's also a character test that John speaks about in First John two, beginning in verse four,

"The one who says, 'I have come to know Him and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

"but whoever keeps His word , n him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:

"the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked."

Now John was not only convicted of his selfish ambition, his sectarianism, his elitism, but as we read his writings, we also see that John had a passion for the truth. In fact, that word "truth" is used 46 times in his writings. For example, First John 1:6, "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." First John 2:4, "The one who says, 'I have come to know Him,' and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him." And he warns us about the false teachers that will pervert the truth with counterfeits. He labels them as "antichrists" in First John 2:18 because they distort the truth, pertaining especially to the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and these antichrists can be very appealing. They can attract massive crowds. That's why he says in First John two, in verse beginning in verse 19,

"They went out from us, but they weren't really of us; for if they'd been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out so that it would be shown that they are all not of us.

"But you have an anointing from the Holy Spirit, and you all know.

"I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, because no lie is of the truth.

"Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son."

So John was passionate for the truth, and we see this even in his paternal fatherly concern for those to whom he ministered. In Third John four, he says, "I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth." And my, what a joy that is to us! Of course, children here, he's speaking of those that he's ministered to, those people in the church. But it was also applied to all of us as parents and grandparents. Isn't it a great joy to see your children walking in the truth rather than being deceived by the lies that will destroy them? But I must add that though John had a passion for the truth, it was always tempered. It was always tempered with love. You see, truth without love is cruelty, and love without truth is superficiality. And John learned to speak the truth in love. So we see as we look at his life, he just repented of his selfish ambition that drove him to pursue some place of prominence. He learned well at the feet of Jesus, especially when he stood at the foot of the cross and watched his Savior die on his behalf.

By the way, he is the only apostle that is recorded to have been there. Can you imagine that? Well, it's fascinating, isn't it? And John selfishly longed for a place of prominence to exalt himself, and Jesus gave him a place of prominence, but not in the way that he would have imagined. Remember that John was eventually banished to a small Grecian island in the Aegean Sea, an island called Patmos, by the order of the Roman Emperor Domitian. I've been there in that cave where John lived, I've seen it with my own eyes. Some of you have been there, some of you with me. It's high on a mountainside on the Patmos. It's up on that mountainside, and you can look out over the island and see surrounding islands there in the Aegean Sea. But there he suffered quietly. He lived in a cave and required to sleep on a rock, a stone for his pillow. But this was the place of prominence that the Lord had for him-an exalted position before Almighty God and his heavenly hosts - for it was in this place that Jesus unveiled his glory and inspired him to write the Book of Revelation, which is the "Apokalupsis Jesu Christu," the unveiling of Jesus Christ. He saw him on the mountain. He sees him again now, in the cave on the Isle of Patmos, and for this reason he could write in Revelation one verse 10,

"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet,

"saying, 'Write in a book what you see...'" verse 12, "...and I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands,

"and in the middle of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His breast with a golden girdle.

"His head and His hair were white like wool, like snow; and his eyes were like a flame of fire.

"And his feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been caused to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters."

Verse 17,

"And when I saw Him, I fell at his feet as a dead man. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, 'Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last...'"

Yes, once again, it was Jesus appearing to him, appearing to the disciple whom Jesus loved. What an indescribable joy that must have been! Well, tradition tells us that John became the pastor of the church at Ephesus that Paul had founded, and in his commentary on Galatians, one of the early church fathers, Jerome, tells us of this beloved apostle's final days. He tells us how that he was so weak and frail that he had to be carried into church, and one phrase was said to be constantly on his lips, and it is this: "My little children, love one another." And then Jerome, when asked why he said this so often, he replied, "It is the Lord's command, and if this alone be done, it is enough."

Beloved, even as Jesus shaped John to be one of his mighty warriors of the kingdom, so too he is shaping each one of us to the praise of his glory. When I thought this through a number of years ago and preached on it similarly as today, I remember just thinking of my own life, and I'll close with what I closed a number of years ago when I preached on this with a poem, a testimony that I think you can all identify with.

I stand in awe of all my sin, selfish lusts reside within

Ne'er does a new day dawn, but what my heart more sin doth spawn

Yet by His grace and gift of faith, my sins are forgiven, the debt erased,

and slowly still my life He shapes, until like Him, my soul he makes.

Amen? Amen. Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for the great truths of your word. Thank you for the Apostle John and the ministry that he continues to have in the lives of the saints. Thank you for the way that you shape all of our lives by the power of your sanctifying grace, Lord, use us all mightily to the praise of Your glory. And if there be one here today that knows nothing of what it means to be united to Christ in saving faith, I would plead with you to break their heart, to give them no relief, to make them miserable in their sin, to cause the consequences of their iniquity to bear down upon them in such tragic ways that they will finally humble themselves and cry out for the grace that you want to give them, and you will give to all that you have set your love upon. I ask this for the glory of Christ and in His name. Amen.