A Mile Wide and an Inch Deep

Think about the people in your life and ask yourself this question, what would they be like if they followed your example? See, it's one thing to watch someone who's worth following, it's another thing to be watched and worth following. What about me?

What about you? Are we a model worth imitating? And every one of us ought to say, not really.

But oh God, make us like this, like Him. Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Today we explore the topic of your influence. What kind of influence do you have today?

Do Christians merely have a presence in this world or are we making a significant difference? Today you're going to learn that the depth of your Christian impact depends on your actions. Today you're going to be introduced to a role model who was worth imitating and you'll be challenged to be worthy of imitation yourself. Let's join Stephen Davey as he continues through his series from 3 John with this lesson he's calling A Mile Wide and an Inch Deep.

Here's Stephen with today's lesson. It's interesting, early on in the history of the Israelite Exodus, the Lord warned His people through Moses in this really interesting statement in Exodus 23 where God said, You shall not imitate the masses. Don't follow the crowd.

If there's a crowd, they're probably heading in the wrong direction. Solomon delivered an interesting guarantee in this principle of imitation when he recorded it this way, He who walks with the wise will be wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm. In other words, you hang around wise people and they're going to rub off on you.

Iron sharpening iron. You hang around fools and you're going to suffer harm. You're going to pay the penalty. If you're old enough in the faith to know this, remember in the Bible, a fool has nothing to do with their IQ. It has nothing to do with their SAT scores.

It has nothing to do with how long they stayed in college before they kicked them out. It has nothing to do with any of that. What it has to do with, in fact, we read it this way, the fool, here's who a fool is, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. In other words, I'm going to live independently of God. I'm going to be in defiance of God. I don't care if there is a God.

I don't want anything to do with God. That's the fool. The wise person says, I will obey and follow God. I want to know the word of God. I want to know the mind of God revealed in scripture. That's the difference between being a wise person and a foolish person.

You follow after the wrong person, especially this individual who defies God and you will suffer harm. That's the majority opinion by the way. That's the majority opinion. I think of that often when I stop to put gas in my pickup truck, which is about five times a week. At any rate, the gas pump has this, they redid this gas station where I go to and there is like this video screen right in the gas pump.

It's like, do we really need more? And as soon as you swipe your card, it starts. And it starts with what's trending now. And you got to stand there and watch it, three minutes.

Three minutes worth of what's hot, what the hottest book is, what the hottest quote is, you know, what the hottest celebrity sighting is. And you're sort of, you know, there is no off button. Trust me, I've looked all around that gas pump. Although I will tell you this, a guy came up to me after the second service. I'm so glad we have three services because after the second service, he came to me and he said, Stephen, on the right hand side is a column of buttons. The second one from the top mutes it.

Is that great or what? I asked him if there's a button to change the channel. He said, no, we can't change the channel, but you can mute it.

So there you go. The trouble is we are imitators by nature. And God never comes along and says, stop imitating. He never does once. He does say stop and think about what you're imitating.

In fact, it's used positively. The apostle Paul will tell the church in Philippi to imitate his example. Philippians 3.17, he'll tell the Corinthians to imitate him as he imitates Christ. 1 Corinthians 11.1, the writer of Hebrews will tell the believer to be an imitator of those who demonstrate patience. Hebrews 6.12 and later on in chapter 13 and verse 7, he also tells us that we should imitate the faith of those who taught us the word after having observed their conduct, which is an important clarification. He will tell the church in Thessalonica, interestingly enough, that they should imitate other churches in the way they are handling suffering. God never tells us to stop the practice of imitation. He tells us to stop and think about who it is we're imitating.

If you were with us in our last session when we were last in this little letter where I invite your attention to return back to 3 John, John has described for us the wrong example to follow. His name, if you remember, was Diotrephes. John introduced us and we took a close look at this man.

He was proud. He was unaccountable. He was power hungry. He was inhospitable. He was unteachable.

He was ungracious. And the problem is he was more than likely the pastor teacher of this church, which created an interesting dilemma. If you go back to 3 John, he's now going to tell Gaius, the recipient of the letter, here's another man in the assembly worth following. Now, before he introduces us to Demetrius and we'll eventually get to him. In fact, we'll cover a couple of verses today.

He's a good example. I want you to notice that John actually delivers us to us a mandate, a command to practice the art of imitation. It's an imperative.

It's a command to do this. Look at verse 11. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Now, the construction of the command implies you could insert the word person or conduct. In other words, you could read it to say, do not imitate the person who is evil or the conduct which is evil, but the implication is imitate the person who is good or the conduct which is good. So God never says stop imitating. He just says you got to make sure that what's trending might not be worth following.

Be careful. It might be superficial at best, sinful at worst. Now, notice how John broadens his command with this description. Verse 11 again, the one who does good is of God and the one who does evil is not of seeing God. The one who does good and the one who does evil. They're contrasted, but you need to understand that the tense of the verb here indicates this is present, this is active, this is ongoing, this is habitual, this is the pattern, this is the lifestyle. And it's important to understand it because I don't know of a Christian who always does good, right? I'm not one of them.

How about you? In fact, it's possible for someone who is evil to do something good. John is describing desire, direction, a pattern. I like to think of it as the word practice.

You might insert that word into the margin of your text. He's talking about the one who practices good as opposed to the one who practices evil. The one who does good, the one who practices good, this is their pursuit and passion, is of God. He'll talk about people, in fact, don't quote Jesus in John 15 as telling unbelievers they're of the world. What that means is there is a connection, there is a bond, there is a relationship, which is rather chilling because what that means is that somebody who loves and pursues and practices evil is essentially revealing their bond to the devil, their relationship to the devil, their familiar relationship with the world. They belong to the world as opposed to being of God, that is, having a bond with God. The one who does good is of God that is demonstrating a family likeness.

Now, don't misunderstand here. You don't do good things. He isn't suggesting or hinting that if you do good things, you can be saved. You can't do enough good things to be saved. John isn't suggesting that we're automatically saved if we imitate good conduct. He wrote it this way to the Galatian church, a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Christ Jesus. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. You notice the text, there's a careful distinction between the works of the law, which would be good things to do, and justification, being right with God. You don't do good things so you can go to heaven.

If you could, Jesus wouldn't have had to die. You do good things because you are going to heaven and you want to demonstrate this family likeness, that you have this father, you have this family home and it's in heaven. I like the way John Calvin, the reformer, balanced this when he wrote, we are saved by faith alone but saving faith is never alone. A believer demonstrates their family bond by desiring to do that, which is good, which ultimately brings others to glorify their father who is in heaven, which gives the believer no greater delight. Matthew 5 16. The believer is imperfect in doing good but he's passionate, he is desirous, he is practicing the art of imitating everything that is good as opposed to that which is evil.

Now I want to give you one more observation. John writes at the end of verse 11, the one who does or practices evil has never seen God. Now that's odd because you would expect a parallel statement. The one who practices good is of God, you would expect them to say, and the one who practices evil is not of God. But he changes it to say they've never seen God, which is a little confusing because nobody has seen God, at least in all his glory.

So what does he mean? Well this is, again, one of the major themes in John's writing. To John, the way he expresses it, seeing God is tantamount to knowing God. Seeing God is equal to believing in God. So if you have your eyes opened to the gospel and you believe the gospel about Jesus, you have had your eyes opened to see the reality of God. That's why people out there who don't believe the gospel, the Bible tells us their eyes are closed, they're blinded to the reality of God. And they'll argue with you as to whether or not there's a God.

They want to defy him. And Jesus put it this way in that classic conversation that took place between he and his disciples, and Philip sort of interrupts him and I'm glad Philip did because he said exactly what we would say. Jesus is saying this, if you had known me, you would have known my father also, but from now on you do know him and have seen him. He's telling his disciples, you've seen him.

And Philip said, Lord, if we put her in our vernacular, I don't see anything. I don't see him. Do you fellas see him? We don't see him. Show us him.

Do something miraculous. Let us see the father and we'll be satisfied. Jesus goes on to describe the oneness between the son and the father. And he essentially says, if you've had your eyes opened to who I am as your Messiah, you have your eyes opened into the reality and the glory of God. So as John writes here, the one who practices evil has never seen God.

John Knox, the reformer, wrote it this way on this text. The one who loves evil has caught no glimpse of God. Now, there's a question here. It's as if John is posing this question. Who are you imitating?

The point of scripture is transformation. He's giving us a model and we'll do that so that we can ask the question, is that me? And Lord, make that me.

I want to pursue that for your sake. Who do you talk like? Who do you walk like? Is it someone whose life is evil at worst, trivial and shallow at best? They are a mile wide and an inch deep.

Oh, but they're trending. Is that who you follow? You decide. The apostle John says, while you're thinking about it, I've got somebody in mind for you worthy of imitation. So following John's mandate to obey, he now provides us with a role model to closely observe. Verse 12 introduces us to him. His name is Demetrius.

Hang on there. I mean, we'll get to the rest of the verse, but hold on. Demetrius, we don't know much about him apart from what we're given in this letter, but we do know this. His name means belonging to Demeter.

That's the pagan goddess of agriculture, which means Demetrius had been born into an unbelieving family with idolatrous parents who thought, what are we going to name our son? I know what we're going to name our son. Let's name him after one of our favorite goddesses. In fact, let's dedicate him to her. So let's give him a name, a word form that says he belongs to her, Demeter, which tells us that somewhere along the line, Demetrius had a wonderful testimony of salvation where he came to faith. We'd love to know it.

We'll talk with him one day and find out. But let me just pull over for a moment and encourage you, beloved, the work, if you're under the impression that the only people worth following are these Christians who come from a long line of believers, and I mean, they've got the pedigree. And you talk to them and they got the father and the grandfather and the great grandfather and even the guy that came over on the Mayflower.

I mean, they are connected to the right family tree. And they're thinking, if I only had that, God would really do something through me. Beloved, the Holy Spirit has never been handicapped by an individual who comes to faith in Christ. And maybe that's you and you're a first generation Christian. And perhaps for you, there's not even anybody else in your family that has bought into this gospel and believed in the Spirit.

You're the only one. Don't ever think, man, I'd really do something for God if... No. It's time you met Demetrius. Demetrius was named in honor of a pagan goddess, a first generation Christian.

I love that. And John says, you know, I'm just wondering who to provide for you. It would be a good example to follow in the congregation. I know who it is.

It's this guy named after a pagan goddess. Why would he be worth following? Well, John's going to tell us why. In fact, he's going to slip into the language of the court. He's going to use a word several times that comes from the context of someone giving legal testimony in a court of law. So I'll give those three testimonials a word to describe it, categorical term, and let's call them forward. The first is the testimonial or the testimony of reliability. Notice verse 12, Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone. That's a remarkable statement, by the way. You pull anybody over at work where Demetrius works by the water cooler and you say, hey, what do you know about that guy?

They're all going to say the same thing. He does the right thing. In fact, the phrase good testimony is related to the idea of doing good in verse 11.

The Apostle Peter uses that expression and it's translated often. He does the right thing. They do what is right. And even an evil person can look at another person and say, yeah, they're doing the right thing. And they know that. In other words, Demetrius has a reputation for doing what's right.

You can rely on him to do the right thing. I read recently of a 19-year-old college student who was waiting for the subway in New York City, standing on a busy platform, people milling around everywhere and suddenly, inexplicably, for the first time in his life, he had a seizure. And as his body contorted, he lost control of his faculties and he stumbled off that platform and landed directly onto one of the tracks. With seconds to spare, you could see the train coming.

There was a man standing in that crowd, a 50-year-old construction worker holding the hands of his two daughters. And he said, I realize we had just a second and nobody else was moving. I dropped the hands of my girls, jumped down there and grabbed the young man. We rolled onto the drainage trough in between the tracks. There was a little depression. Seconds later, the train roared over them with inches to spare.

Neither one of them were hurt. Well, immediately, of course, it made the news. This older man was presented the city's highest award for civic achievement by the mayor of New York City. He received, surprisingly, a $10,000 check in the mail from a businessman in New York by the name of Donald Trump.

He took that check immediately to the bank and cashed it. He was invited on the television show after television show after television show and he was humbled. In fact, he was a humble man and he sort of downplayed the whole thing and he said, well, I just knew somebody needed help and nobody else was moving.

The executive director of the transportation authority disagreed, calling what he did nothing less than, quote, a death-defying act of bravery. And he then said this, and this marked my thinking, he was at the right place at the right time and he chose to do the right thing. It wasn't just that he was at the right place or that he was at the right place at the right time.

You and I are at the right place at the right time all the time. But do we choose to do the right thing? That's Demetrius.

You can count on him to do the right thing. Let's call testimony number two to the witness stand. We'll call this the testimony of integrity. What he does here is personify truth, turn it into a person and say, now, here, you walk up and stand here on this witness stand and you deliver your testimony. And truth says, well, I agree. I agree with the testimony of everybody else and what they've said about Demetrius. It's indeed truth. And really, at first thought, I just thought that John was adding things for the sake of emphasis and it was a bit redundant.

The more I studied this text tomorrow, I realized he wasn't being redundant. Why? Because it's possible for everybody to say the same thing about somebody and everybody to be absolutely wrong. It's possible to polish a reputation and just, you know, you're watching for the camera and you make sure when it shows up, you're smiling.

When the ball starts a corner, you got it covered. You look reliable. You look like you have character. But as John Wooden, the famous basketball coach famously put it, character is what you really are. Reputation is what people think you are. It's possible for everyone to say he's a good man until we shine the light of truth.

And what's exposed is not necessarily the same thing. See, it's possible to polish a good reputation while hiding in private corruption. There is the testimony of Demetrius and John says truth shines its light on him and there are no skeletons in his closet. He's the real deal, the genuine item.

He is in private what you see of him in public. There is third, the testimony of accountability. John writes and we add our testimony. This is the apostolic community. John is his spiritual leader. He is submissive to that apostolic authority. In fact, as we've studied together in third John, the problem with diatrophes is that he is defying apostolic authority, not Demetrius.

So we can add our testimony, the plural pronouns seem to indicate that John may very well be including his home church. We have watched him grow. We've discipled him.

We've invested in his life. You want a model worth imitating? Well, let's turn it around before we walk out of here. Are we a model worth imitating? And every one of us ought to say, not really. But, oh, God, make us like this, like him. See, it's one thing to watch someone who's worth following.

It's another thing to be watched and worth following. Why is that important? Because we're demonstrating a family relationship. I close with this on a wall near the main entrance to the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, is a portrait I have read of a man with a following inscription, James Butler Bonham. But then, in paragraph form, it says, essentially, but this is not a picture of him. We don't have a picture of him. So this is a picture of his nephew who looked like him. There's no picture of Jesus. I know I've seen some hanging on walls, but it's not him. There's no portrait.

You're it. We bear the likeness of him by the way we live, and we tell our world we don't have a portrait of him, but we're standing in as his family representative because we look like him. We act like him. We talk like him. We walk like him.

Can you imagine? If someone followed you, you would lead them to walk like Jesus. That's a sobering challenge today, and I hope it encouraged you as you interact with the people in your life.

Thanks for being with us. This is Wisdom for the Heart, the Bible teaching ministry of Steven Davey. Steven is the president of Wisdom International. He's been working his way through a series from 2nd and 3rd John entitled Postcards from John. The message you just heard is called A Mile Wide and an Inch Deep. We have a second daily program called The Wisdom Journey.

Steven is teaching through the entire Bible on that series. Here's a note we received from a listener named Donald. The ministry of The Wisdom Journey and Wisdom for the Heart has been such a blessing to me and my family. My sister-in-law in New Jersey told me that The Wisdom Journey has taught her more about the Bible than she had ever learned previously.

Thank you very much for making this possible. Well, thanks Donald for taking the time to write to us. It was very encouraging to hear from you. If you'd like to send Steven a note, you can write to us at Wisdom International, PO Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. You can send an email if you address it to info at wisdomonline.org. That's info at wisdomonline.org. And if you prefer calling, our phone number is 866-48-BIBLE.

That's 866-48-BIBLE. Thanks again for joining us today. Please be with us at this same time tomorrow for more wisdom for the heart. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.