Topic: No Great Joy (III John)
Joy is something deeper than happiness. In 3 John, the apostle John speaks of having no greater joy when writing the letter. John experiences joy when he sees the people he has brought to Christ continuing to prosper and be in good physical health and good spiritual health. In fact, he makes these three specifics his prayer for believers.
1. Prosper
John says that he wants Gaius to “prosper”. It is from these verses that there are those whopreach what is called the “Health and Wealth Gospel”. John does pray that Gaius “may prosper in all things.” And so some believe that it is God’s intention that His followers will always experience an abundance of material “blessings” in this life. And there are examples in scripture of people of God doing quite well: Abraham, Boaz and Solomon. It is true that God wants to bless us; and it might be His desire to prosper us in a material sense. But that doesn’t mean that it will happen. We live in a fallen and sinful world, and things don’t always go according to plan. Satan is loose in this world. For example, Job was materially prosperous, but Satan took all of that away. Hopefully we will be like Job and declare in such a time, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). That leads to the second thing in John’s prayer.
2. Physical Health
John prays that Gaius be in good health. Some feel that John prayed for Gaius so his health would improve; that his spiritual health was good, but not his physical health. After all, it is hard to accomplish much if you are sick. Think about a time when you were sick. Think about how hard it was to just answer the phone, yet alone perform all the other tasks during the day. God is concerned about this aspect of our lives. The Lord wants us to take care of our bodies the best we can. The human body is not a machine that can run, day and night, forever, on and on like the Energizer Bunny or the Timex watch that keeps on ticking. Even Jesus encouraged the apostles to care for their physical needs. In Mark 6:30-31 it says, “Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And He said to them, ‘Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.” Taking care of our bodies is appropriate and needed no matter how old we are.
We can talk about prosperity and health, but this letter goes beyond money and health. It is really about God’s desire to make all of us as individuals complete. What is important for us is that we prosper spiritually even when things go wrong. That leads to the main thing that caused John to have great joy.
3. Spiritual Health
The most important type of prosperity is “spiritual prosperity.” Gaius was spiritually fit, which gave testimony to his faith, and was lived out in obedience. Because his soul prospered and he was rich in the realm of spiritual matters, it was an easy thing for John to pray that his life would be blessed as much as his soul was. But John’s prayer for his friend Gaius raises some important questions. Just how much is our soul prospering? How is the health of our souls? What if our souls were in the same condition as our bodies? How is your soul getting along? Has there been a checkup lately? Is it healthy and strong?
John wants to see people walking with Christ. He rejoices when he sees it happening. There is no greater joy than that. John wrote, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth”. And in his second letter to another saint he said, “I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father” (II John 4).
See you Sunday, Dr. Scott Kallem