“So here’s my mission for me. I want to watch my own heart, my own actions, my own tongue,” Barber said. “I want to be on guard against the moments when I dance over so far into 2 John, that I’ve left 3 John all the way behind. And I want to guard my heart against those times when I’ve wrapped myself up in 3 John so much that I’ve completely wandered away from 2 John.”
Using his own church as an example, Barber said First Farmersville supports the SBC Cooperative Program – the funding mechanism for Southern Baptist cooperative work – in support of work the church intends to be Scripturally sound.
“It is good for us to be on guard against false teachers in the church because there are a lot of things going on in the world that First Baptist Farmersville does not want to be participating in,” he said. “And that’s the message of 2 John, is to say you have to be on guard against this because everything you support you’re participating in.
“And sometimes it’s easy to live in 2 John, but 3 John must be taken into account too.”
Barber proclaimed “a divine obligation” to support the work of those who proclaim the Gospel “in truth and fidelity to the Scriptures.”
“We do not give at First Baptist Farmersville through the Cooperative Program just because we think it’s a nice option,” Barber said. “We give through the Cooperative Program at First Baptist Farmersville because we believe God wills it.”
He encouraged churches to continue to support the work of international missions.
“We believe that the people who have gone to far-flung and dangerous places around the world to share the Gospel have gone out from our church and from churches like ours,” he said. “And if we will not be partners with them in the good work of the Holy Spirit that they have engaged in, who will? If it’s not the responsibility of the churches who are sending them, whose responsibility is it?”
This article originally appeared here.
