Sunday Sermon: Continue in What You Have Learned (2 Timothy 3:10-15)

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You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

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New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

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Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. Second Timothy chapter 3, beginning in verse 10 and going through verse 17.

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Hear the word of the Lord. You however have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra, which persecutions

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I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me.

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Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

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But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

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You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to these scriptures this morning,

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I pray that we too would remember those things that have been written for our benefit.

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Whether we look into the Old Testament or we look into the New, we find the work that God has done through his people, the work that God is doing through his people even now, and the work that you are going to do through us for the future.

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These things are laid out for us in the scriptures, that none of us have any excuse to say, what does

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God want me to do? For the call to obedience, to holiness, to live as Christ is written down for our benefit and our instruction that we may find ourselves complete and equipped for every good work.

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Work these things out in us as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

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It is in the name of Christ that we pray. Amen. 1 Samuel chapter 4 begins in a very unusual way.

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I've always been kind of curious as to why the chapters and verse divisions were chosen the way they are.

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Sometimes I don't think it was really picked very smartly. I always kind of wonder, did you just stick a number there?

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Because, okay, I've gone on for long enough. It's time for the next chapter marker. So at the beginning of 1

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Samuel chapter 4, it says, The word of Samuel came to all Israel. And then it goes right from there into the

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Israelites fighting the Philistines. Now at the end of 1 Samuel chapter 3, it had been laying out that Samuel is the man that God has called to be the next judge and the next prophet of Israel.

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And so after laying all that out, why wouldn't chapter 4 verse 1 stick with chapter 3?

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It seems in context that that would go well to conclude chapter 3 instead of beginning chapter 4.

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But the more I began, the more I continued reading it, the more I realized that there is quite a startling contrast here.

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And whether or not the editors decided that this was what they had in mind when they placed chapter 4 right there.

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Because remember, chapters and verses are not divinely inspired. We've added that. Samuel didn't write that in there.

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But if by the providence of God this was an accident or intentional, nonetheless, it presents quite a contrast in that it is said,

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The word of Samuel came to all Israel. And being a prophet, we know that the word of Samuel was the word of God.

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And yet what ends up happening in the rest of chapter 4, but Israel goes to fight against the

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Philistines. And what you see demonstrated is that Israel was not listening to the word of Samuel.

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They were not listening to the word of God. They thought that because Yahweh is with us, we are always going to triumph over our enemies.

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They fought against the Philistines and they did not do well, lost 3 ,000 men. So they decided,

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Well, you know what we can do? Let's go get the ark and take it with us.

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Because God is right there on the top of the ark. He will be with us in our midst. And as he has delivered our enemies into our hands before every time the ark went with us, he's going to do it again.

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So they go up to Shiloh, they retrieve the ark, and here they come. And they're shouting triumphantly as they go.

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And the Philistines hear this shout and they're like, What is going on? Why have the

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Hebrews somehow gained all of this confidence? And they look and they see that the ark of God is with them.

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They're going, Oh boy, we are in trouble. Because we've heard about whenever the

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Hebrews have the ark, their God is with them. And so they try to rally their own troops and they say,

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Look, you guys, you have got to believe that you can win this fight. Because if you don't, we're going to become the slaves of the

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Hebrews. So let's go up against them and let's fight with all we've got.

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And lo and behold, the Philistines succeeded. In fact, they succeeded so thoroughly.

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The Israelites lost 30 ,000. Ten times more than what they had lost before.

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And the Philistines seized the ark of God and they took it into their own place.

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And they said it with Dagon, their God. And we're like, Hey, we conquered the

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God of the Hebrews. Now if you know this story, you know that that's not how that went.

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Because the ark of the covenant being right there next to Dagon, God embarrassed Dagon by making the idol fall over and even breaking off his head and his hands.

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So there goes your little puny God. He infects the Philistines with all these sicknesses and diseases.

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And they begin dying from pestilence. And they're like, What do we do? We've brought the ark into our midst and we can't get rid of it.

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And now we're all dying. And so they end up sending the ark of God back to the Israelites.

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And what ends up happening next, I'm going to wait until we get to the end of the sermon. But again, what you see demonstrated here in 1

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Samuel is the word of God comes from Samuel to the Israelites. And the

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Israelites aren't listening to it. They're not living according to it. And they're treating

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God like a good luck charm. Instead of letting the word of God get into their hearts and living according to it.

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My friends, we've got the word of God that you've been holding in your hands. Whether you're looking at it on your smartphone or you've got a

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Bible with you, it is the living, breathing word of God. Are you listening to it and doing what it says?

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Are the scriptures that you are reading making you wise unto salvation?

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As Paul says here to Timothy. Or are you hoping that it is just going to be a good luck charm for you?

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And maybe one day when you stand before God in judgment, you're going to make it in. Because, hey, I went to church on Sunday.

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We need to be more than just hearers of the word. But doing what it says.

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And this is the passionate instruction that Paul has for Timothy in this section.

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We have a very famous passage in this section that we're looking at today. In fact, such an important doctrine that is laid out in 2

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Timothy 3, 16 -17. That I think it would serve us better for me to wait on that section until next week.

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So we're going to divide this section we're looking at today in two. We're going to look at verses 10 -15.

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Next week we're going to come back to it for part two. And look at 16 -17 where we read, all scripture is breathed out by God.

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It is such an important point. And even the doctrine that's laid out in those couple of verses is so important to us even as Reformed Baptists.

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That the very thing that's being taught there is the very first article in the confession of faith that we follow.

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And so let's hold off on 2 Timothy 3, 16 -17. We'll still look at it in context today, but that will be our message next week.

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So for today, looking primarily at verses 10 -17. And it breaks down like this.

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After Paul has warned Timothy what false teachers will be like. The section that we looked at last week.

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Paul reminds Timothy about his own ministry. And what he has been like.

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And so he first tells Timothy, you have followed my teaching. That's in verses 10 -13.

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Then he's going to tell Timothy, continue in the teaching, verses 14 -15. And then when we come back to this next week, he's going to finish by telling him what is profitable for teaching.

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And that's verses 16 -17. Now as I wrap up the sermon at the close and we'll do some applications.

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I'm going to look at it like this. The instruction for us here will be to be witnesses, verses 10 -11.

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Be warned, verses 12 -13. And be wise, verses 14 -15.

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So I'm confusing you with two outlines today. But that's how we're going to look at our passage.

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So first of all, considering what Paul says to Timothy in verses 10 -13. You have followed my teaching.

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So first of all, considering what Paul says to Timothy in verses 10 -13. You have followed my teaching.

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And in verse 10, look at this again where Paul says, you, however, have followed my teaching. My conduct.

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My aim in life. My faith. My patience. My love.

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My steadfastness. And my persecutions and sufferings. Now what did we see last week at the beginning of chapter 3?

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We saw a list there too, didn't we? And it was a list of here's what these false teachers are going to look like.

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When the Spirit tells us that in the last days there will come times of difficulty and people will be lovers of self.

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What kind of difficulty are these false teachers going to be causing for you?

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And then we had that list of vices that we considered last week. Now there are 18 things that are listed there.

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That was a long list of vices. I think it's probably the longest list that Paul presents in all of his epistles.

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And as I said last week, there really wasn't a particular pattern to it except that those vices were given in pairs.

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And the thing that's said at the beginning of that list, people will be lovers of self. And what's said at the end of that list, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, bookend everything else that comes in between.

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And these false teachers may not necessarily exhibit every one of those things that's listed there, but they will certainly exhibit some of them.

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And they will definitely be those who are lovers of self rather than lovers of God. Now one of the things that I didn't mention last week, but I thought it would be understandably implied, is the false teachers that Paul is warning about there are men.

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Certainly there are women who are false teachers, but this was specifically in context it was men. And we've seen this instruction throughout 2

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Timothy where Paul has been telling Timothy, pass these things that I'm teaching you on to other faithful men who will likewise pass it on to other men because the elders of the church are supposed to be men.

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So Paul gives good examples of solid men for Timothy to follow.

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And here in verse 10, Paul gives himself. And he gives another list.

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This one's shorter than the list of vices that we saw regarding those false teachers, but nonetheless a lengthy list of characteristics that Timothy has seen exhibited in Paul.

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And so likewise should desire to exhibit those things himself. Now look at the first two words, at least the way that we have it in the

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English Standard Version. You have in verse 10, you however. Now that just might seem like, you know, good language transition.

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We're going from talking about the false teachers into talking about something more solid here. But those two words create a vast gulf between who we had described in verses 1 through 9 and who we have described here in verses 10 and 11.

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There is a massive gap between those two. It's practically the difference between heaven and hell.

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These men that were described at the beginning of chapter 3 lead to hell. This example that you are given in verses 10 to 11, if you follow this and you remain steadfast in it, leads to eternal life.

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You, however, need to live this way. You have followed my teaching.

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And it's not that Paul is presenting it to Timothy here as, here's what you need to do, although he certainly does that.

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But he's also presenting it to Timothy as, you have done this. And you need to continue in this.

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You have followed my teaching, my conduct, and on it goes.

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So first of all, let's look at each one of these individually, just like we did last week with the vices.

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So let's have a more encouraging word here with these characteristics that Timothy is to imitate.

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My teaching or doctrine. Doctrine is just synonymous with teaching. You might hear it said sometimes, doctrine divides.

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I don't want to teach about doctrine because it's so divisive. Yeah, doctrine divides. It divides truth from error.

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It divides those who are faithful to it from those who don't care about it. As I've heard

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Mark Dever teach years ago, if you want to find out real quick who's devoted to doctrine in your church and who is not, teach through Romans.

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So we're going to do that. That's coming up this fall. We're going to find out who's really dedicated.

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To the doctrine of God. And who's just playing church. So Paul says you have followed my teaching, my doctrine, the things that I have taught, not just standing there listening to me as I preached at the

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Areopagus or shared the gospel with the Greeks or something like that. Now, you know, my teaching, the things that Paul has sat down with men and poured into deeply.

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Not just the surface level stuff, but everything, every word of God. As Paul had said to the

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Ephesian elders, and that's exactly where Timothy is at. He's with those elders in Ephesus. He said to those elders in Acts chapter 20,

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I have given you the full counsel of God. I have held nothing back.

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You know the things that need to be known for elders to pour into the people of God, the doctrine of God.

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And so Paul reminds Timothy, you know this. You've been taught this. The gospel that Paul proclaimed was not received by any man, not even by the other apostles.

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It wasn't like Paul decided, well, you know, I think I'm going to go to seminary. I think I want to leave my Pharisee ways and I'm going to become a

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Christian. Let me see what these Christians are all about. I'm going to learn this stuff and become a pastor. No, Paul was a pagan, and he was on his way to round up Christians and persecute them.

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He was acting as a pagan. Thought he was zealous for God, thought he was doing the right thing, but instead he was actually opposing

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Christ. And Jesus appears to him on the road to Damascus and says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

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As Alan had pointed out in Sunday school this morning, when God called Abraham, Abram at that time.

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Abram was a pagan, serving false gods. And God calls out

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Abraham and says, I want you to go to this land and I'm going to tell you to do when you get there. I'm going to make you the father of many nations.

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And as Alan so pointed out, God chooses of his own character.

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He doesn't choose because, oh, this person's doing pretty well. I think

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I'll choose them and have them do something great for me. I was a worm.

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I am of the dust. I'm a vapor, a life fleeting that is here for a moment is going to be gone.

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And it is a privilege that God would appoint me to service and ministry. Not because there is anything worthy in me of this.

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But because God was pleased to choose. You as a follower of Christ, God chose you.

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As far as your human experience is concerned. Yeah, you made a decision.

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I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back. Might have been your theme song when you came to know

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Christ. But when you study the theology of it and you find out in Scripture, it really did not have anything to do with you.

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It was God who chose you. And you having answered yes is just a fruit of the fact that God chose you.

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You are demonstrating that you've been chosen by God. And as said in Romans 9, he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy.

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And he will harden whom he will harden. And so Paul was chosen.

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He did not choose. And we see that again and again at the beginning of his letters. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, chosen by the will of God.

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It's like I don't understand how anybody can open a letter and not instantly become a Calvinist. Oh, it was by the will of God.

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It was not by Paul's choosing. Paul even says of his own autobiography in Galatians chapter 1.

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That after that occasion in which Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus. He ended up going into Arabia.

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He went to the place where Moses wandered. And he spent time with Jesus Christ there in the desert in Arabia.

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So he got to fellowship with him face to face. Even as the disciples did.

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They spent three years with Jesus. Paul says, I was there three years in Arabia. And he received the gospel and was trained by Christ himself.

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And then coming back into Jerusalem and having that chance to meet the apostles.

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They affirmed, yes, everything this guy knows and what he is teaching. That's what we know and teach.

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And so seeing for sure that he had been appointed by Christ as an apostle. So Paul reminds

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Timothy, you've heard my teaching. And he goes on to say, you have seen my conduct.

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Now conduct is the way that Paul conducted himself before God and all men.

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In 1 Corinthians 11 1 he says to the Corinthians, imitate me as I am of Christ.

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And this is not Paul blowing his own horn, tooting his own trumpet. All the apostles were meant to be this.

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Christ appointed these apostles to carry on the word of God. That they would take the gospel into the world and make disciples of all nations.

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But the apostles were also to be real world examples of Christ. How is it that we are supposed to live?

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Look at the apostles and how they lived. And they followed after what they themselves saw in Christ Jesus.

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And so when Paul says, imitate his faith. It's to look to Christ.

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He's pointing to Christ. You know my conduct,

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Paul says to Timothy. And then next, you have seen my aim in life.

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My aim meaning my purpose. What am I even doing all of this for? Paul was never swayed from the mission.

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He kept his eyes firmly fixed on Christ. And this reference to aim in life might be like the athlete who competes for the crown.

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Always having his eyes fixed on the goal. Remember we've seen these themes come up in 2

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Timothy. Comparisons to an athlete and a soldier and a farmer. In Hebrews 12, 1 and 2 it says, let us put aside sin and every weight which so easily entangles.

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And run with endurance the race that is set before us. Fixing our eyes on Jesus.

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The author and the perfecter of our faith. And so Paul says, that's been my aim in life.

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You've seen my aim in life to please my master. So likewise, imitate my faith.

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I love how the way, I love the way the book of Deuteronomy concludes. Right before Moses is about to die.

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It says that he lived to 120 years old. And in that entire time, 40 years of leading

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Israel from 80 to 120. If you're trying to figure out where you are in life right now.

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And you're getting up there and I don't think there is anything for me. Moses didn't lead Israel until he was 80.

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Okay. Not that I think you're going to lead Israel. But you know. God still can have some great purpose for you.

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But for those 40 years that Moses led Israel. It says at the end of Deuteronomy that in that entire time.

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That his passion never waned. And his eye was never abated.

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Like he never took his eyes off of the goal. It was always fixed upon God.

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And the mission that he was calling Moses to do. And so, Paul is saying to Timothy, as you've seen that in my life.

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Be an imitator of that. Have your eye fixed on the goal. Don't begin to get lazy or lag behind or drop back.

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Continue fixed on the purpose and accomplish it. Next, Paul says, my faith.

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So, my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith. And specifically what he means by this is the confidence that he has in Christ.

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As you've seen the way that I've trusted in Christ. So, likewise be imitators of this faith.

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While faith is granted to us by God. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. By grace you are saved through faith.

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This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Even the measure of faith that we have.

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Romans 12, 3. That by God's grace you have been apportioned a measure of faith.

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Though it is given to us by God. It is something that we must grow in and confirm by our obedience.

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As Timothy witnessed in Paul. So, he was also to do. None of us are going to be able to stand before God on that day.

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And, well, God you should have just grown my faith a little bit more than you did. We can't blame God for anything.

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You will demonstrate in your life that the faith that you have is genuine. When you are obedient to what he calls.

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To some he is going to give more responsibility than others. But we still have the responsibility to obey where God commands.

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So, we have teaching. We have conduct. My aim in life. My faith. And the next on the list is my patience or forbearance.

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And, by the way, patience. One of those things that love is said to have.

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1 Corinthians 13, 4. Love is patient. It's also among the fruit of the spirit.

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In Galatians 5, 22 -23. That we must demonstrate patience. Showing that we have the spirit of God in us.

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Paul recently told Timothy that a pastor must patiently endure evil.

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That was in chapter 2, verse 25. And so, we've seen these various calls to patience.

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And the kind of character that patience demonstrates. We're not flying off the handle with one another.

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But we're patient with each other. And we're not starting to blame God when we don't feel like that his purpose is being actualized in our life.

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What do you have for me here? What's going on? We're patient. We patiently wait.

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We patiently endure. We patiently forbear. And so, as Timothy has seen this in Paul, so he is to imitate.

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And next, Paul says, you have known my love. Or my benevolence is the way we would understand it here.

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Now, the Greek word is agape. And some will take this word agape and they think of it as some magic word.

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Some higher tier of love or something like that. But it's really not as divine as some have made it out to be.

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It just simply means to be of morally good will. Like you genuinely care for other people.

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So, Timothy has seen Paul's genuine love for all kinds of people.

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And has seen it without prejudice. And so, Timothy is to imitate the same with others.

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Not playing favorites. Not showing favoritism to one group of people and disregarding or ignoring another.

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But as Paul had said with the Corinthians, to the Jews I became as a Jew. That I might win more of them.

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To the Gentiles, I became as a Gentile so that I might be a witness to them. Paul doing whatever he needed to do in order to communicate the gospel and God's love to more people.

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And so, Timothy needed to be willing to sacrifice for that same purpose.

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And then Paul says here, my steadfastness. Steadfastness or endurance.

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Especially as it applied to suffering. Because that's what's coming next.

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Persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch and Iconium and Lystra. So, the steadfastness

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Paul had to endure in any circumstance. Whether that might be suffering that came by persecution or by trial.

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And as Timothy witnessed Paul suffer and press on with the mission. So, Timothy as a pastor was to endure hardship and hold steadfastly to Christ.

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Now remember, we've just come off of this warning that Paul has given to Timothy about godlessness in the last days.

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And here's what those false teachers are going to look like. Here's what you need to look for when they come into your midst and pretend like Christians but they're really not.

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And they're going to cause difficulty for you and for other believers. And this was something that Timothy had witnessed in Paul's life.

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When Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians. This is actually the fourth letter that Paul had sent to the

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Corinthians. Second that we have in canon which is why we call it 2 Corinthians. But when

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Paul had written that next letter to the Corinthians. There were these men who called themselves apostles.

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Who would come into their midst and they were even saying of themselves, we're even better than Paul. And so Paul sarcastically refers to them as super apostles.

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Oh these guys are top tier apostles apparently. And they would come in with their charm, their charisma, their flattery.

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They were dressed up to look the part. Like you can see how successful my teaching has been because look how royal my robes are.

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And this was convincing to some of the Corinthians. They began following some of these guys. And so Paul lays out his sufferings that he went through.

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I mean it's quite a contrast. He doesn't try to like match them word for word. Well look at how much money

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I've made. Look at how much farther out I've gone. No Paul to embarrass the

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Corinthians by being wooed by these guys. Says look what I went through for you.

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He says I am a fool to boast in these things but look at what I went through for you. It's not money and prestige and fame and royal robes that I've ended up with.

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I've got stripes on my back. I've been shipwrecked.

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I've been sick. I've died and came back. I've been beaten over and over again.

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This is how many times I've been through this persecution. This is how many times I've been through jail. This is what

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I have gone through for you. And you're going to give your love to these guys who don't want anything from you but money.

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And then in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 Paul says that he had received these exceedingly great revelations of heaven.

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And he speaks of himself in the third person there. So not to boast in himself. I know a man who was caught up into the third heaven whether in the body or in the spirit

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I don't know but God knows. He's talking about himself. And he says to keep me from becoming conceited because of these exceedingly great revelations there was given a thorn to me in my side.

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A messenger of Satan to torment me. Now there are many theologians who have mused over this thorn.

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What in the world was this? And you can even look up blogs on the internet where people have written all kinds of stuff on what was the thorn that Paul was experiencing.

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Was it some sort of ailment? Was it nearsightedness? Was it some sort of sexual temptation?

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What was it that Paul had that was this thorn in his side? And it's really amusing to me to see how many words people have written over this because it's really quite clear what

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Paul is referring to. He says it. A messenger of Satan. Who is that?

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The false teachers he was just describing in the previous two chapters. That's exactly who this thorn was.

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And he even said in chapter 11 that they're messengers of Satan. And so here he says a messenger of Satan to torment me.

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That's who he's talking about. To keep me from becoming conceited because of the exceedingly great revelations given to me there was a messenger of Satan, a thorn in my side to torment me.

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And it says that Paul pleaded with God three times to take this away. But what was

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God's answer? My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness.

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And so Paul says then I'm going to boast all the more of my weaknesses. Of my persecutions, of my hardships, and of my calamities because where I am weak

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Christ is strong. Now I bring that up because as Paul is contrasting those things here with Timothy, look at these false teachers and here's how you are to be.

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Here's what you are to imitate in your conduct and in your way of life. Paul is demonstrating to Timothy you're going to go through the same stuff that I went through.

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And these false teachers that were just described at the beginning of the chapter are going to make hardship for you.

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But you need to hear the same words of Christ that I heard. That his grace is sufficient for you.

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And his power will be perfected in your weaknesses. And so Paul lays out here.

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Here's how you are to be in contrast with these false frauds. You know the teaching.

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You know my conduct. You know my aim in life.

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My faith. My patience. My love. My steadfastness. My persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra.

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Which persecutions I endured. Yet from all of them the Lord rescued me.

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And as you go through these things, remember that the

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Lord will rescue you from them as well. Now, Paul had certainly been rescued from those trials.

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What if Paul had been put to death? Would the Lord rescue him from that? Yeah. In fact,

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Paul said it already in this letter. And he's going to say it when we get to the end. I am already being poured out like a drink offering, but the

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Lord will rescue me. And even though Rome might cheer and Caesar might say,

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I have beheaded the apostle, yet Paul will ascend to glory and be seated on high with Christ forever.

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As every one of us are promised who are in Christ Jesus. I have fought the good fight,

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Paul says. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the

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Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.

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Now, you may not be called to ministry. But there are certainly trials that you will endure.

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And God has promised he will deliver you from. And even, my friends, if that trial should take your life, you still win.

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Because Christ has the victory. Not even death can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our

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Lord, as Paul says in Romans 8. And so we have the victory promised us in Christ.

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Paul saying and reminding Timothy, the Lord rescued me so that Timothy would know he will rescue you as well.

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You've surely heard it said that the Lord will never give you more than you can handle. Have you ever heard that said?

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That is a lie. Death is more than you can handle.

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But Christ has conquered it. And so know that we have victory in Christ.

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So this is 12 to 13. For Paul says there, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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While evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

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They deceive others, and the reason they deceive others is because they themselves are deceived.

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But notice the way that Paul words that in verse 12. All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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Paul doesn't say, Timothy, if you go to the town square and you stand on a box and you share the gospel, people are going to hate you for that.

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That's not the way he says it. He says because you desire to live a godly life, people will hate you for that.

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I had a young man in my church 10 years ago. This was in 2014. And he just got a job at Coca -Cola, or he was applying for that job.

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It was in, Topeka was their main office where he needed to go take the test and do all that kind of thing.

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And then they would license him up and he would have a Coke truck that he was going to drive around and do deliveries and things like that. But he didn't have a way to get to Topeka.

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So he asked me if I would take him there for the job interview. And I said, sure. So we went there, and he went through all the training videos and stuff.

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It was like basically a school day. It was like from 9 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon that he had to sit there and watch all these videos.

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And he came back, and when I picked him up, he said, well, they've filled me up with all of this stupid worldly philosophies that they poured into what they expect an employee of Coca -Cola to be.

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So he said, anyway, I just checked the boxes, everything I needed to check, and now I'm a Coke truck driver.

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I said, great, congratulations. So he's driving his Coke truck, and a few weeks go by, and he says to me, it is amazing how much

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I'm hated for being a Christian. And I don't even have to say anything. I don't even have to initiate the conversation.

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And he shared with me an occasion in which he was delivering soda products to one of the gas stations or something like that, a convenience store.

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And there was a certain issue that was being debated in the state of Kansas at the time on abortion.

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And the woman who was there that he struck up a conversation with asked him a question about it. Where do you stand on this thing that's going on in the state right now?

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And he said, well, I'm pro -life. I believe that life begins at conception. That's all he said.

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He didn't even jump on a box and said, you're evil, you're wicked, you're going to hell because of your liberal positions.

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He didn't say anything like that. Repent and turn to Christ. Just because he said, I'm pro -life, the woman standing right there began weeping.

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And she said, I can't believe you hate women like that. And he's like, merciful heavens, you asked me a question, and I answered it.

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And she reported him to Coca -Cola. Because he had a pro -life position.

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Because he answered a question. He wasn't even trying to share the gospel with this woman.

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He was just saying where in his godly convictions he stood regarding life.

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And he was hated for it. And just people who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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While evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

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And my friends, Paul tells Timothy that, and the Spirit tells us that. So that we know when the world hates us, don't let that take you by surprise.

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We're promised that it's going to happen. Continue to hold fast to Christ because the

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Lord will rescue you. Jesus said to his disciples, don't be afraid of those who can destroy your body and after that can't do anything to you.

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Be afraid of the one who after the body is destroyed can destroy your soul in hell.

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Yes, I tell you, fear him. Or as the way that Charles Spurgeon translated this, fear

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God and nothing else. And if we have the fear of God, then there's no reason for us to fear what man can do to us.

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Going back to Romans 8 again, if God is for us, who can be against us?

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And so Paul continues to encourage Timothy in this. Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed knowing from whom you learned it.

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And how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings. Now the false teachers are deceived, but Timothy is not.

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He knows the truth and has believed without wavering. In Romans 1 .16,

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Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

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In verse 15, Timothy had been a believer for a long time. This comes back to what we had read at the beginning of the letter.

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Hearing about his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois who taught him the scriptures in chapter 1 verse 5.

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From childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ.

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And the implication is that every father or mother, grandparent and so on are blessed by God for teaching his word to the next generation.

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Deuteronomy 6 .7 says of God's commands, you shall teach them to your children. Talking of them when you are sitting in your house, when you are walking by the way and when you lie down and when you rise.

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And Psalm 34 .11 says, come oh children and listen to me and I will teach you the fear of the

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Lord. Timothy was raised in the Old Testament scriptures. But even the words of the law and the prophets are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

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Because the law and the prophets point to Jesus Christ. The Old Testament rightly understood points to Christ.

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And Paul said the law and the prophets bear witness to the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

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Romans 3 .21 -22 The scriptures make us wise not only to know

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Jesus, but to know the way Jesus desires for us to live. As we read in 1

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John 2 .6, whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

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And as we also have in Romans 15, Paul says there to the wise and the discerning that the strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

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Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up. Verse 5 or verse 4 rather.

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For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through the endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

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And Paul said to the Corinthians that these things were written about our fathers who fell in the wilderness so you would not fall as they fell.

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And so sometimes we read from these

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Old Testament people how not to live. And so as I began with the illustration from 1

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Samuel chapter 4. So what ended up happening in that story? Well, the

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Philistines, as I said, they were cursed because they had the ark of God. They went to their own diviners and the diviner said, yeah, what are you thinking?

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Like, you know, the trouble that the Hebrews caused the Egyptians back when they were enslaved by Egypt.

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And here you've taken the very ark of God. So you need to send it back and you need to send it with with like a treasure or something, some gold payment that you're going to give to God to ask for his forgiveness.

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And we know that if the oxen that you place the ark with, they're going to put it on a cart.

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They're going to send that oxen back to Israel. And if they go back to Israel and then you start feeling better immediately, then we will know that it was the hand of God that was upon you.

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That's exactly what happened. So the Philistines sent the cart back or they sent the ark back with two oxen on a cart.

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And when the Israelites saw the oxen coming, they celebrated. They slaughtered the oxen and gave it as a sacrifice to God.

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And then they danced around the ark. But the scripture tells us that the

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Israelites actually looked inside the ark. Were they supposed to do that?

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No. You've seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know what happens when you look inside the ark.

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You know how many people ended up dying from that? 50 ,000.

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How many did the Philistines kill? Remember that? That was 30 ,000. Because the

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Israelites messed with the ark, God killed 50 ,000 of them. More than even the

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Philistines were able to get. And why did God do that?

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Because Israel did not listen to God. And again, they just thought the ark was a good luck charm.

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And here our good luck charm has come back to us. Look, God was afflicting the Philistines for us.

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And they did not treat the very seat of God with reverence.

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And they were afflicted because of it. And, my friends, these are not mere things for us to tamper with.

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We have the very word of God. We must do it. And so, as I gave you a second outline at the beginning, what must we do?

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We must be witnesses, verses 10 to 11. We must be warned, verses 12 to 13.

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And we must be wise, verses 14 to 15. Let's go through that quickly once again.

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So, first of all, we must be witnesses. And when I say we must be witnesses, I don't mean going out and witnessing, which although we should do that as Christians.

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We should share the gospel with others. But Paul presented himself as a witness for Timothy to follow.

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And so we must likewise desire to grow in these same characteristics that Paul laid out.

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Teaching, conduct, aim in life, faith, patience, love, steadfastness, and even knowing how to endure persecutions and sufferings, knowing that the

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Lord will rescue us. There are way too many Christians that encourage mediocrity.

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Like, you only need to know Sunday school answers, and you really don't need to grow beyond that. Sunday school answers are good.

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What's the answer? Jesus. What's the answer? The Bible. Those are good answers.

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And there are a lot of Christians that can't even answer confidently with those kinds of answers. Jesus loves me, this

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I know, for the Bible tells me so. That's good theology. And some

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Christians are not even confident enough in that. Cough, cough, Andy Stanley. But anyway, I digress.

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So what do I mean by we encourage mediocrity? Well, when I was growing up, when I was a kid, my dad taught me the

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Bible. And I usually had the answer, because my dad was diligent to teach me the scriptures.

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I usually knew the answers that the Sunday school teachers were asking me, above all my friends and all my peers.

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I thought it was normal. I thought, like, all your dads are teaching you the scriptures like my dad is, but that wasn't the case.

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And so how did the adults respond to me answering questions like that?

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They would say to me, Gabe, you're going to be a pastor someday. Now, it turns out I did become a pastor someday.

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But if somebody knows more theology than somebody else, that tends to be where our brains go, right?

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Well, that person's going to be a theologian, professor, pastor. Why not you continue doing the regular white -collar or blue -collar job that you have and just grow in the knowledge of God according to the scriptures?

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As R .C. Sproul has said, everyone's a theologian. So we all need to know the scriptures.

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We know how to rightly handle it. If you were to go to a carpenter, I'm going to borrow this illustration from Vodie Baca, but if you wanted to be a carpenter and you went to a guy who has been doing carpentry for three, four decades, and you ask him, hey, you are an expert carpenter.

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Can you teach me the way of carpentry? And he says to you, I don't really know that much.

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I mean, you know, basic stuff like cutting wood, measure twice, cut once.

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I can hang stuff. I can hammer it into a wall, but I can't really, you know, I don't know that I really have that much to share with you.

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What would you think of that guy? You've been doing this for 40 years and you can't teach me something about carpentry?

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But how many older men do we have in our churches today who have been Christians for 30, 40 years and don't think that they have anything to teach a younger generation about what

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God has said in his word? And we all have that obligation.

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As I read from Romans 15, those who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, to please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

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And we need to have an older generation willing to teach a younger generation. We're going to get to that more when we get to Titus because that instruction is there in Titus 2 as well.

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So this is what I mean by be witnesses and that we grow in these things and we might pass them on to others as well.

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And then secondly, we are to be warned in verses 12 to 13. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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And evil people and imposters go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. We need to not be surprised when we encounter this.

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But even more than this, we need to recognize that we could fall into that deception and become just as they are.

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As I shared with you last week, we are all just as weak to fall into this if we're not careful.

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I know it sounds like I'm beating the same drum every week when I tell you be holy. But that's what the scripture says.

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Be holy. Be mindful of yourself and be aware of the weaknesses in your own flesh and the tendency that we all have to fall into temptation if we're not careful.

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And then finally, we need to be wise. And that's verses 15 and 16. You have heard and been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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We've got the answers right here. Everything is a test, but it's open book.

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And you've got the answers right there in scripture as God directs us to live.

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So may we continue in the teaching. And next week, we're going to hear and understand how all scripture gives us what is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

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How is it that we're able to be equipped? Because we have the God breathed word.

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These are not merely lectures that we listen to. It is the word of God that has brought us salvation and grows us in that salvation in Christ Jesus.

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This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

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But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good gospel -teaching,

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Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.