Sunday Sermon: Train Yourself for Godliness (1 Timothy 4:6-16)

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Pastor Gabriel Hughes preaches to his church out of 1 Timothy 4:6-16, where the Apostle Paul instructs Timothy to be trained in godliness. Visit http://www.providencecasagrande.com for more info about our church!

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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. Well good morning.
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Good morning. Please take your Bible and open to 1 Timothy chapter 4 as we come back to the section today on training yourself for godliness.
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As you are doing that, I read from Charles Spurgeon this week who said the following, the scriptures reveal
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Jesus. As Jesus himself said, they testify of me.
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No more powerful motive can be urged upon Bible readers than this, he who finds
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Jesus finds life, heaven, all things. Happy is he who, searching his
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Bible, discovers his Savior. And we've been reading in 1
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Timothy chapter 4 how we are to be trained in godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise not just for the present life, but also for the life to come.
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Please stand in honor of the word of the King as I read from 1 Timothy chapter 4 verses 6 to 16, 1
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Timothy 4, 6 to 16, the Apostle Paul writing to his servant
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Timothy, hear the word of the Lord. If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.
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Have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths, rather train yourself for godliness.
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For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
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The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end, we toil and strive because we have set our hope on the living
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God who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.
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Command and teach these things, let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.
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Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.
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Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.
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Practice these things, immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress.
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Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching, persist in this for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
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You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to this word this morning,
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I pray that you teach us once again what it means to be trained in godliness.
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That desiring to grow into Christ, to become more like Christ becomes our foremost desire.
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And that in everything that we do, whether it is with our family, with our friends, at work or at play, at school, on the job or otherwise, in all that we do, may we reflect
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Christ who has changed our hearts, who dwells within us, who is the longing of our souls.
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And we know by what we've read here that this pursuit of godliness benefits us in the present and especially for the life to come.
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Keep our eyes firmly focused on Christ, setting our minds on things that are above where Christ is.
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It's in Jesus' name we pray and all God's people said, amen. Once again, the heart of this passage is that instruction to train yourself for godliness.
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We compared this last week to a professional athlete who doesn't come to compete at an elite level simply by sitting on his couch and abstaining from junk food.
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He gets up and he trains. He is in pursuit of the prize even before he is in the race and we must be doing the same thing spiritually.
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We must continually be in pursuit of Christ. The athlete is the easy go -to here because that's what the language sounds like.
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Train yourself as we see here in this next section. Practice these things and Paul will even come back to the metaphor of the athlete in his next chapter or in his next letter to Timothy in 2
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Timothy. But the concept applies to many other examples. If you want to be good at something, you have to do it continually.
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Best -selling author Malcolm Gladwell popularized the idea that it takes approximately 10 ,000 hours of guided practice to reach greatness.
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With enough practice, he claimed, anyone could achieve a level of proficiency that would rival that of a professional.
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It was just a matter of putting in the time. Do you want to be proficient at guitar, at piano, at cooking or sewing, at building or your occupation, whatever that might happen to be, put in the practice.
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Train hard. Do the time. Now the same must be said even of godliness.
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Day in and day out, we are in pursuit of Christ. In Luke 9 23,
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Jesus said, if anyone would be my disciple, if anyone would come after me, he must take up his cross on Sunday and follow after me.
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Is that what he said? Take up his cross how often? Daily. Even there, our
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Lord says, it is a daily practice. What we want to consider today are more of the specifics of what it means to be trained in godliness, not just the general concept of train yourself for godliness, but specifically what must one do to be trained in godliness.
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Now remember our outline. Last week I said this section could be broken down in these three ways and it's separated out by Paul's use of that phrase, these things.
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So in verses 6 to 10, he says, put these things before the brothers and we understood that as know these things.
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Here are the things that we're supposed to know. And in light of our knowing, the next section, verses 11 to 14, is teach these things or command and teach these things.
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And then finally, the last section, practice these things, verses 15 to 16, those are the two sections we're going to be looking at today.
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Command and teach these things and practice these things. Now notice something under these things in verses 11 to 14,
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Paul tells Timothy to be an example in these five ways. In speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.
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Then in verse 13, he says to be devoted to these three things, to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching.
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And then last of all, we have three more imperatives at the conclusion in verses 15 to 16.
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Practice these things, let others see your progress, and keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.
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These, of course, are instructions specific to Timothy, but we're going to consider how they pertain to us as well.
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So picking up where we left off last week, look at verse 11. Paul next instructs
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Timothy to teach these things, command and teach these things.
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Verse 11, command and teach these things, let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, and faith, and in purity.
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Now notice that he says not just command these things, but also teach these things.
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So Timothy was to exhort the church. To exhort means you must do this. In light of what we have read, here's the action that you must then do in following with the instruction that has been given.
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But this is not just merely issuing cold commands. He was also told to teach them.
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In other words, train yourself for godliness. There's the exhortation, and here's what that looks like, and that's the teaching.
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Consider what Paul says, let no one despise you for your youth.
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Now, we don't know exactly how old Timothy was at the time of this letter.
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It is speculated that at the time that Paul first met Timothy, which would have been in Acts chapter 16, where he came to meet
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Timothy and his mother in Lystra, that Timothy was probably 16 to 20 years old. So at the time of this letter, he may have been about 30 or in his young 30s.
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Now, when I was first ordained into the ministry, I was 29, and I became a senior pastor at 32.
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And I can tell you that 1st and 2nd Timothy were close companions of mine in those early years of my ministry.
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One of the things that continuously amazed me is how much bad doctrine that one could ward off just by having a solid understanding of 1st and 2nd
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Timothy. Of course, we need to understand all the scriptures, be well -versed in the gospels and all the epistles, understanding the law and the
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Old Testament and the prophets. But the way that Paul gives that application to Timothy was such a teacher to me as well in those early years of my ministry as a pastor.
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The reason that Paul tells Timothy not to be despised for his youth is because Timothy was to recognize that it wasn't his age or his position or even that he was appointed by an apostle that held any authority.
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The Word of God was the authority. So Timothy's confidence was not to be in himself or in his ability or even the position that he had been appointed to.
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He was to have confidence in the Word of God that he preached.
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Timothy was not to be timid in his youthfulness concerning the work that was before him as a pastor in Ephesus.
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Rather, Paul tells Timothy to be in pursuit of godliness. Now, recognize here,
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Paul's talking to a pastor. The man that he's appointed to go to the church in Ephesus and be a pastor there and serve with the elders there.
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So you would think this is already a godly guy, right? And yet he's being instructed, be in pursuit of godliness.
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My friends, you will never come to the end of this pursuit this side of heaven. You will continually be striving after Christ and being made in his likeness until we are with him at the throne in glory.
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And so just as Paul is a mature believer, and we had read last week from Philippians how he pursues the perfection of Christ even, though Paul was an apostle, even he was in pursuit of that perfection.
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And he instructs this young man who's a pastor that he must be in pursuit of Christ.
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And then goes on to tell Timothy in his pursuit of godliness that he is to set the believers an example.
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So it's not like grow and grow and grow and grow, and then once you reach this point, then you're fit to be a pastor.
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There's certainly a level of maturity that one must attain to before they're appointed to an office in the church, whether that be deacon or elder.
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And as we had read previously in 1 Timothy 3, those men are to be tested for those particular positions. But it's not like Timothy reaches a certain perfection, and once he's there, then he can serve as an example to others.
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He's in pursuit of godliness, and he is to be an example to the rest of those who are pursuing godliness as well.
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So growing in godliness, Paul tells Timothy to do this, set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.
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Now, of course, this is an instruction that's given to Timothy. But like I said, when we went over the qualifications of an overseer, when you're looking at a pastor, an elder, a church, you're looking at a mature believer.
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And even some of those qualities that he's supposed to have are things that we should all desire, we should all aspire to as Christians.
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So even here, Timothy is supposed to be an example in these five things. He's supposed to be an example.
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So what does that automatically imply? You should want to follow that example, right?
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So this does apply to us all. And these are the five specific places where we can grow.
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Godliness, speech, conduct, love, faith, and in purity. Let's go through each one of those together.
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So first of all, speech. Do you understand that the words you say aren't supposed to sound like the rest of the world?
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Like we are supposed to have such control over our tongues that when we speak, we don't sound worldly.
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We don't use the same kind of crass talk that the rest of the world may say.
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We don't lie. We don't fool other people. We don't put on a front.
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We don't gossip and slander others. James 1 .26 says, if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart.
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And that person's religion is worthless. Jesus said in Matthew 12, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.
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When I was serving as a pastor in Kansas, we were right next to Fort Riley. So we had a lot of soldiers in our church.
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More than half the church was military, whether active duty or retired. And so a lot of times new families would come in.
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I might end up going on post to help a new family move into their home. There was one time we had the moving truck pulled up to a house, and me and another soldier were moving a chest of drawers off of the truck.
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And as the drawers were moving backward, he wasn't really paying attention. He kind of looked behind him, and he starts to kind of veer off to the side with his end of the chest as he's pulling it.
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And the drawers slammed his hand against the side of the truck. And he pulls it back real quick, and he lets a bad word fly.
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Not going to tell you which bad word, but the one you're thinking of is probably good enough. And once it came out his mouth, he was mortified.
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He was like, I can't believe I just cursed in front of the pastor. And he's going like, Pastor, I'm so sorry.
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I said to him, I forgive you. We got something to work on. Now let's get this chest of drawers off of here, you know.
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And it was fairly common for a soldier to come to me and say something to the effect of, I talk like the rest of my soldiers.
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They curse a lot, and I curse a lot. I don't want to. How can I control my speech?
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How can I control my tongue? Now here where Paul is telling Timothy to be a good example in speech, this is not just about not swearing.
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Remember, as we considered last week, you don't just become more godly by abstaining from certain things.
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I've known people who weren't Christians who didn't like swearing. They thought a person who swore was rude and they had, you know, they were coming from like a low cognitive function in their brain when they were just speaking swear words all the time.
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So a person who's not a Christian can abstain from swearing, and that doesn't automatically make them more godly.
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But rather than swearing or speaking lies or gossiping about others or speaking words that tear each other down, we need to be thinking about how what we say is a reflection of godly character.
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If you are a follower of Christ, does your speech demonstrate that? Ephesians 4 .29
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says, Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.
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Even like when you're speaking and somebody else is overhearing you, are you saying things that might give grace to those who hear?
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Do you constantly complain and bicker and argue about your circumstances? Or are you someone that people can see you've got your hope set on something else?
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Like regardless of whatever's going on in your circumstances, this person has a higher outlook because their hope is set on something that is not of this world, but something that is above, that is transcendent.
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There are things that we're not supposed to do, of course, but the instruction doesn't just sit on don't do that.
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Rather, we are to pursue the things that are good and then the bad things do not have any place on our tongues.
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People know you not for unpleasant speech, but they know you as somebody who will build up one another as fits the occasion.
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So be godly in your speech. This begins at home.
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It begins in the way that you talk to your spouse. Begins parents with the way you talk to your kids.
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Kids, it begins with the way that you talk to your parents. Begins with the way that we...
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And then from there, it goes on to the way that we interact with others at work, at play, or anywhere else.
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Be godly in your speech. Next, Paul says, have godly conduct. That's number two.
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This is the Greek word anastrophe, and it means to change one's outward behavior in conformity with their inward beliefs.
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In other words, what you believe is manifested on the outside. People see that you are a follower of Christ.
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In your speech, you don't talk like the world talks. In your conduct, you don't act like the world acts.
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Your example is Jesus, and you want to be an example of Jesus. I read to you last week from 1
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Peter 1 15. He says, as he who called you is holy, so you must be holy in all of your conduct.
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And he later says in chapter 2 verses 11 to 12, beloved, I urge you as sojourners in exiles, meaning this world is not our home.
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We're just passing through, as the old spiritual goes. But as those who are citizens of Christ's kingdom abstain from passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.
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Sexual immorality, greed, bitterness, holding grudges, these are passions of the flesh, and they wage war against your soul.
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They're not just external things. They have spiritual implications. Peter goes on to say, keep your conduct in the world honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good conduct and glorify
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God on the day of visitation. In Matthew 5 16, Jesus said, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your
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Father who is in heaven. You have the light of Christ in your soul. Let others see it by your good conduct.
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That they may give glory to God. We must be godly in our speech, the things we say.
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We must be godly in our conduct, the way that we act. Number three, we must be godly in love.
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Now, the Greek word here is agape, meaning not only love, but even benevolence and goodwill.
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Now, in order to be a loving person, you must actually find ways that you can show love to others.
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Like just sitting there, as we talked about this with godliness, you don't just sit there and abstain from bad things, and then you become more godly.
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So the same way in love, you don't just sit there and not say bad things about people, and now
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I'm a loving person. Now, love is an action word. For those of you who grew up as contemporary
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Christian music children of the 90s, there was a song by DC Talk, Love is a Verb. I heard somebody say it, yes.
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Love is something that we must do. Consider what Paul says about love in 1
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Corinthians 13. Now, this is, 1 Corinthians 13 is known as the what chapter in the Bible?
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The love chapter, and that's the way you got to say it. It's the love chapter of the
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Bible. At what event are you likely to hear the preacher preach from 1
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Corinthians 13? At a wedding. Guilty as charged. I do it all the time.
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Nothing wrong with using 1 Corinthians 13 at a wedding, and I'll probably do it again as well, but understand something about the tone of when
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Paul is talking about love in 1 Corinthians 13. This is not a romantic chapter. This is not
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Paul going, love is patient, love is kind. Actually, he's rebuking the
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Corinthians, because everything he says about love, they were doing the opposite.
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And so when he says love is patient, that means that love is long -suffering.
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You don't just give up on someone when they don't behave like you want them to, or they said something to you that ticks you off today.
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And we understand this concept. Do you disown your kids every time they do something bad? I'm not asking if you want to.
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I'm saying, do you ever do anything? Who does that? Of course not.
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So as with others, we don't just write them off or cancel them when they disappoint us.
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But we are to be patient with one another. Colossians 3 .13 tells us to be patient with one another, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.
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As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Listen, no one has been more patient with you than God has been.
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No one has forgiven you of more sins than God has forgiven you. No one is ever going to sin against you, with so many sins like you have sinned against God.
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I remember one time I was teaching a group of kids, and one of the kids asked me, how many people are there in the world?
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At the time, there were about seven and a half billion. And this child went, now it's eight.
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But this child went, wow, seven and a half billion. That's seven and a half billion people that have sinned against God.
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The inside of a child. All have sinned against God.
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And we're all in need of His grace and kindness. And if you are in Christ, you have received it.
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He who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish under the judgment of God that is coming against the sinfulness and wickedness of man.
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But you have been washed clean, and you have been brought into fellowship with God. And you are saved.
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And so as God has shown you this grace, so you must be willing to be gracious with others.
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That's under love is patient. Next, Paul says, love is kind. It extends good to others.
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He goes on to say, love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant. All of these words showing that love is not self -centered.
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It's not jealous of others. It's not puffed up with pride. He goes on to say, love does not insist on its own way.
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It's not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but it rejoices with the truth.
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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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And here's the precious thing about love, and it's specifically the love of God that has been given to us.
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Love never ends. Back to 1
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Timothy 4 .12. We're to be godly in our speech, in conduct, in love.
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And fourth, we are to be godly in faith. Now, that might seem like an obvious one.
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I mean, I can't even know God or his son without faith. So I already have faith.
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How do I be godly in faith? The context of this specifically means that you show steadfastness in what you believe.
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Consider that at the end of the chapter, Paul instructs Timothy to keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching and persist in this.
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So there's a steadfastness in this, and that's what's meant when he says to be a good example in faith.
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The faith that you have is not just some passing opinion. You're not a
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Christian this year, but you're going to be something else next year. I'm going to go tinker with the Baha 'i faith, the
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Baha 'i Institute that's down there and see what they're like. Or I'm going to go over to the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Or maybe I just won't be a Christian at all. I'll be a secular humanist. I'll be of free thought and so on and so forth.
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Well, then your faith isn't genuine. Your faith now isn't genuine if that's what's going to end up happening to you.
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It's just convenient for now. But then when something else more convincing comes along, you'll change your mind and go to that.
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But a person who demonstrates godliness in faith demonstrates a steadfastness in what they believe.
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You are a Christian now and you will be a Christian until Jesus comes.
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It's also something that you don't compartmentalize. Like I have my faith life.
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I have my church life. But then I have, you know, my family life. It's a little bit different than that. Or work. That's totally different.
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When I'm at play and hanging out with my friends, that's something else. Or when I want to watch entertainment, you know, I don't need to take
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Jesus along with me in that. No, you are in Christ always. And you know that he is with you always.
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You are in Christ at all times, enduring in the faith that you have.
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And it's because your confidence is not in yourself. You're not looking for approval from others.
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You would not change the definition of your faith to be more palatable to more people, maybe hoping they're less likely to ridicule you as long as you're not one of those kinds of Christians.
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You know what I mean? Your confidence is in God. 19th century
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American theologian Albert Barnes explains it this way. At all times and in all trials, show yourself to be a believer by example.
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How they ought to maintain unshaken confidence in God.
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So be godly in your speech, in your conduct, in love, and in faith. Last of all, number five,
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Paul says, be godly in purity. Again, this comes back to being holy, being set apart from the world.
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You abstain from sin to pursue godliness. You say no to sin and yes to God, that you might grow in God.
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We will encounter this subject again when we're going to get to Titus. In chapter 2, verse 12, there it says,
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For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us, there's that word again, to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, but instead to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for doing good works.
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My friends, pursuing godliness, pursuing godliness, if you're running toward God, it means you're running away from ungodliness.
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So you are either going to be proficient in godliness, or you're going to be proficient in sin.
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Is that what you want? Would you rather be more practiced in sin than practiced in righteousness?
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Galatians 5, 16 to 17 says this, Walk by the spirit and you won't gratify the desires of the flesh.
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For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for they are opposed to one another.
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If the spirit of God dwells in you, then he has changed your heart, your orientation, your desires, so that your desire is for Christ and you hate your sin.
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Now, your hatred for your sin and your desire for Christ are not perfect, you understand?
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But this is growing in godliness, growing to love Jesus more and hate your sin more.
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The big Bible word we use for this, of course, is sanctification. You are being sanctified.
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You are being made holy. You are growing in your affections for Jesus.
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That's growing in godliness. So these are the five areas where we can grow in godliness.
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Speech, conduct, love, faith, purity. Now, the tools for growing in those five areas are given in the next three imperatives.
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Look at verse 13. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.
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Now, these instructions are specific to Timothy as he is a pastor. Of course, he was supposed to be diligent and in preaching and teaching, but we must also be diligent to listen to preaching and teaching, right?
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Now, as Paul says here, the public reading of Scripture, that didn't mean that Timothy took his scrolls down to the public square and he unrolled them and like a herald, you know, he's just reading the
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Scriptures aloud in the public square. That's not really the context here. Where was it that they had to go in order to hear the
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Scriptures read? They had to go to the synagogue because people didn't have
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Bibles yet. The Bible's still being written. We're reading one of the letters that's going to show up here in the Bible. So they didn't have their own
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Bibles yet that they could carry with them everywhere and go home and study. You had to go to the synagogue to hear the
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Scriptures publicly read. And so that's what Paul is telling Timothy to do. Go into the synagogue, read the
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Scriptures aloud, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture. And then everything else, the exhortation and the teaching flows from the
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Scriptures. It comes from the Word of God. Our statement of faith, the London Baptist Confession of Faith, it begins with what we believe about the
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Scriptures, that it is the Word of God and that it is useful for training us in godliness.
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Because everything else that comes in our statement of faith comes from the Scriptures. If we don't believe that the
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Scriptures are God's Word, then what use is the rest of the stuff that we believe? Because everything we know about God and Christ and what it means to be saved, what the gospel is, all of that is right there in the
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Bible. So Paul tells Timothy first to be devoted to the public reading of Scripture.
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And that's what we're doing this morning. You are listening to the public reading of Scripture. But in addition to hearing the
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Word, we're to be devoted to exhortation and to teaching. And these two go together. To exhort, as I said to you earlier, means to tell people what to do in light of what the
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Scripture says. And to teach means to expound upon or explain what the Scripture says. So in short, all of us must be devoted to hearing the
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Word preached and understanding what it means. Romans 10 .17
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says, Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ. You came to faith because you heard someone preach the gospel to you.
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You're also growing in your faith because you continually hear the gospel preached to you.
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James 1 .22 says, Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
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You can listen to me preach all day. But unless you go out from here and do the things that God's Word has told us to do, then you're not going to be growing in godliness.
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Now, this next instruction is unique to Timothy. Look at verse 14. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.
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Now, this gift that Timothy was given, it's never explicitly stated, but in context, it's most likely preaching and teaching.
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And this was an apostolic appointment as Paul was giving this to Timothy. What Paul had been doing, he's passing on to Timothy so that he can continue in the preaching and teaching in the job that was before him in the church in Ephesus.
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This is not permission to go around laying hands on one another and bestowing spiritual gifts on each other. I give you the gift of tongues.
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I give you the gift of healing. I give you a gift of encouragement. You encourage people or something like that.
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That's not really what's happening here. But again, it's passing on that apostolic responsibility of preaching the gospel here in the first century in which the church was growing and developing.
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Now, if there's any practical application to this for all of us, it's to understand we all have been given a spiritual gift.
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We read about spiritual gifts in places like Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. If you don't know what your spiritual gift is, maybe ask somebody in the church to help you know what it is.
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Don't ask them to lay hands on you and give you one, but that you would come to understand what your gift is so that you may serve the church in that gift.
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We have heard the instruction to put these things before the brethren. We have heard the instruction to command and teach these things.
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And last of all, we have these final imperatives in verses 15 and 16.
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Practice these things. Immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress.
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Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
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So again, we come back to this concept of training, practice. Remember what I said at the beginning, the more you do something, the better you get at it, even when it comes to godliness.
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The more you put off sin and pursue Christ, the easier that gets.
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My friends, as a man, I've had many horrible addictions in my past.
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When I was living as a bachelor and living by myself and alone in my apartment, my eyes and my hands wandered to things that they should not have been doing.
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We have kids in here. I don't think I need to be explicit as to what I'm referring to. I think you men understand what I'm talking about.
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And for a while there, it was really, really difficult to avoid those things. When it popped up in front of my eyes,
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I wanted to indulge. But now when it happens, man,
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I can't get the cursor over to that X fast enough to shut that window down. It does get easier as you grow in godliness to resist those temptations, whatever it might happen to be.
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A passion of the flesh, a temptation of the tongue, a temptation of the eyes, the pride of life, as Paul talks about in 1
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John, or as Paul in 1 John, as John talks about in 1 John, the more we are trained in these things, the better that we get at them.
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And this is not under your power. It is by the power of the
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Holy Spirit that is within you that you are able to accomplish this. Later, Paul will tell
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Timothy, by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.
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So Paul is not just telling Timothy, guard the gospel. He says, by the power of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us, guard and keep these things.
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Timothy is able to accomplish the work that is set before him by the Holy Spirit that dwells in him.
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So my friends, when you are tempted, pray. Give that to God.
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When you sin, even if nobody else saw it, or maybe it was just a private thing with some stranger, you're never going to see that person again, they're not even going to bring this up, but yet you are convicted in your heart that you wronged somebody.
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Take it to God and ask for his forgiveness. Sometimes I am asked,
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Brother Gabe, do I have a responsibility to obey God or is it God who works obedience in me? My answer to that question is yes.
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Philippians 2, 12 to 13, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is
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God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Work it out,
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God works in you. But it's all under his strength that we accomplish and attain to godliness.
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Now Paul goes on to tell Timothy here as we finish up these instructions in this chapter, let others see your progress.
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Though Paul is telling Timothy to be devoted to sound doctrine and teaching, he was not to be one of these ivory tower guys that just goes into his office and he does nothing but study and he writes his sermon and the only time you ever see the guy is when he comes out and stands in the pulpit.
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That wasn't the kind of pastor that Timothy was supposed to be. He was to be in every way committed to the fellowship of this body.
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He was to be an example to them, meaning that he's gonna be interacting with them on a regular basis.
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Let others see how hearing the word and doing the word transforms the
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Christian. In verse 16, Timothy is told, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.
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Keep a close watch on yourself, keep a close watch on the teaching. And about this statement,
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John Calvin has said that these are two requisites of a good pastor. His teaching will be of no avail unless his own life accord with it.
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And his own purity of life is not enough unless he is diligent in teaching.
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Don't get careless. Don't think you can just coast through this or that godliness will just accidentally happen for you without being intentional about it.
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Now, as a pastor, it would be very, very easy for me to think that because I'm at church every time the doors are open or at small groups or otherwise.
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And because I stand up in the pulpit and preach and teach, therefore, my wife is being sanctified and my children are growing in a knowledge of what it means to be a
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Christian. It would be easy for me to fall into that mindset. But I still have to be as every father, as every parent, discipling my wife and my children and doing that intentionally, not just expecting my other responsibilities are going to bleed into their lives.
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I have to be intentional about raising up these children in faith that they may come to know
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Christ. And where Paul says persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
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That is not to say that doing these things will earn your salvation. Timothy was already a
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Christian. He had already received his salvation. But this is set in contrast with those who do not endure.
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This sentence at the end of chapter four bookends the sentence at the start of chapter four.
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Look at the very first verse in 1 Timothy 4. Now the spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith.
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They claim to be Christians at one point and then they left it. And how did that happen? They devoted themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.
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Paul is telling Timothy, continue in this, persist in it, practice it.
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You'll save yourself and your hearers. Again, it's not about I was a Christian today. So therefore
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I'm going to be a Christian the rest of the time through. I think some of you know this, that if you don't put your skills into practice, you lose them, right?
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An athlete can be training and training and training. These guys who have been playing football all year and now they're going to play in the
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Super Bowl today. They've been doing it day in and day out to compete at this elite level. But if at any point they decided to take a week off, eh,
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I'm not going to do any training this week. I'm not going to learn from the mistakes that I made in the last game. Do you think that they would have prepared themselves to be able to play in the biggest game on the planet?
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There are some strategists out there that are theorizing that this could be the most watched television event in history of the
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Super Bowl today. For many different reasons, one of which being that gambling has expanded into the
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NFL. But anyway, just as an athlete has to continue. I had a friend who was a polyglot, knew multiple languages.
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And I asked him at one point, how many languages have you known? He said, at one point in my life, I knew eight.
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And I said, you said at one point in your life, what do you mean by that? He said, well, now I know five. Because there were three of them he didn't regularly use.
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And he forgot them. Now it would probably be easier for him to refresh his memory than for me to learn it for the first time.
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But you understand the concept. You have to persist in it. You have to continue in this. And that's what
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Paul tells Timothy to do. And not just persist in it. He uses a great Baptist word here.
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Practice these things, immerse yourself in them. That's a Baptist word. Let it pour over you.
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Be drenched in Christ. And if you persist in these things, you'll save both yourself and your hearers.
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Jesus said in Mark 13, 13, it is those who endure to the end who will be saved.
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It's not enough that at one point you entered the race. You have to finish.
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Be trained in godliness. And so in summary, we have heard over these past two weeks that instruction.
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While bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
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Paul said, put these things before the brothers command and teach these things, practice these things.
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And we've considered today how we are to be godly in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.
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We are be devoted to hearing the word preached, listening to exhortation and sound teaching and doing it.
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And we are to persist in these things, enduring to the very end.
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This morning at prayer, Brother Josh brought this book, which is
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Puritan Prayers. And he had me read one from Isaac Ambrose.
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And I thought it was a great closing for this series that we've done in this passage last week and this week.
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Listen to what Isaac Ambrose says. Lord, I have not done my duty in my own family, among Christians or in the churches of Christ.
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I have not done what I promised. I have not served my generation or helped to build the building of Zion.
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And now Lord, what can I say? Is my name written on the heart of Christ?
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If I had the whole world's glory, if I had 10 ,000 worlds and 10 ,000 lives,
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I would lay them all down to have my poor trembling soul assured of this.
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My thirst cannot be quenched. And my desire for Jesus is as greedy as the grave with coals of fire and the hottest flame.
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Lord, you have said that you will wed me forever. So this is what
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I desire. Fulfill what you have spoken. It would break my heart if ever the covenant should be broken between me and you.
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I desire you, Lord. And the more I enjoy you, the more
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I desire you with an infinite, eternal and everlasting desire. Amen.
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Amen. This is
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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.