What Every Servant Needs - [1 Timothy 1:1-2]

Let me ask you something. Have you ever been asked to do something that you knew you could do, that you were fully ready and prepared to do, but somehow things didn't quite work out like maybe they should have?

When I got on the Sheriff's Department, you know, you go through a four and a half month academy. In fact, there was even a

TV show made about that. It was on some remote cable thing. Then you spend a couple of years in the jail.

And the whole time you're in jail, you're getting more training, and you're learning, and you're learning, and you're learning. And then you go out to patrol.

And it's five months of every day you have a training officer. And then the day finally comes when you're sent out in a radio car by yourself.

Now, I wasn't working at that point anyway. I wasn't working in some tough, crime -infested area.

I was basically working in the equivalent of Beverly Hills on day shift.

Kids are in school. People are working. You drive around, and you just go, okay, am I going to stop that Porsche, that Mercedes, that Bentley, that...

what do you do? And I drove around, and I'm going, I know what I'm supposed to be doing, but what am

I supposed to be doing? You know, the big adventure of the day was going and getting lunch for the desk.

I mean, it was dull. And I felt totally unprepared for something that I had spent years getting ready to do.

It took a while, but I figured it out. It took a while to kind of keep myself busy and to actually accomplish things during the course of the day.

For Timothy, I would invite you to open your

Bibles to 1 Timothy. We're going to be in chapter 1 this morning. Timothy is charged by Paul to really take control of the church at Ephesus.

If you were here last Sunday night, to really just kind of lay down the law on several aspects, to take the reins as it were.

And I think Timothy might have had that moment where he just thought kind of, really? Me? Are you serious?

I mean, Timothy had been training for a long time to do this. He knew what to do.

So why did Paul even need to write this letter? Let's read the first two verses.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the commandment of God, our

Savior and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope to Timothy.

My true child in the faith. Grace, mercy and peace from God, the

Father and Christ Jesus, our Lord. That's all I'm going to work through this morning.

That's it. Two verses. I couldn't hardly fit it all in. What was the purpose of this letter?

He tells us in 1 Timothy 3 15, Paul says, I write so that you,

Timothy, will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. Paul was providing

Timothy an authoritative guide on how he ought to conduct himself and how the church ought to conduct itself, how the church ought to behave.

Paul's passion for the church at Ephesus, for the people of Ephesus. The church to which

Timothy was called was evidence. Paul had initially visited

Ephesus, taught in the synagogues for a brief period of time and left. But when he returned, he stayed for three years.

He didn't he wasn't a church planner in the sense that so many are today where they spend, you know, an intensive six to eight weeks, gather a little small

Bible study, call it a church and move on to the next one. He poured his life day and night into the church at Ephesus.

So much so that at the end of three years, when Paul had left, things continued to go pretty well.

And he was able, as he was getting ready to journey back to Jerusalem later on, he was able to summon the elders.

They had men who were elder qualified now, and they came and met him at Miletus. He taught the people of Ephesus, the

Ephesians church. He prayed with them. He chastised them, but he counseled them.

He rebuked them. He cried over them. This was not somebody who simply loved people.

He loved the church at Ephesus. He loved every single person in it. He longed for their full obedience to the word of God.

He even warned the Ephesian elders. He said, listen, you guys need to be on the lookout for false teachers.

They're going to, that's where the phrase wolves in sheep's clothing comes from. He knew that those people were going to enter into the church.

And last Sunday night, we looked at some of the themes of 1 Timothy, some of the themes of any church, solid church.

The church must have sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is mentioned,

I think, by memory 15 times in the pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, written to men who were in the pastoral ministry.

Fifteen times it is emphasized. The church, secondly, must reject false doctrine and those who teach it.

In fact, if you were here last Sunday night, we talked about the fact that the word doctrine means it is singular, and it means there's one single truth.

And whenever you see the plural in the Greek, doctrines, it's always false doctrine.

There is one set of true doctrine. Thirdly, the church must have sound leadership, must have godly men at the helm.

Talked about all the controversy over that today, whether women should be in ministry, and Paul later on refutes that, the whole idea that homosexuals might be okay in ministry.

And Paul doesn't even call homosexuality a sin in 1 Timothy. He says no. It's contrary to sound doctrine, sound teaching.

Fourth, the church must pray. Prayer must be in the emphasis of a biblical church.

Fifthly, the church must read Scripture publicly. That's why we do it, because the

Scripture demands it. And sixth, the church must care for widows or windows. Although we're thinking of going over the

MAC, but the church must care for widows. And there are several other themes that we could develop, but this morning, just working our way through the first two verses,

I want to draw your attention to six commands that I've drawn from the text so that you will be a more effective servant of Christ.

Thinking about Timothy and about his needs going forward in terms of his mental toughness, his readiness to do the job that he was equipped to do, and we're going to talk about the way that he was equipped.

Every Christian serves Christ. It's kind of like this morning in Sunday school, someone said, well, you know, I have friends,

I think it was Will, friends who say they're Christians, but they're not born -again Christians. What they really mean to say is they're

Christians, because they're not Buddhist Muslims or anything else, and they don't really want to be known as atheists, so they just call themselves

Christians. Likewise, there is no Christian who's not born -again.

There is no Christian who doesn't serve. There is no Christian who doesn't have a ministry. You might be a stay -at -home mom.

You might be a Sunday school teacher. You might run the sound booth on Sunday morning. Whatever your ministry is, you are serving in some way.

Maybe your ministry is giving. Maybe your ministry is exhorting. But you have a ministry.

And if you don't have a ministry, if you're between ministries, you should be looking for one. These are six urgent needs that are absolutely vital for any

Christian to fulfill his or her ministry. First, you need to understand the nature of your calling.

You need to understand the nature of your calling. Look at verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God.

Now, nobody else is an apostle according to the commandment of God. What does it mean to be an apostle?

Simply put, the Greek word just means messenger. He was a messenger. But not just any messenger.

He wasn't an errand boy. He was specifically ordained, called, set apart, however you want to phrase it, by God.

In fact, it was by the order of God. And that word can be translated, and it is translated here, commandment.

It means authoritative, directive, an order, an injunction. Basically, here's the picture.

God is in charge. He is the sovereign. And he looks out and he sees someone in his army, as it were, who would be effective.

And he says, you are an apostle. You don't decline that.

It is the order of God. Because of the nature of Paul's conversion, because of the nature of his call to ministry, there was no doubt as to what he was to do.

Now, it might be more difficult for us sometimes, for you. But what happens in times of discouragement?

To anyone who serves, to anyone who's a Christian, when you're attacked, when you're persecuted.

Well, Paul certainly knew about that. He was attacked, persecuted, physically assaulted, shipwrecked, betrayed.

But Paul couldn't quit. He couldn't say, you know, I hereby submit my resignation as an apostle.

Who would he resign to? How could he resign? It was the commandment of God.

How could his feelings or his sense of things, his kind of, you know,

I just really feel like it's time for me to resign. No, it was the commandment of God. God had given him a commission.

When I talked to Barbara, and some of you have read this email, when I talked to Barbara Marzinski on Friday night,

I mean, it was a typical pastoral call, and I just kind of called to see how she was doing, see if there was any kind of update.

And she wanted to explain to me why she called Pastor Dave instead of me. And I said, I don't really, you know,

I mean, it didn't hurt my feelings. You know, I didn't think, you know,

I should have the Steve on speed dial, you know. And she said, well, she said,

I called Pastor Dave because I told him I would do something for him, and I'm not able to do it.

I mean, you know, I'm in the hospital. And I just, I was listening to her, and I just started crying.

And she said, she said, and then Rhonda came to the hospital.

And she said, I explained to Rhonda that, you know, if anything happens to me and I don't make it, this is where all the church finances are backed up.

This is where everything is so that, you know, I don't want anything to happen to my ministry. And I'm just going,

I said, Barbara, you need to stop, or I'm just going to be a wreck here. This woman understands what it is to serve.

She's like, I'm going, you know, I'm asking questions about Gregory. She says, oh, Gregory is taken care of and da, da, da.

But, you know, I wanted to make sure that all of my responsibilities, I didn't want Pastor Dave to think that somehow

I was sliding him. I think being in the hospital is a pretty good excuse.

What about you? How do you view your ministry? Is this something menial where you're just kind of going through the motions?

Or do you have a greater sense of responsibility? Knowing that someday that all your works and your motivations are going to be opened up, as it were, like a book, and Christ is going to judge every single one of those.

You need to understand the nature of your ministry. Ultimately, all ministries are from God. He doesn't give us a

Damascus moment where he appears and says, Steve, you're going to be blind until this happens, and then

I want you to be a pastor. We don't get that. What we get is a request.

We see a need. We fill it. That's no less God -given. We can't just think, oh,

I'm done with that. And there may be a time where you need to move on, but we need to have that sense of responsibility, of obligation, knowing that, and not just obligation, more than that, we want to please

Christ in all that we do. I'm not just teaching three - and four -year -olds.

I am serving the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, you need to fully savor

Christ. I stole that word from John Piper because I just like it. I don't think it's enough to savor.

I don't think it's enough to apprehend the truths about Christ. I don't think it's enough to just fill our heads with knowledge about Christ.

I think we have to meditate and think and try to take in all that He is.

And I like that idea of savor. Just let it kind of steep in your mind and think about Him.

You need to see Him, appreciate Him, love Him for all that He is. Look at verse 1 again.

According to the commandment of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus, Gurumaki says the

Father is the ultimate source of salvation, whereas the Son is the channel. And the construction of this statement leaves no doubt that Paul saw the

Father and the Son as equal. In other words, Jesus Christ as God. He was divine.

Paul would not have linked the name of Jesus with God the Father if he saw

Jesus as anything less than fully God. Also notice his messiahship.

Jesus is the Christ. And that is not his last name, not the family name.

It means anointed one. And it indicates his status as the one chosen by the Father, anointed by the

Father from before the foundations of the world to fulfill Old Testament prophecy.

Now think about all that meant to Paul. As Saul, before he was saved, he would have longed to know the

Messiah, to see the long -promised Messiah, the one that the Old Testament spoke of.

But he persecuted people of the way, as Christianity was known, it was known as the way, those who followed

Jesus as the fulfillment of all that God had promised, Jesus as the Messiah.

And now here he calls him Christ, the anointed one. But you know,

Saul's actions mirrored the inward attitude of every unbeliever.

Saul hated the crucified Jesus. Saul hated the followers of Christ.

He saw Jesus as a fraud. And that's why he persecuted the church with such zeal.

That's what he was doing when he was on his road, on his way to Damascus. And knowing that the

Messiah had come in his lifetime, would have given Paul a great sense of boldness, a confidence in the word of God because it fulfilled the

Old Testament. Listen to Isaiah 45, verse 21. Declare and set forth your case.

Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old?

Who has long since declared it? Listen, is it not I, the Lord? And there is no other

God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior. There is none except me.

Jesus was and is the Christ. Yahweh, the

God of the covenant, revealed in the flesh, eternally God, co -equal with the

Father, co -eternal with the Father, and sharing all the attributes of God.

Furthermore, he was also fully human. Jesus is his given name.

Matthew 1 .21 tells us, the angel says to Joseph, she will bear a son, and you shall call his name

Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Fully God, fully man.

And as a human being, as we know from studying the Bible, he grew in knowledge and stature. He suffered, he got tired, he got hungry, he got sad.

He experienced everything that we do, but he never sinned, thus fulfilling the law as we mere mortals could never do.

Messiah, God, human. He's also Lord. I'm going to skip down a little bit, but to the end of verse 2, from God the

Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, again demonstrating his deity by virtue of joining those names together,

God the Father and Christ Jesus. But Lord means master, the person in charge.

What would a servant be without a master? Timothy was a servant of Christ.

Paul was a servant of Christ. If you have a ministry in the church, if you have a ministry in your home, if you are a

Christian, Christ is your Lord. You are his servant. You are his slave.

I invite you to turn to the book of Revelation. I'm going to do something a little bit different and actually make you want to be a slave this morning.

Revelation chapter 19, starting in verse 1.

After these things, I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying,

Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God because his judgments are true and righteous.

For he has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and he has avenged the blood of his bondservants, his slaves, on her.

Verse 3. And a second time they said, Hallelujah! Her smoke rises up forever and ever.

And the twenty -four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God who sits on the throne, saying,

Amen, Hallelujah. Verse 5. And a voice came from the throne, saying,

Give praise to our God, all you his bondservants, his slaves.

Voluntary slaves of Christ. You who fear him, the small and the great, whether your ministry is great or small, standing in heaven you will worship

Christ. You want to be a bondservant of Christ. You want to be in that gathering in heaven.

You want to be there praising him, singing his praises forever and ever.

Being a slave of Christ. Romans 6 would say that you're either a slave of sin or you are a slave of Christ.

I would say to you, choose you this day whom you will serve, sin or Christ. You need to, number one, you need to understand the nature of your calling.

Number two, you need to fully savor Christ. You need to take in all that he is. Number three, you need to fix your hope completely on Christ.

Again, look at verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the commandment of God our

Savior and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope.

Paul doesn't say, Timothy, Jesus is your hope, but he's our hope. He is not only the source of hope for believers, he is the embodiment.

He represents entirely our hope. It is because of all that he has accomplished on behalf of believers.

His perfect obedience, his substitutionary death, and his triumphant resurrection, that we have hope.

Take away any of those three, his obedience, his substitutionary death, and his triumphant resurrection, and guess what?

No hope. No perfection, he could not be our substitute. No substitutionary death, no death on our behalf.

Would we have any hope of paying for our sins? No resurrection.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, just to kind of summarize, that we are of all men most miserable.

Why? Because we've made God a liar. We say that he's risen and he's not. And we're still in our sins.

But thanks to be to God that he is risen. He is raised from the dead. Christ is our hope.

Timothy had that same hope. Look at verse 2. To Timothy, my true child in the faith.

Timothy is a combination of the verb to honor and the word for God. Thus his mom named him as one who would honor

God. And in real life, he was

Paul's closest disciple. I mean, they were like peanut butter and jelly. He was Robin to Paul's Batman.

They were Tano to the Lone Ranger. I mean, they were tight. Timothy is mentioned more frequently than any of Paul's other disciples.

In fact, I think it's something like 17 times in 10 epistles. Over and over again,

Timothy is there. And it's fair to say that Paul groomed him, trained him, discipled him, poured his life into him for about 15 years.

Taking him from the time of maybe mid to late teens up until mid to late 30s.

Could even be longer than 15 years. And at this time, he's probably, by the writing of 1

Timothy, Paul is much older. And Timothy is probably in his mid to late 30s, but still considered by ancient standards a young man.

But it's not surprising that the text says, my true child in the faith. The Greek would say, genuine child in faith is what it says.

That's just the wooden translation. Timothy was genuine in that Paul had no doubts about his faith.

From the time of his conversion, which was likely under Paul himself, Timothy had walked the walk.

Paul was as confident of Timothy's faith as he was of his own faith. That word true means genuine, and it means that there was no doubt of Timothy's spiritual heritage.

He wasn't worried about Timothy. Timothy was the real deal.

In fact, the historian Eusebius records that Timothy was beaten to death in Ephesus because of his preaching and teaching in opposition of the pagan worship of Diana.

Also known as Artemis, that temple, quite famous in antiquity, and was also the biggest source of revenue in Ephesus.

So when people started abandoning pagan idolatry for Christ, Timothy became the object of their hatred.

But Timothy was faithful to Paul, and he was faithful to Christ right until the end.

Now, there's a joy in seeing someone come to Christ when you have evangelized them, and how much more when you realize that they are ready.

Timothy was ready to handle a great responsibility without Paul's help. Paul was just going to send him this letter.

Timothy was off to the races. So first, you need to understand the nature of your calling.

Secondly, you need to fully savor Christ. Third, you need to fix your hope completely on Christ.

And the rest of this time, we're going to be looking at, essentially, a prayer from Paul to the

Lord on Timothy's behalf. These are the things that Paul was praying for Timothy, and I think are applicable to every single

Christian. We should desire these things. In fact, one writer says this, grace, mercy, and peace, which we're going to talk about, are the triple blessings of the

Christian life. Paul knows that Timothy is going to have difficulty. That's the nature of ministry.

When you're serving, you are going to have problems. Why? Because you're dealing with people.

Remember the old line from the show Dragnet? You know, Jack Webb was a star.

What was his name? Joe Friday. And he said somebody was commenting about a bad cop, and Joe Friday says, yeah, well, we work with a handicap.

And the guy says, what's that? And Jack Webb looks at him and says, we have to recruit from the human race.

And I'm like, that's the problem. That's what we have to do with the church. We have people here. People are still sinners.

They still create problems. So our fourth command this morning is you need the constant grace of God.

You need the constant grace of God. In John 1 .16, the apostle

John wrote that every Christian received grace upon grace.

And that's precisely what Paul is praying for Timothy, grace upon grace. You say, well, I was saved by grace.

And that's right. What is grace? Well, it is, as our pastor likes to say, the demerited favor of God.

It's more than unmerited. Unmerited just means that you got something that you didn't deserve.

But demerited means you deserved punishment, and instead you got grace.

Before salvation, every man, woman, and child has a debt they cannot pay. Before you were saved, you spent every moment of every day displeasing

God. And you say, well, that's pretty strong language. Every moment of every day? That wasn't that bad. Well, yeah, you were.

How do I know that? Well, the Bible says in Hebrews 11 .6, without faith, it is impossible to please

God. Not unlikely, not improbable, not kind of hit and miss whether you'll please God.

It says it is impossible. Looking up the Greek, it says it's impossible to please

God. It's not going to happen. Unbelievers cannot please

God. So what difference does grace make?

Well, salvificly, in terms of salvation, it turns enemies of God into his sons and daughters.

In terms of daily living or grace upon grace living, believers are extended grace even now when they fail to obey

Christ fully. Do you ever fail to obey Him fully? I see that hand. If God weren't constantly gracing you, you would not be capable of fulfilling your ministry.

We all need that kind of sense of forgiveness, knowing that all of our sins past, present, and future are forgiven.

If you don't have that, what happens? Well, in the short term, you're going to have a real kind of spiritual paralysis.

You kind of will get to a point where you even doubt your salvation and you're not really able to serve others effectively.

Long term, without the work of the Holy Spirit graciously transforming you daily, you would not be sanctified, you would not be made more holy, you would ultimately not be conformed into the image of Christ.

Ongoing grace, daily grace was Paul's prayer for Timothy, that kind of sense of, you know what,

Timothy, you're going to make mistakes. You're even going to sin. But know that God is gracious, always gracious.

Fifthly, you need the consistent mercy of God. You need the consistent mercy of God.

Now, mercy is not anything you can deserve. It's not anything you can demand. Mercy is

God moving on behalf of those who are weary and heavy laden.

And he does it on his own initiative because of his compassion. The word simply means kindness or concern expressed for someone in need.

Pity. Pity. God has pity on believers.

Psalm 103 verses 13 and 14 says this, Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the

Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he himself knows our frame, he is mindful that we are but dust.

We get those times of encouragement when things seem the hardest. Now, before salvation, again, thinking back, certainly apply this to myself, but you were in every way in need, as that word would say.

You need to be in need to receive mercy and pitiful. But suppose

God was aloof. He was detached. He wasn't really involved in things. He was the cosmic watchmaker.

Without the active mercy, the compassion of God extended to you, you would have no hope.

You would have no reason to hope now. The mercy of God is expressed in action, and I don't know any place in Scripture where that compassion is expressed better than Ephesians chapter 2, and I would invite you to turn there for a moment.

In Ephesians chapter 2, talking about God's compassion, he sees those in need and moves on their behalf.

Who could be more needy than a dead person? Ephesians 2, chapter 2, verse 1, and you talking to believers now and talking about their past lives, not meaning multiple lives, just the way they used to live.

Let me clarify that. Edit that from the tape. Ephesians 2, verse 1, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air and of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

Among them, we too, and he includes himself, all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

That's a sad picture, dead in your sins and trespasses. By nature, children of wrath, expecting nothing but the wrath of God to be poured out upon you.

Verse 4, but God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved. His mercy, seeing us even when we were dead, made us alive.

He's rich in mercy. He has an abundant supply, an inexhaustible supply.

In fact, we can't even calculate it. We cannot imagine the riches of his mercy.

In fact, I would suggest to you this morning, it will take all of eternity to even begin to grasp the riches of God's mercy.

Paul is writing to believers, and he's reminding them of all that God has done on their behalf, and it's because of his mercy, his compassion.

Number six, you need the continuous peace of God. Every believer has the ultimate peace with God in the sense that they've been reconciled to him, that they are no longer at war with him, they are no longer his enemies.

And you say, again, that sounds like pretty strong language. Not really, it's straight out of Romans 5.

Romans 5, verse 1 says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to verse 8. But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. Much more than having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.

Verse 10. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his

Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. God has brought about peace between himself and those who believe in Christ and who died for them.

Beyond no longer being enemies of God, believers are granted the peace of God. What is that?

How is it obtained? By handing every care, every worry, every concern entirely to God.

He writes in Philippians about being anxious for nothing, but let your requests be known to God. In 1 Peter we read, casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

One man wrote it this way. It is the belief that God cares that marks off Christianity from all other religions, which under all varieties of form are occupied with the task of making

God care, of awakening by sacrifice or prayer or act the slumbering interest of the deity.

God is not asleep. He cares intimately about all of his children. And that peace comes with the capacity of turning everything over to him, of knowing that he is in charge, of trusting him.

As I said earlier, grace, mercy, and peace are the triple blessings of the

Christian life. If you are equipped with them, a servant may properly serve his master, the

Lord Jesus Christ. Without them, what can one expect? It is going to be a rather lengthy conclusion, but first of all, you need to understand the nature of your calling.

Secondly, you need to fully savor Christ. Third, you need to fix your hope completely on Christ. Fourth, you need the constant grace of God.

Fifth, you need the consistent mercy of God. Sixth, you need the continuous peace of God. Dear ones, if you love

Christ, you have a ministry. And your ministry can only go as far as your grasp on these truths.

For those here this morning, for whom this whole concept of service and ministry is foreign,

I'd like to take a minute to just address you. Somehow, apart from the word of God, you've convinced yourself that God will surely not punish you for your sins.

In your own mind, you've reconciled yourself to God. The Bible doesn't do that. In fact, the

Bible tells us that our hearts are deceitful and wicked beyond all else, that our hearts lie to us.

Isn't that shocking? I would ask anyone here who has not bowed the knee to Christ this morning to ask themselves on what basis they think they're right before God.

On what basis do they think God has forgiven them their sins? Do you have a good feeling about it?

We have a world where this is encouraged. Trust your heart. Trust your feelings. I sound like I'm writing a movie.

Trust your feelings. The idea, the very idea that there is an objective truth that there is right and that there is wrong will sound as if they should be subjected to carbon dating.

There are ancient artifacts of a world gone by. Listen to your heart. Your heart is always right.

Your heart will lead you in the right direction. True happiness, the world tells you, come to those who love themselves, who come to trust themselves, who are confident in their hearts that they are doing the right thing.

You know what? The Bible is full of things, full of people who were confident that they were doing the right thing.

Then they found out they weren't. Hebert said, all the

Father's gifts come to us through the Son. There is no hope apart from faith in Christ.

There is no grace apart from faith in Christ. There is no mercy apart from faith in Christ.

There is no peace apart from faith in Christ. There is no heaven, no forgiveness for sins apart from faith in Christ.

I urge you today, if you don't know Christ, repent. Turn from reliance upon yourself toward the only one who can save you.

Jesus, who was born, lived a perfect life, died a substitutionary death, that is, on behalf of sinners, was raised on the third day.

Why would anyone insist on prizing their sin more than their soul?

How can anyone hope to stand before a holy God and say, I did better than most,

I think I was over the curve, you've got to give me credit. In grade school, I didn't turn in a project and they gave me a

C anyway. God's not like that. That's not in the Bible.

He doesn't reward nice tries, He doesn't reward good efforts. He rewards those who will flee their own efforts and rest entirely upon His Son, whom

He sent to be our substitute. You want to be an effective servant?

Don't rest in your own strength. Lean entirely on Christ. Understand that you need grace, mercy, peace.

You have to think about heavenly things, you have to be consumed by Christ. Let's pray.

Our Father, we thank you that you have preserved for us the words that you inspired through this man,

Paul, that you have given them to us that we might understand how to operate and function within a church body.

Lord, we think about the heavy responsibility that was placed on Timothy and how

Paul was, as it were, handing off the baton, how he prayed for Timothy, that Timothy might experience your grace and mercy and peace in an ongoing way.

Father, I would pray for everyone here who knows you, that you would give them grace ongoing, mercy ongoing, peace ongoing, that they might live not obsessed with the problems of now, but,

Lord, to be focused on the promise of the future. Lord, would you give us that peace that surpasses all understanding and knowing that you truly love and care for each one of your children.

Lord, for those who are here this morning who do not know you, Lord, I beg you that you would open the eyes of the blind, that you would unstop the ears of the deaf, that you would take out the unbeating, spiritually dead hearts of any here who don't believe, that you would give them hearts that beat for you.

Lord, would you be so gracious as to make the day today the day of salvation, the day of repentance, the day of belief in the

Lord Jesus Christ for someone here, for many. Lord, we pray these things in Christ's name.