Guard What God Has Entrusted to You

0 (1s): Would you stand with us? Why don't we pray as we begin, Lord, we just look to you this morning to the author and perfecter of our faith. God, we just pray that you would meet us in this space. As we've gathered here to worship you this morning, that you would just dwell in each heart, that you would comfort every soul that you would heal every body in need of healing and Lord that you would rescue, redeem and restore. Would you lead us beside those still waters? 0 (41s): Again today we all stand just an equal footing in need of a savior today. So we thank you for your great love for us. Thank you that we don't have to be afraid in this chaotic world that we can be at peace in your presence this morning. So we walk without fear. Lord, we look to you this morning for everything that we need in Jesus name. Amen. In June my head like, gosh, you . 0 (10m 48s): He is Jesus Tonga. 0 (11m 6s): my God. 0 (15m 12s): Jesus. Jesus. Thank you, Lord. 1 (15m 49s): Thank you that you have conquered the grave. You've given us new life, new hope, peace and joy, new confidence in you. Lord, you have done so many things and continue to do so many things and we're so grateful. We're grateful God that you're a good father, that you are liable. Your, your love for us is unconditional. You were faithful. 1 (16m 29s): You're kind and good. God. Did you have healthy expectations for us? Thank you that you call us your sons and your daughters. You have adopted a sincere family. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, God. I pray that you would just bless every father gathered today and thank you for the work of fathers in our families and our culture and our church. 1 (17m 12s): Thank you God, for the way that they faithfully lead their families, Lord, and thank you for the role of fathers within the church, within the family Lord, you've given us profound opportunity and profound responsibility, and then you give us the grace to do what you ask us to do. And you strengthen us for the good work ahead, Lord. We're so thankful, Lord God, we honor dads today. I thank you for my dad. Bless each dad. And for those who have lost their fathers, Lord, we just pray for comforting peace upon each person today, for those who have a difficult relationship with their fathers, Lord, that you would minister God where there needs to be grace extended and forgiveness, extended Lord, where there needs to be reconciliation. 1 (18m 9s): Pray that that would happen. Also, Lord God, that you would work to bring reconciliation and restored relationship. Jesus, thank you God that you're always at work and it's never too late. You're you're available to do the good work that is needed in our lives. Reconciliation. We're bringing reconciliation and hope and joy and peace and Lord, as we've gathered for church today, we thank you Lord, that we've had the opportunity to sing and that we're praying and that we've got the opportunity to open up the word and, and that we're going to laugh some today. Lord, there's just a lot going on Lord. We're so thankful Lord. And so as we have gathered this father's day be glorified. 1 (18m 53s): As we saying, as we've been singing Lord, as we open up your word, be glorified. We pray in Jesus' name. Jesus' name. Amen. You can be seated. You can be seated 2 (19m 3s): Happy father's day. 3 (19m 5s): How many dads are in the room? How many dads were in the room? Raise your hand. Right? How many dads? Four or five. There's gotta be more than one. Ray. Real real. There we go. There we go. Good. Good. Good. Thanks for all you guys do. Thank you for being dads in this critical culture that we live in. Thanks for being good dads. We have it. Typically I opened, opened my sermon with some kind of a joke and I say some kind of a joke because sometimes they're funny. Sometimes they're not so funny, but today we have, we have dad jokes for you. So let's go ahead and roll the video here. Pay attention. That's going to be, I think it's going to be funny. So let's see what let's let's find out here, 4 (19m 49s): Curtis. Yeah. What do you call a fake noodle? Good. Tell you it in pasta. You got to say that with that Boston accent pass. Tim, do I enjoy making courthouse? Punts guilty? Do you ever get cold? Just stand in the corner. 4 (20m 29s): They're usually 90 degrees. Wow. What did the drummer call his twin daughters. Did you hear about the kidnapping at school? It's fine. You woke up that one could have gotten dark fast. I ordered a chicken and an egg online. 4 (21m 9s): I'll let you know what came first. The chicken, which one comes in first. I'll let you I'll let you know. Okay, good. No one came a little late average, average joke. I don't know. I once wrote a song about a tortilla, but it's more of a wrap. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Why can't you ever run through a campsite? 4 (21m 56s): You can only ran. It's always pest ticks. Did you hear about the restaurant on the moon? No. Great food. No atmosphere. Dad jokes. Number one. What do sprinters eat before a race? Nada. Nothing. They fast? Alright. I thought about going on an all almond diet, but that's just nuts. 4 (22m 43s): Why are balloons so expensive? Inflation? What does the noisy pepper do? It gets jalapeno business. The older crowd. They're like, yeah. I used to run a dating service for chickens, but I was struggling to make ends meet spring is here. 4 (23m 37s): Is that the joke? 0 (23m 55s): I got so excited to wet my pants. 4 (24m 10s): I got so excited. It wasn't pants. All right, here we go. You're American. When you go into a bathroom and when you come out book, what are you while you're in the bathroom? You're being 3 (24m 43s): So that's enough jokes to last the rest of the year. 2 (24m 46s): So I have got to get a job. 3 (24m 53s): This is my job. This isn't this great. Isn't this great. Oh, we should pray after that Lord, as we know, as we get into the word, Lord, your will be done. Speak to us. Thank you so much for the ability to laugh. Laughter is good medicine. As we get into first Timothy chapter six today, as we wrap up first, Timothy chapter six, you just pray that you would speak to us. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Amen. How is everyone? Good. Good, good. Hey, we've just a quick update on 1 0 2. We're going to refer to our new worship center 1 0 2 until we actually get in there maybe, but our new worship center building 1 0 2 west branches coming along. 3 (25m 35s): And what I failed to do last week is show this, these pictures, both services. So let's go ahead and show the pictures up so everybody can see what, so that's the exterior of 1 0 2. It's just a minutes. Walk, not even a minute. It's on the sidewalk here. It's about 45 seconds walk and, and that's kind of what it's going to look like, except for that we're changing the exterior colors, but we took off those canopies over those other windows and the exterior color is going to be basically whites with black trim and it's going to really, really look good. So Dan Hennessy put these pictures together for us. Let's look at the next shot here. This is the inside. 3 (26m 15s): This is what it's going to look like. And so far we've got the stage, the stage being worked on the, the sound booth, framed the couple one partition wall framed. We're making progress a few weeks. We're going to have air conditioning done. We've got plans for plumbing, electrical, all kinds of stuff going on there. So I just want to thank Dan for putting that together. So many people have already been a part of the project beginning with our Workday. You guys remember the work day where we had like 40 or 50 show up to do the demo. We took out, I think eight dump trailers full of stuff on that day. That was about three weeks ago or so. And then this last week we took out two more dump trailers, full of junk out of that place. 3 (26m 55s): There's just so much stuff. So many people have been involved. Jerry Shaw, it has helped with design as well for the, for the building inside and out, been very helpful. MW architects, Wayne and Derek. They're donating a lot of their time and a lot of their effort to get our, our plans drawn that we've got lands that are just about completed, just about ready to be submitted to the city. And then the city will be taking about two weeks to get our building permits. But in the meantime they said, you can keep working and just leave things open so that we can inspect everything. So de Bedford's been in there framing up everything and yeah, Perry's been doing all kinds of stuff. 3 (27m 36s): My brother Larry's been working on painting for us. He did the painting on the parsonage up the, up the driveway, just this last week, Jim Owens in charge of the electrical work he's been doing that Aaron looters is in charge of the technical side of things. We've got a guy Sean D blue, who comes around to do cleanup, anytime that we need him to do cleanup. And it's just been, it's been really, really good to see just the body of Christ come together. And, and so I sent out a letter this week just to kind of let everybody know kind of where we are. So if you didn't get a letter, get, make sure you get your email to address to us through a communication card. You can do that online or through paper communication cards. And we will get that letter to you just say this, give us your email address and then say, Hey, I'd like to have the letter that pastor Steve sent out. 3 (28m 21s): So then we'll get that letter to you. So anyway, that's the update we're hoping to be in sometime fall. My wife said, don't give a hard date and I know that's wise, but so I'm going to say fall in September, October, hopefully around there, we'll be in there. 2 (28m 37s): Step up. 3 (28m 38s): I know we're Jeremy thinks we'll be in, I think September 19. So he's, he's the man of faith in our staff. So we're going to say September 19th, let's hold Jeremy to that. All right. September 19th. Okay. So we're in first Timothy chapter six, this week, sermon title guard, what God has entrusted to you. This was actually what Paul told Timothy in this letter. As he wraps up these six chapters, Paul told Timothy guard what God has entrusted to you. So that is the title of our message today. That's what we're going to be challenged with today to literally guard what God has entrusted to us. So what does that mean? If you're in Christ, then God has given you a new beginning. He's given you new life and purpose and understanding and hope all of these new things are yours in Christ Jesus, but they've got to be held onto you. 3 (29m 29s): Guarded protected. He's given us Grace Love kindness and mercy and these things we need to in our culture, especially in down throughout, not just our culture, not just the Western culture and the 21st century, but down throughout history. I mean, beginning of the first century here where people were challenged to guard this incredible gift, this incredible revelation, this incredible truth that God has given to us. And so these amazing gifts that God has given, they, they need to be guarded. Otherwise we can tend to forget what God has done for us. 3 (30m 10s): Maybe we've been in the faith for many decades and we can continue. We can, you know, forget, we can kind of forget what God has done. We can forget the mercy that he is given to us, the grace that was so desperately needed. And we can forget that he just loves us every day, that he's kind to us every day. He's merciful to us every single day. So we need to guard our perspective about those things and then guard our faith around those things. They need to be guarded and guard what God has entrusted to you. How do we do this? Number one. And we're going to pull these seven points right from the text this morning, the first point. And we talked a little about a little bit about this last week, but don't let money distract you. 3 (30m 53s): Number one, don't let money distract you, guarding what God has entrusted to you. That a lot of the pitfalls around the brown faith is money. It sets it's finance. And so number one, Paul's very clear. It's a Timothy about money. And he said, and he basically saying, Hey, don't let money distract you, Timothy. And as you lead others, challenge them not to let money distract them. So again, we covered these first few verses last week, but for the sake of context, we're going to read them again. So first Timothy chapter six verse six says yet true, true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world and we can't take anything with us when we leave it. 3 (31m 37s): So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be intense. Find contentment to be one of the biggest gifts, the greatest gifts that God gives us the capacity to walk in. When we figure out how to be content with whatever it is that God has given to us. There's just a great deal of joy that follows that we eliminate the striving. We eliminate the anxiety. We eliminate the, the, the temptation to overwork and to try to make more and get more. 3 (32m 18s): There's something that happens in our souls, in our lives. And I think it happens. There's a, there's a resting in our minds as a resting in our hearts. There's a resting in our lives and we by God's grace make the decision to be consents. Lord help us to be consented. I think we live in a culture where we're always going after more. We're always trying to get, trying to move forward. And, and there's something to be said for just resting in the Lord last week, we said, we must honor God with our ability to be content taking things a step further this week. I believe this verse is telling us that great wealth, real wealth is defined by godliness and contentment. 3 (33m 0s): Meaning we can have everything in the world, all the stuff in the world and still be feeling empty real world in the kingdom of God and in the world is godliness with contentment. If we try to stuff, anything else in that whole called godliness and contentment, and we try to stuff, anything else in that it's going to leave us lacking and lead it, leave us wanting more. It's not a bad thing to have some resources, but it's how we think about those resources that can get us into trouble. So it's okay to have some resource. 3 (33m 41s): I encourage you to have some resource, but how we think about those resources, we'll, we'll kind of direct the course of our life. Sometimes we think a little bit more and I will be okay if I just have a little bit more, I will be okay. Or sometimes we have this perspective that says I'm secure because I have enough. Our security can never be okay. And the stuff that we have as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ, our security needs to be in the person and the finished work of Jesus Christ. If our focus is on resource, then we have a fear around losing those resources and that fear around resources about keeping those resources keeps us from being generous. 3 (34m 30s): We want to hold on to it because after all we've worked so hard to acquire and accumulate resource. Now we have to be careful and we're fearful about losing them. And so we, we fail to be generous when the Lord asks us to be generous, fear around resources makes those resources a person's God, right? Proverbs 23. There's no slide for this, but Proverbs 23, 4 and five says, don't wear yourself out, trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to quit and that good wisdom in the blink of an eye wealth disappears for it will sprout wings and fly away like an Eagle off the top of my head. 3 (35m 12s): I can think of two people, two friends of mine who have lost a great deal, a great deal of resource in their life. One guy through a bad investment, through one bad investment, lost his whole life savings, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in one bad move in with an investment. He lost everything that he had acquired. And he had acquired quite a bit at that stage in his life. He was only in his forties, but he had lost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. But because he chose not to be not to be worn out by that, I mean, it was hard and it was difficult and that sort of thing, but he, the guy turned his eyes on the Lord and say, okay, God, where do we go from here? 3 (35m 60s): How do we move forward from here? And over the last 20 years, he's been able to rebuild. And, and in my perspective, my I've known this guy for decades, probably for decades. In my perspective, this guy is more grounded and more godly and has a better perspective on wealth. And he's ever had is when you lose it all and have to rebuild it reestablishes. Hopefully if you're your faith in God and his ability to, to sustain you, it changes your perspective about those things, because you know how quickly wealth can disappear. It just changes everything about your perspective. Another guy, a friend of a friend of mine lost literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, upwards of a million dollars in one bad business transaction. 3 (36m 49s): So the first guy lost his money to a bad investment. The second guy lost his money in a bad business deal. And I'm like the first guy, the second guy chose to just focus on the Lord and just believe that God was going to is going to take care of them. And that's exactly what happened. It's interesting when bad things happen to good people, because at times, bad things happen to good people. What we do with that experience tells something about us. These two men decided not to give up on God, not to give up on, on their dreams and ambitions, but to just move forward with a different perspective. 3 (37m 34s): And they, they both have grown tremendously in their ability to trust the Lord through their experiences. They both recovered just fine because their confidence was in Fry's back to first Timothy chapter six, but people who long to be rich, fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. People long to be rich, fall into all kinds of traps. Workaholism is a temptation for people in the Western culture. If we just work a little bit more, a little bit harder. If I work on the Sabbath, if I work on Sunday, if I just work, keep working, then I will be able to acquire what I need to acquire. 3 (38m 20s): So workaholism is one temptation when people long for wealth materialism is, is, is the result of workaholism and the desire to be rich. We live in a culture where workaholism and is rampant. And so we just have to fight against it. We just have to fight against it. Verse 10 says for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. So not money itself, but the love of money, right? The love of money. And some people craving money have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows, the, of Nam and the got of money as a harsh task master. 3 (39m 4s): If we're living our lives for money for ma'am and the Bible says, you can't serve God and money, you can't serve God and mammon. If we're living our lives for money, doing everything we can to acquire money, we're going to realize eventually that mammon money is a harsh taskmaster with very little reward and it doesn't doesn't last and it doesn't bring any kind of real peace or joy. We'll have a lot. They're fearful. They're going to lose it when they have little they're fearful, fearful. They're not going to have enough, but when God is the focus, when we do what the scripture says, seek first, the kingdom of God and his rights is this. 3 (39m 46s): Everything else will be added unto us. When we trust God and believe him, we can relax. And just trust that God's got our best interest in mind. So God, what God has entrusted to you. Number one, don't let money distract you. Number two, remember who you are in a crazy world that we live in. It's it's easy to forget who we are. Who are you? Paul told Timothy, but you Timothy are a man of God. How many of us would say, I'm a woman of God. I'm a man of God. How many would I identify themselves that way? Right, right. We can, we can say, I'm a man of God. I'm a woman of God. But are we really living, believing that that's our identity. 3 (40m 26s): I living like Paul told Timothy to live live like LIS lived this way because you Timothy are a man of God. Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are men and women of God. That means if we're in Christ, our sins have been forgiven. We've been adopted into his family. We actually belong to the living God. So we need to remember who we are. And then also remember whose we are. If you're in Christ, you're a man or woman of God. You belong to God. Remember who you are and then live out of that identity. It's easy. You're to say on Sunday morning, Hey, I'm a man of God. I'm a woman of God. But you live out of that identity and allow that identity to dictate how you live your life. 3 (41m 11s): That's a wholly different wholly, totally different scenario. In story, we need to allow the ID, our identity as men and women of God to shape our life and our decisions. So Paul was reminding Timothy of his identity so that he would avoid the pitfalls of life. If we ID our debt, if we are identifying ourselves as people of the world that going to live like people of the world. But if we identify ourselves as people of God, that we're going to live, like God would direct us to live. So allow that identity as a matter of woman of God, to shape your life and decisions. If you're here today, and you're saying, I'm not a man of God, or I'm not a woman of God, maybe to one of two things needs to happen. Number one, maybe you don't know Jesus at all. 3 (41m 53s): Maybe you haven't had your sins forgiven. Maybe you haven't been adopted into the family of God. If you want to be considered a man or a woman of God, if you want to be God's kid God's child, then just simply invite the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ into your life and say, Lord, I need you. I want you. I want that to be my identity. I want you to be a man of God. I wants to be a woman of God or maybe you're saved, but you're just not identifying. You're not thinking of yourself in the right terms, in the right context. You're not thinking I am a man of God. I am a woman of God. And so that actually changes the way that I speak. It changes the way that I think it changes the way that I make decisions and the way that I live my life. 3 (42m 36s): Why? Because it's not an arrogant thing to say, I'm a man of God. You're just stating the obvious. If you are in Christ, then you are a man. You are a woman of God. So don't think that that's an arrogant statement. You're just saying, Hey, it's like saying, it's like me saying, Hey, I'm, I'm the, I'm the son of my father. I mean, it just stating the obvious. So I'm my dad's kid. You know, I'm stating the obvious. So if you're in Christ, you're just stating the obvious. It's not an arrogant thing. And it never should be an arrogant thing because we're saved by grace because he's good. Not because we're good. Paul is reminding Timothy of his, of his identity so that he would avoid the pitfalls of this life, greediness and worldly things so that he might pursue righteousness. 3 (43m 18s): What does it mean to pursue righteousness guard? What God has entrusted to you? Number three, run from evil. By pursuing righteousness, run from evil, by pursuing righteousness. Righteousness is simply things that are right in God's sight, things that are right according to the word of God and things that are right according to the spirit of God and God never contradicts himself. So if we open up the word of God and live our lives, according to the word of God, then we're pursuing righteousness. Because those things that we're pursuing our rights in God's sight. I wonder if in our lives, we're pursuing the wrong things. 3 (44m 2s): And we don't even realize that we're pursuing the wrong things because we haven't opened up the word and allowed the word of God, the Bible to shape our perspective. Verse 11 continues so run from all these evil things, Timothy pursue righteousness and a godly life along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. So righteousness is a pursuit. It's something that we have to be intentional about. We don't just wake up and pursue. We wake up with the wrong perspective some days and we're we're grumpy or we've had a bad dream or whatever. We have to set our mind, fix our thoughts on the right stuff and begin to pursue rights as this out of the gate every morning. 3 (44m 47s): So run for all these evil things. How many know that we have to run? Paul said, fleet youthful, lusts. We, we have we're in a culture. That's bombarding us with temptations. You know, the world, the flesh and the devil is pumped bombarded with temptation. So we have to run from these evil things, pursuing righteousness. So we have a responsibility and action to take pursue righteousness in a godly life. Along with faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. Remember first Timothy one 19 through 20. There's no slide for this, but it says, as we back up in first Timothy one, he says clean to your faith in Christ and keep your conscience clear for some people have deliberately violated. 3 (45m 29s): Their conscience is as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked. And then Paul gives a couple of examples. and Alexander are two examples. I threw them out. Paul said, I threw them out and handed them over to Satan. So they might learn not to bless FIM God. So from the first century to the 21st century, we have this responsibility to run from evil and pursue righteousness. And it will be like that until Jesus returns. We're going to have to have this perspective. Maybe, you know, someone who has shipwrecked their faith. If you just look at the decisions that were made along the way, you can see how it was easy for that person to shipwreck their faith, because they weren't pursuing a righteousness. 3 (46m 13s): They were wrapped up and enveloped in the world. Maybe you've been there. Maybe you're there. Now you feel like man, I've shipwrecked my faith by my decisions. You know, the good thing about the gospel is that the Bible says that his mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. If we confess our sins, he is faithful. And just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, we can come back into a right relationship with God. All right, faith with God. Re-establish our walk with the Lord by simply confessing our sins and the deciding to do these things, deciding to run from evil, by pursuing righteousness. What evil do you need to run from? 3 (46m 57s): What righteousness do you need to pursue? What area of in your life do you need to run from evil and pursue righteousness? Usually it's not your whole life, right? It's like a lot of good going on, but then there's those gnarly things as dark things in your life that just need to be obliterated. They need do you need to run from those things by pursuing a righteousness guard, what God has entrusted to you? Number four, fight the good fight of faith. That's what verse 12 says, fight the good fight for the true faith. So fight that requires intentional living, fighting the good fight of faith, like being all in. 3 (47m 38s): And I imagine showing up for a fight because you're in a fight, whether you like it or not, whether you realize or not imagined showing up for a fight unprepared, you're going to get pummeled. And you're going to get obliterated by that by your opponent. And so be prepared for the battle that says we don't wrestle against flesh and blood enemies, but against the principalities of darkness or the enemy Satan and his minions are fighting against us. And so we have to realize that we're in this battle, this fight. And so we have to fight the good fight of faith, of the true faith. We have to fight to hold on to our faith, right? If we don't fight to hold onto our faith, it just kind of slips away, right? How do we fight holding on to hold onto our fate? 3 (48m 19s): We, we, we fight by thinking about the right things by choosing the right things, by keeping our eyes on the Lord. If we don't fight the culture and resist the culture, we'll be swept up in the culture. It's just the way it is. If you don't fight it, we get swept up in it. If we don't fight the flesh, if we don't fight temptation, if we don't fight these things that are trying to draw us away, then we'll get swept away in it. So how do we fight? Well, the simple answer is just do what the Bible says. We're to abide in Christ. We're to be with Christ and have him be in us. So abiding Christ and, and in that relationship, you'll bear much spiritual fruit. 3 (49m 0s): So you just simply abiding Christ. He wake up every morning and say, God, I'm all yours today. And throughout the course of the day, you're saying I'm all yours today. Lord, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? Sometimes we go into autopilot and we're not thinking about God. We're just kind of living our lives. But then circumstances come up where we need God. And we're calling back out to him. Why not just abiding Christ all day long. Number one, abiding Christ. How do we fight? We abide in Christ. Number two, pray without ceasing. That's what the scripture says. Pray without ceasing. How do you do that? We just do it all day long. Lord, I feeling tempted right now. I need your help. God. I'm feeling grateful right now. 3 (49m 41s): Thank you, God. I am so happy that I, I, where I'm at my season of life. Lord. Thank you, God. Thank you for the hard work that you've given me to do, Lord, thank you so much. And it's just about constantly just turning our attention to the Lord. Thank you Lord. For that, that, that, that transaction that just went through. Thank you for the ability to think wisely about this business deal that, I mean, thank you, Lord, that you're, you've made my marriage better Lord. That you've made my, my relationship with my kids better than just an attitude of prayerfulness and thankfulness. Pray without ceasing. And then read your Bible daily. Just kind of getting back to the basics. How do we find you got to read your Bible. You get up, you get up and you, you feel off throughout the day. 3 (50m 24s): You gotta open up the word of God. I can't. I stress that enough to us. We got to open up the word of God and read two or three chapters of God's Bible of the word. Don't just read a verse. A verse is good, but if a verses good, two or three chapters is even better, right? I mean, we will see then hours listening to radio or podcasts or watching television or whatever it is that we will do or reading anything else, but the Bible, but we won't spend 20 minutes reading two or three chapters. Cause that's really all it takes. It's not meant to be a heavy thing. It's just a reality check. We don't spend enough time reading the Bible. 3 (51m 4s): And so we're distracted by all these things because we're not allowing our mind to be shaped by the scripture, by the truth of who God is. If you're feeling discouraged and you take the time to read the Bible with an open mind and an open heart, you will be encouraged, right? If you're feeling tempted and you open up the Bible and you with an open heart and an open mind, read the Bible, the temptation will dissipate. If you're in need of any kind and you open up that scripture and just read a couple of chapters, two or three chapters with an open mind and open heart, God will give you the answers that you need. You'll restore peace to you, confidence to you, joy to you. You'll walk away thing saying thank you, Jesus. 3 (51m 46s): I'm grateful Lord for your word. Now I know every more, more than never that I needed your word. And you do that every single day. And God will show up for you every single day. Biting Christ, pray without ceasing. Read your Bible daily. Be continually filled with the holy spirits. We must lead because Ephesians five says that we must be continually filled with those guys. What else is the answer? I mean, we leak, right? We're like we, we need to be constantly filled with the holy spirit and then number five, stay humble and teachable. That's how you fight. That's how you fight abiding Christ. Pray without ceasing. Read your Bible daily. 3 (52m 28s): Be continually filled with the holy spirit and stay humble and teachable. Number five, hold tightly to your new life. First 12 continues. It says hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have declared so well before many witnesses. How do you hold tightly? All of the things that we just talked about, those five things that we hope that we just talked about. That's how you, that's how you hold tightly. That's how you hold tightly. You remember that God has given you a new life. Hold tightly to that. The temptation is to be excited about it for a month and then forget about it. When trials come, we're forget about it. 3 (53m 8s): When a seemingly better offer comes along in the form of a temptation that is meant to destroy your life. Remember that God has given you a new life. Remember you're not your own. You've been bought with a price, hold tightly to your new life in Christ. Make God your priority in every decision. This is how you hold tightly. You hold, you make God your priority in every decision. And then you re resist temptation. You keep your eyes on Jesus. These are, this is, this is how you hold tightly to your new life in Jesus. If you don't hold tightly, you will slip away. Not because the gospel's fragile, but because you're fragile, the gospel is powerful. 3 (53m 51s): But in our humanists, we are fragile in our own strength. We are fragile, but in Christ we can do all things. And so we in Christ, we hold on and we keep our focus on him and we make our decisions all about him. We keep our, with our eyes on Jesus, number six lives so that no one can find fault in you. Verse 13, Paul told Timothy and I charge you before God. He wasn't saying, Hey Timothy, this is just a good idea, right? I charge you before God who gives us life to all. And before Christ Jesus who gave a good testimony before Pontius pilot, that you obey this command without wavering, then no one can find fault with you from now on from now until our Lord, Jesus Christ comes again. 3 (54m 44s): Remember Jesus before Pontius, pilot, Pontius, pilot could not find anything wrong with Jesus. And so he washed his hands, turned him over to those who wanted to kill him. And they killed Jesus. Jesus declared before Pontius pilot. I am the Messiah. I am the Lord. Jesus was our prime example. He lived a life above reproach, fully God and fully man. He lived a life beyond reproach, resisting temptation, the temptation to be disgruntled with people. 3 (55m 24s): He, he would heal people. He would heal 10 lepers and nine of the 10 would just go away and forget all about him. One would come back. This was his, this was the deal. Jesus said, didn't I heal 10 of you. Why is there only one that came back? But that's what he dealt with constantly. He worked miracles in front of people and they refuse to believe that he was the Messiah. So the temptation was probably too hard in his heart toward people because that's the temptation to harden our hearts toward people. But Jesus resisted that temptation. He lived above reproach, chose to love people unconditionally, and he gave his life as a ransom for all. 3 (56m 5s): So how do you live? So no one can find fault in you have a genuine faith. That's where it all begins. It's, it's a faith that is genuine. That is not for show. It is like, this is who I am like from the, my toes to the top of my head inside out. This is who I am in Jesus. I mean, this needs to be our perspective. Like every part of me, a hundred percent of me is in Christ. At genuine. Faith will keep you from living above reproach, keeping your, your life above reproach so that no one can find fault in you. And then out of that, you'll have integrity, have integrity. 3 (56m 50s): What does that mean? It means to be honest, the men and women of integrity be, be honest with every transaction and every conversation be honest, I had was here at the office on Friday and I was studying, prepping for some, for Sunday for this message. And this guy, this homeless guy, he started kept knocking at the door and I'm like, Lord, I don't have time to talk to this homeless guy right now. I've got a sermon to write, right? And so I ignored him, knocked the first time I ignored him knocked the second time. I'm like, okay, I'll get up. And I thought to myself, if he asks me why didn't answer the door the first time, I'm just going to be honest with him. 3 (57m 33s): I'm going to say, dude, I am busy right now. I don't have time to talk every time that you knock on the door. I love the guy, but I can't stop every time. So I had this wrestling match. I could say, well, I didn't hear, but that would lack integrity. The honest thing is I just didn't have time. So he never asked me why I didn't answer the door the first time, because we finally chatted and that sort of thing, but it was all good. And we got things handled, but I thought, you know, the temptation is to be dishonest. Oh, I was, I must've been in the bathroom or Hey, I must've been outside or Hey, I must've been upstairs. I didn't hear you knock. But the truth is God's worthy of our very best. And when it, just to be honest about things, have a genuine faith, not for show, have integrity, be honest. 3 (58m 15s): I remember a number of years ago, we had some taxes down. I shared this story before and there was a big, big fat tax mistake made on our taxes. And so the following year I had to pay an additional $7,000. I'm like, well, I'm the only one who knows about this tax mistake. I could just forget about it, but I'm not the only one who knows about his tax mistake. My God knows about this tax mistake. So I have to be honest about the stacks mistakes. So I ended up volunteering that information to my CPA and I paid the additional 7,000 bucks. 3 (58m 56s): I would rather pay $7,000 and have a clear conscience than hold onto that 7,000 bucks and have a JD conscience. I just don't want, I don't want to think about that 10 years later or 15 years later or five minutes later and have regrets. So be honest, tell the truth. Be the same person in every situation. I'm not saying I've got this nailed. I don't have this nailed. All you gotta do is ask who are close to me. I am trying to get this nailed. And that's all God's asking us to. He said, just work toward this. Be people of integrity, be people of integrity. And when you mess up own it and walk forward with integrity guard, what God has entrusted to you. 3 (59m 37s): Number seven, live anticipating Jesus return. I think sometimes we're only living for this life. We're only living for this life for these 67, the 80 90 years that we have a hundred years that we have we're okay. Only living for this life. We can guard effectively what God has entrusted to us by having this anticipation that Jesus will return and then help others do the same for adjust the right time. Verse 15 says it just the right time. Christ will be revealed from heaven by the blessed only almighty God, the king of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords. This is how it all wraps up. Like Jesus will return. 3 (1h 0m 18s): He is coming back. He alone can never die. Speaking of God and he lives in light store, brilliance became God that no human can approach him. No human eyes ever seen him nor ever will all honor and power to him forever and ever. Amen. One commentator wrote such a Lord deserves. It was an awesome reverence combined with complete humility. We, the return of price for some of us is so far in the back of our minds that we're not even thinking about it. And so it doesn't impact the way that we live our lives. We hold on to our, our faith. When we realize that Jesus could return at any moments, he alone, I'll read verse 15 again for just the right time. 3 (1h 1m 0s): Christ will be revealed from heaven by the blessed and only almighty God. The king of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords is surely assuredly. As he came, he will come again. Are we ready for him? Are we living our lives every day? So we're ready. No matter what happens, we're ready to, to meet him. Verse 17 says, trust those who are rich or teach those who are rich in this world, not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Isn't that interesting. He richly gives us all we need for our necessities. 3 (1h 1m 43s): Is that what it says? I mean, it's true, but is that all it says? He says he originally gives us all we need for our enjoyment and that interesting. I think we think sometimes that God is only going to give me the bare minimum and I've have to be happy with that. Well, we need to learn to be content with the bare minimum, but I I've watched God over the course of my life. Richly bless our family and take care of not just our necessities, but our desires. We're going to North Carolina this, this summer or in the fall to go to our niece's wedding. 3 (1h 2m 28s): And so I told Julia in North Carolina, that's the east coast. I said, we'd never been to New York. We got to go. We got to drive the six hours. We got to go up to New York and see New York. We've never been up there. We're going to see Niagara falls and, you know, see, we want this part of the country. We've never been to before. We've never seen before. And so we were talking about it and I, you know, she's, we're wrestling about, you know, talking through how we're going to do it. Now we're going to pay for it. So God will, God will do it. He will do it. I just know he will. I just, there's something about just trusting, not in a irresponsible way, but when you feel like the Lord's in something that you would just do it by God's grace. 3 (1h 3m 11s): I remember a number of years ago, I wanted to take my whole clan to Hawaii and it was going to be a really expensive trip, but I just knew that it was the right thing to do. My kids were getting older. That, that one point we had one grandkid little Levi's. So he traveled with us and I just knew it was the right thing to do. So I said, Hey guys, we're going to take you to Hawaii. All of you, we're going to go and spend some time in Hawaii. And so we did that and God provided for the trip. He took care of the trip. We had amazing sushi in that, remember that restaurant. And it was just amazing sushi and great experiences together. 3 (1h 3m 51s): And the Lord just handle it all through creative financing ways. He just gave us all we needed for that trip. And it was one of the best shifts our family has ever taken. So we have that, that memory, that experience together, there's just, there's something about trusting God with your whole life. And when he calls you to do something, whether it's whatever ministry related or just to bless your family, we can have confidence that he will give us those things. Now we don't want to be irresponsible about it and just flippantly. But when we sense a peace from the Lord, we go for it. We go for it. 3 (1h 4m 31s): Why? Because we walk by faith. We live by faith. We serve God and he can be trusted. So when we're talking about this new building over here, 1 0 2, I believe that that's going to be a beautiful worship center for us. Somebody said recently, I don't want to worship in a warehouse because they look at it. Now it looks like a warehouse. Trust me, I don't want to worship in a warehouse either. It's going to be beautiful over there. Why? Because I just know that God's going to give us what we need to beautify that place to make it a place of worship. So when people come in, they're like, wow, God is here. It's beautiful in here. And it's just going to be a great place to worship. We're going to be able to get a bunch of people in there that can worship together. It's just going to be really fun. 3 (1h 5m 13s): So I'm not, I'm not telling everybody, Hey, cut. Every nickel, watch every dime. Be careful. Don't spend that. I'm just not doing that. I'm saying let's do what is best for the, for God's house. Let's do it with wisdom, but let's do it with excellence. And then we'll see what God does. I think God is worthy of our very best. And so we're, we're not going to be chincy about it. We're going to put in good equipment. We're going to put in really nice lighting, really nice flooring, really nice decorations. It's going to be really, really great all because we believe that God wants to do it that way. 3 (1h 5m 57s): We have people come onto our property all the time. They say, man, you guys maintain this place really well. You know, why do we maintain this place really well? Because it represents who we are in Christ. I don't want people walking onto our property and say, man, this place is run down. Needs, paint, needs paving. I don't want that. I don't want that for my house. And I don't want it for the church. You wouldn't want it for your own house. I'll run down and you didn't needing to be repaired everywhere. I want this place to reflect the beauty of God, the glory of God, not overdone, not opulent, but right, right. The right balance. And so that's what we're all about. So when we, when we fix up buildings, we do it well, when we support missions works, we do, we do well. 3 (1h 6m 40s): When we do ministry by God's grace, we try to do it really well because God's worthy of our very best. Their trust should be in God who originally gives us all we need for our enjoyment, tell them to use their money to do good. Verse. 18 says they should be rich in good works and generous to those in need. Always being ready to share with others, by doing this, they will be storing up their treasures as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life Timothy guard. What God has entrusted to you, avoid godless foolish discussions with those who oppose you with their so-called knowledge. Some people have wandered from the faith by following such foolishness. 3 (1h 7m 21s): May God's grace be with you all? That's the end of first Timothy, and we'll be in second Timothy next week with that, I want to pray with that. I want to have a stand. And with that, I'm gonna invite the worship team forward and we're gonna sing some more. And it's my desire that we would give God our very best in our worship that we would worship in spirit and in truth. And that we would expect the very best from him because he is the giver of the very best. And so Lord, I pray that we would change that we would allow the 1 (1h 7m 55s): Scripture sure. To change our minds about you. Lord personally, I have great expectations, great expectations because I serve a great God. It would be foolish and ridiculous to have low expectations of the king of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It would just be ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. It's not rational, Lord. It's not anything. It just doesn't make any sense. It's a lie of the enemy is what that is. It's a lie of the enemy. So Lord, I pray that you would confront the lies that we've been believing. The fear that we've been feeling in God, that we would move forward as bold servants of the king of Kings and the Lord of Lords that we'd hold tightly to our faith in Jesus name, God, that we would do the hard work to hold tightly, to be faithful, to be sincere, to do the right stuff. 1 (1h 8m 47s): Lord God, to honor you with our every business decision, with every transaction, with every dollar, with every thought you got with everything that we want to honor you Lord God. And by doing so, holding tightly Lord holding tightly, guarding what you have entrusted to us. Lord. We love you. Lord make us men and women of faith, men and women of God. Maybe you're here today. And you just need to confess an area of fear in your life. And, and I'm not going to have you come up to do it. 1 (1h 9m 28s): I'll just have you just, just give a one or two word answer and then I'll repeat it. So everybody, everybody can hear it. What is an area that you're just saying, God, I need to submit this and surrender this to you. What area of fear? We'll just focus on fear. What's your fear. And then just speak it out. And we're going to pray over everybody's who's got fear and anxiety around the Lord. Go ahead. Fear of losing a loved one through bad health. Yes. Yeah. 1 (1h 10m 13s): Fear the future in general. Fear of not having enough fear. Fear of feeling in school. Yeah. Real stuff. You're fearless. You're not being the man of God that he's called you to be yeah. Good, good. 1 (1h 10m 58s): I was praying this morning and I just, I realized about 10 minutes into my prayer walk that I was praying all of these anxious prayers. And it's like the holy spirit just stopped. Say, why, why are you anxious? Prayers, anxious prayers are fear. Prayers. They're worry prayers. They're there. They're not faith prayers. And, and I felt like the Lord, well, the scripture says don't be anxious about anything, but pray about everything. And so I just began to pray differently and maybe that's what the Lord is wanting us to do. Just begin to pray differently and just say, Lord, thank you that as I work hard, I'm going to, I'm going to do well in school. 1 (1h 11m 46s): Thank you Lord. As I keep my eyes on you, I'm going to be the man of God that you want me to be Lord. As I trust you, Lord, I'm going to trust you with the future and with my provision Lord, as I keep my eyes on you and, and believe you got, I'm going to believe that it's a pointed. Every person has a certain span of life appointed by you Lord. And I'm going to trust you that when this person's time is up, it will be REITs. And you're going to give peace and grace for that season. But I'm also going to trust you, Lord God that you're a healer and that you have the capacity and the grace to heal. And so I'm going to ask you to heal as well. Lord God, God, that you will bless my future. 1 (1h 12m 27s): So Lord, thank you that you've got a plan to bless my future. Thank you God, that as I turn my eyes on you and do what you've asked me to do, God, I don't know. I've got nothing to fear. You have nothing to be anxious about your faithful Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, God that you're the God of the impossible. When we're up against impossible things, God, that's where you shine. And so Lord help us to keep our eyes on you, Lord, for relationships and for finances and for spiritual health and mental health and physical health. Lord God, thank you, Lord God build us up in our most holy faith. Like never before we pray, Jesus build us up, Lord God, get us focused on you. 1 (1h 13m 9s): We pray Jesus, thank you. As we sing, we're going to be singing words of truth and words of praise, words that have the power to transform our thinking. And so let's sing with faithful hearts, believing hearts, excited hearts, help us to seem that way Boulevard. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Let's worship. 0 (1h 13m 47s): smooth. singing new songs of the Lord bubbling up in our souls. 0 (1h 21m 14s): Thank you Lord. yes. He didn't want heaven without us. 0 (1h 21m 50s): .