Honoring God in the Testing Times

0 (0s): Thanks for joining us wherever you're at on campus here, outside in loft, the beautiful sanctuary. That's pretty packed for the nine o'clock. Thanks for coming guys. And, and if you're joining online, but regardless we're going to worship 1 (28s): and he . 1 (4m 35s): She says so with you and all that, she says, so , individually. 1 (7m 9s): That means you need to like sing out something. That's your own song. You just need to like sit there and just realize all of these things on a whole new level today, God, that you would speak to us in those areas of our lives, 2 (15m 29s): Where we are fearful, doubtful, faithless in need of just a assurance of your presence, of your power, your ability, Lord God, whether it be relationship or finances or work or other relationships, Lord God, whatever, whatever the case may be. We know God. And we want to know Lord God that you are faithful. And so show us, Lord help us. Lord. That has been so good to be in your presence and pray God that as we open up the word that it would just be a sweet time, sweet time, a time of celebration, time to revelation, Lord God, a time of exploration, Lord and God that you would just do great things. 2 (16m 19s): As we open up our hearts and our minds to your word. Thank you for this time in Jesus name, Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. Thanks guys. Thanks very much. 3 (16m 32s): We'll welcome her to a story recently by these two guys who went to Alaska, who's been to Alaska before few people have been to Alaska. These guys wanted to go to Alaska because they wanted to do some hunting and Alaska and something. They did most years. And so they go to Alaska and they hire a Bush pilot to take them deep into the wilderness so they can get their elk. And they only anticipated getting one elk, but they got two elk this year too. And the Bush pilot flies in to rescue these guys and pull them out. And he's like, Hey, there's no possible way that we can put two elk on this Bush plane and get you out of here. 3 (17m 18s): And the plane just isn't powerful enough. And the guys were like, no, no, no. This happened last year as well. This happened last year, we, we got to ALK last year unexpectedly and we had a smaller plane and he took us out of here. And so we're confident that you can do this. We're confident that you can get us out of here. So reluctantly, the Bush pilots said, all right, well, let's put the elk on there and climb in and see what happens. And so they're cheering him on and he's trying to get out of there trying to lift off the water and it's right. I mean, he's got all this weight. It's difficult, but they lift off in there where their head right toward a mountain. And he's getting cheered on is as they get and they're gaining altitude, they're getting higher and higher. 3 (18m 1s): And, and they, they they're about at the tip of the mountain and they, they almost made it, but they crash. And these two hunters, one talked to the other, said, Hey, 4 (18m 12s): His name was John. And he said, Hey, 3 (18m 14s): Hey John, how do we do? He said, well, you made it about 200 yards farther than we did last year. Terrible story. Right? So I've actually got a story of success. So last week, last week we invited everybody all over the congregation to be praying for our parking situation. You guys remember that how many were praying this week? Like we were praying this week, right? Well, the results of hundreds of people praying is that I, so the city had a meeting apart from me on Monday, they just gathered with their city managers and they had a meeting. And then I get this long email from the city stating that we're still short parking spaces and blah, blah, blah. 3 (18m 57s): So I'm like, ah, where what's going to happen. So they say, we want to get a meeting with you on Thursday this week. And so I went down for a meeting Thursday morning at nine 30. And at, after the Monday information, I, we sent out a reminder to everybody to keep praying and we'll just believe God for what he wants to do. And so sure enough, it was the craziest thing. I show up to the meeting on Thursday morning at nine 30 and it's with two city officials. And they, they said yes to everything. It was like this crazy thing that I was like, totally a appraise moment where they said, Hey, I, I said, Hey, you guys have miscounted. He deleted the number of parking spaces that we have. 3 (19m 37s): We, we actually have, according to the regulation, 10 extra parking spaces, then, then we are actually required to have. And they, they looked at the numbers again and said, yeah, you're right. You're right. Actually you're right. And so they gave us the green lights too, do the projects. They gave us the green light to start the framing and to continue the framing inside there. They said, just don't close it up. Cause we want to be able to, you know, inspect it all. And that sort of thing. They gave us the green light basically to start this week on painting. So I think we should start painting outside this week. I asked them, I said, because we've got a preliminary set of plans. This is another praise the Lord as well. The first architect that we went that we hired to do the project said, you know, I can't get to it for two months and it's going to take two or three months after that to get through the city and blah, blah, blah. 3 (20m 28s): And so we hired another architect and this architect got it done. And he got a preliminary set of plans done for us in about 10 days. And so we've got a preliminary set of plans and they're going out to the subcontractors. The process is a subcontractors have to draw an electrical and plumbing and, and fire sprinklers and all that sort of thing. And then hopefully next this coming week, we'll be able to submit those plans, worst case w w we'll be able to submit those plans. I asked them this guys at the city, I said, how long will it take for them plans to turn around? And so that you can issue a permit because initially the, the, our architect, our first architects said it would take two to three months for the city to turn those plans around. They said, it'll be two weeks, but we're going to try to get it done in 10 days. 3 (21m 10s): So we are months ahead of our original, our, our, our secondary kind of timeframe. And so really good news. Let's throw up some pictures there. We've got some mock-up, this is kind of what the inside of that building will look like shares there's. You can see kind of the back toward the bottom of the screen. You, you walk in that's where the front door you go in and you get their platform and the, the partition wall in the back there, let's go look at the front there next. So that's kind of what it will look like, except for we're changing the color scheme. And the color scheme will be pretty much an off-white on the building with the black trim. 3 (21m 51s): And, and so the reality is, is that we could, we could be in there if everything goes as planned the next like three to four months, as opposed to like six months or whatever it was going to be. So that's really good news on the good news front. We actually, we were able to refinance all of this property. We, we bought it a number of years ago and the rates were higher than they are now. So we were actually able to refinance and drop like two and a quarter points off of the, the, the interest that we were paying. And so with that transaction, we're actually going to be able to pay off the second mortgage that we you have, and yeah, really good news. 3 (22m 32s): And we're going to reduce our monthly by $2,000 a month. Our monthly mortgage will be less 2000, $2,000 less a month, and that second mortgage will get paid off. So, so really good news. So it frees us up to be able to really focus on this, that project to raise up the money that we need to get for that project. And so I did some calculations and I, as I said, last week, then the number initially was it's like 1 25. And then we met with a bunch of contractors and got some bids. And it was it it's going to be closer to 2 25, 220 $5,000 for that remodel, which if we didn't have people in the church volunteering to do a lot of the work that's being done in there, it'd probably be twice that it'd be twice that. 3 (23m 15s): So it's going to be about $225,000. There's roughly, we've raised about $27,000. So we have roughly another 200,000 or so there's always surprises. So we're not sure exactly the hard number, but it's roughly another 200,000. It needs to come in. So now instead of needing it to come in in the next six months, we needed in the next three months. And so this is the deal I, I cracked it down or did I know it's easier like to digest smaller numbers. It's easier for me anyway. And so I said, okay, what is the, if we've got 300 families in the church, what is the number? And the number's about $700 per family. If so, if everybody gave $700, every family gave 700 bucks, we'd be at that mark and be able to get the project paid, bought and paid for in the next few months. 3 (24m 3s): So I know a lot of you have already bought chairs and squares. I've already bought chairs and squares, but in light of this new information, our family is going to give at least that 700 and we're going to do everything we can. And so I'm just asking you to pray about doing the same thing, if you can great, some will be able to do more than that. And that will be great because some won't be able to do anything at all, just because of circumstances and that sort of thing. So again, just pray, say, Lord, do you want me to participate in this? And if so, how much is it? 700? Is it 1400 2100, some will be able to give more in the past, we've had people give $30,000 to projects like this $50,000 to projects like this. 3 (24m 43s): So whatever you want to do, I believe at the end of the three months or four months or so, we'll get that project done, bought and paid for without any debt. And that's going to be really important. So anyway, so I'm going to pray for that and pray for our tax. We're back in first, Timothy chapter six today, continuing our study in first Timothy. And so why don't we go and stand up and I know we've already prayed and that sort of thing, we're going to pray some more. In fact, if you would like to, if you feel compelled to come and pray over this whole project, I want to give us a minute or so to do that, but you have to come up to speaking to Vox one again. So we're not going to take a ton of time to do this, but I just want to give people an opportunity to pray over this and pray into it. 3 (25m 27s): And so if that's you, then I'll start and you come on up and speak into it. If not, no big deal. We'll just continue on with the message. But Lord, we just want to pray. We thank you God for open doors for answered prayer, Lord. It's amazing what happens when hundreds of people just decide to pray and to believe for your hand to move in difficult and, and really seemingly impossible situations. Lord God. So we say, thank you for that Lord. Thank you. It it's it's, it's, it's, it's amazing what you will do. Somebody said last week, it's a Jericho moment for our church. And as we prayed, and as we believed the, the walls came down and we were able to, we're able to get in and access and, and make progress with this new space that we have. 3 (26m 14s): Lord God. So we say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. We believe God that you're in this. We believe that this will give us a greater opportunity to impact our community and our world with the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. And so we say yes and amen to your plans. We thank you for your plan and we believe God you're in it. And that you're going to provide for us. So your will be done. We pray. Thank you, Jesus. Anybody else wanna be bold? Damn. This is so surprising. It's you're being bold. Here will be required. 0 (26m 52s): We're going to be required. Lord. As, as these people come into this new facility, Lord to love on them, to show them Jesus, Lord, help us to do that. Lord, the project's going to happen. The funds are going to come in, but there's one thing that we cannot buy. Lord, it's your presence. We need your anointing on this place. Lord, we need you to walk the aisles. Lord. We need you to put your hands on people, Lord, and set them free Lord and open their eyes that they might receive the word and be saved. Lord father. We just place it in your hands. Lord in Jesus name. Thank you, man. 0 (27m 32s): Thank you, Lord. Thanks Dave. Anybody else? 4 (27m 40s): All right, well thank you Lord. We're so grateful and we're, 3 (27m 43s): We're going to continue to pray and ask and seek and knock Lord God, and then do what you've asked us to do and just trust you for the outcome, Lord God. And so thank you for this time. God bless the word to our hearing. We prayed Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. First, Timothy chapter six, we actually took a break from our first Timothy study for a number of weeks to talk about faith and all kinds of stuff. And so faith will obviously be weaved into everything that we do because without faith, it's impossible to please God. And so he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And so we want to always honor him with our faith. So we've covered a lot so far in our study and I just kind of, to kind of recap here. 3 (28m 26s): Remember we spent two weeks asking God, two questions. What do you want me to do today? That was the first question. And then Lord, what do you want to do through me today? So there's similar questions, but what do you want me to do today? What do you want to do through me today were a couple of questions that we spent a couple of weeks talking about. Also we asked what does godliness look like? And you can go back and listen to the messages and get all of these, all of this information. But these are just kind of the highlights we declared faith in. Jesus changes everything. We talked about integrity. We warned against false teachers. We talked about the mercy of God. We received instruction about worship. 3 (29m 7s): We talked about leadership within the church. We received wisdom in dealing with widows and elders all from first Timothy and today as we wrap up, well, actually we'll take a couple of weeks to rock up first, Timothy chapter six. Today we'll learn how to respond to difficult situations. We will look at what promotes godly living and we'll see how to avoid snares concerning money. So the message is titled today, honoring God in the testing times, honoring God, the testing time, if you've ever been through a test before I talked with a guy yesterday who was going through a pretty legitimate test and after long, long conversation with him, he realized that he just needed to humble himself in the midst of the test, trusting that God is sovereign trusting that God sees him and has seen his progress in his life and that he could, he can trust God and not worry about what men think. 3 (30m 11s): And so at the end of the day with his test, he decided to keep his eyes on God, not get welled up sometimes in a test, if we're being falsely accused or whatever the case may be, we can kind of well up with pride or get angry or get frustrated or get disappointed. But the test I've found in my life. And as we see through scripture, the tests always reveal something about us and it's an opportunity for God to shape us, to, to refine us and to make us into the men and women that he desires for us to be so honoring God in the testing time. It's this is the most important time in our lives where we need to figure out how to honor the Lord. 3 (30m 55s): And so we're going to look at some circumstances here in first, Timothy chapter six, and try to figure some stuff out today. So number one, we must honor God. Especially when in a test, we must honor God, especially within a test. I've noticed that God doesn't always deliver us from the test he will deliver ultimately, but it's not until we learn the lesson that the test is designed to teach us. Have you noticed that? And if we get through the task without having learned the lesson that the test was designed to teach us, we just find ourselves in that same test over and over again until because God is good. 3 (31m 36s): He wants us to learn lessons. He'll just take us through the ringer one more time and help us out of his great love so that we might learn from the test. The thing that we need to learn from the test, why? Because the next test is going to require what we learned from the last test. And I was, as I was sharing with this guy yesterday and talking with this guy yesterday, actually my wife and I were both talking with him. We said, this is a unique test, meaning that this isn't something that you could foresee. And that often is the test. It's like, this is something that I couldn't foresee, something I really couldn't prepare for. But previous tests in this man's life were preparing him for this unique test. 3 (32m 18s): And I wonder what your unique test is. We must honor God. Especially when in a tests, God doesn't deliver us from the test. Usually just gives us the instructions about how to navigate the test. And he's teaching us something through the test. Israel was in Egypt for 400 years. It was a big long 400 year that God delivered them. Eventually he did. He delivered them eventually taking them through the wilderness. They were in the wilderness for 40 years because they couldn't figure out how to pass the test. And so God kept them in the test until, until they figured it out. And they, they were able to trust the Lord. 3 (32m 59s): And so Joshua was able to take them into the promised land. Last week, we talked about the testing of the early church, the apostles specifically how each of them suffered physically in their physical bodies for their faith. It was a test. Remember the test prior to the cross, when Jesus gets arrested, what happened? Everybody's scattered, right? It was a test. It was a test. What do you do when there's opposition? What do you do when things are unfolding differently than you expected, will you pass the test? And so many of them failed the test. It seems like the only ones who pass the test are the women around Jesus. They were painful to Jesus when he was arrested at the cross. 3 (33m 41s): And it seemed like everybody else, especially the man they scattered, but they learned something in that testing about sticktuitiveness about obedience, about faithfulness, about trust. And so after the crucifixion, after the resurrection, after the Ascension, when Jesus sent them out, they had a new boldness. They were filled with the holy spirit, right power was in them. And they had this new boldness so that when the test hit them again, when opposition hit them again, not with somebody else, but in their own physical bodies, they were able to endure. And most of them died, suffering persecution for their faith. 3 (34m 24s): All of them suffered persecution. And most of them actually ended up dying at the hand of their enemies. So we look at verse one in first, Timothy chapter six, we're talking about slaves for a moment here for a few, few minutes. And as I honestly was thinking about slavery and maybe your text says servants, first one says, all slaves, maybe your text says servants, same word should show full respect for their masters. They w so they will not bring shame on the name of God and his teachings. It was difficult for me. I spent four days thinking about this, this one verse wrestling with this idea of slavery and why isn't God speak differently about slavery? 3 (35m 10s): What's what's the backstory here? Why, why are people instructed to live honorably in this dishonorable relationship? And so I've discovered some things and worked through some things. And I figured some things out and was able to write a halfway, hopefully coherent message that speaks to us in this 21st century world, where we're not in this culture. In other cultures around the world, there is slavery. There is that type of oppression, but we don't necessarily see it. Although there are in the sex trade, their sex slaves in our culture, in our communities, in our country. 3 (35m 54s): And so there is that sort of thing, but it's kind of veil that's behind closed doors. We don't necessarily, we're not necessarily impacted or participating in it, but it's happening. So it's difficult to hae the instruction in a difficult situation. And so I just spent four days praying about it and thinking about it and I'm writing about it so that we might hopefully come away today with some understanding without glossing over anything. So slaves, the word slave into Greek is do loss. It's it means servant or slave do loss in the vines. 3 (36m 33s): Expository dictionary says this. It means bond man or bond made from the word de IO to bind a slave. Originally the lowest term in the scale of servitude came also to me. And one who gives him self up to the will of another. You can read about that first Corinthians seven or Roman six, and do a lot of became the most common and general word for the word servant in Matthew eight and nine nine. And it became a meaning of defining a servant, but without bondage, without, without the type of slavery con you know, things that we kind of conjure up in our head, you know, civil war, slavery type stuff. 3 (37m 15s): So it became, it started out, you know, slavery and kind of changed and morphed into this word servant. In fact, in calling himself a bond slave of Jesus, Paul recognized that he was a servant, a do loss, a bond slave of the Lord, Jesus Christ. He talks about that in Romans one, one. Then he had been formerly a bond slave of Satan, and that having been brought to a bought by Christ, he was now a willing bond slave to a new master. So do loss is a word for slave or servant one person owning another. As I broke it down, I thought this is one person owning, and this is difficult to, for us to digest and to understand why, why didn't the script, why don't the scriptures address it differently. 3 (38m 5s): And we're going to understand that here as we go forward. So do the last one person owning another one person controlling the life of another one person in charge of another so difficult situation, difficult place. If you're the slave to try to figure out how to honor the Lord in that relationship. But this is a, as I thought about it, I realized this is a clear picture of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Again, Paul declared Romans one and Peter declared this to be true. Second Peter, one, one Peter said this letter is from Simon, Peter, a slave that same word, do loss and apostle of Jesus Christ. So Peter, the one who abandoned Christ now identifies himself as a slave of Christ and an apostle of Christ. 3 (38m 52s): He realized that his life needed to be a hundred percent God's in order for him to be faithful to the calling that was upon his life and faithful to the sacrifice that Jesus made on his behalf. So Peter declared Paul declared, they declared this about themselves, that they are slaves of God, slaves of God. It said, we, we are owned as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We are owned by God. This is, this is what Christianity means. This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. We are owned by God, one person owning and other Jesus owns us. We've been bought with a price. So as I thought about slavery, it kind of put, it helped me to understand it from a different context. 3 (39m 35s): And I've talked through this before and I've wrestled with it before, and I've understood some things before, but it was just, I wrestled with it again in this go around, do loss. One person can owning another one person controlling the life of another. That's really what Jesus has called us into. He's called us into a life where we're filled with the spirit of God and controlled by the spirit of God. The Jesus actually is meant to have control of our lives through the power of the holy spirit. One person owning another controlling the life of another one person in charge of another, as Christians, we are to submit to the leadership of Jesus Christ, but then there's the institution of slavery. How are slaves and slave owners to relate to one another? 3 (40m 17s): And we read again, first I made the six one, all slaves should show full respect for their masters. So they will not bring shame on the name of God and his teaching that that's strong language flavor to show respect so that they don't bring shame. So God, so yeah, you're Paul instructs slaves to show full respect for their masters. John F Woolford wrote under normal circumstances, slaves and masters had no association outside the institution of slavery with the advent of the gospel, with the preaching of the gospel. However, these two groups found themselves thrown together in the congregation in, in new ways, creating problems. 3 (41m 1s): The apostles were forced to deal with repeatedly. So here Paul instructs slaves, how to show full respect for their masters. First Corinthians seven 20 and 22. Paul puts the Christian life into perspective. The slave life into perspective, whether slave or free we are slaves of God, let's read first Corinthians 7, 20, 22. You in the, again, Paul puts things into perspective here. He says, yes, each of you should remain. As you were, when God called you, are you a slave? Don't let that worry you. But if you get a chance to be free, take it and run. Amber. If you were a slave, when the Lord called you, you are now free in the Lord, right? 3 (41m 43s): It's it's, it's almost an oxymoron. We're free. We're free in the Lord in the sense that we're from underneath this type of slavery, but were instead choosing to be slaves of the Lord, Jesus Christ. But with that comes great freedom. It's, it's, it's, it's a difficult concept for us to understand. There's freedom. Someone say that there's freedom and we're able to do whatever it is that we want to do. But all that kind of life creates in us is bondage. We become slaves to the things that we obey. And so if we're, if we're saying I feel most free when I'm able to do whatever I want to do, we're believing a lie because the reality is all that that life does is entrap us and enslave us. 3 (42m 28s): W what we're told in the scripture is that if we're in Christ, where we find freedom and Liberty, because we serve a good master, whose first desire is to bless us and to save us and to forgive us and to redeem us and to set us free in it, to adopt us into his family. I remember if you were a slave, when the Lord called you, you are now free in the Lord. And if you were free, when the Lord called you, you are now a slave of Christ. Isn't that interesting? It's it changes the paradigm a little bit. It's a, it's a bit of a paradox. I mean, I know I wrestled with this question. Why didn't Paul just speak out against the institution of slavery? 3 (43m 8s): Why didn't he just speak out against it? I mean, it's obviously deplorable, but the truth, this slavery was so a part of the Roman culture and down throughout history, it was enshrined in Roman law. If Paul went after this institution of slavery, he would have had to devote his whole life to the overturning of this institution. But instead he realized that if he would just preach the gospel, if you would take the gospel to the region and to the area, then, then freedom would ultimately be the results. Paul spent all this time calling people to recognize Jesus leadership. 3 (43m 51s): So slave and, and master. He spent all of his time calling people to recognize Jesus leadership and Lordship so that they might come under his authority. Paul knew that the reign of king Jesus would resolve all injustices. And that's what we look forward to. But we've got to have a kingdom purpose, a kingdom perspective, believing that submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God, and to his reign and his rulership will well, we will begin to handle all injustices because when the heart of a person changes, whether it be a master or a slave, God begins to change the way that they their lives. 3 (44m 34s): But Paul didn't tell slaves again, first Corinthians 7 21. If you can get a chance to be free, take it like that. If you can get out of that desperate situation, get out of it. But in the meantime, Paul gives instruction. This is about the relationship of slaves to their master. This is good instruction for employees, as well as slaves. And so maybe this is where it kind of bridges over to our lives because most of us are employed somehow where we re we, we report to someone. So maybe we can read verse one, all slaves, servants, employees, et cetera, should show full respect for their masters. So they will not bring shame on the name of God. 3 (45m 16s): And his teachings words were to do everything is unto the Lord. Even if we've got a boss, a manager, an overseer who's unjust, who's not easy to work for. Who's not fun to be employed by. We have a biblical responsibility to honor that person, those people, that company, that respect, possibility that we have within the company. We have a responsibility to honor it, where to do everything that we do as onto the Lord. So this is a difficult thing. If you're a slave, if you're also, if you work for a difficult person, this is, this is hard to do. 3 (45m 58s): But if we can't honor the Lord in the testing times, there are, there's not, there's probably not much two hours faith, right? Especially if we keep going around the same band. And so maybe you're in a bad situation at work. And the Lord's trying to show you something, just sit, commit to his plan, submit to what he's trying to show you and watch the beauty beautiful work that he will accomplish in your life. So if you work at a job that you do not enjoy, if you work for a person, a difficult person that you don't enjoy, just ask the Lord, Lord, how do I honor you? And honor my employer in this situation showing full respect act means a number of things. 3 (46m 44s): I just wrote down a handful of them. What does it mean to show full respect? If we're, this is what God has called us to do. What does that look like? I wrote down. Number one, do you do the job you're paid for basics? Right? Sometimes though when we're disgruntled, we try to, we get in there and we do the very minimum, but we actually dishonor God when we do that, because he's told us that we're actually working for him. And where did you? Everything is under him and not as the men. So we actually have a holy calling as, as hours of the Lord, Jesus Christ, a holy calling to do to the job that we're paid for, with excellence, what work diligent D work diligently, all of the hours were paid for. 3 (47m 29s): So no lunches showing up late, no going home early, do the work that you're paid for. And then be on time. When we hire a new person at harvest, I sent him into Ron's office. I say, Ron, tell them how we operate around here. And so Ron gives them the rundown. He's like, you don't ever want to be late, right? Because I don't like it when somebody is late, they'll argue. What if you're late? Well, I'm not sure actually late cause the meeting doesn't start till I get there. Right? So, so I use my own justification cause I'm, I'm a late at times, but there are in every work culture. 3 (48m 14s): There's an expectation, right? Do the job you're paid for work diligently all the hours you're paid for beyond time, have a good attitude, go the extra mile. These are all things that every employer values and expects from their people. So maybe your boss is your test. I've had plenty of those in my work life. Your boss is your test. Maybe your job is your tests. Maybe your circumstances or your tests. What is, what is your task? What is God wanting to teach you so that you can graduate from that test? W we're in graduation season, and God wants you to graduate from that test so that he can take you into another test. But with the test, come maturity, depth strength with the tests there there's growth and there's progress. 3 (49m 11s): And we get unstuck. When we graduate from a test and we get promoted into other things, things test help us to see our blind spots, tests, strengthen our faith tests, I guess rely on God to remind us that we need him honoring God in the testing time. Number one, we must honor God. Especially when in a test re closely related to this one is the second point here. We must honor God. When dealing with people very much like I just talked about, but slightly different. It says if the masters are believers, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. 3 (49m 52s): Verse two, those slaves should work all the harder because they're, their efforts are helping other believers. You are well loved. So when the master and the slave share the same faith, sometimes there can be. And especially if they go to the same church, part of the same fellowship, you can sometimes as a worker, as a servant, as an employee, get a little slack, right? Because there's familiarity and friendship, right? So you can actually become a burden to the person that you're working for because you've gotten too close to them. And you've decided you've decided that just because they're there because they're your friends or brother or sister in Christ that you don't need to work as hard because they won't get rid of you. 3 (50m 43s): I fired, I fired plenty of people who were brothers in the Lord, sisters in the Lord when they weren't doing their job because there's no room for it in God's kingdom. There's just no room for it. We're called to work as unto the Lord. And when we don't work as unto the Lord, the result is that you lose your job. It's just the way it works in the, in the world. And that's how it works everywhere. And it's how it works around here. If the masters are believers, there's no excuse for being disrespectful. Disrespect would be, Hey, showing up late, not working your hours, leaving early, being lazy and not going the extra mile servants should work all the more diligently to bless the believer they work for, right? 3 (51m 36s): Whether the, your employer or boss is a believer or not, the servant should work as unto the Lord and not unto men. First time of the six to second part talks about false teachers and cheer riches says this, teach these things, Timothy, teach what things to me, the wall, all this stuff that he's been talking about in this book. And first Timothy, and up to this point and verse six, teach these things. Timothy, encourage everyone to obey them. Some people may contradict our teachings, but these are the wholesome teachings of the Lord. Jesus Christ. They, these teachings promote a godly life. 3 (52m 16s): So Paul's instruction to young Timothy as he pastored the church and emphasis is to help people to live a godly life. But there's other people with a different agenda with different motivation. So Paul's instructing Timothy as Paul is Timothy spiritual father and overseer. He's instructing them. He's instructing Timothy to teach these things that he wrote about in the first letter to Timothy his teachings promote a godly life. The verse says, and this is what's always the motivation of a good teacher promoting a godly life. This is the desire. This is the desire that is within a good Bible teacher. They want to promote godly living. 3 (52m 58s): They feel a call to promote godly living. So number three, in our notes, we must honor God with what we teach and believe most honored God with what we teach and believe. So perfect example of this is that how many have heard of any grand personality too? Yes. Few of us. Right. Well, so we, as a staff started investigating and, and, and kind of helping to understand personalities. We, we started researching Enneagrams and personality tests so that we might help. So we might be helped in understanding how to relate one to another, but this is the problem we just found out recently that it's it's origins is the new age of movement. 3 (53m 42s): We had no idea. And so we're done with any Agram. Yeah. It's not from the lowered and we didn't realize it. We just thought it's just a personality test while bot and somebody highlighted it to us. I said, Hey, have you looked into any grams deeper? And we said, no. And they said, well, here here's a podcast. And so we listened to it. And so we're no longer, we don't want to use anything. That's not from the word of God. And if we're, if we make a mistake and we, we, we realized that we're thinking about things differently. Or if I'm not a biblical perspective or believing something, that's not biblical than we than we are. We, we, we have to change our minds. 3 (54m 23s): And I wonder if maybe coming out of, you know, the world, we come into the church and we, we bring with us worldly things that aren't from God. And we try to merge them or marry them, or hold on to them as we try to follow Jesus. And as we realize that those things are from God, we have this responsibility in the scripture, people involved in the occult, they brought their books, their sorcery books, and they burned them to the tune of millions of dollars in sorcery. But they burned them because they knew that they weren't from the Lord and they needed to get rid of them. 3 (55m 5s): So maybe you've got some stuff in your life that you need to burn. Maybe it's pornography, maybe it's I was getting this wrong astrology. Is that astrology the signs. And is it astrology or is it astronomy? It's astrology, right? I never get that. Right. Maybe you're reading that every day in the paper. It's it's new age, it's cult type stuff that you shouldn't, you need to be looking to God's word, to direct your steps and to direct your life, not to the local, you know, the recent astrology stuff, is it that God is trying to strip out of your life because it's, it's not from him. It's something that you're holding onto. I don't know what it is. 3 (55m 46s): Only. You can know that only God only, but when you have the responsibility to do what we did, when we figured out we were on the wrong path regarding this, any grant thing we, we scrapped did immediately. Like we didn't have to have a conversation with God about it. We realized this is not from the Lord. So we got to scrap it for anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lax understanding. Be careful for God, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. If what you're doing is swelling you with arrogance, be careful, be careful, such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. 3 (56m 30s): I've seen this happen over and over again. And it's divisive people within the church, quibbling over marginal doctrinal, things that cause division people in the greater church, the, of the church in the community, in the world, people squabbling over things that are unimportant, that is causing division within the church. It stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt and they have turned their backs on the truth to them. A show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy. 3 (57m 11s): I remember. Yeah. Sincere teacher of God's word. The desire of that man or woman is that they would help people grow in godliness. It's always about pointing people to Jesus. It's always about pointing people to the word it's always about by God's grace. Doing what God has asked us to do. Paul addressed the same issue in chapter one. It's like, he's come full circle. If you go back and read first Timothy chapter one, we've come full circle where Paul's addressing false teachers within the church. Paul's teachings are designed to promote a godly life. These others are causing people to divide within the church causing problems. 3 (57m 57s): Verse four. Again, such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. The serves up arguments, ending it ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt and they have turned their backs on the truth to them. And show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy. So a person's motivation and teaching should be to point people to Jesus, not for some kind of gain to make people aware of their need for his grace. To help people have a kingdom perspective, to encourage people, to share their faith, to challenge people, to live for Jesus, to do what we are doing today, encouraging people to honor God in everything. 3 (58m 40s): If a person's motivation is personal it's for, if it's for gain to be heard, their motivation is skewed and unhealthy and the result won't be good and godly. So number four, we must honor God with our ability to be content as we wrap up these last few verses. So we're, we've got this opportunity to honor God in all these areas of our lives. And the last area for today is our ability to be content correct. 10 men in a consumer-driven culture is very difficult like that. 3 (59m 20s): Every ad, every television commercial, everything that we read about or hear about is, is, is to create Discontentment in our lives. Like, Hey, you can have this new truck. I use that illustration because I'm always looking at new trucks, right? I don't need a new truck. Right. But I'm always admiring new trucks. You can have this new thing, this new shiny gadget. You can have one, you can have all of these things. Right. I saw David Apadaca his new Harley Davidson. I'm like, I get to have a new Harley Davidson, but I don't need a Harley. My wife doesn't want me to have early, so I'll probably never get early. So there you go. But it's another shiny thing. I'll ride yours. Thank you very much. 3 (59m 60s): I appreciate that. We just have to be careful that we're not always running to the next shiny thing because it gets us distracted from God's plan for his life. For our lives. I've noticed that being content leads to peace, being content leads to peace, being discontent, always kind of keeps you anxious. Right? Verse six says yet true godliness with contentment is itself. Great wealth. I don't think you can actually have contentment without true godliness because true godliness gives us that perspective that, Hey, I'm not living for this life. My life is not my own. I belong to the Lord. 3 (1h 0m 40s): My stuff belongs to the Lord. So yet true godliness with contentment is, is self great wealth. That's where we find the true wealth in life. 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. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. That's probably one of the hardest verses in scripture, right? We have enough food and clothing. Let us speak intent. Especially in our culture where we are consumers as a rule, it's hard to think about the basics of food and clothing and being content with those things. The only thing we take with us when we die, our, our good works. 3 (1h 1m 21s): That's it. That's it. You don't get to take your Harley with ya. I don't get to take my truck with me. I don't get to take my guns with me or whatever it is that I've got. The only thing I get to take is my good works. Everything else is wood, hay and stubble. Like the farmer had too many crops. He's like, Hey, build bigger barns, right? Bigger barns, bigger bank accounts, bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger, whatever. And the scripture says, you fool it tonight. You're very tonight that you're very, your life is, is required of you. 3 (1h 2m 2s): I don't know. I just continue. Mint brings a balance and a piece to life like nothing else, but people verse nine says, but people who long to be rich, fall into temptation are trapped many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people creating money have wandered from the true faith and prac pierced themselves with many sorrows. People do that with dads, you know, do it all kinds of different ways. You have to have something, you go get it. It just requires maintenance and work and debt and all kinds of stuff. 3 (1h 2m 47s): I talked with a buddy of mine a few years ago and I said, why don't you, why aren't, why aren't you in church? Why, what what's going on? You you've been out of church for so long. Why aren't you in church? And he said, you know, why not church? Because I don't want to let go of my money. I appreciated his honesty. I don't want to tie the said, I don't want to. If I go to church, I know they're going to talk to me about money buying. All right, we'll stay at a church. Then you can't serve God money. So you made your choice. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, honoring God in the testing times. Number one, we must honor God. 3 (1h 3m 27s): Especially when in a tests, when dealing with people with what we teach and believe and with our ability to be content. So how do we respond to difficult situations? We need to honor God, right? Let's invite the worship team out and we're going to sing some more songs. How do we deal with difficult situations? That's one of the questions that we said we talked about in the beginning. We just choose to honor God by putting him first, by doing what he asks us to do, what promotes godly living. That's one of the other questions that we said we'd highlight biblical and godly teaching is what ti what promotes godly living. So get under some good biblical and godly teaching and watch your life become more godly. 3 (1h 4m 8s): How do we avoid snares concerning money? Love God more than you love your money. That's just basically the bottom line. So with that, why don't we go and stand up? And we're going to worship some more and honor the Lord with our singing. Amen. Amen, Lord. Thank you for this time. Thank you God, for your word, for what it has taught us, pray that it would sink deep in our souls and continue to convict us and change us. Challenge us God that it would show us your great love for us in Jesus name. Amen. Let's worship. 1 (1h 4m 54s): my eye to see that you're shaping my to trust what you say. 1 (1h 7m 28s): you say you're the inside. 1 (1h 9m 23s): If you Baila one final breath. 1 (1h 11m 31s): The son of God. we seeing her. 1 (1h 13m 41s): We see, we see, we see, we see, we see them. we see, we see, 0 (1h 16m 39s): We see, thank you God, for just faithfully meeting us whenever we never, we step in and we invite you. You show up God, thank you for, for just opening your word and giving us truth this morning. And I just bless this as we go Lord and keep us, keep, keep our gaze ever on you. As we, as we depart this morning and, and all that Jesus name. Amen.