February 9 PM

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EEBC Sunday Nights  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  24:53
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What's good Lord in prayer together and we'll continue on father. Thank you for this day. Thank you that we can come together or to be taught by the Bible led by the spirit pray that you will help us to listen well to your work this evening in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Since we come now to 1st Timothy. To try to get back on track with with 1st Timothy. We took a little bit of a detour last week, but trying to press all through that because there's about four hundred other sermon series in in line behind going through 1st Timothy that we need to get to And where in 1st Timothy Chapter 3 we're going to be primarily focused on verses 14 15 and 16 in a minute. But to get to where we are again. Keep in mind what the purpose of 1st Timothy is. It's a letter from Paul to Timothy who is in Ephesus responsible for strengthening and teaching the church in the end of pointing folks to lead it and establishing leadership. And so 1st Timothy 3 starts and gives us qualifications for the Pastoral leadership of the church and then gives us the qualifications for the deacons that are involved in leadership in the church and then we've got some of those character qualities and if it's again important to note that most of the qualifications that Paul addresses that we see in scripture or character more so than they are. Skill skill matters but anybody can learn skill if you're willing to try and if you're willing to devote it to develop and put forth the effort if you're willing to be taught you can learn. Characters got to be something that's internal and it has two it has to be growing within you. So that's where we fed. And now we're on we've wrapped up deacons is over with verse 14 and soap All rights to Timothy says I write these things to you hoping to come to you soon. But if I should be delayed I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household. Which is the truth, which is the Church of the Living God the pillar and foundation of the truth and most certainly the mystery of godliness is great. He was manifested in the flesh Vindicated in the spirit theme By Angels preached among the nation preached on believed on in the world and taken up in glory. And so this is how chapter 3 wraps up Paul write a thesis. I write these things to you and course. We let me punch this up here. We've got the the the timeline hear that kind of gives you some spots where all of this fits and we're down in in a D60 to 265 somewhere in there. So we're about 30 to 35 years after the day of Pentecost where we are in the morning in the book of Acts for the churches established after Jesus has risen and ascended and this is where we are all kind of gives this this summary of what he's been preaching and teaching. Now this is a map that goes with with this Ephesus is labeled as down here in the bottom Paul. Is it in some of these other places? These are some of the places that polish travel to let's take a look at what what he's talking about. First of all, he says he writes these things I write these things to you. Hoping to come to you soon. Paul's hope is at this point to travel to where Timothy has to travel to Ephesus to help Timothy with what he's got going on. Now notice what you got. I write these things to you.

And whenever you see that as used to look at scripture as you're reading the Bible as you look at the word of God when you see a reference like that an important part of this is what what what what are these things?

Just like if somebody were to simply walk up to you in the middle of the day and say don't forget these things and then turn around and walk off. You say will what things men are supposed to forget. I don't know which these things were referring to. So you need to look both back and a little bit forward with these things. I write these things to you. And that's a reference primarily to where he's established. This is what you're looking for in the people to help you leave the church. These are the character qualities that you're looking for. These are the abilities that you need. Hoping to come to you soon in part of that is an instruction. You need to be appointing these leaders because Timothy when I come with you than you and I are going to get back on the road get back to to the preaching into traveling. And two going around to the other churches, but he writes to 2 Timothy to make sure that Timothy knows what's going on. So Timothy has an understanding. Of what's happening, but now then he hopes for a face-to-face Gathering.

one of the things that we cannot forget Is how important? It can be to have face-to-face time that you gather that you learn together that your grow together that you work together. Rapidly becoming a a digital society that tends to think that actual interaction with other people can be disposed of that we can live without that because hey are you it's all on Facebook. It's going to be fine. But here Paul is longing for a face-to-face meeting with Timothy and not only with Timothy but with the rest of the church. We cannot substitute a virtual experience for the experience of real people face-to-face.

As much as it might be easier and simpler and from time to time it might be necessary like during flu season to say hey instead of going to church. We just going to watch it on YouTube. Going to watch a live stream in Algood Rock rocking music. So you'll get a chance to get some good preaching that type of thing. But there is something better about being in the presence of one another. That is better than being in the presence of your laptop screen for you know, some of you may have he no big home theater systems a big projectors and such but there's still something better about being present.

Paul hopes for a face-to-face meeting with Timothy in a face-to-face meeting with the church because he knows that that is of even better value than simply writing. However, he also makes preparation for the fact that he may not make it if I should be delayed I've written so that you will know how people are to conduct themselves and God's house whole just in case I don't get there or something slows me down because you never can tell what they actually going to get in your way. I've written so that you will know.

Timothy knows how people are to conduct themselves. Then the implication is the Timothy's expected to teach that and to pass that on. And in fact, you should be passing it on to the leaders that we have just talked about to the pastor's to the deacons to the Elders of the church who was then live it out and teach it out to the people around them.

The other value of having written it is that it survives and it passes forward. Sometimes we make this mistake and we think it we think everything will be all right, and we think that well, we will just people with will get around to it eventually and will always have a chance. There's always a chance I'll be able to tell this person what needs to happen or I'll be able to say to people what I need to say to them.

But you never can tell if you're going to be delayed. Or if other portions of life will get in the way and you don't get the opportunity to say to people what you need to say.

And there's been a great many times within churches. That we have been. greatly sidetracked because with one generation thought that the Next Generation would either pick it up or guess at it or that they have plenty of time to pass on the information and they never actually got around to it.

And in the next group of people comes along and you say well, how do we fix this? How do we do that?

I've seen churches end up completely paralyzed for example of Vacation Bible School time because Ole Miss Miss Miss Ellen, so she always ran VBS and everything went wonderfully.

And then her husband retired and they moved. And suddenly nobody knew how to handle Vacation Bible School at all. Because they lost that person. We have to make sure that we passed those things on.

Which people will know how to conduct themselves in God's household.

See that we can easily get sidetracked on the idea of your will what what are we talking about with household? So let's answer that question. When we look at a household we tend to think because we are as American people we are small household folks.

Because to us our household is who are the people who live in our house, right? That's our definition. That's our idea of a household is who lives in our house.

But in the Roman world where polish writing to Timothy a household is a much bigger operation.

A household has a leader the paterfamilias they feed the father who is kind of overall But it includes not just the husband and wife but it's got kids grandkids to cousins the the married and and and unmarried brothers and sisters who those who have been widowed those who have who have lost those those cousins who have lost their parents because diseases run rampant and so they're brought into the household to be raised up. It includes all the people that work in the household when you see the Roman World talk about a household. You're not talkin about 5 people. You're not even probably talkin about 8 to 10 people you're talkin about a dozen or more of extended family relationships. You're talkin grandparents on both sides. You're talkin Aunts Uncles all of those folks.

And so when we see this idea of God's household Paul uses that it shows up and his letters a lot the idea of the the family nature of those who follow Christ in faith with God as the father. He's the one in charge of the household Jesus as the son who is also in charge of the household cuz he's the the the the head of the house or the head of the church and then all the rest of us are all connected and grafted into that family. Scripture uses the language of adoption which was a Roman Roman concept. Once you were adopted you were permanently adopted your added to the household. You couldn't get thrown out any more than somebody who was biologically Born Into the household could be thrown out. And so we are adopted into God's household.

And you did business related to who the people in your household and who your house the Greek word there for those who'd like to know it is the word Oikos, which is now a brand of yogurt. Okay, tell me I'll probably eat Oikos yogurt. It means the name of that brand means household household yogurt. So I don't know what Activia means so, you know, I don't know if you want household yogurt to the other kind but in God's household this house and how you did who you did business with was related to who your household had a positive relationship with. How you interacted with politics with culture there were standards that were in our household we do this. And that was just expected all the way around and that's what this is talking about conduct yourselves in God's household. They should know how how to conduct themselves in God's household. This is what the family does. Other families might do other things but in God's family we do this. We love our neighbor as ourselves in God and God's family. We behave in this manner. We we act in a way that glorifies Christ. That's what he's talking about is that it's an overall interaction and it's a pattern and a way of life. Not just a gathering for worship a couple hours a week, but rather an overall way of life how you conducted yourself in the marketplace. How you conducted yourself when you went to the city assembly and argued about what the city was going to do how you conducted yourself when drafted into the army was all related to your household. And so how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household. Just the Church of the Assembly of the Living God the pillar and the foundation of the truth.

It's truth going to be upheld in the world. It's got to be done by God's people.

Tonight and I'm sure we've got him a last week had some people missed it to watch the Superbowl. No tonight. We have some people miss church to watch the Oscars because you know, everybody celebrates the video different things different ways to DVR. Did you catch the blighter but

LSS we look at these things and we get we look it up at a football game. We look at the Oscars. We look at movies. We look at the Grammys or or the Emmys. That's the TV Awards or whatever else and we start to ask this question will why? Does this group or that group? Why can't they help uphold the truth in the world around us? But ultimately it's not Oscars job. To be the pillar and foundation of the truth. It's not it's not the lumbar. It's not Lombardi's job much is Vince Lombardi was a good guy. It's not that you know, you can't rely on the Green Bay Packers to proclaim the truth in this world. Author job is the church's job to be the pillar and foundation of the truth in this world. And it's got to be the most important thing that we have is proclaiming and living in line with the truth that God has given us. Church of the Living God the pillar and the foundation of the truth and that is shown by the way in which we conduct ourselves as part of God's household and most certainly the mystery of godliness is great.

We hit mystery. We say woo, you know, it's a whodunit got away with it too. If it weren't for the meddling kids. No, it's not the kind of mystery were talking about we're talking about those things with can't fully be understood whether it's understood about why God did things for how God did things but he was manifested in the flesh. Got put on flesh and dwelt Among Us.

Vindicated in the spirit seen by angels

In fact, when you look at the story as and what happens when Jesus is tempted and he's out in the wilderness. It talks about the Angels Came and ministered to him and took care of him seen by Angel priests among the Nations.

Proclaim the kingdom of God among all among the Nations believed on in the world and then taken up in glory. And I love the way that the csb if you look at it in print by blaxican sets that apart like it's a poem or a song that makes for a great worship song. Put a verse teach one of those things explaining what went on a lot of songs actually get written. You look at some of the Chris Tomlin song. She say, you know where to get that from you took a Psalm and try to work it around to make it rhyme and then put it in G, right cuz he's a guitar player. So that's that's what it that's what it does. You put it in G and made it an octave higher than any man can sing except for him. But this is the kind of thing. This is what the mystery of godliness is. Great. This is what we believe whether we can explain it or not.

He was manifested in the flesh Jesus. God made flesh and dwelt Among Us. Which was different than a lot of the Gods of the Roman world because a lot of them they weren't made flesh. They might hide themselves in flesh.

This is a summary of Jesus. They may hide themselves in flesh. They may appear.

But Paul says he's actually truly is manifested in the flesh Vindicated by the spirit. The spirit testify Dewey is it talks about it is baptism that the Spirit came down like a dove and you hear the voice from heaven.

Seen by the Angels priests among the Nations believed on in the world and taken up in glory.

And this is the summary that Paul puts after he is laid out. This is what you should look for in church leaders. And I think there's a reason for that.

It's related to church leadership. That's this everything that we do in the church comes back to the gospel to the Life of Christ and what Jesus has done?

When we as a church. If we lose sight of that. Of the idea that everything comes back to the gospel. Everything comes back to what Christ has done. Then we start to look for other things. We start to look for a for other types of leadership. We start to look for other types of goals this morning. We talked about visions and dreams and and what we would hope to see when we lose sight of this truth We set her eyes on a vision of the church that is different from what God has for us and it starts to message did either with our own desires or what? We think the world would look at as successful or what we think other people would look at a successful and tell preachers are the worst about this.

Because what we really want it if we get distracted what we really want is for example, Thursday night, we have our association has its quarterly executive board meeting and so all the preachers that can't find an excuse to not be there. We'll go to the association executive board meeting also our church can send more Representatives than just me. So if you can't think of an excuse not to go to an association executive for me to give me a call and I'll give you directions but if you want to know what are associations doing it can be exciting and can't be a good thing to hear about how our associations working together to spread the gospel and it's and it's area and the things that we do but the other thing they'll happen because we are Baptist we will gather and the first thing we'll do is we'll eat and while we eat

Every preacher in the rooms going to walk up to at least three other preachers and say how's it going at your church? How many did you have on Sunday?

And you know what's going to happen? most of us are going to find the most positive light we can shed on everything. While we were down, but you know, what flu is going through really bad. They had to close schools for a couple days where where we are cuz of the flu. So yeah. Yeah, we were down a little bit. I hate giving was up. Actually, I don't even know if what giving was this morning or not? I won't know till later this week.

We had a bunch of a we have will conveniently leave out this morning with it. This morning was Scout Sunday, and we had 30 extra Scouts in the room.

Because we'll take her eyes off of how is our church doing. We coming back to the gospel and proclaiming what Christ has done and want to make sure that we can compare.

Make sure that we look good and it's preachers can be really bad about that.

That's why I think Paul puts this here at the end of what of where he gives instructions and directions about what church leadership should look like. Is this reminder that this is what church leadership looks like making sure everything comes back to the gospel when you look for church leaders when you look for who should be helping set the vision and direction for where the church is going. It should come back to those who make sure that everything comes back to the gospel. Not all of this guy, you know, there's this guy is good good looking and he'll get get get this happening or if we do this activity will see this happen or that happen rather. What does it do to make sure we come back to the gospel and what God has done. Because that's what we're about as a church. That's what we're supposed to be about as God's people. Pause going to go on. In chapter 4 and talk about what things are going to happen in the future and what the spirit tell what the spirit has laid on his heart what God tells him about what the future is going to look like about people abandoning sound Doctrine.

He says this Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith paying attention to deceitful spirits in the teachings of demons to the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared.

You see they'll be Liars who come along who have no conscience who aren't bothered or or pricked by the spirit about the things that they say in that they do. And they'll lead people astray within the church.

and you give some examples about what that's going to look like that some of them will forbid marriage demand absence from foods that God created to be received with gratitude by those who believe and know the truth for everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with Thanksgiving since it is Sanctified by the word of God and by prayer and just do keep in mind that everything is

To be received with Thanksgiving and can be Sanctified by prayer. That doesn't make it healthy queso me all can go home and eat pizza and you're going to say well it's Sanctified by prayer. Yeah, but it don't take the cholesterol out so it can still be bad for you right bacon can be received with Thanksgiving is created by God you don't have to abstain from it, but It's still not good for you. And is your pastor I'll be glad to sacrifice and take care of it for you. If you'd like to bring it up here this week, but he talks about that. What they'll do is they will come along those who are false teachers. Cool try to take the gospel and turn it into a checklist that you can follow. resume living vibrant relationship with God

people will fall into that churches will fall into that.

And it's something that we have to be wary of.

Cuz we have a relationship with the Living God that we walk after and follow after and Truth. I can't be reduced to a simple list up. Well, did I do this or eat this today? Did I not eat this? Everything's good then.

That's how you know, that's how you please your cardiologists not how you please the Lord your God. Please the Lord your God by making sure everything in your life comes back. To sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the with those around you. Thank you for this day. We thank you for your love for your grace and your mercy repair Largo.

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