The following message was given at Grace Community Church in Mendon, Nevada. If you would, turn in your Bibles to the book of 1 Timothy. I don't really have a series that I'm working on on Wednesday nights, so we've been doing a little bit of hopping around. Bronze Serpent, last time I think it was. No, it was Gospel of Mark. And the bronze servant before that, tonight we'll be in 1 Timothy chapter 4. Beginning in verse 6 and we'll read down through verse 10. I'll probably start reading all the way up in verse 1. Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good. Nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it's made holy by the word of God and prayer. If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance for to this end we toil and strive because we've set our hope on the living God who is the savior of all people especially of those who believe. Well, this is indeed the word of the Lord. Thank you. I mean, it's late, but not that late. Some of the questions that we ask are really, really good questions, and then, therefore, they yield helpful answers. But contrary, well, I don't know, maybe it's too far to say this. Contrary to what you were told in elementary school when your teacher said, no, there's no such thing as a stupid question, right after you got done asking a stupid question. Not good questions, well, they don't yield as good of answers. So let me try to illustrate this a little bit. Some questions that we ask are so obvious that the answer is quite obvious, but it doesn't push us down any particular direction. So if I were to ask you tonight, does hope change the way that someone lives? Yeah, you'd say yes. Well, I've not really progressed that topic. I've maybe inched it down the road of the necessity of hope or the indispensable nature of hope, but I haven't really kind of filled that out. So let me sharpen the question just a little bit further. What is it or who is it that you are hoping in? And in what ways is that shaping your life? You see, the first question, I guess it did have some benefit. It boxes you into a little bit of a corner. You were quick to say, yes, hope changes and shapes the way someone lives. I say, amen. How? Because you know, as a Christian, if I were to ask you, Christian, what is your only hope in life and in death? Stealing from the Heidelberg. You'd say, I don't belong to me, but I belong to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. You would answer the same way Christians have always answered. God and God only is the hope of his people. I hope you'd all, I'm sorry. I trust you would all say to that, amen. How does that shape your life? Because I'm going to argue, based off the first question, if person A has their hope in someone or something besides God, and person B has their hope firmly planted in the living God, wouldn't those two lives look very differently? I think so. I know so. So what I want to chase down with you, if you just look at verse 10, you'll find the Apostle Paul saying, look, our hope is in God. Like he doesn't even, sometimes Paul is coy. He's got these long, like 250 word sentences. Not so right here. He lays it right out on the table. It couldn't be more obvious. We have set our hope on the living God. Now I wanna steal that from verse 10, and I wanna work backwards to the top of the passage and say, okay, Paul, he's telling us where he's gonna end up. Therefore, because everything I just said, all that happens because our hope is on God. Well, let's take that and go back all the way to verse six and say, well, what then does a life that hopes in God look like? Because I think it should look different. I think it should look wildly different. I don't think it should look the same at all. We'll diagnose maybe why it doesn't look in particular, in particularly different in some ways, but let's actually just start with the positive. A life that has its hopes set on the living God will, not should, but actually has it set, will look different because hope I don't know of a better way to say this. Hope has consequences. Hope is, and I mean this in a positive way, hope is a dangerous thing because it can motivate and shape a life. If you question that or doubt that, look at the things that people hope in, and you can then chart their life. If their hope is going from one high or illicit experience to the next, will that shape their life? Yeah, it'll destroy it. It'll destroy it. What about those who have their hope in the living God? Will that actually shape it? Absolutely. Hope has consequences. Hope's a dangerous thing. So let me turn it around. We'll look at three implications. Because your hope, Christian, is in the living God, Therefore, or as a consequence of that hope, you should, firstly, speak the truth to one another. You might say, what? How on earth does me hoping in God result in the way that I use my mouth speaking truth one to another? I'm glad you asked. Just look at verse six. The Apostle Paul in Wrapping up, and we'll get to what the context was right before this, but notice how he starts verse 6. He's preeminently looking at Timothy, although there's extensions to us. If you put these things before the brothers, how is it that Timothy would put these things before the brothers? What was his occupation? He was a pastor in Ephesus. He didn't own a printing press. He didn't write books. He actually spoke to people. And so how did he put it out there? Well, he did it by talking the same way that you and I would. If you put these things before the brothers, you're going to be a good servant. And then he lists a whole bevy of things that have to do with the ways that we talk to one another. The words of the faith, good doctrine has to do with words, and then he looks at that shapes the way that you live. So what is a life that hopes in God looks like? Paul says, Timothy, hoping in God will actually commandeer the way you talk. What if my hope is in everyone being happy with me? Would that commandeer the way I talk? would. Yeah, but if my hope is in God, then I've got a vastly different set of priorities. Now, does that mean that I can just embrace like the, my hope is in God, I don't fear man, so I could be a jerk to everybody. Like, no, you're just a jerk. That's all that that is. It's not good. Does that mean I say hard things sometimes? It does. Does that mean also as a emissary of the grace of God, I should be a messenger of encouragement too? I actually think it means both. And you might say, well, how does the same mouth sharply rebuke at times and then like lovingly encourage and build up and pray for? How do you have, well, they're all tied into what are God's priorities for me? And he gave me my mouth, he gave you your mouth, I use this with my kids when they misuse their mouth. I know shocking that a pastor's kids would ever say something that they shouldn't say. It's happened once or twice. And I talk to them about why did God give you a mouth? He gave you a mouth so that you could praise his name, preach his gospel, and encourage his people. Those three priorities should guide the way that we talk. Paul says in verse 10, your hope is on God. Back to verse six, put these things before the brothers. Now you might say, that is great. I'm glad that pastors do that. Well, so am I. but is it limited to pastors? I don't think so at all, not even remotely. I think we do it in some formal settings, but the lion's share of the hard work in the church, this might seem shocking, I don't think it happens on Sundays. I think the lion's share of the work of the church happens Sunday through, well, Saturday, by the people of God. speaking truth to one another, and encouraging one another, and praying for each other. That's, the church is the one, Ephesians 4, that carries out the actual nitty gritty work of the ministry. The most powerful influences you have, if you just reflect on the most powerful, excuse me, influences in your life, I'm gonna wager it was just a common Christian man or woman. I must say, if you just talk to, I mean, I guess the only illustration that's popping up real quick was if you ask Adam, one of his most impactful persons, Dollars to Donuts, Monty's name is going to get mentioned somewhere in there. Powerful influence in his life. You talk to some of these young guys who grew up, and they're going to mention a faithful deacon, Ernie Keno, right? They're gonna mention Tom Corliss. They're gonna mention George Venturella. They're gonna mention faithful, regular Christians who spoke truth. That's what they're gonna mention. And those are gonna be far more impactful. And you'll remember those words more than you'll remember the sermon tonight or any sermon on a Sunday or As good as it is for the normal feeding of the flock, I can recall sharp words or encouraging words by mentors or friends of mine like Richard Winters and others decades later, like they were said yesterday. That's just God using his people. But those people, they weren't worried in the moment about pleasing me or you They were worried about being faithful to God, and therefore they spoke. Don't underestimate just how important the regular, normal ministry of every member is. in the life of the church. Well, as Timothy is to be putting these things in front of folks, notice, and I know we always say this, context is king. What's the context of verse six? Come on, you rocket science kind of folks. Verses one through five are the context for verse six. In verse one through five, he talks about, well, rampant false teaching that takes all of these various forms, right? So he talks about those who, and notice Paul's not really politically correct. What does he say is the spiritual influence behind these false teachings? He calls it demonic. He actually doesn't say like, well, they're misguided. They're enthusiastic. They're, you know, they're off on a couple points like justification, faith, the law. I mean, all these, but you know, they're good hearted. I mean, he just goes at it. deceitful spirits, teachings of demons, liars, consciences seared. Now there's one, I don't want to necessarily preach one through five, but a seared conscience could have two particular meanings or iterations because I've actually seen both. If you, I don't want to get into why I know this, but I've had a lot of time in a burn unit at a hospital on more than one occasion, oddly enough. So I can tell you that a second-degree burn really, really hurts. And to the slightest touch, it's overly sensitive. Are there those whose consciences are overly sensitive? It goes off when it shouldn't be going off. Yeah. Third degree burns. Again, not that I want to get into my medical history, but I can tell you, I didn't feel good, didn't tickle, but it wasn't sensitive. Why? Because everything was just burned away. Are there those who their conscience is so seared, it doesn't go off. Yeah. These almost seem to be the more sensitive ones. They're forbidding marriage. That seems like a hypersensitive kind of thing. They're looking at different foods and saying, you can't eat it. You can't eat that. Can't eat that. Can't eat that. Now, that's different than me. I say that, but it's not from a religious perspective. It's just I'm picky. So I guess maybe I have a seared conscience, but don't know. I don't know. he's saying there's gonna be those people out there, they will be making inroads into the church, and he wrote all of this before the internet. Shock of shocks! And if Paul could say verses one through five, then you could underline it and put several amens and exclamation points at the end of it. Because now what we have are, well, just to put it, I guess, sort of delicately, any, I thought I wrote it down, but maybe I didn't. Anyone who wants a platform now has it. If you are just a nut, you were only impacting people in your town who knew you and they learned to avoid you. Now you can put all that on the internet and get all those, well that response so that people agree with you and it turns into this terrible thing and then you get podcasts telling people what to think and so on and so forth. That's the context that Timothy's dealing with in Ephesus, that's the context we're dealing with now. How do we as God's people respond to one another in a world that's, verses one through five, full of that nonsense? Be a faithful brother, be a faithful sister, and speak truth, he says, verse six. He says it, put these things before the brothers. Don't let someone listen to this or read that and that you know to be dangerous and say nothing about it. He actually gives several different ways of referring to this. He says in verse six, it's trained in the words of the faith. Those are just gonna be the standard iterations of what we believe to be true about the gospel. So just basic gospel truths. He then adds to it good doctrine. So it seems to be more of like a systematic that you not only have the right pieces that you're speaking to others, but you have some understanding of the whole. And then notice what he says right at the end. This one, this one's harder. The first two are relatively easy. Not, I mean, within reason, right? You can, anyone can read a couple of good books on the gospel. If you sit in church long enough, you become pretty savvy with the things of the faith. What's that last one that you have followed? What does that indicate? It indicates that the things that I preach are mirrored by the way that I live. Because you can imagine if I'm saying one thing and live in another, what are you gonna think about the thing I was saying? Eh, you're gonna discard it. Notice what he says in verse six. Someone whose hope is in the living God faithfully speaks and lives what they know to be true about the gospel. If you were wondering, does that stand out in the world? Someone who knows, believes, and lives the gospel, and is willing to do it boldly, is willing to do it unashamedly, is willing to do it when it's not super cheap or convenient, is willing to do it in circumstances around friends, with the weird family members, and extended family members, which get even weirder. I mean, in all those iterations, willing to say, God, my words, My life should be shaped by the gospel. I want that. If God's not your hope, do you think you're gonna speak faithfully? No. Circumstances will dictate it. Do you think you're gonna live it? No, I'm inconvenienced, I'm tired. Today is a day that ends in Y, and so it's just not really a great time Well, there's all of these reasons as to why we may not think that it's the right time, but he's laying out a person whose hope is in God. Maybe I could put it this way. They're not an egg-headed Christian. They're a lion-hearted Christian. Because sometimes we think, like, if I got all that doctrine stored up here, that's where it's at. I know all the right answers. Paul says, do you need to know the words of the faith and good doctrine? Absolutely. But put it into practice. If doctrine was theology, or excuse me, if theology and doctrine were feathers, I didn't write this down, so it's kind of taking shape as I say it. If doctrine and theology were feathers, they were meant for you to fly. Not be theological like peacocks. All plumage. I don't know. I'm sure that someone's gonna tell me afterwards, like, actually, peacocks can fly. You don't really. All right, they're not sorry, right? They're not actually gonna go very far. You're meant to put those into practice. Your theology should be different than our books. We like books on the shelf. We call it shelf candy. Looks good all in a row. No, your theology is meant to be put into practice. Notice his summary of the person that speaks and lives like this. It should, it's so commonplace that we almost, I don't even know if we noticed it because we're drawn to words of faith, good doctrine, being trained. What should astound you? Right in the middle of verse six. You'll be a good servant. Who is it that you're ultimately serving when you live that way and speak that way? Christ. If your hope is set on God and it's not set on the circumstances around you, it's not set on whatever weird little details in my life, if that's not driving it, the summary statement of God's word of your life, When you do those little, by man's estimation, those little faithfulnesses, you're serving Christ. When you live out faithfully, you're serving Christ. You might say, well, no one noticed. You're serving Christ. But they may not like me. They probably won't. Jesus was only popular for a little while, and then it really turned against him once they realized, He wasn't gonna serve their ends, right? So in all of these occasions, remembering and knowing, I serve Christ with my mouth and my actions. And I look to Him for, well, to set the agenda for that and to give the reward for that. I think we will be astonished at the lavishness with which God rewarded quiet, faithful, unnoticed obedience. I wouldn't be surprised if that gets rewarded more than lavish public whatever. Books that get stamps because they sold so much or whatever, I don't even know. The quiet, faithful saint. Notice, secondly, If our hope is on the living God, what's gonna change the way that I live is actually going to develop that last phrase, the good doctrine that you followed. It means I'm gonna live my life not based on immediate gratification or fulfillment, but I'm gonna discipline myself for godliness. So beginning right here in the book of 1 Timothy, there's actually a shift in the types of verbs that he uses. You might say, ooh, verbal shift, awesome. I was hoping for that. Yeah, he actually starts to really turn it towards imperative or commands. So it's like he knows, I'm coming to an end, we've laid the groundwork, Timothy, do this, do this, do this, don't do that, that, and that. So what's the first thing that he says by way of prohibition or what you should not do, verse seven, have, nothing to do with, and then he'll tell you what it is. So he's saying that there's going to be things to stay away from. Absolutely, the strength of the word that he uses means something to the effect of refuse to have any association. Well, what are the things that he says we're not to have any association with? The ESV quite elegantly and rightly says, irreverent, silly myths. So there seems to be two categories here. The first is, you should have nothing that has to do with what is irreverent. The idea is, and I think he's actually continuing the theme from verses one through five, those things taught from those with seared conscience, and he's developing it further and saying, all right, so what is a life that's hoping in God look like? It doesn't play around with that stuff. It doesn't entertain it. It doesn't handle it. And the word he uses is the irreverent things. The word is the common or the profane. The second category is silly myths. Now that's a bit of a translational decision on behalf of the ESV, but when I tell you what it really means, you'll see why they went this way. The way that Paul puts it is the old woman tales. The stuff old women are really, you know, that they talk about. You can see the ESV translators be like, you know what, guys? We're going to sand the edges on this one. We got to move copies here. We would have a version of that in English, old wives' tales, right? The first is profane, common, possibly grotesque. The other is just like just silly, weird things that fill up the internet and people's minds and blog posts, right? All of those, he juxtaposes to the words of faith and the good teaching. He says, Christian, there is so much stuff out there that's a total waste of your life. Don't give it any quarter. You might say, well, okay, like what kind of stuff? He's like, you know, the profane things? Yeah, yeah. Don't fiddle around with that. Okay, but what about like this stuff, silly wives' tales? Yeah, you don't have time for that either. You don't have, one sermon I heard ages and ages ago said the hardest decisions in the Christian life aren't actually between good and evil. They're between good, better, and best. And you don't have time for, you certainly don't have time for evil. But you don't have time for good or even better, you just have time for best. So what does a person who their hope is set in God, how do they live? They don't waste their time on either of those. As interesting as that blog post might be to read, they don't, they don't. but they actually then, he's actually talked about this before, 1 Timothy 1 verse 4, he mentions myths, same word, endless genealogies, speculations, there's even, and you might say, well, what sort of, do we even struggle with that anymore? Yeah, yeah, yep, even in the church. If I could, I wouldn't waste your time because that would be seeming to violate verse seven. I could fill the time with telling you stories about whole relationships that were ruined over endless speculation about stuff they know nothing about. And now Christians are divided on it. It's really sad. So staying away from the profane, staying away from the far-fetched, You might say, is he also talking about conspiracy theories? Yes, I know that might be hard to hear in Nevada, but instantly I know what you're thinking. It's only a conspiracy theory if it's not true. All the stuff I believe is true. If that's what you're thinking, I'm talking about you. Yeah, yeah. All that stuff as interesting, and we've all had that stint, where we were like, we didn't land on the moon, or did we? I don't know. We've all gone down those rabbit holes. Paul says, you don't have time. You don't have time. Your hope is in the living God. As one whose hope is in the living God, Ephesians 4.14 comes so importantly true. Do not be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. Now this passage has become more vivid since I've moved to Nevada. In Seattle, you're like, there's no wind. I don't understand this metaphor. I moved here and I was like, I get it. If you are blown about by every wind of doctrine, and you lived in the theological landscape of a Nevada, everything, and there's Christians, you know, every other conversation, there's a new thing. There's this new thing they read, there's this new thing that they're into that, Paul says, Christian, stop. Give up the deceitful schemes. Give up the being tossed around, always looking for this new secret knowledge that we're the first people in the church to have figured out. Just worry about the words of the faith, sound doctrine, and living in accordance with sound doctrine. You're like, yeah, but I think the Ark of the Covenant's buried. I'm sure you do. However, on a scale of importance, I'm not even sure where that is, but up here is where we wanna be with the gospel and with putting that into our lives. Sadly, those folks who peddle those strange doctrines and weird systems, they prey on two groups, the young and the ignorant and the old and the bored. Wish I time would fail me to tell you of young people who got swept up in that we and we and we all know that the number of older folks Who our past working years Who just consumed to consume to consume? I can't tell you the crazy weird ideas Paul says stay away from that Stay away from it. Stay away from in your younger years your older years and all the in-between years stay away from it Do not get swept up in that. Notice, one of our favorite words is then the alternative, refuse to have nothing to do with, and then, rather, train, or some translations will say, discipline yourself for godliness. Now, if you don't join us for our Tuesday Greek class, you might be wondering, what does the Greek say when it says discipline? Discipline, that's the word, yeah. It's not our favorite word. It's not a comfortable word. It's not a soft word. It has to do with, well, really, really hard work and forcing yourself to do the things that you don't kind of naturally want to go ahead and do. And then he uses an analogy that we're also not super comfortable with. He says, for bodily training, you're like, oh, man. It's February 5th. I don't know what kind of goals you set for this year, but they've all been broken by now. He says it's of some value or of little value. Now maybe right there you're like, Amen. Amen. That salves my conscience a little bit. His word picture is something like this. You know that being in physical shape is important. You might say, oh, I don't wanna talk about this. It's important so that you can do the things you need to do. We're not gonna talk about your Instagram or anything like that. So that you can do, this is why we require military, police, any able-bodied person to be in a physical shape where you can do the things necessary for what you're called to do. That's the picture behind discipline. If you are not physically capable of doing your job, your physical apparatus is now a hindrance and a liability. Paul says, I like that analogy. Let's use it in the spiritual sense. Discipline yourself so that spiritually you can do all the things that God calls you to do. He says, so is part of that a physical apparatus able to do what you gotta do? Yeah, yeah, I'd say that's part of it, that we should be in decent enough health, as far as it depends on us, that we can serve and help one another. Paul says, if that's like this important, the spiritual is this important. Discipline yourself. for godliness. Now, does this analogy work? Well, sadly, it works really well. So if you just think about like your home gym, and we'll just draw some analogies. So those equipment, like the kettlebells I have at home, they gather dust, just like the books on my shelf that would really point me to the Lord. I guess this is really not a popular topic. Or you'll hear someone say, I don't have to be a member of a local gym. I'm a member of the Universal Gym. And you're like, it doesn't, you're not going to lose any weight or get in shape that way. And then they make the same argument for church membership. Yeah, I don't got to be a member. I don't have to be involved in the lives of Christians. I don't want to go to a gym. They're all hypocrites who think they're in shape and they're not. You're like, okay. Sure, yeah. No, the same is true of church membership. Or we think we can eat whatever we, we're on that seafood diet, any food you see, you eat. Some people are like that with theology. Whatever empty carbs are out there, they gravitate towards. There's some people, I, yeah, I'm tempted to use illustrations, but I'm sure it'd just be offensive which is what I want. Like when dear friends told me, like, I've got this book, it's really shaping the way I view God. You're like, what's it called? It's called The Shack. That's not empty calories, brother, that's poison. That's poison. We could go on and on, and I'm sure you all have similar testimonies of folks in your life, you're just going, When it comes to books, I will die before I read all of the great books of the Christian faith. I don't have time for mediocre. Neither do you. You just don't. You don't have the time. Don't waste it. He speaks that we should be training ourselves for God. That actually means discipline, saying yes to the things that should be said yes to, and saying no to the things that we should say no to. And anytime we say yes, it's actually saying no by consequence to other things. So that just means if I'm gonna pursue God because God is my hope and my eyes are set on heaven, that's going to shape so many different things in my life. That means, I don't know, well, I'm sure you've met my kids, so you would know. Family worship at the Corey household is chaotic. I hope you don't think it's just like they all like they have their hymnals and they're just like, ah, there's peace that abounds. And we go for like an hour and a half before he realizes. No, it's Lacey wrestling the three-year-old, me trying to instruct it. But it's what we do. Because our hope is not set on temporary peace in the household. It's set on the living God. Do you think God is pleased by chaotic family worships? I think so. I think he smiles on it. He might even laugh at it from time to time, because if I had a better sense of humor, I would too. Right? So those faithfulnesses, those little things going, this is too important. It's too important. Our hope is in God, not in convenience, and we're going to try to instruct our little ones. And it bears fruit. I appreciated what Leslie prayed today about the salvation of our kids. Lacey reminded me today, today is Geneva's one year anniversary of the first time she confessed faith in Christ. It was a special day to celebrate that with. Just faithfully, faithfully tilling the soil, and guess what, as parents we know, I can till all, day, week, month, year after year long. I'm dependent on the Lord of the harvest to give the blessing. But that doesn't mean I sit around and wait for clouds of blessing before I start tilling. It means we're faithful. My job is not spiritual awakening. My job's faithful sowing of seeds and praying that God would send the rain, right? That's what we do in so many different areas of our life. Note, I think you could even, look at verse 10, our hope set on the living God. Paul uses a theme in Philippians. We've run into it three times. I think on Sunday we'll hit it for a fourth time. I'm shocked how many times in Philippians Paul brings up this idea of the day of Christ. just is this weighty, big, it's like a drawstone that just pulls everything to itself. This weighty day where I will stand before Him and give an account. Now, there's times where He uses it, and clearly the context is, especially in trial, there'll come a day where the clouds and the heavens will be rent. He'll come down, and this trial that I'm really wrestling with, Oh, my hope's set on that day. There's other ways in which Paul means it. Where he says, in essence, you're gonna give an account of your days. There's coming that day of reckoning. Live in light of that day. Verse seven, discipline yourself for godliness. Knowing, having God as your living hope, that has marvelous implications. knowing I'm going to give an account for the days and the years and the weeks and all of that that I've had. I want to live in a constrained disciplined way. Now some Christians hear discipline and they have an allergic reaction and they think you're saying legalism. I'm not saying legalism. I'm not saying look at me I have all my stuff together and I'm better than you. I'm saying, I'm recognizing I, by nature, am bent the wrong direction. I want, by God's grace, through his law, to grow in the right ways, because he's my hope. Those are very different than I'm working off my salvation, not with fear and trembling, but because this is the 18th year I've read the Bible, or whatever kind of metric you use, That's legalism. No, he's saying discipline. Those are not the same thing. Thirdly, oh my goodness. with the 35 minutes we have left. Don't look at the clock or your watch. Notice what he says in verses 9 through 10. We want to look at toil and striving. You might say those are not either of my two favorite words, but they're the ones that Paul uses. He's talking about this pursuing godliness, being bodily training, pursuing the Lord in all these ways. Verse 9, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Now, I haven't had the chance to preach all of 1 Timothy here at Grace. If I had, this would be the third time that you would have run into that phrase. Paul uses it very, very interestingly in the book of 1 Timothy. The first time is in verse 15 of chapter 1. He says, this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. It's one of my favorite verses, maybe in the whole New Testament. that Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I'm the foremost. When Paul says, this is a trustworthy saint, and then he says that, your heart should soar. And there should be a little bit of competition, but I don't know, Paul. I think I'm a bigger sinner than you. I think that's the type of response that he wants. He wants every Christian to know the reason Christ came into the world is to save people just like you and including you. Chapter three, verse one, he says Satan's trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer or elder, it's a noble task. So he says a really similar formulation with there. Hey, if you're seeking proper serving stations within the church or informal ones, that is a good thing. This is the third time he's used it. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. You might say, well, what's the phrase? What's the saying? It's not what follows, or could it be? It's not exactly what's in front of it, or could it be? There's times where Paul says, here's the statement, Jesus saves sinners and I'm one of them. And you're like, I get it, that's the statement. What is the statement, I hope this is making sense, what's the statement that should be deserving full acceptance? I'm going to argue for six through 10 would qualify. Be faithful servants of Christ in all that you say and do. I think that's a faithful, trustworthy statement. have nothing to do with these things, discipline yourself for godliness, because the reward is far more valuable. It goes from this, not just this life, but into the next. And then verse 10, Christ, our living hope, or our hope is set on the living God. All of those would qualify, I believe, for what he's saying is trustworthy and worthy of being received You might say, okay, what does that mean that he says, worthy of full acceptance? Was Timothy really reading this and going like, man, I don't know, Paul. I know you're an apostle and you do write scripture and stuff, but I don't know about that. If that's not what Timothy is saying, what is he saying? Do you and I ever struggle to accept the things of God? And to say, of serving the Lord, this is the good portion. Not what the world offers. This. I think it's exactly why he has to encourage us and exhort us. This is worthy of being accepted because I think he knows us well enough to know that we're gonna be like, well, I don't know, I'm not great at discipline. If that's a spiritual thing, I don't know. I think I'm more gifted in spiritual lounging than spiritual work, but you might, no, it's the duty of every believer. It's the duty of every believer. Paul is saying here, having your hopes set on the living God and then that impacting all of your life, I've used this illustration before. It is the central cinnamon roll in the pan of cinnamon rolls. The one that's a little lower in altitude so all the goodness flows to it. That is what he's talking about. Serving the Lord as your hope and having that dictate your life. Oh, that's the good piece. Now my flesh is going to doubt that. Paul says, worthy of full acceptance. It's almost like an oath type formula. I swear you can take this to the bank and cash it in every single time. He says, in that vein, that we, to this end, and I'd argue it's all verse six and then verse 10 as well, we toil and we strive. Now, the two words he uses there, the word for toil is actually a word that came up in one of the prayer requests. The word is labor. Now, I've been assured by my wife and others that they call it labor, when you're having a child for a reason. It's not called vacation or resting. It's labor, it's hard work. The same usage is here. Paul doesn't say that, you know, we kind of coast. For this we coast and cruise. No, he says we labor. It's sweat. The second word he uses is the word we get our word agony or agonize from. Paul just used two words to describe the Christian life, labor and agony. There's part of me that was like, could you have picked two other words, Paul? No, he picked those two because you and I don't live in a sin-free world. We don't live with a glorified body yet. We don't live on that side of eternity, we live on this side. On this side of things, is it just some days plum hard work? Yeah. Now, are there other seasons? Because I don't want to be like a, I'd say a Debbie Downer, but that sounds weird. A Daniel Downer? I don't know. I don't want to be a big bummer. There we go. Are there seasons of rest and delight in the Christian life? You have to say yes. You've got to. If I expect everything to be that, guess what's gonna happen when the really tough seasons come? I'm gonna think either God's not faithful, I'm doing this whole Christian thing wrong, or everything else in my life is broken and shouldn't be this way, and I'm all, but if I lean in and say, like Paul does here, labor and agony, do you know what I'm gonna say when the good seasons come? Thank you, Lord. Thank you. It's then seen as a smile and an undeserved blessing. But if I think that I deserve the easy, I'm going to be not happy with the tough. Because the tough seasons are usually really sharp and short, or really long and difficult, or a blended mix of all of that together. There's sweet seasons where you just go, man, Ecclesiastes 9 really has moments of just rich, eat good food, drink good beverages, and enjoy life with the wife of your youth as long as God gives you days. There's moments where you're like, thank you. And there's others where you're like, toil and labor. Expect toil and labor. Rejoice with the, well, the other one. Now, to me, when I read of toil and labor, labor and striving, to me, it brings up a more current endeavor. When I was in college, I did a fair amount of martial arts. I don't want you to mishear that as though like I did it at a collegiate level. I happened to be going to college at the same time I was endeavoring in these. And there was grappling involved, and I thought it was fun. I thought it was nice. And I thought that that's what was meant by grappling. And then I got on the mat with guys like Jeff Hildebrand or Matt. Labor and agony would mark rolling and doing some jiu-jitsu. That's probably the closest analogy to the Christian life. Paul mentions it in chapter six of Ephesians. He says we wrestle. There's nothing comfortable, easy. Well, I guess it seems that easy when the guys are way better than you to them, but that to me captures These two words. Striving. Toiling. Struggling. Discomfort. Pain. There's seasons like that. And some of you are right in the middle of a season, maybe a long season, like that. Where you just say, I don't know if I'm out of place or if I'm doing this whole thing wrong. That's just part of the Christian life sometimes. And I don't mean that to sound like a bummer. I'm trying to tell you that that's just, it goes with the territory. And that God will abundantly supply your needs in seasons like that. But if I tell you that it's all sunshines, rainbows, and cupcakes, I'm lying to you. I tell my daughters all the time, and people think I'm really weird for saying it. I might be, but I still say it. I tell them all the time, life is full of disappointments. The quicker you get your mind wrapped around that, the better. So then I started teaching them. I would say, life is full, and they thought it was really funny to say, of cupcakes. I said, sadly, daughters, life is not full of cupcakes. It is full of disappointments. How we handle those, In faithfulness and striving, that's the key. Notice in conclusion, verse 10, what are we striving and toiling for? Our hope in the living God. He always, always, always needs to be the object of our pursuit. in whatever station you're in, in whatever season, whatever season of rest or toil or difficulty or confusion you're in, whether you're single or married or widowed or whatever variety of circumstances, in that place, saying, Lord, you are my hope in life and in death. May that shape the way that I live. Because do you know, so hope is going to be something that will happen but has not happened yet, right? Paul says, who hopes for what they already have? You realize that one day you will cease laboring and toiling for that hope. Because you'll apprehend him. Probably better stated, he'll apprehend you. but you'll come face to face with God, your reward. And you will think in that moment, I think it was Rutherford put it this way. He says, when we make it to heaven and we look back over the toil and the labor of our life, we'll say, with what light labor I have come into these lands. That's how we'll view this life. a few inconvenient decades. Some struggling, some striving. I know that it doesn't feel that way now. That's why Rutherford said, we'll say that from heaven looking back, not here looking forward. We'll look back and we'll say with Paul, light and momentary for an eternal weight of glory. Let's pray. Our great God and Father, please be the living hope of each and every one of us here. And shake, shake us, O God, from the false hopes that we just so easily gravitate towards. Cause us to be a people whose mouths and lives are yours. And you have our hope fixed on you and you only. O Father, we pray especially for our souls and our hearts. We pray especially for the young ones in our church just right now. that they would not set their hope on the world, but on you, the living God. Please get them at an early age, we pray. In our Savior's name, amen. We hope that you were edified by this message. For additional sermons as well as information on giving to the ministry of Grace Community Church, please visit us online at gracenevada.com. That's gracenevada.com.