Ep 56 | Sermon Dive: 1 Timothy

Considered one of the great sorry , considered the greatest defensive player of all time in the NFL LT no , not LaDainian Tomlinson , lawrence Taylor played for the New York football giants . One of the few . He might be the only defensive player to ever win the MVP , but he does .

He had 132 and a half sacks in his career and he was considered a monster of the midway .

But she's not dating that guy , she's just dating a guy with the name yeah and uh . They're at the Giants game and someone calls and asks for Joel Rifkin and they get on the loudspeaker and go . Will Joel Rifkin please come to the press box ? And Lawrence Taylor looks up at the crowd like what .

But one of my favorite ones maybe not yours , but one of my favorite ones is when we do kind of like a sermon series , just intro . It's not really a deep dive but it's just like okay , why is our church going through , as of right now , 1 Timothy ?

And in the past it was just like , oh , the pastor wants to go through 1 Timothy , that's where we're going to be , I like . I like hearing the why behind it , cause there's so much behind the scenes , and so it's been one of my favorite deals of just asking hey , what has led you to feel like in this season , we need to go through first Timothy ?

So that's my question to you , jake .

One of the first reasons that actually just kind of made me fixate on 1 Timothy is we offer a discipleship study here called the Strand , and on week two of the Strand we teach people how to do inductive Bible study and so , for their very first time in that study , throughout the rest of the study they're studying scripture and the first book we actually go

through is 1 Timothy , and there's a purpose in that , because Timothy was a disciple of Paul . In other words , timothy followed Paul in his ministry journeys and Timothy was trained to be a disciple , specifically trained to become a pastor . So there was just something about 1 Timothy in this recent track of the strand that I started studying .

It led me to take our church family through . This is we are in a day and age when people in Western society have lost focus on the meaning of church and what makes the church effective and impactful , and my entire life is built on being around church people and being within the church for the good , the bad and the ugly and what .

I just feel , this very strong conviction that we here at Georgetown , as we are trying to organize ourselves under God's mighty hand , one of the best ways to do that is to expose what the word has to say about why does the church matter , why is the church important ? Why should you bring your family to church and why should you be involved , for that matter ?

So that's really what led to that , and people that have studied scripture their whole life can be benefited and edified by 1 Timothy because it brings those important reminders of why we're here in the first place . But we also have new Christians in our church .

We also have people that maybe haven't studied it , and I believe that 1 Timothy can help all of us better understand why do we do what we do and why are we organized the way we're organized and why is that effective . But 1 Timothy is not a textbook on the church . I mean , there are simple , there are simple things that you would think of as a textbook .

But it's also Paul sharing his heart . In fact today you know the sermon was where Paul just opened up about his own personal testimony . And here's another reason I think . First , timothy is really good . Uh is this church was not a perfect church and no church in scripture really is .

But the church of Ephesus was going through some major problems and Timothy , my guess is did not feel fully qualified for what he had in front of him . But Timothy had to help people understand that there were some things that were being taught to them that were false , that were not biblical , and Paul was charging Timothy to stand up for the truth .

And I think we're living in a time when the church has to stand on the truth . And what a great opportunity for us , as a church family , to go through this and learn .

I mean , it's like it's just new Testament wise advice of like , hey , here's what's going to help you in your walk and it's what helps you in your walk is going to help you lead the church . It's going to help you lead your family , it's going to help you .

Like it's crazy , because I think we complicate , um , just the gospel message , you know , all the time because it's like , oh , I need to be perfect in here and here and here and here and here . It's like no , no , no , no , no . You need to focus on what really , really truly matters . You need to focus for the truth , and the truth is Jesus .

Everything else is just kind of white noise . If we don't harp on Jesus , if we don't harp on the gospel , if we don't cling to the cross , then it's just yeah , we're going to struggle .

The weather hunting season's coming up , so we have plenty of content to talk about . But you know , and there's nothing wrong with that when you're talking to your friends , I'm not , I'm not taking away from that , but how often in the confines of the church do we find ourselves in discussion that could be harbored as fruitless or doesn't have a super

big point ? And then what happens when we argue about things that don't have a major point ? And first , timothy is read all across the world , but it's also highly misinterpreted . There's been a lot of arguments about the passages that we're going to be studying . One of the main arguments you'll find about is gender roles .

I mean , don't we think in this day and age that discussing gender roles number one is fruitful because it can help us know what the Bible says , but don't we also get that little bit of a fear in our spine of , oh man , we're going to talk about gender roles , but I've had people come to me and use first Timothy as a source of why they would tell their

wife that they need to be quiet and never say anything , which that's not exactly what they're saying here , but it's also , uh , pointing to how God uh wants his church to be aligned . And again , church family .

When we , when we hit these topics , sure , I mean , we can definitely fall into a way of thinking of , oh man , I don't want to be involved in these types of arguments , but what if , instead , we said , oh man , I don't want to be involved in these type of arguments , but what if , instead , we said you know what , god , I want to lean into your word and I

want to let you teach me . But yeah , I mean , you learn about the importance of prayer in the local assemblies of Christians . Why should we be people of prayer ? Why would we set aside time to do that regularly ? What are gender roles within the church ? How do we , how do we walk through that ? You know , what are the qualifications of a pastor ? What ?

What does the Bible describe as the type of qualifications a man needs to be an elder or a pastor within the church ? What about deacons ? We have deacons in our church . What leads us to them .

But then you know they had to walk through a lot of hard days in ministry and Paul writes specific language on how do we walk through the challenges , the day-to-day rigors of ministry .

But what I love about 1 Timothy is it starts with a charge , where Paul charges Timothy and says , brother , I want you to lean in and be faithful , and then it ends with a charge to lean in and be faithful .

So it's a little bit different language than Paul's using , because he's not specifically talking to an entire audience , he's talking to this one guy and he's trying to say you can do this , you can make it through , and our church family is going to learn so much if they'll stick with it and continue showing up to worship .

It's just , yeah , paul's talking to his mentee , it's just like he's going to be a little bit more pointed because he knows what Timothy knows because he's been the one teaching him and guiding him and leading him and all these things , and so it's like , hey , here's , and what I love about that , he knows what he knows and he repeats a lot of the lessons that

he probably taught Timothy time and time again , because it's just , you know , it's , it's the fundamentals , right , it's the fundamentals , like everybody's like , oh , you know . Everybody's like , oh , you know , in basketball I want to dunk , you know . Or in football , I want to , you know , sack the quarterback 135 times , you know .

And it's like , well , how do you do that ?

It's the fundamentals , one of the one of my favorite Bible verses , cause it was said to me in a , in a , in a time of need when I was struggling , um , um , there was a time where I felt like I had a call to ministry and there was a time where I kind of went away from that and all these things , and then I started to get back involved , like in the

church and I was just kind of confused and um went to a like this little retreat and just God was like , hey , you're not doing what I said you were doing . You know like you're , you're not pursuing this call to ministry .

And uh , I just spoke it into the youth pastor at the time and he literally just says 1 Timothy 6 , verse 12 , fight the good fight of faith . He said , keep fighting the good fight of faith .

And that's all he said and I literally was just like , because I've studied the book of Timothy , he kind of repeated what I knew and I was like man , I've not , it's like even things like that . I was like man , I haven't been doing that . And it's just like there's these little .

I mean it's riddled all throughout the Bible , of course , but just especially to me and 1 Timothy , there's just these little nuggets of verses that , like on a random Tuesday , I'll think about and it will literally just affect my life because it's just reiterating what we know and it's keeping us aligned with God , it's keeping us focused on the Good Shepherd in my

opinion .

But we just need those specific verses that say hey , yeah , you're in a battle . Let's keep battling and trust that God's there with you and He'll be there on the other side of it . One thing I love about all of scripture not just this one , but I love that the scriptures don't hide away from the fact that these leaders were flawed people .

We're in political season and all these candidates are wanting us to know the best about them , and then the people that are against them are trying to expose the worst about them . And then the people that are against them are trying to expose the worst about them .

And it always makes me laugh how passive political candidates are when they say well , didn't you do this on this date ? I don't want to run for office , because people can look back on my Facebook posts from you know , when I was in college it'd be embarrassing , right and and and .

Oftentimes they're very passive , or they'll just not say anything , or they'll say they didn't do . That Paul's the exact opposite of that . Paul's like no , I did every bad thing people would say about me . And one of my favorite verses in 1 Timothy and I actually listened to an Alistair Begg sermon .

If any of y'all don't know who Alistair Begg is , I highly encourage you to look him up on YouTube . Just a faithful preacher of the word of God . But he talks about his own testimony and he says basically he says I'm amazed that God would even save me , but he also appointed me to a ministry .

And Paul's saying Jesus didn't just forgive me of my sin , he gave me a job . He gave me a job , he gave me a purpose . But the verse that makes me just that blows my mind is verse 13 . He says even though I was formerly a blasphemer , a persecutor and an arrogant man .

And uh , alistair Begg was saying you know , if somebody was applying for a job to become pastor , and they said tell us about your . Paul says but I receive mercy because I acted out of ignorance and unbelief , and the grace of our Lord Jesus overflowed .

That word overflowed in the Greek is hyperplanasia and it's used one time in the entire New Testament and it means abound , exceedingly . So Paul literally says I had this awful resume to become an apostle , to become a leader , but the grace of our Lord Jesus overflowed my poor resume . I mean just .

And how many people in our world need to hear that the grace of Jesus overflows our sin to where our sin doesn't even exist , like the beautiful word picture of the blood of Jesus pouring upon every person who enters into the church . And it flows so much that we are given a purpose in this life to serve in this church .

I want every person in our church to know that , yeah , every person to be aware that that is how much Christ loves us . And Paul had the ability to write this letter because he knew about the overflowing grace of Lord Jesus Christ . How beautiful , yeah .

We're not going to try , but I'm definitely going to cling to the parts that we do know , for a matter of fact , the overflowing grace , all that kind of stuff . Just keep fighting the good fight .

And so I do encourage you to keep coming on Sundays , even when it's hard , because you have no idea what God has in store for you , not because you're here at Georgetown Baptist Church , but because when you are here at the church you're going to hear God's message for you .

And so I just encourage you keep coming , keep bringing your family the whole nine yards . Just let the word of God just be spoken over you . Keep coming , Keep bringing your family the whole nine yards . Just let the Word of God just be spoken over you , as we learned in Ezra and Nehemiah in the Old Testament just how important that part is .

But keep coming . 1 Timothy is a good book and so thank you so much for telling us why it's . One of my favorite deals is because , like I said , I didn't even grow up in church , but when I started coming to church it's like , hey , we're going through Genesis . Oh good , first book in the Bible you restart in January . Just go through Genesis .

Be to God that he puts us in those positions , Cause then we're going to lean upon him and trust in his word and and realize his word is more than our word , and that's sometimes hard to accept . But once you accept it , then there's a lot of freedom .

But anyways , thank you so much for sharing that and we hope you guys really enjoyed this listen and we hope you are enjoying on Sundays . And if you have any questions about First Timothy , ask Jake .