MCC Podcasts
Working It Out - Revisiting 1 Timothy 2 and 3
Last week, Jeff said that we're done with first Timothy chapter three, we're halfway done with the book and he gave me, but he gave me some leeway to linger. He said we're done with first Timothy chapter three. However, arch going to go back to chapter two and chapter three and spend a little more time there. And what I want to do this week and next week is to not to go back to correct anything because Jeff and Ben don't need correction in the great messages they bring, but they are provocative. The messages I've listened to all I list to all the messages on the Internet and then was here last week to hear Jeff's message. So we've had Zann preach and then two weeks in a row Ben and then Jeff last week. So all parts of our preaching team. What I want to do is go back and build on what they brought. They were provocative. Those sermons were such that they made me hunger for more study in certain areas. So this week, I'm going to focus on the last three messages. Two that Ben brought, one that Jeff brought and take components of each of those and do even more with them. And then next week, I'm going to deal with the delicate issue of women in ministry. So next week, if you're one of those folks who are saying how in the world can this church come to the position and this denomination come to the position where they see no limitation for women as elders and leaders and even ordained clergy because those are the positions we hold. How in the world do they make biblical sense of that? And I think that's a fair question. It deserves an honest thought out answer. So come back next week and we'll respond. We may not end up agreeing, but at least I think your question deserves to be answered in an understanding way. So I'll shoot for that next week. Come back and go back to that first Timothy pastors. This week, though, I'm intrigued by the combination of what pastors Ben and Pastor Jeff preached over these last three weeks. And in particular, these two observations from their sermons. Ben's insight that the leadership traits that are mentioned in First Timothy, and again, we're going to read this. So if you're not sure what I'm talking about, we're going to read it again. But it mentions a list of character traits that it requires of leaders. But Ben's challenge was, and it was reiterated by Jeff, that these insights for leaders are required not just of leaders. They're required of leaders, but they should be pursued by all Christians. I'm intrigued by that. I want to come back and land on that a little bit. And then the second point of this message will deal with Jeff's assertion last week. That what we believe must inform what we live. That there's a correlation between what we believe and what we live. So we're going to jump in right there. Are you ready for a little bit of that? Are you ready for a little bit of that? Thank you for responding. So for the fourth time in four weeks, we're going to read the same text. Except this time, we're going to read all the way from chapter two through the end of chapter three. So two full chapters in public reading of scripture. And here's why. Because I want you to hear this from the starting point of character traits of leadership qualities and of what we should all be living for. So we break it up and we have different sermons with a different focus from different chunks of the text. But there's something about reading it all together and understanding the broad brush movement of the text. This is all about, look, I don't want there to be a difference between what happens internally in your heart and what you show yourself to be. Listen for that. Let's stand together. If you're able, would you stand? It will stand for both chapters in the reading of God's holy word. Beginning at first Timothy two, finishing the end of first Timothy three. I urge then first of all that petitions, prayers, by the way, this is Paul the Apostle writing to his apprentice pastor, Timothy, who's pastoring a church in Ephesus. And explaining to him how things work, how you work things out in the body of Christ. I urge then first of all that petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for everyone. For kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and it pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved or rescued, and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there's one God, one mediator between God and human beings, Christ Jesus, Himself human, who gave Himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time, and for this purpose, I was appointed a herald and an apostle. I'm telling you the truth. I'm not lying in a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles. Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. I also want the women to dress modestly with decency and propriety, adorning themselves not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes. And every husband in the room says, "Oh, thank God it's in the Bible." But with good deeds appropriate for women who profess to worship God. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man or to usurp authority of a man. She must be quiet. For Adam was formed first and then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived. It was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. The women will be saved through childbearing. If you continue in faith, love, holiness and propriety, you see with that kind of volatile language these days why that's a delicate subject and I am so tempted to deal with it today. But we'll come back to it next week. Here's a trustworthy saying, "Whoever spires to be an overseer desires a noble task." Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, or literally that's translated a one woman man. It's a play on words there. It's a creativity with language. It's just tough to translate it. Temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness. Literally that is not long beside the wine. Not violent but gentle and quarrel, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see to his own children and make sure they obey him. And he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. Or if anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church? He must not be a recent convert or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with those outside the body of Christ so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap. In the same way, deacons are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging and much wine and not pursuing dishonest gain. They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. They must first be tested. And then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons. The same thing with women who are going to serve as deacons and leaders is implied. The women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers, but temperate, trustworthy and everything. A deacon must be faithful to his wife or his husband implied here and must manage his or her children and his household well. Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus. May God add his blessing to his holy word, his fully inspired message to us. You go ahead and be seated. So those are the texts from which Zandayli, four weeks ago, Ben Kearns, two and three weeks ago, and then Pastor Jeff last week took their messages. And their messages were such that I was inspired to come back and build on those, even deal with some of those things because they so impacted me. And today I just want to deal with a couple of observations, those that I introduced to you earlier. First, Ben's observation that while these are required of leaders, these traits, these character traits that are listed, they're really for all of us, not just leaders. And to nuance that a little bit, I make this first point. This depth of character is not the Christian ideal. This depth of character is actually the Christian normal. Does that make sense to you? Do you see the difference? When something is the ideal, we tend to give ourselves the freedom to say, well that's the ideal, but that's the ideal and it'd be nice. Every once in a while somebody gets to the ideal and our leaders certainly can get to the ideal. I'm saying this is not just the Christian ideal. This is the Christian normal. What we read here is normative Christian behavior. The Christian normal is this level of character. This is what a Christian who is being fully formed and formed to be in the image of Christ, who's aligned with the world God dreams of being, who represents the power and the illustrative nature of resurrection. This is what a Christian looks like. These traits reflect the character to which every Christian must aspire. If Christ lives within us, this type of character must become increasingly natural for the follower of Christ. That's because the average Christian is to be way above average. This isn't just the ideal. This is Christian normal. For instance, this makes sense that the hands we raise in prayer are not blood-stained hands. It's normal. It's not normal for the hands that are raised in prayer to be the hands that could represent openness to God with their posture, but still be stained by violating the principles to love the mercy and forgiveness of God with their actions. That's Christian normal. That's not an ideal. That we have eyes for our own spouse, and our spouse exclusively is not an ideal. It's Christian normal. Now, I know everybody turns their head every once in a while. My wife does. I do. She used to like to go to movies that had Mel Gibson in them. You don't think that attacked one of my insecurities? I almost wanted to go get blue eye contacts to see if I could compete. All of us, we look left and right, but the text says it's Christian normal for you to be a one woman man, a one man woman. And I'm well matched with my spouse, but when I was younger, every once in a while, I'd look. Oh, and then I'd remember what Billy Graham used to say. You know, it's not the first look. It's the second look. You need to really pay attention to. Oh, oh, nope, nope. And I used to have this as my prayer, even though it was never really at risk, but I want, I was so determined. I love her. She's precious and beautiful to me. And then I used to pray what I thought was already true, but I'm going to make sure it stays true. This was my prayer. It might be a good one for some of us here today. God worked powerfully to make sure that for all of my life, the only woman that seems truly beautiful and attractive and compelling to me is Brenda. And that wasn't because I didn't feel like it was true because I wanted it to go deep and true. That's Christian normal. It's Christian normal that no charge brought against us. We'd be above reproach. That means no charge that's ever brought against a Christian would ever have a chance of standing. It would last about 30 seconds. And when you begin to gather information and gather witnesses, they're above reproach. That can't stand. It can't take root. They live in such a way these Christians that charges against them could never hold up because they're above reproach. That's not an ideal, ladies and gentlemen. That's what normal looks like for a follower of Christ, that we not abuse our power, that we not be long beside the wine, that we be people who are known for their gentleness. That's what I'm really working on because I'm not known for gentleness. I'm known for harshness. I'm known as a guy with an anger issue and been doing battle with that and working on that and praying about that and disciplining myself against that for some time. Not obsessed with financial wealth and financial gain. My son Josh told me, I think he read it somewhere else, but he told me once, you know Dad, if the only thing you care about is financial gain, financial wealth, becoming wealthy, if that's the only thing you care about, anybody with half a brain can acquire it, can achieve it. If you don't care what you do to get there, you can get there. But normal for the Christian practices generosity is not obsessed with financial gain. There's nothing wrong with being wealthy, but there is something wrong with being greedy. Those things are all normal and so are all of these different things that are mentioned here. This is not what an extraordinary Christian looks like. This is what a normal Christian looks like. Here's the problem. I'm not normal. And you're not normal. There's a big difference between our reality and what normal Christianity should be. See, by normal you think, oh common, average, but the normal for a Christian is a pretty high standard. Normal for a Christian is Jesus to look like Jesus is what's normal for a Christian. Can you imagine Jesus practicing greed? Can you imagine Jesus misrepresenting power, abusing power? No, he laid down power. Can you imagine Jesus with eyes for every woman all over Israel? Could you imagine Jesus being accused of anything and having it stand up? Neither should you be able to imagine that for yourself. The fact is there's a big gap between our reality and what normal Christianity should look like. This standard of Christianity is not the ideal. It's the goal. These teachings are for everyone. They're required of leaders, but they're the goal of every Christian. That's what normal looks like. God help us as we move there. My second observation has to do with some insight that Jeff brought last week. And that's where he said, he was talking about this list of guidelines, and then he talked about the importance of developing an internal life, your spiritual depth, and how what you develop inside shows itself in what you're living. And he said that there must be a connection between what we believe and what we do. But I'm arguing that if it's true that there is a connection between what we believe and what we do, if what we believe informs what we live, then it must also be true that what we live can give us some insight into what we actually believe. What I do gives insight into what I actually believe. What I believe shows itself in what I live. So what I live reveals to me what I actually believe. Is that a little bit scary? What I do is showing me what I really believe. Let me give you an example. Jesus said, you're going to know them by their fruit. When you're looking at people and trying to figure out their lives and talking about false teachers, you always know a tree by its fruit. So you look at the fruit that's coming off the branches and you know what the DNA of the tree is, telling the fruit, telling the tree what to make. It produces what it's designed to produce. What's on the outside of the branches? Give you some insight into what's inside that tree. And the same thing is true with humans. Let me give you an example. I have a friend who owns a restaurant. And this friend was telling me one day that when he started his restaurant in the current location, there was another restaurant in that strip mall, a smaller sandwich shop. Who resented the fact, the owner of that shop, resented the fact that my friend was putting a restaurant in just two doors down from him. And so the owner of the sandwich shop began to try to sabotage the customer base of my friend's restaurant. My friend heard this, the follower of Christ, walked over, tried to befriend this other owner, sent customers over there to get a sandwich. It wasn't necessarily selling sandwiches in his store. Try to do everything he could to appease him. But no, this sandwich shop owner got a restraining order and wouldn't let my friend come in there. And every time someone came in, badmouthed my friend and tried to undo his business. And he told me about how much that hurt him. Well, I decided, look, man, you mess with my friends, you mess with me. So here's what I began to do. When I used to go to my friend's store to have lunch, he has plenty of parking spaces down there. And normally you'd go on your park in his space. This sandwich shop only had four or five spaces. And then there are four spaces for the store that's between them. I don't care how many spaces were opened at my friend's store. I always hoped for, prayed for, and looked for a parking space in front of the sandwich shop. Because you mess with my friends, you mess with me by golly. I'm taking one of your spaces. I would even pass up one of my friend's spaces that was in the shade to park in the sun at this sandwich shop. You don't want to cross one of my friends. And then I'd walk. I wouldn't just kind of walk around the front of the car and go to the restaurant. I would close the door, look inside the sandwich shop, walk straight toward the sandwich shop, turn to the right, and walk down to my friend's store. Last week or two or three weeks ago, I went to pull in there. Just before we went on vacation, I went to pull in there. And I come driving up, but I think too good, man. There's a spot, it's a last spot for the sandwich shop. I'm pulling in. Too good. And so I go to pull out and there's plenty of spaces now. I go to pull out and pull, pull in. All sorts of issues come at me. Because you know what? What I really believe is shown by what I do. I looked at that and I thought, oh, so believe, forgive your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. Go the extra mile when you're forced to go one, go two. Do I really believe that? Halfway into the space. What I do gives me insight into what I really believe. And that is potentially a scary thought. It's also a very encouraging thought. And here's why. Because it's possible for how you live to influence what you believe. What we believe must be measured in what we live. But it's also true that what we live can give us some insight into how much we bought into certain things we say you believe. And what we do can recraft, retrain, recreate the things we believe. Let me show you. It works negatively in Hebrews chapter three. We're taught that if you practice something long enough, eventually your heart can become hardened. See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it's called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold firmly to the end, our original conviction. So you've got the wedding of convictions or internal beliefs and outside actions. And what the author of Hebrews is saying is be careful what you practice because that informs your heart. And if you practice things that you don't really believe, the next thing you know, you believe what you didn't believe before. Your heart gets formed by what you do and your heart can become hard and not receptive to God. But it works positively as well. First Corinthians 9, do you know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last. But we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore Paul says I do not run like someone running aimlessly. I do not fight like a boxer boxing the air. No, I strike a blow to my body or I discipline my body or in the old school it says I buffet my body and make it a slave so that after I have preached to others, myself will not be disqualified for the prize. In other words, the things that I discipline my body to do, the things my hands do, the things my feet do, the things my mouth says. I force it to obey and to conform to the normal so that my disqualification won't happen later on after I have preached to others. And in Luke 12, this is my favorite expression of this. Jesus says sell your possessions, give to the poor all things we do. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys than this, for where your treasure is your heart will be. Here what Jesus is saying, what you practice your heart becomes. What your heart is must connect with what you do and what you do because it's a reciprocal relationship. What you do, you will eventually become. Therefore, practice what you want to be. Practice normal Christianity. If you have to grit your teeth and do it, do it. If it's a hundred percent disciplined and no heart, do it. You want to become more generous and you do it in little nickel and dime ways because nickel and dime decisions that are right eventually add up to dollars. Practice in small decisions. You're going to be strong in the big decisions. You're going to need to have been strong in the small ones when the big ones come. You want to practice generosity? I mean, I'm thinking to myself, I'd like to be more generous. I think people who are financially stable have a responsibility, especially in times like this, to kind of spread the wealth around a little bit. And it's not a big deal, but you know something I've said I'm always going to do? For instance, little thing. I'm not going to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks without putting a buck in the thing, in a little tip. Not a big deal at all, right? Big deal. It's amazing how hard it is sometimes to lay down a dollar, but it's going to train my heart and in bigger ways as well. So you practice what you want to become. In 12-step, they have a saying that says, "fake it till you make it." Christian versions of that. Rehearse it till you coerce it. Repeat it till you defeat it. What I do gives insight into what I really believe. When I pull halfway into a parking lot, that I'm parking spot, that I'm taking 100% out of spite. A little baby version of revenge. It's not even my offense. It's my friend's offense. I have to stop and think. And I did that day. It's one of the few times that I actually listened. I was halfway into this parking spot. And out of the blue comes this thought. Forgive your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Forgiveness. Mercy. Grace. Compassion. And I thought to myself, "I talk about that, but I think my actions have just been showing me that what I'm really about is revenge, spite, and anger." So midway into that spot, I stopped. I thought, "Oh, I so want to take this parking space." I really, really want to take this parking space. And with no heart, no conviction, no pathos, no passion, no sense of authenticity about it, just out of sheer discipline because it was right. And fear that if I do this kind of stuff long enough, I will become forever bitter and hard. I put that truck in reverse and backed up and forced myself to drive 40 or 50 feet down the parking lot and take another space. We become what we practice. It was time for me to move from letting my actions show me what I really believed. To remembering these standards are not just the ideal. Timothy's standards, Paul's standards and Timothy are the normal. They're four leaders, but they're for all of us. I just got the privilege, the mercy from God, to experience where I was on the growth scale, on the confirmation scale. And the chance to practice what I would love to be someday, that was a mercy. I'm going to give you a chance to reflect on some of those very same things that I was thinking about that day. Give you a parking spot moment here. And as Justin sings, listen for a little bit. Don't sing it first. Just listen. And let his song be a prayer. Let his song be the background for you to be able to actually say, "Holy Spirit, what do you want to do in me?" To repeat that prayer that Ben mentioned, that was so important in his sermon, the idea of a prayer of reflection. God, if there's any wicked way in me, reveal it. What are the things I do, reveal to me about how far I have to go, or how far I've come, and take that wicked way and correct it. Makeeth thou me normal.