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Amen and amen. And amen. Hey, if you got your Bibles, I hope you do first. Timothy is where we're gonna be. Or you could be in your journal for those of you that are bringing it right now. Look, I see some journalists coming out. You guys are. You're the gifted class. Way to go. We'll talk more about you later. This whole series is called A Field Guide for the Family of God. That Family of God part. The text that we're gonna study today. This is where we get this kind of language, and we're picking it up. This is week seven. We're gonna talk about mortification and vivification. I'll explain those a little bit later. But before we get into it, I just wanna thank. The Bible says give honor where honor is due. And I wanna thank Pastor Adam and Pastor Britt for just doing such a fabulous job the past two weeks. Amen. Way to go. Especially last week, Pastor Britt said some very nice things about me. I don't know that I deserve it, but, you know, it's better than the alternative. So thank you for all of that. We're gonna pick it up in chapter three, verse 14. Paul writing to Timothy, who's the pastor at the Church of Ephesus, says, I hope to come to you soon. And part of what we're gonna see in these pastoral epistles is Paul's love for Timothy. How relationally deep this thing is. Paul loves Timothy. Paul loves his church. And as I was studying this, you know, I hadn't preached in two weeks here. I just want you to know, man, I love you. I love this place. I love being here. I love preaching here more than anything else. I get to do some other stuff, but when I hate missing here, however, it is better for you to hear more voices than just mine. Teach the Bible. And so just also know if it's not me that walks up, I'm not gonna put some chump up here, okay? It's gonna be some really qualified men of God that are gonna preach the word of God and make sure you don't ever get those two things confused. Don't get the mail and the mailman confused. I appreciate you being nice to me and honoring me and all of that, but it is better for our church, especially over time, to hear from. From multiple teachers, because it's what we teach that matters. Not who's teaching, you understand? It's who we're teaching about that matters. All right? So. But I'm glad to be here. I love you. Love you, Paul. Says, I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things so that. All right, here's a little Bible study hack. When Paul tells you why he's writing these things, you should underline that the next sentence out of his mouth is going to tell you why he's writing the book of 1 Timothy. This matters a lot. He goes, all right, I hope to come to you soon. I like you, but I'm writing these things so that if I delay. Here's why he writes first, Timothy, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God. This is why these are called the pastoral epistles, which means there's a way to behave and there's a way not to behave in the household of God. In other words, here's what he's saying. Timothy, you know I love you. I want what's best for you personally. Can't wait to see you. However, the reason that I'm writing this to you is so that you know how to be the church, not just how to go to church. The idea of going to church is nowhere in the New Testament. The idea is that we are to be a church. And the moment you begin to trade in being the church for going to church, then you've missed the whole game. The idea of the church is not some little holy huddle of people to just gather around and take care of one another. That's not the point of the church. The point of the church, what Paul is saying is, I'm writing to you so that you know how to be about the Father's business as the family of God. You see, Jesus came up with the idea of church. If you ever go to Israel with me, I will take you to the very place where the first time in human history the idea of the church has ever mentioned out loud. It's a place called Caesarea Philippi. Shady, man. Super shady. In the first century, it was like Vegas. You know what happened in Caesarea Philippi? I stayed in Caesarea Philippi. Jesus takes the boys on a camping trip and they go to Caesarea Philippi, Sin City. I mean, some shady stuff was happening in that place. There was a temple to this God named Pan. He was like half man, half goat. There was all kinds of. Just think of the most debaucherous things you could imagine. And some of you need to stop right now. You just sit in the chair. Stop, okay? But just think bad. There was child sacrifice there. There was demon worship there. All kind of immorality going on. And then Jesus gathers the disciples together. And he goes, all right, who do people say that I am? And they're like, well, you know, religious teacher, good moral God, that kind of thing. And he goes, all right, but who do you say that I am, by the way? That's the most important question you will ever deal with in all of your life. Who do you say that Jesus is? And the answer to that question determines your destiny forever and ever and ever and ever. And who's gonna talk first? Who's gonna talk most? Our boy Peter's like, ooh, ooh, I know. And he nails it, man. How many of you know even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while? Amen. And he says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus says, peter, you nailed it. His name was Simon. And he says, I'm about to give you a new nickname. Your name's gonna be Petra. And upon this rock, the name Peter, Petra means rock. So I'm gonna give you a new name. Your new name's gonna be Rocky. Look here, Rocky. And upon this rock, I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And the literal gates of hell were right down the hill from where he's talking. And the thing that Jesus said that he was going to build his church on was the declaration of the gospel, the. The good news, that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. And he says upon this rock, not upon a preacher, not upon some kind of evangelism strategy. He's not gonna build it upon some personality. He's going to build it upon the declared gospel that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. And he says, upon this rock, I will build my. The English word is church. And the Greek word that Jesus used is ekklesia. Say ecclesiastical. And it doesn't mean what you think it means. It doesn't mean building. It doesn't mean llc. It doesn't mean nonprofit. It means a gathering of called out people on purpose. That's what it is. Up until this point, it wasn't like a religious term. It meant a movement. That's what it means. By the way, if you've ever noticed, on all of our walls out there, it says that The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people. Why? Because this is what Jesus was talking about. He said, I've got this idea that God is going to save a people, call them unto himself, and this thing is going to be a movement. And a really, really sad thing happened for about 300 years, the church was called the Way, or the ecclesia, or a movement or a family. And about 300 years into it, when you got this weird mix of power from Rome and the church kind of got in bed together. And they quit using the word ekklesia. And they started using basically a German word called kirche. You can kind of hear church in it. And you know what that means? Kirche means the Lord's house. And a very sad thing happened in the mind of Jesus followers. They begin to forget that we are called to be the church, not go to the church. And so what Paul is saying is this. Paul is saying, I'm writing this to you so that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, in the family of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the. Of the truth. You see, every time Paul talks about the church in the New Testament, he speaks very, very highly of the church. How many of you know there's a lot of critics of the church out there today, right? I don't know if you know this. You know how Jesus refers to the church? Jesus calls the church his bride. So I'd be really, really careful about how you talk about the bride of Christ. I mean, listen, I've already established I love you. I love you. If you talk about my wife the way a bunch of people talk about the bride of Christ, I ain't got no love for you, man. You could say, oh, I love you, Pastor. But your dumb wife, guess what? We ain't gonna be friends, man. We ain't gonna be friends. Now, Paul is also very challenging and critical to make the church better. But it's not just simply critical of the bride of Christ. And here's what he calls the church, okay? He calls it the household of God. The church of the living God, a pillar and a buttress of truth. So here's what the church is. Here's what you are a part of. If you're a part of this local expression of God's church. First and foremost, we are called the household of God, not the house of God. See the difference? The household of God. Because the church is not a building. The church is a people. In fact, in the book of Hebrews, the Hebrews calls the church the house of God. And then the very next verse says, and we are the house of God. You remember, like, here's the church, here's the steeple. Open it up, and there's people. That is a very theologically accurate hand gesture. Situation that you learned in the first grade that we are sons and daughters of the most high God. That means that you and I are brothers and sisters in the family. The church is not simply an event to attend, but a people to belong to. There's like 159, one anothers in the Bible and if you don't show up, you can't one another one another. I appreciate all of you that watch YouTube videos and my sermons all over the world. I hope it's supplemental to what you're doing. But man, we are called into this family and those of you that are worshiping online and other places, gather some one anothers together so that we can do the one another's with one another, that we need to belong to one another. And listen man, I'm not saying it's easy to belong to the family of God. You ever try to get along with your family? It's hard, right? I mean you can say ouch or amen, I'm talking about it's hard. But around here we do try to make it as simple as it can be. And so to be the church. I'm gonna talk about this in just a second. You're doing a wonderful thing right now to show up and sit in rows and hear the Bible being taught and sing the songs. It's a very, very, very important part of the church. It's just not the whole enchilada. I need you to take another step and be like, when you think the church. I need you to think about like six or eight people that sit in circles and drink a lot of coffee and talk about the Bible and pray for one another. You're like, how do I do that, Pastor? Join a disciple group and listen, man, my discipleship ministers are going to get mad at me here, but I don't care. Listen, sometimes the group text is more important than showing up to the group. In other words, don't let your kind of wonky schedule and you can't show up all the time prevent you from being with a group of people that are going to be praying for you when you pray for them. Let me ask you right now, who's praying for you? And don't be like, well you are because I filled out the prayer card, okay? There's a whole team of people that don't know your name, but we pray for you by name. If you write the name down and don't be like, well my mama prays for me. Cause you don't tell your mama the truth. Ain't no way you're like, momma, I'm sinning. No chance. You liar. You need some people. Another way to, like, feel like the family of God, Go on a mission trip. You want to microwave some biblical fellowship in your life? Sign up and go on a mission trip with somebody. I mean, you'll go meet these random people. There's always going to be one or weird, one weirdo in the trip every time. And if you're like, there wasn't on my trip. It's a great way to just microwave it. Or serve. Sign up on a serve team. The deacon that ran here, you know that read here, She's a part of the welcome team. It's a great way to not simply just show up to and try to be entertained and then leave. But this is a thing that we're called to be a part of because we are a family. You were not saved by the church, but you were saved into the church. You were saved into a faith family. And are there some people you're not going to get along with? Of course. Every family's got that weird cousin and that strange uncle. Of course. And you may have been sitting by a weirdo in worship tonight. Praise God. Here's what's great about making fun of weirdos. They don't know they're weird. They have no idea. They're looking up and down the road right now. Right? Praise God for you. You're the best. So happy. Love y' all so much. Here's what will actually begin to happen over time is some people that you used to think were weird, then you really get to know their story and you're like, wow, if God took me through what God took them through, I probably wouldn't be as ashamed to worship the like, they are too. You know what I'm saying? You get to know them a little bit. Like, I like a little weird at church. So what you've got to quit doing, and I'm not beating you up, I promise. You guys are awesome. But you got to quit thinking about church as a place of goods and services where you go to receive. And you got to start thinking about church as a family that you belong to. It's completely different. He says that we are the household of God. The second thing he says is the church of the living God. Do you realize that in this moment right now, as we are gathered together at all of our campuses singing the same songs, hearing the same messages, praying prayers together, do you realize that we are a part of something that's actually supernatural that you can count on Every single time that we gather together because God says that he inhabits the praises of his people. Listen, man, church is not just like karaoke in a TED Talk. It's not. It's not just me up here entertaining you for a little while. And it's not like we just sing some songs because we don't know how to fill up the hour and a half. So, hey, warm them up, Michael, and then I'll. I'll start yelling at them. That's not what it is. Do you realize when the people of God get together and make much of God, we're going to war against the devil in hell of himself. And the spirit of God shows up, like, actually shows up in ways that he doesn't manifest himself in other ways. And you can count on him to keep his promises. Listen, we're standing on holy ground in this place, man. If Covid taught me anything, it taught me this, is that the church must gather always. And we will never not gather. The only way they'll have to put us in prison. And if they do, then we'll sing until the walls fall down. Why? Because the spirit of God meets us here, man. I've seen people healed in this place. I've seen marriages restored. I've seen addictions fall down. I've seen dead people come to life, bro. That's what we're involved in here. Why? Because we're not a civic organization. We're the church of the living God. And he wants to be where he is wanted, and he is wanted in this place. Amen. Listen, man, this is the thin place. You prioritize it. Why? Because you were a part of the church of the living God. And then he says it's a pillar and a buttress of truth. That's a part of what we do. Listen, be very, very careful when you show up to church with a critic's eye. Don't ever criticize a church for what you were not willing to bring to the church. I mean, the number of people that criticize worship, I didn't like that. Well, why didn't you worship? Well, that church wasn't very friendly. Well, how did you know? You got here during the second song and left during the last one and didn't say hey to anybody. Well, that church isn't very generous. Neither are you. The church is a pillar and a buttress of truth. That means we're not the truth. The truth. Jesus is the truth. And we have the revealed word of God, which is the truth, and our job is to lean on it. And hold it up. And so sometimes it seems like, especially lately, there are some things in this world which where people are being lied to. And our job as the church is to be like salt and light and hold up and point to the truth. Regardless of whether it gets us in trouble or not, or regardless of how popular it is and regardless of who it offends. That's okay. Okay, you entitled to your opinion. That's fine. My daddy would say opinions are like armpits. He didn't actually say armpits. He picked another part of the body and he says, everybody's got a couple and they stink. All right, that's fine. You're entitled to your own opinion. But your opinions don't run our church. The word of God runs our church. And we're gonna say, this is what we do. This is who we are. Paul loves the church. Jesus loves the church. I love the church. I love this church. He goes on and says, great, indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness. There's a mystery to the church, there's a mystery to the gospel. You ever try to really get your mind around it? I mean, I preached the gospel over and over and over and over, but there is a mystery. The mystery of the gospel is that God, the almighty perfect sovereign king of the universe, who has never done anything except that which is perfect, is willing to lay down his life to draw imperfect, rebellious people like me and you into his presence. Not merely forgive us, but to adopt us and then indwell us with the very spirit of God. You want to talk about a mystery? And so then Paul says, great, indeed, we confess is the mystery of godliness. He's going to use that word godliness in 1 Timothy 8 times. And this is the first time the word godliness ever shows up in the whole New Testament. Peter's going to pick it up later and he's going to use it. But this is the first time in the New Testament and here's what it leads Paul to. Paul starts talking about God's plan a of salvation, of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, which is the local church. And it leads him to a song. If you look in your Bibles you can see it's indented here. This means this is a doxology. This is a first century song about what the church is planted on the rock. His name is Jesus. It says this. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world and taken up in glory. Here's what this means, this gospel, this mystery of godliness, it's personal. It says he was manifested in the flesh. That's Jesus, that it's supernatural, he was vindicated by the spirit, that it's eternal, he was seen by angels, that it's global, it's preached among the nations, that it's practical, it's believed on in the world, like you and I can be a part of this. And it's final. He was taken up in glory. But what Jesus did that was final is he left unfinished for the church to take the message that it is finished to the very ends of the earth. And so I think Paul is pretty pumped here. Okay. I mean, I get a little excited talking about church, too. But, you know, it's my day job. I get into it. So I think he's like, on this high. You know, you see this happen to Paul a lot when he's writing letters and he goes into this doxology, just kind of busts out worshiping a little bit, and he's like, all right, hold on, I got some more to say. And all right. And I think he kind of has this little gut check because he. He maybe has a sense of how special the church is, how supernatural the church is, how precious the church is. And so he gets this little gut check and he's like, all right, all right, all right, hold on. But Timothy, there's some things that can take a church down. And for the whole next chapter, he focuses on these things. He's telling the pastor of the church of Ephesus, pay very close attention to these things. Chapter four, verse one. Now, the Spirit expressly states that in later times, some will depart from the faith. You look at that and you're like, what if you're a new believer? And you're like, why would anybody walk away from this? I know, right? But they do. He's going to use a heart word. Now, the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons. They used to be devoted to Jesus, had their heart towards Jesus, and now they're devoting themselves, their hearts, to other things, to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons through the insincerity of liars, who consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods. All right, this is just blatant legalism particular to the church of Ephesus. We'll talk about that in a minute. That God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. Okay, so what happens? You ever met anybody that used to be a significant part of the church and then they walked away? Well, what happens? Literally, the Greek word there, walked away means standoff. That's what it means. Well, Jesus makes this very clear in a parable called the Parable of the Sower, that there are some people that look like Christians and act like Christians and smell like Christians and are around the church but have not surrendered their life to the lordship of Jesus Christ. And maybe not overnight, but over time. They used to be around the Jesus thing, doing the Jesus thing, and then later they are not. Either their roots don't go deep when the sun scorches them, they wither up and die, or they never depart from this world and they get choked out by the. By the cares of this world. Now, the question, on verses like this, sometimes people will say, well, can you lose your salvation? It's the wrong question. Let me just answer it. No, your salvation are not like your car keys. You're not like, where did I put my salvation? Why? Because if you can screw up bad enough to lose it, that means you'd have to do something good enough to earn it. You can't earn it. It's a gift. It's a gift. It's a gift. It's the wrong question, though. The right question is, can God lose one of his children? And the answer is absolutely not. Now, can you go through the motions and never surrender your life to Christ and then walk away? Yeah, for sure. But you're not walking away from salvation. You're just walking away from some habits and some things that you were into, a fad that you were into. And what happens? You say, how does this happen? Here's how it happens. Your attention goes from Hebrews says, setting your eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, to being deceived by spirits. So pay very close attention to this. Any church, any group, any religious teaching that does not point to the Gospel, consistently point to the gospel, the divinity, life, death, resurrection, return of Christ for the forgiveness of our sin unto the glory of God. Any group, religion, parachurch, organization that does not consistently point there is demonic. While I'm writing this, two couple names, three names came up. I don't know why the Lord put this in my heart. 1. Pastor Adam Flint preaching two weeks ago. He's. I meant to text him, but I see him right over here, so I'll just tell him, nobody. Listen, bro, you are one of the clearest gospel preachers I've ever heard in my life. And it doesn't matter what the text is or what the sermon is. It's just a reminder of what is first importance. And so it's a blessing to me to get to hear you teach. There's a couple in our church. I don't know if they'll be here this weekend. Wink and Raina Cherry. I don't know if you know these people. Raina Cherry is the sister of Amen, Frank. These are the most gospel centered saturated human beings I've ever met in my whole life. Every conversation I have points to life, death, resurrection, return of Christ by his grace. They run a ministry called Coach's Honor. Some of you right now, some of you extra rich people sitting here, you should just donate them some money right now to the glory of God, okay? But pay very close attention to anything. Any preacher that doesn't consistently point to the cross and the resurrection, it is demonic to do anything else. Now, a subset of this demonic teaching in Ephesus was this strange legalism. It was two things they would say, you probably shouldn't get married and you shouldn't eat meat. Ha. You dummy. Both of these are gifts from God. Now, today's legalism comes in many different ways. And it's the same kind of demonic teaching that can creep into the church. And again, I've told you before, where I grew up, you know, I didn't hardly go to church. But when I did, we go to Southern Baptist Church. And we didn't have 10 commandments, we just had a few. Don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, don't go with girls who do. Those are our commandments. Now, it's not terrible advice. It's not. The problem is, is that if you make it salvific, it becomes demonic. Let me tell you why. Like, honestly, most of you should. Some of you should quit drinking altogether and some of you should drink less. A couple of you should have a drink. Good gracious, relax. Okay, now, so go ahead and fire off that email. Can't wait to not read that one again. But when you take good advice for you and make it salvific for somebody else, do you know what the last thing the devil wants you to believe in? It's grace. It's the last thing he wants you to believe in. It's grace. Here's another demonic teaching. If anybody teaches that some religious activity leads to a right relationship with God, that is demonic. If somebody teaches you that a baptism is required or communion is required, or confession is required or a participation in some sort of sacrament that can set you up to receive grace. That's not grace, man. That's a quid pro quo. And that is not the gospel. Now, here's what's very important. These are not just differences of theological opinion. This is a different religion. This is a demonic religion of the devil that points away from the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so in the church of Ephesus, they were saying, all right, if you're abstinent and you're vegan, then you're good to go. There's no chance. Paul says this, for everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. In Acts 10:13, the apostle Peter has this vision, and God shows him all of these animals that used to be clean and unclean. And God says to him, hey, what I have made clean that no man can make unclean. And then one of my favorite Bible verses in the whole Bible, Acts 10:13, and he says, rise up, kill and eat. Praise God. Praise God. Here's now, what is particular in Ephesus. The general principle applies to every church and every believer everywhere. Pay very close attention to anything that shrinks your love for Jesus and elevates yourself. Whether that's rebellion or religion. Pay very close attention. The Puritans would say that you've got to mortify these things, that you've got to go to war against these things. My friend Matt Chandler, he often talks about the idea that sin in your life is like an apex predator. And. And you think that you can make it a pet and keep it in the guest room, but one day that thing's going to rise up and kill you. And so you got to take that thing out and put a bullet in its head before it does it to you. You got to go to war against anything in your life that shrinks your heart for Jesus. Hebrews 12. I've mentioned it already, says it this way. It's a beautiful verse about mortification and vivification. It says, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, that's about chapter 11. Let us also lay aside every weight. And I don't love the translation. Lay aside. It sounds like you're folding clothes. It really means, like, get off me. You ever about getting a fight? I know some of you about, you know, and you're like, get off me. You know that move? That's this move. Now notice you lay aside every Weight. Some things in your life aren't sin, they're just stupid. Like the amount of time you spend on Netflix may or may not, depending on what you're watching. May or may not actually be a sin, but it's shrinking. Your devotion to Jesus because you're devoted to. To binge watching something dumb. You can watch a little bit of dumb. You just can't spend your whole life on dumb and then expect to be this great disciple of Christ. You gotta say to those things, get off me. So what are those things for you? Get off of you and sin, which clings so closely. One of the things I've noticed In the last 30 years of ministry, Christians don't sin anymore. We just struggle. You ever notice that never had one person in the disciple group go, hey, I'm sinning. No, I'm just struggling. No, you're not. Because if you were struggling, if you were fighting against these things, you'd have more victory in your life than if you were just accepting it and calling it a struggle. It's like, you gotta get rid of this stuff, man. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. So you gotta do two things. There's stuff in your life that is killing your relationship with God. You better go to war to kill it. And that's not enough. How many of you know if you're trying to, like, have a nice garden, pulling the weeds won't be enough. You also got to feed the plants. So you've got to mortify the things that are killing your relationship with Jesus, and you got to vivify the things that are stirring your affections for him. Congratulations, you're doing it right now. A part of it. And then in verse six, he says, if you put these things before the brothers. So as opposed to putting the deceitful demonic lies before the brothers, Pastor Tim, here's what I want you to put before the church. He says, 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 the good doctrine that you have followed. He said, the number one thing I need you to constantly and consistently put before the church, is this the word of God. This is the word of faith, and this is good doctrine. And instead of standing in authority over the Word and trying to get it to conform to your life, we do it the other way and we stand under the authority of the word of God and conform our life to it. And again, I've told you this before, submission isn't submission until you don't like it. Of course there's stuff in here you don't like. Why? Cause you're a wretched, crooked and depraved black hearted sinner. And the author of Life wrote this book. This is just what it is like if you're out of shape and you go see your trainer, guess what? They tell you to eat everything you don't like. Because if you've been eating the stuff they already said you wouldn't have to go see that guy. You understand what I'm saying? And you can't abuse the verse before be like, yeah, but if I pray for my donuts at McDonald's, it's gonna be holy by the word of God in prayer. That's not what that means. So he's like, put the word of God. Why? Because it's not your opinions or your tips and tricks that are gonna work. It's the word of God that's sharper than a double edged sword and it's gonna cut so deep, it's gonna change things in your life that you didn't think could be changed. Then he says, have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. That's the Hebrew for social media. What are you doing? Or podcasts that feed your fears and narcissism. What are you doing? You can keep up with a little bit of that stuff, but if it is the main course of your diet, then no wonder you're going to be like a fat baby, dumb and just blown around by whatever Joe Rogan says. Also, be very, very careful, church people of going down these secondary Christian rabbit holes that have nothing to do with the love of Christ and the death and resurrection of Jesus. Be very careful with that. And you're like, what do I mean, some kind of secret revelation? Or what do you think about the Nephilim? I don't care. The Book of Enoch, neat. Spend about 10 minutes on it, then you're done with it. Dates of the second coming. Stop. Be more concerned with being on the welcoming committee than the planning committee. Get to work. And it happens all the time, man. Every few years there's this thing, there's this little like, ooh, we guess what we just found out. Yeah, we're not. That's not Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Why don't you come over here and let's get deep into this. Oftentimes in church, deep just means confusing. People just be preaching nonsense and people be taking notes, mooing like a cow. Mmm. Oh, it's so deep. What's he mean? I have no idea. It must be spiritual. Nah, man. You get really laser focused on words of faith and the good doctrine. Then he says, rather train yourself for godliness. Train yourself. That means we got work to do. Please pay very close attention to this statement. The gospel is not anti effort, it's anti earning. It takes a lot of work to live out the Christian life. It's a gift that we receive, but we're not saved by our works, but we are saved to good works. You've got to train. Godliness must be fought for. You will never drift into a deep abiding relationship with Christ where the fruit of the spirit is just bubbling up all over the place. I'm sorry about that. That's my love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, generous self control. I don't know how it happened. No, man, you gotta train. Your spiritual journey is a lot like your physical journey. Anybody ever neglect their body into awesome. No. Look at yourself right now, right? It's like your whole every birthday is warring against you. So here's my question. I say this all the time. So few of you actually do this. What is your next step on the discipleship journey? We've started a program here called Growth Track. Okay. And I need all of us to do it. I think so far we've had like 70 people. We have 25,000 people show up to hear me yell at you for an hour. 70 people take the next step. Don't be done. If you want to train yourself in godliness, here's what we are offering to you. Hi, I'm your trainer. We've got two online classes. You got a whole month to go through them. The first Sunday of every month until Jesus comes back. We're going to have the third session, which is in person class. And here's what it's gonna be. Here's who we are, here's what we believe. And then the majority of Growth Track is simply to help you train in godliness. Like we're gonna help you figure out what is my next step of obedience. Is it to serve? Is it a group? Is it, you know, is it pray more? What is it? We are here. Like the whole, the way this whole thing is set up is that every single one of us on staff are here to serve you in, in your relationship with Jesus Christ in Case you haven't heard of it, we are a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus. And if you're like, well, what does that mean for me? You're never going to stop discovering things about him and things about you, and you're never going to stop deepening your relationship with Jesus. And if you stop taking steps, by definition, you are no longer following Jesus, who says, I am the Good shepherd and I want you to hear my voice and I want you to follow me. So the whole growth track thing is to help you do that. I want you to overwhelm our growth track classes this month. You understand? I want all the people that work here to be like, oh, no, what are we gonna do with all these people? And I'm saying, it's not my fault. I told you. Get ready. Okay, if you want information, you text the word growth to 441122, and you figure out the first Sunday that you can be here. Take the two online classes, get warmed up, and then the third class will do that. The reason we're doing this is for this. We're trying to help you train yourself in godliness. Then he gives an example. Verse 8. For while bodily training is of some value, Amen. It is of some value, but it's not of ultimate value. So all the fitness freaks in the room, I got terrible news for you. Time and gravity are not your friend, okay? They're not. I don't care how much you work it out and stretch it and eat kale and take all the vitamins. Guess what? You're going to die. And before that, it's going to sag, and then you're going to die. Now, should we be good stewards of our body? 100%. Okay, 100%. Is it of eternal value? No, it's of some value. It's of some value. But a big question is, do you spend more time and money on what's eternal or what's temporary? I mean, you go to the gym an hour five days a week, and the totality of your Bible studies. Listen to the five minutes of the daily blade three days a week or something. He's saying, get your priorities right. 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. Here's the wonderful thing about eternal life. Eternal life doesn't start when you die. Eternal life starts the moment the Spirit of God fills you and takes you from death to life. So why in the world? Would we act like we're going to spend forever here in these bodies when we're promised eternity? Then he says the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. There's some kind of like theological battle over whether that's the previous verse or the next verse. I think it's that. I think it's verse eight. Here's what is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Godliness is of value in every way as it holds the promise for the present life and also for the life to come. For to this end we toil and strive. To what end? To godliness. To continue to take steps to follow Jesus, to be conformed to his image and likeness. That's what that means. Because we have our hope set on the living God who is the Savior of all people, especially those who believe. So let me ask you this. Where are you placing your hope? Where are you placing your hope for your life? Is it the temporary things of this world? This world spends billions of dollars a day to try to get you to misplace your hope, whether it's on the pride of life. And so you think the most important thing is you and your status and your title or your self improvement, your knowledge. Although this world gets us, wants to get us to spend billions of dollars to, to put our hope in the stuff of this earth. I mean, there is this relentless pursuit of comfort and convenience and oftentimes we think fun is the highest value or it's the lust of the eyes. You think a little bit more folding change and some stuff is going to gonna fix you. It ain't gonna fix you. The only place to put your hope is on the living God. This is what we spent two years in, man. Are you living the abundant life that Christ has for you or are you just chasing after an abundance of stuff that will never fully and finally satisfy? You have to train towards that because everything in this world is going to push you to you. And so then Paul is going to close this thing up with a little coaching to Timothy. But I think he's got a word for me and you too. So he's like, all right, Pastor Timothy, command and teach these things. And I think Timothy's like, yeah, but Paul, who's gonna listen to me? And so Paul gives him this word. He goes, listen, man, let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love and faith and impurity. Timothy was about 30 years old, but in the Jewish system there were certain things you couldn't do in the synagogue until you were 40. Paul's older, so you know, young and old is all relative, right? I used to think 51 was so old. Now it does not seem as old except early in the mornings. All right? And so what he's saying is like, hey, you don't worry about people's opinion of you, Timothy. You just make sure you're smoking what you're selling. That's not exactly what he's saying, but that's what he's saying. He's like, it's not enough to stand in the pulpit and preach it to these people, but you set for them an example in life, love, speech, and purity. That's what you do until I come. Devote yourself, like, fall in love with this. Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. If you come to the church of 1122, we are devoted to the Scriptures, to exhortation and teaching. Every single time we walk in this place, we're going to glorify God in worship, and we're going to glorify God in word, and then we're going to call you to yield to the Holy Spirit and do something about it. And we're going to do it over and over and over and over. And God is going to use that. And over time, not overnight. Like. Like, you know, when you train your body. Have you ever had one workout and you come home, you're like, I'm ripped. What'd you do? I did one set of crunches, and now look at this. It takes a minute. Amen. And while God saves you in a minute, he saves you in a moment. It takes a minute for that sanctification process. And so you strive for it. You devote yourself to these things. And then this next charge to Timothy is in regards to him being a pastor. But it's true for you, too. Okay? He says this, says Tim, verse 14. Don't neglect the gift you have. Don't neglect the gift you have, which was given to you by the prophecy when the Council of Elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, Timothy. It's not enough to feel it, it's not enough to hear it. You got to practice. Practice these things. Immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by doing so, you will save both yourself and your hearers. Timothy needed to hear this again. I've talked about this before. Timothy had a lot working against him when he went into ministry. Two Thousand years ago, he was raised by a single mom. So all you single moms out here, listen, man, we love you. We're for you, okay? When the ideal is unrealized, grace abounds. This is a part of the reason God gives us a church. But don't you give up. God used this single mom to raise this kid to grow into a preacher that we're still talking about today. Ain't nobody been talking about me. Like a month after I'm gone, they'll be like, what was that guy's name with the Civil War? General guy? No, no way. Gonna remember. We're still talking about Timothy, okay? His dad's not mentioned. He gets nervous a lot. Paul tells him God didn't give you a spirit of fear, but a power of love and of a sound mind. He's got a nervous stomach. We're gonna find out in a couple weeks. He says, take a little wine for your stomach because you get a little worked up, you know? And so Paul has to constantly remind Timothy, prophecy is not just telling the future, it's telling the truth and he's saying true things. We need this more and more and more in our society. And I want this to be this kind of church here where we see God working in people and we look at him and we say that we don't just think and feel a thing, but when we see somebody aligning themselves with the work and word of God, we say it out loud. We say, hey, man, you know what I see in you? And this is what Paul is doing. All Paul is getting Timothy to do, he's just reminding him that even when Timothy doesn't feel faithful, God is always faithful to his promise. And it was God that decided Timothy was going to be the pastor of the Church of Ephesus. And you may hear that and be like, well, that's cool for a first century preacher, but what about just regular old me? Here's what God says to regular old you. Do not neglect the gift that you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Listen, man, you're gifted. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, the spirit of God dwells in you. And every believer has at least one spiritual gift. And no believer has all of them. That's why we need each other as a body. Some of you have never heard this. Congratulations, you're gifted. Remember the gifted class? Anybody in the gifted class, raise your hand. You nerds. I know you worship on maps. Well, don't even act like you're not. Remember those people, the gifted. We didn't have enough for a whole class in Dylan. We didn't. So on Thursday mornings, they would take the gifted people out of our class. And this gifted teacher would come in and be like, would the gifted students come with me? And all these nerds would get up and leave, and we'd be like, hey, where y' all going? We're going to do hard things. Here's some crayons and some glue. Y' all just hang out here, you know? All right. But here's what's crazy, man. If Jesus were to walk into our church right now and say, hey, all the gifted people, come with me. Everybody that has put your faith in Jesus Christ, we would get up and go to the gifted class. Because you got a gift, man. You got a gift given to you by the spirit of God. And you don't get to pick your gift. You don't. And again, man, there's some churches that kind of. They have more gifts than the Bible does. You ever done that? You know, you've seen those places. You gotta relax. The gifts aren't for you. The gifts are for the glory of God and the edification of his church. I may have told you one time, I went to this college retreat one time, and I took a gifts assessment, and I came back with my gift was martyrdom. Martyrdom. I look at my roommate, and he looked panicked. He was like, what did you get? And I was like, martyrdom, What'd you get? And he goes, dude, I got celibacy. I was like, I'd rather have martyrdom, bro. Good luck with yours. Okay, So I don't think those are two gifts anyway. If you go to Grocery rat, we're gonna help you figure out, like, what your gift is and what your place in the body is. I don't know. If you're a hunter, this will make sense to you, man. You ever bird hunt? Watch a dog work? I like it more than I like shooting the birds. That sounded like I was gonna flip you off. That's not what it means. God designed these dogs, man. I go to South Dakota every year with my friend Jeff Moore, and we go pheasant hunting. And when those dogs come out of that box and they just start doing dog stuff, man, and they can smell a bird. I can't smell a bird. They smell a bird, and they get downwind, and there's pointers and there's flushers, and they just do the thing God created them to do, and you just watch them work or you see an eagle fly and you're like, God made that eagle to fly. Or you see a bass go after a little minnow, nobody taught it to do. Like, that's just how it was designed. And those are birds and dogs. And Jesus tells us God thinks way more about you than he does birds and dogs. And he designed you. And some of you are miserable with your life because you're not in alignment with what God has given you to do, that you're gifted, that God has given you an assignment. And it's not all about you. And you gotta practice these things, immerse yourself in these things. It's not enough to just feel it, you gotta do it. Listen, man, I hope it's isn't too much about me. Most of my week, I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. Follow me. I'm just the leader, okay? So I'm just telling you, and I don't know that I'm very good at it or whatever, but for about 55 minutes, three times a week, when I open up the Bible say, if you've got your Bible, let's go. I don't know, I just feel like a dog hunting. And it wasn't my idea. Somebody prophesied over me, you know what I'm saying? Coach Lee voluntold me to do it. And then in all of my insecurities, and when the enemy gets really loud and whispers really loud about all the lies he's gonna tell me. I've got some elders, I got some brothers, I got some sisters that they begin to prophesy over me too and speak true things. If you're not in community, if you're not the family of God, how in the heck do you ever think you're gonna figure out you're part of the family? You, you need some other people in your life. Saying, man, I see you come alive when you're greeting. I see you come alive when you're serving, man, when you teach in the kids ministry. Wow. The kids love it and you love it, and we all love it. And God wants you to know your place in the family and your part of the body. And the only way to know is you gotta practice some of these things. Then he says, keep close watch over yourself and on your teaching. And then he says, persist in this for by doing, for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers. The way I would say that is, do you have any idea what hangs in the balance? Do you have any idea what hangs in the balance? Maybe Answer this question. If you could do anything for the glory of God and you knew it wouldn't fail, what would you do? If you could do anything for the glory of God, and it doesn't have to even be some big glorious thing, it might be. I wish I had, like, three Christian friends. Okay, if you could do anything for the glory of God, you knew it and wouldn't fail, what would you do? The moment God lets you know that answer, the next question is, then why aren't you doing it? Cause you know what hangs in the balance? You have no idea. Coach Bulley was a JV football coach and a deacon at First Baptist. Dylan. Not exactly like the mission sending capital of the world. And he's a heck of a football coach, man. He's mean as a snake. And he loved Jesus so much, and somehow that just mixed together. He's very Pauline in his discipleship, and he didn't have a discipleship strategy for us. His strategy was, boy getting a truck and I'd clean dog cages and, I mean, do all kind of junk. And one night at a meeting at Dillon First Baptist, they had a vacancy. They needed somebody to run Camp Pine Hill Baptist Retreat center and Coach Lee. If you've been around football coaches, they don't have time, especially in the summer. And he prioritized eternal things over temporary things. And he was more concerned about teaching young guys like me about Jesus than he was the wing T. And he was a great coach. He won state championship in South Carolina. So it's not like he was crappy and blamed it on God. And he said, I'll do it. He told me he went to the bathroom. When he came back, he was in charge. That's what he said. But whatever, because he said yes. He said yes. He never preached more than about 50, 100 people at a time. Maybe something like that. If you preach here tonight, you couldn't even understand the words that are coming out of his mouth. He told like that. You can't understand it. He had no idea what hung in the balance. Do you know this year we've had 455 people give their life to Jesus Christ this year? And so we just got into February. Good. Do you understand what I'm saying? And you could trace that thing back to a JV football coach in Dillon, South Carolina, saying, who the heck am I? I'm just a nobody jv. I'm not even varsity JV football coach, but God, I'll be a part of your family. I'll do what you told me to. Do, Man, I can't wait till I get to see him again. One of the things I think about when I get to heaven, mostly about Jesus, but I think about this man. I can't wait to see him. And I can't remember how many. It's like 16,000 people have gotten saved at the Church of 1122 since we opened in 2012. And I can't wait to say, coach Lee, here they are. Because of your faithfulness. You had no idea what a yes from you. And here they are, and we got all the time in the world. To the glory of God. I'm going to introduce every one of you to me. There he is. There he is. There he is. Okay. All right. And he would say, there ain't nothing special about me. And I would say the same thing. Ain't nothing special about me. And I'd say this about you. Ain't nothing special about you except that you were bought with a price. That God made you special when he died for you and when he indwelled you. And that is the mystery of godliness. And he ain't done with you. He didn't save you just to get you to heaven. And so I'd highly encourage you, go to Growth Traction to help not just feel a thing right now. Oh, we got all the feels right now, don't we? I do. We gotta practice this thing. We gotta do the things that God has called us to so that we know how to be the church, not just attend it. Would you please stand? Let me pray for you. Our good and gracious heavenly father, God. Oh, we love you. We can't even get our head around the fact that you love us the way you love us. Because, God, we're a mess. We're a hot mess. And we're prone to wonder. We're prone to believe silly myths and wives tales and get all hung up in all the wrong things and just forget the gospel. The love of God poured out on the cross for us, adopted into your family and then commissioned to be a part of the work of the advancement of the kingdom of God. And you called us into that. And so, Lord, I pray against any kind of spirit of fear, any kind of spirit of confusion, any kind of spirit of condemnation. Lord, I pray for the man, the woman, the student. God, I pray for the teenager right now that thinks that they have to wait to get into ministry later. Lord, may they know. Let no one look down upon you because of your youth, but set for them an example in life, love, speech and purity. Lord, I Pray for encouragement that you would put your courage inside of us. You would speak so clearly to us that we would take steps in the direction of the good Shepherd. And every step we take in obedience towards that voice leads to an abundant life. And there's nothing temporary in this world that could even touch what you have in store for us. God, I thank you for all the yeses that are going to be on the table today. And I thank you for the generations and the generations of sons and daughters that will be adopted into your family and a part of your plan and process where people stepping out and saying yes to the part of the body of Christ that you have called us to. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen. So church, we're going to respond, we're going to sing, we're going to bring, we're going to pray. Here's a prayer God wants to answer. You come down here and you get on your face before the Lord and you say, lord, I want to do all that. I want to kill the sin that's killing me. I want to vivify the things that are stirring my affections for you. I want to step into whatever the ministry, whatever the calling is. I just don't know what it is. God, would you make that thing clear in my life? I promise you that is a prayer that he wants to help you see clearly on. So we're going to sing, we're going to bring, we're going to pray, let's respond.