1 Timothy Again

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0:00 So we finished two weeks ago our own little Christmas season, which was fun. I heard some people give me a hard time about taking like seven weeks to get off of Christmas, but hey, it's the incarnation, guys. So it was good. I enjoyed the Christmas season, but then that left us with these like two weeks before we started to lend. So this Wednesday we'll gather to commemorate Ash Wednesday at seven in the evening here.

0:33 We'll do an imposition of ashes and sing a couple songs and think about how we are people who need God. And then throughout the Lenten season, there's six weeks, six Sundays in Lent. We'll look at a different story where God met the needs of people. And we'll ask ourselves if those needs resonate with us. And we'll be praying for God to meet those needs in our midst. So we're going to start that this Wednesday with Ash Wednesday, and then I'll just come on Sunday leading up to Easter.

1:10 But this week we're going to finish this one, this little two-verse section in Paul's letter to Timothy. And we started it last week in 1st Timothy chapter 2. If you want to go there, there are some paper copies of the scriptures around. Timothy can be a little tricky to find the Timothy's first and second because they're small and they're towards the back. The pastoral letters of Paul are towards the back.

1:41 So if you get to 1st and 2nd Peter, go back to the left. If you get to Thessalonians and Galatians, go to the right. And we want 1st Timothy chapter 2. And remember that this is Paul's not sure what the rest of his life will look like if he'll get out of jail, how much longer he'll live. And so he's dispatched Timothy to pass through the church in Ephesus that he started.

2:14 And probably there's a network of churches by now that Timothy is over. They had different challenges, but finding meeting places was a challenge. So they might have been meeting in several locations. And he writes this letter to Timothy. We mentioned last time, if you were to read the whole letter, it takes some kind of, cultural exegesis. It takes like some work to extract the culture. We were at the perspective class this week talking about this separating out cultural distinctions from the gospel.

2:50 And the work of doing that is very hard. And if you read 1st Timothy and just run through without being able to take out the gospel distinction or the gospel from the culture, they can get really hairy pretty fast or confusing. So we won't go through the whole letter. We're just going through these few little passages because I don't want that to keep us from the good stuff that's in 1st Timothy. And if you look at 1st Timothy chapter 2, we'll just start there,

3:20 build the verses we want, or a little bit down, but we'll start at verse 1 of chapter 2 where he says, I say, well, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intersections, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead peaceful and quiet lives, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life. We started off last week talking about how interesting it is that Paul, who lived this like fantastic adventure,

3:54 who Paul, who must certainly have been a man at least very obviously, a man of intense intellectual prowess, right? He is writing letters and dissecting the life of Jesus in a way that the church build full disciplines upon four generations. For thousands of years, we're working to understand the writings of Paul. Clearly, he's a genius and has ambition to understand deep intellectual things.

4:25 But not only that, he advances as far as possible in Hebrew school and then goes on farther. He's not content to rise in the ranks of the Pharisees in Jerusalem. He goes out on missions to purify the church from the ways of Jesus. Jesus himself comes down out of heaven, makes a special trip back down out of heaven to get Paul. Paul is a big deal. He walks around Asia, minor, and starts these churches everywhere he goes. He's compelling. He preaches on market corners and in synagogues and builds churches that last for generations and sustains them on his letters.

5:03 He goes past shipwrecks and stonings and snakebithes and run out of town in order to keep preaching the gospel. Paul is intensely motivated and must be a man of high ambition. And when he writes Timothy, not knowing if he'll get a chance to write him again. When he writes him and instructs Timothy on how to care for the people that through his ministry have been called to the gospel. When he encourages them to think about how they will endure in Ephesus as the people of God.

5:38 He tells them, prior to the people in leadership, in order that we could live a peaceful and quiet life. It's so compelling to me that this is the like, sorry, aim of God. That we would be able to live peaceful and quiet life. And then he goes on, peaceful and quiet life.

6:11 And this is what we talked about last week. He says, a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. A peaceful and quiet life that is godly and dignified in every way. And we spent some time because it's not a word that we use a lot thinking about what it means to be godly. In the end, I feel like to be godly is to be a person capable of displaying the characteristics of God.

6:48 He has this kind of amazing phrase on my scripture, unlike paper copies on the next page. But it's just down in chapter three, at verse 16, where he either quotes this hymn or pens a hymn for the first time. It's set off in as a quote. Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit,

7:18 seeing by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory. Paul says, this is the great mystery by which godliness is possible. And this was the thrust of our methods last week because of the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. You have the capacity for godliness.

7:50 You can authentically and honestly embody the character traits of the god. What are those that come to mind for you? What are the traits of godliness that are open to you because of the mystery of the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? Immediately the first one that comes to mind for me is service.

8:20 I see a story of a god who serves people without expectation of reciprocation. He just serves people because he loves them. And so I said about years ago on believing I had the capacity to be a person who could serve those around me and ask nothing of them. The next one that came to mind for me is I see god as this like intensely creative being.

8:50 I begin to think if I'm going to be godly, I will be creative. New things will come out of me. New ways of thinking, new stories, new patterns of relating to the world. Those are the godly characteristics that come to me. When you think of who god is, what comes to mind for you, I want to encourage you, there is a great mystery of godliness in the person of Christ, which gives you the capacity to be a person like god, to carry the character traits of god.

9:32 You can't be god, but just like children look like their parents, you can begin to look like god. And then Paul goes on there, this is good and pleasing in the sight of god our Savior who desires, oh wait, four kings of godly dignified life in every way. This is good and pleasing in the sight of god our Savior who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

10:08 For there is one god, and there is one mediator between god and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given for the proper time. A peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is pleasing in the sight of god our Savior who desires all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

10:39 And this is what makes the peaceful and quiet life godly and dignified in every way, especially coming from the like, hurricane force of a human that is Paul is so interesting to me. Because I would think that if the momentum of god is, hey god is willing that all that none should perish and all should come to everlasting life, Paul would be telling Timothy, wake those people up and send them out.

11:09 Paul, you get Paul would say, Timothy look at me, live like me. This is interesting. In this situation as Paul writes a letter to a pastor to a church and ethicist, he tells them pray for all of your leaders in order that they would live a godly and peaceful life, or that you would be able to live a godly and dignified in every way.

11:39 And then the motivation that these people would be able to live quiet and peaceful life godly and dignified in every way is because god is willing that none should perish but all should come to everlasting life. God has some strategy, some notion about what it means to live a quiet and peaceful life that is godly and dignified in every way, that aligns also with his purpose that all should come to everlasting life. So quiet and peaceful life, godly and dignified in every way does not mean like dig down in a hole and live in isolation and quiet by yourself off on the side away from everyone else.

12:25 Let's read this chord, sorry guys. So, okay cool. So this idea has been like really animating for me this idea that quiet and peaceful life godly and dignified in every way can be attached to god is willing that none should perish but all should come to everlasting life. And the thing that it got me thinking about today was like the strategy of god in the world throughout the whole story of scripture because this idea that we would live a quiet and peaceful life godly and dignified in every way feels to me like hey well feel it felt to me first like there's this key phrase in Jeremiah

13:20 it's kind of famous where the people of god have been dispatched in exile to Babylon and god gives them this call he says be fruitful and multiply work for the peace and prosperity. The plant gardens have children like live lives here and it's interesting that he tells them that when he sits in there and for me that resonates with the calling that he gives to the first ones at the very beginning. And then that got me thinking this calling when he creates the first ones and sets them out into the garden he tells them be my image bears in the world.

13:57 Feel the earth and so do it. Live, multiply, garden, right? She gives them everything and says listen now you be people here in this garden I'll be god and everything will go great and of course they can. Right? What's interesting is when their failure reaches its fullness like in the seventh or eighth chapter of Genesis right? Whereas all desires of humans were evil all the time they are not living quiet and dignified lives they are living rockers and debauched lives.

14:35 They are like they are falling in on themselves. God wipes out all people in a flood and starts over with one family. And he gives that family Noah and his family the same commission. Hey guys would you just settle down and live now? Would you just have children be fruitful and multiply would you just settle down and live would you just take the million of the world with?

15:07 Let me be god you be people. Right? And then when Noah's generations fail ridiculously in the tower of Babel and they want to like take over the world and build a tower and show people how amazing they are. God's like oh my god these people I wish they would just settle down and live the life that I gave them here. Let me let me separate them all.

15:38 And then he picks one and he calls Abram to himself and says Abram would you if I give you a land and I promise that you'll have kids would you just settle down and live. And then the whole world will be blessed through you selling down live in a land with a family. And then they when Moses brings them out of Egypt and he walked up to the mountain and when he walked up to the mountain after God is about to give them the land and they've given up on God and they've decided what their lives will look like.

16:14 God is a crazy story. God says Moses I'm going to kill all the Israelites and start over with you. Because all these people can't just settle down and live they keep thinking they know the better way to do it. Moses says you can't do that. Right? And so he doesn't. But then I began to think of the life of Jesus in this strategy of God where he realizes the best way to get humanity to settle down and live the life they were made.

16:50 The life they were made for is to kill them and bring them to life again. Just to start all over. This is why Jesus is called the second Adam because it's a whole new start for humanity. God has always known if there were a group of people who would settle down and live. Let me be God and they'll be people their whole experience of life would change.

17:23 He's talking about when he gives them the Ten Commandments is like your whole life will change. It'll look like this you only have one God you have to deal with. You won't have to steal from each other. You won't be consumed in fits of anger. If you'll just settle down and live you won't covet each other's things. You won't have to make idols all of the time. You certainly won't kill each other. But you won't even really have to lie or misrepresent the truth. You'll be able to honor your parents and they'll go well with you in the land.

17:53 This is what your life will look like. This is what Paul was so amazed when he writes his letter to Galatians and says, I can't believe it. This mystery of godliness has changed something from the inside out. I can live a life with actual joy. Peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. God knows if there were people living with this fruit for real in the world. The whole world would be drawn to them.

18:26 This has always been the strategy. When Solomon dedicates the temple, the temple, like how long ago, in Israel, he prays at the door of the temple that all the nations of the world would be drawn to this temple and worship the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob here because this is the god that gives life. The strategy has always been in Matthew chapter 5 when Jesus finishes the Sermon on the Mount.

18:57 He says that you have the capacity, poor in spirit, to be a city on a hill. A light set up, not a torch running around the world, a city on a hill where the whole world is drawn to you. I feel like you all, peaceful, quiet lives, godly and dignified in every way. Have the capacity in your life to whatever scope you have the energy or feel called.

19:33 You have the capacity to be like this. Beak in of hope to the people around you. Not because you know all the answers. Not because you do all the things right, but because by the grace of God you have embraced the mystery of godliness.

20:09 That births new life in you. That new life marked by the fruits of the spirit is the thing first you have want, but all the world was made for. If you think about it, love-to-it-peace-patience kind of students faceless, general self-control sounds pretty good.

20:44 Sounds pretty good. This is the characteristic of the life this side of the cross available to you all. He says how it's available here, just in case you're confused. It is not like love-to-it-peace-patience kind of students faceless, general self-control is not a product of your willpower. It's not a product of your good intention.

21:17 It's not the right answer to a quiz in your life. He says this is good and pleasing the side of God who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time for this house appointed preacher, a teacher in 10,000 faith. It goes on that everyone would know this, and then that's when he gets to this mystery of godliness,

21:50 that he was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirits seen by angels for claimed among nations. There's something spiritual and real that happens with the birth, life, death, resurrection of Jesus that can be made real in your life, so that godliness is possible. And the thing for me today is that as we make ourselves available to the people around us like friends and strangers,

22:24 we can anticipate that the position of our life will be attractive. That the answer, the what is attractive is not your answers or your behavior, but your experience. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, general and self-control. You all and then up together are strategically placed in keeping with the strategy of god over the whole square of scripture.

22:57 We are strategically placed to be this like little beacon of hope to Orlando and the world. I don't know if you feel like that this morning, but I just want to invite you to believe that this word of scripture is more true than your feeling.

23:32 Regardless of how you feel, the truth is what you are. Loved by God and because you are loved by God transformed into a godly life and because you live a godly life, a beacon of hope in the world. Let me pray. Hey Lord, thank you for your persistent work on our behalf. Hey, would you teach us Lord what it feels like to rest in godliness and give us confidence and faith to be a beacon of hope to the people around us?

24:19 Recognizing that their hope is not in us, but they see the way we put our hope in you and they join us in that to the benefit of their eternal life. We have to get into you the same before his sake. Amen.