We come this week to 1 Timothy's dramatic conclusion. It's as if the Apostle Paul is reaching through the page, grabbing Timothy by the shoulders, staring intensely into his eyes, and earnestly exhorting him: "Fight the good fight of the faith!" We'll explore this Sunday why the Christian life is a battle, and we'll see specifically what we're fighting for and against.
Money is powerful. Our passage this Sunday says love for money can lead to false teaching, strife, and all kinds of evil--even wandering from the faith. How are we to guard ourselves against this? God calls us to embrace a greater gain than any amount of money can offer.
Whether at work, school, the church, or home, it's often easy to serve joyfully when things are going well. But what about when the circumstances are not ideal--or even unjust? How can we persevere in our faith and service even in hard times? We'll see this from Paul's encouragement to Christian slaves in the Ephesian church.
Pastors pour their lives out to care for the people God has entrusted to them. But whose job is it to care for the pastors? According to this Sunday's passage, it's your responsibility--the job of the congregation. Last week we saw how the church is called to care for one another. But this week, we'll see how God calls us to care for our pastors/elders--though provision and protection.
The health of a church is measured not only by the faith statement on a website or even the message in the pulpit. It is also observed by the way God's people care for one another. How are we doing with that? How are you doing with that? Our passage this Sunday gives us both an exhortation and wisdom for how we can best care for all of our church family—particularly those in special need.
Chapter 3 ended on a high note with a beautiful hymn declaring the glory of the church and her Savior. But chapter 4 brings us back down to earth, so to speak, with a grave warning about those who fall away from the faith. How should Timothy and the saints in Ephesus to guard themselves and minister to others in light of this? And how can we watch out for this ourselves and for one another?
Who needs the church? Churches once held a prominent position in the U.S., but no longer. And even many Christians in our day wonder: “Can’t I can be a Christian without going to church?” Some of the disregard and disillusionment comes from the sins and division that is tolerated in many churches today. Yet even while writing to a very compromised church in Ephesus, Paul holds up the glory of God’s people gathered. Who needs the church? We do and our world does.
"Authority" is not a very popular word in our culture today that idolizes no-strings-attached freedom and self-expression seemingly above all else. Yet God ordains and delights in authority—good authority—especially in the church. We'll see how God's design for leadership in his church serves to guard and witness to the gospel.
We return to our sermon series on 1 Timothy, which is all about how the local church is the steward of the truth--the gospel. In guarding and sharing the gospel, Paul moves from a focus on teaching in chapter 1 to now behavior and order in chapter 2, particularly among men and women. The way we live when we gather together matters! This passage is a challenging one, both to receive and to apply, but we can trust that all of God's word is good for us. (*Credit to Pastor Curtis Cook’s sermon on this text at Hope Fellowship Church, Cambridge, MA.)
Why do you pray? What do you pray about? In our passage this Sunday, the Apostle Paul says that if we want to make the gospel a priority, we need to make prayer a priority. We'll see not only the priority of prayer but the purpose of it for the church.
How do we keep ourselves from drifting away from the gospel like the Ephesian church? By cultivating a personal thankfulness for God's amazing grace in our own lives. Paul models this for us in our passage this Sunday as a fuel for Timothy's good fight for the faith in his own life and in the church.
We begin a new sermon series through 1 Timothy entitled, "The Church: The Pillar of Truth." Many people in our day believe truth is subjective and changing. Yet we'll see in this letter that God not only cares very much about the universal truth of the gospel, but that he has ordained the local church to guard it and proclaim it. (Credit to a sermon on this text by Curtis Cook, Hope Fellowship Church.)
