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Drive Time Devotions is a Saddleback Church podcast. We want to invite you to
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Welcome to our last day of looking at 1 Timothy chapter 4, day 5.

We're going to focus on verses 13 down through verse 15 today. Let me just begin
by reading verses 13 and 14, 1 Timothy chapter 4. Paul writes, "Until I come,
devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching and to
teaching.

Do not neglect your gift which was given you through a prophetic utterance
message when the body of elders laid their hands on you. " Paul writes and he
talks about your message and he talks about your gifts when he talks to Timothy.
And those are things that God's put into your life too, my life too.

Those are ways that God can work through your life to make a difference in this
world. The message, every one of us has a message. Every one of us may not be a
teacher, a preacher, but we all have a message to share.

And he talks about your gifts. And every one of us have gifts given by God to
make a difference in this world. Your message and your gifts.

And as he walks through these things with Timothy, I really see three specific
decisions you and I can make that allow us to have faith with our message and
our gifts that God has given to us. Decision number one is I will use my gifts.
I will use this message that God has given to me.

The truth is that God has given or he wants to give into your life the most
exciting gifts and abilities. It's exciting because no one else has the exact
same combination of gifts, abilities and message that you do. No one ever will.

That's the incredible thing about this world, how unique you are. God gives each
of us individual gifts to proclaim our uniqueness. Now some of us, our gifts
have to do with communication, the way that we communicate the truth.

Others of us, our gifts have to do with service, the way that we serve others,
the hospitality that we have, the way that we are merciful to somebody who is
hurting. Other people, our gifts have to do with administration, the way that we
organize things. I could go on and on.

But you see we have different gifts. But then we have different messages. Some
of us, the main message is love.

We've got to love each other. Others of us, the main message is hope. I've
gotten a new hope because of Jesus Christ.

Others of us, the main message is faith. I want you to see that I can have faith
in daily life to live in a new way. And I could go on and on there with the
messages.

As you take the many different gifts, the many different messages and you
combine them, you realize you have something to offer that no one else can
offer. Listen, you want to re-energize your faith. Start being the you that God
made you to be.

Instead of comparing yourself to someone else and trying to be that person,
start being the you that God made you to be, that unique set of message and
gifts that God has given. Now I say that with passion because I, like so many in
our Christian lives, we tend to want to compare ourselves to other people. And
Timothy is struggling with this self-doubt.

One of the reasons he had self-doubt is he's comparing himself to the false
teachers and the success that they're having. The worst thing that he could do.
If you compare yourself to people who are having some worldly success, some
numbers that are listening to them or some pats on the back that other people
aren't getting, you're always going to go down the wrong road because the people
who are doing it just for the numbers or the pats on the back are the last
people you want to follow.

Paul is talking here about gifts and he says, I want you to make the decision
that you will use your gifts because you have this unique set of gifts. And here
he says, don't neglect that gift. In writing to Timothy, he gives Timothy two
specific instructions concerning gifts.

Here he says, don't neglect your gift. Later we're going to see as we walk
through 1st and 2nd Timothy, he says, you want to stir up your gift. Don't
neglect who God made you to be.

Don't try to live somebody else's gifts. Live out the gifts of who God made you
to be. Now as he talks about these gifts, he says, this gift came by the laying
on of hands through the body of elders.

What is this talking about? Is this some weird spiritual ceremony where I have
to have somebody put their hands on me and then I'll have the gifts? No, the
gifts are given by the Spirit.

They're given by God's Spirit the moment you became a believer in Christ. And
then you begin to live them out. You discover those gifts by serving.

I've never found anybody who discovered their gifts for God by sitting in a
chair and praying that God would reveal it to them somehow. No, you discover
your gifts by serving and you find out what God's made you good at and what
you're not so good at. Here you also see that there's another way we find out
how to discover our gifts, by the laying on of hands.

This laying on of hands was a group of mature men in the church who laid on
their hands and prayed for Timothy, recognizing the gifts that were in his life.
Now it doesn't have to be a body of elders that does this. It can be one
Christian friend.

It can be a small group. It can be a group of people in your Bible study.
There's a group of people in your life that have gotten to know you, began to
get to know you as a believer.

And when they recognize, when they say something that recognizes the gifts that
God's put into your life, that is in a sense they're laying their hands on you.
Now they might even do that physically. But whether they do it physically or
not, they are recognizing God's gifts in your life.

So gifts are discovered by serving. Gifts are discovered by listening to what
other people say God's put into your life. I will use my gifts.

That's decision number one in recognizing how important you are in God's
kingdom. There's a second decision I've got to make in living out these gifts
and these messages that God has put into my life. And that is in verses 15 and
16.

There Paul says, "Be diligent in these matters. Give yourself wholly to them so
that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely.

Persevere in them because if you do, you will save both yourself and your
hearers. " Now we'll come to this save your hearers in a minute. You may have
questions about that.

We'll talk about that at the end. But let me focus now on the beginning of those
verses. Be diligent in these matters.

Give yourself wholly to them so that everyone may see your progress. Decision
number two is I will grow. Decision one is I will use my gifts.

Decision number two is end my message. Decision number two is I will grow in the
use of my gifts and message. Now what's the secret of starting to grow?

What's the secret of focusing on growth? There are a lot of words of advice that
I could give you, but here Paul gives some straight and to the point advice to
those who struggle with feelings of inferiority because that's what Timothy was
going through. If you feel like God couldn't use my gifts, I really don't have a
message.

Paul writes to you and he says, "Be diligent. However you feel, keep serving.
Keep sharing the message.

Give yourself wholly to it. Whether you feel like it's a lot or a little, give
all of yourself to it. Why not?

Give all of yourself to all of God who's given all of himself to you. And then
let others see your growth. " Now as you see what Paul is talking about in these
verses, he's talking about humble service.

One of the keys to my growth is my decision to humbly serve, diligently giving
myself, letting other people see my growth, humble service. I don't grow in
order to become a servant. That's not the whole picture.

I also grow by being a servant. So every day you ask yourself, "How could I
serve someone today? " Because that's the essence of being a Christian, a
follower of Christ.

Jesus said, "I came not to be served but to serve and to give my life. " And
we're following him. That's the essence of the Christian life.

Now somebody said that most people want to serve God but in an advisory capacity
only. We want to serve by telling God what to do or what he should have done by
being the armchair quarterback. That's not what service is all about.

And we all know how easy it is to slip into the "I need to be served today"
attitude rather than "I want to serve somebody else. " That is the attitude that
destroys your growth. God knows when you need to be served.

He'll send the right person at the right time. The truth of the matter is when
it comes to living out a significant life, we serve our way into significance.
We serve our way to significance.

One of the main growth tools that God has in your personal life is service.
Through service you become a better husband or wife. Through serving you become
a better parent.

Through serving you become a better teacher. Through serving you become a better
manager. Through serving you become a better employee.

Through serving you become a better follower of Jesus Christ. And the main tool
that God has in your life for significance is through serving. We serve our way
into significance.

It is through serving that the world has changed. It's through serving that the
message gets out. It's not about me, it's about him.

So you serve. You serve in ways that you see life change and people change. You
save yourself, Paul says, as you serve.

You save yourself and your hearers. Now what in the world does that mean? How do
I save myself?

You need to understand, it's very important to understand that the word "saved"
we usually almost always in the Bible use it to mean salvation by the grace
that's in Jesus Christ. I'm forgiven by him. There are a few times though in the
New Testament when that's not what the word "saved" means.

There are a few times, and this is one of them, when the word "saved" means
"give purpose to. " "Give significance to. " So this is talking not about
salvation by grace.

This is talking about living a life of purpose, and that's decision number
three. If I want God to use my gifts, my message, I've got to decide to use
those gifts in that message. I've got to decide to grow in the use of those
gifts in that message, and I have to decide day by day, this is the moment by
moment decision, that I'm going to live a life of purpose.

Because a lack of purpose always results in a loss of importance. Inferiority
that results in feelings of timidity, and then timidity that results in feelings
of shame. Why do I feel this way about myself?

And unfortunately there's a lot in this world that will proclaim our
worthlessness. It could come from your parents, or feelings from being lost in a
large world. It can even come from the church.

Sometimes the church can tell you what a worthless person you are, or that's the
message you got growing up at least. The truth of the matter is, you are
important in God's kingdom. Now you're not the only one that's important.

We're all important in God's kingdom. But you're never going to fully recognize
that until you do two things. First, accept God's love for you.

And second, day to day live out God's purpose for you. So if you haven't done
the first one, do that now. Accept God's love for you in Jesus Christ.

Say, "Jesus Christ, thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for a new life in your
name. Help me to live out that life that you've given me.

I trust you instead of trusting me. " That's where it starts. Some of you prayed
that prayer and you still have this deep sense of I'm not living a life of
significance.

That's because you're not making the second choice. The day to day choice to
live a life of God's purpose for you. Sure, you're not as important as that
other person that you're looking at over there.

And because of that, you feel somehow that you're not important at all. Well,
the truth of the matter is, you're not important in the way that they are.
You're important in an entirely different way.

Their way of importance might be more visible. Your way of importance may not be
seen by anybody else. But Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 12, the least
seen gifts, the things that we think are the least important, they're really the
most important in the kingdom of God.

So quit comparing and quit pretending that you're not important in God's
kingdom. You are. And so you live out God's purpose for you.

Now, what's God's specific purpose for your life? Well, it's built around your
gifts and message. What job does he have for you to do?

For Timothy, it was reading, it was preaching, it was teaching. Devote yourself
to that, he says, because that's who Timothy was. What about you?

What message, what gifts has God put into your life? Let's take a minute to pray
about it right now. Our Father, if we're not sure yet, help us to see what it
might be.

And then give us, give us the faith to head out in that direction. And if it's
not that, give us the humility to say, well, that wasn't it. And then give us
the faith to head out in a different direction.

Help us to listen to you and listen to others. Help us to not compare and head
out in the direction of comparison, being somebody like somebody else. Help us
to trust and look for who you've made us to be, the message that you've given,
the gifts that you've given.

And then, Lord, give us the strength to trust you to begin to live out that
life. And as it unfolds, give us the faith and the humility to thank you for
what you're doing. Thank you, Jesus Christ, for who you are.

In your name. Amen. Join us next week.

We're going to talk about 1st Timothy, Chapter 5. We're going to look that
chapter at the powerful ways that you and I can help each other to live a life
that's motivated by faith.