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(upbeat music) - Drive Time Devotions is a Saddleback Church podcast. We want to
invite you to one of our weekend services. Visit us online at saddleback.

com for locations and service times in your area. Please visit us this weekend.
- I'm glad you're here for day two of our look together through Second Timothy
chapter three.

We're going to focus on verses 10 and 11 today. Remember yesterday we talked about
false teachers and how the selfishness that they appeal to, the pride that they
appeal to, all of us have feelings within ourselves. All of us have temptations
within our lives that can cause us to fall to that false teaching.

That's why you have to stay away from it. That's why you have to be careful of
it. So what happens in place of it?

What difference can God work in our lives instead of it? Listen to verses 10 and
11. Following up on these words about false teaching from yesterday, Paul says
to Timothy, "You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my
purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings, what kinds
of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I
endured, yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

" Yesterday we looked at the life of a false prophet and Paul said, "You know
what they're like. They're all about themselves. They're all about getting what
they want.

" Now he says, "Look at my life. " And Paul isn't being prideful here. He isn't
saying I'm better than anyone else.

He's saying this is what happens when Christ is at the center. These are the
kinds of things that change. And when you see this happening, you know that
Christ is at the center.

When you see selfishness happening, you know that self is at the center. And the
encouragement here is we want to seek models in our lives, people who will inspire
our faith. Paul commends Timothy for his sincere faith, which first lived in his
grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, we learned at the beginning of this
book, the inspiring models that he had to be in his own household.

And here we have the inspiring model in his life of Paul, his father in the
faith. He wants to be a model to Timothy. And so he encourages Timothy, "I want
you to remember some things.

" And in so doing, he's saying to you and he's saying to me, here's what kind of
teacher you should follow. What should you be looking for when somebody's
teaching God's word? What should you be looking for in your own life as you
share God's word with other people?

Paul just goes through this list, look at their, here's the list, their
teaching, their way of life, their purpose, their faith, their love and their
endurance. I just want to talk through those for a few minutes together. What
should I be looking for in my life when God's word changes my life?

And what should I be looking for in a teacher's life who's going to be teaching
God's word in a way that is transforming? Well, first you look at their
teaching. Is it God's word?

Is it all filled just with stories about themselves? Stories are a good thing.
Stories can help us to color in and fill in the truth of God's word.

I'm not saying you should never listen to stories, but is it all stories? Is it
all just sort of inspirational ideas from themselves, from their day, or is it
based on God's word? Sometimes you'll hear a teacher and God's word is just sort
of thrown in at the end.

It's not the center of what they're teaching. If you listen to a teacher and
God's word is at the center, then you know that's the kind of teaching that can
change your life. I'm very aware of the fact that my words cannot change
anybody's life.

God's word has changed billions of people's lives and will continue to change
our lives day by day by day as we listen to it. So what does God's word have to
say to us? You're looking for a good teaching, you're looking to be a good
teacher, look at their teaching.

And then he says, look at their way of life. It's not just the words that are
coming out of my mouth, it's also the character that's a part of my life. Look
at the way that they treat people, their way of life.

Look at the way that they run their schedule, their way of life. Look at the way
that they handle their money, their way of life. Look at the way that they live
out the life that they have on this planet while they're here on this earth.

As you look at somebody's way of life, you can see how God's word has impacted
their life or not impacted their life. Now I know with every teacher, you don't
get to get really close to them where you can see every single thing that they
do, but you can see some things. You can certainly see their words.

There's something about words that show our way, something about words that show
our heart and who we are. So you look at somebody's way of life. There's more
that you look at, Paul says.

You also look at their purpose. Not just how do they conduct themselves in daily
life, but do they have a purpose for their lives? There's some people, they're
very nice in daily life and they're kind to everyone, but there's no direction
to their lives.

There's no purpose to their lives. I want to listen to a teacher who is teaching
me God's word in a way that I can hear God's purpose for my life so that my life
can have direction. I don't want to just wander through life.

I want to live out the life that God's given me to live. And what's God's purpose?
Well, we talk about it a lot at Saddleback Church.

We talk about the five purposes that God has for us. Throughout the New
Testament, we see again and again and again that His purpose for every believer
and for every church are these five things that we worship, we allow our hearts
to focus on God as a daily part of who we are, that we grow, we allow ourselves
to be changed and transformed by the Spirit of God within us as we trust in Him.
These are things that we do to ourselves.

These are things that happen as we trust in Him, that we belong, we fellowship,
we spend time with other believers and we grow in relationship to others. This
isn't something you do alone. This is something you do in relationship.

So you grow in the way that you love others as well as the way that you love
God, that we serve, that we minister to other people's hearts and hurts and
needs and recognize that God has put us on this planet, not just for ourselves.
He's blessed you to be a blessing, not just to be a container of blessings, but
be a blessing of other people. And God's purpose is also sharing your faith,
letting other people know the good news of what God's done in your life.

So those five things, that purpose of life, that's what I want to live for. Look
at the purpose that somebody preaches about, teaches about and lives for. That's
what you look for in a teacher.

He goes on and he says, you want to be a good teacher? You want to listen to good
teaching? Look at their faith.

Are they living a life of faith? Are they taking the risks that go along with
faith? Are they confronting the fears in their life that go along with faith?

Are they expressing the humility and vulnerability in their life that is a part
of genuine faith? Is there a depth of growth in their life that goes along with
their relationship with Jesus Christ? You just feel like that person's getting
closer and closer to God and I want to go with them.

I want to get closer and closer to God too. Or you as a teacher, you're bringing
people along with you. You're not there yet, but you're getting closer and
closer.

He goes on and he says, look at their love. Paul says, look at the way I love,
the way I love God and the way that I love others. Paul's love was a very
practical love.

It took him places. It took him to see people no one else would see and share
the good news. Paul's love was a very practical love.

It caused him to work long hours into the night sometimes because the church he
was serving didn't have enough money to meet his basic needs, but he knew he
needed to stay there. So he had to work at tent making, that was the job that he
had, long hours in order to be able to speak and preach and minister to people
during the day. Look at their love.

The practical actions of daily love are an indication of the strength of a
teacher. And then he says, look at their endurance. Look at their endurance in
persecutions and look at their endurance in sufferings.

Now we're going to focus on this some more tomorrow, especially the part about
persecutions. But today as we talk about what it means to be a good teacher,
what it means to listen to good teaching, the truth is all of us have moments in
our lives when we lose hope. All of us have times in our lives when
circumstances fall apart around us.

And when that happens, the feeling that we have is despair sometimes. But that's
not what he's talking about here. He's not talking about the feeling that you
have, he's talking about the choice that you make.

In those moments when you feel like God's not going to come through, when you feel
like it's all going to fall apart, instead of allowing your feelings to cause you
to draw back from faith, you allow your faith to cause you to move ahead with
strength. You endure. Endurance doesn't always feel good, but endurance always
has an incredible result.

Because you see in the end that God is always faithful. Maybe you're looking for
a good church, you've just moved. Maybe you're trying to find some things to
read that'll help you to grow in faith, whether it's Christians that lived a
thousand years ago or people that are living today.

What kind of things should you read? What kind of pastor should you look for
that is going to teach you God's word? You look at their teaching, you look at
their way of life, you look at their purpose, look at their faith, look at their
love, look at their endurance.

Now, Paul doesn't say anything here about them being the most expert
communicator that you've ever heard. I fear sometimes today because of
television and movies that what we look at is their words. We look at how fancy
their words are, how passionate their words are, how in comparison to this other
person, how much those words made my emotions move in that moment.

That's not the kind of teaching that's going to change your life, not permanently.
What you look at is this list of things. That's the teaching that changes your
heart and life.

And if God has put you in a place where you have that kind of teacher, be
grateful. I'm not grateful to the teacher, grateful to God, because God's the
one who developed those things in that teacher's life. As we pray today, let's
be thankful.

Let's be thankful for God's word. Lord, throughout this week, we do want to be
thankful for your word, how it speaks to our hearts, how it changes our lives.
And we thank you for those who teach the word.

Thank you that they spend time in your word, but they also let your word spend
time in them so that their hearts are changed. And Lord, we pray for teachers
that we know. That you strengthen them to share your word with character and
conviction and compassion in ways that let your people know.

Let your people know of your love. Let your people know of your hope. And let
your people know that they can have faith in every circumstance.

We ask this together, Jesus, in your name, amen. As I said earlier, tomorrow
we're going to focus on what God says to us about persecution.