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(upbeat music) - Welcome to our last day, day five of week three of our look
through the New Testament. We come upon First Timothy today. Now I know you're
going to listen next week 'cause that's Second Timothy and how can you hear First
Timothy without Second Timothy?

But we'll start this week with First Timothy, a book about how to live with
power. Now I know some of you, as you're listening to this, you're brand new to
the New Testament. That's why you're listening to it.

So your first question is, First Timothy, who is Timothy? Where do we get that
name? Well, First Timothy one, one to two says, "Paul, an apostle of Christ
Jesus, "by the command of God our Savior "and of Christ Jesus our hope, "to
Timothy, my true son in the faith, "grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father
"and Christ Jesus our Lord.

" So Paul is writing, the apostle, the early leader of the church, the
missionary who went to all the world's starting churches. And he says here, "He
did that by the command "of God our Savior and Christ Jesus our hope. " That's
who was leading his life.

He lived his life as a man under authority, under orders. As a part of following
that command, he went on several missionary journeys. He went to a place called
Lystra on one of those missionary journeys.

Paul was almost killed there. He was almost stoned to death, rocks thrown on
him. But he also met Timothy there.

And Timothy, in Acts chapter 16, one to three, he began to read about his story,
Lystra, which is present-day Turkey. We see that there he was converted under
Paul. And he joined him, began to walk alongside of him in his missionary
journeys.

And out of that conversion, a new commission happened in Timothy's life. He was
commissioned to serve the churches like Paul was serving the churches. That's
why Paul calls him my true child in the faith.

Now you learn from 1st and 2nd Timothy about who Timothy is. You learn that his
mother and grandmother in 2nd Timothy 1. 5, Eunice and Lois, taught him
scriptures, the Old Testament, it would have been, from his childhood.

2nd Timothy 3. 14 tells us that. Timothy, the name, means honoring God or dear
to God.

So Timothy was a man whose life was going to fulfill the meaning of his name. He
was going to honor God with his life. He was going to live a life that was dear to
God.

Now, by the way, whether your name is Timothy or George or Linda or Zach, you
are a person who is made to honor God. But Timothy uniquely lived out the
meaning of his name. When 1st Timothy was written, Paul was in a prison.

And Timothy was a pastor in Ephesus. He was leading the church, a church that
Paul had invested three years of his life in building. And Timothy becomes one
of Paul's greatest friends in ministry, he's my true child in the faith.

Timothy was a man who stuck by Paul when no one else would stick by him. They
were great friends, they had great differences, but they were great friends.
They had differences in age, differences in background, differences in
temperament.

Timothy was fairly timid, it seems like, as you read the letters. Paul was very
bold, but they were also great friends in all those differences. So in 1st
Timothy, Paul writes to the person, probably in whom he'd invested the most,
Timothy, regarding Timothy's leadership of the church in which he'd invested the
most, Ephesus, staying there three years.

And as you read through this book, you find that it's about motivation. It's
about where you find the motivation for living a life of faith. Timothy
struggled sometimes with motivation.

It's obvious from the words that Paul writes to him. Sometimes he wanted to give
up when he shouldn't have wanted to give up. Sometimes he wanted to shrink back
when he needed to step forward.

Well, an outline of this book is, really it's three specific things that
strengthen our motivation in living a life of faith. As you look through the
book, it talks about personal encouragement. And encouragement, that can
motivate you to live a life of faith.

The book talks about practical instruction. And practical instruction can also
be motivating in living a life of faith. You have to know what to do.

And then there's powerful direction. There's the powerful direction of this is
God's call, this is where to go. That's the powerful call of God being called
forth in your life.

That is also motivating. So I'd like to take a few minutes to walk through those
three things. How you live a motivated life of faith.

It starts with personal encouragement. That's in chapter one, verses one to 17.
And in these verses, in many ways, as you look through these verses, there are
two key words.

The word stay and the word serve. First Timothy one, three, as I urged you when
I went into Macedonia, Paul writes, stay there in Ephesus so that you may
command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer. And then down in
verse 12 of chapter one, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me
strength that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service.

So you stay and you serve. You stay where you are and you serve Jesus Christ.
You stay where you are and you serve Jesus Christ.

But what if God wants to move me somewhere else? Then he can move you somewhere
else. But moving you somewhere else always starts with staying where you are and
serving Jesus Christ.

To live the motivated life of faith, you often need someone in your life to say,
stay and serve. And those aren't always easy words to hear. Stay and serve in
that job that you really don't like.

Or stay and serve in that marriage that's struggling. Stay and serve when your
kids are struggling. You see, many times we miss the blessing of living the
motivated life of faith.

We lose motivation because we don't stay and we don't serve. I'm not saying that
God may not want to move you to a different town or a different job someday. But
I am saying that to live a motivated life of faith, you start by staying, you
start by serving, and then you see where God moves you.

Personal encouragement is part of our motivation. And then practical instruction
is part of living a motivated life of faith. Paul gives a lot of instruction
about the church and how living in the life of the church and what God has given
us in the body of Christ can help us to live with this motivation we need.

In chapter one, verse 18, he writes and says, Timothy, my son, I give you
instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you. These prophecies
came out of the church and Timothy's serving in the church. And this instruction
that he gives is motivating because it clarifies what we're supposed to do.

It clarifies what we're not supposed to do. Now, just in the simplest terms, to
Timothy, he's writing to him as a leader of the church, so he says, okay, here's
God's instructions for you. You gotta lead the church, chapter two.

You gotta evaluate leaders, chapter three. You gotta watch out for false
teachers, chapter four. You gotta respect people, chapter five.

That's what it takes to be a motivated leader. Well, some of you, I know, you
may not be in church, but you want to be a motivated leader in your job. These
same four things are true of you.

You want to be a motivated leader, then you gotta do the practical things. You
gotta lead the company. You gotta lead the school.

You gotta evaluate leaders. That's one of the things that motivated leaders do.
You gotta watch out for, it was false teachers in the church, what you have to
watch out for is false directions.

What you gotta watch out for is false promises in the business or in the school.
And then you gotta respect people. You can't live a motivated life of
leadership, of doing anything for God without respecting people.

And then Paul ends the book of 1 Timothy by talking to him about powerful
direction. And powerful direction is also motivating. Chapter five, verse 21, he
says, "I charge you, keep these instructions.

" This powerful direction is given to Timothy in chapter five and the beginning
of chapter six, or the middle part of chapter six. It's given even to slaves,
those who were at the bottom of the culture in that day, to let them know that
even they could, by God's direction, live a motivated life of faith. It's given
about false teachers and how to deal with false teachers.

And it's given, this powerful direction is given to the rich, to those who live
at the top of society, about how they can live this motivated life of faith. And
to all of them, he says in different ways, in the sight of God, I charge you to
keep God's commandments. We all need in our lives someone who sometimes says to
us, "Charge.

" Here's God's direction, let's go after it. So let me read for you, 1 Timothy
6, 11 to 16, which may be the clearest charge verses maybe in all the New
Testament. Here's what Paul writes to Timothy and probably to you today.

What does God have to say to you in these words? "But you," he writes to
Timothy, "man of God, "flee from all this, the evil ways of the world, "and
pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, "love, endurance, and gentleness. "Fight
the good fight of the faith.

"Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called "when you made your good
confession "in the presence of many witnesses. "In the sight of God, who gives
life to everything, "and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying "before Pontius
Pilate made the good confession, "I charge you to keep this command without spot
or blame "until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, "which God will bring
about in his own time. "God, the blessed and only ruler, "the King of all kings,
the Lord of lords, "who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light,
"whom no one has ever seen nor can see, "to him be honor and might forever.

"Amen. " Now, if you're not motivated by that, I don't know what's going to
motivate you. We need someone who says charge, not in their name, but in Jesus'
name.

We need someone who says this is the direction to take, not in their power, but
in his power. And these are the words that you might need today. I'm going to,
whatever it is, that's the hill that Jesus has for me to take.

So by his strength, by his power, by his motivation, I'm going to keep on keeping
on. I'm going to keep charging in his name. Let's pray together.

Jesus says a lot in this life to demotivate us, things people say, circumstances
that we face, the anxieties and fears that are in our own hearts. But above all
of that is your voice. Above all of that is your power.

Above all of that is what you did on the cross and in the resurrection. We don't
want to live a life that's listless and without motivation, that's worried and
anxious because of the ways of this world. So we turn our eyes from that right
now and we look at you and we hear you say charge.

We see your direction. And Jesus, that's the life we want to live. In your name we
pray, amen.

Well, next week, we start with Paul's second letter to Timothy, what you might
call the last will and testament of the apostle Paul.