The Book of 1 Timothy - Step Out!, Part 2

Everyone faces adversity, pain, difficulty, heartbreak, disappointment. How you respond will shape you one way or the other, either for good or for evil. Today we're going to learn how to respond the right way.

Stay with me. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Druey, and Chip's our Bible teacher for this international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. Well, in just a minute, we'll continue our new series, The Book of 1 Timothy, Life Coaching from the Apostle Paul. Before we begin, let me encourage you to try using Chip's message notes while you listen. They contain his outline, scripture references, and much more. Chip's notes will really help you remember what you hear and maybe even share what you're learning.

To download these message notes, just go to the broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org, tap listeners, tap fill in notes. Well, with that, if you have a Bible handy, turn now to 1 Timothy 4 for the second half of Chip's talk, Step Out. Some of you that lift weights would love this word, persevere. It's everywhere.

James 1, remember, it says, Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing the testing of your faith produces perseverance. It's hupo meno, compound word. Hupo means to be under, meno, under pressure or stress. Some of you actually pay to be under pressure and stress. And you usually have a partner, you put it on here, hupo meno, hupo meno, hupo meno. And then it's, come on, come on, come on, right? And you understand how it works.

I'm sure most of you do. Is when you get to that third set, is what you're doing is you're tearing the fibers of the muscle just ever so slightly. And the reason you don't want to lift hard two days in a row the same muscles is you don't want to tear too much. But what you do is you tear them a little bit. Then if you're smart, you get some protein in you. And then in about 24 to 48 hours, as it heals back, guess what? That's why your muscles get bigger.

Your muscles get bigger because of resistance. Your soul expands with godliness when you go through adversity. God uses suffering. Could you imagine what would happen if you would rethink adversity rather than, oh god, why me? Or this is so terrible, or life's not really fair. And you saw it more as, this is a test of my faith.

Hupo meno. And I'm going to get up each day and like Timothy, I'm going to take pains. I'm going to absorb myself. I'm going to renew my mind. I'm going to memorize the scripture. I'm going to get with some guys that really want to do life. And I will tell you what, in the midst of adversity, we will meet you two years or five years or seven years from now.

And you will have people say, what happened to you? And they're not probably going to say something, oh you're so Christ-like. But they'll see it. This passage, coaching nuggets to me that are the big takeaways, here's the truth. Here's the truth, and drink this in.

It's in bold. Some will fall away from the faith. I don't want to sound negative, I want to be realistic. Some of you in this room will fall away from the faith. You'll pay attention to other things. You'll buy cheap substitutes. You'll start with just a little flirting here or there. A little logging on here or there.

A little bit more debt than normal. And two years from now, or five years from now, you'll remember what it was like to be at a time like this. You'll probably pooh-pooh it, because what happens when you fall away from the faith, you always have to then rewrite your past history.

I've done this for living people for 40 years. I've sat in so many rooms, well, what I realized was I never really was in love with her. Well I can see where your porn addiction and stepping out on her and having a couple affairs would probably sort of mar your perspective of the past. You'd be surprised how many college freshmen go away to school and everyone else is smoking dope, everyone else is getting high, everyone else is drinking, everyone else is getting laid. And pretty soon, they've come from a Christian family or maybe even a Christian school, and pretty soon, I'm not sure if I believe in God anymore. Big intellectual issue.

See, here's the thing. When you're sleeping with someone and when you're doing things that are wrong and you know they're wrong, it's so guts at your conscience. The only way to cop out is you have to have some resolution in your mind so you change your theology. But it doesn't change the truth. And here's the thing, you always get what you sow.

The challenge is, as the writer of Ecclesiastes points out, is you never reap in the same season. The reason evil is, I don't know about you, when I sin and sin things, and especially before I was a believer when I sinned, people said, oh the sin is terrible. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I really did, right? Because most sin is taking a good thing that God designed for us and getting it at the wrong time or in the wrong way. But the thing about sin is, you can do it and it just doesn't seem like it. That was no big deal. I didn't hurt anybody. I'm not addicted to anything. This isn't a problem. My marriage didn't break apart.

I didn't become some wild, crazy, terrible person. Well that's like a farmer dropping a seed in the ground and coming back the next day and going, man that seed doesn't work. Oh yeah it does. You just can't see it right now. And then you water it. And see that's why it's so hard to be godly. Because you have to sow righteousness. And when you sow righteousness it takes time for it to grow. For your mind to be renewed. For you to change. And see when you sow good things it takes a while to see the fruit.

And when you sow bad things it takes a while to see the fruit. And so this really is Paul trying to help Timothy understand some will fall away because of what they pay attention to. But he says, for this godliness, Christlikeness, faithfulness, this is what we labor and strive.

And here's the thing. It's not just for now. We've fixed our hope on the living God. There is hope for us every moment of every day and a heaven that awaits us. Who's the savior of all men and especially of those who believe. And so again we've said Christ has made it possible by his death and resurrection he has forgiven all people.

But not all people will be saved because some will reject the offer. It's just like you know you can, you know I've got a bunch of grandkids, twelve if you can believe it. And you know I can have presents for everyone. But the only ones that get the presents are the ones who open the package.

Now so far we're doing pretty well. When we put presents under the tree they seem to be very intelligent grandchildren. They grab their present, see their name on it and they open it. But it's amazing to me how many adults don't do the same thing with the present. Because the scripture says it's by grace.

That's a word for something that's free or it's a present. For by grace we are saved by faith. It's not a result of your works.

At least any one of us would boast. It's by putting your faith in Christ. Notice the response here is discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. That's what he told Timothy to do.

Basically lifting weights is great, running marathons is great. But godliness is good for now and forever. Second do not neglect the spiritual gift within you. And then notice this last one is take pains, be absorbed with so that your progress will be evident to all.

Pay close attention to yourself and your teaching and persevere in these things. What I want to do now is I want to kind of go into coaching mode about how you can become a godly man. Very, very specifically how you can become a more godly man than you already are because a lot of you are very godly men.

What does it take to live our lives where we're an example and people see our progress? The subject here is godly leadership amidst spiritual warfare. Is that a fair summary this chapter? The underlying issue is Timothy's personal growth and development. Did you get that?

Here's the underlying question for us. Am I willing to pay the price to be a godly man? Underline pay the price and then fulfill God's calling on my life. Did you know God's got, he has a calling for everyone, not just pastors or missionaries. He's got something for you to do that no one on this whole earth, eight billion people with their specific DNA. Ephesians 2 10 says this, you are his workmanship, literally his tapestry, his poem, his work of art, created in Christ Jesus unto a good work which he preordained from the foundations of the earth that you would do.

Your personality, where you were born, your family of origin, the good, the bad, the ugly, your spiritual gifts, your natural talents, the adversity you've been through, all of those things provide a package and you are able to do certain things, think certain ways, help certain people in ways like no one else in the world. And let me tell you something, when you discover what that is and you start traveling in that lane, it is awesome. It is awesome.

Chariots of Fire, anybody see the rerun of that? I love the line, when I run I feel God's pleasure. Can I tell you, that's God's will for you. For someone I counsel, I feel God's pleasure. When I build a company unto the Lord, I feel God's pleasure. When I help these orphans, I feel God's pleasure. When I teach that Sunday school class, I feel God's pleasure.

When I help these couples get back together, I feel God's pleasure. When I make a lot of money, I have a great, great friend, we went to a conference about 18 years ago and he came away with a conference that was on generosity and he was fairly wealthy at the time, he'd been broke two or three times, we knew how to make a bunch of money and we came out of the conference, he goes, I now know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, because it was near retirement. I said, what? He goes, I'm going to get so much money. I said, boy, this conference really had an impact on you. And then he paused, so I can give it all away. I mean, he is an entrepreneur, he's got water parks going over here, buying and selling, he just took a piece of land over here in the place of Texas, he's doing a deal over here, a deal over here, and he's just giving away millions of dollars. And instead of sitting there, well, I guess, you know, I guess I'm going to retire, you know.

Of course, you know I've done the research and people that retire and don't do anything die in about five years, so I think that's not a good plan. And he just thought, I'm in the prime of my life. And he just, he says, the joy, the joy of getting to just change whole people's lives, whole villages' lives, water in these places in the world where people were dying of bad water. I mean, you figure out, and God will show you, it's not like he's going, oh, you know, I'll get dry, that's not it. No, no, no, you know, door number three, door number four.

He's going like, here's the door, let's partner. Do you realize, I made you. I made you different than anyone else.

And if you'd stop comparing yourself with other people who you think, and you would just realize who you really are, man, I'll use you. That's exciting stuff. But are you willing to pay the price? There's a lot of distractions. The action requires to step out, to step out and be an example, and to step out and not worry about what other people think. It means going into spiritual training. It means discovering your spiritual gift. It means finding a mentor, a friend, or a band of brothers because you cannot do this alone.

It's not hard, it's impossible. And I went into spiritual training, I just early on, I did some things like no Bible, no breakfast. If you don't like to eat breakfast, you'll have to try something else. I love to eat breakfast. And I just develop the habit that I got in God's word first thing every day.

Mind over mattress. It's really simple. You develop habits. Set the alarm and don't ever push snooze.

It's illegal. You build fiber. It goes off. I get up because my body is not going to tell me how I'm going to live my life. My emotions are not going to dictate my life.

I'm in charge of my life and you go into training to be in charge of your life. Oh, I feel sad today. I feel kind of bad today. That's just fine. I really feel bad.

I really feel sad. Those are very genuine emotions and I'm going to choose to do what I'm supposed to do anyway. That's how you live. And the moment you make the choice and start doing it, you get grace. You get grace. You get grace. And then you have bad days and you do stupid things and you get with your guys and you say, you know, this week I did some bad things, I did some stupid things and I've told the Father I'm really sorry. Guys, will you pray with me?

I need to own it. Confess your sins to one another that you might be healed. That's life. The unspoken need is to develop personal, can you guess, discipline. The source of discipline, according to Titus 2, 11 through 13, is grace.

For it's the grace of God that appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, this is what grace does, to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, really the word is discipline lives, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. You've got to know the source of discipline, it's not willpower. Second, you have to embrace the process.

Hebrews 12, 11, all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, yet those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. You need to become a delayed gratification junkie. I tend to be always in a hurry. I went into training for two years because I was always the last guy, I was always in a hurry, I was rushed, I was putting myself under stress and you can't grow spiritually and love people if you're always in a hurry. And so I went into training and I drove on the right lane for two years.

It was painful. For two years if I walked into the grocery store, you know, I'm the guy that's going line, line, line, who's the best cashier, this line's moving, I'm in this line now, I think I'm going to move this line. Get on the long line, review some verses, a calmness. I used to get just to the airport just to get there early now, take this new routine, going to grab a cup of coffee, going to spend some time really pondering. Took two years, I was such a workaholic but I went into training and little by little God changed my pace, my thinking, stress.

You can go into training. The most powerful thing I've done in all my life in life change is memorizing Scripture. The practice, the habits of discipline, Romans 12, 2, we already quoted it. Colossians 3 is a really powerful passage, the whole chapter.

But it has, if you don't take anything else away, and you may circle that for future, because what it has, it has this truth on the front end that helps you understand how all the practice is on the back end. After talking about where to set your mind and talking about what Christ has done, He says, so then as those who are chosen by God, so you're wanted, those who are holy, so that's how God sees you, and are deeply loved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone. And beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called into one body. And let the word of God richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. And in whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him. What I try and do, I either do Psalm 23, the Lord's Prayer, and at that moment, just as you're waking up, I call it the gray zone, you're not like, but your mind is starting, and what I try and do is at that very moment, because it sets my day, since I'm loved, since I'm holy, since I'm chosen, then I just whisper, oh God, would you help me put on a heart of compassion? Help me to feel what you feel when you see people in need, kindness, and I just go through that. Just when I first wake up, it starts my day in a very different way.

I think very carefully about what I put in my mind before I go to bed, have a little stack of verses that I just reviewed just before I go to bed, because as I sleep and I'm unconscious, your brain works. All I'm saying is, if you wanted to run a marathon, except for some of us that are a little older with joints that don't work, by and large, if you went into training for six months, everyone here could run 26.2 miles without stopping. I watched my assistant do it years ago, a complete non-athlete, but man, she changed her diet, she started walking, then after she started walking, she learned how to jog, then she had a friend, and then she said, could I come in a little bit late, I'm going to run two miles. Then it was like, it's Friday, I'm going to get up really early, but I'm doing a 10-month, and six months, six months later, because you have in you all that you need from God. What you need now is to go into training, and as you do that, literally for three, six, eight, ten weeks, man, you're going to say no to so much TV, you're going to say no to some things and renew your mind, and don't get me wrong, you don't have to go off crazy, but if you'll stop putting some things in your mind and start putting some things, others in your mind that's truth, and your emotions will change, your demeanor will change, God will change you. Chip will be right back with his application for this message, Step Out, from his series, The Book of First Timothy, Life Coaching from the Apostle Paul. Now if you looked up that word coach in the dictionary, you might see phrases like one who teaches, gives instruction, or provides special training. The question is, who's coaching you, and who are you coaching? In this new 12-part series, Chip dives into one of the most well-known mentor-mentee relationships in the Bible. He'll unpack what we can learn from Paul and Timothy's bond, and how to apply these lessons to our lives and pass them on to others. If you've missed any part of this series, the Chip Ingram app is a great way to catch up any time. Well, before we go any further, Chip's in studio with me now to share a quick thought.

Thanks, Dave. Have you ever met another Christian and wondered, why aren't I as spiritual as he or she is? Or why doesn't she have more compassion? Or doesn't he feel compelled to be more generous?

You know, we as Christians can really get stuck on the comparison trap. To some of us, he gave gifts to speak. To others, he gave gifts to serve. To some, we love the big picture and thinking great ideas and making big things happen.

To others, it's out of the limelight to really help people that are in great need. However he wired you, he has a purpose and a plan that fits perfectly for you. Do you know what it is? Well, here at Living on the Edge, we've created a brand-new resource called The Real You. It's an online questionnaire designed to provide insight into how God wired you. This is more than a spiritual gift test. You'll identify the patterns in which you think, what motivates you, and why teams need someone just like you.

It'll take about 20 minutes to complete, and it won't cost you a thing. Then based on your responses, The Real You will offer suggestions about how you can practically live out God's purpose for your life, whether that's at home, in the office, at church, or in your community. As a Living on the Edge partner, we want you to be the first to access this resource. Head over to therealyou.org to learn more. That's therealyou.org.

Most Christians don't know how to leverage their God-given wiring and experiences for the kingdom. We want to change that. Thanks, Chip. Well, as you can tell, we are really excited about this new resource. We hope The Real You will help you not only discover who God made you to be, but how He made you to think, act, and live. As Chip said, you can sign up for this free assessment by going to therealyou.org. Or if it's easier, text the word REAL to 74141.

That's the word REAL, R-E-A-L, to 74141. App listeners, tap Special Offers. Well, Chip, your challenge today was for every believer to step out and get spiritually in shape. Take a minute, if you would, and share how people can do that. Well, Dave, I would love to. As you know, as we ended the program, I gave people kind of three action steps in order to step out. The first one was to go into spiritual training.

And I shared how in my life it was I needed to start first thing in the morning. And I just want to encourage our listeners right now, make meeting with God the first thing you do every day. And if you don't know how to do that, or opening the Bible seems like a fog, and you don't get anything out of it, we have a thing called Daily Discipleship. I will meet with you personally and help you learn how to meet with God.

And I just have to say, of all the things we've done in the last couple years, I'm probably most excited about the fruit of that. Second, you have to discover your spiritual gift. When we function in the gift, the supernatural abilities that God's given us, it transforms our walk with the Lord. We have a brand new resource called The Real You.

It's about a 20-minute test that will help you discover your gift and some other important things about how God wired you. And third and last, you have to find some people to do life with. Whether it's a peer or even better, a mentor, find someone that you would say, Hey, would you just meet with me for a half hour or an hour, maybe once a week for a month?

I just want to grow, and I need help. Believe me, ask God for that person. Go ask them, but get in spiritual shape.

You know, we keep waiting for something to happen, and I meet people all the time who kind of whine, if you will, about God isn't doing this, and he's kind of not doing that. I want to tell you, he is so ready to help you, but the ball's in your court. Thanks, Chip. Well, if you'd like to get plugged in with the resources Chip just mentioned, go to livingontheedge.org. There, you can also download Chip's message notes, check out our small group studies, or listen to any part of this series. We want to help you grow in your walk with Jesus, so visit livingonttheedge.org today. Well, join us next time as Chip continues his newest series from the book of 1 Timothy. Until then, this is Dave Drewy saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.