If you are running from a bear, you don't run to find a mountain lion to protect you. In the same way, Christian maturity is largely determined by knowing what to flee from and what to run to. Today on Truth for Life, Alister Beg is teaching from First Timothy chapter six. I am reminded of the sincere faith that was once your mother's and and lived in your grandmother, and now I am convinced lives in you also. And it is this sincere faith wrought by God's goodness that gives to Paul the conviction to be able to say, Timothy, you are a man of God, and it changes everything.
People tell me all the time. I had someone tell me in the last forty-eight hours. You know, I do believe in a higher power. That's all right. I do believe in a great unmoved mover.
I do believe in some of the theistic explanations for the universe. Fine, but so does the devil. He's completely orthodox in his belief. You see, you've got these people in these ruined castles. That's their lives.
So you take ruined castle, plus a belief in an unmoved mover, followed by a bunch of religious externals, and you try and turn that into Christianity, and the people are going, "This stinks!" Absolutely, it does. It can't work. It has never worked. But when. The Lord Jesus comes to take up residency in our lives, and when we become God's children, and as children heirs, and as heirs of God, and co-heirs with Jesus Christ, what a radical transformation that brings!
So, instead of allowing my identity to be defined by concerns of finance. Or status, or color, or affiliation. My identity is completely wrapped up in this. Either I am a man or a woman of God, or I am not, and that matters more than any other thing. When the Queen is in residence in London, as in every royal residence, alongside the Union Jack.
There flies the standard of her Majesty, and the royal standard testifies to all who observe the ramparts of the palace that the Queen is in residence.
Now, here's the thing: when Christ comes to make a man of God or a woman of God, He raises His royal standard on the ramparts of our lives. There is no question of it, and when, as it were, he views the scene of a congregation like this, he doesn't look on us in terms of race, he doesn't look on us in terms of finance, he doesn't look on us in terms of education. He looks for the royal standard. He looks to see if Christ is exalted in that life.
Now, in the great transition that took place in Hong Kong, some of us, with a tear in our eye, watched the scene. As for the last time, the Union Jack was was lowered, and the Chinese flag was put in its place. And the world looked on and said, "I understand." Until this moment in history. For the last 99 years, sovereignty in this place lay in London. As of today, sovereignty is in Beijing.
You cannot have a Chinese flag and a British flag flying up the same pole. And you cannot have the flag of my own selfish, sinful rebellion, my own religious orthodoxy, flying in the place of the royal standard. There's no two ways about it. Either the the the the castle of my life bears the standard of Christ's presence, or it doesn't. Can I ask you this morning?
What's the flag that's flying from your life? You flying the flag of agnosticism? Quite honestly, I don't know.
Well, then I'd love to help you to know. You flying the flag of religion? It's got to be a real chore for you. You flying the flag of rebellion that sits on the? Outside and stands on the inside.
You hate every minute of it. You're stuck in here as a kid or as a teenager, and you can't wait for the day when you can be gone. You're prepared to humbly bow down and ask Christ to raise His royal standard over your life.
Now I belabor this point of identity. Because unless we understand the fact of identity, then the call to activity is useless. The order of things is so very important. But you, man of God, consider how he describes him. Flee from all this.
It's the second point. Consider how he directs him. Look at how he directs him, from his identity to his activity. And there are four imperatives that come in verses eleven and twelve. We won't get beyond the first one, I'm sure, but it's there in that simple verb, flee.
Flee! Make a run for it! Dash! Clear off! Get out of here!
In other words, run from all the sins and errors that have been mentioned in the previous the previous section. Don't get involved with the greediness and the lack of contentment. Don't get involved in malicious talk, the constant friction between men of corrupt minds. Don't embrace false doctrines and the divisiveness that comes with it and the destruction that follows. No, Timothy, man of God, run away from all this.
As a spiritual leader, you need to be an example to your people. The fact of the matter is that spiritual leadership will always find that if it is prepared to tolerate X, the people will tolerate X plus Y. As soon as we fudge on one issue, our flock are just waiting to fudge it plus the X factor.
So Timothy, he says, you've got to be an example to these people. Back in chapter four and verse twelve, you better be an example in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity. Remember that Sunday where I said, judging by that, I probably should leave the ministry. In other words, you've got to establish a pattern for your people. Your Christian life and mine, if you're following Christ.
Can be quantified in a number of ways. Spiritual maturity can be determined in part by gauging what it is we're running from and what it is we're running to, what it is we're chasing after, what we've set our hearts upon, and what it is we have set our minds against. You take, for example, the illustration of that in the matter of morality, as described by the two responses to the potential for moral failure in the life of Joseph and in the life of David. You go to the story with Joseph and you read the phrase in Genesis thirty-nine: Joseph ran out of the house. You go to Second Samuel chapter eleven and you read the phrase: David walked around on the roof.
You've got it all there, man of God. Run out of the house. Don't walk around on the roof. Child of God, make a run for it.
Now you see, people look at this and they say, "Well, doesn't that sound a little negative?" You know, aren't these days when we need something a little more positive? I don't like a Christian life that's a list of do's and don'ts. There isn't a Christian life without do's and don'ts. There isn't a life without do's and don'ts. You can't fly a plane without do's and don'ts.
Drive a car without do's and don'ts. Do surgery without do's and don'ts.
So, why do you think you can live your Christian life without do's and don'ts? And sometimes the don'ts come right up front. Look at Titus chapter two, verse eleven. The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say, "No, no." To what?
To ungodliness, worldly passions.
Now, what Paul is saying is simply a reinforcement of the wonderful picture that opens the Psalms, where the man is described in the opening psalm as the one who does not. Walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of the mockers. No, he runs away from this. And Paul is so concerned for Timothy that he would run away from all that would be detrimental to his life and ministry. When he writes his second letter to him in chapter two and in verse twenty-two, he says, "I want you to flee the evil desires of youth.
Run away from that." Run away from a desire for power, and run away from a desire for possessions, and to let your passions run freely.
Well, you say this is a tall order, is it not? I'm not sure that I can do this.
Well, you can with God's help, but you can't on your own, and neither can I. You see, the activity to which Paul calls Timothy, which is really the activity of a Christian lifestyle, is not as a result of human striving, but it is as a result of God's divine enabling. Again, back in Romans chapter eight, and in verse thirteen this time, Paul makes the point with great clarity. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die. But if, by the Spirit—that phrase is crucial—you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
There is a way of living, says Paul, that leads to certain death. If, however, on the other hand, you cut the nerve of your instinctive actions by obeying the Spirit, then you will discover life that is really life. That you cut the nerve of your instinctive actions by obeying the Spirit. That's how it's done. There is a mystery to it, and yet it is the apex of simplicity.
The Word of God is given to instruct us. The Spirit of God is given to enable us. The Spirit of God comes and prompts us to the Word of God, and we are called to obedience to the truth of God's Word. And the well-being of the Christian is directly related to this. Sin must be put to death in me if I am to enjoy the comfort of the gospel, and if I am to know energy in my spiritual life.
The reason that a number of us find ourselves in the difficulties that we face, bouncing between one notion and another, between one opinion and another. Is either because we have no Christian life at all, we merely have externals without a change, or it is that we have never been taught, or we are unwilling to obey, or we are misunderstanding the point of application that calls us to put to death within our lives everything that mitigates against following hard after Jesus.
Now. We'll deal with this in detail on another day, but let me turn you just to Colossians chapter three. In theological terms, what we're referring to here is the mortification of the flesh. To mortify simply means to put to death. In an earlier generation, much more was spoken of it, and the absence of instruction on it is one of the reasons why there is such chaos in so many Christian circles.
But you have it here in Colossians chapter three: put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.
Now, who is to do that? The the child of God, right? How are we to do that?
Well, Romans eight thirteen said that we do it by the Spirit. What does that mean in the most practical terms? It means that on a sixty-second per minute basis, as we are confronted by the decision-making processes of our lives, some larger and more significant than others, but none of them without issue. That we are determining not to sow to the flesh and to our own desires to please ourselves, but we are determining to sow to the spirit and to reap life. And what a man sows, that's what he reaps.
So, in a few weeks, as we drive down our streets, we will be able to observe by the presence of. Flowers in the gardens, the unseen activities of our neighbors. The reason that they have this, and it is now so public, is because in a more private day, and in a different way, they sowed that in the ground.
Now, what the Bible says is this. That such abilities, such activities, cannot be accomplished by man-made means. In other words, you can't do this by human effort. Bishop Ryle, addressing this, says, "Mortification from a self-strength carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of self-righteousness." Is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world, and the trouble with it is, dear ones, that those who teach it are themselves stuck with it.
Now, I am currently reading a book about a man, an unknown man, largely. From the 18th century in England, he's he was a curate in the Church of England about 80 years before Charlotte and Emily Bronte's dad showed up to be curate in the exact same parish in Haworth. He was a young man of exceptional abilities, a graduate of Cambridge, felt that he really ought to be involved in the church, and so became involved in the church. But he was involved in dispensing to his people a religion and a mortification carried on by ways of self-strength, self-invention, and to the end of self-righteousness. In other words, he himself was not a man of God.
In the ramparts of the castle of his life, there was no royal standard. The biographer says of a period in his life where he is he is now the curate in this church. He is preaching sermons Sunday by Sunday. It says there was nothing he did not try, in order to gain peace of conscience. He reformed in every branch and every relation, abstained from every immorality, said many prayers.
Spent much time in reading and meditation.
Now also he began to pray four times daily, a habit which he maintained to the end of his life. He also spent seasons in fasting and self-searching, and yet to Grimshaw's burdened conscience, it all seemed of little avail. And those spiritual consolations he longed for seemed as elusive as ever.
Now, if we had met this man, or if we'd been hanging around him, we might have been tempted to say, "Wow, here is a man of God. He prays four times a day. He's been fasting." He has abstained from every kind of immorality. He is most of the day reading holy books, and when he is not reading holy books, he is engaged in meditation. Oh, now there is a man of God!
But when he put his head on his pillow at night, he had no peace with God whatsoever. Why? Because religious activities impressed upon the soul of man from the outside in cannot. Cleanse the conscience, and I speak to numbers here this morning who are believers in the sense of believing in God, even in believing that Christ is the person He claimed to be, even believing that He is the Savior for sin. But there is no royal standard on the rampart of your life, because you have never come in repentance and in faith and lowered the standard of your rebellion.
And had Christ raised his royal standard in your heart, goodness gracious, how wretched and miserable you must be! How my heart longs for you! That you would come here Sunday after Sunday, and be enduring a religion of self-strength by self-invention, to the end of your own self-congratulation, and to know deep in your soul that if you were dead to die tonight, you have no assurance of heaven at all. You see, your identity and my identity is in this: that either by grace we have entered into God's eternal family, or we remain in our natural condition, which is without God and without hope in the world. Today, if you hear God's voice.
Do not harden your hearts. You're listening to Truth for Life with Aleister Beg. Aleister returns in just a moment. You know we never know how God will use this program to change someone's life, but we trust that by the Spirit's empowering, God is using His Word to save and transform people. And if you're not confident that you have entered into God's eternal family, let me encourage you to get a better understanding of the basics of the Christian faith.
Visit our website truthforlife.org/learnmore, where you'll find a brief video message from Alister, as well as teaching that answers questions you may have. If you don't routinely attend a local church, you'll find that being part of the body of Christ on a regular basis has many spiritual benefits. But it's important to make sure you find a church where the Scripture is being taught, where the gospel is central, and where Christ is glorified. If you'd like to learn more about what to look for in a local church, visit our website. Go to truthforlife.org/find.
There, Aleister provides a biblical perspective on finding a church. And if you're a pastor who is striving to be a godly leader, visit the Four Pastors and Churches page on our website. Go to truthforlife.org/churches. You'll find featured teaching from Alister to encourage you in your ministry, Bible studies for your church's small groups, and free downloads along with daily reading plans to share with your congregation.
Now here's Alastair to close with a word of prayer. Father, you know that the structure of my study led me in a different direction from this. I do believe that there are those who have been coming regularly to worship, for whom this is a word in season. And if you find yourself seated here today, saying, "You know," This explains why I've struggled so long. Because I've been trying to do this by myself, trying to clean up the castle, trying with some fabric and drapery and some finery to change myself, and it's such a chore, and leaves me so empty.
Well, now you're at the point of great opportunity.
Now it's possible for you to pray to God, Lord Jesus Christ. I admit that I'm weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but I recognize that through you I am more loved and accepted than I ever dared to hope. I thank you for paying my debt and bearing my punishment. And offering forgiveness to me, and I want today to turn from my sin and receive you as my Lord and Savior. And for those of us who have been limping through our Christian pilgrimage because, having begun by grace, we have decided to continue by our works.
Those of us who've been keeping little books about how well we've been doing, and when our pluses outweigh our minuses, by the end of the day, we congratulate ourselves and feel that we can sleep in safety. Remind us that all of our acceptance is in the atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That all of the credit to our account. Is on account of what He has accomplished that all of our acceptance before You, the Living God, is because we have been gathered up in Your Son. Raise Your royal standard in our lives today.
We pray, and may grace, mercy, and peace from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Be the abiding portion of all who believe today and forevermore. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Today we learned about the things we are to flee from as we live out our Christian lives.
Tomorrow we'll take a closer look at the things we ought to pursue. The Bible teaching of Aleister Beg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
