The Best You In 2022
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
I think some people are just completely content to let life pass them and have no real thoughts about what life is and deeper meanings.
But I think the bulk have thoughts of “there are things in my life I wish weren’t the way they were.” Almost all of it is surface, why nothing changes.
Probably the easiest example to give you is losing weight or getting in shape.
I want to use this morning to talk about real growth.
Scripture
Timothy, my dear son, be strong through the grace that God gives you in Christ Jesus. You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others. Endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Soldiers don’t get tied up in the affairs of civilian life, for then they cannot please the officer who enlisted them. And athletes cannot win the prize unless they follow the rules. And hardworking farmers should be the first to enjoy the fruit of their labor. Think about what I am saying. The Lord will help you understand all these things.
Our Foundation
Strength from the gospel
There isn’t another piece of what we believe that you’ve got to get like verse 1.
You got to understand where our strength comes from.
Within every man an intrinsic amount of discipline.
Some of us are very high disciplined.
Some of us are very low disciplined.
Depending on the scale, everyone has a certain amount of strength, a certain amount of “I’m going to make this happen.”
When it comes to pursuing God, if you do it on your own strength, you will fail or you’ll “succeed” and not be any closer to the kingdom.
Your strength comes from the gospel.
Our strength to follow Christ comes from the fact that all of my shortcomings and sins were paid by Jesus on the cross.
If you don’t understand that, when you stumble, your reaction will be God is angered, and we will run from Him rather than to Him.
Empowered by the Spirit
By the Spirit, I have been given all I need to be all God asks.
So He hasn’t commanded me to love my wife, to raise my daughter, to handle my money, to walk with men, and then said, “Good luck with that.” But He empowers and never asks more than I can sustain by His grace.
So my strength comes from knowing there is no condemnation for me in Jesus and all that He has asked me to be, He will empower me to be.
The Soldier
One Objective
Wife was sick and watched band of brothers
In Normandy they scattered those boys. They were not in the units they were trained in, some of them couldn’t find other guys for days.
The military personnel state the objective.
The plan always changes once someone is shooting at you. Everything sounds brilliant until someone chucks a grenade at you. The plan changes, but the objective never does.
To be a good soldier of Jesus, we have one objective an ever increasing joy in Him. Other detail or event in our life should not sway us. Be a good soldier. Chase one thing.
Good things can easily become God Things
What this looks like in everyday life is soldiers don’t get wrapped up in civilian affairs.
This idea of entanglement is found several times in the New Testament.
Most of us think, “As long as I stay away from what’s wrong and I do what’s right, I’ll be good.”
The problem with that is it’s not biblical. Now there are definitely commands that say, “Do this, don’t do this.” Those are about your joy.
What I would contend with you. Most of what is killing you spiritually is not morally sinful, but morally neutral. Which means you have given something that is not wicked an undue amount of position in your life, and turned it into an ultimate thing and therefore robbed yourself of passion to follow Jesus.
Wasted life - Succeeding at things that don’t matter
The Reward
Be good soldiers so that we might have the pleasure of the one who enlisted us.
We act and respond one way around people who love us, take pleasure in us.
We tend to want to be around them. We tend to trust them. And why wouldn’t we trust them? They think we’re great.
The quickest way to see someone else’s weaknesses is for them to not like you. If they don’t like you, in a matter of seconds you will download all their faults and then become resentful at how they don’t like you when they’re such a scumbag.
The Athlete
Don’t Cheat
If you cheat, you don’t win.
As early as you can, it’s a good idea to get that you’re not as smart as you think you are.
Just because you hang out with morons doesn’t make you smart. It makes you the smartest moron.
There are going to be temptations to do it your way and not God’s.
I’ll give you an example from my marriage.
In Our Job
Even in ministry, there are temptations to break the rules to get to the finish line.
Some of you it’s going to be a business decision where you’ve got this opportunity to make money, but it might be shady. And he’s saying, “No, we run as one to get the prize. We run and we don’t break the rules. We follow God’s way.”
Some of the greatest advice I could give you is get into your mind that you cannot trust yourself and that you’re going to submit life to godly counsel and Scripture.
For some your world will burn before you get it, but maybe God in His mercy today would open up your heart.
For the reward, he’s got this idea of a crown. It’s talking about this “Well done, good and faithful servant.
The Farmer
Dependency On God
The farmer, is completely dependent on God.
The soldier can call on reinforcements.
The athlete can get on a protein shake.
The farmer is dependent. He cannot make it rain.
But he’s the hard-working farmer. Which means despite almost everything being in God’s control, the farmer doesn’t sit on the couch and go, “Father, there’s a lot of weeds on the north forty.”
Our religious Laziness
Some of us have been wrestling with secret sin for decades and every Sunday you come in and hear the preaching and go, “God, take this from me. I hate this about me. Remove it.” And then you do nothing.
The farmer gets out of bed, goes to the field at sun up and he pulls weeds until his hands are bloody all while begging God to make it rain.
Now if it doesn’t rain, the crops die, but he’s taking care of the weeds.
How many are stuck in this habitual, nominal Christianity.
Here’s what I think did it to my generation. We got jacked up with camps and conventions. We were taught that your faith is event driven, which means that you go from motivation to motivation and never learned steadfast following.
All my friends still talking about the good old day
Our Reward
He says that the farmer who does it like this gets the first fruits. Now if you cross reference fruits, you’re going to Galatians.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.”
We have robbed that text of a lot of its power. We’ve changed it from the “fruit of the Spirit” to the “fruits of the Spirit.”
We do this ridiculous game where we list them all out and grade on each one. We go, “Well, I’ve got pretty good love, but my faithfulness stinks. Peace? Somewhat, but I’d give myself an A+ on joy.”
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control, and they grow together.
If you disagree, I would love to ask how on earth you can have love but not peace and faithfulness. How you can have joy but be faithless.
He says the hard-working farmer gets the first share of the fruit, which means your joy is at stake. Your pursuit of Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
So I’ve got to wonder, at any real level is there a pursuit of Jesus? Is there desire? Is there any evidence in your life?
I’m not taking you to some checklist of dos and don’ts.
And that’s why I think Paul ended this little idea in verse 7 where he goes, “You need to think on this. You need to dwell on this, because there is a lot here.”
If you have any real hope of you pressing under grace and letting Him transform your heart, you can’t just sit on the couch and wait for God to do something. You might get motivated for a couple of weeks, but sustaining, transforming power is a day by day effort.
You are the accumulative effect of your prior years.
Whatever this moment is for you, you did not get there at 11 o’clock this morning. Day after day, you decided to do certain things, to not do certain things and this is where you got.
Right now, whether you like it or not, you are deciding what tomorrow looks like for you. No one accidentally falls into godliness.
Here’s what I wanted to come back around to.
Sometimes as a soldier I get distracted.
Sometimes as an athlete I cheat a little.
Sometimes as a farmer I think that the field will be alright tomorrow.
So regardless of what the plan is and how you desire to be, we’ve got to keep our minds and our affections on the gospel.
That’s why Paul starts it this way before he gets into the the metaphors.
Find your strength as a soldier.
Find your strength as an athlete.
Find your strength as a farmer in the gospel.
My prayer is you would accept the responsibility that God gave you to set the tone in your home and job, to be the spirit filled person.
I have no idea what the attraction of nominal Christianity. It’s like being engaged: all the problems of marriage with none of the benefits.
Pray