Fleeing and Following Bob Bradley, Pastor
Fleeing and Following Wednesday, May 22, 2013 Bob Bradley 1 Timothy 6 11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. 12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. 13 I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; 14 That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: 15 Which in his times he shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; 16 Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen. 17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; 18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; 19 Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. 20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: 21 Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen. Paul is writing to Timothy. Timothy was a young man who no doubt was saved through the influence of Paul and his ministry. Paul had referred to Timothy as his son in the faith. There is no doubt that Paul loved this man very much. Paul also knew that he was about ready to leave. I believe, as you read the scriptures, and as you read the things that he writes and testifies about; Paul understands that he is about ready to leave. He is about ready to die. He is going to be killed shortly. The responsibility that is going to fall upon this young man to carry on the gospel and the work at these different churches and places that had been established. Paul is giving him much instruction about different things. If you read about Timothy, there are many that happen in youth. As you get a little older, there are some things that when you were younger does not bother you now. As you get a little older, you know how to put things in perspective and deal with things. You learn what is important in life and what is not important in life. As you get older, you understand things like that.
Timothy here I think if you read about Timothy he is a young fellow. Where he was at, the place he was living in, different places he would visit; they were hung up on a lot of things and things having to do with the flesh and worldly things. As you look at the Apostle Paul and some of things he said here, Timothy was getting hung up on some of those things. He told him to put away youthful lusts. He talked about bodily exercise did not profit much. As you read these things, you can understand that Timothy was a young man who was hung up on some things. He needed some help. He needed some instruction to know how to do some things and not to get involved in some things as we all do. Whether we have been saved 5 years or 50 years; we never get to a place in life that we cannot learn anything. If we think that we do or we think that we get there then we are really in bad shape. Paul here is writing to Timothy. As you look at these chapters here, Paul is writing to Timothy and instructing him here in this particular part of his writings about behavior and relationships. Those are important in my life and in your life. Our behavior is very important. We may not think it is. We may not think behavior is very important but our behavior is very important. Our relationship to one another and to the God of heaven is very important. Our relationship to the world and all those in the world is very important. I think sometimes we get the attitude My family is saved. My friends are saved. My bills are paid. My kids are doing fine. I ve got a good a job. I have heard people say this before: I have what I have and let everybody else get theirs. That is a poor attitude to have. If we get that kind of attitude then we need to change that attitude. Things can change in your life in a heartbeat. Things can change in your life with just one phone call. We don t need to get lifted up in pride. We don t need to get lifted up and think that just because everything is going good today that we should not be thankful or want to help those in need and needs our help. Paul has been talking about those that are rich. As you look at verses 9 and 10; he talks about those who are rich and how that they are going to fall into temptation and a snare. He talks about 9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. Paul not only has been talking about many different things but now he going to talk about those who want to be rich, those who set their goal not necessarily on worshipping the God of heaven, not necessarily on growing in their Christian life or doing things like that. He is talking about those who have set their mind, attention and focus on just being rich and wealthy. Paul wants him to understand that if that is their goal in life is to just be rich, just to be wealthy; then he wants them to understand that there is going to be some major issues that are going to come their way. He uses the terms and phrases here that they were going to fall into many temptations and a snare. Do you know what a snare is? A snare is like a trap. In Paul s day and even after that they would set traps and trapped all kinds of animals sometimes to eat the animal, and sometimes to sell their hides. He is bringing out the idea that if they set all their attention and all their focus in life on just being rich it was
going to be a temptation to them. Not only a temptation, but also it was going to be a snare. It was going to be something that was going to catch them. 9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. The word drown brings out the idea of them being completely engulfed, surrounded, or taken under by the things that the riches were going to take. I got to thinking today how truthful that is. That is truthful when men and women set their goal in life on possessions, things and having things, how much of a snare that it really becomes to people. I was talking to fellow the other day, not very long ago; in life he had done well. He made the statement that if I did not have to give half of what I had away; I would divorce my wife. I thought how sad that is. It is sad that he thought more about his possessions than he did his wife. All it was doing I m not around this fellow much nor do I talk to him much but you could just see how miserable his life really is and how many snares, hurt and temptation that is there. The only thing on his mind is making money. The only thing on his mind is having what money can buy. 10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. He did not say money was the root of all evil. He says the love of money or the drive to have money is the root to all evil. The passion to have money and be rich is the root to all evil. It produces all kinds of evil. If I have a desire and my passion in life, desires in life and my goal in life is just to have money and what money can buy then there is going to be all kinds of issues that is going to come my way. There were all kinds of wealthy people in the scriptures. No doubt, there were millionaires and billionaires. Even in our world today, we have people worth millions and millions that worship and reverence the God of heaven. They have money and they possess but money does not possess them. They possess things but the things do not possess them. There is a big difference there. Many times we make slaves out of ourselves to have things. Paul wants us and Timothy to understand some things here that we are going to talk about here. He says 10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Did you get that? It brings sorrow. Some have erred from the faith. Some have turned from the faith because of their love for money and things. In our society today, it is sad to see so many people and many people who are in love with money don t have any of it. They just have a drive and a passion or burning desire to get it. They don t have it but they don t care who they hurt, who they run over, or if they have to steal; it does not matter. They just want it. Since that is the case, he says something here.
11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. He says, But thou, O man of God I know that Paul is talking to Timothy here. I want to put us in this story. I want to put every one of us in this story. O person of God every one of us, men or women, put ourselves in this story. He says here, flee these things whoever we are tonight; Paul is giving us some instruction that we need to flee the love of money, to flee the temptation that all these things bring, to flee and to stay away from the passion and the desires to have these things. Paul says we need to flee from these things. The word flee is a good word. It means to run away from; as in to run away from the love of money and the greed that comes along with that, the passion, the desire to have more and more and never being satisfied. Paul says we need to run away from that as far, as fast, as hard as we can; we need to run away from that. There is nothing wrong with making money. There is nothing wrong with working and living. God intends for us to do that. God wants to bless us. Again, it is great to have things as long as things don t have us. He says we need to run away or flee these things. He says something else here. There are some things we need to run away from but there are also some things that we need to follow. When I woke up this morning I was singing the song the kids sang, talking about following God. I don t remember how it goes now. However, that was the thought on my mind was following Jesus Christ. I got to reading this today and this is what I want to talk about tonight. 11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Flee the love of money. Flee this passion and desire to have money. Run away from that as fast as you can. He says, Follow. The word follow means to run after. He says to flee the love of money. Now he says I m going to tell you some things you need to run after. It also means to run swiftly, to hotly pursue, to seek eagerly, and seek earnestly. He says we need to run away from the love of money but there are some things that we need to pursue, to earnestly run after with every bit of desire, and every bit of passion and energy we have. He mentions here righteousness. We need to follow after righteousness. We need to pursue righteousness. We need to have an aim. We need to have a goal. We need to pursue something with every bit of energy that we have until we gain that which we are pursuing. That means we need to have some commitments in our lives. We need to have some constants in our lives. We need to have some things in our life that we set some goals out here that we are going to pursue with every bit of energy that we have, every bit of us; we are going to pursue some things. The first thing Paul says is we need to pursue righteousness. Righteousness, we need to pursue to be right with God. It should be a desire in my life. I should go forward with every bit of energy that I have with every bit commitment that I have so that I will be right with Almighty God. There is nothing wrong with that. Is there? We should do that. We should make
sure that our hearts are right with Almighty God. That should be a constant pursuit of ours. We should hotly chase after that. We should follow after that with every bit of energy that we have to make sure we are right with God; to know more about God, to make sure our hearts are right with God, to make sure and to get to the place in life that we are aware of God s presence around us. We should pursue that. Well, I got saved and I know I am saved and I m going to heaven. There should be more to it than that. There should be more to it than just saying, I m saved. I know I m saved. I m going to see how close to the edge I can live and still yet go to heaven. We should be just the opposite of that. Amen! We should live godly lives. We should pursue righteousness, being right with God, making sure our hearts are right with God and allowing God to mold us and shape us making our hearts like Him. We should allow God to do that every day. Not only do that but also we should follow after, we should hotly pursue, we should seek earnestly and eagerly and we should seek and pursue godliness. When you look at the word in the Greek, it means to live in reverence and awe of Almighty God. We should do that. Some call Him, the man upstairs. Don t ever do that! He is not the old grey headed man sitting upstairs. God is God. God is the Creator. We need to understand who that He is. We need to understand that He is omnipotent. We need to understand that He is omniscience. He knows it all. He sees it all. Amen! The Bible tells us in the book of Isaiah, chapter 40, how He held the water in the hallow of His hand. When you look at all of the oceans; God holds them in the hallow of His hand. It takes a big God to do that. It takes a big God just to speak the world into existence. Amen! All the things that go on, we need to reverence, we need to stand at awe, and we need to stand at attention at the presence and the power of Almighty God. That is what godliness is. We need to pursue godliness. We need to pursue and seek more of God s presence in our life, and to be more like Jesus Christ in our life. That is something we should follow after. We should hotly pursue that; to be more like Jesus Christ. In today s society, it seems like we want to live as far away from being like Him as we can and still yet go to heaven. We don t need to live like that. We are Christian people. We have been saved by the grace of Almighty God. Our names are recorded in heaven. If we are saved, then let s act like we are saved. We should hotly pursue that. We should pursue that with every bit of energy that we have. We should be constant in our pursuit of godliness, to be like Christ. When men look at us and people look at us; they can see that there is a difference in us. They see that we don t live like the world. We don t act like the world. We don t use the same language as the world. We should hotly pursue godliness. We think about that sometimes and we think that is something we cannot attain to. You can be godly. Amen! You can be godly. You can be Christ-like. Sure, we will never be Christ, but we can be like Him. The Bible tells us we can so we can. Not only that but also the Bible tells us we need to pursue faith. We need to pursue that. We need to hotly pursue with every bit of energy that we have; we need to pursue faith. We need chase after that
with every bit of energy that we have. Not saving faith; Paul was talking to Timothy and he had already been saved. The word here brings out the idea of just simply believing Almighty God. Believe Him; what He says in His Word He is going to do. Do you know what we need to do? We need to believe that. Not only does it bring out the idea of believing but it also brings out the idea of being faithful to God. Amen! We should be faithful to God. If I believe what God has said, then I will be faithful to what God has said. Truth! We should hotly pursue that with that with every bit of energy that we have. We should want to be faithful to God. We should want to believe God. We should want to read His Word and understand what it says and believe what God says. Let us not substitute our feelings or substitute what we think to what God said. That will never work in my life or in your life. There are things in this Bible when I read them that show me the error of my way. It shows me that I need to straighten up. I don t stay away from those areas just because I know what is there. We need those things in life. We need to believe what God says. We can take the pages that I don t like tear them out and throw them away but that does not change the fact about what God said about them. God has said we need to believe. As a nation, what God has said; we need to believe. If we would believe that as a nation then we would not be about ready to collapse as we are as a nation tonight. We need to believe Him. We need to be faithful to Him. I cannot over stress enough the importance of constant and with every bit of our energy being faithful to Almighty God. I am going to tell you something. If you are not totally committed to being faithful to God then you are going to be wishy washy. I m not saying you are not saved. I m not saying that. If you are not totally committed to being faithful to God many people wants to be faithful to God on their terms. Many people want to be faithful to God in the winter time. Amen! They want to be faithful when there is no camping to do, no fishing to do, no rail buggies to ride, no ball to play. We can be faithful to God then but when it comes time to do these other things then we have other things to do. Listen. We need to be totally and completely sold out to God. We need to be faithful to Him. God expects that out of me. God expects that out of you. If we are just faithful to God at certain times of the year; you will never get anywhere in your Christian life. You will never grow up in your Christian life. Most people will never have any confidence in you either. Now it gets quiet. Doesn t it? Being faithful to God 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year is important friend. Being faithful to Almighty God is the most important thing you will ever do in life. He says here we need to pursue love. Love here is the word agape. Agape is the word that describes the love of Almighty God. It is a love that is unconditional. It is a love that has no strings attached. It is a love that I am going to love you whether you love me or not. I m going to love you if you hate me. I m going to love you if you do me wrong. I am going to love you it doesn t matter what you do or say; I am going to love you anyway. That kind of love you and I need to pursue. In a world that hates you and me, in a world today that is filled with all kinds of issues and all kinds of problems, and all kinds of issues; there are going to be many people who will not like us. There will be many people who will say all kinds of evil and bad things to us and about us. If we take the trip that if they are going to say something mean to me then I am going to say that back to them; if we take that trip then we are going to be very miserable people. If I follow after love, it does not mean that I am
going to let people run over me. Nope I am not going to do that. I am not going to let people hurt me if I can help it. I have learned some things over the years and that is there are ways you can handle things other than using your fists. We need to pursue that. We need to pursue the same type of love that God has for us. We need to have that same kind of love for each other and for the lost world that is all around us. If we were pursing that love the same kind of love that God has for us. You might say, I can t love that way. You can if you want to. You can love me without any strings attached. You can love me whether I love you or not. You can love me if I don t even like you at all you can still yet love me and vice versa. I know that for sure because I practice that. I know there are many people who do not like me. I know that. There are many people who do not like you. You may think everybody loves you but you are wrong. Not everybody loves you. Do you know what we can do as Christian people? We can pursue after love. We can pursue a love, where we are going to love people whether they love us or not. A love where we are going to love our brothers and sisters no matter what color they are, it doesn t matter what church they go to or what their philosophy may be in life or some of their religious practices; we are going to love them with the same love that God loved us. We were doomed and damned and we had no hope. There was not much to us. We were vile. We had committed all kinds of horrible sins against the God of heaven but yet Jesus Christ still yet died for us. He shed His precious blood for us. His love was manifested in what He did for you and me. If I have the same kind of love that God had for me then that same type of love will be demonstrated in my life toward those I come in contact with. That will be in your life too. Not only that but also we need to pursue patience. Patience is something we need to hotly pursue. It is something that we need to have in our life to be constant, to be very steadfast in our life is patience. Actually, the word means steadfastness. We don t need to be wishy washy. We don t need to be people who are this way today and that way tomorrow. This week I believe this and next week I believe that. We don t need to be people like that. We need to be steadfast. It brings out the idea of having our feet planted firmly on solid ground. We need to pursue that. We need to be steadfast in what we are doing. Again we need to be constant. We need to be people that don t act one way with one crowd and another way with another crowd. When I am at church I act this way real holy. But when I get out in the world, I act this way. We don t need to be like that at all. We need to be people who are steadfast. We need to be people who are constant in our daily walk and in how that we walk. We should walk every day the same. I know that we don t always feel the same. I know that there are things in our day that changes how things happen. I understand all of that. However, my stand where I am standing at and what I believe should not change from day to day. We may need to grow up some and we may need to move up some. We understand that. I should not believe one thing today then something completely different tomorrow. I should not be wishy washy and get blown around but I should be steadfast.
The last we are going to talk about is that Paul said we need to pursue meekness. Meekness is a great word. If we don t have this in our lives then I think the picture that Paul was painting here about individuals who should be seeking some things here I think there is a big part of the picture here that is not going to be painted. There is going to be a big part of the picture that is not going to look good. The word meekness means to be gentle. It is not talking about being gentle to those who are nice to you, to be gentle to those who are treating you good. We can be gentle with people. We can treat people with gentleness even though they are mean to us. We can do that if we really want to. We need to pursue that. Not only that but it means to be tender. In life, people mess up sometimes. Amen! I promise you if you would be honest; all of us here has messed up a lot in their Christian life. Everyone has made a lot of mistakes in their Christian life. When people do mess up there is a way we need to deal with them. We don t need to get a stick and beat them over the head. We can be kind and gentle and deal with people in a right way. We can be tender. We can humble. It brings out the idea of meekness of being not only tender, not only gentle but also being humble. People, who are not lifted up in pride, people who are not acting like we are better than somebody else. We need to pursue that and chase after that. There is an enemy there that wants to put all kinds of thoughts in our minds and if we will allow him to he will take away or get us to where we won t pursue after meekness. It also means to be mild. There is nothing that will drive away people any quicker than someone that is very harsh or rash to people that they don t need to be harsh and rash to. There are times to be firm. There are times you have rebuke people. There are times you have reprove people. There is a time for all of that. However, it is not for every day and every situation. Meekness is something we need to pursue. Pursue mildness, tenderness, and humility and being considerate people. What is wrong with being considerate or nice? What is wrong with being hospitable? What is wrong with saying Thank you When somebody does something for you? What is wrong with saying Please? There is nothing wrong with that. In today s society that is something we are getting farther and farther away from. When I was a kid, if you were a door or saw a lady coming to a door do you know what most men would do? They would wait until that lady got there and hold the door open for them. Do you know what the ladies would do when they got through the door? They would say, Thank you, sir. We don t see much of that today. We don t hear much of please or thank you. That is something we need to pursue. The world sees that. The world sees people who are thankful. The world sees people who are considerate. The world sees people that don t care to say Please. We need to pursue after those things. Not only that but also, it brings out the idea of being strong. It does not make much sense sometimes when you look at this word but the Greek word itself means power under control. That is really what meekness is all about. We have a lot of power. We have a lot of authority in our lives that has been given us to Almighty God; it needs to be used in the right way. Sometimes in our life our meekness gets out of control. Our power gets out of control. Who we are and the authority that we have and sometimes we take more authority than we really have. It gets out of control. These things we need to purse. These things we need to be after. We need to have a humble state of mind. We need to pursue that. We need to purse a strong state of mind. We need not to allow this world to convince us of things that are not right. We need not to allow preachers or pastors to convince us of things we know are not right.
We need to be strong in self-control. This world is going to try you. There are going to be those who are going to try you. There are going to be those that the enemy is going to put in your path that will do everything they can to get you to do something that is going to defile your conscious before Almighty God. We need to be people who are under control. We need to be people that have self-control. Amen! These are things we need to pursue. You get to choose. It is your choice to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, and love along with these other things. That is your choice. I cannot make you. God is not going to make you do that. That is your choice. However, if you will pursue these things it will make a totally different person out of you. It will make a likeable person out of you. Amen!