Sermon Transcript
Well, it’s a time of year where a lot of people have a renewed interest in health. Have you noticed that? After the holidays, you know, after you go through Thanksgiving, and then you go through Christmas, and then you go through New Year’s, and so all of a sudden people are interested in health in new ways after all of those holidays. I mean, you know, over the holidays I’m sure you ate a ton of See’s candy. I know you felt obligated when people gave you the cookies and the cakes and the pizzelles and the pies and the candy canes.
And all the rest. And so, you know, you like sweets, and so why not? And you took advantage of the opportunity and ate as much as you could, and it probably added a few pounds. And now you’re trying to figure out how to get rid of the pounds and all the rest of that stuff. And so there’s this kind of this new interest in health at this time of year.
Some of us took a hiatus from exercise during the holidays. We spent more time hanging out with family and friends and, you know, traveling and shopping and shopping. And shopping and, you know, all the rest of that stuff. And some of us actually got some more sleep than usual, and that was, that was really nice. A few days off from work, a few days off from school, and so there was more time to just sleep in, not set the alarm clock.
I don’t know if that was a part of your schedules. Of course, some of you have children, so there’s just always a built-in alarm clock in the house and will be for the next 15 years or so as you deal with that. But anyway, it’s all to say that this is the time of year when, you know, people are thinking a lot about diet, they’re thinking a lot about exercise, they’re thinking a lot about maybe getting better sleep and all of that. Why bother? You know, what’s the point?
Well, I think that most of us, we prefer health over unhealth. That’s why we bother. And so we think about diet and we think about exercise and we think about sleep because we know, at least we’ve been told, It’s good for our health. Well, this week as I was thinking about all of that as a part of our time of year, I got to thinking about how in the church, the church has its issues related to health too. That the church is actually called a body.
Maybe you’ve heard that before. It’s called the body of Jesus Christ. It’s made up of all these different people, all kinds of people who are in different places, we might say, when it comes to health. Okay, and if we as individuals are in different places when it comes to health, then the church is going to be in a variety of places when it comes to health. So when we talk about that, we’re talking about our individual and collective sense of well-being.
So our emotional well-being, our relational well-being, our spiritual well-being, our mental well-being, all of that, it kind of collectively impacts the health of the church, which means We wanna pay attention not only to our individual health physically, but we wanna pay attention to our individual health in all these other matters, especially as a church family. If you consider yourself a part of God’s church family, God is concerned about his family. He wants us to be people who are making health progress, we might say. Now, I’m sure that you are aware that since the church is made up of people, then that means that the people, bring into the church imperfection. Let’s just call it imperfection, all right?
The church is not perfect. I’m sure I didn’t surprise anybody right now. The church is not perfect. It’s not even close. It’s not even close to being perfect.
I’m not saying you should beat yourself up over that, you know, that we should, you know, get at ourselves here as a church or something. Fact of the matter is it’s been that way in the church since the church started 2,000 years ago. And we’re going to be seeing a little bit of that this morning as we come back to a continuing study that we’re doing in the book of 1 Timothy, which was written to a young pastor, Timothy, by the Apostle Paul. And it was written to help him as he’s trying to help this church become healthy or remain healthy and become even healthier. And so essentially he’s concerned about this church in Ephesus, which was a great church, But it wasn’t a perfect church.
It was challenged by unhealthy conditions. And so, these last few months as we’ve been looking at this letter, we’ve been learning from what Paul said to Timothy. It was counsel that could help the church collectively and it could help the church individually, the people who were the church, the body of Jesus Christ. And what we’re going to look at is found in 1 Timothy chapter 6. If you brought your Bible, you might want to open there or your app or whatever it might be or just Use the message note sheet that’s inside of your bulletin this morning.
You’ll see the passage of Scripture that we’re going to be looking at, 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verses 3 to 5, where when you look at this little passage here, it’s pretty obvious that Paul is, you know, filled with candor. Let’s just say it that way, with regard to the health of the church, the conditions that the church was in, and some things that were happening in the church. So, in some ways, what we’re going to see here is like a doctor being honest with a patient and saying, you know, your health isn’t good right now, and you need to address these different matters related to your health. And I’m sure that you would know that the church has sicknesses that oftentimes come along that are a part of the church, and they need to be addressed. You know, the worst thing actually would be that in the church when there’s sickness, we just ignore it, you know, and people see it and they kind of get to a point finally where they say, you know what, listen, whatever you do, don’t go to that church.
Don’t go to that church. They’re sick over there because perhaps they haven’t addressed the unhealth issues that are in the church, or it’s just a part of change and growth and all of those Those sorts of things. And the worst thing that could happen would be that people would see sickness in the church, say, I want nothing to do with the church. But even worse, they would say, I want nothing to do with God. I just want nothing to do with God.
I mean, if that’s what the church is all about, then, you know, count me out. I really don’t have any interest in the church, and I certainly therefore don’t have any interest in God, because God is the one who’s connected to the church. And if that happened, that would be pretty sad. That would be pretty sad. It would be sad that the church just ignored the unhealth in the church.
It would be pretty sad that the church just pretended there’s no unhealth in the church. It would just be pretty sad that the church didn’t pay any attention to the sickness and did nothing about it. So what we look at this morning, 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verses 3 to 5, is Paul candidly speaking up about some conditions in the church and saying, You know, these really need to be addressed. And so, this is what he said, verse 3, if anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and he understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth, who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.
I don’t know how you feel about that after you read that little passage there. You’re like, what is going on in this church? And what you have is an imperfect church that’s faced with 3 significant challenges. What are the 3 challenges? You see it right there.
There’s a doctrinal challenge, there’s a relational challenge, and there’s a financial challenge. So, you got 3 big things going on here in the life of this church, and they aren’t the only ones over the years as a church who’ve been challenged by doctrinal challenges, relational challenges, and financial challenges. If something’s not done about these challenges, then it could be detrimental to the people that are in the church, but it also could be detrimental to anybody outside the church. And so, Paul writes to this somebody, actually verse 3, you see it there, he refers to an anybody. He doesn’t actually name the people or the person that he has in mind that he’s writing to, that he’s heard about, that evidently are making situations in the church less than healthy.
But essentially what is happening is that there’s some things happening in the church that are polar opposite. They are polar opposite to what God wants for his church. He wants them to be healthy. These are polar opposite, we might call them. Practices.
So there are unhealthy practices in that church at Ephesus, and they show up in churches throughout the century. So he essentially says something here that speaks into those 3 matters, and the first has to do with unhealthy rather than healthy teaching. Unhealthy rather than healthy teaching. Evidently there is some unhealthy teaching in the church. Now, what’s the difference between healthy teaching and unhealthy teaching.
In fact, this unhealthy teaching, if you look at verse 5, talks about it as something that’s robbed of the truth. Do you see it there in verse 5? It’s robbed of the truth. Now, what’s the difference then between unhealthy over here, robbed of truth, and healthy teaching over here? Well, actually, the difference would be, as you can see it here suggested, it’s the source.
It’s the source of where that teaching’s coming from or where that guy, that anybody, is teaching? Where are they getting their stuff, their material? And there are 2 possibilities. There’s the possibility of man, obviously, and there’s the possibility of God. And so, on this side, it would be man’s doctrine or man’s systems of thought and man’s systems of belief.
That could be unhealthy. It’s not always unhealthy, but it could be. And then you have God’s doctrine over here that’s based upon God’s Word, God’s Word. So you have the precepts of mankind over here, the traditions, the traditions oftentimes of mankind, and then you have the precepts of God or the teachings of God or the practices as prescribed by God. So you got my thinking on one side, you got God’s thinking on the other.
But also I want you to notice in verse 3 that also added to this source is Jesus. You see Jesus there? Jesus and/or anybody else. So is the teaching based upon what Jesus taught. And Jesus’ teaching, as you can see here, it was unique.
It was— and I want you to notice the word in verse 3— it was sound. Now that word sound, if you go back in the Greek culture, it was actually a word that referred to hygiene or to health, to hygiene or health. And so when you’re talking about somebody who is sound, you’re talking about somebody who is Healthy, right? That person is in sound condition, we might say. Well, what Jesus taught— Paul is saying to Timothy— what Jesus taught was sound, or it’s healthy, which comes right to the topic we’re on this morning.
It’s all about health. It’s all about church health. And this health, he’s saying, that is sound is connected to Jesus. It comes from God. So it’s words that are filled with life.
They give meaning and purpose. They give comfort and joy. All of that was a part of what Jesus taught. They give forgiveness and more. In fact, I don’t know if you’ve read carefully through the gospel accounts, which are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are a record of Jesus and his ministry and his teachings.
And if you’ve ever picked up a Bible that has red letters, you know, red font in those books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what that’s doing is marking out specifically Jesus’ teaching. But if you look at his teaching, it’s fascinating as people would respond to his teaching. Oftentimes they were just astonished by his teaching. For instance, he taught this long sermon called the Sermon on the Mount. And after he taught this sermon, one of the individuals in the crowd was a guy who became one of his followers.
His name was Matthew. And Matthew was an eyewitness to this, this teaching on the mount there. And we’re told in Matthew 7:28-29 that when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed. So, they heard Jesus teaching, they were amazed because He taught as one who had authority and not as teachers of the law. So, they saw a difference in this source, in this source that was teaching them.
He amazed them by His authority because His authority It stood in contrast to the traditions of men or the teachers of the law. And that kind of response showed up oftentimes in Jesus’ ministry where people were just amazed. In Luke 2:47, it says, everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. They were amazed at the authority that came out of this man’s mouth. Now, the question you got to ask is, where did he get his material?
You know, like, what was his source? And would you like to guess? His material came from God. That’s where he got his material. He didn’t get it from man, okay?
He got his material from God. God spoke actually to him, and God spoke through him, and he often spoke what God spoke himself, whether verbally by this conversation that he had going on with God or just by referring to the Old Testament scriptures. You’re probably familiar that the Bible has 2 parts to it. It has the Old Testament, we call it, and the New Testament. The Old Testament is Jewish history.
It’s wonderful. But these scriptures Jesus referred to as the scriptures, the word of God, the wisdom of God. And when you look at Jesus’ teaching, he oftentimes taught out of the Old Testament scriptures. He quoted Old Testament scriptures 78 different times in his teaching. If you just look at the first 5 books of the Bible, 26 different times Jesus quoted from these, these, the books of law, or the Torah, it’s called the Pentateuch.
He quoted directly from them. And if you put it all together and you look at how many times Jesus quoted from the Old Testament and where he quoted, we know that he quoted from Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Amos, Jonah, Micah, and Malachi. Those are just a few of the books of the Old Testament, but Jesus quoted directly from them. All I’m saying is, is that he didn’t make this up, okay? This came from God, and he himself was God.
But this is all life-giving. It was all life-giving words. In fact, Jesus said it this way, John 6:63, the words that I’ve spoken to you are spirit, and they are life. They are life. Now, I don’t know how you view Jesus’ teaching.
But what this passage is trying to say to us is it’s sound, it’s healthy, it’s reliable. You can trust Jesus’ teaching. You can build your life on Jesus’ teaching. And Paul is saying to Timothy at this church, if somebody comes along and they start teaching something that is in opposition to Jesus’ teaching, that’s false doctrine. That’s false doctrine.
That’s what he’s saying here. It isn’t congruent with what Jesus taught. So that’s not something you want to hang on to. You want to check the source. Interesting, some years ago I was following a speaker and he used to give all kinds of seminars and retreats and conferences across the United States at these national conventions and stuff.
And he used to talk about work and family and marriage and addictions and emotional health and Many topics like that. So all these topics that were very relevant to people like us that are looking for some help. And at the end of the talks, before he would give the usual, hey, thanks for coming, I’m really glad you guys got to be here today, and I had the privilege of sharing some information with you, thanks for all of that, I hope you have, you know, great life from here, whatever you say at the end of those things. But anyway, before he would say that, he would say, you know, now those of you who’ve been a part of this event, you might like to know where I got my material. You might like to know my source for my ideas and my talks, and so I just thought I’d give it to you because I think it could be helpful to you.
So he says, so you might want to take a pen out right now so you can write this down. And then he’d say, well, what I shared with you throughout this conference, the material, the source that I took it from was the Bible. That’s what he’d say. I took it from the Bible. And then he would do this.
It’s spelled B-I-B-L-E. Eat. And the people were just like, are you kidding? Come on, man. Really? Seriously?
I mean, you could share what you shared with us and that came from the Bible? Seriously? Because it’s like, you know, for some people they look at the scriptures and it just doesn’t compute. But what’s happening here is that he’s saying the best sourcebook ever, the best sourcebook ever, in fact, is God’s Word. And it can be trusted.
It can be trusted. And so he’s saying, so look to Jesus as the primary source of health and take what you’re hearing and see if it lines up. If it doesn’t line up, there’s a problem here. You’ve probably in school learned how important primary sources are, right? How English teachers like Kathy sitting back there, they’re concerned about primary sources.
When you write that term paper, they want you using primary sources, not necessarily secondary sources. I mean, you could use the secondary sources if you have to, you can’t get to the primary source, but it’s better to use the primary source. Well, the primary source of truth, the primary source of truth is God. It’s God’s Word, and it comes through Jesus Christ, and it comes through other godly teaching, And that doctrine is doctrine that we can stand on, we can trust it. And so one of the best places you can start when you’re trying to discern whether or not this is, you know, life-giving truth or not is you can just take Jesus and start with Jesus and ask the question, is this in agreement with Jesus?
Do these beliefs that are being taught to me, do they contradict what Jesus taught or are they congruent with what Jesus taught, especially as it concerns this whole matter of connecting with God now and forever, because Jesus said it very clearly, I’ve come that you might have life. In fact, he said in John 11:25, I’m the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Now that’s an amazing statement. And then he said, so do you believe that?
I mean, if we’re talking about life, come back to the source of life. Jesus is actually the source of life. Let me ask you this. Have you ever regretted not acting on some good advice? Has that ever happened to you?
I was reading this story this week about an Arizona resident who in 2005 bought a condominium in Scottsdale, Arizona, and he bought this condominium in 2005 for $120,000. You know, some of you right now are singing, oh, those were the days. My friends, those were the days, right? But anyway, he bought it for $120,000. Well, 2 years later, his condominium was worth $260,000.
So $140,000 more over just a 2-year change. About that time, he said a billionaire tycoon land guy came along and he told him that he should sell his condominium. And he thought about it and he decided he wasn’t going to sell it, so he didn’t sell it. And he thought that, you know, probably he could gain more if he didn’t sell it, so he sat on it. But the property, instead of going up, dropped below even the amount that he paid for it, so that when he finally sold it 5 years later, he sold it for $48,900 during the real estate bust, right?
You know what he was saying in this account I read this week? He was saying, I’ve been kicking myself ever since because I didn’t pay attention to the advice. And that’s essentially what this is saying here, is that there is a source of advice that can be trusted when it comes to matters of life. And when you’re listening to the teaching, whether it’s in the church or outside of the church, how does it come back to the source of health, to Jesus himself and to other God’s teaching, godly teaching? So the best thing I think that we could do is Read it.
Read it. Seek to understand it. Learn to trust it. I mean, if you can’t trust it, then do some more exploration on what is in this book and why should I trust it and apply it. Because the Scriptures tell us that if that will happen in your life, you’re not going to regret it.
You’re going to be thankful. So don’t join forces with the polar opposite person who is into unhealthy rather than healthy teaching. That’s what he’s saying first. Then secondly, he says this unhealthy— this polar opposite person is also into unhealthy rather than healthy interactions. Okay?
Unhealthy interactions. Now, not only— so what we see here is not only is the guy’s teaching off, but his interactions with other people are off, even to the point that he has this interest in controversies and quarrels. Do you see that in verse 4? Now I don’t know, you know, how you feel about people that are like into quarrels and controversies. If you run across somebody like that, you know, especially in the church, let me tell you, in the church if somebody’s into controversies and quarrels, we really don’t want to put that person on the welcoming team.
You know what I mean? Like, hey, get them out there on the patio and let them get into a good one with somebody, a lively discussion, you know, some kind of controversy or something. I don’t think so. That’s not what we’re looking for. So, this guy evidently interacted and related to others in ways that were just frankly messed up, messed up.
And so, Paul candidly says he’s conceited. That’s pretty strong. He understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of corrupt Now that isn’t a description, if you ask me, of somebody that you want to cuddle up next to, you know, and get close to. I mean, if you watch Survivor or, you know, Big Brother, what happens on those shows, those reality TV shows, is that anybody who’s on a show, on that show, is a part of that group at that time.
Anybody in the house or on the island that’s arrogant, egotistical, conceited, pushy, argumentative, they’re a loudmouth, you know what happens to these people? They are the first ones that are kicked off of the island and the first one kicked out of the house. That’s just the way it goes. People don’t want to be around these kind of people. But that was happening in this church.
This person’s interactions, they were unhealthy, which means you didn’t want to put them on your teaching team. You didn’t want them teaching Christianity 101, you know, that was going to draw people into the church. None of that. You wanted none of that. And people that were in the church needed to recognize this fact and not sort of endorse it or minimize it.
If this guy was teaching controversy in controversial ways, in ways that was pushing people apart, that’s not the guy that you want speaking into your life. Because the person speaking into your life hopefully is somebody who’s living a godly life, somebody who’s not into controversy and quarrels, who majors on matters that really don’t matter. And what were the matters that really didn’t matter back then, but they made them matter? Well, things like diet and days. There was a big one.
You know, what should you eat? What days should you worship? That was a big controversy in the church. Now we talk about, you know, different styles of worship. What’s What’s the right style of worship?
Contemporary? Traditional? Is it all— you know, let’s get together. Let’s have a knock-down, drag-out about predestination. Let’s get into that one.
Let’s get into transubstantiation, okay? Let’s go there. Say, what is that? I don’t know. I haven’t had that conversation.
Is it the King James Version of the Bible or is it the New International? People talk about this New International Version. Which one is it? Some people’s like, hey, If it was good enough for Jesus, the King James, it’s good enough for me. Well, wait a minute.
It wasn’t around back then. Do you realize that? Romans 14:5 says, one man considers one day more sacred than another. Another man considers every day alike. You see this?
What is he saying? He’s saying, you know, there are people that are part of your church that just see things differently. Some people, they’re going to say, you know, I just think Saturday is such a special day. And so they’re into this one day. It’s more sacred.
And then there are other people who consider every day alike. I mean, every day is a special day, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t every day like the day God created? I mean, it’s just like, what’s this one day thing? What’s wrong with you?
Why are you a one-dayer? I think you should be a 7-dayer, you know. And you could just see how these people could begin to have controversy over this. And so what does the Apostle Paul say? He says just be fully convinced in your own mind.
Quit trying to convince somebody else. That’s what he’s saying. You don’t have to have a controversy or an opinion about these things to the degree that you rate on people or you grate on people and you try to keep on making people like you. And why would you do that? Well, the problem here is because of your arrogance, because of your conceit.
Maybe you think like the guy in Ephesus, you know, you argue and debate because you’re convinced That you’re right and everybody else should be like you. So what’s the outcome of that kind of approach to relationships? We’re actually told— do you see the outcome here in verses 4 and 5? It’s envy and it’s strife and it’s malicious talk and it’s evil suspicions and it’s constant friction. That’s not a great list, is it?
Let me tell you, if I or anyone else ever came up to you and asked, you know, Hey, like, how’s your Bible study group going? How’s your Berean group? Okay, we don’t have Berean groups, so I’ll just use Berean group here. Okay, I’m making this up right now. So how’s your group going?
And you were to say, oh, it’s really good. We’re having a lot of lively discussions and a lot of controversial things are coming up, and it’s surfacing in our group a lot of envy and strife and malicious talk and evil suspicions and constant friction. And then you pause and you expect for me to smile at that point. You’re probably not going to get a smile. I mean, come on, are you kidding?
You think that would make a pastor or a leader happy? That where the thing that was happening in your midst was just constant friction? To me, I hate friction, let alone constant friction. I mean, if it’s just like constantly you guys are at each other’s throats, I don’t really think that’s what he says he wants for our relationship. Do you think God’s okay with strife?
See that word? You think he’s okay with that? No. Do you think he’s okay with malicious talk? No.
Do you think he’s okay with insulting and degrading talk? No. What do you think he feels about envy? What’s envy? Well, envy is basically a form of idolatry.
It’s worshiping something that somebody else has that you would like to have. What about evil suspicions?
I don’t know about your motives. Well, how do you fix that? Talk to them. You know, just have a conversation, have a healthy conversation, find out what you think secretly is going on, whether or not maybe it isn’t going on. Just talk.
There’s a better way. See, what he’s talking about is the way of love. He’s just talking about the way of healthy relationships. He’s talking about the way of Christ. One of the things that the church came to in the 20th century was an axiom that they tried to live by.
It was this: In essentials unity, in non-essentials charity, in all things Christ. In all things Christ. Unity, charity, and Christ. It’s all about building up the family of God. Boy, do we ever need that, because this could constantly be something that can tear a family, a church— it could tear a church apart.
And it quite frankly would waste our time. You know, I don’t know how many times I’ve wasted time talking about things that are gonna end up nowhere. Why waste the time? Many of you have prayed the Lord’s Prayer where in part it says, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You familiar with that part?
Thy will, God’s will, be done here. God wants nothing more than just to see his will being done here just like it is in heaven. Not a little bit, a lot. That heaven would come to earth more and more and more. But for heaven to come to earth more and more and more, it’s all about doing God’s will, not our will.
It’s not about us opposing, you know, God’s will. It’s not about ungodly people, you know, trying to get their will in there, that sort of thing, or ornery people. It’s not about your will. It’s not about my will. It’s all about God’s will.
And the best thing that could happen would be that we would long to see God’s will be done, which what he’s trying to say here, which includes figuring out what’s major and what’s minor and giving attention to what’s major, to what’s major in relationships. I’m part of 2 groups right now. They’re studying through the book of Nehemiah, and you know, if you know anything about Nehemiah, it’s all about leadership and it’s all about getting this task done. And the task was he came to Jerusalem to rebuild a wall. The wall of Jerusalem had been torn down, and so Nehemiah got started on this project, rallied the troops and all of that.
But guess what? When he got started on the project, even before he got started on the project, when the people found out about it, there were some ornery people. There were some ornery people that didn’t want the wall to be rebuilt, and 3 of them were Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem. Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem. And if you know the story, you know that Nehemiah was just trying to do a good thing.
I mean, come on, he came into the city to repair what was in disrepair so that the city would be a safer city to live in. And you’d think like everybody would be on board for that, but not everybody was on board for that. There were people like Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem who said, we don’t like it. Maybe they were people who would say, we just like it the way it is. You know, it’s kind of like I like my bedroom the way it is.
It’s messy. I like it. I’m a messy person. I don’t like you making my bed, or whatever it is, you know. So for them, it’s just, we like the disrepair of the whole thing for whatever reason.
And so they complained and they threatened and they made life difficult for everybody. You know what this passage is saying? Don’t let that person be you. That’s what this is saying. Are you kidding?
Don’t be that. Don’t cause problems in this relational health arena. That is polar opposite to what God wants done in your life, and it’s polar opposite to what God wants done in his family, the church. Now let me add this: in relationships, sometimes polar opposites is a good thing, right? So this is— polar opposite isn’t always a bad thing.
It could be a great thing. For instance, in marriage where one person’s a morning person and the other person’s a night person, that could be a good thing. I mean, you probably get some personal space that way, you know. That would be fine. One is an introvert, the other is an extrovert, that could be a good thing.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. At least you got somebody who will verbally communicate, you know, in the family. Wonderful. Use that person as your spokesperson, PR person for the family, whatever it is. It could be a good thing that one is spontaneous and the other is planned.
I mean, if it’s always planned all the time, you know, it’s like, ah, that’s not as much fun as spontaneity. Spontaneity people will say— these are the party waiting to happen people, right? I’m just looking for a party. Let’s go have a good time. But then there’s the planned person.
Did we plan for that? Well, no, but, you know, you see how this goes. But at least they got the calendar figured out, and so we’re glad. We’re glad for that. So, I mean, it’s not that you can’t be opposite and have a good relationship.
Opposites, they can benefit from each other and they can grow and they can complement each other. Bernice and I are opposites in many different ways in our relationship, but we’re better because of the differences. We’re trying not to pull apart but to pull together, right? Even through our opposites. And you know this on the job, opposites can be so helpful in a work environment.
They can be helpful on sports teams. They can be helpful in families, and when you’re doing brainstorming sessions, it’s nice to have some people in there that have other thinking, even in the church. That’s what he’s saying. So don’t feel like opposites have to be a deficit, a deficit, all right? It could be an asset in relationships.
Now that said, that said, what’s he saying here? Well, opposites are okay except when it comes to the matters of belief and how we relate to each other. And Jesus Christ is the one who stands out as the model to follow in what he taught and how he lived. And so essentially what this text is saying— so when it comes to Jesus and a connection to him, don’t be a polar opposite, be an exact replica. Be an exact replica.
Wow. That means like loving God, you know, loving God and trusting God’s Word and trusting God’s ways in your life. Means loving other people, seeking to build other people up and not tear other people down. And then there’s one more matter that he brings into focus here that I just mentioned. Somebody who also is into healthy, not unhealthy gain.
It’s fascinating because he ends this whole little section, verse 5, with this anybody is a person that is teaching the false doctrines and is living contrary to God’s plan for the church. This anybody is a person who thinks that godliness is a means to financial gain. The person’s polar opposite in that too. They’re polar opposite with regard to unhealthy teaching rather than healthy teaching. They’re unhealthy in their interactions instead of healthy interactions.
And finally, they’re unhealthy in their gain rather than pursuing healthy gain. And evidently what we’re talking about here is money, money, financial gain. They evidently were into the church because they saw the church as a way to make some money. Let me ask you this question: has that ever been a problem in the church? Have you ever heard of anybody coming into the church or on television who is interested in making a buck off of the church?
Somebody who is ripping the church off financially? Have you ever heard a spiritual leader say something like, if you’ll just send me some money, we’ll send you a prayer cloth and God will bring abundant blessing into your life and you, you will be healed? You ever heard that? Okay, it’s just me. I’ve heard that.
This whole matter of money really can mess churches up. It can mess families up, right? So this is another matter that we’re gonna bring into focus, but we’re not gonna do it today. We’re gonna bring it into focus next week because there’s a lot of insight that we could gain around this whole matter of money as it relates to healthy gain. What does healthy gain look like, and how can I know whether or not I’m headed in the direction of healthy gain and not unhealthy gain.
That’s what we’re gonna look at next week. Well, let’s pray together. Lord, thanks for this morning, for the scripture that speaks to us. We hope that what we’ve talked about gives us a lot to think about, but it also helps us truly come to the place where we long for health as much as you do.
More than just physically, but spiritually, emotionally, relationally.
And we see here just such a good reminder that the best source that we have to turn to is You. It’s to learn more and more about life as You see it. As we’ve talked about it, it’s biblical thinking. And I pray that what we’ve thought about today, that your Word is an asset, not a deficit, that we could truly believe that, not just with our minds, but in our practices. It could transform how we live.
It would be life-giving. And I pray that you’d help us look to Jesus and other godly teaching for life. For wisdom, for truth, for help. I pray, Lord, that you would help us love each other in life-giving ways. And we just thank you that you’re a God who’s not abandoned us, but that you want to walk with us every day and lead us and transform us and help us in the midst of the challenges that we face, whether we live in the Bay Area throughout the world.
And I, I thank you that Jesus was the one that you sent, that in a relationship with him we might find help for now and forever. And I pray, God, that if there’s anybody here that’s not yet started the journey with Jesus, I pray they would. Pray, Lord, that you just help them be able to say yes to being one of your children through Jesus. That you would help them be able in their minds and hearts to embrace you. And I also pray, God, that if they’re not on that journey, that perhaps they could be and would be, and it would be something that they would be able to just talk to you about and find in you the direction that they need.
That we all need, and it would transform us in the way that we think and the way that we live, and it would give us the strength and power through what you do in our lives to become better people. So thank you for today. Thank you for the opportunity to be here, and thank you for the encouragement that we’ve received in studying together your scripture, but also in song. And we want to continue to just enjoy that and then leave and go out and make a difference in the community around us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
