No Matter What... Make a Difference

2020-08-23  

Pastor Jonathan Falwell 

1 Timothy 4:11-13 (CSB) Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise your youth; instead, you should be an example to the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Until I come, give your attention to public reading, exhortation, and teaching. 

 1. Example 

• Tu-POS– an image left

• We are called to be an example to those around us as a follower of Christ

• This does not happen by accident or default

• Claiming the name of Christ doesn’t automatically result in being an example for Christ 

2. Speech 

• The words we use are always a picture of what lies beneath 

Matthew 12:34 (NKJV) “Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 

• If our heart is full of worldliness, our mouths will speak it 

The principle is to pursue Christ so diligently that the inner spirit is purified, producing only good and appropriate things to say. The same is true of our outward acts, our lifestyle.[1]– Knute Larson 

3. Conduct 

• Our actions should match our faith 

• Timothy would have been looked on with suspicion, he had to prove the words he spoke by the life he lived

Phil. 1:27 (CSB) Just one thing: Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, working side by side for the faith that comes from the gospel 

• 1 Peter 2:12 tells us to live in such a way that even the unbelievers around us will notice holiness 

4. Love 

• As followers of Christ, we do not have the luxury of hate 

• First century Christians could have ignored and hated the non-Jews but they would have been disobeying God had they done so 

• When we as followers of Christ dismiss others based on their status, position, color or beliefs…not only do we dishonor them, we dishonor God 

• 1 Corinthians 13 is how we are to love 

5. Faith 

• Pistis – conviction of truth 

• We must hold fast to truth, not our truth but God’s 

6. Purity 

• Cleanliness 

• Sexual purity 

1 Cor. 6:18-20 (CSB) Run from sexual immorality! “Every sin a person can commit is outside the body.” On the contrary, the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. Don’t you know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body. 

Vs 14 – Don’t neglect what God gave you

[1]Knute Larson, I & II Thessalonians, I & II Timothy, Titus, Philemon, vol. 9, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 207.