SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grant Parkway, visit GrantParquay.org.
SPEAKER_01: We love at the thought of you coming back.
SPEAKER_01: We want to agree with John and say, Marinat the Lord, come.
SPEAKER_01: Come, Lord Jesus, and come quickly.
SPEAKER_01: Because of you, God.
SPEAKER_01: Because of what you've done for us.
SPEAKER_01: There's confidence.
SPEAKER_01: We can sit in here and hold up hands because we have a relationship with you that you bought for us.
SPEAKER_01: So therefore, we are bound.
SPEAKER_01: Father, speak.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want to move forward as my friends say.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want to continue on if you don't continue to be here.
SPEAKER_01: Because what would be the point?
SPEAKER_01: The colossal waste of time.
SPEAKER_01: So be here.
SPEAKER_01: Be present.
SPEAKER_01: Speak.
SPEAKER_01: Use your word.
SPEAKER_01: We love you.
SPEAKER_01: Your name I pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Will y'all do me a favor?
SPEAKER_01: Grab a seat.
SPEAKER_01: Let me introduce myself.
SPEAKER_01: My name, uh, as Neil mentioned earlier.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Aaron Cotton, and I'm the student pastor uh here at uh at Grand Grand Park.
SPEAKER_01: It's always always a privilege to stand before you uh this morning on uh senior recognition uh Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Um if you got your Bibles, would you open up with me uh to first, I'm sorry, to 2 Timothy uh chapter chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and what I want to do this morning is uh is I want to I want to read the text and then I I want to come back to the text and allow the text to kind of walk us through what God wants us to hear uh this morning.
SPEAKER_01: You heard a lot of text this morning because the title of uh our sermon is The Living Truth.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the living the living truth.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Paul writes this to young Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: We'll start in verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You, you, however, have followed my teachings, uh, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith and my patience, my love and my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and Lystra, which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, and while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
SPEAKER_01: But as for you, Timothy, not like these other guys, continue in what you have learned and what you have firmly believed, knowing from whom you've learned it, and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings which are to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You've got a pen bracket this verse for me, it's verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: All scripture is God breathed, breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
SPEAKER_01: I want to open up with a question uh this morning, and the question uh would be this if you were on your deathbed, you've got to the point in your life where you're about to tap out on this world and enter into the next, if you were on your deathbed, who would you want in the room and what and what would you say?
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever been in a moment like that where someone is passing, there's a there's a depth to the room.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of fidgeting going on in the room, and there's a lot of listening in.
SPEAKER_01: There's a few words that are mentioned in an environment as this.
SPEAKER_01: And you think, Aaron, why would you ask that question?
SPEAKER_01: Because when Paul is writing to Timothy, this is his second imprisonment, and he is on the brink of uh of death.
SPEAKER_01: He is about to uh uh, like I said, end this world as we know it and enter into the next.
SPEAKER_01: And he is not uh like in house arrest in his first imprisonment, but he was in his second uh in Rome under this uh this ruler named Nero.
SPEAKER_01: He was a ruthless ruler, a ruthless guy who was popular up front, but eventually people thought uh that he was crazy.
SPEAKER_01: He he would he would go out uh into and he would persecute Christians.
SPEAKER_01: There was a fire that happened uh back back then about about 64 uh or 65 AD, and this fire broke out and uh uh and it burned 10 out of the 14 sections of Rome.
SPEAKER_01: And then the people needed to blame somebody, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because you've ever been in that situation and you have a sibling in the house, you know when you get blamed for something, it ain't me, no, it's their fault.
SPEAKER_01: I I want to get that off of me.
SPEAKER_01: So he in the same way says, now I didn't I didn't do anything.
SPEAKER_01: Let's blame somebody, let's blame, let's blame the Christians.
SPEAKER_01: So the entire empire goes out to to goes out towards towards Christians to put an end to them.
SPEAKER_01: What Nero used to do, he used to uh uh dress these Christians in furs to be killed by dogs.
SPEAKER_01: Others were crucified, and still others were set on fire to illuminate the night.
SPEAKER_01: And then he would open up his garden for everybody to come and watch.
SPEAKER_01: Sick and dark.
SPEAKER_01: But people came.
SPEAKER_01: You think, Aaron, why would you write this?
SPEAKER_01: Or why would why would you say this?
SPEAKER_01: Because it this is what's happening during this time, that it's dark, it's dark and depraved, and yet the church, the kingdom of God, is in the midst and it's and it's growing.
SPEAKER_01: And who who's entrusted to this, to the to the church?
SPEAKER_01: Young Timothy.
SPEAKER_01: If you know anything about Timothy, we know he's young uh and that he is sickly.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and as my students say all the time, probably way too much, not probably, they do say way too much, is that Timothy was awkward.
SPEAKER_01: Everything's awkward these days, right?
SPEAKER_01: You just something happened in the house and people don't know it's awkward, like I've just walked in uh the room, but apparently, okay, this is this is awkward.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but Timothy, being awkward, he was known as awkward, sickly, and and he and he was young.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Paul says at the beginning of his of his book, he says, Timothy, you haven't been given a spirit of timidity or awkwardness, but of power, of dyno might, of and love and discipline.
SPEAKER_01: That Timothy, you're your temptation to shrink back and to lay low and to excuse yourself to what God has entrusted you.
SPEAKER_01: You are without excuse, you possess power.
SPEAKER_01: Possess love and you possess discipline.
SPEAKER_01: Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2 that even though he's in chains, even though he's in a dungeon, even though he is behind bars, he makes this comment though though I am bound, the word of God is not bound.
SPEAKER_01: It's about to be unleashed in this place.
SPEAKER_01: Someone grabbed me before I came up and he said, Hey man, rock it tonight.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's gonna it's gonna it's gonna be brought because when the word of God is open, church, as we stand before God's whole word as it is opened up, it ought to open up us.
SPEAKER_01: It ought to, because we're gonna read here, look with me in 2 Timothy chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says to young awkward Timothy, he says, You, however, unlike these false teachers who love pleasure and who love self rather than God, you have, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, and my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, and my steadfastness.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought if I was tracking with Paul, I would agree with him in every single one of those.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you got a pen, put discipleship next to verse 10, because that's that's what it is.
SPEAKER_01: Timothy, you have followed my teaching, you followed my my conduct, not that I just acted one way on Sunday, but no, I was consistent every day throughout the week.
SPEAKER_01: My aim in life, my my purpose, according to Philippians 3, laying everything what lies behind and pressing on to what lies ahead, my faith, my trust, my patience, and my hupamone, my endurance.
SPEAKER_01: You followed me in all these things.
SPEAKER_01: And then he writes also, Timothy, follow me in my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch and Iconium in Lystra.
SPEAKER_01: It was at this point in the text I looked at and I was like, nah, Paul, I'm good on that one, right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm good on the faith and the patience and the and the teaching, the conduct, and the purpose.
SPEAKER_01: I'm good with all, but persecutions and sufferings that happened in Iconium, Lystra, and Antioch.
SPEAKER_01: These three places are significant.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever notice when you're in conversation with somebody and you don't really know them, you always ask, well, hey, yeah, where where are you from?
SPEAKER_01: And they uh and if they're from your hometown, like the whole conversation goes to a whole other level of, oh yeah?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, have you been at this place?
SPEAKER_01: You know, this joint is amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Brown in the back.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, no one knows about it, right?
SPEAKER_01: But I do, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because this is our our hometown.
SPEAKER_01: The whole conversation conversation goes to a whole different level.
SPEAKER_01: And and Paul mentions these three places because Lystra was actually Timothy's hometown.
SPEAKER_01: Any any country music listening people, this is the point Paul got his boom box out with Eric Church and started saying, This is my hometown.
SPEAKER_01: Like this was his jam.
SPEAKER_01: Like Paul's about to say, hey, remember, remember where you were from, remember your hometown.
SPEAKER_01: If you got your Bibles, go with me to Acts chapter 14.
SPEAKER_01: I want to read to you what happened in Iconium, uh, in Antioch, in Lystra.
SPEAKER_01: Because Paul is jogging his men, his memory.
SPEAKER_01: Remember my persecutions and my sufferings.
SPEAKER_01: We'll go to Acts 14.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says this, after Paul just healed a man, Luke writes, and when the crowd saw that what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lyconian, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.
SPEAKER_01: And it says in the Lyconian language, if you've ever been around Spanish-speaking people and you don't know Spanish, it gets a little difficult to understand, right?
SPEAKER_01: This is the this is where Paul is at.
SPEAKER_01: They're speaking in Lyconian.
SPEAKER_01: The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.
SPEAKER_01: And Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes.
SPEAKER_01: I thought that was funny.
SPEAKER_01: Like Paul's the one that he did all the work.
SPEAKER_01: Like he healed a guy, right?
SPEAKER_01: He he healed, and he he's labeled as Barnabas.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, he's labeled as Hermes, the messenger.
SPEAKER_01: And Barnabas, who didn't do anything, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's just kind of camping out.
SPEAKER_01: This is pretty this is pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01: It gets named as Zeus.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens is the whole the whole town uh comes out, and uh Paul says to them, men, why are you doing these things?
SPEAKER_01: We are also men of like nature with you.
SPEAKER_01: Church, be careful of who you put on a pedestal too high, because they are in like nature with us, for we bring good news, we bring the gospel that should turn you from vain things to a living God, repentance, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
SPEAKER_01: In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways, yet he did not leave them without a witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.
SPEAKER_01: Even with these words, they scarcely restrain the people from offering sacrifice to them.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, Hey, all these things that you've really enjoyed, the the the rains that have have come, the fruitful seasons, the satisfaction of your heart with food and gladness, like those things are good, but you're you're missing it.
SPEAKER_01: All all these things come from the ultimate giver.
SPEAKER_01: Like you're you're you're missing.
SPEAKER_01: Let me let me let me tell you about the the living God.
SPEAKER_01: And anytime church, the word of God is open, anytime truth is proclaimed, people will respond.
SPEAKER_01: And look how the people respond.
SPEAKER_01: People Jews, according to verse 19, came from Antioch, Iconium, and persuaded the crowds, and they stoned Paul, and they dragged him out of the city, supposing, supposing that he was dead.
SPEAKER_01: They they began to stone him, that he was not he was knocked out, and and they they thought they the reason why they quit is because they thought they thought he was dead.
SPEAKER_01: I uh at my house when I was uh growing up, everybody has a pet that they have, right?
SPEAKER_01: For me and my but my the pet that we we have is my a cat named Patrick, right?
SPEAKER_01: Who names their cat Patrick?
SPEAKER_01: Like that's a that's a huge my mom does.
SPEAKER_01: Uh she named our cat Patrick, right?
SPEAKER_01: She nursed that thing from from when it was a kitten, right?
SPEAKER_01: Apparently it survived uh be because of her.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember uh I was in my house uh one one evening and my I heard my mom scream.
SPEAKER_01: And when my mom screams, it's usually not that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_01: She's making something real small and just blowing that thing, blowing it like a bug.
SPEAKER_01: Like usually she can't do bugs, can't do roaches or spiders.
SPEAKER_01: Those things, if you ask her, she just can't do it.
SPEAKER_01: I heard this blood curdling scream.
SPEAKER_01: You thought murder would have happened, right?
SPEAKER_01: So I go in like Matlock, I'm in, I'm investigating.
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: I watch Matlock.
SPEAKER_01: I go in there and I'm investigating, or Columbo, let's use Columbo.
SPEAKER_01: I just go in there and I'm investigating the scene, the scene, what is going on.
SPEAKER_01: And my my cat Patrick was in a coma, like just passed out, like sprawled out all the way on the bed.
SPEAKER_01: And my mom screamed out, he's dead, he's dead.
SPEAKER_01: He's not, he's not going to get up, right?
SPEAKER_01: And the teenager, I mean, all the you know, for all the young, uh, for you goes old, if you remember you're younger, just so interested.
SPEAKER_01: So what I do, I got a stick.
SPEAKER_01: I got a long stick.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna check to make sure if this thing is really, really dead or not.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going in like I'm about to pull vault, right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm going in and investigating this scene, and I begin to take the scene, I begin just to poke it just a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: And mind you, the cat's 20 years old, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's about time.
SPEAKER_01: We love you, it's but it's it's it's not going like it should, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's it's probably it's probably time.
SPEAKER_01: But at that moment, it didn't, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I poke and began to move, and all of a sudden in that moment, it's like, okay, whoa, and I'm screaming.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm I'm the one screaming out loud, uh, thinking this one cat was once dead.
SPEAKER_01: Now, now it's alive.
SPEAKER_01: They go up on Paul.
SPEAKER_01: He's been knocked out.
SPEAKER_01: They probably got a stick, right?
SPEAKER_01: They're kind of from a distance.
SPEAKER_01: Paul, are are you?
SPEAKER_01: And then he then he starts moving because church, the gospel cannot be extinguished, it cannot be put out.
SPEAKER_01: That God was not done with Paul.
SPEAKER_01: He had a ministry in store for him for him, that even when the midst of opposition, of suffering, he rose up and entered the city.
SPEAKER_01: And on the next day he went with Barnabas to Derby, and they preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, and then they returned to Lystra.
SPEAKER_01: That Paul went back to the exact same place, the exact same place in which he was in stone, he was stoned.
SPEAKER_01: That this guy was motivated.
SPEAKER_01: There was nothing stopping Paul.
SPEAKER_01: And before we put him on too high of a pedestal, we ought to remember that he is in like nature with us.
SPEAKER_01: He was motivated by the gospel, nothing was stopping him.
SPEAKER_01: He entered the sitting through, he said, through many tribulations, according to verse 22, we must enter the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And when they appointed elders for them in every church, and with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they in whom they had believed.
SPEAKER_01: Paul, there's no stopping Paul.
SPEAKER_01: He was he was committed, and you think, Aaron, why would you go back all the way?
SPEAKER_01: Because this is the moment in Timothy's home, hometown that he ought to remember.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever see me baptize uh students, I always say to them, I always say, Hey man, remember.
SPEAKER_01: Remember this moment in which we stand before you remember this moment because there's gonna be trials ahead, there's gonna be persecutions and there's going to be sufferings.
SPEAKER_01: But he who is faithful now, he who's faithful now, who is faithful now will always, always be faithful.
SPEAKER_01: Always.
SPEAKER_01: And what Paul is saying to young Timothy, awkward, young, sickly Timothy, is hey, hey, remember your hometown?
SPEAKER_01: Remember when I got stoned and then I got up?
SPEAKER_01: Remember that?
SPEAKER_01: Because God wasn't done with me.
SPEAKER_01: I continue to press, I continue to press on.
SPEAKER_01: Remember that.
SPEAKER_01: And remember that from all those the Lord had rescued me.
SPEAKER_01: Look it with me in 2 Timothy 3.
SPEAKER_01: He says this indeed, all, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
SPEAKER_01: Persecution is not an option, it's a promise.
SPEAKER_01: It's what's expected, it's what's what happened before, it's what's happened in the past with anybody because truth will always be resisted.
SPEAKER_01: That the health, wealth, and therapeutic gospel stands no place in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: It stands no place because those who commit to follow Christ will inevitably face opposition.
SPEAKER_01: The truth will always be resisted, it will always be opposed.
SPEAKER_01: And those things that we don't like, those things that we want to we want to flee from, those are the very things and those very moments that God uses us to make us look more like Him.
SPEAKER_01: Because He's detaching our hands from what we ought not to literally woo us so we can attach it, we can attach it to Himself.
SPEAKER_01: There is a peculiar peculiar peculiar glory for those who trust Jesus in the midst of suffering.
SPEAKER_01: So when someone dies, when you don't make the team, when you lose your job, when people mistreat you, make fun of you, criticize, make you out to something you're not, when people hurt you emotionally and physically, all because of your faith in Jesus, you're not the only one.
SPEAKER_01: You're not the only all those who went before us, Abel and the prophets and the apostles, namely Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_01: Holy living, it convicts, it convicts those who aren't in the truth.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why they look at you and that's why they want you to join them in what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01: Because they're convicted.
SPEAKER_01: I love what John Piper says about this.
SPEAKER_01: If there's any guy talking about suffering, this guy talks about, he says this is the suffering is not meaninglessness, it's not vanity, but it's producing in us a peculiar weighted glory.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: Take these truths of of of these living truths and preach them to your mind until your heart sings with confidence that you are new and that you are cared for.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of suffering, it's an it's it's an it's an invitation uh extended to you to know God in ways that you never have would have before.
SPEAKER_01: To know him in a unique way.
SPEAKER_01: In the shadows of suffering, the focus is no longer removing me from the self, but no, I want more, I want more of him.
SPEAKER_01: I want more of him in my life.
SPEAKER_01: So the first thing this morning of of lit this living truth is is the first thing we talk about is to remain in it.
SPEAKER_01: It's to remain, remain in the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Look with me in 1 Timothy 3, the Bible says, for people will be imposters, go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
SPEAKER_01: But as for you, Timothy, but as for you, continue, remain in, do not sway from in what you have learned and what you have firmly believed, knowing from whom you've learned it, how from childhood you've been equated with the sacred scriptures, which also make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The Timothy, you you've been trained from the beginning from from your grandma and from and from your mom.
SPEAKER_01: That that that that this is there ought to be a continual dependence upon Jesus because it's not just some decision we made a years ago.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's Christ didn't die for that.
SPEAKER_01: He he died for us to completely surrender to him to remain in his in his teachings.
SPEAKER_01: That's why when I get the graduates here in the last service, I will say to them that don't leave what you've been taught.
SPEAKER_01: Don't leave what your parents so labored for.
SPEAKER_01: Don't don't don't don't leave the teachings in which you heard in which in this room, but no, to continue, to remain, to camp out, and to cling on to the truths.
SPEAKER_01: Not sway from the right or to the left.
SPEAKER_01: There's a learning, and then there's also a firmly, a firmly believing.
SPEAKER_01: When I was growing up, church church wasn't an option.
SPEAKER_01: Like we didn't have the option not to go to church.
SPEAKER_01: My mom would always come in and say, Boys, it's time, it's time to go to church.
SPEAKER_01: And uh we uh we always knew when my mom would be coming into the house, our way our AC is set up, you can hear the note like we had it down to a T, right?
SPEAKER_01: And every every Sunday morning, uh it was always war at my house, right?
SPEAKER_01: And my mom would uh be some of y'all experienced this this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so you can really resonate with this.
SPEAKER_01: I I was one of those kids that just did not, I just did not care for church, didn't care to go.
SPEAKER_01: None of my friends really, really went there, but it wasn't it wasn't an option.
SPEAKER_01: And we I hear we hear her come in to come wake us up, and we'd eventually just start playing possum.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Sunday morning, oh we had we had no idea, then we'd intentionally be just walking real slow.
SPEAKER_01: Uh just to go, no, get in the car.
SPEAKER_01: Like we're going, we're going to church, and we go, we go to church, and I mean I would hear and I would sit in the back because I was always way too cool for school, right?
SPEAKER_01: I was always the guy that this is for all them.
SPEAKER_01: I I don't really need any of this.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember the way that my mom would wake us up.
SPEAKER_01: She called it the elephant lick, right?
SPEAKER_01: She would, instead of just dumping water on us, right?
SPEAKER_01: She'd come and just have a wet rag, right?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you ain't gonna get oh, you're sleeping.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sorry about that.
SPEAKER_01: And she'd just start taking that wet rag and just rubbing it all over our faces.
SPEAKER_01: And at that moment, it's like, okay, I'm out.
SPEAKER_01: I'm out, I'm I quit, I tap out, my submit, all right.
SPEAKER_01: She put us in the headline.
SPEAKER_01: Like, we're going to we're going to church without, it's not a choice.
SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's happening, all right?
SPEAKER_01: Submit.
SPEAKER_01: Submit to your mom.
SPEAKER_01: So we go and we I go to church and I, like I said, I never I never really's I I remember studying scripture.
SPEAKER_01: I remember even handed being handed a vest where you could memorize scripture and have patches for what you memorized, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's like the religious letter jacket, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I had that, right?
SPEAKER_01: I had the big, like the most one covered with my patches.
SPEAKER_01: But here, this church is I didn't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I I knew a lot about him, I knew a lot of truth.
SPEAKER_01: I could quote it to you, I could even sing it to you, right?
SPEAKER_01: I could even probably do a dance for you, Father Abraham, have many sons.
SPEAKER_01: I still remember everything.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember I remember it all.
SPEAKER_01: I remember my mom told me my fifth grade sermon says, Aaron, you're gonna you're gonna be going to summer camp.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Mom, I are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: I I've already spent Sundays with them.
SPEAKER_01: You're telling me I have to camp out and spend a whole week with them, right?
SPEAKER_01: Are you are you kidding me, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I get to camp, and I'm of course, so if your children's work in their house, and you see that kid in the back who's who's doing who's doing this thing, that that was me.
SPEAKER_01: That was me in the back, and it wasn't until my my fifth grade summer, till I realized my brokenness when a when a guy up front who was playing just his acoustic guitar and who was wearing a snapback hat before it was really in, who had a beard that was way, way too long, right?
SPEAKER_01: Uh I remember him singing Amazing Grace, and I remember thinking, why don't I think grace is amazing?
unknown: What
SPEAKER_01: Why it was so distant.
SPEAKER_01: And it was in that moment I realized I didn't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That if he were to come back, if when I were to stand here and sing, I am bound, I would be fearful to stand before God Almighty.
SPEAKER_01: But not long, no more.
SPEAKER_01: Because in that moment I decided, God, I surrender all.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to forget what lies behind me, and I'm going to completely surrender and completely trust in you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to place my trust in you.
SPEAKER_01: I remember going to church.
SPEAKER_01: I remember my mom holding my hand because you moms like to hold our hands, right?
SPEAKER_01: And when it gets about older elementary, junior high, it's no longer to hold, no longer cool for my mom to hold my hand.
SPEAKER_01: I remember my mom holding my hand, right, for so long, right?
SPEAKER_01: But our hands are sweating.
SPEAKER_01: Like we got that thing going on.
SPEAKER_01: I remember thinking, oh, this is humiliating.
SPEAKER_01: Mom, I don't want you holding my hand.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember she would just sing over me, trust in the Lord with all your heart, Aaron.
SPEAKER_01: And lean not on your own understandings, but in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your path.
SPEAKER_01: And I was just a punk kid, a rebellious kid who was in the back to say, I don't want any of this.
SPEAKER_01: But God relentlessly pursued after me in that back row and said, No, God, no, no, no, no, Aaron, I want you, and I'm gonna buy you back into myself through my son.
SPEAKER_01: And it was irresistibly glorious.
SPEAKER_01: So when I read true, when I read truth, when I read Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, when I read stories, sometimes I just start weeping because I remember when my mom you would just labor and pray over us when I was just a knucklehead and a rebellious kid who didn't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And I rem I remember just thinking, not me.
SPEAKER_01: Because she trained me and she put me in a position where the truth wooed me.
SPEAKER_01: And it stirred within me.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to encourage those parents who have had kids and who have raised kids and who have done and you have taught and you have brought, and they're not.
SPEAKER_01: And they're just not they're just not around.
SPEAKER_01: They've gone off to college and gone off to the wayside.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason why Paul makes a distinction between Timothy, you learning and you firmly believing.
SPEAKER_01: That the firmly believing, you placing your faith in Jesus is a work of God and Him alone.
SPEAKER_01: So I tell people, I tell students, I I love when they're just honest with me.
SPEAKER_01: So Aaron, I don't, I don't get this whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: I say, Hey man, you camp out here.
SPEAKER_01: And that may be you in this in this room, just kind of checking things out.
SPEAKER_01: You check things out, you listen, you hear, but when the word of God goes out and it starts wooing inside you, you you got to respond.
SPEAKER_01: Because the firmly believing is a work, is a work of God.
SPEAKER_01: Timothy, you've learned this, you've firmly believed this, you've committed yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Committed yourself to what, Timothy?
SPEAKER_01: Look at with me in verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: All scripture.
SPEAKER_01: This is what you've committed yourself, Timothy.
SPEAKER_01: All scripture is God breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every every good work.
SPEAKER_01: All of Scripture is God breathed, not those passages that we just we we like, not just the passages that excuse the way that we live, not those, no, all of it, all of scripture is God breathed, finds its origin and is created by God to teach and to reproof and correct and train.
SPEAKER_01: And to train in righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Someone grabbed me earlier before I came up and he was like, Really?
SPEAKER_01: Really, your your chucks?
SPEAKER_01: You weren't you wearing chucks today?
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yeah, yeah, I'm wearing my chucks, right?
SPEAKER_01: Were you at my wedding?
SPEAKER_01: I wore them then too.
SPEAKER_01: Like I, though this is just this is just my these are my game day shoes.
SPEAKER_01: Like this is this is just what I what I wear because here's the deal, church, is when we come up and we come on a Sunday morning, this is training ground.
SPEAKER_01: This this is the point when we come on a Sunday morning from our long weeks, and we this is like in Psalm, what we just read in 32, where we find our refuge.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is our hiding place.
SPEAKER_01: This is where we find security, and this is when we we find we find rest.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says that when the word of God is taught, it's profitable for teaching, correction, and rebuking, and also training in righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not much of a runner, right?
SPEAKER_01: I told you guys last, I'm out of myself that last Sunday when I told y'all I ain't the running type.
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, but uh if I were to tell you that I'm the biking type, and uh we had the MS-150 that happened uh I think a couple couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_01: If I were to tell you, hey, for those that are interested in going to the MS-150, hey, we're gonna go train out of Memorial Park, right?
SPEAKER_01: We all get together, we're all really excited about it.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's go, let's go.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you guys are like, no, y'all, you can go have that, right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go ride my bike, right?
SPEAKER_01: So we get up there and we we're gonna go train, and I get you guys together, and all of a sudden someone comes without their bike.
SPEAKER_01: They come walking up like in in in in their blue jeans and in their boots and they're and they think, I oh, I I missed, I missed the memo.
SPEAKER_01: Like, no, man, we're training for the MS-150.
SPEAKER_01: You need a you need a bike to tr to train.
SPEAKER_01: Like that, that would be foolish.
SPEAKER_01: That would be odd.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal, church.
SPEAKER_01: When we when we come in here, when we come in this training ground, and we don't and we don't bring this, we're missing it.
SPEAKER_01: We're we're missing we're missing the training, we're we're missing, we don't have the equipment, we don't have what's before us, we don't have the correcting and re and reproof in the and the teaching if we don't center ourselves around this.
SPEAKER_01: So question I would love to ask you that maybe we could talk about in community groups tonight is this is when is the last time this has affected you?
SPEAKER_01: When is the last time this has affect affected you?
SPEAKER_01: That's has never been it's not foreign, it's not something just out there, but no, it's it's personal.
SPEAKER_01: That's personal.
SPEAKER_01: All scriptures breathed out by God, profitable for all these things, for training, for correcting, and teaching.
SPEAKER_01: Look with me in chapter four, Paul is gonna continue on.
SPEAKER_01: This is the point in which Paul he gets he gets serious.
SPEAKER_01: This is the moment where he gets his blue paint out, starts putting it on his face, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's got his he's growing out his hair.
SPEAKER_01: All my William Wallace fans in the house, Braveheart fans, this is the point where Paul gets on the horse and saying, Hey, freedom, freedom to it's it's coming.
SPEAKER_01: Here it is.
SPEAKER_01: I charge you.
SPEAKER_01: I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who's to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: All these I I charge you in the presence of God, I charge you in the presence of the appearing kingdom in the midst of judgment, I charge you in the midst of all these things, because Paul has got, he's got to appeal to a higher authority than himself to make this charge valid.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, I charge you, preach the word.
SPEAKER_01: Preach the word to herald the truth, to speak the good news, to get it, to proclaim the message.
SPEAKER_01: So not only are we to remain in the truth, but we're to proclaim it.
SPEAKER_01: We're to speak about it in our walking, in our days, and our works, the people that we are in we encounter.
SPEAKER_01: There's a certain specific ministry that happens here, but there's also a proclaiming truth that happens throughout the week amongst us all.
SPEAKER_01: We should be speaking the truth.
SPEAKER_01: We should be getting it out, speaking what?
SPEAKER_01: Speaking the all truth, all scriptures God breathed.
SPEAKER_01: We should be speaking about that.
SPEAKER_01: I charge you, preach the word.
SPEAKER_01: In season.
SPEAKER_01: Be ready in season and out of season.
SPEAKER_01: Reprove, rebuke, and exhort.
SPEAKER_01: And with complete patience and teaching.
SPEAKER_01: Preach the word.
SPEAKER_01: In season and out of season.
SPEAKER_01: Back in 2009, uh, I was coming to the church.
SPEAKER_01: I've been here about a year, and uh, and Lance was talking about going on a scouting trip uh that was gonna go to Mexico to Bustamante.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you guys in this room, some of you men have been there before.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we decided we're gonna go on a scouting trip to go check out this this potential mission site.
SPEAKER_01: And I, of course, the the teenager in me, right?
SPEAKER_01: I was just so excited.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, sign me up, all right, to go on this unplanned, unprogrammed trip to Bustamante, Mexico.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know it was gonna take 20 hours to get there, right?
SPEAKER_01: But in the moment, it's like, yes, so we get there, and I said, hey, we gotta go pick up our car.
SPEAKER_01: We go to pick up our car.
SPEAKER_01: What car do we get?
SPEAKER_01: We got two guys in a Prius, right?
SPEAKER_01: All right, we're about to go all the way to the border, and we travel eight hours to get there.
SPEAKER_01: We get, oh, we're gonna rest?
SPEAKER_01: No, we're not gonna rest, right?
SPEAKER_01: We get there, we travel another eight hours to go to uh Busamante, which is up in the mountains.
SPEAKER_01: You've ever driven out of the country, uh, we have lanes here in the States, uh, but sometimes outside of this place in which it is comfortable uh to us.
SPEAKER_01: Uh they they have lanes, but that the merely just optional uh in which they drive.
SPEAKER_01: So we get there, I'm half just out of it, right?
SPEAKER_01: And we're going, and this this pastor that we were partnering with, there was so much gap in the steering wheel.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if he was turning or keeping it on the road and it's dark, and he had bifocals so thick, like he could see the future, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's coming down on the road and he we're going and we're going over cliffs, and I'm looking, we're in the mountains, right?
SPEAKER_01: Mission trip for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So we get up there and I look over, like, I'm I'm gonna die.
SPEAKER_01: Like right here, right now, on this scouting trip to Bustamante, Mexico.
SPEAKER_01: I need to call my mom, right?
SPEAKER_01: I have a call, I need to come, I'm we're texting my mom.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wait, I don't have service, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm I'm on mission trip for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We're in no no man's land.
SPEAKER_01: And we get there and we're about to have church, and meanwhile, the whole time we're going up there, Pastor Freddie was telling me, he's like, hey, Aaron, make sure you have a word when we get there.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01: I got well, that sounded kind of cool.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll get, I'll have, I'll have a word.
SPEAKER_01: So each hour, hey, brother, hey brother, make sure you have a word.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I got some Sunday school in me.
SPEAKER_01: I've been in church my whole entire life.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm I'm I'm good on this.
SPEAKER_01: I got this covered, so I got it where we get there.
SPEAKER_01: We have church, all right.
SPEAKER_01: About five people, all right.
SPEAKER_01: We'll be honest, I'll be honest.
SPEAKER_01: I thought five people from the village come out to to have to have church, and he looks at me, and Pastor Freddie looked at me and says, Aaron, you you got a word?
SPEAKER_01: I was like, he goes, 'Cause you're because you're about to be up.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, you're serious.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you mean that okay, I'm gonna have to stand up before the people and deliver.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you weren't kidding.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and all of a sudden I just went in in immediate panic mode.
SPEAKER_01: Like it was my first time using a translator, and apparently this was this guy's first time using and translating.
SPEAKER_01: So who knows what he said, right, the entire time.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I still don't know.
SPEAKER_01: And what I decided is I was gonna pull out Luke 15 because how could you butcher the prodigal son, right?
SPEAKER_01: How could you mess that up?
SPEAKER_01: I say about a few words and I I get I get it out.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking over at Lance the entire time, like, save me, save me from this.
SPEAKER_01: I come up here and he's just smiling.
SPEAKER_01: No, this is good.
SPEAKER_01: No, this this is good.
SPEAKER_01: You go in and enjoy, enjoy this.
SPEAKER_01: But I I was I'm not kidding when I say this.
SPEAKER_01: I was, it was probably one of my most humiliating moments of my life.
SPEAKER_01: Because my whole entire life, I sat in the seat that you sit in now and been in groups and small groups and church.
SPEAKER_01: I've even been to Bible college.
SPEAKER_01: I went out there and I in front of five people who didn't know a lick of English, and I had nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Because I relied on the Bible for information and I never, I never let it in.
SPEAKER_01: That we should never be surprised, church, to be put on the spot.
SPEAKER_01: We should never be surprised.
SPEAKER_01: We should always be, we should always be ready.
SPEAKER_01: We should always be ready in season and out of season.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I hear when I interact with people, especially especially students, again, small group areas.
SPEAKER_01: Like I hear a student look at me and they're just looking for a word, they're looking, they're looking for truth because you know if you get around teenagers, they're just their worlds are so small, right?
SPEAKER_01: I have the privilege of just blowing it up, like just chunking grenades from the back.
SPEAKER_01: You hear things blowing up back in the warehouse, it's me just chunking them, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because I gotta blow up their small little world, right, in which they live, and that to bring to perspective.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I hear the words, brother, you got a word?
SPEAKER_01: I hear Pastor Freddie just saying, Hey, it's time, it's time to speak to this.
SPEAKER_01: Because the word is profitable for teaching, approve, correction, training.
SPEAKER_01: I charge you to be ready to preach the word in season, out of season, to reprove, rebuke, and exhort, and with complete patience and teaching.
SPEAKER_01: I love the order of that.
SPEAKER_01: Not only to be ready, but to reprove and rebuke and exhort with complete patience.
SPEAKER_01: That there ought to be times, church, when you have conversations with people amongst family, amongst friends, and they need to hear the truth.
SPEAKER_01: A buddy of mine called me and said, Hey, I heard you're like a pastor now.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm about to get I'm about to get married, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I need I I would love for you to marry us.
SPEAKER_01: And I haven't had contact with the guy in forever.
SPEAKER_01: We went to youth group together back uh when I when I was in youth group, and he called me up and said, Hey, can you do this?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, No, man, even if even if I could do this, I I I wouldn't do it.
SPEAKER_01: He was so offended, right?
SPEAKER_01: He was like, Why why why wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_01: Because I I know your living situation.
SPEAKER_01: I know you've chosen to live with your girlfriend, you're you're taking benefits of marriage and you're and you're living that now under not under and you're not under God's blessing.
SPEAKER_01: So what am I gonna do?
SPEAKER_01: Stand up there and try to bless something, put some God fairy dust on top of that?
SPEAKER_01: Like it's just not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: And the guy looked at me, he was just like, I I I got really offended.
SPEAKER_01: He just saw, because when when people get when the truth is proclaimed, I didn't say it in, I didn't say it in rudeness, I I didn't say it in a way that was, I was angry, I just simply said, hey man, the way that you're living, according to Hebrews 13, around verse 4 or 3, it says, Hey, let the marriage bed not be defiled.
SPEAKER_01: So that I I I can't, I can't I can't bless this.
SPEAKER_01: I can't, I can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: And then when you you offend religious people, they can't help but just use scripture to their own advantage.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Matthew 7, 1 says that you can't judge me, like judge you, judge, you, judge you lest you lest you be lest you be judged.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm I'm safe here, like you can't, I I'm you I'm using the words of Jesus on this.
SPEAKER_01: Like, how are you to say, get the plank out of your own eye, right?
SPEAKER_01: I remember thinking, I'm good, I got no plank.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm I'm I'm okay.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm just seeing and I'm I'm saying this in in love, and I I think there's a a distinction between judging.
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a distinction because there ought to be, because the scripture, when it's talked about, when it's lived out, it reproves and it rebukes.
SPEAKER_01: And for some of us, we get we we get so we get we get offended by that, and we may even use that scripture, but Paul says at the same time in 1 Corinthians 5, when there's sexual immorality that has happened in the church, he says, Hey, I've already judged this person.
SPEAKER_01: This can all this can no longer be.
SPEAKER_01: How can we, church, how can we not say things to people when they're about to jump off the cliff?
SPEAKER_01: Hey man, there's a cliff, you're about to jump off, right?
SPEAKER_01: You're about to face the consequences of your decision.
SPEAKER_01: We we got to say something.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's a there's a condemning judgment.
SPEAKER_01: That's a g that's the the judgment Jesus is talking about, like a condemning judgment.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul is speaking of a righteous judgment.
SPEAKER_01: A judgment says, Hey, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I I love you so much.
SPEAKER_01: I want I want to tell you this because I I know the things that you're entertaining, they're just mud in comparison to what God offers.
SPEAKER_01: The holiday at the sea.
SPEAKER_01: Because if we're really to be honest right now, I think you're just you're just playing games.
SPEAKER_01: And now you're using scripture to excuse the way that you live.
SPEAKER_01: I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna speak the truth to you in love and gentleness, according to 2 Timothy 2, about 224, 25, that in God, perhaps that God may grant them repentance.
SPEAKER_01: God work woo amongst their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: So not only are we to continue, not only are we to remain in the truth, not only are we to speak the truth, but also we're to persevere in the truth.
SPEAKER_01: We'll close out this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'll read on, preach the word, Timothy, reprove and rebuke, complete patience and teaching, for the time is coming, the time is now, church, when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to truth and wander off into midst.
SPEAKER_01: That's we live amongst a culture with blurred lines, that there's no right or wrong.
SPEAKER_01: You do whatever that you want to do, students, when you graduate and you get out into the college world, this is gonna sound really sexy, this is gonna sound really popular, but but Paul mentioned this a long time ago that there's gonna be people with itching, perverted desires who will accumulate and put people before them to excuse the way that we live.
SPEAKER_01: And God forbid that ever happen amongst the Western church or any church at large in general, that someone doesn't stand back behind the pulpit to say, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I tell my students all the time, hey, I love you, I love you, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta say this, I got to.
SPEAKER_01: Because if if if I don't, I'm just as wrong as you.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta, I gotta get this out.
SPEAKER_01: There's this tendency to put people before us that we want to hear.
SPEAKER_01: But as for you, Timothy, as for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of the evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
SPEAKER_01: For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.
SPEAKER_01: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
SPEAKER_01: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will ward to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who love his appearing, who sing, I am bound, many, many times in a worship service, through the affections and love that comes out and seeing and the thought that Jesus in his return and in his coming, to all those who love his appearing, that Paul at the end of his life, he could easily say, You know what, I'm done.
SPEAKER_01: I'm right here at the end.
SPEAKER_01: I uh but he's not.
SPEAKER_01: He's in a cell and he's writing to young awkward Timothy.
SPEAKER_01: Say, no, I want him.
SPEAKER_01: I I want I want I want him.
SPEAKER_01: I want to I want to I want to finish strong.
SPEAKER_01: I want to finish strong not only in this season, I want to finish strong when I'm a junior higher, I want to finish strong when I'm in high school, I want to finish strong when I'm in college and I'm graduating.
SPEAKER_01: I want to finish strong when I'm a young adult.
SPEAKER_01: I want to finish strong when I'm 40 or 50.
SPEAKER_01: I want to finish strong when they're about to lay me down into the dirt.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say I fought the good fight.
SPEAKER_01: I have finished the race that is set before me.
SPEAKER_01: To finish well.
SPEAKER_01: To persevere.
SPEAKER_01: To remain, to speak it, to preach it, but also to persevere.
SPEAKER_01: Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_01: Let us walk out of here.
SPEAKER_01: Fighting the good fight.
SPEAKER_01: Finishing the race and keeping the faith.
SPEAKER_01: Let us live in such a way that it sparks people's curiosity.
SPEAKER_01: Let us burn, let us be jolted by the living truth.
SPEAKER_01: And walk out of here.
SPEAKER_01: Not the same.
SPEAKER_01: If we don't, it'd be a waste of time.
SPEAKER_01: So depart here.
SPEAKER_01: Speak the truth.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father, and the Son and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.
SPEAKER_01: You're dismissed.