Keep Growing Pt.3 // Keep the Faith

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi, welcome to the Vine Life Church podcast. We're in Boulder, Colorado, and we're following Jesus by staying rooted in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission so that hearts are awakened with his awe-inspiring love. And if we can help you in any way, reach out to us at VineLife.com. For now, here's a short sermon from last week in Avine Life. Again, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Alright, good morning. Can you guys hear me? I just popped a mint in. I don't know why, because I'm not praying for anybody yet. I don't know about you, but mints are like the secret uh ingredients for ministry. Nobody wants to be prayed for by somebody with dragon breath. And I knew I'd have a short amount of time this morning with a lot to cover, so I drank a second coffee this morning so I could talk fast. Um it's great to see you guys this morning. Um it's been a while for me, but um I'm so happy to have uh another chance to speak here. For those of you who don't know me super well, I'm second generation here as a kind of pastoral type person around. My dad was actually an official pastor here with James Rile. And uh was talking to Bob Young, we're reminiscing this morning. He was one of the first people to actually welcome Bob Young and have coffee with him and greet him when he was first coming to the church. And uh so my dad was here, yeah, about uh in the mid-90s. And um since then, my mom was also the children's pastor here for a time. I've served in the youth groups and uh on the on the worship teams uh in our children's ministry when I was about 17. I uh I actually babysitted the uh the two-year-olds and and uh led them in some crafts. So I've I've kind of done the gamut here at the church, and uh I uh definitely consider myself a son of the house. This is uh every face that I see in this place, you know, uh this is the most familiar, most comfortable family that I know, my community of faith in the whole region. So um I'm just delighted to be here with you guys. Um as some of you may know, uh I grew up a missionary in Geneva, Switzerland. My past uh my parents were sort of uh pioneers in the vineyard movement. My uh dad and mom went to a seminary in Southern California at Mellon Christian Center and became friends with John Wimber, Chuck Smith, and some of those people. My dad's surfing buddies were Mike McIntosh uh and Peter, who started Sparrow Records, and all these guys who were movers and shakers back in the day were all my dad's surfing buddies. And I was just visiting him this last weekend, and I can tell you, uh, just being around him, he is the happiest 73-year-old you'll ever meet. He uh he he shares the gospel over the meat counters at the grocery store. He'll roll down his windows at the stoplight and share Jesus with people in other cars. He'll he'll be out for a walk with his wife and uh come across a bunch of um Hispanic people working at a construction site, and he'll actually start singing to them in Spanish and worshiping God with them until they're all you know worshiping Jesus with their hands up. You know, he'll have telemarketers call him and give them prophetic words and they'll start crying on the other one under the phone. He's just so happy. So I want to encourage you to keep on the journey of faith because I've seen my dad sacrifice, give up home and family to go overseas with suitcases, travel all over. I grew up, my first memories are living in tents uh in Eastern Europe where my parents handed out tracts, and I didn't care I didn't have a house. I was happy with my tent. But looking back, I'm like, my parents gave up so much to pursue God. And I can tell you the legacy that he's living and passing on to me and my brother is just incredible. Um, it it works. God takes care of people who lay down their lives for him, and my dad is just so joyful, so happy. So I just wanted to honor him this morning. Um, just got back from visiting him. But just a quick a fun little story. I was in Geneva as a boy. I was there till I was about 14. Uh went to school in French till I was uh till right before high school when I moved here. And uh there was one day we're out by the lake. We used to go down to the lake after church on Sundays, Lake Geneva. I don't know if any of you have been there, but it has one of the tallest fountains in Europe, shoots straight up into the air, and there's swans floating around and everything. It's a really beautiful lake, um, kind of mansions lining the lake with rose gardens, and it's just the Swiss do things right. It's just a beautiful environment. So, you know, it's the middle of winter, it was freezing cold. There's basically ice, you know, floating in the water, all the Alps melt into this lake. And I decide that we're gonna do some races with my brother and I, and we're counting it, we're going three, two, one, we're running and racing and sprinting each other, you know, as young boys do that have a lot of extra energy. And um, and so we got ready to do another sprint, and I start fumbling around with this chain that's hanging on one of the posts right next to the lake, and the swans are floating around. And I have my fingers in the chain, I'm kind of just messing with it, goofing around, and all of a sudden, you know, one of our friends was like, Okay, three, two, one, run! And I'm like, Oh, so I start running, my finger doesn't come out of the chain. And the chain holds onto my finger, and I swing out over the water, and in that moment, as I'm flying out over the freezing cold water, I have one thought. I'm a swan. Just kidding. But I flew out and I just landed in the water, freezing cold. I was shivering, I could barely barely swim, and swans were looking at me like, is he wanting to become one of us? What's going on? And uh, my dad yanked me out of the water, and you know, he wasn't too excited about it because he knew I'd have to go home to dry off. But um anyway, I was thinking about that story, and it made me laugh because, you know, isn't that kind of like the way life has been with COVID and everything? Where about we're just getting ready to run, we have all these plans, and all of a sudden COVID just throws you off in a different direction, and you're just all of a sudden you go into panic mode, you're trying to survive. But I want to encourage you this morning that from my experience in the most intense seasons of adversity is sometimes when we find our greatest breakthroughs. I had some of my greatest dreams fulfilled in ministry and doing events like worship on the rocks in the middle of some of my most painful seasons where I had an autoimmune condition crippling me, I had lost weight, I was in pain, I could barely climb up and down the steps of the auditorium. People didn't know that, but I pressed in and laid hold of the promises God had put in me. And that's part of what we're gonna talk about this morning. And I know, you know, um, Shannon, did the one of the greatest times of a promise come for you in a greatest season of adversity? This last season? Right. Um, I could say that for Jesus, right? Right when he's on the cross, nails piercing him, blood flowing out of his side in that moment of extreme adversity, he was bleeding love. And he was changing the course of history. Amen. So as this whole thing of COVID starts to kind of come back at us, I would encourage you, don't be overcome with grief and fear and and uh and be like, you know, when you when you're in a place of emergency, when I was swimming in Lake Geneva trying to not drown, all you can think of is trying to save yourself. But I want to encourage you, and in the in the season where stuff comes at you, don't get into the mode of just surviving. Look on how to step up into what God has for you and think more along the lines of what are the out-of-the-box, God-sized dreams and goals that I can set for myself that I can conquer in this season, so I can come out more than a conqueror, rather than just scraping out on my hands and knees out of COVID. Amen. Like last season when COVID came on, I said, you know what, I I've always wanted to run. I've never been a runner, so I went and bought running shoes. Right as the store was closing. They're like, okay, we're about to close down, but we'll ship you these running shoes. So I got them in the mail and I put them on and I just started running. And I ended up running, you know, on some of my better days, 11, 13 miles, you know, running around Boulder uh uh creek or running around Boulder Reservoir, and I just started going out and running and putting worship in my ears, and I used it as an opportunity to run. And um, still to this day, every morning before work, I go running or cycling, one of the two to wake myself up and dialed in my morning routine. So I added to my life in the season of intensity. So I want to encourage you with that. Amen. Um let's jump in. Um we're gonna talk about 1 Timothy uh chapter 1 and chapter 2. Um I'm used to kind of more thematic studies where I go deep on one topic. When we're covering these chapters, I just love the word so much. I can't just pick one thing. I so I'm gonna touch on a handful of things. So it's gonna feel like we're jumping around a little bit, but I'm still I'm excited about it. Um I was refreshed and renewed reading through these chapters, so if you will, just hang on with me and we're gonna just touch on some really good exhortations that I think are really relevant for us today. So, first and second Timothy, so this is let's just let's provide a little context here. Paul, the Apostle Paul, is probably in his late 50s, early 60s, he's writing to his spiritual son Timothy, who's at the time probably late 20s, early 30s. And Timothy had been put in in charge of all these churches in Ephesus. And they estimate there's probably a couple hundred churches, small groups that could have added up to several thousand people that Timothy was put in charge of to uh make sure the word was being taught properly, that they were staying focused, that they were keeping the right um objectives in front of them. And just so you know, you know, uh Ephesus at the time, it was home of the largest temple uh dedicated to Artemis, who was known as the daughter of Zeus and uh Leto and the twin sister of Apollo, who was uh kind of this goddess that was supposed to protect young girls. And apparently he she made them sick and she also healed them, and it's kind of some weird stuff going on, and she was also worshipped as one of the primary goddesses of childbirth and midwifery. Um, so very interesting environment, kind of this town that was known for worshiping a deity, a female deity. Um, and so there are some things that were out of whack with the culture there. And um I just think it's really interesting because you know, the threats there to the church were was this Greek city controlled by Rome. Uh, Greek and Roman mythology and philosophy was prevalent, which at the time really, you know, uh had some bizarre twists and turns on it, some very demonic uh ideals. Um there were many new churches growing up that were trying to find their way through uh interesting um philosophies and doctrines, and then there was a goddess-centric culture. So when I think about these chapters, and we're gonna actually read chapter one together, and I'm just gonna kind of touch on some points here, um, is how could we imagine Paul speaking to the churches of Boulder at this time? You know, it's he was speaking to this ancient church, to Timothy, but at the same time, I think it's really relevant for where we're at right now. I mean, here we are in Boulder, where we're surrounded by foreign beliefs and spirituality. You know, Boulder's known as this kind of pool of all kinds of uh Eastern religions and thought processes that are foreign to our to Christianity and can even threaten our beliefs. Um there are many new churches kind of coming up with all kinds of strange doctrines uh that are just baffling to me. That to me, I see a lot of text in scripture that contradicts what a lot of Christians are embracing right now. And it's it's it's a threat to how do we stand, how do we walk through this? Um and we even are dealing right now with gender confusion and um and even an over-amplification of feminism and and women's rights and different things. And I am, just so you know, I am in favor of empowered women, you know, preaching, teaching, going to the nations, 100%. But as you know, when you get go too far in the direction of feminism, it can get weird. It can get weird. Even to the point of feminism defending pornography because it's a woman's right to do what she wants to do with her body. That's weird. You get to the point of actually dishonoring women if you go too far down that road. Amen? So anyway, we're plagued with similar things in our culture right now. So let's get in. Pull out your digital Bibles or your, we're gonna read the ESV or your paper Bibles, and uh, if you could put it up on the screen, 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 1. Um we're gonna start reading through uh this whole chapter, and then we're gonna get into some teaching. You guys ready? Everybody happy, excited? Okay, good. All right. To Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by command of God, our Savior, and of Christ Jesus our hope. To Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and Christ uh and Christ Jesus our Lord. As I urged you, verse 3 when I was going to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus. Everybody say, Remain.

unknown 12:39

Remain.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

So that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculation rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart. Everybody say pure love. And a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they are making confident assertions. Now we know that the law is good if one's uses uh if one uses it lawfully. Understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but the lawless and the disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers. I strike their fathers and mothers? When was that happening? If I if I was if I tried to strike my mother and father, I would have had a a uh serious meeting with Mr. Paddle. Uh I don't know about you, but uh I I I wouldn't dare to do that. Must have been a wild society at the time. For murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary uh to sound doctrine. I like that includes enslavers. Bringing people into slavery has never been okay, even under Scripture. Um, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which I have been entrusted. I thank him who has given me strength. Everybody say, given me strength. Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service. Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed from me. Oh, that just feels good. That feels good. Uh, with me, the faith uh with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Everybody say in Christ Jesus. By the way, I'm having you repeat the points that I'm gonna get after here in a minute. Um the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this season that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience. I love that. God was so patient with Paul that it actually gave him glory, that he had perfect patience, waiting for Paul to come around and encounter him, even while he was persecuting Christians. How much more is God just patient for each one of us, like a patient father? As an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life, to the King of the ages, immortal and visible, the only God, to be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare. Everybody say, wage the good warfare. Holding faith and a good conscience by rejecting this. Some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Himenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. Alright, that was the Word of God, chapter one. So the things I want to touch on on this chapter, I'm gonna get through a handful of them if we have time. There's two things I'm gonna make comment in chapter two, but we'll see how we do. Um I'm gonna move fairly quickly through this. But the five things I want to touch on from chapter one are put roots down, love with uh love with holy love, be faithful, uh, go into Christ, and wage war with words. You guys good for that? Okay. Um, verse uh three and four, put roots down. So as Paul exhorts Timothy, he says, remain in Ephesus. So to me, this means Timothy kind of wanted to get out of there. He was like, maybe Paul, can I just come with you? Can I travel with you? Can I be fathered by you? Uh that's challenging here in Ephesus. Uh I don't know. I don't know if I even really like the people in Ephesus. Uh I want to get away from this weird temple to this deity. And Paul says, remain in Ephesus. And to me, uh, this is so central to community and doing healthy life is to get rid of the spirit of divorce within the church of like, ah, I love you unless you get too weird, and then I'm gonna leave you. I'm gonna go down the road. You know, like like finding community, finding people you love, and putting your roots down. Why? So that you can become a fruitful tree, so that you can become a fruitful vineyard on a fruitful hill. Amen? Prophetic word over our church. Um put roots down. Um, I don't know if you've heard of the uh desert fathers, but they were these fathers that that really were some of the first ones to start the monastic life of setting aside their lives. They met out in these uh deserts right outside of Egypt and would just pray and fast and spend time with God. And they uh committed themselves to working together and to being fruitful together. And I can say that uh, you know, uh the stories say that they became so enraptured with the presence of God that some of them, when they would go into town, that even they were so consumed with the love of God that even speaking several words to people in the town, that townspeople would start to cry and weep because the presence and the love of God was overwhelming. These guys were so saturated with the presence of God. But one of their core pillars and beliefs was do not be easily moved. Put roots down with the people that you're doing life with. Do not be easily moved. So I'm not saying there isn't a time and place where God wants to move you around. You have to be obedient to that. But by and large, put roots down. I can tell you the things that have helped me have the greatest amount of fruit in my life were belonging to communities that I committed to as family, thick or thin, easy or hard, and doing life with them so that you could put your roots down. And as a tree puts its roots down into fertile soil, then starts to uh bear good fruit and actually provide covering and shade for others and to provide uh, you know, um I, you know, to release even uh water in the air to water uh other trees. There's all kinds of scientific reasons why you should have your roots deep. But I want to encourage you, put roots down in community. Don't be easily moved. Commit to your people. I don't know if resound would have been birthed if there wasn't a tight knit group of leaders from this church that were doing life together, and everybody who came to town would comment, wow, it seems like you guys are a family. And that's why health came out of it. I don't know that worship on the rocks would have happened if we didn't have a tight group of family that could put get together arm in arm like a group of Navy SEALs going after war to make a shift in the region and to go after things. Piper and I and other people from the family here were involved in making that happen. And the fruit of that was pretty dramatic. It had an impact on the region, it helped bring unity to our region. Um I was a part of a group called Um Family Night, which is just a Jewish couple in Arvada that started hosting worship nights every Monday. And for 10 years, we all worshiped for three to four hours every Monday night. And I can tell you it dramatically shifted the course of my destiny, being anchored and putting roots down in community. So put roots down. Amen? Put roots down. It's worth it. Don't be blown around like a temple weed. Put roots down and do family with people. Amen? Alright, verse five. This is the second one. Love with holy love. Um as I examine kind of the horizon of all the different options, you know, and people exploring different faiths and and boulder, what I've noticed is that the thing that's unique about Christianity is pure and holy love. Eastern religion is just an attempt at mysticism without holiness. They want all the encounters, they want to be caught up, they want to be powerful, but there's no holiness, there's no requirement of holiness. In fact, in some uh Buddhist temples in in uh in Asia, they actually have temple prostitutes that live in the temples. You know, I've talked to friends that are Buddhists that are going up to these camps and they're they're having transcendent experiences, and they're also having lawlessness and and and you know, engaging in sexual immorality with each other. And it's it's it's the absence of holiness. And I think what makes Christianity stand apart is learning to love without being self-absorbed. Um and the thing about holiness is the lack of holiness points to the presence of idols. The lack of holiness points to the presence of idols. Because as long as you're worship worshiping something other than God, you will start to give your life to it. And it'll start to pollute the purity of your heart. And that, in the end, impacts your ability to love. When we remove all idols from our lives, we love without agendas. Amen? Um sorry, I'm gonna go kind of deep, kind of quick on some of these, but I gotta keep moving. So just think about these things because what we want to do is throw the idols overboard, get free of all other desires other than loving God, so that we end up loving people with a pure heart. So we can get things from them. And that will make us stand out from any kind of love that the world is trying to show. You look on MTV or you look on, I don't even know if MTV is around anymore, I'm dating myself. But you look at, you know, uh media and stuff, it's all about trying to steal worship from other people and getting everybody to worship you and people being nice to you as long as they get what they want from you. It's sickening. Uh what stands apart with Christian faith and even why Mother Teresa is even respected by believers and non-believers is her ability to give up herself and purely love other people. Get rid of all of her own agendas and just love selflessly, pour herself out. Amen? Alright, verse 12. Number three, be faithful. And again, these are like exhortations that I'm pulling out. There's a lot more to talk about in these chapters. These are exhortations I'm pulling out that I think Paul was intending for Timothy, and I think are very applicable to us. So I'm exhorting you with each of these points. Amen? All right. Verse 12, be faithful. This is so interesting. Listen close to what Paul says. I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful. So he gave him strength because he judged him faithful. There's something about being faithful or being full of faith that attracts the strength of God to complete the mission that we're assigned to. Jesus said, Did I not tell you, if only you believed, then you would see the glory of God. See, when we believe God's goodness, when we believe his faithfulness, when we believe his power, when we believe the words spoken over our lives, when we believe the calling and the destiny that we have, it actually attracts God's power to empower us to complete the assignment that we've been put on. Faith attracts the strength and the empowerment of God. So keep the faith. Watch carefully that your heart doesn't slide into unbelief. It says in Hebrews 11, when it talks about all these famous Christians who have walked in faith, it says that by faith the men of old and women of old gain divine approval. That when you have faith and believe in God, step one, just believe in his goodness, that God starts to approve your life. For uh Hebrews 11, verse 6, for we come into God, for we come to God in faith, knowing that He is real and that He rewards the faith of those who passionately seek Him. I can tell you from my life experience, if you just keep childlike faith and wonder of the goodness of God, you will see God will like bend reality around you to make a path for your feet to walk on. Has anybody ever experienced this? Like I've been on missions trips where it seems like it could be chaotic, but because we're just in love with God the whole time and giving the whole trip to Him, it's like everything works out. The bus pulls up at the right time. We get on, we we get off, there's a perfect place to eat lunch, and everybody's nice, and they give us food, and then you go over here and you meet this incredible person. It's like it's like every step is ordained by God. Because if you just have the childlike faith enough to believe, God, you're so good, and I can't wait to see what you do today, and you have expectation, God's like, I love that. I'm rewarding you with an amazing day. And I'm gonna give you strength to carry it out. Amen. I love it. Verse 14 go into Christ. And the grace of our Lord overflowed from me with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Everybody say, in Christ Jesus. You guys, when I uh I was flying to Florida when I was praying through these chapters, and this one got me. I felt the Lord on it. I felt the Lord's heart for our community on this. I feel like a lot of us in being swung out into Lake Geneva and being thrown into this COVID season, we get into panic mode and we start doing things out of our own strength. Am I the only one? Don't do things out of your own strength. Borrow strength that comes from Jesus. Paul said that the faith and love that he needed were in Christ Jesus. What does that mean? What is in Christ Jesus that we can go get when it comes to relationships, careers, managing our fears, planning our own destiny, hoping for things? Get what you need in Christ Jesus. He said, His yoke is easy and his burden is light, and he's always leading us into victory. So where do we go get our faith and love? We go through Christ. He is the veil, he is the new veil where we can access the Holy of Holies through him, according to Hebrews 10, the new and living way. You know, it says that, you know, in the Old Testament, the priest would go through this veil to go into the presence of God. And it was so wonderful in there that King David said that, you know, at your right hand is joy and pleasures forevermore. And this one thing I seek is just to be in the presence of Jesus. And so what we have is in the New Testament, it says in Hebrews 10, 19 through 20, that Jesus' flesh became the new pathway in which we can go through to find a new and living way. Not just to get to heaven, to do life, to come boldly before the throne. So I want to exhort you this morning, don't forget to go get what you need in life from Jesus. What he has to give you is so much better than your own strength. You know, and I heard James Maloney, one of my favorite teachers on the topic of healing, he's been here several times and he did pass away over the last year. Um, and I honor him so much. I love listening to his teaching. But he would say, I have a gift of faith, but it's not my gift of faith. My gift of faith can only go so far. I go to Jesus and he lets me use his gift of faith. I appropriate Jesus' faith, his workings of miracles, you know, his discernment, his wisdom. Ask Jesus to let you borrow his. Just try it because you have way more confidence in Jesus' ability to heal than your own ability to heal. Amen. And if you appropriate his faith, his love, you'll do way more than you could ever do on your own. So don't get stuck doing things out of your own strength. Do you feel that reset of like, okay, I'm gonna go get your things, Jesus? I'm gonna go get your provision, your love, your peace. Go find what you need in Christ Jesus. He made a new and living way for you. Amen. Verse 18, wage war with words. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare. So, how does this work? We go get the word, or we receive words of encouragement, words of prophecy for us. And then when you're sure it's him, when he's proven that it's you, you know those days where somebody gives you a word, and the next day you meet somebody in a whole another community, and they give you the same word, and you're like, Okay, God, I hear you. This is you. You're saying this to me. Or you're reading scripture and a verse jumps off the page, God's like, This is for you. This is for you. In the middle of my pain, where I could barely move my neck and my shoulder was hurt so bad from an injury from snowboarding, I could barely lift my arm. I was like, God, I need your help. And I grabbed this prompt, this book of promises for men that my mom gave me, opened it up, and the first verse on the page was, I will restore health to you and heal your wounds, says the Lord. For you are an outcast, speaking to Israel. And I was like, that's it. It jumped off the page, wrapped around my face, and God's like, that's your verse. And I said, Okay, you know, and so, you know, by a process of doing PT and doctors even helping, got on the right medication, all my pain lifted. Jeanette encouraged me down that road, too, by her own experience, you know. I got on the right road, received healing, and I even drove eight hours to have James Mulany pray for my shoulder. And I used to not even be able to lift it past here, and it would start to shake because my muscles are so atrophied. He prayed for it and it got 80% better. I was moving it all around at the end of the meeting, and um it was wild when he prayed for me. I got like tunnel vision. It's never happened to me before, but he prayed for me and it was like like though my whole world looked like it was like through a tunnel I couldn't stand. I just went down and he's like, he drove eight hours to be here. Pick him up, let's give him a second one. And they picked me up and he prayed for me again. And I was just all I could say is like, I'm going to sleep now. And I just like I was out, and they just covered me with a modesty blanket, and I laid there for a while. But when I got up, my shoulder felt better, and I never had to do a huge surgery that they told me to do. And uh, I am happy to announce I'm the strongest I've ever been. I work out five days a week, my my shoulder, you know, is in great shape. It feels a little funky sometimes, but God's holding it together. I believe God is actually giving me my healing. So, what am I saying? Wage word, wage war with the prophecies given to you. A word from the Lord always comes with the power to fulfill itself. And the enemy will always try to oppose it. He'll challenge you. You you got a word, you're supposed to be a spiritual father to people. He's gonna point you and say, Well, you didn't father that person super well. And those people over there were trying to be good spiritual fathers, but they failed. You know, he's gonna try to speak to you and discourage you from fulfilling the word of God. But at the end of the day, you have the word of God, which contains his power and his authority behind it, and then you have the lies of the enemy, which have no power. And what you choose to give your agreement to is what will start to take over your future and your destiny. You have to choose to wage war with the powerful word of God over your life. Just no matter what the circumstances are, no matter what it looks like, no matter how old you are, no matter how many hurdles you ran into. I held on the word of doing an event at Red Rocks for eight years before it happened. And the hardest thing about that whole journey was not doing the event. God did a lot of the heavy lifting and got me through the right training at work to be able to handle what was needed. It was just not giving up on the word of God over my life. I knew it was the Lord. I just knew it. I knew it in my knower that it was the word of God. But the challenge to me was to not give up. Amen. Amen. I'm having fun. Are you guys having fun? Let me have another, let me stop for a sip of coffee here. All right, I think I have five more minutes, so we're really getting close to landing the plane here, guys. Um, and again, sorry, I feel like I'm skipping around, but I feel like each one of these are like little gems. I I just I feel like I would be doing you a disservice if I sent you home without at least touching on a handful of these things that Paul is using to exhort Timothy. And I think they're relevant for us. All right, chapter two, verse two through four. There's two things I'm gonna touch on in chapter two. The last one is just gonna be really fun. It's gonna make everybody feel uncomfortable. It's gonna be awesome. Um, chapter two. First of all, then I urge you that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions. We've got to pray for our leaders. Whether we are fond of all of their decisions or not, still have to find love for them, God's love for them, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires that all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. So here we have this exhortation from Paul. Pray for your leaders and all people, so that you can live quiet and peaceful lives, because he wants all men to be saved. So I believe, you know, one of our duties and responsibilities to pray for our leaders is because they God has them in place for this time and period to help oversee the ecosystem in which the church can thrive and come alive. So, either way, we want the peace of God in America. We want the peace of God in Boulder. We want, we want Boulder to be thriving as an overall ecosystem so the church can live a quiet and peaceful life, so that we can continue to be a sign to the unbelievers. As they are looking at the way the church lives and prospers, it is a sign to them to come into the knowledge of God and be saved. But it starts with praying for our leaders. So I challenge you, pray for your leaders. You know, pray for the ones that challenge you, pray for the ones that that offend you. Still pray for them. Here's the deal: you can't influence what you don't love. So if you want to see anything change in the country, it starts with learning to love those who are at the helm, pray for wisdom, and pray for our future leaders, and be a part of steering this country into the direction it should go so that the church can thrive, so we can continue to have an impact, so that ultimately the people around us can be saved. Amen? All right. I love that one. All right. Um, we're actually doing good on time. I have four minutes left. You guys ready for the fun one? Okay, verse 13. Um so Paul starts addressing order in the church. And the interesting thing about all the places in the Bible where Paul says that women need to kind of quiet down and not be as overt and take the helm. He each of those cities that he speaks to with that, each of those cities had a had a female deity that was worshipped in those towns. That's the only ones he wrote to and said specifically, women are not to be you know upfront and to be loud and to be you know stirring up things. So I just believed somewhere in there that maybe in those, in that culture, things were just flipped a little bit. They were a little topsy-turvy, they were a little out of control, things were getting a little chaotic, and he was just trying to restore order. That's that's my belief. And um, towards the end of this chapter of him bringing kind of order to the church to try to balance it out, he says, For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, although Adam was deceived in the end. Well, let's not give him too much credit. But the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness and self-control. Anybody know what that means? That you'll be saved through childbearing. I don't know about you, but it seems like childbearing is not the moment you're being saved, it's the moment you uh I don't know, you need you need salvation, you need help from God, because I've heard it's challenging. I've never given birth. Uh and I'm thankful for that. But but how are women being saved through childbearing? I I read up on this a little bit, and kind of here's what God dropped in my spirit last night for this. Eve gave birth to death to the human race by her decision. But as the women of God here and here today live in faith and love and holiness, women will now give birth to the solution to the human race. What was once birth into death, now women, as they're raising up godly young men and women in the faith through holy love, they are birthing this solution that will now turn this whole thing around. And so they're being sozoed by the fact that they're continuing to give birth to generations that that will change the course of the destiny of our world, which is saints of the living God, that will come onto the earth and be operating in the power and glory of Jesus to turn things around and to turn people to the love of God. And this especially flies in the face of Artemis, the god of childbirth, over that city. Birth was used as worship to her, but now birth will be used to turn the human race back to Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Pretty powerful. Amen? So keep on having godly children, ladies. I don't know if it's or or or raise up your grandkids to be godly, because you are now actually changing, you know, this curse and making it a blessing. You are blessing the world with the children that you're raising up. Amen. All right, and I think that's kind of relevant for Boulder, too. Uh it's a big midwifing town, which I had home births for both my kids. I am actually a fan. But again, it can get weird once it gets into the mystical side away from God. So we bless God with our children. We bless the world by giving birth and changing the direction of where we're going by raising up holy children of God. Amen. All right. Is anybody ears smoking? That was kind of a lot. We shifted. I feel like we just kind of went four-wheeling through a lot of different terrain here. But hopefully you're blessed and exhorted. Hopefully, one or a couple of these things was encouraging to you. Um, I uh Paul wrote it for a reason for Timothy, and I think it's valid for us today as COVID kind of strikes again, you know, and it's I hopefully it doesn't get too wild and too crazy. But we, I just want to encourage you. Use this, remember who you are. Remember what you're called to. Continue to practice the essential things of the faith. And don't let this wave of COVID overtake you to the point that you forget who you are and what you're assigned to. Go after God and say, COVID's coming again. Great. What are the goals that you want me to go after? What are the things that you want to accomplish? What are the supernatural things that you want to do in my life and the life of others during the season? I'm gonna go after that. Because I'm gonna come out of COVID better than I was, not worse. Amen? Even if I'm hanging on by a thread, God, you're worthy and you're gonna do something supernatural and awesome. Be optimistic. Amen. Mario Murillo said, anywhere in your life where you don't have hopeful expectation of something glorious happening, there's a stronghold there. So think about areas of your life and be hopefully optimistic in every area. And watch out for that stronghold of fear that comes in that's trying to tower and get in the way of you accomplishing anything great. Amen? Let's put that thing aside, take it over, and take the position that you are born and made to take, which is to be more than a victor in Christ Jesus. Amen? Let's be hopefully optimistic. Amen? Let's give God a hand. Come on, I feel like God's plan is amazing. It's so much better than anything that we could do on our own. So let me just pray for you and then Jeanette, if you want to come up, I know you have some announcements. By the way, part of putting your roots down, there's growth groups that we're gonna be, you know, uh really exhorting you to join. I would encourage you, just do it. Put down your roots, link arms with people. It doesn't matter if you if they're they're funny looking or they're bizarre, or they're not who you're used to hanging out with, or they're not your BFS, just get in and do community with people. Honestly, sometimes the more different people are than you, the more fruitful doing community with them will be because you're gonna learn from one another. You're gonna help raise each other up, round each other out. Amen. So please uh participate in those. I host a little group at my house every two weeks, and I I love it. It's it's family for us. So um, anyway, I'll let me pray for you and then Jeanette will come up. Lord, we just thank you for your word. We thank you that it is ever refreshing. It is always truth, it always transcends the ages and the challenges and the attacks of the enemy and discouragement, it transcends it all. Your truth is eternal, God, and your word, the vibrational frequency of your word is created to transcend this day and age and sail on into eternity. And we can build our house on it, we can build our confidence on it, we can build our faith and our future on it. Because the lies of the enemy and sin are only temporary and they wash off in an instant with your blood. So I just release a fresh impartation for faith, hope, and life and an excitement for the future right now over everyone in this room. I pray that we would be weirdly excited about what you're going to do next when everybody else is kind of afraid and running for the hills. I pray that we'd stand strong on your promises and we would bring hope and life and love to everybody around us who needs it in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks, guys.