Pursuing True Life
Notes
Transcript
Warren Brosi
October 5, 2025
Dominant Thought: We treasure Christ who gives true life.
Objectives:
I want my listeners to understand the difference between unhealthy living and healthy living.
I want my listeners to feel challenged to trust Christ for contentment.
I want my listeners to invest in eternal treasure.
If you visit Long Beach, California, you can visit the RMS Queen Mary. She was a luxury cruise liner that went into service about 20 years after the RMS Titanic sank. It was bigger and faster than the Titanic. The Queen Mary boasted of the best luxuries at the time. In 1936, this new luxury cruise ship set a new benchmark for transatlantic travel. It boasted of 5 dining rooms, 2 cocktail bars, a swimming pool and a small hospital. It had space for 3,000 travelers. Over the course of her 30 years of service, she carried over 2.2 million passengers in peacetime. If we are not careful, we can fall trap to living the life of luxury of peacetime. The luxury of peacetime often gives way to the sacrifices of wartime. The luxuries of peacetime can lead to unhealthy self-centered living.
As we look at 1 Timothy 6, we see two types of living: unhealthy living and healthy living.
First, unhealthy living does not agree with the teaching of Jesus (1 Timothy 6.3-10).
In these verses we see several examples of unhealthy living. They can be summarized with three words: Trouble, Temptation, and Trap.
Trouble (1 Timothy 6.4). Unhealthy living stirs up trouble in relationships. In 1 Timothy 6.4, those who are corrupt: stir up arguments with jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. Unhealthy living destroys relationships. They are robbed from the truth.
They thing that godliness is a means for financial gain.
In his book, Preachers of a Different Gospel, Femi Adeleye quotes a preacher who promoted godliness as a financial gain. Listen to these quotes, “When Jesus came, he knew His commission and declared it very clearly. I say this over and over again, God sent me. He said, “Go and make my people rich!” That is an assurance that wherever I stand, poverty must not survive...No one under this ministry is permitted to be poor, nor programmed for affliction. God told me, ‘Go and stop the tears of mankind.’ I heard Him clearly. God sent me for your financial rescue” (quoting David Oyedepo, Breaking Financial Hardship, 1995, pp. 53, 57).
Temptation (1 Timothy 6.9). Those who want to get rich fall into temptation. In the prayer Jesus taught us to pray, He instructed his followers to ask for daily bread and lead us not into temptation. Beware of get rich quick schemes and the temptations that sound too good to be true.
Trap (1 Timothy 6.9). Those who want to get rich get trapped into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
Daniel Silliman, recently wrote an article, “The Secret Prayers of Gamblers” for the magazine, Christianity Today, (September/October 2025). He shares:
Philip is a recovering gambling addict who works at a hotline for gamblers who are in trouble. He reached out to CT after we reported how little evangelicals are doing to grapple with the growth of sports betting, hoping to share his story. Philip used to bet on sports on his phone. He won for a while, but then he lost and lost, kept losing, and couldn’t stop.
He might lose still more. He’s facing years of possible prison time because he embezzled money from his employer—more than $1.2 million over four months—to keep gambling. As he reflects on what went wrong, he thinks there was a spiritual reason. His gambling was misdirected longing.
“I went to it to give me something—something that would fill a void for me,” Philip told me. “I think that all addiction is a spiritual crisis. It’s trying to get something from the world that only God can give you.”
Silliman went on to quote from the church father, Augustine (354-430), “Stretch wide the net of your insatiable desires, greedy,” Augustine once preached. “Let everything you can see be yours; let everything under the water which you can’t see be yours. When you’ve got all this, what will you have in fact if you haven’t got God?”
In 1 Timothy 6.10, we encounter an often quoted and misquoted verse. It reads, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” This verse is misquoted in a couple of ways. First, people say, “money is the root of evil.” The text reads, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” It is not money that is a root, but the love of money. It actually reads “the love of silver.” It is the love or the desire for money that is a root. Others quote that the love of money is the root. It more accurately reads, “the love of money is A root of all kinds of evil.” It’s a root of of kinds of evil.
As we look over the story of Scripture we see several examples of people desiring riches that led to destruction.
Adam & Eve, in desiring the forbidden fruit, sinned and was exiled from the garden (Gen. 3:6). Jacob, in defrauding Esau of his father’s blessing brought a divided family (Gen. 27:6–29). Achan, in hiding the treasure when they enter Jericho brough death to him and his family (Josh. 7:21). David saw Bath-sheba took her into his bed, killed her husband and the child David fathered with Bath-sheba died (2 Sam. 11:2–5). The money changers in the temple kept people from worshipping God (Matt. 21:12-13; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14–16). Judas, in betraying Jesus for thirty pieces of silver (Matt. 26:15, 16; Mark 14:10, 11; Luke 22:3–6; John 12:6). Simon Magus, in trying to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit brought a curse from the Apostle Peter (Acts 8:18–23).
So, as we look over the unhealthy living that does not agree with the teaching of Jesus. We see the results: trouble, temptations, traps. It plunges people into ruin and destruction.
Second, healthy living places our hope in God (1 Timothy 6.11-21).
Healthy living places our hope in God with contentment (1 Timothy 6.6-7).
After Job lost his children and his livestock, he was able to respond with praise to God because he understood everything he had was a gift from God.
and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”
Paul calls Timothy’s attention when he writes, “But you, nan of God” (1 Timothy 6.11). Paul challenges Timothy to flee the harmful desires of unhealthy living and to pursue the ways of Jesus. Then, Paul commands Timothy to fight the good fight of faith.
Paul reminds Timothy of eternal life in Jesus and the good confession that Jesus made before Pontius Pilate. What did Jesus say before Pilate? Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18.36). He also said, “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (John 18.37). Listen to your true King. He is the one who laid down His life. Our king gave up heaven to walk this earth to give His life for sinners. That’s our king. He showed us true riches and true life.
He will appear again (1 Timothy 6.14) at the proper time. Jesus is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of Lords (1 Timothy 6.15).
A question we need to ask ourselves, “Is my life things centered or God centered?” Paul paints a vision of God who gives us everything for our enjoyment.
Paul instructs Timothy to command those who are rich to be rich in good deeds (1 Timothy 6.18). Good can also mean beautiful. As I was reading in the gospel of Mark this week, I came across a story when Jesus visited the home of Simon the Leper. It was during the final days before Jesus was nailed on the cross. In Mark 14, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on the head of Jesus. Some people were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume. It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” They rebuked her harshly. Jesus said to them, “Leave her alone. She has done a beautiful thing to me” (Mark 14.6). The phrase, “beautiful thing” is the same words for “good work.”
Good works are beautiful things given to Jesus. What is a way you can give generously and outrageously to Jesus?
Are we willing to share? Paul has instructed this church on sharing with those in need in his letter to Ephesians.
Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
By sharing with those in need and giving generously to the mission of God, is to be rich in good and beautiful works. Thus, we store up treasure for eternity. In other words, we treasure up for ourselves a good foundation for the future. The result will help us take hold of that which is truly life.
Our main idea for the sermon is “We treasure Christ who gives true life.”
Do you remember the RMS Queen Mary? It carried 2.2 million passengers during peacetime in her luxurious accommodations as the time. Within a handful of years from her maiden voyage, World War II began. This peacetime luxury liner was transformed into a wartime troop transport. Bunks were no longer double, but eight tiers high. Occupancy multiplied from 3,000 to 15,000 people on board during the war. The RMS Queen Mary carried 810,000 military personnel in wartime. The fancy tableware and silverware were replaced with metal trays and the basic necessities. It took a national emergency to effect this transformation. It took a change of heart from peacetime living to wartime living (See “Reconsecration to a Wartime, Not a Peacetime, Lifestyle” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, by Ralph Winter, 1999: 705, and https://www.queenmary.com/ship-history.htm).
My friends, we need the same change of heart. We crave our comforts, but Christ wants our allegiance. God provides all we need for our enjoyment and we can find contentment in His good gifts. With that contentment, we find ourselves in a war with the evil one. The souls of lost people are at stake. As we’ve read through this letter from Paul to Timothy, he keeps reminding him what’s at stake. In 1 Timothy 1.19-20, he pointed out how two men had shipwrecked their faith—Hymanaeus and Alexander. In 1 Timothy 5.15, some widows had turned away to follow Satan. In our text today, “some have...departed from the faith” (1 Timothy 6.21). We have a responsibility to trust God in this spiritual battle for the souls of our friends, family, neighbors and the nations.
We treasure Christ who gives true life.
