Sermon Tone Analysis

Happy Mother’s Day out there to all the moms of all different ages and stages we have in church with us this morning.

We are going to break with tradition this week and, instead of preaching about moms and the role women play, we are going to keep moving in our study of 1 Timothy, so go ahead and open your Bible to .

As you are turning, let me ask you a few questions: How many of you have gone to church for most of your life?

Maybe you have fond memories of sitting next to your mother in service on Sundays.

You may remember singing Sunday School and VBS songs around the house, with your mother leading you in songs like “Jesus Loves Me” and “Jesus Loves the Little Children”.

Some of you didn’t have that kind of childhood, but at some point, you started coming to church, and you learned the truth that you were a sinner, that Jesus came to save you, and that you could follow him as Lord of your life.

Many in this room made that decision to follow Jesus years ago, and because of that, we find ourselves in danger.

The

How many of you know the phrase, “familiarity breeds contempt”?

We are going to break with tradition this week and, instead of preaching about moms and the role women play, we are going to keep moving in our study of 1 Timothy, so go ahead and open your Bible to .

As we will see this morning, you and I are in danger of losing sight of the powerful, life-altering message of the Gospel.

Let me remind you of some of the background of the letter we are studying this morning.

We saw last week that the book of 1 Timothy is going to encourage pastors and church members alike in how to fight the good fight of the faith.

We saw last week that the book of 1 Timothy is going to encourage pastors and church members alike in how to fight the good fight of the faith.

In fact, we will see the first use of that phrase this morning.

In fact, we will see the first use of that phrase this morning.

The aged Apostle Paul is writing to a young man named Timothy.

Timothy was a young elder or pastor who was serving in the city of Ephesus.

By the way, since it is Mother’s Day, let’s acknowledge the important part Timothy’s mother and grandmother played in him coming to follow Christ:

Timothy’s mother and grandmother laid a firm foundation of faith to follow, which highlights what an impact moms can have.

Back to 1 Timothy, we see that this young pastor is facing a number of challenges as he seeks to lead the church in Ephesus.

As we saw last week, one of the main challenges he was fighting is the same we fight today—people teaching false doctrine, things that aren’t true, and getting people away from following the true message of the gospel.

Last week, we saw that it is all of our responsibilities to join together and fight for the truth, both in our hearts and in the lives of others.

In our message last week, though, there were some other challenging truths.

In 1:9-11, we had a list of a variety of different sins that God’s law condemns, which may have sounded incredibly judgmental.

I encouraged you to come back next week so we could see the full context of what Paul was saying.

As we look at the rest of chapter 1 today, I want you to see what it looks like to fight for the Gospel.

Here’s the main principle I want you take a way from this passage this morning: if you and I are going to fight for the truth, we must first fight for the Gospel to take root in our own hearts.

Yes, Paul did list off a wide variety of sins.

Yes, those things are contrary to God’s law and the message of the gospel.

Yet, as he listed off all those sins, Paul never lost sight of what the message meant in his own heart.

In the same way, you and I must anchor any fight for the faith, for the truth, or for the Gospel in the reality of the Gospel in our own heart.

Read with me, starting in verse 12-17.

1) Remember who you were.

Paul starts off by remembering who he was when Christ found him.

In verse 12, he acknowledges that if it wasn’t for what Jesus did, Paul would have been like the false teachers we talked about last week.

When he said that God appointed Paul to this ministry because “he considered [him] faithful”, he wasn’t saying that it was because Paul had done a pretty good job of living before Jesus.

No; God gave Paul this ministry because he knew Paul would be faithfully obedient to carry it out.

It can’t be that Paul was being faithful when God called him into the ministry, because look at how he describes his condition in verse 13...

We see all this clearly in the book of Acts, where we are first introduced to the man then known as Saul.

Quick side note: God never changed Paul’s name from Saul to Paul.

Instead, his name was Saul around the Jews and Paul around the Greek-speaking Gentiles, so we see his name shift in Acts when he stops trying to reach the Jews and start really reaching the Gentiles.

He was a zealous Jew who hated the Christians and did everything he could to stop them.

In fact, on the day that Jesus saved him and called him into ministry, Paul was on his way to the city of Damascus with the authority to arrest any Christians he found there.

Paul was a blasphemer, which meant he spoke evil against the things God was doing.

He was persecuting Christians.

The first time we meet him in Acts, he is holding the coats for people as they killed Stephen, who was the first Christian to die for following Christ.

He was an arrogant man, thinking he was doing all this out of a love for God when in reality, he was fighting against God with everything he did.

Although verse 12 is talking about his call to ministry, the remainder of the passage is talking about his salvation.

Isn’t it awesome to read that God could take a blasphemous, arrogant, persecutor and save him?

As we see in this passage, Paul never allowed himself to forget just how bad he was when God saved him.

Great, but what about you?

Have you lost sight of where you were when God found you?

I got saved when I was 9 years old; how bad could I have been?

Well, let’s think about it for a minute.

Let me give you a pop quiz.

I am not going to ask you to answer out loud, but we’ll walk through it together.

For the sake of argument, since most people are familiar with it, let’s just use the 10 commandments as a quick test to see how good we are.

We find these in .

In fact, I just want focus on the last 6:

No other gods before the one true God.

No idols.

Don’t take God’s name in vain.

Remember the Sabbath

Honor your father and mother.

Do not murder.

Do not commit adultery.

Do not steal.

Do not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Do not covet.

How did you do?

If you are like me, when God saved you, you would have to acknowledge that you were 0/10, and that is just off that list!

Paul never lost sight of his need for the Gospel.

Jump back down to verse 15...

Never lose sight of who you were when God called you!