Sermon Tone Analysis

Be Humble

Intro: In the Lynyrd Skynyrd Song “Simple man the Lyric starts off with the mother asking her son to sit beside her as she passes on some advice.

Take your time, don’t live.

Too fast, troubles will come and they will pass don’t forget there is someone up above.

Overall the advice or at least part of it that the mom gives her son is to be humble.

Be a simple man.

Being humble is something that seems to be in some respects with the against our culture, but in the business world humility is making a comeback because people know that if you are not humble you tend to lead people in what people refer to as Toxic leadership.

Where you create more problems than you solve.

This is nothing new there have always been toxic leaders and so Paul wants to make sure Timothy is taught how to lead well and that Timothy can know what to look for in other leaders.

Paul moves on to the next building block in constructing the church or shoring up the church as it is.

Why is this important?

Because he is instructing, both in his word and actions was what we call a servant leader.

He was in turn passing along the last bit of advice to Timothy on how to serve His church.

Read Verses:

MP: God builds his church with Humble people

TS:Being humble or saying to you to be humble is kind of broad and sort of general.

We need a few specifics to help narrow the situation down.

Paul gives three examples in this chapter about how he and more importantly how God, wants to see our humility demonstrated.

I. God Builds His Church with people who Pray Humbly (1-2)

Explanation: Praying for people who lead you is a noble endeavor.

Especially when they are trying to persecute you.

Christianity was at a minimum tolerated and was outright illegal depending on the Cesar that was ruling.

By the reaction in and 20, Paul was not welcomed into Ephesus with open arms and was accused.

Putting yourself under the rule of others is not easy.

Especially if you do not agree with them on how to do things,or what their beliefs are.

Sometimes just going to work everyday is difficult.

Let alone thinking about praying for someone you really don’t like.

But the question is do you submit yourself to God’s authority with the people he has placed in various positions.

Your boss, your boss’ boss, themayor, your county, state and federal representatives, the judges, the president.

All of these people throughout time have been placed there by God, not just one candidate over another.

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, General Eisenhower, George Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have all been placed in their seats by God for a purpose.

When the Scripture says that the “king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water” (), it means that a Sovereign God can turn the heart of a king at any time and in any way.

If there are policies and platforms that don’t conform to biblical ethics, the intercession of Christians can be used in a powerful, transforming way.

Application: All of us must submit to the leaders God appoints when we do this we are submitting to God.

I don’t know about you, but I have never had dinner with a president or even a mayor.

I am most likely not going o have that kind of influence over people in those positions.

But what I can do is pray for them daily.

Paul is giving Timothy the best tool he has at his disposal.

One pastor gives us encourage to “View each day as an opportunity to forget yourself and serve others.“

As Abraham Booth writes, “Forget not, that the whole of your work is ministerial; not legislative—that you are not a lord in the church, but a servant.”

The act of service is innately humbling.

Both is earthing toothy pastors, but we are all servants of the Lord and e are to minister to those people that God puts in our path.

The best way to serve people is pray for them.

The hard part is that we don’t get credit for the praying.

Some people who do not believe in prayer say that it does not do.

Anything and going to actually help someone who is impacted by floods or hunger or some other problem.

Go and do, because I can see it and people can see me.

But prayer is altogether different.It is behind the scenes.It is quiet.

It is simple.

It may seem like weakness going to ask for help or directions,But God is strong in our weakness.

It is the strength of God that we are harnessing and more importantly witnessing.

Now do we get everything we want?

No. Why, because the world is bigger than you and me.

Putting it into the local church context and building churches, each of us are living stones in the building.

The stones play different roles and are placed where they need to be.

Some are made To go in more prominent places or hold more of the wall, or act as a keystone.

But when we pray, we are asking God to act, and we are also expecting God to act.

But as John Calvin says “Our prayer must not be self-centered.

It must arise not only because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but also because we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their need as acutely as our own.

To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them.

”

― John Calvin

When you pray,

Pray for others,

Pray for yourself,

Pray confidently because being humble is not having low self esteem or thinking less of yourself.

It is just thinking of yourself a little less.

TS: We can pray to God for our leaders and others because we can also believe humbly.

II.

God Builds His Church with people who Believe Humbly (3-7)

(ESV): 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

7 For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth

Paul brings in the Gospel whenever he can in his letters or sermons he gives a problem or some bad news and then he gives the audience the good news.

Paul explains that his purpose or the reason he was appointed was to

Paul gives Timothy the reason behind his belief and why he is so confident in his actions.

Paul is tenacious and zealous for the good news that God wishes all men to be saved, in verse 4, That there is One God contrary to popular belief of his day and ours.

and there is one mediator,between God and man.

There is only one way to get to God.

And that is through Jesus Christ.

Who gave himself a ransom for all.

In a prayer meeting sermon, Charles Spurgeon asks rather abruptly, Are you saved or are you not?

Are you a believer or are you a non-believer?

This is the question that we will be asked in front of God and unfortunately we cannot change our minds once he asks the question.

When we are sinners we are far from God. God cannot keep you around.

He banished Adam and Eve from the garden because they had sinned and could no longer be near Him.

They did not humble themselves and wanted to eat the fruit to be like God.

Jonathan Edwards said “A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God's power that he is upheld and provided for, and that he needs God's wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.”

But when you humble yourself and come before the cross, you are putting yourself aside.

You re admitting you are a sinner and that you believe that Jesus is the only road back to God.

The road back to God begins with completely trusting God, but that ability to do so is given to us by God.

The Holy Spirit to understand that God the Son ,Jesus was the one who made it possible for us to be saved.Jesus paid our ransom as Paul says.

This ensures we can come before God the father.

One God htreedistint persons that are all one God.

God gives us the faith that allows us to believe in Him.

And that should be the source of our humility.

That we had no part in our salvation.

In fact Jonathan Edwards said

You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”

We are justified our faith.

And when.