Called To Be An Example

Introduction

Father’s Day Video

Good morning and Happy Father’s Day to all the Dad’s with us this morning and all of you who are tuning in online, thanks for being with us today.

I don’t know about all of you other dad’s but I see a video like that and I have mixed feelings about it. I feel really good about those things that I saw in the video that I feel like I have done well as a Father, but then there are those other things. Things that sound really good for Dads to do but I just don’t know if I have done them them as I should. But let me just say Dads, that your choice to be sitting here or sitting down online with your family is a choice that belongs on the first list. So thus far this morning, Dad, you are doing good!

And that is really the question for us isn’t it, Dads? How do we know when we are doing good as a Dad? Where do we find our standard for comparison. Because depending on what we are comparing our fathering to, we will end up doing better or worse.

We could compare ourselves to the legendary Dads we saw on TV as we grew up, but that comparison would be vastly different depending on when we grew up. We may have a long way to match legendary dads like Ward Cleaver or Andy Griffith, but most of us are confident that we have Homer Simpson beat. There is pretty broad scale represented there isn’t there.

The same thing happens if we compare ourselves to other real-life Dads that we know, we come away with different perspectives depending on which Dad we are comparing ourselves to and sometimes even which aspect of their father role that we are looking at. One father may be very present and attentive to the emotional and social needs of his children but he doesn’t work hard to meet their physical or intellectual needs or any other mix or match.

Even comparing ourselves to our own Dads delivers mixed results as we have all had different experiences there too. Some of us feel like disappointments because we are not at all like our Dads and some of us are disappointed that we are too much like him. Not every Dad in the 1950’s was a Ward Cleaver or Andy Griffith. Sadly, some of our Dad’s were terrible examples of what a Dad should really be like, and those memories can make Father’s day a tough day.

So where do we find our example of what a good dad looks like? The truth is, for a Christian, the example of a good father is even more challenging than any of those comparisons.

Tension

One of the most sobering things about being a father to me is that I know that my children will get some of their understanding of their heavenly father from their experience with me as their earthly father. That weighs heavy on me. Now don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that there is an expectation that I would somehow ever be as perfect as our Heavenly Father. That could never be…for me or any one of our fathers. What I am saying is that my children will understand their role and relationship with their Heavenly Father through a lens that is shaped, at least in part, by their relationship with me as their earthly father. That is an awesome responsibility guys.

Because if we truly wanna know what the standard for a “Good Father” is then we look to our heavenly Father. Someone didn’t just superimposed the title “Father” through out the Scriptures because is seemed fitting to them. On many occasions throughout the Gospels, Jesus calls Him Our Father. He even taught us to begin our prayers with “Our Father who art in heaven...” Not “the” father or “A” father. “Our” father.

So the fact that I could have ascribed to me a role that somehow is a representative of God the Father is very humbling and if I am honest…a little overwhelming.

The good news for us is that Gospel, the message of Jesus Christ, can equip any father to be what he needs to be in order to fulfill this overwhelming role. Even though we are broken examples to our children, in Christ Jesus we have the strength to be able to answer our calling to be good examples that can still point our children to our heavenly father.

We are going to see these things through the example of the Apostle Paul as we continue in our series on the book of 1 Timothy entitled “Behavior in the household of God”. Even though the Apostle Paul was not called into the role of being a biological father, he did claim Timothy and others to be his children “in the faith”. We see this in the greeting of this letter the Paul writes to Timothy where he writes:

1 Timothy 1:2 ESV

2 To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Even though our calling to be a Father to the children in our home is a little different than Paul and his children in the faith we can still learn much from his example. Paul chose to describe his relationship to Timothy in this way very intentionally. So the principles of how Paul came to see his role as a “Father in the faith” applies to every Christian Father.

So open you Bibles with me to 1 Timothy chapter 1, p. 991 in the Bibles in the chairs. For you over achievers you can also put a bookmark or something in Acts 22 (p. 931) as we will be flipping back and forth between that historical book to better understand this epistle or letter.

I’ll pray for us as we dive into this Father’s Day message together.

Truth

As this is a Father’s Day message, (Ruh!) it seems fitting to just get right to the point…so our first point is that

In Christ, we are given new strength (1 Tim 1:12)

Having just finished with his instructions for Timothy to confront wrong doctrine, or wrong teaching, Paul tells his story of how he came to know and live in light of the right doctrine. Which is…the Gospel. The following is how Paul came to know and live in light of the Gospel.

1 Timothy 1:12 ESV

12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service,

“Strength” is a great Father’s Day word isn’t it? A good working definition of strength is to “cause to be able”. Especially here in our communities we have a “Do-It-Yourself” cultureal attitude. We like the idea of being “able” to do things something. We like the idea of feeling “strong”. But this strength is not something that Paul came to on his own - he was given this strength.

Paul needed Jesus to give him this “strength” so he would be able to do something he was unable to do before...Do you hear me fathers? Do you hear me Church?

It is important to notice that everything in this part of the letter is given in the past tense. At this point in Paul’s ministry he was looking back over his some 30 years in service to Jesus and recognizing that none of it would have possible except for the “strength” that he had been given. It was Jesus who gave Paul the strength to be the man, leader, speaker, church planter, pastor, Apostle and even “Father in the faith” that he had become. He had to be “made able” to be the man that Jesus called him to be.

We might be tempted to think that Paul must have been kind of a weak person before he met Jesus, but nothing could be further from the truth. No one who knew Paul before he met Jesus would have described him as a weak individual. In truth, He was quickly becoming one of the most influential people in the Jewish world. A rising star among the most strict school of Jewish law, the Pharisees. He was one of the elite students of Gamaliel a well respected Doctor of Jewish Law. Everyone expected great things from him and he began to deliver them.

If we turn over to Acts chapter 22 (931) we find him recounting these things to a Jewish crowd in Jerusalem. It is probably pretty generous to call this group a crowd as they were in fact a mob that has just tried to kill Paul. They would have succeeded if the Roman military didn’t step in to keep the peace.

Then on his way into the prison barracks, he asked to address the “crowd” and he said:

“Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you.” 2 And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet.

Most of the people in the mob didn’t even know why they hated Paul, they just were told he was a threat so they joined the mob. And he said

Acts 22:3–5 ESV

3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day. 4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, 5 as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished.

Paul was able to be empathetic because he had once been just like them. He actively pursued what he perceived to be a threat to the only way of life that he had ever known, but when he met Jesus he was shown a new Way. That is why you see the word “Way” capitalized there because before the followers of Jesus were called Christians…they were called “The Way”. And in this new way, Paul needed a new strength, and that is exactly what Jesus gave him.

No man ever wants to think that he isn’t strong enough to handle something, but when it comes to reflecting our heavenly father in the way we are earthly fathers we cannot do it in our own strength, but in Christ we are given a new strength. Secondly...

In Christ, we are given new calling (1 Tim 1:13-15)

Lets keep going in the book of Acts to learn more of the story, and then we will turn back to 1 Timothy to see how Paul uses this part of his story to instruct Timothy, his child in the faith.

So Paul has his orders from the High Priest in hand and he sets off...

Acts 22:6–8 ESV

6 “As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. 7 And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ 8 And I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.’

Did you ever notice that Jesus did not ask, “Why are you persecuting my followers?”. He told Paul that when he persecuted Christians, he was really persecuting Him.

This is not our favorite way of being the “body of Christ” is it? To be subject to the persecutions that come with faithfully following Jesus. Mostly because we have been so blessed to live in a country that has the freedoms that we do, but they are under attack aren’t they. And still we deal with nothing compared to so many of our brothers and sisters around the world who live in cultures that oppose them outright.

Countries like North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, and India. The 11 worst nations in the world when it comes to the persecution of Christians. Maybe you are wondering why I gave you 11, why not just stop at 10? Isn’t that more natural like Top 10 lists or whatever…it’s because I want you to remember that number 11, because on average there are 11 Christians killed every day among these nations.

We should know these countries Church, because our Savior and Lord is horribly persecuted here. We are rightfully concerned at some of the direction that this country seems to be going, but in these countries they crossed those lines a long ways back.

Just as Paul was rounding up the followers of Christ for imprisonment and death sentences, men and women in these dark places are under the constant threat of being found out and imprisoned or killed for the same faith that we are proclaiming right now here in this place…and out there on the internet. 11 of our brothers and sisters in Christ every day are being killed for their faith... this should mean something to us.

It certainly meant something to Paul. There was a stark difference between Paul’s former calling and his new one “in Christ”. Moving back to the letter of 1 Timothy we read...

1 Timothy 1:13–15 ESV

13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 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.

Paul was an Apostle. He wrote more books in the New Testament than anyone else. We all have a great deal of respect for Paul. He is the “great bambino” of the New Testament and yet here he calls himself the foremost of all sinners. Why? Because

He was a blasphemer - he mocked and ridiculed the name of Jesus and lead others to do the same.

He was a persecutor - He arrested, imprisoned and had Christians abused and sentenced to death.

He was an insolent opponent - other translations use the words “violent aggressor” which gives us a fuller picture. Paul was not just interested in bringing people to justice - but in punishing them all along the way.

Compared to Paul, all us Fathers are looking pretty good right now. But that is the whole point. Paul had all the strength he needed to be these evil things - but it took the mercy and grace of Jesus to overcome this violent man with the faith and love that is in Christ Jesus alone.

Which brings us to our final point

In Christ, we are given as an example of being made new (1 Tim 1:16-20)

1 Timothy 1:16–17 ESV

16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Why did Paul receive this mercy of becoming a servant of Jesus Christ when he was so far from Him? I certainly wan’t because of his own merit, he even calls himself the chief of sinners. Paul recognizes that he was given these things as an example of how far reaching God’s mercy and grace can go and after 30 years of ministry he has seen how powerful that message has been. If God’s grace in the Gospel can reach a “blasphemous, persecuting, violent aggressor” like Paul then it can reach anyone of us.

In England in the early 1700’s there was young boy named John who was nurtured by a Christian mother who taught him the Bible at an early age, but he was raised in his father’s image after she died of tuberculosis when the boy was only 7. At age 11, John went on his first of six sea-voyages with his father a merchant navy captain.

As John grew up, he had a hard time holding down a job, because of “unsettled behavior and impatience of restraint”—a pattern that would persist for years. He spent his later teen years at sea before he was forced in to the Royal Navy where he consistently rebelled against it’s authority and discipline. He was even caught trying to escape and he was flogged and placed in irons. Eventually, he convinced his superiors to discharge him to a slave ship where he remained arrogant and insubordinate, and he lived with moral abandon:

“I sinned with a high hand,” he later wrote, “and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.”

The sluggish sailor bounced around from ship to ship, but took up a love for reading. He would read anything he could get his hands on at sea and one day he found himself reading Thomas a Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ, and was struck by a line about the “uncertain continuance of life.” As his ship headed for home, it was overtaken by an enormous storm that threatened the life of every crewman on board. In the midst of such a life and death situation, John turned to Jesus Christ for salvation and became a Christian.

Now we might think that as a new Christian, John would just know that he had to give up the horrific practice of transporting slaves, but he still had a lot to learn in how to follow Christ. He was, however, committed to being a better sailor and so served as a mate and then as captain of a number of slave ships, before he realized how horribly evil the practice of slavery really was and gave it up never to return.

Some of you may recognize this story as the story of John Newton, the man who penned the famous words that we often sing here:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now am found

Was blind, but now I see.

Much like the Apostle Paul, John Newton is another example of just how far the grace of God can reach into any of our lives, and make us new. If the grace of God can save a wretch like John Newton, or a “violent aggressor” like th e Apostle Paul then none of us is beyond the reach of God’s Amazing Grace. And...

In Christ, we have new strength to be able to do those things that we could never do on our own.

In Christ, we have a new calling to serve this world in his name, no matter what persecutions we might face because He is giving us the strength.

In Christ, each one of us has the opportunity to serve “the King of all ages” in our example of how He has made us new.

The “foremost” sinner Paul went on to share the Gospel throughout the world - and throughout time because here we are reading his letter to Timothy now 2000 years later.

The “wretch”, John Newton went on to be a pastor, hymn writer and abolitionist, fighting tirelessly along with Wilber Wilberforce and others to end the practice of slavery.

What will you do, with what you have “In Christ”?

Landing

Let me end this morning by encouraging all the Dad’s and everyone of us really with this quote from John Newton. It is definately one of my favorites as I need to be reminded of the truth with in it on a daily basis.

“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am” - John Newton

Let’s Pray