Sent as an Example

Introduction

Have you ever been embarrassed by your belief in God? Imagine you're talking a friend who doesn't know Jesus, and it comes up that you're a Christian. They say to you, "Oh! You're a Christian?! Hmm! Okay, so this means that you believe that God made the universe, that you are a special snowflake, and that there's such a thing as good and evil? Wow! That's really nice. So, you believe that I am going to hell? So you believe that a Muslim or Hindu or a Buddhist are totally wrong? And that everyone should conform to your way of thinking? Mmm-hm. Let me tell you something about myself. I live with my girlfriend. How can you say that I'm living in sin?"

Woof. Tough questions. How would you answer? When I was in Grade 12, I was a part of a band. We played shows in downtown Vancouver, we released an album, we played bars, venues, pubs, parties, that kind of thing. The singer, drummer, and keyboardist were not Christians. But I was. So there was a bit of tension there. But the difference was that I never drank. I never swore. I never slept with another person. Not to say I was perfect back then! I was 18. The difference is that the health of your relationships with people who believe differently than you is going to rest more on the example that you show to them, rather than what you believe.

What is the example that you show to others in your life? 1 Timothy 4:12 says, "Don't let anyone look down you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity." How can you do this? I'm going to end by saying that you can set an example for others by putting your faith in Jesus. Specifically, we'll be going through three reflections of how to set a godly example in your inner life, and three pictures of how you can set a godly example in your outer life. This will help bring into focus how you can set an example by who you are, and by what you do.

PRAY

Let's set the stage for the Scripture. The apostle Paul, one of the biggest church leaders, was on his way to Macedonia with his coworker Timothy. He thought to stop at a church in Ephesus for some food and rest. Ephesus was on the coast of the Aegean sea, in modern day Turkey. This city was a key trading port, and it had the temple of Artemis, one of the ancient wonders of the world. Artemis was the goddess of fertility, so this temple housed thousands of shrine prostitutes. The temple was bigger than a football field! This was the city that the church was trying to live in!

You ever walk into a room, and you discover that literally everything is falling apart? That was what Paul and Timothy found! People in the church were fighting with each other, people were greedy, and worst of all they were believing and talking about lies about the faith! False teachers were distorting the truth of Christianity, and as a result everything was going wrong in the church.

Paul was on an important journey, so he had to move on. But he decided to leave Timothy in Ephesus to take care of things. Timothy was young compared to other leaders. We're talking like 30. After some time, Paul decided to write to Timothy to give him instructions on how to handle the conflict. That's what the book of 1 Timothy is. 1 Timothy was read to both Timothy and the church to help them navigate all of the issues that was taking place in the church of Ephesus. What was Paul's advice to Timothy? "Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity."

How can we do this? We're going to go begin with three reflections of how to live a godly example in our inner life. We'll start here and move to application later.

The first reflection is that you can set a godly example through faith

What is faith? Hebrews 11.1, "Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." Faith is belief in a God who saves without us having to do anything extra to add to what God did for us.

There were false teachers in the early church at Ephesus, where Timothy was. They were telling lies about the faith. Paul even names them in the letter! Hymenaeus and Alexander. What were these guys teaching? Paul says in 4.3, "They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth." Basically, these guys, Hymenaeus and Alexander, were adding to the Gospel. They were saying, "you need Jesus, and you need to also do something to add to what Jesus did. … you need to abstain from eating certain meats. You need to stay single. Because marriage leads to sex, sex leads to pleasure, and pleasure is evil."

The false teachers thought that there was this big divide between the physical and the spiritual, so therefore you had to reject the physical in order to be spiritual. That is not what Christianity says. We believe, by faith, that we are saved through Jesus, and that the physical world is a good gift that we need to take care of. We are not saved through anything extra that we do or don't do in this world. Paul says in verse 4, "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving."

Okay, so those were some false teachers of early Christianity. Can you think of some false teachers today? I'm gonna name names. Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen is a false teacher who is distorting the faith. This is a direct quote from him: "Who told you, you can't accomplish your dreams? Your destiny is calling out. It's time to start living large. I'm strong. I'm healthy. I'm blessed. I am a victor, not a victim. I'm gonna live a long, productive, faith filled life." There's a documentary that I really recommend, it's called American Gospel: Christ Alone. It does a really good job at showing the demonic nature of prosperity gospel churches. Those churches teach that religion is there to boost your ego, make you happy, and make you healthy. As if the entire reason that God created you and died for you is so that you never have to face pain in your life. Actually, our faith in Jesus is all about dying to yourself and letting go of your right to life. Faith is distorted through lies.

The false teachers in the early church were essentially saying, "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!" The prosperity Gospel teachers are saying, "I'm strong, I'm healthy, I'm blessed!" But both are forgetting that our path to being saved is not on this earth. We are saved only through Jesus. You don’t need anything extra to add to what he did. You're not going to be saved by avoiding pleasure. You're also not going to be saved when you get more money, pleasure, and health. You just need faith. Faith is belief in a God who saves without us having to do anything extra to add to our salvation.

The second reflection is that you can set a godly example through purity

The word used for purity here is Hagneia, meaning pure, chaste, or holy. Purity is a word that describes what you are, but it also describes what you are not. Impurity wants to take what's pure and to add to it. Purity is life in God without having anything extra to add to what Jesus did for you.

The false teachers in the early church were actually quite greedy. They wanted to take their pure life in Christ and to add to it, so they were no longer pure. There was probably some weird sexual things going on with them, so just keep that in mind. They were manipulating people into giving them money! The false teachers were getting paid extra, and the real teachers, who were actually doing what was asked of them, were not getting paid enough!

How can this be? They were manipulating people, especially young widows, to go around from house to house in order to spread their false teaching, and scholars think that this explains why they were getting paid extra. Remember that there may have been some sexual things going on too. So the false teachers were both greedy and impure.

Okay, so again, what does this look like today? I read this in an article from November. This was at a large well known church in the states. Matthew Piercey, 44 years old, approached several church members over a few years. (Opens jacket), "Heyyy…. You wanna invest $50,000 in my cryptocurrency fund?" Piercey was part of a money laundering scheme, and he was going after church members to steal from them. Try to picture this. FBI agents show up. Piercey hops into his pickup truck. They chase him. He goes off road twice. Eventually, he abandons his truck and pulls something out of it. Piercey swims into the lake. Stays underwater for 25 minutes. This was in November! Eventually, Piercey emerged, and they got him. They found out that he was using an underwater scooter to move through the water. Piercey now faces charges of wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, witness tampering, 20 years in prison, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines." He was a normal church member before!

Purity can be distorted by greed. Purity says, "I have just enough and am content with what God gave me." Greed says, "I want to add extra ingredients so that I have more of what I want, but not what God wants." Purity is remaining in God's holiness without having to have anything extra to add to our salvation. We'll go through some practical applications on this later.

The third reflextion is that you can set a godly example through love.

Paul says that the goal of his letter is love, in 1.5, "which comes from a pure heart and a good conscious and a sincere faith." Who do you know in your life who has a pure heart and a good conscious and a sincere faith? I know a few. Those people are treasures to me, and I love them.

The early church in Ephesus was not necessarily a peaceful plaw22222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222ce. People were fighting because some of them wanted to add to what Jesus already did for them! False teachers were fighting with true teachers. People were accusing church elders with no evidence! Church leaders were edgy and quarrelsome. The elderly in the church were fighting with the young. Both men and women were fighting with each other.

Actually, one of the main reasons that Paul was writing was to deal with church conflict. Paul says in 6.4, of the false teachers, "They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction between people of corrupt mind." Obviously, we can tell that the church here was not a pretty picture.

What does this look like today? I read a story about a huge mega church, and a church pastor prophesied on social media that Trump would win the election. Well, after the election, he posted on Instagram, "I was wrong. I take full responsibility for being wrong. There’s no excuse for it.” Meanwhile, another church pastor, disagreed and she said that Biden's victory, "heralded so much destruction.” She said, and I quote, "Listen, I’m a feeler; I’m a seer. I can see what’s gonna happen in the future [UCM, don't trust anyone who says that they can see what's going to happen in the future], and let me tell you, if this man, which if — and that’s a big if — he gets in, we’re going to see so much destruction. You talk about disunity. Oh my gosh.”

Love is distorted through conflict. I'm not making a political statement. Let's talk about the example that these church pastors are being. We are called to a life that is marked by love! We need to care for each other, not argue about and spiritualize politics! Can you imagine what people outside the church must be thinking when they see that looking in? Love is treating others according to the love that God has for them and not anything extra to add to that.

Application

Okay, so what's the application? You're looking at me like, "Paul, you're telling me that I can set a godly example for other people through my faith, purity, and love, but how do I do that?" We'll talk about three pictures of what a godly outer life will look like.

First Picture: Set a godly example in speech (say)

What do you say to your friends? Your family? Do you focus on building people up, or do you always try to tear them down?

Jesus says in Matthew 15.11, "What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them." and later, "But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart." So you will be shaped and formed by what you say. You can know what you value most by what you spend the most time talking about.

Set a godly example. Encourage people. This is huge! Love them! Tell them how much they mean to you! When you see someone do something that you appreciate or respect, tell them! Tell them how much it means to you! You don't have to make encouragements really fancy or eloquent. Just say simply what you like about that person and why you like them.

Second Picture: Set a godly example in conduct (do)

What do you spend your time doing? Do you serve or volunteer? When you see something that's unjust, do you just sit by and let it happen, or do you take action to prevent it from happening again? Who do you advocate for?

Jesus said to his disciples, "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." And Jesus says that we do this whenever we do it for other people who have less than ourselves.

So set a godly example. Serve people! Do your chores at home for the sake of whoever you are living with! Give gifts to people to show them that you were thinking about them. Volunteer at a food drive or a homeless shelter. We have awesome partnerships with Food for Families and Homes for Friends to do this. Talk to one of us leaders and we can plug you in to serving somewhere.

Third picture: Set a godly example in love (think)

What do you spend your time thinking about? Where do you thoughts dwell? Do you spend time thinking mostly about sex? Personal success? Anger at how the world has wronged you? Do you think and talk negatively about yourself, as if you were a failure and you'll never do anything right?

Stop! Philippians 4:8, Paul writes, "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things."

Think about your best friends and how much you appreciate them. Think about the good work that people are doing all over the world by providing for those who have less. Think about the mystery of God's love and how He's never abandoned you.

I said you can set a godly example through speech, what you say, through love, what you think about, and through conduct, what you do. You can encourage people, serve people, and love people.

But there's also something that surrounds and sustains these three and actually makes them possible. I've given you three pictures so far. I'll end on this one. You can set a godly example through faith. Jesus gave you an example to follow. He died for you. And now his life is in you. You no longer live for yourself. You will both know and experience this reality as you put your faith in Jesus.

Conclusion

You are not perfect. You may be thinking, "Okay, Paul! I'm only 20! What do you want from me!? Now excuse me as I curse that frustrating person under my breath in class. As I ignore that homeless man who I pass by every week on the way to work. As I laugh and ignore the racist comments that my friends who I've known since childhood make. As I spend my entire weekend watching pornography."

Jesus wouldn't have called you if he couldn't use you as an example despite your imperfections. You are not perfect, but Jesus was, and that's all we need. He is alive in you, and you are in him. Follow His example, and over time you will grow up, fully matured, into a person who exemplifies faith, purity, and love, and this will be revealed every day through you speech, actions, and love for others. ____, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity." ____, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity." ____, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity." Only through Jesus can you set an example. God chose you and He sent you to be an example, in this world which is so far from God. This is why you will be able to live a life that glorifies Him.