We should have, as Christians, we should have a holy fear. I want us to capture a very simple fact tonight. We have not arrived at perfectness, perfection in our faith. We will not arrive at perfection in Christ Jesus until we are transformed and we stand before Him.
Right now, we are under the grace of God, the blood covering of Christ, and we are imperfect creatures. And we want to rest in the grace of God. We're going to talk about that a little bit more in a moment. So what that means is no matter how young we are in Christ or how old we are in Christ, or how young we are as a person or how old we are as a person, there should be a holy fear about us that we want to know and live the way God would have us to live.
That holy fear is driven by a very simple biblical concept that we reap what we sow. Even though we're covered by the blood of Christ and are going to heaven, we reap what we sow as we walk through this earth. So there's people with all kinds of brokenness, poverty, insecurities, fears, doubts, all kinds of things going on in their life that are a reaping of what they have sown through their words and their actions. And so I want to be cautious in my life.
I need to have a holy fear in my life that my words and my actions are biblical so that I will reap good things. That reaping is both ways. I can reap really good things or I can reap really bad things. So I want to plant good seeds.
So there's a holy fear that should drive me to study the word, to know the word and to apply the word. I don't want to just hear messages and read books that make me go, yeah, I'm great. I want to read books. I want to study things that will help me be more like Christ all the time.
And that should never end. That should never ever end. I don't care how old you are. That should never end.
So part of the reason I do that is how this holy fear that I could reap the wrong thing and the other part of it is a holy desire to obtain the promises of God. When you think about the promises of God, always remember that the scripture describes them this way. They are given to us with the purpose of helping us live in the divine nature. So God gives us something that we would desire.
We see. And He gives us a promise about that thing that we would desire. Or see. And He tells us a condition that we have to live to be able to have that thing.
To achieve it. And so we need to learn that condition and live it. And as we learn that condition, we begin to participate in the divine nature instead of the sinful nature. So that should drive us as believers to always be a hungry people to grow in Christ.
And no, we're not there yet. We're never going to get there yet. We're not going to get there until we get to heaven. But every day I get closer to being like Him, the better the seed I'm sowing, the more of the promises that I reap and the less of the junk that I reap.
Being to clean things up. And so when I look at life and I see that life is a mess around me, I'm asking myself a couple of questions. One is, am I reaping something here? Is this all that's there for all of their people?
Maybe they are doing something. Maybe that child is doing. But did I sow the seed that makes them that way? Did I sow the seed that brought this about?
And how do I, if I did, how do I eradicate that seed and put new seed in? And that's the tricky part right there. That's the tricky part. Now, how many of you in this room would like to be more faithful, mature believers to really see growth in your life even more than what you're having right now?
Okay, good. How many of you in this room would like to be effective at impacting other people's eternities? Okay. Open your, look at in 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 1.
Paul writing to a young Timothy and he says, you then my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you've heard me say in the presence of many witnesses in trust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. In do our hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs.
He wants to please this commanding officer. In this passage, Paul lays out a concept that will change Timothy's life and will change a generation or two that will follow Timothy if Timothy obeys it. It is a concept that today of just a couple of you in this room, grab a hold of it. And if you do this with your life, you will grow in new and magnificent ways in Christ Jesus.
And others lives will be changed because of it. So let's break down this passage just a little bit. The first thing he says to him is to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. So how do you see yourself before God?
Do you feel good about yourself when you meet certain standards before God? And do you feel rejected and unworthy when you don't? And he begins to wonder when you mess up, well God, hear my prayers. Will he answer me?
What will happen in my life because of this failure? When you think you're unworthy, let me settle it for you. You are. I've come to that conclusion in life.
I'm unworthy. I'm unworthy of the promises of God. I'm unworthy of the grace of God. I'm unworthy of all these things.
I could never do enough that would put me in a place that would say, God is now somehow obligated to me because of my good and faithful works to give me anything. If I got what I deserved, it would not be good. Don't ask for what you deserve. Ask for God's grace.
So he tells Timothy, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. What does he mean? Hang in there with the grace. Think about the grace of God.
Walk in the grace of God. When you blow it, thank God for his grace. When you think you're doing good, thank God for his grace over your pride. Rest in the grace.
When somebody else blows it, don't be judgmental. Offer them grace. Offer them mercy. Offer them forgiveness at the same level you want mercy.
You want forgiveness. You want those things that happen in your life. Offer them grace as they show repentance in their life. We need to see ourselves through the power of grace.
We are not loved by God because we are good. In fact, if that was the standard, we would be left out. We need to enter into his rest. We need to just take the pressure off.
Rest in Christ. Does that mean we stop trying to do what you do not do what you do not do what you do. You are going to reap bad things. You are going to reap bad things.
So don't stop trying to do what you do what you do. But rest in his grace. Offer that grace to others. And rest in.
He paid the price and we can rest in him. God's love is steadfast. It's not going anyplace. We need to rest in his grace.
His grace makes the steadfast love available to us. We are saved by grace through faith. Believe in the steadfast love of God. Now, I want you to see how we change actions.
Paul speaks to Timothy and he says to Timothy, the things you've heard me say and the things you've heard me do, do them and teach them. He tells Timothy, let there be reach out and teach those things to this qualification really gets me. Reliable men. Not the fools, but to reliable men.
So that reliable men can teach others. I want you to capture this generational transfer that takes place here. What should we have? First of all, Timothy has a spiritual mentor.
Paul is Timothy's spiritual mentor. He is a guy speaking into Timothy's life. One of the things if you want to be changed and transformed in life is you need to have spiritual mentors, there needs to be spiritual mentors to us. People that we see as people who can speak into our lives.
People with the right to speak into our lives. Now, no one controls this. No one has that authority. But these are people, some people, that what they say carries more weight than what other people say because of their position in our life.
We have this thing in America, I don't know if it's around the world or not, but in America where we reach this age that we want to throw off all the things around us, our parents' authority, other people's authority. And we want to be these independent people that nobody tells us what to do. And there's some element of that that is absolutely correct, but we need to understand we should desire to always have spiritual leaders who can speak into our lives. People who have the right to talk to us, and when they talk to us, we listen and they have the right to talk to us about things that we don't want to hear.
It's not just that they agree with. See, there's this real problem that we have in America today. I've had people over the years all the past, I trust you, I trust you, I trust you, I trust you really have trust for you. And then I make a decision that they don't like, and I've actually had people look at me and say, I just can't trust you anymore.
What were they really saying? I agreed with you. I agreed with you all those other times. This time I don't agree with you.
It wasn't about trust, it was about agreement. Don't make that mistake. You'd have people in your life that you love them enough and you trust them enough that they can speak into your life and say something in your life, and you will not be offended. It doesn't mean you have to do it, because you're still a free person before God, but because they say it, because they say it, you're going to weigh it out more seriously.
You say, okay, that's my friend, they love me. They're spiritually far from down the road than I am. They've got some more insight than I have, they have more experience than I do. And if they're saying that to me, well, I don't like hearing that.
I don't appreciate that right now, but I know they're not trying to control me. I know they're trying to help me. I'm going to pray my way through this. I'm going to seek out even more, and I'm going to let them speak into my life.
When they say to us, time out before you make that decision. Time out. A lot of relational disasters would have been stopped if the person entering into the relationship, whether it's a marriage or just a relationship, would have listened to somebody say, time out, slow down. Let's weigh this out.
I know you're emotionally wrapped up in this relationship, but let's weigh out Scripture with it, and let's see if it's right. A lot of bad decisions would have been saved if somebody would have had the authority in people's lives. I'd love you, but if you keep treating your wife like that, it's going to be bad news. It's going to be bad news.
She may live without her for years, she may live with five years, she may live with ten years, but the day's going to come, she's not living with this anymore. And it's going to be ugly. And you're going to have shown so many things into it. I've sat with men and women going through that very moment, where the other person has said, I am willing to change, I'm willing to do whatever, I will straighten this out in the person's name.
Or the same, the seeds way to, there's too much seed in that thing. They can't get over it. So in our life, we need those people in our life that can speak into our life and tell us, that can talk to us, that can challenge us, that have the right and the freedom. And I would tell you, the more authority that you have and the more position you have, the more people that has to be.
Your family needs to have that right to speak to you. As a pastor, you've got to have, I've got to give you that right to speak to you. I mean, I'd agree with you. I need to at least listen, pray about it, think about it, take it to others and talk about it.
So Paul had done all this teaching in front of Timmy that he should have learned, and now Paul was speaking directly to Timmy about what he was supposed to do with that teaching. So here's the question, who has the right to speak into your life? Can you right now just write some name down on that piece of paper? I mean, do you, can you just instantly think, oh, that person can and that person can and that person can?
If you can't, and if they say something to me, I don't get mad, I don't get upset, I sincerely thank them and go and pray about it. I wait out, I listen. And here's the real test. Have they ever changed you?
Have you ever been moved by what they've said? Because if they have all the right of the world to speak to you, but they've never changed you, you're not really, you're probably not listening. Sadly, many people get this cocoon around them. They don't want anybody to know their life, know anything about them, and nobody has a right to speak into their life.
Nobody can cross that threshold, and if somebody tries to, they're repel by it. They run from it. That is what Proverbs call foolishness. Now, here's the second thing.
When you look at those names, have they earned the right? There are people who have people who can speak into their life. They're just the wrong people. Now, yeah, my sister, she can talk to me, and the sister may be a Helian.
She may have worse relationships with people than you do. She may blow up her relationships more than you are, and now she's giving you advice on relationships. You can love your sister and realize, she's a bigger mess than I am. And I don't want to listen to that.
I don't want to listen to the train wreck. I want to listen to the victorious person. Who's done this right? Who's there?
Who's got, who has proven their life in spiritual things? This is where we get changed in in-depth, magnificent ways when people have the right to speak to us. Now, we see this in young people all the time who give to that point where nobody can talk to them and we just look at them and go, you're going to learn some lessons. You're going to learn some, you're going to, you think you're really smart right now, and you're just so dumb.
You don't even know how dumb you are. Just some of you remember when you were that age and you were, and you had to learn some tough lessons? When you think back now, I think, man, I wish I'd have listened. I wish I'd have listened.
I wish I'd have paid attention. Well, then learn the lesson. Listen and pay attention. Now, make sure the people you're listening to aren't your buddies who go down the same track you do.
You get three teenage boys together and the actions can be anything. And they all sit and look at what's happening. Why'd you do that? Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time.
Have you ever heard that? I've heard that hundreds of, well, we thought it was a good idea. We thought you were him up on top of the car. That's driving down the street and him surfing up there.
We saw it in a movie. You want to look like fun. But now here we are in the hospital. His head's broken open.
That's so much fun today. It sounded like a good idea. Why? Because there are much kids that don't surround your life with people who haven't earned the right to speak.
They need to approve of themselves. So you've got to judge that a little ruthlessly. You've got to look at that really clearly and really study it and say, well, these aren't just people I like. These aren't people I necessarily go have fun with.
These aren't people that I go just hang with. Maybe they are, but that's not the final quality. The quality is this is somebody who's a leader. This is somebody that when I tell the joke that I shouldn't tell can go to me.
What do you think? Listen, that was really that was offensive and a little bit inappropriate. And you don't go, oh, no, it wasn't everybody laughed. Everybody laughed.
You said, look, really? Really? You think so? Yeah, I think so.
But there's immatures you are. That's why they laughed. Are you getting this? You've got to have that person who can speak in your life if you're going to really see the growth.
Now, here's the other person in your life. We talked about this in our men's meeting some. You should have people in your life that you're speaking into their life. People you're helping.
People have given you the right to speak to them because you've earned it in front of them. Moms and dads, we want that to be our kids. And there should be other people that we've worked to earn that right. Now, we have to earn it.
How do we earn it? First of all, you earn it through prayer. You see people and you begin to pray for people. And there's something that happens.
I'm just going to tell you, I have a theory in my mind that I haven't able to prove my scripture yet. But I believe that the words I say about you, whether you're with me or not with me, impact the relationship with you when I see you. I don't... I think if you're talking nasty about me or somebody else, or saying, you know, degrade something to great or something unseemly, and then you see that person, that they may have never heard it, but they sense it.
The relationship doesn't feel right. On the other side, I think when you pray for people and you see God for people, there's a connection that comes that... Why do I feel so connected to this person? Why do I feel so at ease with them?
We don't even understand it. We just... I feel so good when I'm around them, and we don't even understand why. I think the other goes the other way.
And then we wonder about our relationships. Now, that's a theory. Hopefully somebody got a reveal scripture and make me back that up. I do believe I can back up this part of it.
I believe that when you pray for people, it breaks down barriers between people. I believe that is absolutely true. And so you begin to pray for people. You begin to lift them up before God.
You begin to ask God to bless them. You begin to ask God to give wisdom to them. You begin to ask God to move in their life. And you begin to pray God.
We feel yourself to them. Show yourself to them. We move in their lives. And God help them have your vision for their life.
Let their lives be great and solid in you. And you pray for them. And God does a work in the middle of all that. The other thing I think you have to do is you've got to invest in them.
You've got to take the time with them. You've got to seek them out. You've got to get in places where you have the conversations. And where there's some relationship going.
And that may happen because you're singing the choir together. And you're friendly with them every time they come in the choir. You're in a small group with them. And you spend time talking to them at the small group meeting.
You're working another ministry with them. And you're hanging out with them. You're working together. And you're spending time together.
But it takes some sort of connection of time for that relationship to be built. In Paul's situation, he came into a city. He took Timothy. And he took Timothy with you on some of his missionary journeys.
He built this great relationship that gave him this ability to speak into Timothy's life. But there has to be that time. Has to be that openness for that to happen. So you've got to invest in time in them.
As a pastor, hopefully that happens to some extent because I'm speaking to you here and you're listening to it. And hopefully you get a little more open that if we're talking one on one, I can talk a little more freely to you. And there'll be times when I'm talking with somebody and I'll just look at them and say, listen, we've been having a good time here. Can I talk to you like a pastor now?
Is it okay for me to speak to you as your pastor right now? Listen, man, I'm just going to tell you right now. You need to change this. And hopefully I've earned that right by other things happening.
But you've got to earn that right. Now here's the third quality. You've got to live faithfully in front of them. They've got to see you in good times and bad times living faithfully.
You've known me for many, many years, many of you in the same time in just the last few years. I hope you know this. I tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly about my life. Somebody say, how do you survive in a city where you've grown up?
Because it's great. I don't hide anything. I don't know what things somebody could tell you that might surprise you. Because I just get up and I try to talk about it.
Where do I fail? Where do I succeed? You've got to live an open life in front of people. Open this destroys gossip.
This destroys it. It kills it. And then you've got to live faithfully. You've got to live an overcoming life.
When you blow it, you've got to apologize. You've got to start over. You've got to ask people for forgiveness. Please, hear me.
Don't be one of these people who never ask anybody in your life to forgive them. If you mess it up with people, go to them and ask for forgiveness. It'll humble your flesh. It'll do good for your spirit.
And it'll build relationship with them when you can actually look at them and say, you know what? When I was raising you, I wasn't a Christian. And now that I've come to Christ, I know you think I've kind of flipped out of it. I'm just telling you.
I messed up so bad. And I'm so sorry. So sorry. And I know you don't get all that yet.
But I hope you will. Or even if you raised me as a Christian, you had some attitude or some spirit about it that was wrong. You've been able to look at them and say, I'm growing as a Christian. I'm growing in my faith.
I look back at how I treated you in that sense of circumstances. What happened when you were in the home? Man, if I had to do it differently, I'd just do it differently. I'd act differently.
It tears down the barriers the enemy builds up. But living faithfully and then showing them. Because a lot of times there's what they're going to do. They're going to look at you.
Yeah, sure. And you can't be offended. You've got to go, watch me. Watch me now.
So if you're going to earn that right to speak into people's lives, you've got to live faithfully in front of them. You've got to live that faithful life. They've got to see you in the good times and the bad times being a faithful, consistent person in your life. Are you getting this?
That's why we need the people talking to us over us so we can be faithful so that we live that life. And here's the fourth thing. You've got to be willing to speak prophetically to them. When God gives you a word of encouragement, a word to exhort them, a word to build them up, you've got to be willing to go share it with them.
You've got to make the point, to make the phone call. Because the more you speak prophetically to somebody and encourage them, the more naturally they're going to be open to you when it's time for you to say, maybe that's not the best way. If all they get out of you is that's not the best way, they're not going to like seeing you coming too much. But there are some people, you just want to get around them because they're encouraging you.
Be that person. That's got to give you prophetic words for them that you can speak into their life. Now, who should we be doing this to? We should be looking for, we can do a lot of these things for a lot of people.
But there needs to be some people in our life that are reliable men, reliable people. There are some people, frankly, we've got to take them by the hand. Don't be this person. We've got to take them by the hand and walk them to heaven.
Whatever reason, they're just so unhealthy that they're never going to live in real victory and they never learn anything. They never change. Grace of God is still on them. We're going to treat them with the grace of God.
But they're going to repeat the same cycles of disaster in their life over and over again. I don't understand because I think about the third or fourth time I got hit in the head by that hammer, I would start looking for the hammer. You're with me? So I've got to look at my life and say, is there this recurring cycle of me getting slapped in the head?
How do I stop that? Some people never do. Some people just keep repeating the same stuff all the time. Just put our arms around them, walk them to heaven.
Maybe someday they'll get it. You can speak into that person's life all day long. They're not going to change. It's just fruitless because they are not looking for change.
They are looking for everybody else to cater to them. They are not looking to be personally transformed. That's what we back up to to begin this. We've all got to be hungry to be personally transformed.
We love them until they show signs of being reliable. You've not found a person yet. That's going to really be what you're looking for. We're looking for those who will begin to speak and who will themselves grow, be changed, and begin to speak into other people's lives.
And this can start at any stage of spiritual growth if I stay strong in the grace of God. Now let me give you one last group you need now. I need the mentor in my life and I need the people that I am speaking into their life. And here's one last group.
You need people in your life that are far from God. People that you recognize as the center of your target to reach for Christ. You should be able to name them right now. I've got this guy at work.
He's not living for God. That's not me because of course. This pastor and he's far from God. I want to see him get saved.
No, that's not. You have this person that you know, this neighbor, this friend, this co-worker. They're far from God and God's laid them on your heart and you're saying, you know what? I'm going to pray for them.
I'm going to invest in them. I'm going to share faith with them. And my desires to see them come to Christ. Maybe a family member.
It may be again a co-worker, but it needs to become very intentional. Very intentional in your prayer time. Very intentional in your investment time. Very intentional in your patience to reach out to them and to speak in their life.
Some people are three day projects and some people are 30 year projects. But I need to have the talk to them. You should be looking for those that you can have influence on today. Now remember this.
I'm going to wrap this up a little longer than I want to. We are not civilians. Our faith is not about our comfort and ease. Jesus never says, hey, come follow me and let me show you a way to an easy life.
If you're looking for an easy life, you're looking for things to be simple to never have to go against the flow, to never have to stand up, to never have to be uncomfortable, to always be in comfortable situations, you are not looking for Christianity. Paul says that Timothy, endure hardship with us. In other words, hardship is a certainty if you are obeying Christ. Why?
Because the enemy is going to come against you. He's going to use people and he's going to come against you. Now I want you to think about this. Jesus had to rebuke Peter.
Sometimes the enemy uses people who shouldn't be used by him. And we have to endure it. People will disappoint you. People will reject you.
Maybe persecute you when you begin to try to do the right things. Our call isn't to feel sorry for ourselves. Our call isn't to sit down and cry. Our call isn't to give up.
Our call is to endure. To stay in the grace of God, to stay in the faithfulness of God, and endure. To count your hardship is a sign that you're doing what's right and that God's with you. Jesus taught us that if we did the things that He did, that we could expect to get what He got.
And He got attacked a lot. So we're not on a pleasure cruise. We are on a battle front. We are soldiers.
And as soldiers, our great concerns shouldn't be our ease, but should be pleasing to our commanding officer who is Jesus. If Jesus is happy with you, rest in that. If Jesus isn't happy with you, get it right. Because friends, when we get before the great white throne judgment, we get before the judgment seat of Christ, it is not going to be a popular contest.
It's going to be you and Jesus. And so endure hardship. Endure it. Be faithful.
Trust the grace of God. Don't let the enemy whisper, oh, that's happening to you because you did this in your past. You're now paying a price for this. No, the grace of God's on you now.
The grace of God's on you. Now, stop. Make sure you're not reaping things because you're continuing something. But don't let the enemy be chapped for the rest of the grace of God.
So you want to be a world changer? You want your world to be changed? Get some people who can speak in your life and let them know it. It's not good enough for you to say, oh, well, that person could speak in my life.
If they don't know it, they may never take the chance. So you got to go to them and get to them and say, listen, I've got people in my life I've gone to. And I look at this church and say, hey, you see some of them I've come to talk to them. I promise you, I will not be offended.
May not agree. Won't be offended. I don't think everybody should do that. I think pastors should do that.
But I think you should have people in your life that you look at and say, you see anything in my life that's hypocritical, that's less than what good the grace of God would have me to be in. That's less than what I should be. Talk to me. I will listen to you.
And I promise I'll do what you say. I will listen. I will pray. I'll look at it.
I'll search Scripture. And I'll see if what you're telling me is what God would have me to do. If you want to grow in God, you've got to have people like that in your life. And if you want to be a world changer, you've got to invest in two other groups of people.
You've got to begin to invest in other Christians. Pray for them. Seek God for them. Live faithfully in front of them.
Spend your time and earn the right to be able to speak into their life and earn the right to be that one of those people who can enter them in life. So I've only been a Christian for six months. Great. Find out if there's only one for three months.
Find one that's just got saved Sunday. Say, buddy, I'm not perfect yet. But I'll tell you what. You and I can hang out and I'll tell you what I've learned in the last six months.
Tell you what I'm getting out of this thing. Begin to speak and then look for unsay people that remember what Jesus said. This really struck me this year as we're going into Easter. Jesus didn't say the fields are empty.
He said the fields are white unto harvest. They're white unto harvest. There are people out there that with a little bit of time and a little bit of effort and a little bit of prayer will cross the line of faith and receive Christ. But listen, it may take you being willing to pick them up and bring them to church because they don't have a ride.
It may mean you have to be willing to do some uncomfortable things yourself and everything not be about you to help that happen in their life. I think it's worth their eternity. Amen. Let's stand together.
Father, I thank you for the men and women who are here today and I pray that my prayer be that all of them would get this. They would just in their minds say, I've got to identify those people who have a right to speak into my life because they've earned it. They've earned it with their lives. They've been faithful.
And I'm going to go to them and tell them, you see anything in me, I'm going to listen. And if I'll let us mark our hearts that if those people speak to us, we will not be angry. We will not not be defensive. We will not make excuses.
We'll just seriously pray about what they say to us. We'll seriously look for your words and say, God, what are you telling me? So Father, help us to find those people and then help us show us those people you want us to begin to invest in. And those people who are far from you and those people who are serving you, that you want us to be a strength to them so they can be the fullness of Christ in their life.
In Jesus' name. Everybody said, Amen. God bless you. Go on the name of the Lord.