Most Needed

Introduction

It’s been an unusual Lord’s Day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many empty spots in our building for a good number of years. It’s been an odd series of events that have caused many to be on the roads and away from us today, but plenty of room to sit wherever you would like. Not fighting and scrambling for seats tonight. Appreciate the songs that we sung. All those songs were known to us, but some wonderful thoughts that we’ve said to each other and to God and the song I believe Carol wanted to have sung. More about Jesus. My faith looks up to me, for some reason hit me in a different way tonight. That’s what a tremendous old hymn that is. And I appreciate the way Reagan prayed for the throne.

Of course, Mike at the beginning of our service. But before I get further into my thoughts tonight, and I want to say a prayer for our new sister in Christ. Let’s pray together. You are an incredible God. Oh, holy God, you have done so much for us. You have given us life and breath, but even more, you have given us spiritual life. We are able to come to your throne and come before your holiness with holy hands. That you’ve you’ve cleansed us and purified us. And caused the likes of us to be able to approach you. You who dwell in unapproachable light, where no darkness can come. And you have caused us to find acceptance by the great work that you’ve done, by the great sacrifices that you’ve made, and by your wonderful word that gives us life and hope.

And we’re so very grateful for how you’ve helped us to persevere to this time. We’re so very grateful for our new sister in Christ, Meredith, a young person who has decided to put you on to serve you in her life. We’re just thankful for the circumstances that have caused Meredith to make this decision. Help us to be a support to her and strengthen her faith in the days ahead. Help us all to face the challenges of fighting the good fight of faith. And help us all to lay hold on eternal life in Jesus’ name.

That graphic might look a little bit familiar, what little you can see about the lion. We’ll come back to that in a minute.

And of course, this text is probably familiar to many in our audience in 2 Timothy chapter 2, or 3 rather, when Paul reminds Timothy of his beginnings, the faith that it resided in his mother and grandmother, Eunice and Lois, that it now been transferred or passed on to him, and the holy scriptures from which he had learned the sacred writings, which were able to give the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. And he reminds him of the scripture and what it is and how powerful and life-changing and all sufficient it is. And then he is solemnly charged in chapter 4 in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ. And we assemble tonight in the presence of God and Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead.

It is inescapable. And by his appearing and his kingdom. Jesus did indeed appear. He does indeed have a kingdom, a place where he reigns in the hearts and lives of men and women who submit to his will, who will allow his will to be written on their minds and on their hearts. And thus Timothy is charged. Timothy preach the message. Preach the word.

Some things need to change. Point that out. Some things need to be put down. Rebuke. And his people need to be encouraged. Admonish. Exhort them with great patience and instruction. Because a time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. They’ll just want to hear things that are pleasant to their ears. They will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside the mist. But you, that’s not you, Timothy. You keep your head about you. You stay focused. Be sober in all things. It won’t be easy. Endure hardship. Do the work of a proclaimer. Fulfill your role. Fulfill your ministry. I simply entitled the lesson tonight, Most Needed. As an audience of people, many of whom have put on the Lord, like our sister Meredith has done.

In an audience like this, what do you need to hear from me? Timothy was told to preach the word.

1. The Weightier Matters of the Law

Subject, isn’t it? So tonight, in a very brief sermon, I’m going to preach the entire Bible. I’m going to address every possible subject and every nuance of every verse of every chapter. And some of you have smiles on your faces because you know that you’re all going to be laid out in the pew in the next hour. Sound asleep, pulling a uticus, falling off the pew, but I am not going to be able to raise you from the dead. So that’s a little bit of a problem. Can’t do that. Not in one night. Not in 52 weeks. Bible classes help to give us a more well-rounded understanding of this message. What is the most needed? Are there is there such a thing as major issues, more important matters than others?

It doesn’t mean that the minor issues in comparison are not important and should therefore be ignored. Do you know the verse to which I refer? It’s Matthew 23. Where he talks about the weightier matters of the law as he sets them in contrast to a very important subject, and that is tithing. Tithing down to the smallest spice. Mint and dill, coming. But he says, in your focus on these details of tithing, you’ve missed the boat. You’ve missed the boat. Now, you could have been in the boat and gotten all of the tithing right, but you neglected the weightier matters of the law. Faithfulness to God. They’re not being faithful to God. They’re praying, they’re doing religion. There’s still things going on at the temple that they’re involved in, but they are not faithful to God.

More on that as we get toward the conclusion. But you have neglected the weightier matters of the law. Faithfulness and justice. That is the simple regard for people. You see yourselves as elite as the hierarchy. You are the most excellent religious people, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. You treat other people with contempt, he would tell them in other places. You’re not regarding people properly. You have neglected faithfulness, justice, and mercy. And so there are major issues. And it is my goal when I preach the gospel to make sure that I am emphasizing the major issues. And not neglecting the minor ones. Sometimes you’ll hear this term used. Doctrinal issues. We need messages that address doctrinal issues. Well, now, if you go back to our text in 2 Timothy chapter 3, all scripture is profitable for doctrine.

2. The Doctrine of Jesus

Let me tell you tonight about the doctrine of Jesus. The doctrine of Jesus is everything in the New Testament that pertains to Jesus. That’s what his doctrine is. And so even when we’re talking about the major issues, when we’re talking about heart issues, we are talking about the doctrine of Jesus. And yet so often when we talk about doctrinal issues, we’re talking about things that separate us or make us different from other religious groups. And we want to hear those things. And sometimes it is important and helpful to talk about those things. But if all we ever do, or if the majority of what we do from this place, the guy who is standing in my shoes, if mostly what we talk about is how other people are messing it up, according to us, is that really changing me?

How much is that helping me in terms of my faithfulness to God? What if I preached a sermon about what this religious group is doing that is wrong, a tenet of their faith that is not consistent with the New Testament, and everybody says, Amen, preacher, that’s exactly right. They’ve got it wrong, and we walk out the door and don’t pray again until Wednesday. So much for effective preaching. When I talk to you about prayer, I’m talking to you about a doctrinal issue. Because it is the teaching of Jesus. And if we do not spend time in communion with God, the result will be spiritual death. So you pat yourself on the back, break your arm doing it. I am right about the plan of salvation. What causes one to be in Christ and come into communion with him?

I am right that the Bible doesn’t teach in the New Testament, once saved, always saved. That is so prevalent, or faith alone. As they commonly explain that. Just a simple belief in Jesus without even the necessity of repentance. And I can show in the scripture where that’s not true. And again, we pat ourselves on that, we got that right. But is that all there is to the doctrine of Jesus? And so I want to talk to you about salvation issues. And you may have noticed this in my preaching. That really what I talk to you about most every Sunday in the lessons that I present are things that apply to your relationship to God and your salvation. I know we can do things through social media now, and we can reach more people.

And we were talking this morning how wonderful it is that you can reach people beyond the time that messages are preached. You can go back and watch them later. I’m saying all the time, our messages are streaming live on our Facebook page. And you know what? A lot of people don’t care that our messages are streaming live on our Facebook page. That’s why there’s not 2,000 people watching me on Facebook. Not even after several months and years.

3. What Is Most Needed by Them

My voice just doesn’t go that far. And yet, here are these people sitting here every Sunday morning, Sunday night, those who are the really brave souls. You’re listening to me twice a week. And so who should I focus on? Who should I concentrate on in the messages that I deliver? Shouldn’t I really focus on the people that I know who are sitting in this room? And what is most needed by them? It fuels the messages that I deliver.

And those of you that were, eh, you don’t remember it. It was called the threat of the gospel. And I preached it in meetings for a while, and I talked about in that lesson about how the gospel makes people uncomfortable. It threatens their comfort. Why were first century Christians persecuted? People didn’t want to hear about a king to whom they owed their allegiance and they were going to be judged by one day. They didn’t want to hear about such a king, a righteous king who expects holiness of them and a certain behavior and a certain walk. They didn’t want that. And so they lashed out because they could. And they persecuted the Lord’s people. The gospel, for some reason, threatened them. And sometimes when we try to explain it to our friends, they feel threatened by it because they don’t want to change.

They’re comfortable where they are. And they certainly just don’t want your version of Christianity the way you see it. And so there is the very real threat of the gospel. And sometimes that causes people to act in an extreme way. And Stephen, for example, as we saw last week, was put to death for it. But that’s not where the lesson ends. The lesson on the threat of the gospel, as I tend to do when I preach, I made it very personal. And I say at the end, what is it about the gospel that threatens you? That challenges you to change. To further mold yourself into the image of Jesus. So I want to say a word about how we need to approach the Bible with this thought about the real first principles.

4. The Real First Principles

The real first principles. What should preaching look like? I think a lot of us, when we think about what should I be doing? You know, there’s a lot of armchair quarterbacks in football. We do it every fall. I know better how to run the Auburn offense than Gus Malzon, the head coach of. And my son Brett even knows better how the Auburn offense should be run. And we’re texting during the game. Oh, what is Gus thinking? What’s he doing? Sorry, guys, if you’re listening to this. You know, armchair quarterbacks. You know, it’s so easy when you’re sitting at home in your recliner and you see the play failed. You know, if I would have called it would have been a touchdown. You know, if I was the offensive coordinator and called 62 plays, we would have 62 touchdowns.

I mean, that’s sort of the way we approach it. I know better. I know, I have the plan. You know, if I was the head coach of Auburn, we’d probably go, oh, and 11. And I probably wouldn’t make it to the end of the season.

And I think sometimes preaching is like that. Everybody’s an expert and everybody has an opinion. We’ve seen the way somebody else did it. You know, I’ve been trying to mimicing mimic the great preachers that I’ve heard in the way that I could. I’ve talked about Robert Jackson many times and Dee Bowman and Don Truex and Max Dawson. And I’ve learned something from all those people, Johnny Edwards, list goes on. And they were all unique personalities, and I’ve tried to mimic what I could of what I thought made them effective, but my messages aren’t exactly like theirs. And so through the years, I’ve had to think, like, for example, how long should a sermon be? And you’re going, well, I’m thinking 20 to 25 minutes would be good.

And some people, oh, that’s a sermonette. Are you going to preach a sermonette? I actually had a preacher one time come in the door and said, Are you going to preach a sermon or is it going to be a sermonette? Am I going to need my Bible? And I said, You’re going to need your Bible. And he turned around and walked out the door and went to his car and got his Bible out of the car. We’d never met before. We’d never had a conversation. And he’s already. That’s how he’s introducing himself to me. So what’s a sermon supposed to look like? I’ve known guys that could preach for 45 minutes, and at the end, I’m thinking, that could have been said in five. And maybe you’re saying that about some of mine.

And I heard guys preach for 45 minutes. I said, wow, that seemed like 15. How long should a sermon be? Somebody find that verse. Before we leave tonight, would you find the verse that tells me exactly how long my preaching should be? And after you found that, tell me all the subjects exactly that I’m supposed to cover in the next 52 weeks. I’ve been, I’ve been charged, and Timothy was charged with preaching the word. Preaching the word. The very real first principles. What are they? My friend Jared Bowman and I have been talking about this week. I listened to his sermon on the way from the airport this afternoon. He gave me the link so I could do that. He mentioned a sermon that I preached on the drawing power of the gospel.

Jesus himself, and he was preaching this sermon, the very real first principles from 1 Corinthians 15. Because if you look at it, that’s exactly what Paul said. What is the foundation of Christianity? That Jesus died, he was buried, and he rose again the third day. And our belief in his resurrection and our resurrection is what fuels absolutely everything. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. I like this translation of 1 Corinthians 15, 58. Stand firm, let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. We’re not wasting our time here together. We’re not wasting our time when we share the gospel with other people.

We’re not wasting our time when we do the daily Bible reading and learn from the Proverbs and spend time in communion with God and praying for each other. Praying for ourselves. Preaching the word. I did not shun to declare unto you anything that was profitable. Paul told the elders in Ephesus.

5. He Had Trusted in God

Okay, now what did I talk to you about last Sunday? Remember this? Daniel in the lion’s den, and we looked at some impact phrases in the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. And these are the ones that we looked at. He entered his house, which showed his deliberate defiance of the defamation of the proclamation that was made. He was going to do what he had always done, regardless of what it meant. He was going to pray to God. And then there was Cyrus. He spent the night fasting over Ardarias. Your God, whom you constantly serve. Has he delivered you, Daniel? Yes, I have been found innocent by my God, despite the fact that he had violated the king’s command, and there was no injury to him whatever.

Because the text says he had trusted in God. And then all of those who were his accusers who had caused this ordinance to come to pass, they’re all thrown into the lion’s den. And the lions crushed all their bones. Somebody made an observation after the lesson that as they were trying to get Daniel out of the lion’s den and look for a way to bring him out. It’s like, you know, they’ve never had to do that before. Nobody’s ever come out of the lion’s den before. Daniel was the first and probably only to be retrieved from the lion’s den. And then I said to you, that I was going to talk to you more this week about the fact that he had trusted in God. Remember what the weightier matters were?

Faithfulness. Why was Daniel delivered from the lion’s den. What the emphasis here is not. You know, Daniel was delivered from the lion’s den because he was righteous and he was obedient. Oh, he was. He was. But that’s not how it’s explained. Because if you’re going to be righteous and obedient, let me tell you where that begins. It begins with faithfulness. He trusted in God. And David’s faith was active. Whatever the situation is that we confront, we persist in worship. We persist in the pursuit of his blessed will, and we let God handle the things which are beyond our control. And that’s what I commend to you tonight. Yes, there are people that mess up their approach to God. They believe things that are false. And sometimes they listen to people like the Pharisees and become twice as much a son of hell as they were, sadly.

The blind follow the blind and both fall into the ditch. And it is true that every plant not planted by my heavenly Father shall be rooted up. Matthew chapter 15 and verse 13. And while all that is true, and I’m telling you be careful in your approach to Scriptures. You be careful in your approach to God’s truth. It is the truth that sets free.

Because you’re going to face things in the world day by day. And our new sister in Christ that we’ve prayed for is going to face things day by day in her life, just like you have. Some of you are veterans of fighting the good fight of faith. You’ve been through hard times and challenges and valleys and days where it was difficult to put one foot in front of the other.

And I’m here to tell you, whatever the devil throws at you, it could be an injunction that gets you thrown into a lion’s den. Whatever the situation is that we confront, no matter how bad you’re hurting, no matter how disillusioned you become, no matter what even well-meaning brethren may say to you that discourages you. Whatever it is, persist in worship. That’s what we learned from Daniel. Persist in the pursuit of his blessed will. And know this control freaks.

Conclusion

David’s faith was confessed in the world. There was not a smidgen of shame. There was only a declaration of what is true. Let us never be ashamed of our Lord. He who gives attention to the word will find good. This is from the reading this week. He who gives attention to the word will find good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord. Would you agree with me that Daniel was blessed? Indeed he was. This is a thought that I shared with the class during our revelation study. And I’ve been impressed with it. I thought this week as I was writing this lesson about trusting in the Lord, this came to my mind. The John Piper quote that we used in the book of Revelation.

Abiding in Jesus is trusting that he really is loving us at every moment, and that everything he revealed about himself and our future is true. Jared said this today, and I thought it was good. Everything that the Bible says about Jesus is true. Or he is nothing. And that is absolutely so. Everything the Bible says about Jesus is true, or he is nothing. Everything that God revealed about himself and your future is true. And so, like David, in this weightier matter of the law tonight, cling to God in absolute confidence and unwavering trust. That leads to complete obedience. If you’re subject to his invitation, respond now as we stand and say.