A Good Servant Of Jesus Christ

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Good morning, church. Happy New Year. So glad to be with you today. If you are guest with us today, my name's Chet and I'd love the chance to meet you. But let's begin this new year in prayer and just invite God and ask for his help. So would you bow your head with me? Father, we thank you so much for the blessing of a new year. And Lord, we just look to your grace and your mercy to help us and to meet us. Father, we know the scriptures say your mercy is made new every day. And we trust that there is just new and fresh mercy for us for the year ahead. We pray that you'd bless us. We pray that we could draw near to you. We pray you'd be glorified in our lives and in our church. And so, Lord, draw us to focus this year on serving you and connecting with you in real ways. And we ask all this in the great name of Jesus. Amen. Well, when I was in elementary school, there was this thing called the Presidential Fitness Award. Anybody I heard it might be making a comeback. I'm not sure that's what made me think of it. But the Presidential Fitness Award, it was a very prestigious title. And it was like, for elementary kids that could do so many pull ups, run a mile in so much time, sit and reach, which is a flexibility test. And if you got scores in a certain, you know, percentile, you got the, you got that title, the Presidential Fitness. I mean, what could be higher than that? And I never got it, couldn't do pull ups, couldn't really run much and was not flexible. And all that is still true today. But I did get the Residential Fitness Award. This is a lesser known one, but it's like if you can eat a Star Crunch, a zebra cake and a Tahitian treat at once, you get it, it's a real thing. Yeah, maybe I made that one up. But, you know, but that was quite a title to have. And you know, I think as we enter this New Year, we're all probably have in mind, like maybe a new title that we want to hold in our life. Like maybe, you know, but 2026, by the end of 2026, like, I would like to be happier than I am right now. Like maybe that's something on our mind. Maybe I'd like to be a little fitter at the end of 2020. Anybody? Maybe I'd like to, you know, have a little more money in the bank and be a little more disciplined or wiser. We all probably have some aims in mind where at the end of the year, I hope that I can sort of carry this title in my life of having more or less of this. And I think that's a good thing. You know, a lot of people are really negative on New Year's resolutions and stuff. I think it's good. Like, you know, it's better than being like, uh, I hope this year, I hope I waste even more time. Like, what the. That's dumb. Yeah, let's aim to get better. But I think there are things that are more important than others. You with me on this? I think there are aims that are good and there are aims that are great. And today I wanna talk about an aim for each of us and for us as a church, an aim that the scripture's gonna say, if we aim for this, it's not only meaningful today, but it's actually meaningful through all eternity. That if we strive towards this, it matters over the absolute long haul. And I wanna show you this today. It's in the book of First Timothy. And we're gonna look at chapter four today. And if you have a Bible, you can turn there, you can look on the screen. But just to give you a little context, First Timothy is one of these letters that we call, like a pastoral letter. And the reason is, is the Apostle Paul is writing this. And he's writing this to a younger man that he's mentored and he's trained and who is now, like, pastoring a church in the ancient city of Ephesus. And he's giving them instruction, he's giving them guidance. He's saying, hey, this is what it looks like to do this. Well, it's what you need to focus on. And so we're kind of picking up in the middle of that instruction. And although it's specifically for Timothy, I think there's also a lot for all of us here today, too. And so I'm gonna pick up at verse 6, 1 Timothy 4, verse 6. It says this. If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus. And if you have a Bible, just underline that phrase, a good servants of Christ Jesus. I want to talk about that being an aim for us, that what would it look like this year in our lives to be a good servant of Christ Jesus? He says being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed have nothing to do with irreverent sillyness. Rather, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, Paul's like Planet Fitness, it's All right, Curves. It's cool. Jetty Craig, Is she still around? That was a big thing back in the day. I don't know. It's good. It's some value. Can I keep going? I'm kind of forgetting Fitness 19. It's cool. Well, bodily training is of some value. Godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. Paul says, yes, but training in this way, training our spirits and our souls, is of eternal value. He says the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end, we toil and strive because we have set our hope on the living God who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Now, just a word on that last phrase, because maybe you're reading that and you're like, that's kind of a. What distinction is Paul going after here? And just one helpful thing that I read on that is where Paul says he's a savior of all people. That word especially could also be translated this way, or more precisely, those who believe. So Paul's just kind of like, zeroing it in there. He says he's the savior of all people. In other words, those who believe. But in these verses, I love what Paul is showing Timothy and what he's showing us today. He's saying, timothy, here's what it looks like. Here's what it means to be a good servant of Christ Jesus. And when I think about this year, I think a great way to go about this year is to say, in my heart of hearts, I want to be a good servant of Christ this year. Yes, there's maybe a lot of other things I want to happen this year, and that's fine. But at the core, I want to be a good servant of Christ. Now, I think that aim is incredibly important. In fact, Jesus in the book of Matthew, he talks in Matthew 25, and he says, at the end of our lives, essentially the greatest title you can have is Christ looking at each of us and saying, well done, good and faithful servant. And so I think that title really means something. I think it's something that should be on the forefront of our minds. And I think Paul is echoing these words of Jesus, and he's saying, timothy, aim to be a good servant of Christ. And I want that for us today, too. And basically, he just kind of shows us three ways to do that. Number one is leading by example. Number two is training in godliness. And number three is working toward a worthy or a noble end. So let's talk about these today. So how do we be a good servant of Christ? Well, first, Paul says to Timothy, you have to lead by example. Now, I just want us to think in our hearts for a moment today. I think every year we're confronted with this question, who am I going to serve this year? Is this year gonna be in service to self, or is it gonna be in service to God? See, I think the beginning point of this year is just kind of looking in our hearts honestly and saying, what am I gonna do this year? Who am I gonna serve? Jesus says, you cannot serve two masters. You will love one and you will hate the other. You can't do both. You have to decide at some point. And I think when I think about my own life, there's too many times where I put me above God, anyone with me. And here's what I've learned. It doesn't work well. It's not the way it's supposed to be that I am a terrible master of myself. [00:10:29] Speaker B: You with me on this. [00:10:31] Speaker A: But when God is the priority, then things fall in order in the way that they ought to be. [00:10:40] Speaker B: You with me on this. [00:10:41] Speaker A: And so today we have to decide, who am I going to serve this year? Who is king? Is it self, or is it Christ? And Paul calls to us, says, make Christ the one that you serve. And then the second question we have to answer is, what kind of servant will I be to him? Paul says to Timothy, be a good servant. Which seems to imply to me that there's other categories of servants. You could be a bad one. You could be a one, you know, that's all right. Or you could be a good one, and I want to be a good one, and I want to serve Christ well. And Paul says, timothy, if you do these things, you will be a good, good servant of Christ Jesus. And that's what I want in my heart. And I hope you do, too. I hope at the end of the day we can think about this year and say, you know what? At the end of this year, I want to have this sense that I have served Christ well with my life. And then Paul tells Timothy how to do it. And he begins and he says, look, Timothy, the way God is going to use you is that he's gonna use you to teach others, you know. Cause that was kind of part of Timothy's primary calling. He was a preacher and a teacher. But Paul says, but in order to do that well, you first have to be nourished in the words of faith, in the good doctrine. In other words, What Paul is saying to Timothy, he's saying, timothy, if you're gonna fulfill God's purpose for you, if you're gonna serve him well, then you have to first kind of take your own medicine. If you're gonna be a man God uses to teach others, then you have to first be a devoted student. And you have to live and practice what you preach. And I think that is so important in life. I think the only real way to lead is. Is by example. That if we want things in our lives, in our families, in our world to be different, it's gotta begin with us. And I wanna look at this year, and I wanna look around and say, lord, what do you wanna happen in my life? What do you wanna do? And let me be the beginning point that change. [00:13:23] Speaker B: You with me on this. [00:13:24] Speaker A: God uses that powerfully. Because so many times what God wants to do through our lives, he first wants to do in my life. Almost every week, like, I'm writing a sermon and I'm like, oh, wow. I think this is actually, for me, that's just the way the Lord works. He wants to be at work in us, changing us, developing, and then he'll work through us. And Paul says to Timothy, timothy, you gotta be nourished on the words. You've gotta learn and grow. And then you're in a place where you can serve God well. And today I want just us to think about, what does it look like in our own life? Maybe we're looking at people in our life and we're like, oh, man, I hope they get their act together this year. I hope they. But maybe we need to look in the mirror and say, lord, what are you calling out of me? [00:14:23] Speaker B: You with me? [00:14:24] Speaker A: And where can I take responsibility to do good? I love people in this world who maybe something isn't in their. It's not their problem necessarily, but they take responsibility to make it better. You, you with me on that? I love people like that. In our neighborhood where we live, behind our house, there's this contested area of land, and there's all these electric poles and stuff. And so one theory is that the electric company owns this plot of land. And then the other theory is that our neighborhood owns this plot of land. And yet no one can agree on it. And so it doesn't get the mowed. It doesn't get mowed. You know, so for, like, first several years of living there, it just kind of became like a nature preserve. Cause the electric company's like, nope, that's not my problem, that's yours. And the neighborhood's like, nope, that's not our problem. That's yours. And then so nothing got done. And so finally one day, and it was behind, you know, right behind our house, so we got the joy of looking at it all the time. And one day, all of a sudden, I see this dude on a huge mower just mowing it all down. I was like, wait, that guy? I've seen him before. He lives up the street. And I went up and I was like, dude, thanks for cutting this down. Thanks for doing that. He's like, yeah. He's like, I'm just kind of sick of it and sick of people fighting about it. I'm just gonna do it. And I was like, that is so awesome. And not only that, this guy has an Irish accent. And I was like, you could just say anything, and it's awesome. And do you think, like, people from Ireland are like, wow, that guy has a Northeast Ohio accent. He can say anything. Those nasally A's, wow, they're just like music to my ears. Somehow it doesn't feel like it goes both ways on that. But he just made it his response. He kind of made it his problem. He's like, I'm gonna do good here. And I think one of the ways that we become good servants of Christ is we just say, man, where can I take ownership? Where can I take responsibility? Where can I lead by example? [00:16:55] Speaker B: You with me on this? [00:16:56] Speaker A: And Paul calls Timothy and he says, look, you lead first, you go first. And that is the beginning point of being a good servant of Christ. And then he says this. He says, and you have to train yourself for godliness. Now, this whole section, he begins that part by. He first says, timothy, avoid irreverence and silly miss. Now, that sentence might be a little bit strange to us because, you know, a reverend and silly Miss Night might not be something like we struggle with in our lives, you know, but here's maybe a broader way to understand it. He's saying, timothy, if you are going to be a good servant of Christ, you have to first avoid distractions in your life. See, I think that distraction is not a modern problem. I think it's a human problem. That part of what keeps us from being the men and women that God wants us to be is not that we don't want to be it, it's that our life gets distracted from it. [00:18:13] Speaker B: You with me on this. [00:18:14] Speaker A: And it's everything is competing for our attention and our focus, and our energy's going to the wrong places. And our time's going to the wrong places and our efforts going to the wrong places. And so because of that, we miss the opportunity to be who God's calling us to be. [00:18:33] Speaker B: You with me on this. [00:18:34] Speaker A: And so Paul says, timothy, if you're gonna be a good servant, you gotta train. And the first step in training is minimizing distractions, is avoiding some things. And he talks about profane and silly myths. And if we just think about that for a second, irreverent just means profane, you know, like non sacred, just not good. And in your life and my life, I want us just to ask ourselves, is there anything profane in my life? I just need to avoid or cut out. Is there anything in my life this year that I know? It's like, look, I don't need to pray about if this is a good or bad thing. This is a bad thing. I just need to cut it out. I just need to avoid it. That's what Paul's talking about here. What are the things in my life that I know they're not good, I know they're not honoring to God, they're not going to move me forward. Paul says, you got to avoid that because that will slow us down. Now, the other one is silly. Maybe there's things that in our life that if you focus on them, they don't produce any good fruit. In your life, it's like they're not outright bad, but they're not productive, they're not fruitful, they're not helpful. [00:19:58] Speaker B: You with me on this? [00:19:59] Speaker A: And Paul says, you gotta avoid those things. What trips you up? What are you giving your time and attention to that isn't producing anything good? And then he says this, and you must then train yourself for Godliness. Now, I think we all know there's a big difference between training and trying. These are very different things. If you were to go leave service here and try to run a marathon, you could try very, very, very hard, but you're probably not gonna do it. Amen. You could try with all your heart and soul. You could, you know, listen to Aya the tiger while you run, but it's not going to work. But if you start training today and over the next six months or a year you train, then you probably could do it at some point. [00:21:00] Speaker B: You with me? [00:21:01] Speaker A: There's a difference there. And so what Paul is saying is, look, we can't just try to be different people. We have to train to be different people. And training is about discipline. Training is about doing a little bit every day in a way that Reshapes and moves me toward becoming the person God wants me to be. See, I like to think about it this way. In our lives, I don't think we act according to our beliefs. I think we act according to our desires. See, I know that, like, you know, unhealthy food's gonna make me feel bad and I'm gonna regret it. Like, I know that. I intellectually 100% believe it. But when there's a box of zebra cakes right in front of me, the desire wins out. The desire overrides what I know to be true. Anybody? Right? I know. It's like, dude, all right, turn the TV off, go to bed. But the desire. And at the end of the day, we often don't really actually live according to what we believe. But we live according to the desires, to the loves of our heart and what training in godliness is is. Training in godliness is where we have habits and practices that grow our love and reverence for God. [00:22:41] Speaker B: You with me on this? [00:22:43] Speaker A: I don't believe you can white knuckle your life to becoming who God wants you to be. I don't believe you can get, like, a bamboo stick and just crack yourself all over the back and it's gonna whip you into shape. I believe that we are changed. As our affection for God grows, our love for God grows. And guess what? It pushes out all the junk. [00:23:10] Speaker B: You with me? [00:23:11] Speaker A: Now? All of a sudden, I want God more than I want this unhealthy habit in my life. I want God more than I wanna sleep for an extra half hour. I wanna get up and I wanna read His Word and I wanna pray because I wanna connect with him. And so the love and the desire begins to expel the unhealthy stuff. [00:23:35] Speaker B: You with me on this? [00:23:36] Speaker A: There was a phenomenal sermon from 1819. Very old sermon, but it was by this guy named Thomas Chalmers. And it was called the Expulsive Power of a New Affection. The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. And basically in that sermon. A lot of people have written about that sermon for the last 200 years. Cause it was just so powerful. But a lot of what he says in that sermon is that we can't replace things in our life. Like, all right, I'm just gonna stop doing this. I'm gonna stop struggling with it. We can't just replace it. It has to be expelled by a greater desire, a greater, holier desire. And that's what I believe training in godliness is about. It's about growing my love and reverence for God every day through some core disciplines. [00:24:38] Speaker B: You with me on this? [00:24:39] Speaker A: And so here's just what I would say to us today. If you are a new Christian or if you're kind of like returning back to the faith. I think one of the, I think the most important habit to help train for godliness to begin in your life is daily Bible reading. I think that is the foundational habit or it has been in my life. And, and if you can get that habit going in this year, it can be a foundation to build a lot of other ones on top of you. [00:25:19] Speaker B: With me on this. [00:25:20] Speaker A: Now, I know that might sound, for some of us, that might sound like an intimidating feat. You know, you might be like, chad, I don't like reading. Get over. You'll love it. All right, you can do it. But here's the deal. I did put together a little article about this in our Christchurch app. So if you haven't downloaded the Christchurch app, you can download it. And I have an article about like a Bible reading plan that I strongly recommend. So like every day it will tell you what to read. I have in there Bibles, a Bible that I recommend and just kind of a couple thoughts to help you get going on that practice. Don't start from the book of Genesis and be like, I'm reading straight through. Like you can get, you can try that. But I know many good brothers and sisters fell in a ditch along that path. There are other paths, we have them, they're super helpful. So go on the app, check that out or we'll get it out to you in other ways. But if that is not part of your training plan, then let that be your first priority. Start there. Now if that is a foundation in your life and that's awesome, then I want you to think about what's another layer God wants to build on top of your training plan that is gonna grow your love and your reverence for him. One of the things that I like to do as we kinda enter the new year is I like to just like take a little time and I just think and pray and I'm like, alright, Lord, what do you want me to focus on? And I ask God to just like lead me to a verse that can be a focus point for me. Like, Lord, just like kind of show me. Look, I know there's a million areas I need to grow, but I also know it's better to focus on one. And as I was praying about it this year, for me, Galatians 5, 6 came to mind. It says this, it Says neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything but only faith working through love. I was like, all right, that's my focal point for this year. Faith working through love. I want to be a man of greater faith, but I want that faith to express itself through love. Not arrogance, not harshness, but love and service to others. And I have kind of a couple ideas, things that I want to do in my life, to nurture that and encourage that. But my point in telling you that is, again, if you have daily Bible reading as a foundation, then just sort of ask God, all right, what's another layer? What's another brick? What do I need to focus on to train for godliness so I can be a good. And then Paul says this. He says, you gotta train for godliness. Trying isn't gonna work. We gotta train. I can wake up and I'm gonna try to do best. It's not gonna work. I need to train towards that. And then he says this. And he says, for this end, we toil and strive because we have set our hope on the living God. Who is the Savior. All people. Paul says, we work really hard. We work hard so others might know Christ as their Savior. Paul says, here's what a good servant of Christ does. They work hard so others might know Christ as Savior. I want to work hard for that end. How about you? I want to be a church that can say that with the apostle Paul. Lord, we will work hard for that. We will work hard that others might know Christ as a savior. When I look back at 2025, I would say we did work hard as a church. 2025, not an easy year for us. Not in any way. But everything we have been doing, leaving the comfort of South Abbey, Remember how comfortable it was? Kind of. I know the temptation is to glorify it in our minds like the ancient Israelites are. Like, we loved Egypt. What was the problem? How quickly we forget. But we've challenged ourselves. We're doing really hard things. Every Sunday, people sweat in the morning. Setting this place up, they sweat. It's hard work. Spiritual, physical, all the change. It's all hard work. But why are we doing that? So others might know Christ. That's it. And we will always work hard for that. Amen. We will always strive for that. In fact, Paul says. He says we work hard because we've set our hope on the living God. When I started in ministry, I started in 2004 when I came on staff at the church. And at that time, like when you would read Any like, article about Christianity in America, it was always super negative. It was always like, no one, you know, people are moving away from God in droves. And like every article was like, you know, so doom and gloom about Christianity, about the church. It was like, is this, you know, the world, the Western world just becoming totally secularized? And like there was all this like hostility and all this kind of thing. And I would like, you know, read it, but I never really believed it. So I was like, no, God is always at work. As much as there's ugly and terrible things in the world, there are also immense experiences of his goodness and his power and his mercy. I was like, I read that, but I don't buy it. Because he is alive, he's at work, he's still reaching people and glorifying his name. Well now, in these last couple years now, everyone in our world can't seem to deny that God is at work. Now, like college campuses are experiencing spontaneous revivals. Bible sales are higher than they've ever been in history. Now it's like people even they wanna say, well, for the first time in like decades, church attendance actually went up on a national scale. Cause God is alive and at work. And so what do you do when God is working in the world? What do you do? You roll up your sleeves and you join him. [00:32:55] Speaker B: You with me on this. [00:32:57] Speaker A: We are willing to work when it's tough and we're willing to work when the blessing and favor of God is moving forward. And I think we are in a special season of God's blessing. And I think it matters so much that we say, lord, we are willing to be your partner and your co worker in this. Paul says, we work hard. We've set our hope on the living God who is the Savior of all people. Now here's what I love about Jesus Christ is if you give your life to him, he will fulfill you. If we give our lives, we're going to give our lives somewhere this year. We're going to give our heart and soul to, to someone or to something. [00:33:49] Speaker B: You with me. [00:33:50] Speaker A: It might be in service to self, might be in service to something. We're gonna give it somewhere. But here's the deal. Only in giving it to Christ will you actually gain what ultimately matters. [00:34:07] Speaker B: You'll gain him. [00:34:09] Speaker A: And if you fail him, he will forgive you. He's so good, he will forgive everyone else that we give our lives to. It'll end up crushing us or enslaving us. But when we give it to Christ, it frees us. It fulfills us. And even when we fail him, he forgives us. He alone is worthy of our service and our trust. And this year we say, I want to be a good servant to Christ. Let's pray and ask his help. Father, We pray that you would just stir in our hearts just that noble desire to be a good servant of Jesus Christ. Father, I know there's room in your heart and our hearts for a lot of other desires and that's fine. But I pray there would just be a sense of gravity to the desire to be a good servant. I pray, Lord, we would just decide from the outset that we will serve you. For first and foremost, I pray that would be the desire of our heart. I pray we could serve you well in whatever you've entrusted us with. I pray we could train ourselves for godliness. That Lord, you'd help us to have some rhythms, some habits, some routines this year that make us more the soul you want us to be. And I pray, Lord, that we would work hard so others would know you as Savior. I pray, Lord, we would not grow weary in doing good. But Father, we would keep going knowing that there will be a good harvest and you'll be glorified. Bless us, Help us in all this, Lord, we can't do it without you. And we pray your name would be glorified in Jesus name, Amen.