In 1 Timothy 6.17-19, we are warned against abusing the good gifts of God and are exhorted to worship the giver and not the gifts. In verse 17, we find two ways to avoid worshiping our wealth: 1) by not becoming proud about our wealth and 2) by not setting our hope in our wealth. Then in verses 18-19, we find four ways to worship God with our wealth: 1) enjoying our wealth as a gift, 2) prioritizing true wealth, 3) sharing our wealth, and 4) storing up heavenly wealth.

Perseverance is one of the hardest things to practice in life. But in 1 Timothy 6.11-16 Paul exhorts Timothy to persevere in gospel-faithfulness. In verses 11-14, we see how Christians persevere (flee worldliness, pursue maturity, fight for the faith, holdfast eternal life, keep the commandment, and remember heaven’s witnesses). Then in verses 15-16, we see two motivations for why Christians persevere (the Son’s appearing and the Father’s glory).

In 1 Timothy 6.6-10, Paul explains how godliness (devotion and conformity to Jesus) and contentment (a happy trust in the sufficiency of Jesus) is great gain. In this text, we can find three reasons why contentment is gain: 1) contentment weans us off this present world, 2) contentment satisfies us in God’s perfect care, 3) contentment delivers us from temporal and eternal ruin.

Titus 3.1-2 teaches us that Christians must work for the good of the place they live. We are exhorted to honor those around us regardless of our status in society. There are three truths we find in our text: 1) a great reminder, 2) our behavior towards authorities, 3) our behavior towards everyone else. 

In 1 Timothy 6.2-5, we find that the church must teach and urge one another in sound doctrine. And if we’re going to do that we must understand two things: 1) the Nature of False Teaching and 2) the Fruit of False Teaching. False Teaching opposes the Lordship of Christ and godliness and it always reaps corruption in our minds and desires.

This past week we lost a dear sister after a year-long grueling battle with cancer. She exemplified what it meant to glorify Jesus in her living and in her dying. And so, in honor of her life and death, we took a break from 1 Timothy to consider two simple truths from Philippians 1.21 to help us follow in her foot steps: 1)to Live is Christ and 2) to Die is Gain.

In 1 Timothy 6.1-2, we find Paul’s instructions to slaves and how they are to relate to their masters. In order to better understand Paul’s approach to slavery, it’s important to understand three perspectives: 1) the historical perspective, 2) the scriptural perspective, and 3) the gospel perspective. The closest application to us today who live in a free society is our relationships to our employers. And in this text Paul gives two motivations for why we should work with excellence and honor our employers: 1) the glory of God and 2) the good of my brother.

The gospel is meant to radically change everything about us. In Titus 2.11-15, Kenny Komatsu helps us understand seven ways the gospel changes people: 1) it saves us, 2) it trains us, 3) it makes us wait eagerly, 4) it redeems us, 5) it purifies us, 6) it motivates us, and lastly 7) it makes us proclaimers.

In 1 Timothy 5.21-25, we continue to consider how the church is called to honor the role and work of Pastors. Last week we saw that we do this by: 1) providing for them, 2) protecting them, and 3) rebuking them. In this sermon we consider one last way to honor the pastor, which is by wisely affirming them. We also consider one big motivation for all this, which is that all of this is done before the witness of heaven.

To kick off the new year, we jump back in our 1 Timothy series looking specifically at 1 Timothy 5.17-20. In this text what we find our three ways that God calls the congregation to honor the pastorate (by pastorate, we mean the office, the work, and the man). The ways we honor the pastorate is by 1) Providing for their needs, 2) Protecting them from false accusations, and 3) Rebuking them before all.

In Luke 2.8-20, we see that the good news of Jesus’ arrival is a gospel of great joy. it’s meant to lead us to rejoicing that overflows into every area of our lives, including in our relationships with unbelievers. In this sermon there are two main ideas that we highlight: 1) Good News (8-12) and 2) Great Joy (13-20).

In Luke 2.1-7, Mike Komatsu helps us to see how the Sovereignty of the Father and the Humility of the Son are put on display through the birth of Christ Jesus.

Everybody knows what exultation looks and feels like because we all exult (celebrate and rejoice) in different things. You were created to exult, but not just in good things, you were created to exult or in the best things. You were made to exult in God. And one of the primary ways we do that is by exulting in God and his faithfulness to his word. In Luke 1.39-80 we find three examples of exultation: 1) Elizabeth and her baby, 2) Mary, and 3) Zachariah. They all exult in God’s faithfulness and the church should follow their example.

In Luke 1.26-38, we find a shocking and glorious announcement. The king that has been promised (like we saw last week in Isaiah 11) has finally arrived. As the son of David he will establish the throne of David, but as the son of the Virgin Mary, he will be so much greater than David. He will be the Son of God, which is evidenced by his miraculous conception by the Spirit in the womb of Mary.

In Isaiah 11, God promises a future King and a future Kingdom that will be unlike anythign we’ve ever experienced before. As Christians we know that this promised king is Jesus and his kingdom is now here and at the same time is not yet fully here. And we must live and long for Christ’s kingdom.

If we’re going to do that we need to continue growing in our understanding of Christ as King. In this text we find 5 characteristics of the promised king. He will be: 1) Restored King, 2) Anointed King, 3) Righteous King, 4) Edenic King, and 5) Universal King.

As we take a break from our 1 Timothy series, Pastor Chris Komatsu (Lanai Baptist Church) preaches from Genesis 5. In Genesis 5, pastor Chris helps us to see that Moses wrote this genealogy with great intentionality. Within the lineage of Seth, we find four patterns of similarities and 3 irregularities. All of them in their own ways are intended to point us to Christ, the promised Savior of the world.

We spend one more week thinking about the truth we find in 1 Timothy 5.3-16. This Sunday we unpack the idea that if we’re going to be a church who faithfully cares for the needy, we must first care for the needs of our own family. This means that we cannot faithfully care for the needy in the church while at the same time neglect to care for the needs of our own households. In this sermon, we consider three motivations for why we should care for our own families: 1) Our Care Honors Our Family, 2) Our Care Honors Our Church, and 3) Our Care Honors Our King.

The church is a spiritual family committed to caring for one another. In 1 Timothy 5.3-16, we see this is especially true when it comes to widows in the church. If the church is going to be faithful to Jesus, we must discern all the various needs within in the body and prioritize caring for those who are truly needy. In these verses there are two main ideas we find:

1) Where We Should Not Prioritize Care and 2) Where We should Prioritize Care.

The ultimate reason the church cares for the needy and vulnerable is because that’s exactly who we were before Christ and God in infinite mercy demonstrated divine care for us in the gospel.

How are things with your soul? That’s the most important question you could ask yourself today. In Psalm 131 what we find are 4 marks of a content soul: 1) Humility, 2) Trust, 3) Hope, 4) Perseverance. These are characteristics that marked David’s soul and they must be cultivated in ours if we are going to experience what Jeremiah Burroughs called the rare jewel of Christian Contentment.

Josh Lockhart preaches from Ephesians 2.11-13. Here we see that Christians cannot forget where we came. We must remember our hopeless past so that we can always thankfully rejoice for what Christ has done for us. Here he shows us two ways to do that: 1) we are commanded to remember and 2) in response, we are to rejoice.