God thinks more of you than you do. Think about that for a second. This episode of the Bible Breakdown podcast with Pastor Brandon promises to enlighten and encourage, as we tackle one of the most controversial scriptures in the New Testament. Set in the turbulent times of 60-62 AD, just before Paul's martyrdom, we explore his poignant letter to his spiritual son, Timothy. Leading a burgeoning church in Ephesus, Timothy's young shoulders bore the weight of guiding thousands—both the elderly and new converts alike. Through Paul’s Holy Spirit-driven guidance, we'll uncover how Timothy was inspired to embrace his divine calling with boldness and creativity.
Join us as we peel back the layers of 1 Timothy, chapter 1, revealing the profound wisdom Paul passed on to his protege. With a bustling church community of up to five thousand members, Timothy’s leadership was indispensable. Paul’s letters, written with a fatherly touch, offer timeless lessons on living up to God’s vision for us. Amidst the challenges and opportunities, this episode highlights how believers can find strength and courage through scripture’s enduring relevance. Pastor Brandon’s insightful discussion promises to deepen your understanding and faith, equipping you to face your own spiritual journey with newfound confidence.
God thinks more of you than you do. Think about that for a second. This episode of the Bible Breakdown podcast with Pastor Brandon promises to enlighten and encourage, as we tackle one of the most controversial scriptures in the New Testament. Set in the turbulent times of 60-62 AD, just before Paul's martyrdom, we explore his poignant letter to his spiritual son, Timothy. Leading a burgeoning church in Ephesus, Timothy's young shoulders bore the weight of guiding thousands—both the elderly and new converts alike. Through Paul’s Holy Spirit-driven guidance, we'll uncover how Timothy was inspired to embrace his divine calling with boldness and creativity.
Join us as we peel back the layers of 1 Timothy, chapter 1, revealing the profound wisdom Paul passed on to his protege. With a bustling church community of up to five thousand members, Timothy’s leadership was indispensable. Paul’s letters, written with a fatherly touch, offer timeless lessons on living up to God’s vision for us. Amidst the challenges and opportunities, this episode highlights how believers can find strength and courage through scripture’s enduring relevance. Pastor Brandon’s insightful discussion promises to deepen your understanding and faith, equipping you to face your own spiritual journey with newfound confidence.
Hello everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today. 1 Timothy, chapter 1, and today's title is simply going to be God Thinks More of you Than you Do. God thinks more of you than you do. We're going to get into that in just a second, and probably one of the two or three scriptures that is by far the most controversial scriptures in the entire New Testament we're going to get into in this book of the Bible and we're going to also give you the background of this book to really give it. I love these couple of letters for coming up next few books in the New Testament, but we'll get into all that in just a moment. As always, if you like what we're doing, make sure you like share, subscribe to YouTube channel and the podcast, make sure you leave us your comments on the YouTube channel and the podcast, give us a five-star review on the podcast and, as always, we gather together at the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook because the more we dig, the more we find. That is definitely going to be true with 1 Timothy and it's going to be fun. It's going to be a fun ride, and so if you want to go ahead and open up your Bible to 1 Timothy, chapter 1,.
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I want to give a little bit of background about 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy, chapter 1,. I want to give a little bit of background about 1 Timothy. One of the things I love about this is this is kind of the insider information that the Holy Spirit inspired for us to know about what was going on behind the scenes in the life of Paul. So this was written in about 60 to 62 AD. Paul would be martyred not long after this, and so this is some of the final letters he's ever going to write, and he is writing this to a young man named Timothy.
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Now Timothy started off as a fellow missionary with the apostle Paul. He was there with a guy named Silas and he traveled with Luke, who later would write the book of Acts and the gospel of Luke. And Timothy was a spiritual son to Paul and you'll hear him talk about that my son in the faith and so he's not his physical son, but he's been as kind of his protege and he's been raising him up all along the way. And the big idea of 1 and 2 Timothy is the idea of encouraging someone to take responsibility for the opportunities and limitations God has placed before them. What has happened is is he has went and he has sent Timothy to the city of Ephesus.
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The city of Ephesus was a very spiritually active city. They had started a church and it has grown wildly. Some estimates say that a lot of these churches would meet in small house churches and then they'd have all all this would be together. But when they all came together some say it could have been between three and 5,000 people that were part of this overall church in Ephesus, and they needed a lot of organization. They needed leadership. They needed someone to teach them the word.
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At that point, the word was the things that was coming out and the gospels that were being written as it was getting spread around, the things that Paul was teaching and a whole lot of the Old Testament. That's what they had, and so they needed leaders who knew how to do this, knew how to stand up and say what needed to be said with boldness and with courage. And so Paul was sending these different ones out there and Timothy was being sent as a young man to be the pastor of this massive church and to put things in organization, and he was going to be pastoring people who were older than him, pastor, people who knew the law but were new to Christianity, and just all these kinds of things, and I can only imagine how intimidating it must be, or must have been, for this person to be representing Paul, representing Christ, representing all this stuff, and he's just coming in to take over. And so what Paul is doing is he is inspired of the Holy Spirit, he's writing to this young pastor and he's encouraging him how to make the most of what God had called him to do. So I think the overall theme would be how to live up to God's vision for you.
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How to live up to God's vision for you, because here's the thing, that's why we have as the title of the first chapter that is, that God thinks more of you than you do, and that is that God has a plan for your life, and that plan that he has for your life is going to take your whole life to get there, but he has a plan and he's working on that, and many times God's plan is different from ours, but it is always better than ours. So we're going to get started, and I want you to think of this as this now, older wise apostle Paul, he's been there and he's done that. He started several churches. He's been beat up countless times, he's been shipwrecked, he's been stoned, probably to death, and they probably raised him back to life again. He's had all these different things. He's spoken in front of Kings and all this stuff and now, as an old, kind of grizzled veteran, he is training up this next generation and he's saying, man, god's got a big idea for you and I want to give you some good best practices on how to live up to all that God has for you. And I wonder, if we read this, no matter how old you are, if God would say this to you today and that is, god's still got a plan for you. So here's some good best practices on how you can live up to the potential that God has given you. You ready? 1. Timothy 1, verse 1 says this you ready? 1. Timothy 1, verse 1 says this this letter is from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, appointed by the command of God, our Savior, and Christ Jesus who gives us hope. I'm writing to Timothy, my true son, in the faith. May God, the Father, and Christ Jesus, our Lord, give you grace, mercy and peace. When I left Macedonia, I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those who were teaching and what was contrary to the truth. Don't let them waste their time in endless discussions of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations which do not help people live a life of faith in God. So in other words, he's saying I sent you there to stop all the false teaching and to stop all the things that don't matter and help them get on with the business of living the spirit-filled, christ-like life in community. All right, verse five the purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience and genuine faith. But some people have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions. They want to be known as teachers of the law of Moses, but they don't want to know what they're talking about, even though they speak so confidently. We know that the law is good when used correctly, and you ever wondered, by the way, you ever wondered why the law was even written. Why was the law written? Well, here it is, verse nine. For the law was not intended for people who do what is right. It is for people who are lawless and rebellious, who are ungodly and who are sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who kill their father or their mother, who commit murders. The law is for people who are sexually immoral, who practice homosexuality, slave traders, liars, promise breakers or do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching that comes from the glorious good news entrusted to me by our blessed God. Pause again. What he's saying is is the law is not for people who are perfect. The law is for people who are imperfect, because what the law does is it shows them their sin and shows them their need for a Savior. That's why the law is there. And notice he says all the things Sexually immoral, homosexuals, slave traders, liars, promise breakers, those who do anything that contradicts wholesome teaching. That's why it's there, and so it's important for him to realize. Notice that he says all these things. It's not God's idea for you. And so there's controversial thing. Number one is Paul's telling Timothy hey, people who identify as homosexual help them to realize their identity is found in Christ. That's a sin and they need forgiveness for it. It's not an identity. You weren't born that way. It's a sexual brokenness, just like sexual immorality is a brokenness. Adultery, homosexuality, lesbianism, transgenderism, all that kind of stuff, all of that Same thing. It's sin. That's why the law is there is to tell you it's wrong and that you need a savior. So Paul's telling it just like it is here's verse 12. It says I thank Christ, our Lord, who has given me strength to do this. He considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him. I love that. Even though I used to blaspheme the name of Christ in my insolence, I persecuted his people, but God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. Oh, how generous and how gracious our Lord was. He filled me with faith and love that come from Christ Jesus. This is a trustworthy saying and everyone should accept it. Christ came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them all, but God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst of sinners. Then others will realize that they too can believe in him and receive eternal life. All honor and glory to God forever and ever. He is the eternal king, the unseen one who never dies. He alone is God. Amen, timothy, my son, here are my instructions for you, based on the prophetic words spoken about you earlier. May they help you to fight well in the Lord's battles. Cling to your faith in Christ. Keep your conscience clear, for some people have deliberately violated their consciences and, as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked how Menaeus and Alexander are two examples. I threw them out and handed them over to Satan so that they may learn not to blaspheme. So, as you can see, paul is telling it like it is and I love it. I love that he is telling it like it is. And then we are there, left to go. Okay, what does he mean by this? Because he said it clearly. So this is clearly what it means. These are the principles. And what do I do? Even right there, at the end, he said hey, there were two people. I threw them out, they're out. Well, I thought we were supposed to love everybody Absolutely, and sometimes loving people is putting a boundary in our life and going. You can't, you can't be part of this and let, if you cross this boundary, remember Matthew 18 says if you have a problem with a brother, if there's sin that's going on, you go to them privately, you go to them with two or three, you go with spiritual leaders and then you tell them to get out we love you, but you're not one of us. If you want to come back, you've got to repent. And that's hard. But the whole goal was for them to see this is serious business. And so then they turn their hearts back to the Lord. And so man Paul ain't messing around. So that's what we're going to get when we get 1 Timothy is we're going to get both barrels of just honesty, and it's refreshing. It's also hard because it's going to just fly in the face of our modern culture. But that's one of the things I love about God's Word. It's God's Word don't care about our culture. It cares about what's timeless and that is our salvation and the healing and us walking toward God in every area of our life. And so as we finish up on chapter one remember the title is God thinks more of you than you do Notice back at verse 12, when God's word says Paul is saying I thank God that he has given me the strength to do his work. He considered me trustworthy, appointing me to serve him. Then notice how he said I did all the bad things when I came to Christ. I had nothing going for me. I had blasphemed God, I'd done everything you could think of to do wrong, but it was God that saw more in me than I saw in myself, can I tell you? That's your testimony and that's mine. All of us have gone the wrong way. All of us have sinned in some point in our life. That's what God's word says. This is for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous no, not one. But then Romans 5, 8 says but God demonstrated his great love for us in that, while we were still sinners, christ died for us. He looked at you and he saw someone worth saving. Not only that, but then, when he saves you, he gives you the dignity of giving you a ministry. Now we have to really think hard and be sure that we don't limit the idea of ministry to something that happens on Sunday. Now, truly, ministry does happen on Sunday, but ministry happens all seven days of the week. Ministry is anything you do as an act of worship to serve someone else. Therefore, ministry can be anything. Ministry can be cooking meals for those who can't cook for themselves. It can be visiting someone when they can't get out of the house. It can be sharing the gospel with somebody. It can be having a God-honoring conversation with someone. It can be anything you do as an act of worship to serve someone else. And God has given you the dignity and the honor of having that opportunity. And that's what God has done in the life of Timothy. He's given him the opportunity to go and lead these people. And so, as we continue in 1 Timothy, remember the overall theme is it is how to live up to what God's idea is for you. And God's got an idea for you. And the Apostle Paul, inspired of the Holy Spirit, is going to give us some principles on how we can take those next steps. Let's pray together, god, as we get ready to walk into this wonderful book of the Bible. God, it's going to be challenging. It's going to cause us to have to stretch, have to think and have to really just make sure that our lives line up with you, not try to get your word to line up with us. We humble ourselves under your word. Teach us, guide us, lead us toward freedom. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen, amen. God's word says in 1 Timothy, 4, verse 12, don't let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith and your purity. For some of us, when you take out the word young and put in whatever it is that the enemy wants to lie to you and to tell you, that makes you less than. Don't let anyone think less of you because of whatever's happened in your life. God's got a big idea for you. I look forward to digging into it more tomorrow. For 2 Timothy 2.
