HOLINESS – LIVING ON THE RUN
(I Tim. 6:11)
Overview of I Tim. 4:1-6:11
4:1-2 How False Teaching Enters the Church
4:3-5 Common Grace
4:6 Word of God in Life of the Believer
4:7a Godliness – Divine / Human Role
4:7b Train Yourself to be Godly
4:7c Spiritual Disciplines (The Word of God)
4:7d Spiritual Disciplines (Devotions, Worship)
4.7e Spiritual Disciplines (Church Attendance, Journaling, Practicing Presence of God)
4:8-9 Why Godliness Has Great Value
4:10 Putting Our Hope in the Living God
4:12 Setting an Example for Believers
4:13 What a Christian Worship Service Looked Like in the First Century
4:14 Neglecting the Spiritual Gift God has Given Us
4:15-16 Getting Home Before Dark
5:1-2 So, How Should We Describe the Church?
5:3-16 God’s Tilt Towards the Disenfranchised
5:3-16 Sorting Out those Worthy of Relief – A Biblical Approach to Social Welfare
5:3-16 The Biblical Rationale for Providing for Relatives
5:5-16 The Tale of Two Widows – A Biblical Approach to Pleasure
5:9-10 The Good Works of a New Testament Woman
5:11-14 The Younger Widows – Breaking Celibacy Vows
5:11-14 The Younger Widows – Gossiping False Teaching
5:15 Satan’s Effort to Keep Jesus from Fulfilling His Mission
5:17-18 Honoring the Work of Elders
5:19-20 How NT Church Discipline Illustrates Cultural Formation
5:21 Partiality – A Christian Problem?
5:22-24 Selecting Church Leadership
5:23 The Christian’s Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Beverages
6:1 Honoring God’s Name
6:1-2 A What In Christianity Undermined Slavery?
6:1-2 B The Evangelical Awakening and Abolition of Slavery
6:1-2 C Masters and Slaves / Employers and Employees
6:3-5 Why Do Some Christians Become False Teachers?
6:6-8 Christian Contentment
6:9-10 For the Love of Money
6:11 Holiness – Living on the Run
11But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.
INTRODUCTION:
1. The remainder of this letter has Paul issuing five charges:
a. To False Teachers (3-5)
b. To the Christian Poor (6-10)
1) The Contented Poor (6-8)
2) The Covetous Poor (9-10)
c. To the ‘man of God’(11-16)
d. To the Christian Rich (17-19)
e. To Timothy (20-21)
2. Charge to the “Man of God” (11-12)
a. The Threefold Appeal
1) The Ethical Appeal – Flee/Pursue (11)
2) The Doctrinal Appeal – Fight (12a)
3) The Experiential Appeal – Take Hold (12b)
b. The Grounds of the Appeal (13-16)
3. Timothy – ‘the man of God’
“Right at the outset Timothy is challenged. He is addressed as man of God. That is one of the great Old Testament titles. It is a title given to Moses. Deuteronomy 33:1 speaks of “Moses, the man of God.” The title of Psalm 90 is, “A Prayer of Moses the man of God.” It is a title of the prophets and the messengers of God. God’s messenger to Eli is a man of God (I Samuel 2:27). Samuel is described as a man of God (I Samuel 9:6). Shemaiah, God’s messenger to Rehoboam, is a man of God (I Kings 12:22).” (Barclay 134)
Philip Towner, one of the commentators that I read senses a “tone of emergency” in this charge. Paul is very concerned that Timothy takes this charge to heart …. It is the end of the letter …. Timothy, you need to get this!!!!
I. THE PASSIVE/ACTIVE ASPECTS OF HOLINESS
There is no doubt that Timothy was to be radically different from the false teachers. He is told to flee, pursue, fight, take hold of. Another challenge to personal holiness of life.
From the sound of the passage it seems like becoming a holy and godly people is solely our responsibility.
One commentator writes: Get Going! Paul used active and forceful verbs from athletics to describe the Christian life: flee, pursue, fight, take hold. Some think Christianity is a passive religion that advocates waiting for God to act. But we must have an active faith, obeying God with courage and doing what we know is right. Is it time for action on your part? Don’t wait – get going! (Life Application, 132)
The flip side, we know that we cannot become holy people by self-effort. How often we all fail! The best verse to show us the dual path to holiness is Phil. 2:12-13:
12Therefore, my dear friends, … continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose (Phil. 2:12-13).
We must flee, pursue, fight, take hold of but God also works and we must learn to rest in Him.
II. GOD’S PROVISION FOR HOLINESS – THE EXCHANGED LIFE
READING # 4 – Hudson Taylor writing to his sister:
As I thought of the Vine and the branches, what light the blessed Spirit poured direct into my soul! How great seemed my mistake in wishing to get the sap, the fullness out of Him! I saw not only that Jesus will never leave me, but that I am a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. The vine is not the root merely, by all-root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit.
The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification brings. … And since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith, how happy I have been! I wish I could tell you about it, instead of writing. I am no better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ – ay, and risen too! And now Christ lives in me, and “the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” … Do not let us continue to say, in effect, “Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above).” In other words, do not let us consider Him as far off, when God has made us one with Him, members of His very body.
READING # 5
Excerpts from Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray on the text, “I am the vine, ye are the branches” (John 15:5).
The vine does not gather from the soil its fatness and its sweetness for itself – all it has is at the disposal of the branches. … All His fullness and all His riches are for thee, O believer; for the vine does not live for itself, keeps nothing for itself, but exists only for the branches. … How perfect my claim, to all His fullness! … Let me listen and believe, until my whole being cries out, “Jesus is indeed to me the True Vine, bearing me, nourishing me, supplying me, using me, and filling me to the full to make me bring forth fruit abundantly.” … shall I not, instead of only thinking how hard and how difficult it is to live like a branch of the True Vine, because I thought it as something I had to accomplish – shall I not believe that, I once am in Him, He Himself will keep me and enable me to abide? On my part, abiding is nothing but the acceptance of my position, the consent to be kept there, the surrender of faith to the strong Vine still to hold the feeble branch.
LOU’S ILLUSTRATION: Experiencing the life of Christ in us is no different than being hooked up to a life support system in a hospital. What do we do to receive strength and sustenance through the life support system? We consent to be connected, we rest instead of struggle, we let the life giving sustenance flow into our bodies. We know our life depends on the sustenance. We don’t pray or struggle or worry or plead. We simply consent to be connected and we rest.
ILLUSTRATION: Kris came over to me in church after I taught the “Hudson Taylor Spiritual Secret” lesson and asked, “What is our part?” We do have a part but from Hudson Taylor’s perspective the key was consent to being a branch and then resting in the assurance that we were in Christ, in His presence and that His life is flowing into us.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). … I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).
III. HOLINESS & OUR PART – FLEE!
But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue…
You see also the flee/pursue antithesis in II Tim. 2:22: Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart (I Tim. 2:22).
John Stott writes, “The apostle gives us no teaching on ‘holiness and how to attain it’. We are simply to run from evil as we run from danger, and to run after goodness as we run after success.” (Stott, 155)
There is no question that God’s man and woman is always on the run, fleeing and pursuing!
QUESTION: What do we need to flee from?
Immoral situations (a movie, Anger Management), companions who will mislead us, books and magazines that will pull us down (Lolita by Nabakov into the garbage can)
The Bible tells us to flee from idolatry (I Cor. 10:14), to flee from sexual immorality (I Cor. 6:18), and to flee from the evil desires of youth (II Tim. 2:22). But the direct antecedent to our present verse is the love of money. We are also commanded to flee from the love of money!
ILLUSTRATION: We all are attracted to evil in different degrees. Howard Hendrix said he heard Dr. Scofield, the editor of the Scofield Bible pray when he was 90 years old or so, “God, protect me and keep me from becoming an evil old man.”
QUESTION: What are the two great stories in the Bible about “fleeing” and “not fleeing?”
Some Burma Shave doggerel:
Joseph fled
David didn’t
He turned his head
And wished he hadn’t
Running Saves!
ILLUSTRATION: Jack Hayford felt the Lord spoke to him one day saying, “As wine was to the Nazarene so chocolate shall be to you.” And so he has avoided eating chocolate since that day. Because of a true fear of the Lord he has fled from that attraction.
But the emphasis in our text is “Fleeing from the love of Money”!!!
Why do we find it so hard to flee from the love of money? We are constantly bombarded by TV and the rest of the media to buy, buy, buy. We are not even required to pay … at least not right away. All the pleasures of having money are offered to us on credit! Even the typical vacation simply takes us to a new location to go shopping. Christians need times of solitude and isolation in order to quiet the urgent messages to live up to our identity as consumers. It is helpful to physically cut ourselves off for a while from the intrusions of materialism. Spending time alone in nature can have an amazing healing effect. It restores our closeness with God, restores our perspective, and enables us to cope with the financial pressure. When did you last go camping or fishing? Even a long, leisurely hike in the woods has anti-materialistic therapeutic value. (Life, 129)
SO WHAT? – If we are going to live a holy life we can not “run in place.” We need to flee, technically be a fugitive from, evil.
Abstain (avoid, keep away) from evil [shrink from it and keep aloof from it] in whatever form or whatever kind it may be (I Thes. 5:22).
IV. HOLINESS & OUR PART – PURSUE
11But you, man of God …pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.
Yet another list of virtues we are to incarnate. In various lists Paul says: be an example of the believer in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity (4:12); elders are to be temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, gentle; deacons are to be worthy of respect, sincere, have a clear conscience; their wives need to be temperate and trustworthy. In II Tim. 2:22 Timothy is to pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace. Paul lists the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians, e.g. love, joy , peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control and in Phil. 4:8 tells us what to think about: whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable. In Colossians he tells us to put on, to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, peace etc. (Col. 3:12-15).
Just reading and thinking seriously about such a list can wear one out. But on top of all this Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48)
QUESTION: Even though it is plain what we are to pursue, run after what do we find ourselves pursuing all too often?
Pleasure, promotion, fame, wealth, and power.
Of course, we are to focus on these Christian graces listed in our text: righteous, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.
In various places we are told to “pursue,” “put on” (clothe ourselves with) and “add” these qualities to our life (I Tim. 6:11, Col. 3:12, II Peter 1:5).
QUESTION: What does pursuing, putting on, clothing ourselves with, adding these character qualities look like? How do we do this? What are some concrete things we must do if we are to add these qualities to our character?
We know that the Spirit produces these spiritual fruits in our life. We also know that suffering and trials play a role (Gal. 5:22-23; Romans 5:1-5; James 1:2-4). Yet we are specifically commanded to pursue, add, clothe ourselves with these qualities.
(1) Practicing the spiritual disciplines consistently: Bible study, meditation, memorization, prayer, fasting, solitude, silence, service, worship, confession, church attendance (Bible study, small group, adult community etc), giving, journaling, devotions, reflection.
(2) Disciplines that directly relate to clothing ourselves with these spiritual qualities: Bible study, memorization, meditation/reflection, confession, prayer and fasting.
IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE: A strategy for pursuing, clothing ourselves with, adding to our character: Righteousness, Godliness, Faith, Love, Endurance, Gentleness etc.
A. CONCENTRATION: Use Bible study, memorization, meditation, prayer and fasting to focus on the character quality you are pursuing.
B. CHOICE: Make specific choices, actively choose to emulate the character you are pursuing. If it is “endurance” push on through with a task even when you feel like giving up.
C. REFLECTION: Evaluate your day, the past 24 hours. How did you do? Did you avoid using a harsh voice? Did you speak kindly? Think about instances where you were tempted to be harsh but caught yourself and where the Holy Spirit prompted you to respond with grace.
D. CONFESSION: When you fail confess your failure to the Lord and to any injured party. For example if you did not deal gently with a person, confess that to the individual.
INTRODUCTION – PART II
Bumper Sticker: Christians Aren’t Perfect, Just Forgiven.
What is the bumper sticker trying to say?
What seems to be the priority?
What is de-emphasized?
What does it communicate?
Does the content support the words of Jesus in Mt. 5:48: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect?
How could we rewrite the Bumper Sticker to give a correct NT emphasis?
Christians: Forgiven And Focusing On Perfection
LAST WEEK:
I. THE PASSIVE/ACTIVE ASPECTS OF HOLINESS
12Therefore, my dear friends, … continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose (Phil. 2:12-13).
II. GOD’S PROVISION FOR HOLINESS – THE EXCHANGED LIFE
“How great seemed my mistake in wishing to get the sap, the fullness out of Him!” (Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret)
“On my part, abiding is nothing but the acceptance of my position, the consent to be kept there, the surrender of faith to the strong Vine still to hold the feeble branch.” (Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ)
Relax, you are connected to a divine life support system.
III. HOLINESS & OUR PART – FLEE!
John Stott writes, “The apostle gives us no teaching on ‘holiness and how to attain it’. We are simply to run from evil as we run from danger, and to run after goodness as we run after success.” (Stott, 155)
Joseph fled
David didn’t
He turned his head
And wished he hadn’t
Running Saves!
IV. HOLINESS & OUR PART – PURSUE
We are aware that character qualities such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and faithfulness are fruit of the Spirit, given supernaturally by God and yet it is obvious that we are challenged in Scripture to purse, cloth ourselves with, put on and add these qualities to our lives.
IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE: A strategy for pursuing, clothing ourselves with, adding to our character: Righteousness, Godliness, Faith, Love, Endurance, Gentleness etc.
A. CONCENTRATION: Use Bible study, memorization, meditation, prayer and fasting to focus on the character quality you are pursuing.
B. CHOICE: Make specific choices, actively choose to emulate the character you are pursuing. If it is “endurance” push on through with a task even when you feel like giving up.
C. CONFESSION: When you fail confess your failure to the Lord and to any injured party. For example if you did not deal gently with a person, confess that to the individual.
V. PURSUING – RIGHTEOUSNESS
11But you, man of God, … pursue righteousness ….
Paul speaks about imputed “righteousness” in Romans, the righteousness that we receive at salvation through the blood of Christ as a result of Christ’s substitutionary death. The righteousness in this text deals with outward behavior, holiness of life. (MacArthur, 262)
Here, righteousness being used in its widest sense means conformity to what is right towards God and man (Guthrie, 126).
Righteousness refers to actions that are morally upright and virtuous (Life, 130).
CONCENTRATION: Do a Bible study on the subject or righteousness. Memorize verses about righteousness. Spend time reflecting / meditating on righteous living in my life. Pray specifically that I would react rightly in situations that have been problem areas. If necessary spend time in fasting ask God to enable me to live a righteous life.
ILLUSTRATION: A Marriage retreat revealed several character flaws that I need to work on. I have written them into my prayer list so that I can pray about them consistently.
CHOICE: Plan ahead of time what choices I will be making. Is pornography a problem? Choose to avoid areas where pornographic materials are available. Choose not to stay in hotel rooms that provide pornography on cable etc.
ILLUSTRATION: Young male missionary in Indonesia avoided riding his bicycle to church through an area that was known for prostitution.
CONFESSION: Confess to God and to the person you injured or hurt by acting unrighteously.
VI. PURSUING – GODLINESS
11But you, man of God, … pursue … godliness ….
Definition: Reverence for God flowing out of a worshiping heart (MacArthur, 262); general piety (Guthrie, 126); a person’s interest in thinking and living to please God, God centered motives (Life, 130); reverence that never ceases to be aware that all life is lived in the presence of God (Barclay, 134).
Godliness is a God-centered life, a life focused on living for and pleasing God.
CONCENTRATION: Become consistent in our devotional life, spend time in worship, memorize Scriptures about the character and person of God, do special Bible studies on the qualities and names of God, meditate on God’s character, memorize some worshipful hymns and use them in your times of devotion. Reflect on how you are using your time as it relates to God and His glory. Also doing a self-evaluation of the focus of our life is helpful.
ILLUSTRATION: I have memorized Psalm 139 and say the various sections of the Psalm on the omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence of God over in my devotions every week. I have also memorized some sacred poetry and miscellaneous hymns that help me focus on the person of God.
CHOICE: Chose to have a devotional life (set your alarm, set your timer), Chose to memorize some Scriptures. Schedule a self-evaluation of the focus of your life every week, every month.
CONFESSION: Confess to the Lord when you fail and to your accountability partner if you have one or to your wife.
VII. PURSUING – FAITH
But you, man of God, …pursue … faith …. (I Tim. 6:11).
“Faith and love are the supreme Christian virtues and together appear on every such list in the Pastoral Epistles (I Tim. 1:5; 2:15; 4:11; II Tim. 2:22; Titus 2:2)” (Fee, 149)
“…God’s work – which is by faith. The goal of the command is love …” (I Tim. 1:4-5).
“…women … if they continue in faith, love….” (I Tim. 2:15).
“…set an example for the believers …in love, in faith ….” (I Tim. 4:11).
“…. pursue …. faith, love ….” (II Tim. 2:22).
“Teach older men to be …sound in faith, love …” (Titus 2:2).
“Faith is simply confident trust in God for everything. It involves loyalty to the Lord and unwavering confidence in His power, purpose, plan, provision and promise. Faith is the atmosphere in you the man and woman of God exists. They trust God to fulfill His Word.” (MacArthur, 263)
“Faith believes the unbelievable, knows the unknowable, sees the invisible and does the impossible.”
A. CONCENTRATION: Use Bible study, memorization, meditation, prayer and fasting to focus on the character quality you are pursuing.
B. CHOICE: Make specific choices, actively choose to emulate or practice the character quality you are pursuing.
C. CONFESSION: When you fail confess your failure to the Lord and to any injured party.
ILLUSTRATION: Trusting the Lord for something without telling a soul. My experience when I was a Grace Community and exceedingly lonely. That Sunday morning I prayed that someone would invite me lunch ….. and they did …. And it was the first and only time that every happened all of the time I was at Grace Community. Record such things in a “Faith / Answers to Prayer Diary.”
VIII. PURSUING – LOVE
But you, man of God, …pursue … love …. (I Tim. 6:11).
Love has been called the organizing principle of Christianity.
We read in I John 4:8 that “God is love” and in John 3:16 that He so loved the world He sent us His Son. The second part of the Great Commandment tells us to love our neighbor. In I Corinthians Paul reminds us that love is more important than both faith and hope. In I John 4:12 we are told that “if we love one another, God lives in us.”
Based on I John 4:12 . Francis Schaeffer wrote a book about love and titled it “The Mark of the Christian.”
But practicing and becoming a loving person demands a lifelong effort:
ILLUSTRATION: Aitken doesn’t sidestep Colson’s ministry clashes. He includes a near disaster with prison chaplains in 1976, the departure of CEO Gord Loux, and the unflatteringly portrayed role coauthor Nancy Pearcey played in the dissolution of her and Colson’s writing partnership several years ago.” (Christianity Today, August 2005, pg. 70).
A paraphrase of I Corinthians 13:1-3 might read: You can be the greatest linguist in history; you can be the greatest Bible Teacher that ever lived; you can be a person of great faith, able to move mountains of problems by prayer. You can be so committed that you give all and you have to God …. Even to the point of sacrificing your life …. And you can do all of this without having the Christ-like quality of love in your live.
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
16 QUALITIES OF LOVE FROM I COR. 13
(From “The Message” Translation)
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Love doesn’t have a swelled head,
Love doesn’t force itself on others,
Love isn’t always “me first,”
Love doesn’t fly off the handle,
Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Love doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Love takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Love puts up with anything,
Love trusts God always,
Love always looks for the best,
Love never looks back,
Love keeps going to the end.
A. CONCENTRATION: Use Bible study, memorization, meditation, prayer and fasting to focus on the character quality you are pursuing.
B. CHOICE: Make specific choices, actively choose to emulate or practice the character quality you are pursuing.
C. CONFESSION: When you fail confess your failure to the Lord and to any injured party.
IX. PURSUING – ENDURANCE
But you, man of God, …pursue … endurance …. (I Tim. 6:11).
“Endurance is the ‘won’t quit’ determination of God’s servants in the face of opposition to the Gospel (II Tim. 3:10; Compare 2:10, 12).” (Towner, 142)
“Endurance (hypomone), which is patience in difficult circumstances, and gentleness, which is patience with difficult people.” (Stott. 155)
“Timothy had been with Paul when the apostle had written to Romans to explain that patience was the first positive by-product of suffering (Rom. 5:3-5). In Timothy’s present circumstances, pursuing patience would require a willingness to undergo suffering. People often desire patience, but few are willing to take the road that leads to that destination. (See Also James 1:2-4).” (Life Application, 130).
A. CONCENTRATION: Use Bible study, memorization, meditation, prayer and fasting to focus on the character quality you are pursuing.
B. CHOICE: Make specific choices, actively choose to emulate or practice the character quality you are pursuing.
C. CONFESSION: When you fail confess your failure to the Lord and to any injured party.
X. PURSUING – GENTLENESS
But you, man of God, …pursue … gentleness …. (I Tim. 6:11).
Prautes, the Greek word translated ‘gentleness’ here is not readily expressed in English. Often the word “meekness” is used but “meekness” in English suggests weakness. “Gentleness” is not good either because the focus on gentleness is on actions. Prautes describes a condition of mind and heart.
Barclay says the word is untranslatable … but is probably best understood in considering Jesus who was call ‘meek’ or ‘gentle’ (prautes) “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am gentle and humble in heart …” (Mt. 11:29).
Maybe “non-threatening power,” or “gentle power,” “steel wrapped in a meek spirit,” “a velvet covered brick” could work. Described negatively it is the opposite of self-assertiveness and self-interest.
Gentleness is of great importance for the Christian. Paul speaks in II Cor. 10:1 about the meekness and gentleness of Christ, it is one of the fruit of the Spirit and we are to restore the brother in error in the spirit of gentleness (Gal. 6:1). We are to live in lowliness and meekness of heart and put on meekness (Eph. 4:2, Col. 3:12). Timothy and Titus were to instruct with gentleness (II Tim. 2:25, Titus 3:2).
ILLUSTRATION: “Believe it or not, the risk of being sued for malpractice has very little to do with how many mistakes a doctor makes …. Patients don’t file lawsuits because they’ve been harmed by shoddy medical care. Patients file lawsuits because they’ve been harmed by shoddy medical care and something else happens to them. What is that something else? It’s how they were treated, on a personal level, by their doctor. …. The psychologist Nalini Ambady listened to Levinson’s tapes (of patient-doctor conversations). … From each surgeon she picked two patient conversations. Then, from each conversation, she selected two ten-second clips of the doctor talking, so in all she had the doctor on tape for 40 seconds. Finally, she “content filtered” the conversations which means she removed the high-frequency sounds from the speech the enable us to recognize individual words. What’s left after content-filtering is a kind of garble that preserves intonation, pitch and rhythm but erases content. Using these forty second segments only she did a Gottman-style analysis. He had judges rate the segments of conversations for such qualities as warmth, hostility, dominance, and anxiousness, and she found that by using only those 40 second segments of conversations she could predict what surgeons got sued and which ones didn’t. Ambady was stunned because the judges knew nothing about the skill level of the surgeons. They didn’t know how experienced they were or what kind of training they had, or what kind of procedures they tended to do. They didn’t even know what the doctors were saying to their patients. All they were using for their prediction was their analysis of the surgeon’s tone of voice.” (Blink, pg. 40-43).
A. CONCENTRATION: Use Bible study, memorization, meditation, prayer and fasting to focus on the character quality you are pursuing.
B. CHOICE: Make specific choices, actively choose to emulate or practice the character quality you are pursuing.
C. CONFESSION: When you fail confess your failure to the Lord and to any injured party.
SO WHAT???
1. If we are going to live a holy life we can not “run in place.” We need to flee, technically be a fugitive from, evil.
2. We must remember to consent to being a branch, to being hooked up to spiritual life support and resting in the fact that Christ’s life is flowing into us. We must learn “Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret.”
3. Holiness is a passive / active process. We must rest in Christ while actively seeking to add Christian graces and qualities to our lives.
4. Concentration, Choice and Confession are the three keys to adding character qualities such as righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness to our lives.
5. Although we rejoice in our forgiveness our goal in life, although we know we will never attain it, must be perfection holiness of life, in short to be conformed to the image of Christ.