PUTTING OUR HOPE IN THE LIVING GOD
(I Tim. 4:10)
OVERVIEW OF I TIMOTHY 1:1 to 4:7
1:1-2 – Overview of Christian Faith based on His names and blessings.
1:3-4a False teaching in Ephesus and how humanistic philosophy effects us today.
1:4b-6 – Commanded to love. (Loving God, fellow Christians, the non-Christian world)
1:7-8 – The law’s deterrent, punitive and educative purposes
1:8-11 – “Whatever else …” The Gospel Ethic. (Law-Philia University)
1:11 – Our Relationship with “The Blessed God.” (Causing God pain or joy)
1:12-16 Why Paul considered himself the worst of sinners.
1:12-16 Conversion of the apostle Paul.
1:12-16 Paul’s call to ministry.
1:17 Paul’s doxology of praise for his conversion.
1:18-20 How to avoid shipwrecking our faith.
2:1-3 The Christian is to pray for all men.
2:4,6 Comparison of Calvinism & Armenianism.
2:5-6 The man, Christ Jesus, the only mediator.
2:1-7 The vision, the message, the means.
2:8-15 Treatment of women in the ancient world, the early church and the Bible.
2:8-15 Three key hermeneutic principles to follow when studying the Bible.
2:8 Praying Men with Peaceful Hearts
2:9-10 A First-Century Christian Woman’s Dress and Deeds
2:11-12 Does Submission Demand Silence?
2:13-15 Paul’s Logic for Requiring Women to Be Silent in The Ephesian House Churches.
3:1 Why Aspiring to Church Leadership Can Be a Good Thing.
3:2 Spiritual Gifting Required of an Ephesian Elder – Teaching
3:2 Spiritual Gifting Required of an Ephesian Elder – Hospitality
3:4-5 Spiritual Gifting Required of an Ephesian Elder –Leadership
3:2-7 Ethical Demands of the NT and the Ethics Tests for Elders
3:2-7 Ethical Qualities Required of an Ephesian Elder
3:8-13 The Ever Present Danger of Ethical Disconnect in a Christian’s Life
3:8-13 The Ministry of Deacons in the Early Church
3:9 Keeping Hold of the Deep Truths of the Faith
3:11 An Official Deaconesses in the NT Church?
3:14 Results That are Better Than Answered Prayer
3:15 God’s New Community – The Church of the Living God
3:15 God’s New Community – God’s Household
3:15 God’s New Community – The Pillar & Foundation of the Truth
3:16a Introduction to the Hymn in I Tim. 3:15 – The Mystery of Godliness
3:16a The Mystery of Godliness – A Life Focused on Christ
3:16b The Incarnation – He Appeared in a Body
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
(And for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe (I Tim. 4:8-10).
INTRODUCTION:
Today three topics: Universalism, Common Grace, and Putting Our Hope in the Living God.
I. UNIVERSALISM OR “WILL ALL BE SAVED?”
10(and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe (I Tim. 4:8-10).
A. Does “who is the Savior of all men” men all men will be saved?
“This view violates a basic hermeneutical principle of Scripture called “analogia Scriptura.” According to that principle, the Bible never contradicts itself. It will never teach something in one passage that violates what it teaches elsewhere.” (John McArthur, 167)
B. QUESTION: What does the Bible teach about the fate of those who reject Christ?
1. They will be sentenced to hell (Rev. 20:11-15).
2. The duration of the punishment will be eternal (Mt. 25:41, 46).
3. They will be out of God’s presence (II Thes. 1:8-9) . 4. Jesus repeatedly spoke of the danger of hell (Lk. 3:28).
5. The same words that in the original that are used to describe heaven as eternal are used to describe hell as eternal.
C. If not “Universalism” how then should we interpret “Savior of all men?”
* Three ways to interpret the text: (1) a double meaning in the Word “Savior,” (John MacArthur, Guthrie); (2) a varying definition of the word especially” to mean “to be precise” (John Stott); (3) an intimation that Christ’s death was for all (“…who wants all men to be saved” 2:5) and is offered to all but only those who believed are saved (Gordon Fee, Michael Griffiths).
* LIMITED ATONEMENT: Third pillar of Calvinism, The effects of the atonement, by which God forgave sinful humanity, are limited only to those whom He has chosen. “Modified Calvinism”: The atonement of Christ is open to all men everywhere and is limited only by our refusal to be saved.
II. “SAVIOR OF ALL MEN” & “COMMON GRACE.”
A. God is the Savior of all men in the “temporal” sense and of believers in the “eternal” sense.
B. In this life all people experience to some degree the protecting, delivering, sustaining power of God.
The use of the word “Savior” is not always limited to salvation from sin in Scripture (Neh. 9:27).
C. Scriptures that show God as deliverer, blesser, Savior of all men.
… your Father in heaven … causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Mt. 5:45).
Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you (Pagans in Lystra and Derbe – Central Turkey) rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy (Acts 14:17).
[To the Greeks in Athens] And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else (Acts 17:25).
D. In 4:3-5 Paul reverts to “Common Grace” is stating that foods we eat and marriage are both consecrated to God by His Word and through prayer. Thus God’s “Common Grace” provides us and all mankind many blessings although not all experience His “Saving Grace.”
G.K. Chesterson:
You say grace before meals. All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and the pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.” (Stott, 115)
III. PUTTING OUR HOPE IN THE LIVING GOD
He is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe. Thus we put our hope in the living God.
The word for hope here, “elpizo” is used 31 times in the Nt and is fact used when describing a godly widow in 5:5 also “puts her hope in God.”
A. What does “hope” mean?
We trust in the living God (KJV); Fixed our hope on the living God (NASB) We place our whole confidence in the ever-living God (Phillips); We are banking on the living God (The Message); Meletakkan harapan kita kepada Allah yang hidup (Kitab Suci Injil). We place our confidence in the Creator who exists now and forever (Indonesian translation).
B. QUESTION: What do people tend to put their confidence in, to bank on, to trust in? Remember, everyone puts their hope somewhere.
Money (“…. Put their hope in wealth…” I Tim. 6:17); medicine, doctors, spouse, good workds, self-righteousness, retirement benefits.
Story in “History of Gold” of the man who, due to ship sinking, took all of his gold and put it into his pockets and jumped into the ocean, and quickly sunk to the bottom.
Who is sillier, a person who puts their hope / confidence in all the things of this world or one who puts his hope in the living God?
C. QUESTION: What do Christians tend to hope for? Bank on God for?
Healing, comfort, deliverance (I Cor. 1:10), intervention, help, wisdom, finances, salvation, eternal life etc.
D. QUESTION: What are some things that disappoints people who put their hope in the living God?
1. Often, we don’t see change, deliverance that we were counting, banking on.
“God ‘errs’ on the side of human freedom subjecting himself to our choices and working from within His creation rather than acting on it from the outside” (Phil Yancey).
2. If only God would speak, it would help a lot. If we could just hear His voice.
Thou feign’st to be remote, and speakst
As if from far above,
That fear may make more bold with Thee
And be beguiled to love. (F. Faber)
3. If only He would reveal Himself to me!
On earth Thou hidest, not to scare
The children with Thy light,
Then showest us Thy Face in heaven,
When we can bear the sight. (F. Faber)
E. Christian “Hope” is a key ingredient in Christian living.
Christian hymnody is loaded with lines and stanzas about hope. Here are just a few:
Rejoice the Lord is King
Rejoice in glorious hope, Jesus the Judge will come
And take His people up to their eternal home.
It Is Well With My Soul
But Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait.
The sky, not the grave is our goal;
O trump of the angel, O Voice of the Lord
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.
The Solid Rock
When all around my soul gives way;
He then is all my hope and stay.
Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee
O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek.
To those who fall how kind Thou art,
How good to those who seek.
Amazing Grace
The Lord has promised good to me.
His Word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures.
MR. BROWN’S STORY: Pastoring a church, taking an older man, crippled, to church week after week. Pick him up at his house, carry him to the car and put him in the front seat of the car. Carry him in to a pew. Did this for month after month during his pastorate. Once, in talking he asked to the crippled gentleman what his favorite verse in Scripture was and he quote Phil. 3:20-21, a verse that most of us have never memorized or even thought about, “But our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await (hope for) a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly [weak, mortal] bodies so that they will be like His glorious body.”
SO WHAT!
1. Those who do not know Christ will be separated from God forever in eternal punishment.
2. God is the Savior and preserver of all people through “common grace.”
3. We Christians have a double blessing: we experience and appreciate “common grace” and because of “saving grace” we have hope and have confidence in eternal life in heaven forever. Our hope is in the living God.