[0:00] 2 Timothy chapter number 2. It was their dad's birthday this week. I don't know what else they got him, but I'm sure that was his favorite of all of his gifts. Little fields and the shreaves. I don't think Kyle's doing very good in deputation in Indiana.
[0:12] Do you guys? I don't think that's going to be a good state for him. I was one time in Missouri traveling through the summer in neighborhood Bible time, a kids program, and I thought I was in another state. I said, I just got out of Missouri.
[0:24] I mean Missouri. And they said, son, you're still in Missouri. And so I felt like Kyle, you're far enough south that we don't mind you making fun of Indiana. 2 Timothy chapter number 2.
[0:35] I'm going to read verses 1 through 4 here in a moment. I am thankful for the opportunity to preach when pastor travels. As you know, we go through books of the Bible typically. Sometimes I'll land on a passage that seems more difficult or 1 4th of July.
[0:48] We're in 1 Corinthians 9, how to take care of a pastor. But when you preach those passages, you get to say, well, that's what's coming next. And so you take confidence, and that's what should be preached. Well, I have to say the night that I chose the topic by choosing the passage, so I have to stand with it.
[1:03] And it has to do with enduring hardness and about not being entangled with the affairs of this life. And it's something that I think is very much relevant to a church that wants to have an involvement, not only in the Great Commission, but in pleasing the Lord.
[1:19] And so I think hopefully tonight, as I will show you what I believe the Bible teaches us in this area, you'll see how it's very much practical for us.
[1:30] Austin Till, you're still in the room here with your large map. Would you mind bringing that map of China and coming and holding it up over here? You may have to bring somebody with you to hold it up completely. So we would do a skip back in the day, and I know Kyle would have seen it.
[1:43] And some of those that have been around a little bit longer would have seen this at our events. So we would put something like a map on this side that would represent China.
[1:54] Then we would take a person who wants to go, come on, Dylan. All right. Sorry, Greg, you don't get to do everything around here. All right. It's so eager. All right. And so here's Dylan. And we take a person and say he's headed to China.
[2:06] He wants to be a missionary. And the stats would say that, Ty says amen. Congratulations. All right. Got another one going to China. It's that easy. All right. And so Dylan wants to go to China and be a missionary.
[2:19] That's what God had called him to do. And it would say that only one out of a hundred people that go to an altar and make that decision would ever make it to the mission field. So we would study about that and try to figure out why that was.
[2:31] And one of the reasons this church was started was because we wanted to be a place that would have an environment where people could be sent out to the mission field. God doesn't call all of us. But when he does call somebody, we say that's reasonable that we understand why that would happen.
[2:46] And we were behind you 100 percent. And so we wanted an environment where that would make sense. So out of so Dylan's trying to make his way to China. Come with me, Dylan. All right. And this skit would take.
[2:56] OK, this skit would take 30 people if we were to do it properly. Right, Kyle? You've seen it before. So a football coach would come in and he would hand him a football because Dylan looks like a football player.
[3:07] All right. Maybe the four in one football player. And so they give him the football and then they would take a rope and they would tie it around them. He'd get a little farther and then somebody would come up with a new job offer and hand him a briefcase.
[3:19] And then that would tie around them. All right. You're an overachiever. All right. Don't do anything. Just stand there. And then a person would come in. His wife would come in. They're expecting would hand him a baby and then we'd tie the baby up with the person, I guess.
[3:32] I don't know. But you see, all these things would come and he would be tied up and then he would be so tied up he couldn't move. And then somebody would come up and read this passage. First, 2 Timothy, chapter number two, verse, we'll read one through four.
[3:46] Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also that therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
[4:02] And then verse number four, no man that woreth and tangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier. You guys can be seated. And so the skit does a good job at illustrating one point is that there are things in our lives that may keep us from going in the direction that God would call us to do.
[4:22] Obedience to Dylan meant going towards China. And so there'd be obstacles that would come in our lives that would require us to endure hardness or the things that would want to entangle us.
[4:33] So it does a good thing to show the outward circumstances, but it doesn't show the inner turmoil that we would have of our lives getting attached and having affections towards the things of this world.
[4:45] Acts chapter number 19, verse 10 says that in the space of two years, people were being trained for the ministry and they went out all throughout Asia Minor. And that was something that we would love to see.
[4:56] When people go to China and they get kicked out, that we as a church would get to send reinforcements. We would get to send more people. And one of the ways that we can be involved in that, at this stage of my life, it doesn't appear that's what God has for me.
[5:09] But as a member of a church, I have a role to play in that. And that's true for all of you in here. And one of the ways that we can do that is living lives where we don't get entangled.
[5:20] I'm sorry, I didn't ask you, would you guys mind handing out the handout that's in the very back? Go ahead, Dylan, if you will. I have a handout for you here. I want to give 10 reasons how we can live lives that are entangled not, that are entangled not lives.
[5:36] I chose the most complicated way to say it, all right? But we're talking about 10 different ways that we make sure that we're not getting our lives entangled in not doing what God had called us to do.
[5:47] When I first moved here in 2004, I was just awestruck by Alpharetta. It's just a lot different than my town of 500 in West Kentucky. And you could ask Stephanie, I got lost like all the time.
[5:59] I was always calling Mark and Amy and saying, I don't know where to go, all right? Didn't have a smartphone, didn't know how to get around. But it was such a big city for me compared to where I was from.
[6:10] But I wrote an article for an online paper, and I think a good seven to 10 people read it. I'm certain of it. And it talked about the dangers of raising kids in Alpharetta. And one of the dangers is, is that we believe that everything is like this for the rest of the world.
[6:26] You know, that everybody lives the same way we do. And it's easy in doing that to become entitled, believing that there's no needs around the rest of the world. But as a church, we have created a culture where even though maybe the community that we live in isn't about taking the gospel to the world, but we are a church that feels that way.
[6:46] So that if a person comes through this conference this weekend and wants to go to China and they live here for the next year, the two years to prepare, they're going to be encouraged by people in this church to say, we love you, we're praying for you, and we're behind what you're doing.
[7:00] And all God's people said, amen. So we're behind them in what they're doing, which means that when a person's on their way here, they're not going to be entangled by us, right? They're going to be encouraged along the way, but they still have decisions that they will have to make.
[7:13] Verse four, no man worth entangling themselves with the affairs of his life, that he may please him who had chosen him to be a soldier. So first thing we have to see here is the recognize of the importance of living in this manner.
[7:26] It says that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier. The question that we ask often in here is, is he worthy? And the answer is, and so is he worthy of an entangled, not life?
[7:39] Is he worthy of a life that isn't entangled with the affairs of this world? And the answer is, he is by every one of us. No matter what God has called you to do, there's none of us want to live a life that is preoccupied with the things of this world.
[7:53] It wasn't just something that's spoken about missionaries that when they die and they go to heaven, they want to hear, well done, my good and faithful servant. That's what every one of us want to hear. That's what God's called us all to do. None of us are supposed to be entangled with these lesser things in life.
[8:07] 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 9 says, whether we're home or abroad, we should live with the same purpose. Wherefore, labor that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. We want lives that are pleasing unto the Lord.
[8:18] So, what is the antithesis of a life that's pleasing to the Lord is to say that a life that is entangled with the affairs of this life. So, we need to identify all those things.
[8:30] What does it mean to be entangled? What are the affairs of this life? And how do we make sure that we don't find ourselves entangled with them? Number two, we should ask God to give us understanding in this area.
[8:41] In the passage we're looking at tonight, in verse number seven, it says this, consider what I say and the Lord give thee understanding in all things. We know that in this epistle, Paul is speaking to Timothy.
[8:55] He's given examples of what his Christian life should look like. And then he challenges him and charges him and he says, ask God to give you understanding in this area. That's what I hope that we would do tonight is to give, ask God to give us understanding.
[9:08] Are we living lives that are free to serve him fully or are they lives that are becoming entangled with things of this life? Paul had a great object lesson for him.
[9:18] You know, that's what happens when you're in prison. You have a lot of examples about things about prison, right? About what it means to be a soldier. And it says, E.K. Simpson said, the spectacular military discipline furnished the grand lesson of wholeheartedness.
[9:33] Paul was seeing firsthand what complete dedication looks like. We can look to soldiers and we can see the way their lives are given and we know what it's like. They give themselves over completely. Those of you that have served or those that we've heard stories before, they go, they go to boot camp and what they went in gets put in a box and mailed home to say that you're completely given to this cause during this time.
[9:56] And so Paul would be natural that he would give this as an example as he is seeing it. We're often unaware of the ways that we become entangled in this life. It's as if the agenda has an undertow, an underlying ocean current in our lives that just kind of pull us away.
[10:12] I feel that in my life. When Austin Teal holds up this map of China, I feel like that person that's often entangled because I say, I know that I'm supposed to be concerned about these things, but do you know all the other things that I also have to worry about that weigh on us?
[10:30] And so we begin to drift away from these things in our lives and we need to recognize them that there's underlying agendas that we have. Ahithophel, for the time I were talking about him the other day, but Ahithophel in 2 Samuel chapter number 17, he is speaking about David and his anger towards him.
[10:50] And Ahithophel says, let's all go and then I will go and I will kill David. I'll do it myself when nobody else is around. If you read that story, you find that Ahithophel, maybe he isn't aware of it subconsciously or consciously, he's motivated by bitterness.
[11:06] The actions and behaviors of his life, the agendas of his life are moved along by bitterness. Well, in the same way, we often live our lives motivated by things that are not to the honor and glory of God and it affects our behavior.
[11:20] And if we're not aware of it, it will cause problems. Ahithophel had hurt and pain that didn't turn into forgiveness and bitter. It turned into unforgiveness and bitterness. It was smoldering in his heart and it turned to be a wise man.
[11:32] It said he was as if the oracles of the Lord, that when he spoke, but now he is completely acting like a foolish man because there's something that's motivating him that he may not be aware of in his life.
[11:44] And so we need to pray as David does and say, God, search my heart, oh God. See if there'd be any wicked way in me. God, am I just living the American dream, the Christian version of American dream? God, am I really living the way that you would have me to live?
[11:57] Have I fallen in love with the lesser things of this world? Am I worshiping creation over the creator? Because we can become very common in our culture to do this, but we could ask God to watch our hearts and we should recognize the potential for this in our lives.
[12:11] Webster's Dictionary, and it says that entangled is to be interwoven, the wrapped or twisted together in such a manner as the not easily extricated, freed from what binds or hindered.
[12:23] It means to be involuntarily interlaced to the point of immobility. Think about being something that would be braided together. So when it says that our lives are entangled, it's talking about our lives are so interconnected with the things of this world that it's brought an immobility to us that we can no longer move forward in what God has caused us to do.
[12:47] This quote by Thomas Guthrie really convicted me. It says, if you find yourself loving any pleasure better than your prayers, any book better than the Bible, any house better than the house of God, any table better than the Lord's table, any person better than Christ, any indulgence better than the hope of heaven, take alarm.
[13:09] If we find ourselves being amazed by the things of this world, we should be alarmed by it. So if Paul is talking to Timothy about this in his day and age with the necessary hardships he would have in life, how much easier would it be for us to be people who get entangled with the affairs of this life, who hearts doesn't want to do the things that God has called us to do and freed us to do.
[13:34] And so he calls on us to be as a good soldier. It's given that they're going to be as a soldier. They've been enlisted. It was in Acts chapter number 16, verse 3, when Paul comes through and it says, him would Paul have to go forth with him.
[13:46] Paul says, Timothy, I want you to come with me. He's recruited by Paul. He's going forth and he's going to do the work of the Lord. You and your life, me at the age of nine, when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and made him the Lord and Savior of my life, I didn't know what all that I was getting at my salvation.
[14:04] And our class, Bridge Builders, we're going through Ephesians 1 and we're seeing that it's incredible. The gift that Brother Sam Wilson said, it's as if it's a big gift box given to you. Inside of that box are other smaller gifts that are given to you.
[14:18] All the wonders of salvation. But I knew that he was the Lord of my life and I knew that I needed to follow him and say yes to him and whatever he called me to do. And so here is Paul reminding Timothy that you're already been called to be a soldier.
[14:31] But the question is, are you going to be a good soldier? Are you going to endure the hardness? Ephesians chapter 6, 11 says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
[14:42] There's a spiritual warfare against the kingdom of darkness. We should be aware of that. We should be aware that we live with spiritual warfare. The discouragement that we have, the way that God, that other people, God would use people and encourage us, but the way that also people would respond in the flesh to discourage you.
[15:00] But we live with a spiritual warfare. Verse Peter 2, 11, dearly beloved, I beseech you, strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. But we have a war against fleshly desires and wanting to live a holy life, wanting our affections to be fully given to him.
[15:16] But this verse comes in 2 Timothy chapter number 2 after we've already read, then do our hardness as we have committed thou to faithful men who are able to teach others. That in the work of the ministry of being a soldier and the work of discipleship, there's a hardness that we have to have.
[15:31] It hurts. I was driving with Chase and Ashley the other day, and she asked me, you know, of all the years, what are the things in the ministry that have hurt you the most? And I said, what hurts me the most, it's not that people that I've known that are now longer not serving God, obviously that hurts, or the people that I've known that, as I said, not attending church.
[15:52] What hurts me the most is when I know that I wasn't there for somebody. One time a teenager told me he got his heart broken from this girl, and I went and picked him up and was bringing him to church, and he was telling me about how heartbroken he was.
[16:06] And I was preoccupied with something else to notice that was going on in his life. And then he told me sometime later, he said, I was just going through a really hard time, and I wanted to talk to you about it, but you weren't present.
[16:19] You weren't paying attention at the time. And that hurt, you know? Because I know what it's like when you want to talk to somebody, and they don't seem to be giving, you know, they don't give attention to you. And I was so discouraged by that, and I just realized I had really let this guy down.
[16:34] But I had to encourage myself in the Lord, I had to recognize that my identity is not found in my shortcoming, and not wrong, and not being present, and have to go forward. But it hurts, doesn't it?
[16:44] It hurts to know when you hurt people, it hurts when people hurt you, or when you know that you weren't all that you could have been for somebody. But in all these ways of life, we endure hardness and we continue, because is he worthy? He is.
[16:56] And we continue. And you invest in somebody's life, and they may not care about it, and they may not reciprocate it, but you still continue to endure hardness, and you can still invest your life. You still pour your life out for other people, because he's worthy.
[17:08] The message that we have to give is worthy of this. Number five, we should avoid sin at all costs. Not being entangled. Throughout the Bible, there's different analogies that talk about being an athlete, that talk about being a soldier, but there's an entanglement that's seen through the causes of sin.
[17:26] In Hebrews 12, verse 1, wherefore, seeing we also are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which thus so easily beset us, and let us run patience the race that is set before us.
[17:40] What year was the Olympics in Atlanta? 2000 and... 96. 96. It seems like in the summer of 96, every... Was that right? 96? All right. In the summer of 96, it seems like every camp that I went to, every preacher preached from this passage about running the race.
[17:56] I mean, it was just a given that somebody was going to come dressed up as a track star, and they were going to have these weights that were laid upon them and show that they couldn't run this race. And you've seen it, but it says here that we are weighed down with these sins that so easily beset us.
[18:12] So there's times that are quite obvious that the sins in our lives, and I've given you some examples here. I mean, your notes, Satan is a deceiver. There's deception and sin. Sin, idolatry is called a trap, captures a bird, unfaithfulness as a trap, as a liar, fear man will be enslavement.
[18:27] But time and time again, sin in our lives is seen as something that entangles us in the work that we're doing. James 1.15 says that when lust has conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.
[18:41] I told a teenager recently, the pastor when I was growing up always called that LSD, lust, sin, and death. When the lust inside of us, that premeditated desire for something, it finds the occasion and sin is conceived, and that will bring forth death.
[18:57] And when we're not having our needs met by God, that lust is amplified and opportunities will come. So the steps are real clear. Unchecked lust yields the sin. Unconfessed sin will bring death, and it will cause a person who is not living a life that isn't entangled by the affairs of this life, which means that we're not living a life that is pleasing unto God.
[19:18] So it's quite obvious. I mean, nobody would make an argument for sin in here. That wouldn't be a very wise move to make in here. The Jews will say, of course there should be sin. Sin will make it an entanglement. But there's also good things in life that become an entanglement.
[19:31] On that example that I gave at the very beginning, all those people that came into the life of Dylan were good people doing good things in his life, but they had the opportunity to entangle him in a way that isn't appropriate.
[19:44] Understand the potential for the misuse of good things. The word entangle was also used to describe sheep whose wool was caught in thorns. The word picture helps illustrate the main difference between being involved and being entangled.
[19:57] The objection that all of us have to have, and when I read through the Bible, when I get to this passage, it seems like my objections become stronger every time to this about, what do you mean I can't get entangled with the affairs of this world?
[20:09] Like, I would like to do, I would like to live a more simple life. I would love not to have all these problems, but I don't go looking for them, you know? I'm not trying to live a more complicated life. I'm just trying to do the bare necessity, the provide for my family.
[20:22] But I find myself constantly being pulled in this direction. You know, even Adam, he was given a job to do there in the garden before the fall of man. He was given work to do.
[20:32] He was going to do something. So we know that work in itself isn't inherently sinful or wrong. We're told in 1 Timothy 5.8 that we're supposed to provide for our families, and if we don't, we're worse than an infidel, not a believer.
[20:44] We're told in Ephesians 6.4 that as a parent, we're supposed to provide instruction for our children, which takes what? Time to do this. James 4.13, the passage is talking about man going into town and buying and selling things, and life is a vapor.
[21:01] He says he should only do that and say if the Lord wills, if it's according to the Lord's will, and it is. There's times where it's the Lord's will for somebody to go to another town and to buy and sell them because those things in and of themselves aren't sinful, but they're necessary, and they can be things that are being used to glorify God.
[21:20] But it's when the things of this world, even the good things, are used to meet a need in our lives is where we become entangled. And so we should have a healthy suspicion towards the things of this world.
[21:31] 1 Timothy 6.17, charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but the living God who has given us richly all things to enjoy.
[21:43] So God has given us things to enjoy, and we should be grateful for it, but we should take everything that's given to us and say, God, if this was provided by you, then there's a purpose for it, and I don't want it to take over its wrong place in my life.
[21:55] Sometimes at the dinner table, one of the kids will get another one of something to drink, and Tinsley will say, Thatcher, I got you something to drink. And what does Thatcher do? He's very suspicious about it, right? He's like, sure you did, Tinsley.
[22:06] And he will look in the cup, and he'll look around, and he'll say, I'm not so sure that this is a good thing for me. And he looks at it with suspicion. And so when the things in our lives, we look at them, and they're good things, and we say, I'm grateful for these things.
[22:18] They are given to me for the Lord, and they're for a purpose, but I'm going to make sure it doesn't become my master. I'm going to make sure that I cause it to be a tool for the service of God, and I don't become a servant to it.
[22:30] 1 Corinthians 10.23 tells us, All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. There's things in our lives that aren't expedient anymore.
[22:43] They're not useful for us, you know? We find that we aren't able to control them. We're not as disciplined as we need to be in them, and they're no longer serving their purpose.
[22:53] And so we look at them with suspicion. Romans 14.23, Romans 14, towards that part of the chapter, it's talking about meat, and the conversation about eating meat that's offered the idols.
[23:04] And it says, He that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith, but whatsoever is not of faith is sin. That there's even a wrong way to eat a meal. You may think, well, that seems like Christianity is so nitpicky.
[23:16] Like, really? Is there really a wrong way to go about eating a meal? How many of you have ever had boneless chicken wings? Would you raise your hand? You ate a meal the wrong way, okay? There are no boneless chicken wings, all right?
[23:28] But there's a way in which we don't eat a meal in the proper manner by faith. And it was saying, talking about if a person was eating something that would be offensive to his brother, then he's not eating in a way that would serve, because the motive in our lives ought to be that of loving.
[23:43] That we ought to be loving people. That ought to motivate us. And so this isn't Christianity being nitpicky, but this is giving us, in the smallest part of our day, an opportunity to glorify God by doing things in a way that would please Him.
[23:57] That's exciting. That we don't have to wait until a few days on a calendar. We don't have to wait until we've raised a certain amount of money. We don't have to wait until a certain day in the future. That all throughout the day, I had an opportunity to live a way that was not entangled by the affairs of this world, but they were pleasing to God.
[24:15] And I'm excited about that, because the purpose of my life and yours is to bring glory to Him. Number eight, accept the reality that this world has fallen and incapable of fully satisfying my needs.
[24:26] My needs. The thing that tripped Adam and Eve up is not failure to believe that God loved them, but it was failure to believe that His love and grace were enough for them.
[24:37] The true needs of life can only be met by God. We're told that as humans, we need security, identity, belonging, purpose, and a sense of competency. Meaning that we, people believe that we're good at what we're doing.
[24:50] We feel like we're making a difference in this world. And did you know there's things marketed to you all the time that are constantly trying to give you the feeling of every one of those? But none of them are going to satisfy.
[25:02] But when we know that God is loving, but we don't think that He can meet our emotional need for this, and then we go looking for security in something else. Who can I trust? Security, identity, who am I?
[25:13] Belonging, who wants me? Purpose, why am I alive? Or competence, what am I good for? We look in other areas outside of God's Word for this. And Him, we're going to become entangled.
[25:24] So we will take things that should have been made for good, and we'll expect too much out of them. And it will wear us out. So this week on Monday, I rented a Tesla. And some of you are wondering, how long was he going to go before he had a sermon illustration about a Tesla, all right?
[25:39] And it may be my most expensive sermon illustration ever. And so we rented this Tesla. And electric cars are cool if they have any battery power to them, all right? And if they're not, they're not worth anything at all, okay?
[25:51] They're just not useful. And so I was having so much fun with this car. And we were at Halcyon, and we were down to 12 miles. And I had that far to get to Avalon.
[26:02] And I was going down the road with Carson, and we were talking, and I missed the exit to get off to go to the battery charger. And as I had missed that exit, the car said, you are too far away from a charger.
[26:15] You're not going to make it. You're an idiot. All right, I didn't say the last thing. But it's basically, and I'm sure the owner was getting notifications, like you let somebody rent your car that should not be driving this car. And so I had to pull off somewhere, found the nearest charger, and waited a while so I could get five miles on the battery to drive the Avalon.
[26:33] By the time that I pull up at Avalon, the whole car is like stopping. The air conditioner's not working. Nothing's working. It is dying. I had less than a mile. And then I pulled in to a spot, and then I had a supercharger.
[26:45] And in 45 minutes, I got 200 miles, and it was everything I dreamed it would be at that point. All right? And so I have these things that are just not sufficient. And most of us, as weak as that example is, we live all of our lives trying to find comfort and security and belonging in things of this world.
[27:03] And all it's doing is just giving us enough to run to another place to get a little bit more of that so we can run to the next place. And in that, we never have enough energy to serve anybody else.
[27:14] We never have enough energy to think about doing anything for God. We're just existing from one short charge unto another because the world is not designed to meet our needs emotionally.
[27:26] We know that God's loving, but do you know that He's all-sufficient to meet the needs that you have? Because when you don't, that's how these good things in our lives that were made for us to enjoy and used for His service, they begin to entangle us, and they grab a hold of us and take on too much.
[27:43] So Adam begins to set the wrong agendas because our goals are going to determine our behavior. And so Adam set the wrong goals in his life, and it's going to change the things that he does. That's why when God comes in, His desire is to hide Himself because His goal now is not to feel pain and not to be around God, and it's going to change what He's done.
[28:03] So when He was walking in a garden at one time, now He's entangled in a garden because He's hiding in the things of this world when He ought to be searching after God. He ought to be pursuing God with His life.
[28:15] List of agendas. When following God, we make Him the motive of knowing Him, but other times we want others to love us, we want to be popular, we want our spouse to meet our needs, we want this job so people respect us, we want a promotion to validate us, we want a big house so people respect us.
[28:30] We want all these reasons, and we set our goals, and they're not proper goals, and we will never reach them, and they will never satisfy us, but they would just cause us to run ragged. And the more we run ragged, the more people make off of us.
[28:44] The more the world takes from us, the less we're able to serve Him and to please Him with our lives. Tinsley said that she needs a phone because all of her friends have a phone. That's the age we're at.
[28:55] She's three. No, I'm just kidding. All right, she wants a phone because her friends, and so she says, Dad, I need a phone. And I said, Tinsley, who will you call? And she says, why would I call anybody? And I'll say, you know, that's what phones were originally created for, all right?
[29:10] You would call people on them. And she said, no, I don't need a phone to call people. I need a phone because my friends have a phone, and since my friends have a phone, then I need one so that I'm not odd and I fit in with my friends.
[29:22] And I said, I didn't know that was one of the things that you bought when you purchased a phone. You are wanting approval from your friends, and I can't buy that from you. And you can't get that at the store, and if you had it, you would have to spend your whole life continuing to get it.
[29:38] And every one of us know that it's silly in here, but we know that we continue to do things. We've got to ask ourselves, what is the purpose behind what we are doing? And in answering that question, we answer, are we entangled in the affairs of this world?
[29:53] And then lastly, we must recognize when we're entangled, we're living self-centered. Pilate and Saul, throughout the Bible, they would make a bad, they would make a wrong decision, and they would say, because I fear the people, or because I wanted to make the people content.
[30:06] They're having to recognize what was the motive behind what they were doing in their lives, and that created this anxiety for us when we're constantly having to say, God, I have become entangled with the affairs of this life.
[30:20] So why did I choose this passage on the night before we have a conference for some people that are coming in? Because some college-eared students are going to come into our church, and they're going to make their way to China, and they're going to meet me and you.
[30:31] And they're going to be in this church for a year or two years, and what they ought to see people is that people that live lives that are not entangled by the affairs of this life. People that know how to steward what God gives them without it taking control of us.
[30:44] People that serve God not to please one another, but to please Him. People that give our lives completely to pleasing God and who aren't looking for this world to meet their needs emotionally.
[30:55] If you're not letting God meet your needs the night emotionally, I promise you that you're entangled with something in this life that wants to use you and abuse you, and that it's not made, not the way that you are made to live.
[31:10] You've heard the saying, if you're not paying for the product, what? You are the product. You know, when they talk about that, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product. There's so many things in this world that want to make you as the product and wants to take from you.
[31:21] And I want you to know tonight that God is all sufficient for whatever it is that you're dealing with tonight. So could I ask you, as it says in verse number seven, Paul said to Timothy, consider these things.
[31:32] Ask the Lord, have you got entangled with these things? It doesn't matter how young you're in here, how old you are, missionaries that are in here tonight, many of you on a Thursday night, you know, you're gifted in the fact that the church and those that support you are trying to make a way for you to live as entangled free as possible.
[31:50] To focus your time and energy upon the preaching of God's word and the prayer and ministry. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't come after you as well. It doesn't mean that the things this world can't grab a hold of you.
[32:01] And church family in here, if you've made that decision, would you just double down and say, would we be a church that in an area, in a part of a world where it's not popular to live a life not entangled by the fears of this world, that we're going to live counter culturally and be that example to whoever God would send this way.
[32:18] I want to pray for us. I'm going to give you a second. Pray at the altar. Pray in your seat. But would you ask God to search your heart and see where that passage lands tonight? Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
[32:29] Lord, I thank you for the conviction that was brought upon my life, Lord, as I studied this week. There were things in my life that have taken a hold of, Lord. I want them to have the rightful place.
[32:40] I want everything that you give me, Lord, to be used for your honor and for your service. I don't want to use the things this world to meet needs that only you can meet. With every head bowed and every eye closed, I just want to ask a question.
[32:54] Thursday night, there's always people visiting, and this church is all about the gospel, meaning that not only do we want you to know that you're on your way to heaven, we want to give you the opportunity to ask questions from the Bible. So if you're in here tonight and you don't know Jesus as your personal Savior, meaning you don't know that when you die that you have a place prepared for you with God, I would love the opportunity to pray for you tonight.
[33:17] Is that you? Would you raise your hand so I can be in prayer for you? Well, by your profession, it's a room full of people that know Christ. Let's live lives that are pleasing to Him. Let Him search your heart and identify the areas where you're not allowing Him to meet those needs in your life.
[33:33] When you're done praying at your seat or at the altar, would you stand and sing and sing in crying aticularé–‹ car? litigation in