1. STRENGTH:
Don’t rely on your own wisdom and strength but remember, as Paul reminds Timothy
that your strength lies in Christ, v.1-2.
2. SACRIFICE:
Be willing to make the sacrifice and to suffer what is necessary, v. 3.
3. SECURITY:
Be secure in your salvation, v. 11-13.
4. STABILITY:
Be grounded in the Faith v.14-19.
5. SANCTIFICATION:
Don’t live a compromised lifestyle, be sanctified, v. 20-23.
6. SERVANTHOOD:
Adopt the Servant Attitude necessary, v.24-26.

Who are we serving?  Who are we concerned about?  If we’re serving ourselves, our own interests, we are going to want to defend ourselves.  We’ll be more concerned about making ourselves look good than we are about communicating the goodness of God.

This is why Paul reminds Timothy that he is a bondservant of the Lord. We need to be equipped with reasonable answers so that we’re ready. And if we see ourselves as His bondservant, then everything we do and experience takes on a new perspective. We won’t be quarrelsome, we’ll be kind to everyone who questions us, we’ll remain in a place emotionally where we are able to teach – rationally and reasonably.  We won’t become impatient even when we’re put down and we will remain calm and kind in all of our responses.  Look at what is at stake here, verse 25. . .
“Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth”

We are living in what is being called the Postmodern era where everything is supposedly relative, where “tolerance” is the new excuse for rejecting right and wrong, where moral absolutes that have guided societies for the past 5,000 years are now all suspect. People will say, “Well, if it’s true for me, then it’s true.  If it’s right for me, who are you to question it—you’re just being intolerant of others. If it doesn’t hurt anyone, what’s wrong with it?  Etc.”  The argument is that there are no absolutes, there is no such thing as absolute truth and there certainly is no such thing as absolute morality.  

Let’s take Truth:  First, the statement “There is no such thing as absolute truth” is an absolute statement and is therefore a self-defeating statement.  Second, people accuse us of being narrow when we assert absolute truth, but that is the nature of truth—it is by definition very narrow. Truth may have only one right answer and many wrong answers.  2+2=4 and never 5, 9, 36 or any other of an infinite number of possible answers. There is only one person who is president of the United States at this moment in history (one right answer and billions of wrong answers). Isn’t it then reasonable to expect when it comes to eternity that there would be one right answer?

Jesus prayed to the Father and said, “Thy Word is truth.” God claims the Bible to be true.

What we need to do in these situations is remind people that it doesn’t matter what they believe, what really matters is what is true. We need to get people to think about truth rather than just belief. I might believe that there are little green men on Mars and you believe there are big purple women, but it doesn’t matter what you or I believe. What matters is what is true.

Two simple, but effective answers for those who are skeptical in regard to absolute truth and morality:

Adolph Hitler killed six million of God’s chosen people. As long as he believed in his heart that it was the right thing to do, then it was perfectly right. We need to be tolerant of other people’s views because if it is right for them, then it is right. If it is true for them, then it is true.

There is such a thing as absolute truth and you can find it in the Bible.

Here’s another one. Evidently a conservative woman appeared on the TV program, “Politically Incorrect.” This woman stumped the others who were defending relative truth and relative morality when she asked, “In what situation is rape okay?”  The other guests on the show just sat there in silence.

Think about it—there are no situations in which rape is right. Therefore, it must be wrong for all people, in all places, at all times, and in every situation. The statement, “Rape is wrong,” is an absolute truth. If there is one absolute truth, there can be two, three, or more. We need to help some people shake this politically correct thinking and admit that there are absolutes in our world. Then we have a platform to present the truth of the Bible in regard to our spiritual lives.

“If you can’t see God, how can you believe in Him?” There are a lot of things we believe in that we cannot see. I believe in gravity. You can say you do not, but if you jump off the top of El Capitan in Yosemite, you’ll experience something you cannot see and you just may change your mind in regard to its existence.

Some people assume that in order to believe in God we have to shelve our brains and take a blind leap of faith. God has never asked us to have a blind faith. He invites us to come and consider Him and His truth, “Come let us reason together,” He says. We can offer good calculated reasonable answers for our faith in God and His word. By contrast, it is the unbeliever who has taken the blind leap of faith when they have rejected the existence of Heaven and Hell and of God Himself without ever investigating the evidence around them.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:18-20).

By the way, there is no evidence to prove that there is no God—it is an argument from silence. If challenged, an honest skeptic will have to admit he has no proof that God does not exist.

We can prove that He does.

We can’t exactly draw a picture of God for the skeptic, but we can give them some logical proof of His existence. One of the proofs we can use for God has four points—remember CADO and you will always have an answer for the hope that is in you.  Or CODA, easier to remember.

    Creation—every time you see a piece of machinery, you see an engine, a motorcycle, a car, even a bicycle, you know it has a creator.
    Art— every time you see a piece of art, you know it has an artist.
    Design— every time you see a wrist watch, you know it has a designer.
    Order—every time you see order, like ten coke cans lined up on a counter, you know it has an “order-er.”

When we look around at the universe, what do we see? We see creation, art, design, and order. If everything else has a creator, artist, designer, and order-er behind it, isn’t it reasonable to expect that behind this incredibly intricate, complicated, and  marvelous universe there is also a Creator, Artist, Designer, and Order-er behind it?

The anthropologist finds a rock with evidence that it had at one time, long ago, been shaped into a tool and he uses it as proof of human civilization existing in ancient history. It has a few scratches on it, which indicates that it was intentionally shaped for a purpose. Then he looks at the infinitely more complex design of man and does he remain consistent with his investigative protocol and conclude there must have been some intelligent designer behind the human being? No. Since he’s already decided that God does not exist, he concludes that man must have somehow come into existence apart from any outside intervention, he must have just crawled out from under a rock—maybe the same rock he then learned to make into this tool!  “See,” he says, “these things don’t just happen on their own. The scratches on this rock prove there was an intelligence and designer behind it.”

All we’re asking for is reason and consistency. Creation/Creator, art/Artist, design/Designer, order/Orderer:  logical, reasonable proof that there is a God behind this universe.

Answer will be in this div.

Answer will be in this div.