Preach The Word #4

So this morning is going to be our fourth week studying our passage in 2 Timothy, chapter 4, verses 1 through 8. And this week we're going to be focusing mostly, I would say, on verse 6. We'll talk a little bit about verse 5, but I hope that as we study the passage it will become clear why we're not going from 5 into 6. The reason we're not going from 5 into 6 is that... Verses 6 through 8 interpret to us what Paul means in verse 5. In verse 5, he exhorts Timothy in his ministry. And then in verses 6, 7, and 8, he gives himself as an example of what it looks like to fulfill your ministry, to do what he's telling Timothy to do. And so next week, or in two weeks rather, we'll come back to this study. We'll finish up this section, verses 7 and 8, and get the full understanding of this passage. And so this morning, my hope is that we'll come to understand

The sacrifices that each one of us makes as a Christian. If you're a Christian, you will make sacrifices in your life. Many. And oftentimes those sacrifices will be more than you intended to make. And if we're honest, more than you want to make sometimes. My hope is that as we study this morning, you'll come to understand those sacrifices as an offering that you present to God. And that when you offer those things up, it's not a waste. You're not wasting your life. You're not failing to achieve the best thing that God could have for you. So that's my hope this morning, that we'll understand those things, and as a result, be more willing to give our lives, all of it, back to the Lord. Our text this morning, as I said, is 2 Timothy 4, verses 1-8. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead.

And by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. And so just to pause for a minute on verse 5, he says to Timothy, he's just been exhorting, and this whole passage is getting at Timothy's work and his calling as a pastor. And there's one simple task that Timothy's supposed to give his life to, and it's to preach the word. And then there's this caveat in verses 3 and 4 where he steps out of saying, Timothy, this is your job, and here's why. He steps out and he says, this is the context in which you're going to do this work. The time will come when the people will...

will turn away their ears from the truth, and you preach the word. And then he comes back in verse 5, and he says, but you, Timothy, I'm coming back to you. This is your charge. Be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. And then in verses 6 and following, Paul gives himself as an example of what that looks like. And so we're going to be focusing almost all of our attention this morning simply on understanding Paul's words at the beginning of verse 6, for I'm already being poured out as a drink offering. And so for that to mean something to us, which I think is sort of the linchpin of Paul's whole explanation, we have to understand what a drink offering is. What is a drink offering? Well, I'm going to read to you in Numbers chapter 15, the institution of a drink offering. I'm going to read it to you, 13 verses, and then I'm going to explain to you what's going on there. Because this is what Paul says, this is what's happening to me, so it would be good for us to understand what he's referring to.

So in Numbers 15, verse 1, it says this, And you shall prepare wine for the drink offering, one-fourth of a hin with the burnt offering, or for the sacrifice for each lamb. Or for a ram you shall prepare a grain offering, two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with one-third of a hin of oil. And for the drink offering you shall offer one-third of a hin of wine as a soothing aroma to the Lord. When you prepare a bull as a burnt offering to fulfill a special vow or for peace offerings to the Lord. Then you shall offer with the bull a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour and one-half of a hin of oil. And you shall offer as a drink offering one-half of a hin of wine as an offering by fire as a soothing aroma to the Lord. Thus it shall be done for each ox and for each ram and for each of the male lambs or of the goats. According to the number that you prepare, so shall you do for everyone according to their number. All who are native shall do these things in this manner, in presenting an offering by fire,

as a soothing aroma to the Lord. And so he's giving these instructions, and it's pretty simple if you step back out of it and you look at it. There's a correlation between the size of the animal that's being offered and what I'm going to call the companion offerings that go with it. So if you offer a goat, which is a small animal, you offer a grain offering, and he gives you the recipe for it. This much flour, this much oil. And you offer a drink offering, this much wine. If you offer a little bigger animal, more flour, more oil for the bread, more wine for the drink offering. If you offer a bull or an ox, big animal, more bread, more wine. And so this bread and this wine, the grain offering and the drink offering were companion offerings. They were things that were given along with the sacrifice of the animal whenever the people sacrificed to the Lord, whether that was an appointed time, Passover.

or whether that was a freewill offering, something that they were moved to do, or whether it was something that they'd made a special vow, this is the way they were to do it. And so Paul references back to this, this drink offering, and he says, I'm being poured out as a drink offering. And in case you're wondering how much a hin of wine or oil is, I can tell you, kind of. These offerings of wine, on the low end, would be about a gallon. So you can think of like a gallon of milk, that much wine, that's what's going to get poured on the animal as it's being offered and it's being sacrificed. So what do you think is going to happen when you pour a gallon of wine on a roasting animal? What's going to be produced? Say it. Smoke. Lots of smoke, right? And there's this theme that goes through all of these offerings. And it's that when you make these offerings and you roast the animal and you...

you bake the bread, and you pour the wine on it, there's going to be a smell associated with it. And that smell, that aroma, is going to rise up to the Lord, and it's going to please him. He's going to like the smell of that. In the same way that you like the smell of coming home or anticipating dinner or lunch or whatever, and you go, I can smell that. That smells good to me. The sacrifices that God's people were to offer in the Old Testament here that are described, would create a smell that would arise to the Lord and it would please him. He would be happy. And the wine that was offered was somewhere between one and two gallons, depending on the size of the animal that was being offered. Now, why did they have to make these sacrifices? Why did they have to slaughter animals? Why did they have to bake bread? Why did they have to pour out wine? I think the simplest answer that most of us would probably say is as an offering for sin.

They've sinned. They've done wrong. And so they would make these offerings as a picture of Jesus coming to eventually be our sacrificial lamb who would die in our place and satisfy the wrath of God against us. And that's true. And probably the most important and obvious application. But there's another one here. And this is the one that I think Paul was getting at. Because Paul wasn't saying, I'm being poured out as an offering for sin. When he says, I'm being poured out as a drink offering, he's not saying, I'm being poured out for your sins or their sins or even my own sins. So there's another reason that he was being poured out. What was it? What else were the Israelites supposed to learn from these offerings? Well, one of the things that they were supposed to learn, and I think what Paul's getting toward in his explanation of it when he describes himself as being poured out as a drink offering, is that these sacrifices were given as a sign to teach the people, the Israelites, the people of God,

That they should make a return to God of everything that he's given to them. That God doesn't give to them all of this food, all of this wealth, all of this abundance for them alone. But that they were regularly to be giving back to God a portion of what he had given to them. They were to make a return to God. And they were told that God would be pleased by it. That the smell, as they did this work, it would arise to him. as a pleasing aroma, a soothing aroma. And so they could have confidence that when they were sacrificing their lambs and they were baking their bread and they were pouring out their wine, that God was pleased by their sacrifices. Often when we think of sacrifices in the Old Testament, we think of the animal being sacrificed, and that's true. But the people who are offering those are also making sacrifices because they're going out into their herds and they're going out into their wine supply and they're going out into their grain bins and they're taking from it and they're offering those things to the Lord.

it should be obvious to all of us that if they're offering those things to the Lord, they no longer have them. It's gone now. They don't get it back. And this sort of sacrifice is pleasing to God. One other thing to note about these drink offerings is right at the beginning of the passage, it's the sort of thing you kind of pass over in the introduction, is it says, he tells them when to do it. It says, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when you enter the land where you are to live, which I am giving you, Then make an offering by fire. And you understand that these sacrifices, that this is a new thing for them. Because they've been out wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. And what Scripture tells us is that the people who wandered out there, when they offer sacrifices, the Lord says, it wasn't to me you were offering those sacrifices. And it's given as an explanation of why many of them didn't enter the promised land. And so this is a new thing that's coming. When you come into the land, when you receive my blessing, then...

Offer a sacrifice. Have you ever wondered why when you go on a long trip, the trip home is shorter than the trip there? You guys know this? You feel this? It's like the miles are the same. Whether you're driving or you're flying or however you're getting where you're going, the trip home's always shorter. Why is the trip home always shorter? Because you know how to get through the traffic better? Or TSA or whatever? No. It's because you anticipate home. You look forward to going home. You're like, I'm going back to my bed. I'm going to sleep on my pillow, right? I'm going to take a shower in my bathroom. You look forward to this. It's restful. You say, we go on trips and we go on vacations and they're fun. And they are, but they are also exhausting, right? And so we look forward to going home when we'll be able to rest and have our normal routines and not have to live out of a suitcase. And that's what the Old Testament, in the Old Testament, what the promised land signified to the Israelites was rest.

It was a place that they'd been out wandering 40 years. 40 years. Raise your hand if you're over 40 years old in here. Okay, so they're the only people who've ever been anywhere other than wandering. And there's only a few. And most of them are visitors, if we're honest, today. So the vast majority of the people in this church would have spent their whole lives living in tents and wandering around the wilderness and never knowing anything different. And yet there was a promise of God that there was going to come a time when they were going to enter into this land that he had promised to their forefathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob. And when they come there, it's like all the anticipation and all the time that they've been waiting and wandering and suffering and not being able to put down roots and not being able to offer to their God or to worship him. Now they're going to get to do that. And to them, that would have been, you know, in big shining lights, rest. You are coming into your land, your place of rest.

And it wasn't until then that they would offer these sacrifices. Did they have animals when they were wandering around? Grain and wine? Sure they did. But they weren't to offer them up to the Lord in sacrifice until they had entered his rest. And so this was something that God's people did when they were after they'd been delivered from slavery of Egypt and from their wandering in the wilderness. Then they would offer to their Lord. sacrifices. It was an act of worship as well as an act of gratitude toward their God for his mercies to them. And so this is what Paul's referring to when he says, I'm being poured out as a drink offering. I think until I really started thinking about this passage, when I recalled Paul saying, I'm being poured out as a drink offering, and I've thought, I'm supposed to be poured out as a drink offering like Paul, because it's what he's telling Timothy to do, and it's what we should all be thinking and doing. I've always thought that means I have to die.

that to be poured out as a drink offering means to die. But the language here is not something that's about to happen, but something that's already been going on. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering. It's not something he's anticipating. His death is imminent. The very next words say, the time of my departure has come. But he says this being poured out as a drink offering, that is already happening. It's been going on into the past and up till now, it's going on. And so it's not his death that's being described as the drink offering, but rather his life. His life was a drink offering, not his death. Paul's love, his obedience to God, his service, his ministry, that was the drink offering. One of the things that impresses me, that I mentioned I want to talk about a little more now, is in the Old Testament, this sacrificial system would have been a very expensive thing.

It would have been very costly. When you get down into the sorts of sacrifices that are going on, there's even provision in the law for how the poor can offer a smaller breed cheaper sacrifice. Because they were giving constantly their meat, their grain. What if you had a bad year? What if the fields had caught on fire? What if it was a time of war and your enemies had come in and burned the fields, slaughtered your animals? What if there was a drought and the olives didn't set the way they should? Or the grapes for your wine? Nowhere in the law does it say, well, if trouble comes, then you don't have to offer sacrifices. And so these sacrifices could be very costly things. Meat, bread, wine, your food and your drink. The things that sustain you. Give those back to God. And you say, well, I'd like to give to him something else.

But this is what they gave. They gave things that were very earthy, very tactile, very real to them, very costly. And so they would have been aware of what was going on when they looked out in their pasture land and they said, we're going to give back a tenth of what we've got. And they'd look out there and they'd see 500 head of cattle and they'd say, okay, there's 500 now, but after we go up and offer our sacrifices, what's going to be left? 10% of it will be gone. And that was the minimum. They were many times offering more than that according to their special vows or their free will offerings or whatever. And so they understood the real cost of their sacrificial system that God had instituted. And so Paul's life similarly to this, the things he offered to God in his life were very tangible and very real. The reason I'm saying that is to say I think oftentimes we can over-spiritualize the sacrifices that we make as Christians.

And we say, well, we give spiritual things back to God. And we do. And I want to come and explain that. But first, I want you to know that you don't understand sacrifice to the Lord until you understand giving up things that you can touch and see and taste and feel and enjoy. And that when you sacrifice them, you're not loaning them to God to get back. You're giving them up. The animal cut down the middle, entrails pulled out, put on the fire, burnt. Gone. No longer yours. Don't get it back. The things that Paul offered to God our Father were tangible. Very real. His life. You remember where he says, I think it's in 2 Corinthians, and he's going on about his sufferings and his sorrows and his shipwrecks. And he says, I bear on my body the brand marks of Jesus. Therefore, don't give me any more trouble. And he wasn't being hyperbolic.

He was telling the truth. He literally had the scars on his backs from the beatings and from the lashings and from the imprisonments and from the shipwrecks. He bore on his body the evidence of his sacrifices. Sacrificing for the Lord is something that's easy to talk about. I shouldn't say it's easy to talk about, but it is much easier to talk about than it is to do. And so Jesus warns us, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They talk about it. Encourage others to do it. In that passage of Matthew 15 that I just read, he's quoting Isaiah and he says, And so this has been a temptation that's attended God's people all along. To honor the Lord with our lips, to speak of sacrifice. But when it comes time to offer up, our hearts are far from him. And so our offerings to the Lord must rise above our words and our feelings to real tangible things. Meaning,

You should be able, as a Christian, the longer you've lived, you should be able to look at your life and say, we're here now, and these are the things along the way that we sacrificed, that we gave, that we don't have in our bank accounts or in our lives because we gave them to the Lord. And it would be a shame if we could get to the end of our lives and not be able to say, we have marks on our life, like Paul had scars on his back from serving God. Now you might be thinking, I think the Bible says something about offering up spiritual sacrifices to God. And it does. And I'm going to read it to you. Because I've been pushing at you to say, you need to offer real things, tangible things. But it says spiritual things. In 1 Peter 2, verse 5, it says that we're to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And you think, there it is. I can offer spiritual things. I can offer feelings. I can offer ideas. I can offer plans.

Didn't work out? That's not what Peter's talking about here. When we offer up sacrifices, they ought to be spiritually significant. That's what Peter's getting at here. That you don't just willy-nilly say, I'm doing this for the Lord, and I'm doing that for the Lord, and I'm not eating chocolate until Easter because the Lord. What a waste. Spiritually bankrupt. That's not a sacrifice, okay? So in case you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about Lent. It's stupid. it's harmful because it convinces you that you're doing something that's pleasing to God and it's not. It's not. What's spiritual about you giving up chocolate or caffeine or meat or whatever it is? Maybe you could come to me and you would say, I'm giving those things up because I have a sin associated with those things. Then okay, then we can talk some more. But you just go pick something off the shelf and say, I'm going to give this up for the Lord. Spiritual sacrifice. No. No. Offer up spiritually.

informed sacrifices. Examine your life. Take a look at what you have and say, what of this do I have that I didn't get from the Lord in the first place? And what can be offered up? What will we offer up that will be acceptable to him through Jesus Christ our Lord? And so if we're to follow Paul here in having our lives poured out as a drink offering, we shouldn't think about our deaths. We should think about our lives and how we live. How we intend to live. Have you ever had the thought in your life, some of you I'm sure are old enough, that you have this horrible thought that enters your mind and you say, that's what I have to do? That's what it means to be a Christian? I have to go without, I can't have that? That's what being a Christian means? Am I the only one who has this thought? I've had this thought numerous times. This is what I have to do? This is what I can't have? That's scary.

It's in those moments that you've touched, you've come face to face with what a drink offering is and what Paul is talking about here. Maybe you didn't get afraid. Maybe you got angry. I will not give that. I won't do that. You can't say that to me. You can't expect me to do that. I think we look at Paul and you think of the life he led and we think it was easy for him. And I've never talked to Paul. But I think we're idiots if we think that he thought his life was easy. that all the sacrifices that he made weren't difficult for him. I think it's common when people struggle, we get out the scripture that says, and it's not really the scripture, and we say, God will never test you beyond what you can bear. It does say that, and it's meant to be a comfort to us. We leave off the second part where it says, but along with the temptation will also provide a way of escape so that you'll be able to endure it. And this is what we tell people when they're suffering, when they're faced up with the sacrifice.

that they didn't choose or that they're afraid of or angry about, we say, it'll be okay. But what I would rather say to you is what Paul said himself, which is that he says that our burdens were so heavy upon us that we despaired even of life. We didn't even want to live anymore. It was so hard. It was so difficult. The cost of being poured out. Now that, you might find resonates with you. That there are times in your life where you go, I don't have any more to give. I don't feel like there's another drop in the cup. But you who are young, I want you to look around at those who are older than you and say, you know what? They don't have a bigger cup or a better cup than you. They have a God that provides grace to bear the burdens as they come to them and to persevere until the end. Which is to say that when you feel like, I've got nothing more to give, it's probably not true.

What you probably really mean is something between I don't want to give anymore or I'm afraid that my sins will overtake me and I'll refuse to give anymore. Some of you may not get angry when you look at your life. Some of you may not be afraid. Some of you may just be tired. Just tired. Don't feel like I have anything else to give. That's how Paul felt. Many times in his life, that's how Paul felt. He didn't quit. Continued to give. To be used by God. He was willing to be poured out. And so this is what Paul's telling Timothy to do. Be sober in all things. Endure hardship. I mean, what normal person is told to endure hardship and says, sign me up. Where do I go? We need some reason to endure the hardships and the indignities and the sorrows and the pains of being a Christian. And many times we feel like, well, if I offer this up, this sacrifice, Whatever it is, will it matter? If I'm going to sacrifice, I want to know that it's going to matter. That it's not just wasted. It's not just in vain. It's not just poured out on the ground to soak in and just go away with no acknowledgement. I'm bringing my bowl and my flour and my oil and my wine to the priest. I want to know that when I give you this, it's not just a waste because my family needs to eat.

You ever think an Israelite ever thought that as they took their sacrifices up to God? I bet they did. I bet that's part of the reason that they didn't make sacrifices when they were supposed to. They didn't want to offer. They didn't want to sacrifice. They didn't feel like they could. And the sweet refrain in the Old Testament at that time was that those sacrifices arise as a soothing aroma to God. Now, I could give you much less truthful or much less biblical reasons for you to sacrifice your life for Jesus. But this is it. The sacrifices that you make may well be unseen. Most of the sacrifices that you make, my guess, it will be at your house, with your family, where no one sees it except them. Not immediately. And you think, well, it's not worth it. If nobody sees it, how are people going to be helped by all the sacrifice and all the sorrow and all of the heartache and pain that I go through? If they don't even see it, why is it worth it? And I say, because God sees it. He sees all of it. And he doesn't despise

That your offerings are less than perfect. Which one of us has ever offered a perfect sacrifice to our God? Here's a perfect sacrifice. I wasn't tempted to, in any way, I didn't sin, I didn't struggle. It's perfect, said no one ever. Because Jesus is the only perfect sacrifice, right? That's why you're all sitting here going, yeah, yeah, no, I can't offer, that's right. Because we're not perfect and we can't offer perfect things up. And I'm afraid that too often we think because we offer imperfect sacrifices or we struggle to offer them or we're late in offering them, that God's not pleased by them. And that's not the case. The sacrifices that God's people offer up to him, whether they're big or small, whether they're seen or unseen by the world, do arise to him as a pleasing aroma. You say, I can't eat and take hold of God's satisfaction with my sacrifices. And I say, not now, but one day you will.

One day you will. Why is it that he says to the sheep, when he comes and he divides the sheep, and he goes, well done, good and faithful slave. You've been faithful with a little. And you say, I wasn't faithful. Because that's what they said. When did we do that? No one saw it. Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a little. I will put you in charge of much. Enter into the joy of your master. I would do you a disservice if I told you that there is something that's going to give you that level of satisfaction and that level of contentment before that day comes. You have to look forward to that day and every day that follows it. Or you won't offer sacrifices to God. How do you think Paul got through his life and then his death if he didn't look forward to that day? And so our aim ought to be, as we offer our lives up as sacrifices to our God, to do it freely.

To not grumble and complain. And when we grumble and complain about it, you should actually give the sacrifice anyway. And then you should ask God to help you have a good heart about it. When the widow gave her mite, Jesus said she gave more than everyone else. And what she gave wasn't measured according to the quantity, but her willingness to give what she had to God. We could all come up with our reasons and often do for why we should withhold our sacrifices, put them off, delay them. You won't give unless you have faith. None of us, I suspect, will have to give the sorts of ways that Paul did. But every one of us will have to give the way Paul did. You understand? You may not die with lashes all over your back, but you should go to your grave, and when you die, they should say, that man, that woman, they loved God. And you can see from their life that that's true.

And how will they see it? When you die and can't give any more to the account, what will they see? Your sacrifices. That's what they'll see. They'll see your sacrifices. Without faith, it's impossible to please him. It's Hebrews 11, 6. Without faith, it's impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must first believe that he is and that he's the rewarder of those who seek him. And you have to understand the way you seek God largely in this life is through sacrificing. Isn't that all that Jesus did while he was here? It was like a cell phone with a battery, and he came at 100%, and it just... And when he was tired, he was like, I need a break. And when he went across the seat, and then he died. And then he was raised. He gave freely. Paul gave freely. We ought to give freely. And I don't say that to discourage you or to make you think that if you don't naturally give freely, that there's no hope for you. I just said a minute ago, none of us actually do this.

Not the way we should. But isn't it helpful to know what we should be aiming for? A cheerful giver. We always think about money. I'm a cheerful giver. Here's my money. No, cheerful giver, here's my life. How else was Timothy supposed to endure hardship? How else was he supposed to fulfill his ministry? His father in the faith is about to die. Is there any other stronger deterrent from whatever behavior other than death? Like, I think all of us, whatever we're doing, whatever we got going on in here, somebody died doing what I'm doing, and you go, oh, oh, I'm not listening. And I think I should avoid what they did. And here Paul is saying, no, do what I'm doing for the reasons that I'm doing it. You freely received, freely give. And so the application to you is, what are you offering back to God? And I don't ask that question, honestly. I don't ask that question to, grind you into the ground. And it's not meant to be this like between the lines accusation that you don't give anything to God. That's not actually my point. My point is simply to ask, what do you, what are you giving back to God right now? Don't answer the question with what you want to give back to God because that may never happen. Don't answer the question with what you plan to give to God because that might not happen either. As you sit and as we listen, we should be thinking, what am I giving right now?

now. Right now. We'll have a rest. An eternal rest. But none of us are there yet. And I think that it's good for Christians that as they get closer to entering into rest, that they be tired from all of their giving. So what are you offering to God? How are you doing what Paul did? How are you being poured out as a drink offering? What don't you have because of the choices you've made in regard to how you serve God? Your money? Your time? Your energy? Your home? What are those sacrifices? What are you doing because you love God? What don't you have in your life? I'll give you a personal example. We're having a Christian class on finance, right? Abram's teaching. And it's often said of me, and I'm only saying it because Abram has said it and other men have said it, Dave could make a lot more money doing something else. And it's true. I could. I'm paid well, actually.

Our church is generous. But I have these skills and abilities. If I had not spent the last 12 years building and growing this church and my family hadn't, we'd have a lot more money. And it's been our joy to make that sacrifice because we love God. Have we done it perfectly? Nope, I sure haven't. You're welcome. I wasn't fishing for that. But you understand, I'm not trying to boast. And if I am, I'm sorry. if it comes across that way. I'm not trying to boast. But I'm telling you, there are choices that we made when we first got together. When I first became a Christian, I told Vanessa, I want to be a pastor. Now, you know how much I knew about what being a pastor was? Nothing. I'd hardly ever been in a church, let alone been around a pastor. But I just thought, my life was awful. I was a notorious sinner. And God plucked me out of it. And I'd like to help other people.

Not go through the same misery and heartache that I went through. That's the reason I wanted to be a pastor. No idea what I was signing up for. No idea if I could even do it given the sort of life I'd led. But I thought, this is what I want to do. And I wish I could say that I knew better what I wanted. I wish I could say I counted the cost better. Because I didn't. But God's been good to me. He gave me a sweet wife. He's given me wonderful children. All of us are sinners. None of us are perfect. If you've been here long enough, you know that firsthand. But he's been good to us. And he's been good to you too. So what have you sacrificed? 1 Corinthians 10, 31 says, These sacrifices that I'm trying to push you toward, all I'm trying to get you to be able to say is that when someone asks you, like, why do you drive a bus?

or why don't you go on vacations, or why don't your kids play in the traveling sports leagues, or whatever, that you would say, because we love God, and we love his people. And that's why we don't do this, or do that, or speak this way, or whatever. That's all I'm trying to get you to think about. The final point related to what you're offering back to God, your offerings ought to align with your station in life. So if you're a man, they should be the sort of offerings that men give. If you're a woman, they should be the sort of offerings that women give. If you're single, if you're married, if you're young, if you're old, your offerings should match your station and your resources. When your life station changes, if you think, oh, well, when X, Y, and Z happens, then I will be more freed up. But really, we don't mean freed up. We mean willing. I'll be more willing to sacrifice then. No, you won't.

Yes, I will. No, you won't. I speak from my personal experience and experience as a pastor. No, you won't. You'll either do it now, and then as a result, you'll do it later, or you won't do it now, and as a result, you won't do it later. You say, well, I'm going to repent later. I hope so. I hope I repent more and give more as life goes on. You understand? So much of being willing to listen to Paul and his life. What is there about the guy that says, be like me? I want to be like him. You know, we don't put posters of Paul up on our wall. I want to be like that guy. I want to be blind. I want to be tortured. I want to be persecuted. I want to be carrying the weight of the world. In addition to, in that section in Corinthians, where he says, I'm despair even of life itself. And he says, not to mention all my care for the churches. Like, when you look at Paul, you should just say, God gave Paul this work to do. And Paul was faithful.

God has given me work to do, and I want to be faithful like he was. And that's it. And when I see that I'm not being faithful because I'm scared or I'm tired or I'm angry or whatever, that you'd ask God to help you and give you faith to give the thing that needs to be given. If you do it now, you'll do it later. If you don't do it now, you won't do it later. Or it'll be much more miserable if you do it later. If you get in the habit of being selfish and then all of a sudden you have to be generous and you're like, oh, ah. That's what it means to be poured out as a drink offering. That's what Paul calls Timothy to do as a minister. That's what Paul calls us to do as Christians. So this week you should talk to your spouse. You should talk to the Lord and see what you're giving. And if you're giving, praise God. Literally. Like, pray and thank God.

that he's given you the ability and the desire and the opportunity to give. And if you say, well, I think we should do this other thing, pray and ask God to give you faith to do that. As we go on in life, in this world, this part of the Christian life is going to rise to the top and become the thing that's noticeable about Christians. Because everyone's getting more and more and more selfish. And that's the opposite of sacrifice. Everyone's getting more greedy. And so Christian's willingness to follow Paul at this point and to sacrifice will become more noticeable because less and less people will be doing it. Simple things like getting married and having children will become more and more noticeable. Marriage is less and less popular. Oh, you got married. Oh, you got married in your 20s? Like early? You didn't get your career in...

That's going to become noticeable. And you're going to say, yeah, and you're going to kind of want to be bashful. Don't be bashful. What do you have to be ashamed of? You wanted to honor God. That's why you did it, right? We want to have children. Praise God. Do it. I thought about our church. I know a number of you aren't regular attenders here, but we have a lot of babies in our church. A lot of babies. I think we've had four born in the last three months, and we're going to have four born in the next six weeks. And that doesn't take into account before that.

And it doesn't take into account what you guys know that's going to happen again. So you get married and you're weird. You just want to have kids and you're even more weird. And then you don't complain about them. And there is no explanation. The world is just like, I don't know why you do that. Tell them. My wife and I tell people, when you have kids, you think, oh, my life's going to go back to normal. We just can't wait until it gets back to normal. And we smile and we say, it never will. And you don't have to have 10 kids for that to be true. You just have to have one. Your body will forever change. Your marriage will forever change. Your life will forever change. And if it's the Lord's design for you to have more than one or two children, you will come to stand out even more and more and more. Now, is that a sacrifice? Is getting married and having children a sacrifice? Yeah. What do you sacrifice? Your comforts? Real practically, your wealth? Your time?

Your bodies? And the world can't make a lick of sense out of it. They look at it and go, well, why would you do that? I don't understand why you do it. And your answer is because we love God. And it's not easy and we're not perfect at it. But we do want to make a return to our God for the things that he's given to us. He gave us his son and made us his children. And so we thought it made sense that we would get married and have children and raise them up for him. And that was going to be what our life was about. I realize it's not popular in this society.

But don't you enjoy it? Is God not good to you in the midst of it? Even when your kids are screaming and fussing and you're pulling your hair out. Has God not been good to you? God was good to Paul. Paul wasn't walking around going, oh, this is so awful. Why do I have to do all this? Be willing to be poured out. And don't wait until it's ideal. Just be willing to be poured out. Live by faith. Let's pray.