TRANSCRIPTION | Wednesday, May 12, 2021 | How to Live in a Culture Gone Wild

 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Hey, everybody, welcome to 3trees Church online. Tonight, we're going to be having a little bit of a Bible study. I’m actually going to be following up with some of the things that I preached on Sunday morning. We're going to take a look again at 2 Timothy chapter three and just further evaluate some of the advice, some of the counsel, that Paul gave to his spiritual son, Timothy. While you're taking a moment to maybe grab your Bible, maybe even grab a notepad and a pen, I also want to encourage you to consider grabbing the elements for communion. Before we leave the air tonight, we're going to take a time and partake of the bread, partake of the cup and do exactly what Jesus commanded us to do, which is to remember him through the breaking of bread and the celebration of communion. As well, I want to let you know about two opportunities that are coming up. This following Wednesday night, I think that's actually the 19th of May, at 6:30pm Central, 7:30pm Eastern, we're going to be at our Columbia location. We're going to be having a time of prayer and praise, we'll also be sharing the Word. It's become one of the highlights of our month, and I hope that you'll join us in person. And if you can't do that, that is fine. Go ahead and plan to join us for church online, we’ll pick up that service at 7pm Central, 8pm Eastern Standard Time. As well, on Sunday night, we're going to be having house parties for our students, our youth. If you are a young person, or if there's a young person in your family, ages Junior High through college, we would love to have them. We just need you to send us an email, youth@3trees.com or go to our Instagram page for the church or for students and just shoot us a DM, let us know you're interested. And what we'll do in response is we'll shoot you the address for where that house party is going to be at. It's going to be a great time, and I can't wait to hang out with the youth; I'm going to be there as well. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

I want you to grab your Bible, join me in 2 Timothy, chapter number three. I'm sure you remember on Sunday morning, if you didn't have a chance to join us for that message, I invite you to go to YouTube, or to 3trees.com, there you'll find the links to the message that I shared. And it was a word that was really burning in my heart. And I felt just a mandate from the Holy Spirit to deliver it. And I want to thank you for those that have shared feedback of how in some way it encouraged you or impacted you. And I thought tonight, just because of the gravity of that word, it would be good to just go a little deeper into 2 Timothy chapter three. Paul had a number of spiritual sons. Those ministers he had a relationship with, it went beyond just a teacher and a student. He felt almost a parental responsibility for them of helping to develop them in their walk with God. Timothy would probably have been at the top of that list. Timothy went on to have a profound ministry in his own right. But Paul speaks of him in glowing terms, but also in these letters 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, we see a discourse between Paul and Timothy where Paul definitely has a fatherly tone, and he speaks very directly to Timothy. And one of the things that he does in the second letter is he begins to warn Timothy that there are going to be things that are going to happen in his life that are going to happen in the earth and they're going to happen in culture that he's going to need to be ready for. And Paul also, I think, gives him some encouragement that in many ways he is ready. So there's some things he's going to need to start doing, and there’s going to be some things he needs to continue doing. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Let's pick it up. 2 Timothy chapter three, verse number one, Paul says “This, I want you to know also, that in the last days, perilous times are going to come. For men will be lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, having a form of godliness, but denying,” denying, “the power thereof from such turn away.” I was noticing that there are several things that are broken down numerically in 2 Timothy chapter three. And so here at the beginning of this particular chapter, Paul actually listed out eightteen characteristics of a culture that's gone wild, 18 characteristics of a culture that's gone wild. Now that would be helpful to Timothy, but it's also helpful to us that when we begin to look into a culture, we begin to look into a nation, we look into a society, or even into our own life, and we begin to see the majority of these characteristics showing up, then it means that there are some things that are happening that symbolize the last days are upon us. Again, 2 Timothy, chapter three, verse one, “This, also know that in the last days, perilous times will come.” Now, then he describes with 18 characteristics, what those perilous times will look like. I read them just a moment ago, but let's walk through them one by one. He says that there will be those who are lovers of themselves. So in other words, selfishness is going to be something that will be pervasive in the culture. He says they will be covetous, so the love of money and people being fond of money, and desiring more and more money, and wanting what their neighbor has, that they will be boasters. There's going to be a lot of people who are self-exalted, and try to exalt themselves; proud, meaning that they're going to have an element of self- entitlement. And they think that they deserve more than anyone else, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, in other words, the parent is going to give instruction, and the children are going to be disobedient to that, that they will be unthankful. There's not going to be an attitude of gratitude. They will be unholy. There's not going to be any reverence for God, a lack of God consciousness, a lack of response to the things of God, they will be without natural affection, that speaks to sexual orientation, that the things of nature will be turned against, and men will be towards man, women towards women. Truce breakers; in other words, their words are gonna be worthless. They might sign a contract or even agree to terms of peace in a treaty. and they're going to break it. They're going to be false accusers. In other words, they're going to slander, they're going to cut down, they're going to say things that are not true just for the sake of causing someone else harm. Incontinent; we typically think of that word in terms of medical aspects. But in this instance, what it actually means is that they will have no control of their desires. It will be like their lust will have become a riderless horse who has broken free from the reins. They will be fierce. In other words, they'll have a savage mentality, and there won't be a lot of restraint in regards to how fierce they will attack someone or something. They will be despisers of good men. Now, why? Well, they're being led by the enemy, and the enemy wants to steal, kill. and destroy. And the enemy hates all things that are good, but when you think about being a despiser of good men, they're going to literally despise any person that tries to do something good. They will be traitors. In other words, they will be betrayers, they will be someone that will stab you in the back when you're not looking. They'll say one thing to your face and something else behind your back. They will be heady. There will be recklessness in regards to hardheadedness. You won't be able to tell them anything, a stubbornness that will be likened unto idolatry, as they pursue whatever it is that they want for themselves. High mindedness, conceited, arrogant, thinking more highly of themselves then they ought, lovers of pleasure. They will have this desire for sensual gratification, and in many ways that will become their god; they'll love pleasure more than they love God. So However, they can get that next pleasure, however they can get that next sensual sensation, those will be the things that they desire more than even having a relationship with God.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Now, those 18 characteristics that I just gave you, they're recorded in 2 Timothy chapter three, verse one through seven. And just in case somebody joined us late, and you're kind of missing what we're talking about here, I want to give you that first verse again. 2 Timothy 3:1, “This know, also, that in the last days, perilous times shall come.” And then he describes what those perilous times are going to look like. Now, we know it's going to happen at the end of time, that's clear, but why does it happen at the end of time? Like, what goes wrong in the culture that causes things to ever just kind of begin to fall apart? And Paul, actually, in this same chapter, gives three reasons that these things are going to happen. Number one, this is what he says, “They will have a form of godliness,” verse five, “but they will deny the power thereof.” They'll have a form of godliness, but they'll deny the power thereof. The next thing it says is that there will be people, specifically even it mentions females, who will have a gullible nature, and will, as a result, allow things to creep into the house that ought not be there. Now, I talked to them about that on Sunday, and I stressed how God is showing us, it's so important for women, and mothers, and wives to be willing to give their hearts and their minds over to the Lord, and to welcome discernment. What God seems to be implying is that some really negative things can happen in a culture if the discernment of women is cut off from being available to God. If you got a discerning woman in your home, if your wife is discerning, if you are a discerning mother, you ought to just thank God that discernment is in your house, because according to this passage of text, it can help better prepare you for the end times should that moment arrive upon us, so that all that stuff that would try to creep in can't get in the house, because you're discerning it at the doorstep. That's something to be celebrated according to this passage. The next thing is, it says that they will be ever learning, but never gaining truth.  So, we talked about first, 18 characteristics of a culture going wild, according to Paul, and then we talked about three reasons according to Paul, that that is actually going to happen. Think about now how accessible information is, how accessible knowledge is, how that we have this ability to gain insight at a level that we never have before. I mean, just one Google Search away from knowing stuff that we could have never have known any other way. And just information is on the superhighway of the internet. It is exploding in the availability of knowledge. And so here we are, in so many aspects ever learning, but never actually gaining the truth that is most importantly related to the Lord and his Word. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

I want to circle back down to that first reason that Paul gave us for why this stuff's going to happen. He said that people will have a form of godliness, but they will deny the power thereof. He goes on in that same verse to say, “this is such a serious error, that if you find yourself with someone who is doing that you should get away from them.” That's how dangerous it is and how contagious it is when it comes to the things of the enemy. A form of godliness. I was spending some time in prayer this afternoon, and I was just thinking through like, what does that really mean to have a form of godliness but to deny the power of God? Now, maybe you've thought some about that, maybe this is a verse that stuck out to you in the past, and maybe you've even done some study on it. I did that today. I read some commentaries about what this specific verse means. I dug deep into the Greek and some of the things that we could learn even from the Strong's Concordance, if you would about what it might mean. But even just in sitting in prayer, and just kind of leaning into it for a minute. God, what does it mean? What do we really need to take away from this? This is something I noticed. I felt like maybe the Holy Spirit was saying to me. It's possible to have a form of godliness, but not be godly. In other words, it's possible to have religion, but not have a relationship. Maybe that's what Jesus was talking about, when he said, there's going to be people who are going to tell me all these things that they've done in my name, but I'll look at them, and I'll say, I never knew them. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

You know, it's possible to get up and go through the form of a religious experience or worship experience, whether you're coming in person, or you're just attending in church online. You can get up and you can go through the form of godliness of a worship service of religious acts, and yet at the same time, never really give your life over to the true power of God. This is another thing I felt in prayer this afternoon. There is a difference between going through the motions of a religious experience and experiencing the power of God on a personal level. You know, God has something personal for you to experience. It's not just something he wants to do in your church or wants to do in the earth, like there's something personal that he wants to do in your life. And he noticed, he says, it's a form of godliness that becomes dangerous. Formality can prevent impact, and a lack of impact prevents life change. Think about how that you could come into a religious worship experience, and you can just go through the motions of that worship experience, and it begins to become overly predictable. And if we're not careful, we even begin to allow our preferences to be the thing that leads us as opposed to a desire for the presence of God. And so you out of a desire, me out of a desire for whatever it is that we prefer, and the form of godliness, that we most desire that we could actually wall ourselves off from actually having an impactful encounter with the power of God that would actually bring life change us. We got to be careful with anything that begins to elevate our preferences over an encounter with the presence of God. Because when that happens, we could be catering to a form of godliness, as opposed to actually experiencing the power of God in our life. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

I thought about this, if you or me, if we've not felt the surge of God's power to impact life change, we are suppressing the current with religious formality. So think about God's power being like an electrical current. There's power associated with that and power that'll impact you in totally transforming your life. And if we're not experiencing that, if we're not feeling that, it's because in some way, we've suppressed it with our own formality. So I think we have to be careful with anything that's overly formatted or programmed when it comes to experiencing God. Now, we need to be intentional, we need to have discipline. But I think maybe that's one of the reasons that Jesus even cautioned us about having vain repetition when it comes to our prayer time. That there can be pathways of prayer that we use on a repetitive basis. But just going through some kind of form, or going through some kind of repetitive motion, or going through something that's just overly systematic and programmed can take us away from being actually Spirit led. And the Bible tells us that the earth is crying out for the manifestation of the sons of God, that are Spirit led. I believe the Lord wants sons and daughters that are Spirit led, and that you have a relationship with God that's beyond just checking the boxes of religious formality. This is what I do on Sunday morning. This is what I do on Sunday night. This is what I do on Wednesday, but given God some moments where you're in Walmart, and you can be led by the Spirit, and maybe there's an act of generosity that's supposed to take place. And maybe you're at your workplace, and even though this is the formality of what your workday looks like, you get up at this time you get cleaned up, you have your coffee, you go to work, you go through the motions, but what about if at one o'clock in the afternoon, while you're still at work, there's so Spirit led a moment that could bring the power of God into your life as you see the kingdom of heaven made manifest in that situation. Just don't ever overlook that you can experience God beyond Sunday morning, and even a Wednesday night. That you can experience God beyond just a private prayer time, or just a small group experience. I think when we really begin to allow God to take us past a formality, past religion and bring us into relationship, that's when the power of his presence begins to truly impact our life. A form of godliness, it will teach you, if you're not careful, how to just go to church and celebrate the elite of public ministry and never develop personal disciplines. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

A couple more things I wrote, God does things with decency and order. But his order is not without formality. God's order more resembles a field that is undergoing a controlled burn. Think about it, God tells us he loves things decent and in order and then turns around through the pen of Paul and says, I'm not about that whole form of Godliness thing. So it's not a contradiction. It's God telling us that he does have an order. When you look at Genesis chapter one, and look at the way that God created things. He created them in a very specific order, the order that they were going to need to survive. So don't ever get confused, God likes order. God operates in order, to the point that he literally says that he will order the steps of a good man, a good woman. What God doesn't like is vain repetition, going through habitual practice just for the sake of going through habitual practice, just turning things into a repetitive pattern for the sake of it being repetitive, so you can check it off your list and say that it's done. Think about how a farmer might go out into a field and that field is grown up, and it's time to burn that field off so that it can be renewed, and it can be refreshed on the other side of that burning. Well, that fire is gonna go where it goes, but it is done in a controlled manner. And our God is a consuming fire. And I think he wants to bring some controlled burns to your life where you begin to experience his presence. And I hope that makes sense to you. I hope you can see that visual because in my heart, I feel like maybe I can even see it better than I can articulate it to you. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

But I want to go back to the point that scripture very clearly says that if somebody just has a form of godliness, and they've denied the power of Holy Spirit life change, you need to get away from those kinds of people. Wow, pretty profound statement, don't you think, to get away from those kinds of people? You know, I love the fact that Paul goes on to tell Timothy that the thing that he's going to need to do if he's going to be able to really live for Jesus, verse number 14, is you're going to need to continue in the things which you have learned, and that you've been assured of knowing from whom you learned them. You're going to need to just continue in the things you've learned and the things you've been assured of, and don't ever forget the people who taught them to you. If you've been taught some things, you ought to thank God for the people who taught it to you and remember their example, and imitate it to the best of your ability. There's so much I could say about that. I've already said it on Sunday, check out that message. I had to stop myself because I was about to rehearse a lot of it because it burns in my heart right now. Think about it, continue in the things that you have learned, and that you've been assured of, continue in that, continue in that. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Perilous times are going to come, the end of times events are going to come. We've talked about tonight, 18 characteristics of what the end of time looks like. We've also talked about three reasons why it happens. But beyond those 21 things that we've talked about, the thing that Paul just encourages Timothy with is hey, man, continue in what you've learned to do. One of the things that early church made a habit of is they partook of communion on a regular basis. They broke bread together, it was something that they continued in, because it helped them to remember Jesus Christ. By Jesus’ own instruction, the bread represents his body, and the cup represents his blood. I hope you've been able to get these elements tonight. If you just need to grab a cracker and a cup, I do believe the Lord would be okay with you improvising so that you can participate in this moment. Either way, I want you to think about continuing in what you've learned. The best thing you'll ever learn is that if you confess with your mouth, and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord, he will forgive you of your sins, and heaven can be your home. It doesn’t matter what the world’s thrown at us when we've got the promise of heaven. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Jesus took the bread, Jesus blessed the bread, Jesus broke the bread, and he gave it; he said it represents my body. I’m going to ask you tonight, in just celebrating the cross of Jesus and the strength that comes to us through his victory over death, hell in the grave, I’m going to ask you to take and eat the bread. Jesus lifted the cup, and he told him it represented his blood poured out for the remission of sins. Man, I sure am glad for the blood. We don't get a chance to continue in anything without the blood. We don't get a chance to take the first steps and have our start without the blood. It's the thing that makes all the old stuff pass away. Because many of us our lives resembled perilous times before we found the blood of Jesus. And we've not been without failure. We've not been without mistake, but I believe I'm talking to a lot of people tonight that you're not about a form of godliness. You're all about, I want the power of God at work in my life. Well, that starts with the blood of Jesus. With that in mind, and thankfulness for the grace of Jesus, I want to ask you to take and drink the cup.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Would you pray with me? Father, I think you've given us some warnings of what the end of time looks like. Though, you've not told us the day you've not told us the hour. You've given us characteristics that we can look for and know, okay, when we see these things, creeping into our culture, we know that perilous times are upon us. Father, we thank you that you've also told us why it's going to happen. And so Lord, not only can we see the what but we can see the why. And yet God you've also instructed us on how to overcome in our own right, that we get to continue in the things that we've learned. And as Timothy went on to learn that best thing he had in him was the Holy Scriptures. And God I thank you for all the things that the Holy Scriptures put in us, but specifically God that the Holy Scriptures teach us about Jesus and give us a hope of tomorrow, and God we celebrate Jesus in our life. We celebrate salvation and grace, and thank you, Lord, for amazing grace. That will not only save us, but will sustain us, in Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ name. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

I want to thank you so much for being with me tonight in this time of Bible study. Don’t forget next Wednesday night, we'll be in person at our Columbia location at 6:30pm Central, 7:30pm Eastern. It’ll be a time of prayer, and praise, and preaching. Following time, or little bit after it gets started, we're going to come live online at 7pm Central, 8pm Eastern time. So if you can't join us in person, and you do want to join us in church online, the message portion of that service will be broadcast, and you will be able to share your prayer requests for us to pray over in the in-person service. I'm grateful for you guys. I appreciate you so much. When you pray, pray for me. God bless you. Go with God, he'll go with you. Greater things are yet to come.