Three of them today. Alright. Praise the Lord. First Timothy chapter four. First Timothy chapter four.

First Timothy four twelve. Trying to decide, earlier this week about whether to continue with my series or to jump out of it to a Father's Day message and it it actually seemed fitting to kind of stay with what we were doing and mold it to Father's Day because it actually fits quite well here in the area of faith. In first Timothy four twelve, Paul writes Timothy, a young man, he had mentored in the faith and trained in the ministry who he had sent out to minister now at the church of Ephesus and he writes him in first Timothy four twelve and he says, let no man despise thy youth but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Let's pray before we continue on this morning. Lord, thank you for your word.

Thank you for the challenge to all of us today to be examples to others around us that are watching us. Help us Lord to take that responsibility of being salt and light seriously and we thank you Lord. This not only responsibility but it is a great privilege to represent Jesus Christ today in this world. Help us Lord to spend more time on our knees with you and in your word that you might conform us more to the image of Jesus Christ, our savior, that our light might shine brightly into a dark world that desperately needs Jesus and as an example to others, believers around us. Lord, as they they desperately need that as well.

Thank you Lord for this time. Thank you for your word. Lord, I pray that Jesus Christ would be truly honored in all we say and do and we would be challenged to be more like him. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

Amen. So Paul here challenges Timothy once again to be this example, to not allow his youth to be a stumbling block to this. He is not saying to him, well, don't let anybody despise you because you're young. In other words, don't let them do that. He's saying, you live in such a way that they won't do that.

Okay? You be an example and you overcome that prejudice on their part possibly by being the kind of example that they can follow. And so that is his responsibility as a child of God, even more so as being a minister in the church at Ephesus. An example meaning a pattern or model for them to observe and follow. There are several areas here that Paul mentions in this verse.

Examples in word, in what we say, in what Timothy said, what he taught, what he said in conversations with others. The next one is in conversation. That word conversation actually means custom or manner of life or behavior. It's more than just what you say. It's how you how you live.

So, be an example in what you say. Be an example in how you live. Okay? Not just when you're in the pulpit. Okay?

But, at home, in public, be an example, a good one. In charity, in love, in love demonstrating the love of God for others and a love for God who first loved us. In spirit, in our attitude towards the Lord, in our our zeal for the Lord. We're going to come back to that next week but I wanted to hit this one this week and that is faith. In faith is where we are today.

Is Tim part of Timothy's responsibilities of child of God and particularly as a minister and to others was to be a good example of Christ like his father in the faith and that would be Paul who called himself that. And also his mother and grandmother who Paul actually mentions in second Timothy who were examples, good examples to Timothy. Now it's whose turn? Now, it's Timothy's turn to be that example to others in his life. An example of the faith, in the faith, meaning moral conviction and fortitude, fidelity to the object of said faith.

Moral conviction, fortitude, and fidelity. Paul is challenging Timothy to be a good example in his moral certitude and in his convictions, in his faith. God needs men in particular who are unwavering in their faith, unwavering and clear in their convictions before their families, before their coworkers, and in their ministries. God is looking for men and women of strong convictions and of great faith because others need to see that. Children need to see that of their parents.

Members of churches need to see that in their teachers and in their preachers. People of great faith, men who, despite their youth or advanced age, are single-minded rather than double minded people. James one six through eight says this, but let him ask in faith, not through unwavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord.

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. A single-minded person in this context is a person of faith, a person of conviction, a person who knows what they believe and they they walk through life and tackle the issues of life with faith and faithfulness. The double minded person is a person whose eyes are not always fixed on Jesus, whose whose faith is not so strong, who is easily pushed back and forth to compromise, to uncertainty and doubt. And so they're like a boat on the sea being tossed by the waves back and forth and back and forth. Those whose faith is weak, those whose mind is not focused on the Lord, their convictions are not strong, are easily pushed back and forth in life, and are not close in their relationship with God.

So ask ask in what? Faith. Believe. And as you believe in the Lord, you will develop strong convictions and you won't be so easily what? Pushed back and forth by the waves of life.

Sad to say a lot of Christians just ping pong back and forth and back and forth because their faith and their convictions are not strong and grounded. Their their eyes are not focused on who? On Jesus. And they allow the lust of the flesh, allow the trappings of the world and the voices of those around them other than God's to affect them. And thus affecting them that also affects others that are watching them.

Whether it be fathers or mothers, whether it be pastors or teachers or deacons, whether it be leaders at the workplace, others are watching and if you're not stable, if you're not strong in your convictions, it's going to affect others around you. God is looking for fathers who are spiritually strong role models for their children and grandchildren. Fathers who win life throws them a curve, do not look for a bottle to drown their sorrows. As many people do today. It is not manly, fatherly, or certainly not godly.

If I Ephesians five eighteen says, and be not drunk with wine where is in excess, but be what? Filled with the spirit. Fathers who are not controlled by addiction, but passionate about what? About the things of the Lord. Be addicted.

Be passionate with this and with your relationship with God. He will do things for you, your life, your family that all those other things can't do. God is looking for men of principle who walk after the guidance of the Holy Spirit and not the lust or the appetites of the flesh. God is looking for fathers and leaders who when getting their feet knocked out from under them, do not abandon God or family or their principles or lose their courage. God is looking for men like Joseph and Daniel who stuck by God, who purposed in their heart that they would follow the Lord.

Joseph, just when it seemed Joseph was getting back up on his feet, they got knocked out from him underneath him again and again and again for doing that which was right. But Joseph stayed the course and he trusted in the Lord. And as a result, his brothers who sold him as a slave were stave saved from starvation because of the integrity and strength of the faith and convictions of their little brother. Instead, Daniel, who was taken as a slave into the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, firm in his convictions, and he impacted a world for the Lord by impacting the heart of the king. God is looking for fathers who, when faced with mountains to climb, buckle down and begin climbing.

Fathers and leaders who take their families and others with them over the mountain rather than giving up and giving in. God is looking for strong leaders and strong men and strong fathers who do not buckle under the weight of the responsibility that God has given them to nurture the next generation, to bring them up in the admonition of the Lord. To take that responsibility by God's grace and help on their shoulders and to be there to help their families and others to climb those mountains that get in their path. As I was thinking of this, climbing a mountain, I I thought of a song that goes, climb every mountain, forward every stream. You ever heard that song?

It's from a musical called Sound of Music. It's about a family called the Von Trapp family. I think there was a book written before the movie. Never read the book. I have watched the movie a few times.

My wife likes it, so I blame her. This family headed by the father of the family literally climbs the mountains of Austria on the border in order to take his family to safety as the Nazis are taking over Austria. It is, if you haven't watched it, which I'm assuming a lot of you have, an inspiring story even if you don't care too much for the music. It is quite an inspiring story of a father and others that was determined to help his family do that which was right and keep them safe, to not compromise as many others around them had done. Fathers like Abraham who took his family and left behind his homeland to follow the Lord to a place he did not know, to live among a people he did not know as a foreigner and as a nomad in their land.

Abraham gave up a lot. He was evidently a wealthy and well known person in the Ur Of The Chaldees and in Haran where his father was from. But he left her and he left Haran and he followed the Lord as a nomad to a place that God would give his descendants when as yet he had none and was well up in age. But he was a man of conviction and he was a man of faith. The Bible says he believed God and it was counted to him for what?

For righteousness. For Abraham was saved by faith the same as we. And he was led by faith. And though at times he stumbled like as we, His faith in God grew and we know him not as the man who stumbled, but as the man who got back up and in faith led his family and followed the Lord and became the father of many nations. God is looking for fathers, leaders who when faced with opposition, do not surrender to the enemy but move forward with grace and determination.

Too many in our society today have surrendered have surrendered to the opposition. We have chosen to keep our mouth shut. We have chosen to go along to get along. While God is looking for someone, as he told Ezekiel, to stand in the gap, to make up the hedge, to be the leader who is willing to speak the truth and to stand before the opposition in the grace and wisdom of God. Not for glory, not for fame, but to point people to the Lord and because it is right to do.

God is looking for people like David who faced down Goliath because it was the right thing to do and because this young man was a man of faith and conviction and believed that it was necessary to defend the honor of his God and to trust that his God in turn would defend him as he walked up to Goliath. Like Corrie ten Boom's family, The Hiding Place, if you've read it or seen it, who harbored Jews and hid them so they wouldn't be taken to concentration camps, who was determined to do the right thing even though it did cost them also. Like Martin Luther who said, here I stand, I can do no other. Like Paul himself, not a biological father, but a father of many in the faith who every time he was thrown in jail and beaten in prison, when the crowds came to jeer at him, he stood. He stood upon God's word.

He didn't compromise. And when they threw him out, he brush brushed the dust off of him and he went on to the next city and he started again. What an example. God hasn't asked most of us to travel from city to city like Paul did with little clothes on our back or food in our belly, but the least we can do is be leaders in our home and in our church, in our community, People of faith who have convictions because what matters most to us is not what others think, what the pleasures of the world have to offer, but that we want to please and bring glory to our father in heaven who gave his son for us. God is looking for fathers who attempted to compromise their principles for fame or fortune, do not give an inch.

But knowing the Lord who bought them are unflinching in their conditions like Moses. Bible says, by faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt for he had respect into the recompense of the reward. The reward of who? The reward of his father in heaven, which he valued to be greater than any reward that Pharaoh could give him, and he had it. It wasn't that he was pursuing it.

Yeah. He already had it. For forty years, he lived in the palace as the grandson of the pharaoh. He had it all and he chose to what? He chose to give it up and to leave it behind because the reward of God in heaven was greater than anything he could get from Pharaoh and the treasures of the palace.

God came first and he made a choice that few others would make. He chose instead his own people and he chose to follow his Lord wherever it would lead. Where did the Lord lead? Well, for the next forty years, the Lord led to the backside of the desert where he lived as a nomad and a shepherd. It he was 80 years old before God brought him back to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt and then it wasn't a walk in the park.

Moses has quite a reward with his heavenly father today. God is looking for fathers whose actions demonstrate that the Lord Jesus is their Lord and he comes first over pleasures and hobbies, fishing, and ball games and golf. Reminded me of Peter Peter who as a married man and likely a father chose to continue to be a fisher of men rather than going back to the lake to be a fisher of fish. He had a greater calling on his life, and he took his family with him. I'm afraid sometimes we allow hobbies and pleasures and luxuries to consume too much of our time, particularly fathers, when we should be spending a little more time with our father in heaven and our families on earth.

Nothing wrong with fishing or ball games or golf. I'm not good at any of them, though I do like them. But but there are things more important. So just don't get your priorities upside down. The world's got that that handle, the upside down part.

We know better. God is looking for fathers and leaders who stick by their families, their children, their wives when things are not as they might have dreamed they would be. How many times have husbands, wives found themselves in relationships, in situations, in homes where things are not as they had imagined or envisioned. Things with their relationship with their spouse, things with their children, things with their finances, and they stick they stick to it, and they don't just run away. God is looking particularly for fathers who don't just run away when times get tough, but fathers who when they see that mountain, they say to their families and they say to those to whom they minister, let's go.

I will lead. Oftentimes, I look through this book of Genesis and I I look at the life of Jacob and I think, well, Jacob, boy, he had problems. He deceived his dad and he did this and and he finagled that and he really had some issues with really trusting the Lord to take care of things. He had to step in and make a mess of it. And again and again and again, Jacob stepped in and Jacob made a mess of things and God had to come along and bail him out and help him out.

He worked seven years for his Laban, would be his father-in-law, in order to get his daughter to wife. And when he woke up the next day, he found out he was married to the wrong daughter. Now, partially, I expect that was Jacob's fault. He should have known when he got married which daughter he was marrying, but he ended up with essentially four wives, 12 different children of different wives. He ended up having to escape his father-in-law who came after him.

He had to he had to face down his brother who he had ran from the first time because he stole the blessing and his thought his brother was still going to kill him. But, you know, Jacob's faith only through time grow grew what? It grew stronger. His conviction's greater. And despite his failures and despite the mess he found himself in, he he's stuck with it.

He's stuck with his family. He's stuck with his God. God isn't looking for perfect men or fathers or leaders. He's looking for those who will admit when they failed, who will repent of their failures, who will cling to the Lord and his forgiveness, who will grow closer to the Lord step by step, and who will not give up in the fight. Who will stick around through thick and thin even when things are not as they would have imagined it to be.

God can help us all to do what is right even when other things around us seem to be going wrong. God is looking for fathers who, when faced with hardship, are driven to their knees before the Lord, to the scriptures, and who point others to the Lord who are facing similar hardships. God needs those kind of leaders, men and women, fathers and mothers, teachers and preachers. God needs leaders in the home and church and society at large who are not ashamed of their faith but like Paul can sincerely declare this, I am not ashamed of the gospel. For the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

I am not ashamed. God is looking for his children, for fathers, for leaders who will say, I am not what? I am not ashamed to be a Christian. I'm not ashamed to stand by this word of God when the world is trying to pick it apart. I am not ashamed to do what is right when everybody else around me doesn't seem to care.

I'm not ashamed to speak the truth when the lies are much more popular. I'm not ashamed of the savior who died for me on the cross. God is looking for fathers, leaders like that, who share the love of Christ and the gospel and are willing to suffer just a little persecution for standing by the truth and trusting in the Lord. For someone who would stand in the gap, men of faith and of courage of which there seem few today. But let us be counted with those of faith and courage and conviction.

But first, you must believe. We've been talking about the conviction and and moral certitude of fathers and leaders today. But before you have strong convictions and moral certitude, you must first come in faith and surrender and bow the knee to the God of heaven and embrace the son, Jesus Christ, who gave his life for you. It must begin with a surrender of faith to God, an embrace of faith in Jesus Christ who offers to save your soul, to forgive your sins, and to make you a child of God because that strength doesn't come by the arm of the flesh. That strength does not come in going to the gym and working out.

That strength does not simply come by gaining more information and information and knowledge. That strength doesn't come by sheer determination. That strength comes by the grace of God and is given and sustained in fathers and mothers and leaders and Christians who have the Holy Spirit living inside of their heart, who have been born again into God's family. John one twelve, but as many as received him, that is Jesus, to them gave he power to become the sons or the children of God even to them that believe on his name. Have you believed?

Have you put your trust in his name in Jesus Christ, the risen savior who died for you? Have you entrusted your soul in eternity to him? Have you come to him humbly and asked for his forgiveness and his salvation? If you have, you are a child of who? A child of God and you will never perish and he will never forsake you and he can give you the strength to withstand what you think you never could.

But it starts with accepting him, receiving him by faith as your Lord and savior. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. When did you call in faith on Jesus Christ and receive his forgiveness and his eternal life and salvation. When did you do that? I did that when I was nine years old.

I don't know the date. I didn't write it down but I remember it like it was yesterday. The day that I came to know Christ as the Lord and Savior of my life. Do you have such a testimony this morning? If not, you can.

We're gonna sing a hymn of invitation in just a moment. And more important than anything else we've talked about today, there is a father in heaven who wants to save your soul and make you his child if you'll come. And he will never fail you and he will never let you down. If you will trust him today. As we sing that hymn of invitation, if you come, I'll meet you down here.

I'll pray with you. I'll I'll show you from God's word how you can be saved and know it. The Lord has spoke to your heart in some other area. Don't don't pass this opportunity up to bow your head and spend a moment talking with your savior. Let's pray.

Dear God, thank you Lord for being a father who loves his creation and loves his children and wants to redeem us and to bring us back, Who wants to save our soul and wants to glorify himself in us despite our frailties, despite our failures. Lord, thank you for being a mercifully merciful heavenly father that saved my soul and so many for whom you died and we pray Lord if there's one here today that is yet to make that decision to humbly bow the knee before you and receive you as Lord and savior. I pray they'd come as we sing this hymn this morning and I pray Lord for us who know you that you would challenge us and convict us to be the kind of fathers and mothers and leaders and examples before the world that you have called your children to be for we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. If we will just ask in faith and trust you. And purpose in our heart as Daniel did.

To honor God with our life and before the world. In Jesus' name, pray. Amen. Amen.