Ascetic Living

I. EXORDIUM:

Are you ascetic?

II. AUDIENCE PROFILE:

Believers

III. OBJECTIVES:

To show that we don't live our lives here on earth ascetically, but we live like CHRIST.

IV. TEXT:

1 Timothy 4:3 (Amplified Bible)

Who forbid people to marry and [teach them] to abstain from [certain kinds of] foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and have [an increasingly clear] knowledge of the truth.

V. THESIS:

We don't live our lives here on earth ascetically, but we live like CHRIST.

VI. TITLE:

Ascetic living

VII. EXPLICATION:

A. Author: Apostle Paul

B. Date written: About 64 A.D., but uncertain

C. To whom written: Timothy, Paul's true son in the faith

1 Timothy 1:2 (New International Version)

To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

D. Main themes: Advice and exhortation to a young pastor respecting his personal conduct and ministerial work

E. Keyword: conduct

F. Key verse:

1 Timothy 3:15 (New International Version)

if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

VIII. MAIN BODY:

Ascetic living is found in Colossians 2:23:

Colossians 2:23 (Amplified Bible)

Such [practices] have indeed the outward appearance [that popularly passes] for wisdom, in promoting self-imposed rigor of devotion and delight in self-humiliation and severity of discipline of the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (the lower nature). [Instead, they do not honor God but serve only to indulge the flesh.]

Definition of Ascetic:

Retired from the world; rigid; severe; austere; employed in devotions and mortifications.

Example of people in the Bible living ascetically:

1. John, the Baptist and his disciples - depicted living ascetically, in his choices of food and his clothing.

Matthew 3:4 (Amplified Bible)

This same John’s garments were made of camel’s hair, and he wore a leather girdle about his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey.

Matthew 9:14 (Amplified Bible)

Then the disciples of John came to Jesus, inquiring, Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, [that is, abstain from food and drink as a religious exercise], but Your disciples do not fast?

2. Apostle Paul

1 Corinthians 7:8-9 (Amplified Bible)

But to the unmarried people and to the widows, I declare that it is well (good, advantageous, expedient, and wholesome) for them to remain [single] even as I do.

But if they have not self-control (restraint of their passions), they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame [with passion and tortured continually with ungratified desire].

Both of them are single, and eating ascetically, usually in fasting. Marriage and food are usually supressed by ascetic people.

A. They forbid marriage

"Who forbid people to marry"

1. Marriage in GOD's eyes

Matthew 19:4-12 (Amplified Bible)

He replied, Have you never read that He Who made them from the beginning made them male and female,

And said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be united firmly (joined inseparably) to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder (separate).

They said to Him, Why then did Moses command [us] to give a certificate of divorce and thus to dismiss and repudiate a wife?

He said to them, Because of the hardness (stubbornness and perversity) of your hearts Moses permitted you to dismiss and repudiate and divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been so [ordained].

I say to you: whoever dismisses (repudiates, divorces) his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

The disciples said to Him, If the case of a man with his wife is like this, it is neither profitable nor advisable to marry.

But He said to them, Not all men can accept this saying, but it is for those to whom [the capacity to receive] it has been given.

For there are eunuchs who have been born incapable of marriage; and there are eunuchs who have been made so by men; and there are eunuchs who have made themselves incapable of marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let him who is able to accept this accept it.

2. Apostle Paul's advices regarding marriage - although Paul did not experienced marriage because he's single, it doesn't matter, for we live by faith and not by sight, obviously, he learned from our LORD JESUS CHRIST and not from men.

1 Corinthians 7:36-40 (Amplified Bible)

But if any man thinks that he is not acting properly toward and in regard to his virgin [that he is preparing disgrace for her or incurring reproach], in case she is passing the bloom of her youth and if there is need for it, let him do what to him seems right; he does not sin; let them marry.