God's Promises For Every Need: A Dirty Mind Series

First, we should pray for the Lord to rescue us (verse 11) because God is a Rescuer. In context, Paul looks at Timothy and notes that Timothy has followed his example in teaching and conduct and aim for life and in perseverance and he has suffered. God rescued him out of those sufferings. God rescued him from hard situations in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. Why did God do that? God is a Rescuer. God is faithful.

You might ask, that’s great, but what does that have to do with a dirty cluttered guttered mind? The promise is the same because God is the same. God is always the same. God can and will rescue us from sinful thoughts that hold us captive. We need to seek Him. A sinful lustful selfish arrogant judgmental error ridden mind is not out of bounds of God’s power of rescue. God promises rescue.

READ PSALM 107:28

“Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress.”

Second, as we think about such things, you and I have to actually want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus (verse 12). Godliness is not automatic. Godliness is not forced. It is neither automatic or forced because following Jesus Christ is not automatic or forced. Listen, I can talk all day about a mind cleaned out and not focused on garbage, but if you and I simply don’t want to do it… we can resist holiness and goodness and right living if we so choose.

Paul even lets us know in verse 12 that living a godly life is not without hardship as he says that persecution will come because of faith. Holiness makes a person stick out. Godly character is abnormal. A pure mind is unheard of. Following Jesus inside and out means that we go against the grain of the world and this creates ripples. We have to want a cleaner purified mind.

READ PSALM 145:19

“He fulfills the desire of those who fear Him; He also hears their cry and saves them.”

Third, as Paul continues to talk to Timothy, and by extension us, he wants us to know that we should continue in faithfulness even in the midst of dealing with trash (verse 14). He tells Timothy to continue in what he has learned and in what he firmly believes. There are others around him who claim to be believers, but do not act like it. Paul calls them “imposters” (verse 13). For a believer in Jesus, we do not quit because we find sin in us. For a believer, we do not give up on faith because it makes us uncomfortable or makes us stick out. For a believer, we do not quit because the pattern of life God has set for us is more than we can do.

For a believer, we lean in and press on all the more in faithfulness towards Christ because we believe that His way of life is the only life. We are thankful that God’s grace is huge. We pray that the Holy Spirit would do work in us that we can never hope to do on our own. We rely on Jesus Christ for forgiveness of the gutter trash that is our mind. And also… we don’t settle. We do not settle in our sinful nature and our lust or pride or wrong attitudes, but rather we press on ahead in faithfulness that God will complete the work in us He started.