The Last Habit: That All May See Your Progress (1 Tim. 4:10-16) Series

The Last Habit: That All May See Your Progress (1 Timothy 4:10-16)

Good morning. Please open your Bibles to 1 Timothy 4

Today we are wrapping up our series on developing spiritual disciplines. Next week, Cody will be preaching as part of our DNow weekend, and after that, we will be starting the series that will bring us to our Easter Sunday celebration. It’s called Love Reigns: Living in the Hope of Easter, and it’s going to be a powerful time of focusing on the sacrifice Jesus made for us.

We’ve been talking about habits of abiding and habits of pruning [show slide, talk about this]

Before I talk about the last habit, I want us to think about what all this is leading up to. We don’t pursue spiritual disciplines just for the sake of being disciplined. It’s not so we can prove how much willpower we have, or so we can be some kind of super Christian. Spiritual disciplines are what enable us and empower us to live the lives of peace and joy and contentment that God truly intends for us.

I came across a story this week that can really help us understand why we need some pruning in our lives. [Baarack the sheep slide]

This is Baarack. He is a rescue sheep from Australia. After he was abandoned by his owner, he was picked up by an animal shelter, who determined that apparently, the poor animal had never been sheared. Sheep have to be sheared once a year. Without shearing, not only do they get weighed down, but can get sick and infected, as wool gets matted with feces and urine and bits of food and, well, its gross. And that’s what had happened to Baarack. Not only was he infected, but his vision was also impaired because of the way the fleece had grown over his face. Rescue workers removed 75 pounds of matted, gross, stinky wool.

Here’s what Baarack looks like now. [show before and after slide]. How did they remove so much wool? Well, it was an act of shear determination! [pause for groans]

So all these disciplines we have been talking about are about helping us to walk in freedom. When we abide in Christ, we aren’t weighed down by all the distractions of the world. When we trust Him as our Good Shepherd, then we trust Him to shear us—to trim away what weighs us down, or makes us sick, or obscures our vision.

I think that’s what the apostle Paul was getting at when he was giving some of his final instructions to a young pastor named Timothy. Let’s look at 1 Timothy 4:10-16 together. Please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word:

10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

11 Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Until I come, devote your

self to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them,[c] so that all may see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Let’s pray

I want to spend most of our time this morning digging into this scripture passage, but we need to talk about this last habit first.

I’ve had second thoughts about what to call this one. On your listening guide it says that the last discipline is choices. But that’s a little misleading. The truth is, our problem isn’t having choices. Our problem is making choices!

A few years ago a psychologist Barry Schwartz, did some work on how having too many choices can actually paralyze us and weigh us down, kind of like poor Baarack the sheep. He proved his point by going to his local grocery store, where he counted

• 275 varieties of cookies

• 75 different iced teas

• 230 soups

• 175 salad dressings

• 275 breakfast cereals

• And 40 toothpastes!

Ladies, if you ever wonder why it takes men two hours when you send us to Wal-Mart, this is why.

So “choice” isn’t really a discipline. What we are talking about this morning is the discipline of DECISION. Remember God will lovingly prune and trim back even some of the good things in our lives, or things that aren’t inherently sinful, in order that we can bear more fruit.