Recapturing Reverence - Jeff Ryan - 3TC Podcast - 1/12/2025

Pastor Jeff discusses the importance of acknowledging human imperfection and seeking God's forgiveness. Though there is always a need to change, it's important to distinguish between desired and necessary changes and stress the necessity of adhering to God's commandments. We are called to live Christ-centered lives with a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith. 

Welcome to Three Timbers Church! We are so glad you found us online and encourage you to explore all there is to learn about our church located in beautiful Bennington, Nebraska. When you come to Three Timbers, you can come as you are to experience the love of Jesus through the people of God. ​

Whether young or old, single or married, new to church, or a lifelong attendee, there's a place for you here. We invite you to join us toward a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ. Our goal is to share the passion, power, and presence of Jesus with others. We believe in supporting families through service, education, and loving one another as Jesus loves us, unconditionally.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Welcome to the three timbers podcast. We hope this will encourage and uplift you today. You know, as we gather for church, sometimes there can be a perception of people who go to church are somehow perfect, somehow they've got everything all together. And I don't know about you, but that doesn't describe me. I know the struggles that I have, and I'm sure that you have struggles too, because we're all sinful, and sometimes that sin can just really eat you alive. It can convince you that you're somehow not worthy of God, or somehow you're beyond God's reach or God's love. And that's just not true. So we take a time intentionally every service to come before God and tell God what he already knows, that we are not perfect, that we make mistakes, that we are sinful people. We confess our sin silently to God, and then we will read together the joyful words of Scripture that teach us to tell us, that confirm to us the faithfulness of God, that we are forgiven. So let us silently now bow our heads and close our eyes and confess to God what he already knows, the ways in which we have come up short. Our Father and our God, so often we try to chase perfection, if we could just be perfect in this area, if I could just be better in that area. And Lord, we end up chasing perfection instead of chasing you and Father, I thank you that we can come and say, Yes, I have fallen short of your glory this week, this day, even this morning, and Lord, I just pray that You would speak into our hearts that we could understand that we are a forgiven people no matter what we've done, we are not too far outside of your love and your grace and Your mercy. So Lord, as we confess our sins, that Lord, now we can read together joyfully the words of Scripture that remind us of that let us read these words. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. One thing I know is that we are people who don't like change. We like things to stay the way they are. We don't like when things are different in our world. And to prove that, think about this, most of us have a morning routine that we follow every single morning. We do the same things the same way at the same time all the time. Why? Because we don't like change. We like it. Think about the way in which maybe you go to work every day, you probably drive the exact same way to work, unless there is some sort of traffic problem, and then we all get out of stores because something has changed, and we don't like that. I could even say looking up here that sometimes we sit in the exact same place for church. And if someone is ever sitting where you normally sit, you come and you look at them and say, What are you doing right now? Because we don't like change. We like things to stay the same. We are creatures of habit, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But when it comes to change, there's really only one time of the year when we're even open to the word change, and that's now. It's a new year. Happy new year. Happy 2025. So we are at least open to the concept of change right now, but there's two types of changes. There are the changes we want to make and there are the changes we need to make. Like a change that we want to make is we want to exercise more, we want to eat better. Okay, those are changes we want to make. But who is the author of that change? It's us. So if it doesn't happen, which probably by now, a lot of us have already given up on that change, it's no big deal because we were only answering to ourselves. But sometimes there are changes we need to make. When you go and you sit with your doctor or your financial planner, they say, Look, you need to make these changes for your long term health and success, which means it's not negotiable. And so what we want to understand is, what about those things that God tells us that we need to change? God doesn't want us to change. He's saying you need to change this way. And I think the way that God tells us we need to change, we find that in Paul's letter to Timothy, when he talks about how we need to have sound doctrine in our life, we need to have a faith that is active, and we need to. Make sure that we are constantly worshiping God and not allowing the world to have us wonder from God. Now let's take the word wander, but let's say wonder. You may be wondering why I am dressed like this. If you have been with us for any period of time, some of you have never seen me in this and maybe there's a few of you that have maybe seen me in this one time. So why am I wearing this? And let me explain a little bit about this. So when I was ordained, this is part of the ordination process that I am given a road. And then these are stoles, which are really just seasonal. This one is for the time of year, and it means hope and new beginnings, and then obviously the what I like to call the cape is really for the degree level to which I've attained. So why am I wearing this today? It is to remind me of the calling that God has put on my life. It is a reminder for me to always be in awe that God could take someone like me, someone who is broken, someone who is messy, someone who has made mistakes, someone who is making mistakes, and someone who will always make mistakes. It is a reminder for me to have a reverence for God that he can take something like me and set me apart for his service. So it's not anything to impress anyone else. It's really a reminder to myself, Jeff, do you have a reverence for God? Because we can look around the world today and say the world has lost its reverence for God, and you would be right, but where we need to start is with ourselves and say, do you and I have or still have a reverence, an awe for God? Every year our church has a theme. Last year we celebrated audience of one our theme for this year is recapturing reverence. How do we recapture our reverence for God in our daily life? How do we recapture the reverence for God as His Church, as His people? And so this is a reminder to me and to us as we begin this journey. And we're going to talk more about this at Vision Sunday on on january 26 about how having a recapturing of reverence will impact us as a church. And so we're going to take a look today at Paul's letter to Timothy. First, Timothy, chapter one. And again, I would encourage you bring your Bibles to church. Bring up that Bible app, and as you do that, before we hear God's word, let us have reverence for his word by letting you pray, Father God, we thank You for Your word. It is a lamp unto our feet. And Lord, I am feeble in any attempts that I would have to explain it or to disseminate it in a way on my own. It is only through the Holy Spirit, Lord that anything that comes out of my mouth is worthy, Father, I pray that You would speak through me and despite me. I pray Your Holy Spirit would illuminate your word to each of us today in the way Lord that we need to hear it, that it would bring comfort to the afflicted, and maybe in some ways, afflict those of us who are too comfortable. I pray Lord, that we would be brought closer to you through the reading and hearing of your word. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, amen, First Timothy, chapter one. Paul, an apostle of Christ, Jesus, by the command of God, our Savior and of Christ, Jesus our hope. And I want to pause there just for a second, because we're talking about having a reverence for God. And I want you to look at these words that Paul says. Paul, an apostle of Christ. So he knows who he is. He is saying right now, I'm not in charge. I'm an apostle. I'm not the guy calling the shots. I'm an apostle. I am an A follower. I am an apprentice of Jesus Christ by the command of God. So what Paul says, I know I am under the command of another. He has a reverence for the one that is giving him a command. So he says, Paul, an apostle of Christ, Jesus, by the command of God, our Savior and Christ, Jesus, our hope. He has a reference that the hope that everybody needs, and everybody needs hope, whether you're a believer, you're an unbeliever, everybody tries to find hope in something or someone. Paul is saying, I am a reverence, because God is my hope. So just hear the way that Paul talks. You see a reverence continue in verse two to Timothy, my true son in the faith, Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father. Father and Christ, Jesus, our Lord, as I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus, so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer, or to devote themselves to the myths and endless genealogies such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God's work, which is by faith, the goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous, but for the law breakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious. For those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and purgers, and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God which He entrusted to me. Paul is talking to Timothy, his son in the faith. It is not his biological son, it is his adopted son of the faith. Now, why would Paul say that? Because Paul has poured so much into his relationship with Timothy, mentoring him, loving Him, being an example for him. And there's something called the Paul Timothy and Barnabas theory that I don't know if you're familiar with, and that is, we should all have someone in our life that's more spiritually mature than us. They don't always have to be super older, but somebody that is pouring into you, whether that's a family member, a friend, a church member, somebody who's pouring into you, you then need to be pouring into someone who maybe isn't as far as you are on their journey. So you have a Paul. You're the Timothy, and then you need to Barnabas. And so what Paul is talking about here to Timothy, he's been pouring it in. You're my son in the faith. He says, I want you to stay on mission. I want you to stay on message. I want you to keep the church walking the road that God has set before you and before them and before us, because that is the only way in which the Church, which is the people of God, not a building. The only way the church is ever going to have an impact is if we stay on the road that God has us on. And the only way that we can do that, it's under the umbrella of what Paul is really saying here in chapter one to Timothy is, have reverence for God. You cannot be on the road that God wants you to be on if you do not have any reverence and an awe that God Himself had put you on that road. And so that's what Paul is talking to Timothy about. He says, Look, you are in Ephesus. And Ephesus is very much like a modern city today. It had great commerce, it had politics, it had all types of things, but it also had false teachers, people who are not teaching the truth of what the Bible says, The truth of the gospel, the truth about Jesus Christ. Why? Because false teachers don't have a reverence for God. And so what Paul is telling Timothy is that you need to be aware of these false teachers, because what they are doing is they are leading people to wander from God. A false teacher will help you wander away from worshiping God. And so what Paul is saying to Timothy, here is your job is stay on mission. Stay on message, so people understand that it's about having a reverence for worshiping God. Listen now he says it to the church in Galatia, in Galatia, 189, but even if we are an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you. Let them be under God's curse, as we have already said. So now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God's curse. Paul is saying, Don't ever let anybody compromise the gospel. Don't let anybody water down the gospel. Don't let anybody tell you, well, that's not an important part of the gospel. See reverence for God is so important, and yet it is so rare today. And if we do not have reverence, then we are missing out on the essentialness, the foundation, the building blocks to having any type of faith, because if you don't have a reverence, an awe for God, how can you follow him? How can you obey Him? See, a lack of reverence contradicts Scripture. When you and I don't have a reverence for God, we are actually living in. Contradiction, and then to the outside word, we are living in hypocrisy because they say they love God, they say they're the church, but they don't seem to have a real reverence for God. And so how can we as a church have any type of impact on the culture, on the world that we live in, if we ourselves don't have any reverence for God. We sometimes spend more time talking about everybody else, and our culture doesn't have a reverence for God, and never asking ourselves, do I am I in awe of God? Do I have a reverence for who God is and what God has done? When you have a reverence for God, it will keep you from wandering from God. And if you have a reverence for God, it will attract those who are wandering from God to come and worship God. You understand that it begins with our reverence. So how do we have a reverence for God? What does that look like? Two ways. Number one, we need to live a Christ centered life and a gospel driven life. That means that our lives need to be centered around Christ, that we need to know who Jesus is, what Jesus has done. We need to be in awe that Jesus, Christ died for your sins and my sin. We need to have such reverence for the name of Christ. It's not like any other name. It's the name above all names. He is the King of kings, the Lord of lords. So we need to be Christ centered, and in all things, say, What would Jesus have me do? How would Jesus have me respond? And we need to be driven by the gospel. That's different than be driven by religion. Don't be driven by religion. Don't be driven by church. Be driven by the gospel, because the gospel is transformative. But you can't be driven by the gospel. You can't have a Christ centered life if you are not in awe of God, if you have lost your reverence for God, you will never leave that and these false teachers, they didn't have any reverence for God. They started teaching about genealogies and myths and all that it really was, were old heresies, old false teachings is dressed up and presented in a new way, and we have the same thing today in our world. So how do we get there? How do we get to a place where there's false teaching in our world, I can tell you how it happened in Paul's time, and I can tell you how it's happening today, two ways people softening the gospel to make it more palatable. I don't want to offend you, so let me change what the Gospel says. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. So let me change what the Gospel says. What if that was the way that doctors operated? You go in for your physical and your doctor finds something is not right with you because, well, I don't want to upset them. I don't I don't want to offend them, so I'm not going to tell them that there's something wrong, and then I'm not going to really tell them about the treatment to fix that, because I don't want them to be mad or upset. And then later on, you found that out, you'd be pretty hot. We cannot compromise the gospel in a world that is based on compromise, we cannot compromise the gospel. And secondly, what these false teachers were doing is they were finding a little niche issue that they knew would get people riled up, and then they created a following for themselves, and people started to follow these false teachers because they were telling them what their itching ears wanted to hear. They found that one issue that really appealed to certain people, and then that's how they develop a following, and what we see with these false teachers is they had no reverence for God, and that led to other people not having a reverence for God. A lack of reverence leads to wandering from God. I can look back on my life and those times where I was not worshiping, but wandering. And I can tell you, I was not living in reverence for God, and that led me to wander away from God. These teachers were not plentiful. It wasn't that they were everywhere, but they didn't need to be. They were small and few in number, but big in impact, and it only takes one or two false teachers. And what these myths and what these genealogies that they were teaching were basically just an excuse to behave any way that you want. They said, Oh no, no, no, no, that's that's not really what that say. And what they were doing is they were co mingling enough of the Bible with enough of these. Myth to make people believe that this was truth. And I know you see that today. I know you see that today where people are trying to dangle just enough of a of a scripture reference with just enough of a myth, and they put it together and they say that's the truth, but that's false because they do not have a reverence for God in what they are doing. The Word of God. Reverence for God in our life points people to Jesus. You You can point people to the church. You can point people to religion without having any reverence for God. But when you and I live a life that has filled with reverence for God. It will point people to Jesus. Some of these myths. I just want you to hear some of these myths that that Paul and Timothy were dealing with, these false teachers says you don't need to be married. Do whatever you want. They said, You can't eat that food, but you better eat this food. They said, Oh, there are certain things if you do, then God will accept you. So they were teaching legalism, and people were buying into that, and people believe that, and people were legislated. One of the things that they teach you in seminary and really in public speaking, is don't make these grand, big statements, is that can get yourself in trouble. But I'm going to go ahead and do that. I think you could put all of the world's religions in two categories. The first category is this human achievement, where people try and obtain salvation through their own efforts, deeds, ceremonies and rituals. And I think if you played that out on all the world religions, you'd be filled up that category. Here's the other one, a divine accomplishment that God does for the salvation in Christ, apart from human efforts. That's where we live. And when you have an awe, a reverence for God, you realize there is no other way other than Christ. But so these false teachers convince people that there was another way, and what they were doing is leading people, helping people wander away from the truth of God. And when you wander away from God, you lose your reverence for God. And we need to have a reverence and an awe for God. These false teachers, they were more concerned about the respect of other people who follow them than they were about reverence for God. Our goal in 2025 is about recapturing reverence for God, reverence for God's ordained everything, the way that we work, the way that we think, the way that we live, the way that we parent, the way that we relate to our spouse, the way that we relate to what we need to do, that through the lens of reference. And if you don't think that there are myths and genealogy types of things today. See if you've heard this phrase on your favorite TV show or by your favorite author or in a movie, the universe must be speaking to me. The universe just said, I need to go here. The universe is telling me this. People accept that now. Or how about this? Well, you know why that happened to them? Karma, because you know how they were a jerk. That's why they got it. Those are myths. Those are myths that people accept all the time and they believe. Why do people accept something like the universe or Karma? Because they don't have a reverence for God anymore. And that's what Paul is talking about, that we need to have a reverence. So he is encouraging Timothy, stay on mission, stay on message. Don't ever lose your reverence for God, because if you do, or you allow other people under your shepherding to lose their reverence for God. They will wander from God. Listen to how Jesus talks about this in Matthew 22 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself, all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commands. How can we have reverence for God if we don't put Him first? Jesus said, I've gotta be number one. You can't say, oh, I've got great reverence for God, but I don't love him with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength. I give him 75% maybe eight I'm I'm so busy. I've got things the kids have things. We're losing our reverence for God when we don't love him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and every little chip away at the iceberg makes it smaller and smaller, and before you know it, I'm. It's gone. Jesus says this in the Gospel of John, A new command I give you Love one another as I have loved you. So you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. When we have such a reverence for God that we love God and love other people. People will know that we are a follower of Christ. They won't know where to follow Christ because we have a bumper sticker. They won't know we're a follower of Christ because of a T shirt that we wear. They will say they have a reverence for God and His teaching and man. They love God with everything they have, and they love other people with everything they have, and you have to do them both. You cannot. You cannot be a disciple of Jesus Christ Without reverence for God. You can't. We must have an awe and a reverence for God Almighty. For us, we cannot say, Well, I'm going to call myself a follower of Jesus, but I don't have any reverence for God and His calling and His Kingdom and His Word. So what does reverence look like? Paul lays it out in this letter. He says, a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith. But what does that look like every day? Why is that so foundational to who we are? A pure heart is the sum total of a person's affections. It did not Paul say this about who he was, he said, an apostle of Christ, Jesus, by the command of God, our Savior and Christ, Jesus our hope. What Paul was saying, all of my affections are for God, and so he had this pure heart. He was submitted to the sovereignty of God. If you and I have a reverence for God, then we need to know God is in charge and we are not. It means that we have surrendered to God, that we are tired of fighting the fights that the world is constantly throwing at. Sometimes those fights are inside our own hearts. Sometimes those fights are in relationships. Sometimes those fights are in the world. But we say, Lord, I surrender to you because you're in charge, it means we are dependent on God. You say, God, I don't know how this is going to work out, but if we have a pure heart, we say, God, I have such reverence for you. I have such awe for you. I know you can do anything. You have provided everything that we can. So Lord, I have this awe of you, and there are rewards for that. Listen to what Jesus says in the beatitudes in Matthew five, eight, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. I don't know about you, but I really want to see God one day, not anytime soon, but I can't wait to be in the presence of God and say why. There's a song called I can only imagine. It's an older song. Maybe some of you know it. And the song talks about, I can only imagine what it will be like to be in the presence of God. Will I bow down and worship? Will I weep? I think there will be a mistake if I get to be in the presence of God, I'm going to look around and say, How did I get here? I hope that you have that. What is it going to be like? Because I have such a reverence and awe for God, we need to have a good conscience of all of them. I would say this is the one I struggle with. It means that you don't walk around with this albatross of guilt in your life for the the sins of your past, present and future, that that you don't kind of carry on, that guilt that the devil is always whispering in your ear, you're not good enough. God really doesn't love you. You really messed it up this time. But a good conscience says, You know what? That's not true. Why? Because I have a reverence for God. The only way, the only way that you and I can walk around and not be absolutely burdened by the guilt of sin is reverence, not religion. Some people think if I'm religious, I'll feel better. You won't. But when you have a reverence for God, that you know that God forgives. That's why we say that confession of sin. When we say that God, If we confess our sins, He is good and faithful and will cleanse us from all sin and unrighteousness, you can only believe that if you have a reverence for God, and so we have a clear conscience. See that clear conscience is that inner awareness in your heart that you know when you have trespass the Word of God, that you've done something, you've thought something, you've responded in a way, say that's not what God wants, and you confess that you. You repent of that. And out of repentance is where reverence is born. Let me say that again, out of repentance for sin is where reverence for God is born. When we have this unbelievable I know I didn't do that right, Lord, I repent of my sin. That means reverence is coming into your heart, a reverence and an awe for God, a sincere faith. The opposite of what these false teachers were trying to help people understand. They were trying to lead people, tell people wander away from the truth of God. Why submit to the sovereignty of God? Why trust God? Why believe God when you can have all these myths over here? A sincere faith means it's not just talking the talk. It means that you're walking the walk. It means that the only time you hear God's word, can't just be Sunday. You gotta say, every day I'm in God's word, every day I'm in prayer, every day I'm trying to grow so it's not just talking the talk. It's walking the walk. It's being filled with a reverence for God. Yesterday morning, we got up and we opened the blinds, and maybe you're up early too, and there was a gorgeous, gorgeous sunrise. And so we went outside, which was foolish, because it was really cold, but we got a picture, and I yesterday, I just looked at that picture, and I'm like, That's amazing, that God created this beautiful sunrise, and I got to see it. If God didn't wake me up, if God didn't have us open the blinds, I would have missed it, and now I get to come out. It was quick, because it was cold, and just have this reverence for Wow. God did that. We need to understand that God provides all things, and a sincere faith is when our words and our actions match. So we don't just say it we do it. It doesn't mean we do it perfectly. It doesn't mean we get it right all the time. I'm going to get it wrong more than I get it right, and I have gotten it wrong a lot more than I've gotten it right in my life. But it's trying to say, Lord, I want my words and I want my actions to go together because, Lord, I have a reverence for you God, because you are God. And I want that to be real. I want you to think about this for a second. I want you to think about the universe. I want you to think about the planets and the stars. I want you to think about how the sun came up today and the sun will go down today. I want you to think about that last breath you just took. I want you to feel that last heartbeat that you just had. I want you to think about all of those things. I want you to think about who created them. Because you and I did not. Ai did not. Those were created by God. God hung each and every star. God put the planets in perfect alignment. God has the Earth and the Moon in an orbit that if it's off a couple of degrees, none of us are here. God will be the one that provides food for the birds they don't have any. I want you to think about all that and think about this God, the Creator, wants a relationship with you. He wants you to know Him. He knows you and me. He wants a relationship with him. He doesn't want your religion. He doesn't want your works. He doesn't want your leftover time. He wants a relationship with you. How can that not? How can that not make you be in awe that someone like this would want a relationship with you, with me, and we've lost that. We've lost the reverence that that the Creator, the Redeemer, he wants a relationship with us, but we're too busy. We've lost our all. That's why this year, we're going to focus on recapturing that reverence for God, and we'll know when we've recaptured that reverence, personally and corporately for three ways. Number one, we will delight in God. We will just delight that we know God, and God knows us, and God loves us, and God provides for us, and God forgives us. We will delight in God. We won't need all these other things that the world says. This is what you should delight in, but we'll delight in God. You. Who'll be so grateful for God's grace? Man, I don't know about you. Man, I need God's grace, because when I look in the mirror, I know who I see. So grateful for God's grace. Because I'm never going to be perfect. I'm sure never going to get it all right. So when I am and you are. When we are saying we delight in the grace of God, we're starting to see that reverence. And then, thirdly, when we desire to see others redeem, when it stops being about us, and we say, Lord, we have such a reverence for you, God. You have made us your people. You have made us your church. You have constituted us here in this community at this time, for this moment, God, you have done that. I We're in awe that you've chosen us to take forth your message to the world where we want other people to know this. We want other people to be redeemed. That's how we'll know when we are recapturing reverence, when every day we should strive for what Paul said to Timothy, have that pure heart, have that sincere faith, have that clear conscience and that relationship with God. We'll hear more about how we're going to recapture reverence for this year at Vision Sunday, on the last Sunday of this month, you will see the road from time to time, probably not in the hot summer months. I'll be honest with you on that, but right now, it's okay. But again, it's not for you, it's a reminder to me, I need to make sure that my reverence for God is there and alive and active, and that's what I think God has called us to this year. Amen, let's pray Father God, just that we can say, Father God, we have a reverence in all Lord, for Your love for us, Lord, I just pray that You would help us understand Lord, it is a privilege to be in reverence, in awe of you, because that means we know who you are, Father, God, I just pray that these would not just be words, but Lord. They would sink deep down into our heart, that Lord, our goal would be collected with one voice that we would cry out and say, Lord, we are in awe of you. And the Lord, we would look back one year from now, we could say, we have grown so much in our reverence for you. I ask this in the name above all names, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, our hope and our joy. Jesus Christ, amen. Thank you for joining us. For more information about three timbers, church, ministries and services. Visit three timbers.org. We would love for you to join us in person you.