2 Tim 2:24-26 And the Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. 
	We are considering the letters that the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy as Timothy was overseeing the growth and the development of the churches in the region of Ephesus. There were great responsibilities put upon Timothy, by the Holy Spirit, through these writings of the Apostle Paul. We have also been seeing that those responsibilities, although specifically written to Timothy, are ours as well. We are each under the direct commandment of the Lord to be the responsible stewards of His Gospel in the manner in which we live our lives. It is so easy to read these letters and to realize the great emphasis the Love of the Lord sets upon those who are called into ministry. We must join our hearts together for those chosen servants and pray that they will fulfill the ministry that is given to them, and we should do that in all earnest prayer and support. It is needed. 
Encouragement in the Lord is always appreciated in order to keep the pastorate focused on serving the needs of the people. It is important to seek to bless those who have been called to bless us through study and ministry. I know that it was one of the things that kept me going as a teacher. When I felt that there was no response, no results of my time and preparation, it would cause great depression to overwhelm me and to make me wonder why I even tried to teach. That is why I loved 8th graders so much. I knew, every day, in each class, right then and there when I had their focus and when I didn’t. It makes a difference.
	Yet, while it is important to keep our pastors and Bible teachers in prayer and support and encouragement in the Lord, these letters are also written to the entire flock. We are to recognize that we are bound to these same principles of life in Jesus Christ. What is true of the minister needs to also be true of those to whom the Word is ministered. There should be a deep and perpetual change, an earnest focus, a spirit of life that wells up within every one of us as we hear and feed upon the Word of God. There should be a growth into Christ that is evidenced in our living forth ever more fully in line with the guidance and the direction of the Holy Spirit. We should recognize that the truth of Jesus Christ is now our very life on this earth, both corporately and individually. In that truth, we are each called to live in line with the perfect expression of the character and nature of Jesus Christ as our testimony.  
 	That is one element before us this morning, in our reading. We are being directed into the manner in which we, as the people of God, are to be seen in our treatment of and demeanor before others outside the Body of Christ. We are to be characterized by the grace and the mercy and the loving-kindness of God in our most practical walk of living on this earth. And the Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. 
Please notice, first of all, that we are all bondservants of Jesus Christ. We have all been bought with a price, the price of the blood of Jesus Christ. We have all become members of His Body of Believers and are under the guidance and the tutelage of His Holy Spirit. We are all directed into His Word as our source of sustenance and are all under His rule as our Lord and King. Therefore, we are all to submit ourselves to the truth of this passage. We must not be quarrelsome, but kind and patient and gentle and able to teach. Many seem to overlook this truth as it pertains to each one of us. We are all called to teach, and how do we do that? It is in the manner in which we live our lives before each person that God brings into them. 
	We teach our spouses as we are kind and patient and gentle. We teach our children as we instruct them in the ways of the Lord through the manner in which we walk in the ways of the Lord. Many people seem to think of teaching only in terms of standing before a group of learners and expounding truths of God’s wisdom. While there is that aspect of God’s calling upon some of us, it is not necessarily put upon all of us. But we are all called to teach. We teach in the manner in which we live our lives.
Have we ever considered the fact that we are all surrounded by learners, those who need to learn of the love of Jesus Christ? We mentioned our spouses and our children. Those seem to be rather obvious. What about our friends and our various other associates of life? It doesn’t matter in what realm of relationship, there are those who are watching how we conduct ourselves. Some are looking with an eye to see our failure. They want to be able to lord themselves over us, to elevate themselves as we stumble along in life. They are learning how we live when the words are not enough, when our actions reflect the condition of our hearts. 
There are those who are watching, yearning to learn how to conduct themselves as they see us go through hardship and anguish. As the world seems to be crashing down around us, they watch and take note of how we deal with it. They want to see if God truly is our everything, or if we will turn away from Him because we do not like the way in which He deals with the tragedies of life. They don’t know Him and His ways and they are watching to see how He does manifest Himself through the fiercest storms and gales. 
This is something that we need to consider as we go through the trials and the situations that test the very fabric of our lives in Jesus Christ. Do we allow the Holy Spirit to manifest His kindness, His grace, His long-suffering, His patience, and His wisdom? Or, do we seek to shelter ourselves in fiery outbursts of our fallen human nature as we lash out against the seeming unfairness of life as it hits us in the face? They are learning as we teach in our walk on this earth.
	The Apostle Paul writes to Titus, to remind Christians that our lives need to be lived in full accordance with who we now are in Jesus Christ. Titus 3:1-7 Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be uncontentious, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 
	This is the call to be the true witness of the living Lord Jesus Christ, not just because it will bring glory to His name, but as well because it expresses His heart of Love for the World. This then gets to a very real key in our walk on this earth. It is the manner in which we view those who are outside the Body of Believers. Sadly, there is a sense of superiority which has infested the church. There is a deeming of those, considered outsiders, just as the Jews considered the Gentile heathen, as lost and not worth anything other than to fuel the fires of hell. There is a devastating belief that we are better than those outside Christianity and that we have no obligation to them.	
This is very far from the manner in which we are to see and to treat the lost of this age. We are to look at them through the eyes of the One Who looked at us, in Jesus Christ. We were all lost and dead in our trespasses and sin. We were all without hope in this world. We were all captive to the snare of this age which put us at enmity with God. There was nothing that we did to deserve the mercy and the grace of God. Our salvation is singly by the fact that He chose to save us. We are in nowise superior people, with some pompous sense of self-worth that makes us more acceptable to God. We are now in Christ purely and solely because God chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world. He loved us unto Himself, and our hearts must be that same love unto the lost of the world. We are called to love them unto Christ. 
As we were captives, without hope until God shined His light of love and freedom into us in Jesus Christ, so are we to see those who are currently outside the Body of Christ. They are captives in this world and they need salvation, just as we needed salvation. Our call is to live in such a manner of the love of Jesus Christ that they will see Him in our lives and call upon Him to save them and to free them. As Paul states …and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. It is as our lives are the ever clearer and purer reflection of Him Who now indwells us that others will see and seek to find the salvation that is only in Jesus Christ. Never let us think that we are someone better than another in this world. Remember and remind ourselves that it is only by the grace of God that we have come into a living relationship with Him through His most blessed and glorious Son. Apart from Him, we would still be lost and without hope in this world. That is why it is so imperative that our lives reflect the true depth of this morning’s passage. It is because we love as the Lord so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die for us and for them. 
The heart of love that should characterize us is that as recorded in James 3:17+18 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. 
There is to be evident in our lives, the peace of God no matter what happens in the course of our day. We should be found always in line with the heart of God, looking out for His name’s sake as we live each day. We should recognize that our words are always to be spoken in love and gentleness with no contentiousness and anxiety or animosity. The vision that others should have of the manner in which we live our lives should be that of righteousness sown in peace. This does not seem to characterize many of us when we are under pressure, especially tremendous demands of emotional strain and strife. We tend to let ourselves explode and to justify it because we are not feeling well or have held in our temper and our anger for so long and just need to release it. 
But what of the one who is watching our every move, when we act just as every other person acts under stress? What difference is there to hold forth in our witness of Jesus Christ? Does our blowing off steam, blow off the witness of the Lord that we proclaim. Yes, this is a massive responsibility, and I do thank God with all my heart that He does cover the eyes of those who might be lost, when we blow it. He does make provision for His salvation to free those Whom He chooses, no matter how we might act. But that does not absolve us from our responsibility to live Christ before them. That does not alter the truth that we are to behave as an accurate witness of the Love of God, especially in the greatest trials and storms of life. We are to be sensitive and aware that we are to treat others with nothing but love, period!
1 Thess 5:14+15 And we urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all men. See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all men. We do not condone sin. We do not allow others to place us into their sinful acts and justify the manner in which they live their lives on this earth. No, but neither are we the ones to judge them. They face the Lord God Almighty for the consequences of their actions, not us. We are not their judges and we dare not pronounce sentence upon them. We treat them as we have been so lovingly treated by God, in grace and mercy and loving-kindness. We desire for their good, no matter how badly they may behave. We do not condone their actions, and we certainly do not join in with them. We do not make excuses for them, but neither do we give up on loving them, as the Lord never gives up on loving us. 
	We hold onto the fact that God can call them unto Himself, just as He called us. Even though we do not see any hope for them at this time, neither was there any hope for us until we came face-to-face with our Redeemer. 
We encourage ourselves with the truth of Eccl 7:8 The end of a matter is better than its beginning; Patience of spirit is better than haughtiness of spirit. Our eyes must learn to see the end, rather than the beginning. We need to learn to see who they can become in Jesus Christ, and treat them in accordance with that truth. We choose to see them as they will be once they are washed in the precious blood of Christ. Savage as they may be today, tomorrow, they may find their way into Him, and be clothed in His Righteousness and His beauty and His Holiness and His Perfection. 
Please remember, that we are to look at them through the very eyes of Christ, Who willingly died to free them, to free us from all the bondage of sin. In line with that truth, we must live as we are directed by the Holy Spirit, as delineated in Gal 5:22+23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. This is the case with the captives of this age. Next week, Lord willing, we will look, more specifically at this passage with regard to our even greater responsibility of behavior within the Body of Believers. So be it!
And the Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is Rom 16:25-27 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.