1 Tim 5:21 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels, to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality. Last week, we dealt with some of the specific charges that have been laid upon the men and women of God through the effective work of the Holy Spirit. We are in the process of seeing that we are dealing with God, Almighty, the Sovereign Lord and Creator of all things. He is the Only Living God, the very Being of Love and Life. He is the One Who has opened His heart to us through His Only Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ and made us alive together in Him. Therefore, He is to be humbly respected and highly honored and approached with all contriteness and thanksgiving.
Bearing in mind this reality, when we are given a charge within His Word, we need to dwell upon it in reverence and in obedience. This is the very least that our hearts should be unto The Lord God Almighty. 
This morning, we will reflect on several more aspects of the charges that are laid before us in God’s Word. The first is seen as the Apostle Paul dealt with Timothy and with the leaders of the Church at Ephesus. The second is held in those charges that were given by the Lord Jesus, to His disciples. Please realize that these charges are very much for our acceptance, since they are recorded and delivered through His Living Word, by the direction of the Holy Spirit.
	In Acts 20:28-32, Paul writes the following to the Ephesians: "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. "I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. "Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. "And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 
	This is an awful charge, in the sense that there is a great duty within the church to be on guard and to protect all the members of the congregation. There are wolves who will try to devour the spiritually sick and attack the young members of the flock. There is a watch guard that is needed, an utter alertness within the entire body to be built up in the Lord, strong and powerful to stand against the vicious attacks of this age. The key to this is given in the fact that Paul commends them, and us, to God and to the Word of His Grace. We need to have God build us up in and upon His Word of Grace. Our spiritual strength to withstand and to protect the ranks of our fellowship is not something that is in our grasp and our ability, but in the hand of God. We must focus our hearts upon Him. We must learn to rely absolutely and completely upon His Grace, and His Guidance, and His Love, and His protection. He is our complete defense, if we will but keep our hearts guarded unto Him. His Word is our impregnable bulwark against all the attacks of this age.
	This means that we need to find our instruction for life, for growth, for spiritual maturity in His Word. We need to read and to study and to cherish it. It needs to be taught and to be treasured in every heart, from the youngest, unto the eldest. Even those babies, developing in the womb, need to be prayed over and held constantly before the throne of God’s Grace. Every one of the fellowship of Saints needs to have our hearts and minds and beings infused with the desire to know Him, in His Word, ever more greatly and dearly on a daily basis. We need to so value His Word that we desire to learn it and to seek His guidance in it to face every obstacle. 
Our young families should find that they are being encouraged and pointed to His Word as each of the children grows up into the fellowship of believers. Our young married couples should find that their counsel for facing the challenges of becoming one in Christ is set and expounded in the Word of God’s Grace. Our every encouragement must be based on God’s Word, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, rather than on man’s limited and meager understanding and theories.
	  In line with this, we need to recognize that God’s grace is more than sufficient to meet our every need. We do not fear the threats and the nightmares of society because we know that God’s grace is covering us all the days of our lives. We need to focus on that fact. Because He loves us and we love Him, we are made part of a spiritual, kingly, and personal relationship. This living relationship, in Jesus Christ, will provide us with all that is necessary to meet every challenge as we seek and obey His way in every circumstance. He is all Grace. He is Omnipotent, and Omnipresent, and Omniscient to our every situation of trial and testing.
	Additionally, it is as we face each dilemma, each trial, and each circumstance in prayer and confidence in Christ, that we will see His Grace in action. As we cover one another with love before the throne of God’s grace, all the powers of this realm will be revealed as but clawless and toothless adversaries before God Almighty. Not before us, but before Him, as we seek after God to have His Way and His Guidance and His Honor and His Glory manifested in the single heart of His church. The manner, in which we fulfill the charge of the Apostle Paul, to be on guard against all the adversarie’s minions, is as we give ourselves completely to God. It is as we live in absolute and unfailing reliance upon Him to guard that which we have committed unto Him until that day. We trust Him – period!
As we are seeing, that is what Paul emphasizes to Timothy, as well as to us, in his pastoral letters. 2 Tim 1:12-14 For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you. 
	We need to cherish the gift of life that we have been given in Jesus Christ. That living relationship with Him for all of eternity, is a priceless and incomparable treasure. We are truly blessed in all the wealth of God’s storehouse of abundance, as we value our Lord Jesus Christ above everything. In that light, we do need to be on guard, on guard against the greatest threat - ourselves. If we do not guard, in our hearts, all that we have received in Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, we will allow it to be diminished. We will lose its glory, as we seek after our own interests and self-desires, looking to God only as a safety net on this earth. Sadly, that is the way many Christians regard their relationship with God. They only see Him as the One who will bail them out if they make too much of a mess of their lives. 
We need to guard our personal relationship with Christ, just as we have to guard all our personal relationships with our earthly loved ones. Do not take God’s Love and God’s Grace and God’s salvation for granted. Cherish it! Nurture it! Be utterly sustained by Him every moment of every day.
	As Paul also writes in 1 Tim 6:20+21, O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called "knowledge" — which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith. Grace be with you… Grace be with you. What an awesome consideration! Grace be with you. As we do guard that which has been entrusted to us, as our hearts accept the charge to hold the treasure of Jesus Christ as our everything, as we desire to know Him to greater and deeper measures, as we read His Word, as we pray, and as we value the guidance and work of the Holy Spirit, and as we obey, we learn, beyond any shadow of doubt, that God’s grace is with us. It is His Grace that opens our hearts to all the fullness of what it means to be the Body and the Bride of Jesus Christ.    
	That should develop within us the earnest desire to respond with all our hearts to the charge of the Apostle Paul given in 2 Tim 4:1-5, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 
Fulfill your ministry! Our ministry is to be the living testimony of Our Victorious, Resurrected and eternally living Lord of all creation, Jesus Christ. We minister as He lives forth from our lives to bring light and life into this blind and devastated world. We need to live the truth of the Word of God, Jesus Christ crucified, resurrected, and glorified, no matter what arguments, disinterest, or threats are aimed at us. This world is getting ever more set in its utter opposition to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is abusing, heckling, ridiculing, jeering, smearing, discrediting, and just plain ignoring anything other than what suits its own purposes and glory. There is an ever increasing disregard and disdain for the Holiness of God. The things of God are treated with unceasing irreverence and mockery. Regardless of this intensified animosity, we must, just as the Holy Spirit guides and directs … preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction… be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
	The Lord declared this to His disciples in Matt 10:7-10 "And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons; freely you received, freely give. "Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his support. We are called to preach the good news of Jesus Christ and to not permit ourselves to become entangled with the things of this earth that revolve around us and our ease and our comfort. As the worker is worthy of his support, so are we to work with wholeheartedness unto the Lord, becoming worthy laborers in His field, in His vineyard. All our cares and concerns are to be cast aside, and the emphasis of our life set in that which will please God Alone in all our efforts.
	Later, in Matt 10:16-22, Jesus continues this charge with its emphasis on the fact that we are not to be surprised at the treatment we receive in this world. The animosity and the hatred of this world should become all the more targeted at us as His witnesses of truth. "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves. "But beware of men; for they will deliver you up to the courts, and scourge you in their synagogues; and you shall even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. "But when they deliver you up, do not become anxious about how or what you will speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what you are to speak. "For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. "And brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death. "And you will be hated by all on account of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. 
	The charge laid upon us is two-fold. First, we are to be on guard, for the sake of the flock, and for the sake of our very own hearts, as to the sovereignty and the glory of God on this earth. We are put into the midst of a perverse generation because of the fact that it is this very generation that is in such desperate need of the Good News of Jesus Christ. We are to be earnestly faithful in our endeavors as unto the Lord with no thought of earthly gain or reward. We rely on the fact that God will supply our every need. Live in the assurance that God does have all things well in hand. We are absolutely and unwaveringly covered in the Grace of God’s love, just as we are covered in the Righteousness and the Holiness and the Salvation of Jesus Christ. We have nothing to fear in this realm. Live forth the testimony of the Lordship of Jesus Christ with clarity of purpose, no matter what is involved.
	As well, as we are again charged by the Lord, in Mark 16:15, proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to the entire world. And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." Our very life is the living witness of His Grace and Love and Mercy, not in theory, but in reality and in action. We declare the Good News of Jesus Christ because we live in His Lordship. He reigns over every area and aspect of our lives, in our every dealing with this world. Proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our homes, in our businesses, in our schools, in our time of relaxation, in our every relationship on this earth. That is the charge that is given to us by Our Lord and Savior. Live forth in His name, unto His glory alone.
	Next week, Lord willing, we will delve into the specific warning that is set before us in our current text. We are charged to not practice any partiality in our living forth from the power and the grace and the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. Just as we do not expect any favors from this world, so are we to live our lives without showing any favoritism within the Church. That is an utterly divisive and destructive attribute that is not at all in line with God’s Word or with God’s very nature. We must faithfully and fully live in line with our new nature, now indwelling us, Jesus Christ. So be it!
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels, to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality. Amen

Mother’s Day Blessing   Hannah – Mother of the Prophet Samuel 
    	1 Sam 2:1-10 Then Hannah prayed and said, "My heart exults in the Lord; My horn is exalted in the Lord, My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies, Because I rejoice in Thy salvation. "There is no one holy like the Lord, Indeed, there is no one besides Thee, Nor is there any rock like our God. "Boast no more so very proudly, Do not let arrogance come out of your mouth; For the Lord is a God of knowledge, And with Him actions are weighed. "The bows of the mighty are shattered, But the feeble gird on strength. "Those who were full hire themselves out for bread, But those who were hungry cease to hunger. Even the barren gives birth to seven, But she who has many children languishes. "The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. "The Lord makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts. "He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap To make them sit with nobles, And inherit a seat of honor; For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, And He set the world on them. "He keeps the feet of His godly ones, But the wicked ones are silenced in darkness; For not by might shall a man prevail. "Those who contend with the Lord will be shattered; Against them He will thunder in the heavens, The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; And He will give strength to His king, And will exalt the horn of His anointed." Amen.

This morning’s benediction 2 Tim 1:5-10 For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well. And for this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel… Amen