Good morning and welcome in today. Today we’re going to take a look at some scripture from 2nd Timothy Chapter 2 but before we do that I wanted to ask you a question.
How many of you out there today have had to drive on a busy interstate. At times there’s four to six lanes of traffic going in one direction. At some point you finally come to your senses and realize that this is not the road that you want to be on. You make the decision to find the next possible exit ramp to depart that heavily traveled wide road.
2 Tim 2:19
“Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”
When you depart it means to deviate from an accepted, prescribed, or traditional course of action.
Lots of people are out in the world traveling down the same path together but those who choose the Christian Life are called to exit the wide road of sin. They are called to live a different life than the way the world lives. Even though there are many friends, relatives and relationships who are still driving on that wide road, we have to choose Christ and find the exit with or without them.
When somebody names the name of Christ they are professing Christianity as their faith. Jesus is absolutely perfect and holy and as followers of Him, we want our lives to be transformed and filled with his qualities, but we first have to make a decision to find that next exit.
It’s mosquito season in northern Minnesota right now. Sometimes people refer to them as the state bird. You will find them in swarms hovering by the door to the house. Sometimes the kids would open the door and stand with one foot in the house and the other on the deck as they carried out a conversation with somebody outside.
All of a sudden everyone in the kitchen yells ” in or out!….. In or out!
A Christian cannot keep one foot in the world and one foot in the church. A Christian cannot be walking two roads at one time, either you’re all the way in or you’re all the way out, it’s one of the other.
Christianity is about departing from the deck and getting in the house. It’s about turning away from the world and getting in the ark. Christianity is about making the decision to get off that interstate of sin that each of us have been on, and become a follower of Jesus and the truth of his Word.
I guarantee you that God’s way is a better way for each of us. You will see blessings and benefits in your life when you choose the path of Christ, not only while here upon the Earth but in heaven as well. The interstate of this world will eventually stop at a dead end, but the path of Christ leads to eternal life.
Again, When you depart it means to deviate from an accepted, prescribed, or traditional course of action.
There is a traditional course that the world follows, but we are called to come out from among them and be separate and become followers of Christ. Everybody you have known in your past may think you’re strange when you get off that wide road of sin, but it must be done none the less.
1 Pet 4:3-4
3 For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:
4 Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:
Are we better than anyone else out in this world? Absolutely not. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. It’s a matter of getting out of that lifestyle. God cares for each of us and he wants all of us to come to a place of repentance. He gives us forgiveness and grace to overcome our past. We simply choose that we don’t want to live like that anymore. We want to surround ourselves with others who are following and serving Christ.
When we depart from the wide road we are turning from the traditions of this world.
When you live in the world you follow and learn the philosophy and teachings of the world. In the church we turn from the teachings of the world to the teachings of Christ. Those who are still living in the world are being deceived because they believe that sin is acceptable, but that path only leads to a path of sorrow and misery. Jesus loves and cares for them just as much as He does us, but wants all men to repent and to believe the truth.
We honor Jesus when we turn away from sinful living. We’re not called to be sinners, we’re called to be saints.
1 Corinthians 1:2 – Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
The Lord calls us out of the lifestyle that we used to live.
1 Pet 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;
Depart means to go away or leave.
Psalms 34:14 – Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.
Psalms 37:27-28 – Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.
Becoming a Christian is learning to hate what is evil and love the way of Christ.
Psalms 97:10 – Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.
Proverbs 3:7 – Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.
Departing from sin is turning away from the person we used to be and becoming the person that God wants us to be.
Eph 4:24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Romans 13:14 – But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
The Christian life is doing the will of God rather than our own. It’s about following his way rather than the way of the world.
Matt 7:13-14
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Each of us are born into this world of sinfulness. We are born on the wide road, but in order to inherit eternal life someday, we need to find the nearest exit.
That’s where I’m going to stop for right now but Lord willing I’ll talk to you some more tomorrow. Till then bye-bye everybody.♥️
tlkjbc.wordpress.com
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 