Without Apology
Courage to Walk in Your Faith
What Matters Most
June 24, 2018 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 4:9–22
Death has a way of reprioritizing life. When we look at death, it causes us to look at life and the time that is allotted us. So then how do we use our days wisely and how do we know what matters most? Friendship, faithfulness, forgiveness, faith, and forever matters most. Let's focus us on what is truly valuable.
Finishing Well
May 12, 2018 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 4:6–8
We want to be ready when God calls or death comes. Pastor Philip reminds us as we go through 2 Timothy, that death should be our final statement of faith, our final act of worship, and our final act of evangelism and witness. Follow along as we look at the resolve, the review, the reward, and the response.
Stay on Message - Part 2
April 14, 2018 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 4:1–5
Orders remain unchanged: just preach the Word. The preachers of the Gospel need to be men ready for action, and given the opportunity, preach the Word precisely, plainly and passionately. They must be faithful in faithless times, and step into the ranks of faithful men who across time have expanded God's Word without fear. It's time to pick up the baton and run the race.
Stay on Message - Part 1
March 10, 2018 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 4:1–5
God is not silent, and neither should the church be. Its preachers and its pastors need to thunder forth the message of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. God's speech makes our speech necessary. It's breathed out, inspired. It's a sovereign, saving, sufficient word to the world. If God has breathed out his word for the world, it's got to be communicated to the world. The charge is simple. Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching for the time will come when they will not endure the Word.
The Good Book - Part 2
February 10, 2018 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 3:15–17
What's the point of the Bible? What's the purpose of the Bible? These are some of the ultimate questions of life. The Bible tells us who God is. At its heart, it pulsates with the story of God's love for a fallen sinful world and His plan to redeem that world and rescue mankind through the coming of His son, Jesus Christ. The Bible has been burned. The Bible has been banned. The Bible has been berated. But, here it stands and it will stand forever, and you can build your life on it. There's no Christian competency without the Bible.
The Good Book - Part 1
January 13, 2018 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 3:15–17
God's words inspire man to a far, far greater degree. They are a transfusion of strength, of peace, of joy, of knowledge about everyday life and eternal life. The Bible is the living and powerful Word of God. It's able to empower us to live lives that are strong and significant and satisfying for God's glory. At the heart of the Bible is the story of creation, the fall of man, redemption in Jesus Christ, and consummation at the end of the ages for all the righteous. Yet the amazing thing is there's one storyline, there's one unifying theme, there's one subject that holds it all together, and it's the story of God's love for us in Christ. 2 Timothy will address the nexus, nature and necessity of Scripture.
Dare to Be Different
December 9, 2017 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 3:10–15
It is easier to fit in. Who wants to be rejected when one can be accepted? Peer pressure is real. There is a clear and present danger of conforming to the crowd or to the culture. And that is a temptation that the Christian must confront and conquer. The Christian must dare to be different, because we have been called in Christ to be different, to be a moral misfit, to march to the beat of another drummer. In this passage we see Paul urge Timothy, his son in the faith, to greater faithfulness in the Gospel. He is asked to commit himself to that in the face of growing worldliness in the church and culture that is increasingly Christless. Paul presents us with the contrast in the life of a believer, the conflict of persecution in the life of the believer and the continuance in the life of the believer. That ultimately, God is working out everything across history that stretches out into eternity. What a glorious, beautiful and wonderful reality that is. Like Paul and Timothy, we must dare to be different.
Danger Ahead
November 11, 2017 • Philip De Courcy
Danger does not come from censorship outside the church, but compromise inside the church. It is striking, isn't it, to realize that the Gospel's greatest threat will not come from confirmed pagans or hostile governments but from false religious teachers who resist God. The devil has always tried to beat the church by joining the church. He's a deceiver. He comes in the guise of an angel of light. He will prove indeed to be a threat to the church from within the church by using false teachers and teaching as spiritual saboteurs. We must be alert of the apostasy that will involve their creed, their conduct and their captives. We must avoid it at all costs. We must guard the deposit, repelling and expelling falsehood. This is something we must do and be willing to do.
At Your Service
September 9, 2017 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 2:23–26
A life well lived, is a life that ends with the well done of God. For the Christian minister, for the Christian man, every waking hour is about serving the plan of God in a manner that meets with His approval. In this passage we see the servant’s calling, character and conduct. We see his description, disposition and deliverance. Because of Jesus Christ coming to the slave market of sin and putting down His blood for you and me as a payment, we are purchased. We are no longer a slave to sin, but a free slave to Jesus Christ. There is freedom and fulfillment found in Him. To live out our life as one owned by another, bought by another and for another.
Fit For Use
August 12, 2017 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 2:20–22
There are no more tragic words than a useless Christian. Because think about the implication of that phrase... a useless Christian. It speaks of a life purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, beloved of God, and yet living for a purpose other than God's glory and kingdom usefulness. What a tragedy. What a travesty. What a transgression. In this passage we will see the picture, the purge and the pursuit. We will see the distinction between honorable or dishonorable instrument and vessel, the good leader and the bad leader, and the faithful teacher and false teacher. Your holiness is required above everything else. Are you serious about your sin? That's what Paul is basically saying. Get serious about cleansing yourself of indwelling sin and pockets of disobedience and resistance in your life. Don’t play with it. Don’t toy with it. No matter how long we're in Christ and how down the path of discipleship we have traveled, here's a new call, to be more than you are so that you might be more than you've been. We must be in hot pursuit of righteousness, faith, love, and peace, which speaks of a right behavior, a right perspective, a right attitude, and right relationships with others.
Straight Talk
June 10, 2017 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 2:14–19
Just as a doctor fears disease, and just as a police officer fears criminality, and a judge fears injustice, so the minister of the Gospel fears error. Both false teaching and false doctrine. The Christian life is built upon and constructed around the truth about God, manifested in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which we find in the biblical revelation of the 66 books of the Bible. You and I should be concerned that anything that diminishes that truth, anything that diminishes or distorts that vision. We must oppose, and we must fight. Paul acknowledges the danger of error and the need to preserve and pursue and protect truth. Error has been, and always will be, a threat to every Christian in every church in every age. You guard the truth by: stirring the saints, studying the Scriptures, and shunning the subversives. The best way to preserve truth is to promote truth. The Gospel workman, the good workman, is God-centered. He ministers out of a glorious vision of God.
Leadership Development
January 14, 2017 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 2:1–2
Paul sees the writing on the wall. The days are short. His ministry will soon be over. He has kept the faith. He has stayed in the course. He has fought the fight. And so, he needs to know that there's a pipeline of young preachers and pastors just like Timothy, his son of the faith, who will carry on this ministry long after he's gone. In his praying and in his planning, Paul wanted to make a 4G impact. And that ought to be the prayer of every father, every elder, every man of God, every aspiring young preacher here. You want to make a 4G impact. Paul wanted to see the gospel impact the fourth generation. Paul desires that the torch of the heavenly light be transmitted, unquenched from one generation to the next. Leaders must not only produce followers, they must produce leaders. There's a lot of leaders who are producing followers, but they're not producing leaders who will produce followers and leaders. Don’t limit your influence to the day in which you live. If we only produce followers, we are limiting our impact. We are commanded to preserve the Gospel. How do we maintain the transmission of the treasure? By raising up a generation of faithful men. We need to see the distinction of this passage. Paul is telling Timothy they he needs to be the difference. Timothy was to be a man of conviction in a sea of compromise and consensus. As believers, are we willing to be an emphatic you? A standout alone witness for Jesus Christ? A man who doesn't bend and a man who doesn't buy and a man who doesn't burn? Theologically definitive, morally absolutist, gender specific, evangelistically bold? Are you the kind of man who keeps an eternal perspective in a world that lives for the moment? Are you the kind of man who's content in a world that's never got enough? The kind of man who's pure in a world obsessed with sex? The kind man who is given to holiness in a world where anything goes? The kind of man who's got an invigorating passion that drives and defines your life in a world that can't be bothered?” We also need to see the dependance Paul encourages. How can he do it? Only according to the power of God. This passage helps us understand the movement and means of grace. Lastly, we see the development Paul entrusts to Timothy. Christianity can never be silenced or silent and remain true to Christianity. Because by nature, by its Genesis and in the light of the commission of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christianity is a faith that is to be propagated and perpetuated because Jesus even finishes that statement about the great commission with, "And I will be with you to the end of the age." What we start here, man, will ripple light across the centuries as you teach men who teach other men who teach other men to remain faithful to the treasure of the Gospel. That begs the question of who is qualified to be entrusted with this treasure. Among man profiles, purposes, and processes we see that he is a man who is reliable, gifted, able to teach, studious and more.
Keeping the Faith Part 2
December 10, 2016 • Philip De Courcy • 2 Timothy 1:8–18
What we need is an unashamed Church in a shameless society. Our culture is unabashed and unafraid to express its rebellion towards God. We live in a shameless society, and we need a unashamed church to be witness to the Gospel within that society. Nobody gets to heaven unscared and unscarred. When you understand how great and glorious the Gospel is, that in itself allows you to remain committed. How do we suffer? By the power of God. Why do we suffer? Because the Gospel is worth it. Jesus Christ has disarmed death. He has neutralized it into the sense that it no longer holds us in bondage. Paul never feared death. He feared a wasted life. He feared going to the judgment seat of Christ with ashes in his hand. Paul dies at peace, because the Gospel breeds confidence and the Gospel steals the soul. While God demands faithfulness from those He has appointed to preach the Gospel, the success of the Gospel ultimately rests with Him, not with us. As believers we are charged with: being a stickler for doctrine, powerfully demonstrating the Gospel, seeking spiritual discernment, marking false teacher, and finally, discipling others theologically.