Pastor Nate Brosher
Nov 30, 2025
2Timothy 3:1-5 NLT - 1 You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. 5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!
1. Religion without Relationship
“Having a form of godliness, but denying/rejecting the power”
Power - “Dynamis” - Inherent power, power residing in a thing, moral power and excellence of soul.
Are we pretending?
Ephesians 1:13-14 NLT - 13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.
■ Inheritance He Promised.
John 14:16-18 NLT - 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn't looking for him and doesn't recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. 18 No, I will not abandon you as orphans--I will come to you.
Romans 8:10-11 ESV - 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
2. When we deny God’s power, we settle for self-powered Christianity.
Pride says, “I can do this myself.”
Fear says, “I don’t want to surrender control.”
Flesh says, “I want God’s name but my own lifestyle.”
■ Real Godliness invites God to change what I cannot change!
Galatians 5:24 ESV - 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.