1600 years ago, 1 mother's prayers were finally answered.
Her name was Monica and she was a Christian, but she faced many
difficulties in life. She had a season of addiction to
alcohol. She was married to a man who was
not a believer. But perhaps the hardest trial
she faced was her wayward son. He was enslaved to a life of
rampant immorality, but his mother didn't give up on it.
She persistently prayed for him. And as one historian wrote
recently, if ever there was a helicopter mom chasing down her
son for Jesus, it was Monica. In the summer of 386, the Lord
answered her prayers. Monica's son, Augustine of
Hippo, came to faith. He heard a voice repeat the
refrain. Take it and read.
Take it and read, which he understood as a divine command
to open the Scriptures and read the first passage he came across
in God's Providence. That passage was from Romans 13.
It says, let us walk properly as in the daytime, not an orgies
and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not
in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and
make no provision for the flesh. And upon reading Romans,
Augustine said, I had no wish to read more, and no need to do so.
For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was
as though the light of confidence flooded into my
heart, and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.
In other words, Augustine was saved, born again.
The Lord answered his mother's prayers, but shortly after his
conversion, his mother, Monica, got sick.
Before she died, she said she was ready to depart the world,
for her hope was already fulfilled.
Monica said to her son Agustin. The one reason I wanted to stay
longer in this life was my desire to see you a Christian
before I die. My God is granted this in a way
more than I had hoped. Through mother's prayers, God
brought a son from death to life and he gave us one of the most
important theologians of the church.
Kids here, what might God do in your life through your mother's
prayers? Augustine would go on to write
his spiritual autobiography, Many of Us Know Confessions.
He also wrote a treatise on the Trinity and a defense of
Christianity against paganism, The City of God.
He came to faith in his 30s and he faithfully pastored for
years, and in his 70s he finally finished his race.
Brothers and sisters, how can we finish the race?
How can we faithfully follow Jesus for all our days until our
death? Today we begin a new sermon
series through the book of Second Timothy.
If you have your Bible, please turn to the book of Second
Timothy. If you don't have a Bible, maybe
you forgot one. Maybe you don't even own one.
Just raise your hand. Somebody would be glad to bring
you a Bible right now. If you're not familiar with the
Bible, Second Timothy is in the New Testament.
Feel free to turn to the table of contents if you still can't
find it. It's right after First Timothy,
right before the book of Titus. As we work through Second
Timothy, we'll follow the apostle Paul who finished his
race and is now face to face with Jesus Christ.
As I read Second Timothy verses one to five, hear the word of
the Lord Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus.
To Timothy, my beloved child, grace, mercy and peace from God
the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear
conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night
and day, as I remember your tears, I long to see you that I
may be filled with joy. I'm reminded of your sincere
faith, of faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and
your mother Eunice, and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.
Friends, look over verses one to five.
Look there in your Bible you can see that verse 1 is about the
sender of the letter Paul. Pretty simple.
In verse 2 we see the recipient Timothy, and verses 3 to 5 are
Paul's prayer of Thanksgiving. You can see that there he says,
I thank God. There's three points to help us
follow along. First verse one, a spiritual
father, that's Paul. Second, a beloved son.
Verse 2, that's Timothy. And third, verses 3 to 5, a
family of faith, a spiritual father, a beloved son, a family
of faith. First, a spiritual father.
Paul writes as a spiritual father in the faith to Timothy.
We really see that in verse 2, but I'm titling it for .1.
He calls Timothy in verse 2, my child, but notice how he
introduces himself in verse 1. He says Paul, an apostle of
Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the
life that is in Christ Jesus. Paul's an apostle of Christ
Jesus. If you're not familiar with the
Bible, what what's an apostle? Jesus himself personally
selected 12 disciples and he gave them the office of apostle.
He sent them out on mission to be as representatives to the
world and to teach in his name. But Paul was not one of the
original apostles. In fact, in the book of Acts, as
the apostles preach and proclaim Jesus Christ, Paul was
persecuting the church. When Stephen was stoned In the
book of Acts, Luke tells us it was Paul, this Paul who approved
of his execution. Luke says that Paul was ravaging
the church and he was throwing Christians in prison.
So that was Paul the persecutor. How did he become Paul the
apostle and the preacher? He tells us in verse 1, he says
verse one, it's by the will of God, the will of God.
In other words, Paul did not apply to be an apostle.
He did not go looking to be an apostle.
In fact, in Acts Chapter 9, on the road to Damascus, he was
looking for Christians to imprison them, but he met Jesus
Christ who put him flat on his face, and he asked him, Why are
you persecuting me? And after some days with the
disciples at Damascus, Paul, the man who is persecuting
Christians, preached Christ in the synagogue's he said he is
the Son of God. And the persecutor became
persecuted. That was not Paul's plan for his
life, that was not his will, but it was God's.
And the risen Christ told Paul upon his conversion.
He said, I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you
as a servant and witness to open the Gentiles eyes so that they
may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to
God. His conversion was also his
commissioning. And in verse 1 he tells us one
more thing about his apostleship.
Look at verse 1. He says he's an apostle
according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus.
Why does Paul refer to the promise of the life in the
greeting of his final letter? Why does he say that?
It's because context. What's the context of Paul's
final letter to Timothy? He writes his final letter in
the face of death. Paul tells us this in second
Timothy. Turn quickly to chapter 4, the
last part of the letter starting in verse 6.
Paul says, for I'm already being poured out as a drink offering
and the time of my departure has come.
I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race.
I have kept the faith. The apostle Paul packs in four
metaphors to describe the final days of his life.
He's reached the end of the road.
This is his final chapter. Think of all Paul's done in
ministry. He's already ministered for 30
years, planting churches, strengthening churches, taking
the gospel where Christ hasn't been named.
But there will be no more ministry on earth after this.
He's already travelled. Think of all his missionary
trips to Antioch and Iconium, to Ephesus and to Philippi, to
Jerusalem and even to Rome. But there will be no more
missionary trips after this. And think of all Paul's written.
He's already written Romans, First and 2nd Corinthians,
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First
and 2nd Thessalonians, Philemon, First Timothy and Titus.
But there will be no more letters written after this.
This is Paul's final lap, for he writes to Timothy from prison,
and he writes as a man sitting on death row.
Paul's like Moses to Joshua in second Timothy.
He's passing the baton. He's giving Timothy his final
charge. He's nearing death, but he
points Timothy to the promise of life.
What's the promise of life? It's not Paul's expectation to
be set free from his earthly chains.
It is his expectation to be set free from death itself.
It is Paul's certainty that there is hope.
There is life after death for God's promise, eternal life for
all those who are in Christ Jesus.
Paul's hope in his last days is this hope that he got on his
first day of being a Christian. Eternal life.
Think of how much Paul's endured for Jesus Christ.
Imprisonments, beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, sleepless
nights, hunger and thirst, and now this final trial, death.
Why? Why would someone endure all of
that for Jesus? If you're not a Christian, do
you wonder why would somebody go through all of that?
What could be worth all of that suffering and that sorrow?
What hope could a man have in the face of death?
Paul's hope was a promise. It was the promise of life.
He held fast to the promise of life.
Friends, Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life.
And he said whoever believes in me has eternal life.
And he said whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
And to fulfil his promise, Jesus gave us life by laying down his
life for us. That's the good news of the
gospel. The wonder of the gospel is that
though you and I deserve eternal death for our rebellion against
God, he offers out eternal life in Jesus Christ.
For Jesus Christ. God's own Son died on the cross
and bore God's wrath and defeated death as he rose again
from the grave. And in Jesus Christ there is the
promise of life, eternal life for all those who have turned
from their sins and trusted in Him.
Friend, would you today find this promise of life yourself?
Would you forsake your sin and trust in Jesus Christ and Him
alone? And if you have brothers and
sisters, if you've found in Jesus your life, then like the
apostle Paul, though you die, you shall live.
Brothers and sisters, these glorious truths are ours in
Christ Jesus. That's what Paul says in verse
one. Look at verse 1.
He appeals to the doctrine of union with Christ.
That's what that little phrase in Christ Jesus refers to.
Union with Christ is like being grafted into a plant.
If you're grafted into a plant, then you receive life and
vitality. And if we're grafted into
Christ, we receive our new life from him, eternal life.
Paul writes this phrase in Christ Jesus seven times in the
book of Second Timothy, 7 times. Because all the blessings of
salvation are found in Jesus Christ.
And if they're in Christ, then you can't be separated from
them, because if you belong to Jesus, then you can never lose
these gifts, this gift of life. Now, here's the thing.
None of us, as far as I'm aware, are facing imprisonment today
for following Jesus Christ. None of us, as far as I'm aware,
are not facing martyrdom for following Jesus Christ.
But we have the same promise of life as the Apostle Paul.
We have different troubles, but the same promise.
The promise of life. It gives us boldness as
Christians to set our hands to the plow and never look back, to
even add on and take on new sacrifices and new sufferings
for our Savior. The promise of life.
It gives us courage in this life to face any and every trouble
with the hope and the assurance that in eternity we will be
delivered by our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Paul died. He died in Christ, and Paul
lives. He lives in Christ.
He was eventually executed by the Roman Empire, but he lives
today in glory land, as do all who've trusted in Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of sins. As we sang together earlier,
He's left this world of pain. Thank God up there.
He'll die no more. He'll suffer not again.
Paul was a faithful spiritual father, and he writes to his
beloved son in the faith. Now we turn to Timothy .2, a
beloved son. Paul writes to Timothy.
He calls him my beloved child. We heard a bit about Timothy in
Acts chapter 16. Earlier in the service, Timothy
was from Lystra. Paul preached the gospel in
Lystra on his first missionary journey and then on his second
missionary journey. He returned to Lystra and it
seems that Timothy somewhere in there came to faith and he was
growing spiritually. For Luke records in Acts that
Timothy was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra.
So Paul asked Timothy to accompany him to partner
together for the sake of the gospel.
But do you remember Timothy's initiation into ministry?
It came with a cost. Right before Acts 16 is Acts 15.
In Acts 15, at the Jerusalem Council, the apostles, along
with the elders and the church, were debating a serious matter.
Some were saying that Gentile believers need to be circumcised
in order to faithfully follow Jesus.
But the apostle Paul taught that Gentile believers are saved by
the grace of Christ Jesus, in other words, that circumcision
was not necessary for salvation. And the matter was settled.
They even wrote a letter and they sent it throughout the
region. But then comes Acts 16, and
Timothy wants to minister alongside Paul, and Paul wants
Timothy to join him. And to do that he has to get
circumcised because his mother's a Jew, but his father's a Greek,
so he had not been circumcised. And he's an adult.
That's what he does to minister the gospel.
He does not get circumcised for his salvation, but his
circumcision is for the salvation of others.
His circumcision is a sacrifice for the sake of the gospel.
Those are his first days of ministry.
And then for over 15 years, he faithfully ministered with Paul.
He was Paul's ministry protege, working alongside Paul with
Paul, with the Thessalonians, the Corinthians, the Saints in
Philippi, and at Colossi. Eventually, Paul asked him to
pastor the church in Ephesus where he faithfully pastored.
And it's likely where he received this very letter.
Timothy was very dear to Paul. Paul calls him.
Look at that in verse 2, my beloved child, he was like an
adopted spiritual son. Timothy was so dear to Paul that
Paul encouraged the Philippians about Timothy.
He said I have no one like him. You know his proven worth, how
as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel.
Timothy was Paul's right hand man, indispensable.
Paul loved him, but Timothy was very far from Paul.
If he remained in Ephesus, which is what Paul told him to do in
first Timothy, then what separated Paul, who's in Rome to
Timothy who's in Ephesus was over 1600 miles.
And Paul's departing, the Apostolic era's ending, the
preservation and the proclamation of the gospel
needed to be passed on to the next generation.
So as Paul departs, he reminds Timothy in verse 2 that God
remains. Verse 2.
Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord. When Paul described his old life
to Timothy back in First Timothy, he says, I was a
blasphemer, persecutor, an insolent opponent, but I
received mercy, Paul says. And in the next verse he says
the grace of our Lord overflowed for me.
Paul had met the grace and the mercy and the peace of Christ
Jesus and he was sending it along to Timothy.
That's what Timothy needed. It's what we all need.
Grace, mercy and peace from God and God is glad to give it.
We've seen the apostle Paul as a spiritual father and his Co
worker, Timothy as a beloved son and in that in their
relationship we see a beautiful portrait of discipling,
something that every Christian is called to do.
Discipling simply this keep it simple, helping others follow
Jesus, that's discipling. It's spiritually pouring out
yourself for others so that you can fill them up.
Discipling can happen anywhere. Can happen in a coffee shop or a
living room. It can happen while you're
folding clothes or you're sipping on tea, or when you're
on a run or when you're going to the grocery store.
It can happen in the 15 minutes before and after the service or
over a meal at your lunch break. Discipling is something that you
Christian, must do for others and that other Christians will
do for you. One of my favorite quotes on
discipling is from Mark Dever. Here's the quote.
For me, discipling is the only way I can evangelize non
Christians and equip Christians in that one place where I can
never travel the future beyond my life.
Mark says discipling others now is how I try to leave time bombs
of grace. That is a great quote.
It's packed with ministry vision.
You Christian, you're giving this one little life.
And then at the end there's a door where you exit.
But through discipling, through pouring yourself out for the
sake of others, good, You can actually do spiritual good to
the coming generations. Or as Dever says, you can leave
time bombs of grace. Now look, I love Mark, but
Mark's ministry model, it is not Mark's idea.
You could even say he stole it. He stole it from the Apostle
Paul. Isn't that what Paul did?
He poured himself out like a drink offering into Timothy.
And isn't that what his very letter is?
This letter is a time bomb of grace that we get to experience.
And of course, this did not originate with the Apostle Paul.
Paul simply follows in Christ's footsteps, who gave himself to
his 12 disciples and then even more to an inner ring of three,
and then he entrusted them all to do the same.
Brothers and sisters, give yourself to discipline.
Leave time bombs of grace in this church for the next
generation. And remember, discipling is not
a quantifiable ministry. How many lunches does it take to
disciple someone? How many early morning meetings?
How many minutes of spiritual good do you need to input into
someone else? There's no secret formula to
disciple either. All you need to do is commit to
a lifetime of doing spiritual good to others.
And sometimes in this life, you get to see the results.
Praise the Lord, but most of the fruit of discipling will surely
only be seen in eternity. Discipling is how we pass on the
gospel from one generation to another, which is what Paul
points to as he turns to prayer in verse 3.3.
A family of faith. Listen and be encouraged as you
hear the apostle, Apostle Paul pray as he prays from prison.
Verse three. I thank God whom I serve, as did
my ancestors with a clear conscience, as I remember you
constantly in my prayers night and day, as I remember your
tears, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy.
I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first
in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am
sure dwells in you as well. Verses 3 to 5, or one sentence
in Greek, they form one prayer of Thanksgiving to God.
Paul starts it with his ancestors in verse three.
He ends it with Timothy's ancestors in verse five.
And three times in the prayer Paul says, did you catch it?
I remember, I remember He remembers Timothy in prayer
verse three. He remembers Timothy's tears
verse 4, and he remembers Timothy's family of faith verse
5. In verse 6, just look one verse
over. Paul will say, I remind you, but
not yet. First, Paul remembers, he
remembers Timothy in prayer. Look at the beginning of Paul's
prayer. He thanks God.
It's a prayer of Thanksgiving written from prison.
It's a paradoxical prayer. He thanks God, though he's in
prison. And isn't it the apostle Paul
who taught us and taught the Thessalonians give thanks in all
circumstances? Paul sits in prison and he
practices what he preaches as he prays and as he thanks God.
Christian, what circumstance are you facing today?
Is there any circumstance in which you can't say thank you,
God? Paul also serves God.
It's another paradox. He serves God though he's in
chains. His chains and his prison cell
do not prohibit him from worshipping God.
He serves God just as Abraham and Isaac, just as Jacob and
David before him. Paul understands that the
promise of God believed by the Saints and the patriarchs of the
past is the same promise of the gospel that is fulfilled in
Jesus Christ. According to Paul, when he looks
back, he sees how God has preserved the faith of his
people from one generation to another.
And see also that Paul holds a clear conscience.
It's yet another paradox. His conscience is clear.
Though he's been declared guilty, he's done nothing wrong
and he'll be put to death. He's guilty in the eyes of man,
but he's innocent in the eyes of God.
He's condemned according to man, and yet there is no condemnation
for him in the Christ Jesus. He has the freedom of a clear
conscience. Friend to you, God has given
each of us a conscience, a capacity for moral judgement.
Your conscience is what you believe is right or wrong, and
sometimes your conscience is wrong.
It needs calibration. Earlier this week I hopped on my
exercise bike after putting in new batteries and the little
computer said I needed to calibrate my pedaling.
So it had me pedal at different speeds to make sure that how I
was pedaling was how the computer was tracking my
pedaling. Believers, we need to calibrate
our conscience to make sure it's in accordance with Scripture.
You need to take what you think is right and wrong and then
search the Scriptures and baptize them in God's Holy Word.
And you need to always obey your conscience.
When your conscience yells at you, stop, that's wrong.
Don't do that. You need to obey it.
Well, what you're doing might not actually be sin, according
to God. To go against your conscience is
sin. That's what Paul says in Romans
14. He says whatever does not
proceed from faith is sin. If you think something is sin,
do not do it. Do not go against your
conscience. Brothers and sisters, is your
conscience clear this morning or are you hiding secret sins?
Do those secret sins condemn you?
Does your conscience itself cry out against you?
Hypocrite, liar, phony, imposter.
Brennan, that's you this morning.
Do not silence your conscience. Do not hit snooze.
Listen to your conscience. You can have a clear conscience
this morning. How can you cleanse your
conscience? Repent of your sins, turn from
them, kill your sin and look to Jesus Christ.
Drag your sins into light through confession.
Talk to your brothers or sister in the church that you trust.
Confess your sins to God and your brothers and sisters.
Kill your sins. Take God's side against them.
Don't ignore them. Find freedom in mortification
and look to Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews tells us
that the blood of Jesus Christ purifies our conscience, making
it clean. Keep your conscience clean by
being honest about your sins and finding the forgiveness you need
in Jesus Christ. And all of this for Paul is
working in the background as he remembers Timothy in prayer, as
he sits in prison. He prays, he remembers Timothy
in prayer. He says night and day, morning
and evening. His prayers are not occasional.
They are constant. And if you think about all the
people in the world who need prayer in this moment, doesn't
the apostle Paul make the top of the list?
He's in prison, on death row, abandoned by most of his
friends, and yet he is the one concerned about others.
He's the one praying for Timothy.
And whatever circumstances we face, do we face anywhere we
can't be concerned about our brothers and sisters in the
church? Is there any situation we face
in which we can't turn to God in prayer?
Paul remembers Timothy in prayer.
He also remembers Timothy's tears.
Look at verse 4. Apparently the last time they
were together, Paul left Timothy in tears.
He doesn't tell us exactly when it happened, but in Acts chapter
20, Paul gives a final speech to the Ephesian elders, and the
author of Acts tells us there was much weeping on the part of
all. So just to see Timothy again,
that would bring Paul such joy. When we lived in Dubai, we knew
a lot of friends in ministry, and from Dubai, a lot of people
would go on to minister in other places.
There was kind of a tradition among our friends in ministry
that we would go to the airport together when it was someone's
final night and we'd say our goodbyes.
And those flights were often at 2:00 in the morning or three in
the morning. So we'd be there at the curb of
the airport at midnight, saying goodbyes, embracing, giving our
hugs and shedding our tears. And then two years ago, it was
our turn. We drove to the airport with two
or three other cars and everyone poured out and you know, you're
trying to get all your luggage. And we had, how many kids did we
have back then? Three little kids and everyone's
crying and saying goodbye. Part of faithfully following
Jesus means that you'll have tearful departures from good
friends in the faith, some you may never see again in this
life. Tears shed reveal a heart that
cares. It reveals affection and love.
Members of Trinity Baptist Church, I don't know how long
you'll be a member of this church, but I pray and I hope
that you invest so deeply in the members of this church that
these Saints become so dear to you that when and if you leave,
there will be tears shed at your departure.
Paul remembers Timothy's tears. And finally, Paul remembers
Timothy's family of faith. Look at verse 5.
Paul's reminded of Timothy's sincere faith.
Sincere Paul's been. In 30 years of ministry.
He's seen friends become frauds, men who started strong but did
not finish the race. But it's not Timothy.
Timothy's faith is proven. It's without hypocrisy.
It is genuine. It is a faith, Paul says, that
dwell first in his grandmother Lois and in his mother Eunice.
Remember back to Acts 16, Timothy's father wasn't a
believer and his mother Eunice was.
His grandmother Lois apparently was too, meaning that Timothy
was not the first believer in his family.
His physical family tree was also his spiritual family tree.
His grandmother and his mother. We're both faithful Christians.
Remember earlier in our service we rank we sang 2 hymns from the
18th century Rock of Ages and Arise My soul, Arise.
Do you know how hymns like these found their way into the
preaching of one of the greatest preachers of the 19th century,
Charles Spurgeon? How did those hymns make it into
his preaching? It was through his grandmother.
Here's a trick for grandma's if you're if you're listening.
When Spurgeon was a young boy, his grandmother offered to pay
him a penny for each Isaac Watts hymn that he memorized.
But he was so good at memorization that she eventually
had to downgrade the deal or she feared she'd go bankrupt.
And that love of hymns, that love of Isaac Watts hymns
remained with Spurgeon. And it even bled into others
like Charles Wesley, like we sang earlier.
And Spurgeon said of himself, he said, no matter what topic I was
preaching, I could always in the middle of any sermon, quote some
verse of a hymn in harmony with the subject.
That's not a gift I have personally, I'm, I don't possess
that. But Spurgeon did.
And you can trace it back to his grandmother.
Godly grandmothers are a great gift.
Godly mothers are a great gift too.
And yet, sadly, when you look at our current cultural climate,
they whisper to women that being a mom is a wasted life.
Our current cultural climate says that children are problems
to be prevented, that beauty and financial freedom should be
chased after. Instead, it says that motherhood
is too costly, it's too burdensome, it's too inefficient
economically. And you can hear the chorus in
an article published by Bloomberg in 2022.
It's titled Women who stay single and don't have kids are
getting richer. Now, just so you know, study
after study shows that that's actually not true, but it's what
people believe today. And sadly, this is not just
contained to the cultural climate of the West.
It's the message of the whole world.
The world has imbibed it for across the whole earth, men and
women are not having children. Of course, some want to have
children and they're not able. But the majority across every
continent except Africa, the birth rates are dropping
drastically. That's true in Europe.
It's especially true in East Asia.
It's true in the United States. People aren't having babies.
Why? Because they don't believe that
motherhood and children are blessings, and it's a spiritual
disease that calls what God has said is a blessing a curse.
We'd be foolish friends to think that these ideologies have not
infiltrated the church also. So we need to calibrate our
conscience according to God's Word.
And the apostle Paul gives us an invitation this morning by Holy
Scripture to ponder the great spiritual good of Christian
mothers and grandmothers, moms and grandmas, Happy Mother's
Day. I did not plan this sermon
series in line with Mother's Day, but in God's Providence,
here we are. You are a God-given blessing.
Your work often may seem mundane, but it matters in the
eyes of God. Do not grow weary in doing good.
One way mothers can pass on the faith to the next generation.
It's just a regular time in God's Word with your children.
That's actually what Lois and Eunice did with Timothy.
Paul tells us that in chapter 3. From childhood, Paul says
Timothy's mother nurtured him with the Old Testament
scriptures. So moms, keep laboring to open
the scriptures with your children.
Keep praying for them to come to faith in Jesus Christ.
And remember mothers, as JC Ryall says, do not forget that
children learn more by the eye than they do by the ear.
No school will make such a deep marks on character at home and
church. We have the responsibility to
support mothers and grandmothers, to encourage them,
to praise them, to celebrate their sacrifices, and to pray
for them regularly. Friends, don't fall into the
spiritual pitfall which says that being a mom is a wasted
life. It is a precious life according
to God. But there's also another
cultural pitfall which the church can easily fall into,
which says that being a mom is all that matters, as if those
who are not mothers lack something.
But notice in this text, Paul points to Timothy's grandmother
and his mother as examples of how they passed down the faith
to Timothy. It is a faith Paul says he is
sure dwells in Timothy as well. Paul did.
Paul knows that Timothy did not receive the faith from his
father. Paul himself was Timothy's
spiritual father because his own father was not a believer.
And so for those who long to be mothers but cannot remember, you
can still be a spiritual mother to many.
And that too, sisters, is a life precious to God.
In Christ, every life is precious and valued,
irrespective of your family of origin, irrespective of your
marital status or of the number of children that you have.
Remember Augustine's mother, Monica, She died around age 56.
At her funeral, Augustine tried to fight back his tears, which
was fitting for the cultural moment of the day.
He did not want people to think that his mother would be was to
be pitied. But despite his struggle and his
efforts, he finally let himself grieve.
And as he recalled her godliness and her gentleness and her love,
he wept. In his autobiography, he
reflects on the funeral. He says, I was glad to weep
before you about her. A faithful mother, pass on the
faith to her son, just as the faith was passed down from the
patriarchs to the apostle Paul and from Lois and Eunice to
Timothy. And that's my job as one of the
pastors of this church. It is to prepare this church for
their next pastor, to prepare this church for the next
generation to pass on the gospel, to preserve it and pass
it down to the next generation. And parents, that's your for job
too, to share your faith and pass it down to the next
generation. And church, that is our job, yet
two years old. But we must remember our
responsibility to protect and to preserve the gospel for those
who will come long after us. That's our job.
Second Timothy verses 1 to 5 encourages us that from one
generation to another, God preserves the faith of his
people. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the promise of the life that
is in Christ Jesus, that even in the midst of death we can have
hope, hope that's only found in our Savior Jesus Christ.
Lord, we pray that we as a church would be faithful to pass
down the faith from one generation to the next until
Christ returns. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.