10/6/24 2 Tim. 1:1-14 “Let’s Start New”

03 Oct 10/6/24 2 Tim. 1:1-14 “Let’s Start New”

10/6/24    2 Tim. 1:1-14        “Let’s Start New”

I will begin today by saying that I love being a pastor.  When I stop and think about it, there really is not any aspect of this that I don’t like.  We have been very blessed to be able to serve the various churches in the area plus my online ministry.  However, being a pastor anywhere is a lot more than what it seems.  And for the most part, I don’t think there is really any training for this.  Oh yeah, I had to go to school for 7 years to learn lots of information about religion, the Bible and the church.  But there really has been no training for being a pastor, for serving you.  The closest thing came the very first year I was at seminary, 2006, when a woman came to our class and told us what was going to happen when we got to our churches.  Other than that, it was been pretty much book learning and it is pretty hard to teach this old book much of anything.  The first year I was at a church, I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants.  But I guess that is not all bad.  When we are dealing with human situations, there really is not a lot of training we can have that will help other than loving the people.  That is the bottom line for me and it should be for you also for we are all ministers.  Today, we are looking at the beginning of the 2^nd book of Timothy where Paul is trying to help Timothy by giving him some sound advice.  Being we are all ministers, let’s see if we can learn from this wise sage.  Some say he might have been the best Apostle and he never traveled with Jesus.

Timothy Peck tells the story of a little league coach who was reminiscing about his childhood days playing baseball on his little league team.  He remembered one time when his coach called the team together and asked this question.  “How many of you have a dream of playing major league baseball?”  Every single hand on the team went up as they all dreamed of playing in a major league stadium and getting the game winning hit.  So, when this young player grew up and began to coach his own little league team, he decided to ask the same question.  He asked the team, “Who here wants to grow up and play in the major leagues?”  Not one hand wet up on the team of twelve kids.  He could see in their eyes that there was not one player who thought they were good enough to do this.  There could be several reasons for this but I would say they lacked both confidence and vision.  This is the time of year when we look at the vision of our churches.  We also need the confidence to move forward, not only in our church but in our personal lives as well.

These few verses, like so many in the Bible, are rich in material on how to live.  I’m not going to talk much about verse 7 which says, “For God did not give us the spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”  Basically, God gave us His power to do things His way.  We are not weak.  Anyway, I have preached on this at baccalaureate services so I’m going to concentrate on other parts beginning with verses 1-2.  Paul makes it pretty clear that this is Paul writing.  Many if not most books of the Bible are not so clear on the authorship but not here.  He identifies himself in a positive fashion.  He identifies Timothy, to whom this letter is directed.  Then he calls him his dear son.

What a wonderful way to begin a letter.  Paul is the most polite person in his letters even if he is upset with the people.  We could take couple of lessons from this.  When we make an introduction, whether it be in person or by email or in a letter, it is always a good thing to start out nice.  Nice is good.  I notice, and I’m probably as guilty of this as anyone, that emails are often times anything but nice.  We are usually terse and to the point.  Whatever happened to saying “How are you doing?” and meaning it?  One of the downsides to the electronic age that we live in today, is that we lose our niceties in all areas of life.  I think this is tragic.  Sharon and I were at one of our grandson’s football games one night several years ago and when we went to get up to leave, we both found out that we were really stiff from sitting too long.  One of the moms was sitting next to us and she helped us up.  It was one of the nicest gestures I had seen in a long time.  Whatever you do, learn to be nice and then practice it.  Like I said, nice is always good.

I would like to remind us that Paul is writing this while in prison in Rome.  As a matter of fact, this is probably the last letter that he writes before his execution.  At least it is the last letter that we know about.  Even facing death, Paul is nice and encouraging to Timothy.  Paul is thinking that his journey, his ministry is about over but Timothy is just starting.  He wants him to have everything that he has so he passes on his wisdom.  He is being more than nice.

Then Paul begins by telling Timothy how he has been constantly praying for him.  He has been praying for him night and day.  Timothy is not a first-generation believer because his grandmother and mother were also true to the faith.  I would guess that the Timothy household somehow became Christian when Timothy was very young or even before he was born.  Therefore, Timothy was raised in a Christian home where the ways of Christ were modeled to him.  This included prayer.

Sometimes we forget just how important it is to raise our children in a Christian atmosphere.  Now I don’t mean a semi-Christian attitude that is so prevalent in our society.  I don’t mean being raised where we believe this part of the Bible and not in other parts.  I mean where we raise our children with the real Bible stories.  We talk about Jesus in front of our kids like we really believe in Him and not just pay a little homage to Him on Sunday morning.  I mean in a family atmosphere where the love of Jesus permeates everything.  This is how we are are to raise our children.

So, if you have children, do you pray regularly in front of them?  Do you read your Bible where they can see you?  Do you talk about some of the miracles that are around you and give credit to Jesus?  These are just a few of the ways to raise up your children so that they know Jesus.  Don’t wait until they are ready for confirmation to begin their Christian education.  If you do that, it may be too late.  We cannot begin teaching our children about Jesus too soon.

And it all begins, as Paul shows us here, with prayer.  As far as I’m concerned, everything in the world should begin with prayer.  There re no right ways or wrong ways of praying.  I’ve said this before and I will say this gain.  The only bad prayer is the prayer not prayed.  Just think where our country would be if we all started to pray.  As a country, if we took Christianity as seriously as the Jews do Judaism or the Muslims do Islam, we would solve every problem that would ever come our way.  If we took Jesus seriously through prayer, things would change and they would change for the better and that is a fact, Jack!

I think you all that know I believe in prayer whole heartedly.  I think you should all have a prayer life.  There is not a person who is listening to this that can afford not to have a prayer life.  We have talked about the benefits of this many times.  How do you ever expect to have the good things in life unless you ask for them?  God doesn’t grant wishes but He does answer prayer.  The reason you see various lists for prayer requests is so that you can prayer for them.  I pray for many people I don’t even know.  People are on these lists because they need help.  We talk about answered prayer all the time so why don’t you pray all the time.

So, we all know that we should pray and I hope you will begin or continue your prayer life.  Then Paul tells Timothy that God has given him great gifts and that he is to use them.  He wants him to fan the flame of these gifts because God did not make us to be timid, but we had power love and self-discipline.  He is reminding Timothy of this because the people around him have been trying to change the Word of God.  It is not any different today where we have people of influence and power trying to tell us that the Bible does not mean what it says.

Every Christian in the world has been given at least one gift.  Therefore, many of you have at least one gift from God.  It many be helping, teaching, prophesying, speaking in tongues just to mention a few.  There are several studies available to find your gifts and I recommend that you go on line to find one or I have a couple of studies at home.  However, there is a quicker way to find your gift.  What do you do that comes naturally to you?  Sometimes you have to practice a gift so it becomes natural like my being a preacher.  Sometimes you just have it.  You all have gifts and you should be using them.  God did not give us gifts so that we could hid them under a bushel basket.  They are to be used!

Then Paul goes on to say that they were not to be ashamed of the Gospel.  They were not to be ashamed that Paul is in jail waiting for execution.  There were not to be ashamed of all the things that Jesus had done.  After all, He is the reason for all things.  These people were having a struggle with their neighbors who definitely did not believe in Jesus.  Guess what?  Whatever they believed in is long gone but Jesus is still here.

This is huge problem today also.  We are told that all other religions are good and we have to accept them.  I am here to tell you that I will accept nothing except for Jesus Christ and all that He stands for.  We live in a world where we are told the we have to be inclusive.  I don’t like that term because it means different things for different people.  I will accept anyone who walks in our doors.  I do not care what you believe in or what you do or who you are, you can come into our midst and worship.  I am inclusive in this way.  However, I will never say that what other religions believe in is right.  It isn’t!  If you come in as an unrepentant sinner, I will help you to come to see that your ways are not right.  Please remember that we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God.  But many of us here today have repented and we are trying to live better lives.  That is a totally different story than someone coming here and insisting that their sinful behavior is the only right thing to do no matter what the Bible says about it being wrong.  Our job is to try to turn these people toward the real God and some real help.

Anyway, these falsehoods are creeping in everywhere in our society because we Christians refuse to stand up for Jesus.  Jesus has it right.  The world has it wrong.  It has always been that way and it always will be.  Be proud of being a Christian and stand up for what is right. It gets harder and harder to do because the society is so far away from Jesus.  Everyone thinks they are right and Jesus is wrong.  That is an absurd assumption at best.

Finally, we have to nurture each other.  Because this world has hardened their collective hearts against Jesus and us, life can be very difficult.  When Paul was writing this, there was persecution against the Christians.  However, it was not anything like it was going to be a few years later.  Today, we are persecuted in this country as our freedoms are being taken away from us and we don’t say a thing.  However, in other countries, Christians are being murdered in record numbers.  More Christians are martyred in a year now than have ever been killed before.  This persecution shows no signs of letting up.

That is the bad news for us and especially for those in these other countries where killing Christians has almost become a sport like in ancient Rome where they were put in with the lions in the Coliseum.  But the Good News is something that most of our persecutors will not have.  We have a place guaranteed in heaven.  You have a place guaranteed in heaven.  You will live on and on in perfection because Jesus destroyed death.

Jesus came to provide you a way to be with Him forever.  Unfortunately, Satan has other plans as he is trying to derail you at every point.  But if you have Jesus, then you will be ok, far better than ok.  You will be good, very good.  And it is easy to know Jesus.  I have prayed the sinners’ prayer many times to youth groups, confirmation classes, Sunday schools and adults.   All you have to do is confess your sins to Jesus and ask Him to be Lord and Savior of your life.  He will then live inside you forever.  It is that simple.  And that is a pretty good deal.

As we go into our time of Holy Communion, I would like you to think about your relationship with Jesus.  If it isn’t so good, ask Him for help in shoring it back up.  If you don’t know Hiim at all, then confess your sins and ask Him to live inside of you as your Lord and Savior.  You don’t even have to name the sins, just ask that He take them all away.  Then you can start new.  We can all start new in some fashion today.  Jesus is the reason for life.  He loves you and will be with you all the time.  Praise the Lord for that!  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.