2 Timothy 1:3-7 How to Talk to Young People

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches on his series of Second Timothy, Faithful to the

End. Let's listen in. Welcome to Recast Church.

As Ben said, I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here. And we're a church that set out with a mission to worship

Him and find more worshipers for His name. That's our stated, in -writing mission of the church. And we did that here in Matawan about 16 years ago.

Our name is an acronym. It's a strange name for a church, but Recast is an acronym for Replication, Community, Authenticity, Simplicity, and Truth.

And that's written above the donut holes back there, but you probably don't pay attention because you probably just are focused and zeroed in on those.

So I like to keep those in front of you from time to time. Again, it's Replication, Community, Authenticity, Simplicity, and Truth.

And I like to emphasize one of these, and really it seems like almost every text of scripture one of these comes out at us.

As far as replication goes, it's been a goal for our church all throughout our history to send out a team to plant another church.

Now, God has not seen fit to have that happen here yet, and it's not for a lack of trying or a lack of effort.

But I would ask you to join me in your prayers specifically that God would lead us to a capable, gifted, godly, brave, probably young man to lead this endeavor.

Without a leader, we can't make a start on this. And we've actually even gone so far as interviewing some guys. We've sent some people away to some assessments and thought we had a start, and then it didn't.

And so without that leader, we're committed to planting a church, but not without a leader. And so we really want to see

God work in that way and encourage you to pray for that. And I'm talking this way in part because I'm enthusiastic about the gospel, and particularly the gospel going out into this next generation.

I've had the privilege of having a front row seat to a church plant, and I would tell you that planting a church has shown me the evangelistic power that is found in starting a new church in a community.

We've seen God reach out to many who are young families. We've had many baptisms among young people from the start, and yet those of us that started the church are not young families anymore.

We know that we grow and we age. And the book of 2 Timothy will find us thinking regularly about reaching the next generation.

It's almost thematic just in the very nature of it being Paul on the way out and a new generation of Christians being left to carry on the ministry from those apostles that are departing and being martyred.

And 2 Timothy serves as a very personal and very vital and even final declaration of the apostle

Paul. Again, personal, vital, and final, what Paul wanted to communicate to a young man in ministry named

Timothy. Now, I've entitled the message this morning, How to Talk to Young People. How to Talk to Young People, because Paul here talks to Timothy in a way that I would have liked to, and I think many of you would have liked to have been talked to by an older person in the church in your youth.

And I say I would have liked to, but I actually was to some degree. As a matter of fact, I had an older guy in my life when

I was young and when I was in high school that would invest in me. And I believe that a major part of the reason that I'm actually even in ministry today comes down to having a particular youth pastor who prayed for me and told me as much.

Like, he prayed for me, and he told me that he was praying for me. He encouraged me with words of confidence as he saw faith growing in me.

He believed in me, invested in me, challenged me, and he spoke boldly to me at times, challenging me to be bold and challenging me to fan into flame the gift that God has given to me.

So I want to encourage all of you to listen to the way that Paul speaks to a young person in this short text that we're going to read here in a minute.

We need this lesson. All of us need to take on what Paul has to say to Timothy here, and if Recast Church is going to continue to find more worshipers for Jesus Christ and be able to continue to do so, a good start to passing the torch is learning how to talk to a young person like Paul speaks to Timothy here.

So let's open our Bibles or your scripture journals or your devices to 2 Timothy 1, verses 3 -7.

Again, 2 Timothy 1, verses 3 -7, and let's learn how to talk to young people.

Recast, this is God's holy word, and I'd love to remind you that probably the most vital thing that we do in our gathering each Sunday is hearing the word of Almighty God, and this is what he desires to communicate to us this morning.

2 Timothy 1, starting in verse 3. 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. For this reason

I remind you, to fan and to flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self -control.

Let's pray as Dave and the band come to lead us in worship this morning. Father, I rejoice in the way that you have made us a church of multiple generations.

We started with a lot of young families, 30 -somethings, and even as we have grown as a church, we now have multiple generations here.

All of us united under the one common glorious truth that Jesus Christ is King, and he came to deal with our sins, and he's coming again to set up his eternal rule and reign in a glorious, sinless, perfect, deathless kingdom.

We look forward to that day. But in the meantime, here and now, we rejoice that you choose to use us, that you give us gifts and you give us opportunities to encourage one another.

Even here, the example and the model of Paul investing in a younger man, and really the instructions of Paul, even the

Titus, for the older women to train up the younger women and the older men to teach the younger men.

Father, I pray that that would be a reality here in our midst, that we would not miss this next generation, that we would not be sidelined by a lack of investment, but instead we would recognize that now is the time for us to be investing in the young people around us.

And there's so much animosity in the world, there's so much hatred and even just ageism, if that's a thing, a word that I could use.

Father, you know the hearts of people who like their people, who like their age group and reject others.

And Father, I pray that that would not be the case among your people. But in the glorious gospel, we would be united.

Even now, it's just a beautiful picture of that, that we get to mingle our voices, old people, middle -aged people, younger people, all alike, singing your praises.

What a glorious picture of the way that you desire us to be and the way that we interact with each other.

We thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ that unifies us, and we ask that you would receive these songs now as praise before your throne, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Go ahead and be seated.

And then I encourage you, if you need to get up and use the restrooms or get more coffee or juice, take advantage of that.

You're not going to distract me. But I would ask that you reopen your Bibles or your devices to 2

Timothy 1, 3 through 7. We're going to be walking through that passage, and it's pretty good for you to have that in front of you so that you can see what

I'm talking about is coming from God's Word. I have several friends that are pastors, but a couple of them are pastors in their church and their churches are dying, and they know it.

I know one church that started about four years before recast, so it's about 20 years old, and they're struggling to figure out their next steps.

They don't know what to do, and I've talked with the pastor, and they're not sure what to do. They have no need for a children's program, no nursery, and he doesn't know what to do.

Church like that, a young family shows up, and of course, they have a tendency to go ugh, like everybody wants to talk to them and encourage them to stay, but there's not any peers for their kids.

I met a man last week who has been serving as an interim pastor at a church in Three Rivers, and they voted last week to disband.

There is no one in the church that is under 60 years of age, no young people there. Now you look around recast, and it would be hard to imagine that being a possibility in our future.

Of course, we pray for the children. We pray for the many pregnant moms and many newborns that we have here, and we pray for the sanity of the nursery and preschool workers and recast kids back there as it's busting at the seams back there, and that's part of the reason we talk about knocking this wall out to get to one service, but we also need some classroom space as well, and so that's another further need, but here's the thing, church.

We must be intentional about the next generation. We must be intentional about the next generation, and I'm suggesting that we need to learn how, all of us, all of us need to learn how to talk to the next generation, and I'm not talking about learning their lingo.

Goodness gracious, I am so glad we don't need to understand Skibbity Sigmariz, Ohio at all.

You don't even need to know who Trippi Troppi is or any of the other Italian brain rot in order to speak to them.

In order to communicate with young people here in our church, there are some things that you need, but it doesn't mean that you're going to have to speak their lingo.

Fads come and go. Lingo has gone from groovy to awesome to gnarly to fat to gas to fire, and it's going to be something else, right?

You just can't keep up, and so we usually just go like, cool, that's pretty cool, right?

I think you can still get away with that one. I don't even know. Maybe I'm probably aging myself just by that, but learning to talk to a young person is not about acting cringe and trying to speak their language.

Not at all. That's not what this passage is about. Instead, I believe that God reveals through Paul a way, at least the way that he speaks to a young person, and really,

I think, a very good model for us in terms of how we ought to speak to young people, and it's applicable down through the ages, the way that he communicates with Timothy here.

I believe that what is written here, if you were to apply it in your relationship with people younger than you, it would grab their attention.

Follow Paul's example here, and you will speak into the heart of a young person some things that they didn't even know that they wanted, didn't even know that they needed, but might even actually crack in their heart a little bit of a gap there that says, that was kind of nice.

That kind of felt good. That was kind of helpful. Years down the road, they might just find that it was formative in them because you invested some of the words like Paul invests in Timothy here.

Of course, all of this sermon builds off of last week, in particular, off of one of the four points.

One of the four points was Paul's investment. Remember, his investment looked like a young man.

In that passage, he says, when it comes to his investment, he calls

Timothy a beloved child in the faith. When he was thinking about his investment here in light of writing

Timothy, he said, you are my investment, and I love you, and I am grateful for the opportunity to invest in your life.

You need to decide to invest in a young person before you can talk with them. That's a prereq.

But I tell you what, having had a mentor in my youth has made a world of difference in my life. Anybody here would raise your hand and say, somebody invested in me when

I was younger and I'm stronger for it. Good. That's awesome to see. Even just take those hands as a way of saying, this is important.

This is vital for us. I tell you what, having had a mentor in my youth, it was substantial. My mentor talked to me like Paul talks to Timothy here in this text, and I can testify to the power of that in my life, and I'll even share a couple stories of the way that a man invested in me.

But in our outline, we find four incredibly powerful things we can and should, can and should be saying to our young people.

And this is all of us. This isn't just the leader. This isn't just the pastor's job, but this is all of us. And yes, it's something that you can apply as parents too.

You can apply this as grandparents, but I would encourage you to branch out of your own family as well and invest in some other young people here.

And when I say young people, how many of you know that a 50 -year -old is young to a 70 -year -old? Okay, right?

Like, I mean, when I'm talking about that, I'm not saying like all of us need to go find one of our 15 youth in the high school ministry and invest in them.

Not at all. I'm saying grab somebody who is a little bit behind you, maybe one step back, and invest in them.

But here are four things that really Paul models and says to Timothy that I think we ought to take on.

First, I'm praying for you. Man, that's a good thing to say. That's in verse three. I'm praying for you. Second is

I rejoice in you, verse four. By the way, something that's super important in our culture that right now is all the like okay boomer and all that stuff, right?

Like there's divisions that form because we like our own people, right? And we like our age group and we have common and similar things that we've endured and all of that.

And so if we're not careful, we hive ourselves off, right, from each other, and God forbid that that would happen in the church.

I rejoice in you is a really good thing to say across generations. I rejoice in you. The third thing,

I see faith in you, verse five. I see faith in you. Man, that can be a powerful thing, particularly when an older person says that to a younger person because when you're young, you're forming some thoughts and you're forming the way that you view the world.

And for somebody to say I see faith in you, I see a faith in you that's consistent with the old school faith.

And it's like wow, that can be powerful. Four things serve boldly. This is the one command. The one instruction, and that's in verses six and seven.

So let's start off with I'm praying for you in verse three. Paul lets Timothy know that he is thankful to God for him.

And who doesn't like to hear that, right? Everyone would benefit from hearing that they are the cause of thankfulness.

I come to you and I say I thank God for you. How many of you raise your hand and say that would be encouraging to me to have you come and say that to me.

Like I'm thankful for you. Oh wow, okay, that's a good feeling. But Paul further explains that he's not only thankful in his prayers for Timothy, but he also prays for Timothy's needs as well.

Now I want to point out that verse three can be a little complicated because there's all kinds of subordinate clauses in there and stuff, and so it can be a little bit like what's the main point, and the main point is the prayer.

There's these side notes in verse three like the fact that Paul serves God, he mentions that in there, that Paul serves

God with a clear conscience, and that Paul serves God in line with his Jewish ancestors. And all of those that I would call side phrases in this are valuable to our understanding of what

Paul wants at least to cross Timothy's mind as he's talking about praying for him. And everything serves this main point from this verse,

Paul prays for Timothy with both thankfulness and with requests. The word prayer in this verse, the word prayer here, constantly in my prayers night and day, that word prayers is supplications.

It is intercession, it is the word that means I go before God and make requests for you.

It's that kind of prayer, I'm thankful for you, and when I offer my prayers in morning and evening,

I pray for you by name Timothy, and I tell God I'm thankful for you, and I lift up requests for you.

Now by inserting those side comments about his ancestors, about his service, about his clear conscience,

Paul is forcing Timothy's attention toward his calling to serve God because Paul is identifying that he serves

God. And to serve God out of a clear conscience, he serves God out of a clear conscience that comes from understanding grace.

How in the world can anybody even have a clear conscience, right? How many of you are sinners? You don't need to raise your hand, I already know you are.

We don't need to do that exercise. We're all sinners, and so we know that we don't have a clear conscience in the sense of I know that I've broken

God's laws. I know that I've done things wrong. It's only by grace that we can have a clear conscience, and talk about a great reminder to a young man saying like, hey, don't forget that this is like serving

God out of a clear conscience ties him back to grace. And then also he calls his attention to be mindful that there's a rich history underlying the faith.

Man, oh man, do young people and all of us need to remember that we are not the start of what

God is doing. We're not the beginning of this thing. For Paul, he says,

I come from a rich tradition of Jewishness, and my parents actually sent me to rabbi school to study intercommunal and I have, there's a rich Old Testament history that we can tap into.

But also the heritage for Timothy goes at least all the way back to his grandmother and his mother.

And he says, you're not starting this thing. Don't worry, you don't have to start this, Timothy. It's something that's already going that you're connected to.

Paul says, when I offer my prayers to God, they always include thanks for you, Timothy, and they also include specific requests for you,

Timothy. How many of you would benefit from someone saying that to you because that's true, that they're actually praying for you, that they're thankful for you, that they lift up requests on your behalf?

But you must remember that this is a mentor, Paul, writing to his protege, younger man,

Timothy. Here we see an older man praying for a younger man, and I think that's worth noting. And despite the fact that it's two men in church leadership,

I don't fear at all any threats that I'm misapplying this by suggesting that older men in general ought to be interacting this way with younger men in general within the church, that all of us bear this responsibility.

And that older women ought to be interacting with younger women in this way in general within the church body, that this is a call on all of us, not just, okay, well,

Paul's a professional, he's an apostle, he, of course, has to invest in others, no, it's here for us to read, it's here for us to tackle and take on.

Paul told Titus that older women are to train younger women, and older men are to teach the younger men, as instructions generally to the church in Crete, just generally, like, make sure you're doing this, church, make sure you're investing in younger people.

Let me ask you all quite directly, which Timothy or Timothea, I don't know if this is a feminine or masculine, what

Timothy are you praying for night and day? Who could you speak to and say, hey, dude,

I'm praying for you, and I'm lifting you up, and I'm grateful to get to know you, and I'm praying for you?

And if you can't answer that question, let me encourage you to pick one, get a name and start praying for a student, or just walk up to someone and say, hey,

I don't know you but we go to the same church, as evidenced by the fact that we're in the same room right now, how can

I be praying for you? That might actually launch out into some type of mentoring relationship, maybe it doesn't, maybe that's the end of it, and they're like, ooh, are you old person, and walk away, well, just try again, just try again,

I don't know, you know, can't guarantee success in this, but at least try, right? That would be kind of offensive, though, don't do that, but Paul was praying for Timothy, and I think this is a really powerful church, he told him,

Paul was praying for Timothy, and he told him. Now, I know, and I can even sense that, I'm the recipient of many prayers that I don't even know about, how many of you know what

I'm talking about on that front, like, you just know, like, people are praying for you, and you have that sense, but man,

I tell you what, what's super awesome is receiving a text in the middle of my week, hey, I prayed for you today, that's a powerful thing, isn't it, have you received that, have you received that kind of text, or that kind of email, or that kind of connection, and it's like, oh, man, that is, that's encouraging to our soul.

Paul was praying for Timothy, and he told Timothy, I'm praying for you, and I'm thankful to God for you, I ask

God to bless you, and I'm thankful. The second thing that we ought to take on as words that are beneficial to young people is

I rejoice in you, verse four, verse four incorporates more personal history between Paul and Timothy, and this makes it a bit more tricky for us to apply, why do

I say it's tricky to apply? Well, it's a very unique and specific situation, and so Paul says to Timothy, I remember your tears, and I long to see you, and I wouldn't encourage you to go up to a young person and be like, hey,

I remember your tears, what, wait, wait, no, that's probably not, don't apply this directly, but there's something that's going on here, it seems apparent to me that the last time that Paul and Timothy parted ways, there were tears from Timothy, I believe, and most scholars believe that there's probably a particular reason, this was likely at Paul's final arrest,

Timothy and Paul were traveling together prior to this, and then Timothy was sent on to Ephesus, but it's likely that he was there when

Paul was arrested, he probably likely at their last parting watched soldiers manhandle Paul, bind him in chains and cart him off, and there were tears, but note the relationship between Paul and Timothy that has developed here over the course of their lifetime,

Timothy's tears at Paul's departure, Paul's longing to see Timothy so that he can be filled with joy, and him talking about it, and them talking about it.

Guys don't cry, right, isn't that the big American statement? Guys don't cry, guys don't develop close relationships with other dudes, guys don't talk about joy in hanging out with each other, they enjoy hanging out with each other, but they, goodness gracious, don't talk about it, you're making it weird, don't tell me you like spending time with me, let's just hang, right,

I don't even know what I'm talking about here. Some people aren't even getting into this. So guys who face, what we're looking at here when we're looking at Paul and Timothy is guys who face the fire of ministry together, and they do have tears, and they do talk about their joy in hanging out together, and they do want to be together.

You see, Paul and Timothy knew the stakes, they barely made it through the teeth of the lion's mouth together on several occasions,

Paul and Timothy faced persecutions together, the trust built up in ministry is like the trust between fellow men -at -arms.

Tears at the departure of a man who's been with you through the fire since your youth, why not, men, why not?

Joyful hope of seeing each other again, why not? Saying it directly, I'm looking forward to seeing you again, why not?

Well, because we don't write very well, right, we don't write often. This is not the stuff of a formal mentorship program, and this is not the start of that here at Recast Church, that we're going to formalize this thing and have a group of mentors and a group of protégés and just kind of pair them up or whatever, this is the stuff of genuine life lived in the trenches together.

And maybe, men, the reason that many of us have never shed tears about each other is that we haven't been in the fires together, you thought about that?

Maybe it's just that we haven't been through the fires together, maybe we've only lived soft lives of borrowed valor, ouch, we sit and watch all of our valor on TV while never entering the fray with other men.

Are we fighting for something together? Are we working this thing in a way that we want to enlist and bring in the younger generation with us?

I don't want to oversell the battle metaphor in some cheesy 1990s promise keeper kind of way, but I do want to suggest that the work of engagement in the next generation requires that we ourselves are engaged in the battle of ministry ourselves, men and women, both in the church, fighting the battle of faith and bringing in the next generation.

Is there anybody in your life, as far as applying this second point, is there anybody in your life that's not in your immediate family that is younger than you?

Now, those are some caveats, they're in your life, not in your immediate family, younger than you that you could say,

I rejoice in you and mean it. I have a couple of young people here in the church that I intend to hunt down and let them know.

As a matter of fact, I did hunt one guy down after the first service just to communicate with him that I rejoice in him.

I'm telling you what, there are people in this next generation and in the younger generations than me that make me glad for their generation.

Is that for you? Then let them know, then let them know. They need that more than you think they do.

They need to hear it from you and it will be powerful and life -giving to them and encouraging to them.

They might hang into that for, I'm 52 years old and I remember things that my youth pastor said to me when

I was young. Just sentences that he probably thought of off the cuff, man, where's he pulling that from?

His back pocket and he's just like, here, take that. I don't know where that was coming from. It probably wasn't even significant to him at the time, but to me, it's been formative in my life.

The third thing that is beneficial for us to be saying to young people is, I see faith in you. I see faith in you. Verse five.

Oh man, this one is really powerful. Paul is reminded and therefore reminds Timothy of the sincere faith he sees in Timothy.

Now he only needs to add the adjective sincere before faith because there is obviously an insincere faith.

He wouldn't need that adjective otherwise, he'd just say faith, you know, faith, faith. But instead he says sincere faith.

Because Paul has had his experience with those, he's encountered his share of false teachers and charlatans over the course of his years.

But over Timothy, Paul offers words of confident assurance and encouragement.

Now I want to point out that Paul is not at all suggesting that you can know for certain that another person is saved and going to heaven.

That's not the scope or the intention of verse five. Instead, this is fundamentally about Paul encouraging

Timothy through the evidences that he sees in Timothy's life. He saw a faith that first dwelt in his grandma

Lois. Paul's been a sleuth. He's been observing. He's been watching. He's been aware of and investing in Timothy's life when he says,

I saw that faith in your grandma Lois and in Timmy's mom

Eunice. Now Paul expresses confidence that he sees that same sincere faith dwelling in Timothy as well.

Now there are a couple of things that are powerful in the way that Paul talks here. I'll take them separately and I'm going to spend quite a bit of time on the first one.

First, he talks about a familial passing on of the faith. And further, Paul speaks of faith as something that dwells within a person.

And I think both of those are powerful. But as in regards to the familial nature of this, it's really powerful to think about.

Do not ignore the power of a faith -filled family to be used by God to bring about faith in the heart of the next generation.

Grandmothers and grandfathers in the room, share your sincere faith with your grandkids.

Mothers and fathers in the room, share your sincere faith with your children. The fact that it's

Lois and Eunice and not Craig and Phil, their husbands, I don't really know what their names were. I just made those up. But the fact that it's not their husbands is worth some noting here, although I want to just be very, very clear and not go over the top in this statement because we know that Eunice was a

Jewish lady who was married to a Gentile, and it's declared for us in other scriptures.

And so because of that, we know that that's the case. So it wasn't going to be very likely that her husband

Phil was going to pass along his faith to his son. All of us are called to seek to grow faith in each other.

All of us, fathers called to invest in your children, called to invest in your family.

Words of faith, words of truth. But in my experience, and you can come back at me if you disagree, but in my experience, grandmothers and mothers have a uniquely powerful evangelistic role in the next generation.

How many of you agree with that statement? I'm just curious. How many of you agree with that? It's a unique calling for mothers in a nurturing role with their kids to bring the faith alive there, to see,

I mean, to pass along at least their faith there. And many a mother has led her children to the Lord.

And may it be, may it continue. But again, as I've been saying, encouraging the faith of the next generation requires that we know some people from the next generation.

That's all of us, not just our own children. And a non -programmatic move toward natural mentoring relationships is something that I would absolutely like to see grow here,

Recast. I'd like to see that grow in our church. Some 60 -year -olds meeting with some 40 -year -olds, some 40 -year -olds meeting with some 20 -somethings.

I'm pretty excited that we already have quite a few 20 -somethings that are investing in the high school and middle school ministry of gravity in 180.

And I'm really, really enthusiastic about that. It's exciting to see 20 -year -olds investing in those teens.

And so in those relationships, encouragement when sincere faith is seen is very helpful for growth.

Encouraging words given at the proper time. I remember when I was in my 20s, I was a youth intern at a church in Battle Creek.

And I had just picked up the book, The Gagging of God, a massive tome, probably 600 pages, written by D .A.

Carson, a really heady professor over in Chicago. And I was carrying that book around while I was reading it.

And this book is a deep cultural analysis that's academic and quotes from philosophers. And sometimes you have to read the sentence twice.

You know, D .A. Carson was quite a heady guy, is quite a heady guy. He's still around. But my pastor at the time said, he saw it.

I don't know if it was in my hand or if it was on my desk or whatever, but he saw it and he said, good luck understanding that. Don Carson is way too deep for you.

That's what he said to me. Don Carson is way too deep. I can't even understand that stuff. But when

I met with the man that I had informally considered my mentor a couple of weeks later and mentioned that conversation and mentioned that I was reading the book, he said, you'll have no problem understanding that book.

I hope you enjoy it, Don. Now, that comment was not fundamentally about my mentor seeing sincere faith in me, but it's an example of the power of a mentor's words to encourage.

I was built up by him in a place where I had been torn down and beat down by another. You know what I'm talking about?

And it was just encouraging to have somebody go like, not let that comment, you're too dumb to understand this settle in my heart, but to let a comment, you're fine, you can handle this.

Be the outcome. You see, a young person can be tempted to lose heart at the very point of evidences of sincere faith within them.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Raise your hand if you were a young person. You were developing, right?

You were figuring out the world. You were figuring out the way that the world works. You were figuring out who you are in those moments.

And to say, I see sincere faith in you is an impressively powerful comment to a young person.

When we're young, we're figuring out who we are. Each sin, each sin, every single novel activity of sin will seek to define us in our youth.

It does in our adulthood too, but more so as a young person. You see, the evil one is trying to form his disciples too.

He has a plan to win your kids. He has a desire and a way for them to go.

He wants to form a dark disciple. He's trying to define us with sexual deviancy.

He is tempting us to see ourselves in relationship to body image or alcohol or social media likes and all kinds of things that are driving the value of our youth today.

Drove us as well. It's so powerful when a young person is reminded of the legacy of faith from which they come and hope is spoken to their life directly.

I see faith in you. I see faith in you. You encourage me about your generation.

Paul also alludes to something that is worth noting here for all of us. And that's that faith dwelled in Lois.

Faith dwelt in Eunice. And now faith dwells in Timothy. The idea of faith dwelling in us alludes to something pretty powerful in the

Christian life. Our faith is something foreign that dwells within us. Not something we discovered in our own hearts.

It's not something that we had to put together and manufacture. It's not something we needed to wake up with in our chest and kind of like it's been dormant in there and we had to muster some kind of effort to try to get faith alive in there.

No, it's a gift from God. And for this reason, even a small amount is enough because it's a clear sign that God has already been blessing you with his grace.

Amen. Where there is belief and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God has already done a work.

Faith takes up residence and lives within a person. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says it this way. For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast.

The most direct understanding of those verses, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, indicates that even our faith is a gift from God.

So that when you say, I see faith in you and you're encouraging that, you're saying, I see God at work in you. I see his saving work alive in you.

You're declaring that you believe God has given grace to that person and you see within them evidences of their salvation. You are not guaranteeing them heaven, but you are encouraging them by letting them know that you see evidences of the

Spirit alive in them. Perhaps if you see signs of faith in even your own children, and I'm going to go ahead and just expand that out to adult children as well.

They need to hear from you, parents. And everybody does. Parents, if you see signs of faith in your child, let them know.

Maybe not as cheesy as what we did when our kids were little, but my wife was quick with the statement, Holy Spirit sighting.

We would say that several times a day. Holy Spirit sighting. And we would celebrate when we saw signs of the

Spirit through conviction, through fruit of the Spirit and acts of kindness, and even through contrition and repentance when they sinned and said,

I'm sorry. Holy Spirit sighting. Yeah, of course you sinned, but you came in contrition and apology.

That's the Spirit who needs your encouragement. There's somebody who needs your encouragement, church.

I love it how Paul saves the command for the end. Serve boldly, verses 6 and 7. This needs to be said, but my goodness, how many people in the next generation have only heard commands from our generation or older?

How many of them have only heard what they're doing wrong and what they need to do better? Do you know what I'm talking about? And he saves that for the end.

It's after I'm praying for you. After I rejoice in you. After I see faith in you that Paul then issues, indeed, a solid command.

He has proven himself already to be on Team Timothy. Bro, you know I'm with you. You know

I care. You know I pray. Now let me offer some words of wisdom. And they come in the form of a command.

Serve boldly. That's a synopsis of verses 6 and 7. Serve boldly. Since Paul is confident in the sincere faith of Timothy, he now exhorts him to stoke the fire of service in his heart.

We talk here about growing in faith, growing community, and growing in service. Absolutely.

He tells them, get busy sharpening and honing your gifts. I mean, how many young people are sitting on the sidelines because they don't think, and they haven't been empowered to know that they have anything to offer?

What can they offer? Well, this is a adult show, right?

This is all about older people. No, get them honing their gifts and their skills.

When I was in high school, I had two terrifying experiences. Let me just back up and say I had many, many, many terrifying experiences, but two that are related and stand out for the purposes.

I will not share with you every terrifying experience I had in high school. We would be here a while. But the first was in a little town called

Constanza in the Dominican Republic. I was out there on a missions trip between my junior and senior year of high school.

And we were at this little church in Constanza. And my youth pastor looked over at me at the start of the service and said, hey,

Don, I'm going to ask you to get up and share your testimony to a church of about 50 people. You got to understand,

I would have been terrified to get up and speak to two people. And he says, yeah, you're going to get up and talk.

And I was terrified. Many of you I've shared, and I've shared up here, my fear of public speaking, particularly when

I was young. And it's not gone away, but I see God's grace in calling me here. I was terrified.

It was imminently stretching. And little did I know, it was fueling a fire. I don't even think my youth pastor knew.

It was fueling a fire that would one day lead me to a ministry of preaching the Word like I am right now. The other was a second time sharing.

Stakes were higher. Sharing my testimony to about 150 teens at Camp Nathaniel in Hazard County, Kentucky.

Yes, there is a Hazard County, Kentucky. And somebody, somebody, did anybody just do the do -do -do -do -do -do -do -do -do -do?

Did that go through your mind when I said that? Real place. We were there on a missions trip helping this camp, like, get their camp ready for the summer season and all that stuff.

And once again, he asked me to share my testimony in front of my peers, 150 other students. And I was sick to my stomach, but God saw me through, challenging me, challenging me, stretching me, pushing me outside of my comfort zone.

I had no clue that my youth pastor was helping me to fan into flame the gift that God had in my life.

How little did he know? He was just kind of like, I need somebody to share testimony, go for it. And I thought he was trying to make my life as miserable as possible at the time.

Didn't see it as preparation. But Paul reminds Timothy that he was, that he was there when the elders confirmed his call to ministry and his gifts by the laying on of hands.

And there's more, they're in that more formal recognition. By the way, yes, in this text, it only says that Paul was there with the laying on of hands.

But in other passages, we actually see that it was actually the elders and Paul as well, that there was more than just Paul involved in this.

But Paul says, I was there, I had my hands on you when we confirmed your gifting in ministry. Now, I don't believe at all that this was a conferral or a giving of the gifts of the spirit through the hands of Paul.

Paul was not walking around with magic hands that he just touched people and all of a sudden they could preach or touch them and all of a sudden that they had the gift of tongues or all of a sudden they had the gift of and fill in the blank.

I don't believe that. As a matter of fact, there's a few chapters in the book of 1

Corinthians that indicates that Paul was confident, he's explicit, emphatic, and unwavering in his confidence that the spirit gives and confers gifts.

It comes from the spirit. What I believe this laying on of hands amounted to was similar to an ordination of a minister in many churches today.

We have done this kind of laying on of hands and praying for sent missionaries.

We have done so, we did so for Ben when he became our youth pastor and we will likely continue to do that in the future in those moments of specific calling of a man to a pastoral ministry or youth ministry or somebody being sent out to missions.

So Paul is confirming in Timothy his gift which ought to be confirmed here. This is fundamental, this is fundamental, it has to be confirmed by the church.

That's what's going on in this. Nobody, this might be controversial, but nobody should be a self -appointed pastor.

Nobody should be a self -appointed pastor. If you think you're called to be a pastor, be sure to come under the leadership of the local church to receive their confirmation or their denial and be ready for either.

You know what I'm talking about? Be ready for either. You might have missed that one and be ready for the church to assess and to figure that out.

Paul is encouraging Timothy to continue to fan the flames of his gift and he's saying this in verse 6 because of what comes in verse 7, that God hasn't given us a spirit of fear but one of power and love and self -control.

Now here we're getting Paul's formulation, Paul using more words, it seems like Paul, using more words than are necessary to get a common theme across from Scripture that is said to leaders often.

And usually they just say it in two words, but Paul is like, okay, he didn't give you a spirit of fear, but you know, and it's like, bro, like most people just say fear not.

Fear not is the routine way of saying that throughout Scripture. We only needed to be reminded of this, only need, and that's all of us, we need to be reminded of this when we are tempted to fear.

And I can imagine that we all need this reminder to some degree even now. It is not just the young people, but all of us need these kinds of interactions with each other.

But here Paul exhorts Timothy to be bold in his service, reminding him that God has given three things that we know come through God's indwelling

Spirit for the furtherance of the use of our gifts. The first is power. Do you realize that the one who gave you your gifts is the one who provides the power to accomplish it?

Yeah, fan it into flame, get busy doing it, and then leave the results up to God. You have the gift of evangelism, guess what you ought to do?

Share the gospel. You have the gift of teaching, guess what you ought to do? Teach and let the power of God work in those actions to produce the results that He desires.

Amen? Now there's some risk that comes in some activities that all of the gifts require the power of God, but not all of them are as evident.

I'm in shock and awe when anybody grows as a result of my teaching. I mean that with all sincerity. I'm just like, that's

God. And when you meet me at the door and share anything that God pressed on you, I'm like, thank you. But then there's some riskiness that comes in some of the gifts, and I would say it's kind of ironic that some of them are the more mundane and routine gifts that are behind the scenes that sometimes we just start to do in our own strength.

I can get on the mower and mow the lawn. I can come in and just follow the chart and make the coffee in the morning.

I mean, I would even go so far as to say, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I'm guessing that Dave could come up here and just strum that axe and do so just as a routine.

I mean, practices these songs during the week and boom, just get up and play the song. Are you recognizing the power of God necessary to accomplish the ends for which

He has given you gifts? It's on Him. Trust Him. So he wants to encourage

Timothy, hey, there's power in the application of your gifts, but he also says there's love. Do you recognize that the motivation to serve

God through your spiritual gifts is love for Him? You don't have to fear. You don't have to fear. He loves you, and He has given you love for others and love for God.

He gives us the love that we have for each other that pushes us out to serve one another, and then the last thing is self -control.

His spirit gives us a self -control that can overcome our greatest arguments against serving. In this context, it seems obvious that the self -control that's mentioned here is the self -control to actually mind over matter this bad boy and get serving.

Do you know what I'm talking about? You have all kinds of excuses, and if there's anybody here that's not serving in the church, you have your reasons.

And you've probably thought through them. If you haven't, then welcome aboard and get serving. We'll plug you in, but we have all kinds of excuses.

Many of them are associated with fears, if we're honest, even if the fear is just the fear of draining our energy.

When you ask an American, how are you doing? It used to be that the right answer was fine.

It's not anymore. Can anybody tell me what the new answer is? What does everybody say when you say, how are you doing?

Somebody, I heard it, busy. Busy is the right answer now. Whether you're busy or not, that's the right thing to say as an

American. You're supposed to be busy, right? So sometimes it's the fear of draining our energy, our fear of being overworked, our fear that this

Netflix show isn't going to watch itself, or being insignificant or making a fool of ourselves. There's all different kinds of reasons why we are tempted to not serve.

But I like to think that Timothy was like me when I was a young person, terrified of public speaking and suppressing a gift due to fear.

It seems like that might have been the case or something similar. This could have been a gift of evangelism, being squelched by fear of reprisals, and they had indeed gone through persecutions.

That would be reasonable, and maybe that's it. Maybe Timothy is being tempted to give up on a gift of evangelism because, man,

I don't really like the threats and being pelted with stones and things like that. But all of that is being put down by Paul here.

And maybe for you, it's the fear of two - or three -year -olds biting your ankles while you're actually really gifted at teaching them.

Maybe there's somebody in this room that's really gifted at teaching kids, and you've just had all kinds of excuses and reasons to not jump in.

But seriously, we need to recognize that God has given power, love, and self -control in the application of the gifts. If we operate out of fear, we will not serve one another as God has called us to.

And I would ask you, honestly, take a real assessment. Are you afraid to step out and serve with your gifts here?

If you haven't filled it out yet, there's a sign -up -to -serve form, and this is just a shameless plug to get you doing what

I believe God has called you to do. And I'm not ashamed to say it because it's not a plug. It's what you really need.

You need to be growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service. And if you've never filled that out, that sign -up -to -serve is available on the eCast.

There's a link to it. Ben showed you how to jump on and grab the app. There's a form to fill out there for sign -up -to -serve.

Look up sign -up -to -serve, find it, fill it out. It's not a commitment to any particular ministry, but what it is is it's just demonstrating the shape of the way that God has gifted you in a way that plugs in and connects up with needs that we have here in the church.

I encourage that. And by the way, this message doesn't come as a result of any lack of service that I'm seeing.

There are some needs, but that's not why I'm preaching this. I'm preaching this because this is God's holy word, and that's why.

Fan into flame the gift that God has given to you. That's the instruction. But the need for all of us to keep investing in the younger generation is a consistent feature of the church that is never done because guess what?

There's a birth of next generations. There's always another generation to be investing in, and it's a to -do list that's never done.

Every generation needs to learn how to talk to the next generation, and it turns out really, really excitedly that the model is given for us in scripture.

Every generation needs the same types of encouragements, the types of things that Paul says to Timothy here because we serve the same

Lord with the same gospel in the church that he is founded. So as we come to communion, we do this to remember our

Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice to save us from our sins. He was broken in our place, so we take the cracker.

His blood was shed for us, and so we take the cup of juice, and these symbols serve to remind us of his sacrifice for us.

And I would encourage you any time that you take communion to consider Jesus Christ first, his sacrifice, his death, his suffering in our place, but I also encourage you to not let it rest there.

Think about him. Think about what he's done for us, but I also want to make sure that you consider us as well.

That's why we take communion together. That's why we do this corporately. We do this together in the church made up of a few generations.

And I tell you what, we live in an age like I joked earlier about the OK Boomer and all of that stuff and generations mocking and making fun of each other and a lack of unity, a lack of respect that just kind of goes from one generation.

How many of you just really, really respected your parents' generation when you were 18 years old? You're like, you know what?

I aspire to be just like that. Now you're like, oh, come on. You're so square.

There we go. Or whatever. Whatever was the right thing to say back then.

By the way, I never used the word square. Like, that was not my generation, but just to clarify.

But here's what I'm trying to get at, church. When we come to those tables, we are not united because we all experienced all of the same things together.

There are people here in this room that were not alive when the Challenger exploded. Did you know that? And then you don't even know who

Trippy Tropy is. Like, you don't even know some of these things, right? Like, you don't know when they say like Ohio Riz Sigma, all that stuff.

You don't know what in the world, right? So you're left out and you don't know. But what you're not left out of is these tables.

If you're in Christ, you are united with every generation that is here. Oh, church, we do this together in a church made up of generations united not by enduring

Vietnam in the 70s together, not united by 80s fashion, fortunately, not united by 90s grunge music, double fortunately, but we...

Hey, come on now. Christ is what you meant to...

You're going to save the whoop for Christ, right? Like, that's where you're going with this? But we come together from the youngest in the faith to the oldest in the same neediness, under the same

Lord with the same calling to fan into flame the gift of God within us, the gifts

He has given us to serve one another, church. Consider what God might be calling you to as we now know how to talk to a younger person.

Find someone to pray for. Find someone to rejoice in. Find someone to encourage in their faith and find someone to exhort to sharpen their gifts.

I find renewed hope in this church every week because we come together to these tables. Come if He is your

Lord. Come to the tables if He is your Savior. Come to the tables if you are at peace with your brothers and sisters here at Recast Church, and come considering this call from our text to invest in those younger than you are in the faith.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the unity that we have in this room centered on what we're about to do, coming to these tables and taking the cracker to remember

His body broken for us and taking the juice to remember His blood shed for us and confess in my own heart an affinity for my generation and the way that we look at the world.

And if we're not careful, we will find that we only appreciate those just like us and those who experienced life around the same time as us and those who went through and endured 80s fashion just like us or whatever it is.

And Father, we're tempted to just isolate and to hive off and to not invest in others.

But Father, I pray better for our church. I pray that you would help us now to take seriously the call to invest in the younger generation with words of encouragement.

I see faith in you. I'm praying for you. Father, I pray that there would be exhortation and encouragement that results from this message this morning and that even now as we come to these tables that you would be honored and glorified in the way that we contemplate and consider

His death for us, His sacrifice that takes away our sins, and the hope that we have and share together because of Christ's great love and great sacrifice for us.