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

The Church’s Mission, Church Planting, and Reaching the Next Generation

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches with his series of 2 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 prayer 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.

Paul’s Final Letter to Timothy

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.

Now you can 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 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 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.

Speaking to Young People Without Adopting Their Lingo

And I'm not talking about learning their lingo, goodness gracious, I am so glad we don't need to understand Skibbity Sigma Riz 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?

Like, 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.

And 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, right?

I mean, 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. And 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. And even just take those hands as a way of saying, this is important, this is vital for.

Us.

And I tell you what, having had a mentor in my youth, it was substantial. And 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.

Praying for You

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, you know, what 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 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 it'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, 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 he, 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.

Rejoicing in You

The second thing that we ought to take on is 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, and 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 and 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, okay, some people aren't 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 proteges 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. 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.

Seeing Faith in the Next Generation

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. And 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. But 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.

He 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 into 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 like 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, 9 says it this way, for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing.