Sunday Sermon: Remember (2 Timothy 1:1-7)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. This morning we continue our series in 2

Timothy. These are the last words of Paul that he had delivered to his servant,

Timothy, before being sent to his execution for preaching the gospel. Last week we looked at an introduction to this book, kind of an overview of the book, looking at main themes and things of that sort, considering some applications as well.

If you missed that sermon, it is available online on our website. Today we're going to look beyond the greeting and go to still what would be considered

Paul's opening here as he begins this address to Timothy in verses 3 through 7.

But in keeping things in context, I'm going to begin reading in verse 1. Please stand in honor of the word of the

King. This is 2 Timothy chapter 1, beginning in verse 1. I'm reading from the English Standard Version.

Hear the word of the Lord. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus.

To Timothy, my beloved child, grace, mercy, and peace from God the

Father and Christ Jesus, our Lord. I thank God whom I serve as did my ancestors with a clear conscience as I remember you that I may be filled with joy.

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother

Lois and in your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well.

For this reason, I remind you to fan into 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.

You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, as we come into this passage today, as we consider these words that Paul wrote to Timothy, encouraging him to continue in the gospel with boldness, even in the face of persecution.

I pray that we would be encouraged by these words as Paul was able to write them from a jail cell, from imprisonment, and yet was able to express his delight and his joy in Christ and those who were in his service.

I pray that we who are free men and women would especially understand the joy of the

Lord that has been given to us by your Holy Spirit, realizing as we read here that we've been given a spirit not of fear.

So we have nothing to fear of what is going on in the world, though it may vex us when we turn on the news.

But we remember by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us that we have power and love and self -control.

So I pray that we may continue in these things, holding fast to the hope of the gospel which was first given to us.

We are reminded of this as we come to this passage this morning. It is in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

I do not really consider myself much of a sentimental person or at least I try to pretend like I'm not very sentimental.

I often complain about the amount of junk that we accumulate and I say, why do we need all these things?

There's so many different things that don't do anything more than just clutter our floor or our garage.

So why don't we just fill a box and we throw it away? We've been here in Casa Grande thus far for about six months.

We have boxes we have not yet opened and so there's that temptation to go, we obviously don't need this box.

So let's just throw the box away. We have boxes that were still sealed in Texas and now we've come to Arizona and they've yet to be opened.

So I like to pretend like there's no sentimental value in these things. Why do we even have them? Let's not even concern ourselves with what's in them.

Let's just throw it away and out of sight, out of mind. But really when it comes down to it,

I am quite a sentimental sap. And yesterday, as I mentioned, going to the Shantaker's house and seeing their baby,

I was already pulling up pictures on my phone of my babies and look at my babies when they were small. My baby was way balder than your baby and that was the comparison

I made with Dusty. And we will go and visit places and I love taking my kids to places where I grew up.

I remember when we were on our way to Rhode Island at my brother's wedding, we stopped in Pennsylvania.

It was my first time to revisit Pennsylvania in over 20 years. And I took my kids to the very first baseball diamond

I ever played baseball on. And we ran the bases together and they thought it was fantastic.

And those children of mine that remember doing that will still bring that up every once in a while.

Hey, remember when we ran the bases at your old baseball diamond in Milton, Pennsylvania?

There are certain senses, certain smells, sounds that will bring back certain memories.

You probably remember the music you grew up listening to and when you hear that song come on the radio, a flood of memories come right along with it.

You might remember certain smells, certain fragrances that will trigger certain memories, some good, some bad.

But I think we all have bound up within us this tendency to remember it can be a curse, but it is certainly also a gift of God.

I think in an age of increasing technology, we're losing that sense of what it means to create memories.

Like something that happens, you're instantly pulling that phone out like, oh, I got to capture it on my phone. But how much do we really take within ourselves to just enjoy the moment and build the memory in our own minds instead of grabbing it on our digital devices?

You might notice as we ran through this text this morning that that word reminder or remember came up quite a few times from the apostle

Paul in this section. I remember you constantly in my prayers. I remember your tears.

I am reminded of your sincere faith. And Paul brings these things up so that, verse six, so that I may remind you to fan and to flame the gift of God.

So as we come to these things today, may we also be reminded when we get to our applications, understanding what we need to be reminded of that we too would fan and to flame the gift of God, this gift of faith that has been given to us.

Consider this quote from Thomas Hooker before we come back into our text. This is from his book, Putting on Christ.

We abide in Christ when the eye is fixed upon Christ, when the tongue continually speaks of Christ, when the mind dwells on him and when the affections are directed towards him.

But when the mind is taken off the promise and the comforts found therein, amusing itself by thinking of temptations or inward corruptions, then we are overcome.

Hooker goes on, he that thus walks with Christ here shall live with him hereafter.

But be forewarned, if you will live in your sins here, expect to be damned with them hereafter.

So we come again to these reminders today that we may remember the gospel.

We would remember what we have been rescued from, what we have been rescued unto. We remember the family that we are a part of, that we may remember the faith that we have been given.

So let's come back to verse three. Paul had a very brief greeting at the very start, which we considered last week in our introduction.

Remember those key action words that he had there, even in the greeting of this letter, verses one and two.

Paul, an apostle of Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of the life that is in Christ, to Timothy, my beloved child, grace, mercy, and peace from God the

Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. So we understand being of Christ and in Christ and from Christ.

These are surely reminders that Paul brings to Timothy's mind. Why would

Paul need to say to Timothy, his protege, that he is an apostle of Christ Jesus? Surely Timothy understands that.

He had been a partner with Paul in this ministry, had been on the road with him, had seen

Paul persecuted and even shared in those persecutions. Why would Paul need to be reminded, or why would

Timothy, rather, need to be reminded of Paul's position as an apostle of Christ?

I think one of the main reasons is because this letter was not just going to be read by Timothy.

We considered that when we were in 1 Timothy as well, all of those instructions did not pertain or were not limited to Timothy or applied to Timothy, but he was even supposed to be taking those instructions and giving them to the church, hence to understand that these instructions came from an apostle of Christ and therefore were instructions that came from Christ himself.

And so though this letter is a little more personally addressed, even more so than 1

Timothy, I believe, yet we have this address of Paul as being an apostle of Christ because there were others who were going to read the letter, but also so that Timothy would be reminded that the words that he was going to be reading here, these were not just, this wasn't just a friendly chat from a teacher to his student.

There was authoritative instruction in this from Christ himself through an apostle to Timothy and how special that is, that Timothy specifically would be receiving these instructions.

And so he is reminded of Paul's status. Though Paul is in a jail cell for preaching the gospel, he doesn't cease in his position as an apostle.

He is still proclaiming the word of Christ, just as Christ himself proclaimed the word of God when he was hanging on a cross.

He didn't cease to be God there. His words did not cease to be God's. And so it is with Paul that even though he is probably in a hole in the ground, yet his words still carry the authority of Christ who gave them to him.

So Timothy is reminded of Paul's status and reminded of the life that is in Christ Jesus and reminded that grace, mercy and peace are from God the

Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. So then as he comes into his first address to Timothy, he says,

I thank God whom I serve. And once again, Paul is in a dungeon pit and yet has this attitude of thanking

God. One of the first books of the Bible that I ever taught through in my ministry was

Philippians and I taught it to a group of high school students in Horn Creek, Colorado.

And when we were going through Philippians, I made sure that the students understood the things that you're going to hear from the apostle in this letter are written by a man who's in jail, he's in chains.

And yet you're going to hear the word rejoice come up 15 times in this letter.

And when Paul says Philippians 4, 4, rejoice, I will say it again, rejoice.

When you hear that it's coming from a man who's been put in chains for preaching the gospel. If he can be joyful in that circumstance, then what reason do you have to complain?

And so even here at the start of this letter, Paul says, I thank

God. He's in a pit. He's probably in the worst circumstance that he's been in thus far, with the exception of maybe the situation that he and Silas were put in when they were fastened in the stocks in a dungeon cell in Philippi.

This situation may be worse than that if he's just in a hole somewhere in Rome. But nonetheless, even in this circumstance, he says,

I thank God whom I serve. Just because I have been put here doesn't mean

I'm not serving God anymore. Like I've been chained, I've been bound, I'm in this hole.

But he's still a servant of Christ as we're going to read later on coming up in the letter. He says, I'm chained, but the word of God is not chained.

And even from this pit, Paul is able to speak words that are of Christ that will go out and continue to spread like wildfire in the empire.

And so Paul says, I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors. My ancestors served.

So you kind of get something implied here. Paul doesn't explicitly say it, but he says,

I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors. So what's Paul thinking about while he is imprisoned?

He's thinking about the scriptures. He's thinking about the faithful that had gone before him, that are written about in the

Old Testament. You know, Hebrews chapter 11, where we have the hall of faith, as it's often called, where the preacher there in Hebrews goes through the faithful in the

Old Testament as examples to us. They held firm to the promise of God and were rewarded for it.

So we must also hold fast to the faith. Paul is therefore dwelling on these things as well.

I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors. I'm reminded of what my ancestors, my forbearers in the faith, what they had gone through, as I continue to hold fast to the mission that has been given to me as well.

This goes all the way back, if you remember Hebrews 11, it goes all the way back to Abel being the first martyr.

He was killed by his brother Cain, because Abel was regarded as righteous and Cain was jealous.

And you have the faithful that go through in Hebrews, some of whom were persecuted for what it was that they believed.

And so Paul, being able to relate to his ancestors who went through those very things, as he too is being persecuted.

But he says, I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience. And this was something that had come up previously in 1

Timothy, where he encourages Timothy to walk in the faith, to exercise this ministry himself with a clear conscience.

In 1 Timothy 1 .5, he says, the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

And so therefore, Paul is not guilty of any sin. He's not been thrown in prison because he did anything wickedly.

He's been thrown in jail because he shares in the sufferings of Christ. And later on in the letter, he's going to say, share in my sufferings also.

So 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.

In this next verse, verse four goes right along with that. I remember your tears.

And I long to see you that I may be filled with joy.

He is thankful unto God, desires to experience joy even while he is there in prison.

So desiring to see Timothy once again, that he may be joyful in knowing though I am in prison here, my student, my protege is continuing faithfully in the mission that I may be filled with joy.

In the beginning of this message, I didn't quite provide an outline here, but we have this section broken up into three parts where Paul says,

I remember you. And then secondly, I am reminded of, and then thirdly,

I remind you. So this first portion is Paul saying that I remember you.

I remember you constantly in my prayers. And I am remembering your tears as I long to see you that I may be filled with joy.

Paul is reflecting upon good things here, even while he has been in prison for the gospel and using those good things that he has dwelled upon to say,

God is encouraging me with these things. So I want to encourage you in them as well.

Now this practice of Paul, I remember you constantly in my prayers. Well, what else does a man have to do when he's in a dungeon cell, but pray.

But this is a practice of Paul that we see even when he is not in prison. He wrote to the Romans in Romans 1, 8 through 9, first,

I thank God through Jesus Christ for all of you, same sort of thankfulness he's expressing to Timothy, he expresses thankfulness to the

Christians in Rome, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing,

I mention you always in my prayers. Now where Paul says without ceasing, don't think of this as Paul's just continuously praying and he just never stops praying.

And when he's praying, he's only praying for the Romans, because that's what he just said there. But rather, it's not that he remembers the

Romans once and prays for them, and then they don't come back up in his prayers again. But continually, he is still praying for the

Romans. It's not like Paul has an attitude of, oh, those Christians are good. I just wrote them this letter, and it's one of the most masterful letters ever written in the history of mankind.

So they've got enough, and now I don't have to pray for them anymore. Now, Paul continually prays for them, that they would grow in their faith, that God would show mercy to them, and that they would hold fast to the gospel that had been delivered to them.

And so he prays for these things also for Timothy. I remember you constantly in my prayers.

Same sort of word used there. I remember your tears as I long to see you that I may be filled with joy.

You see the contrast between tears and joy. So the last time that Paul and Timothy saw each other, it was a tearful departure.

Paul was a rather emotional man. We see in Acts chapter 20 when he has to say farewell to the elders of the church in Ephesus for the last time, elders that he had been with for about three years.

And he's about to leave them and go to Jerusalem, and he knows he's going to be arrested. The Spirit has revealed to him those things that are about to happen to him next in his ministry.

And he says to the elders there in Ephesus, I'm never going to see you again. This side of heaven, this is the last time we're going to see one another.

And as he gives his last address to the elders, it concludes with them weeping together and kissing one another and longing for that day when they get to see each other again in glory.

And so here, Paul's last address to Timothy face to face was a tearful departure, broken hearted.

And yet Paul says, I remember your tears, but I long to see you that I may be filled with joy.

It's not a permanent broken heartedness. It was sorrowful in the moment, but still an opportunity for Paul and Timothy to be together again, this side of heaven.

And we'll see when we get to the end of the letter that Paul summons Timothy, I've sent Tychicus to take over your pulpit for you so that you've got time that you can come here and see me.

And I have some things I want you to bring with you, people I want you to bring with you as well. When you come to see me, we'll get that to that at the end of the letter that kind of bookends the letter here.

So a desire to want to see Timothy and then a summons of him in chapter four.

So first of all, we have this at the beginning with Paul's address to Timothy saying that I remember you.

And then the next part he says, I am reminded of. So in verse five,

I'm reminded of what specifically your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother,

Lois, in your mother, Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well. This is great backstory that we get in the history of Timothy, which the scriptures really don't tell us much about.

We have a small section in Acts chapter 16, and then we have Paul talking about Timothy's background right here.

In Acts 16 one, it says, Paul came also to Derbe and Elystra. A disciple was there named

Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. So what's being implied there was his father was a pagan, did not believe in Christ.

But his mother was a Jewish woman and not only believed in the Hebrew scriptures, but came to believe in whom the

Hebrew scriptures was pointing to, and that's Christ. And so Timothy came to know Christ through their faith as well.

And Timothy was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. And that's about as much as we get in Timothy's history.

It's there in Acts 16, and it's here in 2 Timothy chapter one. But we see a young man who came to faith, raised by faithful women, by his mother and his grandmother.

And he mentions not only his mother, but even his grandmother, so that Timothy can see this tradition that has continued in your family, how

God has been faithful with your grandmother and with your mother. And now in God's faithfulness, that faith has been passed on to you, that you too may be saved and come to a knowledge of the

Lord Christ. So I am reminded of your sincere faith. And as Paul thinks of Timothy's sincere faith, he also encourages

Timothy to remember that faith that had been given to him and where it came from. It dwelt first in your grandmother

Lois and your mother Eunice. And now I am sure dwells in you as well.

Now this is a bit off topic, not going to make this a big point of the sermon necessarily, but this is a passage that I have used when

I've been encouraging single moms who will feel abandoned, they will feel the struggle, they will feel the weight on the world on trying to raise up children when there is no man, no father in the house to help them.

And she has felt abandoned by her husband, or maybe she has even committed sins in which she left him and now she's feeling convicted of that and wondering, how will

I be able to raise my children without a man in the house? And I've used this passage to encourage those mothers and saying, look at Timothy, who was raised in the faith by his mother and by his grandmother.

It's not a lost cause. You still can raise up children in a godly manner, even though it is a little bit harder because there is not a godly man in the house, but God will be faithful.

I'm here today and I stand before you today, a believer, in part because of my grandmother

Margaret, who was also a single mom, raised my mother and her three siblings without help from my grandfather.

And I remember when Becky and I, right before we got married, it was just about a month, a matter of a few weeks, in fact, before our wedding, we went to the

East Coast to Topsail Island, North Carolina, and we had a big 80th birthday party for my grandmother.

And just about every child and grandchild and great grandchild that could be at that reunion was there to celebrate my grandmother and her faith.

And it was said over and over again. Every night we gathered together for worship and devotions, and it was said again and again by her children and her grandchildren how thankful we were of the faith that she had and continued to hold fast to, even in the trials in life that she faced.

And because of her faithfulness, look at all these children and great grandchildren and on and on it goes that have come to faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ because of her faithfulness. And so Timothy has come to know the faith by this as well, by his mother and his grandmother.

And Paul says, I am sure this faith dwells in you as well.

And again, that statement that he makes in 1 Timothy 1 .5, that we are to have a sincere faith, the aim of our charge, talking about those who have been commissioned to preach the gospel, we are to do it with love, and it is to issue from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

It is a faith that is continuous, it is steadfast, it is faithful, it is not a passing opinion.

It is not something that I believed for a time, but then when the going got tough, well, this didn't really serve me so much anymore, so I let it go and I went on to something else.

Paul when he says, I am sure that this faith dwells in you as well, he is speaking confidently of something that he knows

Timothy is holding fast to and is not going to lose it. I know you well.

I know the spirit that dwells within you. And that this was not just a passing opinion for you, but you are holding fast to the truth.

I am reminded of this. And so in this way, Paul encourages

Timothy to be reminded of how he came into this faith. This wasn't invented.

It wasn't something that came about just here in the first century as we're seeing the church explode on the scene in the

Roman Empire and throughout the world. No, this faith goes back. You can see it in the generations in your own family.

It was previously in your mother and in your grandmother. And so now

I am sure dwells in you as well. So Paul says, I remember you.

And he says, I am reminded of your sincere faith. And then lastly, now remembering these things, he turns it into an action.

He turns it into an imperative. And he says in verse six, for this reason, I remind you.

So look at verses six and seven. For this reason, I remind you to fan into 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.

So back to that portion of verse six there, for this reason, I remind you.

I am reminded of these things. And so now I remind you of the same things that I've been thinking about.

But most of all, Paul says this, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you.

Now, previously, when we were in 1 Timothy in chapter four, verse 14, Paul said, do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.

What sort of gift are we talking about here? It doesn't ever explicitly say whether it's 1 Timothy four or 2

Timothy one, what this gift is. But I think the hints are there and we can know what gift it is that Paul is telling

Timothy to fan into flame. It's his gift of preaching. That's the gift that's been given to him.

That's the gift that he needs to continue to grow. Because it's elsewhere where Paul will say, let others see your progress. It's toward the end of the letter where he says, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season.

So as we see these continuous charges, that's the conclusion that we can come to. It is a gift of preaching that has been given to him.

And when Paul says, fan into flame the gift of God, it's the same as what he's going to say later on when he says, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season.

Do it over and over and over again. Be practiced in it. And if you neglect it, if you stop doing it, you're at risk of losing it.

That's kind of built into the illustration there. Fan into flame the gift of God.

Have you ever built a fire and you get some grass lit and maybe it lights the smaller twigs?

You know, if you've ever built a fire this way, you start with the small amounts and it kind of builds into the twigs and then the larger sticks in the logs.

So you get the grass lit and you've got it. Maybe you sparked your rocks or you had a flint of some kind or what am

I saying, none of us do that. You were using a lighter. So you, you got the grass lit, but if you just let it kind of, the embers on the edge of the grass burn like that, you don't do anything more.

What's going to happen? What's bound to happen? It's just going to go out. So what, after you get it lit, what's the next step?

You got to blow on it, right? You get down there and you're blowing on it or you're fanning it or whatever you got to do. So oxygen is getting to it and it's feeding the flame and it continues to burn through the grass until a good fire gets going enough that it begins to incinerate this wood teepee that you've built for the fire that you are making.

And so same sort of thing that Paul is telling to Timothy here. You can't just let these embers burn and expect that they're always going to be there.

They need to be fed. They need to be fed oxygen and more fuel for the fire.

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

Because once again, and we talked about this last week in the introduction, Paul has been thrown in prison for preaching the gospel.

So might there be a temptation in Timothy or a timidness to think, if I continue preaching the way that Paul preached, might the same thing happen to me?

Might I get arrested and thrown in prison? Maybe I need to back off a little bit. Maybe I need to not be, you know, use certain words so much so that I won't get in trouble too.

Paul is basically saying, don't back off. In fact, feed that fire. Do it more and more.

Fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. Now be careful with that statement.

And we mentioned this when we were in 1 Timothy 4, do not neglect the gift that you have, which was given you by prophecy.

So some will take this passage, missing the point. They will think that the application is, well, we have spiritual gifts when we lay hands on one another and we bestow spiritual gifts to each other.

That's not what Paul is saying here. Paul's an apostle. He has an authority different than you have.

So you can't just go laying hands on people and bestowing a gift upon somebody else. And that interpretation

I've seen lead to trouble in churches many times. In fact, it was trouble that happened in my church in the very first years of my ministry.

There was a family in my church who had come from a four square church, which is a very charismatic church.

And they came to us and they said, well, here we are. We love this church. We want to become members and actually had already become members.

They became members before I came there. And they said, God has given us this gift and we need to be able to use this gift here.

And I cannot remember to this day what that gift was. I just remember when we were having that conversation, the moment he said, this is the gifting that my wife and I have been given.

And so this is what we must be allowed to do here in this church. I remember immediately going, that isn't your gift.

And again, I don't remember what it was, but it was enough that right away I was like, okay, somebody told you something that I don't see that in you at all.

And it came about that when they were in that four square church, there were people who laid hands on them and claimed to have bestowed this gift upon them.

So this was the gift of the spirit that we have. We need to be able to go to a church that's going to allow us to do that gift.

That's not what's being illustrated here. You most certainly have a spiritual gift of some kind, a gift that you can use in the service of the church.

But these gifts are not given willy nilly that we just walk around and lay hands on one another and bestow gifts on each other.

Some are going to have a gift of preaching and some are not. And in this particular case, Timothy does have that gift and it is a gift that was bestowed upon him by apostolic authority.

You received it in the laying on of my hands. So fan into flame that gift of God, which is in you.

And again, going back to the statement where he said that, I am sure that a sincere faith dwells in you as well.

So he's not just talking about preaching here. He's also talking about that ability that Timothy would have to communicate the gospel, the essentials of the faith, to instruct the church and to build up the body of Christ, to evangelize, to call sinners to repentance, that they may believe in Jesus.

So fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. And verse seven, for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and of love and of self -control.

Power and love and self -control. You know, we seldom think about that the gift of the

Holy Spirit that we have is a gift of power. In Romans chapter eight, it is said that the spirit of God raised

Jesus from the dead. And the spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same spirit that gives life to your mortal bodies.

That's power. I mean, what other power is there in the world than the power that raised

Christ from the dead? Luke 24, 49,

Jesus said to his disciples, you will be clothed with power from on high. And in Acts 1, 8, he said to them before departing, you will receive power when the

Holy Spirit comes upon you. And in these three things that Paul says about the spirit of God that has been given to us, the first one that he mentions is power.

And then the other two flow from that as well. Power and love and self -control.

The ability to love is done under the power of the Holy Spirit. That we may show charity and kindness to others and not just to one another, but even a world of lost sinners going to hell.

That we may share the gospel with them in boldness, not in fear of what man may do to us.

But we're motivated by love. Again, 1 Timothy 1, 5, the aim of our charge is love.

So we don't fear what may come upon us because of what we preach. No matter what man may do to us, we know we are upheld by the power of the

Holy Spirit. And so it is in love that I tell you those things you may not want to hear, but I desire for you to hear them because I know that this is the message that saves.

And if you don't hear this, then what I do fear is what may happen to you when you have to stand before God in judgment.

So God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power and love. And then lastly, self -control.

You know, that is listed among the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. Nine fruit of the Spirit is mentioned there.

The last one is self -control. And as I've often said, it's the most neglected of the fruit of the Spirit. Your ability to resist sin is given to you by the power of the

Holy Spirit. That you may do the righteous thing that is pleasing unto God is by the power of the

Holy Spirit that is within you. Again, back to Romans 8, Paul says, whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

Those who are still in the flesh cannot please God. And it is only by the

Holy Spirit that is given to us that we may live and worship and pursue holiness in such a way that is pleasing unto

God. Only by His Spirit that we understand self -control, being able to turn from sin, and continue in the righteousness of Christ that we have been given.

This is the Spirit that we have. There's almost a kind of a truncated version of the spiritual gifts that are mentioned here.

Because in the spiritual gifts, or sorry, the fruit of the Spirit, which is different than the spiritual gifts, so forget that.

Fruit of the Spirit. In the fruit of the Spirit, what's the very first one? Do you know? Love. What's the very last one?

Self -control. So what does Paul say here? We've been given a Spirit not of fear but of power and love and self -control and all the other fruit of the

Spirit that goes in between. And so Paul is encouraging Timothy in these things.

And we have this here in this opening portion of the letter, and these are things that we're going to see come up throughout the letter.

This section that we've just read, verses 3 through 7, can be divided up into two parts. First of all, verses 3 through 5,

Paul expresses a gratitude for those who brought the gospel. He thinks about his ancestors and he thinks about Timothy's mother and grandmother, right?

And then in the second part, verses 6 through 7, it's like we have a passing of the torch to bring the gospel.

The gospel was brought to you, now you have it and you must bring it to others.

And that sets up a theme for this letter that's going to continue throughout because this is mainly what

Paul is getting to in this letter. That you must share in the suffering of the gospel by the power of God.

That's where we go next in verse 8. So after just reading that we have a Spirit not of fear but of power and love and self -control,

Paul says, therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.

Your ability to endure suffering in this present day is by God's power that is upon you.

And we're even going to have instructions that will come to Timothy that draw

Timothy's attention to remembrance once again. If you have your eyes upon the text, look down at chapter 2, verse 8.

Paul says, remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead. The offspring of David is preached in my gospel.

And then look over at verse 14. Remind them, talking about the faithful men that Timothy is going to pass the message of the gospel on to that they may become teachers of the word as well.

Paul says, remind them of these things and charge them before God. Not to quarrel about words which does no good but only ruins the hearers.

So as Paul has been reminded of things, he passes remembrance on to Timothy and he's going to instruct

Timothy, remind these things to those faithful men who have been entrusted to preach this word also.

So once again, we have here these three remembrances, these three reminders.

Paul says, I remember you. And then in verse 5, I'm reminded of your sincere faith.

And so therefore, the imperative that's given for this reason, I remind you to fan into the flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

So let's consider some applications therefore. Let me give you three applications. Same as we just read, three reminders, we're going to receive three reminders as well.

So number one, Paul said, I remember you constantly in my prayers. So how we may apply this is understanding whom we belong to.

Remember whom you belong to. You belong to God. As said in Ephesians 4, we are of the family of God.

We are of one father who is God and father of us all who is over all and through all and in all.

Jesus in Matthew chapter 11 was told that his mother and his brothers and sisters were outside and wanted to see him.

And Jesus looked at the servant who came to him and said that your family wants to see you. And he said, who's my mother and my brothers and my sisters?

And he gestures to his disciples. And he said, here are my mother and my brothers and my sisters.

For whoever does the will of my father in heaven, this is my mother and my brothers and my sisters.

And my friends, that's your family too. Whoever does the will of your father in heaven, that's your brothers and your sisters.

That's why we refer to each other as brethren, as brothers and sisters in the Lord. And there is a greater closeness in this room to your brothers and sisters in Christ than there is to the blood brothers and sisters you have who are not believers.

You've heard me share before that my own siblings, I have five brothers and sisters, none of whom are walking with the

Lord. We had a very close family bond when we were growing up.

And it wasn't long after Becky and I got married that that bond started growing farther and farther apart.

As their interests were drawn further and further away from Christ and more into worldly things, whereas for me and my household, we were drawing closer and closer to the

Lord. Now, my children still love my brothers and sisters.

I do as well. And in our family prayer time, they'll bring them up. Let's pray. Let's pray for uncle or aunt so -and -so that they may come to know the

Lord. And indeed, I pray for those things. But the people in this room, though we've only been together six months, you are closer to me than my own blood brothers and sisters because we're brothers and sisters in the

Lord. And we need to remember who we belong to.

As Paul remembers Timothy's tears with fondness and desiring to see him again to be filled up with joy, may we remember the family of God that we belong to, that we may encourage one another with joy in these days.

Amen. So that's number one, remembering whom you belong to.

Number two, remember where you came from, where the gospel came to you from when you first heard it.

Paul had reminded Timothy of his sincere faith and a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother,

Lois, and in your mother, Eunice, and I'm sure dwells in you as well. How did the gospel come to you? Remember those things.

In fact, Hebrews chapter 13, verses 7 and 17 says, remember those who taught you the way of life and imitate their faith.

So it's good to remember these things. It is good to put by way of reminder also who you were before you heard the gospel.

And scripture gives us these reminders too, by the way. Ephesians chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once live in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

Three verses that tell you exactly who you were before you came to Christ after hearing the gospel.

But then we have these two beautiful words. Martin Lloyd -Jones called them the two most powerful words in the scriptures.

But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ.

Remember where you came from so you remember the promises of God that you've been given in the gospel that has been delivered to you.

Thirdly, you must also remember to fan into flame the gift of God that is in you.

Now when I say that I'm not talking about a spiritual gifting because that's certainly the immediate context in the way that Paul was addressing it with Timothy.

But we must fan into flame the gift of God. What is that gift of God that we've been given? Well, let me continue in Ephesians 2 verse 8.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is what?

The gift of God. Not a result of works so that no one may boast.

The salvation you have, the gift you have, the faith you have, the grace of God that has been shown to you, these are gifts from God.

And just as I illustrated before regarding Timothy's gift, if he doesn't fan it into flame, he'll lose it.

And my friends, don't think of yourself as being so strong that you can just let your faith sit there and it will still be there when you need it.

If you're not continually exercising those muscles, what happens to the muscles?

They get weak. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not

Mr. Universe anymore. But as we get older, our faith doesn't decline.

As we get older and we mature in Christ, our faith should be growing stronger. As we continue to exercise those things, if you just leave it to Sunday, now this is a glorious time that we gather together as saints and we worship

God together. This is heaven practice, y 'all. This is a taste of what we will get to do forever around the throne and God's presence.

So a wonderful thing for us to do. But if you just leave your worship, your act of worship to Sunday, your muscles are going to get weak.

Eventually what you're going to find is, you know, kind of like the stuff I'm doing in the week better than I like going to church on Sunday.

And you'll start falling off there even in faithful attendance. You can't just expect that these things are just going to help themselves.

It's something that I constantly have to be reminded of as a pastor and a husband and a father, that just because I'm a pastor does not automatically mean that my wife is being spiritually fed and my children are going to grow up Christians.

But I have to be as diligent as any father in teaching my children the scriptures and training them up in the discipline and the instruction of the

Lord. So these are reminders that we need. Remember whom you belong to.

Remember who you were so that you may remember who you have become.

And lastly, remember to fan into flame the gift of God that is in you. Now I want to take a burden off your shoulders in addition to these applications that I've given to you here.

You cannot keep up with all the stuff that is happening in this world.

Social media has given us this illusion of thinking that we can be connected to everything and we can even solve everything.

And you can't. It's too much for one person. We were not even meant to know everything that's going on in the world at any given point of time.

You've got enough stuff that you've got to worry about in your own personal life to be filled with anxiety over the crazy billion dollar package that Congress just passed.

Or the wars and the conflicts that are going on in different parts of the world. Or who's going to get elected later on and if my guy doesn't get elected

I see things going really, really bad for me. Jesus said in Matthew 6, Do not worry about tomorrow.

No, sufficient for itself is today full of its own trouble. I shared on the podcast this past Friday with Becky, I can't keep up with what's going on in the world.

I have enough on my plate encouraging my own flock and holiness and raising up my children in the discipline and the instruction of the

Lord. Focus on those things that are in front of you. As you're reminded of these things, look at the responsibilities that you have right in front of you.

And I'm not saying as citizens of the United States that we should just neglect things that are going on.

That's not what I'm saying at all. But you can't run yourself silly thinking that you can solve all of these problems.

We look at those responsibilities that are in front of us. What we need to be doing in obedience to the

Lord. And let's get that work done. And God will take care of the rest.

Remember these things that we have been given here. And I read to you again, verses 6 through 7.

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

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

And we'll pick up there next week. May bitter things be done to me.

Leave it all. And so to him I stand.

He holds me back. I shall not fall.

And so to him I leave it all.

And so to him I leave it all.

This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, Gospel -teaching,

Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.