Keep a Clear Conscience (2 Timothy 1:1-5)

1600 years ago, 1 mother's prayers were finally answered.

Her name was Monica and she was a Christian, but she faced many

difficulties in life. She had a season of addiction to

alcohol. She was married to a man who was

not a believer. But perhaps the hardest trial

she faced was her wayward son. He was enslaved to a life of

rampant immorality, but his mother didn't give up on it.

She persistently prayed for him. And as one historian wrote

recently, if ever there was a helicopter mom chasing down her

son for Jesus, it was Monica. In the summer of 386, the Lord

answered her prayers. Monica's son, Augustine of

Hippo, came to faith. He heard a voice repeat the

refrain. Take it and read.

Take it and read, which he understood as a divine command

to open the Scriptures and read the first passage he came across

in God's Providence. That passage was from Romans 13.

It says, let us walk properly as in the daytime, not an orgies

and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not

in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and

make no provision for the flesh. And upon reading Romans,

Augustine said, I had no wish to read more, and no need to do so.

For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was

as though the light of confidence flooded into my

heart, and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.

In other words, Augustine was saved, born again.

The Lord answered his mother's prayers, but shortly after his

conversion, his mother, Monica, got sick.

Before she died, she said she was ready to depart the world,

for her hope was already fulfilled.

Monica said to her son Agustin. The one reason I wanted to stay

longer in this life was my desire to see you a Christian

before I die. My God is granted this in a way

more than I had hoped. Through mother's prayers, God

brought a son from death to life and he gave us one of the most

important theologians of the church.

Kids here, what might God do in your life through your mother's

prayers? Augustine would go on to write

his spiritual autobiography, Many of Us Know Confessions.

He also wrote a treatise on the Trinity and a defense of

Christianity against paganism, The City of God.

He came to faith in his 30s and he faithfully pastored for

years, and in his 70s he finally finished his race.

Brothers and sisters, how can we finish the race?

How can we faithfully follow Jesus for all our days until our

death? Today we begin a new sermon

series through the book of Second Timothy.

If you have your Bible, please turn to the book of Second

Timothy. If you don't have a Bible, maybe

you forgot one. Maybe you don't even own one.

Just raise your hand. Somebody would be glad to bring

you a Bible right now. If you're not familiar with the

Bible, Second Timothy is in the New Testament.

Feel free to turn to the table of contents if you still can't

find it. It's right after First Timothy,

right before the book of Titus. As we work through Second

Timothy, we'll follow the apostle Paul who finished his

race and is now face to face with Jesus Christ.

As I read Second Timothy verses one to five, hear the word of

the Lord Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus.

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

the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear

conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night

and day, as I remember your tears, I long to see you that I

may be filled with joy. I'm reminded of your sincere

faith, of faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and

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

Friends, look over verses one to five.

Look there in your Bible you can see that verse 1 is about the

sender of the letter Paul. Pretty simple.

In verse 2 we see the recipient Timothy, and verses 3 to 5 are

Paul's prayer of Thanksgiving. You can see that there he says,

I thank God. There's three points to help us

follow along. First verse one, a spiritual

father, that's Paul. Second, a beloved son.

Verse 2, that's Timothy. And third, verses 3 to 5, a

family of faith, a spiritual father, a beloved son, a family

of faith. First, a spiritual father.

Paul writes as a spiritual father in the faith to Timothy.

We really see that in verse 2, but I'm titling it for .1.

He calls Timothy in verse 2, my child, but notice how he

introduces himself in verse 1. He says Paul, an apostle of

Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the

life that is in Christ Jesus. Paul's an apostle of Christ

Jesus. If you're not familiar with the

Bible, what what's an apostle? Jesus himself personally

selected 12 disciples and he gave them the office of apostle.

He sent them out on mission to be as representatives to the

world and to teach in his name. But Paul was not one of the

original apostles. In fact, in the book of Acts, as

the apostles preach and proclaim Jesus Christ, Paul was

persecuting the church. When Stephen was stoned In the

book of Acts, Luke tells us it was Paul, this Paul who approved

of his execution. Luke says that Paul was ravaging

the church and he was throwing Christians in prison.

So that was Paul the persecutor. How did he become Paul the

apostle and the preacher? He tells us in verse 1, he says

verse one, it's by the will of God, the will of God.

In other words, Paul did not apply to be an apostle.

He did not go looking to be an apostle.

In fact, in Acts Chapter 9, on the road to Damascus, he was

Acts 9 · chapter mention

looking for Christians to imprison them, but he met Jesus

Christ who put him flat on his face, and he asked him, Why are

you persecuting me? And after some days with the

disciples at Damascus, Paul, the man who is persecuting

Christians, preached Christ in the synagogue's he said he is

the Son of God. And the persecutor became

persecuted. That was not Paul's plan for his

life, that was not his will, but it was God's.

And the risen Christ told Paul upon his conversion.

He said, I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you

as a servant and witness to open the Gentiles eyes so that they

may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to

God. His conversion was also his

commissioning. And in verse 1 he tells us one

more thing about his apostleship.

Look at verse 1. He says he's an apostle

according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus.

Why does Paul refer to the promise of the life in the

greeting of his final letter? Why does he say that?

It's because context. What's the context of Paul's

final letter to Timothy? He writes his final letter in

the face of death. Paul tells us this in second

Timothy. Turn quickly to chapter 4, the

last part of the letter starting in verse 6.

Paul says, for I'm already being poured out as a drink offering

and the time of my departure has come.

I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race.

I have kept the faith. The apostle Paul packs in four

metaphors to describe the final days of his life.

He's reached the end of the road.

This is his final chapter. Think of all Paul's done in

ministry. He's already ministered for 30

years, planting churches, strengthening churches, taking

the gospel where Christ hasn't been named.

But there will be no more ministry on earth after this.

He's already travelled. Think of all his missionary

trips to Antioch and Iconium, to Ephesus and to Philippi, to

Jerusalem and even to Rome. But there will be no more

missionary trips after this. And think of all Paul's written.

He's already written Romans, First and 2nd Corinthians,

Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First

and 2nd Thessalonians, Philemon, First Timothy and Titus.

But there will be no more letters written after this.

This is Paul's final lap, for he writes to Timothy from prison,

and he writes as a man sitting on death row.

Paul's like Moses to Joshua in second Timothy.

He's passing the baton. He's giving Timothy his final

charge. He's nearing death, but he

points Timothy to the promise of life.

What's the promise of life? It's not Paul's expectation to

be set free from his earthly chains.

It is his expectation to be set free from death itself.

It is Paul's certainty that there is hope.

There is life after death for God's promise, eternal life for

all those who are in Christ Jesus.

Paul's hope in his last days is this hope that he got on his

first day of being a Christian. Eternal life.

Think of how much Paul's endured for Jesus Christ.

Imprisonments, beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, sleepless

nights, hunger and thirst, and now this final trial, death.

Why? Why would someone endure all of

that for Jesus? If you're not a Christian, do

you wonder why would somebody go through all of that?

What could be worth all of that suffering and that sorrow?

What hope could a man have in the face of death?

Paul's hope was a promise. It was the promise of life.

He held fast to the promise of life.

Friends, Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life.

And he said whoever believes in me has eternal life.

And he said whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

And to fulfil his promise, Jesus gave us life by laying down his

life for us. That's the good news of the

gospel. The wonder of the gospel is that

though you and I deserve eternal death for our rebellion against

God, he offers out eternal life in Jesus Christ.

For Jesus Christ. God's own Son died on the cross

and bore God's wrath and defeated death as he rose again

from the grave. And in Jesus Christ there is the

promise of life, eternal life for all those who have turned

from their sins and trusted in Him.

Friend, would you today find this promise of life yourself?

Would you forsake your sin and trust in Jesus Christ and Him

alone? And if you have brothers and

sisters, if you've found in Jesus your life, then like the

apostle Paul, though you die, you shall live.

Brothers and sisters, these glorious truths are ours in

Christ Jesus. That's what Paul says in verse

one. Look at verse 1.

He appeals to the doctrine of union with Christ.

That's what that little phrase in Christ Jesus refers to.

Union with Christ is like being grafted into a plant.

If you're grafted into a plant, then you receive life and

vitality. And if we're grafted into

Christ, we receive our new life from him, eternal life.

Paul writes this phrase in Christ Jesus seven times in the

book of Second Timothy, 7 times. Because all the blessings of

salvation are found in Jesus Christ.

And if they're in Christ, then you can't be separated from

them, because if you belong to Jesus, then you can never lose

these gifts, this gift of life. Now, here's the thing.

None of us, as far as I'm aware, are facing imprisonment today

for following Jesus Christ. None of us, as far as I'm aware,

are not facing martyrdom for following Jesus Christ.

But we have the same promise of life as the Apostle Paul.

We have different troubles, but the same promise.

The promise of life. It gives us boldness as

Christians to set our hands to the plow and never look back, to

even add on and take on new sacrifices and new sufferings

for our Savior. The promise of life.

It gives us courage in this life to face any and every trouble

with the hope and the assurance that in eternity we will be

delivered by our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Paul died. He died in Christ, and Paul

lives. He lives in Christ.

He was eventually executed by the Roman Empire, but he lives

today in glory land, as do all who've trusted in Jesus Christ

for the forgiveness of sins. As we sang together earlier,

He's left this world of pain. Thank God up there.

He'll die no more. He'll suffer not again.

Paul was a faithful spiritual father, and he writes to his

beloved son in the faith. Now we turn to Timothy .2, a

beloved son. Paul writes to Timothy.

He calls him my beloved child. We heard a bit about Timothy in

Acts chapter 16. Earlier in the service, Timothy

Acts 16 · chapter mention

was from Lystra. Paul preached the gospel in

Lystra on his first missionary journey and then on his second

missionary journey. He returned to Lystra and it

seems that Timothy somewhere in there came to faith and he was

growing spiritually. For Luke records in Acts that

Timothy was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra.

So Paul asked Timothy to accompany him to partner

together for the sake of the gospel.

But do you remember Timothy's initiation into ministry?

It came with a cost. Right before Acts 16 is Acts 15.

In Acts 15, at the Jerusalem Council, the apostles, along

with the elders and the church, were debating a serious matter.

Some were saying that Gentile believers need to be circumcised

in order to faithfully follow Jesus.

But the apostle Paul taught that Gentile believers are saved by

the grace of Christ Jesus, in other words, that circumcision

was not necessary for salvation. And the matter was settled.

They even wrote a letter and they sent it throughout the

region. But then comes Acts 16, and

Timothy wants to minister alongside Paul, and Paul wants

Timothy to join him. And to do that he has to get

circumcised because his mother's a Jew, but his father's a Greek,

so he had not been circumcised. And he's an adult.

That's what he does to minister the gospel.

He does not get circumcised for his salvation, but his

circumcision is for the salvation of others.

His circumcision is a sacrifice for the sake of the gospel.

Those are his first days of ministry.

And then for over 15 years, he faithfully ministered with Paul.

He was Paul's ministry protege, working alongside Paul with

Paul, with the Thessalonians, the Corinthians, the Saints in

Philippi, and at Colossi. Eventually, Paul asked him to

pastor the church in Ephesus where he faithfully pastored.

And it's likely where he received this very letter.

Timothy was very dear to Paul. Paul calls him.

Look at that in verse 2, my beloved child, he was like an

adopted spiritual son. Timothy was so dear to Paul that

Paul encouraged the Philippians about Timothy.

He said I have no one like him. You know his proven worth, how

as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel.

Timothy was Paul's right hand man, indispensable.

Paul loved him, but Timothy was very far from Paul.

If he remained in Ephesus, which is what Paul told him to do in

first Timothy, then what separated Paul, who's in Rome to

Timothy who's in Ephesus was over 1600 miles.

And Paul's departing, the Apostolic era's ending, the

preservation and the proclamation of the gospel

needed to be passed on to the next generation.

So as Paul departs, he reminds Timothy in verse 2 that God

remains. Verse 2.

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our

Lord. When Paul described his old life

to Timothy back in First Timothy, he says, I was a

blasphemer, persecutor, an insolent opponent, but I

received mercy, Paul says. And in the next verse he says

the grace of our Lord overflowed for me.

Paul had met the grace and the mercy and the peace of Christ

Jesus and he was sending it along to Timothy.

That's what Timothy needed. It's what we all need.

Grace, mercy and peace from God and God is glad to give it.

We've seen the apostle Paul as a spiritual father and his Co

worker, Timothy as a beloved son and in that in their

relationship we see a beautiful portrait of discipling,

something that every Christian is called to do.

Discipling simply this keep it simple, helping others follow

Jesus, that's discipling. It's spiritually pouring out

yourself for others so that you can fill them up.

Discipling can happen anywhere. Can happen in a coffee shop or a

living room. It can happen while you're

folding clothes or you're sipping on tea, or when you're

on a run or when you're going to the grocery store.

It can happen in the 15 minutes before and after the service or

over a meal at your lunch break. Discipling is something that you

Christian, must do for others and that other Christians will

do for you. One of my favorite quotes on

discipling is from Mark Dever. Here's the quote.

For me, discipling is the only way I can evangelize non

Christians and equip Christians in that one place where I can

never travel the future beyond my life.

Mark says discipling others now is how I try to leave time bombs

of grace. That is a great quote.

It's packed with ministry vision.

You Christian, you're giving this one little life.

And then at the end there's a door where you exit.

But through discipling, through pouring yourself out for the

sake of others, good, You can actually do spiritual good to

the coming generations. Or as Dever says, you can leave

time bombs of grace. Now look, I love Mark, but

Mark's ministry model, it is not Mark's idea.

You could even say he stole it. He stole it from the Apostle

Paul. Isn't that what Paul did?

He poured himself out like a drink offering into Timothy.

And isn't that what his very letter is?

This letter is a time bomb of grace that we get to experience.

And of course, this did not originate with the Apostle Paul.

Paul simply follows in Christ's footsteps, who gave himself to

his 12 disciples and then even more to an inner ring of three,

and then he entrusted them all to do the same.

Brothers and sisters, give yourself to discipline.

Leave time bombs of grace in this church for the next

generation. And remember, discipling is not

a quantifiable ministry. How many lunches does it take to

disciple someone? How many early morning meetings?

How many minutes of spiritual good do you need to input into

someone else? There's no secret formula to

disciple either. All you need to do is commit to

a lifetime of doing spiritual good to others.

And sometimes in this life, you get to see the results.

Praise the Lord, but most of the fruit of discipling will surely

only be seen in eternity. Discipling is how we pass on the

gospel from one generation to another, which is what Paul

points to as he turns to prayer in verse 3.3.

A family of faith. Listen and be encouraged as you

hear the apostle, Apostle Paul pray as he prays from prison.

Verse three. I thank God whom I serve, as did

my ancestors with a clear conscience, as I remember you

constantly in my prayers night and day, as I remember your

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

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

in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am

sure dwells in you as well. Verses 3 to 5, or one sentence

in Greek, they form one prayer of Thanksgiving to God.

Paul starts it with his ancestors in verse three.

He ends it with Timothy's ancestors in verse five.

And three times in the prayer Paul says, did you catch it?

I remember, I remember He remembers Timothy in prayer

verse three. He remembers Timothy's tears

verse 4, and he remembers Timothy's family of faith verse

5. In verse 6, just look one verse

over. Paul will say, I remind you, but

not yet. First, Paul remembers, he

remembers Timothy in prayer. Look at the beginning of Paul's

prayer. He thanks God.

It's a prayer of Thanksgiving written from prison.

It's a paradoxical prayer. He thanks God, though he's in

prison. And isn't it the apostle Paul

who taught us and taught the Thessalonians give thanks in all

circumstances? Paul sits in prison and he

practices what he preaches as he prays and as he thanks God.

Christian, what circumstance are you facing today?

Is there any circumstance in which you can't say thank you,

God? Paul also serves God.

It's another paradox. He serves God though he's in

chains. His chains and his prison cell

do not prohibit him from worshipping God.

He serves God just as Abraham and Isaac, just as Jacob and

David before him. Paul understands that the

promise of God believed by the Saints and the patriarchs of the

past is the same promise of the gospel that is fulfilled in

Jesus Christ. According to Paul, when he looks

back, he sees how God has preserved the faith of his

people from one generation to another.

And see also that Paul holds a clear conscience.

It's yet another paradox. His conscience is clear.

Though he's been declared guilty, he's done nothing wrong

and he'll be put to death. He's guilty in the eyes of man,

but he's innocent in the eyes of God.

He's condemned according to man, and yet there is no condemnation

for him in the Christ Jesus. He has the freedom of a clear

conscience. Friend to you, God has given

each of us a conscience, a capacity for moral judgement.

Your conscience is what you believe is right or wrong, and

sometimes your conscience is wrong.

It needs calibration. Earlier this week I hopped on my

exercise bike after putting in new batteries and the little

computer said I needed to calibrate my pedaling.

So it had me pedal at different speeds to make sure that how I

was pedaling was how the computer was tracking my

pedaling. Believers, we need to calibrate

our conscience to make sure it's in accordance with Scripture.

You need to take what you think is right and wrong and then

search the Scriptures and baptize them in God's Holy Word.

And you need to always obey your conscience.

When your conscience yells at you, stop, that's wrong.

Don't do that. You need to obey it.

Well, what you're doing might not actually be sin, according

to God. To go against your conscience is

sin. That's what Paul says in Romans

14. He says whatever does not

proceed from faith is sin. If you think something is sin,

do not do it. Do not go against your

conscience. Brothers and sisters, is your

conscience clear this morning or are you hiding secret sins?

Do those secret sins condemn you?

Does your conscience itself cry out against you?

Hypocrite, liar, phony, imposter.

Brennan, that's you this morning.

Do not silence your conscience. Do not hit snooze.

Listen to your conscience. You can have a clear conscience

this morning. How can you cleanse your

conscience? Repent of your sins, turn from

them, kill your sin and look to Jesus Christ.

Drag your sins into light through confession.

Talk to your brothers or sister in the church that you trust.

Confess your sins to God and your brothers and sisters.

Kill your sins. Take God's side against them.

Don't ignore them. Find freedom in mortification

and look to Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews tells us

that the blood of Jesus Christ purifies our conscience, making

it clean. Keep your conscience clean by

being honest about your sins and finding the forgiveness you need

in Jesus Christ. And all of this for Paul is

working in the background as he remembers Timothy in prayer, as

he sits in prison. He prays, he remembers Timothy

in prayer. He says night and day, morning

and evening. His prayers are not occasional.

They are constant. And if you think about all the

people in the world who need prayer in this moment, doesn't

the apostle Paul make the top of the list?

He's in prison, on death row, abandoned by most of his

friends, and yet he is the one concerned about others.

He's the one praying for Timothy.

And whatever circumstances we face, do we face anywhere we

can't be concerned about our brothers and sisters in the

church? Is there any situation we face

in which we can't turn to God in prayer?

Paul remembers Timothy in prayer.

He also remembers Timothy's tears.

Look at verse 4. Apparently the last time they

were together, Paul left Timothy in tears.

He doesn't tell us exactly when it happened, but in Acts chapter

Acts 20 · chapter mention

20, Paul gives a final speech to the Ephesian elders, and the

author of Acts tells us there was much weeping on the part of

all. So just to see Timothy again,

that would bring Paul such joy. When we lived in Dubai, we knew

a lot of friends in ministry, and from Dubai, a lot of people

would go on to minister in other places.

There was kind of a tradition among our friends in ministry

that we would go to the airport together when it was someone's

final night and we'd say our goodbyes.

And those flights were often at 2:00 in the morning or three in

the morning. So we'd be there at the curb of

the airport at midnight, saying goodbyes, embracing, giving our

hugs and shedding our tears. And then two years ago, it was

our turn. We drove to the airport with two

or three other cars and everyone poured out and you know, you're

trying to get all your luggage. And we had, how many kids did we

have back then? Three little kids and everyone's

crying and saying goodbye. Part of faithfully following

Jesus means that you'll have tearful departures from good

friends in the faith, some you may never see again in this

life. Tears shed reveal a heart that

cares. It reveals affection and love.

Members of Trinity Baptist Church, I don't know how long

you'll be a member of this church, but I pray and I hope

that you invest so deeply in the members of this church that

these Saints become so dear to you that when and if you leave,

there will be tears shed at your departure.

Paul remembers Timothy's tears. And finally, Paul remembers

Timothy's family of faith. Look at verse 5.

Paul's reminded of Timothy's sincere faith.

Sincere Paul's been. In 30 years of ministry.

He's seen friends become frauds, men who started strong but did

not finish the race. But it's not Timothy.

Timothy's faith is proven. It's without hypocrisy.

It is genuine. It is a faith, Paul says, that

dwell first in his grandmother Lois and in his mother Eunice.

Remember back to Acts 16, Timothy's father wasn't a

believer and his mother Eunice was.

His grandmother Lois apparently was too, meaning that Timothy

was not the first believer in his family.

His physical family tree was also his spiritual family tree.

His grandmother and his mother. We're both faithful Christians.

Remember earlier in our service we rank we sang 2 hymns from the

18th century Rock of Ages and Arise My soul, Arise.

Do you know how hymns like these found their way into the

preaching of one of the greatest preachers of the 19th century,

Charles Spurgeon? How did those hymns make it into

his preaching? It was through his grandmother.

Here's a trick for grandma's if you're if you're listening.

When Spurgeon was a young boy, his grandmother offered to pay

him a penny for each Isaac Watts hymn that he memorized.

But he was so good at memorization that she eventually

had to downgrade the deal or she feared she'd go bankrupt.

And that love of hymns, that love of Isaac Watts hymns

remained with Spurgeon. And it even bled into others

like Charles Wesley, like we sang earlier.

And Spurgeon said of himself, he said, no matter what topic I was

preaching, I could always in the middle of any sermon, quote some

verse of a hymn in harmony with the subject.

That's not a gift I have personally, I'm, I don't possess

that. But Spurgeon did.

And you can trace it back to his grandmother.

Godly grandmothers are a great gift.

Godly mothers are a great gift too.

And yet, sadly, when you look at our current cultural climate,

they whisper to women that being a mom is a wasted life.

Our current cultural climate says that children are problems

to be prevented, that beauty and financial freedom should be

chased after. Instead, it says that motherhood

is too costly, it's too burdensome, it's too inefficient

economically. And you can hear the chorus in

an article published by Bloomberg in 2022.

It's titled Women who stay single and don't have kids are

getting richer. Now, just so you know, study

after study shows that that's actually not true, but it's what

people believe today. And sadly, this is not just

contained to the cultural climate of the West.

It's the message of the whole world.

The world has imbibed it for across the whole earth, men and

women are not having children. Of course, some want to have

children and they're not able. But the majority across every

continent except Africa, the birth rates are dropping

drastically. That's true in Europe.

It's especially true in East Asia.

It's true in the United States. People aren't having babies.

Why? Because they don't believe that

motherhood and children are blessings, and it's a spiritual

disease that calls what God has said is a blessing a curse.

We'd be foolish friends to think that these ideologies have not

infiltrated the church also. So we need to calibrate our

conscience according to God's Word.

And the apostle Paul gives us an invitation this morning by Holy

Scripture to ponder the great spiritual good of Christian

mothers and grandmothers, moms and grandmas, Happy Mother's

Day. I did not plan this sermon

series in line with Mother's Day, but in God's Providence,

here we are. You are a God-given blessing.

Your work often may seem mundane, but it matters in the

eyes of God. Do not grow weary in doing good.

One way mothers can pass on the faith to the next generation.

It's just a regular time in God's Word with your children.

That's actually what Lois and Eunice did with Timothy.

Paul tells us that in chapter 3. From childhood, Paul says

Timothy's mother nurtured him with the Old Testament

scriptures. So moms, keep laboring to open

the scriptures with your children.

Keep praying for them to come to faith in Jesus Christ.

And remember mothers, as JC Ryall says, do not forget that

children learn more by the eye than they do by the ear.

No school will make such a deep marks on character at home and

church. We have the responsibility to

support mothers and grandmothers, to encourage them,

to praise them, to celebrate their sacrifices, and to pray

for them regularly. Friends, don't fall into the

spiritual pitfall which says that being a mom is a wasted

life. It is a precious life according

to God. But there's also another

cultural pitfall which the church can easily fall into,

which says that being a mom is all that matters, as if those

who are not mothers lack something.

But notice in this text, Paul points to Timothy's grandmother

and his mother as examples of how they passed down the faith

to Timothy. It is a faith Paul says he is

sure dwells in Timothy as well. Paul did.

Paul knows that Timothy did not receive the faith from his

father. Paul himself was Timothy's

spiritual father because his own father was not a believer.

And so for those who long to be mothers but cannot remember, you

can still be a spiritual mother to many.

And that too, sisters, is a life precious to God.

In Christ, every life is precious and valued,

irrespective of your family of origin, irrespective of your

marital status or of the number of children that you have.

Remember Augustine's mother, Monica, She died around age 56.

At her funeral, Augustine tried to fight back his tears, which

was fitting for the cultural moment of the day.

He did not want people to think that his mother would be was to

be pitied. But despite his struggle and his

efforts, he finally let himself grieve.

And as he recalled her godliness and her gentleness and her love,

he wept. In his autobiography, he

reflects on the funeral. He says, I was glad to weep

before you about her. A faithful mother, pass on the

faith to her son, just as the faith was passed down from the

patriarchs to the apostle Paul and from Lois and Eunice to

Timothy. And that's my job as one of the

pastors of this church. It is to prepare this church for

their next pastor, to prepare this church for the next

generation to pass on the gospel, to preserve it and pass

it down to the next generation. And parents, that's your for job

too, to share your faith and pass it down to the next

generation. And church, that is our job, yet

two years old. But we must remember our

responsibility to protect and to preserve the gospel for those

who will come long after us. That's our job.

Second Timothy verses 1 to 5 encourages us that from one

generation to another, God preserves the faith of his

people. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the promise of the life that

is in Christ Jesus, that even in the midst of death we can have

hope, hope that's only found in our Savior Jesus Christ.

Lord, we pray that we as a church would be faithful to pass

down the faith from one generation to the next until

Christ returns. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.