Gospel Flame

Good morning church. We are in the book of second

2 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

Timothy chapter 1 verses one through 7.

If you're using the Bible, that's underneath your chair.

It's on page 934. 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 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 into the flame the gift of

God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

For God gave us a spirit, not a fear, but of power and love and

self-control. This is the word of the Lord.

What's going on Port City family and friends?

How we doing? Good.

My name is Tanner. I'm one of the pastors here.

The lead pastor here is a joy to be with you and y'all.

I'm pumped for a new series. Every series feels like the most

important one of all time and none feels more true to me

personally than this one. Y'all, no book has more shaped

my life in the last three years and still feels as applicable as

Second Timothy right now in my life.

Y'all just to put the context of like what it is to receive this

letter as a as a church that the spirit had a man named Paul.

Write it down. Y'all.

Paul is like Yoda, like in the in the spirit with the Lord.

He's like that guy. He has been beaten for his

faith. Even if you don't believe, you

would probably admire somebody who was willing to be killed,

beat down, stoned. The things Paul has been

through. You would respect him if he

walked in the room. Are you with me?

He's that kind of guy with that kind of credibility.

This is his last letter. This is it.

He's leaving it all on the field in this letter to his main

protege, Timothy. He's in a prison cell that you

can visit in Rome. Tradition tells us he's in the

member time prison there in Rome, writing this letter.

He's probably hungry, he's tired, he's cold.

In chapter 4 he says don't forget that.

Cloak. Bring me them books and that

cloak. He has names, major receipts in

this book of people that have shipwrecked their faith.

Demas fell in love with the world and walked away.

This is Paul's letter begging Timothy that at the end of his

life he could say, like Paul, I have finished the race, I have

kept the faith. Paul's going to say I pour, I've

been poured out like a drink offering.

If you imagine just a drink, Paul's life, he viewed it as

something that was being poured out for King Jesus down to the

last drop. And can I tell you something,

Port City family. And I know not everybody here is

and some of you don't even follow Jesus, but hopefully what

I'm saying feels real to you. OK.

I want you to make it. That's what I want for you.

I want you to love Jesus more in retirement, more in the hospital

bed when it's about to be over for you, than you do right now.

I don't think we have to settle for a slow fade where Jesus

feels less relevant day by day and year by year, and the things

in this world seem more relevant.

I think it's possible to love Jesus more in 30 years than you

do now. I think that's possible, but it

takes tremendous amounts of grace, empowered effort, Y'all.

I don't want you to waste your life.

Somebody say waste your life. There's a lot of ways to waste

your life. The biggest one is to miss out

on Jesus totally. OK.

And if you're not a believer, I want you to know Jesus.

He's not a concept, He's a person.

He made you. And I pray that as you're around

the port city community, you're learning the Word of God, that

God would make himself clear to you even today.

But the other way to waste your life is the way Timothy was in

danger of wasting his ministry is to shrink back.

It's to maybe have this much. Potential, but through fear and

circumstances just settle. Does that make sense?

We would not be. Here today, if Timothy didn't

take seriously what Paul's going to say to him.

This letter is not complicated. It's very simple, but it's hard

to live and he's going to. I could break this whole letter

down into let me make sure I'm saying the right amount of

words. 3 words. OK, y'all ready fan the flame?

We're going to say that together.

Ready. Fan the flame.

He's going to say it a lot of different ways.

He's going to say guard the Gospel, That's the name of our

series. He's going to say follow the

pattern. He's going to say it a lot of

different ways. He's going to tell him you're a

soldier, you're an athlete, you're a farmer.

He's saying get to work, my guy. And the main way in 2026, you

can waste your life. I tell you this a lot.

I'm going to say it a lot in this.

Series, There is some simple stuff you can fall into, and

there's a whole lot of silly stuff you can settle for.

Y'all, the NBA Finals ended last.

Night. And I'm like, good, I won't be

as addicted to my phone. Except we're in the World Cup,

and then it's the US Open this week at golf.

Oh, man, Scotty got to get the, he got to get all four.

So I'm like, I just can't. Do you?

Do you see the problem we run into?

You can waste your life through silly settling for things that

you know, don't matter that much.

You know it, you can say it. And yet our habits, our

addictions reveal that we're much more settling than we want

to admit. And we might not be afraid of

dying for our faith. So the the ways that Paul's

letter is going to hit us might be different than how it hit

Timothy. The stakes might feel different

in terms of your physical well-being, but the stakes are

just as high. There are coworkers you have,

friends you have, there are things going on right in front

of you that the Spirit of God is actively involved in church.

And one of the main things happening to the American church

is we're just going to sleep. We just sleep, we walking around

just as addicted to all the things and devices gamifying

gambling. I know tons of Christians don't

even think about these things and we're so afraid of being

legalist to say let's chill out on some of this stuff that we

just walking around useless in the faith and in the ministry.

So my feeling in this letter is that the stakes are quite high,

just as high as they were for Timothy.

I think they're that high for us and for Norfolk.

If we want to make an impact in our community, in our city, in

our workplace, y'all we have got to.

Fan the flame all my survivor fans should know.

Fan the flame. OK, the basic idea is you got a

flame, it could be tiny, and what you do dictates how hot it

burns and how much light. It gives off.

Because in the ancient world, fires did two things, heat and

light. It was it's pretty modern in

history to get light without heat, right?

And even when you go. Touch a light bulb your hand is

going to if it's been on a while because the idea was fire.

Did both are y'all tracking with me?

If you wanted a candle at night, think about it.

A candle. Burns, heat and light went

together so y'all fanning the flame is an invitation to use

the means you have to stir up your passion for and love.

Of Jesus for the Jesus followers, you have a.

Flame to fan and it impacts how much heat you give off and how

much light you give off. Are y'all tracking?

If you don't know Jesus, I'm not telling you.

Let. This little light on mine, I'm

gonna let it shine. The Bible would say you don't

have a flame yet to fan. The invitation to you is accept

Christ, repent, believe. But for the believers in the

room, fanning the flame means activate the gifts, activate the

calling, the passion that God has put in you.

It's the gift of God that you're fanning the flame of.

It's not inherent to you. It was a gift that you now

fanned the flame of. Are y'all with me?

Y'all? I don't want you to waste your

life. I don't want you get to the end

and say, man, I could have done more.

I could have left more on the field.

I want you to get in like Paul and say my life was poured out

like a drink offering and you don't need my job to do that.

We need Christian plumbers. And I joke with you all the the

pipe ain't a Christian pipe. You, a plumber who is a

Christian putting in a pipe? You need to.

Be fanning the flame of all the gifts God has given you in the

passions. You don't need a ministry job.

OK in this letter the most 1 to 1 application is for ministers

of the gospel but is applicable to every Christian no matter

your vocation that you fan the flame of the gift of God.

Where you're at are y'all with me?

The stakes are really high, y'all.

The concept is not difficult. So what I want to do is I want

to pray and then we're just going to walk through the verses

1 by 1. Doom scrolling is what we often

do is what I've been doing with this NBA Finals.

We need to do some life scrolling and that's the word of

God. Just strolling through it like a

walk in the park. OK, so let's pray and then we'll

we'll get to strolling our Father.

We do beg you just to move. God help just breakthrough the

the tradition, the sitting in services, the the parts of us

that are just going through the motions.

God is Paul just lays out his heart to his young friend, his

child in the faith and he says fan the flame.

I don't want you to shrink back in fear, Timothy.

I don't want the people under the sound of my voice like

demons to fall in love with this present world.

God, I want us got to get to the end and say we poured out our

life like a drink offering. We fought the fight, we finished

the race, we kept the faith. So Holy Spirit, you've got to do

that in US. God, may we grab the reins of

fanning the flame in the midst of the mundane.

Got even some of my friends just have to believe that you are at

work in their daily life. You are so God right now, please

by your spirit bring to life this word that you wrote to

Timothy, but you, Holy Spirit wrote to your church for all

times through Paul's writing to Timothy.

God to use it as you've used so many times what we know not

right now. Would you teach us what we have

not? Would you give us who we are

not? Would you make us let the words

of my mouth, the meditation of my heart, be pleasing in your

sight? Everybody who agrees with that

said Amen. All right, y'all first one,

Paul. Let's stop right there, Paul.

Is a former Jewish leader. He used to go by Saul.

OK, let's talk about this with Casey the other week.

His name did not change, OK? The Hebrew rendering is known as

Saul, the Greek rendering known as Paul.

So he came to be known as Paul because most of his ministry was

to the Greeks, not to the Jews. Paul, also known as.

Saul used to be a religious leader who was viewing this

Christian movement as a sect. Let me break that down for you.

He viewed it as a cult. He viewed it as a weird side

thing. OK, and many of your friends

think you as a Jesus follower are weird.

You're in good company. That's how the early church

started. It literally was just a few

people. The Roman Empire looked at them

like they were crazy, OK, and Paul thought they were crazy and

in the way of true belief of Yahweh.

So Paul's on his way on the Damascus Road to go handle some

of them and throw them in prison when he literally was the first

person in history blinded by the light.

Paul gets knocked off the horse, he can't see, and then God

restores his sight a few days later and Paul's conversion to

the Christian faith became a prototype of what every believer

in all times and all places will experience, though not physical

at a spiritual level. You are going this way, Christ

invaded. Now you're going that way.

And followers of Jesus, you have that testimony, even if it's a

boring testimony where you heard the faith from your mom or your

grandma, as we'll see here in verse 5 with Timothy through his

my grandmother Lois, his mother Eunice.

That's still AI was this way and then I was that way.

I became that way. God intervened in Paul's life.

He's an apostle of Christ. Jesus, somebody say apostle.

I want to be very clear. The apostles are done and gone.

Paul was an apostle. To be an apostle was to be an

eyewitness of King Jesus. OK so there was 12 Judas

betrayed Acts chapter one. They threw the the the lots to

to land on Matthias being the replacement.

And then Paul became an apostle because I just told you he had

an eyewitness interaction with King Jesus.

The Apostolic office is closed. So your grandma is not an

apostle. I'm sorry, there is.

No such thing as a modern day apostle.

OK, they have Apostolic gifting. That gifting refers to somebody

who is gifted at. Taking the gospel into new

territory, but the Church has agreed in different regions of

the globe. And through the Council's Church

history, you need to come to equip to learn your theology and

your history is that the Apostolic office is closed.

I am not an apostle. I do not have more access to God

than you. If you are full of the Spirit,

y'all. My job is to expose the Word, is

to teach, is to teach what's there.

Does God do the extraordinary and give dreams of some of these

things that give prophetic utterances?

Absolutely. Are those on the same

authoritative level as the Word of God?

Absolutely not. OK, so even as God gives some of

those extemporaneous things, we hold them up to God's Word and

in community full of the Spirit, and we test it as the New

Testament tells us to. But if Paul knew that people

were running around call themselves apostles today, he

would flip out. Does that make sense?

Not because he's proud of his title, but because that is

closed. Are y'all with me?

He's an apostle of Christ Jesus. I've told you before, anytime

you see the word Christ, you need to think King and our

vernacular. He's the King, the anointed 1,

the chosen one. He's an apostle of King Jesus.

By the will of God, Paul did not sign up for that class.

Paul, if he had his way, would still be chasing down weird

people from that weird sect somewhere.

If you are a follower of Jesus is by the will of God.

Which is good news because it means if he chose you, he ain't

going to let you go. OK.

And yes guys, God has a will. God is a person.

It's going to say here in a minute.

It's going to refer to God the Father and Christ Jesus our

Lord. God is 1 essence in three

persons. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, I'm

excited. In the new year this year we're

going to do a series all on the Trinity, 4 sermons on the

Trinity. I don't know why it's not 3, but

it's 4 OK. But y'all God is 1 essence in

three persons, OK? He is, He has one will.

They are a community within themselves.

They're one and three. When I see the one, I see 3.

When I see the three, I see one, OK.

And this God has a will, and this God will, that Paul would

be an apostle of King Jesus according to the promise of the

life. That is in Christ Jesus.

Somebody say life, y'all, there's life in King Jesus.

Water is wet. Jesus is life, y'all, Jesus is

life. He doesn't just give it, he is

it. We know a lot of Christians who

do not, Christians who do not resemble that they have the life

of Christ in them. Y'all, let's not get this

twisted. We celebrate.

Every Sunday, as I love how Pastor John points out, we

gather on Sundays because it's the day he rose from the dead.

This is a religion of life. It's not a system of thinking.

It's a person who is a life. There is life in Christ Jesus.

And if you are considering the Christian claims at the center

of them all, we are claiming that the one God in three

persons. Is alive and King Jesus stepped

in and he offers you life. Paul is not wasting his words is

what he's saying. Verse 2 to Timothy, my beloved

child Timothy. You can write down Acts 16.

That's where he meets Timothy in the city known as Lystra and now

Paul. If you go read first Timothy,

first Timothy, he makes it clear that Timothy is an elder.

He's the pastor at the church in Ephesus.

OK, So what Paul would do is he would go start churches and then

they would appoint elders, pastors over them.

And then he would check on how they're doing.

OK, So a lot of the 13 letters are to churches and a few of

them are to people like Timothy. OK, so the first letter to

Timothy was kind of like, here's how to do church.

So First Timothy think how Second Timothy think who this

letter is all about who Timothy is becoming.

First Timothy is about how he's running things.

Are you with me? So he's writing to Timothy, and

I love to take comfort that Timothy is an elder in Ephesus,

but he's from Lystra. Sometimes I can feel some

imposter syndrome because I'm not born and raised in Norfolk.

But it's OK to hear that God uses people not where they're

from in a in a meaningful way, OK?

And you might not be from here, but God still wants to use you

here. And we need a lot of the born

and raised Norfolk people to be a part of our fellowship because

the church is a combination of people who've been here, not

been here, people on their way, people who go and stay, which I

hope to for for the rest of my days.

Amen. OK.

So he's saying, Timothy, you're my guy, Timothy.

Timothy. You are my God.

I love you. Grace, mercy and peace from God

the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Grace, mercy and peace. I don't know what it is you

think you need from God. You need grace, mercy and peace.

I love how Paul's letters start with grace, end with grace.

Turn your Bible over one page and look at the last verse of

the letter of Second Timothy. Just go look real quick.

Don't take my word for it. Just look.

Chapter 4, verse 22, the Lord be with your spirit, grace be with

you. Paul's letter starts with grace.

It ends with grace. He's got some stuff he wants

Timothy to do. The stakes are high, but it's

not high in a way where you've got to earn it or you're this is

all about you. It's grace to start, grace to

end. He hasn't told, He doesn't tell

Timothy to do anything until verse 6.

He just tells him how much he loves them the next few verses

and he's going to tell him one thing.

Fan into flame, the gift of God. Verse three, I thank God whom I

serve, as did my ancestors with the clear conscience, as I

remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.

Yeah, I remember where I told you Paul was.

He was in a prison cell. When you have a bad day, do you

get in your feelings? Let's be honest.

Let me ask that again. When you are having a bad day,

if the coffee ain't hitting or you have to go to the dentist or

your boss is annoying you, do you get in your feelings?

Yes. OK, Paul is in a prison cell and

what's on his mind is not woe is me, it's the glory and goodness

of God and his love for Timothy. Do you see how what the gospel

does, friends, is it delivers you from self to God and others,

God and neighbor. He loves God.

I thank God for you. His mind in this prison cell,

while cold and probably hungry is on others.

Isn't that amazing? It's the gift of salvation in

many ways is to be consumed not with yourself, but with God and

your neighbor. Paul says I serve God with a.

Clear. Conscience.

God has given you a conscience. The conscience is a powerful.

Thing it you know many people have come to faith over the

centuries we'll talk about Agustin a little bit he has a

famous story of stealing a pair he didn't need the pair but he

stole it OK Elizabeth Elliott she had a story as a nine year

old that eventually led to her conversion where she stole

something I've known many young people who have like a.

A testimony where they just did something little, but they knew

it was sinful, not because Mama told them, not because somebody

was trying to make them feel bad, but their conscience.

It's like it's seared. It's like it's given to you by

someone who made you in his image, that that's a part of

what it means to be made in God's image.

And Paul saying I have a clear conscience.

So is Paul saying I'm living so sinlessly that I have a clear

conscience? How does the believer in Jesus

have a clear conscience? And unbelievers, I want to be

very clear. We don't have a clear conscience

because we live sinlessly. Y'all we've been.

Gifted a clear. Conscience and we still have

indwelling sin but with our eyes fixed on Christ on what he's

done we can be free and live light and clear and get to the

end and say I poured it out not because we're going to live

sinlessly for the next 30 years, but it's like we're it's on

Christ and neighbor in such a way that even as we sin it's

possible through the gift of God by the Spirit in light of what

king Jesus has done to have a clear conscience.

Some of y'all right now are in this room because your

conscience is weighing you. Sometimes people will hear the

the just. Simple words of the gospel

spoken over them. They're filled with anger and

they want to leave the room. It's.

Happened in this room and it's because their conscience is

doing a work on them. So if that's you, don't run from

that. There is a God behind the giving

of your conscience who wants to know you.

And it's possible to have a clear conscience, not because

you are pure, but because Christ who was pure.

Died for you? Verse 4 As I remember your

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

Paul just wants to see his guy. Y'all I love this image that in

the end what really matters is your people.

Paul is a single man. The church should elevate

singleness and not make people feel like you have a less than

human life if you ain't married because it's not true.

Two of our greatest heroes, obviously.

King Jesus was single and Paul, he lived a full life and at the

end he had people, people that felt like children in the faith

because he had given so much to them and he wants to.

Be with his guy. He's like, I just want to be

with you man, and I got some stuff for you to do, but more

than anything I want to move towards you.

Isn't that what the gospel does, friends?

That God doesn't tolerate you. Believer, do you believe?

Right now that God himself would look at you and say I want to

see you, that I may be filled with joy, That your presence

could bring God joy. Isn't that crazy?

That's the gospel. It's not that he shed his blood

to tolerate you and on a technicality you get into

heaven. Christ came so that he might be

with you and we are the same in our ministry of the gospel.

We don't just share the gospel with people so we could say we

did it. We love our neighbors and our

friends and we long to see them. We want them to know Christ.

Verse 5 I'm reminded of your sincere faith of faith that

dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and

now I'm sure dwells in you as well.

He says I'm reminded of your sincere faith.

Somebody say sincere the word in the Greek here, it gets that

idea of like an unhypocritical, genuine, sincere, undivided

faith. OK, And I want to be clear.

He's not like, oh, Timothy, your faith is so cute.

And if he was like a a sincere Buddhist faith, that would be

cute too. No, your faith, the object of

your faith, Timothy, is in King Jesus, which is beautiful in the

right objective faith, OK, And in that right objective faith,

you are living it out sincerely, authentically.

Here's how we say that at Port City.

The gospel changes everything. Turn to your neighbor and say

the gospel changes everything. OK, now do this.

I want you to say everything with a question mark,

intonation. You all ready everything and

then say everything like everything.

Well, the gospel changes everything.

Paul is saying your faith is sincere.

It changes everything you do. One of the issues in our

country, the reason your friends don't take your faith seriously

is they know another believer who the gospel didn't change

everything. Listen, unbelievers don't need

us to live sinlessly. They don't need us to be

perfect. They do need us to be sincere.

What that means is it's changing everything.

It's not. I'm listening to praise music,

get out the car, and then just RIP into my coworker.

That's insincere, OK? It's this idea that it's

changing how you do what you do. I'm not asking you to be

perfect, but the gospel, the message of Christ, who he is and

what he says comes to bear on how you parent.

It comes to bear on how you do marriage, how you do singleness,

how you handle a Zoom meeting where you get blamed for

something you didn't do. Does the gospel change

everything or do you have parts of your life that are off limits

from the Gospels influence because the stakes feel too out.

Well, if I do that, I won't get promoted.

Oh, OK, so so you can't follow? Jesus, in real life, we'll keep

it on Sunday. You can't do it in the workplace

because you might not get what you want.

Yeah, I think there's this thing called faith and trusting the

Lord where sometimes. Actually, how He gets glory is

when we're mistreated or things don't go our way, when we let go

of control of the outcomes. What if what you want most is

God's glory, not your promotion? And if God has in mind your

promotion, He's going to get you there through His way, not your

way. So if you have to bypass God's

word to get what you want, that's your invitation to

recognize the gospel is not changing everything.

Somebody say everything, everything.

And if that is not your experience, you're invited into

greater joy by giving God more of your life and living a more

sincere faith. And he says this.

Faith dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother

Eunice. So we learn in Acts 16 that

Timothy is half Jewish half Greek.

Don't you love how the first generation of the gospel was

fluid between Jew and Gentile? God knew what he was doing

y'all? Which is why we have to be

committed to being a multi ethnic multicultural church

because the gospel is always united people that shouldn't be

together. Are you with me?

We're not after tokenism diversity.

We are after robust Jew, Gentile, all the nation's creeds

languages together in the same way it was in the the 1st

century. OK, so grandmother Lois was

probably Jewish and mother Eunice and then the gospel

converted them from Judaism to Christianity.

And then Timothy's dad was Greek.

We learned there in Acts 16. And I just want to say to some

of the moms, isn't it such a cool testimony that Lois passed

down the the stuff to Eunice who passes it down to Timothy.

Some of y'all praying for your kids and you ain't seeing fruit

yet. Keep praying.

I mentioned Augustine earlier. Augustine is probably the most

famous example in history of a mom who would not stop praying.

Mom got around the Bishop of Ambrose one day and Bishop

Ambrose one day and just was begging him about her son.

Augustine, who was just living wild and reckless and wasn't,

wasn't converted to the faith yet.

And he had this line, I'm going to butcher it, but he basically

was like, don't you worry, it is not possible that a child could

be lost with a mom praying those kind of prayers.

Basically it was like you weeping so much and praying so

much. I know God's going to give you

your prayer. And we can't take that in like a

formulaic way. We really don't know the ways of

the Lord. But y'all, there are many

praying mothers in history who have prayed their kids into the

faith. I just love this lineage right

here. And I, I pray that over many of

the families in our church. Here we go, verse 6.

He hasn't told him to do anything yet.

Isn't that crazy? He's just like I love you.

Shout out to Lois Eunice. I love y'all gospel.

I'm an apostle. I remember you.

I love you. Here we go For this reason.

What reason? I love you.

And I know your grandma and your Mama.

I love you. For this reason, your faith is

sincere. 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.

OK, we get into my actual point soon.

OK, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God.

First thing I want to say is this and what kind of clothes on

this? So just bookmark this.

Isn't it interesting that his remembering Timothy leads to him

reminding Timothy? Y'all see that when you remember

people before God in prayer, you remind them when you're with

them. This is what church community is

supposed to be. The church should be a place

where it's like, yo, I've been remembering you in prayer.

I love you. And I want to remind you to fan

into flame the gift of God in this way.

There's this sense that you're supposed to belong to a group of

people that are on your heart and prayer, the way Timothy's

was for Paul. And that's part of what our

application is going to be for the church here today is just

who is God remembering that you need to remind?

Does that make sense? Who are you remembering that you

need to go remind? But he remembers him, so now

he's reminding him to fan into flame the gift of God, which is

in you through the laying on of my hands.

Let me explain that. If you go read first Timothy,

what you'll see is that basically I kind of explained to

you that Paul and the other elders laid their hands on

Timothy to kind of signify you are the, the, the pastor of this

church. And the, the Holy Spirit

confirmed that moment. So Paul did not lay his hands on

you or me. Amen.

But this letter still applies to us because the gift of God means

a couple of things. First, it just means salvation.

Ephesians 2 To be saved is the gift of God is to know.

God to be in relationship with Him.

You have received a gift. I mentioned earlier you got to

have a flame to fan to fan the flame.

Amen. For those of you who are not in

Christ, you are invited to receive the gift of salvation.

It's a gift, man. That's the amazing thing about

the gospel is you don't earn your way in.

It's a gift and God wants to give you that gift of knowing

him and he sent his Son Christ Jesus to die that you might

receive the gift of life in Christ.

The other gift here is sort of just ministry gifting.

Generally all believers are gifted by the Spirit, all of us.

And that's something that the church works on together is to

figure out what are your spiritual gifts that all

believers are given and also just how God's personality he's

given you and your story and your gifting plays out and how

you live. OK, so all of us have the gift

of God of salvation in Christ. If you're a believer.

And we also have like gifts like we're good at things like

teaching or serving our administration or whatever it

is. So fanning to flame that gift.

So if you all imagine a a fire right here right now.

Has anybody ever been camping anybody?

I've really not been that many times.

I remember one time I went with like a high school youth group

situation. I was not in Christ.

And now I know neither were the two guys at this campfire with

me. Amen.

My man Zaive and Jeffrey. And we stayed up all night

because we were too scared to go sleep in the tent because it

just blows my mind that raccoons could just come into my tent.

So I couldn't sleep. And I just remember like our

strategy all night with this fire was just to throw pine

needles at it. For those of y'all who've done

fires before, I meant like every 8 seconds we had to throw some

some pine needles at it. You know the idea with the a

flame is you got to build it with strong things, with wood,

with kindling, with. Yeah, you could use.

Some pine needles or whatever, but a like pine needle fed flame

ain't really a flame and it ain't that hot and we just, I

mean literally and it's pitch black.

So we were just grabbing pine needles and throwing at it all

night. Fan into flame.

The gift of God means maximize the flame.

Like if you wake up the next day when you do go camping, usually

even hours later, you'll see a few embers under the fire.

Like kind of buried. There's some ash, but if you

were to stir it, it would start to go.

And I mentioned Survivor earlier.

Basically at the end of the game, two people to have a

chance to win, make a fire, and the second the flame starts,

your work is actually getting started because they have to

build with wood and all this stuff and burn this thing down.

And the first person to burn the rope wins.

The idea is fan the flame, make it a strong effective fire.

So take your gift of salvation. Take the gift God has given you,

the Holy Spirit, and dwells you if you're a believer.

And the gifts you have like you're teaching and you're

serving in your administration and you're, you know, your walk

with the Lord generally and activate it, stir it up.

And does anybody see in the text?

What will keep? That from happening.

Look with me, what's going to keep the flame from being fanned

according to verse 7, I'll give you like 5 seconds for God gave

us a spirit not of fear. Somebody say fear.

Y'all fear is the the quencher, the squelcher, the the, the the

the stamper on the flame. Fear is that agent that just

takes what could be vibrant and makes it dormant.

If you are a believer, you cannot lose your salvation.

That's Amazing Grace, but the work of the enemy in your life

is to minimize your impact, to minimize your flame, to

minimize, to just entice you with worldliness, with

silliness, with sinfulness. But in general, the goal is you

make minimal impact. That's what he's after.

He does not want your flame burning.

Are you with me? So fear takes what could be

vibrant. It just makes it minimally

effective. Give off his little light and

heat as possible and fear is the main thing that does that.

Recently I was in a situation with some roller coasters with

my kids. Roller coasters, man.

Like people are either like let's get it or or just no like

absolutely not. Here's another fear.

Recently I saw going to the beach in the water feels a

little cold when the water when I do that toe tap and I'm like.

No, no, no, no, no, no. And then you have to get in.

Has anybody ever done this where you walk in and you're like 1

inch per 10 minutes and then somebody splashes like 5 inches

higher than you're ready for and you want to kill them?

You know what I'm talking about? And then you keep going and then

once. It's the belly button.

You're like, come on, man. Like the belly button is kind of

the cut off line of like just get in.

But then every once in a while when you know the stakes are

high and you got to get in that water, you don't do the toe tap.

You just Sprint in or you dive in, right?

Like my my favorites? Just go to the.

Deep end and dive in because I know it's going to take me about

45 minutes if I start down by the ladder y'all that's sort of

what I what comes to my mind that beach pool imagery with

fanning the flame. God has not given us a spirit of

fear where we step back, shrink back, toe, tap, count the cost,

play chess in our. Mind do all the the calculations

he's given us the the spirit of power and love and self-control.

Somebody say power? Y'all power is that focus is

that intensity is that take control is boldness is diving

in. Are you with me?

It's this idea of like I'm going for it and the the odds in front

of me aren't what dictate my risk.

It's who's with me, who's behind me?

That's. What the Spirit does in your

life, he reminds you, Not that you have the skills and the

sauce, not that you are sufficient in your cells, but

the Spirit in dwells you. Go for it, take the risk.

OK, he's also given us a power of love.

He's going to. Say in First Timothy, he says

the. Aim of our charge is love.

We're about to talk about this here in a second.

And lastly, self-control. I was reading Proverbs 16 this

morning. Says that to have control over

your spirit, I'm paraphrasing, is better than the ability to

take over a city. It's more valuable to have

control of yourself than the ability to take over something

else. It says in Proverbs I think 27,

that a man without self-control is like a city with no walls.

Self-control is a big deal, but in our cultural moment, not.

Having self-control is actually cool.

Have you noticed this is what masculinity is, is my ability to

just say what I want and I'm a grown man.

If I could say, and that's the truth that you deal with it.

I'm not talking about you should be willing to say the truth to

stand up for. I'm talking about being a punk

and then saying that you're a man by being the punk.

You see what I'm saying? It's how bold I am, is the level

of my. I'm like, listen man, you got no

self-control and you're boosting your platform off of your lack

of self-control many times, which is kind of sad, OK?

I want to give you 3. Ways to fan the flame, and then

we're going to be done. OK, Fan the flame.

What does that mean? I'm going to try to tell you as

best I can. All right, here we go.

Fan the flame by focusing on how you train.

I'm going to make them all rhyme because that's what we do OK,

Fan the flame by focusing on how you train.

Here's what I mean, y'all. There is an element.

If the Spirit of God indwells you and the the, the gospel has

grabbed your heart. You love Jesus, you agree with

him that you're a Sinner and you know God.

You have to read the Bible, you have to pray some of those just

basic layups, free throws of the Christian faith.

You got to do it. You have to read the word.

It has to be more important than your Instagram feed.

It has to get more real estate in your heart than any other

form of content. It just has to you got to sneak

it in through music and through signs and through stuff.

Some of y'all do such a good job at this, but y'all, it's it's

fundamentals for a reason. OK, We got to be in the Word.

Yes, there are things like fasting and Sabbath and all this

stuff is good and I I do have a point.

I have a mini Tanner rant coming.

There's something about the Christian.

Community. We love to train.

We actually love it. Tell me to do hard things.

Tell me to read the whole Bible in a day.

I'll do it. Tell me the hard stuff that you

know we want to be told. To train a little bit.

Some of you don't you're like no and y'all need to train.

Then others of you like tell me the hardest thing with the Bible

I could ever do and I'll do it by next Sunday and then I'll

name drop that I did it. With someone, OK, tell me to

memorize everything and listen, some of that stuff is good and

you need to do it. Memorize the scriptures.

That stuff, again, it's just sort of baseline stuff you're

standing on. It's not what you show people,

but it should be your foundation.

Does that make sense? I hope you're growing and

fasting this habit of some of these things.

I really do. And the longer you walk with

God, the more everything feels like training.

I remember a group of seminary students one time asked this,

this kind of Yoda figure, Dallas Willard, like, what discipline

are you working on right now? What's your training right now?

And they wanted to hear, I fast for eight years straight every

year. You know, they wanted that.

And he said that, you know, I've been working on not having to

have the last word and just walked off.

And I'm like, what does that mean?

It means that everything matters when you're following Jesus,

your heart posture, your motives.

He was practicing not having to always say the last thing and

fix what you think could be wrong about what he said.

He's letting you think what you think.

He's practicing that. What if all of your life is

training ground, not just when you're holding the Bible?

Are you with me? So sometimes as a pastor, I feel

like I want to tell you, read this thing, devour it, just

destroy it. And also all of your life is

spiritual. Does that make sense?

So it's both, not either or it's both.

And all of life is spiritual. Which leads me to point #2 fan

the flame by focusing on your aim.

Does that say that right on your life's aim?

Somebody say aim? See, I set y'all up.

This one should have been first, but it's second because I know

we like that training stuff. So I want this to be in your

mind more than the training. So check this out.

Paul says in First Timothy 1, the aim of our charge is love.

Somebody say aim, You know, like aim is what you're going for.

Y'all. The way the Bible envisions a

New Testament Christian is what you're aiming for is the glory

of God, the good of others, OK in your joy?

And when I say others, the good of others, it envisions that you

are a part of a local church fellowship of people and you're

living on mission. At Port City, we say up, we say

in, we say out. We're living with God.

We have a church family, sibling relationship inwardly, and then

we live out on mission. In my experience, the average

American Christian, we intuitively get I need the

radio, I need to live with God. And then when we think of loving

others, we tend to jump all the way to out.

OK, maybe I need to be in a Bible study.

I need to invite my Co workers to church.

And that's a good impulse. And you should The one that

Americans can take or leave. Is that in one?

The aim of our charge is love of your church family neighbor and

your lost Co worker neighbor. Are you tracking so like the?

When the New Testament says love your neighbor, it's.

Envisioning kind of two groups. You're living missionally,

outwardly, but you're also accountable and living one

another, bearing one another's burdens.

Those one another's have a name and a face.

Are you with me? So like God envisions that the

aim of your life is God. Word church, Word mission up and

out. Are you with me?

Some of y'all? We're still one or two of those

3. And I'm just like, hey, it's not

about perfection, but it's about aiming the way God wants you to

aim. And then the training fits

within that. And This is why I set y'all up.

If you take the. Training apart from the aiming,

you end up where you're just focused on yourself.

Does that make sense? What's happening in the church

if I put out a book right now? And here's 12.

Ways to be a better Christian. We devour it and most of them

are. That's more Sabbath, more.

It's the 12 things you need to do.

But it's not keeping in mind the aim.

Does that make sense? That's not the fault of the

author writing it, so don't hear me saying that.

And a lot of those books are a gift and I've read them all.

But I want to say to the church as they pick it up, are you live

in the three directions? Because if not, actually the aim

being oriented right might have more impact on who you become

than if you do the training apart from the aiming.

Does that make sense? Hair training with aiming, don't

train with no aim or you just working on your own frame for no

point but your own fame. Does that make sense?

And we don't think about it like that because yeah, it's a good

thing to go fast, the Sabbath and all that, but for what it

should be, the glory of God and the good of your neighbor, does

that make sense? It's not just so you can say

you've memorized X or fasted or whatever.

It's for the point of those people that you know, and for

the lost people, the glory of God.

Are you with me? Train with the right aim.

When you aim, then you train, get the aim right, then you

train right. OK, that's the idea.

And here's the third one. Most.

Important than either of those two.

I set you up again. Fan the flame by focusing on

what you acclaim. I thought for a long time about

how to make it rhyme. I'm sorry.

It's a fancy way of saying what you most care about.

What you acclaim is what you most care about.

More important than anything in your life is what you care

about. God cares about what you care

about. He knows what you care about.

Your heart is a desire factory. It craves.

It cares. It wants, it longs.

God made you that way. That's not a bad thing.

But the Christian, the Spirit filled believer who knows Jesus

and has seen his love for them on the cross.

To become a Christian is to say you're better than anything

else. So fanning the flame more than

anything just means don't grow cold in your love for Christ.

What we do in this Christian life is we get in with God and

we just start walking. And there's a disappointment

here. The Lord didn't do that the way

I thought it would, and the disappointment there.

And the older we get, we get jaded and cynical and

frustrated. Now we got some church hurt.

So I'm going to, I'm just going to slowly fade my expectations

of how good I think God is, how much I'm committed to His

church. I'll still do some training here

and there on my own. But we've become a guarded,

cynical person. And guess what has happened, my

friend? You are not as effective as you

once were for the Kingdom, though I understand it has

happened to me too. That's why we have to fan the

flame. Does that make sense?

It's not allowing the love for Christ, the passion for Christ.

What's most important about you is what you most long for and

everybody around you can see it. That's what's crazy.

Just go ask your Co workers what you love most based on what they

hear you talk about or your friends or your your teammates

or your classmates. They know.

They know what you acclaim. Well that dude has talked about

this 88 times. Oh yeah, he did tell me that one

time about this over here. Which one do they think?

You know what I mean? Like there is not that difficult

to do that calculation. So I just want to call you

behind all of this, behind every training, behind all the aiming

is just what do I want? And Paul is just begging his man

Timothy. He's like, Timothy, I love you

so much, man. You're my guy.

Fan into flame, the gift of God that is in you.

And I just want to call our church to that.

I want to call you to that. If you don't know Jesus, there's

a flame God wants to give you. He wants to gift you salvation.

He wants you to know King Jesus. Y'all.

Isn't it amazing that in this letter is everything we desire?

You desire to be wanted by somebody else the way Paul is,

just like you're my guide. Like intimacy is what we crave.

We crave a purpose like Paul has.

We crave relationships like he has with Timothy.

Everything you want is found in Christ and it's a gift.

You can't earn it. It's a gift.

Salvation is a gift. The cross is a gift.

So today as we close, I just want to call you to turn your

eyes back to the thing that actually fans the flame.

It's God's love for you. It's the cross.

You're not going to guilt yourself into fanning the flame.

It's going to be a response to seeing his love for you.

Timothy can't read this letter under a guilt of Paul's mad at

me. He's reading it knowing Paul

loves me. It's all grace and it's the same

for us. We don't leave here, but with

the list of a bunch of to do's and thinking God's frustrated

with us. We leave here knowing there's a

God who wants you to finish well, who is fighting for you

and calling you to fan the flame.

And the way you do that isn't by looking inward, it's by.

Looking at him. That's what this whole letter is

going to be over and over and over is a call back to where

this thing started back to the fundamentals, back to the I told

you it's not difficult, it's simple, but it's hard to live

with your eyes locked on Christ. Are y'all with me?

Y'all don't waste your life. Fan the flame, pray with me.

Our Father, we love you. Thank you for the gospel.

Thank you that Christ Jesus died in our place that God while we

were sinners, Christ died for us.

God, may we never grow cold. May we never grow tired of that

being the flame that we fan. God, please.

And there are many actions this church needs to activate and

there are words we need to share with each other and there's

there's burdens to bear and there's things to confess and

there's practices to put into place.

There's aiming to get realigned God, and there's some people I

believe you want to save even today and through this series,

God by just showing them that that any life apart from Christ

is a wasted life. So God do these things, help us,

we need you, we love you, we pray in Jesus name, Amen.