2 Timothy Series Introduction

going on in Port City? Family and friends.

Isaac here with the one and only Pastor Tanner.

Reverend, future doctor. Maybe I could see it.

I could see it one day. One day.

I joke with I joke with my wife like once. 1/4 I look up PhD

programs and then I remember I have 4 kids.

Are you even in ministry? If you want.

To yeah, it's like it's our our daydreaming is a yeah.

Yeah, how you doing, Tanner? I'm doing good man, excited to

be here with you. Love second Timothy.

We do have some good coffee right now y'all?

Isaac works at Coalescence now, and he knew his coffee before,

but now? No, I've seen the light.

You're ruined. For a lot I've been baptized in

the spirit of. Coffee, you are ruined.

I remember in seminary those jokers who had like that set up

at their house where like they're basically making their

own coffee from scratch. You're.

Roasting their own beans. I'm not there yet.

You're close. I'm not there yet.

Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and jump

in. Sounds good.

Second Timothy. Yep, where?

Where is it at in the Bible? Who wrote it?

Give us a little bit of background.

It's good. So Second Timothy is a letter

written by the apostle Paul, one of 13 letters.

We did a Series A few years ago, 13 letters on all of his

epistles. Epistles.

Another term for the letter. It is called Second Timothy

because it is the second letter Paul wrote to Timothy.

He wrote it in the like 806365 kind of range.

And for context, Jesus died 86 or 33.

So Jesus dies, you know, soon thereafter you have, you have

obviously the resurrection and all the, the stuff that comes

with that. Once Jesus leaves Pentecost, the

apostle Paul, Acts 9, it goes down.

And then within 25 years of that you have this letter.

So in a lot of ways, this is the early church.

Like if you love Acts and like man, how's this movement

spreading and what would it have been like to be a part of it?

We'll go read a letter like. This you know.

What I mean, so like, I love reading Acts, keeping in mind

the epistles. And it's also, you know,

encouraging just how normal it is.

Like you read the letter and what it doesn't have is a ton of

just like Timothy, go out and do all these crazy miraculous

things. Not that we don't believe in the

miraculous. We do.

We're continuationists, but so many of the epistles are about

doctrine, they're about the gospel.

And I mean, just for example, in Second Timothy chapter 2, verse

2 Timothy 2:8

8, he, this is literally what the verse says.

Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of

David has preached in my gospel, that's what.

You got clearer than that, yeah. That's what you got for your

man, the apostles right hand man.

What he's having to write him a letter about is remember Jesus.

You know what I'm saying? And that's only 30 years post

Jesus. So I think we think that things

we're struggling with 2000 years later all that different.

They're really not, man. In fact.

We need to. Same thing.

Jesus Christ, baby. Yeah, that's that's so true.

What are some of the major themes?

Yeah, I know you kind of just mentioned one, but what are some

of the other things Paul breaks down?

Yeah. For Timothy, what's he doing?

So essentially Paul is writing his guy.

This is his last letter. And in it you get the sense that

Timothy is a little bit afraid. Like chapter one verse 6 is a

famous 1. He says, for you know, for this

reason, I remind you to fan him to flame the gift of God, which

is in you through the laying on in my hands.

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

self-control. So you get the sense that

Timothy is like experiencing opposition, like a lot of people

love in his first letter to Timothy, the whole, don't let

people look down on you because you're young, you know, and set

them an example. So there's this sense in which

Timothy is starting to feel the leadership pain and pressure.

And Paul in this letter is basically going to say, welcome

to the club, buddy. And, you know, he's like, don't

be ashamed of the gospel. And by that he doesn't mean

don't be afraid to stand up on a car and say you love Jesus.

He means suffer for the gospel. Like we're calling this series

Guard the Gospel. So he uses so many phrases, fan

the flame, guard the good deposit, follow the pattern,

preach the word. Like there's so many just anchor

metaphors he's going to use. But it all comes down to like

play your role Timothy and like, just just get in this gospel

game. Don't you give up.

But a lot of it is just just do hard work sharing suffering and

like they were going to hate you because I hated Jesus.

Like it's, it's pretty just basic, don't let go of the

gospel, don't let go of Jesus. And so that's, that's the main

theme in a lot of different ways.

Is this guarding the gospel? Our, our titles in the series

are gospel courage, gospel unashamed, gospel work, gospel

workers, gospel opposition, gospel foundation, gospel

ministry and gospel people. So in a lot of different ways,

it's all highlighting the gospel and what Timothy can expect.

Like we'll say in in chapter 3, verse 12, he says, indeed,

everyone who follows the Lord is going to experience suffering.

You know, all believers are going to experience suffering of

some kind that follow, follow Christ Jesus.

And so he's just giving Timothy expectations, you know, on his

way out. He's like, here's my last will

and testament to my guy. And it's cool that the letter

ends with a bunch of people. Paul's like, shout out, shout

out, shout out. It's like Paul's about to die.

And what he's got is a lot of people, you know what I mean?

A lot of investments, a lot of relationships.

And I think in some ways that's what he wants Timothy to end his

ministry with when he's done is be able to say I fought the good

fight, I finished the race, I've kept the faith.

That's good. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. So I can imagine someone

listening to that going, oh, wow, that's great, Really

inspiring. Paul's right into a younger

minister. Yeah.

I'm not a minister, though. Yeah.

Yeah. Why should I care?

What would be kind of your response as you care about

what's in Second Timothy? No, it's really good.

Yeah. I think the most 1 to 1 is a

minister of the gospel. But a lot of those themes apply

to you if you're a plumber, you know what I mean?

You got to guard the gospel, man, man into flame.

And like, all of the themes are one to one, even though your

vocations not one to one, right. That makes sense because you

have the same. You have a heart, you have a

soul, We have a heartbeat. You know he's going to talk

about the concept of being a useful vessel unto the Lord and

like the the Christian plumber, and it's funny even saying that

phrase, the Christian who is a plumber is the is this pipe more

Christian? No, but the the plumber who

happens to be a Christian, you want to be a vessel set apart to

the master of the house, set apart as holy, useful for every

good work and you need to flee youthful passions and pursue

righteousness, faith, love and peace.

So the way vocationally that plays out for Timothy might have

meant different things. But if your heart is not

guarding the gospel, it's going to show in your life and you're

going to waste your life, you know?

So hopefully you can get to the end and say, I fought the good

fight. I finished the race, I kept the

faith. That's not like I did a good

job. It's like my heart inside and

out guarded the gospel, you know?

And I saw that in my parenting, in my work, in my neighborhood,

my school, the community. Like they know I guarded the

gospel. Yeah.

So why should we guard the gospel?

Yeah. And how do we?

Because I think when people hear the word guard, they think of

the guy who's out St. preaching maybe has a.

Massive picket. It's a term.

Not that I'm offending you, but it's offensive if I need to go

do. Something I need to be

aggressive. Good, good, good, good.

Yeah. To be clear, we're not guarding

the gospel against other people. It's in our own heart.

You know, it's like Timothy, through his fear of pressure, he

says, therefore do not be ashamed of the gospel, nor of

me, his prisoner. So at some level, a cost came

with being associated with Paul. So guard, the gospel just means,

hey, man, like, you know, there is a guilt by association with

Jesus, you know what I mean? Like when you roll with Jesus,

man, you just get lumped into things.

And like, it just means accepting that, you know?

So yeah, the term guard is the level of vigilance you should

have on your heart, you know what I mean?

And the expectations of what it means to follow Christ.

And we're going to talk about sometimes you got to cut out

sinful stuff in your life. Sometimes it's just silly stuff,

you know, like sometimes I've just got to be on guard against

how much NBA I'm consuming because it impacts everything in

my life. Does that make sense?

That's a youthful passion, if you will.

So yeah, the guard is not against some unbelieving

opponent out there somewhere. It's about it's the version of

your heart that could eventually get to the point with the

gospel. You're like, it's not worth it.

It's live your life in such a way that you get to the end and

you are just as fired up about Jesus as ever.

That's what I want for everybody in our church, everybody in our

cities to get to the end of their life and be like, man, you

know the, the, the phrase that that John Piper used was don't

waste your life. Like second Timothy is the

letter of how you don't waste your life.

That's good. That makes sense.

It's how you just live a life that counts and matters all the

way to the end and just live a life that matters.

And yeah, the the word that captures from the book and that

we name the series, Towards Your Own Heart is being on guard

towards Your Own heart about the gospel.

Does that make sense? Yeah.

But I think that's a helpful clarification.

Yeah. So in closing and kind of

wrapping up our time, what are you hoping people get out of our

series in Second Timothy? Yeah, I hope that people come

out just fired up about Jesus, that they've been saved.

Man, just some banger verses in this man.

I mean second Timothy 2 one through 7, I feel like is my

life, you know, like I'm trying to model my life on this.

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that

is in Christ Jesus. Like strength comes y'all not

through promises of a promotion or you know, strength comes

through grace that is in Christ Jesus.

You know, like the whole Christian life in many ways is

trying to grow in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

And then from that, what you've heard from me in the presence of

many witnesses in trusts of faithful men and women who will

be able to teach others also, like pass this on.

Yes. You know, our dream, of course,

is that every member will multiply.

You might multiply every year. You might multiply every five

years or just once in your whole life, but multiply your life

into another human being who then can go multiply into

somebody else and teach them these things.

Sharing suffering is a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuit since his aim

is to please the one who enlisted him, which many in our

community will understand that verse better than anybody else

says. An athlete is not crowned unless

he competes according to the rules.

And it is the hard working farmer who ought to have the

first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the

Lord will give you understanding and everything.

And so I think that this letter is something that although the

concepts aren't hard to understand, they're hard to

live. You know, they're very simple.

Yeah, but challenging. And I think we got to think over

what what the Spirit is saying to us through Paul.

And the Lord will give us that understanding.

That's great. Last question that we done is

there anything in Second Timothy that just gets you fired up,

that you're just pumped to preach about, pumped to like

share with our people? I think second Timothy 2 one

through 7 is is literally like my life in many ways.

I think another one I was listening to some of y'all might

know who Tony Morita is just a great teacher of the word.

He writes on preaching. He was a lot of our preaching

professor at Southeastern and he gave a sermon on Second Timothy

3 one time because Second Timothy 316 and 17 is like the

verses to memorize about the Bible.

All Scripture is breathed out by God.

Hey, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for

correction, for training and righteousness that the man of

God may be complete. Quit for every good work.

And he said preacher or he says, hey, God wrote a book, don't you

think you should read it? And then he said, and preacher,

God wrote a book, don't you think you should preach it?

And it sounds simple, y'all. But if there is a thing to guard

against out there somewhere, it is the version of us, the church

that thinks we can find a way to do gospel ministry without just

preaching the word, without like keeping it simple, without

sharing Christ with people. I don't care how cool you are,

how nice you love your kids. People don't get converted just

through your kindness. You have to preach the word.

You know what I'm saying? Like you've got to read the

word, you got to teach the word, you got to know the word, you

got to live the word. And so the the the centrality of

the word, even back to first Timothy says until I come devote

yourself to the public reading of Scripture, you know, and so,

man, I think there's just a simplicity to this book that

gets me fired up of it's not complicated, you know, like we

just have to live with Christ. His word is central to that.

We're not biblicists, meaning like we're not Bible thumpers.

You know, you know what I mean by that.

But what I mean by that is it doesn't I'm not advocating

second Timothy 316 and 17 doesn't mean you're like at the

pick up line. Wait.

And your kids are like, Hey buddy, John 316.

You know what that says? Now that works.

No, but the Bible should be what you're standing on as you this

it should. You should be devouring that

job, man. Just memorize second Timothy.

Just eat it. Eat this book.

You know, Eugene Peterson wrote a book called Eat This Book, and

in it he paints a view of having the Bible so in you, it's like

in your DNA, it's. Forming and shipping and

thinking how you speak, even. If you don't quote it every

second, you know what I mean, Yeah.

You should be living it. Correct.

And so just just absorb God's word, you know, so I think if I

had a prayer, and I mean, I used to challenge students like

students or so and I when I say that, I mean middle high school

students, but anybody I had a kid that memorized Colossians in

like a month, you know, like it is crazy.

That joke is a genius. But second Timothy is 83 verses.

If your student memorize this thing.

You know, I just hope that people go into the fall so

encouraged about the role of God's Word, the simplicity but

difficulty of guarding gospel centrality in their heart, and

that our church would just go into the fall fired up.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, sweet.

Yep. I know you're going to get into

it. Going to be more city.

It's been good talking to you, Grace.

Grace and Peace. Still haven't figured out a good

way to end that. That's hard, man.