Continuing God's Work (2 Timothy 2:1-7)

Well, it's good to be with you as we continue

our studies in 2 Timothy this morning. As Jace just read,

today we're looking at how to continue God's work. Now,

you may have heard before, I may have told you

the story, but as I grew up, I grew up

around aviation.

My dad was a pilot. It was a hobby.

It wasn't something he did for a career. It was

something he did as a hobby. I can remember as

a little boy going on my first flight in a

blue Super Cub.

Plane, which is a two-seater.

And I think it was, my dad was up front

flying and my mom was in the back and I

sat on her lap. So I can remember at a

very young age flying. And just throughout my life, I

just remember going to air shows and flying a lot.

And I got a lot of unlicensed training. And so

dad would get us up in the air and whatever

we were flying at the time. And he would eventually

build his own plane, which was the RV6. But I

remember many times he would get me in the air

and we would He would get everything kind of stable,

if you will, get us to the elevation we're going

to be flying in that day. And then he would

hand it over to me. He would say, all right,

you take controls. And he would let me fly. And

I would fly a little bit, do little just small things.

I never landed or anything like that, just little small

things up in the air. You know, the one thing

that I regret as a young man, when I was

kind of in teenage years, dad told me, he's like,

you know, I want you to learn to fly.

Like I did, and.

So if you will, you go to the airport, and

I'm going to set up where you can get lessons,

and I'll take care of it if you'll just commit

to taking the class and getting your pilot's license, and

I regret to tell you that I didn't do it.

I took, I think, one class or two classes, but

as a young man, I wasn't committed to do the

hard work to get my aviation's license, and I regret

that today, and as you know, many years ago, a

few years ago, my dad passed away, and And his

love for flying and his license and all that is

not passed down. Me nor any of my sisters fly.

My uncle does, but that's it. And I regret that,

that there's not someone to carry on his love for aviation.

I didn't carry it on.

I tell you that because that's really the imagery of

the passage this morning. Paul is about to pass away.

Paul's in prison in Rome. We know he writes this letter,

2 Timothy. It's his last letter he writes. He's only

a year away and And he really wants Paul, Paul

really wants Timothy to carry on something. And what does

he want him to continue or what he wants to

carry on? He wants him, as you remember a few

weeks ago, he wants him to carry on his grandmother

and mother's faith. He wants him to, his grandmother had

deep faith. His mother had deep faith. By the way,

his father was an unbeliever. But Paul wants Timothy to

carry on his mother's faith. He also wants him to

continue the ministry that Paul had instilled in him. He

was a, a missionary who'd worked, Timothy was a missionary

who'd worked alongside Paul as a young apprentice, and now

Paul's about to pass away. He wants him to continue

on that work, God's work, the ministry. He wants him

to continue on the gospel, the gospel that was entrusted

to Timothy, was entrusted to Paul, and he wants Timothy to.

Carry that on.

You know, as we mentioned last week, as we think

about our church and Bethesda and our long history here

since established here in 1884, there have been many pastors

and Ministers and dear saints of the Lord who've gone

before us.

Many of them.

Who have great legacies of faith. Great legacies of service

and doing God's work. Bruce Little, as I mentioned last week,

just a committed work to do God's work of evangelism.

John Brown committed God's work to encourage. Miss Carol Johnson

was committed to do God's work of serving our community.

And today we have a responsibility to Just as God

entrusted Timothy to carry on his work, God's entrusted you

and I to his work. And God has entrusted us

to continue on the work of many who've went before

us and have done that work. And so this morning,

it's a very simple message from Paul.

How do we do that? How do we continue on

God's work?

How do we continue on the faith of loved ones

and family members who've gone before us? How do we

continue on their work? How do we continue on their service?

How do we continue carrying the gospel to generations ahead?

That is the message for this morning. How do you

and I continue the faith of others? How do we

continue God's work? And so in this passage, Paul outlines

that for Timothy. And I hope today we'll see how

you and I can continue God's work. First, Paul begins,

he kind of gives four imperatives in this passage or commands.

for Timothy and look how it begins he says you

then my child if you remember last week as we

ended chapter one he's he's really been calling on appealing

to Timothy to to continue on his work to kind

of carry on this legacy that Paul's leaving behind and

as he's he's done that kind of the first part

of chapter one and then at the end of chapter

two he gave some examples to Timothy some examples of.

People who did not continue.

Those who abandoned the faith and He gave those examples

of those two who had turned away and were ashamed

of the gospel, ashamed of.

Paul and Jesus.

But then he gave an example of someone who did

continue the work, Onesiphorus. Onesiphorus was a man who was

in the church. He visited Paul, and he was not

ashamed to care for Paul. He was not ashamed of

the gospel. He was not ashamed of serving the Lord.

He continued on. He was not ashamed that he suffered

for the Lord. And so Paul tells him, this is

what I want you to do. I want you to

carry on. I want you to continue on my work.

I want you to continue on the faith. I want

you to suffer. And then he gives examples. And then

as his passage began, he really now, like, he puts

the ball in Timothy's court, per se. He says this.

It's almost like this call to Timothy. Okay, Timothy, what

will you do? As for you, look at the imagery.

You then... All right, Timothy, I've told you what to do.

I've given you examples of people who did not do

it and people who did it. Now it's for you.

Now you must decide, Timothy, what are you going to do?

And I would ask that of you and I today

as we come to this passage of Scripture. It's real

easy as we come in on Sunday morning and we

think about and we hear God's Word and we think about,

you know, that was great, that story about Bruce Little.

That was a great story about Carol Johnson and Miss

Joan Brown and And that was great hearing the stories

about people that have gone before us.

And not think about us. What are we going to do?

What are you going to do?

And that's this passage that says, Paul is calling to Timothy.

I hope today you hear that God's calling you.

God's asking you to respond to his word.

What will you do in continuing on God's word? Continue

on your faith of people who have gone before you.

Continue on.

Serving the Lord in his work. Listen to what he says,

how he calls him to do that. You then, he

calls him my child. If you remember, he does this.

There's a lot of repetition in chapter, beginning of chapter

two to what he said before. He calls him his

child in verse one, I'm sorry, in verse two of

chapter one. He calls it, this idea is my child.

It's the same imagery I gave you as I opened.

With this illustration.

My dad I was his child, and he wanted me

to carry on things as his child. And Paul's drawing

upon that imagery. Timothy, you're my child in effect. I

expect you to carry.

These things on. So you then, my child, and here's

the command. Here's this imperative.

Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

He tells him to be strengthened.

To be strong is maybe another idea, another word that

would be used there. Our translation says strengthen. Others says

be strong. Where's Timothy to get this strength from? Again,

there's so many parallels or repetitions that Paul is bringing

out in this passage.

It's things that he said before. He actually first.

Brought this theme of power in chapter 1. Look at

chapter 1 with me, verse 7 and 8.

Listen to what he says. Listen to this.

But of power, love, and self-control. In chapter 1, Paul

told Timothy, Timothy, God's given you a gift. What is

that gift that God gave you? God gave you the gift,

and the gift that he gave you is the Holy Spirit.

And that Holy Spirit lives within you, and the Holy

Spirit lives within you is the Spirit that empowers you.

It gives you power.

This word power there is where we get the word dynamite.

He says, Paul says, Timothy, God's called you to do

this work. God's called you to continue on this work,

to continue on this ministry, to carry on the gospel,

to carry on the faith. And he's going to do

that by giving you a gift. And the gift that

he's given you is the Holy Spirit. And so you

say today, well, pastor, how am I going to do

what God's called me to do? How am I going

to continue on this faith? How am I going to

continue carrying this gospel, sharing the gospel? How am I

going to continue In suffering, how am I going to

do these things? It's the same question that Paul had.

And Timothy says to Paul, Paul, you're not going to

do it on your power. You're going to do it

by God's power. And the power that you have is

not the power of you. It's the power of the

Holy Spirit that lives within you that God gave you

as a gift.

Timothy finds strength today.

As for you, Timothy, you begin by saying, I'm going

to continue God's word by first by saying, I'm going

to find my strength. I'm going to find my strength

in the Lord. You notice this imagery of this passage.

He says, notice what he says, be strengthened, right? Find

that power. The word strengthened there is actually a derivative

of the same word power that's in chapter 1 verse 8.

So it's a He's using.

The same idea, the same idea of power. So be strengthened.

But how is he to be strengthened from? What's the source?

By the grace that is in Christ Jesus. You see,

it's the grace of God that gives him the gift

of the Holy Spirit. It's the grace of God that's

saved Paul.

It saved Paul. It saved Timothy. Grace refers to the undeserving.

Favor that provides us with salvation. That's what grace means, right? God,

it's not what I deserve. I don't deserve salvation. I

don't deserve your forgiveness. It's your grace that gives me

what I do not deserve, right? That's what grace is.

And Paul says, Timothy, as you think about continuing God's work,

I want you to find strength. And I want you

to find strength in the grace. Now, before in chapter 1,

he says, what, the power that was a gift by

God through the Holy Spirit. But notice what he describes here,

this power. This power is what? Listen to those words here.

My child be strengthened by what? The grace, and where

does this grace come from? That is in Christ Jesus. See,

the Holy Spirit came from God. Grace comes from Christ.

You know what he's drawing upon? He's drawing upon this grace,

and this grace is this undeserved favor from God, gift

from God. You think about that for a minute. You

think about times in our life we feel powerless. We

feel like we don't have the ability, the power to

do what God.

Wants us to do.

I think one of the great examples of that is sin, right?

I tell you, all of us in this room feel

powerless over sin, don't we? And the good news for

all of us today is that we all came to

a place where we realize, and I hope you have,

if you've ever done that today, I hope today you'll

find the grace of God. But there was a time

in our life where we all realized that we were

sinners and we were powerless over sin.

Our only hope was what?

The grace of God, that God's grace would save us,

forgive us what we've done wrong, and give us victory

over that sin. That's God's grace. And that's the power

of God's grace. And Timothy, Paul was telling Timothy, just

as you recognize the power of God's grace to save you,

that same power of God's grace to save you is

the same power of God's grace that empowers you to

do the work that God's calling you to do. Do

you realize that today? The same power that God gives

you to overcome sin is the same power of his

grace that Christ wants to give you to accomplish the work.

He's calling you to. That's the good news.

Paul says to Timothy, find strength in God's grace. He needs,

he wants Timothy to recognize he's calling him to something.

He's calling him not to be ashamed. He's calling him

to face suffering. He's calling him to be committed to

do God's work. And he wants Timothy to recognize he

can't do that on his power. He must depend upon God.

The power of God's grace. This week, I was coming home.

I played tennis real early this morning. One morning, about 6.30

that morning, I was headed back from a tennis match

real early.

And I was headed in, like I said, about 6 o'clock.

And my truck was kind of messing around. It kind

of sounded a little funny. And I started coming back

from that. And about that time, I was coming down 147.

And my truck was stuttering and puttering. And next thing

you know, it died.

Now, I want you to know I've got a nice truck.

I've got a Ford F-250 truck.

It's got a 6.0 turbo power stroke diesel.

Just grind a little bit. I mean, it's a strong truck.

But you know what?

The thing about that truck, as strong as it may be,

as strong as that motor inside of it may.

Be, without power, it is powerless. It's powerless. And it's

got to have some type of energy, right?

No matter what vehicle you have today, every vehicle has

to have energy. It has energy from electric, energy from gas,

energy from diesel. Everything has to have some source of energy. Well,

suddenly going down 147, my.

Truck lost all its energy.

It does have diesel, but somehow it got disconnected from

its energy source and it rendered it powerless. And I

want you to understand as we think about our lives today,

we must realize, God, you may have given me abilities.

You may have given me skills. You may have given

me different things. But, God, if you ever want to

use me and accomplish your work through me, God, I

cannot do it of my strength or my ability or

my skill or my power.

God, I must have your power in me. I've got

to have you. That is the.

Power that's within me to accomplish what you want to

do in and through me. Yesterday, there was a dear

man in the church I served with at Olive Grove,

the church I served at just before here. His name

was Billy Aiken. He's a dear friend and neighbor and

church member. And I was able to go to his

service yesterday. And they told a story.

And I can remember Mr. Billy telling me the story. Mr.

Billy lost his daughter from cancer. And that was one

of the hardest things he ever faced in his life,

losing a daughter. And he would tell me just how

hard it was and how he struggled in that suffering.

He said that, he tells the story that one day,

just after she died, he just.

Couldn't get over it. It just ripped into pieces.

And one day, he had a little farm and he

raised some goats. And one day, he went out on

that pasture with a, where the goats were, and just

fell upon his knees and said, Lord, I can't handle

this suffering.

I can't do it. God, I've got to have you.

You've got to take this from me.

And he said in an unbelievable way that day, the

Lord just gave him his grace and his power to

take that burden. He never got over it, but to

help carry that burden from him. It's a great example

to you and I, right? In this life, as we

continue on the faith of our people that have gone

before us, as we continue on doing God's work, we're

going to face some suffering. We're going to face some

hard times, some difficult seasons. We're going to face some

tough things. And just as Billy fell upon his knees

and said, Lord, we need your power.

I need your power.

If we're ever going to do what God's called us

to do, we must come to the end of ourselves.

We fall upon our knees and say, God, I need

your grace.

I need your power. I need you to do a

work in me.

I love what 2 Chronicles 20 says as the army

comes against Israel. And they cry out to the Lord

and say, Oh God, we're powerless against this great horde

that's coming against us. We don't know what to do,

but our eyes are on you. There's times where we

need to do that, right? Lord, we're powerless in this. Lord,

we're putting our eyes on you. We need God's strength

to face suffering. We need the strength of God's grace

to not be ashamed of the gospel and witness to

our loved ones. We need the strength of God's grace

to continue the work to teach and encourage and do

God's work in ministry. I wonder today, Are you trying

to operate and continue what God's called you to do

in your strength or God's strength today? As we look

to continue God's work, let's find strength in God's grace. Secondly,

he tells Timothy how as he continued God's work, we

entrust to others God's work. Look at this passage of Scripture.

He says in the next command, And what you have

heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust

to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

If you look at this, again, this is another command.

There's four different imperatives. He tells Timothy, right, to be

strengthened through God's grace. But if you just put that,

you see the next word in verse 2, and so

this conjunction that connects to the previous section. So you

can almost read it this way. You then, my child,

what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses,

entrust to faithful men. This is the next thing he's

to do. This is the next command. This is the

next instruction from Paul that he's calling to Timothy to

respond to.

It's interesting.

Once again, he's calling to Timothy or appealing to Timothy

to respond. He's also responding to what he's previously said.

Look at verse 13 of chapter 1. He tells Timothy,

listen to this, follow the pattern of sound words that

you have heard from me. in faith and love that

are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells

within you, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. He

tells Timothy, follow the pattern of sound words. He's telling Timothy,

throughout your time with me under my mentorship and as

I've said earlier in the message, Timothy was the apprentice

of Paul. He had went on him with missionary journeys.

He was a messenger who took letters to different churches

for Paul. He had been under a lot of Paul's

teaching and a lot of under Paul's leadership and ministry

and all.

Kinds of different things.

And Paul knew that and Paul even calls him to say,

follow the pattern. He says, I mean, there's a pattern.

There's something that has been consistent, right? There's been a

consistent pattern or outline or thing done. And Paul recognized, Timothy,

you've been around me enough and you've heard my teaching

enough that you've caught the pattern. You can recognize the

pattern of my teachings. And he calls on Timothy to

follow that pattern. And now in chapter 2, he says,

he's drawn upon that same imagery, what you have heard

from me in the presence of many witnesses. Many witnesses

mean that not only did Timothy hear it, many people

heard it. Churches throughout Asia and Macedonia and different areas

had heard Paul's teaching. As far as Rome, they had

heard his teaching. They had seen the same pattern that

Timothy had seen.

And now.

Paul is telling Timothy, Timothy, you've seen this pattern. You've

heard this pattern. You followed it. Now, Timothy, listen to

what the instruction is. Again, he brings this imagery of entrust.

We said this a few weeks ago. In verse 14,

he tells Timothy, you follow the pattern, right?

Follow my pattern.

He's saying, Paul is telling Timothy, God gave you something

and trusted something to you, and you need to guard that.

You need to protect that.

You remember, as we talked about this a few weeks ago,

I told you that my dad not only was fly,

but he was a cook and had a barbecue restaurant,

and he had these family recipes.

You remember?

And I told you, he gave me the family recipes

of the barbecue sauces and all that. And he told me,

you make sure you share those with your sister, right,

and your family. But you can't just give them out

to everybody, right? But he entrusted that to me. And

that's that same imagery. Paul is saying, Timothy... God's entrusted

you with something, and it's far greater than a recipe.

What is it?

It's the gospel. It's God's word. It's been entrusted to you.

And now in this chapter here, he says, you then, Paul,

you then, Timothy, not only find strength in the Lord,

but you then, Timothy, what's been entrusted to you? God's word,

the gospel. You now are what? You're going to entrust

that to others. Listen to the imagery. You see, unlike

my dad who wanted me to kind of just share

it with family, Paul wants Timothy to share God's word

and the gospel to many others. And that they would

take that gospel and they would take the deposit of

that gospel and they would trust it to other faithful men.

And therefore, the gospel and the ministry and the teaching

will continue to be passed on to more and more people, right?

That's the imagery here. You know, it's interesting that now

is the time of September, right? You go to the store, Walmart, Sam's,

my favorite, and now there's Halloween stuff everywhere, right? All

kinds of decorative stuff and jack-o'-lanterns and all that stuff

and All this scary stuff. You want to know one

of the most terrifying passages in all the scripture?

To me, there's a lot of terrifying passages. But one

of the scary passages to me in scripture is Judges 2.10.

You know what Judges 2.10 says?

Let me read it with you.

And all that generation were also gathered to their fathers.

And there arose another generation after them who did not

know the Lord... That's a terrifying passage.

You know what's terrifying?

Because it means that there were some people who had

the gospel, who had the word of God, and they

did not entrust it to other people after them. And

there arose a generation that did not know the word

of God, did not know what God had done. You see, listen,

the reason why Paul is telling Timothy, Timothy, this has

got to continue. You've got to find strength in the Lord,

but you've got to trust what you know is God's word,

the pattern of God's word, the teaching of words. You've

got to entrust it to others because we've got to

continue the gospel for future generations. And I tell you

and I today, we've got to carry it on. We've

got to carry on the word of God. And we've

got to Trust it to others. There's been some great

saints that have gone before us in this church. And

there's great saints here today. And I would challenge you today, church,

who are you entrusting God's word to? God's given you

that word. He's given you a deposit. He's given you

an understanding of his word. How are you passing that

on to the generations after you? We've got great Bible

teachers here today, the teachers in our small groups and

our growth groups. What teachers are you training up to

take your place one day? Can I ask you today,

how are we continuing to train up future teachers? How

are we training up future people to lead? We've got

a great choir here, but it concerns me. You know

what concerns me? There's not that many tenors left. There's

not that many bases left. Who are we going to

train up to take on in the days to come,

in the futures to come? Music, teaching, greeting, working with children. Tanner,

as he leads the band, who's he training up to

do music? How are we training up future generations to

do the work of the Lord? We need more encouragers.

We need more evangelists. We need more people who do

work in our community.

May we raise up. May we do the work of

the Lord. But we've got to trust that work to

other people.

That the generations to come will know God's word. And

they'll know his work. I want you to see, secondly,

we are to continue God's work. We are to find

strength in God's grace. We are to trust others to

do God's work. Third, we should suffer for God's work.

You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, pastor.

Oh, I'm good with the whole, okay, I'll find strength

in God's word. I'm good with the, okay, I need

to train someone. I need to teach someone else. We

need to pass it on. But suffering, suffering, listen to

what Paul tells Timothy in verse 3. Share in suffering

as a good soldier in Christ Jesus. Again, he's reiterating

what he's said before.

If you go to verse 8 of.

Chapter 1, he says, Therefore, not be ashamed of the

testimony about our Lord, nor me as a prisoner, but

share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.

He calls him to suffer. He tells him to share

in suffering.

He's not to maybe just endure suffering, just like let's

try to get through it. No, he's to take it on.

He's to share in it. He pleads with him. Again,

you can remember last week there were examples, right?

He told him to share in suffering.

Then he gave examples, example of two men who were

ashamed of the gospel, not willing to suffer. They turned

away from the Lord. Onesiphorus was a man who was what?

Not ashamed of the gospel, not ashamed of the chains.

He suffered.

It's thought that Onesiphorus died. Paul prayed for his family.

It's evident that Paul was suffering. Paul's in prison in Rome.

He's suffering so much, he doesn't even get a meal.

He has to depend upon people to bring meals to

the prison. It was thought.

That at that time, the prison he was in was underground.

They would also keep the bodies there. If someone died

in prison, they would remove the bodies. They depend upon

someone else to give the bodies. So here Paul is

in a prison underground. There's no light. He's depending upon

someone to bring him food. It stinks from dead bodies.

And he's in chains, and he's writing this letter to

Timothy in just a Less than a few months away,

he's going to die.

And he tells Timothy, Timothy.

I want you to continue my work after I die. Timothy,

I want you to carry on my teaching. Teach others

to teach like you've heard me teach.

Timothy, Timothy, suffer. Just suffer like me.

I think, you ever had that, like, There's time where

you've gotten really sick, you know, got a cold or something,

and it was like so bad, like, and you said

this statement, I was so sick, I would not wish

that upon my worst enemy, I mean.

That's the imagery of what we think of suffering. We suffer.

We don't want others to suffer like we suffer.

But Paul is not wishing suffering upon Timothy. Don't misunderstand this.

But you ever had that person who's like, well, I

don't get the flu shot because I ain't ever had

the flu.

I'm fine. I'm not going to get sick or I

don't ever get the cold. Not me, not me.

And they just, they have this thought in their mind

that they are immune from any sickness, right? And I

tell you that because many times, hear me, many times

that's the way we respond to suffering. We think as

Christians that we are immune to suffering, that we should

not suffer because And so therefore, okay, I know missionaries

will suffer. I know some other people will suffer, but

not me, not me. I'm not going to suffer. And

Paul is trying to get Timothy to understand. Timothy, if

you serve the Lord, and if you continue God's work,

and if you continue to faith, and if you're not

ashamed of the gospel, you will suffer. You're going to suffer.

You ever gotten frustrated because you suffered? I tell you,

I've told you this story before, but when I was

31 and I was a young pastor at my first

church and Brandy got sick, transverse myelitis, I'll be honest

with you, I was very frustrated with God. I thought, God,

I surrendered my life to serve you at 17 years old.

I've left my family. I've left my home. I went

to school and I went to a lot of school

and I don't like school. And I did all this

for you, God. And God, if I did this for you,

then you should keep me from suffering. There's times in

my life in ministry I'd be pastoring a church and

get criticism from, hey, they didn't like how I preached.

They didn't like the decision I made. They didn't like

this or that. And there'd be suffering as being a pastor.

And there was times, Lord, I just don't think this

is fair. I shouldn't suffer. I should be immune from suffering.

And Paul was wanting you and I to hear today, listen,

if we continue in God's work, we will suffer. And

we must be willing to share the sufferings of Christ. Listen,

he gives three analogies and just quickly I'm going to

walk you through these. He says, no soldier gets entangled

in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the

one who enlists. He gives an analogy of a soldier

who gets entangled in civilian pursuits. Today we have soldiers

all across our world today and they are, they're They're

suffering long nights, long days, working on battleships, getting entangled

in all kinds of conflicts throughout our world. And why

do they continue in this suffering? Why do they go

through the difficulties? Why do they leave their families? Why

do they commit to serve this country? Why do they

do all this? Because they want to please who they serve.

He gives another analogy of an athlete. An athlete in

biblical times would be required for a 10-month strict discipline

where they would be disciplined athletically, what they do physically.

They were restricted from their.

Diets, all kinds of things.

They had to do that if they were going to

compete in the games. That was according to the rules.

And notice what he says here. An athlete is not

crowned unless he completes according.

To the rules.

He's got to do the 10-month discipline in order for

him to compete. And why does he do the discipline?

Why does he endure the physical things? Why does he

commit to the 10-month plan?

For the crown.

Why is that athletes today, why do they lift weights?

Why do they do diet restrictions? Why do they endure

the tackling of the football games? And all the injuries

might come, they do it for the prize, the Super Bowl.

He gives another example of a farmer. Farmers work long hours,

get up before dawn, work till dusk. They work through

this heat and we all know it's been very, very hot.

And they endure the suffering of the weather. They endure

the suffering of long hours. And they do all that.

Why? For the harvest. For what will come at the end.

And Paul is drawing all those imageries of you and

I and.

Saying to you and I, why would you suffer?

Why would you suffer?

You suffer because you want to please him. Say, Lord,

today I suffer because, Lord, I want my life to

please you, Lord. I commit my life to serve you. Lord,

I'll commit to suffering because, Lord, it's not my pleasure

or my happiness or my comfort that I live for. Lord,

you're my prize. Lord, you're what I live for. not

my happiness, not my comfort.

Lord, I'll work hard. I'll serve you.

Because, Lord, there's coming a day when you return again

and I will reap the harvest of heaven. So, Lord,

I'll compete.

I'll work. I'll fight for you, Lord.

I wonder today, maybe today you're suffering. Maybe it is

loss like my friend Billy Akin. Maybe it is some

suffering you're facing physically. Maybe it is criticism or attacks

from you try to live for the Lord and you

have people coming against you. Today, the Lord's saying, listen, continue.

Don't worry about pleasing them, please me. Don't get your

eyes focused on the rewards of this life. Focus your

eyes on me. I'm your reward. Continue to work till

the end. The end when the harvest of heaven comes.

Will you say Lord I'll suffer till the end. Until

you come and take me home. I want you to

see today. We are to continue God's work. We are

to find strength in God's grace. We are to trust

God's work to others. Third we are to suffer for

God's work. Lastly we are to reflect on God's word.

This is what he says here. He ends with this

appeal to Timothy.

How about you, Timothy?

He's calling to you today.

How about you? What will you do? How will you continue?

He does this.

He ends by, think over what I say. It's interesting

the way he uses this word in the Greek. It

could be, think.

Over is the.

How it's described here, what I say. It could be saying,

reflect on what I'm saying. Or simply, in the Greek,

it could be seen as pay attention or listen up.

He really wants Timothy to kind of settle down, remove

all distractions, and really listen to what he's saying. And

what does he want him to hear.

At the end? For the Lord will give you understanding

in everything.

You ever had those times where it's just really bad

at this time of the age and all of us

have smartphones, right? You ever had that time that someone's

talking to you and you're in the middle of a

conversation and you get an alert on your phone and

they're talking to you and you look down at your

phone and you're looking at whatever alert you got from

who knows where, CBS or Harris Teeter or whatever it

may be. And you're looking at what kind of deal

they're going to give you or what news article comes up,

tells you something.

And you're totally not hearing what that person says.

Just the other day, this week, we were in the

office and Tanner was talking through me with his sermon.

He was prepared for Wednesday night and we were working

through his passage together. And we were talking about the

Word of God and I got alert on my phone

and I looked down and Tanner, he just kept going.

And I just was right here.

He kept going.

And then he looked at me and was like, I said,

can you say that again? I totally missed everything he

just said because my mind was focused on something else

and I missed what he was saying.

This is kind of what Paul is saying in this passage. Listen,

so many.

Times God wants us to continue his work in us.

He's calling on us. Hey, you, you, you respond. What

about you? And we're so distracted by other things in

our life that we miss out. Listen, we miss out

on what God's trying to say to us. What God

wants from us. And listen to what Paul says here.

For the Lord will give you understanding in everything. He'll

give you understanding of His power through His grace. He'll

give you understanding of who you should teach and who

you should train. He'll give you understanding about your suffering

and future suffering. Proverbs 22, 6 says, The Lord gives wisdom.

From His mouth comes knowledge and understanding. Today, I wonder,

what is God saying to you?

Today, are you listening? Today, are.

You looking to Him for understanding of, Lord, what you

want me to do? Lord, how am I going to

continue Lord, how am I going to train? Lord, how

am I going to endure this suffering? Lord, today I.

Need your understanding. I need your word. Lord, help me

listen today. I need you. Tanner's going to come and

lead us in the song and the band's going to come.

I want her today.

Listen, Paul called Timothy to respond. Will you respond to

the Lord today? Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for this morning. We thank you, Lord,

for your word.

God, we thank you, Lord, that today you call us

as you call out Timothy to respond.

Lord, you call us to respond, Lord, to your word.

Lord, I pray today we would consider of where we

are finding our power. If we're trying to walk in

our strength or our power or our might, Lord, we

are looking to you for your power and your grace.

grace that saved us forgave us is the same grace

Lord that you want to empower us with today to

continue what you've called us to Lord I.

Pray we would lean in Lord to your word Lord

I pray today that we would be not.

Only Lord may we find power but God help us

find out help us entrust Lord your word to others

raise up future generations that know your word and teach

your word Lord help us Lord Lord, endure suffering, Lord,

for you, knowing, Lord, you are who we please. Lord,

you are our prize, and heaven is our reward.

Lord, I pray today, Lord, that we would listen. We

would look to you for understanding.

May we not be distracted by the business of our life,

the distractions from the world, but God, today, may we

Here you call us, and Lord, as you call us,

as you call us to respond, Lord, may we say,

here I am, Lord.

Use me. Mold me. Make me. Break me. Lord, may

we today respond, Lord, to your word. Lord, we love you.

We thank you, Lord, for today. In your name we pray.

Amen.

I'd love to pray for you if I can here

at the altar. If you'd like to just pray at

the altar, you're welcome to. If you say today, you know, Pastor,

I've never put my faith in Jesus Christ. I don't

know the power of his grace. Today, I'd love to

talk to you about how you can put your faith

in Him for salvation. Let's stand together and sing.

Holy, holy is.

He Sing a new song To Him who sits on Heaven's.

Mercy seat.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Holy, holy is He.

Sing a new song.

To him who sits.

On heaven's mercy seat.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God.

And is to come.

With all creation sing.

Praise to the King of kings You are my everything

And I will adore you Clothes and rainbows of living color.

Flashes of lightning, rolls of thunder. Blessing and honor stream.

Wise King, yeah. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

Who was and is and is to come. With all

creation I sing. You are my everything, and I will

adore You. You are my everything, and I will adore You.

Filled with wonder, awestruck wonder, at the mention of your name.

Jesus, your name.

Is power, breath and living water, such a marvelous mystery.

Oh, God Almighty, who was and is and.

Is to come.

With all creation I sing.

Praise to the King of kings. You are my everything

and I.

Will adore you. is the Lord God Almighty who was

and is.

And is to come.

With all creation.

So God Almighty, the.

One that is and.

Is to come.

With all creation I sing praise to the.

King of kings.

You are my everything and I will adore you.

Will you pray with me? How has the Lord spoken

to you today? Maybe you today, you're here and you've

been trying to serve the Lord. But if you're real honest,

you've been doing it in your own strength.

And you're worn out today. Maybe today you say, Lord,

I need your power. I need the power of your grace.

The grace that saved me, God, I need your power

to fill me to be used by you, God. Maybe

the Lord's calling you to serve him and you say,

I don't know how I can do that, Lord. You

just cry out, Lord, I need your power. I want

your grace to be used by you, Lord. Maybe you

say today, Lord, help me teach others. Show me, Lord,

what gifts you've given me and help me train others

to take that same gift and use their gifts.

Maybe you say today, Lord, I'm suffering today and I

felt like I was immune to it, Lord.

Lord, help me suffer today. and sharing suffering Lord to

please you give me understanding Lord today as I think

about what your word says to me right now you

just respond to how the Lord spoken to you this

morning Lord, we thank you, Lord, for your word. God,

you've called us, Lord, to continue. To continue the faith,

the work. continue not being ashamed, Lord, to continue in suffering.

Lord, today we.

Declare, Lord, we need your power. We need the power

of your grace, Lord, upon us. So, Lord, we today,

we come and.

Ask, Lord, you to fill us, use us, mold us,

break us, Lord. Draw us, Lord, do you.

Lord, I pray that today, as we've heard your word,

that today we would listen to Lord, we reflect on

what your word has said to us, and we would

seek to apply it in our life, to put.

It in action, to be doers of your word. God,

we thank you for this morning. We ask, Lord, you

lead us. In your name we pray.

Amen.

You may be seated.

I'm going to ask the ushers to come up. They're

going to take up the offering this morning. As you give,

there's different ways for you to give. I think it

pops up there on the screen. So we encourage you

just to give as the Lord has given you to

give back. We highlight different.

Things that we do.

One of the things that we do with your gift

as you give is we help care for others who

have needs in our church body. And so just recently

we've had some needs, needs to help out someone in

our church who was having some trouble paying their rent.

So we helped out there. Another member was struggling with

just some housing needs that they had.

So we helped out.

And so I tell you that because we We've been blessed,

but we've also kind of run that little fund dry

in caring for others, which is a good thing. I

like running it dry because that means that we're caring

for others in our body. But if you'd be willing,

we ask you to pray about this. We're going to

take up an offering today and ask you to give

to your tithes. But if you want to help out

with some of these needs, we're looking for around $ 1, 000

just to help kind of get this this budget line

back into positive. We'd love, that would help us out.

So we ask you just continue to pray about that

as well. We just thank you for your giving because

when you give, you care for our body and the

needs that come up within our body.

So let's pray. Lord, we love you. We thank you, Lord,

that you give us a church body to care for.

And Lord, we, at times, Lord, we have needs within

church members, within our body, people who have been faithful here.

And so God, thank you for blessing us to be

able to give. And, Lord, we pray that as we

continue to have future needs, that, Lord, we'd be faithful, Lord,

to what you call us to.

Lord, we love you.

We thank you, Lord, for you allowing us to be

a part of your work here at Bethesda. May we

continue to give back that your gospel and that future

generations might continue to hear, Lord, your word.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

If you turn to your attention to the screen, this

week starts our North Carolina Missions Offering. So, Miss, you know, Helene.

impacted Western North Carolina, and there's so many people without

a house, homes. And so North Carolina, Baptist, Baptist on Mission,

have rebuilt houses, and they're continuing. This is, you know,

that's one thing that's different about Samaritan's Purse and other organizations.

When they go in, they go in temporarily just to

give temporary relief, but they're not long-term. Baptist on Mission

are there for years to come until those homes get rebuilt.

And so North Carolina Mission offering that money, if you

get the North Carolina Missions offering, that money goes to

continue to do rebuilds in North Carolina and disaster relief

throughout our state.

So watch this video. It tells you a little bit

more about it.

What does it mean to live sent? It means taking

the hope of the gospel across North Carolina, throughout the

United States, and around the world. Through the North Carolina

Missions Offering, North Carolina Baptists are living sent together. Your

gifts support church planning, Baptist on Mission, and local Baptist associations,

helping share the love of Christ wherever there is a

need and creating opportunities for people to hear the gospel.

Because of your generosity, church planners are being sent and

living sent in communities across our state. A portion of

every gift also supports your local Baptist associations, helping churches

live sent through mission projects and ministry opportunities in your

own community. The offering also equips volunteers to live sent

through Baptist on Mission, responding to disasters, serving through medical

and dental ministries, helping families rebuild in Western North Carolina,

and engaging in mission projects across the United States and

around the world.

I will serve you, Lord. I will serve you, Lord.

When you give to the North Carolina Missions Offering, you're

helping North Carolina Baptists live sent every day. Together, we're

taking the gospel to our neighbors, our nation, and around

the world. Together, we are living sent.

Offering through the month of September.

So just pray about that. The Lord has you give.

We encourage you to be a part of that. Big

three as we finish up. So we're doing the uniform

drive for Research Triangle Academy. If you want to be

a part of that, you can go to our website.

Also call our office. We can give you more information.

Then prayer walk next Sunday from 4 to 5, 15,

I think. And then lastly, Wednesday night prayer and devotion.

We have a great time here on Wednesday night with

our students and with our children. I'm doing a series

on revival. And so we'd love for you to be

a part of our Wednesday night. If you've not been

a part of that, we invite you to come.

As we finish today, we're going to finish by reading

scripture together. Let's stand.

And so one of the things we want to do

more in our service is read scripture together.

So we're going to read this together. Hopefully there it is.

All right.

So I'm going to, I'm going to start it and

you read along with me. Go therefore and make disciples

of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, son,

and of the Holy spirit, teaching them to observe all

that I've commanded you. And behold, I am with you

always to the end.

Of the age. Well, You are sent. God is with

you as we go. Amen. Thank you for coming. We'll

see you next time.