God Has Not Given You a Spirit of Fear | 2 Timothy 1:1–7

Hey, my name is Caleb.

I am one of the pastors here.

Uh, and welcome.

If this is your first time, we're glad you're here.

If you're uh worshiping with us online, we're we're thankful that we have that technology where we can do that.

Now, this is the start of the first uh the new semester for River Oak.

This is kind of the week where everything begins to relaunch, where all of our groups, uh Iwanas kicks off, uh all the things begin to relaunch.

And so this is a time where where where you where what you signed up for a couple weeks back, you actually show up to uh now.

So, right, this is the this is the time where you're like, okay, I'm actually gonna do something on Tuesday night or Wednesday night or Thursday night.

I'm gonna put that as a repeating event in my calendar.

I'm gonna be bold, I'm gonna show up.

We know that it is through deep relationship that deep discipleship happens in the life of the believer.

And you even see that as we jump into the series in 2 Timothy.

The series we're calling uh grit and grace.

It's the call of uh every believer, and Paul, in his second letter to Timothy, he says, Hey Timothy, because of the grace of God in your life and over your life, have some grit as you walk out the mission of God where he leads you.

So here's what grace is, just to explain it to you for a minute.

Grace is uh something that you've been given that you did not deserve.

Grace is a blessing over your life that you did not earn.

For Timothy, man, the grace that that was shown to Timothy was he was dead in his sin and he heard the gospel and was saved from his sin.

That he was then called into ministry, and then he was sent to walk this ministry out.

That he was sent to experience life and life abundantly in Christ, that God has been gracious with him.

Paul says, because God has been gracious with you, that he saved you, he's called you, he sent you, have endurance and perseverance for what God has called you to, he's also gonna provide for you in.

And maybe you should hear that this morning, too, is that God's gonna call you to things, he's gonna lead you to hard things, he's gonna lead you to things that you're like, this is above my capacity, and the truth is it is above your capacity, but he is good, and he provides.

He says, So have some grit in that.

Don't be easily crumbled.

Endure, have persistence, perseverance.

So in this letter, Paul is writing to this guy, Timothy, and you'll notice it's 2 Timothy.

That means this is the second letter to Timothy.

In 1 Timothy, Paul writes to young Timothy, who's going to be a pastor in Ephesus, and he says, Here's how the church should be ordered.

Here's how you should orchestrate the church.

Here's where elders and deacons and leaders and pastors, here's how this all should be ordered.

And then in 2 Timothy, that was in 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, he says, Here is how you endure in the ministry that he's going to call you to.

Here's how you walk this out.

The ministry that he's calling you to.

Now, here's what you should understand that in uh 1 Timothy, Paul's writing from a place of freedom.

He's writing from a place where ministry is going well, he's doing well, and things are moving forward.

In 2 Timothy, Paul is writing uh from prison.

He's actually mentally, physically, spiritually preparing for his execution.

That this is his final farewell.

And so if you're gonna study 2 Timothy well, if you really want to grasp the depth of this text, then it should actually be read uh with some emotion.

That it's a spiritual father, as we're seeing, encouraging his spiritual son, pushing him, preparing him, uh, and and calling him for the work of ministry.

He's saying, Hey, spiritual father to spiritual son.

Here's what it looks like for you to endure, for you to walk this out, even when I'm not here anymore, even when I'm not around to encourage you.

That this is this uh deeply emotional, but also deeply meaningful text that Paul is writing to Timothy, but also gives us the picture that everything Paul is gonna say is very important because Paul doesn't know if he's gonna write another letter.

Paul doesn't know if he will ever see this man again.

This is how he starts.

This is 1 Timothy, or 2 Timothy, I'm sorry, chapter 1, verse 1.

He says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will, for the sake of the promise of life in Christ Jesus.

And then he says, to Timothy, my dearly loved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

So in this time, what would happen is when uh they would write a letter, the author would sign the beginning of the letter.

So if you say, This is from Paul, and and then he would say, and I'm writing to in verse two, you say, he said, I'm writing to Timothy.

And and this is his second letter, as we said.

So it's interesting to me, is they already know each other.

They already know each other.

Why is he introducing himself?

Like this is like me calling home and my son answering, and me being like, this is the Caleb Waldrum.

I am a seminary alumni, undergraduate alumni, barely survived high school alumni.

And then my my wife would be like, who's on the phone?

It's dad, right?

He's doing that thing again.

Where he's right, like they are he already knew him, and yet he writes this letter to his spiritual son, and he's like, It's me, Paul.

I'm an apostle.

Called by the will.

Why would he do this?

And I think there's two reasons why he would do this.

Because Paul wants Timothy to know that this letter isn't casual.

This isn't some like, hey, buddy, just checking in.

Like that, this is actually a very important letter.

He says, I'm an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will for the sake of the promise of life in Christ.

What he's saying, the words that I am writing towards you are as an apostle chosen by God through Christ, are the words of God.

You should take them seriously.

I'm not writing to you as a friend, I'm not writing to you as a close relationship, I'm writing to you through the power of God, called by God, using the words that God has given me.

So you should understand this is important.

Don't skip a line, don't read quick.

Take notes, pay attention.

Timothy, this is important.

You should take it seriously.

And then the the the other thing that I see him do is three times in the first two verses, he puts another name, other than Timothy and Paul, in the writing.

This other name is Christ Jesus.

And so what you should understand is that uh Christ is not Jesus' last name.

I thought that was Mr.

Christ, right?

Like, no.

In fact, Christ is the title for Jesus.

Christ means Christos.

It's anointed, Savior, King, Lord.

He says, our Savior, our King, our Lord Jesus.

I write to you, and here's what he says: if you look at how he uses it, I write to you through Jesus as an apostle by Jesus.

He's given me the ability to write to you this.

He says, and I write to you for Jesus for the sake of life in Christ.

And I write to you from Jesus, from God the Father and Christ Jesus.

Man, everything I'm writing to you is not my own thoughts, not my own ideas, but rather the Lord is deeply involved in this, deeply involved in the words that you're gonna read.

You should understand them and take them, meditate on them, be changed by them.

And the same is for you and me when we open God's word.

That though Paul wrote to Timothy by the power of God, he's also reserved it and preserved it so you and I would read and understand the words of God.

That this is important for us.

We shouldn't relegate this to the sidelines of our day, we shouldn't just stumble upon God's word every once in a while, that we should eagerly hunger for his word.

And here's what Paul is saying to Timothy.

He's saying, Me, an apostle of Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my dearly loved son.

To Timothy, the one who has a great identity, the one who has a great position in my life, the one who's been called, and he'll go on to say this, who's been called to be a pastor in the ministry.

He says, Man, remember your identity.

That Christ Jesus picked me as an apostle, and he's picked you as a pastor, that only Jesus gets to tell you who you are.

And so, Paul, what he's saying is, I'm writing this letter, starting from the place of remembering who you are to me and who Jesus Christ says you are to him and in this world.

This is important.

He says, Let me start with your identity, with you knowing exactly who you are, which is really good news for us.

Because this is the way that God works.

He's not he's not weighing all of your past sin and all of your past doubt and all of your past actions, and then saying, Let me see if you're good enough.

Let me see if you can handle what I'm calling you to.

Really, Jesus steps in and he gives you new identity that only Jesus gets to tell you who you are.

So write this letter from that starting place of who Christ says you are.

And then he says, now move forward.

He says, Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now, what's interesting about those three words is in those three words you have the whole gospel.

That the gospel is described in those three words, that it is the grace of God, and it is the mercy of God that gives us peace with God.

That we did not have to pay for the sin that we that our actions uh and our sin deserved.

We did not have to pay the death that our sin deserved, but rather we were given grace, that we were given life instead of death when we deserved death, and we were given mercy, that we didn't have to pay for the sin, but rather Jesus paid for it for us.

And as a result of Jesus coming and living and dying and rising again, and us finding hope and faith and peace in Him, that we have peace with the Heavenly Father, that you can run to your holy and perfect Father with any needs and any concerns and any doubts and any desires and have communion with your Heavenly Father through the power of Jesus over your life.

He says, There is grace, there's mercy, there is peace.

And he says, in grace, mercy, and peace to you, Timothy, that these free us to walk in new identity.

They free us to walk where God has called us to go.

And then he calls them his son.

Now the son wasn't like an arbitrary thing.

I don't know if you've ever been to the gas section, you're like bump into an old man, he's like, excuse me, son, and you're like, I don't know you.

That's not this.

It says the Lord, uh, that Paul had a deep uh relationship with Timothy.

That Paul, Paul knew Timothy as a spiritual father, and Timothy knew Paul.

I mean, as yeah, and Timothy knew Paul as a spiritual son responding to his spiritual father.

That the Lord would use these deep relationships for discipleship.

And this is what happens, and this is the picture of what it looks like to walk with somebody well, is to be in someone's life in such a way that you could call them a spiritual father, or you could call them a spiritual son, that you could call them a spiritual mother or a spiritual daughter, that you could call them a spiritual sister or spiritual brother, is to be in one another's life in such a way that we would have this kind of relationship.

And so maybe the question you're right to ask is like, hey, do you have these kind of people in your life where you get to say, hey, this is my spiritual father, this is my spiritual mother, this is my spiritual brother or my spiritual sister.

People that are pushing you to Jesus.

We can have a lot of close relationships, but but ones that make them like this are ones that push us to Jesus even when it's uncomfortable.

They're people that we open the door to and say, Hey, you can hold me accountable even when I know the questions you're gonna ask are gonna hurt a little bit, but I'm gonna allow, I'm gonna have permission for that, that you would push me to be like Christ.

This is what this picture looks like.

This is what the church should look like.

That if you if you're a person in here who's been following Jesus and some of the people sitting on your row have been alive, you should be investing in younger people.

Not that you know everything, but that you have some experience that you may be able to share, that they would walk with Jesus well.

That this should be a picture of what the church looks like.

You should be saying, Hey, follow me as I follow Jesus.

We should be opening our hearts and our minds and our doors to the people that would have these deep relationships.

And so Paul, he looks at him, he says, I thank God in verse 3, whom I serve with a clear conscience as my ancestors did.

Now you should just understand on a very cursory reading, this is like, okay, great, that's awesome.

This is actually a really hot take.

In the Jewish community, this could get a man stoned for that sentence alone.

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

Who are his ancestors?

He's talking about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the forefathers of the Jewish faith.

And Paul, now serving Jesus and worshiping Jesus, he looks back and he says, with the clear conscience, I actually serve as these men, these men did.

That Jesus is the Lord.

He's not uh counter to the Jewish faith, he is the fulfillment of the faith.

It's not a betrayal of Jewish heritage, it's its true fulfillment.

And he says, and I have with confidence can look back and see how all of biblical history points to this moment that we would worship Jesus as Lord and as Savior.

He says, and I do it with a clear conscience.

Now, this is a man who at one time was killing Christians.

This is a man who at one time said, No, I'm a Jew at heart, and anyone who worships this Jesus guy, they're a threat to the Jewish tradition, they're a threat to who the one true God is.

And so he was killing them.

And Jesus radically changed his life, which makes him an apostle the way that he was changed.

And he says, and now I do this with a clear conscience.

Romans 8:1, he says, and there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

That is this picture of what it looks like.

And here's what Paul is saying in verse 3.

He says, I thank God, whom I serve with this clear conscience, when I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day.

He says, Man, I've been praying for you, I remember you.

He says, and here's what I remember remembering your tears, not my tears.

He's like, I didn't cry, you cried, and I remember it.

He says, and I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy.

Now, here's what you should understand.

This is a reference to Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

In Acts chapter 20, Acts is like really a history of the first church, how the how the church began and how ministry began to spread.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

And in Acts chapter 20, you see that that Paul has Timothy with him, and then at the end of Acts 20, he says, Man, I'm leaving and I'm going.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

And he lays hands on the elders there and he prays for them and says, And they all cried.

He says, I remember your tears, and here's what I recall.

I recall your sincere faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I'm convinced it is in you also, which is like a pretty interesting point.

Like if someone was to recall something about you, what would they recall?

What would they think about?

If someone says, Oh, I recall, what would they say?

He says, What I recall about you, Timothy, was your sincere faith that first lived not just in you, that first lived in your grandmother and then in your mother.

What Paul doesn't mention is Timothy's father.

He mentioned the mother, the grandmother, but he doesn't mention the dad.

Now, in the 21st century, statistically, unfortunately, that that's kind of common.

People grow up without a father.

But in the first century, it's a big deal.

Yet what you see, and this is just so important, what you see is the faith of strong spiritual women who stepped in to raise up a young man who will be one of the most influential pastors.

Now, did they know that Timothy was going to eventually be one of the most influential pastors?

Absolutely not.

What they were doing was they were in obedience to the Lord, raising up their child in the way they thought they should go.

And the Lord was faithful and called them and called him into ministry.

Here's maybe just a little quick encouragement.

I don't know your role and the people around you and in the next generation, but you should understand whatever it is, your role matters in the lives of the people around you.

That God has called you to it, is using you in it.

And it doesn't really matter how you got there.

It doesn't matter how messed up that path has been.

It doesn't matter how uh uh like blurry and and confusing it's been in the past, where you are in the role of the people around you, it matters that God is calling you to be a light in the darkness, to be a disciple maker.

He's using you that you might have someone sitting before you that you're investing in that God might use for monumental purposes for his kingdom work.

Don't take it for granted.

Know that God is calling you to it, be faithful in following him, and then teach others to follow you as they as you follow Jesus.

He says, This is what I recall was the faithfulness of these ladies who likely struggled with finances, who struggled to have a job, who struggled to have an identity of their own, and yet they poured out their faith onto you that you would walk with Jesus.

And then the next verse is of this section is key to capturing the core of what Paul is saying.

He's saying, Therefore, I was sent by God to tell you the words of God, and you have faith, and you've been called to walk out this faith, to rekindle your faith.

He says, Therefore, I remind you, therefore, because God has called me to call you, I remind you, rekindle the gift of God in you.

This word rekindle really means to fan into flame.

It's this picture of like stirring up hot coals to relight a fire that was once there.

I don't know if you ever been camping, and I don't mean glamping.

I mean like you're in a tent, you're not taking a daily shower, and you're like cooking over a fire at night, and you and you you just let the fire kind of go out, you go to bed, and in the morning you wake up, and what you what you'll notice is if you'll go to those coals and you'll begin to stir them and give them some air and give them some fresh wood, that you can relight a fire among the hot coals without a lighter, without matches, without any synthetic material, but rather the heat is already there.

If you begin to be tender to that fire, it will begin to relight.

That's this picture.

He says, God has done a work in you.

And what often happens is the world wants to come around and cloud out what the Lord is doing.

He says, rekindle the gift of God in you, fan into flames, the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands.

So again, this is this reference to Acts 20, when Paul, a man used by God through the power of God, calls a man of God into ministry.

And he does this by speaking life and identity of God over this guy.

And God uses it to miraculously empower Timothy for the work of ministry.

That is really this miraculous thing, and Timothy then cried.

He cried.

Now, here's the interesting part to me is uh Kyle and Kim, they're they're missionaries here, and they they just headed back to Loser to Africa.

They're in Africa now.

They they headed back on uh Monday or Tuesday, excuse me.

Well, on Monday.

Monday our families got to hang out a little bit, and when we say goodbye, what happens is our wives they cry.

They hug each other, they cry, it's this thing.

Me and Kyle, uh, we dapped it up.

We're like, bro, see ya.

Have a good one, man.

I'll talk to you later.

We didn't cry.

It was not a thing we did.

The ladies are like a puddle over there, and we're like, all right, come on, they gotta get in the car, let's go.

But the guys are just like, all right, we're cool, man.

See ya.

See you for see ya.

We don't typically cry.

It's not something like when a ministry brother moves far away that it brings us to tears.

But yet what you see is that Timothy cried.

And he cried because uh he likely never had a father figure speak over him.

He cried because he never had a man of God speak the words of God over him.

And now let me tell you, uh, my buddies that are in ministry that can go and move and do things far away, that doesn't make me cry.

But when a father speaks life over their son, when my dad has spoken life over me, and that's something that will bring me to tears.

When I've spoken spoken life over my kids, and that's something that wants to, again, like if I think about it for too long, you'll catch me crying right now.

That's something moving, it's deep.

There's something deeply emotional and even spiritual that happens in those moments that God would use spiritual fathers to speak over spiritual sons to equip them and empower them for the work of ministry.

And this is what you see happening in uh Timothy.

He says, remember the grace of God through the people around you.

Remember how I laid hands on you, and it was moving to the point of your tears, and how you have been empowered by God.

And he says, so therefore have grit.

Endure, persevere.

He says, remember how God has called you in the past to motivate you to be faithful in the future.

This is a really interesting point here.

Like the way that Paul tells Timothy to have grit is he says, therefore, because of what you remember God doing, walk out your life with Christ well now.

He says, looking back at the faithfulness of God, let it motivate you to rekindle the fire in you because you trust the faithfulness of God in the future.

It's what you see all throughout the psalmist.

That the psalms, they're there, they're there.

So therefore, I will have faith in future obstacles.

That the same is for you and me.

Like I'm so thankful for the way that God called me into ministry, the way God called me into ministry, I don't have time to share all the things, but I didn't want to be a pastor.

That was not on my game plan.

God radically called me into ministry.

I said, okay, and then over the last 15 years, there has been times where I have doubted my call into ministry, where I've sat and said, I don't know if this is for me.

I don't know if I can continue to do this.

And God has calmly and considerately and gently reminded me, I you didn't call yourself into ministry.

I called you into it.

I've been faithful to you, and I will continue to be faithful to you.

Would you just trust that I have you where I need you to be?

And it has been so comforting to me.

And he tells Timothy, remember how God has been faithful that it would be, it would fuel the mission going forward.

As the Lord prepares Timothy for what is next, he reminds him of what he's done.

And if you're struggling with your walk with Christ right now, you're struggling with following Jesus obediently right now, you're struggling with doubt and fear and all the things.

Maybe you should just take a moment and begin to recount his faithfulness.

Maybe you should just take a moment and inventory how good God has been to you from the moment you were born until this moment now.

Just take a moment and begin to think of the blessings God has given you.

And let it be the fuel that pushes you forward that God was the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

And that he loves you.

He says, Timothy, therefore, because of that, rekindle the faith in you.

And then he says this, verse 7, for God has not given us a spirit of fear.

He's not given you a spirit of fear.

Now, here's an interesting thing.

Paul understands fear.

Paul knows fear.

Paul has been beaten, he's been shipwrecked, he's been snake bitten, he's been chased, he's been hidden, he's been imprisoned.

He even knows that death is coming at the door.

Acts 20, verse 23, one of the most wild verses, he says, the spirit reminds me that chains and affliction are coming for me.

Acts 20:23

He's like, not my brain is tricking me, not this evil spirit.

The Holy Spirit of God is reminding me that chains and affliction are coming my way.

I will end up in chains, I will end up dead for the sake of the gospel.

I remember it, but you should know he has not given you a spirit of fear.

He's not giving you one that you would be afraid.

And this is hard because fear is so real for us.

Even though we live in one of the safest times in history and one of the safest countries in the world, many of us, including myself, struggle with fear on a daily basis.

We struggle with the what-ifs, we struggle with all kinds of anxieties, we struggle with all kinds of uh of nightmares and things that keep us up at night.

And as a result, what are we obsessed with?

We're obsessed with safety.

Safety has largely become the main priority of our lives for ourselves and for our kids, not their spiritual well-being, not their heart for the Lord, but most of the time, are they safe?

Are they physically safe?

And what Paul is doing is what a father does.

He says, Man, I'm pushing you out of fear to be brave, to go.

Now, what's interesting is in family psychology, what you'll see is that the role of a mother is often one of comfort, of care, of safety, and of caution.

That when your child skins their knee and you and your wife are standing there, they will often, fathers, run by you to your wife.

Maybe only me.

All right, cool.

So they run by me.

Why are they gonna run by me?

I can comfort them.

They run by me because she's gonna hug them just a little harder and hug them a little longer and speak a little sweeter to them.

She might even give them a popsicle.

Like, I don't know.

And they know that I'm not gonna be the one that's gonna be able to comfort them in the way that my wife can comfort them.

And so they tend to run by me.

Because a mother's job is that she would pull them in and she would comfort them.

Now, a father's job is the opposite.

A father's job is that they would push them out.

The father's job is like, man, you skinned your knee, you better, you finish your popsicle, yo, get back on.

You're gonna nail it this time.

Right?

Like we find dirt ramps around Chesapeake all the time.

They're just dirt hills that we try to ramp with our bikes, and me and my kids.

And my kids will be just like going as fast as they can, trying to get as much air as they can.

And my wife's like, okay, all right, all right.

And I'm like, you can go higher.

You can do more.

That's our job.

And when it's done in a perfect situation, a perfect environment, here's what it creates: it's it creates a human who is emotionally intelligent and knows how to muster the courage to take calculated risk.

When it's done well, it makes a well-leveled human.

The mother pulling in and comforting and the father saying, Yeah, but you got this, go.

And what Paul is doing is he's stepping in to the role of a father for Timothy, and he's speaking what is true about God's word to him.

He says, Don't you don't have a spirit of fear.

You don't have a spirit of fear.

Now, this is important because the opposite of fear, so you know, is not doubt.

The opposite of of, or excuse me, the opposite of faith is uh is not doubt.

The opposite of faith is fear.

And so if you walk in fear, you're not walking in faith.

He says, so you have not been given a spirit of fear.

Because fear paralyzes us.

Paul says the the Holy Spirit of God was given to you is not a fear-fueled frozenness.

Here's what fear does, because faith, if you either have faith or you have fear, you can't walk both.

And when we walk in fear, that often many of us Christians will miss the blessing of a calling of God.

That's what fear does, it causes us to miss the blessing of a calling of God.

You think about Abraham.

Abraham in the Old Testament, called by God in to go and inherit the land God has given him.

You know, on two occasions, he's with his wife, and there's a king there, and he looks at his wife, which is I guess credit to Abraham.

He's like, She's beautiful.

He recognizes my wife is gorgeous.

So you know what he tells the king?

She's my sister.

Because he thinks that they're gonna look how beautiful she is, and then they're gonna murder him and take his sister, his wife.

So he says, She's my sister.

Weird.

That's all that's a weird thing, even weirder.

She was his half-sister.

That's different.

So it's kind of true, but he missed seeing God provide in the moment and saying, Hey, this might mean my death, but I'm gonna be obedient to the Lord, I'm gonna be honest.

This is my wife.

What are you gonna do about it?

Because God is calling me.

He missed seeing the power of the Lord work in that.

I think about uh the 10 spies or the 12 spies that went to the promised land and they were gonna go spy it out for the people of Israel.

And they came back, and 10 of them were like, This is terrifying, we should not go.

Their fear cost them 40 years in the desert.

That they missed the blessing of God.

In fact, none of those guys saw it, they died in the desert.

That fear causes you to miss the blessing of God.

I think about Saul, who was the king, he he feared people, he feared losing his dynasty, and so he didn't obey God.

And as a result, he lost it all.

I think about uh Peter.

Peter said, I'll never deny you Jesus.

And then three times he denies Jesus because he feared persecution and abandoned Jesus.

He went back to fishing.

He decided, I'm gonna go fish again.

He totally missed the blessing of a calling of God in that moment.

I think about Pilate.

Pilate knew, met with Jesus, had the right to be like Jesus is free, or like send him the crucifixion.

He was so scared of a mob, and he was so scared of him being persecuted, he sent Jesus to be crucified, even though he knew he's innocent.

That over and over again in the Bible, what you see is that fear causes Christians to miss the blessing of a calling of God.

He says, You have not been given a spirit of fear, but rather you have been given a spirit of power, of love, and of sound judgment.

That this is the Holy Spirit of God in the life of a person.

It gives you power, love, and sound judgment.

It's the spirit of power.

Romans 8.11 says that the same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in you.

Lives in you that raised Jesus from the dead is in you.

He says, You have a spirit of power, and you have a spirit of love.

John 3.16 says, Man, that God so loved the world that he gave his only son and then he gave you his spirit.

That the spirit of God in us relieves us from ever looking around and asking the question, does God really love me?

And then he gave us the spirit of sound judgment.

1 Corinthians 2.12, one of my favorite verses, says, We don't move in our own wisdom.

It says, but really in the spirit of God, who knows the will of God lives in us, revealing his will to us.

So when we walk it out, we walk it out with sound judgment.

This is the spirit that lives in Timothy, and it's the spirit that lives in any of us who have placed faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of sin.

You've been sealed with that spirit of power, of love, and of sound judgment.

Will we utilize it?

Will we walk it out?

Will we not be obedient to fear?

And Paul shares this.

This is his encouragement.

This man, he shares this in order to prepare Timothy for the work of ministry.

What you're gonna see as we study Timothy, 2 Timothy, is over the next three and a half chapters, 14 times.

Paul will talk about suffering.

And five of those, and then five times, and Paul will remind Timothy to endure suffering.

Hey Timothy, suffering's coming for you too.

So endure it.

So endure it.

And the truth is, if you're gonna walk with Jesus, it's not going to be the easiest journey you could take through this world.

Will it be the most life-giving?

Will it be the most eternal?

Absolutely.

He says, but there will be suffering.

He says, so endure suffering.

And he's just told us, here is how you endure it.

And so three things I want you to take away.

The first is this if you want to know how to endure suffering, remember your calling.

Remember that Jesus has saved you, that he's called you his, that he has a plan in this moment and he is the good shepherd.

He didn't call you and forget about you.

He didn't save you and then abandon you.

That he's with you.

Second is you would rekindle your faith, that you would remember God's faithfulness in you in the past and trust his faithfulness in the future, that it would be fuel for your courage, God's faithfulness.

And that you would recognize then that the Spirit He's given you is one of power, of love, and of sound judgment.

And we would not become obedient to fear like the rest of the world.

But rather, we would step into the hard moments with divine courage.

We'd step into them.

I don't know what that looks like for you.

I don't know if that's stepping into them at your work.

I don't know if that's stepping into them in a doctor's office.

I don't know if that's stepping into them in a marriage.

I don't know if that's stepping into them with your children.

I don't know what the hard moments, the scary moments are for you.

But I do know God knows them.

He's given you a spirit of power and of love and of sound judgment, that we would walk in there with divine courage, that we'd step into the mission of Jesus, not in our own power, but in the power of the Lord.

And if you're like me, the response would be how do I do that when I'm afraid?

But I'm scared.

How do I do that?

How do I walk this out well?

I'm gonna jump ahead and we'll talk more about it next week.

But 1 Timothy 1, 8b, the second part of 8 and 9 says this.

Here's how you walk this out well.

Relying on the power of God.

He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

Maybe it just means that you need to have a moment of repentance where God, I've been trying to walk out what you're calling me to do in my own power and not in your power.

And God, I'm terrified.

Lord, would you help me to rely on your power?

And would you use me in the places you've called me to?

God, you've not given me a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound judgment.

Will you pray with me?

God, we love you and we thank you.

That you are so faithful to us.

You're so patient with us.

And over and over again, you just prove yourself to be the God who never wakes up surprised, who never is inadequate or doesn't have enough.

But God, you you over and over and over again prove yourself to be God who knows all and can do all and can provide all.

And so, Lord, would you help us to lean into that?

God, would that give us a faith where we recognize the grace you've given us?

And Lord, would that then be the grit that helps us to walk out?

The calling you've put on our lives.

Thank you for this reminder, which we should be pleased by the way we respond to you in worship now.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning, everyone.

We are glad you were able to join us, and we pray that it was encouraging for you this morning.

We ask you to subscribe, that way you can see all of the sermons.

But we hope to see you in person next week.

God bless.