Examples Worth Following: Timothy

We get extra line with screen if we can show them a lid.

We don't need other kids now.

We go super next time we've just blown away by Gladvin.

I also wanted to choose the newity this morning as well.

We as a church did not meet our summer project goal.

We exceeded it.

43,707.42 cents.

Praise the Lord.

Praise God.

Blown away your generosity and super excited what these little treasures are gonna do in Nigeria and uh updates to come, and we'll be announcing it to Greg in Unknown Nations here soon, so he knows.

And the good news.

Thank you for your generosity.

Thank you for building in Pentwater and beyond and being the light of Jesus.

Thank you so much.

Also, just wanted to say if you could be praying for me as I go through this message.

I'm struggling with my voice this morning.

I've been in a lot of meetings and uh a lot of talking, and I talk for a living.

So if you could be praying, my voice holds up, that'd be great.

I kind of feel like I'm 13 again, right?

I feel great, but I could definitely use your prayer.

So at this time I want to dismiss our kids, the kids' connection.

And uh, as they do, why don't we pray?

Father, thank you.

We can't thank you enough.

Thank you for providing for these little treasures through this church.

Thank you for uh everything you're doing here in Pentwater and beyond, and just how mission-minded we are as a church, Father.

I pray that you would use the offering, Father, that was given for these little treasures and it would go way beyond Pentwater, and people who have never heard the gospel, Lord, would come to know you because this little church on the coast of West Michigan decided to give, Father.

We thank you for that.

Father, thank you for number six.

And I just pray you keep Sarah healthy and keep her or him healthy.

And uh, Father, I pray that whatever it is, you would be glorified through it.

And uh, I just can't thank you enough.

Be with us today as we continue in this series, Father.

Speak to us.

We we come and expect to hear from the Holy Spirit and what it is he has for us today, and all used people said.

Amen.

So we're continuing that series, Philippians, Joy in the Journey.

And we're looking at examples worth following.

And we see the Apostle Paul gives some examples worth following.

The first one we're gonna be focusing on is a man named Timothy.

And I don't know if you've ever looked at someone as an example.

But I could tell you I've been looked at as an example before when I was a kid, and I grew up, like I said last week, with six sisters, and I was a lot of times the only boy until my little brother came along.

And uh it was an interesting road.

But I had a little sister named Molly, and she was a year apart from me, and we hung out all the time together.

I had all these good ideas, and she was willing to try them all.

So she would follow me all over the place.

One time I had this genius plan.

I was gonna take a slide and put another slide on top of the slide, and then have a wagon on the very bottom, and then push my little sister off those two slides.

She'd land in the wagon and then go down another slide, and it would be our homemade roller coaster, right?

So my mom was in the kitchen looking out the window, she's like, oh my, she comes running out just before Molly hit her head really bad.

And there's times we had a circle driveway, we would drive our bikes around the driveway, and our parents said, Hey, don't go to the road.

And I was like, Okay.

And but, you know, as a boy, rules were not meant to follow, they're meant to bend a little bit.

So we kind of pushed our way a little further and further, and she saw us getting close to the road, and so she decided to have a conversation with both of us.

She said, You know, if a stranger comes, what would you do?

She asked me that.

And I said, Well, obviously we'd run.

She's like, good answer.

She looks at my sister Molly, and she said, Molly, what would you do if a stranger came and said, Give me my car?

She said, Well, I'd buckle my seatbelt.

Obviously, she wasn't the sharpest crane in the box, and if gullibles written on the ceiling, she would look every single time.

But I love my sister, she's so much fun, and I like to tease her all the time.

That's what little brothers do, right?

Uh but looking back, I think Molly's biggest problem was that she trusted her older brother way too much.

And if I said try this, she tried it.

And thankfully, as we got older, I think she started realizing that not every example is worth following.

And I definitely was not one to follow.

And Paul writes about Timothy in Philippians 2.

He points us towards this young man whose life really was worth following.

Not because Timothy was perfect, but because his life pointed people towards Jesus.

As we look at Timothy today, we're going to see three things in his life.

Three things in his life that really helped him reflect Christ.

And you know, Timothy in Acts 16, he's in the city of Evyshra, and his mother was a Jewish believer, and his father was a Greek unbeliever.

So he came from a family that wasn't really tied together in the same way.

And Paul later tells us that Timothy's faith had been shaped by his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice.

Says this in 2 Timothy and verse 1, in chapter 1, verse 5.

And I'm reminded of your sincere faith, of faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice.

And now I am sure dwells in you as well.

So before Timothy ever became this example to follow, faithful people had been an example to him.

It's showing him how to live his life because he came from a broken family, and they were showing him this is the way and how you follow Jesus.

And Paul arrived in Lycer next tells us that Timothy was already well spoken of.

He was a well-spoken of man by the believers around him.

And Paul invited Timothy to travel with him over time.

And Timothy became one of Paul's closest and most trusted ministry partners.

Paul called him my true child in the faith.

I mean, what a compliment coming from the apostle Paul.

Timothy watched Paul preach, suffer, and serve, and remain faithful to Jesus.

And now in Philippians chapter 2, Paul essentially tells us, church, if you want to see what a faithful follower of Jesus looks like, you got to look at my man Timothy.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

He's got it together.

He's not perfect.

He wasn't the most famous leader in the early church, but he was a man who was faithful.

He was faithful.

And he's an example worth following.

So as we look at Philippians chapter 2, verses 19 through 24, we want to ask this question: what made Timothy different?

Philippians 2:19–24

What made Timothy different?

And is this true of my life?

Philippians 2 and verse 19.

I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you.

For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.

For they all seek their own interests and not those of Jesus Christ.

But you know Timothy's proven worth.

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

I hope therefore to send him just as I see you, and how it will go with me.

And I trust in the Lord that surely I myself will come also.

So at the surface, we can almost, you know, it sounds like Paul is simply giving the Philippians this like travel update of what's going to happen.

But Paul's doing something much more than that.

He's holding Timothy to this level of example.

Remember what has already happened in Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Paul gives us the story of Jesus and what Jesus, the ultimate example, chose to do.

He humbled himself.

He humbled himself, became obedient even to the point on a cross.

And then Paul told believers, let God work in you.

Pour your life out for others.

And now Paul says, in effect, let me show you what kind of life looks like with a real person who's decided to do this himself.

Look at Timothy.

Timothy wasn't perfect.

He was not Jesus, but his life had been shaped by Jesus.

And there's three things that Timothy that made him this example worth following.

And if you're taking notes, the first is this Timothy had a compassion worth following.

This man, Timothy, had a compassion worth following.

We see that in Philippians 2 and verse 19.

I hope in the Lord Jesus sent Timothy to you soon.

So I too may be cheered by news of you, for I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.

Paul says, For I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.

I love that phrase, genuinely concerned.

Paul does not say Timothy was good at pretending to care.

He actually cared.

And his concern was genuine.

That phrase carries the idea sincere, this real concern.

Timothy was not using people.

He was not looking at Philippians and asking, what can these people do for me?

He was asking, how can I serve them?

And Paul says, I have no one like him.

No one like this man.

That's a remarkable statement.

Out of all the people that Paul knew, Timothy stood out because he genuinely, genuinely cared for people.

And that should challenge us because we live in a world where it's possible to be more connected with everyone more than ever.

I mean, we can go online and we can see what you ate for dinner, we can see where you went on vacation, what you wore yesterday, what you did yesterday, and yet we have absolutely no idea, no idea what's happening in your heart.

And Christian compassion goes deeper than just knowing information about people.

It means actually caring about people.

Caring about them.

C.S.

Lewis wrote, There are no ordinary people.

So look at your neighbor and say, you're not ordinary.

Or not.

But there are no ordinary people.

And that comes from the weight of glory, where Lewis reminds us of this enormous significance of every person that we encounter.

Think about that.

There are no ordinary people.

No one.

The person sitting next to you is not ordinary.

The person who frustrates you, they are not an ordinary person.

The person who walks through these church doors carrying pain that no one even knows about.

They're not ordinary.

Every person in this room, every person you encounter matters to God.

And Timothy seemed to understand that.

He did not look at the Philippians as a project, he did not look at them as numbers.

He saw people that Jesus loved.

And maybe one of the clear signs that Jesus is changing us is that we begin to care about people he cares about.

I mean, Jesus modeled this.

When we see Jesus walking the streets, he notices a man that everyone neglected.

Zacchaeus.

This man was a crook, and everyone walked by him, and he talks to Zacchaeus.

He saw the woman at the well when everyone else ignored her.

He saw her.

He noticed the sick, the broken, the grieving.

Jesus never treated people like interruptions.

He saw people.

And if we're becoming more like Jesus, we should become people who see people too.

Looking in their eyes.

I remember even teaching my kids, and like, when you shake someone's hands, you look them in the eye.

It's a lost trait.

A lot of people don't do that anymore.

Looking right at their eyes.

D.L.

Moody said the world does not understand theology or dogma.

But it understands love and sympathy.

Not saying that those things are not important.

They are absolutely important.

What we believe matters, but Moody's point is that people around us should not hear what we believe.

They should experience the love of Christ through the way that we treat them.

And that brings them in to go further into those things.

And we can tell people that Jesus loves them when we sit beside them in a hard season of life with them.

They're carrying a burden with them.

Sometimes compassion, I'll tell you this morning, is not convenient.

It's inconvenient.

And here is where compassion gets difficult.

Real compassion will cost you something.

It'll cost you your time, your comfort, your schedule.

Listening longer than you expected.

But genuine compassion often shows up as an interruption.

I love what Martin Luther wrote in The Freedom of a Christian.

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

Luther was talking about the point that because Christ has freely saved us, we are now free to give ourselves away in love.

We do not serve people so Jesus will love us.

We serve people because Jesus already has love us.

And that's exactly what we have been seeing throughout Philippians 2.

He humbled himself.

Jesus himself humbled himself, came to serve.

We read that passage in our worship service.

He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he humbled himself.

And the closer Timothy followed Jesus, the less his life became about Timothy.

And the same should be true of us this morning.

The more we get closer to Jesus, the more we understand who he is.

We have to realize we need to die to self.

Moody said elsewhere, if we have got the true love of God shed abroad in our hearts, we will show it in our life.

It's real love.

Real love shows you should not have to constantly convince everybody that you care.

It'll just naturally show compassion.

It becomes visible in the same way you listen and you show up time after time.

So here's the question this morning.

Who has God placed in your life that I need to care more deeply about?

Who has God placed in your life that I need to care more deeply about?

Maybe it's a neighbor who's super inconvenient.

They play their music really loud at night or whatever it is.

Who has God placed in your life?

Maybe it's your marriage, and you're just like, oh, I can't believe they fooled me.

I thought they were gonna be someone different, and now we're married, and this is not easy.

Maybe it's a kid that's just driving you nuts, pushing every single button you have.

How can you show how you're dying to yourself and learning to serve them better?

Because Christian compassion is not simply feeling something, compassion moves towards people like Lewis said, there's no ordinary people.

And Timothy lived and he actually believed that.

He believed that.

And as followers of Jesus, we should too.

Do not underestimate what God can do through a Christian who simply notices people, loves people, and genuinely cares.

God can do amazing things, a compassion worth following.

This man had it.

Timothy had it, a compassion worth following.

He genuinely cared for others.

Number two, a commitment worth following.

This man, Timothy, had a commitment worth following.

Check this out from Philippians 2 21.

For they all seek their own interests and not those of Jesus Christ.

Then Paul tells us why Timothy was different.

For he says, for they all seek their own interests, and none of those are for Jesus.

And this is a short verse, but it's an uncomfortable verse because Paul exposes something deeply rooted in our human heart: self-interest.

And Paul draws a contrast.

There are people around him who were primarily concerned about themselves, but Timothy was different.

Timothy's life was shaped by one overriding commitment in every aspect.

Jesus first.

Jesus was first in every aspect.

Paul says, others sought their own interest.

Timothy sought the interests of Jesus Christ.

And notice what Paul does not say.

He does not say Timothy had no interest at all.

The issue is not whether Timothy had preferences.

The issue was which preferences won in the end?

It was Jesus.

It's easy to say Jesus first.

But the real question is, what happens when putting Jesus first actually costs you something?

What happens then?

Jesus, you're first when everything's going well.

Everything's going my way, you're first in my life.

But when Jesus interrupts your plans, what happens?

Do you follow self or do you follow Jesus?

What happens when following him asks me to surrender everything that I want?

Charles Spurgeon once said, if Christ be anything, he must be everything.

If Christ be anything, he must be everything.

That is Timothy.

Jesus was not simply a part of Timothy's life.

Jesus had become the center of Timothy's life.

Christianity is not simply adding Jesus to the life I already wanted.

Christianity is surrendering the life that I wanted to Jesus.

And I would say, if anything, to the American church in general, churches at large, we're so good at this.

I'll have Jesus be a part of my life when it's convenient for me.

When it flows in my schedule, when everything happens, I'll go to church when I feel like it.

Or I'll do this when I want to do it.

But Timothy didn't do that.

He made Jesus the center.

He was everything.

Everything will revolve around them.

We naturally ask, what do I want?

It's a different setting in the human heart.

We naturally elevate life through the question, how does this affect me?

Timothy always thought, how can I point others to Christ?

What does Jesus want?

They changed everything.

Instead of what can I get?

We begin asking, What can I give?

It's a completely different way to live.

And Spurgeon said of the following Christ, we must make an unreserved surrender of all to Jesus.

Everything.

Surrender.

An unreserved surrender.

Not holding on.

I remember at Moody, Phil Visher, the creator of Veggie Tales, came in and he was telling us his life story, and he was a Moody student, and he flunked Moody because he skipped chapel too much.

Who would have thought, right?

But God used this man in a mighty way, created veggie tales.

He was going after that.

And I think about that, he had a closed fist before God.

God, I got this.

Thank you for allowing me to accomplish my dream.

And because he went to the Lord with a clenched fist, God opened it.

And he had talked at Moody Church about how he saw, you know, his dream get auctioned off to the highest bidder in that time because Reggie Tails went bankrupt.

And he really believes because he had a clenched fist before the Lord.

And he said, I need to have more of that hard posture of Christ is everything.

He's in the middle of my life, and I needed to take my fist and not hold a clenched fist before the Lord, but say, God, it's all yours.

Use whatever you want for your kingdom.

That's what he missed.

He wished he would have done the same thing that Abraham did when God finally gave him the son that he wanted.

Instead of Abraham going before God like this, he willingly brought his son before the Lord.

Is Christ the center of our lives?

Is that commitment to Christ the same as what Timothy had?

It's easy to follow Jesus when Jesus seems to be taking us where we already wanted to go.

But do you follow him when your plans get interrupted?

Jesus may call you to serve.

But you might be saying, I don't want to serve.

I want to be served.

Jesus may call you to give.

I don't want to give.

I want to keep.

Jesus may be calling you to apologize.

Oh, I don't want to apologize.

I want to defend myself.

I deserve to defend myself.

Jesus may call me to be faithful.

I don't want to be faithful.

I just want to quit.

But commitment is proven when I choose Jesus, even when I would choose something else.

Spurgeon describes surrender this way.

Let his will be your will.

Yield entirely to Jesus.

That's such a simple definition of Christian commitment.

Let his will be your will.

Not Jesus bless what I've already decided to do, but Jesus shape what I desire.

And earlier in the chapter, Paul said about Jesus, he humbled himself.

He became obedient to the point of death, even on the death on a cross.

Do you really think Jesus in his earthly form wanted to do that?

No.

But he submitted to the will of the Father to be able to do that for us.

Jesus did not choose what was the easiest thing for him, he chose obedience.

And I think of that story of the garden.

He's sitting on this rock and it says that he sweat blood.

And if you talk to any medical scholar, they say that's the most extreme amount of stress that any human could possibly go through.

He fought his flesh.

He was fully human and fully God at the same time.

He fought his flesh and he submitted to the will of the Father.

He made it all about him.

And we see Timothy's commitment was not ultimately commitment to Paul, his commitment was to Jesus Christ.

Because when Jesus is first, everything begins to find its proper place.

Remember a wise man once telling me, Matt, if you just work on your relationship with God first, all the others will fall in place.

And that's what Timothy did.

His relationship was all about God.

It's not about our preferences.

I think we can learn a lot, oftentimes from the older generation.

I know as the younger generation, you know, oh, I don't like this, and I go to somewhere different, or, you know, the older generation, a lot of times they're loyal, they work hard.

I remember looking at my grandfather Claire, grandpa Claire, he was a farmer through and through, a farmer in Montague.

Great farmer.

And he was, he had his eye on this girl in Pentwater named Ruth.

Her last name was Hepworth.

She graduated from Pentwater High School in 1934.

I saw her picture the other day.

It took forever to find it.

But she's in there.

And he just fell in love with her.

They had a lot of kids, even more kids than we have.

I mean, we're just amateurs compared to them, like 15 kids.

I mean, it's just a ton of kids.

And I remember walking around Montague.

I don't even know half the town, but I'm related to them somehow.

Between the Seavers and the Hapports, there's a lot of kids.

But I looked at that and I remember hearing a little bit about my grandfather, how this man just worked.

He'd wake up every day at 3 a.m.

He'd go to the dairy farm, he'd do his first job, and then he'd wait on the road for someone to pick him up.

He'd go to Mesqueg and Tire Shop and work there.

He'd get home around 6 o'clock, eat dinner, and go to bed and do it all over again.

This man worked.

He had an eighth-grade education.

By the time he passed away, he was a millionaire.

He gave all his money to his grandkids.

And he spread that out.

And God just blessed this man.

But in the midst of this man, God used him in a mighty way.

Claire was a man centered on God, centered on him.

And there were times in his life, I'm sure he was tired.

I'm sure he was frustrated.

But he built two churches in the midst of that.

One's down the road, Shelby Road.

He built that church.

And all the time that he put into that, this man was dedicated.

And I think churches are falling apart because we have missed the point.

It's not about what the church can do for you, it's about what you can do for the church.

Timothy understood this.

He was probably inconvenienced to go all the way to Philippi.

God disrupted, I'm sure, the plans he had.

He could have stayed home, but God wanted him to go to Philippi and he decided to obey because God was centered of his life.

And he went and he did those things.

What has God called you to do?

What would honor Jesus most with the decisions that are ahead of us?

What if we asked questions like that in our lives?

What if we asked it during conflict or during our time with the Lord?

How can I honor Jesus today?

In the decisions I make.

Jesus, what is it you want me to do?

Inconvenience me for your glory.

Help me do what you have me do today.

That's what Timothy had.

A commitment worth following.

Last but not least, he had a character worth following.

This man had a character worth following in Philippians 2 and verse 22.

But you know Timothy's proven worth.

How as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel, and I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me.

And I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also.

Paul continues, but you know how Timothy's proven worth, and how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.

Notice those words, proven worth.

This man had a proven worth.

Timothy's character had been tested.

People know what kind of man that this man was, not because Timothy told everybody what kind of man he was, but because they had watched his life.

There's a big difference between reputation and character.

Reputation is what people think you are.

Character is actually what you are.

And eventually character shows.

Remember telling it to my boys, I said, you know, talent will get you on the top of any mountain, son.

We go through a word every night and talk about integrity.

He said, talent will get you to the top of the mountain, but integrity will keep you there.

Character takes time.

Takes time.

It's not an easy thing.

And Paul does not say Timothy had one really great weekend.

He says, You know his proven worth.

Timothy had been faithful over time.

He served with Paul.

He traveled, he worked, he sacrificed, he endured difficulty.

He showed up.

He showed up every time.

And that is how character is formed.

He just keep on showing up.

Not usually through one enormous heroic moment, but through thousands of small, faithful decisions.

This man kept on showing up.

We love dramatic stories.

We love the big moments.

But most Christian faithfulness is not dramatic.

It looks like getting up.

Getting up, praying when you don't really feel like it.

Getting up, spending time in the Word when you would rather get more sleep.

Maybe it's loving your spouse when you say, I've done everything I can do.

Praise God.

Now you're weak, so now God can actually work through you.

Maybe it's forgiving someone, refusing the gossip, telling the truth, doing your job with integrity when everyone else around you isn't.

Coming back next Sunday and then doing it again does not always look impressive.

But over time it builds something powerful.

Character.

It's been one of the things I've been teaching my kids.

Romans 5, verses 3 through 5.

Romans 5:3–5

Not only that we rejoice in our sufferings.

Once again, Paul obsessed with that word, right?

Rejoice! He always is rejoicing.

Rejoice in our sufferings, he says, knowing that suffering produces endurance.

Endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

And hope does not disappoint or put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

This is a hard thing to teach, it's a hard thing to practice in our lives.

And as a dad, I get to do this with my kids a lot.

And my oldest son, Hudson, he's God's teaching them patience.

And I've already been through the ringer with patience, and it's painful for me to watch him go through that because I don't want to go through it again either.

I always tell him it's the most dangerous prayer to pray is for prayer for patience.

But we had a sunfish that we were restoring and putting together so he could have his own sailboat.

And we had ordered all the parts and we're waiting and waiting and waiting.

Like, what's taking so long?

The sail had gotten backlog.

Can't really sail without a sail in a sailboat.

So I kept looking at Hudson, he kept looking at me.

He's like, Dad, I think God's teaching me patience.

He's like, Yep, I think he is, son.

He's teaching you patience.

We're doing the youth hunt.

We're sitting in the blind together just yesterday.

And we see deer way off in the distance.

We can't take a shot.

I'm like, oh, there he goes again, Hudson.

And he's like, what?

I'm like, God's teaching you patience.

He's teaching them.

But I love that he's doing that because it's producing this character.

Because we don't always get what we want right away.

And we have to keep on showing up, even though we don't get what we want.

And that's how often God works.

We say, God, I want you to change my circumstances.

Somehow God says, I'm going to use these circumstances to change you.

We want the answer, but God's never wasting the waiting.

I love that song by Jason Gray.

He says, nothing's wasted.

Nothing is wasted in the arms of Jesus.

And sometimes what feels like the delay is what God is developing in all of us.

Because God's not only concerned with what's getting about getting us where we want to go.

He is convinced about who we are becoming while we get there.

And Timothy, he had a lot of character building.

There's a lot of character building going on in this man.

And here's a question this morning: Am I becoming someone people can count on?

Am I becoming someone that people can count on?

Not perfect, but faithful.

Some of the greatest people in the kingdom of God will never stand on a platform.

They are people who simply keep showing up.

I think about that with my grandpa Claire.

He kept showing up, kept going to the dairy farm, kept going to the tire shop, kept providing for family, trying to be that example.

And he didn't even know.

I was only five when he passed away.

And I think about that.

He impacted me.

He impacted me just from his consistency of being faithful.

Character worth following.

You know, you look at Timothy, he had a compassion worth following.

He had a commitment worth following and a character worth following.

His faithfulness had been proven time after time.

Remember, the point is not ultimately be more like Timothy.

Timothy was just pointing us to follow the one true example, Jesus.

To begin to look at what Jesus has done.

And Paul said a similar thing.

He says in 1 Corinthians 11:1, he says, be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:1

I'm trying to imitate Christ in everything I say and everything I do.

Do I make it every time?

No.

But try your hearts to be imitators of me because that's what I'm striving for.

I'm striving to become more and more like Christ.

We follow Jesus, and as we follow Jesus, our lives begin to point other people to Jesus too.

So as we look at this man, Timothy, what can we learn?

He definitely had a great list of going on.

He had a compassion worth following.

He had a character worth following, and he also had a commitment worth following.

But what can we learn?

I want to leave you with three questions.

Who needs my compassion?

Who needs my compassion today?

Who in your life needs compassion?

Maybe it's an annoying neighbor or someone else, whatever it is, whatever the Spirit's telling you, obey.

Make him the center, be inconvenienced for the Lord.

Because it's not about us, it's about him.

Who has God put around me that I need to genuinely care for?

And when God tells you, obey.

Where does my commitment need to change?

Have I followed the culture in America or kind of make it all about my plans and God kind of fits in when it's convenient?

Or is God truly on the throne?

Is he truly the one that I'm choosing to follow?

There's an area I have been seeking my interest instead of the interest of Jesus.

What kind of character am I building?

I think of this man, Timothy, as a life worth following, a life that looks more and more like Jesus.

And that's what Paul saw in this young man.

He was young, he didn't let that fool people.

He kept on following Jesus.

And when he had sent the news to the church in Philippi, I'm sure they were just overjoyed to see this man, Timothy.

Would people be overjoyed to see you?

Because you'd see Christ in you as well.

Something worth asking on this beautiful sunny day here in Pentawan.

Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you that you give us examples to follow.

I thank you that your son Jesus is the ultimate example for us to follow.

We thank you for Timothy and this man who just gave us the example worth following.

Father, as we continue to look at some more of these examples that the Apostle Paul puts in, I pray that you'd help us to understand what it is you've called us to do.

Father, help us to allow the voice of the Holy Spirit to be louder than our preferences.

Louder than anything in culture or in this world, Father.

May we have a true life committed towards you.

And may we be inconvenienced because it's not about us.

It's all about you.

Father, I pray that our faith would build as we choose to submit to your spirit today, as we choose to genuinely care for people and be truly committed to you and allowing you to build in our character.

Father, may we have the same response that the Apostle Paul keeps on saying in most of the letters I see.

May we rejoice.

And as we choose to submit to you, Father, help us to find joy in the journey.

Father, thank you for the prayer ministry we have here at church.

If you're a part of that prayer ministry, I want to invite you forward.

And if you feel like God is putting something on your heart right now to pray about, I want to encourage you to come forward and pray with those on the prayer team and be encouraged by them as we sing this next song.

We thank you for Jesus, Father.

We thank you for the example and pray that you help us to follow it.

And all God's people say.

Amen.