This is officially our last afternoon service for this year. We do the afternoon services so make it easier to join for communion when it's hard to drive in the dark. Well, that nasty little spring ahead happens next week. So we have to go through that clock change. And then by a month from now, we won't really have issues with driving at 6 PM at night. So we will be back to our evening for that when we get to this time next month. By now, I'm sure we've all heard of influencers. That's a term that's kicked around often. Influencers are really a rather recent phenomenon, or at least the way the term's being used now. It's been brought about by the ubiquitous nature of all those internet devices we have, tablets and cell phones, so that the internet's always just a glance away. I decided that since influencers are an internet-based phenomenon, I would ask the internet to define what is an influencer. So I asked the internet, and here's what I got from a search engine. An influencer is an individual who, one, has established credibility and a large following in a specific niche or industry. Two, an influencer is one who has the power to affect the purchasing decisions of their audience based on their experience, authority, or popularity. And then three, an influencer is an individual who can generate interest in something, such as a consumer product, by posting about it on social media. Now, to me, probably the thing I find most incredible about this whole influencer phenomenon is that people are creative enough to make a living doing this. Posting things about themselves and influencing the purchases. In fact, some people make a very luxurious living doing this. Now, I don't think any of us would classify social media influencers. I know that none of us have a large income stream that's at least coming from our ability. Our income stream is more in the traditional sense of the word of income and none of us are internet influencers. Still, I would suggest that we are all influencers after a fashion. The idea of influencing people is not new. The only thing that's changed is the speed and the method that's being used. In fact, I would argue in many ways the Apostle Paul is one of the most influential influencers the world has ever seen. He has influenced people for Jesus Christ for generations. And I would argue also that not only is Paul an influencer, but that we are to learn from Paul to function as influencers ourselves. All of us are given the task of being an influencer for Jesus Christ. We need to learn from Paul. And that's why we're turning to 2 Timothy this afternoon. We're going to begin our series through this very short letter that Paul wrote that I've entitled, as you can see on the screen, 2 Timothy, A Charge to Carry On. Back in 2020, while we were dealing with all the COVID craziness, we actually worked through Paul's first letter to Timothy. Timothy, as I'm sure most of you would know, was Paul's coworker. He traveled with Paul on several of the missionary journeys that Paul went on, and after those three successful missionary trips that were recorded in Book of Acts, Paul was imprisoned. As he went back to Jerusalem, he was arrested and ended up in Rome, as we know from Acts. Acts ends with Paul sitting there in prison in Rome, and Paul's first letter to Timothy apparently was written After all of that, after everything we read about in Acts, because by the time you get to 1 Timothy, that first letter, Paul was out of prison. And from what we can gather, Paul was traveling around again, and he was visiting several of the churches between Rome and Judea, churches that he hadn't been able to check in on while he was in prison. One of those churches was the Church of Ephesus, a place Paul had spent three years on one of his journeys. And when he came to Ephesus, he found there were a number of problems in the church. So Paul left young Timothy there to help set the church straight. If you recall from Book of Acts, Ephesus is a major metropolitan center in the Asian peninsula, what we'd call Turkey. It was a place of great influence at the time, so problems in the church there in Ephesus would impact the entire region, and possibly churches everywhere. For that reason, it was important for Paul to leave someone there to deal with the issues before they completely crippled that young church. Timothy was that man. Timothy was a young man, but he was Paul's man, and the letter Paul wrote in 1 Timothy was a letter to give his advice to Timothy, how he should deal boldly with all the false teaching and the false teachers that were damaging the church there in Ephesus. Now, it's really unknown how much time elapsed between 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. We don't know how much time there is between the two, but we know it's enough time so that by the time we come to 2 Timothy, Paul is again back in prison. In fact, it's clear as we work our way through this letter that Paul is confident that this time, his imprisonment will end in death. Indeed, this letter does end up being Paul's very last letter that he writes. Timothy is on Paul's mind. He is still there in Ephesus, still trying to clean up the problems, but Timothy remains close to Paul's heart. And Paul writes this letter to influence Timothy to carry on with the gospel ministry. So this afternoon, we're only going to consider the first five verses as we start this letter. Essentially, the letter's opening. That's why I'm calling the first sermon here, My Dearest Timothy. This is Paul writing to his dearest Timothy. They're the opening verses of this heartfelt letter, but they're also words of inspired scripture. They are words meant for Timothy But they're simultaneously words meant for us. That's how inspired scripture works. They're words to encourage Timothy, but they're also words to encourage us. Yet more than just encourage us, these are words to teach us. They teach us that our relationships should encourage faithful gospel service. God gives us relationships and our relationships should encourage faithful gospel service. Relationships. We all have relationships. Yet our relationships are not simply there for our enjoyment. God gives us these relationships so that we can use them to further His redemptive plan. The redemptive work that began with the cross of Calvary is continuing on. Now, I want us to look at these five verses, the first five verses, and in them we'll see three things that I think help us greatly see how our relationships should be used this way. Our relationships should encourage faithful gospel service. We'll start working our way through. From the first verse of the letter, just as Paul announces who he is that's writing, from the first verse we can learn that we need to recognize the authority that we have in Christ. We need to recognize the authority that we have in Christ. Look at that verse. Paul writes, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus. Now, the letter form, when Paul was writing, the form that they used, the very first thing they did was identify themselves as the writer. You know, we sign sincerely Dwight at the bottom of the letter. They started with who's writing. So that's what Paul's doing here. He's simply identifying himself, but he identifies himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus. using his title like this in the letter to Timothy makes this letter official. Paul's writing from his official office. As well as it's still personal, he's writing to a close friend, his young mentoree. And as we go, we'll see plenty of personal affection for Timothy expressed, but it's also clear as Paul starts this letter here, making it official, that he anticipates this letter will be read aloud to the entire church. And he reminds them he's still an apostle. He has all the authority that his office as an apostle entails. At the same time, notice he says he's only an apostle by the will of God. His position's always been governed by God's will. His authority, likewise, is governed by God's will. And as such, it was God's will for Paul to spend his life testifying of Christ Jesus. In particular, the eternal life that Christ offered, that was available through the work of Christ by the promise of God, according to the promise of life, the eternal life that God promises in Christ Jesus. Now, this promise of life, even as we just celebrated this afternoon, it has both a present and a future aspect to it. In the present, Paul's able to refer people to their union with Christ. Through faith, we have this union with Christ. A new spiritual life that energizes us through the Spirit of Christ gives us a union with Christ. But there's also a future. Paul's able to hold that hope out here of life. There's an eternal communion with God that we have through Christ. The promise that of life that he just, you know, passes off here, promise of life, is a grand promise. It's a fabulous promise. And Paul is privileged to hold an office for Christ Jesus that centers upon this offer of a promise from God. Paul was an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus. Well, let's consider what we can learn from this brief description Paul gives of himself. Now, I would suggest we need to be careful as we do that because we are not apostles ourselves. I hope we're clear on that. I know there's people running around the world today that They're calling themselves apostles, but at best what I can say is any person who's running around calling him or herself even, but himself primarily apostles, they're at best misguided. At worst, they're heretical. and many of them heretical. The office of an apostle was a unique office. It was designed by God to establish the foundation of the church. It was filled by men who had seen the living Jesus and then were inspired by God to write the New Testament for us. So when you put all the qualifications required for apostle, what we can conclude and see real clearly from scripture is that when John died, he was the last living apostle, when John died, that office passed off the scene. We are not apostles. But we can certainly learn from Paul an apostle. One thing we can learn is that like Paul, we are what we are. We are Christians, right? We are what we are by the will of God. We are not believers by accident. We are believers by God's divine choice of us. Our faith was only and is always by God's divine will. That should encourage us. Our faith is only and always is only by God's divine will. More significantly, I think we can continue to learn from Paul, when we look at his office compared to what we are, we can learn from Paul that we are what we are because of the promise of life in Christ Jesus. Through faith, we are united to this promise of life. And through faith, we have this hope of the promise of life. And furthermore, because we have the promise of life and we have the hope of life, we are assigned by God the task of sharing this promise of life. And herein lies our authority. Like Paul, we do not have any authority in and of ourselves. We do, however, have authority from God. We have authority to communicate the message of God. We have authority to communicate the promise of God. The message of God has His authority. And as God's messengers, we have authority. Authority to communicate what God has said. If we're communicating the promise of life in Christ Jesus accurately, we can do that with all authority. Christ says, all authority has been given to me and I send you. We have His authority. We can do What God has given us to do, communicating the promise with authority. In fact, if we do not communicate the message with authority, then we're not communicating the message of life. That concept is important because in the mindset of our day, the culture is telling us that we must always allow room for every opinion in a social conversation. Every opinion is a valid opinion. That's not the case. That's not true. We must treat, the culture says, every opinion is worthy of consideration as if it were valid. But that's not true. When it comes to the promise of life, there is only one option. It's the promise of life in Christ Jesus. That's the only valid option. And we must state that with authority because we're communicating God's promise by His authority. We are not engaging in faithful gospel service if we do not proceed with communicating clearly God has promised life through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. We are not doing our duty that God has given us if we do not refute any other idea that is different. I would suggest this is something we can learn from Paul even as he introduces himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus. We're not apostles but we are certainly communicating the promise of life because God has told us to do so. Our relationships should encourage faithful gospel service. We need to first recognize the authority that we have in Christ. As we move to the next verse, I see there that we can learn that we need to affirm the relationships Christ has given us. A second idea that we can pull out from Paul here, we need to affirm the relationships Christ has given us. Paul writes to Timothy, my beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Here's where we find in the form of day who the letter's addressed to. Timothy. We would say, my dearest Timothy. Paul uses the form of their day to Timothy, my beloved son. Grace and mercy and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is where we see the first hint of Paul's special love and concern that he has for Timothy. Timothy, my beloved son. Timothy and Paul, they're bound together, and what binds them together in a very special way is Paul's affection for Timothy. It's actually interesting to compare this verse with the equivalent verse in 1 Timothy. The greeting part, the grace and mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, that's identical in both letters. But the first part is slightly different. In the first letter, Paul refers to Timothy as my true son. Here, it's my beloved son. And that difference is likely significant. In the first letter, part of Paul's goal was to prop up young Timothy in the church there in Ephesus. Paul had left him behind on his behalf. Timothy was not the pastor of the church in Ephesus. He was the apostle representative in the church in Ephesus. Paul left him there on his behalf to do his work, and being a young man, Paul had to prop up the respect and reputation Timothy held within the church. As this young man, Timothy would have to admonish and correct many of the older men. He was to appoint pastors for the church there So he had to take on that responsibility in the established community in order to correct the problems that some of these false teachers that were older than Timothy, that had maybe more respect in people's minds in the community. So from the outset of that first letter, Paul wanted to lend legitimacy to Timothy through the letter. It was really Paul's statement of credentials for Timothy in that letter. So he said, my true son. By contrast, in this letter, Paul's main goal is to encourage Timothy. He wants to encourage Timothy to carry on even when Paul himself is no longer alive. The priority this time is to affirm for Timothy how much Paul values their relationship. He wants to leave Timothy with the assurance that Paul was confident in him despite his young age to carry the ministry forward. Again, we can, I think, learn from this very brief address that Paul gives. What we can learn is that it's important for us to affirm the relationships God's given us. We should prove very quick to affirm that we value people. We should be quick to let people know that we care for them, that we have confidence in them. If you're anything like me, I find it takes intentional effort for me to affirm the relationships that God has given to me. I remember one time when my son was in high school and he rightly, it hurt, but he rightly pointed out that I was significantly quicker to critique him when he did wrong than I was to affirm what he did right. Now, when he did that, it was obvious that my lack of affirmation was proving as a discouragement to him. Well, every relationship that we have from Christ is a treasure that we're to value. Every one that God has given us. Alright, let me ask, are we demonstrating that we value our relationships by taking the time to affirm our relationship with others? That's what Paul did here in this letter to 1 Timothy. He took the time to affirm his value of Timothy. Our relationship should encourage faithful gospel service. We need to affirm the relationships Christ has given us. That's the point that we can draw out of verse 2. Now, when we come to verse three in the original language, verses three through five are a single sentence. And from this single sentence, we can see a third point. Thirdly, we need to encourage faithful service in others. Not just affirm our relationship, but encourage faithful service in others. Encouraging Timothy to carry on, as I said, that's Paul's overall goal in this letter. So see if you can follow the logic that Paul uses to press that goal forward in these three verses. Paul writes, I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you, even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy, for I am mindful of the sincere faith within you. which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well." In Paul's letters, he frequently includes what we refer to as a prayer report. It's a statement of what he prays for. He frequently includes that right at the start of his letters. Most of the time, as Paul gives that prayer report, he focuses on what he's thanking God for. And he does that here. I thank God. And he goes on and shares what it is. And frankly, I think that simple observation alone is convicting, at least to me. Remember, I said Paul's imprisoned at this time. He's in Rome, in prison, facing what Paul himself is confident will be death. Those are not the set of circumstances that would generate thankfulness in most of us. yay I get to die soon. That's probably not how we look at life. Yet we really have to read between the lines in this letter to even find clues about Paul's circumstances. Paul is so focused on serving God and he's so focused on the way God is using Timothy to serve in Ephesus that to Paul his own circumstances are pretty much irrelevant. Further, Paul's focus on Timothy leaves Paul thankful rather than discouraged. Timothy is doing the work. He's pressing on, he's carrying the ministry forward. Most likely, we all need to wrap our heads a little bit more around the fact that our personal circumstances are not that significant. And we all need to follow Paul's pattern about remaining thankful, truly thankful, regardless of circumstances. I think we can all learn from the first three words, I thank God. But that's not Paul's main point here. So let's follow Paul's logic. One of the main issues that we'll discover as we work through the letters is that Timothy's dealing with some remaining false teachers. He's dealt with a lot of the issues in the church of the Renaissance, but there are still some false teachers, specifically teachers who are using the Old Testament wrongly. Of course, they claim that what they're teaching comes out of the Old Testament. They claim their support is found in the Old Testament. But their teaching is turning people away from Jesus. They apparently argue that the gospel message that this young guy, Timothy, is teaching is actually divergent from the teaching of the Old Testament. So Paul's goal in these first three verses is to strengthen Timothy against this specific accusation that what he's teaching is contrary to the Old Testament. So Paul begins here by stating that he has a clear conscience as the best of his forebearers. Paul, remember, grew up with a very rich Jewish lineage. He was born to faithful Jewish parents. He trained under leading rabbis of his day. Paul was a capital J Jew, or a capital H Hebrew. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. And the point he's making is that in this long lineage, he has many ancestors who sought to serve God faithfully. And to follow God faithfully, as his ancestors had to do, well then, that meant following the law was a given. They could not follow God faithfully without following the law. Now, of course, since Paul could truly trace his lineage all the way back to Abraham, who, let's remember, Paul points out in Romans is credited specifically for his faith, it's certainly a true statement that Paul has a lineage of ancestors that were faithful to the law. Now Abraham even predates the law. But he had faithful ancestors, and his faithful ancestors had every reason to have a clear conscience because they trusted God as God had revealed himself in the Old Testament. And yet Paul, who now served the same God whose ancestors had trusted, says he has an equally clear conscience even though his service includes the gospel message of Jesus Christ. Serving Jesus Christ follows in a direct line along this long line of ancestors who faithfully served God, all the way back down to Abraham. Christ is in that line. That's where he begins, where he lays out this, I have a clear conscience, the way my forebearers did. He's tying himself into the line of faithful Old Testament men. And now, because Timothy is serving Jesus Christ on Paul's behalf, Paul assures him that he remembers to pray regularly in his traditional morning and evening prayers. When Paul gathers prayers as a faithful Jew, he prays regularly for Timothy. Now, grammatically, in the original language, verse 4 is something of an aside in Paul's thought. And Paul mentions how he remembers Timothy regularly, and that triggers Paul's memory of their last parting when Timothy and Paul had to separate. Evidently, tears flowed at that moment. And as Paul mentions his remembrance of Timothy, he remembers those tears, and he just throws in this aside that he anticipates joy will replace the tears if he and Timothy can meet again, because they'll be joyful to see one another. At the moment, Paul is practically alone in his final days. We'll see that later in the letter. So there's even a hint in verse four of this longing he has for companionship, specifically companionship that Timothy would bring to him because of their close relationship. So he takes this little side when he mentions Timothy, but then in verse four he moves back to his main line, or verse five rather, he moves back to the main line of thinking that that he's been tracing here in verse 3 by assuring Timothy that the sincere faith that Paul has flowing out of this rich gospel ancestry, Timothy has as well. Timothy can trace his faith through his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois. Now, from Acts 16, verse 1, we know that Timothy's mother was a Jewish believer. She was a Christian in the city of Derbe. She was married to a Greek man, but she herself was a Jewish believer by the time Acts 16 comes along. Now, what we can gather is that most likely, Timothy's mother grew up in a faithful Jewish household, specifically influenced by her own mother, Timothy's grandmother. Apparently both his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice were godly women and together they raised Timothy to love and observe the Old Testament. And as part of observing the Old Testament they had faith in the God of Israel. Most likely, you know you have to read between the lines a little bit, but most likely they had, Lois and Eunice had faith, or at least Eunice would still be alive when Paul came around. We don't know if Lois was there by the time Paul and Barnabas came through on their first missionary journey through Derbe, but reading between lines, most likely when Paul and Barnabas came along through Derbe, he and Barnabas were able to advance the faith of Timothy's mother, Eunice. Because she had faith in the God of Israel, and Paul preached the gospel and showed that the faith of the God of Israel leads to the cross of Christ. And Jesus is the Messiah that's been waiting for. So at least Eunice came to accept Christ. And then Timothy came to accept Christ. The reason I say Lois is she's not, or we don't know about Lois is by Acts 16 she's not mentioned. Maybe she was deceased. We don't know. But Timothy came to accept Christ through the heritage of his mother and grandmother. Thus, Paul is pointing out that like himself, Timothy can trace his faith in Jesus back through faithful followers of the Old Testament. Faithful believers in the God of Israel. And for that reason, Paul is assuring Timothy that Timothy is a worthy example of genuine faith. Now it's important that we follow Paul's thoughts through these sentences so that we can grasp the encouragement that Paul is passing along to Timothy. Paul will use this confidence in Timothy's genuine faith as the springboard for the appeals that he will make to carry on the ministry that they've jointly undertaken. Timothy is not to allow these claims that his teaching deviates from the Old Testament to distract him, because Paul's just pointed out it's not true. Your faith comes directly out of the Old Testament. Rather, Timothy is to recognize that those claims are false, because he and Paul can trace that flow right back through this lineage of sincere Old Testament believers. Their faith is a true extension of genuine Old Testament faith. Now if you think about it, this is quite an ingenious approach for Paul to take as he encourages Timothy. In essence, Paul is taking the argument that the Old Testament false teachers, these false teachers, he's taking their argument that they're using and Paul's using himself and showing that if you take their argument and follow it carefully to its rightful conclusion, Timothy has even greater confidence in his gospel service, not less. Because if you take the Old Testament's teaching and you follow it carefully, you land in faith in Jesus Christ. So use the argument of you need to follow the stream to the Old Testament, but realize it takes you to genuine faith in Christ, not away from that. Timothy's service follows this direct line of faithful service. The false teachers that claim otherwise are the ones who are wrong. His faith is to the one true God of Israel, the one through whom the forebearers all the way back to Abraham trusted. the God who gave Jesus Christ. That's what Paul's doing here in the first verses in 3-5. He's showing this history of faith so that he can strengthen Timothy against the accusations of the false teachers. So let me ask us again, what can we learn from this example? How can we take the example that Paul gives and learn from it so that we apply it to our own lives. And I believe the key to answering that question is to consider how we might use our relationships with those who are striving to faithfully serve God and use our relationships to encourage them in the service of God. Because that's what Paul is doing. He's encouraging Timothy in his service of God because Timothy is serving God. Gospel service is hard. If you don't know that, you haven't been engaged in gospel service. It's hard. Those who engage in gospel work will face constant attacks, both physical attacks and spiritual attacks. Physically, people who engage in gospel work can anticipate, at a very minimum, a rejection for their efforts. Many people do not want to hear that they need a Savior. I mentioned it this morning in Sunday School class. The gospel message is, by definition, a confrontational message where we're telling people that you're living your life wrong. People don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear that their sin separates them from God. They don't want to hear that the actions that they enjoy are sinful in the first place. And secondly, that that sinful action that they enjoy so much offends God. In general, people just want us to affirm that whatever they find personally satisfying is okay. That's what people want. So engaging in gospel proclamation to people calls forth frequent rejection. And of course, beyond rejection, there's always the chance of hostility. There's always the chance of being called a bigot, or a hater, or narrow-minded. None of that's uncommon if we're engaged in gospel service. Such things can even come from people that we thought of as friends or who are family. These are what I call physical discouragements. They happen in the here and now. They're temporal things that we face whenever we undertake gospel service. And oftentimes, beyond that, we have spiritual discouragements. And those spiritual discouragements are even stronger. Any one of us, when we are engaged in gospel service, will face spiritual temptations. Temptations towards sins that you maybe have not thought about for months or years. Those temptations may suddenly pop up again in your lives. There's a spiritual battle underway. There may even be attacks, spiritual attacks that you can't explain. Unexplained depression and weariness that just doesn't add up. Serving Christ is not something that Christ's enemy wants us to do. So we can anticipate that there will be spiritual attacks. So since we can anticipate both physical and spiritual attacks to come on anyone who's involved in faithful service, all we need to do really is look around this afternoon at the people here, assuming that these people, the people in our church, are serving. And we can assume that we see people then who need encouragement. My assumption is that we all want to serve our Savior faithfully. I assume that because scripture says that God gives us, with the Spirit of Christ, the desire to live for Christ. Living for Christ is hard. So all of us who are living for Christ need encouragement. That means We all need encouragement. Some of us may need it more than others. Potential is there. Furthermore, we all, if we look around, have relationships with each other. Nobody here is unconnected to the other. We all have relationships. So that makes every person here a potential application of the type of effort that Paul puts forth for Timothy. Every person here is a person who needs us to come alongside and encourage him or her to continue the work for Christ Jesus that God has given them to do. The question becomes how? How can you or I encourage the people who need encouragement sitting here today? Well, we need to follow the pattern that we see Paul employ in these three verses. Ask ourselves, what false teaching is hitting the person that needs encouragement? What lies of the devil are being thrown at that person? Is that person being called unloving because they've shared the gospel with someone? I mean, that's possible, right? They've been sharing the gospel and they're being called unloving for it. Well, then the encouragement is to come along and tell them, you know, that's a straight up lie. The most loving thing we can do is tell a person how to escape eternal damnation. It is loving to share the gospel, not unloving. Or we might think maybe they're being told, maybe it's even their own emotions telling them that, you know, these gospel efforts they're putting forth just aren't worth it because nothing changes anyway. Well, that's a lie as well, isn't it? That's a lie. After all, Jesus has promised that we will receive eternal rewards for faithful service. He never promised that we'll be rewarded for producing changes here and now. In fact, he's told us we can't produce changes here and now. The spirit alone can produce the spiritual changes that we're looking for. We will be rewarded for faithful service. So isn't it flat out lie to say that it's not worth it whether things change or not? We're not responsible for the changes. And the list goes on. There's all kinds of things that the people in this room may be facing, but as we examine what they're facing, what's bringing discouragement, bringing hardship, we will find the same thing in every case, a lie of the devil that's feeding it. So the first thing we need to do is determine what false teaching is hitting the person who needs encouragement. Once that is done, then we're ready to figure out how we can present the truth the real truth of God's Word in a way that will encourage the person. Now, we cannot do that without prayer. Paul obviously is praying. We need to pray for the person as we're thinking about how to encourage him or her. We need to pray for the person, thank God for the person, thank God for the service that they're doing, just as Paul did for Timothy. And then we need to come alongside and ensure the person that, one, we're praying for them, but two, Encourage them that we're praying they'll comprehend the truth they need to hear, not the lie that's being told. Encouraging others to remain faithful in their service is not that difficult, really. But it does take time. It takes intentionality. It takes alertness. It takes us learning from Paul. It won't just happen. Our relationships should encourage faithful gospel service. We need to encourage faithful service in others. Our relationships should encourage faithful gospel service. As I said at the outset, we need to serve as influencers toward one another. We're not social media influencers, but we are to be gospel service influencers. We need to influence each other. We need to encourage faithful gospel services. And to do that, we need to recognize the authority we have in Christ, we need to affirm the relationships Christ has given us, and then we need to encourage faithful service in others. That's how we serve as gospel service influencers. God has given us these relationships. Our job is to encourage faithful gospel service in the relationships he's given us. Father, I pray that you would help us to be encouragers to one another. Father, we thank you for the relationships you give us through the Church of Jesus Christ. And I pray that you would cause us to use these relationships, to encourage them, so that the gospel message of Jesus Christ, the promise of life that is offered to us in him, will go forth with greater joy, with greater energy than ever before. Father, may we learn from this letter that you led Paul to write to young Timothy. We thank you for it. We thank you for your work in Christ. For it's in his name we pray. Amen.