Hello and welcome to our broadcast. Today we're going to begin a series of messages where we focus on two men in the New Testament. One was the name of Paul and the other was Timothy. Stay tuned for the program. Well, we're going to talk about two people in the Bible, Paul and Timothy. There's actually over 3,200 people who are mentioned in the Bible. If you look in the Old Testament, you'll see some men there. You'd say, who would be your heroes? Someone might say, well, I like Moses or Joshua or David or Job or Daniel or Elijah or Elisha. Those are what we would call heroes of the Old Testament, and there's others. In the New Testament, one might say John the Baptist, or Apostle John, or Matthew, Mark, or Luke, or Peter, or Paul. Well, today we're going to begin a series just talking about two of these people. One of them is named Paul, and the other one is named Timothy. Paul was an apostle. Timothy was a pastor, two specific and very different offices. There's only 12 apostles. How many pastors are in the world? No idea, but there's a lot. Paul was very educated, but he was very religious, so religious he was persecuting Christians because they went against his religion. However, on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9, he got saved and he became an outstanding testimony for Jesus Christ. He made five missionary journeys. He ended up in prison for six years and finally was martyred at the age of 66. Well, Timothy, he's a young pastor. He was actually one of Paul's converts. and he journeyed with Paul on his second missionary journey. He visited Paul when he was in prison, and in fact, he was Paul's closest friend. Well, there's someone else we should just mention here, and we're not going to talk about them, but if it wasn't for Barnabas, we wouldn't have the story of Paul and Timothy, because Barnabas was the one who brought Paul to the apostles when no one else would have anything to do with him. They were rejecting him because of his history of killing Christians. Well, Barnabas had some discernment. He brought him to these apostles in Jerusalem, and as a result, we have the story that we're going to be looking at. concerning timothy and concerning paul and so i just want to mention barnabas because there's some people in the background uh you know he's not getting a lot of acclimation here as we go through uh the the men in the new testament you know we're going to talk about peter or paul or some of these people who who really stuck out like john but uh barnabas there's some people in the background today like barnabas uh they're not getting much acclaim today but one of these days As they stand before the Lord, they'll be rewarded for the things that they have done. Well, we're going to be looking in 1 Timothy. If you'll have your Bible ready there, you'll get a whole lot more out of this study. 1 Timothy. It's a great honor. to have a book of the Bible named after your name. There's quite a few as you go through the Old Testament. There's 24 of them. There's Joshua, Ruth, and Samuel had two books, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. So you got a couple of women there, Esther and Ruth. And then, you know, we got quite a few men. Then in the New Testament, we have at least 10 people who are named who have a book named after them, Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and John. He's got four books. Timothy, who we'll be looking at, has two books, 1st and 2nd Timothy. I can't imagine, you know, what an honor it would be to have a 1st and 2nd Bob in the Bible. Put your name there. It's quite an honor for these men, but they didn't just get in there because they sat around and did nothing. They got there because of the fact they spent their lives living the way they lived. And so we have Timothy, we have Titus and Philemon and James and Peter got two books and Jude got a book. It's interesting that there's no book named Paul. He wrote two thirds of the New Testament, but there is no first and second Paul. Very interesting. Well, we're going to be looking at Paul and looking at Timothy. And as we look into first Timothy chapter one, verse one and two, we read Paul an apostle. Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ which is our hope unto Timothy my own son in the faith grace mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord so he's writing to Timothy now they have been really really good friends for a long time and So interesting that he would start this book out saying, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. He's not saying, hey, Timothy, I'm writing you as your good old buddy here. No, he's got he said, I am an apostle of Jesus Christ. Very, very important. And he said, I am an apostle by the commandment of God. It wasn't a career move. And so he's doing what he's doing because God said to do it. Timothy who was a pastor as we've said and he's doing what he's doing because God said to do it and he is at this time the pastor of the church at Ephesus now he says to him my own son in the faith. Now, so first of all, we're dealing with the conversion, the conversion of Timothy. He was led to the Lord by Paul the Apostle. The second thing, though, that we'll see as we look in this series is Timothy's challenge. We have Timothy's conversion, but in 2 Timothy chapter three and verse number 10, Paul said, but thou, but thou, Timothy, Pastor Timothy, you have fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, persecution, affliction, which came unto me at Antioch and Iconium and Lystra, what persecutions I endured, but out of them all the Lord delivered me, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution He says to him in verse 14 But continue thou in the things which thou has learned and has been assured of knowing of whom thou has learned them so he says you continue there's the challenge so we have Timothy's conversion and and Timothy's challenge. Well, in Romans chapter 16 and verse number 21, we have Timothy's calling. He simply refers to Timothy there as my work fellow. And so all of us who have been converted, who have received Jesus Christ as our Savior, you will find in the scriptures that you'll be challenged to do something, You may not be challenged to be a pastor, as was Timothy, but we are all challenged to stand for the truth and to stay clear of the apostasy of our day. And then we have Timothy's calling. He says, my workfellow. Now, not everybody is going to be called to follow some preacher as an assistant pastor or something like that. But as Christians, we all have a calling. The Bible says, make your calling Sure, make sure that you know what God's purpose for you is in this world. And so my son in the faith He's writing to Timothy interesting that when he wrote to Titus he used exactly the same phrase my son in in the faith. In fact, he said, my own son, that word own has been translated, uh, true and true, actually true yoke fellow. And it has been translated sincerity in second Corinthians eight, eight. So he's talking about someone who is a true, sincere Christian. And he says on both cases, they are in the faith. The faith, that's a very interesting phrase. We said in our last series of programs that we have the phrase your faith in the Bible 24 times and the faith in the Bible 42 times. He said you need to make sure to examine yourselves whether you be in the faith, the faith. Your faith It may not be right. Examine yourselves whether you're in the faith. And so, seven times in the book of 1 Timothy, we have that phrase, the faith. 1 Timothy 1-2, my own son in the faith. 1 Timothy 3-9, holding the faith with a pure conscience. 3-13, great boldness in the faith. 4-1, some shall depart from the faith. 5-8, it says some denied the faith. chapter 6 and verse 10 some erred from the faith and in 6 and 21 again they erred concerning the faith and so that is why paul said examine yourselves second corinthians 13 5 whether ye be in Now, it's obvious he was talking to Christians. He wrote to the saints at Corinth, but he wasn't saying examine yourself whether you're saved or not. He was saying examine, Christian, whether your faith and the faith are one and the same. Make sure that what you believe lines up with the Word of God. So first of all, he says here in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse number 9 to be holding the faith in a pure conscience. To be holding something is to grasp onto it, to embrace it, to hold it closely. Holding the faith in a pure conscience. In other words, not mixed with another substance. The word conscience here simply means the process of thought which discerns God's will. We're told in Ezekiel 44, verse 23 that those who are leading God's people spiritually are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the profane and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean that's what he's talking about here when he says a pure conscience the process of thought which discerns the will of God so he says holding the faith and Examine your faith. The next time we read about the faith here in this book is the great boldness in the faith, 1 Timothy 3.13. The word boldness has been translated confident six times, and it's been translated openly four times. It's talking about an open boldness in the faith. That's why it says in Acts chapter 4, Verse number 13, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. They saw the boldness of John. It was an open boldness. Well, we have holding the faith, holding the faith, great boldness in the faith. By the way, that's talking about deacons. It's not talking about the pastor in that portion of Scripture. It's talking about a regular Christian who's going to be doing something for God. We need great boldness in the faith. Well, that's the positive side of these verses that talk about the faith in this book, and the next four are not so positive. It says in chapter four and verse number one, some will depart from the faith. They will deny the faith, chapter 5 and verse 8. They erred from the faith, chapter 6 and verse 10. And they erred concerning the faith, chapter 6 and verse number 21. And so we have the apostasy that 1 and 2 Timothy and the book of Titus are actually dealing with. So we have our focus here on two men. One is Paul, one is Timothy. Paul is giving instructions to Timothy as to how he should do the work that he has been called to do. So we'll look at that in our next program. Be sure and tune in as we continue in this study of Paul and Timothy.