We will be continuing on in 1st Timothy. But before we start, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, once again we come to say that you are God, that you are worthy of worship, Father, you are the creator of all things. You are the one who spoke all things into existence. You are the one through whom we have our being and for whom we were created. Father, you are the sustainer. Father, nothing exists except by your continued will, by your sovereign upholding hand. Father, you are the king. You rule over all things in utter righteousness. And you are the judge. You declare the right from the wrong. Father, you are the Savior. And Father, that's why we come this morning, is because you are a Savior. Father, all those other things are great and glorious things about you, but they would be terrors to us, except that the fact that you have rescued a people who did not deserve to be rescued, that you have redeemed us from our sins, that you have brought us and given us a place and made us a people when we are not a people. Father, we gather this morning under that grace in order to see you more and to worship you more in that. And so, Father, that's why we turned to open your word this morning is because we do want to see more. We want to see more of who Christ is. We want to see more of what he has done for us. And Father, we don't want to just learn. although that's glorious, but Father, we want that to affect our heart, Father, that our heart would rejoice in who Christ is, rejoice in what he's done for us. And Father, that that would affect our lives as we go out from here, as we rejoice in him, that our lives would continue to look more and more like him. And so Father, I pray that that would be the result of the upholding of your word this morning, that your spirit would take your word and plant it in us and cause us to rejoice and cause us to follow after Christ. Father, for that to happen, we do admit our need for your spirit. Father, we need him to be here in our presence to give us eyes that see correctly, to give us hearts that feel correctly, to give us wills that choose correctly to follow after Christ. So Father, I pray that he would be here to do those things for us. I pray, especially for myself, that you would fill me with your spirit as I come to preach your word. Father, that I would preach things that are only true and glorious of Christ. Only things that are beneficial to those who are here listening, that they would be built up in Christ. So Father, I pray this for our good. Father, we need these things, but ultimately, we pray them for Christ's glory. And so it is in His name we pray. Amen. So this week, I've been doing interviews for the incoming class of 2027 for the veterinary students. It's a fun process. We do that every year. This year, one of the questions we've been asked to ask them is, you know, everybody has a to-do list. And usually there are things on your to-do list that you're not super excited about doing. How do you motivate yourself to do that? It's not exactly what we're going to talk about this morning, but it's similar, at least. It's got some relation. How do we do those things that we don't necessarily want to do, that don't excite us, that we need motivation to do because we've run out of motivation? That's what the first approximate paragraph of 1 Timothy is going to be about. Timothy needs encouragement to keep going. And so Paul is going to say, this is your motivation. This is what's going to keep you pushing on and what God's called you to do. So we're going to be in 1 Timothy 1, verses 3 through 7. 2 Timothy, thank you, Brian. I didn't anticipate playing piano this morning. I feel a little discombobled. I've also worked pretty much steady since Monday. If I make silly mistakes, somebody like Brian should correct me. So, we'll be in 2 Timothy 1, verses three through seven this morning, but before we jump into that, I wanna go back. We did our overview sermon last week, and I wanna remember what Timothy is about, 2 Timothy is about. We made this summary statement. We said that 2 Timothy tells us that serving the gospel will be hard. 2 Timothy tells us that serving the gospel will be hard, but it's always worth it. So keep pressing into Christ. 2 Timothy tells us that serving the gospel will be hard, but it's always worth it. So keep pressing into Christ. Then we did a quick outline of the book during our message last week. We said it's kind of broken into four parts, with the core of it focusing on these two sets of exhortations. So we did the opening last week. We saw Paul come and declare God's promise, declare God's love and compassion to Timothy so that he would continue to pursue his calling. We thought about that last week as an overview of the book. So now we're ready to start this first set of exhortations. The first set of exhortations, we said, had to do with being strong in the gospel. Timothy, what is going to strengthen you to keep going on for the task that God has called you to? Specifically, we're in the first charge in that section, which is going to be fan into flame the gift of God. So we're in chapter 1, verses 3 through 7. And so if you have your Bibles, you can pull them out, you can find 2 Timothy 1. We'll be in there for most of the morning this morning, so you can keep that open. Or I've got the text here on the screen. So take 2 Timothy 1, verses 3 through 7. I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, and your mother, Eunice, and now I'm sure dwells in you as well. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. So that's what we'll be focusing on this morning. And as we look at that little paragraph this morning, this is gonna be my proposition, my main point for this morning. As Paul opens the book of 2 Timothy, he tells Timothy that when he is discouraged, he should remember what God has done in Christ and use that to renew his passion for serving the gospel. Paul tells Timothy that when he is discouraged, he should remember what God has done in Christ and use that to renew his passion for serving the gospel. So I have four main points this morning as we walk through this passage. First, I want to think about the problem. They'll come back to why is Paul writing. We're going to tear this. We did this a little bit last week, but tear this paragraph apart a little bit more and see what Timothy's feeling right now. We're going to see the solution. OK, Paul acknowledges how Timothy is feeling, but then he calls Timothy to do something about it. Then he's going to give Timothy a charge. It's going to be basically, no, what you're doing isn't OK. You need to go back to what you were doing before. then we're going to make an application to ourselves. What does this mean for us today? So let's start with the problem. As we look through this passage, I think we can see that Timothy is discouraged. We might even use the word burnt out. In fact, we could pull that phrase out of our passage this morning as a flip side of a phrase that's found in that passage. So if we come to 2 Timothy 1, 3 through 7, I went through this last week, thought about the background of Second Timothy, how Timothy had been serving probably in Ephesus for quite a while. He had worked hard to establish a church there, but there had been some like Tychicus who had opposed him, and it appears that he had opposed him for for all these years was still opposing him, was turning people away. Timothy was looking out and feeling like people were attacking him. He was not able to cause the gospel to grow in this church and he's become discouraged. And I think we can see that in this passage because we see it in three ways. First, what I went through last week, Paul opens the book, he says, I thank God for you. That's something he usually says at the beginning. of a book, but then he says this, as I remember your tears, or actually, if we looked at those words, a better way of translating that might be something like, having been reminded of your tears, which is one of the reasons I think that Paul is probably writing this in response to something he's heard. He says, I've been reminded, somebody's come and told me about your tears, I've been reminded of your tears, they're coming to mind, and so I long to see you. that I may be filled with joy." Paul looked at Timothy and said, yeah, you've had a hard go of it. It hasn't been easy. But that's not the only thing we see in this passage. Paul's going to go on and he's going to say, I'm reminded of your tears, and so we're going to see that word remember is important in this passage. But then he's going to come in a few verses and say, what do I need you to do? I need you to fan into flame the gift of God. That's a really positive thing. But once we look at that, we realize that there's kind of a negative background to that. Why did he need to fan into flame the gift of God? It's because it had burnt out. You think of, many of us have wood stoves. We know what it's, we have a nice fire going. You go to bed in the morning. At best, if you did it right, which I usually don't, so I don't even have this, but at best you have some glowing embers that you can hopefully fan back into flame by giving it some more fuel. And Paul is looking at Tim and he says, this is how you are. You've been passionate about the gospel. You were a live flame going out to serve the gospel, but now you're burnt out. We hope there's still a live ember there that we can fan back into flame, but you're burnt out in serving the gospel. Then we keep going through this passage, just these five verses, and then Paul says this. It's, again, a positive statement, but it starts with a negative. For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Why would Paul say that other than Timothy was feeling like, I've worked hard, I've been opposed, I can't keep going, I'm burnt out, and I'm fearful, I can't do this. And so as we look at all these things, we see the background of this paragraph is that Timothy is discouraged. We could say he's crying, he's burnt out, he's fearful. He doesn't know how he's gonna keep going and serving the gospel. So that's where we have to start to understand this passage well, is to say, that's where Timothy is. And Paul says, I hear that. And here's what I wanna write to you. So we'll come to the solution. Paul's solution is really straightforward. He says, remember, remember. And specifically, as we go through this, we're going to see, he's going to say, remember what God has done. He's going to look at that from several different angles. But what I want to do is go through 1 Timothy 1 through 7. Let's just read it again, because I want you to listen to a repeated word. There's a repeated word that happens over and over again in this passage. He says, I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Paul says, remember. Remember, remember, remember. It's actually, so we get that in the English, as long as you've got a decent translation, you can hear that repetitiveness. In the Greek, it's the same. It's the same Greek word over and over again. There's some slight tense issues there, but it's the same Greek word over and over and over again through this passage. That's what Paul is going to frame this first section of the book of 2 Timothy on, is remember, this is what I remember, and I want to remind you of this as well. Paul says, if you're burnt out and discouraged, it's hard to keep going. He says, remembering is the antidote to discouragement. Timothy, you're right. I'm going to meet you here. You are discouraged. We're going to see through this book that there's many things Paul's discouraged about, too. He says, this is what I'm remembering, and this is what I want you to remember as well. I want to go through and see the things that Paul remembers as he thinks about the discouragement of serving the gospel. So I think we can pull out three things that Paul's remembering as we go through this. The first is, he's going to remember God's generational faithfulness. So we come to 2 Timothy, again, 2 Timothy 1, just starting in verse 3. He says, I thank God whom I serve. Then we have this really weird phrase, I thank God whom I serve. That's very similar to other things Paul says. He says stuff like that a lot. But then he throws this phrase in, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience. have to say, what does that have to do? We might think from that that somehow Paul's going to be looking at the Old Testament people of God and talking about the law and how it was fulfilled in Christ and now is being propagated on. We might think that this is a book like Galatians based on that. And as we go through, we don't find anything like Galatians. So I don't think that's why Paul's looking back and saying, I serve God, my ancestors served God. I think instead he's looking back and he's saying, I thank God whom I serve, and I'm not the first one who served. I thank God whom I served, my ancestors did too. My ancestors have done this for generation after generation after generation after generation with a clear conscience, seeking after what was to come. He's looking at generational faithfulness in the people of Israel that were waiting for a coming Savior. But I think there's also the reflex of that, that he's looking back and saying, there's been generational faithfulness. They've waited for God's promise. And we're gonna see this later, I'm pulling some of this out of chapter two, because I know where Paul's going, so I think this is what's on Paul's mind. They say, they waited for God to act for generation, after generation, after generation. And Timothy, guess what? He did. In this fullness of time, God sent his son, born of a woman born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. So what he's saying is, look, I served God, and my ancestors did this with a clear conscience, and God was always faithful. who never forgot his promise throughout all the generations. So Timothy, when you come and you're discouraged, remember, you're not the first one. And actually, we can start looking back. We did this some last week and say, well, we could look back at this long line and say, there are a lot of people that were discouraged. Moses was discouraged and Joshua was discouraged and Elijah was discouraged. We heard Jeremiah this morning being discouraged. They were all discouraged, but God was always faithful. Don't think you're the first, Timothy. So we have that, this idea that God has been faithful through the generations. And this is one of the great promises of scripture. We see it pop up over and over again. Deuteronomy 7, 9. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant in steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. It's really hard to say that in the ESV because I've got a song that I memorized when I was like five. to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. Or Psalm 105, for the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever. His faithfulness to all generations. Timothy, you're not the first. God's been faithful. He will continue to be faithful. Psalm 119, 90, your faithfulness endures to all generations. In fact, Psalm 119 says, just look at the earth. If you think that you've got a problem, the earth has stood there generation after generation and God's upheld it. You have established the earth, and it stands fast. So Paul opens with this idea of God's been faithful throughout the generations, Timothy. Remember that. But then, as we keep going, that's not the only generations Paul talks about in this passage. We're gonna come to verse five. He says, I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, and then your mother, Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well. So Paul says, look at my ancestors. My ancestors for maybe 2,000 years, or depending on how we want to count it back, many thousands of years before that have waited for the promise and God was always faithful. But then Timothy, think about yourself specifically. You're not the first one to serve this gospel. Your grandmother Eunice embraced that gospel and taught it in her household. I'm sorry, your grandmother Lois. And then your mother Eunice did as well. Your mother Eunice is now teaching you or had taught you. And so that faith came from Lois to Eunice to you. Look, God's been faithful. It's come to you now. Don't let it die there. God's been faithful. He'll continue to be faithful. And so in this first paragraph, we see Paul's gonna focus on generational faithfulness. Remember, God's been faithful to the generation. So he says something like this. Timothy, remember, remember that God has shown faithfulness throughout the generations to all generations of Israel, and specifically, Timothy, to your family. Look, even three generations back in your family, you've served the gospel. Don't forget what God has done. Then we're going to see a second thing that Paul calls Timothy to remember. He says, look back at generational faithfulness, but then he's going to say, remember that God cares. Remember that God cares. So come back to 1 Timothy 1, we'll be in verse 4. He says, I thank God whom I serve as did my ancestors with a clear conscience as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. In this phrase that I've come back to several times, as I remember your tears, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy. Paul looks at Timothy and he says, I've heard and I care. I've been reminded, he says, having been reminded of your tears, I long to see you so that I can be filled with joy. Because hearing about your tears, Timothy, it makes me sad. It hurts my soul. I want to come and be with you so that I can be there and comfort you and encourage you and be with you through this hard time. And so Paul wants Timothy to know that he cares. That's what he starts with. As I remember your tears, I long to see you. But then he also says this, that was his response to with a clear conscience as I remember you constantly in my prayers, Zion Denny. Why would Paul remember Timothy in his prayers night and day, except that he knew that if he cared for him, there's someone much greater that cared for him. Timothy, I care for you, and I'm holding you up before the God of the universe. I'm doing that all the time. That constantly there, if we were to translate it really literally out of the Greek, would mean, without ceasing, Timothy, I've never stopped holding you up before the God of the universe. Night and day, it doesn't matter. I'm always lifting you up before God, because he cares. So Paul wants Timothy to know, hey Timothy, I care, but that's not the biggest thing. God cares. You're discouraged right now. You're burnt out. It's hard to keep going on. But Timothy, God sees what's going on, and God cares for you. We could think about other passages like 1 Peter 5, 6-7. Peter tells his readers, humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties upon him. because he cares for you. They say, God cares. Timothy, you're not out there alone. I'm behind you, even if I'm in Rome, in a prison, and can't be there with you, I'd like to be, but here's the bigger thing, I'm gonna remember you before my father, and he cares, he cares for you. So don't think you're all alone. Saying something like, Timothy, remember that God cares for you, and he has provided faithful friends who care deeply for you as well. So he says, remember what God has done. Remember, God's been faithful to the generations. Remember, God cares for you. Now, I think there's a third thing we see in this passage. Remember that God gave you a gift. Remember that God gave you a gift. So we're going to come to verse six. says, I'm reminded of your sincere faith, the faith that dwelt first in grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well. For this reason, because I've seen all this, for this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands. We're gonna think about that as a charge in a few minutes because he's going to remind you to do this, to fan into flame. But what is he fanning into flame? He's fanning into flame the gift of God. Paul says, Timothy, you've been gifted. You've been given a gift by God. Remember that. Don't go and squander what God's given you. God gave you a great gift. Don't let that burn out. What gift is he talking about? Well, I think we could go look at a couple of different things to help us understand what that gift is. First, we could think about what he's talking about. He says, it's a gift that you received through the laying on of my hands. It's a thing that happened. We heard about it back in 1 Timothy. So you heard about this when Dan was preaching on this. came in 1 Timothy 4, 13 through 15. This isn't the happening, it's again a remembering of it, but this is how it's described. He says, until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift that you have, which was given you by prophecy when the Council of Elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress." So the gift that Timothy had, Paul says, it came through the laying on of my hands. He's not saying mine only because we see in this other passage, that Paul came and the whole council of elders had laid their hands on Timothy, and they had recognized, God has given you a gift, and we're affirming that, and we're setting you aside to do what? To devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching, and he was charged to practice these things, to immerse himself in them, to make sure that all could see his progress in those things. That's the gift that we're talking about, a gift that said, Timothy, you've been set apart to go preach the word to the people of God. Don't view lightly that gift. Don't despair of that gift. That gift wasn't meaningless or fruitless. That gift was powerful and it was given to you. In fact, that's how Paul always describes the gift of preachers and teachers to the church. In Ephesians, Paul would say this, this is a book to probably the same church, and he's calling the church to look and say, when you have a preacher and teacher, that's a gift from God to your church, and that man has been gifted to serve your church. So it says this, but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he also descended into the lower earthly regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. Here we go, and he gave. He gave as gifts the apostles. He gave the prophets. He gave the evangelists. He gave the shepherds and teachers. Why? To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Paul would say that's the type of gifting that God gives to the church, and he says, Timothy, you receive that gift. Don't turn away from that. Don't forget it. Remember God gifted you. Go out and run with it. It's the same thing Paul would say about himself. Paul would say of this gospel back in Ephesians 3.7, he says, of this gospel I was made a minister, how? According to the gift of God's grace that was given me through the working of his power. So as we come back, we could say something like this. Paul wants Timothy to remember he was specifically and specially gifted by God for his service. Timothy, you're burnt out. but the power for this service never came from you. The power for this service, the gifting for this service, came from God. Don't forget where it's coming from. So we come back, say, he's supposed to remember generational faithfulness, he's supposed to remember God's care, and he says, Timothy, remember, God has specifically and specially gifted you to complete the task that is laid before you. So he says, Timothy, remember, you're burnt out. It's hard to keep going, but remember, God's always been faithful. God cares now about you, and God gave you what you need to serve the gospel. So that's the solution. He has a problem. Timothy's burnt out. He's discouraged. Solution, Paul says, remember what God has done. And then he is going to give him a charge. And the charge is going to be to fan into flame the gift of God. So we come to 2 Timothy 1 verse 6. He says, I remember your tears. I'm reminded of your sincere faith. And he says, because of all this, because I've remembered all these things, and I want you to remember them too, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God. He looks at you and says, you are burnt out. You've had a hard go of it. Things aren't going well easily for you. But here's what you need to do. You need to take that ember that's glowing, that's burning out. Take it and nurture it. Fan it into flame. Take it, blow on it a little bit. See if you can get it to light up again. He says, do that. This is an active, it's an active tense verb. He says, this is what you have to do. You need to go and take that gift and fan it into flame so that you don't burn out completely. Come back to that in a second. But I think when Paul says that, he's remembering things. out of the Old Testament. He doesn't pull those words just kind of randomly because, oh, this seems like a good metaphor, although it is a good metaphor. I think he's thinking this is why we read Jeremiah 20 this morning. He says, look at the history of God's servants. They went and they worked and they were discouraged. That's like the common pattern across the entire Old Testament. They served God and they were discouraged. And Peter would later say, you know what? They all died without seeing the promise. They discouraged. And so Jeremiah comes in a moment of particular discouragement. Jeremiah, the prophet who knew discouragement after discouragement so much that he became known as the weeping prophet. And he comes and he prays to God in Jeremiah 20, he says, Oh Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived. Think about that. I love that passage from Jeremiah. He looks at God, he says, God, I thought this was going to go better. I thought you were going to call me as your prophet and that everything was going to be a straight line before my feet because I was going with the God of the universe. But you deceived me and I was deceived. That's what I thought. And that was wrong. You are stronger than me and you have prevailed. And I have become a laughingstock all the day. Everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, violence and destruction. For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach, a derision all day long." Then he says this, he says, I'd like to stop. He says, I want to stop because I'm running into a wall. And Jeremiah is saying, I'm burnt out. I'm discouraged. I just want to quit. But he says, if I say I will not mention him or speak any more in his name, what happens? There is in my heart, as it were, a burning fire shut up in my bones. And I'm weary with holding it in. And I cannot. Jeremiah says, wow, this was harder than you said, God. So much harder that I feel like maybe you deceived me. Maybe you didn't completely reveal how all this was going to turn out, and I have been deceived, and I want to quit. And he goes, but I keep trying, God, and here's the thing. Every time I try to quit, I find a fire within me, and I try to hold it in, and I can't because I have to proclaim the Word of God. Paul takes that, and he takes that imagery out of Jeremiah, and he rips it out, and he brings it over to Timothy, and he says, here, Timothy, remember this. Jeremiah, he probably had it worse than you did, Timothy. And when he tried to quit, he found a fire that was burning in his soul. He couldn't give up speaking the Word of God. And that's behind what's coming. And so it's the same thing. The gift that Timothy had been given, what was it? It was to devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture. It was to devote yourself to exhortation, to devote yourself to teaching. He'd been told before not to neglect that gift. Timothy, you've been given that gift. If you try to let it burn out, it's gonna be terrible. You're gonna let that gospel gift die. Don't let that happen. Fan it into flame so that there's a fire in you that will burn even when all the world is against you and tries to destroy you. Paul says, practice these things, immerse themselves in you. So he says, fan into flame. So how is Timothy supposed to do that? I think that's why we get the remembers first. Paul says, how do you fan this into flame? Remember, remember what God has done. Timothy, sit there and actively remind yourself, say, this is what God has done. God has been faithful throughout all generations. God has been faithful to the generations of my family. God cares for me. I need to remember that. I need to use those things to blow. This is the gospel. I'm gonna fan into flame the gift that I was given. And so Paul says, take those memories, take remembering what God has done and use that to stir yourself back up to say, I'm serving a great and glorious God. I'm serving a great and glorious gospel. If I would try to stop and try to be quiet, a flame would burn up within me and would cause me to go forward. That's what Timothy's saying. Paul's telling Timothy to actively stir up his passion for preaching and teaching by remembering what God has done. Take that and use that to blow on that ember, so it'll burst back into a flame, and you're gonna keep going. It's similar, not exactly the same, but similar to what Peter says in 2 Peter 1, 12 through 15. Peter's gone through, he's listed the great and glorious promise that God gave to his people, then he reminds them how that promise is gonna work out in their lives, and then he comes to verse 12 and he says this, therefore I intend to always remind you of this, of these qualities. Though you know them and you are established in the truth that you have." He says, you've already heard the gospel, you already know how the gospel is supposed to work out in your life, but I'm going to keep telling you over and over and over again. I'm going to keep saying it. Why? I think it right as long as I'm in this body to stir you up by way of reminder. As long as I keep reminding you of what the gospel is, it's going to stir up that passion in your heart. Remember, this is what God has done. This is the gospel. This is the glory that you are serving. So he says, I think it right as long as I am in this body to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things. So he says, Timothy, like that, use those reminders. Use looking back at what God has done to fan that gift back into flame so that you can persevere in your ministry. And so that's the charge to Timothy. Fan into flame, don't let it burn out. Timothy, don't let discouragement squelch the gift that God gave you. But then there's a small promise wrapped up in here as well. He says, for this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. He said, for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. He says, Timothy, here's the thing. You're discouraged and you're burnt out. You've run into the wall and people have opposed you. Bad things have happened to you and you want to give up, but you can't. You can't give up. You need to keep fanning that into flame because if you gave up, it would deny the type of God that God is. It would deny that God has been faithful through the generations. It would deny that God does care for you. It would deny that God had gifted you. Timothy, don't deny those things. God didn't give you that sort of spirit, a spirit that would cower back when bad things happened, would cower back when you got attacked, not that sort of, Not that sort of spirit, he says. No, you were given a spirit of power and love and self-control. You weren't given to your passions where you just walk away. You keep going. You discipline yourself to it. You keep going in power and love, not in fear. So it would be antithetical to the gospel that Timothy served for him to give up. No, if you are ultimately discouraged to the point where you despair, that would be contrary to what God had done. So we come back, I think Paul has in mind all these historical things. He's saying something very similar to what was said to Moses, or Moses said to the people, I'm sorry, Moses says to the people in Deuteronomy 31. He looks out at the people and he says, you're about to go in and take the land. And it's not gonna be easy. So he says, have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread in them. So he starts out, he says, you need to be strong. Fan into flame, you might say. Be strong and courageous, but then there's the promise. It is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. So that's what Moses tells the people. It's what God tells Timothy. Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Timothy. Yes, you're discouraged. I understand why you're discouraged. He's even going to say across this book, Timothy, I've been there as well. I've been discouraged. But you can't give up because that would be opposite to the gospel of God. It would be opposite to what God has given us. So we have the problem, the solution, and the charge. Fan into flame. Remember what God has done. Use that to excite you about the gospel of Christ again so that you go out and serve that gospel. So what does that mean for us today? What is the application as we read this passage? I'm gonna sum it up by this. Look at Jesus, not yourself. Look at Jesus, not yourself. And I wanna make four points out of this passage that I think all of us could carry with us as we go out. Four things that is important as we hear Paul share his soul with Timothy. And so four, I call them applications or maybe things to remember, I don't know what to call them. Four things, one, as we read this passage, we should remember that discouragement isn't foreign to the Christian life. Have some people have read the passages out of Joshua or Deuteronomy or all these things, be strong and courageous, be like, no, you're never supposed to be cast down. God has given you everything, be utterly joyous and glorious all the time. But as we look at 2 Timothy, we see that's not the case. We come, we find Timothy's discouraged. He's been serving the gospel. It has not been easy. He's burnt out, and he just probably wants to quit. Paul says, Timothy, yeah, you are discouraged. In fact, Paul would say similar things about himself. Go to 2 Corinthians 4, 7 through 12. He says, we have this treasure in jars of clay. He says that. He says, we're really weak. He says, that's going to glorify the gospel. We'll get to that in a second. this treasure in jars of clay to show that this passing power belongs to God and not to us. And he says all these things. He says, we're afflicted, we're perplexed, we're persecuted, we're struck down. In fact, the way that I could sum this up is the death of Jesus is being worked out in our bodies, is being manifested in our bodies. We're always carrying in our bodies the death of Jesus. So as we look at that, we ought to say discouragement isn't foreign to the Christian life. If you're going through life and you're trying to serve Christ and his gospel, there'll be days when you look at it and say, it didn't work. Now, that's not the end, we can't stop there, but it'll feel like that, like, wow, I gave my all and it failed. I gave my all and like Jeremiah, the people rejected me and threw me in prison, didn't listen to a single thing I said. I gave it my all, and my kids didn't listen. I gave it my all, and the people that I was trying to share the gospel with laughed at me. I gave it my all, and it was hard, and I'm discouraged. I've done that over and over again. I'm just ready to stop. Discouragement is informed to the Christian life. Paul felt it, Timothy felt it, Jeremiah felt it, Joshua felt it, Elijah, Moses. We could list off so many more. So that's the first one. We find ourselves discouraged. That's not surprising. In fact, we almost might expect that at least periodically, if not more often than that in the Christian life. But we can't stop there. Discouragement isn't foreign to the Christian life, but wallowing in discouragement isn't consistent with God's gift. So if we find ourselves discouraged and say, well, I've worked really hard to try to serve Christ, and it seems like it's all come apart. We cannot be honest. That's how I feel right now. But Paul says to Timothy, you can't stay there. That's not where you're going to end up if you're serving Christ. So he says, yeah, you're crying. You've got a spirit of fear. You've had your flame burned down to what we hope is still a glowing ember. He says, so here's what you're going to do, Timothy. Fan it back into flame. Fan it back into flame. In fact, as we hear a lot of the charges that we're going to go through first, I'm sorry, second Timothy, we're going to hear that same thing. He's going to say, sharing suffering. Timothy, you've been suffering. Guess what? You get to keep doing some more. Sharing suffering is a good soldier for Jesus Christ. That's how it is. But fan it back into flame. He tells him how to fan it back into flame. He says, don't stay there. You can't wallow in discouragement and just walk away. That's not Christian. That's not the spirit that God gave you. So we come back to Paul. He said, yeah, we've been afflicted. We've been perplexed. We've been in situations where like, I don't understand what God's doing and I want to give up. And he's been persecuted. He's been struck down. But he says at the end of each one, he's been afflicted in every way, but we never got crushed. There were hard days, days when it seemed like we couldn't keep going, but it turns out we always could. We were perplexed, but we were never driven completely to despair. We were persecuted, but we were never forsaken. We were struck down, but we were never destroyed because we were serving the God of the universe. And even though we were discouraged at that moment, God wasn't, and God was going to keep going. And that's why it says we have this treasure in jars of clay. In fact, discouragement sometimes is a proof to yourself that I'm not doing this. I can't do this ministry. I can't fulfill this calling on my own. It has to be God. So we have this treasure in jars of clay because the surpassing power has to belong to God. But if the surpassing power belongs to God, then you can't stay there. You can't stay wallowing in discouragement ready to give up. And so discouragement isn't foreign to the Christian life. If you've been discouraged in how you're trying to serve God, that's normal. But don't stay there. Wallowing in discouragement isn't consistent with God's gift. Third application is what we've been talking about all morning. Okay, you're discouraged. It's been hard. Things haven't seemed to go on your way. It seems like all the ways you try to serve Christ just fall apart. The antidote to that discouragement is to remember what God has done. So Paul's telling Timothy something like this. Timothy, if you keep looking at what you've done, you're gonna be discouraged. If you keep looking at the situation around you, you're gonna be discouraged. If you keep looking at Tychicus, I'm sorry, I keep saying Tychicus. I'm not pulling his name off. But if you keep looking at Hymenaeus, there we go, Hymenaeus, and saying, well, that guy seems to be winning and I seem to be losing and he's carrying away my children. If you keep looking at all these things, that's what's gonna cause you discouragement, cause you to wallow in it and give up. But if you take your eyes off those things and say, you know what? This is a moment in time, just like Jeremiah being thrown in a pit was a moment in time, or Elijah wandering out into the wilderness and asking God to die was a moment in time. And if they'd stopped at those moments, yeah, well, this is discouraging. Elijah, you've got the entire armies of Israel after you, and a queen that very much wants to kill you. Jeremiah, it seems like nobody in the world's gonna listen to you, and that kingdom is going to fall, and all those things, they seemed ultimately discouraging, and if we stop there, we'd say, oh, we should just give up. But keep reading the story, Timothy, keep reading. Jeremiah despaired, but God brought the people back. Elijah despaired, but God brought the people back. All these people despaired, but they kept trusting God because God was going to be faithful. Keep remembering that, remember, remember, remember, remember what God has done. We see that actually this is something that's called across all scripture, keep remembering, keep remembering what God has done. Deuteronomy 718, this is again Moses speaking to the people. You're about to go in, he says, you shall not be afraid of them. It's gonna seem like it's impossible. The first 10 spies who went in said, this is something we cannot do. This is beyond us. He says, do not be afraid of them, but you shall remember. You shall remember. He says, look back what God's done. Remember what the Lord did to Pharaoh in Egypt. That's what God does. Sure, this is beyond you. You can't do that. It's discouraging and it feels like you're gonna lose, but that's the God you serve. Look back, remember. 1 Chronicles 16, 11 through 12, David praying. He says, seek the Lord in his strength. Seek his presence continually, and he calls out and he says, remember, remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles and the judgments that he uttered. Or, and in another place, David prays this, specifically when he's cast down, when he's discouraged, he says, why are you cast down on my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me. David's honest about where he is. Boy, this seems discouraging. The king of Israel is trying to kill me, and it doesn't seem like I'm any closer to gaining the crown that God said would be mine and my descendants forever. But he says, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore, I remember. Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon from Mount Mazar. The faithful people throughout the Old Testament, the faithful servants, they were discouraged, but then they remembered. They were discouraged, and sometimes God had to remind them pretty forcefully. We think of Elijah out in the wilderness, and he seems like, just let me die, God. I'm no better than my fathers. God said, now let's go to the mountain and let's remind you what's going on. Let's go to the mountain and let's remind you where the power is. So that's the antidote. Yes, you might be discouraged. It might seem like everything you've done to serve Christ falls apart around you and that's not even that abnormal for the Christian life, but don't stay there. Instead, remember what God has done throughout all generations, even if right now everything around you doesn't seem great, remember beyond that. Look farther. God's done great things and he'll keep doing great things and you're just in a low point of the story. I would start quoting out of The Lord of the Rings, but I won't right now. So the antidote to discouragement is remembering God has done. You've had a low point, but that's not the end of the story, and God's gonna keep going. Remember, remember, remember. So discouragement isn't part of the Christian life. Wallowing in discouragement isn't consistent with God's gifts. So the antidote to discouragement is remembering what God has done. So for, and this is kind of our conclusion, to persevere in Christian ministry, this is written to probably a pastor, pastor-like man in a church, but I'd say to any Christian ministry, parents with your children, evangelist with those you're preaching the gospel to, whatever your role in Christian ministry is, if you're going to persevere in that Christian ministry, You've got to take your eyes off yourself and your situation, because often it's going to be discouraging. Often it's going to seem like, well, that was all a waste. But if you take your eyes off yourself and your situation, and then you look at Christ, you can be excited about Him. Take your eyes off yourself and your situation. Turn and look at Christ and be excited about Him. So I think a good summary of our passage would be just to jump into Hebrews. Again, Hebrews might have been written by Paul or somebody very close to Paul, has a lot of the same passions that Paul has. This is how Paul concludes the book of Hebrews. He says, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, in fact, what I've just been doing right now, he went through the generations and he said, look at these great men of God. And then he says, this is what those great men of God were like. They were cast out. They wandered around in the wilderness. They were sawn in half, men of whom the world was not worthy. They didn't have it easy. Those are the sorts of witnesses you have behind you. Therefore, since we have that great cloud of witnesses that believed in God's faithfulness and God was always faithful, then Let us also lay aside every weight, that discouragement, and the sin which clings so closely. It's going to be wrapped up in that discouragement. And let us run with endurance. Don't give up. Run with endurance the race that is set before us. And how are you going to run with endurance? Not by looking at that guy who's trying to saw you in half, or the wilderness that you're wandering around in, or the situation that seems so much like it all fell apart right now. But he says, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. Remind yourself, remind yourself. Remember what God has done. Look at Jesus and be excited about him. He's the founder and perfecter of our faith. And it was for the joy that was set before him. the joy that was set before him, that he endured the cross. You gotta remember that joy, that joy that belonged perfectly to Jesus, and he has won for you at the cross. He used that joy to endure through the worst part of the story. And if you're gonna follow him, you're gonna need to look at him and use that joy to endure through the worst part of the story too. So that's why we sung, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. I think it captured this application very well. It says, O soul, are you weary and troubled? Is there no light in the darkness you see? Are you with Jeremiah? Are you with Elijah? Are you with all these other characters? He says, well, okay. There's light for a look at the Savior, and there's life more abundantly. Yeah, if you look here, it seems like darkness. But if you look at the Savior, that's where the life is. So, the application, turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full on his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. That's what Paul's saying to Timothy. Timothy, yeah, it's hard. You're discouraged and you're burnt out. But don't stay there. Remember what God has done. Remember what God has done in Christ. Focus your eyes back on him. Fan that gift back into flame. So kids, here's your kids' question for this morning. How do we keep serving Jesus when we're discouraged? How do we keep serving Jesus when we're discouraged? We remember what God has done, we look at Jesus, and we get excited about Him. We remember what God has done, we look at Jesus, and we get excited about Him. Let's pray together. Father, we come before you this morning and we admit that all too often we are discouraged. Father, because of our situation and our so temporary limited vision of what's going on, that things can seem like they've all fallen apart. And in that moment, it can be tempting to despair, to forget that you were faithful. Father, if we're honest, many of us have been there at various points. But Father, I pray that you wouldn't leave us here. Father, as Paul reminded Timothy, I pray that you would remind us of your great faithfulness that has endured throughout all the generations. Father, I pray that you would remind us of how much you care for us, that you aren't an aloof God, you aren't the God of the deist who sits enthroned in heaven and forgets about us, but you are the God who cares. Father, I pray that you would remind us, help us to remember all the gifts that you've given us, the ways that you have given us to the ministries that you've laid before us. Father, I pray that through those things we would turn our eyes on Christ. Father, that his glory and his goodness would be our fuel, that his gospel would be the flame that causes us to keep going. Father, we need that. We need your spirit to be in us, to drive us forward, to keep embracing the gospel even when it's hard, and to keep serving it even when it seems fruitless. So Father, I pray that you do that for our good, Father. We need those things, but more so for Christ's glory. Show the world how great Christ is by keeping us going in him. It is in Christ's name we pray, amen. Open up for any questions or comments or others. Yeah. I'd like to comment. You'll probably remember the situation. There was a point where you and I took a bus, approached a fellow pastor with some heart counseling. And that resulted in him going into a tailspin. I got a call from his wife within a day or two after that, pleading with me to do something because he wouldn't get out of bed. I don't know that that meant that our counsel to him was wrong. I don't know, as you reflect back on that, what your thoughts might be. Was it right? Was it wrong? Did we not do it in the best way? I don't know. And I don't even remember the outcome, if it ever even served the intended purpose, honestly. I think your ending application was right, because the reality is we're a bunch of simple people with lots of problems, life is complicated. And sometimes, with Timothy, I don't ever get the sense that the people that were opposing Timothy had a good heart in their opposition. Or at least at this point did. I think some things, like Alexander, if you go through his story, it seemed like he had been right there in the center and then had wandered off. But you're right, I think you've got, yeah. I guess my experience has been sometimes it's a mixed bag. Sometimes Peter needed to be rebuked by Paul. Absolutely. But he didn't stay discouraged by it. He assessed it, saw what was right and what Peter brought to him, and altered his conduct accordingly. All of that to say that I think that the ending application was right. Sometimes accusations and challenges will come as unwarranted and should be propelled and we should stand firm, continue. But I think sometimes we need to hear a review. Absolutely, yeah. And respond to those as well. The end result of being, again, just coming back to what It makes it challenging because we can't always assume whether it's difficult as a minister or put in a position scrutiny. It's difficult to know is it opposition or is it a discipline that we're needing and trying to discern that. But either way, I think the end application is always right, which is looking to Jesus. And that's where we'll find encouragement to the Anything else? Okay.