Well, I'd like to ask you to take your Bible this morning to the text we read together out of 2 Timothy 1 this morning, the verses that we read together that describe Paul's heart for his son in the faith. There are two other places where these sorts of ideas come into play around the life of Timothy. And if you're interested in them, let me give them to you. We read about his conversion in Acts chapter 16. He comes back to a city where he had traveled and he came there some months after he had been in that city announcing the gospel with his gospel partners on the very first missionary journey. And you remember that journey where Paul came over to a place called Lystra. And then he went on to Derby and as he, came into those regions, the people were so, as he first came in, they were very impressed with what he was saying and what he appeared to be, that they thought he was a god. And then as they became more aware and as Jews came up speaking against Paul, they became incensed against him and he was actually stoned. and left for dead. He goes back to the church in Antioch and gives a report. And after some months, he comes back on a second missionary journey to that very same city. And so you read about that second journey in Acts chapter 16. Let me read it to you beginning in verse one. Then Paul came to Derbe and Lystra and behold, a certain disciple was there waiting for him. When he went the first time, there were no disciples there. When he came back the second time, there was a certain disciple who was there named Timothy. He was the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed. But his father was Greek. He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. And Paul wanted to have him go on with him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews that were in that region, for they all knew that Timothy's father was Greek. And so here is another passage that speaks to the life of Timothy. And then 2 Timothy 3, verses 14 through 17, that incredible portion of God's word, the Holy Spirit inspired for our good and for his glory. that speaks to how we got the scriptures, and that speaks to the role the scriptures have in our lives, also played a part in Timothy's life as a very young man. Paul said to Timothy, you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures. And so these three texts give us a very beautiful snapshot into the life of one of the most important young pastors in the New Testament. The pastor is Timothy, of course, and we know a lot about him. He grew up in the city of Lystra in Asia Minor, that's modern-day Turkey. He was the son of a Jewish mother and a Greek dad. And by the way, as we look at that description that Paul gives to us about the father of Timothy, when he talks about Timothy's dad being a Greek, he wasn't just talking about his ethnic orientation. He's talking really in a much broader sense about the cultural ethos in which Timothy was raised. You'll remember that by the time Paul comes along, the entire world, the inhabited world of Paul's day was Roman. The Romans had come and established the empire and by the time Paul comes along, that empire had been in place for almost 200 years. There was a great period of peace that was going on in the empire as it was governed and held together by military might. And all throughout Asia Minor, the Roman Empire had established outposts. They had established a system of communication and a system of government and a system of transportation. And so the world was governed by Rome. But if you want to know how the world felt If you want to know how they thought, you have to go back to the empire that was right before the Romans, that was set up by a young Macedonian prince named Alexander. And as Alexander went on his campaign to conquer the world, he took the Greek culture with him. And that culture endured. It was a culture that elevated learning. It was a culture that elevated culture for culture's sake. And all throughout the world. of Alexander's day, he brought with him Greek language, he brought with him Greek learning, he brought with him a Greek way of thinking about life, he brought with him the Greek religion, the Greek gods, and everywhere that you went after Alexander's demise, this Greek culture endured. And so when we read Paul say about Timothy that his father was a Greek, he's talking about the fact that Timothy's father may have been Greek in his ethnicity, but he certainly would have embraced all that that broader term meant. So Timothy was raised in a home that was thoroughly pagan. It was thoroughly enmeshed in everything ethos-wise that you would have imagined in a world that worshipped idols and that valued philosophy, that valued the Greek culture and the Greek language. And in this home, there was a young boy who was raised, and when we meet him in these three texts, he becomes a fervent follower of Jesus and a valued minister of the gospel and a partner, a son in the faith to the Apostle Paul. There are three things I think we should note about Timothy that I think lead up to a massive question. And so one of those is his salvation. Timothy was a believer. He was soundly converted under Paul's ministry. He probably heard the gospel for the first time when Paul came to that region in Acts 14 on the first missionary journey. One commentator that I read made this beautiful observation that when Paul came back the second time to the city where he had been stoned, still probably bearing the scars of that stoning on his body. there was waiting for him a gift from the Lord, fruit for his labor. And that gift was a young man named Timothy who had been soundly converted under his ministry. You know, sometimes in ministry, you are gonna labor in a hard place. You're gonna serve under difficult circumstances. You are even going to experience some of what Paul experienced at Derby. And you can walk away from an experience like that and wonder, was it worth it? Did anything get accomplished? And then God brings you back, and there's fruit for all of that. Timothy was soundly converted. And then he was in the process of being sanctified. Acts 16 speaks about Timothy's reputation by the brethren. So apparently, Not only was there Timothy who had been converted, but there must have been other believers because there was a church. By the time Paul comes back the second time to this city, there's a church there. And there are brothers that are gathering together. The brethren of God are meeting together. And in their midst is this young man, probably in his early 20s. And everybody who sees Timothy knows that he is growing in grace. And so when you talked about Timothy or when people said now who's growing in grace in the body, Timothy's name would come to the surface. The scripture says he was well spoken of the believers in the two cities of Lystra and Derbe. An amazing testimony for a young man growing up in that kind of a culture and in that kind of a home. And by the time we get to the end of Paul's ministry in 2 Timothy chapter 1 and in 1 Timothy chapter 1, we find out that not only is Timothy saved, and not only is he being sanctified, he has been set apart for gospel ministry. And Paul encourages him to stir up the gift that God has given to him that was manifest to the apostles to the point that they laid hands on him and ordained him to gospel ministry. And then by the time you get to the end of Paul's life, he is saying to Timothy, now, Timothy, as I go on to the Lord, you need to never be ashamed. of the name of Christ for which you are to give testimony. You are never to be ashamed of the people of God who are despised by the world in which you live and you are never to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ for which you also are called to suffer. And so that brings me to this question. How in the world did we get a Timothy? You know, when I first began teaching through the New Testament in a course many, many years ago, I was fascinated with these books that bear his name. Two letters directly to Timothy. He's mentioned in six other of Paul's letters. He became a very, very precious gospel partner, a risk taker with Paul in the gospel. Church tradition tells us that he continued for many years as the primary teaching elder at the church at Ephesus. And if church history or tradition is to be believed, he ended his life as a martyr, like Paul did, many years later in the city of Ephesus, because he would not give credence to the goddess Diana, the principal goddess at the city of Ephesus, where he had announced the gospel and preached the gospel and served the gospel for many, many years. And so I was fascinated with his life. And I hate to admit this, but I think most of us would probably have thought the same thing. If you had asked me, how did Timothy, how did we get a Timothy? How was he shaped up? How was he formed up? I would have said, well, of course, the apostle Paul did it. He spent time with Paul. Paul prayed for him. Paul encouraged him. Paul led him to the Lord. And one day I was working through a couple of texts and I began to realize, actually, Paul points us somewhere else. Paul points us to two women. who had such a powerful impact in Timothy's life that by the time Paul came, he was ripe for the harvest that the gospel would reap in his life. And so this morning, I really want us to look as we celebrate our mothers. Now, some of you may not have a mother that you would celebrate. You say, well, pastor, my mother abandoned me. My mother did this or my mother did that. Many of you here have mothers that you hold up before the Lord. And it's easy as we come to a day like today when we honor our mothers and we're looking at the life of two women that Paul honored to assume that this is a message that's just for mothers and it's just for a certain kind of mother. And I want to elevate the message this morning so that as we think about what Paul has to say about these two women, we begin to realize that these are things that ought to be true about every single one of us. They ought to be true about us whether we have a mother like Lois was to Eunice and Eunice was to Timothy, or we have a mother whose name we don't know. or whose memory is a very difficult one. These things that we're about to see in the text aren't just from others. I'm using today sort of as the pivot so that we can get into the text and see how God might use this text in each of our lives. But as we thank God for these two women, and as we thank God for the mothers in our midst, and for our own mothers, let's honor what the text is honoring by saying these are things that really ought to be true about every one of our lives. And so the biblical record of their life, is before us in 2nd Timothy chapter 1 verses 3 through 5. There's a mention as I said before in Acts 16. And so Paul thanked God for Timothy, particularly for the sincere, the genuine faith that dwelt in him, but that first dwelt in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. And so the first thing I want us to see with regard to the power of a mother's faith, that should be our faith as well, is that it is personal in its nature. It is personal in its nature. This unfeigned faith. This sincere faith dwelt in these two women. The word dwell there carries the idea of living within, inhabiting. It's used several other times in the New Testament. For example, let me give you a couple of occasions or ideas. It's used to describe a demonic being inhabiting someone. It's used to describe the Holy Spirit inhabiting someone in Romans chapter eight. You say, well, Pastor Sam, why pull out these two examples? Why the example of a demon indwelling someone and why the example of a Holy Spirit indwelling someone? And the answer is because the person that was being indwelt by one or the other of these two beings was controlled by them. When you go and you look at what happened in the person who was indwelt by a demon, that demon controlled them. influenced them, impacted them. When you look at how Paul describes the Holy Spirit dwelling in a believer, the Holy Spirit filling us is another way of saying we should be controlled by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit should shape the way we think. The Holy Spirit should shape the way we respond. The Holy Spirit should flavor every part of our life. And so when we take these two examples and we sort of boil down to, or drill down rather to the idea of inhabiting for the purpose of controlling, when Paul says to Timothy, there was something dwelling in your grandmother, there was something dwelling in your mother, I would suggest to you that whatever was dwelling in them flavored everything about their life. And the thing that Paul identifies in this text that dwelt in Lois and then in Eunice was a sincere faith, a faith that controlled and directed and flavored their life. Everywhere you went in their home, there was a flavor of their faith. This was a permanent way of life for them. They lived lives that were governed by a faith or trust in God that expressed itself consistently in the ethos of their life. Whether you're a mother or a dad, this morning one of the greatest things you can give to your children is this kind of a faith. A faith that is so personal in its nature that it touches every part of your life. It comes out as you talk. It comes out as you work together. It comes out in every part of your life. And as your children and your grandchildren encounter you, they also, by definition, because it is such a controlling part of your life, they encounter the faith that is so personal to you. Lloyd Jones tells a story one time, actually it was G. Campbell Morgan, I'm sorry, G. Campbell Morgan tells a story one time about the fact that as a young man he and his wife were in their first home and they were so thankful for the home and they invited his dad to come and have lunch. And so as his dad was there eating, they were talking and as the day wore on, G. Campbell Morgan just got the sense that his dad was just unusually quiet. And so as sort of the visit came to an end, he said to his dad, dad, is there something going on? I'm sort of paraphrasing a very long story into a very short one. And his dad said, son, this is a wonderful house, and we had a wonderful meal today, but there are no evidences in this house that you belong to the Lord. Now I'm not suggesting that you immediately go home and you put up verses and all the rest of it. I'm just saying that there is a way in which our faith lives itself out and it is so personal to us and it is so real to us that it controls us and it flavors the ethos of everything that we do and how we respond and how we live. and Timothy grew up in a home with two women. And Paul says, now there was an unfamed faith in them. We're gonna find out that this faith initially was not in Jesus because they didn't know about Jesus until Paul got there in the first missionary journey. But there was a very powerful witness in the personal faith that dwelt in these two women. And if you and I want to have that kind of an impact on our children, and on our grandchildren, and on our siblings, and on those who live with us, there comes a point in which our faith must be very personal in its nature. Here's the second thing I think we can learn from Paul, and that is this, that this powerful faith that was so personal in its nature was very passionate in its expression. In 2 Timothy chapter one, the text that we are looking at in verse five, Paul says, I am reminded of your sincere faith. The word sincere is the word that we would use authentic, genuine. It is unfeigned. It is unhypocritical. It is unmixed. This term comes in the Greek world. Remember, Timothy's dad was a Greek and certainly adopted all the Greek ethos. And in the Roman world, part of the Greek culture that remained were these great dramas or plays that would make up so much of the entertainment of a city. And oftentimes in those plays, an actor would play more than one part. And so you would recognize the part the person was playing because they would hold up a different mask in front of their face to sort of give you the idea that same actor that was just talking to you a minute ago but they did a quick mask change and they would hold up the mask maybe on a little stick in front of their face so that you knew that they were doing a different character. And so Paul and New Testament writers began talking in terms of sincerity and authenticity as someone who didn't do that. Someone who lived without a mask. Someone who was unmasked in his or her life. And so it came to mean the idea of something that was real or authentic without any disguise or any false appearance. And Paul says, now Timothy, this is the kind of faith And you know this because you live with these two women. This was the kind of faith that was in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice. It wasn't a perfect faith. And they weren't perfect people, but it was a genuine faith that was faithful to God. And this is very clear. in the way that Paul talks. It's talking about the faith that comes out of a certain kind of heart. When the Apostle Paul talked about a living faith, a faith that was operative, a faith that would stand you well on the day that you stood before the throne of God, and you most needed that faith. You wanted the kind of faith that was alive. You wanted the kind of faith that was real. You wanted the kind of faith that was genuine. You didn't want to get to that day when you most needed that faith and find out that you had a false faith. or you had a faith that was a word only faith. You remember how James put it in chapter two, when he challenged this kind of faith, he sort of brought up sort of an illustration of a guy or somebody that he would be having a conversation with. And the person was challenging him and saying, look, I have faith and all I need is faith. And Paul's answer to that, Well, certainly, but James had a different answer. James was not contradicting Paul, who hadn't written yet, by the way. He was making a different point. And he was saying this, if you want to know what kind of faith saves a person, it is a living faith. A living faith. Not a dead faith, not a useless faith, a living faith. And the way you recognize a living faith is not by the words that comes out of somebody's mouth. Because the person that has a dead faith and the person that has a living faith will say the same thing about Jesus. Sometimes you hear people say things like, well, I know I'm saved because I believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore I'm saved. James's illustration has a very simple sort of similar thing. You tell me that you have genuine faith because you believe in God. Congratulations, that's a good thing. But you need to know something. Even the devil believes what you believe. And so all of a sudden you're beginning to realize, wait a moment here, it isn't enough just to say all the right things out of my mouth. That confession that comes out of my mouth has to be coming out of a faith that is genuine, it is living, it is alive. And Paul looked at Timothy and he said to Timothy, you have had the incredible experience of growing up in a home where two women had that kind of faith. It was genuine. It was alive. You know, one of the things I think that is very convicting to somebody like me, and I hope to you as well, but certainly to me as I work in the texts like this so frequently, I am convicted at times, do I actually believe what I'm saying to you every week? It'd be a terrible thing, wouldn't it, for me to preach well and accurate, and be biblically faithful to the text and get before the Lord one day and the Lord say, I never knew you? Because a person isn't getting to heaven because of what comes out of their mouth. I'm not going to heaven because I am a pastor. I'm not going to heaven because I stand up here and preach to you every week and open up the word of God to you every week. The reason I'm going to heaven is because one day God granted me faith. And when He granted me faith, He didn't give me a dead faith. He gave me a living faith. The gift of God. Ephesians chapter 2. That gift is faith. God grants faith. Now, how did I access that? I asked for it. I came to God and I said, God, I'm a sinner. I repent of my sin. I need faith. I need grace. I didn't know those words, but that's what I was asking for. And as a 13-year-old boy growing up in a home with two people, a mom and a dad, who had personal faith the way that we're reading about today, I saw the gospel model. I understood the power of a faith that was consistent and genuine. And I knew I didn't have that as a 13-year-old boy. And many of you could have a very similar testimony, and so the question for you this morning is this, is your faith at work? Is it personal in your life, and is it powerful, is it passionate in its expression? And then there's a third thing we see here in the text, and it's very simple. A powerful faith like this is persevering in its context. It's not just personal in its nature. And it's not just passionate in its expression because it's real, it's genuine. It perseveres in its context. Acts chapter 16 has a very interesting little note. Paul came to Derbe and Lystra, and behold, verse one, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek. This faith that Paul describes to Timothy, that dwelt first in his grandmother Lois and then in his mother Eunice, was a faith that had to persevere in the midst of a pagan culture. I mean, these two women are named Greek names. Lois, and Eunice are both Greek names. Lois comes from a Greek word that means superior. It means better or more desirable. And Eunice comes from a word that means good victory or one that overcomes or conquers. And so one of the questions I think that's worth at least a little rabbit trail in your mind as you get some time later this week, how did two Jewish women end up with Greek names? I mean, if you notice anything about the Apostle Paul, as a former rabbi, he wanted nothing to do with the pagan world. If you lived in Jerusalem or if you lived in Israel and you came up to the temple and you brought your money so that you could buy a sacrifice or an animal to sacrifice at the temple for some of the rituals that were involved there, and you brought the money that you brought with you from your hometown, the priest would say to you, that money doesn't work here. And you would say, why not? And they would say, because the Roman hand might've touched that money. And so we're gonna take that money and we're gonna exchange it for money that we know is pure money. It is money that has not been richly defiled by a pagan hand. And so if you lived in that kind of a culture where even your money that might have touched a pagan hand was not workable at the temple, how in the world could you countenance giving your children names that were Greek names? And the answer is that Lois and Eunice grew up in pagan cities, where pagan idolatry and Greek ethos and culture was common. We know that Eunice married a pagan man. And so she didn't just live in a pagan city, she lived in a pagan home. And the reason we know this is that Timothy was not circumcised. His mother was not allowed to circumcise her son. And so there's every evidence in the text that Timothy grew up in a pagan city and in a pagan home. And here are two women, Lois and Eunice, And you remember, you say, well, that's what you get for marrying an unsaved or unreligious, unrighteous man. You gotta remember something in the first century, women didn't have a lot of choice about who they married. They just didn't. And so probably at some point, Lois's dad married her, and there's every indication, based on the way they named their daughter, that she was in a very similar circumstance. And along came somebody, and there were all kinds of reasons why marriages happened in the first century. Sometimes they were political, sometimes they were material, sometimes they had to do with land and all kinds of reasons. And so, at some point, Eunice's dad, Lois' husband, made a marriage for his daughter with someone who was not a Jew. And you might find yourself wondering, well, how in the world did an unfeigned faith come out of that? And the answer is God. God did it. And so this faith persevered in the midst of a pagan home. And so as we kind of look at this, can you imagine what it was like to raise Timothy in such a way that when the apostle Paul finally arrived in the fullness of time, at the right moment, Paul shows up and there has been gospel work done in Timothy's life by these two women in the middle of a pagan city, in the midst of a pagan home. And all of a sudden, the harvest comes. How did that happen? Well, there's a last thing I want us to see before we close this morning, and that is this, a powerful faith that we're looking at, like the one we're looking at, is permanent in its consequences. It's permanent in its consequences. Paul said to Timothy, in 2 Timothy 1, verse 5, I am persuaded That's a really strong word. Timothy, I am absolutely persuaded that the faith that was in your mother and in your grandmother is also in you. And there were outward evidences of this because the believers around Timothy spoke well of him. And they weren't speaking well in the context of his physical appearance. Oh, look at how well he dresses. Oh, notice how kind he is. And oh, he's so educated. They're speaking well of Timothy's faith. Timothy, I am persuaded, Paul says, that your faith is genuine and it is the same faith that inhabited your mother and inhabited your grandmother. Now, how in the world did these two women do that? And this is where I wanna end. I want you to go with me to 2 Timothy 3. where Paul says to Timothy, at the end of his letter, he's wrapping up his letter, and he's also, by the way, wrapping up his life. And he says to Timothy, but as for you, I've said a lot of things, Timothy, about the ministry, I've said a lot of things about the church, I've said a lot of things about the end times, I've said a lot of things to you about the doctrine that you're to guard and you're to pass on, but as for you, I have a personal word for you. That's the idea. But as for you, continue in what you have learned. Continue in what you have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it. So Timothy, there's something that you have learned, and there is something that you have come to believe, and you need to continue in it. And in verse 15, we read this, how from childhood, you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Remember I said we don't know when Lois and when Eunice became Christians. The idea would be that when Paul came through the first time and he began talking to them and reasoning from the scriptures about Messiah and identifying the Messiah of the scriptures they had been reading and praying over and teaching young Timothy. When Paul came and reasoned from those scriptures that the Messiah had come and was Jesus of Nazareth, these two women embraced that. These two women became genuine, devoted followers of Jesus the Messiah. And so did their son. If you want to know who did it, it was Lois and Eunice. If you want to know how they did it, it was through the scriptures. They presented the Scriptures to Timothy in a way that from the time of his childhood, he was listening to the Scriptures. Perhaps they taught him to read the Scriptures. Perhaps the Scriptures were his primer as he began learning how to read and how to write. We don't know how they did it, but we do know on a big level that how they did it was through the Scriptures. And that is so important because Paul is later going to say in the next verse that the Scriptures they used to nurture and admonish Timothy had a unique power. These scriptures had a capacity. They had a unique power. And Paul says, let me tell you why that was such a great thing that your mother and your grandmother did when they taught you the scriptures, and they formed you up with the scriptures, and they shaped you with the scriptures. The reason that was so fortuitous for you is this, all scripture is breathed out from God, and it is profitable for teaching, for correction, for training in righteousness. that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good word. These sacred writings, Paul goes on to say, at the end of verse 15, are able to make you wise unto salvation. Do you know why Timothy got saved? I mean, a big reason Timothy got saved, because in the providence of God, God had a plan for his life that included his election. But why did Timothy get saved on a human level? And the answer is because he was exposed from the time of his childhood to a sacred writing that had the capacity to make a man wise unto salvation. Isaiah said that when God sends forth his word, it will not return to him what? Void. It won't come back empty. There will be fruit. And so I can only imagine how it must have been for these two women, a godly grandmother, a faithful mother, and they had a young boy, and they were saying to Timothy, Timothy, let me read you the scriptures. The scriptures they were reading were the Old Testament, the 39 books that you and I kind of mess around in. We don't always understand them because we have the New Testament, and we sometimes think the Old Testament's really not that useful. But these two women, that's all they had. They had the 39 books that make up the first half of our Bible, and they read them to Timothy, and they lived them out before Timothy, and they prayed them with Timothy, and when Paul came, there came a harvest. And you know, mom and dad, if you'll do that with your kids, you know, grandma and grandpa, if you'll do that with your grandkids, if you will just take these scriptures and do what these two women did, They did it in a pagan city. They did it in a pagan home. Surely you can do it in a Christian home. You can do it in a church like this. And those scriptures, because of who sent them forth, they were breathed out by God. have an unusual capacity to make a person wise unto salvation. Let me pray here in just a moment. But you know, some of us will expend immense amounts of energy and time to make sure our children have the best possible future. We will wear ourselves out as parents, getting them to this practice and that practice and making sure they have these music lessons and they're on these sports teams and they have, and we'll get a second job or a third job so they can go to these schools or these universities and we will exhaust ourselves in every way to make sure our children have the best possible chance to succeed in this life. And I wanna raise the bar just a moment. What good does it do for them to succeed in this life and fail in the only life that matters? You know, sometimes we're so exhausted and we're so busy and we're so tied up with things that it's like, I don't even, I don't know if we can go to church this weekend. We got this and that and the other. And we take the one thing that is going to give our children the best opportunity for the life to come and we minimize it or we stick it in with everything else that we're doing. And then we wonder what happened to our kids? What happened to our kids? What happened to our grandkids? And some of you are sitting here and going, Pastor, I wish you hadn't said that at the end because that happened to me. That's exactly what happened to my kids. That's exactly what's happening to my grandkids. And I was so encouraged until a moment ago. Can I just encourage you? There is a grandmother in this text. Her name is Lois. And she didn't stop being a godly grandmother. And you can't stop being a godly grandparent because you look back and it didn't work out for you. You can still take the word of God. You can still take the faith that dwells in you. And you can be a Lois. Or maybe you're here as a mom and you're like, you know what? My husband's not on board with this. My husband's not a believer. My husband's not on board with this. You can still be a Eunice. And all of us in this room can be a Timothy. We can all look to our mother and our father and to somebody like Paul, who's a spiritual father to us, and some of you have spiritual parents, and you can say to them, the faith that I saw in you is the faith that God is growing in me. May God help us to do this by his grace and for his glory. Father, thank you for your goodness and your grace and for the story of these two incredible women who we know so little about. but had such a powerful impact and such a powerful influence in the life of their son and grandson. Lord, we're thankful for our mothers and our grandmothers. We're thankful for our fathers and our grandfathers. We're thankful for our spiritual parents. And most of all, we're thankful to you, our father, who sent your son, our older brother, so that we could receive from your gracious gift, the faith. that is unfeigned, that will stand in us and be manifested through us as we live for Your glory, in Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand together as we sing together about our wonderful, merciful Savior. Wonderful, merciful Savior Precious Redeemer and Friend Who would have thought that a Lamb could rescue the souls of men? Oh, You rescue the souls of men ♪ Counselor, comforter, keeper ♪ Spirit we long to embrace ♪ You offer hope when our hearts have ♪ Hopelessly lost our way ♪ Oh we've hopelessly lost our way ♪ And you are the one that we pray You are the one we adore You give the healing and grace Our hearts always hunger for Our hearts always hunger for Almighty Infinite Father Here in our weakness you find us Falling before your throne Oh, we're falling before your throne You are the one that we praise You are the one we adore You give the healing and grace, Son You are the one that we pray for You are the one we adore. You give the healing and grace our hearts always hunger for. Oh, our hearts always hunger for. Oh, our hearts always hunger for. All right, well we have one item of business that we need to attend to before we break and go and celebrate our day with our mothers today. I hope that you will do that with your mother and pray that you have a blessed time with her. But I do want to call the church into session and Charlie, our chairman of the deacon board, will be coming with one item today. I want to thank all of you who participated in our listening sessions related to the loan that we are asking you to approve for $1.5 million today. Up to that amount is what we believe that we can work with in the renovation over at Welcome Baptist. Many of you have participated. We're thankful we had three listening sessions and I know some of you weren't able to come to those and you reached out privately. We sent out another announcement, a reminder this past Thursday in our And so we wanted to give you every opportunity, every chance that you could to ask questions or to get some clarifications. There are two questions that came up in almost every one of the listening sessions. And so I want to just mention those to you and assure you that we have addressed them. The first of those questions is, As we go into the project, is this going to push our ability to get over to the property, the 37 acres that we own here in Powdersville? Is this going to delay us from being able to get over there and move into that property? And the answer to that is no. We actually believe, as elders and leaders and those that are working with the finances, that as soon as we can get over there and have room to do additional ministry and outreach, then we believe the Lord will continue to grow the congregation. And that will allow us to move forward into our building plan for the property over right next to Walmart here right off of 153. So we are not backing away from that process. We believe that this actually will help us and accelerate our ability to get there beyond what would have happened to us if we'd have stayed here in this facility. And so that's the first question that came up. It was a very good question and we're thankful for that. The second question that came up a number of times was, Can we save any money by doing some of the work ourselves? Can we save any money by using volunteers? And the answer to that is yes. We've already factored that into the equation. Yesterday we had a tremendous work day. I don't know how many guys were there. We got a lot of work done. The gym lights were replaced. And all of that was done by volunteers. And so we're going to do what we can with volunteers, but we're also mindful that we are on a time frame and there is a good bit of the project that can't be done by volunteers. And so we're going to do what we have to do in order to get that accomplished. So those were the two big questions that came up. I'm going to let Charlie kind of take it from here. Let me pray for us. And then Charlie will make some comments and then ask us to affirm the motion that is before us from the elders. Lord, we are so grateful for your goodness. Thank you for what we heard this morning and for what we have sung together and for your good and gracious and wise leading in our congregation. Lord, as we consider the opportunity before us and really the responsibility before us in the renovation of this facility that has been standing in this community for all of these decades. Lord, we receive that from you as a stewardship and as a gift, a good gift. And Lord, as we care for it now and as we prepare to use that for your glory and for the gospel sake, we pray that you would give us wisdom as we know and we move forward, know how to move forward with this motion before us and we'll give you our thanks and our dependent praise in Jesus name.