Let's pray together, Church. Our Father, we're grateful for what you have given us today in the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who redeems us from our sin and makes peace with God. Lord, give us grace, continued grace through your word this morning and by your spirit, convert us, transform us and conform us into the image of Jesus. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Camp is special to me because when I was in seventh grade, the summer after the school year, I went to camp and I remember a bald guy that played the guitar, sang songs and preached that Jesus saves sinners that repent. I remember the experience of knowing that if I died that night, I would go to hell and be separated eternally from the God that loved me. And so that night I shared with an adult who had given their week to come to camp and said, I know I've read the Bible. I've heard the words preached and I know that I was in tears. that I need to give my life to the Lord. And that adult who was a Sunday school teacher walked with me through Romans 10, 9 and 10. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. I believed that Jesus Christ could save a sinner like me and that he could bring me peace with God. And forever since that moment, My life has been changed. This year at camp, I was sitting in my bed. A young man walked up to me, shaking, voice quivering, and said to me, I need to tell you something. And all I could do was flash back 30 years to my camp experience. And this young man said, I need to tell somebody that I want to commit my life to ministry and serving the Lord. That was my son, Ash. God moves. And God moves when we are surrounded by the word of God, by the spirit of God. And forever, Ash's life will be different. But Ash, said that because one of the older students, Tristan, told him earlier that night, if you have something on your heart that you need to say, then you need to say it tonight. Remember saying that, Tristan? That encouraged Ash, which encouraged me, which one day will encourage many. The camp is important because it's about a people doing it together. We never would have been there if Pastor Stephen hadn't put hundreds of hours of work into preparing camp. Or if Emily hadn't chosen to be there to support her son and the other students that were there. Or if Rick hadn't chosen to be there the last 120 years. Where are you, Rick? There you are. Camp is camp. And it's a powerful place for God to move, but we do it together. We don't go to camp alone. We go to camp as a group. And something I want to share with you is this, and this is kind of the theme of the message today. Tierce Green, 30 years ago, took his time to proclaim the gospel. And it changed my life and in some ways it's affected yours because you're here today. David McMahon, McCammon, David McCammon, three years ago. Andrew Eaton, two years ago, Dan DeWitt, this year. took time to commit to teenagers and being a camp pastor. And those names are all on the crossings website, but you know whose names are not? All the small group leaders, the yellow shirts that were there who led your small groups and who put chicken in a pot so that you could eat a meal, and who set up cones so that you could run around, and who put on a whistle to stop people from running around the rec lane. All people who have said, I want to do something to contribute to what's happening at camp. And that doesn't include the person who was taking in financial receipts and making sure the books balance. Or the people that gave. We heard the stories this year about how people gave to fund buildings. And there'll be a new building there next year. And they said more than 5,000 souls will sleep in that per year. And here the gospel of Jesus Christ saves sinners every day. And that name, you'll never know it, but you may sleep in that room and hear that message. And I want to encourage you this morning, if you have given up on people, if you've been burned, if you've been discouraged by somebody at church, If you have maybe given up hope that teaching a class or investing into fall outreach or picking up a ping pong ball that a kid misses when he throws, all of those things matter because they contribute to a greater cause that we are doing here as a church. We are all a part of what the Lord Jesus is doing to proclaim the gospel and to disciple people into good, joyful, Christian living. Don't give up that what you do matters in the kingdom of God. Jesus gave two great commandments. The first was what, church? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And that is without a doubt the greatest commandment that we can do. And my hope and prayer is that every day you are proclaiming your love for God. Lord, I love you, I want the best for your name, and I'm willing to do something about it. That's what loving God is. We take our simple definition for love, wanting the best for someone, doing something about it, and we say, if I love God, I want the best for your name, and therefore I'm going to do something about it by being a part of someone's Jesus story. And so even if it's as simple as handing them the plate, With the bread and the cup, you're doing something in Jesus's name. But the second commandment Jesus gave, he said, was like it. And what was the second commandment, church? Loving your neighbor as yourself. I want the best for my neighbor, and I'm going to do something about it. And so Mary Crowder says, I'll go to camp, and I'll stay up all night watching Young ladies, if I have to, literally. If you have your Bible at home, I invite you to open up to Philippians chapter 2. In God's providence, goodness, and sovereignty, he has led us to Philippians chapter 2, verse 19. Today, when we're talking about what camp is, When we're talking about what ministering to others is, we have a passage about Timothy, and next week about Epaphroditus, about servants in the Lord's ministry doing for others what God has called them to do. Verse 19 reads, and I'm gonna read the entire passage first, and then we're gonna walk through verse by verse. Verse 19, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned or care for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father, He has served with me in the gospel. I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me. And I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. Let's talk about Timothy for a moment. How many of y'all know a guy named Tim or Timothy? Anybody know? We had a pastor right down the bayou who's named Tim. Timothy is a man that lots of people named after. Next week, Epaphroditus. Anybody know one of those? Epaphroditus? No? Okay. Well, both men who served the Lord faithfully and graciously, Timothy was a multi-ethnic convert to Christianity. By multi-ethnic, I mean that his mother was Jewish, his father was a Greek, and you know the Greek religion. And Paul comes along preaching a message that's like Judaism, but it's a furtherance of Judaism. And Timothy hears the message and says, I believe the gospel message that Paul is preaching, the good news. that Paul is preaching. And Timothy decides, he's from Lustre, and he decides, I'm going to follow, I believe this so much, I'm going to follow the Apostle Paul around and serve with him and do whatever I can to proclaim the message that gave me a deep joy and that gave me a deep-rooted salvation. So he leaves Lustre and he begins to follow Paul around. This is on his second missionary journey. And so just to look at this thought, and we're going to look at a few things of Timothy's life that I think are at least worth examining in our own lives. And so, Christian, I want to ask you, have you been to the place where you've heard the good news and said, I need to be a participant in the good news proclamation? Have you been to that place? Have you been to a place where you say, you know, I'm just kind of serving myself in life, doing my own thing. But I recognize that Jesus said to love me more than anything else. So I need to do and invest some resources in serving the kingdom. So I'm going to do something. We have our youth pastor. Pastor Steven was just a church member. I say just a church member. I don't mean any slight by that, but he was a regular church member like you. And we were looking for someone to help with our teenagers in ministry. And he said, you know, I can help with that. And now he's led this trip that has eternally changed people over the last three years. It's a beautiful Jesus story in Stephen's life. I don't think that in this room and with this many people, we can say that there may be somebody in this room that needs to, for the first time, commit their life to following the Lord Jesus Christ. Someone says, look, I've seen what God has done, and I need to be someone who, like Timothy, says my life has changed, and it's not that I'm just sitting here listening, but that now I stand up and I act upon that. And say, yes, I do need to move forward in my profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and I may need to be baptized. And I may need a regular proclamation through the Lord's table. To say, yes, I'm an active part now of the Christian faith because I have the joy in me that's willing to move, not just observe. This was Timothy. Not only was was did Timothy get up, but he continued through some difficult travels with Paul. If we've, in our Sunday school class, we've been studying the missionary journey of Paul and we've seen how he's been beaten, how he's been shipwrecked, how he's been stoned, how he's been imprisoned, how he's been whipped, how he's been mistreated, and there Timothy was with him through these things. In fact, Hebrews 13, 23, tells us that he was imprisoned with Paul. He says, the author of Hebrews says, you should know that our brother Timothy has been released with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. We see that Timothy was a part of that jail time. But notice that Timothy continued in his ministry. We'll get a little further in this, but I want to make this point. God took care. The Lord cared for Timothy and for Paul and all of these things. But they were willing to go and to do and not merely observe, but participate in the work of Christ. Now, I know all of you can't go to camp, and I'm not asking all of you to go to camp. But my hope and my encouragement is if there's a way you can participate in the fruitful ministry that's going on each year for camp or whatever our church is getting behind, participate in some way. Don't just sit back and observe. But as Timothy did, take a step forward and say, look, I will pray for you. I'll take a bracelet. I'll pray or I'll give. or I'll encourage you. And there are a lot of ways that you can participate, knowing that it may cost you something. It may cost you, you may give $100 for somebody to go to camp, and it may cost you a meal that you have to eat differently. But be encouraged by what Timothy did here as a part of ministry, someone who took part in it. It's greatly encouraging to see what our camp chaperones did this year and last year. When we go to camp, it's not without problems. As you heard, we had a concussion this year. We had some other issues that were significant that I can't share, but we had to deal with. There were some folks who had to sacrifice significantly over this week at camp and gladly did it. And over the last two years, those things have happened. But we've had people who know and who would look back and say, I would do it again. Because the Lord was with me and the Lord worked through me during those times. We have a night at camp where we have a big spool of yarn. And it's neat because every person gathers around a circle. You may have seen the picture up here during the slideshow, but we gather around the room and there's a spool of yarn and one person starts off with the yarn and says, I want to shout out and appreciate this person in the room because of this. And you can say something to affirm something somebody else did in the room and encourage them for what they did. It may be somebody you're close to, it may not be. But you can take that yarn and you say, I think what you did was a good thing. And then that person then takes the yarn and says, you know, I think that this person did something worth calling out. And I'm gonna call this person out and say, I appreciate what you did. And you bring that yarn to them. And then this person gets the yarn and they say, well, you know, y'all may not have seen this, but this is what this person did. And they'll take the yarn and bring it over. And at the end of the room, At the end of the night, the room is, it's like a giant spider web. Because yarn goes to yarn, goes to yarn, goes to yarn, and it's all connecting. And at the end of the night, Tyler stood up and he proclaimed that we were woven together. We were knit together as a group. And one person may not have given the yarn to everybody in the room, but collectively, everybody in the room receives an affirmation of something in Christ or some encouragement at the end of the night. We are woven together as a body. And church, there may be no yarn in this room today, but I can look out at your faces and know what some of you have done just for this trip to make it happen. We're woven together. You said, I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna participate as Timothy did some 2000 years ago. And finally, Timothy ultimately became the pastor at the church of Ephesus. Y'all familiar with that church? We have a book of the Bible written about Ephesus. Anybody know the name of it? Yeah, Ephesians. And Paul wrote to that church. Timothy became a leader of the church. Now, I've shared this before. Somebody shared with me recently. Somebody shared this and said it. You know, I remember when you said this in church. I'm gonna say it again. Here's the question. When does a boy become a man? Y'all know? When does a boy become a man or a young woman, a young lady, a girl become a woman? How do we know when a girl becomes a woman or a boy becomes a man? And we laughed at camp because some people had hair under their arms and some didn't. It's not that. It's not that. It's not how tall you are. It's not how much you weigh. It's not any of those things. What is it, Pastor Steven? I think I heard you say it earlier. That's right. It's when you're willing to step up and take care of somebody else. Should you get married at 19 if you're ready? What does Timothy do? Timothy says, I've been given the gift of the gospel. I'm going to get up out of my seat and I'm going to participate in what's going on. And when there was a need for a leader and a shepherd of the people of Ephesus, Timothy said, I'd be willing to do it. At some point, Timothy agreed to that. Timothy was a man. A grown man willing to care for somebody else. Willing to protect somebody else. Willing to provide for somebody else. Willing to inform somebody else. Our culture today has a lot of grown up boys and girls. And church, I want to encourage you to not line up with a bunch of people that want everybody else to do all the work, but to step up and say, I'll be a man of God. I'll be a woman of God. And I'm going to help and be a part and participate in kingdom work. Timothy did it. Pastor Stephen did it. And I trust Ash is going to do it. Tristan did it. And many of you do it every week. I'm not fussing at you. But if you're not where you need to be, grow up into this godly manhood and godly womanhood that says, I'm willing to do and participate in what God has called me to do. Let me give you a few things quickly in a shotgun fashion from verses 19 through 24 that we read earlier. Verse 19, if you could pull these up, Wayne, while I go through them. Verse 19, Timothy is a faithful messenger bringing to and from a message of hope for Paul and for the people of Philippi. There are some of you in this room who need to be faithful messengers and heralds of the gospel, and God may be calling you to that. And maybe not in a pastoral role, but in the role of a mother, a father or a friend. A son or a daughter, your parents may need the gospel. Be a faithful herald. Verse 20. Timothy is genuinely concerned about the welfare of others. What the world needs is Christians that care about others. Sometimes being silent is the least caring thing you can do. And sometimes saying too much is the least caring thing you can do. But Christian, care and seek God's grace in how you care for others. What I can tell you is that by doing nothing for nobody, is that you don't care. But doing something for somebody shows that you do care, and Timothy was one who cared about people. And so Christian, this morning I urge you, care about somebody and make sure they know that you care about them. Because you're doing something. Verse 22. Timothy served what mattered most. Look at the end of the verse. He has served with me in the gospel. We can care for people by taking them to play disc golf. We can care for people by taking somebody fishing. We can care for somebody by teaching them how to do laundry or how to sew or how to cook a meal. And those things we should do. But hey, Christian, we also have a higher calling to proclaim and minister the gospel in some way. Don't neglect the highest calling that you have, Christian, and that is the eternal calling of serving in the gospel of good news. I want to highlight one other text, at least part of it, from Second Timothy, chapter one. To the same man, Timothy, these were Paul's encouragements. If you want to be a Timothy in the faith, let me give you some encouragement from what Paul said in First Timothy, Second Timothy, chapter one, Second Timothy, chapter one. Verse three, he says, I thank my God, whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers, day and night. Notice that Paul cared too, and that he prayed for Timothy day and night. We received messages from you, church, throughout the week that says, we're praying for you. I know Pastor Stephen did, I did, Thank you for caring and continue to care for us and for each other. It matters and it means something. Look at verse four. As I remember your tears, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy. Notice, Christian notice, there is joy in healthy Christian relationships. Paul would receive joy knowing that the church was doing well at Philippi. Paul would do well, would receive joy in knowing that Timothy was doing what God called him to do. We looked at a story in Acts 21 this morning when Paul was going and he says, I know I'm gonna die in Jerusalem, but I'm going anywhere. And they were sad because they loved him. They enjoyed his company. So Christian, we enjoy each other. And why do we have a fellowship meal every month or six weeks, whenever it is? Because we enjoy each other. Why do we eat together a lot? Because we're Baptists. And because we enjoy each other. And that's one way to spend time together, to laugh, to encourage, and to rejoice. Let me give you some application and I'm finished today. You're getting a discount sermon, only 30 minutes today, I'm sorry. But we're nearing the end of our time together, and I thought the message from the young folks was worthwhile. Here's your application points this morning. This church will grow when we care for others in tangible ways. Let's say that again. This church will grow when we care for each other in tangible ways that we can touch, see, and hear. Hey church, find somebody and care for them. Not because I told you, but because of how Jesus has cared for you. Jesus Christ wanted the best for us. And so he did something about it. He came, he lived, he died. He was buried and rose again. Jesus came to give you new life. He cared. And in response to that church, we get up off of our duff and we go care for somebody else. Secondly, you can't do ministry alone. Right, Pastor Steven? Pastor Steven said something to me that kind of rocked my world. We were dealing with a situation at camp, a difficult situation. We walk in and as we walked away from the situation, he turned to me and he said something I'll never forget. He said, there's nobody else I would rather have here with me at camp than you. And that doesn't make me a great guy. It means that we're doing this together. You can't do ministry alone. I didn't read this from 2 Timothy, but Paul says that Timothy needs to fan the flame of God. It's in verse 6, if you have it up there, Wayne. Fan the flame. If you feel weary, get around Christian brothers and sisters. Come to a small group and talk to people. The fan is flamed into a bigger flame when you're around others. The temptation is this. I'm not feeling so good, so I just want to be alone. I'm mad at God, so I want to be alone. I've got things to deal with. I'm going to be alone. But that's not the Christian way. It's not. When you're mad at God, come to the church and see other people who have dealt with that. Because everybody in this room who knows God has probably been mad at God at some point. When you're doubting, Rick told me this week, the pastor talked about doubting. Doubts mean you care about your faith. It's not that you're not a good Christian when you doubt that God exists or you doubt His presence. It's that you actually care that you're not where you need to be. And that's a good thing. Deal with it. With other people who have doubted, because everybody in this room who's a Christian has doubted God. Fan into flame by being with your brothers and sisters. Make muffins, make phone calls, say thank you, show up and speak up. I'm going to say that list again. Make muffins for people or bread. Make chocolate cakes for people. Make phone calls. Say thank you. Write a thank you card. Show up. Speak up. Participate, church. Jesus Christ came to save sinners that repent. If you need to do business with the Lord, I'll be down here. If you need prayer, I'll be down here. I'd be glad to pray with you, Pastor Steven as well. Let's participate in church. Let's not be a church that just sits and watches. Look, be a part of church. As I shared earlier, clap. Say amen. Underline. Highlight. Be a participant. Show up. Be a part of what church is. And may the joy of the Lord fill and overflow your soul. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for your body. Thank you for being with us today, and thank you for the fruit that you have given, and a time of harvest for our church. We love you, Lord. We trust you. Continue your work in the body. May we respond accordingly. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.