A Long Obedience | Doug Sauder | 2 Timothy 1

Good morning, Calvary Chapel. Would you stand to your feet if you're able? We're gonna sing and make much of Jesus. We're gonna sing our testimony, what God has done to save and redeem and restore us. So this is our story. Sing it if you know it. ♪ I was bound in sin but now I'm free ♪ ♪ I was bound in sin but now I'm free ♪ ♪ My Savior broke those chains right off of me ♪ ♪ My new life can fit in my own grave ♪ ♪ Oh, ever since the day that I got saved, set free and delivered ♪ ♪ Washed clean my sin forgiven, glory to His holy name ♪ ♪ When I called on Jesus, I got saved, I got saved ♪ ♪ I got saved, I was bought with blood on Calvary ♪ ♪ I know this story ends in victory, yes it does ♪ ♪ Buried with Him, with Him I am raised, I am raised ♪ ♪ Oh, ever since the day that I got saved, set free and delivered ♪ ♪ Washed clean my sin forgiven, glory to His holy name ♪ ♪ When I called on Jesus, I got saved, I got saved ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah, since that day, when I called on Jesus ♪ ♪ I got saved, I got saved, oh ♪ ♪ Not who I used to be, I got the Holy Spirit down inside of me ♪ ♪ My God calls me by a brand new name, that's how I know that I am ♪ ♪ Chosen, spoken for and born again, not by my mind but because of Him ♪ ♪ He said, it's done, every day is made, that's how I know that I am ♪ ♪ Not who I used to be, I got the Holy Spirit down inside of me ♪ ♪ My God calls me by a brand new name, that's how I know that I am ♪ ♪ Chosen, spoken for and born again, not by my mind but because of Him ♪ ♪ He said, it's done, every day is made, that's how I know that I am ♪

♪ Saved, saved, free and delivered, washed clean, my sin forgiven, glory to Him ♪ ♪ Chosen, spoken for and born again, not by my mind but because of Him ♪ ♪ It's holy name, when I call on Jesus, I got saved, saved, free and delivered ♪ ♪ Washed clean, my sin forgiven, glory to Him ♪ ♪ It's holy name, when I call on Jesus, I got saved, I got saved, glory to Him ♪ ♪ It's holy name, when I call on Jesus, I got saved, I got saved, glory to Him ♪ ♪ It's holy name, when I call on Jesus, I got saved, I got saved, yeah ♪ Come on, can we just thank Him for His redeeming work in our lives? We get to continue to sing, continue to thank Him, continue to remind our hearts of His love. His faithfulness from the moment He saved our life. Thank you, Jesus, for our testimonies. We worship you. ♪ When I was lost and all alone ♪ ♪ Your presence was where I found home ♪ ♪ You were there and you're here right now ♪ We recognize your presence, Lord. Thank you. ♪ In every heart and every love ♪ ♪ You never left me without hope ♪ ♪ You were good and you're good right now ♪ Yes, you are. Sing, I've witnessed. ♪ I've witnessed your faithfulness ♪ Come on, let's testify. ♪ I've seen you so I'll pour out my praise again ♪ ♪ Pour out my praise again, you're worthy ♪ ♪ Your promises never fail ♪ ♪ I've got stories I'll lift again so I'll pour out my praise again ♪ ♪ You're worthy, God, you're worthy of all of me ♪ Let's remind our heart of the gospel.

This is what He's done. ♪ You left the throne and chose the cross ♪ ♪ Lay down your life to rescue us ♪ ♪ The Savior then, the Savior now ♪ ♪ But even death was not the end, you conquered hell ♪ ♪ So I could live, resurrecting then, resurrecting now ♪ ♪ So I could live, resurrecting then, resurrecting now ♪ This is what He does. ♪ Resurrecting then, resurrecting now ♪ ♪ I've witnessed your faithfulness, I've seen you breathe life within me ♪ ♪ So I'll pour out my praise again, you're worthy ♪ ♪ God, you're worthy of all of it, your promise is never failed ♪ ♪ I got stories I'll live to tell, so I'll pour out my praise again ♪ ♪ You're worthy, God, you're worthy of all of it ♪ Come on, let's thank our first faithfulness. ♪ You're worthy of all of it, my life, my song and my worship ♪ ♪ You're good and I've witnessed it, you're strong and... ♪ Come on, let's sing this from our own story. ♪ You're confident and I'm confident, I'll see it again and again ♪ ♪ I'll see it again and again, you love and I've witnessed it ♪ And you heal. ♪ You heal and I've witnessed it, you save and I've witnessed it and I'm confident ♪ Come on, let's sing that again. You're good and I've witnessed it, you're strong and I've witnessed it. You're good and I've witnessed it, you're strong and I've witnessed it and I'm confident. I'll see it again and again. You love and I've witnessed it, you heal and I've witnessed it, you save and I've witnessed it and I'm confident. You save and I've witnessed it and I'm confident. I'll see it again and again. I've witnessed your faithfulness.

I've seen you breathe life within. So I pour out my praise to get your word. You're one God, you're worthy of all of this. Your promise, it's never failed. I've got stories I live to tell. So I pour out my praise to get your word. You're one God, you're worthy of all of this. To the broken I'll witness it. To the hurting I'll witness it. To the lost I will witness it. And I'll tell them this. I'll tell them what I witnessed. To my family I'll witness it. To my city I'll witness it. To the nations I'll witness it. You know, there's something about worship that helps us to reframe. We have witnessed God's work in our lives, in our families, in our city, in this world. But you know, we still need God to work in our lives, in our families, in our cities, in our world. And I just want to take a moment to talk about the moment that we're in. We're watching this very fragile ceasefire in the Middle East and so many questions about what's going to happen. Negotiations have fallen apart. Families have been separated. War has devastated people's lives, and we don't sometimes even know what to pray. All the nations rage. We know one thing. God is over all of these things, and He can work and move in the hearts of kings, and He can protect the vulnerable, and He can restore families. And so we just want to take a moment and pray for the peace of our world.

We want to pray for the protection of our troops and those innocent people in harm's way. There are so many things that sometimes we push away when we go to church, but sometimes it's good to sit in the sadness or the fear or the anger and to process it with the people of God and sort of just hold it up to God and say, God, I don't know what to do with this. And He says, well, I am a shield for my people. I'm a deliverer for my people. I'm the God who was faithful, He witnessed it, and I'm going to be faithful again. And so we reframe not just in worship but in prayer. And so we're going to pray for what's happening in the world, but I also know that some of you came in here, and the thing that's heavy for you is something very personal. It's just a weight of sadness. It's a weight of anxiety. It's a weight of just maybe even numbness. And so I want us just for a moment to take that saying, whatever that thing is, and just lift it up to God. Just identify what it is and hold it up next to God. A father in this moment, we hold up that weight, a relationship that's broken, a burden that's too heavy, an unanswered prayer, a sickness, a stress that we can't even put our finger on, an anxiety that keeps us up at night, and we say, God, be our strong tower. Be our deliverer. Be our shield. Lord, help us to look to you. We have witnessed your faithfulness, and we ask God, be faithful again. And God, we lift up our world. We lift up the division between nations and leaders and all the interests and the stories that we don't know, and we know that you can move the heart of a king like you move a river to direct it wherever you will, so bring peace. Bring humility.

God, protect innocent civilians, refugees, families that have been separated. As bombs and missiles fly, God, I pray that you would protect your people, that you would awaken your church. We watch your church in all of these places in the Middle East rising up. We pray for revival, that as soldiers and families and leaders and people looking for hope, they would find hope in Jesus. We pray for our global missionaries who serve in Iraq and in Saudi Arabia, those who serve in Jordan and in Lebanon right now where there is chaos, that they would be not just protected by you, but they would be the ambassadors of the hope of the gospel in Jesus, that you would bring revival, that you would bring peace, that you would hear our prayers, that you would answer above and beyond what we could ask or imagine because, God, you are faithful. We have witnessed your power. God, do it again. Do it again. Do it again. We pray this together in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. It's a beautiful thing when we can elevate all those things up to God, and as we put them next to God, they get smaller and smaller and smaller, and we're going to sing a song now that's a song about elevation. It's about looking up to who God is, and we say, God, how great thou art. ♪ Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made ♪ ♪ And I see the stars and I hear the rolling thunder ♪ ♪ Thy power throughout the universe displayed ♪ Sing it out. ♪ Then sings my soul, my Savior God, my Savior God ♪ ♪ To Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪ ♪ Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪

♪ And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die ♪ ♪ I scarce can take it in that on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He'd let Him die ♪ ♪ To take away my sins, then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪ ♪ Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪ ♪ How great Thou art, how great Thou art, how great You are ♪ ♪ When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation, and take His throne ♪ ♪ And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart, then I shall bow in humble adoration ♪ ♪ And there proclaim, my God, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪ ♪ Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪ ♪ Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪ ♪ Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪ ♪ Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪ ♪ Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪ ♪ Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art, how great Thou art ♪ Good morning! God, we lift Your name on high this morning, because You are great. And You are greatly to be praised. Lord, when in the world around us seems to be in chaos, Lord, that's what we can see. Lord, we know that You are moving. That You are poised, Lord, to do a work. In our world, in our lives, in our homes, Lord, that You would do it again. and do it again and do it again as we have seen so many times, not only in our own lives, but Lord, in that of others as well. And that you, Lord, would receive all the praise and all the honor and all the glory for doing what only you can do. Lord, we ask that you would do it again, show your greatness to us, pour out your glory, pour out your might, pour out your love in this world. And Lord, help us to be ambassadors as well. Lord, we pray these things in the most high, the most holy, the most precious name of Jesus and all God's people said, amen. Well, we thank you for worshiping this morning. Now say hi to those who you are sitting next to before you take a seat.

Maybe you've heard this phrase before. Life is not a sprint, it's a marathon. Because everyone knows you can run really fast for a very short period of time, but to run a marathon and not quit, well that's a whole nother story. And when most people start their relationship with Jesus, it's always good in the first few hours and the first few days. You come to Jesus and you experience forgiveness of your sin and the shame that you carried, it's taken away. And you hear this idea that your name is written in the book of life. You're filled with the spirit of God. You are a new creation and you can take all that brokenness in your life. He's going to work it out for his divine purpose. And you're like, I love this relationship with Jesus. It's going to change everything from the inside out. But then then you go back to work, back to your life, back to the pressures and temptations of life. And how many of you know that life is hard? How many of you know that it's not always easy to follow Jesus in some of these spaces? And so for some people, this is jolting because they thought coming to Jesus, it's going to always feel so good like it felt in those first few moments, like this sprint. But then the muscles start to fatigue. The oxygen gets low. Your body's telling you to stop running. This is too hard. This is what I signed up for. And this is where Paul is going to speak to his young apprentice, Timothy, his spiritual son. And he's going to talk to him about a long obedience in the same direction, about running and not quitting. And Paul knows something about this. Paul, at this point, has been following Jesus for 30 years. He knows all about the highs and the lows of following Jesus. And he's trying to impart to his spiritual son, Timothy. Timothy, there are going to be days you're going to want to quit. There are going to be days you want to check out. But don't quit. Keep on persevering because this is a marathon. It's not a sprint. And this turns out to be Paul's last letter. And so it's deeply personal. And you're going to hear that in the personal nature, as if the dad is sharing with his son his last thoughts. And if you just look at the forms of the verbs in this passage, there's 25 imperatives. He's going to encourage him in very strong language. This is my last letter. It's my last challenge and encouragement to you, my son. And so he's going to speak with a sense of urgency because he knows the time is short. And so 2nd Timothy, verse 1, chapter 1, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, in keeping with the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my dear son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father

in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Paul identifies himself as an apostle. I'm a person that God has saved and called. I know my identity. I am a child of God. I know my mission. My job is to make Jesus' name known. And he says, I'm an apostle by the will of God, keeping with the promise of life. Paul knows that following Jesus can be hard sometimes, but he also knows it's the key to life, that God has given him a new sense of identity, a clear sense of calling. And what Jesus promised his first disciples was true in Paul's life. Jesus said to those first followers, I have come to give you life and life to the full, life abundantly. There is an enemy who comes to kill and steal and destroy, to make you forget who you are and why you're on this planet. But I've come to give you life. And Paul says, I'm an apostle by the will of God, keeping in the promise of the life. the life that Jesus promised. You know, you can have difficulty on the outside and still be alive on the inside. That's what Paul's talking about. And so the tone of this letter is sounding up to my son, Timothy. Now it's not his biological son. It's a spiritual son, a relationship that's been developed. We're gonna find out more about that in a moment. But I want you to think about where Paul is writing this from. You see, his last letter, he was not writing from this same location, but now he is in prison. And not the prison we see at the end of the book of Acts where he's on house arrest and people can come and go and he lives in a rented house and there's a level of freedom. No, he's right now at the height of the persecution of Christians under Nero.

Right now, it's against the law for you to be a Christian. Being a Christian is a crime. And so he's not under house arrest awaiting a fair trial for Caesar. No, he's under Nero's persecution. When Rome burned, Nero blamed Christians and now he's persecuting and torturing them in horrific ways. And so Paul is in this jail, you might call it a dungeon. It's called the Mamertine Prison. You can go to Rome today and see it. It was built in the seventh century BC. It's 2,700 years old. It's a cistern, it's a well that they would lower people down. It's dark, it's cold, it's damp. When I sat down there just for a few minutes, you could feel it. This place would be freezing in the winter. It was cold in the summer. You could smell and feel the moisture all around you and the dampness, the dankness, the smell. And Paul is writing this letter from that place. It's this reality. Hey, this is gonna be my last letter. And we know that because at the end of the letter, he's like, I finished my race. I fought the good fight and now there is a crown, there is a blessing waiting for me as I go from this life to the next

and I am not afraid because Jesus is the one who saved me and I'm convinced of all that he promised me. So there's this sense of finality in this letter, but this, again, sense of deep affection. So who is Timothy to Paul? Let's look at verse three. I thank God whom I serve as my ancestors did with a clear conscience. As night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I'm reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am now persuaded lives in you also. 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. But the spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. You see these words right away. He says to Timothy, I'm gonna remind you. I want you to recall. I want you to remember. He's calling him to remember his story. So if you could summarize this section of what Paul is saying to him and to us, it's this. Don't forget your origin story. Like a father to his son, don't forget, son. Don't forget your origin story.

What's his origin story? That he has this sincere faith, that faith that came from his grandmother and his mother, Eunice and Lois. In chapter three, Paul says, remember, they taught you from infancy the scripture. From a very young child, you learned the word of God. You learned the way of Jesus. From your mom and your grandma, that sense of spiritual legacy. Timothy, don't forget that sincere faith came from your mom and your grandma who prayed over you and read the scriptures to you. And I just wanna say to every mom and every grandma, every dad, every grandpa, as you read stories to your kids, as you tuck them into bed, as you pray over them, they're watching, they're soaking it in all the time. And Paul's like, I can see the sincere faith of your grandma and your mom in you. It was passed on. Never underestimate those simple moments of speaking the word of God to your kids, to your grandkids, to your nieces, and to your nephews, because it has an impact, and it's had an impact in Timothy's life. And Paul says, I can recall your tears. Maybe the tears were the last time that they said goodbye to each other. He reminds Timothy, I laid hands on you and imparted a spiritual gift to you.

There's a gift in your life, there's a calling in your life. And even though you might be tired and you might wanna quit, I'm telling you, recall, remember, I wanna remind you, this is who you are. who you are. Now, what is noticeably absent in this description of Timothy's origin story is his dad. This is a glaring omission, especially in first century writing, because the dad is where you get your sense of identity from. Your dad is the one who you're passing on this legacy from, and Timothy's dad isn't mentioned, other than he's a Greek. He doesn't have the same faith as the mom and the grandma. He's not as involved in his son's life. And sometimes, when we look at our origin story, we can feel a little bit bad, because you're like, well, Doug, it's great that maybe you had a mom and a dad who prayed for you and read the Bible for you. I didn't have any of that. Like my mom and dad, they got divorced, so there was arguments, so there was all these things going on, and no one taught us about God, and no one modeled this, and so our family growing up was chaotic, and sometimes we can look at that origin story and go, so I guess, huh, I guess I'm not gonna ever really be used by God. And one of the reasons why, as a church,

we encourage you to sit with that and process it and grieve maybe what you didn't have is because, as you do, you're gonna start to realize some things. As you go through a freedom group experience, you're gonna realize, I'm not alone. Wow, there's five people that were raised in single-parent families just like me, and they found their peace with God, and they found meaning in their pain. They found healing and purpose, and if that happened for them, that can happen for me. And something beautiful happens when we get together, because Satan wants us to think our story is so unique that we can't recover from it, that God can't use us. But check this out. What looked like what was Timothy's greatest disadvantage, no dad in his life, turned out to be the greatest advantage he ever had. He needed a spiritual father, and Paul picked him. There was something about Paul. He saw something in Timothy, something that Timothy wanted in Paul, that they met the needs that each of them had, and they developed this decades-long relationship of a spiritual father and a son, not related by blood, but related by the blood of Jesus. You know what I'm talking about? This deep, deep connection between these two men who each needed each other in a different way.

I mean, you can feel and sense the affection that Paul has. My dear son, my dear son who I love, I wanna speak into your life. Never forget who you were and who you are and where you came from and how God wants to use you. I laid my hands on you. I imparted a spiritual blessing. You have a calling in your life. God's gonna use you in your life. And you see over and over again, he's speaking in this way to Timothy. So how do we think about our own origin story? When you think about your life, what were the really good parts of your childhood and what were the really difficult parts of your childhood? How might God be using those things that seem most broken for a divine purpose that's even bigger than maybe someone who didn't go through difficulty because there's a resilience in you and the strength in your soul that people that haven't gone through those situations have not yet developed. Maybe there's a sensitivity toward people who are broken like you were broken in your childhood that you can serve and help in another way. The possibilities of what God could do in that. Well, it should make us curious. God, why did I go through that? And what can you do with it? And so we wanna be people who hear these words of Paul

and remind ourselves and recall and remember so that God could use our lives. In fact, that word remember is one of the most repeated commands in the Bible. In the book of Hebrews, we get this command. Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. So who are the spiritual leaders in your life? Your mom, your grandma, a coach, a teacher, a dad, a grandpa, an uncle, a youth pastor, a friend who spoke the word of God into your life and then were commanded not just to remember that impact but now to imitate their faith and to live like they did. When I read this story about a mom and a grandma, I think about my own life. I think about the power of a praying grandma. Yeah, I don't know about you, but you know, some kids are hard to raise, okay? I was hard to raise. Anybody here hard to raise? You were just hardheaded. Man, there's not very many honest people. Come on, raise it high, own it. Kids that are hard to raise can be world changers, all right? I was hard to raise. My dad would spank me when spanking was a thing, you know, like, and I'd be like, that didn't hurt. And he spanked me again, that didn't hurt. And I just kept saying it quieter and quieter

until he didn't hear me anymore. That sense of like, no one's gonna be the boss of me. I'm gonna do my own thing. And you know, as I became a teenager, I started running farther and farther away from God, but my. My grandma kept on praying for me, and I could run really far, but I could not run my grandma's prayers. And right, so I just wanna let you know something that it sort of struck me years later. My grandmother, she died July 7th, 1988. I gave my life to Jesus at three o'clock in the morning on July 8th, 1988. So check this out. Check this out. My grandmother never saw the answer to her prayer, but her prayers caught up with me. And I'm grateful for the spiritual legacy. Listen, if right now you're running away from God and you have a grandma praying for you, watch out, because the grandma's prayers are more powerful than your rebellion, and there's something beautiful about that. And so don't give up praying for those people in your family, because Paul says, remember those people who were your spiritual leaders. They would pray, imitate their faith, live like them, look at the outcome of their faith, because there is that spiritual legacy.

See, looking back is not just about nostalgia. When we think about history, often we think about, oh, how God did it back then. Oh, I wish we could go back there. History is not about nostalgia. History is prophecy. When we look back at how God worked in the past with our moms and grandmas and great-grandpas, we see a pattern of God working and being faithful to people who cry out to him, who need help that they can't help themselves, and you watch God show up. So when we look back and say, this is how we worked with my grandma, my great-grandma, my grandpa, my great-grandpa, how we worked in the Bible, how we worked in all these places, it's how he's gonna work again in and through his people. History is prophecy. That's why we are commanded to pass faith on from one generation next to the other, kids and grandkids, to expect great things of God, because God is great, amen? And so Paul's saying to Timothy, remember your origins, or how God has worked in your family. What he did in the past, he's going to do again. And so it makes us think right now, like Paul talks about his ancestors in the first part of this letter. So the question is like, are you being a good ancestor?

Like, what? I'm not dead yet. Yeah, wait, just listen, just listen. Am I being a good ancestor? When I pass away from this world to the next, will people say of Doug? Man, he prayed these prayers. He followed Jesus with all he had. He was generous. He loved people. You see, how I live now is how I'm gonna be remembered, and we're supposed to remember those who came before us. And so we have this chance to look at this long lens of a man who's ready to pass away, but he wants Timothy to know his origin story. He wants him to remember, one day you're gonna be an ancestor. And so we want to be thoughtful about that. He says to Timothy, not just remember your origin story, but remember the gift that you have in you. He says, I want you to stir up that gift. I want you to cultivate that gift. And that word literally means embers that are dying. If you don't stir embers that are dying, the flame will go out. So he's like, Timothy, this is one of these imperatives. Stir up the gift. It's a God-given gift. We laid hands on you. God gave you this gift.

And so you've been in this great environment with a mom and a grandma. You've had a spiritual apostle impart these in your life. Now stir up your gift because God has a plan for your life and he wants to do this work. And in verse seven, it's probably one of the verses in this letter that many Christians have sort of memorized, that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. And again, Paul over and over is saying, Timothy, be bold. Timothy, be brave. Because Timothy has a fearful, anxious, sort of passive way to deal with situations. And Paul's dad is trying to get his spiritual son to step into difficult moments. Now, fear is different than a spirit of fear. Fear is something that God gives us to keep us alive. The reason you don't run into traffic is because you're afraid to get hit by a car, and that keeps you alive. The reason you don't get to see an alligator in a canal and jump on top of it and start wrestling with it, unless you're Gator Boys or something, is because you don't wanna die. Fear keeps you safe, but a spirit of fear paralyzes you. A spirit of fear in your mind stops you from doing the things that God has called you to do. It keeps you less than,

of saying that no one can really use my gift. I'm not gonna go to that connected experience. No one's gonna know me and they're not gonna like me. I don't see anyone like me. I don't know. I can't walk into a room of strangers because I just don't. And that spirit of fear keeps people isolated. That spirit of fear keeps people in that anxious bubble and doesn't allow them to express. Maybe some of the things that keep them captive and it's the community of people, the community of faith that allows those fears to fade away. God hasn't given you a spirit of fear, but of power. The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, he lives in you. Love, when your love runs out, his love remains. And that type of perfect love, the Bible says, casts out fear. Listen, if your love is greater than your fear, you'll step into moments. Because it won't be about how you feel, it'll be about the love of Christ that compels you to walk toward difficult situations. And even if your heart is beating, the love of Christ compels you to walk toward those moments. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power of love and a sound mind or self-discipline that we don't have to give way to our darkest thoughts of anxiety,

our darkest thoughts of sin, our darkest thoughts of emotional sadness or bondage or brokenness that God can give us the mind of Christ. And so he just reminds Timothy, God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but a power of love and a sound mind. So question as we read this, has God ever done that for you? Has God ever worked in your life and awakened in you power or love or self-discipline where fear had kept you on the sidelines? Scroll back into your life. Has there ever been a moment where you were afraid and something or someone, as you pray, gave you the courage to get up and walk toward the thing you were afraid of, the conversation you were afraid of, your past that you were afraid to talk about, the calling, the exercising of a gift that you didn't know how it would land? And if the answer is yes, then here's what you can pray. God, do it again. And if the answer is no, then maybe for the first time, God would give you the courage to walk towards something that scares you to death. And when you walk toward it in the power of the Holy Spirit and you don't die, like, whoa, God, you just did in me something I could never do on my own. And this is gonna give you confidence to take the next step and the next step and the next step.

And this is what Paul is saying to Timothy. Timothy's already taken some steps, but Paul's talking about a long obedience in the same direction. Life is not passing a few hurdles or running a few miles and going, yeah, I think I'm done. I think I'm just gonna chill here until the race is over. No, it means I'm gonna keep on running. I'm not gonna quit. I'm gonna keep on growing by the grace of God. Verse eight, so do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me, his prisoner. Rather, join me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. He has saved us and called us to live a holy life, not because of anything we've done, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it's now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel, I was appointed as a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That's why I'm suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame because I know whom I have believed. And I am convinced that he is able to guard what I've entrusted to him until that day.

Paul's saying to Timothy, don't forget your source, the source of strength, the source to take the next step. You're finding your source in the grace of God rooted in who brought you that grace. His name is Jesus. He gives us the whole Easter story. Jesus appeared, he destroyed death. He rose in light and immortality, and he's given us the power of his spirit by his grace. This is a story, not just of Easter, it's a story of every Sunday, every day, 365 days a year, we serve a God who came from heaven to earth, who appeared, who died, who rose, and now he is at the right hand of the Father and he sent us his spirit to live this life of the gospel. This is our story. We can't ever forget our source. Verse nine, he saved us. He called us to live a holy life, not because of anything we've done, but because of his own purpose and grace. Now, Paul is sharing this as his own story. He's gonna say several times in this letter, this isn't just the gospel, this is my gospel, because who was Paul the apostle before he was Paul the apostle? He was a man that was known as Saul of Tarsus, a man who persecuted the church, who killed Christians and enjoyed it. And in his first letter to Timothy,

he said, there's a lot of sinners in the world, people who slander, people who trade slaves, people who are sexually immoral. He can list all these kinds of sins, but you know what? After he says that, he says, You know what? I was actually worse than all of them. I was the worst sinner. I was the worst human being on the planet because I killed Christians and I did this with this great sense of zeal and self-righteousness. I was the worst human being in the world. And yet, God showed his grace to me. And if God saved me, he can save anybody. Right? I mean, again, I don't know if you're new to the Bible or church or Christianity, but sometimes you can walk in an environment like this and you can look around and you're like, I don't belong here. These are all the holy people. If I gave everyone a mic and we shared our story, you'd be like, oh man, I'm not so bad. Because Jesus isn't saving you because you're a good person. Jesus didn't die on a cross to give you a little extra help because you were righteous, but not quite enough. Jesus died on a cross to rescue you and to rescue me because none of us can rescue ourselves.

And so when we think about our source, the source of our life, we're not trying to achieve salvation. We just simply receive salvation. It's the gift of God. And Paul writes this in his book, and Paul writes this to the Ephesians. Again, a fairly well-known verse in the Bible. It's Ephesians 2, eight through 10. For it's by grace you've been saved through faith. This is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. We are saved by grace through faith. It is the gift of God. A gift has to be received. A gift cannot be earned or deserved. We receive the gift. Jesus, I'm a sinner. I need a savior. Thank you for coming. I receive this gift. And then he says, and after we receive this gift, we begin to understand our identity and our sense of calling because we are God's handiwork. That word means God's work of art. It's actually the Greek word poema.

We are God's poem. God crafted us together for a specific purpose before he ever made the world. That's a long time ago. You were created to do good things. And one of my favorite roles here is to watch people learn to develop, not just the idea that they can be saved by grace, but that God has now wired them to do something, to go from being a person who is a consumer to someone who's a contributor, someone who is a taker to someone who's a giver. And we have this moment in one of our classes where as people look at the gifts that God has given them and the passions and desires that drive them, the burdens they carry, and all their life experiences, their origin stories, and as they wrestle with all of that, they'll get up in front of a group of people and they'll say, I was made for this. And they describe that growing sense of calling in their life. And there's something beautiful about watching that emerge with different people. Paul is encouraging Timothy, remember the source of all this is Jesus. It's not you, it's not so you can boast. He is your source of strength and identity and purpose. And you need that strength because life is hard. Life is mostly uphill.

Sure, there are moments that it's easy and filled with joy and the difficulty passes away, but he's talking to Timothy about a really difficult moment. He's like, I'm in jail, but I'm not ashamed. Interesting, right? He's like, other people are ashamed of me. Other people have abandoned me. In a minute, we're gonna read all the people that have abandoned him because he's in jail. I mean, who wants to associate themselves with someone who's in jail in a dungeon on death row? People are like, eh. But he's encouraging Timothy to remember that life is hard and that life happens, but it doesn't have to lead us to shame, that there's a way to suffer well. And how do you learn how to suffer well? You look back at your source. You look back at Jesus who suffered well. Jesus who said, you're actually gonna be blessed when people persecute you and say all kinds of slanderous, wicked things against you for my sake. They did it to me. And so count it a privilege. Rejoice when people heap shame on you. And you're like, oh, I can't do that. That's reframing. Paul says, the difficulty we face in life isn't equal to be compared to the weight of glory

that we'll receive, that suffering has a weight, but it's not compared to the weight of glory that also exists, that in the gospel, suffering leads to glory. And to reframe this is difficult because for most of us, we don't like to suffer. For most of us, when we're suffering, We wanna know what's the fastest way for me to stop suffering. And Paul says, no, no, no, no, no. If you remember your source, you can suffer and not be ashamed. If you remember your source, you can allow that suffering to be reframed and you can have what he calls the fellowship of suffering in relationship with Jesus. That's something that not too many people know that's a beautiful thing. And he's gonna remind Timothy that Timothy's gonna suffer. He says later on in this letter, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. And if you read the end of Hebrews 13, you know this is true because Timothy is also gonna be imprisoned. And so the spiritual father is preparing his son, hey, in the life of following Jesus is gonna be some hard and difficult moments. And so if you get arrested and if you go to jail,

you don't have to be ashamed. In fact, it can draw you closer to who God is because we serve a God who suffers. And so how do we take that and how do we reframe? It's not likely for most of us that we are gonna experience the type of persecution we are arrested in prison and put in a dungeon on death row, but we all suffer in our own ways. Right now, you're suffering in some way. The question is, what do you do with that suffering? I want you to just think about where's an area of life where you feel like a sense of spiritual or emotional, physical suffering? It could be a physical sickness. And you're like, God, I'm suffering physically. Cancer. A sense of chronic fatigue. There's something in my body that's happening in my body that's happening. The doctors can't figure it out. And I don't know what to do with that. Well, there's a way to suffer well and look to God and continue to pray and trust God. And there's a way to give up on God and walk away in that. Maybe for some of you, it's your state of relationship. You're single and you wanna be married so bad. And you just don't understand why God hasn't answered the prayer. Or, and this is not a joke, you're married and you wanna be single so bad

because things are really hard. Maybe you had a dream to buy a house and it looks like that whole dream has died. It's just out of reach because you're in handcuffs with this mountain of debt. Or maybe you're in a job that you're like, my boss or my coworkers are consistently undermining me. And so I'm never gonna be able to get ahead. It just feels like I'm being persecuted. I'm not being arrested, but they're making fun of me behind my back because I won't do what they do. And so now I'm being put over here in this corner and you can look at it a couple of different ways. You can say, I'm stuck in this job where everyone's against me and I'm never gonna make it. Or you can say, God, I'm not gonna be ashamed. And maybe, maybe I'm your ambassador here at this place of work. And just by my steady witness and not retaliating and being kind to people who are not kind to me, then maybe one of my coworkers or friends are gonna notice and they're gonna ask me a question like, how do you do this? And I can share with them the hope that I have with gentleness and respect. And maybe if you reframe, you realize you're there because there's a person there who needs to see the gospel lived out before they can believe it in their heart.

That's what it means to suffer well, right? Paul is suffering well and he's showing his spiritual son that there is a way to suffer well, to remember your source. That you don't have to live in doubt, but you can live in gratitude and hope and joy. No matter what's happened on the outside, you can live in a different way on the inside. This is what it's a long obedience in the same direction. And Paul says, this gospel is my gospel. I've given my life to it. And the strength of your faith, the strength of anyone's faith is not how much you believe it. It's the source of your faith. You see, if I believe in myself, that's not gonna help me most of my life. I need help outside of myself. If I call to the name of all these different gods or try my meditation or my crystals or all my things, I can have a lot of faith in all those things, but they're inanimate objects that don't exist in real life. There's only one living God who hears and answers. His name is Jehovah. And so it's not just the fact that we have faith, it's who are we calling on? And Paul is saying to Timothy, remember your source. He is Jesus. He is almighty God.

Call out to him. even when you suffer, you don't have to live in shame. And then verse 13. And so what you've heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you, guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. And you know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including the jealous and homogenies. And may the Lord show mercy to the household of Vanessa Forrest because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my shames. On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. Now may the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day. And you know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus. And so this final exhortation or challenge from Paul to Timothy is this. Don't forget to finish well. It's not how you start, it's how you finish. If you're running a race, everyone can start really well. But no, I want you to run with endurance because there are people who started really well. These two guys, they started really well, but now they have forsaken because it got too hard. Maybe they didn't count the costs.

Maybe they didn't wanna be, you know, scandalized by my arrests, but they started really well, full of faith and like, I'll do anything for Jesus. And then when it got hard, they're gone. It says there was one guy, Vanessa Forrest, he searched for me, he found me, he refreshed me, but now I'm all by myself. You see, this is something that we can get messed up if we think that life is a sprint and not a marathon, that following Jesus is just a sprint. And that's, that following Jesus is like a temporary relationship where we chase highs. I went for it, I gave my life to Jesus, I felt so good. And then that feeling faded. And so I stopped going to church, stopped reading the Bible, stopped praying. And then I really needed God for healing. I prayed and he healed me. And I was like back for like three more weeks and I was on top of the world. But then I lost my job. I guess that didn't work. Like God's a genie in a bottle and everything's gonna go well. Like all green lights and rainbows is the Christian life, which it's not. See, a long obedience is not chasing the highs and then fading when God doesn't do what you want and chasing the highs and facing God.

No, when Jesus becomes your savior, we all love that. This prophecy, we come to Jesus, we're forgiven of all of our sins. But Paul uses this word, Lord. Lord means master, means CEO, means when you give your life to Jesus, you do this. And this is what my grandma prayed for me for years. Doug wants to do what Doug wants to do. Doug wants to have fun. He wants to have his own ideas. He doesn't want to do what the Bible says. He wants to live his life until Doug got to the point where grandma's prayers caught up with him. And I realized I was empty and lost. And it wasn't just enough for me to say, forgive me, because I don't want to go to hell. I had to say, it's not my life anymore. If I say you are savior and Lord, that means I don't call the shots. It means I get out of the driver's seat and I say, okay, I'm now a passenger. Take me wherever you want. My life belongs to you. Have you done that with Jesus? And have you done it? And when it got really hard, did you leave him in the driver's seat and yield to his word? This is the test of the Christian life. It's not a sprint.

It's a marathon and it's filled with all of these highs and lows and Paul's listing the names of people who started really well and they're nowhere to be found. And so he says to Timothy, you got to guard that deposit. You've been given so much from your mom, from your grandma, from the laying on of the hands. You've been given all these experiences. You've been given this clear call in your life. We can all see it. And if Jesus is Lord, it's not about your personal comfort. It's about the way that God wants to use your life because you've made him Lord of your life. One of the most simple litmus tests of your Christian faith is a line from Jesus. Because I talk to people all the time and one of the most common phrases when you ask people, you know, hey, are you a Christian? And their response is, yeah, yeah, I love Jesus. And Jesus has this sort of assessment about how we love him. Here it is, simple. If you love me, keep my commands. That's it. So if you say, I love Jesus, but I also like hanging out with my boys at the strip club. I love Jesus, but I also love roasting all those people who have no idea how to think. I love Jesus, but, you know, a little lie here and there, a little profanity here and there,

like, I mean, everyone's human, right? What is that? Jesus, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And we have to look at that and go, okay, Lord, is that me? I remember hearing a story a while back told by Tony Campolo who was on a train on the way to London. He sat in his compartment car, across from two men. And as he was chit-chatting, one of them began to have a seizure. And so the man next to him took his coat and laid it on his head and just held him tight while this man was having a seizure until he calmed down and got him a drink of water. And Tony asked him, like, what's your story? He's like, we were in Vietnam together and I was wounded on the field of battle. And he came out and he got me and he was wounded in the process. And he saved my life. And I found out a few years ago, he developed a seizure disorder because of his wounds. And so I sold my house in New York and now I've become his travel companion. And then he said this, for everything he did for me, there's nothing I wouldn't do for him. What is that? That is a life of gratitude that you owe someone a debt that's so big you could never repay them

that you just wanna give your life to serve them. And that's who Jesus is. For everything he's done for you, there's nothing that you shouldn't do for him. It's not he's Lord, do what he says. It's he's the Lord who died in your place and you're alive because of him. And so offering your life back is such a small, small ask. And all of us have to wrestle with that. In Paul's letter to Timothy, there are many people who start the race that don't finish. And so I wanna share with you a few scriptures to frame the rest of this message. Hebrews 12, one. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us. We are surrounded by witnesses. Our ancestors are watching. Our kids are watching. Our future generations are watching. They're watching how we run our race. And the author of Hebrews says, so run with perseverance. Don't let things drag you down.

Don't get to the place where I'm tired and I wanna quit. And I learned a lot about running from my son Caden who ran cross country and ran long distance. And if you run long distance, if anyone here runs long distance, you become acquainted with pain. Where your lungs are burning, your legs are aching, everything in your body wants to stop. And our son Caden used to have a saying back in his high school. He would say to his body, shut up body. Shut up lungs that want me to quit. Shut up legs that want me to stop running. I'm gonna keep on running. I'm gonna tell my body to shut up and I'm gonna keep on running because I'm gonna endure and I'm gonna persevere because if I do, there's a prize at the end. I'm gonna run all the way through the tape even though I feel like quitting because I wanna finish the race. I thought what a great way to think about life. If life is not a sprint and it's a marathon, then there are gonna be times where I have to say,

shut up mind, shut up body. I know I wanna quit. I know this is hard. I know it's not worked out like I want but I'm gonna keep on running because I'm gonna persevere and if I persevere, I get the crown, right? This is what James says. Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because having stood the test of time, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. No hacks, no shortcuts. No, run the race that God has set before you. This is what Paul is saying with Timothy. Remember your origin story. Remember your source. Remember to finish well. That's not how you start. It's how you finish and if you do receive the crown of life. How many here wanna receive the crown of life from God? Right? Just look at this. All of us wanna breathe our last breath after finishing well and receive the crown of life. Well done, my good and faithful servant.

Enter into the kingdom. But the reality is not everyone's gonna receive the crown because not everyone's gonna finish well and some people haven't even gotten to the race. because you've not yet made a decision to say, I'm a sinner and I need a savior. You've not made a decision to say, I'm gonna give God control of my life and I'm gonna offer my life to him. But the beautiful thing about the gospel is everyone's invited all the time, every day, everywhere. Right now we're watching these beautiful revivals that are happening in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon, in Lebanon, in places where you're like, the whole world is falling apart. And people are realizing all the things they put their hope and trust in are so fragile. There's only one they can put their hope and trust in that nothing or no one can take away. It's God Almighty who sent his son to die in our place. And listen, we might have all the trappings of what looked like control and all the trappings of what we feel like, I've got my bank account, I've got my house, I've got my dreams, I've got my life, but all those things can be taken away in a moment. The reality is there's only one who will get you to the end, to a place he's prepared, a place called heaven.

And today, if you want to leave this place knowing that you know that you have eternal life, knowing that you know that you are forgiven in this relationship with Jesus, this race, you can start running. For the very first time, I'm gonna invite you. We're gonna invite you, we're gonna play a song and we're gonna say, come to the altar, it's open. If you wanna receive forgiveness, if you're ready to confess your sins, and we know it takes courage, we know it will take courage to get up in front of all these people and walk this way. But God blesses courage and God blesses faith. He called his disciples publicly. And this is a chance for you, if you've been in the in-between place, been running, maybe you can even think about the people who've been praying for you, the people who've been inviting you. We want this for you because we know what he did for us. And so if you're ready to repent of your sins and believe the goodness of the gospel, I'm gonna ask you right now to stand up wherever you are and walk this way. And we're gonna pray a simple prayer. We're gonna celebrate with all of heaven as you come. If that's you, come now, he's waiting for you. Are you hurting, broken, and thin? Overwhelmed by the weight of your sin? Jesus is calling.

Have you come to the end of yourself? Do you thirst for a drink from the well? Jesus is calling. Oh, come to the altar. The altar, the Father's arms are open. Why, forgiveness was bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Oh, come to the altar. The Father's arms are open. Why, forgiveness was bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. We are so grateful that you're here and honored to be part of this special moment where you make your confession, where he forgives your sins and takes away the shame of your sins, where he writes your name in the book of life. And this is gonna be the beginning of your race. And we can't wait to see what he's gonna do next. And so I'm gonna give you some simple words to say to God. He's listening. He's waited for this moment. He's known your whole life. He would meet you here at this altar on this date, and he's about to keep his promise to you. And so if you're ready, just say this out loud to God. He's listening. Just say this. Lord God, I open my heart and I invite you inside. Forgive my sin.

Today I repent. Now fill me with your spirit. And I will walk with you all the days of my life. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, guys. Congratulations. Welcome to the family of God. So before you go back to your seats, I wanna ask you for five more minutes. You just made the most important decision of your life. I wanna meet you. We wanna give you a gift. And so if you can follow the guys over to the open door, I'll meet you there. And church, let's give them a hand as they go this way. And church, we wanna now respond in worship to the God who didn't just save them, but saved us. So let's worship and respond with gratitude. ♪ I'm who I used to be ♪ ♪ I got the Holy Spirit down in me ♪ ♪ Run inside of me, my God calls me by a brand new name ♪ ♪ That's how I know that I am chosen, spoken for and born again ♪ ♪ Not by my heart, but because of Him, He said He's done ♪ ♪ Every debt is paid, that's how I know that I am ♪ ♪ Not who I used to be, I got the Holy Spirit down inside of me ♪ ♪ My God calls me by a brand new name, that's how I know that I am chosen, spoken for and born again ♪ ♪ Not by my mind, but because of Him, He said He's done ♪ ♪ Every debt is paid, that's how I know that I am saved, set free and forgiven ♪ ♪ Washed clean, my sin forgiven, glory to His holy name ♪ ♪ When I call on Jesus, my God, saved, set free and delivered ♪

♪ Washed clean, my sin forgiven, glory to His holy name ♪ ♪ When I call on Jesus, my God, saved, set free and delivered ♪ ♪ Washed clean, my sin forgiven, glory to His holy name ♪ ♪ Glory to His holy name ♪ ♪ When I call on Jesus, my God, saved, set free and delivered ♪ ♪ My God, saved, set free and delivered ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ Thank you, Jesus. Amen. He's good. Hey, listen, church, if you need prayer for anything else at all, we'll have our prayer team right here at the front, ready to pray with you. If not, have a great rest of your Sunday, and we will see you again next week, see you.