SPEAKER_00: Good morning, First Baptist Wimberly.
SPEAKER_00: This is Mike Gibbons.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Friday.
SPEAKER_00: We have the distinct pleasure this Sunday of hearing from our minister to students and families, Isaac Morehouse.
SPEAKER_00: He will be preaching from 2 Timothy 1, verses 1 through 7.
SPEAKER_00: So please take some time to read, meditate, and pray through those verses before Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To Timothy, my beloved child.
SPEAKER_00: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus, our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I've said this before, but we cannot skip over the greetings in the epistles.
SPEAKER_00: Those greetings set the tone and tell us a lot about the relationship between the writer of the letter and the recipients.
SPEAKER_00: In this case, tough times had fallen on the Apostle Paul since the writing of his first letter, 1 Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: When he first wrote Timothy, he was traveling, hoping to see him in Ephesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now he is chained in prison, his second Roman imprisonment.
SPEAKER_00: He expects he will soon be executed.
SPEAKER_00: And Luke was the only one with him.
SPEAKER_00: Demas had abandoned him because, as Paul describes it, he loved this world.
SPEAKER_00: And for Timothy, things in Ephesus where he was pastor had deteriorated.
SPEAKER_00: There were desertions after the discipline and excommunication of Hymeneus, who unfortunately was still causing division in the church at Ephesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the focus of the first letter was on the church.
SPEAKER_00: The focus of this letter is personal.
SPEAKER_00: Many consider 2 Timothy to be Paul's last will and testament.
SPEAKER_00: He is reviewing his work for the gospel and urging Timothy to persevere in the ministry of that gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He calls Timothy his beloved child.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, cold and lonely in prison, was kept warm by the thought of his beloved young disciple.
SPEAKER_00: He penned in this letter a triple blessing: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Grace to the undeserving, mercy for the helpless, and peace to the restless and the weary.
SPEAKER_00: Paul knew what Timothy needed to hear.
SPEAKER_00: I'm asking myself today, who is your Timothy?
SPEAKER_00: Who needs your encouragement today?
SPEAKER_00: Who needs to be reminded in your life of the grace, mercy, and peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ this week?
SPEAKER_00: Whoever comes to mind, would you reach out to them today?
SPEAKER_00: This is Mike Gibbons, and I love being your pastor.