Pass Your Faith Down to the Next Generation | 2 Timothy 1:1-7 | July 19, 2026 | Isak Morehous

From 2 Timothy 1:1–7, this message calls every generation to faithfully pass down and receive sincere faith. Grandparents, parents, and mentors each have a vital role in nurturing the next generation, while younger believers are called to receive that legacy and fan into flame the gift of God.

Key points:
1. Grandparents: Pass your faith down to the next generation (v. 5a).
2. Parents: Pass your faith down to the next generation (v. 5b).
3. Mentors: Pass your faith down to the next generation (vv. 1–4).
4. Next generation: Receive the faith being passed down (vv. 5–7).

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning, church. Man, it is oh good to see y'all this morning. I know usually I'm walked over in the other building with those crazy kids, but this morning I broke free and I get to hang out with y'all. No, I I do love it. It's been an awesome summer, and I just want to say thank you so much for praying for us. As we always start off our sermon or our Sunday gatherings, we want to pray for another pastor. And this morning, it's especially relevant, you'll find out here soon, for us to pray for my friend and good mentor, Dr. Brent Baskin, who is the executive pastor at a church in Calhoun, Georgia, called Meadowdale Baptist Church. See, Brent has been in higher academics for over the past 10 years and has just recently stepped back into pastoral ministry there at that church, serving as the executive pastor. And so I'm so excited for him. But with that come a lot of new things that he's learning and people that he's meeting and systems and all the things that come with being an executive pastor. And so this morning, I just want to lift him up in prayer. And I can't wait to talk about him a little bit more in a bit as a part of our message today. Would you join me as we pray? Lord, I thank you so much for your goodness, Lord, for your grace and mercy that you so lovingly lavish upon us. And this morning, I just want to especially lift up my good friend Brent, being such a sweet friend and mentor in this past season of life. God, that as he has stepped back into pastoral ministry away from college students, Lord, I just pray that uh you would give him fresh wind and fresh fire, Lord, a spirit of renewed uh excitement about what you were doing there in Calhoun. And I pray that he would be able to have a great impact for your kingdom, God, for your glory and for his good for the people there in Georgia. God, we know that you are moving in a mighty way. And I thank you for who he is to me in my life and those who are blessed to know him today. God, it's all this we ask in your most holy and precious name. Amen. If you would, in your Bibles, open up to 2 Timothy chapter 1, 2 Timothy chapter 1. We're gonna be in the first seven verses there this morning. But as we turn there, I just want to ask you a simple question. Who was it in your life that handed down their faith to you? Who was it that handed down their faith to you? Maybe it was a good friend, maybe it was a good mentor, maybe it was your parents, or maybe it was your grandparents, but the odds are pretty likely that if you're sitting in this room this morning as a believer in Jesus, there was somebody in your life that handed down their faith to you. We all have a faith that's been handed down to us. Every single person as a follower of Jesus. And that method through which it's handed down may look a little bit different today, but the message is still the same message as it was 2,000 years ago as faith was handed down to Timothy from Lois, from Eunice, and from Paul. And so here's where we're going this morning. Super simple, all right. If you are a follower of Christ, then you have a holy responsibility to pass your faith down to the next generation. The Great Commission begins first and foremost in our homes. And the reason when I was when Aaron asked me if I would bring a word on Sunday morning this summer, I started praying and seeking the Lord. Man, God, what would you have me speak to our people? And God was like, hey, you're the youth minister. I mean, you've got to talk about the next generation, right? But especially at this time in the year, as we're looking towards a new school year. Sorry, students, I know I said the S-word school. We still have a month, it's okay. But as we're looking towards a new school year, what better time than now than to start thinking through new rhythms and new intentional things in the life of your grandkid or your student or all the other areas that we're going to talk about this morning. But what a great time to begin establishing new rhythms and patterns in their life as you start looking towards a school year. That's the cool thing about school, right? Summer's fun. Our schedules are all over the place. We've got vacations, rhythms and routines are interrupted. But the school year, one of the things that I love about it is what it brings back into our life are routines. That we get to enter into these new routines. And so my prayer is that as we talk through 2 Timothy 1:1 through 7 this morning, that the Lord would reveal to you some new routines that could be established over this next school year and in the years to come. So 2 Timothy, starting in chapter 1, starting in verse 1, says this Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my beloved child. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Real quick before we jump in, I just want to give us a little bit of context, okay? You can probably tell from the heading, this is the second letter that Paul has written to Timothy. That's why it's 2 Timothy. But Paul wrote this letter to Timothy while he was sitting in a Roman jail cell awaiting execution. I don't know if you can imagine Paul writing this letter to Timothy, starting it out with an apostle of Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus. He's facing death, and he's talking about life in Christ. And then he says to Timothy, my beloved child, grace, mercy, and peace from God. I thank God whom I serve as did my ancestors. So Paul, facing death in a Roman jail cell, is writing to Timothy to encourage him, to let him know how much he is loved. And the whole theme, really, of this second letter of Timothy is enduring for the gospel. It's holding fast to the faith that has been handed down to you, despite hardships, despite suffering, despite anything else that might come in life. Hold fast to the faith that you have. But this passage specifically that we're looking at this morning is situated within a larger section about enduring for the gospel, holding fast to that faith. But I think that it's appropriate for us to focus in on this section to see how the faith that Timothy is being told to hold on to was first given to him to begin with. So to be clear, I'm going to be using that term passing down your faith this morning. Here's what I mean by that and what we see here. It's raising up, guiding, and directing the next generation in such a way that they place their faith in Jesus and they pursue after him in obedience the rest of their life. Now you can't make that decision for somebody. You can't make your son or your daughter or your grandson or your grandkid, anybody. You can't make that decision for them. However, what we can do is live life in an intentional way that is showing them what it looks like to follow Jesus and pouring into them and showing them the rhythms and everything that's necessary to live a life abiding with Jesus forever and ever. This doesn't happen by accident. You personally must be abiding in Jesus. That's the most foundational piece. And then the second is that you have to be intentional. So now that we've talked about that, given some context, I'm gonna take a sip of water and then we're gonna jump in. Y'all with that? Awesome. So the first thing that I want you to see here in this passage, we're gonna start here in verse five, is this grandparents, pass your faith down to the next generation? Notice here in first in verse 5a, as I'm calling it, because it's really just that first part. Notice the first person that's mentioned. It's Lois, Timothy's grandmother. She is the first person mentioned here that's passed down her faith to the next generation, to Timothy. I wonder in this room this morning who is blessed to still have grandparents in their life. It's such a huge blessing. I still have uh my grandmother, who's my my dad's mom, and I have a grandfather that lives in Louisville, and my other grandparents have gone on to glory. But can I briefly tell you about my grandpa Morehouse, my dad's dad? Uh my grandpa Morehouse was from northeastern Indiana, and he was kind of a burly guy, and he was very stoic. He was kind of a man of few words. He didn't say a whole lot, but you always knew where he stood on an issue. And like you just did not trifle with my grandpa Morehouse. All right, he grew up on a farm. He was a rough and tough dude, but he was so gentle. In fact, one of my favorite things about him is that he was not a hunter, but he loved watching wildlife. And so it was like every couple of years he was getting a new set of binoculars. So that way he could just watch the deer that roamed around their farm. He was a stoic man, but he was also a faithful man of God all the way until God called him home on June 21st, 2017. He got passed away, but my grandfather passed down his faith to my father, and then my father ultimately passed down that faith to us. In fact, he continues to pass down that faith uh in unexpected ways. Abigail and I got married last January 25th of 2025, and I invited my dad to come hang out with all of his groomsmen at the church. You know, he drove in from Georgia or from Indiana. He's alone in Georgia in the hotel room, but I'm like, dad, don't hang out in the hotel room. Come hang out at the church. Come hang out with the boys, be one of the boys. So he shows up and we're hanging out, and he kind of pulls me off to the side and he hands me this little Bible right here. I think there should be an image on the screen. And on this little Bible is inscribed my grandfather's name. It says Donald Morehouse. You see, this Bible was handed to my grandfather the day that he graduated from high school. The day he graduated from high school. I I don't know what day that was, but I know that this Bible is older than some people that we have here in this room. And it was such a special moment for us. I I guarantee that my grandfather had no idea that one day this Bible would be handed down to his grandson on his wedding day in 2025. That's just a small illustration to show that my grandfather was a man of God who passed down his faith to his family and to his grandkids and beyond. I was a benefactor. I am still a benefactor of my grandfather's faith. Timothy here in our text is also a benefactor of his grandmother's faith. We don't really know much about Lois, really just her name, and that she was Timothy's grandmother, but we do know Jesus. And there are countless grandparents that have handed down their faith through the generations, and many of them, their names aren't even known outside of their family tree. But do you have a grandparent in your life that has a testimony of faith that handed it down through the generations? Their name might not be known, but the name of Jesus is, and it's been proclaimed to their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, and beyond. So, grandparents, my simple question to you is how are you passing down your faith to the next generation? Whether it's your grandkids or if it's spiritual grandkids, we'll talk about that in a minute, you were to follow the example of Lois and pass down your faith to this next generation. It's a great and glorious task. Now, I know from a lot of different conversations that I've had with our church members that there are a lot of different family dynamics that exist. Some are good, some are not good. Some are healthy, some are unhealthy. Some of you have a relationship with your kids and your grandkids, and it's great. And some of you wish that relationship was existent or just stronger. But no matter what your category, what your relationship falls into with your kids and with your grandkids, I want to give you a few encouragements of what you can do to be a grandparent that's handing down your faith to the next generation. The first thing you can do, it's the most foundational, it's super simple, yet we often don't prioritize it. And it is this pray. Pray for your grandkids. Pray for your kids. If there's healing that needs to take place, pray that God would heal that, that he would soften hearts, that he would give reunited relationships. But pray for gospel opportunities as well, that as you're spending time with your grandkids and with your family, that the Lord would give opportunities for you to point them to Jesus. No matter what it is in your life or what that relationship looks like, the most foundational, the most important thing that we can do is pray and surrender it to God because it's through prayer that God moves. I think of John 16, 24, where Jesus says, Until now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive so that your joy may be full. Ask in the mighty name of Jesus that he would give you gospel opportunities and ways to love on your grandkids, whether they live here or they live all the way across the nation. There are opportunities that you have to love them. The second encouragement that I have for you is to boldly speak truth in love. In love is the key part right there, right? Maybe some of us love to tell people what to do. We love bossing people around, we love calling people out. But here's what scripture says that we are to speak truth in love. And so when those opportunities present themselves for you to proclaim the name of Jesus or maybe call out a behavior or an attitude that you see in your grandkids, do so, but do so in loving correction, in a way that you hope for them to be able to come closer to Jesus, not in the way of saying, Man, I can't believe these kids these days. What are they doing? That is warranted sometimes in here, but don't let that come out. Speak truth and love to them boldly. And then the next thing is just be a spiritual grandparent. Be a spiritual grandparent. Here's what I mean by that. There are members and people in this church who live far away from family, or maybe they don't have grandparents in their life anymore. But the best thing that you can do is to see them go up to them and adopt them as your spiritual kids and their spiritual grandkids. That you can come alongside them and love on them and act like grandparents to them, even though they're not blood. Abigail and I have been so blessed in our own life to have spiritual grandparents here in Wimberley. They are in this service this morning, but I'm not going to call them out by name. In fact, we just had dinner with them the other night and they taught us this great card game, and we love spending time with them. And it's such a blessing for us. And I can't wait for the day that we have kids for them to be able to meet our spiritual grandparents and be poured into by them and loved by them because I know that they will be. It is such a blessing for the church family to come alongside each other and for grandparents to be spiritual grandparents to other people. So, grandparents, how are you working and being intentional about passing down your faith to the next generation? The second thing that we see here is this that parents, you are to pass down your faith to the next generation. This is the next logical person in this order, right? Pretty simple cycle here. Before your grandparents, what are you? Alright, man, y'all are asleep this morning. Sorry, I know. Let's try it again. Before you are grandparents, what are you? I hope I'm not blowing anyone's mind here this morning. I feel like that's like elementary biology. Your parents, before you were ever grandparents, and as parents, you are the primary faith trainer in your home. We use that term a lot here. PFT, primary faith trainer. What does that mean? I'm so glad that you asked. This means that it is your primary responsibility in your home to raise up and train a child in the way that they should go. In Proverbs 22, 6, that's what Solomon writes. It says, Train up a child in the way that they should go. And even when they are old, they will not depart from it. Train them up in the way that they should go. And that way that they should go is a life living a life for Jesus, surrendered to him and abiding in him, teaching them and commanding them all that God has given us. That is your role as a parent. You are the primary faith trainer. And this is not something that you can outsource to anybody else entirely. Now, there are ways that the local church partners with you, and we want to come alongside you. We'll get to that here in a minute. But it is your primary responsibility, first and foremost, to be the primary faith trainer in your home. The greatest investment that you can make in your child's life, it's not sports, it's not academics, it's not social influence or a wealthy job. The greatest investment that you can make is faithfully pointing them to Jesus in the moments when it is easy and the moments when it's difficult. This means that there are going to be times in your life where sacrifices must be made. And I hope that you realize that you're teaching your kids what to prioritize. That even if you think it's okay missing Sunday every now and then for sports or academics or other things, those moments right there, you're teaching them, oh, well, Sunday's not as important as this. You are teaching them what to prioritize. Being involved in the church is one of my some of my greatest memories growing up. Yeah, I was a theater kid, which is surprising to a lot of people. I was a theater kid. I never played football, but I lifted a lot of weights with the football team and I was involved in other sports. But one of the greatest memories that I have growing up in church are sardines with our youth group. Which, if you don't know what sardines is, it's hide-and-seek in the church. But once you find the person, you stay with that person. And so we had like 50 kids packed into this closet. It was gross, but you're a student, so you don't care. Or it was going to Bass Pro Shops because our church choir that my mom was involved in was doing uh choir singing at Bass Pro Shops and handing out apple cider and hot chocolate. And so we just got to go stare at the fish in the giant fish tank for hours on end. We got to go play the arcade, we got to hang out. Or the Easter pageant at church, being stuck there for hours on end with all my friends hanging out, wearing costumes, and being told not to eat queso because they'll get on the costume and they'll be really upset. I could go on and on and on, but so many of my core memories from my childhood are involved serving and being a part of the local church. And parents, that's one of the most important investments that you can make in the life of your student. Are they gonna have more memories on the sport field? Are they gonna have more memories here in the church? It's not just church involvement though, it's also reading scripture together and praying together and worshiping together in the home. It's serving together and developing intentional rhythms throughout the week where you're having conversations and pointing them to Jesus. There's a study that was done by Lifeway that looked at the best predictors of spiritual health among young adults. Here's what that means. They did a study and they said, here are the things that if you do when they're kids, if you establish these rhythms in their life, these are the best predictors that we have to show that they're gonna continue to walk with Jesus beyond college into adulthood. I'm gonna start with number five, and it's this the fifth most important thing was that the child participated in church mission trips slash projects. The fourth thing was that the child listened primarily to Christian music. Christian music. Let me pause right there. We live in a time where CCM is, to be honest, way better than it was when I was growing up. We had DC Talk and Jesus Freak and Toby Mac and we had some good music, but I am so grateful today that we have so many more options within Christian contemporary music that we can point our kids to instead of Kendrick, Lamar, or Drake. The third thing is that the child regularly served in church while growing up. Regularly, not just during the summers, not just every now and then, but that they regularly served in church while growing up. The second thing is that the child regularly spent time in prayer growing up. I love hearing about parents praying with their students, whether they're in if they're five years old or they're 18 years old. Parents praying with their students. And the first thing that is the greatest predictor of spiritual health in young adults is this it's that the child regularly read the Bible growing up. Crazy, right? The Bible blows my mind. Not really. Notice in this list that there are two specifically that involve the local church, and there are three that are about spiritual formation within that child. But all five are directly influenced by parents. Parents and grandparents, I'm gonna include you in this as well. You have a responsibility and a great task to take these five things and look at your life and think, man, how do these exist in our daily rhythms and our weekly rhythms and our monthly rhythms and our annual rhythms? Are we spending time praying? Are we spending time reading the word together? What music are we listening to and teaching our students to value? Are we involved in church mission trips and in church projects and various things? All of these things can be a part of your rhythms. And I would challenge you and encourage you to examine your family life and see, man, where where can we grow in this? You don't have to implement all five right now. You don't have to go home and think, all right, turn it over a new leaf tomorrow. If you do, awesome. Praise the Lord. But maybe just start with one. And then let that one grow into two and two into three and so on and so forth. But I did mention that it is not your uh it is your primary responsibility, but you can't outsource it entirely. And that's where the local church comes into the picture to partner alongside. With you. I love student ministry. I love hanging out with students. They make me feel young even though I'm 32. They say things that I don't understand and I have to Google. I never thought that would happen, but here we are. I love hanging out and spending time with students. I also love hanging out with parents and having conversations and hanging out with grandparents. Students are awesome, but my main role here at First Baptist Church Wimberly isn't just to go hang out with students. It's to partner with you, the parents and the grandparents, and come alongside you in the crazy task that you have of raising the next generation in 2026 with the emerging technology of AI. And is it really AI? And what does that even mean? Or what they're seeing on social media or how they're being influenced and questions that you might have. I am not an expert, but one of the greatest things that's ever been told to me is that you don't have to know everything as a student minister. But the best thing you can be is a resource gatherer for parents. The best resource I have is scripture. And if I don't have an answer, when you come to me, I will find one and help come alongside you to figure out what's going on in the life of your student. I love partnering with parents. As a church, there's some great ways that we do this. If you go to our website, our milestones are live. All right. And a milestone are these important moments throughout the life of a student, really, from one to 18 and beyond. There are these important moments and things that you should be focusing on at certain ages to help form them into a lifelong follower of Jesus. Go to our website, it's right there at the top. It says milestones and read through that. We also have great resources such as a kids' ministry email and a student ministry email that we send out every single week throughout the semester. Yes, they're informative about what's coming up and what to be on the lookout for, but there's also links in there for helpful things like Access Parent Resources and other articles. I also started doing a group meet. I bamboozled some of our parents if you're a part of it. I did a high school and a middle school group me. Those have morphed into a junior high and high school group me where I'm disseminating information to everybody, but also resources and things like that to better be in parents' phones and help partner with them with things that they might need. We also have faith talks that we do after big events. We did one at Family Life Weekend. If you had a kid or a grandkid that went to summer camp with us, you know that we did faith talks when we got back. And what that is, is we gather for lunch, we got Chick-fil-A, praise the Lord, and these faith talks, which are just like five or six questions, to help engage parents with what the students talked about at summer camp. It's bridging that gap between coming home from camp and then seeing that change continue on in the home. We want parents to be a part of that. Ministry cannot happen if it's just me. It can't. Parents and grandparents, you have such a glorious responsibility and an opportunity to love this next generation to Jesus. It begins with you in the home. You don't have to be a theological expert. You don't have to go to seminary. You don't have to have all the answers. Parents, let me let you off the hook real quick, okay? There are going to be times when your student comes to you and they ask you a question and you're like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I have no idea what that is. I get asked from students all the time, and I'm like, man, that's a really good question. Let me find an answer and get back with you. I love it. It's it's it's hilarious, but it's also awesome because it shows me that students are wrestling with things. But parents, you and grandparents too, let me include you in this. You don't have to be experts in theology. All you have to do is love Jesus and love that person. I can't tell you how much weight carries in the life of a student if you say, Hey, I don't have an answer for that, but let me get back to you. And then you get back to them. Blowing students' minds. They're like, Oh, you remembered that? Well, yeah, I did. You asked me. I told you I'd get back with you. I love it. It's such a great thing. I could keep going on and on. But here's the final thing that I want to say for parents and for grandparents here. It's I love seeing a partnership with parents and grandparents. See, Lois and Eunice, they raised Timothy. It's often believed that, well, it's known that Timothy's grandfather was a Greek, and it's believed that his father passed away. That, but he we're not sure if he passed away. We think he did, but the point of this moral of the story is that he wasn't in his life. You see, Lois and Eunice were the ones that raised Timothy and handed down the faith to them. There was a close partnership between a grandmother and a mother to raise up Timothy and pass down a faith to this young man, in order that we could get to the third thing that we see here in this passage, which is this mentors, pass your faith down to the next generation. You see this all throughout, right? Who wrote this letter? All right, let me try it again. Who wrote this letter? It was Paul and not Timothy. All right, this is a letter to Timothy from Paul. Paul is writing this letter to Timothy to encourage him. And man, look at the language that Timothy or that Paul uses here. He says, To Timothy, my beloved child. He says, I thank God as I remember you constantly in my prayers, there in verse 3. In verse 4, he says, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy. Paul loves Timothy like his own son. He calls him that there in verse 2. That he says he's his beloved child. Paul views himself as a spiritual parent to Timothy. What began first with Timothy's grandmother and his mother was then later built upon by Paul in his life. It isn't that the work that Lois and Eunice did was insufficient, it was foundational. But then God used Paul in the life of Timothy to help build him up into the man that he needed to be for God's purposes. God brought Paul into his life at the right time. You know, I think back oftentimes on my good friend Ryan, that when I was in Indiana still graduating college with this degree in political science, because I was either going to law school or going into federal law enforcement, trying to figure out what God was doing in my life. I was like, man, God, what are you doing? Like I want to do both of these things. They sound awesome, but I don't really have peace about either of them. I know that there's things I need to be doing right now to help push me along, but none of it feels right. Lord, what are you doing? And it was in that moment that God reminded me that, hey, I put a calling in your life to vocational ministry. That never changed. You've been running away from it. And so I called up my buddy Ryan, who was the youth minister at a church growing up, good friend, good mentor, and all it's like, hey man, you want to grab coffee? He's like, Yeah, I'd love to. So we sit at Coffin Crossing in southern Indiana, and we sit there and he's like, Hey man, what's up? And I was like, dude, I feel like I feel like I'm called to vocational ministry. And I don't know what to do with that. And he goes, bro, I've thought that since I've known you, but I knew that God needed to be the one to reveal it to you. But now that you're asking me, yes, let's figure it out. God used Ryan in my life to give me the push that I needed to embrace the call to vocational ministry. If you want to read about how Paul and Timothy met and how they got to know each other and how Paul brought him into his ministry, you can go to Acts chapter 16 and read verses 1 through 5. That's the beginning of their relationship. And it's around AD 50 when they first meet. And then there's a lot of stuff that happens in between, and then you get to AD 67. And that's when Paul is writing this letter to Timothy. I got distracted by 6.7 right there. Don't mind me. AD 67, Paul in a Roman jail cell, facing death, is writing this letter to Timothy. And then in that same year, he's later martyred. Notice how much Timothy or Paul cares for Timothy here. He's in a dark, dirty cell, and he was focused on doing what? Praying for his disciple, encouraging his disciple. I love what Danny Aiken says when thinking about Paul in this jail cell, writing Timothy. He says, though imprisoned in harsh conditions, he still had important work to do, he being Paul. Praying for his disciple, Timothy. Oh, the privilege of having faithful saints praying for us. Paul's thankfulness, thoughtfulness, and prayerfulness were driven by two dynamics his peaceful condition before God and his personal love for Timothy. Mentoring and discipling goes far beyond the hour-long or two-hour-long meetings that you have with somebody. It is a lifelong walk with someone else. Even though you do launch them out, you send them out to disciple others. Paul certainly did that when he launched Timothy out to go pastor a church, but he's still walking alongside him and praying for him and writing him letters. Today we don't really write letters, but a text or a phone call goes a long way. I love catching up with the men who've mentored me in my life. The point that I want you to see here is this. Timothy was a dearly loved disciple of Paul. He was so loved that Paul thought of him as his son. And if you've ever walked through discipleship with somebody, then you know how intimate of a bond that forms with that person. And if you're a follower of Christ, then you are capable of being a Paul to someone who is younger in the faith. This is not something that's exclusive to super Christians. This is not something exclusive to anybody who's really got it all figured out. You'll spend your whole life learning about God and how to walk with him better. But if you've been walking with Jesus for any amount of time, there is somebody who is younger than you, who is younger in the faith. And we are called to come alongside them and disciple them and teach them how to faithfully walk with Jesus. When I think over the past 14 years of my own life, I am so, I mean, I'm 32, but 14 years, right? Of my own life. I'm so grateful for the godly men that came alongside me and poured into me in various ways. I think of guys like David Allison, who met with me and was a good friend and mentor and gave me the push that I needed to finally leave Southern Indiana and move to Asheville, North Carolina to embrace vocational ministry. Guys like Ryan Brown, who taught me for the first time when I was in college how to read scripture and interpret it, how to observe, interpret, and apply it in my life and how to meditate on it. Guys like Jamison Barker, who walked faithfully in ministry and have mentor and showed me what it means to faithfully walk with Jesus while pouring out so much in vocational ministry. Brent Baskin, who we prayed for this morning, who is a faithful friend and mentor in a hard season of life in ministry. And I could go on and on with this list. But the point is this when I think back over my life, there's been so many men along the way that have poured into me and developed me beyond just my parents. And I hope that that is true for you. But you also have a great opportunity to be one of those people in the life of somebody. They prayed for me, they encouraged me, they called me out when I needed it, but most of all, they helped me to love Jesus deeper. That's what Paul is doing here for Timothy. He's encouraging him. But I want you to notice that he's also calling him out. If you look at verse six, he says, fan into flame the gift that has been given to you. And then in verse seven, he says, God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. What's implicit in this is that Timothy is not using the gift that's been given to him. That Timothy is not operating out of a place of knowing that God's given him a spirit of power and love and self-control, but he's kind of timid and he's operating out of a place of fear. In the midst of Paul saying, I love you, I'm praying for you, I want to encourage you. Paul's also reminding him, hey, these things are still true in your life to this day. Mentoring and discipling is coming alongside somebody, helping them love Jesus more, helping them love Jesus deeper. It's encouraging. That's praying, but it's also calling them out. So be a Paul for someone in your life that's younger in their faith. And I know that I'm using the name Paul here, but this exists for this is true for both men and for women. We have women in this church who need somebody to come alongside them and teach them. I love hearing stories of women who are meeting with uh high school, middle school girls and teaching them what it looks like to love Jesus deeply, walking alongside them so that way when they're launched off into the world when they go to college, they know how to look for a church. They know how to walk with Jesus, how to read their Bible, how to grow in the grace and knowledge of who He is. Men and women, we need to come alongside those that are younger than us in the faith. If you don't know what that looks like, let me give you some practical things real quick. This is what it's always looked like for me in my life. Whenever I'm looking for a Timothy, right, somebody to pour into, the first thing I do is I seek the Lord. I pray, God, who is it that's in my life right now that you want me to come alongside, to disciple, to pour into, to teach and show what it looks like to walk with you faithfully. I seek the Lord. If they're not in my life, then bring them into my life and make it clear. And then I patiently wait. I don't try to strong arm somebody into discipleship. I don't try to convince anybody that, hey, you need to meet with me or else you're not a good Christian. No, I seek the Lord and I wait patiently for him to reveal to me who it is. And then when he does, I go to them and boldly say, Hey, I've been seeking the Lord about somebody that that I want to disciple, and I think that he might, it might be you. Are you interested in discipleship at all? I did that with a high school guy recently, and we've been meeting for the past couple of months, and his response was, Yes. I would love that. So you see, what was happening was God was already having a conversation with him while I was seeking him, so that that moment that we came together and I asked him, the answer was yes, and he was ready. And then the next thing is you have to have a plan for discipleship. You don't just meet and say, all right, what's God teaching you right now? That, you know, sure, that's good fellowship about what God's teaching you, but having a plan for discipleship is so important about how you're gonna teach this person to love Jesus deeper and walk with him and abide in him. Here at FBC, we have a phenomenal discipleship program that I love seeing people embrace. We've already had so many people that have walked through it. In fact, whenever I got here, Pastor Aaron sat down with Jake and I. He's like, hey, I want to go through this with you guys, not because I don't think you know it, but because this is the language that we're using, and I want you guys to use this with other people. Also, I love you and I want to see how you're doing. And so we walked through it, and then now that we've been through it, I can now go and be frat. If you've been through it, you know what that means. That means that I can walk through it and I can reproduce in other young men. So that way once we're done, they can go and then they can reproduce. So if you're interested in discipleship this morning, if you've never been a part of that program or been a part of a discipleship relationship, come talk to us, to uh to pastor or to ministry staff, so that way we can get you plugged in, so that way you can begin reproducing in other people the same discipleship. And then lastly, there's one other person in this text that we haven't talked about yet. We've talked about Lois and Eunice, his grandmother and his mother. We've talked about Paul being the mentor writing this letter to Timothy. But the last person we see is Timothy. And so my challenge is this, and that last point, is that next generation receive the faith that is being passed down. Timothy is the fourth person that we see here in this passage, and he is the one who has received the faith. Verses five and seven, you could preach a whole sermon on this, but I won't, all right? I know we're coming to the end. But what I want you to see is that Timothy received faith from his grandmother and his mother, and then Paul helped build him up in that faith. So my encouragement to you, next generation, is to be like Timothy and receive the faith that is being passed down to you. There really are just two categories of young people in this room. There are those whose parents are trying to embrace their role as a primary faith trainer in their life, and then there are those whose parents will never embrace that role. Maybe it's because they're non-believing parents or they're uninvolved in church or whatever it might look like. Students whose parents will, students whose parents won't. For the first, here are a couple encouragements for the students whose parents are embracing or are trying to embrace it. Number one, recognize that and lean into the moments when they're embracing that role. Whenever they're trying to implement things like prayer time or reading scripture or worshiping together, and recognize that your parents, they're not perfect. There's no such thing as a perfect parent. But they're trying their best to embrace their role. And so give them grace and love them and let them embrace that role as the primary faith trainer. Whether it's family prayer time or family Bible reading, or here's another one too: discussions about faith and life. That's a big part of it. I talk to a lot of parents and a lot of students about what this looks like. And sometimes I even get to see it from the outside. And here, here's students, if you're pay attention to this. Whenever your parents are asking you something, I want to challenge you to not do this. Uh-oh, who's good? That's fine. That's not a response. If your parent is trying to have a discussion with you about your day, about life, about faith, whatever it is, stop whatever you're doing and lean into that moment because you don't know how blessed you are to have a parent or grandparent that loves you enough to ask you about your day, to point you to Jesus or whatever it is in that conversation. For the second group, here's an encouragement for you. Number one, pray to the Lord and seek out a spiritual parent in your life. Pray to God that if your parents are not embracing their role as primary faith trainer, number one, pray for them that they would come to know Jesus deeply and intimately, that they would be saved, that they would walk with him. But then also pray that, Lord, this, I don't have this for my parents. Will you bring into my life a spiritual parent that will walk alongside me, that will mentor me and disciple me? Will you bring a Paul into my life and show me what it looks like to walk with Jesus? And while you're doing that, continue to pray for your parents, hopefully one day that they will come to faith in Jesus and that they will be able to embrace that role in your life. And then when the Lord reveals to you who that Paul might be, be bold and go and ask them. I guarantee that there's not a single person in this church that if you walked up to you and said, Hey, I've really been praying to God that that he would bring a Paul into my life, a spiritual parent, to help show me what it looks like to love Jesus better, would you be that person? I guarantee nobody's gonna be like, eh, nah. Whatever. I don't want to do that. If they do, let us know. All right. Church discipline. No, I'm just kidding. Go be bold and ask that person. Please be bold. If you don't know how to have those conversations again, come talk to us. We'll show you, we'll teach you. I've got people that come to mind that I think would be great for embracing that. All in all, I hope you see here that there's this holy cycle of discipleship in this passage that we are all called to participate in. Students, next generation, one day you'll be parents, and then parents, you'll one day be grandparents, and then great-grandparents, and maybe some of us even great-great-grandparents. But all along, running and alongside that, you also have those who are mentoring and discipling this next generation. So no matter where at you fall in this timeline, in this cycle, you are capable of coming alongside somebody and being a pall for them in their life and passing down the faith. So if you're in this room this morning, unsure of what your next step is, we're going to enter into a response time here. I would encourage you, whether there or at your seat with one of our pastors and ministry staff, come pray and seek the Lord. God, what what is what is this next step that you have for me? Maybe I'm a primary faith trainer and I want to start doing this, but I don't really know where to begin. Seek the Lord. Or maybe it's we're already doing some of this, but I think we can do better, God. What areas can we grow in? Or maybe it's, I have no idea what this looks like. I have no idea where to begin. It starts with seeking the Lord and then coming and having a conversation with your church family so that way we can partner with you and come alongside you. Because it is a great task and it is a glorious task, but it is also not an easy task. But praise God that He has given us the Holy Spirit that is our helper, that is our sanctifier, that keeps us, that encourages us, that emboldens us, so that way this task can be embraced wholeheartedly, no matter where you fall in it. Join me as we pray this morning. Lord, I thank you for the example that we see here of Lois and Eunice and Paul and even Timothy. Lord, of this faith being passed down to the next generation. I pray that we would be a church family full of parents and grandparents and mentors and disciplers who come along this side next generation in a great and glorious way to help point them to you. Lord, that they would know you, that they would abide in you, that they would walk in obedience with you for the rest of their days. Lord, I think of how the faith was passed down to me, and I'm sure so many in this room this morning are even thinking about that person who shared their faith with them. Lord, when meet may we be those people in the life of someone else that passed on our faith, that encourage, that adopt. Because Lord, you have adopted us into your family. So, God, we love you and we thank you. And it's all this we ask in your name. Amen.