A Faith Like Mom’s

We looked at how faith is passed down through generations—how it can be taught, how it can be borrowed in hard times, and how we can grow it into something steady and strong for the next generation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

And good afternoon. This is the Preacher Man here, Bland Crane. Welcome back to another episode of the Preacher Man Podcast sermons and lessons. Last Sunday was Mother's Day. And I hope that you were able to uh celebrate that with your church family. And it was a successful Mother's Day when the Old Testament says honor your father and your mother. I can see why we should take some time to have a focus a little bit on not only what God has done for us, but the gift of motherhood needs and should should be celebrated. And so also in the month of May, along with Mother's Day and other holidays that will be coming up soon and and holidays coming up next month, we are spending some time on what it means to fix your faith. And uh wanted to see if I could um maybe uh combine those two ideas uh and come up with a sermon that was not only a way to show honor to our mothers, but to also keep us on track with our theme. The lesson that we are going to be listening to in review is entitled A Faith Like Moms. And it's based off of Second Timothy uh chapter one, five through seven, Paul's letter to Timothy, where Paul incorporates or talks about or mentions the faith of Timothy's grandmother and mother. And I think when we take a closer look at the the faith that a mom has, we can learn some lessons that we can apply with to our faith. Because just like a just like a good parent should, they're always teaching. They're always sharing and they're always giving. And I think we can uh learn a lot from a mother's faith, and so let's go ahead and jump on ahead into it. Open your Bibles. Although I hope you still have your Bibles open to 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy uh chapter 1 is where we'll be getting our start this morning. Um I know I've already said it before, but I feel like I want to say it some more. Happy Mother's Day. We are so blessed to have so many uh wonderful moms in our lives. And um I'm I'm I'm glad that we uh give ourselves um time and permission to not only celebrate and uh be um thankful for all that Jesus has done for us. All my notes are falling out. Um thankful that all that Jesus has done for us, well that God has done for us, but we're also we can take some time to celebrate and and just really highlight what family can do for us. Uh moms and dads both, but uh especially on on this day, it is a focus on how our moms have impacted our lives in many, many ways. Um when I was in high school when I was in high school, I think it was about that time I was transitioning from junior high into high school. Um we where where our family's uh place was located, it was on a uh it was right on the really the border between two counties. Um Dudley was kind of in the on the border, uh where that whole area was on the border between Callahan and Taylor County. So I say all that to say this. One summer they uh they arrested a man who was um was dangerous. He was a dangerous man. He had a couple of warrants out uh in other states, and so when they caught him, they were like really, they were like, hey, we need to really make sure this guy, you know, stays put. So they put him in the in the local county jail, and um about two days after he got into jail, he escaped. And so throughout our area where we grew up, and where the where Highway 36 Church of Christ was, there was like a week-long manhunt for this guy. And of course, what was funny about it is you know, the the the sheriff's department was like, if you see this man, do not approach. He is considered dangerous. And of course, a bunch of West Texas farmers and ranchers were like, Bring it on, we'll catch him. He may not come out of my place, you know. That kind of that that was their attitude, and so it's kind of like defeating the purpose of like, don't come near him. Oh, we'll come near him, all right. We'll get, you know. But a lot of the ladies at the church and a lot of ladies who my mom knew were a little anxious, a little you know, scared. But my mom's disposition didn't change throughout that entire to entire that entire process. And finally, someone asked, Well, Pat, aren't you aren't you scared about this guy being out on the loose and this manhunt going along? And my mom says, No, not really. She said, I got married right out of high school. Pretty much all my adult life. I've had a boy with me sometime, you know, and as you can see with that ragtag bunch of uh goofy guys, uh, she she didn't have a whole lot to worry about. Uh uh, and and so uh, but it just it just went to show you, and I'm not trying, and of course, I'm yeah, I'm I'm highlighting my mom on Mother's Day, so I guess that's okay. But it just goes to show you what what kind of faith my mother had in the situations when it came to different situations. My mom wasn't necessarily worried about some guy running around being you know being being dangerous. She always she said that I always had a boy with me everywhere everywhere we went. Well, we're we're looking, we're talking about this is the whole month of May, we're talking about, and probably going to extend that into next month too, the idea of what it means to fix your faith. And I think it's important for us to see that when we when we're thinking about fixing our faith or um uh working on our faith, um maybe strengthening our faith, however you want to put that, I think we can see that we can get some examples from our parents. We can have or we can develop or we can emulate a faith like mom's. As we go through this lesson this morning, I really have a really one simple question for you to think about and ask yourself as we go through this lesson. Who influenced, who, whose faith has influenced you? It may not be a mom, it could be an aunt or a grandmother, it may not be, it could be a wife, it could be, you know, it could be uh someone in the church, it could be someone who taught your Bible class, it could be a teacher. There's so many people in our lives, I'm sure you all could can agree to this, that there's so many people in our lives who who has had an influence on our faith. The point in Timothy that was read this morning, the point in this lesson is that Paul isn't, I know that a lot of times 1 and 2 Timothy, people go, well, I don't really spend a lot of time in 1 and 2 Timothy because this is Paul writing a letter to a young man who's about to go into ministry. He's about to be a preacher, he's about to be a missionary, and so he's giving him all these little things to do and think and say about that really doesn't apply to me. I'm not, I'm never going to be a preacher, I'm never gonna be a uh a missionary like that. Well, think about it this way Paul's not necessarily writing to, I mean, yes, he is writing to someone who is about to go uh uh be a uh uh work in a church, but when you think about it, especially in the verses that we that was just read this morning, Paul is writing to a third generation believer. Um he he recognizes as Timothy's sincere faith, and he knows that it started with grandma, Lois, and then it got passed down to mama, Eunice. And now, Paul says, is dwelling in you. And and I I want us to, and we're gonna spend a lot of time looking at just how that, maybe how that takes place. Because I think sometimes we might necessarily forget that, like I said, we looked at last Sunday, the substance of faith has a lot of act different attributes that I think maybe we've maybe have forgotten about. So when he says he sees the sincere faith of Timothy, Paul basically we Paul said, well, and we know Timothy, it didn't start with you, started with your grandmother, got handed down to your mother, and now it is in you. So when you the the word that that that really sticks out for me in this in this passage that we looked at, that was read this morning, is the word sincere. The Greek word for sincere is anypocritis. Everybody say any, now say po. Now say Kritus. Now put it all together. Okay, that is the the the sincere in the Greek is anypocritus, and it means get this, it means without a mask. So when you think about it, anypocritus or sincerity is the opposite of hypocrisy, because hypocrisy is in the Greek is wearing a mask or having a mask on. So it uh sincere is this idea of without a mask. So what Paul is saying is, Timothy, you just you don't you don't just have, or you didn't just see a faith that would have been developed in a congregational setting or a church family setting. No, no, no, no, no. You got and you were exposed to that faith that starts at home. He saw his mom's faith when there was concerns about maybe if they were gonna have the rent for that month. They saw the mom's faith when they were when the when the when uh someone was having a when someone was sick and having to deal with an in with uh an illness or an injury. Basically, the faith of a mom shined out from grandma and mom when those hard times in life showed up. And I think what we can see through this little statement that we read that was read this morning is the the first thing we can see is faith obviously can be taught. Faith can be taught. Paul makes sure to note that that a faith that is lived in Lois and Eunice isn't just one of those faiths that comes along with your best Sunday dress or your coat and tie. It has set up a residency in the home. And when you think about that, you can think about how other aspects, uh not only faith, but other aspects are encouraged to be highlighted and taught at home. Deuteronomy chapter uh chapter six, verses four and seven. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Look at verse six. These words I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. Here we go, verse seven, parents. You shall repeat them diligently to your sons and to your daughters, obviously, and speak them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. You look at that verse, you could you look at that verse, and you can see that God wanted the Israelites to understand there is never a bad place to acknowledge who God is and what God is doing for you. Not only in our congregational worship, but on the Monday mornings before breakfast, on the Friday evenings when school lets out and everybody's coming home, on the weekends when we're trying to do stuff as a family or get caught up from our from the other things that we have to do in order to get things ready to go for the next time that that comes into play. Faith isn't taught, well, isn't just taught, I should say. Faith isn't just taught from up here when when I'm preaching or in Bible classes. No, moms and dads, it is I I learned this, I learned this a long time ago, and it it just really, really made uh an impression on me as a youth minister. Went to a conference and a very influential uh man who had been doing youth ministry for a very long time got up and says, and told all the youth ministers in this conference, the days of parents bringing the kid to the youth minister and saying, fix him, are over. He goes, youth ministers are now and should have always been the tool in a parent's toolbox in order to help them figure out how to demonstrate faith at home. And and youth ministers now, and I still believe this, and I believe ministers also, I believe the church also has an obligation to be able to fill in those gaps in a child's life in order for them to understand and how the importance of not just emulate um uh not just emulating the the faith that they see in their lives, but to develop their own faith. To understand that that while you can be taught faith and you can see people who are faithful, young people, especially you seniors and you high school and junior high kids, it is incredibly important to start figuring out your faith is yours and yours alone, and your faith in God is gonna be different from my faith. You can see what we all do, you can hear what we all do, you can experience what we all do, but the guy, the role, the goal is for you to develop your own faith because that's what's gonna keep you going and doing and being active in the church even after you leave high school. Faith isn't taught just through sermons and lessons, faith is taught at home, it's taught when you're sitting down at the house, it's taught when you're walking down the street or going to a game or going to doing whatever. When you're working out in the fields, faith is supposed to be taught. Because there's going to be times in our lives where we are going to experience some hard stuff happening, and our faith will be challenged. That's why Proverbs 22:6 is so important. When you train up a child on the way he should go, even when he grows older, he will not abandon it. That's not a guarantee. But it is a it is something that every parent should shoot for and aim for. Be willing to show and express just what God has done for you so your children will be able to know and be able to express when they figure out and they see what God has done for them. When you think about it, moms and dads, when you think about it, moms and dads are the first real ministers a child ever experiences and sees and needs. You are teaching them, moms and dads. You are teaching them what you're teaching them what God is like by by by by your display of mercy, grace, discipline, and I would say also your consistency, your repetitiveness of acknowledging, serving, praying, putting God first in your life. That's how faith can be taught. Another thing that we can see in this little verse that Paul writes to Timothy is that faith can be borrowed. Well, now wait a minute. The borrowing of faith means that eventually I'm supposed to get it back. Well, I think we can look at it from uh uh from this point of view. It's not uh a concept of like you're handing out a loan, but we have there are plenty of uh aspects and plenty of stories in the Bible where the Lord has told someone, and I can I and I said this last Sunday, the the Lord has told someone your faith is what made you well. But we also have examples of the Bible where Jesus sees the faith of someone else and is able to perform an amazing thing. In in Mark chapter 2, starting in verse 4, the you you remember this story? Four people had a buddy who was paralyzed, and I can imagine this guy was paralyzed and he has been paralyzed for a long time. He probably developed an Eeyore personality. Well, sure would like to go see Jesus, but I I just can't get up there to him, or I can't get in there to him. Well, we'll we'll take you to him. And then they get to the house, and this guy, this paralyzed man, still has that personality of Eeyore. Well, I guess there's two just too many people in the house. Well, whoa no, no, no. We'll figure out a way to get him to you. Next thing you know, they're tearing a hole in a man's roof. And I I don't know what the insurance deductible is on that. But I can imagine this guy's going, what's going on here? Well, y'all got that hole in this roof, and I don't know how I'm gonna pay for it. Don't worry about that, man. We're gonna get you to Jesus, I promise you. Well, what are you gonna do? Just toss me down in front of him? No, we're gonna lower you down on some ropes, man. Come on. Lose this Eeyore attitude. We know, we believe that if we can get you in front of Jesus, he can do some good for you. And so when they was able to get him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And after digging in that opening, they let him down to the pallet, and the paralyzed man was lying. Jesus seeing whose faith? The paralyzed man? This is yes, this is no. When they were seeing their faith, the people who are lowering him down on the from the roof, he said to the paralyzed man, son, your sins are forgiven. All of us can understand and know this that there are going to be seasons in our lives where a child's faith might is planted, but you know, roots don't grow instantaneously, do they? Roots got to get down and spread out and get deep. Those roots don't just develop overnight. Faith roots are will start out. And if there's a storm in that in that kid's life, if there's an instant, there's something going on in that kid's life, you know, due to due to the bad due to the storms of life, they might need to borrow the peace and the faith that comes from a parent or a mom or or a dad. It's really quite simple. They see you pray, and so they start praying. They see you reading the Bible, they'll start reading the Bible. They see you getting ready on getting up and getting ready on Sunday morning, shaving, putting on a coat and tie, picking out your best dress, going over your Bible lesson. It's just automatically assuming, well, we're going to try we're going to worship on Sunday. It it I remember it floored me when I got into kindergarten. And I grew, you know, I grew up on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere. And my first and my first experience at school, I'm making friends and I'm talking about this stuff. And I had a buddy of mine invite me over and say, hey, you want to come over and spend the weekend at my house? I said, Well, I need to ask my mom and dad first, but I'd love that. He goes, I said, what are we gonna do? He goes, man, of course we're gonna go to the ball game on Friday night, and then on Saturday, we're gonna we're gonna eat Captain Crunch and watch all kinds of cartoons. I said, that's great. And I said, I said, and then why? He said, well, on Sunday, we're gonna have a barbecue. And I said, before or after church. And he goes, Oh, we don't go to church on Sunday. I almost fell out of my chair. I mean, I grew up in a house where I had a drug problem. Anytime the doors were open, my mom and dad drugged me up there. And they drugged me up there even on days that weren't on Sunday. And it floored me. And like, you mean you don't go to church? I mean, I didn't say it out loud, but I'm thinking it, you don't go to church on Sunday? What are y'all gonna do? Why don't we have barbecue? Faith can be borrowed. And there are gonna be seasons in our lives where those storms are gonna happen. When we so when when when little kids when children see their mom and daddy do something, they're obviously gonna copy it or try to copy it. And just like that seed growing in the shade of a great oak tree, Timothy in many ways was protected. He was protected by the spiritual maturity of a grandmother and a mother who raised him to know God and to know Jesus. And when I say faith can be borrowed, I'm not saying that the faith that is that a borrowed faith isn't a sign of weakness. Think of it like a nursery. A faith that is developing in a young person's life from a mama or a dad who's a God-fearing, believing Christian, is it's a place where those roots are able to be able to get down deep in the soil. So when those storms of life come when they're older, they can stand on their own. And really, the opposite of what we just read in Mark is found later on in Mark 9. Jesus had just come down off the Mount of Transfiguration. And while he's up there, a dad brings a son who has a demon, who is who is is is demon-possessed and has an evil spirit in him to get driven out. And the disciples who were left at the bottom of the mountain can't do anything about it. They've tried and they can't, they're not having much success. And so finally, Jesus comes down and he's turned to Jesus and says, Jesus, please do something. Help my son. He said to the father in verse 21, he goes, How long has this been happening to him? How long has his spirit been in his in possessing him? And he says, from childhood, it has thrown him both in the fire and into the water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on upon us and help us. And Jesus, I love the way Luke writes Mark writes this. If Mark says, if you can, all things are possible to those who believe. And immediately the father cried out and said, I do believe, help my unbelief. Now, there are two ways you can look at this. And the good news this morning is they're probably both right. If you look at this verse and you see it as the father saying, I do believe, but I, the father, have moments of weakness and I struggle sometimes, and help me when I am in having those times of unbelief. Or you could look at it like a father who's been trying to loan out his faith to his son and show all those things we just talked about, and you can see it as the father saying, I do believe, pointing to his son, help my unbelief. My son doesn't have the faith that I have. Maybe. I don't know. Either way, it's still a lesson that we can take and learn that faith can be borrowed. Faith can be, we can, we are, we are, we are supposed to be able to share and loan out our faith to the younger generations that go up behind us, to the new Christians that come up behind us, so that when they get on their own, they are strong and sturdy. Anyone who is struggling, not just a child, not just a son or a daughter, anyone who is struggling in the church. We are called to remind them that they can use a little bit of our faith if needed. Remind them that they can lean on our faith, a church's faith, a congregation's faith. And we're going to be praying, supporting, and helping them until they can get their own footing. I know it sounds kind of strange to say it, but yeah, a faith can be borrowed until a faith is developed and nurtured. Because that's what that's the end goal. A strong, on their own, developed faith. Paul told Timothy back in 2 Timothy 2, he says in verse 7, he tells them to fan the fan into a flame what you have, the faith that you have. Paul tells Tim to remind him that we are to fan in, fan like a flame the gifts of God. Obviously, Lois and Eunice provided the coals, the embers, the the starter, the starter kit. And it was Timothy's job to just get to Fanning and wave it on, make that flame grow bigger and larger and warmer. News flash, in case you didn't know, you young people, new Christians, new to the church, little bitty kids, anybody, all of you can can really need to learn this lesson. You cannot get to heaven on the coattails of your mama's faith. You cannot get to heaven on the coattails of your daddy's faith. Just because Grandma Sue was a founding member here ain't gonna get you any closer to the pearly gates when it comes time. Faith is developed and faith is yours and yours alone. Now, all those things that we just mentioned are incredibly helpful and can be borrowed and used and established. But you cannot get to heaven on the coattails of your mom and dad's faith. Eventually, that borrowed faith has to become yours. Think of it in verse 7, we can see in Timothy is the result of a fully developed faith. A borrowed faith might start out as timid, but a developed faith has character by the power, by love, by discipline, with the help of the Holy Spirit. Philippians chapter 2, and so he says in verse 6, for this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but the power of love and discipline. The things that you are experiencing that make you feel one way, just understand it now. That's not godly. The things of God are love and power and discipline. In Philippians 2, 12, he says that, beloved, just as you have always obeyed, and just not in my presence, but but now more than in my absence, work out your what? Your own salvation with fear and trembling. Many people have read that and go, well, I guess that means it's all up to me. I'm not supposed to ask for help. I'm not supposed to do it, I'm not supposed to get somebody's opinion. It's all on me, it's my responsibility. I need to pull myself up by my own bootstraps and do this by myself. There's a Greek word for that. What is it? Balony. We're not supposed to do this on our own. No man is an island, no Christian is going to be a Christian by himself. A borrowed faith turns into a developed faith, and with that developed faith, we are able to work out our salvation. And so we take those lessons from grandma and mama, mama and granddad and daddy, all those the things that they taught us, and we apply them when we start facing those trials, when we have those struggles in our marriages, when we have those struggles in our ministries, when we hit a certain age and we don't know what's going on, we can go back and figure out well, what did mom and dad do? What did grandma say? And if we don't have those, when there are plenty of other wonderful, great examples sitting in front of you, behind you, and beside you, who have probably had a lot of experience. When it comes to faith, you've been there, you've done that, and you've gotten the t-shirt. The point is that we are called to have a faith-like mom. When we understand a faith-like mom, is that we're called to leave a legacy as parents, as members of the church, we leave a legacy. A faith-like mom is, in many ways, a way to really get a good starting, a starting off point on that legacy leaving. It means it's like a launching pad, not a landing strip, it's like a launching pad. And so, really, I would encourage all of us, not just the women in the church and the moms in the church, the grandmas in the church, all of us can really take a lesson from this and keep on living that masked life, that life that is free from hypocrisy and full of sincerity. And watch what happens when those kids see that. Watch what happens when those kids see the struggle, see the difficult times, see the times of rejoicing. And we can and then we can encourage those young people to fan the flames of that, and then they can turn, pass it on to the next generation and the next generation, and the next. Think of it like this Lois, Grandma Lois ran her lap, and she did it fantastically. She handed it off the baton off to Eunice, Mama Eunice, and she man, she booked around that course like it was nobody's business. And now she's handed that baton to Timothy, and Paul tells Timothy, run, boy, run. You can do it. I will help you. A handoff, if any of you have ever done been in track or know anything about track, the handoff is a very dangerous time. The baton can be dropped. And then when that happens, it's hard to it's hard to make up. But if the handoff is successful and the runner doesn't just run for themselves, but he runs with that momentum that has already been gained, everyone who came before them, when that happens, the whole team wins. Remember some things that about the lesson. Faith is taught, faith is borrowed, and faith is developed. We are not to try to be successful in our Christian walk when we are uh as I like to say sometimes, riding on the coattails of our parents' faith. Parents need to be striving to teach and to instill a faith into their children. And children need to be able to take the taught, borrowed, developed faith and establish their own. As always, we want to tell you we appreciate your you listening and we would l really love to hear from you if you so choose. Our email address is preacherman1178 at gmail.com. That's preacherman1178 at gmail.com and you can send me an email and we might be looking at that subject, answering that question or discussing that issue in a future podcast. Next week we will continue our theme of fix your faith by looking at what it means to have a faith that sees clearly and we will focus on Jesus' healing of the man who was blind and just what the lesson is in the fact that Jesus had to do the procedure twice. We're going to pull some very interesting lessons from the Bible and see no pun intended, or maybe so, I don't know. And see what just we need to do in order to have a clear-sided faith. This is the Preacher Man signing off. Hope you have a blessed weekend and always remember who you are and whose you are.