SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we are celebrating the multi-generations today, really.
SPEAKER_00: And looking around our church, I mean, it's it's amazing that we have so many generations, all the way from 96 down to uh just a few months old, represented in a church.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, where else in the world do you see something like this than in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And today I hope that we're able to celebrate that a little bit, and even in a few weeks, as our as our seniors are going to leave the service, uh, just to be reminded of the gift of the multi-generations of our church.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we are carrying on this morning in our series on disciples making disciples.
SPEAKER_00: We've already talked about the cost and the call of discipleship in previous weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Pastor Bob did a sermon on the calendar of discipleship, and this morning it's the family of discipleship, mothers, grandmothers, and children of the faith.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have your Bibles, you can turn with me to uh 2 Timothy chapter 1, as Pastor Bob has already read it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when it comes to discipleship, I think one of the greatest examples in Scripture has to be the relationship between Paul the Apostle and his son in the faith, Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the most extraordinary examples that we have.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning we're gonna see how God has been working this plan of redemption through the challenges that Timothy, as a young pastor, has been facing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and in particular, how he has used Timothy's mother, how he's used Timothy's grandmother, and how he's used this spiritual adoptive father, Paul the Apostle, to redeem what was broken in Timothy's own life and to change his life as a young man.
SPEAKER_00: So this morning we're gonna look at how God redeems brokenness through the family of the church.
SPEAKER_00: Then God uses how God uses the faithfulness of a mother and a grandmother in a powerful way, and then we're gonna see how God gifts us, all of us, as the church, what we need to accomplish his will or his call.
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing this morning is God redeems brokenness through the family of the church.
SPEAKER_00: To Timothy, my dearly loved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed before that family can be a little complicated?
SPEAKER_00: You ever experienced that?
SPEAKER_00: You know, even this week talking to uh different people here in our congregation, in our church, we've been talking about some complicated pieces of family.
SPEAKER_00: And what I love too, how the Bible does this is the Bible is so truthful about this.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't hide from the stories of difficult family dynamics.
SPEAKER_00: Just think about Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: How does Genesis start?
SPEAKER_00: Husband and wife fall into temptation.
SPEAKER_00: They're two sons, one kills the other, Cain and Abel.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and the Bible's just starting to warm up from there.
SPEAKER_00: Cain is excommunicated essentially from the rest of his family because of the danger he is and the sin that he committed.
SPEAKER_00: And then you move along through Genesis and you get to Noah and his sons.
SPEAKER_00: And then you keep moving along and you get to Abraham and Sarah and Hagi.
SPEAKER_00: That was complicated.
SPEAKER_00: Isaac, Ishmael.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just keeps going on.
SPEAKER_00: This family, and what does it end?
SPEAKER_00: And more family drama.
SPEAKER_00: The end of the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph, his brothers.
SPEAKER_00: The scripture tells us that Joseph's brothers wanted evil to be done towards him.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't even think a good thought about their brother.
SPEAKER_00: And we see all that takes place.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's just the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: We've got a lot of Bible to go after that.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what this does for us?
SPEAKER_00: Is I think this reminds us that no matter what our own situation is, no matter what you might be experiencing in your own family situation, God understands.
SPEAKER_00: He understands.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not new to him.
SPEAKER_00: He's been working his plan of redemption throughout history to ultimately culminate as the book of Revelation tells us, where Jesus says, Behold, I have come to make all things new.
SPEAKER_00: Even families, he's going to fully redeem.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you see, we are introduced to Timothy in Acts 16, 1 to 3.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have your Bibles, you can leave your finger in 2 Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: Flip back to the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 16, verses 1 to 3.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we're introduced to Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what it said about this.
SPEAKER_00: Remarkable young man.
SPEAKER_00: And the insight we get into his own broken family situation.
SPEAKER_00: Paul went on to Derby and Lystra, where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a believing Jewish woman, but his father was a Greek.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we know our Bibles, we know history here a little bit, with Israel, you would recognize a Jewish woman and a Greek man getting married in the near ancient Middle East.
SPEAKER_00: That was a recipe for some fireworks, so to speak, in different ways.
SPEAKER_00: The text goes on to say, the brothers and sisters at Lystra and Iconium spoke highly of him, being highly of Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: Paul wanted Timothy to go with him, so he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places.
SPEAKER_00: And since they all knew that his father was a Greek, as they traveled through the towns, they delivered decisions reached by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem for the people to observe.
SPEAKER_00: So here we are introduced to Timothy and his family situation.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we know little about Timothy's dad.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, really all we know is what's there in those verses, that he was a Greek.
SPEAKER_00: And it seems as though he's not really part of the picture anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of scholarship believes that Timothy's father's likely passed away.
SPEAKER_00: And so Timothy is being raised by his mother and his grandmother.
SPEAKER_00: Which, if you just think about a single parent situation, and some of us have experienced that.
SPEAKER_00: And even in today's day and age, how difficult that is.
SPEAKER_00: But just again, remember this is the near ancient Middle East, a single mom raising a young boy who is not, he's not fully Jewish, he's not fully Greek, he's half Jewish and half Greek.
SPEAKER_00: So his own identity within the society was up for question amongst those who were Jewish and those who were Greek.
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is Paul comes across Timothy and he hears about Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: He hears about how this young man had such faith, how he had such promise.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we understand that Timothy's mother was a Jewish believer as her mother was.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul sees and meets Timothy, knowing his testimony, Timothy being well respected, people seeing and recognizing that this young man is a committed young man of God.
SPEAKER_00: Paul meets him, and what does he say to him?
SPEAKER_00: Come with me.
SPEAKER_00: What does Timothy do?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we know the story, right?
SPEAKER_00: Timothy goes with Paul, and in this we get one of the most extraordinary discipleship relationships that we see in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Later, as Paul plants the church at Ephesus and stays there for three years.
SPEAKER_00: Who is it that takes over for Paul?
SPEAKER_00: At likely his most one of his most cherished church planting experiences, it's his son in the faith, Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: And by the time we get to 2 Timothy, this is the end of Paul's life.
SPEAKER_00: The last letter that we have that Paul writes.
SPEAKER_00: And who does he write it to?
SPEAKER_00: His son in the faith, Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: As we're reading through this letter, you get a real sense of the weightiness of the love that Paul has for this young man.
SPEAKER_00: Starting in verse 2, he calls him my dearly loved or beloved, in some translations, son.
SPEAKER_00: My dearly loved son.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a phrase that Paul would just toss out to anyone.
SPEAKER_00: This was a unique phrase for their relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Paul and Timothy's relationship.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, isn't that beautiful?
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't actually his father.
SPEAKER_00: But he calls him his dearly loved son.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we can speak of how God has used men and women in the church to fill in where there's brokenness in families in some extraordinary ways.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how God used this man, Paul, in this young man Timothy's life.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what happened to his father.
SPEAKER_00: All we know he's not in the picture anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says to Timothy, Come with me, my dearly loved son.
SPEAKER_00: He calls him on basically his deathbed.
SPEAKER_00: But we get more of a gravity of this relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Again, as the book unfolds in this next phrase, it's very interesting.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 2, Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Grace, mercy, and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Just think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Grace, mercy, and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your finger in 2 Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: Flip back to the beginning of 1 Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: Where the greeting is to Timothy in the first book, what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: He says, Grace, mercy, and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Flip back to the beginning of 2 Thessalonians.
SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
SPEAKER_00: He says, Grace to you and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Flip back to 1 Thessalonians, grace to you and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians, grace to you and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians, grace to you and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians, grace to you and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just cut to the point.
SPEAKER_00: The only time Paul says grace, mercy, and peace is to his beloved son in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Out of the 13 epistles and letters he writes to the church, only two of them hold this greeting.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're reading this in the early church and you were familiar with Paul's letters, this would jump out at you.
SPEAKER_00: There's something different about this relationship.
SPEAKER_00: There's something that God has used, this man in this young man's life, that is just special.
SPEAKER_00: Just think about it again, Timothy, raised by a single mother.
SPEAKER_00: His story being not ideal, being broken, being difficult and challenging, I'm sure at times.
SPEAKER_00: And God brought along a Paul.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God has a way of doing this in the church through discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: He hears us, he sees our brokenness, he sees our broken situation, and he loves us, and by his grace, mercy, and peace, and redeeming all of creation, he brings along a Paul.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there are spiritual moms and dads here who have been instruments of redemption in the lives of so many children.
SPEAKER_00: Children that are not their own.
SPEAKER_00: The church needs that.
SPEAKER_00: As the church, we are called to take care of widows and orphans.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul exemplifies this beautifully and perfectly through discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why, again, discipleship is so, so important within the church, because it's a little glimpse into the grand redemptive story, into the fullness of God, where all things are going to become new, where all things are going to be redeemed.
SPEAKER_00: That in the church we get to experience the grace, mercy, and peace of spiritual parents.
SPEAKER_00: Then the next thing we see in the passage is this God uses the faithfulness of a mother and grandmother in a powerful way.
SPEAKER_00: God uses the faithfulness of a mother and grandmother in a powerful way.
SPEAKER_00: I came across this article this week.
SPEAKER_00: It was a pretty good article.
SPEAKER_00: You can look it up if you're interested in reading it.
SPEAKER_00: But the title of the article was this Let the Little Children Hang with the Church Grandmas.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that amazing?
SPEAKER_00: Let the little children hang with the church grandmas.
SPEAKER_00: And the author of the article goes on to just talk about how amazing it is for her as a parent to hear her children singing songs that she didn't teach them, but a grandma in the church did.
SPEAKER_00: To hear her kids reciting scripture that she didn't teach them, but a grandma in the church did.
SPEAKER_00: And the article is appealing to this multi-generational discipleship that just naturally happens in the church and should be encouraged within the church.
SPEAKER_00: And again, like I said, that's why I love our church.
SPEAKER_00: There's multi-generations exemplified here.
SPEAKER_00: And kids get to grow up seeing the faithfulness and greatness of God's working and redemption and life and grace through all lives of all generations.
SPEAKER_00: They get to learn songs their parents may not teach them, hear Bible stories or verses that their parents may not be able to teach them.
SPEAKER_00: But man, what a blessing it is to be a part of a church.
SPEAKER_00: So let the little children hang with church grandmas.
SPEAKER_00: You see, when multi-generational discipleship takes place in the church, Satan squirms.
SPEAKER_00: Christ rejoices, and the church grows.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy was an exceptional young man because the Holy Spirit worked in his life.
SPEAKER_00: But what does Paul say in verses 3 and 4?
SPEAKER_00: He says this, I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did.
SPEAKER_00: So even Paul, he's talking about his own generational faith there, as his ancestors serve God with a clear conscience.
SPEAKER_00: When I constantly remember you, he's saying to Timothy, constantly remember you in my prayers night and day.
SPEAKER_00: Remembering your tears.
SPEAKER_00: And now, I'm convinced, is in you also.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy, absolutely exceptional young man.
SPEAKER_00: A man of great faith, a man of God, a man who is seeking to serve the Lord with his life.
SPEAKER_00: But Timothy was in an interesting situation.
SPEAKER_00: You see, several times throughout 2 Timothy, and even we get a glimpse of this in 1 Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: We get this sense that ministry has been difficult for Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: Several times, especially in 2 Timothy, Paul is encouraging Timothy: don't give up.
SPEAKER_00: Hang in there.
SPEAKER_00: Remember your heritage, remember the gift of God that you have.
SPEAKER_00: Remember how God has brought people into your life to disciple you, how I've been there for you, and how the word of God has taken root in your life, the gospel's transformed you.
SPEAKER_00: All of these things over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's reminding him in this book don't give up.
SPEAKER_00: Some scholars believe that Timothy was ready to give up the ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He had been facing some very unique challenges, false teachers.
SPEAKER_00: And we also get this sense that the generation older in his church looked down on him for his youth.
SPEAKER_00: They despised him for his youth.
SPEAKER_00: So there were some in the older generation that were really dropping the ball when it came to encouraging this young pastor in the faith and in ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul recognizes the pain Timothy is in as he calls to remembrance Timothy's tears.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about your pain, my son, he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm praying.
SPEAKER_00: He's deeply concerned for his son in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: And in a way, what Paul does in these verses too is he works at restoring Timothy's trust in the generation that was scrutinizing him.
SPEAKER_00: And he reminds him about his mom and his grandma.
SPEAKER_00: There could have been all kinds of things that Paul could have started with when it came to encouraging Timothy, who is about to give up his calling as a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: But where does Paul start?
SPEAKER_00: With mom and grandma.
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
SPEAKER_00: And what does he draw Timothy's attention to?
SPEAKER_00: His mother and his grandmother.
SPEAKER_00: Thankfulness, he expresses, for their faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Just exemplifying this idea.
SPEAKER_00: Like never underestimate the power of the ordinary faithfulness of mom and grandma.
SPEAKER_00: Never underestimate the power of your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: For your children, for your grandchildren, for others, other people's children, for their grandchildren.
SPEAKER_00: Lois and Eunice were vessels of God's unique grace in the life of Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: They let the children hang with the church grandmas.
SPEAKER_00: Mothers and grandmothers here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you are by blood relation, mothers, grandmothers, whether you are by an example of your faith, a spiritual mother or grandmother, your own faith is a gift of God's grace in the lives of your children and the lives of the other children in this church.
SPEAKER_00: You are God's gracious gift.
SPEAKER_00: And with the apostle Paul, we pray thankful prayers of joy for you.
SPEAKER_00: The last thing we see Paul draw your attention to as he Draws Timothy's attention to his grandmother and his mother.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, your faith started with them.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us very well-known couple verses here, verses six and seven, where he reminds us that God's gifts are what we need to accomplish God's call and God's will.
SPEAKER_00: God gifts us with everything we need to accomplish his call and his will.
SPEAKER_00: If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ here this morning, you are supernaturally gifted with a spiritual gift to accomplish God's call and God's will.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 6 and 7 say this, therefore I remind you, Timothy, therefore, right?
SPEAKER_00: What's it therefore?
SPEAKER_00: What has just been said.
SPEAKER_00: The faith of your mother, the faith of your grandmother, because of all this, I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands.
SPEAKER_00: For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and sound judgment.
SPEAKER_00: God gives us and gifts us what we need to accomplish his call and his will.
SPEAKER_00: See, verse 6, we understand that a spiritual gift or ability is part of what he does in the life of the believer.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's drawing Timothy's attention to that spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we can just assume, likely, his spiritual gift would have been preaching, as Paul, again, later on in the book, encourages him to preach the word in season, out of season.
SPEAKER_00: He tells him to reprove, to rebuke, to do the work of an evangelist.
SPEAKER_00: So we understand.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy had the gift of pastor teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy had the gift of pastor shepherd, but he was also called in using this gift in a unique way in the church as the pastor.
SPEAKER_00: And so what Paul does, just think for a moment, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's encouraging his son in the faith, who is so discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: He's probably just like weighed down with fear and with things that are just overcoming him in his ministry context.
SPEAKER_00: So he reminds him first of his mother and his grandmother's faith.
SPEAKER_00: And then now, sorry, excuse me, now he reminds him of the gift of God that God has given him.
SPEAKER_00: God's given him a special gift.
SPEAKER_00: And to the idea of this rekindling, as Paul's encouraging Timothy, the idea is to gain fresh life or courage in the gift.
SPEAKER_00: Some translations put it this way fan into flame.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever done that with a fire, you built a fire before, you want to give it some oxygen, you you blow on it, and what does it do?
SPEAKER_00: It just expands, it gets hotter, it gets brighter.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It is difficult to get busy using our gifts that God has given us, especially when we're feeling spiritually discouraged and drained.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have been there in some deep ways.
SPEAKER_00: It's difficult.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul's encouraging Timothy, the calling you have is real.
SPEAKER_00: It's sure.
SPEAKER_00: It hasn't faded, and God has supernaturally gifted you to carry it out.
SPEAKER_00: You may feel weak, but he remains strong.
SPEAKER_00: Fan that gift into flame that it would burn hotter and brighter.
SPEAKER_00: And then we see in verse 7 a spiritually powerful disposition that he's also gifted us with.
SPEAKER_00: So not only has he given each of us a spiritual gift to contribute to the body of Christ to build and make disciples as a great commission has called us to, but he's also, verse seven, given us spiritually, a spiritually powerful disposition where he says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear.
SPEAKER_00: You know, fear can be so crippling.
SPEAKER_00: It leaves us anxious, unsettled, irritable, angry.
SPEAKER_00: Fear can be way too easy to creep into our lives and even into the life of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And just think about Timothy's circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: He was weighed down by crippling fear.
SPEAKER_00: A pastor weighed down by crippling fear.
SPEAKER_00: A guy discipled by the Apostle Paul, who just seemed to have nerves of steel, right?
SPEAKER_00: Persecuted, Paul eventually being beheaded for the cause of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Discipled by that guy, the guy who met Jesus on the road to Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus supernaturally saves him.
SPEAKER_00: The guy that the Lord used in such a remarkable way to start and plant the church that today we look at Paul's writings and say, we love the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: We love what he's written for us as a church.
SPEAKER_00: We live by the things the Holy Spirit has worked through this man.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy was discipled by this man, but yet fear still gripped him.
SPEAKER_00: Fear.
SPEAKER_00: It was gripping him, it was choking his ministry, it was impacting in such a way that Paul had to give him verse seven.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we need verse seven.
SPEAKER_00: All of us, not just Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: We need verse seven.
SPEAKER_00: Because Satan and the powers of darkness have a heyday when the church is listening to fear.
SPEAKER_00: Because fear is not from God, he says.
SPEAKER_00: God has not given you a spirit of fear.
SPEAKER_00: But what is from God, he says, is power, love, and sound judgment.
SPEAKER_00: This idea of power, um, the the Greek word dynamos is where we get the idea or the English equivalent of dynamite.
SPEAKER_00: So this idea, but this is this isn't like uh uh Paul, when when it's when it's used in this context, and their understanding of that isn't like this destructive force that we would think of dynamite to be.
SPEAKER_00: But the power here is very precise.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he uses this word, this is what would have been coming to mind.
SPEAKER_00: But it's an effective energy, it's not a raw or unbridled one.
SPEAKER_00: So when he says, God has given you not the spirit of fear, but of power, this is the idea that this is the kind of power that leaves a mark.
SPEAKER_00: It accomplishes the task it is meant to do.
SPEAKER_00: This is the power that comes through the Lord Jesus Christ, Ephesians 1, 18 to 20, to accomplish his purpose through us, Ephesians 3, 20.
SPEAKER_00: It's precise and ooh, it's the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: He says, God hasn't given us that.
SPEAKER_00: I love that he says, us, includes himself, includes us, the church.
SPEAKER_00: God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but one of power.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, love.
SPEAKER_00: This is a constant love.
SPEAKER_00: It's a perfect love that casts out fear, 1 John 4.18.
SPEAKER_00: This godly love is manifested when we live by the Spirit and we walk by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Our love for God and others is our purpose for using our spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_00: Fear is the opposite of love.
SPEAKER_00: Fear is generally selfishly motivated.
SPEAKER_00: But we're given love.
SPEAKER_00: The love.
SPEAKER_00: And the last thing here, my simpathy, we're given sound judgment or a sound mind, as some translations put it.
SPEAKER_00: This is a mind that reflects biblical, God-willed response to the situations of life.
SPEAKER_00: This is a mind that is shaped and transformed by godly wisdom and gospel transformation.
SPEAKER_00: As we talked about even as we were going through the book of Philippians, this is the mind of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we fight fear with the truth of the gospel and with God's love displayed through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, God hasn't given you that fear, but he's given us power, love, and sound judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy, look at everything you've got.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, church, look at everything we've got.
SPEAKER_00: Christ has given us the gift of the church through generational discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: The gift of the church through each, every individual in this room who claims the name of Jesus Christ that's been supernaturally gifted to make disciples of all nations.
SPEAKER_00: The gift of the church that is not fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Ministry life is not easy.
SPEAKER_00: It's difficult.
SPEAKER_00: Living on mission for Christ is not easy.
SPEAKER_00: It's difficult.
SPEAKER_00: But listen, we're given the power, love, and sound mind to accomplish what he's called us to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for the mothers and grandmothers in our life, ones that are spiritual, ones that are blood related.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, how you have used those adoptive even parents in our life through your church to teach us the gospel, to teach us your goodness.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we recognize that none of us do this perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: But by your grace and by your goodness, you used a Lois and a Eunice.
SPEAKER_00: By your grace and by your goodness, you began to redeem a difficult, broken family situation and bringing a Paul into Timothy's life.
SPEAKER_00: So, Father, I pray this morning we'd be encouraged in how you care for us.
SPEAKER_00: We'd also be encouraged in all those things that you have given us to accomplish what you've called us to do as the church.
SPEAKER_00: So, Father, I pray that we would not be a people of fear, but we'd be a people of faith.
SPEAKER_00: People of love, people of a sound mind, knowing that we yield and hold the power of the gospel that we are not ashamed of.
SPEAKER_00: God work in us this day, in the days and weeks ahead, we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.