Pastor Derek Berry "A Life That Leaves a Legacy" - (5/10/2026)

A godly legacy isn't just what we leave behind when we're gone, but what we live out and pass on every single day. Through the example of Timothy's grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, we learn that genuine faith must be demonstrated, not just inherited. Real legacy is built through small, consistent steps - daily conversations, Scripture teaching, and private moments with God. Paul reminds Timothy to stir up the gifts within him, overcoming fear with the power, love, and sound mind that God provides. Right now, someone is watching your life and learning what matters most by observing your priorities and faith.

Transcript

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To 2 Timothy chapter 1, 2 Timothy chapter number 1, and we're going to look together and see what the Lord says through Paul here. Paul is writing this letter of encouragement to young Timothy, and I found something in there that I believe will help you and I in this moment that we live in. And my thought behind this is a life that leaves a legacy. A life that leaves a legacy. Find your place there in 2 Timothy in your Bible or on your app on your phone, whatever you brought with you. We'll read it in just a moment. But I was thinking as I was sort of preparing for this, and you know, my goal to sort of get across to each of us is a godly legacy is not just what you leave behind, but it's also what you live out and pass on. And sometimes I start thinking about a legacy in the sense of what I'm going to leave when I'm gone, but I'm thinking about it how I live right now and how I live it out today, so that I can pass it on to the next generation, my kids, and beyond. And that's what I'm thinking about, this word legacy, a life that leaves a legacy. And I was thinking, and you might find uh this to be humorous, or it may uh also affect you, but I found myself saying something not too long ago, and after I said it, this is what comes out of my mouth. Man, I sound just like my mom. You ever had that? And never my entire life thought that I would say what my mom said, the sayings that she said. And I said, Megan, can you believe it? I'm sounding like my mother. And she's like, I can't believe that. Don't do that no more. But what happens? You just do it. You just do it. Sometimes you say something that your mom or your dad once said, the way that they phrased something or the words that they used. It could be a phrase or it's sort of, it could be a reaction, or it could be a tone. And I could follow that up by saying, man, that was just like mom, or that was just like dad. And now as a young child, I said, man, I don't want to do that, but yet when you get older, it just seems to pop out. And I started thinking, why is that? Why is it do I say the things that I didn't think that I was gonna say? I didn't plan that. It wasn't something that I just wrote down and thought I'd say it later. It just sort of came out in the moment, in the heat of the discussion. You know why? Because somewhere along the way, it got into me. It got embedded into me. It got into my thought pattern or my processing of things. And maybe it was something that she said or that he said, or maybe it was something that I watched as I watched them live, or maybe it was just the way that I seen them live. Either way, somehow throughout my years, it came into me. And I started thinking about the legacy that I live and leave, the way I act and how I sort of teach. And I started thinking about this text that we're gonna look at in a moment and read it together. And I started thinking, you know, that's influence. Maybe never did she realize that she was gonna cause me to repeat the words and phrases that she did, but that's influence, that's legacy. And whether I realize it or not, I'm passing something on as well. You may not realize it, but you're passing something on to somebody. Could be a child, it could be your child's friend, it could be a neighbor, could be a grand a grandchild, it could just be a friend. But you are passing something on to somebody, whether you realize it or not. Here's a question that I'll give you before I read the text. What are people picking up from your life? What are individuals, what are folks, whether a child or an adult, what are they picking up from the life that you live? And that's something we got to analyze and think about because that's exactly what the apostle Paul is talking to young Timothy about in 2 Timothy chapter number one. There was something in his life that somebody before him sort of said and poured into him, and it didn't just pass away with them, it continued in him. And that's what Paul is talking about here in 2 Timothy chapter number one. Let's look together at the text and see what God has to say this morning. Verse number one, the scripture teaches us and shows us Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus. So Paul is writing this, and he shows us who he's writing to. Verse number two, to Timothy, a beloved son. So we know that Timothy wasn't Paul's biological son, but it was a spiritual son, something that he took under the wing and mentored and sort of invested in. And so he's writing this to him to encourage him. Verse 2, to Timothy, a beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. And here's the meat of the text that we're going to look at this morning, verse number three through verse number seven. Here he goes. As without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day. Verse 4, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears. So we know in that moment right there that young Timothy was saddened by something. He's got tears in his eyes, and Paul is recognizing that. And so he says in verse number four, being mindful of your tears, of your sadness essentially, that I may be filled with joy. Paul is asking to be filled with joy to encourage him and to help him. Verse 5 When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you. Now that's a compliment, that's a praise. Paul is reminded about the genuine faith that young Timothy has. Look what he says in verse 5, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois, and in your mother Eunice. And I am persuaded is it in you also? What a compliment, what a praise. He's saying, Man, you've got some genuine faith, bro. And I know that you got that because of the example that your grandmother and your mother set before you. Verse number six, therefore, Paul's saying, because of all that, therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying of my hands. Verse 7. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So here's the words that Paul is sort of teaching us this morning through this letter to young Timothy here, a life that leaves a legacy. I want to break these verses down to help you and I to process them. Sometimes in life, you know, you have to cut your steak up a little bit to eat it. Right? You ever ate a steak whole? Y'all choking on it? Is that why? Yeah. No, you eat it. You can't eat a steak, you gotta eat it one bite at a time. So let's break this down and process this and grab a hold of this and see what exactly God wants to teach us this morning. Here's the first thing that I want to give you, and we'll find it in verse number five. He uses the word genuine faith. Here's what I'll give you: a legacy, a godly legacy starts with genuine faith. Genuine faith. That word genuine there in verse number five that Paul lays out means without hypocrisy, without compromise. It's genuine, meaning, you know, a lot of us will have a Bible and we'll look at the back of it and it'll say genuine leather. It came from a cow, okay? If yours doesn't say genuine leather, it might be uh say genuine pleather, right? No, you don't want that. You want leather, okay? You want it to hold up with time so as you towed it and read it and open it and close it, it's gonna last for a while. Genuine means it comes 100% from whatever uh animal, a cow, if you were, or in my case, mine is made out of a buffalo, a bison. So mine says genuine bison on it. It's genuine. It means it's real, it means without compromise. And so Paul is giving young Timothy a compliment right here. He says, man, he's essentially saying, I call to remembrance your genuine faith. And what I come to realize when I read these verses and study and to think, I start to realize that real faith is not inherited, it's demonstrated. See, see, young Timothy could not have inherited genuine faith because of his mother or because of her. It had to be demonstrated, then he had to act it. Meaning, I can't have good faith because my mom and dad had it. I can't have genuine faith because my granny had it. But I can have genuine faith by watching them and then demonstrated what they then demonstrated for me. See, Timothy is essentially hearing this as Paul is writing, and Timothy didn't just hear about faith. He obviously saw it. That's what Paul's saying. You mimicked the genuine faith of your grandmother and your mother. See, Lois, which is Timothy's grandmother, if you read some of the New Testament, you'll read and find out that she came to know the Lord Jesus first. And then somewhere down the line, as she poured her life into her daughter, Eunice then got saved. And then, according to Scripture, they then began to enlist that and to instill that into young Timothy as a way that no different than maybe my parents did, or your parents did, or that Megan and I do with our children. She has to give them Bible verses to memorize and to read. See, see, Timothy's mother and grandmother had instilled scripture in him for a reason. Why? It was a great preparation for the hearing of the gospel. What I love is that when I'm reading the text, I can follow Paul's missionary journeys and I can find out in Scripture where Paul witnessed to young Timothy and then Timothy got saved. And so I start to think about the preparation that his grandmother Lois and his and his mother Eunice instilled into him by giving him the Holy Scripture. Essentially, a godly legacy starts with a genuine faith. Because they had a genuine faith, they were able to instill it into him, and now look what God's doing in his life. He's ministering to people all over the world, according and also to us in this very moment. That word genuine without hypocrisy, essentially Paul is saying that he is super confident that Timothy had a genuine faith. Why? Because he had a heritage, being raised in a godly home, being trained up by a godly mother and grandmother, and then being able to be trained by an apostle by the name of Paul, and then being used in a mighty way for God throughout the world. I was reading in my Bible about in the Old Testament, just trying to find something to get a hold of and look at to sort of make this make sense to us this morning, a godly legacy that starts with genuine faith. I noticed that Lois and Eunuch never had a spotlight on them. They wasn't trying to be out front of the stage and showing everybody what they're doing, and I started thinking about other places in Scripture where a private moment with God changed everything. And I wandered over into 1 Samuel chapter number one, and I was reading about the life of Hannah. And what I love about the life of Hannah, Hannah wasn't trying to have some kind of public uh performance in her faith. We know that if you read the Bible in 1 Samuel chapter number one, that she struggled with being unable to have a child there for a while, and she went unto the Lord and prayed and prayed and prayed. What I love about her life and the story that you can read from 1 Samuel chapter number one is that instead of pretending that everything was just okay, she went to the house of the Lord and laid it all out before him. She didn't pretend like it was all good. No, she was real. And she was saying, Man, Lord, I need this and I need that. And then throughout her life, what I love is that she poured her heart out. She prayed and she had tears unto the Lord. And before it was all said and done, yes, she was overwhelmed. But what stood out to me that was super incredible is that she didn't have some public performance, no, she had a private surrender. There on her knees in the temple there, she surrendered her all to the Lord and said, God, if you do this, I will give my son back to you to be used for your honor and for your glory. And she ultimately, you read the book of Samuel, exactly happened the way she said God gave her a son, and she gave him back to the Lord for God to use. What I love about it was those private moments that you and I have a window to look into. I bet if I stop right now and pass the mic around, most of us in the house today could give a moment where God did something supernatural. It wasn't in a spotlight, it wasn't on a stage. It may have been just a time with you and the Lord praying, a time that you were reflecting, a time that you were praising the Lord for something. Listen to me, as Hannah prayed and she surrendered privately, she prayed, she trusted, she surrendered, man, something supernatural happened in that moment. Her faith wasn't public, it was personal. And I love that personal moment. You and I will never get to see the personal moments that Lois and Eunuch had with Timothy, but I can read about it and I can see it throughout his life and the stories and the truth that he had. You know what I realized is you can't pass down what you don't have. If you don't got genuine faith, there's no way you can pass that down to the people that are watching you, to the ones that you're caring after. They had genuine faith, they passed it down by demonstrating it unto him. You can't give away what you don't have. You ever thought about that? You can't give away what you ain't got. Is that good? That's good, English. Even my Rex English teacher, amen, that one earlier, right? You can't give away what you ain't got. You understand? So you gotta have genuine faith. Let me leave you with this and then we'll move on to the next few verses. Our real legacy begins with real faith, with real faith. Our real legacy begins with real faith. That's your faith. Would it be described as genuine? Or not there yet? Let's dig a little bit deeper. And I want to show you something in these verses before verse number five in verse three and four. A legacy is built through daily influence. If you look in the text in verses three, four, and five, what stuff what pops out to me is a couple things. It says, I remember you. Paul says, I pray for you. Paul says, I see your faith. In those three verses, he says, I remember you. I pray for you. I see your faith. What an encouragement that was. I don't know about you, but I love it when somebody will come up to me and says, brother, I am praying for this or for that. Listen, I understand there's this, or I'm praying. How can I help you? How can I pray for you? Man, what's what a church is for to lift each other up? Listen, it ain't all perfect outside. Listen, life serves struggle. We know that. It started in the Garden of Eden with sin. Listen to me. And because of the sin in the fallen world, we all have struggle, but you and I have each other to lift up and to pray and to praise and to surround at times. But what an encouragement the young Timothy would have had receiving this letter from the Apostle Paul that says, Man, I remember you. I pray for you. I see your faith. It shows me several things. Paul knew Timothy's weaknesses. You know, you and I all have weaknesses. We don't like to admit it at times. It's not real manly to admit we got a weakness or whatever, but the truth of the matter is we all have it. Listen, I loved Lauren's testimony earlier about how she was a sort of the fear that she had of standing before. And most of us can look from that side and say, how you sing all the time. How could you fear? But there's something that was she was struggling with, and I praise the Lord that she got over and leaned on the Lord and said, Listen to me, we all have weaknesses and struggles. And we know that Paul knew that Timothy had them. You can look in other spots between 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy that Timothy was timid. He was cowardly in some things and he was nervous about things. We know, according to these verses, that he had tears. He was tore up from something going on in his life. I mean, there was one point that he knew he had stomach issues because he had suffered with such anxiety. You can read that in the in the scriptures right here. And Paul is knowing that, broken by that, he makes it super personal. He pins this letter and says, bro, I know your problems, I know your weaknesses, and listen to me, I want to pray. I'm broken and I'm burdened. I want to encourage you with something. And what I love about the Paul the prayer from the Apostle Paul is it wasn't routine. Sometimes if we're not careful, we'll get in the routine of life. Who gets in the routine? Who does the same thing every day? Somebody help me. Yes, I know it. We do the same thing all the time. We're creatures of habits. Listen to me, what I love about the Apostle Paul is he was not praying out of a routine. He was praying with compassion and concern. And he actually says in one of the verses there, verse number five, I pray with a pure conscience. You know what that word pure means? Clean. Means clear. He was totally cleared with the Lord, totally cleansed with all that was going on in his life, and he was broken for his brother. And he said, Bro, I know you got a struggle. I know you've got a weakness, and I'm here to tell you that God has you, no matter where you're worried or where you're struggling or where you are timid. See, legacy is formed each and every day, not with just big moments, but small steps. See, we're not careful in the life that you and I live in. We think the big moments are what matters everything. But actually, I've learned that it's the small steps in life that actually make the most sense. Listen to me, I I've as I've grown and Megan and I have got five kids, there's moments in our life where we have to have that perfect image of a picture of them, whether it's at one year old when they're smashing the cake. Now that's fun. But I'll just, parents, listen, for especially the ones that have just got, do that outside so you ain't got to get it all up in your floor, okay? Take them outside, let them smash the cake. Those are moments where Megan's like, get the right picture, Derek, as she smashes the cake, or he smashes the cake. I've got to get that. And in the moment of time, we think that's a huge milestone in a moment. But then I fast forward a little bit and realize those are not as big as those one-on-one conversations. Those little, small steps of life that actually are the day-by-day influences that I have on my children. Listen to me. Not big moments, but small constant steps. What I find is that Timothy's mother and grandmother had small constant steps in his life. I know that for a fact because you can flip over a page or so in your Bible if you if you have it, or uh it's just two pages over if you got the same one I got. Or you can use, you know, flip it over to chapter three. Chapter three, this letter continues. And Paul says this in verse number 14 and 15. Paul says, still writing there to Timothy, he said, Man, you gotta continue. Obviously, I guess he wanted to quit. I don't know, but if you but you must continue in the things which you have learned. He's trying to encourage him. You have you gotta keep it on, bro, and been assured of knowing from whom you have learned them. He said, Man, you've got to continue on. You have been taught something by somebody. Who is that? That somebody is Lois and his grandmother, and his mother. Verse number 15 continues, and look what it says. That from childhood you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. So, Paul, as he's pinning this letter, tells him that the godly legacy that he has, that he has got in his life, was built by the daily influences of his mother and grandmother, because, according to verse 14 and 15 of chapter 3, since he was a child, day by day they instilled the holy scriptures in his life. Now, why is that so vastly important in the day and age with which we live? The fastness of life, and there's routine, and there's everybody's in a hurry, it seems, as if there's zero to sixty in two seconds all the time. We can't stop. Go, go, go, go, go, go. That's all there is. Why was it important to stop and focus on these verses just for a second? Because listen to me, listen to me. You and I are not saved because we believe the Bible. Now don't stop there, right? You say, preacher, what are you talking about? Where did I show up today? We're not saved because we believe in the Bible. No, we are saved because we trust in Jesus Christ who is revealed in the Bible. So you understand that I am saved because of Jesus and him alone. It's by him and him alone that can save anybody. And so the Bible reveals Jesus Christ to you and to I. And because of him revealing himself to us, that's how we come to know him. I know that because the Bible says that Satan knows the Bible. And guess what? Satan ain't saved. He knows the Bible, he's not saved. So knowing the Bible doesn't save you, no, knowing the Jesus of the Bible is what saves you. So why is it important to focus in the fact that his mother and grandmother taught him the holy scriptures what were made known and made him wise unto salvation? Because we know, because of his testimony, that he didn't get saved in the home from his mother and grandmother. No, he got saved after he met the Apostle Paul. But it was because of the day-by-day influences of his mother and grandmother teaching him the holy scriptures and pouring into his life that prepared him so that the second that the Holy Spirit began to draw upon him, he came to know him as his Lord and as Savior. Timothy was raised on the Holy Scriptures in a godly home. Yet he didn't get saved for many years in his life. So what's the relationship of the Bible and salvation? Let me give you a few before we move on. To begin with, the Bible reveals my need for salvation. If I didn't have the Bible, I wouldn't know that I was rotten to the core. I mean, Paul says, in me dwellth no good thing that is in my flesh. Meaning, there's nothing good that dwells in me as I'm born. No, I need Jesus in me, and therein lies where I'm good. So I wouldn't know that if I didn't have the Holy Scriptures. It's like a mirror. Listen to me, you look in the mirror and you don't like what it sees, what do you do? You get a new mirror? Some of y'all might. It ain't gonna help, okay? Get you a new mirror, you're gonna see the same thing. So what do you do? Stop looking in the mirror? That's a thought. Okay, I don't like what my daughter says, I'll get me a new doctor. Okay? You don't like what you see in the mirror, you get no, you make some adjustments. You change your hair. Me. Don't you worry. I ain't changing mind. I'm being 95 with spiky hair. I'm just going to be praising God. I got it. You understand? I've been praying since I was little. God, let my hair stay, okay? So I'll be, you're going to have an old spiky-haired preacher one day, okay? Listen to me. You look in the mirror, you don't like what you see, you either fix what you don't like or you quit complaining about it. Listen to me. The Bible is like a mirror. As I read it, it lets me see how filthy I am to the core. Because of Jesus, he's made me whole and clean, and because of him I can get to heaven. That's what the Bible does. That's the beauty of it. The Bible explains that every lost sinner is now condemned now and needs a Savior. That's what the Bible shows you and I. The Bible also makes clear that a lost sinner cannot save himself. There's nothing I can do to get saved. I can't be good enough. I can't be nice enough. I can't do the rituals enough. No, I have to give my life to him, turn from my wicked ways, and turn on him. That's the only way of salvation. The Bible reveals that. You know what else the Bible reveals? The Bible reveals the wonderful plan of salvation, that Christ died for my sins. And if I trust him, he'll cleanse me of mine. That's what the Bible teaches you and I. What else does the Bible help us of? I love the Bible teaching me the assurance of my salvation. I don't have to listen to humanity tell me that there's multiple ways to heaven. I don't have to listen to the world tell me that I could lose myself. No, I can go into the holy scriptures of God and have assurance that I am saved and that doesn't matter the scheme of man. It doesn't matter what the devil does or anything akin to him. I can head to heaven all the way because of what Jesus did for me. You know what else the Bible does? The Bible becomes our spiritual food of nourishment that might grow us in grace and the service of Christ. Listen to me. Spiritual food. Now listen, I know I said food, and some of you perked up. Listen, I know some of y'all are hungry. What y'all gonna eat today? Fried chicken? Nah, steak? Potatoes? I think I'm eating pizza at my house. It's Mother's Day, and Megan loves pizza, so well, we're gonna eat pizza. That's okay. I'll get me a salad to go with it and some sweet tea, hopefully. I said food and some of y'all got excited. Listen to me, I'm talking about spiritual food. The holy scriptures of God is the spiritual food. That spiritual food gives you an eye nourishments. It helps us grow in grace and the service of the Lord. You know what else the Bible is? Oh, one of my favorite parts. The Bible is described as a sword. I can fight off the devil and temptation. Listen to me, the devil's gonna come after me. You know why? Because I'm saved. He knows he can't take my salvation, but he can take away the joy and the peace that passes all understanding. He can take away the things, the byproducts of salvation. So I use my Bible as a sword sometimes to just whack the devil upside the head. Some of us need to whack the devil upside the head, don't we? This is Paul and Kyle. I thought y'all would be excited about knocking somebody out. No? It's the sword. The Bible says the Bible is the sword sharper than any two-edged sword. It can pierce between the bone and the marrow. God knows exactly where we need it, and he can use it, but you and I've got to open it. We've got to read it. That's what the scripture is trying to tell you and I to do. Let me just move on just a little bit in a second. The stage is set for this legacy. And what I love is that Lois and Eunice, they were behind the scenes. They wasn't in the spotlight. They were just faith lived out. They were just truth modeled. They were just life observed. Listen to me, Timothy became who he was because of what was constantly shown before him. Somebody's watching you. What are you showing them? What are you showing them? Your life is preaching a message every day. If you don't like what it's preaching, only you can change it. People are watching your reactions, they're watching your priorities, they're watching your faith. What you live constantly will be remembered permanently. The way I live is what's going to be remembered by those that watch me. Let me move to our third thought, verse number six. I like verse number six. Verse number six shows you and I a godly legacy must be stirred up. Verse number six in the text, I like how God lays it all out. Verse number six starts with therefore. Because what he's just laid out. Man, I remember you. I'm praying for you. I want to see you. I know you're hurting. You've got tears. He said, all these things. And then he gets to verse number six. He praised the Lord in verse number five for the mother and granny. And he says, Therefore, because of all of that, I want to remind you of something, my friend. You got to stir up the gift of God which is in you. Stir up. Now I think about stir it up. And what is he talking about, stirring up? The word stir up means a verb. It's an action word, it's a process. And I don't know about you, but at my house, if I begin to cook, I have an island in my kitchen. And if I get the ingredients out for something, man, my kids will push them chairs. I can hear them scratching across the floor. Man, Montgomery or Holland or whatever. They'll stand up there. They're waiting to see what daddy's gonna put in the bowl to mix up. I'm telling you on Saturday mornings when it's pancakes on Saturdays, which is most Saturday mornings, man. I'm telling you, Montgomery's the first one to help me. He's like, man, I want to see this, Dad. I want to get, you know why? Can I tell you? Don't think nasty of my son, but he loves pancake batter. I'm just gonna be honest with you. He'll eat more pancake batter than cooked pancakes, to be honest with you. He wants to help because he wants to lick the spoon. And to be honest with you, I'm just gonna be honest with you. He licks it while we mix it, okay? He licks it. I'm just saying, I'll I'll do y'all separate if you come over. But what's crazy to me is that when I get the pancake stuff out, the the the different ingredients, and I start putting it together, if I was just gonna eat it one by their selves, it ain't that good. But when I mix it together, there's something good about it. It ain't no different than a cake mix or a brownie mix. My daughter Henry can make some good old brownies, right? She puts all the ingredients on the counter. Of course, there's a box of brownie mix, and then there's an egg, and then there's some oil or some melted butter, and then there's some water, and there's something else. I don't remember what it is, right? And if I began to eat that one by one, well, that'd be kind of nasty. Harold, would you be willing to try a scoop full of brownie mix dry? Nah, he ain't gonna try it. I wouldn't either. I don't blame him. But if I mix the brownie mix with the egg and that melted butter and a little bit of water and I mix it all up, my kids are gonna fight over that brownie. I'm just that brownie bad. They're gonna do it. But if I eat it one by one, it's no good. It's nasty. It doesn't satisfy us. It's not no good. But I'm telling you, when you mix it all together, something good happens in that bowl. Listen to me. Paul says to young Timothy in verse number six, therefore, I'm praising the Lord for what he's done for you. He's done some great things through the through your mother and through your grandmother pouring into you. But because of all of that, man, I've got to tell you something, brother. You have got to stir up the gift because right now you're stagnant. You're steal. Everything by itself ain't no good. But when it's all mixed together, it is sure enough good. You know what Paul's telling young Timothy? He's saying, don't let it sit. He says, faith is active, man. Faith must be activated, not just received. He's Paul is saying, man, you can know the truth. You can know the faith. You can even have an opportunity, but don't let it go unused. You better step into it. I was reminded about David there in the Old Testament as I was reading in 1 Samuel. You get over to chapter 17 and you can read about David fighting Goliath. And we all have giants that we've got to slay. But what I love about it is when you back up a hair and read about David's life before David and Goliath. In those moments of feeding his father's sheep and pushed away over here, there were moments of preparation. David was preparing himself for the moment that God was going to use him. He had prepared in private, and there came a moment for him to step forward. Most of us in this world that we live in want to step forward without the preparation. But that's just not how it works. David was being prepared privately so that the day would come that God would use him in a mighty way, and he did. He was ready to step forward. If he doesn't step up, that calling goes dormant. The bowl stops getting stirred. It becomes stagnant, it becomes nasty. But when you stir it up, things begin to change in our lives. Some people know the truth. Listen to me. Some people even believe the truth, but they never step into it. Don't let that be you. Don't step into it waiting for your bowl to get mixed up. But what God puts in you must be stirred through you. A legacy grows when your faith is lived out, not just held on to. God's trying to do something in your life. I want you to stir it up. Stir it up. Last thing I want to give you, verse seven, then I'll be done. That Pizza's calling my name, I'll be honest with you. Verse number seven, I like verse number seven. Look what it shows you and I. A godly legacy is empowered by the right spirit. Verse 7 says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Why did Paul write that in that moment to young Timothy? He was timid. He was nervous. He was allowing the fear to overtake him. That word fear, if you look at it in the Greek, and it shows you and I that it means to be timid or to be cowardly. And Paul is telling him, bro, you should not be timid. You should not be cowardly. You are going to live it out. You cannot live out your faith in fear, man, worried about what the others are going to say. You've got to live it out to the glory of the Lord. And I believe this, and I hope you believe it as well. Fear can stop a legacy. And you say, what kind of fear is it? I'm not talking about fear of the dark or fear of spiders. We all know there's many people that are scared of certain things. I'm talking about fear of failure. Lord, I'm feared, I'm scared that I'm going to fail living for you. Listen to me, that's going to hold you back. How about, man, the fear of people? Listen to me. I just don't know if I can share my faith with somebody, preacher, because I'm scared of what they're going to say. That's possible, but you have to trust the Lord. How about this one? This is the one most struggle with. Fear would not be enough. Lord, I'm never going to be enough for you. There's no way I can stand and live out my faith for you, Lord. I can't do it. Tell you something. That is the lies you're telling yourself. Listen to me. He has equipped us, he's encouraged us. He even shows it in the text that God has given you an power and love and of a sound mind. I know the second I got saved, the Holy Spirit was indwelling in me. That's the Holy Spirit power. I have the love of him within me. I have a sound mind that can be sharpened through the reading of the word. Everything changes when I realize what I have in Jesus Christ. A legacy is empowered by the right spirit. I was thinking about Esther, and you might study her in your life, and it made sense to me, and I'll give you this illustration, and then I'll close this in a word of prayer in a moment. But in the life of Esther, she had a moment where fear could have stopped her. She had to go before the king. And she knew that if she went before the king and went to his presence, the king could kill her and end her life. She could have stayed quiet, nothing would have changed. She could have continued on in her life. But the scripture verse that pops out to me more than anything in the text, the Bible says this. Esther said, If I perish, I perish. And then she stepped forth. If I perish, I perish. And then she stepped forth. Listen, she faced her own fear. She stepped forward and she trusted God with the outcome, not worried about what was going to happen. When she stepped forward, everything changed. Here's something I want to give you. Maybe you don't need more confidence. Maybe you don't need more control. Maybe you just need to trust what God's already put in you and begin to stir it up. Maybe that's all you need. We start thinking we need more and more. No, we just need to trust what God's got us and begin to stir what's already been put within us. Fear will keep you from the life God called you to live. I get ready to close in a word of prayer in a moment. I want to close with this. Years from now, years from now, people won't remember everything you said. Years from now, people won't remember everything you did. You know what they'll remember? They'll remember what you showed them. They'll remember the life that you live. They'll remember what you passed on to them. And right now, someone's watching your life. Could be your child, your child's friend, your your neighbor, the person that you know the best at work. It could be a family member. And they're learning what matters the most by how you live. I want to challenge you with something this week. You are leaving a less legacy. The question is, is what are you passing on? I want to challenge you with this. What needs to change in your life so that what you pass on points people to Jesus? What needs to change in your life so what you pass on points them to Jesus? I want you to reflect on that at a time of invitation. Would you pray as I do? God, I come to you this morning thankful and excited for what you've done in lives and what you're