Turn your Bibles to 2 Timothy.
You've got an ESV.
It rightly says in the introduction that the
editors added, Paul wrote this letter as he
awaited execution.
This is Paul facing the end.
And I want to focus on v.
5 of chapter 1.
Let's read that and then I'll pray.
And this sermon is kind of a Mother's
Day sermon and in another way, it's not.
V.
5, I am reminded, Paul speaking to Timothy,
of your sincere faith.
That's the message.
Does sincere faith dwell in you?
I am reminded of your sincere faith, a
faith that dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois,
and your mother, Eunice.
And now, I am sure, there's a lot
of certainty there, dwells in you as well.
So does sincere faith dwell in you?
That's what we're going to look at in
the first part of my message.
And then the next part is going to
simply be this question, what instruments and means
does the Lord use in some people coming
to have sincere faith?
And obviously, the answer here is his mother
and grandmother were two of the instruments God
used.
And Paul makes that connection here in v.
5.
The same faith that dwelt in them, I
am sure, dwells in you as well.
And one of the greatest privileges parents have
and mothers have is that could be said
of us.
Right?
Could that be written?
I'm reminded of your sincere faith, James.
Do I have it?
A faith that dwelt first in your grandmother
and your mother.
Could that be said of my kids?
What's the greatest thing our kids can possess?
What's the greatest possession I could pass on
to my kids?
You can't pass it on in one way.
In another way, there are responsibilities, but it's
to have a sincere faith.
Because to have a sincere faith is to
be heaven-bound.
To not have a sincere faith is to
be hell-bound.
Well, let's pray.
Father, Lord, thank You.
I thank You that we can gather here
today.
Thank You, Father, that You've given us Your
Word.
And Lord, I just ask, Lord, be with
me in all of my weakness.
Would You be with my mind and give
me clarity?
Would You help me to say what is
faithful to the text and faithful to Your
Word?
Would You guard my lips from saying something
that might even be true, but saying it
too strongly?
Lord, I just ask for Your Holy Spirit.
Lord, help me and help my hearers.
Lord, would this be an encouragement to many?
Lord, at the same time, would it be
a challenge to all of us?
And Lord, I pray, those here who don't
know You, Lord, would You be merciful even
in this hour to open their eyes that
they would be able to have a sincere
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so, Lord, we look to You in
this hour.
In Christ's name, Amen.
Well, Paul, the apostle, had seen a lot.
If you just flip over to chapter 4
at the end of this letter, look at
some of the things Paul had seen.
He had seen people defect.
Verse 10, "...For Demas, in love with the
present world, has deserted me."
Did Demas have a sincere faith?
No, he chose love of the world.
Paul had seen people defect.
Look at verse 16.
Paul had seen people desert.
Verse 16, "...At my first defense, no one
came to stand by me, but all deserted
me."
So Paul sees people defect.
Paul sees people deserting.
Did the Lord desert him?
No.
Verse 18, "...The Lord will rescue me from
every evil deed and bring me safely to
His heavenly kingdom."
And then verse 21, he's writing
this letter saying to Timothy, do your best
to come to me before winter.
So Paul wants Timothy to come to him.
Paul wants Timothy to come.
Why?
Go back to our text.
Chapter 1, verse 3.
Look what he says to Timothy.
You can see verse 2, to Timothy, my
beloved child.
Verse 3, "...I thank God whom I serve,
as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience,
as I remember you constantly in my prayers,
night and day, as I remember your tears."
So Timothy had emotion.
"...I long to see you."
Why?
"...That I may be filled with joy."
That's one of Paul's requests.
Nearing the end.
He wants to see a fellow Christian and
be full of joy.
And you can imagine that, right?
If you're sitting there in that prison cell
and Timothy comes in, Timothy who has a
sincere faith, he's not a deserter.
He's not like Demas in love with the
world.
He's the real deal.
He is genuine.
And Paul wants him to come.
He desires Timothy to come that he might
be filled with joy.
And then verse 5, look what crosses Paul's
mind here in prison.
He remembers something.
"...I am reminded..." Does he say of your
powerful preaching?
No.
He says, "...I'm reminded of your sincere faith."
What's that faith look like?
"...A faith that dwelt first in your grandmother."
So Timothy's faith is a minister of the
Gospel.
Paul compares it to that of his grandmother.
You can tend to think of preachers and
ministers as having some superior faith.
Does Paul have that perspective?
He does not.
"...That dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and
your mother Eunice, and now, I'm sure, it
dwells in you as well."
So where is one place Paul is looking
to encouragement at the end awaiting execution?
You know what thought encouraged Paul?
He thought about three generations of Christians.
He thought about a grandmother who was saved,
a mother who was saved, and he thought
about that mother's son who was a Christian.
And there he is in that prison cell
seeing people like Demas in love with the
world, seeing people desert him, and here in
that cell, he wants Timothy to come to
be full of joy and he's being reminded
of these people's sincere faith.
And though they've not even made it to
the end yet, it appears they're all still
alive.
Timothy was probably in his 30's.
Maybe his mother was in her 50's or
60's and the grandmother, 80's.
Who knows?
They haven't made it to the end yet
and what does Paul say of them?
Verse 5, "...I am sure, I'm certain, dwells
in you as well."
We sometimes could think, how do I know
who's a true Christian?
Can I really be dogmatic to say someone
else is really a true Christian?
Here Paul says he's sure.
He's sure.
He sees true faith in them.
As we see people fall away, sometimes people
can get disillusioned as a new Christian.
They get saved and they're in the church
and then they see people go out from
among us.
And they start to wonder, wait a minute,
I thought that guy was the real deal.
And now he's gone.
Is anyone here really a true Christian?
People could get disillusioned like that.
Maybe some of you had that as a
new Christian.
You start to really question things.
Well, here we have three examples of people
who have the real deal.
We've got a grandmother, a mother, and that
mother's son.
And Paul says, I'm sure, this sincere faith
dwells in them.
Sincere faith.
And you see what Paul says in v.
3.
He says, I thank God whom I serve
as did my ancestors with a clear conscience
as I remember You constantly.
Paul's point is faith in Christ is the
true continuity of religion in the Old Testament.
If you really believe the Old Testament, you're
going to get to the point where you
see Christ is the fulfillment of those prophecies.
And that's what happened to these three people.
They had sincere, true faith in the Messiah,
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So first, I want to consider what sincere
faith is.
Then second, how does one obtain it?
Or what are some instruments used in that
person's life to bring them to a sincere
faith?
So you see, in v.
5, I'm reminded of your sincere faith.
What's sincere?
Sincere.
Genuine.
Authentic.
Not hypocritical.
Doesn't have some pretense.
It's not appearing to be something, but you
come to find out it's not actually that
thing.
Right?
If Paul says sincere faith, does that mean
Paul assumes there's another type of faith?
What would that other type be?
A false faith.
A faith that appears to be one thing,
but it's not really real.
And I was thinking about this front line
my wife and I watched called the Exodus.
It was a documentary.
And they spoke about all these people who
were traveling from Syria to Germany.
And how did a lot of these people
have to get to Germany?
Did they go by land through Turkey?
Or did they get on boats and go
over to Greece and then go up to
Germany?
Right?
They had to get across the Mediterranean there.
Well, listen to what happened.
This person in the documentary, he said, the
saddest thing was that there were people who
were liars on the way to people getting
across the ocean and they sold fake life
jackets that would cause people to sink and
not to float.
And imagine that.
Here you go up to some store and
it looks like a life jacket.
It's orange on the outside.
You don't really know what a life jacket
might feel like and you shake it and
you think it must work.
And guess what?
These people got on those boats and at
some point, water got overtaken and some of
their boats went down and these people, rather
than float, they had a false life jacket.
And what happened?
They sunk.
They perished.
In the same way that's how it is
in the spiritual realm.
There are many people who say, look, I've
got my life jacket.
I've got my faith.
I believe in Jesus Christ.
Right?
Well, what's going to be the test?
What's going to happen when you're thrown in
that ocean?
Will you sink?
Will it be real?
Jesus says in Luke 8, there are ones
who hear and the seeds, they fall on
the rock and those are those when they
hear the Word, they receive it with joy,
but they have no root.
They believe for a while and in a
time of testing, what happens?
They fall away.
In a time of testing, like those people
getting in the ocean there, they fall away.
They sink down.
It proves their life jacket wasn't the real
deal.
So, Paul assumes there's a hypocritical faith and
he gave that example of Demas in this
very letter.
Demas in love with the world.
Demas in a time of testing fell away.
Okay, well, what does he mean by faith
here?
I'm reminded of your sincere faith.
What's faith?
You can think of faith in one way.
There is the faith, which is what?
The doctrine and body of truth in the
Scriptures, right?
You've got the faith, which refers to doctrine.
In another way, you've got faith, which means
a personal belief in the truth.
And so obviously, Paul here is reminded of
Timothy's sincere faith, meaning Timothy sincerely was believing
in taking God at His Word.
He not only had right doctrine, but he
sincerely believed in that truth.
He personally was believing in Jesus Christ.
And the Scripture teaches, there are many people
who say they believe, but what's reality?
Their life shows differently.
And if you've got your Bible, turn to
James 2.
We can look at a couple of those
verses there.
If you've never heard this idea that there's
a true and a false faith, there's a
person who says they have faith and it's
real, and there's a person who says they
have faith and it's false, James 2 is
a very helpful place to look.
Verse 14, What good is it, my brothers,
if someone says he has faith, but does
not have works?
Can that faith save him?
If a brother or sister is poorly clothed
and lacking in daily food and one of
you says to them, go in peace, be
warmed and filled, without giving them the things
needed for the body, what good is that?
So also, faith by itself, if it does
not have works, is dead.
But some of you will say, you have
faith and I have works.
Well, show me your faith apart from your
works.
And I will show you my faith by
my works.
Verse 19, you believe that God is one.
You do well.
Even the demons believe and shudder.
Do you want to be shown, you foolish
person, that faith apart from works is useless?
And then he goes on to talk about
Abraham.
He's not teaching there that we are saved
by our works.
He's teaching that works prove someone's got real
faith.
Look, if I've got my life vest and
I'm trying to sell it to you, this
is the real deal.
You know what I would maybe say to
that person knowing the scam was going on?
I would say, go hop in the ocean
and I want to see it float on
you first.
I want to see that it's real.
So there's many, they possess, they have an
inward reality, no outward works.
There's others.
They've got a ton of outward works.
But they're trusting in those works to be
right before the living God.
And they're going to perish like the man
in Luke 18 who fasted, he tithed, he
was very outwardly religious, but he did not
know Jesus Christ.
So what makes sincere faith?
Sincere and genuine faith is believing all the
Bible says is true about you, that you're
a sinner condemned before God, and it's believing
all the Bible says about Christ, that He
is God, and that He died as a
substitute on the cross to bear God's wrath
for us in our place.
In order to believe, you've got to know
the truth, right?
You can't be ignorant.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the
Word of Christ.
People need to be exposed to the Gospel.
Many refuse the Gospel.
Ultimately, what makes sincere faith?
We find out in 1 Peter 1 that
He causes us to be born again to
a living hope.
Everyone here who's ultimately been saved, guess what?
It was a supernatural work of God to
cause us to be born again.
We could have tried to pry the eyes
open of a dead person and it doesn't
work.
You need the Lord to give life.
And again, there's no greater possession to have
than sincere faith.
To actually have genuine faith where it's not
just I say I believe that Christ died
for me, but the life proves it, and
in all the works the Christian does, that's
not their boast.
Their boast is in Christ and His strength
working through them to do those good works.
So what are you believing?
What am I believing?
Let's look at this very letter, different things
that Paul expresses.
Look at v.
8.
Paul is believing.
Genuine faith believes you're going to have to
share in suffering.
It says it in v.
8 and 2 Timothy 1.
And you're going to do it by what?
The power of God.
So genuine faith believes God gives power.
V.
9, we see what Paul believed.
What sincere faith believes.
We believe He saved us and He called
us to do what?
To be holy.
To have a holy calling.
Set apart.
And He saved us not because of works.
Our works.
So we're not saved by works that we
have done, but it's according to His mercy.
And then v.
9, what's sincere faith believing?
I'm believing that He saved me because of
His own purpose and grace.
It was His purpose.
It was His grace.
It wasn't something that I had done.
It was before I had done good or
bad.
It was before the ages began.
It says at the end of v.
9.
Yeah, amen.
To have sincere faith to be saved.
There's no greater blessing.
V.
10, what am I believing?
I'm believing that Christ abolished death and brought
life and immortality to light through the Gospel.
So the Gospel is the place where I
can get life.
And here Paul says he's been appointed a
preacher and apostle and a teacher.
There's many other things Paul says here.
V.
14, what am I believing?
By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.
What's sincere faith believe?
That I've got this Spirit.
I don't have to do this Christian life
in my own strength.
I've got God Himself dwelling in me and
my body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit.
And v.
2, 8, look what he believes.
Paul's sincere faith is commanded to remember Jesus
Christ.
That He's risen from the dead.
That He's the offspring of David.
As preached in my Gospel.
You see, the Christian's constantly remembering Christ.
Our brother Jeff Thomas was recently with us.
He said this about the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is what sincere faith is believing.
Sincere faith is believing no man ever spoke
like Christ.
When you read the claims of Christ that
He was God, that He's the only way,
that He's the truth, He's the resurrection, He's
the life, no one else spoke like that.
To believe in Jesus Christ, Jeff Thomas says,
is to believe that no man ever lived
like Christ.
His life perfectly backed up his words.
To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe
that no man ever died like Jesus Christ.
In the agony of the crucifixion, He breathed
nothing but love and kindness to His enemies.
Such dying, such love.
No one ever died like Jesus.
And the last thing Jeff mentioned was this.
To believe in Christ is to believe that
no man ever blessed the human race like
Jesus Christ.
I mean, the greatest blessing in existence is
sins forgiven.
And there is nothing that beats that out.
You can't get close.
A billion years from now in eternity, no
one will have any closer idea of something
greater than your sins forgiven and being right
with God.
So, I want to now look from the
little we have written about Timothy's mother and
his grandmother, what their sincere faith looked like.
And we don't have a lot, so I
don't have a long list on them.
But I want to look at them, and
part of what I want to look at
them is the fact that their faith that
Paul commends, there's a connection there in that
verse to the very faith that Timothy has.
Verse 5, I'm reminded of your sincere faith,
a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother.
So that makes you wonder what did that
look like?
If anything's written on her, what does it
look like?
Because if Paul attributes that was a means
the Lord used to bring about faith in
Timothy's life, every mother should want to imitate
these two women that we find here.
Let me pray again.
Lord, I need Your help.
Father, just ask that You would quicken my
dull mind for Your name's sake and Christ's
name.
Amen.
So what did Timothy's grandmother and his mother's
faith look like?
I guess the first thing that's implied here,
what happened at some point in both of
their lives?
How did they get their sincere faith?
They didn't reject the Word.
Right?
The first thing this mother and grandmother had
to do was receive the Word and then
believe it as being true.
But it's not enough to receive the Word
and believe it as being true, is it?
There's lost people who receive the Word and
believe it is true.
Right?
I was talking to a guy from China
last night.
He called.
He knows he's lost.
He believes the Word is true.
You know what his problem is?
He doesn't believe it's true personally for him.
He's not believing on Christ for himself.
So these women at some point, they personally
believe.
Christ claims for them.
Believe these prophecies from the Old Testament that
pointed to the Messiah.
And look, many Jews rejected Christ.
It's a merciful thing that they even believed
on the Lord.
Now we can ask this question, which one
of these women was saved first?
One version, yeah, it makes it seem more
like the grandmother.
We could assume that would be the progression.
A faith that dwelt first in your grandmother
Lois and your mother Eunice.
So the order Paul gives it, it doesn't
necessarily mean one after another.
But one of the versions, it does add
and then your mother.
So we would generally take it to be
that way.
You can imagine the grandmother at some point
gets confronted with the truth and believes.
And then this grandmother takes the truth.
And what does a saved mother tend to
do?
If you've got the words of life, who
are some of the first people you want
to take that to?
Your children.
Right?
You take it to your kids.
And yes, some of us, we took it
too zealously.
We took it too harshly.
And we were offensive not for the sake
of the truth, we were offensive because of
our zeal, though it was done in love.
Parents thought we were crazy.
They thought, what do you mean?
You've always been a Christian.
And you're sitting there thinking, no, mom, I
wasn't always a Christian.
I've just been now saved.
There's a genuine faith and there's a false
faith, and I had the false faith.
And how many of our parents, they didn't
understand that.
They thought that was foreign, but it's not
foreign to the Bible.
And so it won't be foreign to God
on Judgment Day when He judges all mankind.
People will find out then there was such
a thing as false faith.
It's hypocritical.
They'll find out like those Syrians on that
ocean when that boat sunk.
They'll find out the life vest they had
wasn't the real deal.
And you don't want them to find that
out in this life.
You want them to get the real thing.
So, here, another thing, we're looking at what
did their lives look like.
Here's something to think about.
He says here, I'm reminded of your sincere
faith, a faith that dwelt first in your
grandmother and then your mother.
Okay, they had a sincere faith.
What's something true of someone who has a
sincere faith?
What type of life do they live?
As a whole, not perfectly, is their life
full of consistency?
Or is it full of all sorts of
inconsistency?
Consistency.
Right?
And so, we don't have a letter written
on them to see that consistency to its
fullest, but we can assume that Paul here
says they had a sincere faith, therefore, consistency.
And I want to read something on the
importance of consistency.
And we've got to take this to heart
as parents.
This is from James Cameron's His Three Lectures
to Christian Mothers.
He lived in the 1800s.
He says this, In all your conduct, manifest
the most steady consistency.
Children, even at a very early age, are
eagle-eyed to observe the inconsistencies of a
parent.
And the slightest inconsistency, though it is manifested
only in a word or a look, lowers
your influence over them in an inconceivable degree.
When a child learns to distrust its mother,
all her warnings, admonitions, and protests, however earnest
and unremitting, they fall powerless.
This is the chief reason it is to
be feared.
Why so frequently we see the children of
godly parents grow up not feeling shame or
regret about their sinful actions or attitudes.
The example of their parents has not been
uniformly consistent with their instructions, and therefore, have
these instructions been useless?
Mothers, watch your conduct.
Your child is watching.
Every expression of your countenance, every word you
utter, every action they see you perform is
scanned and scrutinized by them.
If they perceive that you act inconsistently, they
will in their hearts despise you.
And you cannot law and deceive a child
with regard to character.
The only sure way to appear consistent is
to be so.
So, I would assume these mothers were striving
to be pretty consistent.
They had a sincere faith.
I was thinking of an example of someone
in the church recently.
They were mentioning a lesson they were teaching
their kids about not taking something that's someone
else's property.
They were at someone else's house and their
kid saw a penny and they took the
penny out.
And the parents obviously said, well, that's not
our penny.
You can't take that penny home.
It belongs to the person who owns the
yard.
Right?
Well, later on, this parent accidentally took a
pencil from somewhere, and later they had that
pencil and it dawned on them the very
thing they told their kids not to do,
take the penny they had taken the pencil.
They were stealing a pencil from someone else.
Now imagine if the kids, I don't think
this happened in this situation, but imagine if
the kids would have observed that inconsistency.
The parent then loses the power of their
words.
What this parent did was they went to
the person who they had gotten the pencil
from their property and they took their kids
with them and confessed that to the person
with their kids there watching them.
So now even if the kids did know
what their parent did, guess what they see?
My parent is consistent.
They're living out what they say.
So in all of our failures, one of
the most important things we can show as
parents is humility.
The worst thing a parent can do is
not admit where they've gone wrong.
And you're sitting there at the dinner table
and everyone knows Dad was just impatient and
angry and he's not acknowledging that.
That's one of the worst things.
And then you tell the kids not to
be angry and you've not had the humility
to acknowledge your own anger.
You lose your power of authority.
So, a third thing about these women, and
again, a lot of that was kind of
assumption based on them living a sincere life.
How that looked in their lives, we don't
have all the specifics.
But now, flip over to Acts.
Keep your hand here and go to Acts
16.
Acts 16.
His mother, it seems, lived out this sincere
faith while married to who?
A godly man or an unbeliever?
Acts 16, Paul also came to Derbe and
to Lystra.
A disciple was there named Timothy, the son
of a Jewish woman.
And then look how he describes her.
Who was a believer.
So he doesn't just mention she's a Jew,
because obviously a lot of Jews are lost
that weren't believing in Christ.
Who was a believer.
A Christian.
But, Timothy's father was a Greek.
Nothing is said here that Timothy's father was
a believer.
Nothing is ultimately said whether he was alive
at this point.
We don't know that.
We can only speculate.
And here, verse 2, it says Timothy was
well-spoken of by the brothers at these
cities.
And verse 3, Paul wanted Timothy to accompany
him.
But here the point is, Timothy's mother, it
seems, lived out this sincere faith while married
to an unbelieving husband.
And look, the fact is that's the case
with a lot of you different sisters here
today, right?
There are different sisters who get saved.
You start coming to the church.
Your husband is not a true Christian.
And you're in a similar spot as Timothy's
mother was.
How do you live a sincere faith before
an unbelieving husband?
What's one of the first verses that comes
to your mind?
1 Peter 3.1 Likewise, wise, be subject
to your own husbands, so that even if
some do not obey the Word, they may
be won without a word by the conduct
of their wives.
So the wife, no doubt she was seeking
to live this way if her husband was
alive.
She was seeking to be subject to her
own husband even if he does not obey
the Word.
But think of it, this mother's son, not
only he got saved, but look how useful
he was for the kingdom of Christ.
Timothy.
And he didn't come from the stock of
two really godly parents.
So that's an encouragement to you mothers here
who have a lost husband.
But it doesn't lower the bar of the
possibilities of what might happen to your very
kids.
We could have many Timothys raised up from
single mothers here.
Now obviously, our hope, our prayer is that
your husbands will be saved and that you
both can have an impact.
And look, one of the reasons you could
ask this question in verse 5, he leaves
out his father and grandfather.
And some might say, well, that's because women
have the most opportunity to instruct the kids.
Do women generally have a lot of opportunity
to instruct the kids compared to the husbands?
That's true, but I think the reason he
left out the father here is because the
father wasn't a believer.
And you get other situations where there's no
mom.
And who in the Bible was a godly
woman who just had a father?
And that father really reproved her and exhorted
her in a very trying time.
He wasn't her biological dad in order to
do something big by faith.
Who?
Esther.
Yeah, Mordecai.
Esther's parents had died and Mordecai takes her
in.
And here she's in this situation where she's
got to go before the king and she's
not overly inclined.
And Mordecai comes in with this incredible exhortation.
Like, you're born for this, and if you
don't do this, God's going to raise someone
else up.
And she went to prayer and fasting and
asked others to pray and fast and she
went before the king.
So parents, mothers, fathers, we all should be
having an impact on our children.
So, Eunice lived out this faith while married
to an unbeliever.
What's the fourth thing they did?
Turn to 2 Timothy 3.
Turn one page over.
They poured the Scriptures into Timothy.
Verse 14, "...but as for you, Timothy, continue
in what you've learned and have firmly believed,
knowing from whom you learned it..." You know,
from Paul, from his grandmother and his mother,
is implied.
Verse 15, "...and how from childhood you have
been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are
able to make you wise for salvation through
faith in Christ Jesus."
And how from childhood, you have been acquainted
with the sacred writings.
Can we say that about our kids?
A lot of kids, if you go into
the world and you ask a kid what
they've been acquainted with since they were a
young child, it's one of the first things
they're going to say is it's going to
be the Bible.
No, it's going to be some TV show
that their parents watch more TV show than
anything else, and that's their babysitter.
And they live their life consumed with that
show.
That's what they're acquainted with is the characters
in that TV show, not the Word of
God.
Timothy, that was not the case.
The Bible was being poured into him as
a little child.
You know, I was thinking about grandmothers.
Grandmothers often pour out gifts upon their grandkids.
And nothing's wrong with that, right?
I appreciate when my kids have a birthday
and Grandma and Grandpa send something down or
give the kids something.
I appreciate that.
But you know what's the greatest gift a
grandparent can give to that child?
It's the Word of God.
It's the truth.
It's living a consistent, sincere life of faith.
It's no physical gift.
It's pointing them to the one true gift
in Christ.
And if you look at v.
15 in that chapter, how from childhood, you
have been acquainted with the sacred writing.
So here, Timothy had the knowledge.
He was not ignorant like some Gentile out
there.
And then it says, "...which are able to
make you wise for salvation through faith in
Christ Jesus."
So Timothy had the knowledge.
Now he had to believe in it personally
for himself.
And he did.
And we don't know specifically the hour or
the day or the year when he was
converted, but he took Christ at His Word.
His parents, his mother, put the truth before
him.
At what age should truth be spoken to
our kids?
If you look in v.
15 and how from childhood that word there
is infancy, since they're small, they're hearing the
words.
They're being acquainted with the Word of God.
It's amazing to me how Paul does not
emphasize his grandmother and mother's prayer life for
their grandson, for their son.
Should we be praying for our children?
Yes.
But I could pray for my kids for
the next ten years, but if I don't
speak forth the Word, when faith comes by
hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ,
something's not going to work out there.
I need to be preaching the truth to
them which is able to make them wise
for salvation through faith in Christ.
They're going to have the true Gospel.
They know who Christ is.
They know about the doctrine of regeneration.
I remember one of the young kids in
the church when he was in a sports
team, one of the coaches was trying to
lead all of the kids in a sinner's
prayer to be saved.
And that kid was wise with truth from
the church and he's thinking, I'm not going
to do that.
I know that's not the real deal.
You see, we want our kids able to
distinguish these things.
Even if they're yet still rejecting them, do
they have that knowledge of Christ that they
might believe?
Do they have a knowledge of how wicked
and sinful they are?
The Bible does not say our kids are
little angels.
The Bible says they're children of the devil.
And we've got to be gracious to them,
but be faithful.
My grandmother growing up would always tell me,
James, you're such a good little kid.
And even as a kid when she said
that, I thought she doesn't know how wicked
I am.
My wickedness was mainly inward.
It would have helped if she would have
reproved me rather than flattered me with how
good I supposedly was.
Spoke the Word to me.
So mothers, grandparents, you can make a big
impact on imparting truth to your children.
You can have a massive impact.
A massive impact on them.
Timothy, he became a man who not only
did he receive the Word, he was well
spoken of.
Well spoken of.
What does Paul say in Philippians 2?
Timothy was a man of what?
Proven worth.
Paul says in Philippians 2, there's no one
like Timothy who has genuine concern.
So Timothy had genuine love.
Where do you think he saw that being
modeled?
Maybe his mom?
He didn't have hypocritical love.
He had genuine love.
He genuinely cared about others' interests.
You think about Timothy and his sincere faith.
You know what we find in Acts 16?
Timothy gets circumcised.
His father was a Greek.
Paul believes it's best to get him circumcised.
Does Timothy fight that?
Say, well, I don't need to do that.
I'm not under the law.
I don't need to do that.
Timothy's willing to get circumcised in order to
become all things to all people that he
might win some and not be a stumbling
block before the Jews.
Is that the type of faith you've got?
Are you fighting for your liberties rather than
willing to die for them?
Even to have something like circumcision happen.
Do I really need this to happen?
But Timothy, his faith, he had a bigger
mission in life than himself.
He was wanting to win souls to Christ.
We're thinking about Timothy and his faith.
Timothy had a sincere faith that needed to
be stirred up.
Verse 6 in this letter, chapter 1, he
says, I remind you to fan into the
flame the gift of God.
So Paul's exhorting him, stirring him up, even
us with sincere faith, we've got to be
stirred up.
Timothy had sincere faith.
It says in verse 4, Paul remembers his
tears.
Tears.
Don't you just love it when someone genuinely
cries?
Maybe some of you don't see it that
much.
I mean, genuinely cries.
I mean, some of the older Christians, when
I would pray with them up in Missouri,
it's like they were genuinely hit with such
a reality in that time of prayer, they're
genuinely weeping.
Not some fake show to appear a certain
way.
Timothy had tears.
There's a heart there.
As I've said, I wish I could cry
more.
And I'm just not that near to Christ
yet to where there's just more reality that
would cause me to flood over with tears.
Maybe I've not suffered enough yet.
But Timothy there, Paul remembered his tears.
Maybe he's referring to Acts when Paul was
leaving.
There were crying tears seeing Paul leave.
What's sincere faith in Timothy look like?
It looks like you've got to endure.
Hebrews 13, you should know that our brother
Timothy has been released from prison with whom
I shall see if he comes soon.
Did Timothy go to prison and come out
renouncing the Lord?
Did he renounce the Lord in prison?
He didn't.
He had sincere faith.
Paul is calling Timothy throughout this whole letter
of 2 Timothy to endure.
In v.
8, chapter 1, he says to share, continue
on in suffering.
Don't quit.
In chapter 3, v.
14, he says, but as for you, continue
in what you have learned and firmly believe.
Chapter 2, v.
10, Paul says, I endure everything.
V.
12, if we endure, we will also reign.
Chapter 4, v.
3, he says the time is coming when
people will not endure sound teaching.
V.
5, as for you, always be sober-minded.
Endure suffering.
True, sincere faith endures.
And how did his mother and grandmother die?
We don't know.
But we do know this, sincere faith endures
and he who began a good work in
someone, Christ, will bring it to completion at
the day of Jesus Christ.
He gets people to the end.
So, some thoughts to parents.
And it's not even just to parents, I
guess.
You could look at it like this.
Anyone who has an impact on a child.
Anyone who has an impact on a child,
and you know what, some of you, it's
you siblings who are professing and you've got
lost siblings.
You have an opportunity to impact your younger
siblings.
Sometimes there's an older child who is professing
and a younger child professes and they want
to join the church and we'll ask them,
what do you think about your other sibling
who professes?
What type of life do they live in
the home?
We want to know.
Is it sincere?
Is it genuine?
No, is it not some perfect reality?
But like that one parent, when you sin,
is there grief and you're wanting to make
it right no matter how small it is?
Even if it's taking a pencil.
I'm showing my kids I always want to
have a clear conscience before God and man.
So, let's think for a moment a couple
of things.
I already mentioned this, but many of you
mothers, or some of you, your husbands are
lost.
Do you realize you can have such an
impact on your children that even if your
husband never gets saved, your kids could turn
out like people like Timothy?
Do you even realize that?
It's a defeated, wrong thought to assume that
that family that had two really godly parents,
all their kids are going to turn out
better than mine.
Look, are we ultimately caught up to who?
The grace of God?
You better believe it.
But are we hyper-Calvinistic?
No.
We don't just say what will be, what
will be.
Like one of my old co-workers who
was a Dutch hyper-Calvinist guy, he said
he didn't even evangelize his kid and if
God's going to save his kid, God's going
to do it.
And I'm thinking, are you kidding me?
If my kid's going to know the Bible,
guess what's going to be a big part
of them knowing the Bible?
It's going to be me as a parent.
Not just reading the Bible, explaining the Bible,
and living it out in my own life.
But mothers, even a single father like Mordecai
who might have his daughter's child, do you
see your opportunity to have an impact on
that child?
The greatest possession you can pass on to
your children is sincere faith.
Sincere faith.
People will say, little Johnny has a nice
heart inside.
That doesn't matter as a parent.
I want to hear someone say to me,
your son has a sincere faith that reminds
me of your faith.
And not just your faith, your son's more
zealous than you were.
That'd be a nice add-on, right?
You know, you kids with Christian parents, you
don't want to live up to the standard
of your parents.
You want to go beyond it.
You'd be wrong to look at your dad
and mom and say, well, that's the standard.
No, Christ is the standard.
And your parents fail.
And they have blind spots that you don't
want to imitate.
And you want to go far beyond that.
And God forbid you drop the bar lower
than your parents.
Obviously, in parenting, we're balanced.
Passing on the knowledge of the truth does
not mean we ignore everything else in life.
It doesn't mean you don't go play sports
with your kids and you're just always beating
the Bible into their heads.
That would be more damaging than good.
But are we teaching our children?
Are we acquainting them with the sacred writings?
With the Scriptures?
Proverbs 31, it says, the words of King
Lemuel, an oracle that his who taught him.
His mother.
His mother taught him that.
Deuteronomy 6, these words that I command you
today shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children.
And obviously for us, these ultimate words is
the New Testament revelation.
You shall teach them diligently to your children.
You shall talk of them when you sit
in your house, when you walk by the
way, and when you lie down, and when
you rise.
I think one of the biggest failures, and
one thing that's helpful even with the pastoral
visitations and getting people's homes is really even
asking one question to parents.
Are you able to take time every day
where you sit down and talk about the
Scriptures to your children?
A lot of people right before the kids
go to bed, they sit down and they
have that, whether you call it a family
devotional or whatever you call it, if you're
not taking advantage of that opportunity, you're missing
seven days every week where you can speak
truth into your kids for ten minutes or
however long it is that will impact them
for eternity.
Some of the best discussions I've had with
my kids is just sitting down and we
start discussing something from the Word right there
before they're headed to bed.
D.E. Host, missionary in China, who took
over the work of China Inland Mission after
Hudson Taylor died, he said of his mom,
the mother in particular was a born teacher.
And as one of her sons wrote of
her many years later, to have passed through
her hand was to have a knowledge of
the Bible from end to end implanted on
the mind for life.
Whatever the special lessons, the main ideas were
of God's love to us revealed in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Our own sins and shortcomings together with our
need of a personal repentance and renewal.
While the thought that we had been sent
into the world to do some work for
God and man was never far away.
J.C. Ryle said, train your child to
a knowledge of the Bible.
You cannot make your child love the Bible,
I allow.
None but the Holy Ghost can give us
a heart to delight in the Word.
But you can make your children, as the
text says, acquainted with the Bible.
Be sure they cannot be acquainted with that
blessed Book too soon or too well.
You know, our digital age, even in my
own parenting when I find inconsistencies in reading
the Word to the kids in the evening,
you know one of the big factors is
technology.
It's so much easier to get consumed and
have all these things on and you don't
get to it.
You don't make it a priority.
We want to make it a priority.
It's not already in your life.
The Bible gives examples of the ability that
parents can have on their children, good or
bad.
Are there bad examples in the Bible of
parenting?
Yeah, there's many bad examples.
The daughter of Herodias was prompted by her
mother to do what?
Ask for John the Baptist's head on a
platter.
Think about it, in Ezekiel, he's speaking to
Jerusalem as a city.
Okay, but you could take this reality and
there's truth to be had.
He says, behold, everyone who uses Proverbs will
use this proverb.
What proverb was used?
Like mother, like daughter.
Was it a good thing that the daughter
like mother, like daughter was a good in
that context?
It was bad.
It was horrible.
You are the daughter of your mother who
loathed her husband and her children and you
are the sister of your sisters who loathed
their husbands and their children.
Your mother was a Hittite, your father an
Amorite, and your elder sister is Samaria who
lived with her daughters north of you.
Not only did you walk in their ways
and do according to their abominations, within a
very little time, you were more corrupt than
they in all your ways.
Think about Ahaziah.
When he was 22 years old, he began
to reign.
He walked in the ways of the house
of Ahab, for his mother was his counselor
in doing wickedly.
You could have a mother who's your counselor
in doing wickedly.
And it says all of this led to
his undoing.
His undoing.
You see, parents can have a massive impact.
Now look, that's not our issue here.
I don't think we have mothers in the
church who are counseling their children to do
wickedly or trying to get someone's head on
a platter.
That's pretty extreme, right?
But as we try to wrestle with parenting,
you know, there's this balance there.
You want to impart truth to your kids.
And then we're all learning as we do
this, and it's not like the Bible has
all these exact specific things.
And one of the things many wrestle with,
especially in this family-integrated type of era
where a lot of people have went through
a great emphasis on homeschooling, people fall into
parenting that is too mechanical.
This is kind of a warning I read
in Martin Lloyd-Jones in one of his
sermons.
He wrote this in the 1950s.
This is not in 2000.
This is 1950.
Listen to Lloyd-Jones here.
He commented on this matter of parenting that
there's not heart there.
It's so mechanical.
Do this and you'll get this result.
He says this, he said, I spoke to
a friend who was in distress after hearing
a lady speak.
He said a certain lady had been lecturing
that very week.
Her theme was how to bring up all
your children in your family as good Christians.
You ever heard a theme like that?
This is what you do and all your
kids become Christians.
It was wonderful, the lady said.
She had five or six kids and they
were so organized in her home and her
life and she was finished with all her
domestic work by 9 a.m. in the
morning.
And then she gave herself to various Christian
activities.
And that's not to mock being in order,
but the mother talking to me, she says
all her children were fine Christians and it
was so easy, so wonderful.
The mother talking to me who had two
children was in a state of real distress,
Lloyd-Jones said.
She felt that she was a complete and
utter failure.
What had I to say to her?
This I said, wait a moment.
How old are the children of this lady?
I happened to know the answer and my
friend knew also.
None of them at that time were above
the age of 16 or thereabouts.
I went on.
Wait and see.
This lady tells you that they're all Christians
and that all you need is a scheme
that you carry out regularly.
Wait a minute.
The story may be different in a few
years.
And alas, it turned out to be very
different.
It's doubtful whether more than one of those
children is a Christian.
Several of them are openly anti-Christian and
have turned their backs upon it all.
Lloyd-Jones says this, you cannot bring up
children to be Christians in that way.
It is not a mechanical process.
And in any case, it was also cold
and clinical.
A child is not a machine.
And so you cannot do this work mechanically.
Every one of us wants all of our
kids to know Christ.
The thought of one of our kids being
in hell and rejecting Christ is horrific.
But many fall into this too mechanical, it
can flush itself out in different ways or
can appear different ways in different people's lives,
but we need to watch out for that.
Whatever that looks like, just take it as
a warning.
In all this, we see the blessing of
children.
What a blessing children are.
I was telling someone earlier today, when I
was single, I had the carnal thought of
if I get married, I don't want to
have kids.
My wife might gain weight.
Different reasons.
To be satisfied in her, she's got to
look a certain way.
That was how I was when I was
lost.
I got saved, and I thought if I
get married, I don't want kids, they'll slow
me down.
But now I've got four of them, and
they've done nothing but helped me and given
me an incredible opportunity to love and to
be sanctified and to grow.
Children are such a blessing.
The fact you can have such an impact
on children.
I was thinking about Jim Elliot.
As many of you know, his dad Bert
got married.
And a year into the marriage, their first
child was born.
And when the baby came, the mother and
baby both died.
And so Bert lost his wife.
He lost his child.
And he really wrestled with spiritual things for
maybe two or three years, and then he
got remarried.
And in that marriage came Jim Elliot, who
died as a martyr in Ecuador.
And another child came, Bert.
And Bert Elliot had visited Jim right before
they got martyred.
And Bert was married to his wife Colleen.
And they could not have children.
And he took that as the Lord, as
he should have, he took it.
This is God not allowing us to have
kids because of physical issues.
And so they served in Peru for 60
years.
Sixty years they went up and down a
boat.
Even into the 2000s, they were still there.
He died in 2012.
So some of us, that's our legacy.
We can have spiritual children.
We can have spiritual kids who come to
Christ.
I know it's getting late.
Ultimately, we're cast on God.
We've got this week of prayer and fasting
coming up.
One of the biggest things to be praying
for is your kids.
Fasting for your kids.
Seeking God that they might come to know
the Lord.
Let me give a warning to children.
So if your kids, listen up for a
moment.
Here, first question is, what dwells in you?
Right?
What dwells in you?
Timothy had sincere faith dwelling in Him.
What dwells in you?
Is it a hard attitude of taking God
at His Word and I want to be
pleasing and follow the Lord and I'm trusting
Christ?
Or is it an attitude of I'm just
going to live for myself?
I'm just going to live for me.
You have greater accountability to grow up with
godly parents who are not hypocrites.
Look, if your parents are hypocrites and they
come here and they act one way and
they go home and they act a different
way and they sin against you and there's
never any sort of apology and they're like
that, I'm sorry.
But don't let your parents' hypocrisy turn you
away from Christ because He really is true.
And there are those who are truly following
Him.
And He is the only way to heaven.
Charles Spurgeon's mother said this, I've trained you
in righteousness.
Your father and I have set you right
examples.
We have taught you the Gospel.
We have shown you the way of peace.
My son, if you don't live a godly
life, I will stand before God in the
day of judgment and bear witness against you.
His mother said that.
Because it would be unrighteous for her if
she would not agree to stand and bear
judgment against her own son.
You see?
It's not an unloving thing.
It's just reality.
God will be just on that day.
Children, you should be thankful to have a
godly mother and a godly father, or whatever
your situation is.
You should be so thankful to have parents
who want to speak the truth to you.
And this week and these upcoming weeks, kids,
if your parents are trying to sit you
down to read the Bible, and you're tempted
there to grumble and question them, don't grumble.
Ask, Lord, show me truth.
Show me something about who I am outside
of Christ.
And show me the beauty of Jesus Christ.
Because Christ offers you a life vest.
And kids, if you don't have Christ, when
that boat of this earth sinks, when you
die, you will drown in a pit of
fire called hell for all of eternity.
And that should terrify you.
Paul said, by the fear of the Lord,
we persuade many.
You should want to have Christ.
You don't want to gang the world and
lose your soul.
And I guess I already mentioned this, but
kids who are saved, be holy.
Be zealous.
I look at the older people in my
life, and I glean what is good, and
the areas that are blind, I try to
avoid, and then I try to be humble
for people to correct me on my own
blind spots as they see them.
We have an attitude.
Be holy.
Be like Christ.
Be zealous.
Be more zealous than your parents.
Be as zealous as the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is your example.
So brethren, we all have to keep on
believing.
And it says here in 2 Timothy 3
.16, all Scripture is breathed out by God
and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness, that the man
of God may be complete, equipped for every
good work.
So it's not just parents need to be...
the only way a parent can acquaint their
kids with the Bible is what?
If they're really acquainted with the Bible themselves,
right?
You can't pour the Word into your kids
if you're not pouring the Word into your
own soul.
It's going to be a dead time and
things won't make sense.
So in some ways, this is a call
to endure in believing the Lord and to
endure in being in the Word.
We all need to be in the Scriptures.
Keep plowing to know the Bible.
Keep memorizing it.
What did Chip read today?
Psalm 19.
Did you see all of that in Psalm
19 about the Word and the law and
knowing it and the treasure that it is?
We need to keep diving in to such
truth.
Let's pray.
Father, Lord, we often can feel like our
efforts, we don't see results.
We pray.
We instruct.
Lord, even when some raise kids and pour
the Word they love and it doesn't seem
like it's some mechanical shop to just output
Christian kids that are cookie cutter, and even
then, some of these kids go in the
world and perish.
Lord, we recognize there's no formula, but we
know Your Word has power.
That people can be born again by the
living, abiding Word of God.
Lord, we pray You'd do that, that You
would save more among the children.
Father, that we'd have many more children here
with a sincere and genuine faith, genuinely believing
You.
Lord, that takes a miracle.
So we humbly ask You, Father, show compassion
to us.
Lord, at the end of the day, we
recognize we fail in many ways as parents.
Lord, we're wanting to walk with a good
conscience.
We're wanting to have humility and transparency and
pour the Word into our kids.
But Lord, we're here asking that You would
save them.
Lord, that our kids would have genuine faith.
Dwell in them.
Lord, may it be so.
Please.
Would You save?
Lord, I thank You for the mothers.
Lord, would You strengthen all of those here
who have children that they're with day in
and day out at home?
Lord, help them to not lose heart.
Encourage them that their labor is not in
the Lord, is not in vain.
Amen.
We pray all these things in Christ's name,
Amen.