WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.220 --> 00:00:20.500 If you would open your Bible to 1 Timothy, we’re going to be looking at this book this morning. 2 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:27.920 I won’t read through all of chapter one, but let me outline chapter one for you. 3 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:42.180 We’re not going to look at all of chapter one; we’ll be looking at chapter one over the next few weeks, but it’s good to keep this in mind for context. 4 00:00:42.180 --> 00:00:59.400 The chapter divides into four subjects: Salutation (Verses 1-2): The beginning, the address, and the addressee. 5 00:00:59.400 --> 00:01:07.780 We have that beginning as the chapter begins, and that’s what we’re going to be looking at today, so I’m not going to spend much time talking about it right now. 6 00:01:07.780 --> 00:01:28.430 Warning Against False Teachers (Verses 3-11): Paul is giving warning against false teachers that are in that church of Ephesus where Timothy is shepherding, and he is giving Timothy some instruction concerning those false teachers. 7 00:01:28.430 --> 00:01:38.200 Testimony to the Grace of God (Verses 12-17): Paul gives testimony to the grace of God in circumstances. 8 00:01:38.200 --> 00:01:50.740 We go through difficulties in life of all kinds, and we have all kinds of responsibilities, and God meets those through us through grace. 9 00:01:50.740 --> 00:01:54.850 Paul gives testimony to that in verses 12 through 17. 10 00:01:54.850 --> 00:02:04.640 The Charge to Timothy (Verses 18-20): Paul charges Timothy to fight the good fight. 11 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:14.560 Even now before I read this text, let me give you something about what this book is about. 12 00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:49.840 If you turn over to chapter 3 and verse 15, Paul writes Timothy: “But in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” 13 00:02:49.840 --> 00:03:01.760 The point of the book is so that we know how we ought to conduct ourselves in the household of God. 14 00:03:01.760 --> 00:03:07.760 The book deals with this in various ways for various people. 15 00:03:07.760 --> 00:03:33.820 Generally speaking, for the people of God, this book is intended to preserve the integrity of the gospel by establishing sound doctrine, qualified leadership, and orderly conduct within the church. 16 00:03:33.820 --> 00:03:36.320 It’s going to tell us how to structure the church. 17 00:03:36.320 --> 00:03:41.800 That’s part of what this book will be about. 18 00:03:41.800 --> 00:03:49.280 It’s the primary standard for how we’re to live and conduct ourselves together as a church. 19 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:53.200 That’s determined by the fact that we are the family of God. 20 00:03:53.200 --> 00:04:05.200 We are brothers and sisters in the Lord, connected spiritually, which is more important than any other physical relationship we have in this world. 21 00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:14.280 We’re to live together as a family of God, people who love each other, taking into consideration each other. 22 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:24.180 When the book focuses on the leadership of the church, the subject seems to focus on the credibility of the gospel. 23 00:04:24.180 --> 00:04:43.520 The most effective way for a church to silence its critics is for us to have leaders whose private godliness and public teaching reflect the sound words of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Himself. 24 00:04:43.520 --> 00:04:58.240 I could go on with this, thinking about the ways 1 Timothy deals with that idea as we work through the book, but we’re going to look at each of these things more specifically and a few others as well. 25 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:08.460 Let me read verses 1 and 2, pray for God’s blessing on His Word, and then we’ll begin looking at this passage. 26 00:05:08.460 --> 00:05:14.180 All we’re looking at this morning is this greeting. 27 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:38.860 This is God’s holy word: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope, to Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” 28 00:05:38.860 --> 00:05:42.300 Let’s ask God to bless the reading of His Word. 29 00:05:42.300 --> 00:05:51.760 Father, we thank You for this Word that was written by the Apostle Paul but inspired completely by the Holy Spirit of God. 30 00:05:51.760 --> 00:05:56.340 We thank You for the preciousness of what we have just read. 31 00:05:56.340 --> 00:06:16.400 We ask, Father, for Your special mercy and grace on us this morning that we would be able to comprehend something of the truth that we have just read, to comprehend its significance and see how it fits into the book as a whole, and why the Apostle Paul wrote in the way that he did. 32 00:06:16.400 --> 00:06:23.820 We ask, Father, that You guide us in this and make application to our heart of these truths. 33 00:06:23.820 --> 00:06:32.180 Bless us in these ways, we pray, that our Savior, the Lord Jesus, might be honored and glorified. 34 00:06:32.180 --> 00:06:40.100 Amen. 35 00:06:40.100 --> 00:06:46.260 When it comes to greetings, we don’t think much about them. 36 00:06:46.260 --> 00:06:48.100 They don’t mean anything much. 37 00:06:48.100 --> 00:06:51.500 We say, “Hello, how are you doing?” 38 00:06:51.500 --> 00:06:53.240 What do those words mean? 39 00:06:53.240 --> 00:06:56.340 They don’t mean very much usually, do they? 40 00:06:56.340 --> 00:07:02.320 What does the word “hello” mean? 41 00:07:02.320 --> 00:07:04.000 I don’t know what the word “hello” means. 42 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:09.200 I know why we use it, but I don’t know what it means. 43 00:07:09.200 --> 00:07:15.380 We go around saying stuff we don’t even know what it means, because frankly, it doesn’t mean much. 44 00:07:15.380 --> 00:07:21.380 Do you know why we say “hello”? 45 00:07:21.380 --> 00:07:29.460 You would think that English speakers have been saying “hello” for centuries, but that’s not true. 46 00:07:29.460 --> 00:07:36.880 The word “hello” has a beginning, and it has a beginning because of one man in particular. 47 00:07:36.880 --> 00:07:40.260 His name was Thomas Edison. 48 00:07:40.260 --> 00:07:54.380 Thomas Edison, because he was basically deaf, didn’t hear correctly the word “ahoy” when it was given over the telephone. 49 00:07:54.380 --> 00:08:16.940 So he wrote a message to David, the president of the Central District of the Printing Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh. 50 00:08:16.940 --> 00:08:27.460 He said: “Friend David, I don’t think we’ll need a call bell as ‘hello’ can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. 51 00:08:27.460 --> 00:08:29.200 What do you think? 52 00:08:29.200 --> 00:08:29.890 Edison. 53 00:08:29.890 --> 00:08:39.420 P.S. The first cost of a sender and receiver to manufacture is only $7.” 54 00:08:39.420 --> 00:08:59.260 For that reason, the telephone operators of the time b egan using the word “hello,” because you could hear that all the way across the room and you didn’t need a bell necessarily. 55 00:08:59.260 --> 00:09:07.660 So in 1889, the central telephone exchange operators were known as the “Hello Girls.” 56 00:09:07.660 --> 00:09:18.660 When you go to the telephone and talk, you call them and they say “hello,” and so you say “hello,” and pretty soon we’re saying “hello” to everybody. 57 00:09:18.660 --> 00:09:24.780 We could be saying “ahoy,” but we say “hello” instead. 58 00:09:24.780 --> 00:09:27.660 We don’t think anything about it, do we? 59 00:09:27.660 --> 00:09:31.120 The same thing is with letters that we write. 60 00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:39.280 With letters, which we don’t do much anymore, they’ve almost gone away. 61 00:09:39.280 --> 00:10:01.960 What we did in the 20th century is we shifted quite a bit from taking a good bit of time to write long personal letters to people, and we began to stop doing that probably because of the telephone in part, and because we were taking up all of our time with more entertainments and things. 62 00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:06.260 So we took less time to write to friends. 63 00:10:06.260 --> 00:10:12.600 When we did, letters used to be pretty substantial. 64 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:17.040 But then we shifted to cards, like Hallmark cards. 65 00:10:17.040 --> 00:10:22.580 When someone is having a birthday, instead of writing them a nice letter, you just send them a little Hallmark card. 66 00:10:22.580 --> 00:10:35.180 Or when you go on a trip to Miami, you write them a little note on the back of a postcard that says, “Johnny and Becky, how are you? 67 00:10:35.180 --> 00:10:36.740 Fine, I hope. 68 00:10:36.740 --> 00:10:38.940 Greetings from Miami. 69 00:10:38.940 --> 00:10:41.060 Wish you were here.” 70 00:10:41.060 --> 00:10:43.760 Lots of thought to that. 71 00:10:43.760 --> 00:10:54.900 But greetings, especially salutations in a business letter, you have a certain form and you expect it. 72 00:10:54.900 --> 00:11:07.380 When you get that business letter from a company or an inner-office letter, you skip over a lot of that, just glance at it, and get down to the heart of the thing. 73 00:11:07.380 --> 00:11:16.680 You would think when you think like that, then we’re not prepared for what we have just read. 74 00:11:16.680 --> 00:11:25.400 Because we read what we just read so casually, we often haven’t comprehended it at all. 75 00:11:25.400 --> 00:11:32.120 So this morning we’re going to take some time to think about Paul’s greeting. 76 00:11:32.120 --> 00:11:36.870 Even in Paul’s day, what I just said was basically true. 77 00:11:36.870 --> 00:11:39.020 I’ll give you an example. 78 00:11:39.020 --> 00:11:47.760 Here’s an actual letter from the 1st century: “Claudius Lysias, to his Excellency, Governor Felix: Greetings.” 79 00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:50.400 That was his salutation. 80 00:11:50.400 --> 00:11:55.520 That’s pretty much just like what we do in a letter. 81 00:11:55.520 --> 00:11:56.860 That covered everything. 82 00:11:56.860 --> 00:12:11.440 It tells who wrote the letter, it tells who received the letter, and it gives the little greeting, the salutation. 83 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:13.700 Compare that to what we just read. 84 00:12:13.700 --> 00:12:15.400 Think about that. 85 00:12:15.400 --> 00:12:22.440 First of all, we’re coming to this letter that Paul is writing to Timothy. 86 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:30.580 Even in this salutation, there are lots of rather mysterious things until you start thinking about it and beginning to understand it. 87 00:12:30.580 --> 00:12:42.140 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus…” That’s who he is, and it begins with his authority. 88 00:12:42.140 --> 00:12:51.900 Now, he’s writing to Timothy, who he calls his true son. 89 00:12:51.900 --> 00:13:05.420 Timothy and Titus have a long relationship. 90 00:13:05.420 --> 00:13:13.780 Timothy in particular has been working and serving Paul for 15 years when this letter is written. 91 00:13:13.780 --> 00:13:20.040 Timothy knows the Apostle Paul extremely well. 92 00:13:20.040 --> 00:13:26.440 They have a father-son relationship; that’s what Paul is saying in verse 2. 93 00:13:26.440 --> 00:13:31.500 Can you imagine me beginning a letter like that to my true sons? 94 00:13:31.500 --> 00:14:00.260 If I wrote a letter to Justin and I wrote the letter beginning like, “Steve, Pastor of Mayflower Hills Baptist Church, to my true son Justin…” Doesn’t that sound a little strange for someone in that close of a relationship? 95 00:14:00.260 --> 00:14:03.960 Question one: why did he do that? 96 00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:05.760 What is this about? 97 00:14:05.760 --> 00:14:42.000 There’s a sense, this letter is to Timothy, and if you received a letter from someone that you had special affection for, and you’re back in high school or college and you have a crush on somebody, and you receive a letter from them, you’re going to read over every little detail of that letter. 98 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:45.940 You’re going to know, because you know the person, pretty much everything that it says. 99 00:14:45.940 --> 00:14:53.020 But we’re looking at a letter written not to us, but to someone else. 100 00:14:53.020 --> 00:15:00.240 It was written 2,000 years ago, and they spoke a different language. 101 00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:04.640 Are we going to understand what it says? 102 00:15:04.640 --> 00:15:08.500 We are, and we are because of a great deal of work. 103 00:15:08.500 --> 00:15:19.780 It takes some work to translate the language, to come to have this wonderful English translation that we are reading. 104 00:15:19.780 --> 00:15:34.740 If we’re going to really appreciate it, we have to treat it somewhat like a love letter, where you think about the salutation and the closing in a different way than you would if it was from somebody else. 105 00:15:34.740 --> 00:15:45.120 If a guy got a letter from a girl he had a crush on and she said, “Love sincerely” at the end, he would think, “Did she mean that?” 106 00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:48.140 You’re going to think about every word. 107 00:15:48.140 --> 00:15:53.980 Well, we need to do that when we look at a passage, especially this one. 108 00:15:53.980 --> 00:16:03.540 We’re looking over Timothy’s shoulder as he receives this letter and reads it for the first time, and we’re not the only ones. 109 00:16:03.540 --> 00:16:23.800 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior…” Paul is giving his authority right at the beginning of this letter, and his authority, he’s not a self-appointed apostle. 110 00:16:23.800 --> 00:16:26.320 He didn’t have any choice in it. 111 00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:46.320 That word “commandment” is the word for a royal command, like the command a king would give to a person, or a lord would give to a servant, a command that cannot be disobeyed. 112 00:16:46.320 --> 00:16:55.880 Paul is an apostle of Christ Jesus because God commanded him to be. 113 00:16:55.880 --> 00:17:08.000 That’s authority, because his authority is coming from the very commandment of God. 114 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:14.820 And it’s the commandment of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus who is our hope. 115 00:17:14.820 --> 00:17:30.960 Now we’re just at the beginning of this greeting, this letter to Timothy, and we have a profound theological statement. 116 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:45.900 We have an incredible statement of theology that covers from the Old Testament work of God all the way to the distant future. 117 00:17:45.900 --> 00:17:53.800 Look at this statement: “according to the commandment of God our Savior.” 118 00:17:53.800 --> 00:18:14.680 That phrase “God our Savior,” if you’re writing to a Jewish person who knows the Old Testament, that’s a phrase that’s used over and over in the Old Testament going back to God who saved Israel from slavery and bondage in Egypt and brought them out. 119 00:18:14.680 --> 00:18:20.420 That idea of salvation, God is the Savior. 120 00:18:20.420 --> 00:18:31.140 Well, he’s linking “God our Savior,” and connected with that is “Christ Jesus, who is our hope.” 121 00:18:31.140 --> 00:18:45.820 So you’re looking from eternity past, from all the history back from the beginning of creation till up to that point, and then you’re looking at the history forward to the return of our Savior, the Lord Jesus, and the completion of that salvation. 122 00:18:45.820 --> 00:19:08.960 See, that’s an incredible thing to think about, the whole comprehensive view of salvation and the hope that we have in Christ Jesus coming about because of God our Savior and Christ Jesus our hope, linking those names together as one God. 123 00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:16.560 This is rich and powerful and theological; the doctrine is deep right here in verse one. 124 00:19:16.560 --> 00:19:23.180 You could preach far more than one sermon on that. 125 00:19:23.180 --> 00:19:47.600 We could explore what it means for God to be a Savior, we could look at the doctrine of salvation, we could look at its past, present, and future, we could look at the idea individually of us coming to faith in Christ in a point in time in the past, our continual sanctification, and the future glorification we have in Jesus. 126 00:19:47.600 --> 00:19:55.580 All that stuff is compacted in this one little earth-shaking phrase. 127 00:19:55.580 --> 00:20:05.420 Every phrase is powerful and rich and deserving of our thinking and meditating on. 128 00:20:05.420 --> 00:20:12.060 So this is the way Paul writes an introduction to a letter. 129 00:20:12.060 --> 00:20:14.460 And he writes to Timothy. 130 00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:19.320 “To Timothy, my true child in the faith.” 131 00:20:19.320 --> 00:20:25.780 This is a personal letter to this man, Timothy. 132 00:20:25.780 --> 00:20:29.180 Who is Timothy? 133 00:20:29.180 --> 00:20:40.120 You’re familiar with his name, and you know that he is connected with the Apostle Paul as one of Paul’s associates. 134 00:20:40.120 --> 00:20:46.780 You can’t avoid being familiar with his name; two books of the Bible have his name featured. 135 00:20:46.780 --> 00:21:15.020 But did you know that in addition to 1st and 2nd Timothy, where Timothy is the one who receives the letter, he is mentioned in six other books? 136 00:21:15.020 --> 00:21:32.840 He’s listed as a co-author with the Apostle Paul. 137 00:21:32.840 --> 00:21:40.860 I think maybe “collaborator” is a good word, because he’s called a co-laborer in the book of Romans. 138 00:21:40.860 --> 00:21:52.760 Timothy is listed in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 2nd Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. 139 00:21:52.760 --> 00:22:03.960 His name is listed right alongside Paul’s at the beginning of the letter as the one who’s sending the letter, which is interesting. 140 00:22:03.960 --> 00:22:11.180 There’s a very, very close connection between Paul and Timothy. 141 00:22:11.180 --> 00:22:44.720 That’s what he’s saying when he says, “my true child in the faith.” 142 00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:55.340 Let me tell you, think back yourself to Timothy and his connection with Paul to begin with. 143 00:22:55.340 --> 00:23:07.260 We know from Acts 16:1-3, that Timothy was born to a Jewish mother, her name was Eunice, and he had a Greek father. 144 00:23:07.260 --> 00:23:09.940 His father was a pagan. 145 00:23:09.940 --> 00:23:17.060 And he was raised in the Jewish faith by his mother and grandmother Lois. 146 00:23:17.060 --> 00:23:21.160 They taught him the Old Testament scriptures. 147 00:23:21.160 --> 00:23:34.000 He grew up in the Lycaonian town of Lystra in the Roman province of Galatia. 148 00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:35.180 How did he come to faith? 149 00:23:35.180 --> 00:23:39.960 He was raised in a Jewish background; how was he saved? 150 00:23:39.960 --> 00:23:49.160 The Bible doesn’t give us that exactly, but it gives us enough to figure it out. 151 00:23:49.160 --> 00:24:09.870 Paul’s first missionary journey with Barnabas (Acts 13 and 14), he goes to this city of Lystra. 152 00:24:09.870 --> 00:24:16.060 He’s preaching the gospel, and it’s being received well. 153 00:24:16.060 --> 00:24:17.760 Lots of people are coming to faith. 154 00:24:17.760 --> 00:24:27.760 He enters into Lystra, he’s preaching the gospel, there’s a man there who’s lame, and he speaks to the man and heals him. 155 00:24:27.760 --> 00:24:34.140 The man has never walked in his life, but suddenly he can stand up and walk. 156 00:24:34.140 --> 00:24:46.540 The people in this little town think the gods have come among us, and they think Paul and Barnabas are two of the Greek gods. 157 00:24:46.540 --> 00:25:06.520 They send out for their pagan priest to bring a sacrifice, and Paul and Barnabas are horrified and tell them they’re just men, turn from this foolishness to the true God. 158 00:25:06.520 --> 00:25:38.320 Then Jewish people show up from the other cities, turn that group against them, the Apostle Paul is stoned, dragged out of the city, left for dead, then his disciples come and stand around him and he gets up, walks back to the city. 159 00:25:38.320 --> 00:26:10.460 That’s probably where Lois and Timothy came to faith, almost certainly during that encounter when Paul preached the gospel in that city on his first missionary journey. 160 00:26:10.460 --> 00:26:38.320 As we continue, 2 to 3 years later Paul returns to Lystra on his second missionary journey, and Timothy is one of the believers in the community of Lystra. 161 00:26:38.320 --> 00:26:45.140 He had a terrific reputation as a genuine believer. 162 00:26:45.140 --> 00:27:08.060 So Paul chooses him to join his missionary team. 163 00:27:08.060 --> 00:27:24.200 Timothy is raised in the Jewish faith but with a pagan father, so he has a problem being accepted anywhere in the community, the Jewish people wouldn’t accept him. 164 00:27:24.200 --> 00:28:12.080 He had never been circumcised. 165 00:28:12.080 --> 00:28:34.000 So Paul does this: he has Timothy circumcised so that when he comes to these Jewish synagogues, there won’t be an offense, so that they won’t reject him outright at the beginning. 166 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:41.220 Timothy complies with that, and that’s the beginning of this ministry together. 167 00:28:41.220 --> 00:29:09.240 It’s an incredible thing, this man Timothy who has both sides: the Jewish side understanding the Old Testament, being trained in Judaism, and also that Greek side knowing the marketplace and all the stuff of the Greek community because as they travel from city to city, Paul is taking the gospel to the Jewish people first and then to the Greeks. 168 00:29:09.240 --> 00:29:16.080 Timothy certainly could be an aid in both sides of that ministry. 169 00:29:16.080 --> 00:31:33.520 Paul leaves Timothy in charge to put this church in order. 170 00:31:33.520 --> 00:31:35.640 That’s a tough job. 171 00:31:35.640 --> 00:31:51.080 Timothy is put in place to teach true doctrine and to teach the people teaching false doctrine to shut up. 172 00:31:51.080 --> 00:31:54.900 That’s not going to go without resistance. 173 00:31:54.900 --> 00:32:03.560 Timothy is a man who had a Jewish mother and a pagan father; he doesn’t have much of a genealogy. 174 00:32:03.560 --> 00:32:15.200 When you look back to find out whether you have authority or not, he’s subject to attack by these people. 175 00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:21.860 In Jewish culture of the 1st century, your genealogy gave you credibility. 176 00:32:21.860 --> 00:32:31.440 Remember in Philippians when Paul is talking about all the things he counts as loss, but there are things that were so valued? 177 00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:51.300 He says, “I was a Benjamite, circumcised on the eighth day…” He’s looking at his genealogy because that was important to them. 178 00:32:51.300 --> 00:32:58.540 Here Timothy is placed in charge of this group of people, where does his authority come from? 179 00:32:58.540 --> 00:33:35.420 His father was a pagan, he’s not going to carry weight in the Ephesian church. 180 00:33:35.420 --> 00:33:38.300 Look at how young this fellow is. 181 00:33:38.300 --> 00:33:40.820 What can you expect of him? 182 00:33:40.820 --> 00:33:46.820 They’re ignoring his history of the last 15 years. 183 00:33:46.820 --> 00:34:01.510 You see, you’ve got that kind of background, and Paul is saying to Timothy, “My true child in the faith.” 184 00:34:01.510 --> 00:34:39.220 The word “true child” means a legitimate heir. 185 00:34:39.220 --> 00:34:56.680 He’s my real son. 186 00:34:56.680 --> 00:35:02.100 Our spiritual relationships trump our physical relationships. 187 00:35:02.100 --> 00:35:09.880 Paul is the Apostle whose apostleship is given by the commandment of God Almighty. 188 00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:25.040 He has commissioned Timothy, and Timothy is his true son in the faith. 189 00:35:25.040 --> 00:35:32.760 Why do we have this formal greeting? 190 00:35:32.760 --> 00:35:36.880 Because this isn’t meant to be read just by Timothy. 191 00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:49.640 It’s meant to be read to the church. 192 00:35:49.640 --> 00:36:53.220 The very closing of the book, “Grace be with you,” the “you” is plural. 193 00:36:53.220 --> 00:37:06.680 This is establishing in a powerful way Timothy’s authority as the person commissioned by the Apostle Paul, whose apostleship is given by the commandment of God. 194 00:37:06.680 --> 00:37:24.620 Timothy has the authority he needs to act. 195 00:37:24.620 --> 00:37:47.940 Timothy: “My true child in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” 196 00:37:47.940 --> 00:38:02.380 Paul usually says “grace and peace” in his letters. 197 00:38:02.380 --> 00:38:06.920 Here he adds “mercy.” 198 00:38:06.920 --> 00:38:10.240 I think that’s particularly for Timothy. 199 00:38:10.240 --> 00:38:13.140 Timothy is suffering in this ministry. 200 00:38:13.140 --> 00:38:31.980 He’s being accused, his authority is questioned, he has stomach problems, he’s suffering persecution. 201 00:38:31.980 --> 00:38:54.900 He needs mercy. 202 00:38:54.900 --> 00:39:02.420 Grace: God’s undeserved favor. 203 00:39:02.420 --> 00:39:51.040 The love toward a guilty sinner who deserves nothing but judgment, but God frees them from the guilt and eternal consequences of their sin. 204 00:39:51.040 --> 00:39:59.140 Mercy: Deals with the consequences of the guilt and sin in the world. 205 00:39:59.140 --> 00:40:06.260 It has to do with pity and compassion. 206 00:40:06.260 --> 00:40:26.920 It’s like the Good Samaritan showing compassion to the wounded man. 207 00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:43.920 Peace: The result of receiving grace and being reconciled with God, experiencing the blessing of wholeness with God. 208 00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:55.320 I think that mercy is added for Timothy because Timothy is suffering and he needs that compassion. 209 00:40:55.320 --> 00:40:58.880 He needs to be prayed for. 210 00:40:58.880 --> 00:41:02.860 If you’re in ministry, you’re going to suffer. 211 00:41:02.860 --> 00:41:44.720 If you’re living in a sinful world, you need mercy. 212 00:41:44.720 --> 00:42:09.500 Paul prays for Timothy: Grace, mercy, and peace that can only come from the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. 213 00:42:09.500 --> 00:42:20.840 The source of this goodness is God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 214 00:42:20.840 --> 00:42:55.700 They are one. 215 00:42:55.700 --> 00:43:06.680 This is a rich and powerful book, and we need this truth. 216 00:43:06.680 --> 00:43:15.280 We need grace and mercy and peace. 217 00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:55.780 We need to know how to live godly in this world as this book will teach us. 218 00:43:55.780 --> 00:44:06.720 Father, thank You for Your care and kindness in Christ. 219 00:44:06.720 --> 00:44:11.100 Thank You for the richness of Your abundant grace which saved us. 220 00:44:11.100 --> 00:44:24.300 Thank You for the great hope we have as we anticipate the coming of our Savior, the Lord Jesus, who will bring about the final completion of our salvation. 221 00:44:24.300 --> 00:44:29.420 Father, thank You for all that You have given us in Christ, and will give us. 222 00:44:29.420 --> 00:44:36.220 Thank You, Father, that You care about us, so You give us mercy when we need it. 223 00:44:36.220 --> 00:44:41.780 We know that anyone living in this sinful world needs mercy. 224 00:44:41.780 --> 00:44:45.200 We ask that You help us. 225 00:44:45.200 --> 00:45:01.940 Please bless this church, strengthen us, give us the spiritual things we need to be sanctified as we should be, and that we might be true servants of Yours, growing in Your grace and love. 226 00:45:01.940 --> 00:45:08.920 Help us, we pray, in Jesus’ name. 227 00:45:08.920 --> 00:45:10.920 Amen.