As we see in the Timothys, Paul is— the last place I want to be is in prison, but Paul finds himself in prison. And you wouldn't expect letters of encouragement really coming from a person who's incarcerated, right?

But through this dark time of incarceration, Paul assures Timothy of his continual love and prayers, and reminds him of his heritage, of where he comes from and where he is going, and in his responsibilities of being a young pastor. We can see from Paul's first letter that Timothy was, of course, young.

He was timid. He was inexperienced, making it easy for people to take advantage of him or make it difficult for him to assort his authority in the church.

Paul's love and enthusiasm and prayers and confidence shine in this time of his darkest days. I have a scripture in 1 Timothy 4:12 that is a great one.

This is Paul's encouragement: "Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, and in love." Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in impurity. Until I come, devote yourselves to public reading of Scripture, to exhort, to

teaching. Do not neglect— this is important— do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress.

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers." That's an awesome scripture.

We as believers are ministers of some sort. We are always directing traffic, directing our kids, trying to keep the job site at hand and not missing a beat.

We all have our things that we have to do to be good examples in Jesus, because that's who we represent, right? We're Christians.

We can learn so much out of this refreshing, excellent relationship, this father-son relationship in Paul's letters to Timothy. Paul's days were numbered, and this brought Timothy to tears in 2 Timothy 1:4.

"For they longed to see each other for possibly, maybe, the last time. For God would soon move Paul on from this earthly situation, and Timothy would have the honor to step into the shepherd's role and continue spiritual leadership in the churches." And by the way, Timothy's name means honored of God and valued of God.

This would be not an easy task, but Timothy could succeed. Being a Christian is not easy, but we can succeed with the Lord's help of His Holy Spirit.

Amen to that. So let us take from the advice given Timothy, from Paul, and apply it to our own lives.

We'll just do it for a few moments. We'll see how it works out.

If Paul's letter— in Paul's letter to the churches in Ephesus— there was an awesome but small, powerful prayer of wisdom and knowledge. There was hope involved there, and why we are here, and where we can go to further the kingdom of God.

And it would be in Ephesians 1:17-20, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of His glory, of

the inheritance of the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ when He raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in heavenly places." And did you know when you accepted Jesus and the Holy Spirit

came into you that God has blessed you— if you go back up to verse 3— with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, and He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love? So I'm so thankful that Jesus has broken those chains off, and He

set us in spiritual places with Him and given us His Holy Spirit so we can know what's good and what's not good. And things will just get gooder and gooder all the time if we call upon His name.

And I'm pretty thankful for that. And whether you know it or not, we are in the family business with Jesus.

We are a chip off the old block, because God's looking around. God's looking for people like you and me to do the right thing.

One of my favorite scriptures, 2 Chronicles 16:9, and for the eyes of the Lord. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support, to give strength to those whose hearts are blameless towards Him.

"You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars." Talking to Asa. Asa did not make good decisions back then, but the first part of that, God is looking for you.

He's looking for me to have hearts that are loyal to Him and burning with God's heart, beating with God's heart. If I were to title this message, I would title it "The Making of the Man or Woman of God." I want to be made more and more like the Lord.

And this Paul's letter to Timothy, I'll just start reading the first chapter. It says, "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, a beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I thank whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy. When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother

Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded it is in you also." Paul looks back and seeing Timothy being brought up by his grandma and his mother, and his grandma Lois, her name means to be agreeable and desirable. And she kind of lived up to her name because she was a comfortable person to be around, making

it much easier to share the scriptures with her children, Eunice, and of course, down the line to grandson Timothy. He was brought up in a really good place.

And then you got Eunice, his mom, which means conquering well. Eunice, his mom, lived up to her name, for she conquered in the effort to bring up her son in the admonition and fear of the Lord.

2 Timothy 3:14, just one little page away, would say this: "But you must continue in the things which you have learned, Timothy, and been assured of knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scripture, which are able, the scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith,

which is in Christ Jesus." Paul had watched Timothy, his life and his service throughout many years. Paul was certain, he was positive, that his faith, Timothy's faith, was genuine and in his heart.

Here's some facts. His heritage, he was raised good in a godly home.

He was trained by Paul himself, and Paul made sure that Timothy had the opportunities to share his faith. And I really love that when— well, Pastor Nathan, I didn't tell you, but I'm not the pastor here.

I'm an elder. But Pastor Nathan is gone in Southern California, and it's a privilege that he asked me to be able to come and teach and that elders get to do their thing and know that he left the church in a good spot.

And that's what Paul's trying to tell Timothy. "I got you guys, but I'm incarcerated and there's nothing I can do.

My hands are tied." But thank goodness Nathan's seeing his sister in Southern California, and hopefully his children, his teenage sons, did not tie him up, because Nathan can get a little bit out of hand. But anyway, it's good to get a chuckle in now.

Verse 5. No, let's do verse 6.

"Therefore, I remind you, Timothy, to stir up that gift which is in you through the laying on of hands." See, back in those days, and they do it these days also, that when somebody needs prayer and they're serving the Lord, they lay hands on and impart giftings to them. And I think that's a really cool thing to

do, but that's what Paul does. And Paul is reminding him to stir up that gift, because I laid hands on you and I can see your giftings, but you can't just sit there and know you're talented or you're gifted and anointed to do something, but you've got to stir it up.

You've got to stir it up really good. It means to stir into a flame the gift of God, to stoke, to stoke the fire.

And so, what do you do to stir? What do you do to stir the flame?

What's your routine so you're not stale? I don't want to be the scum upon— you're right, Alec.

I don't want to be the scum on top of the pond, right, where it's stagnant and you've got mosquitoes. That's pretty tough, right, Mike?

Fish lake, right? Mosquitoes.

So what do you do? Number one, Alec, scripture reading is good.

Number two, how about some prayer? And when you pray, listen.

How many of us pray and don't listen back?

I'm the only one.

I'm the only one. Oh, there's a few.

Okay. Number three, what you're doing right now. You're doing all three, but fellowship is a really good way to stir up your gift and share what you're going through and be a good listener to what people or other people are going through.

And to break down that hard shell, we need to stir up our gifts in you and I. In Hosea 10:12 says this: "So for yourselves," do this yourself, "righteousness, reap and reap in mercy.

Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord till he comes and rains righteousness on you." How many of you want to have God's word and his righteousness rained down on you in the heart, your soil of your heart? But you've got to break up that hard heart with the word of God.

It's time to do that. That's in Hosea 10:12.

We're not going to go there, but just if you're taking notes, in Jeremiah 4:3, it's talking about you men of Judah and men of Jerusalem, you need to break up the fallow ground because you're being a disgrace to the nations around you. You're hard-hearted and you're stubborn.

So we have a personal invitation in Hosea for personally, we need to go into our secret place or wherever. I'll do it right in the middle of the street and go, "My heart is hard.

I am being stubborn. I'm not listening to you.

I'm being stiff-necked. Please soften my heart." And he'll maybe give me a scripture or a reminder like that, and it will soften and just, "Eric, calm down.

You've got to just calm down so I can let God's righteousness come down and rain in me." So that's a good way to stir, because it's the power of God. In verse 7, we'll read here, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear." Or if you take that word fear, it means to be timid or

maybe a little bit scared or a lot scared. God did not give you the Holy Spirit so you would be scared, because he loves you more than your mom and dad love you.

Believe it or not. Is that hard to believe?

It is for me. But until I became a believer in the Holy Spirit, from where I came from and where I am now, I know that God the Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, all three of them together— go back into the first chapter of Genesis on that— they all had their part in making me free

and making me not scared to trust in him. Amen?

It's hard to do sometimes. He's not given us a spirit of fear or to be scared, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

It's very important that we get our minds stirred for Jesus, that we put on the helmet of salvation, that we put on the mind of Christ. If we do that and we're thinking of scripture and we're thinking of, "Hey, WWJD," remember that back in the '90s?

What would Jesus do? If we have that mindset, the power of God and the power of his love will reign in our lives.

And I kind of get choked up on that because that's true. God's word is true.

He is the way. He is the truth.

He is the life. He is the door.

If you enter in, he's going to sup with you. He's going to have a meal with you, and he's going to tell you what's going on.

He's also available to give you self-control or a sound mind. That's what I'm talking about here.

You can look at the word sound mind. What it really, really super means is to have self-control or to be sober.

We can read in Titus 1:8 that, "Be hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, and self-controlled." It's listed in the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, and I always say it's mentioned last. There's faith, love, there's all these great things, but it's the last it says self-control.

And I believe Paul and the Lord put it there so we would read it last to remember it first. Self-control is a hard thing.

We've got to get a hold of ourselves. In verse 8, "Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor me, his prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God." Oh, that's a really hard one.

The key in this whole chapter is Paul is not ashamed, and he's not ashamed again in verse 12, and he's advising Timothy not to be ashamed here in verse 8, and mentioned of one Sephoraus, his friend. He was not ashamed of Paul's chains.

If you go over to verse 16, he was not ashamed. He was not ashamed.

He's encouraging Timothy not to be ashamed, and he doesn't want any of us to be ashamed of the gospel because we have gifts that God has given us. Maybe you don't know what they are.

Maybe you do know what they are, but you maybe have a little bit of fear and you don't want to share them, and you don't know how to go about it. But just ask someone to pray for you.

I always want to know what's going on. God just doesn't give you one gift.

He can give you a whole bunch of gifts, and he gives it to you because he wants to, and he doesn't give it without condition. He'll just give it to you.

And he does as he pleases. And you can read all about that in 1 Corinthians 12.

I would encourage you, as we're talking about stirring up the gifts, to go and see, what are the gifts? How many are there?

Maybe, "Oh, look, I got that one. I like to give to organizations.

I have a gift of hospitality. That's a really good one.

Thanks, Lord. Maybe I can beef that one up." That's stirring your gift that is in you.

So in verse 9 and 10, let's go for it. "Share with me in the sufferings," this is at the end of 8, "for the gospel according to the power of God." I just want to say this.

When you start going out and stirring up your gift and asking people to pray for you and want to serve the Lord more because you maybe found something that you're really excited about, you might suffer. You might suffer persecution.

Your mom and dad go, "Oh, it's just a phase he's going through. It's a cult that you're in.

Jesus was just a guy." You have all this stuff coming against you because Satan does not want you to serve Jesus. He doesn't necessarily want you to serve him.

He just doesn't want you to serve the way and the truth and the life. He wants you, as Adam and Eve found out, to serve you.

He wants you to use the gifts for you. A gift is something that you give.

Amen? You don't hold onto it. I buy things in the store for my kids for Christmas or whatever, and I'm going, "I've got to wrap this up and give this to my kids.

I want to keep it." What did they do? I was the same way.

But he called us, and he saved us with his power. He has saved us and called us to a holy calling, verse 9, not according to what we've done or our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ before time began.

You can read that in Psalm 139, I believe. One of my wife's favorite psalms is where God knew you when he was forming the DNA in the seed of your father.

He knew what your gifts were going to be. He knew the power that he was going to give you if you called upon his name, if you called upon his name because of free will.

He loves you anyway, but he wants you to serve him in your giftings. He can and will finish what he has started in you, so don't fear.

Don't be ashamed. God is in control.

Philippians 1:6 would say this, "Being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." And in Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose." He's

called us, and he's saved us for his purpose. God has got you.

There's no reason to be ashamed. He is the light of the world.

Has the light come on in your head yet about that, that you can trust him? Well, as I read in the next verse, but in verse 10, "But now he's been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, brought life, and immortality to light through the gospel, to which I was appointed a

preacher and apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles." See, there's multiple gifts right there that Paul had. "For this reason, I also suffer these things.

Nevertheless, again, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed. I am persuaded that he is able." Can you say that with me?

He is able.

He is able to keep what I have committed to him until I'm face to face with him, until that day. So what we need to do, or I need to do, no pressure, is to stir that gift.

God is cooking something up in my heart. Is he cooking up something in your heart to do?

The second thing is, what do you do when you have all the ingredients that Timothy had, and you say you're just, "Okay, we're in the kitchen with Julia Child, okay? And we got all the ingredients.

We got the butter. We got to have butter.

We have all the stuff, and we stir it up, and we pour it into a pan, right? We're in that foundation.

We're in that vessel. I'm flying by the seat of my pants." And what do we do?

We got to cook it, right? We got to bake let's say cake.

I just got a cake going on up here. A round cake, right?

I like the round cakes. They're never ending.

And you got to bake it. So that's where we come to verse 13.

"Hold fast the pattern of sound words, which you have heard from me in faith and love, which are in Christ Jesus." So hold fast. What does hold fast mean?

It means to stamp in. Copy God's word.

Stamp it into your mind, that good thing, the deposit of God's world. Hold fast.

It's like closing the oven door when you're baking your cake. How many of us open the rice cooker too early and we ruin the rice?

It happens all the time. "Mom, Grandma, don't open the oven.

There's a cake in there." We got to hold fast the word. We got to close it in like an oven door, meditate on it, and be patient, and allow God to cook whatever he's cooking up in your life.

To hold fast that pattern of sound doctrine, that copy of God's word, let it come. It's coming from Paul here, but it's coming from me, and it's coming from the Holy Spirit, is that you need to hold fast the things that you've already learned.

You might not have learned that much. You might be young.

You might be a young believer, but hold fast to what you know now. Amen?

Amen.

Don't forget it. And have some fellowship with somebody so they can remind you to keep the oven door closed until it is time that the horn goes off or the buzzer goes off.

So we need to do that. That good thing, verse 14, that gift.

And then it just goes on to say that there are some people that have been against Paul. I would get into the two people there.

And we already talked about one Sephoraus, who was one of his I think I'm probably saying his name wrong, but he refreshed Paul and was not ashamed of his chain. We talked about that.

So we stir the gift of God. We put it in our minds in the oven to let it cook, and then it's time to serve it.

Put the icing on the cake. That's my favorite part with Grandma.

You get to lick the Peters. Not hooked to the machine.

You got to make sure it's off. That could be really dangerous.

But anyway, we need to serve. So what a servant Timothy was.

What a servant Paul was. What a servant we are.

Give yourself a pat on the back. We all serve God in some way, don't we?

I'm trying to be a confidence builder here. Some of us maybe aren't serving the way we should be, and God's talking to you about that right now, I hope, and he's talking to me.

There's some things in my life I need to stir and dump into the garbage. Those ingredients aren't working for me.

I need to not just start over, but I need to clean the pan again and clean all my utensils and start over. So it's serving God.

And he says here, "I got to wrap this up really soon." And it says here, "Therefore, my son," chapter 2, "be strong in the grace that is in Christ, and the things that you have heard from me, share it among many witnesses. Commit these things to faithful men, and who will be able, they will also be able

to teach others." So it's good for you to share and commit what you've learned to other men so they can share, "Hey, Eric went through this," or, "Johnny went through this, and he did this, and he prayed this way, and look what happened to him." We all have a great testimony of the Lord. Amen?

And it helps us serve better because we know our friends. We're fellowshiping with them.

We know my best friends know where my faults are, right, and where my strengths are. They know what to pray for, to stir Eric in this area.

Don't stir him over here. Don't pour it in the pan here.

Don't bake that oven right there. No.

It's an easy-bake oven. We need a big industrial oven.

So anyway, serving God, you need to be strong in that, and you need to be like a soldier. You need to endure the hardship of a good soldier.

No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. Did you know that you're in the army of God, right?

And you have gifts, and he wants you to go for it. He wants you to sleep with your boots on and be ready for action in and out of season all the time.

And it does get a little smelly out there in the jungle. When you're out in the world and you're battling the evil one, you're battling your flesh.

You're battling the world for, "I'll do my Al Pacino." They just drag me back in. The world does that.

It wants to drag you back in. That wasn't a very good Al Pacino.

I really apologize for that. But anyway, there's a soldier here.

We have Timothy being a good servant, being strong in the Lord, being a soldier, right, and being ready to go. We have verse 5.

Also, if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he plays by the rules. You need to play by the rules.

You should not cheat. If you train yourself, you will do it.

If you train yourself, you're going to do things wrong. You're going to pull a muscle being an athlete.

You need to go with what the trainer and the coach says. We need to do what Jesus says to do, or we're going to end up pulling a muscle or maybe falling off a roof or something.

I just thought I'd bring that up. You don't know.

So it's important to be patient like an athlete and not cheat, to just work out our salvation daily, a little bit of step at a time. And then we have verse 6.

"The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops." So what do we do? We fence.

We fence our land. We break up the fallow ground.

We plant the seed of God's word in the ground in our hearts. Isaiah 55, "It rains down righteousness on us, and it grows the seed of Jesus out of our hearts." And Jesus comes alive to the dying world around us from the inside out.

Isn't that a wonderful thing? And people are going, "Man, I really see Christ growing in you and through you." Yeah, because you're stirring, you're baking, and now God is allowing you to serve, to serve the cake.

And then we just need to be patient and let the seeds grow. And we need to weed and maintain so the final product can be brought forth.

And then lastly, we have a prisoner here. Paul is talking about himself.

Let's do verse 7. "Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all these things.

Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evil doer, even to the point of chains. But the word of God is not chained.

But I'm going to endure all things for the sake of the elect of the chosen ones, of you guys and me, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." So we have all these different examples of the athlete. We have the prisoner.

We have the servant. We have the farmer.

We have a prisoner. And then we need to encourage one another in these things.

We need to help people digest the word of God, to digest the cake that you've eaten, right? It's really important to do that.

And again, then we go back and we start all over again. We hunger and we thirst for God's righteousness.

And if we do that in the Beatitudes, we will be filled. Amen?

And the people around you will be filled. We need to remember to make the man and the woman of God is to stir up that gift, to hold fast the word and guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus and bake.

And then we need to allow ourselves to be served and God doing that work with his power and his love for his service. 2 Timothy 4:1-5.

And I am going to chapters 4:1-5. And this is a charge from Paul, and I'm going to leave you guys with this.

"I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom." Okay, Timothy. Okay, you and me.

Preach the word. Be ready in season and out, whether you like it or not.

Convince, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itchy ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers.

And they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned also into fables. But you, but you, be watchful in all things.

Endure afflictions. Do I circle that?

Do the work of an evangelist and fulfill your ministry. Amen?

Amen.

Stir, bake, and serve. We thank you, Lord, for the lesson in cooking this morning and what you're cooking up in our hearts, Lord.

There's much more to be said about these scriptures, Lord. And I thank you that you've given the word of God to everyone here, everyone on this earth.

And we can search the scriptures ourselves, which you encourage us to do, Lord. And so I thank you for this time with my brothers and sisters, those who I know and those who I don't know, Lord.

And we just thank you for this day. And keep us safe, Lord, in our spirit, and keep us safe on this earth, Lord.

And we just thank you in Jesus' name. And everyone said.

Amen.

And.