Good to see you. Welcome to church. My name is Mark. I have the privilege of being one of the pastors here, and today we’re going to start into a new book of the Bible, 2 Timothy. Typically, we go right through book of the Bible. We just finished 1 Timothy, so we’ll do 2 Timothy. And then we’re gonna do the book of Ruth for a good chunk of the summer.

So it’s good to see you guys. I will pray, and we’ll start this great, great, great book. Hopefully, it’ll be worth our time together.

Father God, we love you. We come together as your people, thanking you first of all that we are not a fatherless people, that we have a Father, that even if we don’t have an earthy father, Lord God, we have a heavenly Father. We have a heavenly Father who knows us and loves us and cares for us and tends to us as his children. We thank you for bringing us together as your family today, Lord God.

We thank you as well, Lord Jesus, for coming to live and die and rise in our place to give us new life, life that is in you and through you and for you and by you. And Holy Spirit, we thank you for inspiring the writing of the Scriptures so that we would know who you are, Lord God, and so that we would know who we are, and we would know what Jesus has done for us and how he can reconcile us back to our Father.

Holy Spirit, we invite you today to come in to illuminate our understanding of the Scriptures that you have inspired, to teach us what it is that we need to know and to give us the grace to become who it is that you desire for us to be. So we invite you into our midst and into our time together today, Holy Spirit. We thank you as our great God for your continual kind ministry toward us, and we receive it in Jesus’ good name. Amen.

As we get into 2 Timothy, it’s interesting. 1 Timothy focused in large part on the church, and the secondary theme in 1 Timothy was Timothy himself. In 2 Timothy it flips. The primary theme is Timothy, the man. The secondary issues relate to the church that he is overseeing and helping to straighten out.

And it’s curious. It’s written from Paul, who’s an older pastor, to Timothy, who’s a younger pastor. In many ways, actually, he’s part of Paul’s legacy. And it’s curious because this is Paul’s final letter. Those of you that know anything about the Bible, you know that Paul contributed a large percentage of the New Testament. He writes more books in the New Testament than anyone else. And of all the books that he wrote, this is the end. This is the end.

At the point where he is writing, he’s sitting in a jail cell. He’s probably got achy joints because he’s getting a little older, and he’s lived a hard life. He’s slept outside. He’s been beaten and shipwrecked and homeless and left for dead. He’s been hungry. He has been hounded. He’s been in prison many times. He’s suffered some brutal and excruciating beatings.

He says in one occasion elsewhere in the New Testament that he “bears the marks of Jesus on his body.” What that means is that he is haggard and weathered and leathered. He is scarred. He’s the kind of guy when he goes to scratch his back, he feels his scars from suffering on Jesus’ behalf.

At this point, he’s sitting all alone in a dark, dank prison cell. They kept telling Paul not to preach the gospel, and he wouldn’t stop. So they came up with a plan by which to completely silence him and to prevent him from preaching about Jesus anymore. And that was that they were going to chop his head off. That’s exactly what happened to him. Same thing that happened to John the Baptist.

And so at this point in his life, Paul is incarcerated. He’s probably hungry. He’s probably cold. He’s probably achy joints. He’s probably sad. He’s probably lonely. He knows that his end is near. He knows that any day he’s going to die, that they’re going to go ahead and behead him.

And so he sits down with a little time on his hands, and he writes a letter. It’s really interesting. He writes a letter to Timothy. And as you get into this book and as we study it together in the coming months, it’s one of the most personal and pastoral and heartfelt sections of your whole Bible.

And I guess it raises the question for you and I, if we were at the end of our life, we were near death and you knew that you only had days or weeks to live, how would you spend it? How would you spend it? He spends it writing a letter to a dear friend and praying.

My question to you is this: If you knew that in the next few days or weeks you were going to die, who would you write to? Who would you write to? And the next question is what would you say? What would you say? It’s this real sobering look at life.

Here’s a guy at the very end of his life, reflecting back in real personal terms and tones. He decides to write to Timothy, and what he has to say to Timothy is unbelievable. He speaks from his heart. It’s very, very personal. I was really convicted reading it this week.

And in particular the first five verses we’re gonna deal with today a lot of the commentators just skip right over it and say, you know, in ancient antiquity you would have the pronouncement of the author and then the recipient and then the general greeting. And then you would move into the body of the letter, and that’s all that this is. I think it’s a lot more than that.

I believe that in the opening lines of a letter when you’re writing to someone that you really, really care about, the first few things that you say begin to reveal your heart and what you’re really hoping to communicate to them. And in the opening letter to Timothy, Paul gives us a good glimpse into what he cares about.

And it’s interesting ’cause at the end of his life, we’re gonna look at the fact that he’s reflecting on three things that are the most important to him, and my hope is that when you leave here today, these are your priorities as well. It’s faith and it’s friendship and it’s family, okay. Those are the three things in the opening letter that he reflects on. His faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, his friendship with Timothy and the family that produced this dear friend of his. So we’ll jump right in. We’ll introduce you to this great letter by this wonderful brother in Christ.

Starts off, “Paul,” so that’s our author. That’s who’s writing the letter. “An apostle of Christ Jesus.” We’ll stop right there. Need to explain for some of you what an apostle is. Some of you come from churches that were kind of charis-maniac, a little weirdish, kind of like an aerobics class. You know, everybody’s freaking out, and you hear the word apostle and you get a twitch just ’cause it brings back all your bad childhood memories of going to tent revival meetings and saying “Jesus” in a bad way.

And when the Bible speaks of apostle, it’s not talking about some, you know, strange, peculiar freak who gets these weird revelations from God. That’s not what it’s talking about at all. In the Bible there are – the word apostle is used in two differentiating ways. One is the office of apostle. Those are the 12 disciples and Paul himself. They’re eyewitnesses to Jesus. These are people that are hand-selected for ministry. Their number is fixed. They write books of the Bible. Apostles in that sense don’t exist today.

Apostles, however, do exist in terms of a gift that God gives. Paul says this to the Corinthians and elsewhere that apostles are particularly gifted leaders that God gives to the church. And what an apostle is, an apostle’s an entrepreneur and a leader. It’s a pastor who leads pastors, and it’s a pastor who helps start and does start other churches.
We would use the language today of a missionary or of a movement leader. We’re more comfortable, a lot of Americans are, with that kind of language.

You look around Seattle or wherever you go, you see a lot of churches. And you gotta ask yourself where did all these churches come from? Well, somewhere an apostle started one. Apostles start churches. Three and a half thousand churches die and close every year in the United States of America. There’s a need for new churches. There’s a need for the beginning of new churches, and that’s what an apostle does.

One of the reasons I love Paul so much is I’m an apostle in the sense of being a church-planter and a movement leader and a pastor of pastors. And I’ll tell you what an apostle cares about. An apostle cares about Jesus. They love Jesus very much, and they love the church very much. They really do. They pour themselves out for the church. Paul gives his whole life to the church to start new churches. His mode of operation is that he pulls into an area, preaches the gospel. People become Christians. He starts a church, hands it off to local leaders, goes to another city, does the same thing, and he does this repeatedly. This is his life’s mission.

This church started in part because God gave me the gift of an apostle. It went from an idea in my head to the church that it is today. And there’s some really difficult things in being an apostle, and I need to explain these to you so you understand Paul, so you understand me. I’m not saying I’m Paul. I mean he’s varsity. I’m Little League, you know. I’m not saying I’m there. I’m not even junior varsity.

But to understand how I’m different than the typical pastor. Some of you will struggle with me. Some of it’s my fault. Some of it too, though, is my role. In a typical church, there’s a pastor who cares for people, and that’s his jurisdiction and his responsibility. That’s what he does. He cares for the people.

When you’re an apostle, you care for your church, but then you have a much broader and wider series of responsibilities. We have helped found an organization that has planted over 100 churches in 8 nations in 3 years. This year alone we’re hoping to start 30 churches in the United States of America.

We give 10 percent of our money as a church – we want our people to tithe. We want our church to tithe. We give 10 percent of our money to help plant other churches because we believe it’s very important that we care about, not just our church, but that we have an apostolic focus that cares as well about other churches. And so we will – that’s what an apostle does.

First thing they do is they assess ’cause people come in and they say, “I wanna start a church.” Well, okay, are you fit? You love your wife? Do you have sound doctrine? Can you work hard? Are you trustworthy? You good with money? We have to assess those people. It’s really hard. I kind of feel like Simon on American Idol sometimes. People meet with me and yes, no, yes, no. What are you thinking, you know?

And some people don’t like that, but you’re trying to assess their fitness to do a work, not because you’re being capricious but because you want to spare them from failure and danger if they’re not really fit for it. That’s part of what an apostle does. What an apostle does then as well is when people are qualified, they send them to go start their church. They say, “We see this gift in you.”

And then as well they send money, so I end up having to raise money. I travel the country and work relationships and build networks and raise money to give to other people, and I never take any of that money. I give it away, so that no one can question my motives. I don’t take a percentage. It’s not like a sales gig.

The other thing that then happens is once those people are sent, then they have all kinds of questions. How do I get people? What about a building? Sound system? I mean, just a million infinite questions, so the phone rings off the hook. My phone is ringing all the time, and it’s usually young pastors asking advice. How do I do this? How do I do this? What about this? What about this? What about this?

And that’s what happens in the New Testament, and that’s where the vast majority of letters that Paul writes is because there’s churches that are having issues, and he needs to teach them how to walk faithfully with God through their trials and circumstances. So part of what an apostle does as well is they write. I’m having to take a lot more time to write. I’m writing curriculum for Mars Hill. I’m publishing. I’m doing a lot of writing, and that’s part of what an apostle does.

They assess other pastors. They train other pastors, and they commission other pastors, and they raise money. They do coaching and help for other pastors. When needs arise, they write books and curriculum and content to articulate to those pastors how to sort out their problems. And that’s all in addition to your work in your local church. And so it’s really – sometimes it can be tiring. I’ll be honest with you today. I’m not feeling strong. I’m not feeling – just not feeling like I’m at the top of my game.

March was one of those months where the apostolic work really, really impinged and encroached, rather, upon the pastoral work. I was gone 9 or 10 days in the month of March out of state with grad school. Young family, writing, moving the offices, this church, everything else spinning. Sometimes it gets to be a lot.

And that’s where you see Paul in his life. He’s moving a lot. He’s writing a lot. He’s involved in a great deal, and he talks about in Corinthians that he labors to the point of exhaustion for the sake of the gospel. That’s what an apostle does. That’s sort of the burden of an apostle.

But the benefit of the apostle and the gift is you get to be on the front row of action with amazing things. You get to see God at work all over the place. I’ll give you an example. We have a church planter, a dear friend named Bill Clem. He’s over in West Seattle. He got given like a $3 million building that seats 1,600 people. Wonderful guy, loves the Lord. His daughter used to go here. Now she’s there helping her dad plant the church, which is the coolest thing I can possibly think of.

His wife was diagnosed with cancer, and she was gonna die. She was terminal. They gave her less than a year to live, and everyone was praying. And they started the church in November. His wife was miraculously healed. She’s completely clear of cancer. She’s perfect and fine and well. See, and I get to see that. It’s amazing.

We had another church planter down in Dallas, Texas. His associate pastor’s name is Guy, which is great. He can just say, “Well, I’m busy. Go meet with the Guy,” and they didn’t have health insurance because they were just starting the church, and they didn’t have the money, and Guy’s wife got diagnosed with cancer as well. And so they laid hands and prayed over her as a church, and she was miraculously healed.

You know, last month even in this church I got to see a couple people healed through prayer. This week I got two phone calls. One young man who planted a church, he’s doing a good job, but he’s struggling with his preaching. It’s like he’s driving a stick shift, and he’s a 16-year-old kid, can’t figure out the clutch, so he’s congregation’s just, you know, along for this bumpy ride with him every Sunday.

And so he calls up. He’s real humble. He’s like, “Okay, I’m preaching. I’m teaching. Help me out. What do I do?” So I work with him on the phone, and hopefully, today he doesn’t totally burn out. Hopefully, he delivers.

Another guy calls, same thing. Good guy, real entrepreneurial, real strong, loves the Lord. He’s in another state. You guys are sending him I think $36,000.00 or $40,000.00 this year to feed his family while he plants his church. And he wanted help preaching as well, so we talked on the phone.

Got another call from a guy on the East Coast this week. He has been here to visit, and he has a job where I think he’s a postman. He downloads the sermons and the music, and he listens to them handing out the mail all day. If you ever wonder why people go postal, apparently it’s ’cause they’re listening to stuff from Mars Hill.

And he was the associate pastor at this church, and the pastor left and real nefarious circumstance but left $600,000.00 of real estate that he’s cashed in. So he calls me up. He says, “Well, I love this city and it needs a new church, and I’ve got this handful of people, and I love my wife, and I love Jesus, and I got $600,000.00. I just don’t know what to do. What do I do?” It’s like we’ll help you spend money. We’re good at that. We can do that.

You know, so I get this privilege now. I’m gonna be out in May training all these church planters, assessing them. I’ll get with this guy, love and pray with him and his wife, and there’ll be a church in that city. There’ll be 30 of these churches in the United States of America just this year, 30 of them.

When you think about it, if you like coming to church, if you like being part of this family, imagine every year getting to see that happen 30 times. You know, a couple years ago, it was 7, and then last year it was 14. This year it’s 30, and our goal is 1,000 before it’s all said and done. And thinking globally now, we’re into eight nations and expanding into a ninth, thinking through strategically how to help other churches get started.

That’s what an apostle is, and that’s what an apostle does. And I wanna thank you guys for letting me be your pastor and also do my apostolic work. I don’t wanna ever leave Mars Hill. I love preaching and teaching here. I love being here. This is a wonderful church, but my heart also is for the whole church and to help other churches and to be a blessing and a benefit because everybody needs Jesus, and there’s a lot of places that don’t have enough good churches, and we need to be involved in helping them.

That’s what drives an apostle. That’s what drives Paul, so he says his name is Paul whose job as an apostle, and sometimes I know you guys read the New Testament and just skip Paul an apostle, blah, blah, blah, blah. There’s a lot there. There’s a lot there. That word apostle for Paul is a huge honor, and it’s his title. It’s his job description. It’s his life call. It’s his mission. It’s his spiritual gift. In some ways it’s a huge portion of his identity, and I share that with him.

He’s an apostle of Christ Jesus. That’s who he serves is Jesus. That’s great. That’s what it’s all about. “By the will of God.” Paul didn’t nominate himself for this job. God appointed him. And I’ll tell you what. There’s days I wish I didn’t have the calling of an apostle. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about it lately with the Mariners coming on at 1:00 today and the season kicking in. My dad will testify to this. He’s here.

I wish I was a bullpen catcher in the major leagues. Lately, I been thinking about it. That’s what I wanna be. I don’t wanna be a real catcher ’cause if you’re a real catcher, you gotta do situps. You gotta run. People boo you, you know. If you’re the bullpen catcher, you get all the benefits of being on the team without actually having to work. The bullpen catcher just sits in the bullpen eating nachos, drinking beer, watching the game. Best seat in the house really. You’re sitting right on the field. Nobody boos you. Nobody fights you. Nobody cusses you out. There’s nobody – nobody wants to kill the bullpen catcher. He doesn’t have stalkers. Just shows up and then when a guy needs to warm up, he just sort of sits on a stool and catches it and throws it back. And as long as he can do that, he’s got job security pretty much indefinitely. That’s what he does.

And I was thinking, man, I would love to be a bullpen catcher. That would be so great. Just nachos and beer and hang out at the ballpark and watch the game. No stress. You don’t even have to own a house ’cause you just travel with the team and stay in a hotel. No lawn to mow, nothing really.

But God didn’t call me to be a bullpen catcher. Paul says he’s this by the will of God, and that’s what God does. God is gonna make you and give you abilities and talents to do things. He’s gonna make me with abilities and talents to do things, and we shouldn’t resist or fight or flee. We should just accept, well, that’s who I am. I love Jesus. I’m gonna do what he asks me to do.

And here’s why we serve God. Here’s why you serve God or should serve God. Here’s why I serve God. “It’s according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus.” That’s it. That’s the motivation. Do you know that there’s life in Christ? Do you know that? It just kills me. The vast majority of people live life apart from Jesus. I can’t even believe that. I can’t even imagine that.

They don’t know how to have their sins forgiven. They don’t know how to forgive other people’s sins. They get bitter and mean and angry, and they get hurt and devastated, and they interpret everything through their hurt and their devastation. They don’t understand that there’s life in Jesus. Otherwise, you’re stuck with life in sin and life in remorse or life in regret or life in response or life lived out of fear. You know what? There’s life in Christ, and you gotta live your life in something. You gotta live your life in someone.

There’s life in Jesus. There’s life in Jesus, and that’s what transforms Paul. He has life in Jesus Christ, and he’s so joyous about what Jesus is to him and who Jesus is to him that he has to impart that to others. He has to deliver that to others. He has to share that with others. That’s the impetus of what an apostle is and does. They live in and with and for and through Jesus, and they want everyone to taste and see that he is good.

First thing Paul cares about is faith, living in Jesus, serving Jesus, walking with Jesus faithfully for the sake of what Jesus loves, and that’s the church. Does your faith matter to you? Is it priority?

If you were to sit down at the end of your life all by yourself and write a letter, would you open up with your faith? Would that be Priority No. 1? Would that be where you would start as the most important thing and the most endearing part of your life in reflection? For Paul it is. His faith is primary.

The second thing that comes up is his friendships. It’s great. Faith, friendships, family. At the end, that’s what matters. Here’s what he says about his friendship. “To Timothy, my dear son.” That’s beautiful. Forty percent of kids tonight go to bed without a father. What does that mean? There’s a whole generation that doesn’t have a dad. What that means is that godly men who follow the example of Paul love young men and then treat them as if they were their own sons. Do you know spiritually you can be a dad even if you’re not a married guy? You can love someone younger than you. You can become like a father.

Some of you have good families. I have a good family. I love my mom. I love my dad. They’re here. It’s my mom’s birthday today. Happy birthday, Mom. You know and it’s good to have family. It’s really good to have family. Some of you don’t have family or you don’t have good family. You could still have spiritual family where you have brothers and sisters and people who are like moms and dads who love you in Christ. And if you have both, you’re doubly blessed. It’s not an either/or. If you can get both, praise God.

Paul doesn’t have a wife. Paul doesn’t seem to have any kids. We don’t have any record of that. Paul’s a guy who the closest thing he has to family are people who love Jesus and that he operates like a father to, mentoring, loving, encouraging. “Timothy, you’re my son.”

Timothy doesn’t have a believing father. Some of you don’t have a Christian dad. In Acts chapter 16 we learn that his mom was a believer, but his dad wasn’t. Timothy never had an older man who understood the Bible, an older man who would pray for him, an older man that he could follow like a father spiritually, and so Paul fills that role for him. It’s beautiful.

I’ll plug it, too. We’ve got our Men’s Advance coming up. One of the big reasons that we’re doing this first men’s event is because we want the men to get to know each other. We want relationships to be built. We want it to be an opportunity of connecting. If you’re here, and you’re a single mother, and you have a son who’s old enough to go, let us know, and we’ll make sure that a godly man takes you son and that your son is hanging out with other men and that someone loves him like a father and that he gets some good relational connection. That’s important to us. It’s really important to us.

Paul says that “I love Timothy like a son,” but they’re friends. They’re friends. And I’ll tell you this, too. The friendship here is interesting because in our day usually you only have friendship based upon affinity, right? Which means, “Hey, we all ride motorcycles. We’re friends. Hey, we all – I don’t know – brew beer. We’re friends. Hey, you know, we’re all in prison. We’re friends.” You know, there’s something that sort of holds you together, you know? There’s something that holds you together.

And one of the weirdest things, too, is that in 1960s something very, very sad happened and that is this concept of a generational identity, okay. Until then, there were just human beings, and then all of the sudden, everybody gets naked and high and drives around the country in beat-up vans playing Where’s Waldo with their inner child trying to figure out who they are. And all of the sudden there’s this concept of a generational identity.

So now everybody defines themselves by their age. And the church even does that, which is kind of silly really. Age is a weird thing to identify yourself by. It’s as weird as height. I was thinking about it. You know, it’d be weird if you said, “Well, our church is for tall people,” you know, and there’s a big line, and you can’t come to this service unless you’re over this. We have a really tall pastor. We sing songs about the Nephilim and Goliath. It’s for big people.

And then we have this other service for shorter people, you know. It’s a service – we have a jockey give his testimony at altar call, and then we sing songs about Zacchaeus, and you know, it’s just weird. It’s like, you know, people sort of break themselves up by really obscure variables.

What you see in the Bible is age is not a primary demarcation of friendship. At this point, Paul and Timothy have been together for 15 years. Timothy is about my age. He’s in his early to mid-30s. Paul is quite a bit older, old enough to be his father, but they’re friends. They’re friends.

I’m not saying it’s a sin for high school kids to get together or for college students or single people or, you know, new moms or married couples, not saying that. But I’m saying that it’s so important that you and I learn that it’s good to have friendships across age spectrums. It is. It’s good for those people that are younger. It’s good for those people that are older across the age spectrum.

I really like high school kids. They’re not married. They don’t need a lot of counseling. I like them. I just do, quite frankly. I like college students a lot. I came to Christ when I was a college student. I like college students. Some of my good friends are college students and high school students. That’s okay. That’s good.

You know, you can have older friends, younger friends. It’s wonderful. That’s how it should be in the church, and I know some of you are here and you’re older and you’re saying, “Man, I can drive or I can shave, and I just feel so old when I come to Mars Hill.” And welcome. It’s good to have you, you know. It’s good to have people that are not 20 and unemployed and homeless and skateboarding to church. Welcome, you know. We could use the stability. We’re glad to have you.

And something got out early in the church, “Oh, they’re a Gen-X church,” which to me is just like nails to the chalkboard. It’s like, no, we’re Jesus’ church. It would be great if somebody showed up who had any wisdom. We would welcome them, embrace them and give them 100 dysfunctional people to disciple. I mean, that’s what we would do. It’s good to have friendships across the spectrum.

And so you need to know this, too. Wherever you’re at at your life stage, there are younger people, even at this church, that are watching you and look up to you, and you have a very important ministry. And a bit of friendship to those people is very, very important. And I want you to get that deep down in your DNA ’cause someday we’re all gonna be old and mean, and the band’ll be too loud, and we’ll tell the kids to go plant a church ’cause they’re driving us crazy doing whatever thing they’re doing.

And we always need to have the heart of Paul that says as I get older, I really wanna be a person who loves younger people, who embraces them and who is a friend with them and loves them like a parent. And that’s his heart for Timothy. He says, “Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is how to have a friendship.

If you’re not a Christian, you don’t have the tools by which to have an enduring friendship, okay. I know that sounds very mean. Here’s what happens, though. People sin against each other. And if you don’t know what to do with sin, you’re not gonna have an enduring friendship, right?

First thing is you need friendship with God. Your friendship with God is predicated on grace. God forgives you. You don’t have to pay him back, make it up to him. Certain people that are bitter, don’t understand sin, they’ll say things like, “You need to make it up. I’ll never forgive you. You’ve ruined everything. You know, we’re never gonna be close. I can’t trust…” No, grace takes that all away. If you understand grace, grace cleans up the mess.

And it’s mercy, okay? You’ve sinned against God. He gives you grace. You sin against God. He gives you mercy. Mercy is where God should punish you. He should crush you. He should hurt you. He should harm you. He should get vengeance and retribution, and he doesn’t. He withholds that. That’s mercy. That’s mercy. God doesn’t unload when he could and should.

That leads to peace in the relationship with God. You have peace with God. He loves you. He embraces you. He takes away your sin that separates you so that you can be close to him and you can be friends with him.

Once you have friendship with God, then you’re ready to have friendships. You say, “Well, I’ve sinned against you. You’ve sinned against me. But that’s okay. We understand grace.” “Well, I’m really mad, and I’d like to let you have it, but I’m not gonna because we understand mercy.” “And I’d like to fight and declare war and yell and scream, but you know what? I understand peace.” People who have friendship with God become good friends. They understand what to do with sin when they sin against others and when others sin against them.

Paul has a great friendship with Timothy because they’re both Christians, because they’re both Christians. And here’s where you get grace, mercy and peace. It comes from God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the only place you get grace, mercy and peace. It’s the only way you can deal with sin and have a friendship with God and a friendship with other people is it comes through Jesus’ death and resurrection for your sin.

That is the heart of New Testament friendship. Everyone else is just left with affinity. I hang out with people that are like me that I have common interests with, and eventually those relationships fall apart when sin happens. Christians are capable by God’s grace of having friendship because of the friendship that God has extended to them through Jesus.

So here’s what he says. “I thank God.” And where’s Paul? Where’s he at?

Response: Prison.

Prison. Now that’s a weird thing to say from jail. “I thank God. I thank God.” What are the gonna do to him shortly? Chop his head off, and he says “I thank God.” At this point, he probably doesn’t even have a chair to sit on. He’s probably sitting on a cold, dark floor, sitting there squinting in darkness, trying to write this letter to Timothy, and here’s what he says. “I thank God.” That’s a weird line. “I thank God.”

Some of you really struggle with being thankful people. I’ll give you a key. Here’s why some of you struggle with being thankful people. You can’t find joy in the life of others. It’s true. I say that, not to shame you and to scold you, but to point out something that’s tremendously important.

Is Paul getting his joy and thankfulness from his circumstance? He’s not. Where’s he getting his joy? From his friend. When your life is hard, when your life is disappointing, when it is not what you anticipated or expected or hoped or prayed for, and you see someone growing in Christ or someone being blessed or someone having an opportunity that you have not received, you only have two choices: to rejoice and to share their joy or to become covetous and jealous and bitter.

“I thank God whom I serve.” Paul’s thankful that he gets to serve. It’s a real honor to serve. Jesus served us. “As my forefathers did,” he’s thankful that he gets to be part of a legacy. You know, guys, it’s a great honor if you come from a Christian family to be part of a legacy, be part of a legacy.

Every family has sin, and at some point God raises up a matriarch and a patriarch. He raises up somebody that he’s gonna just start a whole new direction in the family through. And the children and the grandchildren and the great grandchildren that are born through that line, they’re part of the legacy, okay.

We got to Seattle because my mom and dad wanted a new way of life for me and my siblings, okay. My dad’s our forefather. He’s our patriarch. Now, through him, we’re part of his legacy. So I tell my sons, “You’re Driscoll boys. You’re Driscoll boys. Me and Grandpa, we’re your forefathers. How you conduct yourself, very important, very important.”

Paul’s grateful that he gets to serve God and that his forefathers served God and that he gets to be part of a family that serves God. Some of you are sitting there saying, “But my parents don’t love the Lord. I don’t come from a Christian family.” Then you’re the matriarch or the patriarch. You’re not the legacy. You’re the forefathers. And the decisions you make now will implicate future generations. It’s very important how you conduct yourself.

Paul sees Timothy as being adopted in literally as a member of his family and part of his legacy. Says he serves with a clear conscience. I’ll tell you what, guys. That’s worth everything. Paul’s sitting in prison, and here’s what he’s thinking. “I don’t have a wife. I don’t have kids. I don’t have health. I don’t have a house. I have a clear conscience, though.” I’ll tell you guys what. Priority No. 1 is a life of service to Jesus and love for others so that when you wake up in the morning, you have a clear conscience.

A lot o people in our culture struggle with depression. A lot of people in our culture struggle with anxiety. I’m not saying that there are not medical, legitimate issues for some people, but a lot of people, their real problem is this: They don’t have a clear conscience. Why? ‘Cause they’re not living for the love of God and the love of others. They’re living exclusively for themselves.

They came to Jesus and they asked him, “What are the most important things, Jesus? He says love God and love people. Our culture will tell you what’s the most important thing? Love yourself.
Paul is finding his joy in the fact that he serves Jesus and he serves people. And there’s joy in that for him, and he has a clear conscience. Paul is not sitting around obsessing about his own life. How do I think? How do I feel? What do I want? What do I need? He’s thinking about Timothy, his friend. He’s selfless.

Had somebody come up to me recently. Said “How are you doing?” I look and I say, “I have no idea.” I don’t. I could say like I’m tired or furry. I mean, I could tell you what I am, but like how I’m doing I don’t know ’cause I don’t sit around and chart and graph and introspect and, you know, how am I today as opposed to last Tuesday? Do I get a gold star on my chart? I mean, is it like the terror alert? Oh, today’s an amber day. You know, I don’t now. I don’t. I just don’t know. I’m bipedal, upright, breathing. All my objectives are met. I seem to be doing fine, you know. I’m okay.

What you want, you wanna just live your life for God and other people, and if you wanna shoot for anything, shoot for service with a clear conscience. Most people don’t. They obliterate their conscience to chase some goal. I’m gonna get rich or I’m gonna get sex or I’m gonna get stuff or I’m gonna get power. I’m gonna get something. I’ll tell you what. Your goal is a clear conscience. Wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, say, “Hey, I’m not embarrassed to be with you. I’m not ashamed that that’s who I am. I have a clear conscience.” It’s the one thing that God gives that no one else can give you is a clear conscience.

Here’s what he’s doing. “As night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.” Paul’s sitting in prison. What he doesn’t write is, “I’m in prison. The food is terrible. I’m sitting on the floor. I’m going to the bathroom in a can in the corner. I’ve served God faithfully. My joints are aching. I’m lonely. I’m hurting. They’re gonna chop my head off. I’ve become very committed to my head. It’s like an addiction. I just seem – I can’t fathom not having my head. Timothy, please set up a Web site and picket and protest and send out an e-mail chain, and make sure that my head stays on my shoulders, Timothy. Please pray for me. Please pray for me, Timothy. I really want my head.”

Now, of all the things, this one seems pretty important, right? I mean, a lot of things you go “that’s not a big deal.” Your head, that’s a big deal. That’s sort of – you need that for everything else. And what Timothy’s getting from Paul is not a letter of complaining. “Where’s God? I served God all my life. I love God. I did a lot of things, and now God’s got me, you know, in a terrible place. And I’m gonna lose my head ,and this is terrible, and it’s awful, and what kind of God are you?” It’s not that at all. What is it?

Timothy, I’m thankful that I’m in prison because I’m free to pray, and I don’t have interruptions. The phone doesn’t ring. There’s no e-mail. I’m free to pray, and here’s what I do, Timothy. I pray for you all day and all night. That’s what I’m doing. Paul’s saying, “Man, I only got a few days left. There’s only a few hours left on my clock. I better get down on my knees and pray for my buddy while I have time.”

Guys, are you a friend? Are you a friend to anyone? Are your friends those people you use or are your friends those people that you give to, you love, you pray for? Paul is a wonderful friend to Timothy. He’s in prison spending his breath praying for his friend. You need to be praying for your friends. And then you need to tell them that you’re praying for them.

Our day is filled with e-mail and phone calls and chat. When’s the last time you actually got a handwritten letter from someone saying “I love you,” things like “recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I miss you. I love you. You make me happy. I appreciate your company. You’re a wonderful friend. I’m praying for you.” How many of you that would be a big deal to get that note in the mail?

We need to be the people who write those notes. That’s all this is. This book we’re studying, it’s a note written from Paul to Timothy. It’s a prayer in many ways from one buddy to another. There are people in your life that don’t know that you love them. They don’t know that you enjoy them. They don’t know how you feel about them. They don’t know that you’re praying for them. You need to let them know. You need to let them know. It’s so important.

I got really convicted some months ago, and I started writing handwritten notes to people. I got a big stack of cards, and when people come to mind, I pray for them. I think of them, and I just write a note. “I love you. I’m thinking of you. I’m praying for you. God gave me this verse as I was thinking of you. I give it to you in faith that God will use it to minister to you.” Send those off. You guys would be amazed what happens.

Paul’s at the end of his life. Here’s what matters to him: faith. I love Jesus. I serve Jesus. Friends. Timothy, I’m praying for you. Timothy, I’m praying for you. As long as I have breath, I’m gonna use it to pray for you.

Third thing that Paul cares about is family, and this is beautiful. He says, “Timothy, I’ve been reminded of your sincere faith.” Paul’s sitting in prison. What’s he thinking about? Timothy’s faith, not just a faith, a sincere faith, sincere faith.

I’ll tell you what, guys. We live in the age of tremendous insincerity, tremendous insincerity. People pretend that they care. They don’t really care. There’s not a lot of people that really care about other people. And part of it is because we’re so selfish and so narcissistic and self-absorbed. We even come up to other people and we say, “How are you doing?” No one in this culture ever asks how are the people that you love doing? That’s really important.

Timothy comes from a family of sincere faith. There are so many people being a pastor that I get to meet and so few that their faith is so sincere that I actually believe that they are the same person when they’re not with their pastor as they are when they are with him. So many people will say the words and go through the motions and play the game, but then when you get to the heart of it, they’re by themselves, their faith isn’t sincere. It’s almost like two different people. This inconsistency comes. There’s no sincerity.

I had a conversation with a person some months ago. It was really convicting. I was trying to figure out why they became a Christian. I said, “Did you become a Christian because you were convinced of the intellectual arguments or because you were afraid of Hell or because, you know, you wanna go to Heaven or ’cause you wanna live a certain kind of lifestyle or you wanna be a moral person or why?” Person said, “I like Jesus.”

That’s it. I said, “Anything else?” They’re like no. I was like, “So you like the person, not just the blessings.” They said, “Yeah.” See, that’s sincerity ’cause if you love Jesus for the stuff, you’ll get mad at him when you don’t get your stuff. If you love Jesus ’cause you’re healthy, when you’re sick, you’ll get mad at him. If you love Jesus because your life is easy and he makes your life easy, when he lets it go hard, you’ll get mad at him.

But if your faith is sincere, you say, “I like Jesus.” And it really doesn’t matter what happens after that. You’re gonna be consistent because of your sincerity. It was really convicting.

I’m not saying we don’t need God. We do need God for everything. And I’m not saying we come to God with selfless motives and intentions, but man, the sincerity is so important. You ever met somebody that says, “I love you.” They could tell they did. They said, “I love God,” and you thought, you know, they do. You met somebody and they said, “Well, I’m gonna serve you. I’ll take care of that,” and you go, you know, I think they’re actually gonna do that. Somebody says, “I’m gonna be praying,” and you go, you know, I think they’re gonna pray. Vast majority of people sort of give out good intentions, but there’s no sincerity behind it.

The reason why Paul loves Timothy so much, and I guess this is the key. If you’re a person that wants to have a lot of friends, be the sincere person. Sincere people are magnets for friendship. They care. He says, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and now I am persuaded lives in you also.” This is great. This is great.

Who’s the pastor at the church in Ephesus where Timothy is laboring? We don’t know. Who leads worship? We don’t know. Who are the elders? We just don’t know. What kind of building do they meet in? We have no idea. How good is the band? I mean, it’s not this good, but is it any good? We don’t know. We don’t know. We don’t know.

What we do know is Lois rocks. That’s what we do know. Lois is an incredible grandmother. She is the rock star of the church at Ephesus. She is the queen of the church. Well, who’s the most sincere, devout person here? Lois. Lois. Lois is awesome. She’s, you know, God’s grandma. That’s who she is. She is the best. Big T-shirt. She comes to church. God’s grandma. I mean, she’s wearing that T-shirt. She owns it. She is God’s grandma. That’s who she is.

She is a woman of sincere faith, and she took that sincere faith, and she passed it on to her daughter named Eunice. Her daughter, sincere love for Jesus, sincere faith. It goes from Grandma to Mom to Timothy, to Timothy. Bible says to honor your mother and father. That’s what Paul’s doing. Paul is honoring the mother and the grandmother here. He said, “I love Timothy, but I love Timothy ’cause of Lois and Eunice. Man, I’ve eaten their cookies, and they’ve prayed for me. I’m telling you, man, those are some great ladies right there. They love Jesus, and it shows.”

In our culture it’s really weird ’cause we have this weird view of raising children. The first thing is to raise a good child before you ever have a child, you need a good prenuptial agreement. That’s how you begin your childrearing, with a good prenuptial agreement so that when you get married and get pregnant and then you get divorced, ’cause that’s what you’re gonna do, then you can make sure that there’s enough money so that the kid can have therapy and he can go into daycare and afterschool program and that he can get the very best nanny that money can afford.

And here there’s this Plan B called Grandma. It’s a wonderful plan. It’s been working for a long time. Our plan isn’t going according to plan. It’s not what it should be. The Bible says grandma and mom, elevates these two high offices. See, the churches run by elders and deacons, and the home is run by moms and grandmas. It’s these great high offices.

In our culture you hear of mother and grandmother, and people say “what are you?” You say, “I’m a mother. I’m a grandmother.” They go, “Oh, so you can’t read. Couldn’t get a job.” I can read, you know. I’ll read you sections of the Bible and tell you where people like you go. And mom and grandma are incredibly important, hugely important.

And I know some – how many grandmothers are in the room today? Any grandmas? Welcome to Mars Hill. You have a very high honor. My mom’s here. It’s her birthday. I’ll tell you about my mom. My mom loves the grandkids. My kids have a relationship with Grandma where Grandma gets imparted to the grandkids. Is that good?

Response: Yeah.

Yeah, well, it depends on the grandma, right? I mean, it kind of does. It’s like there’s certain of you going, “I can’t let my kids go near Grandma ’cause I don’t have enough bail money.” It’s like…

But if you have a good grandma who loves the Lord and loves the kids, there’s a part of Grandma that gets imparted to the grandchildren that’s very important. My mom loves me. I have a wonderful mother. She’s wonderful to my kids. Grace’s mom, my wife, her mother, my mother-in-law, loves the grandkids. We have both grandmothers and both grandfathers. They live locally, and they’re involved in our children’s life.

And I’ll tell you what I’m starting to see in our kids. I’m starting to see pieces of my dad, pieces of my mom, pieces of my father-in-law and my mother-in-law in my kids. And you know what? This woman has a sincere faith that goes into her daughter, and then it goes into her grandson. That beautiful?

I know some of you are saying, “Man, I gotta call my mom or my dad and I gotta thank them because there’s a piece of them that’s in me, and that piece is or will by in my child or children, and I wanna thank God for that.” And some of you are saying, “Man, I wish I had that kind of grandma or grandpa.” Well, guess what. In faith you might. You should pray for and seek out someone who’s older and loves Jesus and can function in that role in your life. And you wanna be a matriarch and a patriarch so that someday you, too, can be the kind of person.

You wanna be that person someday that somebody says, “Man, you know, you love Jesus, and your kids loves Jesus, and your grandkids love Jesus, and we all benefit from that. Thank you for the sincerity of your faith. It’s really working itself out through the generations.” That’s what you guys wanna be.

How many of you are mothers? We love mothers at this church. We love mothers at this church. We honor mothers. We esteem motherhood. It’s incredibly important. The sincerity of your faith, ladies, should be imparted to your children. And if you have an insincere faith, that too will be imparted to those children. A mother gets the vast majority of time with her child, and she is possibly the leading variable for who that child becomes.

Faith matters. Friends matter. Family matters. You’re not gonna get that unless you read your Bible. You’re not gonna get that unless you read your Bible. You guys think about it. Our culture doesn’t value any of those things. Faith? Faith is not valued. Friendship is not valued. People use one another. They don’t serve one another. And family? Family’s no valued.

Seattle has less children per capita than any city in the U.S. other than San Francisco. Seattle has a cohabitation rate that is 250 percent higher than the national average. People in Seattle wanna have sex. They don’t wanna have marriage. They don’t wanna have kids.

What matters here for Paul as he’s sitting in his jail cell. He’s nearing the end. He’s gonna die. Here’s what he’s thinking about: his legacy. He’s thinking about his legacy. See, we’re encouraged to just be completely self-absorbed people that have no concept of the future. That’s our world. That’s why people don’t invest. They don’t care if they leave anything when they’re gone. They don’t invest spiritually. They don’t care.

There are people who think, “I don’t wanna have kids. They’re an inconvenience. I don’t wanna have grandkids. They’re an inconvenience. I don’t wanna have a spouse. It’s an inconvenience.” I’ll tell you what, though, Mars Hill. We care about our legacy very much. It’s very important to us as a church.

My hope and prayer and goal is that in two or three generations we own this dump, that this city belongs to us because we’re the only people putting people in the future. Everyone else who doesn’t share God’s values doesn’t get married, doesn’t have kids. Should they get pregnant, they abort the child. We’re hoping to be fruitful, multiply, increase in number and take over all the real estate. That’s our little plan, okay.

I care about my legacy. I don’t wanna just serve Jesus and die. I want my sons and daughters to serve Jesus with their sons and daughters, and I hope that the sincere faith that resides in my parents resides in me, resides in my kids, resides in their kids and that there’s a legacy that continues down.

Three generations from now, who’s gonna teach the Bible? Who’s gonna preach the gospel? Who’s going to evangelize the lost? Who’s gonna be here to do that? It should be your children. Should be our children. We should have sincere faith by grace that enables us to impart that to future generations because we don’t just have children at this church ’cause they’re cute and they’re fun and it’s like having a miniature photocopy of us running around. We have kids, in large part, because legacy matters. And someday you’re gonna be old like Paul. You’re gonna be near death like Paul. You’re gonna be sitting there like Paul. And you’re gonna be thinking what did I do with my life, and when I’m gone, what remains? Faith, friends, family.

And you know what, guys? Those are the three things you take into the Kingdom with you. Your faith and the good deeds, the fruit of your faith, friends who love Jesus and family members who share your sincere faith. Those are the only three things you take into the Kingdom with you. People and good works, that’s it. That’s it. That’s all at the end that truly matters.

And we have kids because we care about legacy. I hope and I pray that one of my grandsons plants a church and that I get to sit in the pew and have him preach to me. That’s what I pray. And I pray he convicts me. I pray that my great-grandsons and their wives do the same thing.

People who don’t know God, they’re so short-sighted. They’re so narrow and they sit around. They say things like, “I’m not happy. I don’t feel satisfied. I don’t feel fulfilled.” When you’ve given your life to something other than faith, friends and family, you should be ’cause you’re not operating by biblical values. You’re not functioning as a child of God, not working out of the heart of God.

And I know some of you hear this and you say, “My life is messed up. It’s backwards. It’s not right. I need to be a patriarch or matriarch. I need to start my family different with me. Or I need to carry on the legacy that’s been handed me by God’s kindness. I’m part of that legacy.”

Here’s the good news. This is written by who? Who writes the section we’ve been studying for the last hour?

Response: Paul.

Paul. Is that his real name? It’s not his real name?
Response: Saul.

Saul. He wasn’t a guy who loved Jesus and taught the Bible and lived by the Bible’s values and was about faith, friendship and family. He was Saul, the murdering, self-righteous terrorist is what he was. He met Jesus. He realized that he was a sinner, that he was working in antithesis to the plan of God on the earth. He came to repentance, and he brought his sins to Jesus, who lived without sin and died and rose to forgive and take away sin. Jesus changed Saul’s heart, forgave Saul, changed his name to Paul.

He went from Saul to Paul, and here’s the good news. It doesn’t matter where you start. You can end somewhere else. The guy who’s sitting in the jail cell with his heart didn’t start that way. He started as the kind of vile and despicable man that none of us would aspire to be.

When you meet Jesus, he changes you so utterly and thoroughly. He gives you such a completely fresh start, a new life that sometimes you need to change your name ’cause you’re not even the same person.

You can come to Jesus and ask him for forgiveness. You can ask him for new life. You can ask him, and he will answer your prayer. He’ll give you sincere faith, and he’ll let you start over and live your life for faith, friends and family. I would encourage you to do that today.

Another thing I’m gonna give you is I’m gonna give you an assignment, something for you to do when you leave here. You’re gonna write a letter, maybe more than one. I want you to sit where Paul sat. I want you to think had I only a few weeks, and I knew that they were going to kill me, ask these questions: Who would I write to? And what would I say? And then write that letter. Those people that you love, articulate that. Those people that have imparted much to you, thank them. Those people that are your joy, notify them. Those people that you’ve been praying for, let them know.

So oftentimes we grab a book of the Bible and we drill down and we argue over the Greek text. What does prayer mean in the Greek? It’s very simple. A guy’s gonna die. He’s thinking about his friend. He writes him a letter and he shares his heart. For you to really understand what’s going on in the book, you need to do the same thing. You need to do the same thing and articulate to those you care about.

Faith, family, friendship. You need to notify them. You need to send that out, not in an e-mail. That’s too trite a form. Handwrite it, articulate it, pray it through. Take you time. Share your heart with those who don’t know the Lord, those who do. Those that you love, those that you’re encouraged by, those that you’re concerned about, articulate to them what is on your heart. Follow the example of Paul, and then see what God does with those words. He’s using a very similar method to teach us all something today, and I want you follow in that legacy.

I love you. It’s good to be your pastor. I’m gonna send you now to get some time with Jesus. We’ll partake of communion remembering his body and blood. If you’re a Christian, you’re welcome to partake. If you give your life to Jesus today and you become a Christian, you’re welcome to partake.

We’ll give of your tithes and offerings. If you’re not a Christian, you’re a first-time visitor, don’t give. You’re a guest. We love you. So does Jesus. We don’t want your money. When you’re ready, you can partake. Then we’ll sing and celebrate. It’s interesting. Even if you’re unable to work yourself up into joy today, follow in the example of Paul and get your joy from what is happening in the lives of others.

Lord Jesus, we do love you. We thank you for an opportunity to study. God, for those of us that have faith, thank you. For those of us who don’t, I pray you would give us faith. It matters most. It’s the first thing.

God, for those of us that have friends, thank you for those friends. For those of us that are friends, thank you that we get the high privilege of being a friend, loving people and praying for them and celebrating when they have joy.

And God, for family I pray for those who are single that have been called for marriage that you would provide the right spouse at the right time. For those, God, who aspire to be parents, particularly those women who are struggling with infertility or miscarriages, I pray for the blessing and honor to be a mother.

God, for those grandmothers in our midst, I pray you would remind them of the very important role that they serve imparting sincere faith to their legacy.

And Lord Jesus, we ask that this week as we write our letter that you would help us think through who we should speak to and what we should say, that we’d have an opportunity to share our heart, whether it be something encouraging or something very disturbing, that we would be honest and loving and gracious and forthright like Paul and that, God, you would use those words to impact people in a positive way to direct them toward you and that you would use our words, though they are not inspired, maybe in the similar way that they encouraged Timothy and spurred him on. May, God, you use our words to do the same for others that we adore.

God, thank you for this church where I get to be a pastor and an apostle. We give ourselves to you. We love you and we thank you for your work in our midst, and we rejoice in all that you’ve done. Amen.