Bethany Bible Church Sunday Sermon Message July 2o, 2025

2 Timothy 1:1-7

Theme: Looking back to the foundations of our faith in Jesus, we should continually ‘stir into flame’ our commitment to His service.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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This morning, we begin a new study of the apostle Paul’s second letter to Pastor Timothy. It’s a natural follow-up to the study we have just completed of his first letter to Timothy. But there are some very important differences between the two letters. One difference is in the situation of the writer. In the first letter, the apostle Paul was very active in ministry—freely preaching as he traveled from one place to another. But in this second letter, he was no longer free to minister. In fact, he was in prison. Sometime between the first and the second letter, Emperor Nero had begun a very fierce campaign of official persecution against Christians; and Paul had been taken up and arrested. He wrote this letter from a prison cell in Rome—abandoned by many of his co-laborers in ministry, lonely, cold, and far away from those he loved. It’s very apparent in this second letter that Paul fully expected to be put to death for his faith. In fact, he was put to death not long after he wrote it. It’s a very serious letter—one in which Paul asserted every word of instruction and encouragement in it by the solemn pledge of his own life. Another difference between these two letters has to do with their main themes. In the first letter, the apostle Paul was instructing Pastor Timothy to stay faithful and true to the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He told Timothy to protect that gospel diligently, and to instruct the church family under his care to live out the implications of that gospel before the watching world. But in the second letter, the apostle Paul sought to encourage Timothy to endure faithfully for the Lord Jesus all the way to the end—keeping his eyes fixed on the heavenly glory that would follow. The first letter can be summed up by the words, “Protect the life-changing gospel!”—with Paul himself serving as an example of its transforming power. But this second letter can be summed up by the words, “Endure in the faith!”—with Paul himself serving as an example of that endurance all the way to the end. I suggest that the key verse to this second letter is the one that’s found in 2 Timothy 3:14;

But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them … (2 Timothy 3:14).

And a third difference between those two letters has to do with the condition of the recipient. When Paul wrote his first letter to Timothy, he laid out a set of instructions to him concerning his care for the defense of the gospel and the instruction of God’s people. And Timothy received those instructions with the expectation that he’d go forth and put them into practice. But in the second letter, it’s very evident that Timothy needed to receive encouragement. He had been watching the things that had been happening to his beloved mentor, Paul, and it was beginning to tempt him—in some degree—to hold back. He may have been beginning to lose some of his courage for the task. Timothy’s naturally timid nature was beginning to hinder him; and Paul had to tell him 2 Timothy 1:8;

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God … (1:8).

Paul wanted Timothy to watch him and to be encouraged by his own confidence; telling him in verse 12;

… I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day (v. 12).

So; this second letter is a gloriously rich one that calls us to have courage and take our faith in Jesus seriously—so seriously, in fact, that we’d be prepared to endure in it and cling tightly to it without compromise to the very end. It’s a good letter for those of us who may have—in our day—grown weary in the battle for the faith, or who may even be tempted to draw back in fear. And it begins with these powerful words:

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 God, 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 is in you also. Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind (vv. 1-7).

This is the last of Paul’s letters that the Holy Spirit has seen fit to preserve for us in the Bible. It gives us Paul’s final words to his beloved younger brother, Timothy, and to the people of God that Timothy served. And what a victorious way to begin it! What an encouragement these opening words have been to Jesus’ followers throughout the centuries!

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Now, I wonder, dear brothers and sisters: Do you ever stop and think of the faithful Christians who God used to lead you to a personal faith in Jesus? Do you ever think of the Christians who mentored you, who helped you, who encouraged you to grow in that faith, and who helped lay a good foundation for you? Perhaps it was a pastor. Perhaps it was a Sunday school teacher. Perhaps it was a family member or relative—a godly mother or a godly father; or a grandmother or grandfather; or even a brother or sister. Perhaps it was a faithful Christian whom you knew from school or at the workplace. Perhaps it was several people in a church that you attended. But do you ever thank God for those faithful Christians who introduced you to Jesus, and showed you the way to Him; who modeled that Christian faith to you, and prayed for your growth in a relationship with the Savior? Just a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the church building where I began attending after accepting the Lord in the mid-1970s. It’s a very old brick building; and they’re preparing to tear it down in order to build a new building in it’s place. But while I was there, I got to walk around with some of my oldest Christian friends through the old sanctuary, down the old hallways, and into the various old Sunday school rooms. We were all sharing a lot of memories together about the place. But what I remembered the most was the people in that church who had built into my life back in those early days. I could walk around to various places and remember the words of encouragement I was given in this room, and prayers that were made for me and that room, and instructions I had been given in those various places. I stood out on the sidewalk, or out on the porch steps, and remembered conversations and encounters I had there that inspired my faith in Jesus. I could remember the people who loved me and cared for me in those earliest years of my Christian faith—many of whose names I can no longer remember and who have long since gone to be with the Lord … but who I can still envision. They encouraged me at a time when it was hard for me to be a Christian—back when there was a lot of opposition pressing in all around me against my newfound faith from family and friends. Those dear seasoned saints in that old church family modeled an endurance in the faith to me—praying for me, over fifty years ago, in ways that I didn’t find out about until much later in life. I’ve done a lot of thinking about those dear believers lately—and many others like them. I am genuinely grateful to God for the foundation I was given early on for my faith. Do you have people like that in your life? Do you remember the foundations of the faith you were given? It may be that many years have passed; and that you feel as if the Christian faith is much harder to live by today than it was back then. And it may even be that your zeal for the faith has grown a little colder than it used to be; or that you’re just not as enthusiastic and sacrificial in your service for the Lord Jesus as you once were. It may be that—like Timothy—you feel a little tempted to hold back in your Christian witness and service. It may be that—like him—you need to be encouraged to ‘stir up the flame’ of that initial zeal once again. These opening words of Paul’s letter teach us a vital principle: Looking back to the foundations of our faith in Jesus, we should continually ‘stir into flame’ our commitment to His service. The apostle Paul even shows us how to go about that.

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Now; before Paul told Pastor Timothy to ‘stir up the gift of God’ which is in him, he began by reminding him of some of the foundational people who had built into his life. He helped Timothy to remember how that early flame got started. Those earlier saints were the ones who had led him to the Lord, and who had taught him to plant his roots down deeply into a relationship with the Savior Himself. Maybe Paul’s words caused Timothy to go back in his memory, walk through certain halls and rooms and places and paths, remember the people that instructed him, and to be encouraged by those early foundations of faith. And getting back to those foundational things in our own Christian lives would also help encourage us to ‘stir up’ our commitment in a new and fresh way, too. His introductory words to Timothy show us that we can do this by …

1. ACKNOWLEDGING MENTORS WHO LOVED US.

Paul began by reminding Timothy who he himself was. In verse 1, he wrote, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus …” Some Bible commentators have suggested that these opening words were proof that this was a letter that was meant to be read to the whole church. Such an introduction as this would hardly have been necessary for Timothy; since he certainly already knew Paul and was already convinced of his spiritual authority. But while I agree that it was meant to be read to the whole church, I think that—given the larger context of this letter—Timothy did need to be reminded of Paul’s spiritual authority. It would have helped young Timothy to remember that he was dearly loved by the man who had been appointed, by Christ Himself, to be the preacher to the Gentiles of Christ’s unsearchable riches. Paul called himself “an apostle”; which means that he was a ‘sent-one’ who had been officially authorized by the Lord Jesus Himself to declare the good news to the world. Paul hadn’t taken this honor to himself, but it had been given to him “by the will of God”. He was always careful to point out that he neither received this gospel from men, nor was taught it, but that it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:12). He had been called out by the Lord Himself from a life of sin—having been a persecutor of the church. He had been made into a preacher of the gospel, which is “according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus”. Could Timothy have had a greater mentor in an enduring faith than this man Paul—who was even then showing Timothy how to keep faithful to the end? And notice how he spoke of Timothy himself. Paul wrote in verse 2, “To Timothy, a beloved son …” That was Paul’s favorite way of speaking of Timothy—that is, as his own dearly loved child in the faith. He began his first letter to him by calling him, “a true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2); and in giving him a very serious command, he said, “This charge I commit to you, son Timothy” (1 Timothy 1:18). It was Paul’s way of affirming that he had deeply invested into the life of Timothy, and had trained him and taught him as a father would teach his own beloved son. And notice the blessing that he wished upon Timothy in his greeting. In verse 2, he wrote, “Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” That’s a kind of greeting that Paul only gave in his pastoral epistles. He mentioned these same three things at the beginning of his first letter to Pastor Timothy and at the beginning of his letter to Pastor Titus. In many of his letters, he began by wishing ‘grace’ to his readers—which is the unmerited favor of God; and then also wishing ‘peace’ to them—which only comes as a result of being in God’s grace through faith in Jesus. But in his greeting to pastors, he also included ‘mercy’; because pastors who seek to faithfully proclaim the message of the grace of God that leads to peace—and who often feel so woefully inadequate for the task and fearful of the challenge—especially need the tender mercy of the Lord. He knew Timothy needed that mercy; and so, in love, he wished it for him in his greeting. Now; consider what such a greeting—from such a great servant of the Lord—would have meant to Timothy. I think he would have been greatly encouraged by Paul’s manifest love for him. He may have at times felt far too small for the task that had been given him. He may have felt as if there were many ways in which he had failed. But he could nevertheless be encouraged by the fact that the Lord Jesus loved him; because—as he could plainly see—the Lord’s faithful apostle also loved him and had faith in him. I can tell you from personal experience what a great thing it is—when someone builds into your life and invests in you for the cause of Jesus Christ—to know that you’re not just a ‘project’ to them. I have had two or three very significant mentors in my life who—like Paul—endured to the very end. I knew very clearly that they sincerely loved me; and that as they invested in me, they had faith in me. The love of such godly spiritual mentors has made a lasting impression upon me that I will carry with me to the very end. Dear brothers and sisters; have you had someone like that in your life?—someone who invested in you, who very definitely loved your soul, and who expressed to you how much they cherished you? If you did, then remembering and acknowledging their love regularly will help you to ‘stir up’ your service to the Lord. And if you didn’t have someone like that in your life … well … Why not become like that to someone else? That will help you to ‘stir up’ your service to the Lord, too. Now; another way that we can be encouraged to ‘stir up’ our service to the Lord is by …

2. BEING UPLIFTED BY THE PRAYERS MADE FOR US.

In verse 3, Paul told Timothy, “I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day …” When a man like Paul says something like that—especially when he is about to lay down his life for the Lord—you can trust that he meant it. Notice what we’re told about this man who did the praying. He said that he served God “with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did”. It’s important that we understand what he meant by how his ‘forefathers’ served God. He didn’t necessarily mean that his forefathers had been alive at the time of Jesus’ ministry and served as Christians. Rather, what he meant is that—in his own service to the Lord Jesus—he was confident that he was not following some new teaching that was somehow in contradiction to the things that his Jewish forefathers believed. He was believing and teaching just exactly what his pious forefathers believed and taught from the Scriptures would come to pass. When he was called to stand and give testimony before the Roman governor Felix—with many of the Jewish leaders present—he said;

“But this I confess to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets” (Acts 24:14).

Or later, when he stood before the Jewish king Agrippa, he said,

“And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers” (Acts 26:6).

Or even later still, when he gathered several Jewish leaders to himself in Rome, he told them,

“For this reason therefore I have called for you, to see you and speak with you, because for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain” (Acts 28:20).

Paul testified to Timothy that he had a pure conscience before God, that he was preaching and teaching what the Jewish Scriptures had always taught, and what his pious forefathers had believed;

… that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

Paul was affirming to Timothy that the faith that he himself was laying down his life for was the true gospel from God. It was the sure and certain message of eternal life that was promised long ago in the Old Testament, looked forward to by the Jewish forefathers, and fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Timothy knew that Paul was a man who ministered to the heavenly Father with a pure conscience in the calling that God had given him. He was a man whose prayers were most assuredly heard by God. And he said that he thanked God every day—whom he served with a pure conscience in a way that was in keeping with the faith of his forefathers—that he remembered Timothy in prayer “night and day”. In fact, he prayed for Timothy with “thanksgiving” to God for him. Dear brothers and sisters; do you have godly people in your life who—at the very foundation of your trust in Jesus—prayed for you? Did they pray for your faith to be strong and grow? Did they pray that you would serve the Lord in the way that He calls you to serve? Those prayers may have been offered up many years ago; and it may be that those dear praying saints have long since then gone to be with the Lord. But we should always remember that the prayers of God’s people live on long beyond them; and that God still remembers those prayers and answers them even today. Remembering those prayers that were made for you back then—and the good people of God who prayed them for you—will help you ‘stir up’ your service to the Lord even today. And again, if you didn’t have those kinds of prayers prayed for you, why not start praying them for someone else now? That will help you to ‘stir up’ your commitment to service as well. Now; Paul went on to mention something that must have been very dear to Timothy. And in doing so, he shows us how we can be encouraged to ‘stir up’ our service to Christ by …

3. REMEMBERING THOSE WHO FIRST PASSED THE FAITH ON TO US,

He told Timothy, in verses 4-5, that he thanked God as he prayed night and day for him; “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 is in you also.” Don’t you love those words? Paul longed to see Timothy; and it was most likely because he had been the one who had first prayed with Timothy and led him to faith in the Lord Jesus. That probably happened way back when he first came to Timothy’s hometown of Lystra. Acts 16:1-2 tells us about a second trip to Lystra;

And behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek. He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium (Acts 16:1-2).

It was then that Paul decided that Timothy should accompany him on his missionary journeys. Paul invested deeply in Timothy; and that, no doubt, is the reason why Paul had such joy at the remembrance of Timothy’s faith, and why Timothy shed tears for Paul when they had parted. But do you see who else had built significantly into Timothy’s faith? It was his Jewish-believing mother, Eunice, and his grandmother, Lois. They had apparently—like Paul’s pious forefathers—been faithful Jewish women who believed the promise that God had made in the Scriptures. When Paul had first come to Lystra, perhaps it was then that they also came to place an intelligent faith in Jesus as the promised Messiah. But whether as fully informed Christians, or as pious pre-Christian Jewish women who believed the promises in the Scriptures about Jesus, they had a faith that they passed on to Timothy. In 2 Timothy 3:14-15, Paul told Timothy,

But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:14-15).

That godly heritage in God’s word must have come from Grandma Lois and Mother Eunice. And Paul—knowing the faith that had been in those women—knew that the same faith was also in Timothy. In encouraging Timothy to stay strong and faithful, he wanted Timothy to remember what they had passed on to him. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; have you been given a heritage of faith like that? Do you have parents and grandparents, aunts or uncles, or brothers or sisters who helped pass that faith on to you? Did you grow up in an atmosphere of good, solid biblical faith in the gospel that you learned from childhood—a heritage that you eventually embraced as your own with the help and prayers and instruction of those who passed it on to you? Then you ought to thank God every day for it. And you ought to remember it—and remember those who gave it to you—because doing so will help you to ‘stir up’ your commitment to the service of the Lord. And of course, if you didn’t have such a heritage, you can become the instrument by which that heritage is passed on to your children or grandchildren or nieces and nephews. That too will help you ‘stir up’ your commitment to the service of the Lord. So then; Paul—in the introduction of this letter—urged Timothy to acknowledge the love of his mentors in Christ, to be lifted up by the prayers of others, and to remember the faithfulness of those who had passed that faith on to him. All of this would serve as the warmly glowing ‘coals’ that would help him to ‘stir into flame’ a commitment to the Lord that might have grown a little cold. And that leads us to the main exhortation of this morning’s passage; that by holding on to and remembering these precious foundations …

4. WE SHOULD CONTINUALLY ‘REKINDLE’ OUR COMMITMENT TO THE SERVICE OF FAITH THAT HAS BEEN GIVEN TO US.

In verses 6-7, Paul told him, “Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” The “gift of God” that was in Timothy was the thing that Paul mentioned in 1 Timothy 4:14;

Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership (1 Timothy 4:14).

And in Timothy’s case, that was the ‘gift’ of the ministry of service that he had been appointed to as the pastor of the church in Ephesus. It was an important ‘gift’, because it was given to him in a very serious way—by the laying on of hands of the elders of the church and by the laying on of hands by Paul himself. And it was truly a ‘gift’ in the sense that any work of service that we may render to the Lord is truly a blessed thing to be given. But it must have been that Timothy was beginning to hold back from it a bit. It may be that his passion had begun to grow a little cold because of the things that he was seeing Paul suffer. It may be that he was becoming a little fearful because of the persecution. He needed to be encouraged to ‘stir’ the flame of that gift up again, and to restore his passion for service to the Lord. In verse 7—as the translation I’m using has it—Paul told him that God had not given him a ‘spirit’ (lower case ‘s’) or ‘attitude’ of “fear”. Actually, the word that Paul used meant ‘cowardliness’. If, during hard times, we find that our passion for the Lord’s service begins to grow cold out of the fear of what might happen to us, we need to know that such ‘cowardliness’ or ‘timidity’ is not from God. It’s a product of the devil, who wishes to keep us from fulfilling our ministry. Instead, we should remember that God has given us a ‘spirit’ or ‘attitude’ that is the opposite of cowardliness. He gives us a spirit—through His Holy Spirit—of “power”, which is the ability to take action and accomplish what God wants us to do. He gives us a spirit of “love”, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and is the great motive of the work of service we do in His name. And He gives us “a sound mind”, which is the kind of self-control that comes from keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus and looking ahead to the glorious outcome that He will bring about. And dear brothers and sisters in Christ; the way that Paul puts this is very important to remember. In the original language, Paul uses what’s called the ‘present tense infinitive’ to describe what Timothy should do. It speaks, not of a once-for-all-time action in the past, but of an ongoing habit of life. Timothy was to ‘keep on stirring up’ the flame of his passion for serving the Lord through the gift of ministry that he had been given. He would be greatly enabled in doing so if he acknowledged the love of his mentor, allowed himself to be lifted up by the prayers of those who prayed for him, and remembered the steadfast faith of those who passed that heritage on to him. We too need to keep on continually ‘stirring up’ our passion for the work that the Lord has given us by also remembering the foundations of our faith.

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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; each one of us has work to do for the Lord. Let’s not grow cold in it. Let’s ‘stir up the gift of God’ which is in us—rekindling our passion and zeal for His service as we see the day of His return approaching. As Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14,

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love.  (1 Corinthians 16:13-14).

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