Gaurd What You Have Been Given

Investments in the Future

Deuteronomy 4:9, 6:1-6, 1 Timothy 4:12. Acts 16:1-2, 2 Timothy 1:2 - 5, 1 Timothy 1:2,

Acts 16:3-4, Acts 17:14 - 15, 18:5, 19:22, Romans 16:21, 1 Corinthians 4:17, 16:10,

2 Corinthians 1:1, Philippians 1:1, 2:19, 2:22, Colossians 1:1, 1 Thessalonians 1:1, 3:2

2 Thessalonians 1:1, 1 Timothy 1:3 , 1;18, 1 Timothy 6:20 - 21, 2 Timothy 1:6-8

May 16, 2004

I. I have said many times that the Christian life is founded on relationships and how we deal with those relationships will determine the effectiveness of our life as a Christian.

A. The whole foundation of being a Christian is based on the condition of our relationship with God.

B. God wants a relationship with us. He thought a relationship with us was to die for, because he chose to come to Earth as a man and die on a Cross to make a relationship with us possible.

C. And the only way that we can have the kind of relationship with God that we’re suppose to have is to trust Him enough to accept that what Jesus (God in the form of a man), did on the Cross is enough to take away our sin, and make us right with God and able to spend eternity in a relationship with Him.

D. But it doesn’t end there. Because the only way that our relationship with God can be all that is suppose to be, is for our relationships with other people to be the way they should be.

E. We are to love each other, and we’re to support each other, and we’re to help each other as we work to grow more in our relationship with God.

F. Everyone of us who is a Christian is suppose to help others grow to know more about God and our relationship with Him.

G. And especially, every one of us is to be responsible in the gift of salvation that we have been given, and help our children learn about God and His love for them and the relationship that he wants to have with them.

(Deu 4:9 NIV) Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

(Deu 6:1 - 6 NIV) These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

II. Today I want us to look at a relationship between a man and a young boy, because it is a model for the role that we’re to play in the lives of all the people that we come into contact with, but especially with those who are younger than us.

A. The older man in this relationship is the apostle Paul, and the other person is Timothy.

B. There are some things about this story, that we don’t know all the details about, like how old Timothy was. But, we know that he was young. Even after he had been with Paul for several years Paul wrote to him and told him not to let anyone look down on him because of his youth.

(1 Tim 4:12 NIV) Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

C. It is very likely that Timothy was a teenager when he first met Paul.

D. Another thing that we don’t know for sure is details about Timothy’s family life. We know that his mother was a Christian, and that she was a Jewish woman, but all we know about his father was that he was Greek.

(Acts 16:1-2 NIV) He came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him.