I haven’t exactly told me wife this, yet, but I’m ready to move. I am. I’m dissatisfied with where we’re at. On any given day, I could list for you a dozen things that are wrong with our house, wrong with Joplin, wrong with Missouri and with the United States. I’m ready to go somewhere else.
I’m preaching backwards today. This part that I’m starting with is the end. Hopefully, by the time I’m done, I’ll get started!
Hebrews 11:16
Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
I’m longing for a better country! It’s the very purpose for which God has made us, and it’s the great desire of my life! One day, I’m going to be a citizen of that city!
By grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, I have God’s promise and I’m here this morning to celebrate that and to practice for the day I start eternity in the presence of God Almighty. I’m here because I have that conviction. I’m here, because someone else had that conviction before me and passed it along. The same is true for you. You’re here only because someone else had faith and passed it along.
Erwin McManus – “…It can be sobering to realize that a major portion of our lives is given to preparing the next generation for life…In the prime of our lives we begin the process of replacing ourselves… When a healthy relationship exists within the life cycle, a selflessness of giving oneself away is created…The only way church buildings stay filled through generations is if the church lives and dies and is born again over and over. Soon we realize that the church is not the same church it was twenty years ago or even four years ago. To make the kind of impact in human history that God desires, we must find our fulfillment and the rightness of this life cycle. In the end, it is not so much about prolonging or perpetuating our own life as about giving new life to others…The truth is, if churches wait too long to die to themselves, then they ensure they will die by themselves.”
Do you realize that THE CHURCH IS ONE GENERATION AWAY FROM EXTINCTION? Talk about a thought to motivate your attitudes toward the children’s and youth ministries! One generation! Call me an alarmist, but it’s a fact!
Paul knew it in his time, and it was by inspiration of the Holy Spirit that he wrote to a young preacher:
2 Timothy 2:2
And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.
Roughly paraphrased: reproduce your faith. Instill it into the next generation, because you’re not always going to be around! So, just as Jesus commissioned the Apostles to carry on His work, Paul commissioned others to take over after he was gone. In his last letter we have before he was executed under Nero, we have a picture of Paul’s effort to reproduce himself in someone younger: Timothy. The principle at work is so blatant, we even use that same name to describe what happens when young men are a part of our church family, but grow up and then become ministers somewhere else. We call them…Timothys.
I know it’s Mother’s Day. Bear with me. I’ll get to that. First, we need to review something about this young man. Most of what we know about him comes from the hand of Paul. For instance,
1 Corinthians 4:17 (HCSB)
This is why I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. He will remind you about my ways in Christ Jesus,
1 Timothy 1:2 (HCSB)
To Timothy, my true child in the faith.
2 Timothy 1:2 (HCSB)
To Timothy, my dearly loved child.
Paul knew a lot of people…hundreds of people. He’d traveled a lot. Just read Ro16, where he says “Hi” to no less than 25 individuals by name, just in Rome. So, it’s real significant when he says…
Philippians 2:20-23 (The Message)
I have no one quite like Timothy. He is loyal, and genuinely concerned for you. Most people around here are looking out for themselves, with little concern for the things of Jesus. But you know yourselves that Timothy’s the real thing. He’s been a devoted son to me as together we’ve delivered the Message.
Timothy is a man of outstanding character, and character like that doesn’t happen by accident.
At the beginning of I Tim., Paul urges him to remain in Ephesus, the help the Church grow and be strong. It’s a tall order for a young man. He has to remind him to not let people look down on him because he’s young. Paul had invested 3 years of his life in that congregation. They were very near to his heart. He wouldn’t have left their care up to just anyone. Obviously he thought Timothy was up to the task. II Timothy, Paul’s last letter, Paul is urging Timothy to hurry and visit him before it’s too late. How is it that Paul grew to love and trust this young man with so much?
You’d have to go back to Acts 15. Paul’s planning a 2nd missionary trip. He and Barnabas have a disagreement, and they part company. So, in Acts 16, with a different traveling companion, Paul arrives at Lystra and Derbe, where he had established the Church 3 years before. The believers in Lystra speak well of this young man. It’s there that Timothy joins Paul and begins to travel with him. We know that Timothy traveled to places like Berea, Macedonia, Corinth, Troas, Thessalonica, Ephesus. We learn in Hebrews 13 that his travels landed him in prison, just like Paul.
Hebrews 13:23 (HCSB)
Be aware that our brother Timothy has been released.
No wonder Paul said there’s no one quite like Timothy. He’s quite a story. What explains someone like that? Whatever it was he had, I’d like to get some of that!
We can almost always point to mentors, coaches, teachers who helped someone grow. In fact, let’s try that right now. If you’re a Christian, turn to someone near you and name 1-2 people who influenced you to accept Jesus. Who were they? Or, if you’re not a Christian yet, name 1-2 people who strongly impacted you in some positive way…
Was there anyone here who just couldn’t think of a person who has made an impact in your life so that you are what you are today? I could list to you several people who’ve shaped me - professors, teachers, ministers, missionaries, and others. Each one of them made their mark on me, and a careful observer could probably see it. I’m sure thankful for those people.
Paul was that kind of a person to Timothy. No doubt, as he spent time with Paul, working alongside him, traveling all over the Roman empire of the 1st century, Paul helped Timothy grow. He’d given him some special gift from God (v6). When you read 1 and 2 Timothy, you’re reading Paul’s letters to him, often speaking to him about his personal growth in Jesus. Certainly Timothy grew. He became a great champion of the Faith.
But before there was Paul, there was another…a mentor…a guide…a teacher.
2 Timothy 3:15
…from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
From his earliest years, Timothy had a teacher. Her name was Eunice. Before faith lived in Timothy, it lived in a woman Timothy knew as Mom.
Our knowledge of Eunice is limited. We know only that she had been a Jew, married to a non-Jew, that she had come to faith in Jesus, and that she had passed her sincere faith along to her son Timothy.
But, there was another. Before that faith came to rest and grow in Eunice, it lived in another person Eunice knew as Mom. Timothy would have known her as his mamme – the GK word for Grandma. Her name was Lois. We know even less about Lois – only that she had sincere faith in God, and that it was passed along to her daughter, who in turn passed it along to her son, Timothy.
Remember? - the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. It wasn’t a new concept to Timothy. He had seen it lived out in his home for 2 generations now. Every person of faith needs to pause and reflect on it. The reason we’re able to believe today is the faith of someone before us. Look at Paul’s first words in…
2 Timothy 1:3-8
I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God,
There are some simple principles at work in the life of Timothy that I want us to leave with this morning, and yes, they have a LOT to do with mothers, and they’re not limited to mothers.
1. Faith is meant to pass along
The first and most important place we pass along our faith is in our homes, and I’m convinced that the frontline agent of this job is moms.
G. K. Chesterton asked: “Can anyone tell me two things more vital to the race than these: what man shall marry what woman, and what shall be the first things taught to their first child? The...natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything but everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, a woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t... How can it be an (important) career to tell other people’s children about mathematics, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe?...A woman’s function is laborious...not because it is minute, but because it is gigantic. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”
He said this over 100 yrs ago. Obviously, moms, the questions and challenges that often chase after you aren’t all new ones. Yes, your task can become huge.
Joke - A woman was asked, ’If you had it to do all over again would you have children? Yes…just not the same ones!
I ran across a list of the top 10 Things Moms really want for Mother’s Day:
10. To be able to eat a whole candy bar (alone) and drink a Coke without any "floaters."
9. To have a 14-year-old answer a question without rolling her eyes in that "Why is this person my mother?" way.
8. Five pounds of chocolate that won’t add twenty.
7. A shower without a child peeking through the curtain with a "Hi ya, Mom!" just as I put razor to my ankle.
6. A full-time cleaning person who looks like Brad Pitt.
5. For a teenager to announce, "Hey, Mom! I got a full scholarship and a job all in the same day!"
4. A grocery store that doesn’t have candy, gum, and cheap toys displayed at the checkout line.
3. To have a family meal without a discussion about bodily secretions.
2. To be able to step on a plane with toddlers and not have some pencil-neck-yuppie-geek moan, "Oh, no! Why me?"
1. Four words: Fisher Price Play Prison
Of course, this is all meant in fun, but it was most likely written by a mom – a mom whose job at home sometimes seems to get lost in the crumbs and the ouchies and the TV turned up too loud. Moms, please, don’t fail to see what a significant role you play in the future of the world!
Faith is meant to be passed along. Fail at this and we die. Fail to instill faith in Jesus for one generation, and the Church is floating downstream belly up.
2. Moms are in the greatest position to pass that along
Our current age is the age of specialization. In some ways, that’s good. A specialist can deal with the specific issue where you need help. So, if you’re having a foot problem, you can go to a foot specialist. If you’re having a back problem, you can go to the back specialist. The downside of it is when we apply it to what ought to be happening in our homes. In some ways, it’s easy to begin to treat the Church like a “specialist.” So, if our kids need to hear Bible stories, we let the specialists handle that. If you want them to stay pure, you leave that up to the specialists. Moms, I want to tell you this morning, there is no one in the world who has the position of influence that you can have in your children’s lives.
I love the article Boyce Mouton wrote as a tribute to his mother in the CJ newsletter this past week:
Quote - Boyce Mouton – in “A tribute to my mother” – “Though we were poor, by contrast with modern children, I was raised In the lap of luxury. I was blessed to have a mother whose main ambition in life was to raise her family. During my childhood years I had no interest in shiny new cars and plush carpet, I Wanted my mother. I needed my mother more than needed a baby sitter or a nursery school attendant…So my heart bleeds for the millions of modern children who have never tasted homemade bread or smelled the aroma of mother’s hot rolls on the evening breeze. The real luxuries of life are not to be found in mass produced items stamped out by a machine or dropped in a huge box at the end of an assembly line. The real luxuries are the custom made specialty items made to order for each customer. So, in this regard, I was raised in the lap of luxury. My meals were prepared by my own personal connoisseur of gourmet delights. I was diapered and dandled by my own personal doctor and diagnostician. I was the recipient of perpetual maid service. I had my own personal tailor who made, altered and repaired my clothing. I had my own personal tutor who read me stories at bed time. When I went downtown I was accompanied by my own personal chauffeur and body guard. When I was lonely or afraid I would cling to the apron strings of my own special companion and counselor. The fact that all of these important functions were performed by only one mother does not diminish from their significance. It gave to me a measure of confidence and security that I probably could not have attained in any other way.”
I don’t want to discredit anyone else’s role I helping develop faith and godly character in children. There are plenty of other good influences. I just happen to observe that mothers are in the position to have the first and greatest impact. Don’t leave it up to someone else. Moms, take this blessing that God has entrusted to you and pass along your faith in Jesus as the first and most important thing you can teach your children. Read them Bible stories before they can understand them. Teach them to pray just as soon as they begin to speak. Model genuine faith for them every day at home.
3. This applies to all of us!
Obviously, these principles apply to moms. So, moms, consider it a public confession today: we need you! Amen? We need you. You’re not replaceable.
Ill - Many of you have heard about the orphaned hippo in Kenya, Africa who has adopted a fill-in mommy. The hippo, named Owen, lost his family to the waters of the tsunami in 2004. When he was rescued and brought to a compound, he immediately ran and hid behind the 130 yr old tortoise who lives there whose name is Mzee. They have developed quite a relationship, and Owen seems to have accepted the old tortoise as his mother’s replacement. This may work to some extent in the animal world, but, moms, there’s no substitute for you.
Someone has said, ’The easiest part of being a mother is giving birth…the hard part is showing up each day’. Thanks for showing up, moms, even when you don’t feel like it.
Now, to the rest of us – Dads, kids, grandparents, widows, widowers, single guys and ladies, if the things we’ve been looking at this morning are true, and they are, then we all have an obligation not just to moms but to motherhood itself. I hope that, as we’ve been going through these it has heightened your awareness of the importance of those ladies who are moms. They need our help and understanding. They need our respect for the job we’re asking them to accomplish.
What does that mean? If you’re a kid this morning, it means that you need to thank your mom for what she’s doing. You need to respect her authority and appreciate what she has invested in you. If you’re a husband, it means you need to not act like you’re the only one working for your home. If she looks run down some days, it’s quite possibly because she is! Maybe she needs a Calgon moment or an offer to fix supper at Taco Bell or something. Let’s be honest with her, guys, we couldn’t do what she does either.
I want to also suggest that, as this big family we call “the Church,” we need to work at being sensitive to the work of mothers. It’s too easy to forget what it was like, isn’t it? It’s easy to forget late night feedings, and fits in the grocery store, and teenager crises, isn’t it? Moms don’t need our snootiness or indignation when they’re struggling with the challenges of their task. An offer to help, a word of encouragement, a smile of understanding – those all make a lot more sense in the household of God. Try it! That’s what the rest of us can do if we really agree that this thing called motherhood is vital.
Conclusion:
2 Timothy 2:2
And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.
Moms, that’s what you’re doing. We’re here this morning because someone passed on their faith. Many of those people were faithful mothers. Will that be you?
Today, the invitation is a bit different. We always want to encourage people to accept Jesus. He’s our reason for being here. He’s the object of that faith that has been passed along, and we want for you to have Him as your Lord.
I also want to give a special challenge to moms here this morning – to commit yourselves to being Lois’s and Eunices – to be devoted to passing along your faith to the people of your own household first and foremost.
