Tim's Mom And Grandma

Tim’s Mom and Grandma

2 Timothy 1:1-7

INTRODUCTION... What 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

Today is Mother’s Day and is a day that we celebrate the mothers and grandmothers and those who have filled those roles in our lives. One of the things most celebrated on this day is the influence mothers have over our lives. I would like to reflect on a passage today that talks about that very subject: the influence of mothers. The passage is 2 Timothy 1:1-7.

READ 2 TIMOTHY 1:1-7

I. THE CHARACTER OF PAUL’S COMPANION

This person that Paul writes the letters of 1 and 2 Timothy to is an important person in the life of the Apostle Paul. Timothy first appears on the scene in Paul’s second missionary journey when Paul visited Lystra (Acts 16:1-3). Timothy played a major role in the ministry of Paul when he was forced to leave Berea because of an uproar, Paul left Timothy and Silas behind to strengthen the churches. Paul also send Timothy to the church in Thessalonica to encourage them in their faith. Timothy was Paul’s man in Corinth during the third missionary journey and was the bearer of all the bad news about the happenings of that church. Timothy also accompanied Paul to Jerusalem and also stayed with him in Rome. Timothy was a constant and needed companion of Paul in all of the ups and downs of his ministry.

What was Timothy like?

* 1 Corinthians 4:17 tells us that Timothy was faithful to the Lord and a guardian of the Gospel Message:

“For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.”

* Philippians 1:1 and 2:22 tell us that Paul considered Timothy to be a servant of Christ Jesus and one that had proved himself in ministry:

“Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons... But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.”

* Hebrews 13:23 tells us that Timothy preached God’s message and was even imprisoned for it:

“I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been released. If he arrives soon, I will come with him to see you.”

What can we say about Timothy? What can we say about his character? We know that he was someone Paul considered essential in ministry which is a big complement. We know that he was faithful to the Lord and worked diligently for Him. We know that he reminded the churches of the correct teaching of the Gospel. I suppose that it can all be boiled down and put simply: he was a young man committed to Jesus Christ.

ILLUSTRATION... Family Survival in the American Jungle, Steve Farrar, 1991, Multnomah Press, pp. 113-114

Over one hundred years ago, 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?” Chesterton goes on to comment that:

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...Our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world....But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean....If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge (at his work)....But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then I say give it up....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.