Timothy (Mother's Day)

The three quotes from Men who loved their mothers is from sermon #114882.

The story and prayer of Monica is from sermon #121107.

-first of all, Happy Mother’s Day. I hope all of you are going to have a wonderful day and your family is going to shower you with gifts and take you out for a nice dinner today. And all the husbands are now glaring at me, okay…

-but today, mom, we want to honor you here, and we want to do that by talking about Timothy.

TIMOTHY

-yes, the guy who has two books in the Bible with his name on them, even though he didn’t write them, he was the recipient.

-here’s what we know about Timothy:

-He was originally from Lystra, or Turkey today.

-His mom was a Messianic Jew and his dad was Greek (Acts. 16:1)

-We think Paul introduced Timothy to Jesus because in I Tim. 1:2 he calls Timothy his “true son in the faith”, and we know Paul visited Lystra on his first missionary journey.

-During his second missionary journey Paul stopped again in Lystra and invited Timothy to go with him, which he did. He even went so far as to be circumcised for that trip so the Jewish people he was talking to wouldn’t be offended (that is hard core!)

-We know he traveled with Paul to Macedonia and Achaia, stayed a long time with him in Ephesus, to Macedonia, to Corinth, and it seems he even went to Jerusalem with Paul.

-We also know that when Paul was first thrown in prison, Timothy was there and visited him (Phil. 1:1, Col. 1:1, Ph. 1:1). This might be why when Paul was imprisoned right before his execution, he asked that Timothy would visit him (II Tim. 4:9,21) and Timothy even went to jail himself for his faith (Heb. 13:23).

-On one of Paul’s trips, they went back to Ephesus and Timothy stayed behind to be the pastor, which is why Paul wrote the two letters to Timothy, to help him in his pasturing.

-We also know on the trips, Tim must have had a big influence on Paul, he was named a co-writer in six letters, II Cor., Phil, Col, I & II Thess, and Philemon.

-They were such good friends Timothy cried when they were separated (II Tim. 1:4).

-In fact, here’s what Paul had to say about Timothy.

**Phil. 2:19-22 -> 19I plan (according to Jesus’ plan) to send Timothy to you very soon so he can bring back all the news of you he can gather. Oh, how that will do my heart good! 20I have no one quite like Timothy. He is loyal, and genuinely concerned for you. 21Most people around here are looking out for themselves, with little concern for the things of Jesus. 22But you know yourselves that Timothy’s the real thing. He’s been a devoted son to me as together we’ve delivered the Message. (MSG)

-wow. That’s the way to be remembered. This is Paul, the guy who wrote a good chunk of the Bible, this is what he things of Timothy.

-so Tim’s a nice guy, so what? Why bring him up today of all days? Why spend time talking about him now? Because:

TIMOTHY IS WHO HE IS BECAUSE OF HIS MOTHER

-this is from Paul writing to Timothy:

**II Tim. 1:5 -> 5I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you. (NLT)

-remember we mentioned that Paul went to Tim’s hometown and stayed there a while for more than one mission trip, apparently Paul just didn’t know Timothy, he knew Tim’s whole family. Paul apparently knew grandma.

-and Paul says very specifically to Timothy that his faith is strong, why? Because of mom and her mom.

-I sat down thinking about this, can you name any other moms in the Bible who are famous for being moms? Not someone who is a mom but was famous because of her husband, like Rachel is Joseph’s mom, but we are introduced to her really early in the whole marriage sister-mix-up thing. (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read Gen. 29 as a little storytime before bed tonight).

-but really, I came up with two just off the top of my head, and even cheating a little. Mary, obvious, and Hannah was Samuel’s mom. But that’s really it. Everyone else is the mom of someone famous but also married to someone famous.

-think about it. Who’s David’s mom? Moses? We know she was a Levite but never told her name. All these big spiritual giants or heroes, we don’t know their moms at all.

-here, Paul mentions mom and grandma specifically, Tim is who he is because of them. Dad is never named. All we know is he was Greek, he may not have even believed in Jesus, we know so very little about dad. Timothy was all thanks to mom.