Sunday Morning Service 10:30AM-

All right. Good morning. I'm glad you all are here. Glad to see everybody. Glad you can make it out this morning. I want to invite you to stand with us. We'll pray and we'll get started. Lord, we just thank you for the day. Lord, we just give you praise for another opportunity to be here, Lord, to lift praise to you, a joyful noise to you. Lord, we glorify you. We ask your blessing upon this time, Lord.

Lord, just prepare our hearts to meet with you this morning, Lord. Help us to set everything else aside that's going on in our lives, Lord, and just to focus upon you, Lord, and lavish praise upon you. And may your word go out with power this morning, and may it not fall on hardened hearts, but may it find soft hearts this morning, Lord, tender hearts to receive it. And Lord, I ask your blessing upon the little ones at the other end of the hall, and bless those teachers, Lord.

God, just do mighty work this morning, Lord. We love you and we praise you, and in your precious name we pray, amen. Glorify you this morning, amen. Amen. You guys can go ahead and have a seat if you like. We just give you praise and we give you thanks, Lord, for the new life that we have in you through what you've done for us on the cross, Lord God. Lord, you willingly took that punishment that we deserve. You willingly spilled your

precious blood out for us. For me, Lord God, we just thank you and we give you praise.

Would you guys go ahead and stand with us for this last one? For what you've done for us. Lord, you took the punishment that we rightly deserve on the cross. Lord, again, you spilled your precious blood. You spilled it out for us, Lord God, because you love us. And you did it as a gift to us, Lord, so that we might have that restored relationship with you. And Lord, if there are any here this morning, Lord, that have never known that love that you give,

that have never asked you into their life, Lord, to be their Lord and Savior, I pray that today would be that day.

Lord, today, while it is still today, give us soft and tender hearts, Lord God. Let us not harden our hearts, but soften us. Break us, Lord. Mold us. Lord, let your word go out with power. I return to you void, Lord. Do something awesome and mighty in this place this morning, Father. We love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's take some time and

greet one another. If you could begin to locate your seats, grab a bulletin, we'll get ready to go over some announcements. Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. A handful of things to take note of. And as always, the things on the left-hand side of your bulletin. Find yourself a spot to get plugged into. Over in the middle

section, a reminder that this week starts off the Grief Share group on Tuesdays. Every Tuesday from 1 to 3, if you have questions, you can speak with Holly Gage. Also, a couple of things that I failed to get into the bulletin. There is a... A new lady's study starting up March the 3rd. Elaine Phillips is going to be doing the... It's not called Discovering God. I wrote that wrong. It's called... What's it called, Elaine?

Experiencing God. I knew there was an I-N-G God. Experiencing God study Mondays at 7 p.m. at her house. It'll be starting March the 3rd. I think she's got that open to you. Is it 10 ladies? Eight ladies. I just got it all wrong. This is all there was to it. At any rate, there's a sign up sheet out there in the lobby if you're interested in that. And then there is a group,

a worship group called the Hope Worship Team. They're at Southwestern College and they put on a lot of worship nights and they are putting one on here in town at Venue 208 downtown, the old antique mall. And it's going to be Thursday evening at 7 p.m. If you're interested in checking that out, it should be a really good night of worship. So go check that out.

Those are the things... Oh, wait, almost forgot. So last year, I talked about perhaps putting some memory verses in the bulletin. And so our first one is in there this week, 1 Timothy 1.15. So it'll be in there for the next couple of weeks because we'll be in chapter one of 1 Timothy for the next couple of weeks. So check that out. Start applying that to memory, seeing how God's word will change the way that you think. So those are the things that are

going on. If you would make sure that your mobile device is silenced. And then for our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm 16.

Psalm 16. Looking at the New American Standard for this part so that we sound the same. If you need a copy, should be one in a row around you. Psalm 16. And as you are turning to Psalm 16, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's word. Read the odd verses if you will follow along with Pastor Allen and the even verses. Psalm 16, a mission of David. Preserve me,

O God, for I take refuge in you. I said to the Lord, you are my Lord. I have no good beside you. As for the... Saints who are in the earth, they are majestic ones in whom is all my delight. The sorrow of those who have bartered for another God will be multiplied. I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, nor will I take their names upon my lips. The Lord is the portion of my inheritance in my cup. You support my lot.

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me. I will bless the Lord who has counsel. Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night. I have set the Lord continually before me, because he is at my right hand. I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my glory rejoices. My flesh also will dwell securely. For you will not abandon my soul to shield, nor will you

allow your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life, and your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand are pleasures. Verse 6. Verse 6. And the Lord is my comforter, my strength, and my strength is in you. Verse 7. Verse 8. And the Lord is my comforter, my strength, and my strength is in you. Verse 9. And the Lord is my comforter, my strength, and my strength is in you.

Verse 10. And Father, we come to you now, and we praise you that you are the God who shows us the path of life. And, Lord, that truly in your presence is the fullness of joy. And I thank you that you have provided us a place where we can gather as your body and your presence, Lord, to experience that joy together. And so, Father, I pray that as we spend time in your word this morning that you would minister to us by the power of your Holy

Spirit, that you would draw us near to you, and that we would become the men and women of God that you've created for us to be. And we just thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of 1 Timothy chapter 1. 1 Timothy chapter 1. Well, today we start a new book. We finished up 2 Thessalonians last week, and as usual, I really

did pray about where to go next. I genuinely considered the book of Hebrews, but with the message that 1 and 2 Timothy, as well as Titus, these pastoral epistles give to us about the church, about the structure of church, about order of church, and those things, I felt like it was the right direction to go to go ahead and move into 1 Timothy. And so we'll spend the next few months in the pastoral epistles. And really, if you were to put a title on all three of the pastoral epistles, you would be able to do that. And so we're going to do that. And so we're going to do

the first couple of verses. And I stole this from Warren Wiersbe. It's not new to me. It would be to be faithful, because that's ultimately what God calls pastors to do, is to be faithful pastors and leaders to do. And so as we get into these first couple of verses, and we will just cover the first couple of verses this morning, I've simply entitled it An Introduction to Faithfulness.

An Introduction to Faithfulness. And as we, as I got into these first two verses, it was kind of interesting. It's going to be similar to things I've done in the other Pauline epistles, that we've gone through before. And so I started preparing and going through the typical things, the writer, the recipient, and the greeting. And I said, you know, these are really similar to what

we've done before. Do I go over those things again, or do I just kind of brush past them? And Aaron said, you know, Ryan, here's the thing. It's always good to be reminded of who these people were. It's always good to be reminded of what God did in their lives. And it's always good to be reminded of the story of scripture. You can never say it too many times. You can never go over

it too many times. And quite frankly, no one memorizes your messages. Anyway. And so, so, so with that being said, and I was like, you know what, she's right, which she usually is in all of her wisdom. She's usually right when it comes to these things. And, and so I said, okay, good. Let's, let's go over it again. Not to mention the fact that there's a handful of you that have just joined us in the last few weeks, and you've not heard us go

through this before. And so that's what we're going to do this morning is we're going to look at these first two verses as an introduction and talk about the writer, talk about the recipient and go over the greeting. So we pick up in verse one of chapter one, and it says this, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the commandment of God, our savior and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope to Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God, the father and Christ Jesus, our Lord. The writer is the similar one that we've talked about for quite some time now. And his name is Paul. Paul's story

begins for us in Acts chapter eight. Matter of fact, you might just, you might just write Acts chapter eight and nine in the margin of your Bible or somewhere that you can remember it so that you could perhaps go back and reference at some point in time. His story begins for us in Acts chapter eight. Only when we begin his story in Acts chapter eight, he will be referred to as Saul. Now, a lot of people say, well, after Saul got saved, he changed his name to Paul.

And that's not exactly accurate. Many who were dual citizens like him had both a Jewish name, and a Gentile name. His Jewish name was Saul, and his Gentile name was Paul. And so Saul in Acts chapter eight, that's the first time we're introduced to him. We're introduced to this guy right after the death of the very first martyr of the church. His name was Stephen.

In Acts chapter seven, Stephen had stood up and was really making headway as far as the gospel was concerned, and the religious leaders didn't like him. So they brought him on trial, similar to what they did with Jesus. And as they brought him on trial, they found him guilty of blasphemy. And they stoned him to death. And it says that there was a young man who consented to the death

of Stephen, and his name was Saul. And he held the coats of those who threw the stones at Stephen. And Saul was such an interesting individual, because Saul had gone from persecutor to preacher. From persecutor to preacher, because when he first knew about Jesus, he would have been there for all of the times that Jesus was walking on the earth. And he would have been a part of that ruling

board, perhaps, that even consented to the death of Jesus Christ himself. And he always hated everything about Jesus. Because as a good Jewish religious man, he believed in the Jewish religion, not what Jesus was teaching. And when Jesus taught what God actually intended, it didn't go along with the Jewish teaching of the time. And so he didn't like Jesus, and he did everything he could to destroy him.

The next time we read about Paul is in Acts chapter nine. And we're told that Paul had unleashed a persecution upon the church, unlike anything that had been seen before. And it forced so many people out of Jerusalem, forced so many Christians all over the area. And so Paul set about to destroy the church in every way that he possibly could. And so he sought letters to go other places and bring

Christians back in order to put them to death. And that's exactly what he did. And when he was on the road to one of those places to bring other Christians back, we're told that God got a hold of his heart. God knocked him down, literally, physically knocked him down onto the road. And he said, Paul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who, are you? He said, I'm Jesus, who you've been persecuting. Isn't it hard for you to kick

against the goads? In other words, isn't it hard for you to keep fighting against me? Isn't it hard for you to keep fighting me? And I found this interesting because I think God was at work in the heart of Paul long before Paul ever surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. I think that God was at work convicting Paul long before he ever came to the truth. And I would venture to say that there's

some of you in here this morning that God has been at work in your heart. And I would venture to say that there's some of you in here this morning that God has been at work in your heart long before you darkened the door of this church, long before you ever walked into the building. And yet God was at work on your heart and you've been fighting against it. And all he wants to do is ask you a question. Why do you keep fighting? Isn't it hard for you to keep fighting against me? Wouldn't it

be better if you would just surrender your life? Wouldn't it be better if you would just surrender your life to me? And I'm here to tell you right now, as somebody who fought God for a while, it absolutely is. It is so much better just to surrender your life rather than to just keep kicking against the goads. And I've been kicking against the goads since worship because God laid something on my heart to share. And I thought I was stupid

to share it, but I'm just going to do it anyway. Okay. God kind of gave me a word during worship and it was during that song made for more. And I don't know who it is in this room. I don't know who this word is for, but God told me that there's someone here this morning, or maybe you're watching online and you don't think you have any worth. You don't, you don't feel worthy of anyone to love you.

You don't feel worthy of anyone to care about you. And you don't feel like you're made for more. As a matter of fact, you don't feel like you're made for anything. You don't feel like you have any purpose and you don't feel like you have any worth because all the things that you thought you had worth in seem to have disappeared. And God told me to tell you that exactly what that song

says is that, is that you were made for more, that your worth is found in Christ and that he loves you more than you can ever imagine. And you need to find your worth in him. So if that's you this morning, then I did what God told me to do. And I gave you that word. I don't want anybody to walk out. If you're feeling like they have no worth in their life, because you are loved by a savior who just like Paul will not leave you alone until you finally

say, I'll do what you want me to do. I'll go where you want me to go because he loves you too much for that, because you truly have worth that you can't even fathom in Christ. And so, so Paul finds himself finally surrendered to the Lord. And then in Acts chapter 13 is the next time that we find chapter 13, Paul receives his commission. And when he receives his commission, God says separate

unto me, Saul and Barnabas for the work that I have called them to do. And he sets out to go on missionary journeys and he will ultimately go on three different missionary journeys where he will travel all around Asia minor. He will travel much of the area of Macedonia, which we know of as, as Greece. And he will go all over the place, sharing God's word with people. And as he goes

around sharing God's word with people, there is, there's going to be great ministry that is done. Matter of fact, hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to faith in Jesus Christ. Churches will be started in every city that he visits. He will find that, that elders are established. Churches are established. People are set free from the bondage of idolatry. They're set free from the bondage of the world. They're

set free from the bondage of legalism. And so much beautiful ministry takes place in those three missionary journeys, but also on those three missionary journeys. Three missionary journeys will be the hardest three stints of work that he would ever do in his life. Because on those three missionary journeys, he would face hardships that you and I can't even imagine. As he dealt with beatings, as he dealt with stonings, as he dealt with imprisonments,

shipwrecks, and all the different things that he went through as a follower of Jesus Christ. But at the end of the day, it was worth it. And so he goes on these three missionary journeys and he goes on these three missionary journeys and he goes on these three missionary journeys. And at the end of the third missionary journey, he returns back to Jerusalem. And when he

turns, when he returns to Jerusalem, there is a misunderstanding, a miscommunication, even if you will. And he is falsely accused of something. And he is brought on trial by the Jewish people. And ultimately he appeals to Caesar. He says, listen, I'm a Roman citizen. I have rights. I appeal to Caesar. And so they said, fine, to Caesar, you will go. And so he departs on a journey from

Jerusalem to Rome. And when he goes on this journey from Jerusalem to Rome, he has to take a boat. And as a disciple of Jesus Christ, you should know that if you get in a boat, there's going to be a storm, right? And so he gets in this boat and there's a storm and he gets shipwrecked and all of this crazy things that are going on. But through it all, God remained faithful and kept telling him, you keep doing what I called you to do because you're

exactly where I want you to be. So he goes to Rome and he lives in Rome for a couple of years under house arrest, where he is day and night chained to a Roman guard. But from that place, he will end up writing some of the greatest epistles that we know of, not the least of which is Philippians and Colossians, where he will share about the joy of the Lord as he's there in prison. And at the end of those two years of house arrest, he will stand trial before Caesar and Caesar will ultimately let him go and say, I don't see any reason to hold charges against this guy. And he's set free. He's set free somewhere around 8062.

And from 8062 to 8067, Paul goes, and journeys to all of these other churches that he had started. He goes back and ministers to them and teaches them. And while he does so, he sends two young pastors to pastor the churches. He sends a guy by the name of Timothy to go and pastor the church in Ephesus. And he sends a guy by the name of Titus to go and pastor the church in Crete. And so those are the two young men that he will write

letters to that we call the pastoral epistles. The reason why we call them pastoral epistles is for two reasons. Number one, because they were written to young pastors. They were written to young pastors about what ministry looks like and what it looks like to be a pastor. But they were also called pastoral epistles because they have pastoral messages in them. Because Paul knew that his time on earth

was short. He had done a great deal of ministry. He'd done a great deal of work, but he knew death was imminent for him. With the life that he had lived and his potential to get arrested, he knew that life was probably short and he was only going to be there so long. And so he needed to make sure that all of the churches that he'd started knew exactly what it looked like to function as a church,

to be organized as a church, to have leaders in the church. And so he wrote these pastoral epistles to instruct the people what God would want for the church. And so he writes these pastoral epistles. And so that is the writer. But Paul goes on to identify himself very interestingly. He says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the commandment of God. An apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the commandment of

God. The word apostle means a sent out one or an ambassador. I think it was Amplified Bible that translated it like this, a personally chosen representative. And in the broadest sense of the word, that's ultimately what we are to all be. We are to all be apostles. Because if we have the gospel inside of us, if God has commissioned us through the Great Commission, which he has,

then each of us is an ambassador for Jesus Christ. We are a personally chosen representative to take the truth of the gospel, to take the truth of the word of God to the people around us, to everybody that we come in contact with. I am more and more impressed upon by the people that I talk to, especially the young people that I talk to that are just now coming to faith. And you know what they're all saying?

I wish I would have known a long time ago. I wish somebody would have told me a long time ago. I was always looking for something. And then finally, somebody told me the truth. And I was like, that's what I've been looking for. You have no idea how many conversations like that with kids that I have right now. Because they just knew they needed something. And somebody finally was bold

enough to tell them the truth. And I'm here to tell you right now, brothers and sisters, it doesn't take a magic touch. Because the people that told them the truth were not pastors like me. The people that told them the truth were their friends. And so we are all ambassadors of Jesus Christ. We are all apostles. Now, in the strictest sense of the word, because notice he says, an apostle, according to the commandment of God, in the

strictest sense of the word, we can't be what Paul was. Because Paul had what we call apostolic authority, which is why in this particular pastoral epistle, he doesn't say an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. He says an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God. Because he and the other 11 apostles that Jesus had with him the whole time that he was on earth, they were setting the doctrine for the church. They were establishing the doctrine that the

church would follow for centuries following. And so in that strictest sense, none of us can be apostles because that was sealed with the book of Revelation. That's one of the things that we learn in scripture. But in that broad brush sense, you and I are all just like Paul. And I got to thinking about the fact that Paul was like, I'm an apostle. I got to thinking about calling and I got to thinking about commands because I don't know if

you realize this or not. And I try to point this out a lot that if you're a born again believer in Jesus Christ, you've all been called, right? No, no one is called to warm a pew or a sweet chair like what we have in here right now. No, no one's called to just, to just attend church. You are called to be the church. And if you're called to be the church, that means you are called to,

to serve God. And if you're called to be the church, that means you are called to serve God. In some sort of way. And, and it's not even just a calling. It's, it's actually a command on your life. And you go, Oh, Ryan, I can't do that. I'm, I'm not good enough for that. Sure. You are. If I'm good enough, you are right. If God can take a loser like me and put me up on a stage in front

of people to be able to teach the word, surely he could do anything he wants to with everybody sitting in this room this morning, because we've all been given a call and a command in our lives. The problem is we don't like to do what God's called us to do, right? We had this conversation yesterday at men's breakfast. And as a matter of fact, I'm just going to use this as a, as a moment to speak a little bit of a, of an authoritative corrective word to the men in this church this morning, we had 14 guys at men's breakfast yesterday. And I, if you took a quick count in here right now, there's way more

than 14 guys in this room. You know what that tells me? Fellas, we got to step up. We got to step up and show up because the way that we sharpen each other is by getting together as men, eating some food together, because why not? Right? And then talking about God's word together. It was a fantastic conversation. The 14 guys that were there would say that that was a profitable

time to gather. As we talked about God's word, as we talked about the things that are going on, but men, there's not time for us to sit back and let everybody else gather. While we stay at home, we have got to gather as men and we have got to sharpen each other and make each other better. And that means brothers, you've got to show up. Well, I just don't really talk to people too much.

Then get over it, get over it. There's, you know, talking about this yesterday and, and, um, somebody said, yeah, I know a guy that won't show up to anything because he doesn't like small talk. And all I can think is, what are you going to tell Jesus on that day when you stand before him? Sorry, I didn't serve God. I don't like small talk. Like Jesus isn't going to take that excuse, right? So men step up. It's time to be those men.

And so at men's breakfast, we said, why, why do we have a hard time being about our master's business? Why do we have a hard time doing that? And somebody said, well, I think it's fear. I think fear holds us back. And I thought, you know what? That's a really good point. You know we're scared of failure. We're scared. It's going to take too much time. We're scared. It's going to

be a sacrifice. We're scared. We might not be good at it. And we're just scared because taking those steps of faith are hard, but listen, God has a calling on your life and God wants you to do something for him because God has made you for that. God has commissioned you to do something. And it's something only you can do in the body of Christ. And it's time for us,

as the church to start taking those commands seriously and start taking those callings seriously. I'm glad Paul did because without that, we wouldn't have half the new Testament. And so he says by a command of the Lord, I am an apostle of Jesus Christ. Notice what he says, though, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the commandment of God, our savior and Christ Jesus, who is our hope.

That's God in two ways. He calls God, our savior, speaking of God, the father. And it's interesting because if you look back to the old Testament, this word savior is throughout the old Testament. I took my trusty Thompson chain reference Bible, and I took me to the place where it shows all the places that this word savior is used. And it's fascinating to look through the Psalms and the

prophets and see how often that's what God is referred to as is our savior, because that's what God continually is in our lives. He is, he is our savior. He is the one who is our savior. He is the one who is our savior. He is the one who is our savior. He is the one who is our savior. He is the one who delivers us. That's another word interchangeable for savior there. He is our

deliverer. But I want you to notice what he says, God, our savior and Jesus Christ, our hope and Christ Jesus, our hope. That word hope means a confident expectation, a confident expectation. But again, I really appreciated how the amplified Bible translated this because it says Christ Jesus, our hope of the fulfillment of salvation. God is our savior. Jesus coming to earth is the fulfillment of God being our savior because he is

our hope. It started making me think about the complete salvation that Jesus brings into our life. If he is our hope for salvation, that he is our hope for complete salvation. We usually only think of the first part of salvation. When we think about Jesus being our hope and our savior, right? We usually think about the first part, which is important because number,

one, Jesus saves us from the penalty of sin. He saves us from the penalty of sin. That's past tense. That's what he did the day that you came to know him as your Lord and savior, because he took all of your sin, all the penalty of your sin upon himself on the cross. He paid the penalty of your sin. And so now you are not held responsible for your sin any longer. It was nailed to the cross

with Jesus. And he declared the very last thing was to tell us, die paid in full. The penalty is paid and he saves us from the penalty of sin. That's past tense. That's past tense. That's past tense. We call that justification, right? But he doesn't just save us from the penalty of sin. Number two, he saves us from the power of sin, the power of sin. And that's what he does every

day in our lives. That's what he's doing in the present tense is he is saving us from the power of sin. He is setting you free from the things that held you down. He is setting you free from the profanity that always comes out of your mouth. He is setting you free from the power of the anger that dominates your life, from the power of the lust that wants to dominate your life, from the

power of the lust that wants to dominate your life. He is in the process of setting you free from your addiction to pornography or your addiction to drug and alcohol, whatever it is. He is in the process of setting you free from that addiction because he doesn't just save us from the penalty of sin. He saves us from the power of sin. There's another fun word for that. It's called

sanctification. That's what you're in the process of. You were justified. You are being sanctified. But then the third thing is he eventually sets us free from the presence of sin. And he sets us free from the presence of sin when he takes us home to be with himself and we are no longer in this world. We call that glorification. That's what he will do in the future tense. One day we will be set free from sin. And that is Jesus, our hope, who sets

us free, knowing that one day we will not be held down by the sins of this world any longer. And so when Paul declares, I am an apostle of Jesus Christ by the command of God, who is our savior, and Jesus, who is our hope, you understand why he couldn't help but fulfill that calling because he knew what it was like to have his life changed by Jesus. And so that is the writer. The second thing we look at is the recipient. Notice what it says.

Verse two, to Timothy, my true child in the faith. Timothy, my true child in the faith. Hold your finger here and go over to the book of Acts chapter 16. Oops, too far. Acts chapter 16. I want you to look at verses one and two. This is the first time that we read about Timothy in the scriptures. And he has a fascinating story. Acts chapter 16, verses one and two. And it says this.

This is Paul's second missionary journey, by the way. It says, Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra, and a disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. And he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium. Let's read verse three because it'll help too. Paul wanted this man to go with him, and he took

him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were there, for they knew that his father was a Greek. Now we're introduced to a young man by the name of Timothy who lived in a city called Lystra. Now, if we were to go back, a few chapters, we would find that on Paul's first missionary journey, one of the cities that he came through was the city of Lystra, indicating that the gospel was first brought to Lystra on his first missionary journey, but Timothy wasn't ready yet. It wasn't time for Timothy to join him yet.

That would be the second missionary journey. Again, a good reminder, God's timing is always perfect. So on Paul's second missionary journey, he comes across this young man. And this young man is described several ways. First of all, he's a disciple, meaning that he had already come to faith in Christ. Actually, we learned that he was led to Christ by both his mother and his

grandmother, Lois and Eunice, great names, by the way. He was led to faith by his mother and his grandmother. So he's a disciple of Jesus Christ. But the second thing that we find is that he comes from a mixed marriage in a couple of ways. He comes from a mixed marriage of a Jew and a Gentile, meaning mixed ethnicity. He comes from a mixed marriage, meaning that one was a believer, one was not,

quite frankly, we never read anything about Timothy's dad in any of the scriptures, which lead many to believe that perhaps Timothy's dad either had died or was no longer around, meaning that Timothy came from a very broken home. Timothy perhaps even grew up most of his life without a father. And I find this fascinating because God chooses his servants from every aspect of life. Sometimes God chooses people that come from the quintessential perfect family with a mom and a dad, and they come from the quintessential perfect family, and they come from a mom and a dad, 2.5 kids, I've never understand how that works, a dog, two cars, a beautiful house living in suburban America, right? And then God chooses other of his servants from the broken

homes, from the homes where maybe dad's not around or mom and dad are no longer married, and it's a home that everybody else might look at and go, well, it's a pretty rough home that one's coming from. God doesn't care because God's bigger than our background, right? God's bigger than our circumstances. God's bigger than your family drawing. God's bigger than your family

family drawing. God's bigger than your family drawing. God's bigger than your family drawing. God's bigger than your family trauma. God's bigger than all those things. And he takes people from whatever situation and walk of life that he wants to, and he makes them his servants because he saves them by the blood of Jesus Christ. And that's what he does with Timothy is he pulls

Timothy aside and says, I want you to be one of my servants. And so Timothy was well-spoken of by the brethren that were there. And Paul just saw something in this young man. Now, most scholars believe that Timothy was probably anywhere from about 15, 16 years old, maybe to maybe 22, pretty young guy though. When, when, when Paul brought him along in his first

missionary journey and we see that Paul brought him with him. That means that Paul, this older man in the faith saw a young man and he said, I see something in you. And so I'm going to pour into your life. And as a matter of fact, you're going to become my apprentice, not as a tent maker, but as a minister. And I am going to pour into you and disciple you to the point where you

will become truly my child in the faith. Now, again, I'm going to speak a word to you men in here this morning, because this is what we talked about yesterday at men's breakfast. We have got to realize the work that Paul did in Timothy is what God is calling us to do in the church is we have got to start pulling young men aside and saying, I see something in you. Let me teach you what it looks like to walk with Jesus.

I see something in you. Let me pour into your life. I see something in you. I want to see you become a disciple. I'll do anything that I can to do that. You say, Ryan, young people don't want to talk to me. Yes, they do. Okay. You may not realize it and they may not always realize it themselves, but I'm here to tell you right now, I have never seen a situation where an older man

in the faith finds a younger man in the faith and starts pouring into them that that younger man doesn't eventually say, thank you, because that was what I needed in my life. But we have relegated the work of discipleship to the pastor in the youth pastor. Don't get me wrong. I know that my job is, is to, is to disciple people, but there's only one way to do it. And I know that my job is

one of me. I know that the youth leader's job is to disciple people, but there's only one of them. Now's where the other men in the church come into play. And you have that ability. You have that role. You have that Holy spirit in you. And we've got to start pulling aside the Timothys because who knows that we don't have a whole bunch of Paul and Timothys in this room right now,

but it means that you've got to open up your eyes, quit worrying about whether or not it's going to cost you something and decide that you're willing to pour into the lives of kids. Men, everybody knows that women are the Sunday school teachers, right? They're the children's church teachers. Why? Why are only women children's church teachers? Because they're

the only ones that will volunteer to do it. Not because they're the only ones qualified to do it. I would love if our entire children's church right now was filled with husband and wife teams or just men that went back and said, you know what? I want to, I want to disciple these men. I want to disciple these, these 12 year old boys who don't know what it looks like to walk with Jesus. I'm going to be the one

that teaches them the Bible so that they don't think that the only people that care about Jesus are the women in the church. Because you know what's happening in churches right now? Churches have become overly feminized because they, because men have relegated the work of the ministry to the women. And this is going to get me in trouble over and over again, but it is what it is. Guys,

whether we take responsibility or not, God will hold us responsible. And it's time for us as men to step up. It's time for us to do what we're supposed to do. And it's time for us to do what we're supposed to do. And it's time for us to do what we're supposed to do. And it's time for us to do what we're supposed to do. the job that God has called for us to do and to lead. And that's what Paul does with Timothy.

He pulls them aside. He says, I want you to go with me. And I want you to learn what it looks like to be a minister. Well, Timothy will become so close to Paul that he will accompany him on the rest of these missionary journeys. And it's going to be great because Timothy is going to get to see all of the highs of ministry, right? He's, he's going to get to see the altar calls that

bring all of the people forward. He's going to get to see the churches be established from the ground up. He's going to get to see the altar calls that bring all of the people forward. He's going to get to see the elders be appointed and maybe even be one of the ones that helps lay hands on the elders to appoint them to, to lead the churches. He's going to see lives transformed from

idolatrous and moral lives to, to lives that have been born again and brought into the faith. And he's going to see all the highs of ministry, but he's also going to see all of the lows of ministry. And he's going to watch Paul go through all of the hard things and be right by his side the whole time. He's going to be there for the persecution. He's going to be there for the

imprisonment. He's going to be there for the beatings. He's going to be there for the stonings. He's going to be there for all that stuff. And he's never going to abandon him. And he is going to remain true to his friend, even to the point where he is on that ship to get shipwrecked on the way to Rome. And who is the one who helped carry some of the letters from prison that Paul wrote? It was Timothy. As a matter of fact, when

Paul wrote his prison epistles, you know what he said? Hey guys, it's me, Paul. And I'm here with my buddy, Timothy, because Timothy was his faithful servant. So faithful that when it came time to appoint a pastor to a church, he appointed him to the church of Ephesus. Now that may not mean much to you unless you read the book of Acts, and you'll find that Ephesus is where Paul spent more

time than any other church that he started. And it meant a lot to him. And it was a church that was under great attack because there was false doctrine that was coming in. And he said, if anybody can handle it, it's Timothy. If anybody can do this, it's my trusted servant. Well, you know what's kind of funny about Timothy? Timothy was known for a handful of things. He was known

timid, he was known for being anxious, and he was known for being easily intimidated. This is why I always relate to Timothy. Because I know what it's like to have to deliver hard news, to have to be the one that confronts, or to be the one who's scared that everything, every controversial thing that you say is going to get misinterpreted and spewed out somewhere. And I know what it's like to be fearful about those things. And I think Timothy was the exact same way.

This is what Paul wrote to him, to be strong, to be faithful. And he would be those things. As a matter of fact, the very last words that we have of Paul are in the book of 2 Timothy. And in 2 Timothy chapter 4, and we'll get there, in 2 Timothy chapter 4, he says, I don't really know how much longer I'm going to be here. Editorializing and paraphrasing on my part. I don't really know

how much longer I'm going to be here, but could you come visit soon? I'd sure like to see you. Because that's how much he meant to him. Because that's what it's like when you have people that you're that close to. And that's what Paul does with Timothy. And that's what Timothy is for Paul. And so we have the writer who is Paul. We have the recipient who is Timothy. And now go back to 1 Timothy chapter 1,

and we'll look at the greeting. It says in verse 2, to Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. That's a little different greeting than what Paul usually gives. I'm going to read it to you one more time. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. There was a greeting that Paul gave that was entirely

Pauline. It's always just grace and peace to you. But he adds a little word this time. He adds the word mercy. And so I want to go through these three words because they're really important. Because as Paul is writing to this young, pastor, he knows that these three words are what he's going to need in his life if he's going to do what God has called for him to do. The first word that we see is the word grace. The word grace.

The word grace comes from the Greek word charis, and it means unmerited favor, unearned favor. And that's what God gave to us because of what Jesus did for us. It wasn't just some grandfatherly, I'm just going to give you something nice. No, it's because of the blood of Jesus Christ that he gifted us his grace. And it is his grace that God gifted to us that gives us everything that we need to be who we're

supposed to be. It is God's grace that forgives us and allows us to be set free from the penalty of sin. It is God's grace that empowers us and allows us to live as he has called us to be. It is God's grace that keeps us and keeps us where we're supposed to be. It guards us, if you will. And it is God's grace that will finish the work that he has begun in us.

I've always loved the words of that song, Amazing Grace. And if you, you probably sang it growing up, maybe as a hymn, but you should just sometime look up the lyrics to Amazing Grace because it will do your heart so much good. But my favorite line, and I write this in the front of all my Bibles, of course, there's a lot of Bibles. It's neither here nor there. His grace has brought me

safe thus far, and his grace will lead me home. Because that's what God's grace is for us. And as Paul is writing to this young man, Timothy, about what he's going to have to do, he says, grace to you, because you're going to need that unmerited favor of God in your life. But the second word that he uses is he uses the word mercy. Mercy. Now, when you grow up with a

Nichols for a dad, the word mercy is used a lot, but it's used in the old Texas way. Anybody ever heard the old Texas way that you say mercy? Mercy, right? And it's usually because you've done something stupid or something bad's about to happen. It's like, mercy, right? And I think it's because my dad knew I was going to need mercy at that point in time. And so when it would happen,

he'd say, mercy, Ryan. And that was, I grew up hearing that word a lot. And so that it's always been in my mind, but it's always fascinating to define a word like this because the word mercy means kindness and goodwill toward the miserable and the afflicted. Kindness and goodwill towards the miserable and the afflicted. I love that because that's who we are.

We are the miserable and the afflicted, right? We are, we are the ones who desperately need mercy in our lives. And that's what God gave to us as he, he gave to us his mercy. Now, grace is getting something that you don't deserve, right? That's a really easy way to define grace. Mercy is not getting something that you do deserve. Grace is God giving you something. Mercy is God withholding

something in his kindness and his goodness towards you. What were we deserving of? We were deserving of judgment. You know why? Because of the sin in our lives. Because our sin was an affront to God. Our sin was offensive to God. Our sin spit in the face of God. And yet he chose to show us mercy to withhold judgment because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Because he

chose to show kindness and goodwill toward the miserable and the afflicted. And I'm here to tell you right now, we need mercy in our culture about as much as anything in the world. Because we are a culture that lacks mercy sometimes. As long as everything's going my way, and as long as you treat me good, I will continue to treat you good. But the minute you treat me bad,

I will turn on you like a dime. That's not mercy. That's judgment. And what God showed to us is mercy. And he showed it to us because of the blood of Jesus Christ. And you and I are to show that same mercy to other people. Listen, because so much mercy has been extended to us. So much mercy has been extended to us. So much mercy has been extended to us. So much mercy has been extended

to us. And we are to show that same mercy to other people. But you know what I have found? The church is sometimes the last place where we find grace and mercy. Have you ever noticed that? The church a lot of times is where people find judgment. And they say, I don't want to go to church because it's just full of a bunch of judgmental hypocrites. And you know what?

Sometimes they're right. Because we're people that don't show grace and mercy. But you know why you don't show grace and mercy to other people? Because you don't understand grace and mercy to other people. And you don't understand grace and mercy to other people. And you don't understand grace and mercy for yourself. Either A, because you don't realize how offensive your sin

was to God, or B, because you don't realize what God has forgiven you of. And you've never accepted it for yourself. Let me tell you a little story. Back in the Old Testament, there was a guy by the name of David. And David was one of the greatest kings that Israel had ever had. But he had one major fall in his life, one major sin in his life. He had cheated on his wives. He had committed

adultery with a woman named Bathsheba. And when she became pregnant, he had to cover his sin. And so to do so, he had her husband put to death so that he could marry her before anybody knew any better. And in the process of that happening, he thought he had hid his sin. And then one day, the prophet Nathan, a trusted friend of David, he shows up. He says, David, I'd like to tell you a little story. I need your advice on

something. How should I handle this? He said, there were two men. One man only had one little lamb for himself. And then there was a very rich man who had more lambs than he knew what to do with. The rich man had a friend come visit. And he decided he wanted to slaughter one of the lambs so that they could have a meal together. Only rather than taking from his own flock, he went

to the man that only had one lamb. And he took that lamb from him. And he put that lamb to death and he fed it to his family. And you know what David said? You should hang that man, put him to death. But why wasn't David? David was able to show grace and mercy in that situation because he wasn't living in God's grace and mercy himself. You see, that's the way a lot of us are. We are guilty of so much, but we've

never dealt with it with God. And so when we see somebody else sin, we are ready to rain down wrath upon them instead of saying, I've been there too. And I know what it's like to fall into sin. Let me tell you what Jesus is able to do in your life. You see, we can't show grace and mercy unless we understand. We have to do it for ourselves. And that's why Paul says, you're about to have to do some hard

things. Grace to you and mercy to you. And then he gives us that third word that always goes along with Paul's letters. Peace, grace, mercy, and peace. I know we talked about this a lot last week. I didn't mean for it to come up two weeks in a row, but here it is. The Amplified Bible translates the word peace like this, tranquilizing peace. My comedic side, I'm going to talk about this

immediately. Saw somebody really anxious, get shot with a tranquilizer dart and have them collapse because that's sometimes what God does with me when I need a lot of peace in my life. But that's the idea is tranquilizing peace, inner calm and spiritual well-being. I was listening to Ed Taylor from out at Calvary of Aurora talk about God's peace and grace the other day.

He had a fascinating conversation about it. He talked about the fact that until we can experience God's grace, we're at war with God. you know peace in our lives and so those things have to work together grace and mercy will always precede peace grace and mercy always happen and then peace flows into our lives and he said this he said grace is the fountain and peace is the stream let's say that again grace is the fountain and peace is the stream because that's what god gives to us in our lives now i love that he said that because it went along with our image last week right remember the image we talked about last week of peace you're sitting next to a very gently flowing stream and it's a beautiful grassy

hillside and it's a perfect 72.2 degrees outside and you are laid back in the sun absolutely nothing like what it's going to be this week i get to use that one twice in a row but that's what god's peace is for us but listen it never shows up on its own it always flows from the work of god's grace and god's mercy in our lives and so i have a question for you you are you walking in the grace and the mercy of god today are you experiencing the peace of god today because i would venture to say that if you're not experiencing the peace of god today you're also not working you're also not walking in the grace and the mercy of god matter of fact you're either holding your sins against yourself or you're holding someone else's sins against them and

it's time to let all that go it's time to it's time to get rid of all that stuff and allow the grace and the mercy of god to produce the peace of god in your life because i want you to notice what he says Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus, our Lord. You know what that means? The source of all three of those things is only in one place, and it's in Jesus. So that means if you're holding sins against yourself, it's time for you to take those to Jesus and put them under the blood.

If you're not experiencing the mercy of God for yourself, it's time for you to go to Jesus and ask him to teach you about his mercy. If you're not experiencing the peace of God for yourself, it's time for you to go to Jesus and tell him, I have no peace in my life. I need your grace and your mercy at work inside of me. You can't work it up in yourself. You can't try super hard to have it in your life.

It only flows from Jesus, and it only flows from that abiding relationship with him. Amen? Let's all stand, and if you'd bow with me.

Father, we come before you, Lord, and I just thank you for who you are, and I thank you for what your word says. Lord, I thank you that you have given us men like Christ, Paul and Timothy, who, though not perfect and came from very broken backgrounds, you used powerfully to show us that it doesn't matter where we've been. What matters is where we're going. Lord, I thank you that you have blessed us with your hope and your salvation, that you have blessed us with your grace and your mercy and your peace.

And, Lord, I want to lift up every person that's in this room this morning, watching online, that perhaps needs that work done in their lives. Lord, maybe they're the one that you gave me the word for this morning. They don't feel like they've got any worth, and it needs to start with knowing the grace and the mercy of Jesus Christ for them. And, Lord, I pray that that hope would abundantly flow through them.

God, that you would work in their hearts and in their lives. And, Father, for whoever it is that's kicking against the goads, whether it's because they don't want to be a part of it, they come to you for salvation, or they just don't want to really give everything in their life to you, they're content just knowing that they're saved. But anything beyond that, I'm not doing that. And, Lord, they're going to get tired of fighting.

Would today be that day? So, Father, do your work in our hearts and lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Be blessed.

We give you praise, Lord, because it's all about you. Lord God, without you, we have no hope. We have... So, Lord, I just ask that as we leave here today, Lord, that you would just go with us, Lord, and just continue to minister to our hearts, Lord. Bless us. Bless us as we leave here today, Lord. Just keep us safe and keep us warm this week, Lord. We love you, Lord, and we praise you in your precious and holy name.

Amen. You guys have a wonderful week. God bless you.