When I'm Spiritually Stalled

Good morning. Can I just say, you know, thank you for those nice words, but I really, I feel privileged to be at this church. It's a great church. My wife and I moved here from Florida, you know, eight years ago and we've never regretted a moment. And we love this church, not just for the staff, but for you. You know, coming up here can be scary, right? What if I asked you to come up here and talk? You'd be like, "No, thanks." But coming up here is a lot easier when it's to a group of people that I feel genuinely care for me and are rooting for me. So thank you for that.

Who was here last week? Anybody? Last weekend? A lot of us were here. A lot of people joined us. More than we've ever had. Over 8,000 people joined us. Easter weekend from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. We had a lot of fun. We had photo booths all over the property and some pictures of some of our staff and their families on there. And we're just so glad that you guys joined us that weekend. And another cool thing was René talked about donating a part of our offering to ministries in developing worlds that minister to children like one of the ministries started by this lady named Easter in Zambia. And so I'm proud to announce that we were able to send $6,000 overseas to help those ministries. Yeah. So thank you for your support.

And if last weekend was your first weekend and you've come back to join us, welcome. Thanks for coming back. And if today's your first weekend here with us, we're glad that you're here. But I want to ask you a question. Have you ever felt any of these things? Have you ever felt discouraged or intimidated or afraid or overwhelmed or eager to grow and mature but not sure how? Has anybody else felt like that before? Or are you feeling like that right now? You feel a little discouraged. You need some encouragement. We've all been there, right? I've been there. You've been there. And sometimes we just need a little encouragement.

Well, I got a little video that has inspired me. It's a little boy who conquered riding a bike. You remember that when you finally rode your bike and your dad's not holding your back and you're like going, you're like, "This is incredible." Then you fall into the tree or whatever it is at the end. But he's conquered and he has some words of encouragement for you because sometimes we just need a pep talk.

I feel... I feel... Do you feel alive? I feel... I feel happy of myself. I feel happy of yourself too. What do you got any words of wisdom? What about for all the other kids trying to learn how to ride their bike? Can you say anything to them? Everybody, I know you can believe in yourself. If you believe in yourself, you will know how to ride a bike. If you don't, you just keep practicing. You go get the hang of it. I know it. If you keep practicing, you won't get the hang of it. And then you can get better and better at it if you do it. Give me some thumbs up. Thumbs up everybody for watching. If you're in here and you don't know how to ride a bike, you can do it for rock and roll.

Sometimes we need some encouragement, right? Sometimes we just need some inspiration because life gets tough. And some of us, like I said, you know, we're in here and we come to church and we're just like, "Oh man, life is rough right now and I just need some inspiration." And so that's why you're in these seats. And so if that's you, you're gonna love Paul's last letter to Timothy. And I'm excited to kick off our series called Strong Grace. We're gonna be looking at the book of 2 Timothy. If you have a bulletin and take out the sermon notes that are in there, there are a few fill-ins that you can fill up. This book is Paul's last letter and it is just full of incredible encouragement, especially when you're feeling like, you know, you're going through the ringer.

Today what we're gonna do is look at just an overview of the main themes that we see in 2 Timothy. And starting next week, René's gonna start in chapter 1 and gonna go verse by verse right through this book and it's gonna be incredible. And before we get into it, here's just the who, the where, and the why of the book. So here's who. Paul is riding to Timothy. And if you don't know who Paul is, Paul is. He used to be a, he was a Pharisee back in the day and he actually persecuted Christians. He wasn't a fan of Jesus. The first martyr, Stephen, you read in the Bible, Paul was there and he was approving of it. He was holding the jackets of the people, you know, stoning Stephen. He just hated Jesus. He hated his followers.

And on this one trip he was going to this place called Damascus to, you know, find Christians, put them in jail, because he just didn't like them. And on that road, he encounters Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ changes his life. After that, he makes a 180 and it begins to become the greatest missionary we've ever seen. He goes to tell people about Jesus. He goes to city to city and preach the gospel. People believe. He builds churches. He raises up pastors and then he goes on to another city. When you read the New Testament, you read the books like, you know, read books like Corinthians and Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians. Those are places, places that Paul had been and places that he's supporting and encouraging. And so, you know, God used Paul to spread the gospel all over the world and raise up these pastors. One of those pastors being Timothy. Timothy was in Ephesus.

And so Paul is writing this letter to Timothy and fast forward to the end of life. When he is writing the letter, he's in a Roman prison. You know, Rome isn't super excited about this Christian movement and all these people like believing in this new king of theirs. And so they want to squelch it. So they find Paul who's preaching the gospel and they throw him into prison. And you can actually go to the prison. He's being held while he's writing this book. It's called the Mamertine Prison. It's in Rome. And as you go to this prison, this is not like a white collar prison. This is their Alcatraz. This is their, you know, maximum security prison because you walk in and this is the ground floor. Now, it's just the room and the door is right there. And you think he can just like walk out if you wanted. But you look at this grate on the bottom. It looks like a sewer grate. That's actually back in the day was just an open hole. They've added this grate so that tourists don't kill themselves walking into this hole. I guess that had happened. And so back in Paul's time, there was a hole and this was the entrance in which they threw prisoners down to the dungeon where Paul was being held.

You go there today. It looks like this with, you know, plaques and stuff. But back then, no lights, nothing, dank, dark, damp. And he's in this prison. And not only that, Nero is in charge of Rome. And if you remember your history, Nero is the emperor at the time and he's infamous for a couple of things. One is letting Rome burn. If you remember Nero burning Rome or letting Rome burn. And the other thing is he was really one of the first main persecutors of Christians in sort of a state sense. Or he took Christians through him in the Colosseum with lions. He killed so many Christians. He was not a fan. And so now think about this. Paul is in this maximum security prison knowing that Nero, this infamous Christian persecutor, has his fate in his hands. So Paul knows he's going to die.

Knowing he's going to die, he pens his last letter and he could write anybody. I mean, he knows all the movers and shakers in Christianity. He could write Peter. He could write anybody, John, Matthew, but he decides to write Timothy. And Timothy is one of the pastors. And I think one of, you know, he's seeing Timothy as a successor to this ministry. Like a guy he's going to pass the baton to to continue this ministry. But really when we read, we see why he writes it to him. Second Timothy, chapter one, verse two, says this. To Timothy, my dear son, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus, our Lord. Now, Timothy wasn't Paul's biological son. Some think that Timothy didn't have a dad for some reason. He died or he wasn't there and Paul never married or had kids. So Paul treated Timothy like a son. And in another book, he calls him his spiritual son. He raised them and raised them in ministry. So he's very dear to his heart. And he's a pastor and the successor.

So he's kind of giving his last words to the guy who's going to take over. It's kind of like presidents. Have you ever heard of the like the letter presidents write to each other? The outgoing president writes a letter to the incoming president. Some say he hides it in the Oval Office for the new president to find on the morning of the inauguration. A lot of people think this is some conspiracy theory thing where like the president writes the secrets of the United States, like who killed JFK and did we actually go to the moon and what's the secret at the mystery spot? And like these are the secrets that the world wants to know and the president is writing.

So the reason why people come up with these theories is because we don't see these letters. You know, they're these secret letters until recently. We haven't seen them. Now we have one letter in its entirety, the contents of it. And it was George H. Bush's letter to Bill Clinton. It reads like this. Dear Bill, when I walked into this office just now, I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you will feel that too. I wish you great happiness here. I never felt the loneliness some presidents have described. There will be very tough times made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I'm not a very good one to give advice, but just don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course. You will be our president when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well. Your success now is our country's success. I'm rooting hard for you. Good luck, George.

A cool letter. I mean, he had all right to write a mean letter to Bill Clinton, you know, opposite party. He ousted him. He won the election. He could have been like, good luck, buddy. It's going to be tough. I don't like you. But it was it was Bush's last chance to affect any change, you know, to say Clinton, I know you're going to be president. So here don't forget these things. These are the most important things you can remember. And I think Paul's doing the same thing with Timothy. He's like, Timothy, these are the things you don't want to forget. And think about it. This is his last letter he'll ever write because he knows he's going to die. So really important things from a pastor to a pastor, from leader of this ministry to a successor.

And you know, when I read this book, when I was younger and I was in a pastor, I used to think, this doesn't I'm not a pastor. This doesn't apply to me. They even call this book one of the pastoral letters. And maybe you're in here today and you're like, well, I don't I'm not a leader. I don't want to be a pastor. I don't want to be a successor to some big ministry. But I'd like to make the argument that this book is for all of us. You know, Easter just passed and it got me thinking when I was younger, before I was a Christian, I would go to these, you know, Christian youth rallies. You know, it's what they do is they give you like some cool thing to watch and then they preach the gospel. Like I remember going to one and these guys, like strong guys, like break stuff. Like I take this piano and like break it in half and like tell you about Jesus. Or like they would have a rock concert and then tell you about Jesus. Or they'd have free food and they tell you about Jesus. I went to those for sure. Good food.

But you go to these things and then the preacher would come up and I remember their messages. They would they would come up and they would say, listen, kids. I know you thought that was fun, but here's the real deal. Where are you going to go when you die? I'm like, I don't know. What if you walk out of this room and you get hit by a truck or struck by lightning or eaten by bear? Where are you going to go? I don't know, man. I don't want to die. You're going to go to heaven? You're going to go to hell. You want to go to heaven? Come down and pray with me. And I was like, well, whatever. I'm coming up. I don't I don't even know. I don't even know what you're talking about, but I don't want to I don't want to go to hell and I don't want to get eaten by bear. Work your magic.

But I remember going to multiple of those even after I was a Christian and all they talked about was what happens after you die. And so, you know, I used to think that all the events of Easter, Good Friday, Jesus dying on a cross, Easter, him, you know, rising from the dead. That that was just all that was just for to affect the end of my life. But all that was not just for that. Second Timothy, Chapter one, verse nine, look what it says. It says he has saved us and not only saved us, has called us to a holy life. God did all that not just to change the end of your life, but to change your life today. To transform you to live a holy life. To grow and to mature in your relationship with God.

And that's our prayer. That's our hope here at Twin Lakes that you would come here and you would hear the gospel, the good news that Jesus died for you, rose from the dead. You can believe in that and gain salvation to heaven. But then after that, grow and mature in your spiritual life to begin to live a holy life. And why? Because I think like Paul, God wants us to be influencers. You know, Paul didn't go around the world and just by himself tell a ton of people about Jesus. He went and he raised people. He influenced people to then tell the news. He went here and influence all these people and then they spread the news. And that's why today we sit in a church because Paul was an incredible influencer of people and God is calling us to the same thing to be influencers.

Because we all have influence, right? Maybe you're a parent. You have influence over your kids or a friend or a neighbor or you're driving your car on the road. You're influencing people by your actions. And God wants us to be a good influencer because sometimes we can be bad influences. Makes me think of a story when I was a kid. I tell a lot of stories about my mom because she's Korean and you know, I can do the accent and that's funny to people and she's kind of crazy and that's really funny to me and people. And one time, last time I spoke, the lady said, "Why don't you ever talk about your dad?" And I'm like, "There's not great stories about my dad." So here's one.

When I was four, we lived in Queens, New York, Flushing to be exact. And we lived on the seventh floor of this tall building, apartment building. And I remember I was sitting on the sofa watching cartoons and my dad, you know, walks up, you know, whatever he's walking around and he says, "Adrian, I'm going to get us lunch. Don't move. Sit in that chair and watch the cartoons." Okay. Don't move. I'm not going to move. I'm a good kid. The door closes. Of course, I get up. I'm not going to stay on the sofa. I got to get in trouble. And so I'm looking for things to get myself into trouble with and I go to their room and there is this table in my parents' room. It's a jeweler's table. My dad was studying to be a jeweler at the time.

If you've never seen a jeweler's table, it's just this wooden table, drawer, magnifying glass, light, tools. But the most important tool are blow torches. I know. I didn't know this at the time, but I have some pyromania in me. Like my dad will be working on jewelry and I'll just look at that flame. It's like, "Well, how beautiful is that? I want it. I want to be with that fire." And so now is my chance. My dad's been doing it this whole time. It's my turn. So he's gone. There's multiple kinds of blow torches, but he had this one that I saw him use and I knew how to start. So it's this blue propane tank on the top is this orange gun looking thing and a little black knob. And you, so this is what happens. You turn the knob, propane shoots out. There's this flint starter. You spark it, fire. I did it four years old, bomb in hand. I'm ready to play.

So open fire and you know, it's fire. I'm like, "Okay, cool. I got to burn something now." You know, I got... So this is the thing. I'm not dumb. I knew like I don't want to get in trouble. I could hide this. I could turn this off, put it away. He'll never know. So I got to burn something. He won't miss. So I find a receipt in the garbage and I could just burn this receipt, but I thought that's too boring. I threw it up in the air and it floated down and I thought, "I got it. It's my new game." So I threw it up and I'm trying to hit it with the fire and I'm trying to hit it with the fire and I can't get it with the fire. And I'm four, you know, I'm like, "Ah." Finally, I get it. Hit it. But it's behind the drapes of my parents' bedroom. If you don't know about fire, when something like drapes made out of cloth is comes in contact with fire, that in turn turns to fire. And so my parents' drapes are on fire.

So in my mind, I don't want to get in trouble. So this is the... I got to get rid of the fire. That's a problem. I don't remember what I did with the can. I think I just threw it. I don't know. I might have turned it off. I thought I got to put this fire out. So I ran to the bathroom. I thought there's water in this bathroom. I turn on the faucet and I got to fill something and take it back and throw it on the fire. So the first thing I find is the, you know, the after you brush your teeth, rinse your mouth cup. That's the official term of that cup, right? What do you call that? The cup in your bathroom. So I take that three ounce cup or whatever it is, fill it, and as you know, I'm four. So I run like this and nothing. And so I do that like a few times. Water's everywhere. Fire is going up. I'm home alone. It goes to the top and it goes out. Fire is done. I was like, did this work? No, but it just went out.

Now fire is gone. Okay. I thought I can still salvage this. Maybe he won't notice the drapes aren't there. But I got to get rid of the smoke, right? And so I open the window. Smoke rushes out and I'm like, I'm in the clear, but I didn't I wasn't smart enough to realize this. I mean imagine yourself walking down a busy New York Street. You look up out of the seventh floor smoke. Black smoke is coming out of a window and then right after that a little boy. Spokes his head out and I look down and I see people looking and pointing and talking to each other. And I'm thinking they're going to tell my dad. Don't tell my dad. All right. I'm fine. We're okay. Have a good day. Close the door. I run to the sofa. I sit, watch TV. My dad comes home puts the food on there and I know that's my last meal as he walks away. So I scarf it down. I hear him approaching after he says some things. I can't repeat and I wake up the next day after his discipline.

We all have influence. I love my dad. His influence mixed. This moment not great. We all have influence. But God calls us to have good influence. So this book I believe is for all of us because God calls all of us to have influence. So what is Paul's message to Timothy? If you're here today and you raise your hand, you know, you're going through something. I just want you to be encouraged by Paul's words because he's one of the greatest encouragers and again one of the greatest influencers and he gives Timothy a pep talk and this is how he starts. First of all, in your message notes, you want to write this down. Paul promises two things. The first is this life will be hard. That's how he starts the pep talk. Join with me in suffering for the gospel. 2 Timothy 1 8. 2 Timothy 3 1. There will be terrible times. Becoming a Christian isn't a promise to a cushy life here on earth. God never promised us become a Christian and nothing bad will happen to you. You'll just receive flowers every day and you'll just love life and you'll go to Disneyland all the time. We're going to Disneyland soon. It's like on my mind. But God doesn't promise us that.

You know what he promises us? Life is going to be tough. Christ himself says people will hate you because you follow me. We're all going to go through that. I know this doesn't sound like a great start to a pep talk, but I promise it gets better. Watch this. Number two, people will oppose you. In Timothy 3 12, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Following Jesus, living a holy life means living differently, right? Living a life in God following Christ means that there should be some change. I mean, when you think about it, if the God of the universe, the Holy Spirit lives inside you and me, there should be some change from when that didn't happen.

When we become Christians, when we start to follow Christ, our decisions change a little bit. Our concept of what right and wrong changes a little bit. You know, the places we decide to go and not to go changes a little bit and that rubs people the wrong way and that rubs the world the wrong way because it doesn't come into alignment to what the world believes is how we should live. And I remember in 10th grade, I felt this. I was in biology and next to me sat this girl. We were friends in that class. She was sort of the classic, like this early 90s, like rebel. She's wearing boots and a green army, her dad's green army jacket and ripped up jeans and like a shirt and dog tags. She didn't care about life and didn't care about anybody, but she was super nice. That was just her exterior.

In biology, we talked and we had, you know, she was super smart, super thoughtful. And then one day we're in biology and my, I had, I used to wear a chain with a cross on it, a gold chain my sister gave me. I lost that chain. And then she looks over and she sees this chain, this cross, and then she like looks disgusted. And I remember leaning over and saying, you're right. She goes, are you a Christian? Yes. How could you? She sits back in her chair, turns. She never talked to me again because I mean, because I wore a cross really, but because I said I was a Christian in life, as you, as you live this life for God and follow Christ and he calls us to do things a little bit differently, you're going to come up against opposition and contention and ridicule. It's going to happen.

So Paul promises Timothy, life's going to be hard. You will face opposition. And if you're here and you feel like you're in that, he does give some advice. He goes from those warnings to this advice. Paul advises three things. And the first thing is this, to be strong in grace, be strong and great. Second Timothy one seven says for the spirit of spirit, God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. Second Timothy one nine, he has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. If you read any of Paul's writings in the New Testament, you will never read them and not hear the words grace uttered. Everything he says, everything he talks about is through the filter, through the rubric of grace. Everything goes through that.

And if you're here and you're not sure what grace means, it's this, salvation, God's love, God's approval is nothing you can earn. There's nothing you can do as a human to earn God's love because it's all on him. He loves us. The salvation that I was talking about earlier is all the work of that salvation God did. Salvation, this holy life, it's a gift from God. Like it says, it's not because of what we've done, but because of God and his grace. And why do we have to remember that? Why does Paul like, you know, tell Timothy this? I mean, Timothy's heard Paul before. He's probably heard him talk about grace so many times. Why one more time because that's how important it is. He's told Timothy, when you go through all these problems, you got to remember grace because if you don't, you get put in a corner because of opposition, because of life's troubles, and you start to feel discouraged. You start to lose hope. You start to doubt.

When you don't have a good understanding of grace and you're in that corner, you start to think it's all your fault. And the only way to get out is by your own effort. I grew up in a very legalistic place. My mom's Korean, like I said, and living in a Korean home, it's all about performance, like perform well and make us look good. I have Korean friends who, where they go to college, the careers they're supposed to have are already set. You must be a doctor or a lawyer or something very prestigious so that I can tell my friends that you're doing really well. So I grew up in that sort of performance-based earn love through doing good deeds sort of thing. And then I go to a church that was Korean, and I became a Christian there, and they had those sort of cultural things going on, but then also integrated that in faith. And so it became, you need to earn God's love and to earn his favor, you got to do a lot of stuff and stop doing a lot of stuff. So it's all about what you do, not about God's power.

God did stuff, but you really got to do stuff. And it can take you to some weird places, like wacky places. I remember in high school, there was a girl, we're at this church together, and I'm getting over cold now. And I remember having a cold back then, and I sneezed or coughed or something, and she looked at me and said, "So, you're not praying enough? You're not reading the Bible? You got a repent of something? Then we got a cold." I thought, "I have a cold because I didn't read enough of the Bible?" And I remember, I live in this world. I believe the legalistic stuff, but even that was like, "Are you crazy?" I remember thinking, "Man, I just want to sneeze in your face and tell you to read more Bible and pray so you don't get a cold." I should have done it.

But when you don't have a strong understanding of what grace means, you lose hope because you think it's all on you. And when we realize that anything we have, anything we do, getting out of this trouble, salvation, living this whole life is all based on God's power and His grace, it's freeing because He gives us a spirit of freedom. So be strong in grace. Secondly, He tells Timothy to be grounded in the Word. Second Timothy 1, 13, and 14, "What you heard from me keep as the pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit or Scripture that was entrusted to you." Second Timothy 3, 15, and 16, "Continue in what you have learned. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness." When you get into those places where you start to feel discouragement creep in and doubt creep in, where the places I've been where I'm like, "Does God exist? Has His love left me? Does He hate me now?" Because you don't have a good understanding of grace because you're not grounded in the Word.

So Paul is reminding Timothy, "Be grounded in the Word to remind yourself the truths of God because these two things. One, discouragement. Discouragement comes from lies. Discouragement comes from lies. Lies that say, "You're going through this because it's your fault. God doesn't love you because you haven't tried hard enough or you sinned too much. God's grace isn't for you. It can't cover all those sins you've committed. You're way too far gone." That discouragement comes when you start to not have a, you're not grounded in truth and you begin to hear these lies. But encouragement, encouragement comes from truth. A truth that says God loves you and God's love for you doesn't change because God doesn't change. The love that He had for you when you accepted Christ into your heart, the love that He had for you on the cross, that love that He poured out is the same love He has for you in the worst time of your life, when you're in sin and when you're making mistakes. His love doesn't change. His grace is enough for you. His grace can cover all the sins you've committed. His grace can cover the sins that you're going to commit because He's God and His grace is godly.

And the only way you can understand that truth is when you go back to the source because the only source of reliable and consistent truth is God's word. The only source we have on this earth of consistent and reliable truth is His word. It's the way we know God. It's the way we understand what He wants us to do, be grounded in the word. And thirdly and lastly, what Paul tells Timothy is this, is to be gentle. Second Timothy 2.22-25 says, "The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed." Second Timothy 4.22, "Correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction." It's interesting when you read Second Timothy because he tells Timothy these warnings. He then starts to encourage him, be grounded in the word, be strong in grace. Then he makes this interesting turn in his advice to Timothy. He says, "Now here's a call to action. This is how you respond to the opposition and to the trials that you have, to be gentle." And why did he do that?

I think this because I don't know about you, but I know people who they've been Christians a long time. They know a lot of the Bible. They've read. They do a lot of good things, but they are jerks. You know people like that? They're people that would seem like really nice people, but you'd never want to hang out with them. There was this guy in my high school. They called him Bible man. It wasn't a term of endearment. It was like, "Her comes Bible man." I was a Christian, and I was like, "I don't know about this guy." Because he was just so condescending, and he was so arrogant. The thing is, you can fill yourself with the word, with Scripture, and that's good because then you have the ammo, you have the words of encouragement, the words of influence to give people. But if you're not gentle and you don't say it in a way that people want to hear it, they're not going to want to hear it.

That guy knew a lot of the Bible, but nobody wanted to hear him talk because he was just not nice. You know what? We have an opportunity right now to practice this. I don't know if you heard about this water thing that's going on, but here at the church, the staff and leadership, it's been heavy on our hearts. There are a lot of you here that have supported our 2020 vision with prayer, with time, and financially you've supported. So we have this very vested interest to see what we feel like God wants to do on our campus succeed. We're having this situation come up where it might not happen. And so initially, your response could be like, "This isn't fair. Let's go tell them what we think." Kick over signs and just waste water. Like, "Fine! I'm going to take a 50-minute shower. Who cares about water? That could be your response. Maybe it was to some people, but I think God is calling us to a different way.

We're encouraging you to join us on Tuesday night at Seascape just to show your support for this project. And really, because we believe this project saves water, to show your support for water conservation. And we have an opportunity to be gentle, to respond in the right way, to respond like this. Look at what Paul says in 2 Corinthians. He says, "So we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making His appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, 'Come back to God.'" God has called us to be His ambassadors here on earth, to be His spokespersons here on earth, and so we've got to make sure we do that in a Christ-like way, like Paul says, with patience, with careful instructions, being kind to everyone.

Be strong in grace. Be grounded in the Word. Be gentle because life's going to get hard. You will have opponents. Why does Paul tell Timothy all this? Because I think this, you know, we're like, again, these are just the main themes of 2 Timothy, and starting next week, you're going to like dive, we're going to dive deep and René's going to start and just, it's going to be incredible because I think at the end of this, studying for this message, I read 2 Timothy a few times, which I encourage you to do. A second Timothy is four chapters. If you read super, super slow, like, "Hello, I..." If you read that slow, it'll take you 10 minutes to read 2 Timothy. If you read super fast, under five minutes. It's really doable. Even in the devotionals we put in the notes today, we're encouraging you to read through 2 Timothy this week.

Because I think this, at the end of this series, as you read this book and really understand God's Word in 2 Timothy, we will begin to be a little bit more, have attitudes a little bit more like Paul. Because remember, this is Paul's last letter, right? Paul's one of my heroes when I think about, you know, in the Bible. It's just all that he did, you know, where he went came from a persecutor of Christians to this incredible missionary and pastor and influencer. And so he's at death's door, right? And he's writing this last, this letter and towards the end of the chapter, he writes this, "Knowing that he's going to die, knowing he's going to be persecuted, probably not going to die a really easy death." He says this, "But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom."

Paul is in jail. He knows Nero wants him dead and he's going to die. But with strength and with peace and encouragement, he writes these words to Timothy that, "Listen, I did it. I got through it and you can get through it." Because this is the bottom line and this is what Paul is telling Timothy is that ultimately God will give you victory. Paul knew that. That ultimately God, it's God's victory. I know that I'm going to die. I know that I've been beat. I know that I've been persecuted. But God has won the victory. On the cross, God paid the price and won the victory over death and the devil. God has the victory and we can become like Paul once we really understand that. And Paul is a little bit like that boy who learned to ride a bike, right? I mean, think about that kid. He was discouraged and he was intimidated. His dad not holding his shirt anymore or not there to catch him when he fell.

He was afraid, afraid to fall because that hurts. He was overwhelmed with the thought of riding a bike, getting up and taking the training wheels off and pedaling and steering and balancing and looking and breathing and surviving. And then he got through it and then what was the first thing he did? He just wanted to tell all of you how excited he was and that you too can ride a bike for rock and roll. And that's what Paul's doing. He's Timothy, I did it. I fought the good fight. I lived this life through all those persecutions and God has the victory because I'm going to walk into heaven. How cool would it be at the end of our lives? We look back and we see ourselves as people who were discouraged, who were afraid, who were overwhelmed. We understand, we understood God's word. We were strong in grace. We were grounded in that word. We were gentle with our opposition and we became people who influenced and encouraged other people who were discouraged and afraid, losing hope.

That's my prayer for you and for me as we go through this series and we learn God's word through 2 Timothy. Let's pray. Father, I'm just so grateful to you for your love and for your grace and as I'm reminded of it over and over, as I read your word, I sing songs of worship to you, that God, you are gracious and that this life that you call me to, that you call us to, this salvation that I have, this gift is not of my own doing but is of your doing, is of your effort and your strength and love and grace and mercy. So God, I'm just grateful to you for that. I thank you for your word in 2 Timothy, this incredible book. I pray that God, you would help us understand it. May it seek deep into our hearts and our minds so that Lord, when we do face these trials, when we face troubles, when we face opposition, that God, we would be strong in grace, we'd be grounded in your word, we would be gentle with those that oppose us and the situations that oppose us so that God, we can become influencers of this world, ambassadors, spokespersons, Lord, that you've called us to be. I thank you for your love. I thank you for your grace. Be glorified, be honored. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.