A Godly Mother's Heart Expressed

And happy Mother's Day, to all of you moms. today is Mother's Day, and being Mother's Day, we want to take a moment to recognize, the moms that are here with us in our service this morning. in the 10 Commandments, the 5th commandment says, honor your father and your mother. And the only reason that God would command us to honor both our fathers and our mothers is because the institution of fatherhood and motherhood are eminently worthy of honor, right?

We, we live in a culture today that is devaluing the family. And, but the scripture teaches us that God created the family. It's the institution that he ordained. And in that family, there's a father and the mother doing what God has called them to do and bringing up their children and the nurture and discipline of the Lord.

This is God's plan. This is his pattern. We honor fathers and, and mothers. We're also blessed in Scripture in First Timothy 5, where Paul, is talking about how that we as a church are a family.

And he says to Timothy, relate to the older men as fathers and relate to the older women as mothers, teaching us that in the church and the family of God, there are, there are women that serve as spiritual mothers. To many others in, in the church body, in the family of God. And so we honor such spiritual moms as well, today who play such a strategic, encouraging, loving role in the lives of so many in, in our church, church body. So what I want to do is, if you are here today, and you are a mother, grandmother, great grandmother, expectant mother, spiritual mother, A mother in any such way, can you stand so that we can recognize you and express our appreciation to you?

Great. And I would encourage you to remain standing until you receive this book, that we're passing out. And there are some, ladies that are standing in the balcony. So let's make sure we, we get to them.

But the gift that we're giving you today, moms, is, the book Gospel Meditations for the Hurting. how do you like that? Gospel meditations for the hurting. you heard that right.

why would we give you this on Mother's Day? Well, just know that mothers actually participated in the making of this choice. It wasn't just a bunch of clueless guys who, who made this decision. and also, any woman that's been a mother for any length of time, knows that in the institution of motherhood, A woman is brought in close proximity to the sharpest, keenest edges of the fall.

You want to be vulnerable. The role of motherhood will put you in that vulnerable state. You will live 1000 lives and die 1000 deaths. You will laugh all of your laughter and weep all of your tears, and that in the role of being a mother, that there are hurts that you experience along the way as you play that role, and you also know that.

that you're frequently talking to other moms and you're ministering to other moms and encouraging them with the hurts that they encounter along the way, and you also know that being a mom, part of being a mom is ministering to the hurts and the wounds of your children. No one can do it quite like you can. So any mom that is going to fully achieve the calling of motherhood that God has bestowed upon her needs to be a mom who has received the ministry of the gospel deep in her bones as it ministers to the hurts that we experience along life's way.

And this is a wonderful book in the series we've given you Gospel meditations for women, Gospel meditations for men, gospel meditations for prayer, and now Gospel meditations for the hurting, and you guys have been blessed by these books as they've become available in the past.

This is hot off the press. It just became available this week and we had them. Not this week, a couple weeks ago, but we had them shipped right away to us in time for Mother's Day, and we trust that this will be a blessing to you and further equip you and resource you, to go out into the world and go to your children and fulfill your role as a mother in strength and empower with the healing power of the gospel. Well, let me take a few moments to pray for you too.

I'd like to pray for you moms. And lift you up before the Lord. So, let's do that, together. Father, I thank you, just praise you for the moms that are in this room.

We just celebrate these, these moms in so many ways, their task is thankless. things they do that don't ever get noticed, they are underappreciated, Lord. We just thank you for, for them. We thank you for all the work they do in caring for their children and molding the lives of the children that you have given to them.

Lord, some of these moms are young and some are older, some have younger children in the home, and others have older children that are out of the home. Some have grandchildren, others have great grandchildren. Lord, their moms, most of our moms, have husbands by their sides. and yet we have moms in this church body who do not have that blessing of a husband by their side, and so they must labor alone in many ways.

Most of our moms, Lord, have Christian husbands who love you and and are seeking to bring up their children together with her in the nurture and discipline of the Lord. But then we have moms, Lord, that do not have the blessing of a Christian husband. And they must, they must labor alone spiritually in bringing up their children and the nurture and discipline of the Lord. We also know, Lord, that Mother's Day can be a hard day for women who at some point in their past have made The choice to abort the child in their womb.

I pray that on this day that they would not be haunted, but that they would have an unusual courage to look honestly and squarely at the choices that they've made. And then run to the cross and drink deeply of your amazing grace and know that there is grace, there's healing, there's love from You, Jesus. You died for such sins. In order to save and forgive and to bring into a relationship with yourself, and may they taste deeply of your grace on this special day, Lord, and may they know that their child is safe in your arms and that they are not childless.

May they rest in, in your comfort on this day and every day. Lord, we ask this morning for all the moms that you would bless them in a special way that you would help them to understand how important their role is, how fraught with strategic significance eternally their ministry is from day to day. We pray God that you would give to each mom here exactly the grace and the wisdom that they need to be exactly the mom that their children need for them to be at whatever stage of life that they are at presently.

Help these mothers to mirror your image to their children, help them by the lives that they lead and by the example they set by the words they speak, and by the ways that they go about relating to their children, help them God through all of these means to show their children what you are like.

Use these moms, Lord, to, together with the dads to bring up a godly generation of men and women who will be champions of the faith, who will, Who will know their God, who will do great exploits in the name of Jesus. And when that day comes that All of us who are moms and dads. And brothers and sisters of this younger generation will look at what they have become and say wow, we had a role to play. What a great God you are and what a blessing to give us a role in shaping the next generation for Christ.

Lord, as we open up your word right now, we, we ask that you would visit with us, that you would perform many miracles in this room, that you would perform miracles of listening, opening our hearts to all that you have for us, that you would perform miracles of, of speech and enable me to do justice to this passage. Everyone that's here today is here for a reason. By divine appointment, we stand on the threshold of eternity. Everyone in this room will one day be in heaven or in hell forever.

And we're not just playing church, Lord, Transactions will occur in this room this morning that will be of eternal significance. And so we open our hearts to you, to all that you have for us. Help me to serve these brothers and sisters well. And we ask these things in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, And then First, I'm sorry, 2 Timothy chapter 32 Timothy, Chapter 3.

We're gonna be looking at verses 1 through 17, this morning with the time that we have. Normally on Mother's Day, I generally will try to serve the moms by preaching a sermon to you, right? I will talk to you as moms and try to serve you in that way to be an encouragement or to provide perspective for you on Mother's Day. This year, what I'm going to do is I want to serve you moms, by not by speaking to you, but by speaking for you.

And on your behalf this morning, and I hope that by the time we're done that you will feel that your heart has been sufficiently expressed through this message and that what you have been saying to your own children, that you will feel like your ministry to your children has been reinforced by what I say as I speak on your behalf this morning. Every godly mom. speaks truth to her children, right? And every godly mom delights when other people speak truth.

To her children. as parents, like I, we try to speak truth to our children, but when other people in the church, are speaking truth to our, our children, and they share with us something that one of you said, and it really blessed them, and challenged them, that makes our day. We don't want our children to grow up and only listen to me and to my wife, Donna. We want them to hear from you.

A godly parent wants to speak truth to their children and wants other godly people to speak truth to their children. Many of of Augustine, a very significant church father in church history, when in his youth, when he had rebelled and was living for a period of time in arrogance and pride and immorality, his mother Monica. prayed for him incessantly. She spoke truth to him whenever she had any window of opportunity to do so.

And she also harassed the local bishop. She literally harassed the local bishop in town. with him to go talk to her son. You have to talk to my son.

That's the heart of a godly mother. I want to speak truth to my children. I want to pray for them and pray with them and over them. And I want other people to speak truth to them.

And I share that at the outset today because as we come to 2 Timothy chapter 3, I want you to look at this chapter from that vantage point. We read 2 Timothy 3 and we read it from one vantage point. It's the chapter where Paul says all scripture is given by inspiration of God and so forth. but understand that when Timothy read this chapter, he would have read it from a different standpoint as the direct personal recipient of this letter.

But I also this morning want you to read 2 Timothy chapter 3 through the eyes of Eunice, Timothy's mom. How would she have read this chapter? I am sure that as she would have read 2 Timothy chapter 31 through 17, that her heart as a godly mom would have soared, and she would have been thinking, Oh, Lord, thank you for the apostle Paul, who is speaking such counsel and such truth into the life of my son. Because any godly mom would read this chapter and feel that her heart, her burden, her concerns are being beautifully expressed as Paul is speaking to Timothy here.

And so if you want to give a title to the message, it would be a godly Mother's Heart expressed, a godly mother's heart expressed. And as we look at this, I want to, so basically what I want to do is I want to talk to the young people. Here, in, in the room this morning. Those of you that are growing up in a Christian home, maybe you're in college right now, doesn't matter.

I'm speaking to the next generation, the up and coming, generation. And I want to hit you with the question, which way are you going to go when you are on your own and you are out from under your parents' authority under their rule, and you establish yourself in life independently, which direction are you going to go? Which direction, what choices will you make? I was reading just this week, an interview with a 52 year old man who was talking about his life growing up, and he described himself as a fervent churchgoer as a kid.

He went on to say, we went to church all the time, went to Bible study. We even did Bible study at my house. I went to a Presbyterian college. I was in all the way.

I remember doing my first sermon when I was 17. The sermon was on faith. Sounds so promising. He goes on to say, I was this Christian boy with the same views that everyone else in the Christian community had.

But that young man grew up and ended up rejecting the notion that Jesus is the Son of God and the only way of salvation, and he renounced Christianity. That 52-year-old man is Woody Harrelson. Woody Harrelson. whose life is about anything other than Jesus right now.

And he said this, when your faith unravels, it just unravels. I don't think I'll ever be affiliated with any organized religion again. I believe there are a lot of paths to the truth. How sad.

Started off great, started off well, being taught a lot of great things. But eventually, he rejected it all. He did not continue, did not continue. And I ask you as a young person, which path are you going to choose?

It is, it is an amazing thing to me as a pastor who has been here for over 22 years now, to see young people who sit in the same classes, they hear the same lessons, they sit in the same pews, they hear the same sermons. they've got the same youth leaders, and parents who love the Lord, year after year after year, and some, Go on for the Lord, they imbibe the very best of what Cornerstone and the teaching of their parents has had to offer. And we get to watch them grow and flourish in the Lord and all that they have been taught come to full, beautiful flower.

And then there are others sitting in the same classes receiving exactly the same ministry that when they go out on their own, they reject the faith, they reject everything that they have been taught, and they live their lives for themselves, pursuing pleasure rather than pursuing and loving God.

Which direction are you going to go? I'm not really asking what you're doing right now or what you have done. I'm not interested in how many verses you've already memorized or how many badges you have. On yourijuana uniform, that's all great.

But where are you going to go? Which direction will you go? What choices will you make on the road ahead? Some of you may say, well, I don't really know.

I hope I make the right choice. There are some young people, I have no doubt in our church that already know what direction they're going to go. They're just waiting to get out from underneath their parents' authority. It's sad, but it's true.

I'll never forget a number of years ago there was a gal who grew up in our church, got out on her own, got involved in sexual immorality that came to light. We began to talk with her the day after it came to light. I was talking with her and I was operating off of the premise that this is somebody who got ensnared in sin. She got involved in a relationship.

She got in over her head. And it just went further than she wanted. And we got to help her get out of this. I assumed that that was what she would have wanted was help and getting out.

And I said to her, Listen, if you've, if you're trapped in this, there are people that can come around you and we can help you in the grace of Christ and help pull you out. And I'll never forget her reply to me. She said, I don't want to be rescued. I wanted to do this.

I've wanted to do this for years. Basically indicating I'm doing what I planned. They do, don't try to save me from this. I'm just fine.

Where I'm at She knew years before what direction she was going to go, and when the opportunity presented itself, that's exactly what she did, bringing tremendous grief. Tremendous grief What direction will you go? What I want to do with the time that we have this morning is to deliver six please, six please, P L E A S, not with the E on the end. Although I will say please, if that helps, six please that we can draw from 2 Timothy chapter 3, that godly parents would want you In this up and coming generation to hear today.

This is the heart of your parents, and the heart of God being expressed to you through Paul as he speaks to Timothy, in 2 Timothy chapter 3. Plea number one, is realize that you are living In a dangerous time because of sin. Realize that you are living in a dangerous time because of sin. Paul says to Timothy, but realize this, know this.

It's like, Timothy, I'm serving notice on you. There's something you have to know. Realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come. That word difficult means perilous.

dangerous, violent times will come. Why will these times be difficult and perilous and dangerous? Verse 2. Because men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness.

But they have denied its power. There are people who match these descriptions, but they will wear the guise of spirituality and religiosity. Woody Harrelson in the interview I quoted from. said, I view myself as a spiritual person.

There's a lot of people who view themselves as spiritual people, religious people, moral people, and yet, they love themselves, they love money, they're boastful, arrogant, and on and on the list goes, and they are exceedingly dangerous people. Paul is saying in the last days. Well, Timothy was already in the last days. and here we are 2000 years later, this definitely applies to us.

And these days, if Paul were speaking to us today, he would say, this is the day in which you live. You are living in perilous, dangerous times. Why would Paul say this to Timothy? Why would he say this to all of us?

And why would he say this in particular, to the young people? Paul would do this because one of the characteristics of young people is that we don't fear when we ought to fear. We're not aware of danger as we ought to be aware of. those of us who are older, we've learned the hard way that there are things to be very afraid of.

But a young person, isn't fully clued into that yet. They think that they are invincible. Paul renders an invaluable service to young Timothy, and to all of us and to the young up and coming generation to warn us all that there are dangers that are out there. And it's because of sin and a culture that is given over to sin.

When Paul speaks of danger, what danger is he talking about? I think he's partly talking about dangers to our safety. dangers to our safety. It's very obvious that the world is less safe when people live according to the descriptions that he has just given here.

and as our culture has been rolling down an ever steepening slope. And the qualities that Paul has just described are becoming more and more rampant and common. Our culture today is less safe than it was a generation ago, on many levels. When I was 5 years old, living in Jacksonville, Florida, I remember getting on my bike and, my little bicycle and, and going around the block with my, my two brothers.

We were just young, we'd go around the block and we would meet new people and our parents weren't even with us. That can't happen today. Any parent that would let that happen today is what they're a bad parent, right, because it's not safe and it's not safe because of sin because our culture is increasingly filled with people who match the descriptions that Paul is giving to us here. It makes for a dangerous society when a society becomes disconnected from God.

And becomes full of people who believe that they are animals, evolved animals with no God to answer to and no book to guide them, society inevitably becomes less safe. There is reason to fear for one's safety in such a culture, and I believe everyone intuitively knows this. They'll talk philosophically like they don't know it, but they do know it. In fact, how many of you have heard of Ravi Zacharias, the great Christian apologist, really bright thinker, great communicator.

This was exposed in a recent, I don't know how recent it was, but he was speaking to on a secular college campus and he was talking about morality and right and wrong and an absolute standard of morality which is the Bible. And after he was done, there was a Q&A time and a student came up to the microphone and said this to Robbie Zacharias. He says all night you have been grappling with issues like morality and what is right and what is wrong and meaning, but my question is simply, why are you so afraid of subjective moral reasoning?

do you think that we will all just start raping and pillaging just because we don't have a book to tell us what to do?

are you afraid of that? I'm not. That's not going to happen. What are you so afraid of?

Do you get the question? Come on, instead of having an absolute standard like the Bible, how about just let everyone define their own values and their own meaning, and arrive at their own morality subjectively? Why not let people do that? What are you so afraid of?

I'm not. Why are you afraid? I love Ravi Zacharias's reply. Very simple.

He looked at the student and said, Do you lock your door at night? He went on to say other things, but that's a brilliant question. The student said, sure. And then everyone in the room, including that student, began to laugh because they knew, they knew he had been the head.

This man by locking his doors at night. was indicating that he is afraid. A people who subjectively operate by a different value system that is different than his, so he locks his doors to protect himself from those who might wish to practice their values at his expense. It's a farce.

People can, say, I believe your truth is your truth. My truth is my truth, and hey, let's just all create our own morality. And that sounds great until someone develops their own morality and decides to hijack your computer and steal your identity and abduct one of your children and sell them into sex slavery. This doesn't work.

And people that operate according to these values that Paul has described, that's not a culture that is safe. But I think Paul is going beyond that and saying that such a culture that Timothy, you are living in is not just a danger to your physical safety, but it's a danger to godliness. Godliness does not automatically just flourish. In whatever culture you find yourself, godliness, Christ-centered godliness, and you as a young person is about as welcome as a human being, about as welcome and safe as a human being in a den of hungry lions.

And you can't be naive about this. You can't come out of your Christian home and, and expect the world to just receive you with open arms and say, Oh, you, you want to be godly, you want to be Christ centered. You want to practice godliness? What, what can we do to help you with that?

What movies can we make that would help you on to God? What TV shows can we produce and books that we can write? Are there songs that we can write that will help encourage you in godliness? Is that what happens?

No. They're young people that grow up in Christian homes, and they go out into the world, and they get chewed up and spit out before they even knew what happened to them. why? Because they went out into the world willy nilly, not aware that there's actually danger that's out there.

And whatever music was produced or movie came out without any discernment, they just take it all in. They drink it in. They don't review the movies, they don't look at the lyrics and say, what is the message? What has really been being said here?

They just like the tune. And they don't realize that there are dangers, dangers to godliness. The world is not inclined to help you on to godliness. If you're going to be godly, you can't dig your roots into this world system, into this culture.

Because it's toxic and you will not be godly. Now Paul is not trying to say, Hey, it's dangerous out there, so you better not go out there. Paul's whole life was about going out into the world and piercing the darkness. He went from city to city and found people like what he described here, and he gave them the gospel.

He developed friendships with them. Paul went into this dangerous world, but he's helping you, he's serving notice on you by at least letting that there's danger out there. And you're better off for knowing this, so that you're not taken off guard. There's a second plea that we find here in this passage.

And that is this Turn away from evil mentors. Turn away from evil mentors. Paul says in verse 5, and avoid such men as these, the people that I've just described. Avoid them literally turn away from them.

Don't give them your attention. Don't give them your heart. Don't give them your ears. Don't give them your mind.

Don't give such people a position of influence in your life. Paul is not saying, don't have relationships with lost people. What he's saying is don't give such people a position of influence in your life. Whatever relationships you have with those who don't know the Lord, you just need to be honest and ask yourself, who's doing the influencing here?

Am I furthering God's gospel purposes and their life? Or am I becoming more and more like those people that I am in relationship with? Are my values becoming more like theirs? I'll never forget someone in this church was sharing with us that a young person that they, they had a relationship with a, a nonbeliever, who had no pretense of any morality.

And, and as that relationship went on, this Christian from our church was beginning to be more and more like this nonbeliever and actually began to talk like them, use the language they did. And on one occasion, this nonbeliever looked at them and said, I'm disappointed in you. And they were like, What do you mean? And they're like, They said, I thought you were different.

They were actually distressed to see that this Christian person was letting them make the Christian like them. Deep in the heart of this last person is I, I want to know that you're different, because I'm looking and I'm watching, and I'm actually disappointed to find out that you're no different than I am. Not everyone by any means feels that way. But just know that you're, you're being watched.

And the world, the people that match this description will seek to influence you to become like them, and they will gladly counsel you. They'll gladly sit down with you and to say, this is what's right and this is what's wrong. This thing that you think is evil, it's really not evil. In fact, it's beautiful.

It's good. It should be celebrated, and you had better celebrate it. Or that makes you an evil person. That's where our society is heading.

They say it's your truth and our truth and live and let live, but they work very hard to persuade you over to their value system. And even in the church today, it's just heartbreaking. Every week, you just see Christian leaders getting picked off and publicly announcing that they're now approving of something that the Bible condemns. It's tragic.

The church and Christians, professing Christians are becoming more and more like the world. It's the world that's doing the influencing. And Paul is saying to Timothy, turn away from evil mentors, from those who would seek to influence you, do not give them a position of influence in your life. When it comes to media choices, books, movies, television shows, Music There are people on the other end of all of that stuff that are producing all of that stuff, and what, you're having a relationship with them.

And they're doing all of the influencing and you're doing none. You're just receiving. And they are shaping your thinking by the entertainment that they produce and little by little. You don't even notice it.

You become more and more like them. We need to get mean and nasty in this sense we're like, I am not going to give you my year. I am not going to give you a position of influence in my life. Everyone else may.

I will not do. This avoid such men as these, for among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses. There are people in this world today, and they make a lot of money because of this. They know what your impulses are.

And they've mastered the art of arousing those impulses and providing satisfaction for them and getting you to pay them money. In order for them to satisfy the sinful impulses that you have. He says they're good at this, always learning, never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. They oppose the truth.

They're people of depraved mind, rejected as regards the faith. There are people like this out there, and they are dangerous, and we are not to give them a position of influence in our life. That leads to a 3rd plea. That Paul delivers to Timothy.

Or that we can at least infer from this passage, and that is to realize that evil is never static but progresses like a, like a slow moving disease. Paul says, but they, those who oppose evil will not make further progress. Implied in this is that they do make some progress, and their attempts to oppose the truth. They make progress in that.

There are people who have an insidious agenda in our culture today, to move the culture in a certain way and to shape the culture in a way That is against the truth. And on some level, they make progress and they succeed until some day comes where the mask is off, and their evil is seen for the stupidity that it really is. But evil makes progress. Just know the culture that you find yourself in evil is going to make progress.

It is making progress. And the world is going this way, and I have a choice over which way I am going to go. Evil progresses. The devil never achieves one thing in the culture and then stops there and says, I'm so glad I accomplished this.

I'm going to rest easy now for the next 100 years. No, he's always laying the groundwork for more and then more and then more. This is true individually. Look at verse 13.

Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. There's a progression. They make progress. They don't go from good to worse.

They go from bad to worse, and then that worst becomes bad, and then they go from that bad to worse. It's step by step, little by little, like a slow moving disease. Evil men become more evil than they were the day before, and then more evil the next day, deceiving and being deceived. This word deception has the idea of wandering, so little by little there's They, they don't even notice it, but they're moving further and further away from the truth.

This is what's happening to us as a culture, as a society. It's what happens in individual hearts and lives. The devil is subtle. He's subtle And he wants to move you away from the truth.

And what, he doesn't come at you with something big. Usually it's just a little thing, the little compromise to get you to go one step further away from the truth. That's what he does. There are things that the devil knows that right now today, you would never even think of doing.

But he knows that in 10 years, give him 10 years' time, and he can get you to where 10 years from now, you will do what today you believe is unthinkable. If you could sit in the counseling office with myself and some of the other pastors that are here, you would see, incredible sin and heartache and marriage relationships and in people's lives where I, I, 11 young man I remember he was literally just grabbing his hair and pulling at his hair and he was hitting his head against the wall in my office.

He was so broken and disappointed over the sins that he had committed and he's asking, how did I get here? How did I get here?

He had done things that years, a few years earlier, he would have said were absolutely unthinkable. I would never do that. And yet he did it. How did that happen?

Little by little, inch by inch, deception by deception from bad to worse and then bad to worse and bad to worse, 100,000 little defeats and little compromises, and that man's soul got shaped in such a way to where when the moment came, he did what 10 years earlier he would have said he could have never done. That's the way the devil works. That's happening in lives. It's happening in our culture.

In the book Screw Tape Letters, Screwtape, who's the experienced demon, this is a fiction by the way, is speaking to Wormwood, who is a less experienced demon, and Wormwood, is trying to get this man who's become a Christian to fall into some big sin because that would be a great badge of honor to this demon called Wormwood if he can get that particular triumph. But screw tape is telling him you got to settle down and don't go for the big sins. Because that can end up being counterproductive.

And listen to what he says in his letter to Wormwood.

He says it does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the light and out into the nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. You can get that person to wander away far enough from the truth, and there was never anything that served to awaken his conscience.

This is the way the devil works. I challenge all of you in this room, and then especially those of you in the younger generation, because it's you I'm talking to this morning, don't think you can compartmentalize evil and give evil a place in your life and keep that contained. when you experience defeat and you allow sin into your life, that becomes a beachhead where the devil sets up operation in order to make further advances. Evil by its very nature is never content to be static.

It always is advancing like a slow moving disease, and it will destroy you. Unless you repent and run to Jesus and renounce those sins. There's 1/4 plea, and this is where we become a little more positive here. and that is go against the flow and continue in the things that you've learned, go against the flow and continue in the things that you've learned.

He says to Timothy, but you followed, looking at your past, I see, and I commend you for this, you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance. By the way, parents, wouldn't this be a great thing to be able to say to your kids? For you to be able to look at your children and say, what, I, I commend you, you have followed my teaching. I commend you.

You have followed my conduct. I commend you. You have followed my purpose. You have followed my faith.

I commend you because I notice that you are just as patient as I am. You have followed my patience, even my love, my perseverance. Paul lived the life to where he was thrilled that Timothy had up to that point followed not only his teaching, but also his example, and his persecutions and his sufferings that Paul had endured. Paul goes on to say in verse 12, indeed all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

That's That's part of the dangerous world system in which we find ourselves, you desire to be godly, you will suffer for that, there will be opposition. But evil men and impostors, they're going to proceed from bad to worse. That's the direction they're going, deceiving and being deceived. Verse 14, but you, Timothy, I want you to go the other way.

When everyone else is going this way, I want you to go the other way, go upstream, and you need to continue in the things you have learned. Continue, remain. There's going to be pressure to abandon. The gospel, don't abandon the gospel, remain in the gospel.

There's going to be pressure to abandon biblical morality. Don't abandon biblical morality, remain in the things that you have learned as you have been taught about God and about heaven and about heaven. and about sin, and about the glory of God and about salvation and redemption and forgiveness and justification, these things that you have been taught, continue in those things. Don't reject them, and lay them aside.

Notice what he says next, continuing the things you've learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you've learned them. He's like, Timothy, I want you to think about the people that you've learned these things from. Think about your mother, Eunice. Think about me, think about others that have spoken into your life, your grandmother, Lois, think about those that have invested in you.

And to you and the younger generation, I would say that too, continue in the things you've learned and think about the people you've learned those things from. Think about your mom and your dad and the investment that they have made. Think about your Sunday school teachers and your Ana leaders, your youth leaders, your care group members, and your care group leader and all those that have spoken into you. How many hours of preparation have gone into the ministry of people in this church, for example, into your life, your teachers have prayed over you, they've wept over you, they have, they've taught you, they've spent hours preparing a lesson to speak truth to your heart.

Think about not just what you've learned, but the people that you've learned those things from. You might say, well, honestly, I do think about the people I learned them from, and what, they're pretty messed up in my opinion. You see a whole lot of brokenness. And then, yeah, my parents taught me a lot of right things, but what?

I, I see a lot of brokenness in them. That has been a great disappointment and even a hurt. To me Do what, you don't even really need your parents to be models of perfection. For this to work, what Paul is saying here.

Your parents are broken people, and they would tell you, we've learned what we've learned the hard way. And we're still trying to get it, and we're trying to spare you the brokenness that we've experienced in our life, because we made poor choices earlier in our life. And even when your parents or other people that have spoken into you, when, when they fail, and maybe you're witnessing consequences, relational and otherwise, that they're experiencing as a result of their sin and their failure, does that not confirm to you how true God's word really is?

And that when a person violates biblical principles, those biblical principles bite back and they bite hard?

When you look at Those that have taught you and spoken into you. Let, let their successes and their failures serve to confirm in your mind. The truth of God's word. You don't need them to be perfect for Paul's counsel here to make any sense.

Continue in the things that you have learned, you're going to stand before God and you're going to give an account for what you did with what you learned that was delivered to you by a bunch of imperfect people still trying to get it right. And in that day it won't matter, like, here's the things I learned, look at the things I memorized when I was a kid. Now, where did you go? Where did you go with that?

What did you do with that? Did you continue in the things? That you learned There's a 5th plea that we can infer from this chapter, and that is continue in the scriptures in order to go deep into the salvation. Paul isn't just saying here, guys, come on, hold on to your faith.

Continue in the faith, remain in what we have taught you. The language that follows here is Paul actually challenging Timothy, here's what you learned from childhood. I want you to go to the scriptures and I want you to plumb the depths, and I want you to go even further. Look at this verse 15 from childhood.

You have known the sacred writings, the sacred scriptures, which are able, which are presently at the present time, able or having the power to give you wisdom, literally into the salvation. He doesn't say that God's word had the power to lead you into salvation. No, it still has the power to give you wisdom into salvation. Imagine salvation as a realm.

Full of blessings and promises and consolations and freedom and, and power and relationship with God and, and with others and hope for this life and life to come. That is the realm of salvation. God's word, the Holy. Scriptures have the power to give you the wisdom that you need to get into this salvation and then having gotten inside of it to go deeper and deeper into all things salvation.

Paul is wanting Timothy to progress. Don't just remain. Stay right where we taught you. Whatever we taught you, stay right there.

No, no, I want you to continue in the things that you've learned, and I want you to press deeper. Take this book, the Holy Bible. This is God's word. God has breathed this as a resource and as a gift to you.

And this will give you the wisdom that you need in order to have faith in Christ, to see who Jesus is and how worthy he is of your utmost trust in life and in death, that you would put your trust in Him who loved you and died for you and who was raised for you, and experience the fullness of salvation. Speaking of this book, he says, all scripture is inspired by God, it's breathed by God, and it's profitable for teaching, teaching you the things you need to know about God and about yourself and about sin, and salvation and redemption.

It's profitable for reproof. That word reproof means that, pointing out what's wrong with you, helping you to understand what's wrong with you.

All of us in this room intuitively know something's wrong with us, right? But we don't always have a vocabulary to understand that and to give expression of that. And the Bible renders us a valuable service. And saying, here's what your problem is.

Here's a vocabulary in which you can give expression to it. And then not only does the Bible point out what's wrong with us, but look at this, it's profitable for correction. This is a positive word that means to fix something that's broken. like mending a broken bone, God's word has the power to not just tell us where we're wrong and messed up.

God through His word can actually repair us and fix us and mend us in those areas where we're broken and bent over. God's word has the power to, it's profitable to train us in righteousness, to teach us about believing in Christ and the righteousness that we receive in Christ, the verdict that God delivers upon our life and declaring us righteous in Christ, and how God now thinks about us is always forgiven and always righteous with the righteousness of Jesus. How to live in the good of that.

And then how to live in conformity to what God rightfully expects of us.

He's pointing Timothy to this book. I point you this morning to this book. To be a student of this book, to read this book. In this book, you will learn about Christ, you will gain the wisdom that you need to be able to have faith in Christ and to go deep into salvation.

And you'll experience the true prophet that God wants you to experience in your life. It's profitable for all of these things. And the 6th and final plea that I would give you this morning is continue in the scriptures in order to get totally equipped for every good work. Paul says the scripture renders all of these valuable services so that the man of God or the woman of God may be equipped, equipped out for every good work.

In other words, totally equipped for every good work. You see, Paul's agenda for Timothy and his agenda for you and I is not to say, hey, it's a dark world out there. You'd better cloister yourself and protect yourself from the dangers that are out there. It's like, no, it is dangerous out there.

And I'm alerting you to that so that you're not clueless and naive about it. But you need to go to God's word, and you need to get resourced and equipped and have the wisdom you need to go deep into this thing called salvation, and be able to bring others deep into salvation, so that you can be resourced and equipped to get out there and to pierce the darkness, and to live a life wherein you are abounding in good works, and in good words. where you're equipped to be a difference maker.

For eternity, and that God through you can lead souls to a saving knowledge of Him, and you can gain friends for eternity.

What a thrilling calling that God has given to us. To you young people, let me just close by saying this, our goal Our goal is not to raise you to become just like us. That is so not our goal. Our goal is to raise you to be better than us.

To go farther in your day than we have been able to go in ours. That's our goal. Our goal is that you would be able to stand on our shoulders and to see farther in your day than we have been able to see in ours, and we look forward to the day when you standing on our shoulders, are saying, Hey, let me tell you what I see, and we'll listen and we'll learn and we'll rejoice. That you grew up and you didn't just become just like us.

But you became something better than us. And it was Jesus Christ through His holy word that caused that to happen. To where you're able to go out into a dangerous world and strength and empower, and you can pierce that darkness, and you can do serious damage to Satan's kingdom. I would love for the generation coming up here at Cornerstone for the devil to look at this generation and to view you as the dangerous ones.

You are profoundly subversive and dangerous to the kingdom of Satan. And if you become that, you continue in the faith, go deep into salvation. and become a danger to this world system. Then we will be immensely satisfied.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer and just ask Him to help us all to live this out and then to pray especially for The younger generation that they will become these things. Lord, it is heartbreaking to see people who have been so blessed with, with good, solid, loving teaching over many years through so many people in the church. And then they throw it all away. They just throw it away, and they bring such grief.

To their parents And to your own heart. I know there are parents in our church family right now that are That are deeply concerned or grieving over where their children are spiritually, it is a great grief for a parent to see a child wandering away from the faith, and it's also a grief for parents to not know where their children are at. Like, man, do they really love Christ or not? It's hard to tell.

You have no idea. You have no idea how much your parents long for you. To not only love Jesus but to love Him more than they do and to go further than they've been able to go. For you to actually learn from some of the things they've had to learn the hard way and to not waste the years that they've wasted.

And their hearts break. Their hearts break for you. Their hearts dream of things so much better than maybe what you're experiencing. I pray that you would come back to Jesus, if you have left him and that you would repent and believe in him.

All those that are truly born again children of God will continue in the faith. Those that continue in the faith are truly God's children. Those who do not continue in the faith Thereby give evidence. That they are not God's children.

As the apostle John says, they went out from us because they were never of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out from us in order that it might be made manifest that they were never of us in the first place. And may that not be your testimony. God, we just cry out to you, help us, help us, awaken us to things that are that are of utmost importance, help us to be done with lesser things that distract us as parents from really being sobered by these realities and, and bless our ministry to our children.

Bless these children, protect them from the evil one, Lord, and, and just do a miracle of sovereign grace in their lives that they would grow up and love you and And be champions of the faith and that it's not because they're smarter than anybody else, but that they would give all the glory to you for your amazing work of grace in their life. And help them to be difference makers for eternity, winning souls for eternity, bearing fruit and doing deeds that will survive the fires of judgment Day, rather than standing at the judgment and all that they've given their life to is destroyed.

Um-hum. Help us as parents to model that and to encourage them to this end.

This is our plea. This is our plea. And we ask that you would hear our plea. Thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you, Lord, receive these funds, do much with every penny that is given.

For the glory of Jesus, in whose name we pray, and all God's people said,