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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this opportunity to be in your house.
I pray you please bless the sermon and be with Pastor Anderson as he preaches to us from your word.
And we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Let's go to hymn number 422.
A few pages to the left.
Thou didst leave thy throne, hymn number 422.
Sing it out.
Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown, when thou camest to earth for me.
But in Bethlehem's home was there found no room for thy holy nativity.
Welcome to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for thee.
Heaven's arches rang when the angels sang, proclaiming the royal decree.
But of holy birth didst thou come to earth and in great humility.
Welcome to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for thee.
The foxes found rest and the birds their nest in the shade of the forest tree.
But thy couch was the sun, O thou Son of God, in the deserts of Galilee.
Welcome to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for thee.
Thou cameest, O Lord, with the living Word that should set thy people free.
But with mocking scorn and with crown of thorn they bore thee to Calvary.
Welcome to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for thee.
When the heavens shall ring and the angels sing at thy coming to victory,
let thy voice call me home, saying, Yet there is room, there is room at my side for thee.
My heart shall rejoice, Lord Jesus, when thou comest and callest for me.
Good singing.
Alright, at this time we'll go through our announcements, so if you need a bulletin, raise your hand and we'll come around and get that to you.
We do have our verse for the week there on the front of the bulletin.
We're in week number 10 of our Bible memory passage, Isaiah 53, a great chapter to memorize, finishing that one up.
And so I encourage you to keep up the hard work there.
On the inside we have the service times and sowing times, along with our nursing home ministry schedule for those who are involved there.
And we do have our church stats below that.
We want to continue to be in prayer for our expecting lady, Miss Emma Ward.
And then our next Sunday fellowship is going to be August 13th.
The theme for that is cowboy chicken.
And so that'll be a lot of fun.
Definitely looking forward to that.
It's a good restaurant.
If you've never eaten there, it's rotisserie style chicken.
And so we'll get a sign up list for that as that time approaches.
We do have our next men's preaching class July 29th at 3 p.m.
Every man that would like to prepare a 5 to 10-minute sermon can participate in that.
And that's going to be here at the church.
We've got our weekly homeschool PE class on Mondays at the Piedmont Park.
The information is there for you, the address and meeting times.
And then today, of course, Pastor Steven Anderson is here.
He's going to be preaching for us.
Definitely a great honor to have him here.
If you didn't get a chance to let him know you're thankful, please do so after the service.
And then we have this Saturday is our Dell City Sewing Marathon.
So we're going to be meeting at Malcolm Park.
The address is listed there at 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. for breakfast.
And then we'll have sewing from 10 to noon.
We'll break for lunch at a barbecue place there in Dell City.
And then we'll have sewing in the afternoon from 1.30 to 3.30 p.m.
I also wanted to make one other announcement on not this Friday,
but next Friday is going to be a homeschool field trip to the Jinks Aquarium.
And so we'll have that for you, the details on Sunday.
Basically, you're going to be meeting there at 11 a.m.
So that's not this Friday, not tomorrow, but a week from tomorrow.
We're going to be doing a homeschool field trip to the Jinks Aquarium.
And we'll have a sign-up sheet on Saturday for you to fill out
so that way we can get a good head count of who's going to be attending.
At this time, we'll go through our prayer request list.
So if you want to pull that out.
We don't have any new additions to the list, so we'll go through these quickly
and then say a word of prayer.
When they continue to pray for Brother Kevin Cartwright, he's looking for a job.
Continue to keep Ms. Dillman in your prayers for health issues.
Also, Beverly Kamara is dealing with a pretty severe illness.
Continue to pray for her.
And Layman Kamara and Adam Kamara for salvation.
Pray for both of those individuals.
And then we have the Adair family.
I want to continue to pray for them.
They're getting probably pretty close to moving into their new place.
It sounds like last time I talked to Brother Matt, it was getting close.
So just be in prayer that that would be a smooth transition.
And then we have Brother Zach's mother and brother.
I want to continue to pray for them for salvation.
We have Ms. Elizabeth Dexheimer.
Continue to pray for her.
Continue to pray for the Hall family, that God would bless them with a child.
Also, Brother Cameron Hall for healing on his leg.
He's dealing with an issue on his leg that we've been praying for for a while.
So just keep him in your prayers.
And then we have Jim Bushfield for salvation as well.
And continue to pray for evangelist Matthew Stuckey to the Philippines
and Pastor Kevin Sepulveda to Australia.
And then, of course, last but not least, Pastor Shelley and his family.
Continue to pray for them.
So I'm going to say a quick word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank You for just allowing us to come
and gather in Your house to honor You, Lord, and to hear from Your word.
I pray, God, that You would be with us throughout this service.
Lord, I pray that we would keep distractions to a minimum.
And I pray that You would be with those here on this list
that are dealing with different health needs,
different infirmities in the flesh that they're dealing with.
I pray that You would comfort them, strengthen them during those times.
God, we pray for those who are in need of salvation, Lord,
that You would open a door for a soul winner to come and present the gospel to them.
I just pray, Lord, for that opportunity to present itself for those people.
God, we pray for Pastor Shelley and his family.
I pray that You would keep a hedge of protection about them
and our friends and brothers and sisters in Christ down in Fort Worth,
the Dallas area. Lord, I pray that You would keep them all safe as well.
Lord, thank You for all the men of God who are working hard throughout the weeks
and months, Lord, to get many people saved across this world.
I just want to keep those men in our prayers.
And, Lord, also, we're just, again, just thankful for the many blessings You give us.
And we pray these things in Your Son's name. Amen.
All right, we'll go to our next song, hymn number 334 in your hymnal,
Make Me a Blessing, hymn number 334.
All right, hymn number 334, Make Me a Blessing.
Pay attention to the words as we sing, number 334.
Let's sing it out.
Make me a blessing, make me a blessing.
Out of my life may Jesus shine.
Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray.
Make me a blessing to someone today.
Tell the sweet story of Christ and His love.
Tell of His power to forgive.
Others will trust Him if only you prove true every moment you live.
Make me a blessing. Make me a blessing.
Out of my life may Jesus shine.
Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray.
Make me a blessing to someone today.
Give as was given to you in your need.
Love as the Master loved you.
Be to the helpless a Helper indeed.
Unto your mission be true.
Make me a blessing. Make me a blessing.
Out of my life may Jesus shine.
Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray.
Make me a blessing to someone today.
Amen. Good singing. Let's go to 2 Timothy 1 for Bible reading as men take up the offering.
Good evening. 2 Timothy chapter number 1.
2 Timothy 1, the Bible reads, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus,
to Timothy, my dearly beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and Christ Jesus our Lord,
I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day,
greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy,
when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois,
and thy mother Eunice, and am persuaded that in thee also.
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
For God hath not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner.
But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God,
who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works,
but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ,
who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
whereinto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
For the which cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed,
for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I have committed unto him against that day.
Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith, and love which is in Christ Jesus.
That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us,
this thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me,
of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes, the Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus,
for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain.
But when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me.
The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day,
and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.
Let's bow our heads for a prayer.
Father in Heaven, we thank you so much for this day.
And we thank you for Pastor Anderson.
And we ask that you fill him with the Holy Ghost and help him have safe traveling.
And we just ask that you help us apply this into our lives.
And you can do the prayer. Amen.
Amen. Thank you so much for having me to come preach.
We're on the road trip. As you know, we've been traveling across the country.
This is our, what, fifth stop as far as the churches.
We've been in West Virginia, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas. Here we are.
And then after this, we got the big drive to Boise.
So after this, we're driving 22 hours to Boise.
So I apologize in advance.
We are going to have to leave pretty quick after the service, unfortunately,
just because we have to get three hours down the road tonight to Wichita.
But I really appreciate everybody who came out.
I know people drove from far away or the regular faithful members here.
It's always great to see everybody up here. God bless you guys.
Also, I love to see that map getting shaded in.
And I understand how much it takes just to shade in a square on that map.
Because you can look at that and just think, oh, it's just a little bit of shading.
But, man, you can go out soul winning for hours and hours and hours.
And it's just like a little tiny little dot on that map. It's just a little sliver.
So I understand that that actually represents a lot of doors.
And so that's what it's all about, getting out there and preaching the gospel to every creature.
So you guys are doing a great job.
And it's a big job, but I believe that over the years and over the decades, you guys are going to get it done.
And so praise the Lord for this church.
And tonight I'm preaching out of 2 Timothy, chapter 1.
I've been doing a series on this road trip where I am going through what are known as the Pastoral Epistles.
This is where the Apostle Paul is writing to Timothy and Titus and Philemon.
And tonight we're in 2 Timothy, chapter number 1.
It's interesting because this is a really famous chapter.
And I've read this chapter my entire life. I've read it so many times.
But today, as I was studying for the sermon, I was actually seeing this chapter in a new light.
And it's amazing how you can read something so many times.
And the wonderful thing about the Bible is that it just continues to speak to you in different ways year after year.
And the thing that really jumped out at me today as I was studying this chapter was where he says in verse number 4
that he is greatly desiring to see Timothy.
And he says, being mindful of thy tears, being mindful of thy tears.
You know, he starts out with this typical greeting, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God,
according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my dearly beloved son.
Of course, Timothy is not his physical son, but Timothy is his son in the faith, one that he has won unto Christ.
And it says, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience,
that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day,
greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears.
Now, why would he say being mindful of thy tears?
He must know that Timothy is going through some difficult thing in his life
because that's not really the normal thing that you would just write somebody.
Hey, man, I'm thinking about your tears. I know you're over there crying.
You know, if I got a letter like that, I'd be like, wait a minute, what am I crying about? Everything's fine.
Right? But obviously, Paul knew that Timothy is going through something.
He's discouraged in some way. He's going through some kind of a hard time.
And so it made me look at the epistle of 2 Timothy in a new light
that Paul is writing this letter to encourage Timothy, who is down.
And then I started looking at the rest of the book of 2 Timothy,
and at chapters 2 and 3 and 4, and I noticed more and more things
where Paul is encouraging Timothy because he knows that he's upset.
He knows that he's discouraged and he's going through a bad time.
So he says that he's greatly desiring to see him being mindful of his tears.
And he says that I may be filled with joy.
He's saying, look, I know you're going through a bad time.
I know you're in pain and you're crying and you're sad, whatever it is.
But he's saying, you know what, you fill me with joy, Timothy,
even though you're going through pain and suffering.
I just want you to know that you bring great joy to my life.
So I think he's encouraging Timothy by explaining to him what a blessing
he's been to the apostle Paul.
And the Bible says in verse number 5,
when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee.
And so Paul is inspired by the unfeigned faith in Timothy.
And the first thing I want to point out about this is that
a lot of times in our lives we're going through trials and tribulations,
sadness, pain and suffering.
But you know what, even as we go through those things,
we can actually be a blessing to other people.
And we can actually be used by God even when we're going through this hard time.
Like Timothy's going through a bad time,
but he's still encouraging people like Paul because of his unfeigned faith
and the work that he's doing for the Lord.
And you know, a lot of people, it's like they're waiting for their life
to be perfect before they serve God.
You know, they figure like once I get my marriage fixed,
then I'll focus on the things of God.
You know, once my finances are in order,
then I'll get serious about serving God.
Or you know, I just need to right now get some things straight in my life.
And once I get it all straight, then I'll get serious about serving God.
But the true story is that your life is never going to be perfect.
There's always going to be, at least this is my experience,
there's always going to be one area of your life
that's a little bit out of whack all the time.
Nothing's ever perfect.
And whenever I've noticed that one thing about my life that was a problem
gets fixed, then another problem pops up to make up for it.
And so sometimes I'm wishing for a certain problem to go away,
but then I'm kind of thinking like, I don't know, do I want this problem to go away?
Because it's like, do I really want whatever's behind door number two?
Because at least this problem, I know what it is and I can deal with it,
but I just know life's never going to be perfect,
so maybe I should just be happy with the problem that I've got.
And so the point is that if we're waiting until everything's right about our life to serve God,
we're just never going to serve God.
What you've got to do is while you're going through pain,
while your finances are screwed up, while you have problems at your job,
while you have problems with your marriage or problems with the kids
or problems with siblings or problems with parents,
you just keep serving God anyway, and at the end of the day,
you find that you've done a great work for God.
It's not always going to be fun and games.
It's not always going to be easy.
There are going to be some tears along the way,
but you can be greatly used by God even in the midst of trials and tribulations.
The apostle Paul is trying to encourage Timothy by saying,
look, Timothy, you've been a blessing to me.
Yeah, you're suffering. You're going through pain,
but you know what? You've been a blessing to me.
Your faith is an inspiration to me.
The unfeigned faith which dwelt first in thy grandmother, Lois,
and in thy mother, Eunice, and I am persuaded that in thee also.
Now, it's interesting that he brings up Timothy's mother and grandmother
as great examples of faith.
Presumably, Timothy's dad was probably not saved.
The Bible talks about how Timothy's dad was a Greek,
and his mother was a Jew,
and so apparently it seems that his dad doesn't seem to have been
a major spiritual influence, at least according to this and the Book of Acts.
But the thing that's interesting is if you back up to verse 3,
the apostle Paul brings up his own background because he says,
I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers.
So it's kind of interesting that he brings up his own forefathers.
I'm serving God from my forefathers with pure conscience,
and then he brings up Timothy's forebears.
He brings up Timothy's mother and grandmother,
and I think one of the things that he's getting at here
and putting in Timothy's mind is that people have already gone on before us
and served the Lord before we were even born,
and there's a history of people who've served God and done great things for God,
and God saw them through whatever trials and tribulations,
and just as he was faithful unto them, he's going to be faithful to us too.
Your grandmother served the Lord. Mom served the Lord. You can do it too.
My forefathers serve God, and here I am doing the same thing, carrying that torch.
The verse that I thought of was in the Book of James.
Take my brethren the prophets for an example of suffering, affliction, and of patience.
Behold, we count them happy which endure.
You've heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord,
that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.
He says, look, think about the prophets of the past
and all the things that God did in their life and how God was faithful to them.
Think about men like Job and other Bible characters,
and just as God did it for them, take them as an example of suffering and affliction of patience,
and think about the end of men like Job.
Think about how even when Job was going through the worst pain and suffering,
it all ended well, and God blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning.
So when we're going through a bad time, we can think, okay, you know what?
God's going to bless my latter end.
Maybe things are messed up now.
Maybe it seems like they're never going to be fixed, but you know what?
If everyone else ended up being blessed in the end when they stayed faithful to God,
well, God's going to do the same thing for me.
God's not a respecter of persons, and so God is going to bless me just like He blessed me.
But you know what? He was faithful for grandma, mom, myself, my forefathers, the prophets.
I think that's what He's getting at here by bringing up these people who've gone on before.
You think of the song, give me that old time religion.
It was good for grandma Lois.
It's like, hey, if it worked for them, it's going to work for us.
God is the same, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
And so that's encouraging to think about the people who've gone on before us.
And so I think that's why the Apostle Paul is reminding Timothy, hey, this isn't new with us.
This is something that has been going on, and it was going on before us.
It'll be going on after us, and that's encouraging to know that God is faithful in all generations.
So because of that, he says in verse 6,
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
So Timothy's going through a hard time. He's crying. He's sad. He's discouraged.
And the Apostle Paul is telling him, don't be afraid. Don't worry about it.
God's faithful. He's been faithful to those who've gone before us.
Don't let that spirit of fear take over. We have a power and love and sound mind type spirit.
Now, here's the thing about this. He says, stir up the gift of God which is in thee.
Right? In verse 6, stir up the gift of God which is in thee.
Now think about it. All of us, first of all, we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God.
Every single person who has believed on Christ as their Savior, we have the gift of the Holy Ghost.
The Bible calls it the gift of the Holy Ghost.
We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit.
But not only that, we also have other spiritual gifts and other abilities and talents and things that the Lord has blessed us with.
And it's possible for those things to just lie dormant in our lives if we get too caught up in the cares of this world and we get distracted with everything.
We're not going to church. We're not reading our Bibles. We're not praying or singing the hymns or doing those things.
Then it's possible for these things to just be dormant. Right?
And you think about like a campfire that is really blazing and burning.
And then let's say you kind of put out the campfire but you don't quite put it out. You just kind of superficially put out the campfire.
And then you go to bed and just hours and hours go by.
But then sometimes it's possible that there are red hot embers that are just underneath the ashes.
You can't see them but there is actually life there to that fire underneath what seems to be a totally inert surface.
And so then you come over with a stick and you stir up what's there and then you can get that thing blazing again.
Amazingly. It'll still burn hours and hours later when it seemed like nothing was there.
And the thing is that all of us inside us have the Holy Spirit's indwelling.
And so we all have that potential inside of us. We all have those embers of spirituality of being a great servant of God.
And you say, well, I don't know if you're saved, you have the potential to be a great servant of God.
Whether you're man, woman, boy or girl, the potential is there in every single one of us.
It's like, well, you know, maybe for this pastor over here or this guy over here or this gal over here.
No, no, it's you. Unless you're not saved, well then, yeah, there's nothing there.
But if you're saved, that potential is always there. You just got to stir it up, right?
You just got to blow on it and fan the flames and stir up the gift of God which is in you because that potential is always there.
Now, here's a mistake that a lot of people make is that they think that if someone is living a worldly life or someone's living a sinful life
and they're not really doing anything for God, they'll just say, oh, that person is not saved.
You hear that all the time like, well, if I don't see an outward change, then they're not saved.
I want to see this, I want to see that or whatever.
And at the end of the day, obviously, it's impossible virtually for us to know whether other people are saved.
We really only know our own heart. But at the end of the day, there are lots of people that outwardly maybe don't appear saved
or don't appear to be following Christ but they're saved because they've believed on Jesus and there's no works required for salvation.
So once you've believed on Jesus Christ, you're saved with or without works, okay, because it's all by faith that we're saved.
Well, then there's that potential there but if people don't stir up that gift of God, if they don't walk in the Spirit, if they don't put on the new man,
then they're going to appear outwardly just like that campfire outwardly.
If you just walked up as an outsider, you could look at that and just say, well, you know, there's nothing there.
There's no fire here. When in reality, you can't see what's inside there and if you move to stick around, it would be blazing in moments.
And so there are people like that who they get saved and for years, they don't really go to church or read the Bible or do anything.
But then all of a sudden, they get in church and then all of a sudden, it's like sticking that poker in there and stirring things up and getting that fire blazing.
And so God is telling us that we need to stir up the gift of God which is within us and realize that, look, maybe we're going through a bad time.
Maybe life is hard right now. Maybe we're going through a difficult time. Well, let me just wait until things are fixed.
No, no, no. Just stir up the gift of God which is in you. You say, how do I stir up the gift of God that's in me?
How about by reading your Bible? You know, when you read your Bible, something's going to burn inside of you, right?
You know, this is the one thing that the Mormons are kind of right about except they got the wrong book.
You know, hey, when we read the actual Bible, our heart burns within us, right?
When we read the Bible, we actually feel something, right? We get excited.
You know, we read about the great men of God and women of God in the Bible.
That motivates us and gets us excited to want to do something great for God now as the Holy Spirit does a work within our heart
and uses what we read in the Bible to motivate us and get us excited about doing something for God.
And so we want to stir up the gift of God by reading our Bible.
We can stir up the gift of God also by going to church, right?
Because if we go to church and we get around other people that are serving God and they're going soul winning
and they're doing stuff and they're motivated, well, that's going to rub off on us.
And then sitting under the preaching and then the preacher starts quoting scripture to us and telling us Bible stories
and then he gets us excited and gets us motivated.
But it's all because we already have that gift of God within us and it's just the preacher stirring that up, right?
He's just kind of poking at that fire and getting it going.
And so we want to stir up the gift of God which is within us so that instead of just living a life of fear
and we're worried and scared about what the future is going to bring
and worried about relationships and finances and health and all these different things
and we're too scared to go out soul winning or too scared to join the church or whatever,
you know, we have that spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.
And so this is what Paul is admonishing Timothy.
He says in verse 8,
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner,
but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.
He's saying, look, you know, because of this, because God hasn't given us the spirit of fear,
don't shy away from getting involved in the spiritual battle that we're going through,
the spiritual battle that I, the Apostle Paul, am engaged in.
Get involved in it, Timothy, and don't be ashamed of me.
Don't be ashamed of the Lord.
Don't be ashamed of me because I'm in prison writing this letter.
But be a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.
Now this might seem odd for the Apostle Paul to be writing to a man who is a man who had a lot of tears
and he's going through a hard time.
He's struggling and telling him, hey, go through more hard times.
Oh, I hear you've been crying.
Go through more affliction.
You know, that might seem a little bit counterintuitive,
but here's the thing.
When we're going through a bad time, when we're sad and down
and going through painful things in our lives,
sometimes the best thing we could do is just to kind of get the emphasis off ourself
and just start thinking about someone else, right?
Because let's say our life is depressing, then think about somebody else's life.
If my life is depressing, well, you know what?
Yeah, okay, my life's messed up, but I can go out and win someone into Christ,
make a difference in their life.
Hey, I can be a blessing to someone in the church.
I can encourage someone else.
I can be kind unto someone else.
I can give a hand or helping to someone else.
And then that can actually help you feel better,
getting the emphasis off yourself and ministering to other people,
because when you focus on yourself, it can be depressing sometimes,
whether things are going well or going ill.
People that are self-absorbed are not happy people.
People are just always thinking about themselves.
That's a depressing way to live your life.
So Apostle Paul is kind of trying to get him to get his emphasis off of himself
and get it on serving God, thinking about others,
thinking about what he can do to be in the battle of that generation spiritually.
And then he says, be partaker of the afflictions of the gospel
according to the power of God.
And when I read that, I kind of get the feeling that maybe,
and really reading the rest of the book, that maybe Paul has in his mind
that it's possible that Timothy may want to quit
and that he's trying to get him not to quit.
Don't quit, Timothy.
I know you're going through hard things.
I know you've been crying.
I know it's sad.
Do not give up.
Don't quit.
Be a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel.
You know, toward the end of the book,
he's telling Timothy about other people who've quit
and saying, look, you know,
demons have forsaken me having loved this present world, right?
Titus went on to Dalmatia.
Crescents to Galatia.
He's saying, look, you know, only Luke is with me.
Hey, take Mark and bring him with you.
You know, he's saying, look, I need you, Timothy, right?
Other people are bailing out.
Don't bail out.
Stay with it.
Be a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel
according to the power of God.
And he says in verse 9,
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works,
but according to his own purpose and grace,
which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
Of course, salvation is not by works, right?
He said he saved us not by our works,
but according to his own purpose and grace, right?
Grace is when we receive something that we do not deserve.
And so that's Christ's free gift of salvation
that he just gives to us,
even though we don't deserve it,
even though we're sinners.
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,
and all we have to do to be saved
is just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're saved by grace,
for by grace are you saved through faith
and then not of yourselves as the gift of God,
not of works lest any man should boast.
And so it says that he saved us,
not according to our works,
but according to his own purpose and grace,
which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, right?
God already planned all this before the world even began.
Jesus Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,
and he promised us eternal life before the world began.
And it's not based on our works,
but it's based on our faith in Christ.
It's all by grace.
But now that salvation, he's saying,
is made manifest,
that purpose and grace is made manifest
by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ,
who has abolished death
and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
whereunto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle
and a teacher of the Gentiles,
for to which cause I also suffer these things.
Nevertheless, I am not ashamed,
for I know whom I have believed,
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I have committed unto him against that day.
Again, just as he was faithful for Lois and Eunice and our forefathers,
you know, I am not ashamed of the gospel
because I know that God is going to see me through to the end.
God is going to be faithful.
Later in chapter 4, he talks about how God has been faithful.
He says, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion,
and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work
and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom,
he says in chapter 4.
He is encouraging Timothy that everything is going to be okay,
stay faithful, God is going to come through.
Verse 13, hold fast the form of sound words,
which thou hast heard of me in faith and love,
which is in Christ Jesus.
That good thing which was committed unto thee,
keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.
He is saying, look Timothy, you know, you have great potential.
First of all, there has been investment made in your life,
and don't let it go to waste.
The good thing which was committed unto you,
keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.
And in verse 15, he starts to talk about people that have bailed on him.
This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me,
of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.
The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus,
for he oft refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain.
But when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently and found me.
The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day,
and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus,
thou knowest very well.
So again, like he's talked about in chapter 4,
here also he's talking about people that have bailed on him, right?
All they which are in Asia have be turned away from me,
of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.
Later he talks about more people bailing on him in chapter 4,
and so he doesn't want to see Timothy quit.
You know, it's such a startling truth when you actually register this,
that the Apostle Paul had spent so many years of his life in Asia Minor,
preaching the gospel, founding churches, going to so many places,
winning so many people to Christ.
And think about all of the epistles that he wrote to churches in Asia, right?
Because Asia is referring to the modern day country of Turkey,
known also as Asia Minor.
And so he wrote, for example, the letter to the Galatians, right?
Unto the churches of Galatia.
Well, that is a region in Asia Minor, right?
And then the church of Ephesus.
Ephesus is also in Asia Minor, right?
And so he's writing to these people.
If you read the book of Acts, he's going throughout these churches in Asia,
and think about all of the works that he'd done,
all the soul-winning that he had done,
all the churches that he had founded,
churches that he had preached at,
people that he had won souls with side by side.
And then he makes this startling statement
that all they which are in Asia be turned away from them.
I mean, isn't that wild?
I mean, it's the Apostle Paul.
It's the Apostle Paul.
And everybody in Asia has broken fellowship with him,
has turned away from him.
And maybe he's exaggerating a little bit here,
but I mean, come on.
All they which are in Asia be turned away from me.
That's a pretty crazy thing to happen for a guy who is the guy who,
more than anyone else, evangelized Asia.
And now, all of a sudden, all those churches in Galatia and Ephesus
and all these people, they've turned away from Paul.
They don't want anything to do with him.
He's not invited to preach.
He's not welcome to come and preach.
And they're not writing him letters or visiting him in prison
or they're not encouraged.
They don't want to be associated with him.
They don't want to be affiliated with him.
They're putting videos on YouTube like,
why I had to break fellowship with the Apostle Paul
and why we no longer support Paul and things like that.
I mean, that's crazy.
And you know, when I see that, it makes me think
that that's probably something that has happened
to a lot of other people throughout history.
It's not just the Apostle Paul
does not get along well with others or something.
Okay.
But rather, that the way the world works
is that you go through your life
and you invest in other people,
you win people to Christ,
you help the brotherhood and you go to church
and you fellowship and spend time with people
and help people
and that many of these people are going to forget about you
or not be grateful to you
or just disappear on you
or even become hostile toward you someday.
I mean, that's just a sad reality of life
is that the relationships that you have in life,
unfortunately, many of them are not going to last forever.
They're not going to be lifelong relationships.
People are going to let you down
and turn on you
and even become your enemy
and people that you would never expect,
people that you would think like,
oh, man, this guy is a true friend
and then, lo and behold,
five years later, ten years later,
these people are bailing on you.
You say, well, you know,
if a bunch of people are bailing on you,
it should make you question,
but hold on, what about the Apostle Paul?
Because I don't think the Apostle Paul
is some kind of a big screw-up
and that's why everybody's bailing on him.
I think the people who are bailing on him
are the bozos in this situation
because, I mean, the Apostle Paul
is God's man who he's using to write 2 Timothy.
As he's been bailed on by everyone,
God's using him to pen scripture,
this powerful book,
and this is his last book
because he even says at the end of 2 Timothy,
I know that I'm ready to be offered
and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have fought a good fight.
I've finished my course.
I've kept the faith.
He's at the end of his life saying,
my departure, like departing this life,
departing his physical body is at hand.
And so at the end of his life,
physically speaking, from an earthly perspective,
he doesn't seem like a big success, does he?
Because here he is.
He's in prison.
He ends up in prison.
And one of his most fertile, important mission fields,
they've all forsaken him.
And even some of his closest buddies
are not making it a priority to spend time with him
or to support him.
But then he gives this positive example of Onesiphorus
and he says, you know,
but there's this guy, Onesiphorus.
And then later he says, Luke is with me.
So here's the thing about that.
Here's the thing about that.
In life, a lot of people are gonna let you down.
A lot of people are gonna forsake you.
But in the end, there are gonna be those few people
that are your lifelong friends
and people that are faithful to you
and stay true to you
and we should always be thankful for those people.
And we should be thankful for those relationships
because there are very few of them in our lives.
Most people are gonna bail on us
and there will only be a few important friendships
that stick with us through the decades.
But you know, I was thinking about this,
that the Apostle Paul,
he wasn't really able to build like a denomination
or he wasn't able to build like a network of churches
that are all just in lockstep
and they're all like,
because everybody's just bailing out.
Everybody's just changing on him
and forsaking him and so forth.
And so he wasn't building like a physical empire
of churches or whatever.
And here's the thing,
it's always been God's will anyway
that we have independent churches
and not to be affiliated
in some kind of a network or denomination
where there's a hierarchy of like a pope
and then archbishops and bishops
and filtering down.
We are independent Baptists
and the reason that we're independent Baptists
is because we believe that the head of the church
is Jesus Christ, okay?
So Jesus Christ, the head of the church,
not some guy in some distant city somewhere
who is the head of our denomination
or the head of our movement
or the head of our fellowship
or convention or whatever, right?
Now obviously we're friends with other churches
and those friendships come and go.
But at the end of the day,
each church is accountable to the Lord Jesus Christ
and they're gonna do what's right by the church.
I was talking to a pastor friend of mine the other day
who is part of a denomination
and we were talking about one of the beliefs
of his denomination
and the practice that that denomination has in their church.
But then he said,
well, I personally would do it this other way
but that's my denomination so we do it that way.
The way that we believe as independent Baptists
is that we would just look to the Bible
and Jesus Christ and say,
well, that's what we're gonna do.
And if someone in another city doesn't like it,
well, so what?
They're not the head of the church.
Christ is the head of the church.
And if you understand that the church
is not this network or assembly of churches
or convention or denomination,
if you understand that the word church
literally means congregation,
literally means congregation or assembly,
then you understand that when the Bible says
that Christ is the head of the church,
you understand that each church
should have Christ as its head.
Each church, not one big the church,
the Catholic church, the Presbyterian church,
the whatever religion church.
No, rather it's each church having Christ as its head.
And here's the good thing about that
is that when one church goes bad,
the whole thing doesn't have to go bad.
One church starts ordaining women preachers
and bringing in sodomites and doing all this.
Then it's just one church going bad
and you just say, oh, that church is messed up.
We don't talk to them anymore.
As opposed to what if it's the whole denomination
votes those kind of things in.
And I talked to a guy in Tempe, Arizona
where he went to a Baptist church
and he said, well, our Baptist church
just left our denomination
because the denomination started to accept
homosexuals as members in good standing.
And he said, we wouldn't accept that.
But that's what our denomination accepted.
So we had to break out of the denomination
and our pastor has lost his pension
and it was like a catastrophic thing
because there were all these financial connections.
So it was really hard for them to cut those ties
because they weren't independent.
And obviously the mother denomination
is going to the devil.
And they don't want to go with it.
So it's like the whole thing's being dragged off a cliff
and they're trying to cut the rope
so that they don't get dragged off too.
And so that's why we're independent.
This is why we're independent Baptists.
We're not trying to build
some kind of a network or denomination.
For the Apostle Paul,
there was no network or denomination
because of the fact that you can see
that a lot of the churches that he founded
even didn't end up even wanting to stay friends with him
even though he was literally the founder.
And that gets me to thinking about the fact
that so many things that we accomplish in life are temporary.
Pretty much everything that we build is temporary.
And I grew up hearing this doctrine
that the church can last forever.
And it seemed like independent Baptists
would talk about this all the time
how the church has divine perpetuity
and the church can last forever.
But you know what's funny is I've noticed
that it never does last forever though.
So that's an interesting theory
about the church lasting forever
but I've kind of noticed that it never does.
You know Christ said,
upon this rock I'll build my church
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
But he's not talking about any one particular church.
He's talking about the institution of the church goes on.
It's sort of like the human race goes on.
Man goes on.
But as man goes on, no particular man lives forever.
You know what, men and women, they are born,
they live, and they die, don't they?
And so that's the way it is with churches.
The church as an institution is undefeatable.
It's invincible. It goes on forever.
But one individual church does not go on forever.
It just never does.
Show me the church that's just been going strong
for hundreds of years.
Anywhere on this planet!
Okay, now show me a human being that's been alive
for hundreds of years going strong
anywhere on this planet.
You're not going to find any human beings
that have been going on forever.
You're not going to find any churches that are sort of...
And you know what's funny?
Let's talk a little bit about biology, okay?
Let's talk about biology.
Everybody's like, no, let's not talk about that.
No, but check this out.
What's interesting is that all of our cells in our body,
they're programmed to die.
They die on purpose.
It's called programmed cell death, okay?
And they go through a cell cycle,
and you know, we as human beings also,
we are designed, it's in our DNA,
to be born and to live and to get old and die.
But not only are we born and we live
and we get old and we die,
but actually every cell in our body
is going through different cell cycles.
And here's the thing, the cells in our skin
or in our blood or whatever,
our cells are supposed to go through this process
where new cells are created and then they live
and then they become old.
They go through a period of senescence
and then they die.
And it's called programmed cell death, apoptosis.
Now, here's what's interesting about that.
There's a certain kind of cell
that never dies, it just will not die.
It just decides like, I'm not gonna die.
I'm just gonna keep going.
Who knows what this kind of cell is called?
The cell that is immortal.
The immortal cell that refuses to die,
that will never undergo programmed cell death.
What is it called?
Does anyone know?
Yes, it's called a cancer cell.
In fact, scientists are very reluctant
to ever say that anything is immortal.
Scientists don't really talk in terms of immortality
and eternal things.
But scientists will tell you that cancer cells are immortal.
They're eternal.
They have cancer cells from like the 1950s
and they just keep going
and they believe that they will never die.
They literally say they're immortal.
So when you have a cell that doesn't die
like it's supposed to,
then it is cancer.
So it's like, oh, well, the Roman Catholic Church
has been around for 2,000 years.
That's because the Roman Catholic Church is literally cancer.
It just won't die, it just keeps getting more corrupt
and just more screwed up and more evil
just like for thousands of years it just refuses
to just die like a normal cell.
It's like, oh, yeah.
Every church that's like super old
is always the most corrupt,
the most messed up cancerous religion
that's been around forever.
Why?
Because it's not natural, it's not normal.
What we need to do is we need to found new churches
and constantly be growing and multiplying
and founding new churches, evangelizing new areas,
preaching the gospel, and here's the thing.
I wish that Faithful Word Baptist Church could live forever.
I wish that Steadfast could live forever.
But I know 100 years from now,
Faithful Word is going to be some super liberal church
and when you click on our history section,
they're going to be like, we were founded by a guy.
They're not even going to want to say my name.
We were founded by a young preacher from California.
Let's talk about something more recent.
Someday that's going to happen
because it brings a tear to my eye.
Steadfast is going to die.
Faithful Word is going to die.
They're all going to die.
They're all going to be gone someday.
My life's work, Faithful Word Baptist Church,
someday is going to be just some super liberal,
messed up church someday, 100 years from now.
It's pretty much a fact.
What did the Apostle Paul say?
He said, I know that after my departing,
grievous wolves will come in and they're not going to spare.
Once I'm gone, these other things are going to happen.
Hopefully, after I die and I'm gone,
maybe there will be another good pastor after me or something.
But just realistically, 100 years, 50 years, 150 years,
I don't know when it's going to happen, but death will come.
And if not, then what?
Is it going to be the first church in the history of mankind
that this doesn't happen?
Because again, I'd like you to show me.
Think about this.
How many churches are there in America
that are independent Baptist churches
that preach a King James Bible?
It's like 7,000, literally.
Look at lists on military get saved and stuff.
It lists almost 7,000 churches that are.
And we're not even just talking about that they're saved.
We're talking about that they're even independent,
fundamental, King James.
I mean, it's like 7,000 churches.
How many of them have been like that or going strong
or been fundamental for the last 100 years?
None of them.
The rare occasion where you find a church that's really old,
like let's say First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana
or something, where it's like, OK, they're
a soul-winning, independent, fundamental Baptist church
preaching the King James.
And I believe that their church is like 120 years old
or something.
But here's the thing.
When Brother Hiles showed up there in the 60s
or whenever he showed up there, I think it was like,
my history is a little rough on this,
but he showed up at some point in the 60s.
And when he showed up, it was just
some like super liberal, apostate, messed up church.
And he had to like fix everything
and push a total reset button.
So there were so many bunch of liberal past.
So yeah, it's been that way since the 60s.
But it's not like, oh, it's 120 years old.
They weren't soul-winning and preaching the truth
that whole time.
Because when he got there, like literally more than half
of the people ended up leaving the church.
It was like a big split, a big fight,
because he had to change everything.
They had wrong Bible versions.
They were preaching a bunch of junk.
And yeah, so I'm just saying it's just a fact
that the churches and institutions that we establish
in our lives are temporary.
And someday, we're all going to be gone,
because all of our lives are going to end someday, right?
Because our life is just a vapor that appears for a little time
and then vanishes away.
So the churches are ephemeral.
Our bodies, our lives are ephemeral.
Everything that we see.
The Bible says the things that are seen are temporal,
and the things that are not seen are eternal.
Everything that we see with our eyes is temporary.
Eventually, we're going to lose everything.
Eventually, everything will be gone.
But you know what really matters is what we do in between.
You know, what matters is what we do today.
Like today, we're not guaranteed tomorrow.
Faithful word's not guaranteed tomorrow.
Steadfast isn't guaranteed tomorrow.
We're not guaranteed five years from now, ten years from now.
We don't know what a day is going to bring forth.
And what we do know for sure is that in the long run,
we're all going to be gone.
All of these churches will be gone.
Everything's going to end.
I mean, let me ask you this.
What about these churches in Asia?
Where are they at today?
Are these just still red-hot, soul-winning church in Ephesus?
Ever since the Epistle of Ephesians,
we're still holding on to Ephesians 2, 8, and 9,
2,000 years later.
It isn't there.
If you went to the Ephesus,
you'll find some Catholic cathedral that, you know,
or whatever, you know, this is built on the ruins
of the Church of Ephesus or whatever.
And it's probably a mosque or something now, you know,
because it's in Turkey.
And so the point is that we are going to be like the Apostle Paul
in the sense where the Apostle Paul is talking about how,
hey, I've lost everything in a sense.
You know, I'm in prison.
This isn't the retirement package that he had planned.
You know, he's in prison.
Everybody in Asia has forsaken him.
Earthly speaking, he's a failure, but hold on a second.
He had won so many thousands of people to Christ.
Whether these churches like him or not,
he still founded their church.
They wouldn't exist without him, so he still did that work.
And his legacy lives on today.
We're sitting here reading his epistle right now, right?
Half of the New Testament is written by the Apostle Paul.
So the Apostle Paul was a huge success spiritually,
even though maybe from an earthly perspective,
it looked like whatever he built was like a sandcastle,
and then the tide came in and swept it all away,
and it's like he built up all this following or whatever,
and it's all gone.
But here's the thing.
It was never really about a following
for the Apostle Paul anyway.
It was really about a following for Christ.
And those churches in Asia,
even if they don't have the guts to stand with Paul
because he's in prison,
those churches in Asia are still preaching Jesus Christ,
even if they're a little watered down or whatever.
And so everybody that the Apostle Paul won to Christ
is still going to heaven,
and nothing can ever take that away from us.
And so the point is that in our lives,
we're going to be like Timothy sometimes where we've got tears.
We're sad.
We're crying because we're going through bad stuff,
whether it's family stuff, money problems,
whether it's problems on our job, our career, right?
I mean, all the different things, problems with the church.
I mean, there are going to be all kinds of painful,
difficult things, problems with our health
that we're going through in this world,
and we might just think like,
man, when is all this stuff going to go away
so that I can live a happy life and everything can be great?
And then maybe then I'll start serving God
and getting serious about serving God,
but I've just got to fix myself first.
It can be easy to feel that way
and feel like everything that I've done is in vain
because I invested in this person,
and now this person wants nothing to do with me
after I've invested in them.
Or like it says in Isaiah chapter 1,
I've brought up children and they've rebelled against me.
Or I've sat there and taught and preached to people
and won them to Christ and brought them to church
and they got baptized,
and now they just went back to their old ways or whatever.
You know, these things can be discouraging,
but what we need to understand is that in the end,
the work that we did for Christ,
such as winning souls, can never be taken away from us.
And the people that we invested in, even if they forsake us,
we still had an impact on their lives.
You know, as a pastor over the years,
there have been times when I had to tell people things
that they didn't want to hear
and it actually made them get upset and leave the church,
but then they went and did what I said.
You know, I gave them a certain uncomfortable truth
about their situation and then they got offended.
They fixed their situation though.
They took my advice, but they quit the church.
Well, then I'm just like, my work here is done.
You know what I mean?
Because like, hey, at least they got that message.
They didn't want to hear it.
They didn't like it.
It offended them, but they got the message
because look at their life.
They're doing it right now.
You know, that's really all that matters.
So even people that forsake us,
even people that turn away from us,
you know, even people that we win to Christ
and they never show up at church,
they never say thank you or whatever,
we still had an impact on their lives.
You know, I think about the fact that God,
just through His providence,
allowed me to just kind of be in the right place
at the right time with my YouTube channel
and I was one of the really early people
to put preaching on YouTube
and so I was just flooding YouTube with all this preaching
and so, you know, millions and millions of people
heard that preaching and, you know,
if I tried to do that again today,
it just wouldn't work because number one,
YouTube is just so flooded with garbage now
and the algorithm doesn't work the way that it used to work,
but not only that, you know, it's so censored
that if I got up and preached hard on YouTube now,
it just gets deleted immediately.
It gets censored and my channel gets deleted and so forth,
but, you know, God allowed me to be on YouTube
for many years and get all those views and everything
and, you know, it's funny, I still remember the day
that I built my YouTube channel
and the first thing I did, I read the terms and conditions
as I was building the channel
and I read the terms and conditions
and I just decided I'm not going to abide by this,
you know, because I was curious,
like, am I going to be able to abide by this?
So I, you know, I read those terms and conditions,
I'm sitting there scrolling through
and I was just like, you know what,
like, this isn't going to work, YouTube.
This is in 2007 and I'm just like, yep, I'm going to do that,
I'm going to do that, I'm going to be saying that,
I'm going to be saying that and I remember reading that.
I can remember it like yesterday,
sitting at my computer and reading those terms
because it was my sister's idea for me to put my terms on YouTube.
She told me, I'm like, what's YouTube?
I didn't even know what it was
because YouTube was invented in like 2005.
This is like 2007, so it's still really new,
videos were limited to 10 minutes long
and so I read those terms and conditions
and I remember just thinking like,
I'm not going to abide by this,
like, I'm going to be breaking these rules
and I remember just thinking, you know what,
like, this channel is eventually going to get deleted
and I just made peace with that right then and there.
I'm just like, that's okay, I'm going to upload a bunch of stuff
and get a bunch of views and, you know,
someday the party's going to be over.
But until then, I'm going to party.
And so, you know, I started uploading stuff to YouTube
and even in 2007, I had a couple videos go above 1 million views.
In 2007, I had a video where I was preaching against Joel Osteen
and they were only limited to 10 minutes
but I had a clip of like 10 minutes of me preaching about Joel Osteen.
It got eventually up to like 2 million views
and then I had a video called, you know,
Why Billy Graham's Going to Hell
and it got like 10, it got 1 million views,
just that 10 minute clip.
And it wasn't, I didn't even have a video camera,
it was just audio of me preaching
with just like a slideshow of pictures of Billy Graham.
It's just pictures are coming on the screen,
it's just me preaching.
It got like over a million viewers
and, you know, I just kept uploading stuff
and then finally, after being on YouTube for like,
I don't know how long, like a decade or something,
eventually they deleted my channel
and everybody was so upset, like,
oh, your channel's deleted.
But I was just like, you know what,
I already knew that this day would come
and I already made peace with this 10 years ago
that no matter how much time and effort and energy
I put into this channel, it's all going to be gone
so it's all just going to go down into the trash someday
it's all going to be deleted, it's all going to disappear.
But you know what, that's the way everything in life
is literally like that.
Like that YouTube channel is like a picture
of how everything in life is.
Like, whether it's the physical church itself,
whether it's your business, your car, your house,
even your own body, it's all going to get deleted someday.
Okay?
But what matters is, what did you do
with the time that you had?
You know, and the things that we do in our lives,
they have eternal value if we're winning people to Christ.
And so, don't be discouraged, don't be down,
you know, there's so many times that the apostle Paul
was just as discouraged as Timothy or more discouraged.
I mean, the apostle Paul,
he writes about being down and discouraged and sad
and you know, he talks about how
though our outward man perish,
yet our inward man is renewed day by day.
And so, as we go through life,
we may fail a lot and make a lot of mistakes
and have a lot of things go wrong.
And you know, I think it's possible to literally
just go through life and just fail and fail and fail
and fail and fail and fail and fail
and then just end a failure.
And yet, just do a lot of great things for God
all along the way.
I mean, people who are failing in business
but they won a soul to Christ.
People, you know, and look, I'm very against divorce.
You know, the Bible says God hates divorce, okay?
And so, you know, I hate divorce
and I'm big against divorce.
I preach against divorce.
But you know what?
There are gonna be people in heaven
whose marriage completely failed
and they got a divorce
but yet they still were greatly used by God
because even as their marriage failed,
even as that one part of their life was totally screwed up,
they're still winning a bunch of souls to Christ.
And then they spent the rest of their life serving God
and they picked themselves up and dusted themselves off
and went on and served God and won people to Christ.
And then there are gonna be other people with, you know,
great finances, great marriage, great health,
everything smooth, never did any soul winning.
And they're such a success
and everybody's looking at their beautiful, successful life
but at the end of the day,
they're just kind of living for self.
There are gonna be some people out there like that, right?
And obviously, we wanna strive
to do the best we can in our relationships
and do the best we can in our business
and, you know, our jobs and so forth.
We wanna do the best we can to take care of our health.
I'm not saying that those things don't matter.
They do matter, right?
And we should try to take care of the things
that we have in our life and take care of all those areas.
But, you know, at the end of the day though,
no matter how big of a screw up you are
in one or more of those areas,
you know what?
God can still use you.
And at the end of the day,
everybody's gonna lose their spouse eventually.
Everybody's gonna lose their family, their business,
their bank account, their physical body itself.
Everybody's gonna lose everything.
You know what matters though is what did you do with it?
You know, and so what you've got is today.
You've got this week.
You've got this Sunday.
You've got this weekend.
You've got now.
Do something for God now.
And Paul is telling Timothy,
Hey, stir up the gift of God that is in you.
Be a partaker of the affliction of the gospel.
Get in the fight.
You know, I'm here.
I'm doing it.
I'm in prison.
I'm still serving God.
I'm still going strong.
The Lord's gonna deliver me.
Yeah, okay, every single person in Asia
has turned away from me.
You know, why you gotta bring that up?
But yeah, okay, but so what?
So what?
I mean, does that mean like,
oh, everything Paul did in Asia was in vain?
Was Paul just wasting his time in Asia?
He got thousands of people saved.
He founded all these churches.
He did all these wonderful things.
You're not wasting your time either.
Any good thing that you do for your family,
any good thing you do for your friends,
any good thing you do for the church,
any good thing you do out there on soul winning,
all that stuff is eternal.
Those spiritual things that you do
and the investments that you make in people,
even if they turn out not to pan out
as your buddy in the long run,
you know, you still had an impact on them
and then they have an impact on other people.
And so I hope that my point is getting across tonight.
I hope that this sermon is encouraging.
Hopefully it's not discouraging like,
you're gonna lose everything.
You're all gonna die.
This church is gonna die.
Everything's gonna be gone.
Hopefully you understand what I'm saying
because that doesn't matter
because here we are.
And what's spiritual is what matters
and it's gonna go on forever.
And whatever souls you want out soul winning this afternoon,
nothing can change that.
Nobody can take your reward from you.
Nobody can take your joy from you.
And so we need to understand that God
has a purpose for all of us.
He's got a plan for all of our lives.
He's got works for us to do.
And while we're here on this earth,
we need to do the work of God
even in the midst of the tears and the pain
and the suffering and the hard times.
And in fact, when we're going through those hard times,
sometimes that's even the best time
to really focus on the things of God
just to take your mind off of the junk
that you're going through in your life.
Because it's like, what are you gonna do on Sunday?
Just sit around thinking about how messed up your life is
and how much physical pain you're in
or how bad your relationships are
or thinking about how messed up your job is
on Monday or whatever.
Instead of that, it's amazing how when you go out soul winning,
you might even just forget about that stuff for a couple hours.
You might come to church and forget about it
until Pastor Anderson keeps bringing it up
in his sermon, all the junk in your life.
But I'm saying you can get busy helping other people
and all of a sudden you're not even really thinking too much about those things.
Get your mind off those things.
And so we're all gonna go through periods like Timothy.
We're all gonna have tears.
We're all gonna have afflictions.
Paul's in prison.
Everybody's gonna go through things.
Don't let that stop you from serving God.
Stir up the gift that's in you.
Be the servant of God that God wants you to be
in the midst of everything.
And realize, yeah, I'm gonna fail in life.
Yeah, I've screwed some things up in life.
But so what? We're all gonna lose everything anyway.
Hey, let's just do what we can with the time that we have for the Lord
before it's all over, before the party's over.
Let's keep going and keep serving God until the bitter end.
Because you know what? In the end,
no matter how bad things are in this life, they always end.
Whatever you're going through, it's gonna end.
You say, well, you're gonna die, then it's over.
And here's the thing.
When we die physically, that's just the beginning for us
because then we get to go to heaven.
Hey, if I die today, I'm going straight to heaven.
That's where everything's gonna be perfect.
But it's never gonna be perfect on this earth.
But all I know is I've got this retirement that's gonna be awesome.
And you know, people, man, they're so into their retirement sometimes.
And they're like, man, when I'm 65, I'm gonna retire, whatever.
Here's the thing. Just push that back a few years later.
And it's just like, man, when I die, it's gonna be awesome
because I've got all this treasure laid up in heaven.
I'm going to heaven. It's gonna be awesome.
Right? What's the difference? Just wait a couple more years.
And then you've got a perfect body to be able to do it all.
Spires Enough Word of Prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this chapter, Lord.
And help us, Lord, not to be discouraged.
And Lord, even when we are discouraged
and in physical pain or emotional pain, Lord,
help us to stay faithful and stir up the gift of God
and be a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel
and to think about your purpose and plan
that you purposed before the world began
rather than necessarily our purpose.
Lord, help us to get on your program.
And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Number 216.
Surely goodness and mercy.
We're going to go ahead and do the coda after the last verse,
so just keep that in mind.
Sing it out.
A pilgrim was I and of one dream
In the cold night of sin I did roam
When Jesus the kind shepherd found me
And now I am on my way home
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days, all the days of my life
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days, all the days of my life
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever
And I shall feast at the table spread for thee
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days, all the days of my life
He restoreth my soul when I'm weary
He giveth me strength day by day
He leads me beside the still waters
He guards me each step of the way
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days, all the days of my life
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days, all the days of my life
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever
And I shall feast at the table spread for thee
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days, all the days of my life
When I walk through the dark lonesome valley
My Savior will walk with me there
And safely His grave and will be near
To the mansions He's gone to prepare
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days, all the days of my life
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days, all the days of my life
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever
And I shall feast at the table spread for thee
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days, all the days of my life