2 Timothy 1:1-14
Maroochydore Anglican Church
2nd October 2022
Big question – What does God give so we can live as Christians?
Big Idea: God gives faith, the spirit and grace so we might life the Christian life.
Heavenly Father,
Help me to teach the Bible properly.
Help us to believe it and live it in our lives.
For Christ, our saviour’s sake.
Amen.
This morning, there is a baptism, an exciting time for the family.
It’s a great day of celebrating what God has done in people.
Often there is a desire or a felt obligation to give a gift.
We know for a wedding; we give toasters and wine glasses.
Funerals never need a gift.
But a baptism? Do we, or don’t we?
I assure you know that there is no requirement.
I remember as a teenager going to a friend’s baptism. What do I give him?
I knew it was happening in a pool, so I considered giving him a towel.
I wasn’t going to buy him flowers.
Wine glasses didn’t quiet feel right either.
What gifts does someone being baptised need?
Regardless of what anyone today may bring, God gives the greatest gift.
In fact, it’s not just one, he gives 3 gifts to those who belong to him.
These are talked about in our 2 Timothy passage.
The 3 gifts are:
Faith
The Spirit
And Grace.
I’m going to spend the next few minutes talking about each of these.
This letter is from Paul to the young pastor Timothy, his son in the faith, his apprentice.
Paul longs to see him again.
In Bible times, mobile towers didn’t exist, so sadly they couldn’t facetime, but the upside was no zoom meetings.
Paul faithfully prays with joy for Timothy.
Paul knows that Timothy has faith in God.
Paul saw it in Grandma Lois and Mama Eunice.
They had modelled faith and it was passed down to Timothy.
Faith sounds like a religious word.
Faith is like the word for Trust.
They trusted in God.
They trusted that he could save them from death.
They trusted that he could forgive them of sin.
They trusted that God was their great provider.
They trusted. They had faith.
This was naturally passed down to Timothy.
Paul could see it in Timothy. This faith in Jesus.
My advice to churches and families is:
If you want the younger people to have faith in Jesus.
You need to set the pace; you need to have this faith in Jesus.
Live it out and the children will see it and it will be passed down.
This faith is something that God gave to Lois, Eunice and Timothy.
If you want it too, make sure you ask God and he will give it.
God’s first gift is faith.
God’s second gift is: the Spirit.
When people put their faith in Jesus.
They are changed, the Bible says they are a new creation.
How does this happen?
God sends the Holy Spirit to live inside them.
In sentence 6, Paul says the Spirit doesn’t make his people cowards.
God’s Spirit enables people to have power, love and self-discipline.
So as we go on in the Christian life, there will be hard days.
For Timothy, he was looking after some churches with some people who wanted to teach lies in the church. Trouble makers.
Timothy didn’t have the spirit of being a coward, he has the spirit of power. He can stand up to these people who are teaching lies, have the hard conversations and correct them.
Timothy was involved in church life. Church life always includes people.
People will at some stage let you down.
Trials come in life. Some days they are big.
When that happens, we need to love the people around us.
God Spirit gives us love and self-discipline
The Christian can be like Jesus on hard and stressful days.
This isn’t the case for people without the Spirit.
I tell all my baptism families. When I baptise the child, they will not sleep any better.
But the great news is that the Spirit enables Mums and Dad who have faith in God to love each other and the child even when they are tired.
God’s second gift is the Spirit.
Now for God’s third gift:
Grace.
I reckon this is the best one.
Paul reminds Timothy to not be ashamed of Jesus.
In sentence 9 we read:
9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
God called Timothy to be one of his people.
5 years ago, no one knew that COVID was coming.
Yet a cajillion years ago. Before time began.
I’m not sure what else was happening.
We see that God knew and God planned who would be his people.
God planned to send Jesus to earth.
Why? To save us.
God’s great rescue was planned before the beginning of time.
As planned, Jesus lived, died and came back to life.
In Jesus’ death, he absorbs the punishment for sin and the death that humans deserve.
The very things that have made us all enemies with God.
God didn’t do this because Timothy was nice or worked hard.
God didn’t do for you because you were cute or had money.
God gave this as free gift.
The Bible calls his grace.
We don’t baptise people in order to save them from death.
To give them a ticket to heaven.
We baptise people because God promises that in Jesus he has saved people who have faith or trust in him.
We do this, because God has given us grace.
So our three gifts that God gives are: Faith, the Spirit and Grace.
Do you have faith?
Have you been given The Spirit and Grace?
I wouldn’t leave today without being certain.
In sentence 6 Paul reminds Timothy that he has been given another gift.
Timothy has been gifted to know this message and to share it.
He is told to fan this gift into flame.
You as a church have gifts.
We in Yeppoon have gifts.
Like Timothy, we need to fan these gifts into flame.
Two weeks ago, I was on our CQ Alive Youth Camp.
Each night we had a camp fire.
The next morning the teenagers would set up small sticks and any paper they could find into the fire pit. The fire had gone out, but there was still some heat beneath the surface.
So they put little stuff there and blew on it to somehow start a new fire, to keep it going.
How do we fan these gifts into flame?
We do the normal Christian things.
We come together at church, we read our Bibles, we pray.
We keep having faith.
Trusting in the Spirit and remembering Grace.
As this baptism family have made big promises, make sure that you help them to get here every week.
Make sure you pray for them.
Make sure they have Bibles.
Together live out our faith in God. Remember the Spirit, not being cowards, but have love, power and self-discipline.
Paul tells Timothy and us to hold to the pattern of sound teaching that we heard from him.
The more that we remember these words and do what they say we will fan this gift into flame.
So, I offer no helpful advice on giving baptism gifts.
But I can assure you that God gives the greatest gifts to all who ask him.
These gifts are free and available.
Make sure you’ve taken them yourself and think about who you can pass them onto.