Our Heritage of Faith
2 Timothy 1-14
When it comes to faith in Jesus Christ is there someone in your family tree who you would call an encourager?
Can you point to a relative who inspired you as an example of Christian character?
We all need role models, people who are truly good examples for us to follow. From time to time the battles we encounter in life can cause us to forget our roots as well as the Christ-likeness we are to live out. We can get emotionally tied up in a fight about ethics or morality and find that we give in to our old nature. That is usually when we start swinging instead of praying.
On the extreme side of this we have the abortion doctors who are shot by zealot Christians who have stepped over the line of battle and have resorted to using human means to resolve a spiritual dilemma.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Abortion is nothing new it has been with human society for millennia. How the Christian Church responds to abortion and other moral hot buttons will determine whether we can influence our opponents for Christ.
When we resort to using the same methods which we oppose we no longer have a distinction between our values and theirs. Death plus death equals death.
Timothy was a young preacher with great promise. St. Paul thought the world of this young man and in fact thought of him like a son. That’s a great compliment considering the accomplishments and abilities that St. Paul exhibited.
Timothy was in Ephesus at the time this letter from Paul reached him. Paul was in a Roman jail under the authority of Emperor Nero. This may have been just before or just after Rome was set on fire by the Emperor who blamed the Christians for setting it.
Nero knew a little about the Christian message and that Jesus used language that referred to the burning of a city as a reprisal by a just king. (Matthew 22:7) It may have been coincidence or politically fortuitous that Nero set Rome on fire and made the Christians the scapegoat. In any event things were very bad for Christians everywhere, in the Capital and even in Ephesus.
Paul had spent three years building a church from a very small group of loyal followers in Ephesus. The result was a growing church that drew new people and new ideas that conflicted with the original teachings of St. Paul.
It was this church in crisis that Timothy was entrusted to straighten out and put back on the narrow road.
Have you ever had someone give you a task or responsibility that you thought was just too big or too complex for you to handle. Have you ever said to yourself - they have got to be kidding?
I used to say that every Christmas morning when I would be faced with numerous new toys that needed to be assembled after I threw out the instructions.
Timothy faced an absolutely momentous task in trying to get this wondering church back on the straight and narrow. Paul did not necessarily know all the details but he knew the circumstances that Timothy faced.
Those of us who are parents call that wisdom. We might have a child who is in a particular situation and we may not know the names or faces of the people involved but we know the scenario well enough to offer our sage advice. Kids just hate that don’t they, I know I did.
But Paul is very clever in his approach to Timothy. Paul reminds Timothy of his own situation, he is chained, in jail under arrest by the Emperors authority and facing death for faith in Jesus Christ and he tells Timothy to remember his grandmother and mother as examples of Christian faith.
It may be that Timothy had seen his family suffer for faith in Jesus Christ. It may be that both his grandmother and mother had become martyrs for the faith - we do not know for sure. All we do know is that Paul tells Timothy to remember his Christian heritage.
Sometimes we shrink back from trying to accomplish the great things because we do not believe greatness is in us. Paul reminds Timothy that great Christian faith is a family trait. It is like your family name it is synonymous with the word Christian. It is therefore impossible for you to be any thing other than a person of faith in Jesus Christ.
Paul also reminds Timothy that they share a special relationship as father and son when it comes to spiritual matters. The acorn does not fall far from the tree so to speak.
Timothy has doubts and they are fueled by a rabble in Ephesus who may be heaping disparaging remarks on the founder of the church who now sits in a Roman jail condemned to death. Yes, Timothy has his hands full and like Pontius Pilate is looking for the wash basin.
Paul is a great hero to Timothy and yet his hero is locked up and about to be erased from the face of the earth. Timothy will be on his own and needs to be assured that he has what it takes to continue the work Paul started and in fact build upon it.
From time to time we lose great leaders in our world the church included and we wonder how can we go on? It often occurs when we are at a crossroad faced with an unsolvable dilemma. We find that all of a sudden we are the one that people turn to for answers and we have no idea where we will get them.
In times like these we must calm ourselves and remember those who have been our examples and heroes of the faith. We must ask ourselves how would they have approached the problem, what would they have done.
I think of that old movie - Its a Wonderful Life - when George Bailey is a little boy working in the drug store and the druggist has given him a prescription to deliver that is poisoned by mistake. The druggist is distraught about the death of his son and makes a near fatal mistake. Little George sees a razor add in the store that reads - Just Ask Dad. That is what George tries to do and that is what we need to do. We need to ask ourselves what our Christian role models did when faced with difficult decisions.
More importantly Paul reminds us to ask ourselves - what would Jesus do?
We know what Jesus would have done with a divisive church he would have loved it and forgave it until it realized its error. Jesus would have suffered for it and given himself if need be in order to rescue it. That is in fact what Jesus did for you and me.
That is what we are called to do with our own sinful society today. We are not to respond in anger but in love. We are to suffer cruelty for the sake of the cross but we are not to use cruelty to effect change. We must turn the other cheek.
1 Corinthians -13:4-8
4Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,
5does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
6does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never fails
2 Timothy 1:12
That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.
We must entrust to Jesus all our great problems including those of our churches and our fallen society. We have entrusted Jesus with our faith. We believe by faith that Jesus the righteous judge will vanquish all the ills of the individual and the world and that one day soon He will return to claim His throne and seek those who are his faithful subjects.
Let us not shrink back from our Christian heritage.
