Reading:
2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 5
2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15.
“I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also”.
“And how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”.
Ill:
A teacher gave her junior class a lesson on the Magnet and what it does.
• The next day in a written test, she included this question:
• My full name has six letters.
• The first one is ‘M’. I pick up things. What am I?
• When the test papers were turned in,
• The teacher was astonished to find that almost 50 percent of the children;
• Answered the question with the word ‘Mother’.
Ill:
• A four-year-old and a six-year-old presented their Mom with a house-plant.
• They had used their own money and she was thrilled.
• The older of them said with a sad face,
• There was a bouquet that we wanted to give you at the flower shop.
• It was real pretty, but it was too expensive.
• It had a ribbon on it that said, ‘Rest In Peace’,
• And we thought it would be just perfect;
• Since you are always asking for a little peace so that you can rest.
By setting aside the day we call Mothers' Day:
• We are not merely contributing to a higher standard of living for;
• Florists, greeting card publishers and restaurant owners.
• We are fulfilling the Biblical command (the 5th commandment);
• Where we are told to "Honour your mother."
The Hebrew word (language of the Old Testament) for ‘honour’ means ‘Treat as weighty’:
Ill:
• Someone did ask a little girl who was playing dressing up games,
• What are you going to do, when you get as big as your mother.
• To their surprise the little girl replied; “Go on a diet!”
The Bible word for ‘honour’ means ‘Treat as weighty’:
• Obviously not physical!
• It means our respect, our gratitude, our attitude and our responsibility;
• In other words we should overload our mothers with;
• Respect, honour, gratitude etc.
Note:
• Sorry mums (& dads):
• It does not mean your kids are to obey you without question.
• Sorry kids (big or small):
• It does not mean simply be nice to them or simply put up with them.
• The command (and notice that there is no age limit to the command) is instructing us;
• To watch our behaviour, attitude and our responsibility to our parents.
Quote: The Oxford Thesaurus contains these words for ‘honour’:
‘Reverence, respect, obedience, gratitude, trust, confidence, praise, attention, esteem,
adore, consideration, care’.
This commandment is built on co-operation:
• It is not a carte blanche to all children;
• To succumb to all the wishes, quirks & orders of their parents.
• In fact God also gives both mothers and fathers instructions as well as the kids;
• Both have to play their part in building a healthy relationship.
Ill:
• A Christian mother was teaching the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds.
• After explaining the commandment, "Honour thy father and thy mother,"
• She asked, "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?"
• Without missing a beat one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill!"
In any relationship both parties have to play their part;
• If we want to experience what the Bible calls ‘happy families’ relationships that work.
• Then we (both parties) need to follow the makers instructions;
• And those instructions are found in this book;
• And they start by telling us children in Exodus chapter 20 verse 12:
• To "Honour your father and your mother."
• Amplified Bible: “Regard (treat with honour, due obedience, and courtesy) your father and mother”
Question:
• Why?
• You tell me……..
• When we think of mothers & Motherhood, what characteristics/images come to mind?
• Give me some suggestions?
Answer:
• Sacrificial, loyal, endurance (long hours), multi-tasking, generous, empathy and wisdom!
• Mothers are quite unique!
Question: Who can ever forget a mother’s wisdom?
• My Mother taught me LOGIC...
• "If you fall off that swing and break your legs, don't come running to me."
• My Mother taught me MEDICINE...
• "If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they're going to freeze that way."
• My Mother taught me TO THINK AHEAD...
• "If you don't pass your spelling test, you'll never get a good job!"
• My Mother taught me INTUITION...
• "Put your jumper on; I know when you're cold?"
• My Mother taught me TO MEET A CHALLENGE...
• "What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you...Don't talk back to me!"
• My Mother taught me how to BECOME AN ADULT...
• "If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up.
• My mother taught me about GENETICS...
• "You are just like your father!"
• My mother taught me about my ROOTS...
• "Close that door, do you think you were born in a barn?"
• My mother taught me about the WISDOM of AGE...
• "When you get to be my age, you will understand."
• My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION...
• "Just wait until your father gets home."
Ill:
Mark Twain said of his Father (also true of mothers);
“When I was fourteen my father was so ignorant I could hardly bear him,
but by the time I was twenty-one I was amazed to see how much he had learned”.
• Of course it was not Mark Twain’s father who had changed;
• But it was Mark Twain himself who had matured and changed.
Quote:
• More seriously it was:
• Essayist, historian, and writer of stories, Washington Irving who once wrote:
"A father may turn his back on his child; brothers and sisters may become confirmed enemies; husbands may desert their wives and wives their husbands.
A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us;
when adversity takes the place of prosperity;
when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavour by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts."
• Generally speaking (always exceptions);
• There is no love as loyal or as strong as a mothers love.
ill:
An advert appeared in a London newspaper, it read:
“Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success”.
• Thousands of men responded to it, why?
• It was signed by the British explorer Sir Earnest Shackleton & that made the difference.
Motherhood too is an exploration:
• On one side their are great benefits and many rewarding times,
• On the other side it is hard work, a long slog, a time-consuming patient endurance.
OUR TWO SHORT BIBLE READINGS:
• Were named after a man who had a good mother called ‘Eunice’;
• His name was Timothy (in fact we have two books in the Bible written by him).
• Not only did he write two books of the New Testament;
• But he accompanied Paul as his companion & fellow-worker on his 2nd missionary journey.
• He served as a pastor to a troublesome Church;
• Where he skilfully, carefully nurtured it, back in to shape.
• He was a committed Christian with a deep loyalty to his Lord and saviour Jesus Christ;
• Tradition has it that he died as a Christian martyr in Ephesus.
• In our two short readings;
• We are given certain information about him.
Bible Reading No 1: 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 5:
“I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also”.
Timothy had a big advantage in his life that I for one did not have:
• He had a Jewish grandmother called Lois, who was converted to Jesus Christ.
• She was the first one in the family to come to faith.
• He also had a Jewish mother called Eunice;
• She too became a follower of Jesus Christ.
• As for his father we know very little;
• All we can glean about him in the Bible was that he was a Greek.
These two simple verses:
• Do teach us some important things;
• They show us the effect that a godly grandmother and mother had on this one child.
Sincere faith.
“I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also”.
Quote: BILLY GRAHAM who said:
“Children will invariably talk, eat, walk, think, respond, and act like their parents.
Give them a target to shoot at. Give them a goal to work toward. Give them a pattern that they can see clearly, and you give them something that gold and silver cannot buy”.
• Timothy’s mother and grandmother had given him something that gold and silver cannot buy.
• A sincere faith, that brought him into contact with the living Christ.
• Timothy saw Christ living in them, and such was their influence on him;
• That it paved the way for him to come to faith in Jesus Christ as well!
Ill:
• The word ‘sincere' literally means 'without wax'.
• The Romans carved great pillars out of stone and in time they became chipped and worn.
• Some cowboy builders repaired the damage pillars;
• By filling the holes with wax coloured the same as stone.
• There was hardly any trace of the repair, but the wax didn't last long.
• By then, of course, the cowboy builders had moved on.
• Genuine craftsmen advertised their skills by putting words
• 'Without Wax' on their signboards.
• It meant they only used genuine building materials.
• In other words, they were honest - sincere.
• The sincere faith of Lois and Eunice:
• Made a deep impact on the life of Timothy.
Ill:
• There were two doctors with the same name who lived a few doors apart.
• One was a Christian and a lay preacher, the other made no profession of faith.
• One night a rather sick person, who was also a Christian,
• And wanting help from a fellow believer,
• Knocked mistakenly at the door of the non-Christian doctor.
• “Are you the doctor who preaches?” he asked.
• “No”, the medic replied, “I am the doctor who practices”.
• “Oh”, said the sick person, “I’ve always understood the two things were inseparable”.
Timothy also had a genuine, a sincere faith;
• He had seen it practiced, lived out in front of him;
• As he grew up in the presence of his mother and grandmother;
• And one day he discovered it for himself when a preacher named Paul;
• Came preaching in his home town (1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 2)
• Paul who wrote this letter to Timothy;
• Calls Timothy; “My own (genuine) son in the faith”
Ill:
• To use a farming metaphor;
• We might say ‘He reaped the harvest!’
• But it was his grandmother and mother ‘Who planted the gospel seed in his heart’;
• It was they who ‘Watered it with their prayers.’
• And when Paul writes this letter to Timothy;
• He reminds him of his godly parentage and the privilege that he experienced.
WORTH NOTING:
• That Timothy did not inherit his faith;
• Quote: ‘God has no grand-children’
• You can no more inherit Christianity;
• Than the son of a doctor inherits his father or mothers medical skills.
• Ill: Imagine on the operating table saying; “Are you a doctor?”
• And receiving the reply: “I’m not but my father and grand father were”
• Timothy like his own mother before him and her mother before her;
• Needed to make a personal response to the person and claims of Jesus Christ.
Quote: The Shaw Pocket Bible Handbook, page 347:
Conversion: “The decisive act in which a sinner turns away from sin in genuine repentance and accepts the salvation that Christ offers.
The imagery in conversion is that of turning.
A person is going along a road and realizes that he or she is on the wrong track. They will never reach the destination if they continue in that direction. So the person “turns,” or “is converted.”
He or she ceases to go in the wrong direction and begins going in the right one. Conversion changes the direction of one’s course of life
from the wrong way to the right way, the way that God wants”.
Bible Reading No 2: 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15.
“And how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”.
• As a child Timothy had not just been taken along to Church services;
• He had been taught the Word of God by both his mother and grandmother
• They had both faithfully taught him the Old Testament Scriptures;
• And Paul in these verses tells him to continue in what he had been taught.
• The point he is making to Timothy and to Timothy’s Church is:
• We never outgrow the Word of God.
Ill:
• Menekil II was born in 1844,
• He was one of the greatest rulers in African history and the creator of modern Ethiopia.
• He was captured during an enemy raid and held prisoner for 10 years.
• After escaping, he declared himself head of the province of Shewa.
• He began conquering neighbouring kingdoms;
• And developed them into modern Ethiopia with himself as emperor.
• When Italy tried to take over Ethiopia;
• Menekil’s army met and crushed the Italians at the Battle of Aduwa.
• This victory, as well as his efforts to modernize Ethiopia (schools, telephones, railroads),
• Made Menekil II world-famous.
Yet the emperor had one little known eccentricity.
• Whenever he was feeling ill, he would eat a few pages of the Bible,
• Insisting that this always restored his health.
• One day in December, 1913,
• Recovering from a stroke and feeling extremely ill,
• He had the entire book of Kings torn from an Egyptian edition of the Bible,
• And he ate every page of it—and then died.
Paul encouraged Timothy to keep feeding on the word of God:
• Feeding as in the sense of reading, thinking, mediating, studying etc.
• Not physically eating it like emperor Menekil II
• And to encourage him to carry on doing this;
• Paul tells Timothy that the Bible will make him ‘wise for salvation’
Ill:
• Auto maker Henry Ford asked electrical genius Charlie Steinmetz;
• To build the generators for his factory.
• One day the generators ground to a halt, and the repairmen couldn’t find the problem.
• So Ford called Steinmetz,
• He tinkered with the machines for a few hours and then threw the switch.
• The generators whirred to life.
• But Ford got a bill for $10,000 from Steinmetz.
• Flabbergasted, the rather tight-fisted car maker inquired why the bill was so high.
• Steinmetz’s reply: For tinkering with the generators, $10.
• For knowing where to tinker, $9,990………….……………Henry Ford paid the bill.
When it comes to living wisely:
• We like Steinmetz have the makers insight;
• The one who created and gave us life, advises us on how to live it.
• Not that he is an interfering spoil-sport, a kill-joy;
• But rather the very opposite - he knows what’s best for us ill: Phil & video camera.
We are told two things in this verse:
(1). This book is called the Holy scriptures:
• Literally: ‘Sacred letters’.
• That simply means ‘set apart’ this book is different from all other books.
Ill:
When the famous missionary, Dr. David Livingstone, started his trek across Africa
• He had 73 books in 3 packs, weighing 180 pounds.
• After the party had gone 300 miles,
• Livingstone was obliged to throw away some of the books;
• Because of the fatigue of those carrying his baggage.
• As he continued on his journey his library grew less and less,
• Until he had but one book left—his Bible.
• Ultimately that was all he really needed.
• Quote: A.T. Pierson:
“Some books inform,
Some books reform,
Only the Bible transforms!”
(2). Wise to salvation.
Quote: An unknown writer said,
• This Book is the mind of God, the state of man,
• The way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers.
• Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding;
• Its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable.
• Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, practice it to be holy.
• It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.
• It is the traveller’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass,
• The soldier’s sword, and the Christian’s character.
• Here paradise is restored, heaven opened, and the gates of hell disclosed.
• Christ is its grand subject, our good its design, and the glory of God its end.
• It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet.
• Read it slowly, frequently, prayerfully.
• It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure.
• Follow its precepts and it will lead you to Calvary,
• To the empty tomb,
• To a resurrected life in Christ; yes, to glory itself, for eternity.
Ill:
• Power of the word;
• 3 Examples of converts through the book of Romans.
(a). In the 4th centuary:
• Lived a wild young man called Augustine.
• He was greatly troubled because of his decadent lifestyle.
• As he lay in his garden. he heard a voice saying:
• “Take and read".
• He went to where his friend had been sitting.
• And found a copy of Paul's letter to the Romans.
"I snatched it up, opened it and silently read the passage on which my eyes Fell".
It was chapter 13 verses 13-14):
"Let us behave decently, as in the day time, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealously.
Rather clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ".
Augustine then commented:
“A light of utter confidence shone in my heart and all darkness of uncertainty vanished".
Quote: D. J. 1. Packer:
Says that: "Augustine became the Foremost champion of God's Free grace and the most influential teacher bar none in western Christian history".
(b). Eleven hundred years later:
• A monk, a gifted theologian called Martin Luther.
• Also found himself troubled.
• He was a good monk. living a very good lifestyle.
• Yet he too could find no peace.
One day as Luther was reading the book f Romans, he wrote:
"That righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, God justifies us by faith".
Straight away he said:
"I felt myself reborn and to have gone through open doors into Paradise".
• Luther’s experience of forgiveness;
• Led to the Reformation of Europe.
(c). 200 years later, John Wesley:
• A missionary drop out, was at a meeting in London,
• He heard Luther's preface to the book of Romans being read.
• He wrote:
"I felt my heart strangely warmed, I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone for my salvation;
and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine; and saved me from the law of sin and death".
• The whole of the Methodist movement in the 18th century
• Sprang from Wesley's new understanding of justification
