Open to that portion that we looked at just a moment ago, 2 Timothy chapter 1. I didn't intend to speak about this tonight, but this afternoon I kept reading over this portion of Scripture and it would cause me to read a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more and go back into 1 Timothy. And I want to ask you tonight to question with me What is this talking about? What is Paul talking about? In 2 Timothy chapter 1, when he writes to his son in the faith, Timothy, and says in verse number 4, I want to see you. I want to see you, Timothy. I greatly desire to see you. Now, I can understand that. I know what it is to want to see somebody that you love, but what does Paul mean in that next phrase when he says, being mindful of your tears? Being mindful of your tears. virtue of context and the way he says this, we know these are not happy tears. There is something behind what he says here when he says, I've been thinking about your tears. I've been contemplating going over in my mind your tears. Now when you love somebody, And they cry, you cry. When a child of yours hurts, you hurt. And the more I read and the more I compared things that Paul was saying, I already knew some things, but I never had seen it like this. was just reading over these things as I prepared for this morning's message and then couldn't get away from some of these things that he was talking about here. He talks a lot about family in these first few verses. Family's a big, big deal to all of us. Family is more important than most everything else. We love our families. We take great joy during the Christmas season of getting together with our families. And many times we've not been with our family for many months or maybe a year or so. And family is important. Notice just the family words that are used in these first few verses. Do you see there in verse number two, the word son? to Timothy, my dearly beloved son." Now, he was not a biological son, but he was a son nevertheless. He was a son in the faith. He had adopted him, as it were. I don't know how far that went, but I do know this, that there wasn't any man, it didn't seem like, in Timothy's life. He had a grandmother and he had a mother. But Paul came along and became his dad in the Lord. So we find the word son. Then in verse number two, you also see the word father. And here he's talking about God, the father and Christ Jesus, our Lord. So he's taken this from the earthly realm to the heavenly realm using these family terms or family titles. Then in verse number three he talks about his forefathers. Our forefathers are very important. Our forefathers, here he was talking about his forefathers of the Jewish faith and those who look for the Messiah to come, his forefathers in the Old Testament. He said that I served from my forefathers. I served in the in the same faith of my forefathers. So son, father, forefathers, thy grandmother. Look at verse number five. When I called to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, it first dwelt in thy grandmother Lois, your grandmother. Something started way back in grandmama. that was transferred from grandmama to mama to her boy. And that should happen, shouldn't it? That should transfer. We can't make it transfer except through our prayers and through our upbringing and bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And we pray that God would do that special work in their heart at some point or another. But grandmother, this faith, this unfeigned faith, dwelt first in your grandmother. And then the word or the title, mother. Mother. So let's start now. Let's go in reverse. Here's Timothy. His mother, his grandmother, The forefathers, their faith, the Father, and now my spiritual father, Paul. Paul being the spiritual father of this young Timothy, this young preacher, he's concerned about him. My son in the faith has been through some troubling times. You do know that 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, we say these are books of the Bible. Yes, they are books of the Bible. These are inspired words of God, but they were personal letters from Paul to Timothy. They were personal in their content. They were personal in their intent. There are things that we don't really know all the details. We have to read kind of between the lines as to what's going on. But I think Paul does lay out several things that we can say, maybe that's what he's talking about. Maybe that's why Timothy had been crying or in pain or in difficulty. You know, in, um, there's a year between the first letter and the second letter. in the first letter, and we won't take time to point them out, but you look through the first letter, just skim the first letter. It's just the six chapters, but just skim through it. And Paul is telling Timothy, you deal with this, Timothy. You deal with that, Timothy. You deal with this situation here. And he ends up in chapter six impressing on Timothy, you deal with rich people. You deal with those that are rich in this world's goods, and you deal with some things. That was just one of the things that he said to deal with. And in just reading between the lines in the year that transpired since Timothy got this letter before 2 Timothy, I think there was some kickback to what young Timothy did in the church. You know, we can be touched by the Lord and spoken to by the Lord in a church service or through preaching or teaching or even just reading the Word of God. And in our hearts, God's stirring something up, saying, I need to deal with this situation in my life, or I need to deal with this situation in my family, or I need to deal with this situation with this person at work. I need to deal with this situation. And God gives you holy boldness. to say, I'm going to do what's right. And we, in our minds, sometimes think, because I'm going to do what's right, everything's going to turn out glorious. Oh, no. That's why some of us have quit trying to do what's right, because it's turned around and kicked us in the teeth. And we say, well, if that's the way it's going to be, I just won't rock the boat at all. Well, let me ask you this obvious question. The Son of God came to this earth, God in the flesh, and he spoke the truth. And everybody applauded him? Oh, no. He made it very clear that I bring a sword and I divide even family. I divide close people. Truth will divide. Now I'm not a glutton for punishment and I don't want to have the kickback. I don't want, I want to see God move in people's hearts and people submit to the things of God and there be great joy and blessing, but everybody will not do that. And as a result, you bring it on. The heartache, you bring it on. The opposition, you bring it on. could sit back and say, I'll not preach about that no more, I'll not bring this subject up anymore, I'll not do, I'll just kind of live and let live. And you know what one of the dangers is for pastors? You know what one of the dangers is for pastors that have been at it for a while, is to find them a church, go along to get along, draw a salary, don't make any waves, and try to ride it out to the end. That is a miserable existence if someone tries to do that. It's not being a faithful minister of Jesus Christ. It's not being one that will one day stand before God and He'll say, well done, thy good and faithful service. No, you played their game. And Jesus didn't come to this earth to play the game. And no preacher, no pastor, no elder, no bishop No shepherd should ever play people's games. And Paul made that clear to Timothy, and I believe Timothy received it and said, I'm going to do what's right. I'm going to stand up for what's right. I'm going to put things in order in my church. in the churches. But that brings us back to the tears. Paul said, I want to see you, Timothy. I want to be right there with you, because I've been mindful of your tears. I've been meditating on your tears. And your tears that I've heard about, maybe Grandmama wrote Paul and told him about the tears. Maybe Lois wrote him and told him. Or maybe Timothy had told him. But this is eating on Paul, this is bothering Paul. My son in the faith, I am mindful of your tears. I have never in my life, all the times I've read this, until this afternoon, I've never thought about this. I've never seen it though. I've skimmed over it though. I've read it though. I've preached through these. I don't know if it's what we were looking at this morning that triggered the deeper insight into this. I don't know, but this is, this is what I want us to see tonight. Just a few quick things and we'll be done. Paul says first of all to his son in the family, I'm praying for you. I'm praying for you. I'm praying for you. He says there that I'm praying for you. He says that in verse number three. He says, I thank my God whom I serve from my forefathers were pure conscious that without ceasing, I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day. I've been praying for you, Timothy. When you're separated from somebody, you feel like you are at a disadvantage because you can't be right there to protect them. I'm talking like a child. You can't be there to protect them. You can't be there to baby them or look after their needs or whatever, but we can pray. We can cover thousands of miles distance by prayer. We can entrust our loved one to the care of God, and we can have God who is our protector. We can petition Him to protect our loved one, to protect them from evil, to protect them from harm, from the enemy. So don't know what all Paul prayed, but he said, I've been doing this. I've been praying night and day for You, Timothy. So he said that, I'm praying for you. He said, secondly, I'm waiting to see you. I can't wait to see you. The anticipation of seeing somebody we hadn't seen in a while, a loved one, you know what that anticipation is like. So he says, I'm waiting to see you. But thirdly, he says, I want you to know I'm mindful of your pain. I'm mindful of your hurts. I'm mindful of your tears. Now, tears, as in the context of verse number four, has to mean struggles, pains, inadequacies. Just use your imagination. Read between the lines as you read what went on in 1 Timothy and now in 2 Timothy. These tears represent some struggles with people, struggles in ministry. And you've got to understand the kind of man that Timothy was. Timothy was not a Peter type man. Peter was big, bold, brash. Peter would not back down from anybody. I don't think Peter cared much about what people said. He seemed to be the kind of individual that just was a bull in the china shop and what happened would just have to happen. Timothy wasn't that kind of person. Timothy was an introvert. Timothy was timid. Timothy was shy. Timothy did not want to rock the boat. Timothy was not the kind of person that would make a scene. Timothy was the kind of person who would let this stuff eat on his stomach. And even Paul said in 1 Timothy, if you read the next to the last chapter, he's saying, Timothy, take a little wine for medicinal purposes. Don't keep drinking just water. You've got some stomach problems. Drink a little wine for medicinal purposes to help your stomach problems. Now, do you, can you, identify with these stomach problems. Some people doesn't bother them a bit to stand up and to speak. Do you know the first few years of me pastoring, every Sunday morning I was sick in my stomach? Every Sunday morning it just tear me up that I am about to stand up because it didn't come easy It doesn't come easy. It doesn't bother me as bad now, but still If I'm out of my comfort zone not behind here, but in another situation That that queasiness is still there. So don't know all the details about why Timothy was having such stomach trouble, except some of the situations that Paul mentions here. But this is the last thing that I want to say, which kind of trails off into some other things that we see here. Paul said, I'm writing to you, Timothy. I'm writing to you to remind you of some things. Timothy, a year ago, you got a letter from me And I told you to take care of some of these things and you've done and it's brought some pain and it's brought some tears as a result. And I think from what I can observe here that Timothy was backing up. If you don't believe that, if you don't see that, I just challenge you to meditate and read and go over this and see if maybe you see what I see. And I think Timothy was backing up. And Paul says, look at verse number six, he said, I gotta put you in the remembrance of some things. Now, I cannot put somebody in remembrance of something if they did not first already understand these things. If they did not first have the cognizance of these truths in their mind and in their heart. And Paul says to Timothy, I'm going to put you in remembrance mode, in thinking back mode, remembering some things that already we talked about, already you've dealt with, already that's had an impact on you. But these things, I think you're backing up some, Timothy. In verse number six he says that I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. Notice the terminology stir up, stir up. How many of y'all have a fireplace and you use it? I've had a fireplace and I've been using it, but I got some wood the last few weeks and I've been building fires. And one thing you learn about a fire is that you've got to keep attending to it. What is the natural progression when you start a fire? The natural progression is what? It dies down. It burns down. We have those utensils beside the fireplace. One of them is called a poker. And the poker is simply to poke the wood and stir up the ashes or stir up the embers. And what happens, you haven't added any more wood to it, you haven't added any paper or any kind of flammable, all you've done is stirred it up and what happens? It begins to light back up. It begins to reignite. All that was needed was stirring up. Now God has to stir us up because we, basically, we get comfortable, we get set in our ways, and God has to stir us. Do we like to be stirred? Sometimes we do, but most of the time we don't. Sometimes it's the glorious stirring in our souls from the word of God or for preaching or teaching. God just stirs us, but many times, human nature being what it is, we have to have stirring. We have to have agitation. We have to have trouble. And notice what he says there in verse six. He says, Timothy, you must stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. You must, that which you have had in you, blazing, that which you have had in you that was bowling in your life, you were wanting to do these things, but now you let those things kind of settle down. He said, I'm putting you in remembrance. I'm going to mention some things to you now, Timothy, that's going to stir you up. I'm going to mention some things to you that are going to be uncomfortable, but you need to hear them. Now, just three things that I, all the time I had to look through this, but there's, I'm sure there's some other things, but these are right here on the top. First thing he says to Timothy is, I want to put you, Timothy, you've been living in fear. You have been cowering, cowering. Now, he's not calling him a coward. He's saying, but you have been living in fear. Do you see that in verse seven? Now, how many times have I quoted this verse? How many times have we talked about this verse to somebody else and all the while, and it is applicable to a lot of different situations, but let's look back to why it was given. It was given in the context here in a letter to a father to his son in the face saying, son, you're being fearful. You can't be a man of God. You can't be a servant of God and do the things of God and live in Verse number seven, he says, God had not given us the spirit of fear. And a timid person tends to live in fear. I'm not talking about the kind of fear that you're scared of, you shatter. I'm talking about the fear of upsetting the apple cart or the fear of confronting somebody or the fear of doing what a man of God has to do. what a pastor has to do, what we saw in chapter four about you got to reprove, you got to rebuke, and you got to do it all with long suffering and patience. Look at the negative of verse seven. He states the fact, fear, but what's the opposite of fear? Power, faith, trust, and love. and a sound mind. So if I'm letting fear control me, I'm not walking in a sound mind. I'm not walking in love. I'm not walking in power. A fearful person listens to those voices in their head and heart that says, don't stick your foot in it. Just let it go. Timidity. instead of power. When Jesus spoke the Word of God, what did people come away saying? That man didn't speak like our spiritual leaders speak. He spoke as one who had authority. He had power because he was speaking the truth. Did you know you and I, we can be bold and speak in power if we speak what God said? If we just say what God has said. We're speaking on the authority of God's Word. Now, I tremble when I think I'm saying my words. That puts the holy fear in me to think that I am saying things that don't have the authority and power of God behind them. But when I preach God's Word, I can be bold. Timothy, I believe, was living in fear. So are you in some fear? Are you afraid to step out and do what God said because of fear? So I believe here he's saying to Timothy, I want to remind you of some things. First thing, Timothy, you're living in fear. Number two, Timothy, Second thing, Timothy, you've been ashamed. You have been ashamed. Now, why do I believe that he was saying you have been ashamed? Well, look at verse 8. Who's he talking to? Paul's talking to who? Timothy. And what does he say to Timothy? Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. But be a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. Here he's saying, Timothy, you've been afraid to stand up. Fear makes you ashamed, doesn't it? You're around your peers, whether it's at work or at school or wherever, and you're afraid to stand up for the Lord. It starts in fear. But your fear makes you ashamed. Peer pressure. We back down from peer pressure because we're ashamed. We don't want them to know that we're a Christian. Or we don't want to say what's right because they might make fun of us or they might ostracize us from the group. And we are ashamed. We see one of the disciples, the big man, the bold man, The brash man, I told you what his name was, what is it? Did he ever back down and was ashamed because of fear? They just took his Lord. They just arrested Jesus. He's hanging around by the fire warming himself when they start pointing out you're one of them. And he denies the Lord. He's ashamed. Let me ask you this question. Have you ever been in a situation where some people are talking about whoever, and they're making some bad comments about whoever, and you know whoever, and you know if you let these people around you know that you know whoever it is they're maligning? They're going to look at you just like him. Just case in point, regardless of what you think of Rush Limbaugh, I'm not here talking about Rush Limbaugh, but I like him. I like what he says. I don't like all of his tactics. I don't believe 100% what he believes, but I like him. But I've been in some groups. where some people start bad-mouthing and saying all kind of stuff and I almost want to say, I don't want to identify that I like Rush Limbaugh because they done said what they believe and they've already said how low down and how this, that, and the other. Do you understand what I'm talking about? Sometimes we're not dealing with a first-person situation but just knowing somebody. Here, Paul said, Timothy, you've been ashamed of the Lord. and you've been ashamed of me, his prisoner." You see that in the last part of verse number 8, it says, Don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. Because in this day, Paul is in jail, and can you imagine all the people that are talking about Paul, in jail. Well, what has he done now? He don't know when to quit. He don't know when to step away from something. This man, he should not have gone to Jerusalem. He should not have wanted to go to Rome. People tried to stop him. He just had strong. And you can think of sometimes when people are down, everybody wants to kick them. Paul's in prison, and I'm sure there's a lot of people kicking him. And the last thing you want to do when everybody seems to be against somebody is you don't want to identify with them. And I think Timothy was backing up, backing up. And I won't take time to read the... I would encourage you to read it because you'll see what I'm talking about the more you read here. He's telling him, hold fast some things. Here's the last thing he says, hold fast. Look at verse number 13. He said, Timothy, don't back away from these things. Hold them fast. Hold them strong. Hold fast the form of sound words, which you have heard of me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing, hold fast that good thing, verse 14, which was committed to thee. and kept by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us." What is it that is in us that's been committed to us, given to us, that we're to hold fast? The Gospel. The Gospel. Hold it fast. You see the Gospel mentioned several times in these verses. And here Paul goes to calling people's names again. Man, if your name got called in one of Paul's letters, they've been around for several thousand years. Everybody knows that Phagellius in verse 15, Hermogenes in verse 15. These guys weren't good guys, or the implication is here. They have turned away from me, Paul said in verse 15. He says, all those in Asia have turned away from me, of whom Phagellius and Hermogenes. But he goes on to say in verse 16, 17, and 18, praise the Lord for Anesiphorus. As Anesiphorus, he did what for Paul? Look at your Bible. What did Anesiphorus do for Paul? Verse 16 says, He refreshed me, and he was not ashamed of my chain. This man came to where Paul was in jail, chained up. He wasn't ashamed of Paul. But when he was in Rome, Says in verse 17, he sought me out very diligently. I mean, he had to look for me and he found me. And he said, praise the Lord for these key people. And then in chapter two, we were this morning. What does Paul begin to tell Timothy? You got to be strong. You got to endure. You got to endure. You got to endure. You don't have to endure blessings. You don't have to endure good times. You have to endure bad times. You have to endure sufferings. You have to endure persecutions. You have to endure afflictions. You have to endure. So I believe that the tears that Timothy had been shedding had to do with some of these things that we've looked at tonight. And in this new year coming upon us, Let's be mindful of these truths. Let's pray.