Some Great Truths About Your Faith

Text:  2 Timothy 1:1-14

Theme:  "Some Great Truths About Your Faith"

20th Sunday After Pentecost

October 6, 2013

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in keeping with the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,

² To Timothy, my dear son:

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

³ I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. ⁴ Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. ⁵ I am 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.

⁶ For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. ⁷ For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. ⁸ So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 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, ¹⁰ but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. ¹¹ And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 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.

¹³ What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. ¹⁴ Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

 

Ours is a consumer culture.  As a member of congress said years ago, "There's a whole lot of consumin' goin' on out there!"  At the same time,  our culture likes to have lots of choices -- from trim levels on late model cars to different kinds of yogurt.  We consume and we choose; we choose and we consume.

The same holds true when it comes to faith.  We want faith to nourish us and sustain us.  We consume it, you might say.   Moreover, we want faith in God made to order.  If believing in Jesus Christ as Savior of sinners is good for you, then fine.  You stick with it.  If that doesn't meet your felt needs, you could try something else.  Maybe you could become a Bahai practioner.  Perhaps deism is the route go.  And then there's good old mother nature.  She does give us nice sunsets and rainbows and seasonal rains and so forth, but she seems angry with us these days over our profligate use of fossil fuels. 

If mother nature or anything mentioned so far doesn't work,  come up with your own higher power to depend on.  You take a little Christianity because God's grace is nice.  You take some Judaism because you've got to have something of a moral code.  You can borrow from the Mormons since they seem to know a few things about family values.  Discipline and fervency in a disordered and lukewarm world?  Perhaps Islam -- and its Islamic "kismet" --  has something to say.  And meditation?  Well, you can't beat Buddhism for that.  So faith becomes -- as it has for an increasing number of folk -- whatever we've added it up to be.  But a faith that we've cobbled together is a wobbly faith at best and sheer idolatry at worst.  To use the analogy of our Lord's parable, wobbly faith builds it's house on the sand, but genuine faith is build on a rock.  Genuine faith is like a diamond.  Wobbly faith is silly putty.

If your faith in the God who sent Jesus is strong today, then today's message will be a review.  If, on the other hand, your faith is wobbly, or shaky, or if you're unsure of it, then I have good news for you. There are some great truths about faith that emerge from our New Testament Reading:  2 Timothy, chapter 1. 

Along with the books of 1 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, 2 Timothy is one of the so-called "pastoral" epistles.  In other words, it's a letter written from one pastor to another.  In today's reading, the writer is Paul and the recipient or reader is a young clergy named Timothy.  So Pastor Paul has fired off a letter to Pastor Tim.  He was in prison when he wrote it. 

Here's a great truth to start with:  your faith in God may put you in places you didn't plan on being.  It may land you  in the White House -- as it did for Billy Graham.  It may land you in prison -- as it did for the apostle Paul.

Here's a second great truth:  faith is not, in the end, a matter of human will or choice.  Paul says that he was an apostle by the "will of God."  It wasn't his own will; it was God's.

Here's another great truth about faith:  faith is active in prayer for the benefit of others.  The word our text uses is "constantly."  "Constantly I remember you in my prayers," says Pastor Paul to Pastor Tim.

Another great truth:  faith is often like a cherished heirloom:  it gets handed down.  Paul says to Timothy:  "I am 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."

Here's yet another great truth:  faith can be strengthened.  The words of Paul are as follows:  "Fan into flame" the gift of faith.  Last weekend, I spent some time in a blacksmith shop at a living history museum set in the 1850s timeframe.   The blacksmith was making nails. There was this big blower that the blacksmith kept pumping. It would direct the air to the coals, and the coals would then heat up. What is it that fires up your faith in God?

There is more.  Another great truth is this:  faith is powerful, loving, and disciplined.  Those are words right out of the text.  Aren't people looking for more power, love, and discipline in the world and in themselves?  Go back to the source; go back to faith!

Another truth:  faith is not ashamed of the Gospel -- or, as St. Paul describes it, the"testimony."  Faith does not apologize for itself -- even in this politically-correct culture where matters of faith are considered offensive by some.  For that matter, faith doesn't talk about itself.  It always points away from itself to its object:  the grace and love of the God who sent Jesus!

There is yet more.  Faith recognizes that there will be suffering.  Yes, you heard it correctly; there will be suffering.  What is this if not gut-level honesty?  Where does it say in the Bible, if anywhere, that we are going to sail through life on flowery beds of ease?  Faith is not sound asleep dreaming of some utopian world where there is no suffering.  That  world does not exist.  Genuine faith is wide awake.  Genuine faith has 20/20 vision.  Genuine faith recognizes that there has, is, and will be suffering.  But worse than the suffering which faith acknowledges is the prospect of suffering alone.  "Join me," says Paul to Timothy, "in suffering for the Gospel by the power of God."

Here's  another great truth:  faith knows what it believes and it knows WHO it believes.  St. Paul says to Timothy:  "I know who I believe."  Contrast that to a lot of folks today who would say that they "believe", but they just don't know who or what they believe in.  Faith knows what it believes and who it believes.

There's more.  Faith  turns your life over to God, and you are convinced that you will be taken care of.  St. Paul says:  "I am convinced that God is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him."  And what did St. Paul entrust God with?  His life!

Finally, faith is to be kept and faith is to be guarded.   St. Paul writes:  "What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us."

That's it.  There you have them:  eleven great truths about your faith.  Much more could be said of them.  Countless sermons and sermon series and Bible studies could be based on them.  But one has to start somewhere.  And this all started so long ago when one person of faith shared with another person of faith some great truths about the faith. 

Amen.