What A Mother Can Do

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Let's see how emotional Paul is to Timothy.

He says in verse 1 of chapter 4, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ, who is the judge, the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom. Preach the Word. These are great words.

When the first time I ever read those words, they changed my mind. When I went to Dallas Seminary on a gigantic monument outside the school, facing the school, it says just those words. Preach the Word.

That's what we're going to train you to do. Preach the Word. The other side of that same monument says changing lives through Scripture, but our side said preach the Word. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Motherhood has fallen on bad times in our day. Our culture doesn't value it at all. It's almost sad if you watch a game show and they ask, what do you do when a woman says I'm a stay-at-home mom and she almost has to look down feeling ashamed. That's what our culture has been able to set another image. As I was preparing this week, I was looking for all kinds of quotes. I probably looked at hundreds of them and I decided to use two quotes, both from modern women. One was from Maria Shriver. She said, having kids, the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings, she said, is the biggest job anyone could ever embark on.

And in this quote, I believe the choice to become a mother is the choice to become one of the greatest spiritual teachers there is. Oprah. I never thought I'd say that word from the pulpit.

Oprah Winfrey. Now, I think her context of how she said it was very different from mine. But those words are true. I agree with those words. I want you to open your Bible to Second Timothy, Chapter one, verse three.

The context is very important in this. The apostle Paul, this is the last thing he ever wrote. He's going to be executed in the very near future. And he knows it. These are his last words. It won't be long after this that Paul will be beheaded and give his life for the cause of Jesus Christ. And he's writing to Timothy, a young disciple of his. And he's writing it to encourage Timothy.

And he starts this out in verse three. He says, I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience, the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you and my prayers night and day, longing to see you, even as I recall your tears so that I may be filled with joy. Paul loves Timothy.

They have spent the last 16 years together. He loves him with all of his heart. He said, I remember you. I pray for you and I long to see you. Timothy loves Paul. You can see it there in verse four, longing to see you, even as I recall your tears. Once Timothy knew that Paul was arrested and he knew Paul wasn't going to get out. He cried and Paul said, But if you would come to see me, Timothy, my joy would be complete.

Such an important thing to think. The last thing the apostle writes is a personal epistle to Timothy. And then he goes on and he says, for let me explain why I feel so strongly about Timothy. He said, for I am mindful of the sincere faith within you. He says, I am mindful. And it means it's passive. It means I call it to remembrance.

I remember this. I've always going to remember your sincere faith. And the word's not really sincere. The word here is anu pocritos. Anu pocritos means un-hypocritical.

That's what he says. Now, they translated sincere. He said, I have this memory of you with your un-hypocritical faith.

Now, you know what's so sad about this? This is A.D. 67, 30 some years after Christ was crucified. And already the church is full of hypocritical Christians. People who have hypocritical faith.

It's already there. He said, but not you, Timothy. He said, you're very different than that. You have a real faith, a true faith, a rich faith.

I love that. And notice then what he says, who gets credit for that? Now, you'd want to think Paul does. Right? I mean, Paul said, you spent 16 years with me.

Just imagine what that'd be like. The disciples spent three and a half years with Jesus. But Timothy spent 16 years with Paul. Everywhere Paul went, heard him speak. Paul would want to say, and I get credit for this, Timothy. But he doesn't. Doesn't say that at all.

Here's what he says. I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother, Lois, and your mother, Eunice. And I am sure that it is in you as well. Who gets the credit here? Eunice's mom and Lois, her mom. They get the credit for this sincere faith that is in Timothy, not Paul.

They get it because they earned it. Now, I want to give you the back story on this just a little. Go with me back to the book of Acts, chapter 14 and verse eight. From Chapter 13 on in the book of Acts, we have Paul's first missionary journey.

And so when we get to 14, eight, Paul is going to come into Lystra. Lystra is part of the Galatian churches. The letter to the Galatians means all that area. The Galatians are a very unusual people. They are the ultimate barbarians. The Romans had a great deal of trouble conquering Galatia. The Galatians used to dye themselves blue for war, and they were extremely warlike people. They lived in what is modern day central Turkey.

That's where they're at, in a very remote area. In fact, the Romans bypassed them for a long time until one particular Roman general conquered them. They so honored him for conquering the Galatians, they gave one of the province names to his name, and you probably know it. The province name is Pontius. His name is Pilate.

Pontius Pilate is the man who conquered the Galatians, and they honored him for doing that. Lystra is just a small village in that area. It's so small, it's mostly all pagan, but it's so small it doesn't have a synagogue.

There are synagogues in some of the others, but you had to have enough people. That's when they hit Lystra, and that's going to be important for you as I go on. At Lystra, in verse 8, a man was sitting who had no strength in his feet, lame from his mother's womb, who had never walked. And this man was listening to Paul as he spoke, who, when he had fixed his gaze on him, and had seen that he had faith to be made well.

Now, this is interesting. Paul's speaking, and he sees a certain guy the way he's listening to him, and he goes, that man has faith. Now, having been a public speaker, you would be kind of amazed that I could almost guess your spiritual development on the basis of the expression on your face.

It's amazing. I mean, some people are hanging on every word and enjoying the word of God. Some of you are just enduring it. If I can just get through this, that's all I'm looking for. I'm looking forward to lunch.

That's what I'm thinking. Paul just watches him, and then Paul noticed what it says with a loud voice. He said, stand up on your feet. And he leaped up, and he began to walk.

Now, that's pretty impressive. They knew it. He was born that way.

He jumps up, and he's walking. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they raised their voice, saying in the Lyconian language, the gods have become like men and have come down to us. And they began calling Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker. So the thing is, Zeus and Hermes are here because no one can do this. Now, they're listening to Paul, but not really listening in the sense of everything he said. Verse 13 tells us a priest of Zeus, whose temple was just out the city, brought an ox and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifices with the crowds for these two guys. Paul was like, wow, they're missing the message.

That wasn't exactly what I'm here to talk about. And so what ends up happening, he says, look, we're just normal men like you. There's nothing special about us except our relationship with the Lord. Meanwhile, as Paul went through Galatia, there were larger groups of Jews who lived in some of the other places where there's synagogues. They came into Lystra. And in verse 19, they show up. And it says, but the Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul, dragged him out of the city, and supposed that he was dead. Now, you talk about an up and down of ministry. A guy born lame, you tell him, yep, he jumps up and runs around.

That's great, right? The crowd thinks you're Zeus and Hermes. That's not so great if you're a Christian preacher. Now, the enemy comes, the Jews that are the enemies, they come and turn the crowds on, they stone you to death. You see, and they dragged him out of the city. Now, watch what happens in verse nine. But while the disciples stood over him, he got up and entered the city. The next day, he and Boris went to Derby. So the disciples are outside of town, and they're like, is he dead?

Yeah, he looks dead to me. Paul just jumps right up and walks back into town. I mean, this is a pretty incredible sequence of events that happen here. It says then in verse 21, after they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and Iconium and to Antioch. Paul came right back. Why is this so important? Because Eunice and Lois are in Lystra, and they hear Paul preach, and they believe every word he says.

They're amazing two women. Now, go with me to chapter 16 in the book of Acts and verse one. This is the second missionary journey. This is about four years later. Four years ago, Eunice and Lois heard it, and they believed it. They were believing Jews anyway. Now, four years later, it says, Paul came also to Derby and to Lystra, and a disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who had been a believer, but his father was a Greek. And he was well-spoken by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium. And Paul wanted this man to go with him, and he took him and he circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, and they all knew that his father was a Greek.

This is very insightful what's going on here. Timothy was led to the Lord by Eunice and Lois, very likely. And in four years, he had grown so much spiritually that he has an enormous reputation. Now, he's likely about 18 years old when he got saved, when he heard the gospel of Jesus. So he's 22 now, still a young man. Paul says, I've heard so much about him, I want him to come with me.

I want him to go with me. Now, Paul said, here's one of the problems. If you remember, when Paul traveled around, where was the first place he went? Synagogue. You better not bring someone uncircumcised into a synagogue. So Paul circumcises Timothy.

That in itself is quite an event at 22 years of age. Timothy submits to it just fine. But the other thing that's amazing is when we think of Eunice and Lois, we think, well, these are probably kind of sophisticated, aristocratic Jewish women. They are not.

These are two ladies that know the school of hard knocks. First of all, as I said, Lister doesn't have enough Jews in it to have its own synagogue. But secondly, notice at the end of verse 1, his father is a Greek. His father is a pagan. That meant to her as a Jew, she's going to be completely ostracized by the Jewish community. Whatever community was there would want nothing to do with her because she married a pagan. Now, what happened to him, we have no idea. But Luke wants to make sure you understand he's a Greek.

He's not a Jew. This woman must have grown up in a very difficult time. And think about this. She's the only person that's always associated with her, her mom. Now, what's the story with her mom? I don't know. But I don't think her dad's alive. And why in the world would two women end up in the middle of Turkey among barbaric Gentile people? I don't know.

This is no privileged group here. How they did what they did is kind of one of the truly amazing stories in this whole thing. So, we know the background now. He starts out with Paul. Now, I want you to see the rest of the story. I want you to go with me to 2 Timothy again, this time chapter 3.

And I want you to see something that just helps you with this. First of all, when Paul ends this short letter in chapter 4 here, when you see chapter 4, I want you to see how emotional Paul is to Timothy. He says in verse 1 of chapter 4, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ, who is the judge, the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. These are great words. The first time I ever read those words, they changed my life. When I went to Dallas Seminary on a gigantic monument outside the school, facing the school, it says just those words, preach the word. That's what we're going to train you to do, preach the word.

The other side of that same monument says, changing lives through Scripture. But our side said, preach the word. He said, look, be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. He said, because the time is going to come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But, Timothy, you better preach it. Now, that time is described in chapter 3. Notice he says to Timothy in chapter 3, verse 1, realize this, that in the last days it's going to become difficult. Now, Paul is pretty sure he's probably in the last days. He is at least mistaken by a couple thousand years.

But he thought he was. And almost all believers since then thought that. So, he starts out in chapter 3 and says, for men will be lovers of self, they'll be narcissists, they'll be lovers of money, they'll be materialists. Does that sound like today at all?

Yes. He said, they will be boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal haters of good, treacherous, and reckless, conceited lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. And he said, and the problem isn't just outside the church. The problem is inside the church. He said, holding a form of godliness although they have denied his power.

You've got to avoid these people. He goes on and describes it. He said, you know what's going to happen in the end times? The church is going to be corrupted from within. And it's going to be corrupted on an emotional basis. Christians are going to try to validate their faith based on how they feel, the emotions of it all.

I mean, it's an interesting thing. And he used an example. He said, what's going to happen in the end times, just as Janus and Jamborees resisted Moses. That's what's going to happen in the church. Now, you have to do your homework, because who are Janus and Jamborees? They're the pharaoh's magicians. How did they resist Moses?

Miracles. Remember, Moses did something. They did something. He said, yeah, they're going to do this inside the church. And the people of the church are going to follow these terrible men.

And it's interesting. There has been a corruption in the context of our own church. One of the things I see in the last five years as a movement is a whole bunch of people, key leaders in the evangelical church, having conferences and trying to deal with what the gospel is. We have got to redefine the gospel.

Why? It's being redefined for us. So in a truest sense, what is happening in our culture now is people are trying to validate their faith on how something makes them feel.

So there's a whole bunch of that that's gone on for some particular time. So he says in verse 13, evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. Deception is going to happen outside, inside in the end time. So then he says, you, however, continue in the things that you have learned, become convinced of knowing from whom you have learned them.

When you think about this, you say, wow, that's pretty clear. Paul's talking about him. Paul said, Timothy, I've discipled you for 16 years. I've told you what the truth is.

Now you listen to me and you continue to hold the course. That's not what Paul said. Paul didn't take any credit for it. Now, obviously, Paul built his life into Timothy, 16 years of it.

But he doesn't do that. Notice what Paul says next. And that from childhood, you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Jesus Christ. From when? Childhood. What word is used there for childhood? A toddler. From the time you were toddling around at two years old, you were taught by who? His mom. She have an easy time.

No. And her mom. You were taught from the very beginning by your mom.

She taught you all of these things. And it says sacred writings. And that word means only, it's a term for the Old Testament. Couldn't be the New Testament because there was no New Testament. This is the Old Testament. Philo and Josephus both used that to describe the Old Testament, the sacred writings.

He said, that's what you did. Now, hold your place here and go with me to Deuteronomy 6 to see what was it they were teaching him. This is the great Hebrew Shema. This is the bedrock heart of Judaism, the Shema. Verse 4, hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

Who else said that? Jesus. Picks right up on this. Then he says this. It says, these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. What do you mean? What do you mean when you're alive?

Everything in your life falls in that category. You're to teach your children all of this all day long. Notice there wasn't even a synagogue in town so they didn't go to synagogue school. I got to get my little child into a synagogue school so someone else can teach him.

No. They taught him. I'm going to teach you this. When they lived their life, they lived it against the backdrop of the Old Testament, the truth. So when they saw something, they told Timothy about it. This is what God says about this. It was a lifestyle for them of teaching. This is almost missing in our culture sometimes. No one can influence a child like their parents.

No one. I'm always bothered when parents say, you know, the problem is that peer group. That peer group has totally distorted my kids. Why?

I'll tell you why. Because you're not influencing them as much as you should be. You see, someone's going to influence your children.

You need to choose you. I'm going to be this influence. And that's exactly what Eunice was. She's the influence. Her and her mother on this child.

You see, that's what they did. They had enormous, enormous effect on this young man. He grew up believing everything they taught him in the Old Testament. He was introduced to the gospel of Jesus Christ and he believed it. Why? His mom.

That's why. Now, back to Timothy for a moment. He says in that from childhood, you have known the sacred writings which were able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. And then he says this, two famous verses. He says, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. That was Timothy. Notice that's what he's saying.

You've learned this in your childhood, all scripture. Then it says a word I don't care for. Inspired. It doesn't say inspired in Greek. The word is a compound word. Theos means God.

Numitas. Breath. All scripture is God-breathed.

This isn't just inspiration. This is God-breathed. In fact, in Psalm 33, the psalmist says this, God breathed out and all creation was the result. How did God create the whole creation?

He spoke it. Both creation and his word are God-breathed. Both of these reveal God to his creation or to us. All scripture is God-breathed.

And boy, it is sufficient and it is profitable. And Timothy is the perfect example of that. I'm sure if you meet Timothy in heaven, you'll say, Timothy, what was it like to be 16 years with the Apostle Paul? Are you so grateful to him? I think he would say yes. And if you ask the question, are you most grateful to Paul?

He'd say no. I'm most grateful to my mom. You see, I'm most grateful to her. Oprah was right.

Those are hard words to say. But the point of it is, is that I think we underestimate what a great teacher, spiritual teacher that a woman can be. Don't let anyone dissuade you. Don't buy into the way the culture keeps demeaning motherhood as some secondary servitude and just ridiculous things like that.

Don't do that. You're going to have to look at motherhood the way God does. That's why God tells us when we have a mother, honor them.

That's our job because it's important to God. Teddy Roosevelt is obviously a man's man. If you read anything about his biography, I don't think there has ever been a president as manly as Teddy Roosevelt.

This is what he said. When all is said, it is the mother and the mother only who is a better citizen than the soldier who fights for his country. The successful mother, the mother who does her part in rearing and training a right, the boys and girls who are to become the men and women of the next generation, he said is of greater use to the community and occupies, if she would only realize it, a more honorable as well as a more important position than any man in it. The mother is the one supreme asset of our national life. She is more important by far than a successful politician, a successful businessman, an artist or a scientist.

She is a mother. Do your presidents talk like that anymore? Anybody talk like that anymore? So this morning, whatever I say to you just this, don't forget what God said. The mother's influence on her child, exemplified by Timothy, is of great importance not just to the child but to God. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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