Motivating a Spiritual Son B

You want to motivate somebody who's under you? You want to motivate a disciple? You want to motivate somebody who's under you?

Verse 1 to 5 is a wonderful motivation passage to Timothy. In fact, it's wonderful for you to motivate somebody who's under you? I don't know if you've ever used the word altruism. It's a beautiful word. It simply means the practice of unselfish concern for and devotion to the welfare of others. In other words, altruism is the idea that I am very much concerned about your good. That's an altruistic spirit. And that is exactly what you find in verse 2.

Look at it. What is Paul's wish for Timothy? Grace, mercy, peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. That's what I wish for you, Timothy.

That was Paul. Wishing for Timothy the very best. Grace, that refers to God's undeserved favor, God's undeserved love, God's undeserved forgiveness given to sinners to free them from sin and enable them to live and serve Him. Mercy, that refers to God's undeserved compassion and freedom. That's freeing sinners from the misery that their sin creates. And peace, that's the heart tranquility and settled relationship that results from grace and peace, or grace and mercy. That's the tranquility that comes from grace and mercy. The best that God has to give. Grace, mercy, and peace. Grace to cover your sin, mercy to overrule your misery, and peace to deliver.

That's the best. And it comes, he says, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, and He equates the two as the source of grace, mercy, and peace. Therefore, they're equal in deity. This again, one of the great statements of Paul about the fact that Jesus and God are one and the same as the source of the best gifts that the Trinity has to offer.

So there's the altruistic spirit. What do I wish for you, Timothy? The best that God can give. I wish for you, grace, saving grace, and keeping grace, empowering grace, serving grace, all the grace of God for every need. And what do I wish? Mercy, that is relief from the misery that sin should cause. What do I wish for you?

Peace, peace, and more peace. He has Timothy's interest in his heart. You want to motivate somebody who's under you? You want to motivate a disciple? You want to motivate a person that you're trying to build up in the faith? Then prove to them that the most important thing to you is their spiritual blessedness. That's the altruistic spirit.

Paul wanted God's best for Timothy. Boy, that's motivating. He has in his heart my best interest, for here he is asking God for grace and mercy and peace to be my continual portion.

That motivates my heart. I'm going to say I'm under His authority and I'm also the beneficiary of His kindness. And now things get a little more personal, a little more tender. The third one, beautiful thought, appreciation. Appreciation. Verse 3, notice this. The essence of it is, I thank God, and then skipping a little bit, as I constantly remember you. That's the essence of it.

I thank God. He just can't say God though. He launches off whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did, as I continually or constantly remember you. This is appreciation. Timothy, I appreciate you. When I'm praying and I'm praying for you, I stop and thank God for you. I thank God for what I do. I thank God for what you mean to me.

I appreciate you. He's incarcerated in that dark, filthy, stinking dungeon crowded with criminals, facing an unjust execution and he was thinking about his beloved son Timothy. Sweet memories flood his heart.

No complaints, no bitterness, no anger, no vengeance. He's so tender, he's so sensitive, he's so concerned about Timothy. He's so lonely without him. He's thanking God for him. I thank God as I constantly remember you.

He's on his mind all the time. That's appreciation. The Greek emphasis is, verse 3 starts, thanks I have to God. He starts out with thanks. He was thinking he might never see Timothy again.

He didn't know when he would die. But he was so thankful to God for him. You want to motivate a disciple? You want to motivate a student? You want to motivate somebody who's under you? Then let them know you appreciate them.

Let them know you thank God all the time for them. That's a beautiful beautiful perspective. I thank God. He doesn't say, I thank you Timothy, because he knew that if Timothy was anything, it was because God made him that, right? God was sovereign. God sovereignly saved him. God sovereignly gifted him.

God sovereignly used him. And notice that little almost parenthetical reference he makes between his thankfulness and the mention of Timothy. The God whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did. He puts that in because what he is saying by that is I may be going to the death and I may be getting my head chopped off and there may be something that has to do with temple service.

The God who I continually worship through my service with a clear conscience or a clean conscience. What does that mean? It means that the faculty of self-judgment, which is the conscience, is not accusing him. It's not accusing him. It's not pointing out some sin of which he is guilty and for which he should die or be imprisoned or be chained.

No. He says, I've done a self-examination. I'm not perfect, but I have dealt with the sin in my life and confessed it to God and as much as is possible in this world, I am living in holiness before the Lord and my conscience is clean and I am continually serving God through the worship that I offer to Him. It's almost as if he wants to remind Timothy and everyone else who might say, well, he's probably there because God is chastening him. You know, they did say that about his first Roman imprisonment and he reacts to that in Philippians chapter 1 and perhaps there were others who were saying it again.

There was nothing in his heart accusing, nothing in his heart throwing things in his face. By the way, in 1 Timothy 1.5 he had told Timothy, the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience. Chapter 3 verse 9, he said, hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And then he talks in chapter 4 about men who had seared their conscience like putting scar tissue on them. He put scar tissue on it with a branding iron by constantly rejecting the truth of God. His conscience was clear. As I said, it is the self-judging faculty.

It's the thing that condemns or does not condemn you when you act. And he's saying here I am in prison waiting to die. My conscience is clear.

All the accounts are right with God and I have faithfully and continually served God. Then he says, the way my forefathers did. Who does he mean there? Who are his forefathers?

Well, we can't know for sure because he doesn't say. Some think the Old Testament saints. He has in mind Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the great Old Testament saints who were his Jewish forefathers. Some say he means his own family. He remembers in Philippians chapter 3 his heritage. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee, zealous of the law and he'd received that from his own father and his own family and maybe he was referring to them. But on the other hand, thirdly, it may be that he's referring to the other apostles who were in a spiritual sense his forefathers, James and Peter and John and Philip and Nathaniel and Bartholomew and the rest who truly served the Lord Jesus Christ and were his spiritual forefathers. But since he doesn't say who he means, we can assume that he means all who have gone before him faithfully serving God, whether they were Old Covenant or New Covenant. So he is saying I'm serving the Lord faithfully with my forefathers. With a clear conscience just like all those who faithfully served him in the past have done.

As if to say and if you check the record on them, some of them have died the same way I'm about to die also. So before you accuse me of being punished for my sin, you better check back through the annals of the chronologue of the saints of God and find that many of them suffered for righteousness sake as well. It would do well for us if we question that to read the 11th chapter of Hebrews chapter 3. So there he is in a dungeon, thanking God, the God he has faithfully served as an act of worship like his forefathers all the days of his ministry. His conscience is clear. Nothing accuses him. And in those moments as he thinks about Timothy, he thanks God for this beloved young man.

That is a wonderful appreciation and that kind of appreciation motivates the heart. Furthermore, get this, Paul knew a lot about Timothy. He had tried to do it. He had traveled with him. He had eaten with him. He had seen him in every vicissitude, struggle, trial of life.

He had seen him impinged into every difficult and hard circumstance and he still appreciated him. He thanked God for him. And so in dwelling on the memory of Timothy, he is grateful to God.

Fourthly, another motivating thing that rises out of this introduction is what we'll call appeal. At the end of verse 3, he says, It's almost redundant to say I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day. You could say I constantly remember you period or I remember you in my prayers night and day period.

But to say constantly and then night and day is to really make a strong emphasis. What he is saying is, Timothy, I pray for you all the time. The reason I think about you and the reason I have sweet memories is because you come up in my prayer life. I pray for you.

Oh my. What a motivating thing. I constantly, that means without interruption, without ceasing. It is used in 1 Thessalonians 5, 17, pray without ceasing. I constantly remind God of your needs. I plead for you. The word prayer here is diocese, petition, pleading to God on Timothy's behalf. I'm pleading to God for you. I'm praying for you night and day.

I don't know whether night and day could be separated in a dungeon. I don't know, maybe it's indistinguishable, but what Paul means is all the time, all the time I remember you and all the time I pray for you. That was just his heart. If you read his epistles, you'll see how many times he says, I unceasingly pray for you. He said it to the Romans, the Roman church, the Corinthian church, the Philippian church, the Colossian church, the Thessalonian church, and also to his friend Philemon. And here to Timothy, I pray for you all the time, night and day, constantly. Do you know how compelling that is on the heart of a young man? Do you know how compelling that is to a disciple, to know somebody is constantly praying for him?

Not only does it unleash the power of God for the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, James says in chapter 5 verse 16, but it also acts as a compelling force in the life of the young man, to know that the saint of God, the saintliest of all saints daily prays for him. You want to influence someone for Christ? You want to move someone's heart in great ways? You want to hold them accountable for how they live? Put them under authority. Let them know that you have an altruistic spirit that seeks their best.

Appreciate them and then remind them that you never stop praying for them and see if that doesn't motivate their heart. Fifthly, and this is beautiful, affection, affection. Verse 4, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you. I miss you, Timothy.

I miss you. He wants him to come He says that in chapter 4. Make every effort to come to me soon, verse 9. Verse 21, make every effort to come before winter.

Timothy, please hurry. He really wants to see him. The word longing is an intense word. Epipathao means to have a strong desire for, to yearn for.

It's a compound word, intense in its meaning. He has a...he hurts because he wants so much to be with Timothy. And what is it that comes to his mind? Even as I recall your tears. The last time we went to the temple, when you were together, you wept. When was the last time they were together?

We can't be sure, but it's likely that sometime between when he had placed Timothy in Ephesus and left there and written back 1 Timothy and this letter, he had visited Ephesus in the meantime during those travels in that period and had had a meeting with Timothy before he was arrested. And it was at that meeting that they together wept. They loved each other. They couldn't imagine not seeing each other. Boy, that kind of bond is hard to find today, isn't it? It's hard to find among men.

It might be laughed at by some. The Apostle Paul, when leaving the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, verse 37, had them all over his neck weeping and weeping because they wouldn't see him anymore. What bond those people knew in that day?

That's because they gave their lives away to each other, not protected their lives from each other. And so there's a deep and affectionate love in the heart of Paul to Timothy, and he misses him deeply. The years of ministry, fellowship, travel, the years of danger, the battles, the teaching, the suffering, it knit their hearts so closely together.

And his longing was stimulated when he remembered how Timothy wept when the last they had met. So he says, But he says, If I could just see you, I'd be filled with joy. What affection. I love you.

I care about you. That's a great motivator. That's a compelling motivator. If you want to nurture someone in the faith, if you want to influence someone, let them know how deeply you love them. That's inspiring. That's motivating. Who can resist the compulsion of a strong affection?

Who can resist the compulsion of love? And then finally, this is very important, affirmation. The last element of the motivation that Paul lays out is affirmation. This is affirmation. This is affirmation.

This is affirmation. Everything reminded him of Timothy's genuine faith. That word for sincere, anupakritas, un-hypocritical is the English equivalent.

No hypocrisy, no phoniness. Genuine. He was a true child, as it says in 1 Timothy 1-2. Genuine. His faith was real. His faith was what it ought to have been.

Not only was it real, it was rich. Look at the mention here of Lois and Eunice. It first was in your grandmother Lois, your mother Eunice.

How did you know that? Because they were no doubt led to Christ by Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey to Timothy's home area in Galatia. When Paul and Barnabas came in Acts 14, these women were no doubt influenced by the gospel. Paul and Barnabas took them. They were surely Old Testament saints, godly women of old, Jewish women.

He had a Gentile father who was dead, but these were Jewish women. And these dear Jewish women became believers through the ministry of Paul and Barnabas. That's on the first missionary journey. By the time Paul comes around his second journey in Acts 16, they have led this young boy Timothy to Christ and he then receives the faith of Christ from his mother and grandmother, which they receive from Paul. So he is in a sense the child of Paul's preaching and yet through his mother and grandmother. So he's received a rich faith, a rich faith. He has been instructed from a child, verse 15 of chapter 3, from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. He had the benefit of a deep root kind of Christian exposure.

Boy, that makes you rich. Recently, one of the leading Christian ministries in the United States was searching for a leader to head up the whole ministry. I happened to be involved in some of the discussions and they presented a list of eight names of men that should be considered for that position because it was a very important position. I read over the eight and I said to the gentlemen in the meeting, I said, do you see a common denominator in every one of these names? And they looked and no one said anything and I said, did you notice that every one of these eight names that you men have collected are men who had a well-known godly preacher for a father?

Without exception. And they hadn't even chosen them on that basis. But the point was the roots were so deep and the heritage was so rich in these men that they stood out above their peers as unique. There's something to be said for that and Timothy was the beneficiary of a rich, deeply rooted Christian heritage that came from his mother and his grandmother, his father no doubt being dead because he's not mentioned. And it had come by way of the Apostle Paul into his young life and then from then on he had been nurtured by Paul.

Paul says, I have great confidence in you. I know your roots. I know your faith. It's rich.

It's real. And he says at the end of verse 5, I am sure that it is in you as well as in your mother, your grandmother. This is affirmation. That's such an important thing.

Now listen carefully as I wrap this up. Anybody in a leadership position spiritually ought to know these six things. If you want to motivate people to respond to spiritual truth and to grow in Christ, one, you have to establish a position of authority. In other words, they need to know they are bound to respond when you speak the Word of God. Secondly, you want to convey to them the attitude of altruism. That is, they must know that you have their best interest in your heart. Thirdly, an attitude of appreciation. They need to know you thank God on every remembrance of them. And then an attitude of appeal, which means you constantly pray for them.

The attitude of affection says you care about them in a deep, loving relationship. And finally, that spirit of affirmation that affirms them, that says, I know you can do it. These things, frankly, are so universal in application they could be applied even beyond the discipling process to any area of life, any area of life. If you put these into practice, you'll have a major impact on the people you influence for the kingdom of God. Let's bow together in prayer. We thank you, Father, for the apostle Paul.

What a model he is. Give us those Timothy's, those young men and women of the next generation in whom we can invest our lives to carry on what You've given us to do. And may none of us assume that we have nothing to pass on, for we have nothing to do. What sin that is to think even that, for we're gifted and we're called every one to serve faithfully. Help us to make every investment in the generation to come, that they may guard and propagate Your holy truth for the Savior's sake.

Amen. That's John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current study on grace to you is titled Unashamed. Well, John, as you're showing us, Paul's protege Timothy needed to be told not to be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. And really, most of us need an admonition like that. The world today seems to put a lot of pressure on Christians, telling us we ought to be ashamed of what we believe. So what kind of counsel or encouragement could you give to our listeners who may feel that sense that it's difficult to take a stand and be courageous? Well, I mean, that goes with the territory.

That's an assumption that you have to make it. If you're going to be a believer, you're going to feel the hostility of the enemy of our souls and all whose lives are in his hands. To think that you could be a Christian and a bold Christian and a faithful Christian and a verbal Christian and not get hostility is foolish.

So you have to start by realizing this is not abnormal. This reminds me to say this. It's amazing to me, Phil, how many pastors who should know better stand up in a pulpit and will do anything to avoid offending a non-believer. Anything, including eviscerating the truth of the gospel, setting aside the Word of God, as if there was some strategy they were supposed to develop that removed the hostility. I mean, even Jesus said, You hate me because I confront your sin. That is a necessary reality to tell people that they're sinful, to tell them that they're wrong. And so I think you have to have a sense that this is the very position that you as a believer have in the world.

You are a rebuke to the culture for their own good, for their own sake. So we've just begun a very important study from 2 Timothy called Unashamed. And I think we can help you strengthen your courage and your resolve. For the past couple of years, we've been introducing study guides. We've reintroduced the ones from many decades ago. The Unashamed Study Guide is volume number eight, and it takes you verse by verse through Paul's final letter before he was martyred.

His goal to strengthen his faithful but faltering son in the faith, Timothy, and to remind Christians of every generation about the spiritual resources they have to stand powerfully for their faith. Now, this study guide, Unashamed, is 110 pages, plenty of content for individual study, use in small group settings. They're just marvelous tools. That's why we've reintroduced them. And the price is reasonable. We ship U.S. orders free of charge. So order a copy of the Unashamed Study Guide today or maybe a number of copies for your midweek study group or Bible study on Sunday. Always affordably priced.

That's right. And, friend, John's study guide will help you answer this important question. What does faithfulness to Christ look like in a world that's hostile to him? Order a copy of Unashamed or a few copies for your Bible study when you contact us today. To order, call 800-55-GRACE. That's our toll-free number, 800-55-GRACE. Or you can order from our website, gty.org.

Unashamed costs $7, and shipping is free. The study guide's a great resource to follow along with as you listen to John's message from his current series by that same name, Unashamed. And keep in mind, you can download the full messages from this series free of charge at our website, gty.org. When you get in touch, make sure you let us know how John's verse-by-verse teaching is encouraging you spiritually or strengthening your family's faith, helping you understand and apply God's Word. Your feedback is more important than you might think, so make sure to include this station's call letters when you send your note to Grace To You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. Or you can also give us your feedback by email at letters at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and our entire staff here at Grace To You, I'm Phil Johnson inviting you back tomorrow as John continues to show you how to live unashamed for Christ. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.