A legacy can be defined as the lasting impact or influence that somebody leaves behind. But before you can leave a legacy, you have to first live a legacy, which is why over the next four weeks, we're gonna study the letter of Second Timothy, which is Paul's last words, the Apostle Paul's last words to his protege Timothy. And what we're going to see is that our hope for tomorrow actually gives us help for today. And that if you think about having an opportunity to offer one last conversation or letter with somebody that you love, we don't have to wonder what would Paul say because he actually said it and he wrote it and it's the letter that we have the final words that we know of, of Paul Twoish protege Timothy before it ultimately get executed for preaching the gospel. And so in these last words, what we're gonna find is what's first priority and should be in Timothy's life, but also in our lives. So I encourage you to come back each and every week, the letter has four chapters. We're gonna go through a chapter each week and encourage you to read the letter every single week. And we're gonna take a look into this, of what does it mean? Not simply to leave a legacy but to live a legacy. Today's message is entitled, today's message is entitled Fan the flame. And we're gonna talk about what does it mean to fan? Really a flame? Fan? The flame of our faith. And it gets me thinking about the coziness of a fireplace. Right? You think of a fireplace? Think of a campfire. I think of Smores. Hm. Right. Gotta love me some Smores. I'm curious to see if, are you, are you the shove the marshmallow into the fire? Burn it real quick and blow it out kind of person? Are you like the slow rotisserie marshmallow golden each side? Ok. That's the only way to go, by the way. Um If you're one of those shove into the fire, people will pray for you. Um, uh The member of patience is the fruit of the spirit. Um So when you think of the warmth of a fire, when you think of a fireplace or a campfire? And it's awesome. What's interesting though is that fireplaces out in Arizona are not as common. Which kind of makes sense because we kind of live in a fireplace, right? Like it's fair. And so people wanna have the coziness of a fireplace uh without the functionality behind it. And so I noticed the other day at Costco that they actually sell like the electric fireplace have you seen those? Right. And so you plug it into the wall, put it against the wall and it looks like a very real fire. Uh Here's, here's the thing. The Costco fireplace is great for decoration but is not great for the faith. Because what I wonder is when, when fire represents our faith, I wonder how many people have the Costco version of that? The electric version of that, that they have the appearance of spirituality, but they don't have the actual reality of a vibrant growing flame of faith in their life. And so what we wanna do is that the Costco fireplace makes a great decoration. But what we wanna do over the next four weeks is make a declaration of how God is working in and throughout our lives and to have a fire that is growing, that is roaring and that is really shining a light into our community and beyond. Amen. So go ahead and open up your bibles to Second Timothy towards the end there of the New Testament. If you not have a Bible, I invite you to stop by our welcome table. We'd love to give you one today. This is our gift to you. Uh The verses are gonna be up on the screen, but before we jump into it, let's give a little bit of background to second Timothy. Uh First thing point out it's Second Timothy. Why? Because there's an earlier letter, right? And so it comes right after first Timothy. And so it's a second, there's not two. Timothy's. Ok. Here that is, there's not like a favored one and then a lesser one. Ok. It's not your Children. Um And uh, no, just kidding. We love all our kids the same. And so it's actually the second letter that comes into play. And so Paul is seen as the mentor or spiritual father of Timothy and he writes the first letter to Timothy who's leading this church in Ephesus. Now, Ephesus is really this kind of crazy little city. Uh think about a major metropolitan type area, think Vegas L A cave creek, right? Like the busy centers of our country. And uh and you go through but it's a, it's a trade city that may has seen brighter days, but now is a place where Paul actually started the church in acts 19. You can see kind of the crazy start to the church but he ultimately gets run out of the village, gets run out of town because of a riot that takes place in this amphitheater. And the amphitheater is still there to this day. You can actually see and visit the place where the church at Ephesus met and where the church at Ephesus happened and the riot took place. And so you can go and some of the people are nodding because they actually saw the place they are looking at Ben out there. He's, he went to the place he was there. And so uh you can actually visit the place. Well, now Timothy, this young pastor, this young leader is leading this church, but Paul is in prison. Now, at the time of this letter, we don't know which imprisonment this was. It could have been the house arrest, they're found and described in acts 28. It could have been a time where he got released and then put back in prison. And so what we don't know which imprisonment this was taking place in. What we do know is that Paul believes the end of his life is near and that he's most likely gonna get executed for preaching the gospel. And so he wants to offer some encouraging words to Timothy, his spiritual God. So if you will not his biological son, but someone that he really poured a ton of time into and so continuing our background. Let's read the first couple of verses here in second Timothy chapter one, starting in verse one, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus. Notice this for a second, Paul at the very end of his life begins the letter by preaching that life is found in Jesus. So Paul at the end of his life is actually preaching that life actually begins in Jesus. And he's, and he's using here the word Jesus. So apostle of Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life that is in Jesus. So it's of Jesus with Jesus by Jesus for Jesus, this is got Jesus stamped all over it. OK? It says to Timothy, my beloved child. You can see and feel the emotion, the connection that he has to. Timothy says, grace and mercy and peace from God, the father and Christ Jesus, our Lord three times in those two verses. he's saying Jesus and he's like preaching the very message that put him in prison in the first place. It's like, no, no, no, no, don't forget. This is all Jesus all the time. Verse three says, I thank God whom I serve as did my ancestors see it's bigger than me. It didn't start with Paul it as it goes way back and it's gonna continue on. And he says, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears more about that in a moment. I long to see you that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. And now I'm sure dwells in you as well. A couple of notes of these opening passages is that he's writing to Timothy, this discouraged pastor in Ephesus. Why was he discouraged? Well, we don't know exactly, but we have a few hints, right? And other places in scripture when Paul's writing letters to churches, a lot of times Timothy gets included in the opening credits. It's like he gets an executive producer credit, right? He's like Paul, an apostle of Jesus and Timothy, we write you this letter together. So, so Timothy was with Paul on some of these journeys, he saw him cast out demons and perform miracles and stand up to the powers that be and to lead and to launch the church at Ephesus. That now he's been put in charge of. But notice too who he acknowledges as the faith leaders in his home. It was his grandmother and his mother, no word about his father. So his father might have existed, he might have had a father. But if he was at best, he was absent at best, he was pagan. And so he wasn't a good influence in his life. Maybe he was gone, maybe he left, maybe he died. But what we know is that it was the faith of his grandmother and the faith of his mother. You can read about that in acts 14 in Paul's first missionary journey. That what we see is that the faith of a loved one could pass down generation to generation. I think some people in this room have something similar. Some people in this room have father wounds or mother wounds, somebody hurt you or laughed or abandoned or gave you the wrong picture a faith. But what this tells us is that single parents, matter, invested, grandparents matter, that the faith of one generation can pass to the next and beyond. If we consistently live a legacy that leaves a legacy that in this case, we're reading about 2000 years ago. I love that. We get to celebrate moms here next week guys. It's your second reminder. Just saying I'll send out a text thread on Saturday maybe. But we go through right? And we can see that the faith of one parent, the faith of one grandparent can be enough to shape the next generation. And beyond that, here we are 2000 years later that we don't have this story unless we have the faithfulness of Lois and Eunice. Amen for that, for those who are fighting for those who are blended, for those that are single parents, for those that are walking through some difficult circumstances. I want you to hear me, your faith matters and your faith is enough to impact. Ok. As we continue on, we see that Timothy is now leading this church that's probably not as big as it once was in a culture that's more pagan than once was where Christians are being locked up, beaten up, killed. And so now here he is without a father figure leading a church that his spiritual father led. That's probably not as big as it was that he doesn't feel qualified to lead that he is afraid that he is scared potentially the tears came when Paul laid his hands on him and, and called him into ministry. Potentially the tears come from the fact that his closest friend, his mentor, his spiritual father is about to be killed. Imagine getting a letter from someone that's about to pass, writing these words. Imagine the emotion in there that what we see and we're gonna see here in just a moment that Timothy had tears. He had emotions. Actually in first Timothy 523 it actually hints that he had an illness that he was battling. It actually says he's got tum issues. So anyone with tum issues, hey, connect to Timothy just saying, read it, read it first Timothy 523. So he's got some health issues. He's got some emotional things. He's got an absent father. He's got a vacant church that he's called to step up and lead. Can you imagine trying to follow Paul in boldness? Can you think about that? Like Paul leaves and now you're there, you're trying to follow that. Ok. And he's afraid. But in his first letter, he writes to Timothy and he says in first Timothy 412, he says, let no one despise you for your youth. But to set the believers an example in speech and conduct and love and faith and impurity. He says, don't let anybody look down on you. Age does not determine maturity and that goes both way, by the way, there are some people that are young, that have faith more mature than the adults, right? And then there are some people who are just grown Children, let's just be honest, right? Maturity is not attached to age, it's attached to choices. And Paul in his first letter, Timothy S says to set the example to lead. And then in the second one, he's gonna encourage him. And so we pick this up here in verse six, it says, for this reason, I remind you to fan into flame. The gift of God which is in you through the lane on of my hands says for God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self control. I love that passage. And I love that statement to say in there to fan into flame, the gift of God. Now that word gift is used several times in the New Testament. One time, it's used at Romans 623 where it says for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. So maybe he's referring to Timothy's salvation. But there's other passages. There's multiple. I'm just gonna quote one to you that where it actually talks about calling in ministry and giftedness, for example, first Peter 410 talks about and as each one has received a gift of God, so minister and serve one another. So whether it's talking about Timothy's giftedness, his calling, or he's talking about his salvation, I think it's interesting that phrase fan into flame, fan into flame. Because what that describes is that at one point, Timothy had a roaring vibrant fire of faith, but at the time of writing it had dwindled to a flicker. Yeah. Maybe it was circumstances, maybe it was pressure, maybe it was his choices. Maybe it was the choices of others. But I want you to know that if your fire of faith has dwindled, there is hope for you. General Booth, the founder of Salvation Army. Put it this way, said the tendency of fire is to go out and watch the fire on the altar of your heart. Yes, here's what I want you to picture this morning. Ok? I want you to picture two different fires on one side, you have the fire of your faith. On the other side. You have the fire of fear, right? Not just fear of the Lord, but the fear of self, the fear of circumstance, the fear of the people around you, of culture, of society, of measuring up and for taking notes. I want you to write this down that when it comes to fear and faith, the fire that grows is the fire you feed the fire that grows, is the fire you feed. So let me ask you, which fire have you been feeding recently? Which fire have you been feeding recently? Well, how do you feed the fire of fear? A lot of different ways? Right? Anxious thoughts, worry, neglect, right? Constant scrolling, right? Buying things. You don't need sinful habits, right? When you're trying to define yourself by the culture, by the values of this world, we're we're putting other logs on that fire of fear. And so we feel anxious, we feel worried, we feel afraid, we feel scared, but we keep putting logs on that fire. And that's why I think verse six and seven are so connected because Paul says, I didn't, God did not give you a spirit of fear. That's not from God, but instead he gave his Holy Spirit, which is the spirit of power and love and self control. And so what we want to look at here is that three ways to feed your fire, your faith fire. What are three things you can do? What are three logs you can place on that fire to take the flicker and turn it back into a flame. And what I want you to notice in all three activities is that they come directly from the power of the Holy Spirit. They come from the power of the Holy Spirit. But then also I want you to notice that it includes human responsibility as well, right? As theologian Billy Joel told us years ago, we didn't start the fire, sorry, that was bad. That was bad. But now I got it in my head. We then started the fire. You're, you're thinking that ok, or you're thinking of Ryan from the office. Ryan started the fight. We got Billy Joel in the office quoted in sermon. Nice. Ok. Back to sermon. Here we go. The fire comes from God, from Jesus Christ who gives us life, the fire comes from God. But then He gives us the opportunity, invites us into that process to place the logs on that fire so that it can be a ro fire or does it dim down simply to a flicker? And if you've been beat down, if you've been beat up, if you've been battling issues and addiction and worry, I want you to know there's hope for you, there was hope for Timothy and there's hope for you and me the first log to put on the fire power, not our power, God's power. What is this power that we speak of? It's the same power that defeated death itself on the cross. He says in John 14 that he's gonna send a helper, an advocate not to dwell just next to you, not to be on you like Moses had in, in the Old Testament on the Mount Sinai, but actually a holy spirit to dwell in you. It says in other places in Second Corinthians chapter three, Paul actually gets so bold that he says we can be bold unlike Moses. Yeah, Moses is like the goat there of the Old Testament, right? Like he is like he led people out of slavery. He took down Pharaoh, right? The waters, part of the sea, they crossed, they defeated an entire army, not great with directions. OK? Just say in 40 years. And um but the reality is is that like Moses, someone who had direct connection with God, someone who downloaded the 10 commandments, it says that we can have more boldness than Him. Why? Because we have the Holy Spirit dwelling, not next to us, not on us, but in us. And so how can we remind ourselves of God's power? How can we place that log onto the fire? Two simple ways real quick. We go back and we read about it. We read about the God that saved Moses and the Israelites. We read about the God that took down Goliath. We read about the God that protected Daniel in the lion's den. We read about the God in the gospels who walked on water, who calmed storm, who healed the sick, who made Lazarus rise from the dead, the God that could calm storms by the power of His word. That God is the same God available to you and to me and that spirit that dwells inside you and me. What kind of fire can handle that? And not only can we rekindle our faith by reading God's word, but we can re rekindle our faith by just going to Him in prayer. The Romans could stop Paul from preaching, but they couldn't stop him from rain and they couldn't stop him from encouraging and that encouragement. You ever think about how crazy this is that if the Roman government had just let Paul go. Right. Just go through. He would have an impact. Right. But we wouldn't have most of the letters that we have as the New Testament today. Do you ever think about that? The plan that the pagan leaders thought would squash Christianity as we know. It actually was the very thing God used to make it the largest movement in world history. So the Sa li listen, follow me here. The same thing that was meant to squash Paul's fire ignited all of history as we know it. You cannot stop what God starts. Amen. And yet we're so afraid, aren't we? We're so afraid. We're afraid of what someone might think. We're afraid of why I made a mistake before we're afraid because we fell down. Paul saying you are not given a spirit of fear. I'm not in prison with these guards. These guards are in prison with me. Look it up Philippians one. He says because of my imprisonment, the entire guard knows Jesus. Now we have to remind ourselves that in our moment of fear, that fear, that fire from the world cannot touch what God's given us. So we were reminded of the power of God. But secondly, then be reminded of the love of God. That is another incredible log to put on fire. So many times we read about God's love, love is such a powerful force. God does not just call us to do things simply out of fear. Yes, he calls us in Proverbs. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That's a different kind of fear than what the world gives you. But then He draws us wet with love for God. So love the world that if you love me, you waive my commands. In fact, a great commandment to love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, right? We love God. You know what it's called. When you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength worship. You can worship in song, but you can worship in action and in thoughts and in attitudes, right? And what you say everything is worshiping something. Are you worshiping God? But then second, we're then called to love one another. At first it says as herself, that should be a high standard just as I hope you're not beating yourself up. OK? Right. How do you treat other people? But then Jesus takes it a step further with his disciples. On that night, you get arrested and says actually, I want you to love one another as I have loved you when you love others like Jesus, that's a relationship. You see one of the best logs you can put on your fire of faith is to worship God and be in a relationship with each other. Do you wanna know the difference between isolation and solitude is one person that solitude includes Jesus. Right? It's a punishment. Isolation is a punishment in prisons, right? You do something bad? Oh, you're gonna put them in isolation by themselves? Ok. So then when do you think Satan's gonna attack you? He wants to get you isolated from the pack. He wants to, if you take that fire, you take one log out and you set it down, which is going out first, the individual log or the fire itself, that log every time we live in a world that's gonna try to separate you and pull you apart and isolate you from everything else, don't we? When do your most negative thoughts come alone, isolated, overwhelmed all it takes to go from isolation to solitude is add one person in the mix, the God who made you and saved you and now you're listening to his voice as opposed to your own and it makes a difference, doesn't it? And then be in a relationship with each other. Put on the log of power reading scripture in prayer, reminding yourself of the power of God that's in you. Put on the log of love to love God, to worship Him, right? That's gonna ignite the flame in your life and to love people the way that He loved us man that's gonna ignite the passion in your life. One of the best things you can do to ignite your faith is to serve and meet the needs of somebody else. It gets you out of self mode. Woe is me. I'm bad. Who is this? And starts thinking about everybody else and if you start thinking about everybody else because what happened? That fire starts to grow last log to put on there is my least favorite. And it seems out of place, doesn't it? Power, love self control. Oh my God. Did you really? No, you don't want that one, did you? That's not, that's not the one you wanted. But if you think about it, it actually makes sense. Fire in a fireplace. Awesome purpose, right? Fire with no boundaries, destruction, right? Water with boundaries. River brings life water with no boundaries, flood, destroys everything. Look, this is for the kids in the room. Kids, teenagers listen to me. Your parents are gonna say this too. Boundaries are good. All right now, I need this next group to extra listen up adults in the room. Boundaries are good. Right? On Tuesday, we talked in our gross students about gentleness and no like gentleness is not one of the cool fruit of the spirit, right? Like love, joy, peace, faithfulness, ah gentleness like oh because we live in a culture sometimes that says like meekness is weakness. But the reality is the definition of gentleness. Here it is. I love this definition. The definition of gentleness is power under control. When you understand that you're being controlled by the love of God and the power of God. Then you can control what you say. You can control how you act. Yeah, you can feel all kinds of things. But how you treat yourself, how you treat the people around you is controlled by the spirit, not by sinful desires. Tell you what you put those logs on. It makes a difference. He doesn't, he doesn't stop there though. He continues on. We don't have time to read all the verses. So let me just highlight the commands given to Timothy. I encourage you to read all of chapter one. But in verse eight and then verse 1314, it reads, therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor for me as prisoner, but share in the suffering for the gospel by the power of God. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you've heard from me in faith and love that are in Christ Jesus and notice this connection here, Holy Spirit and then human responsibility by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Here's what I take that to mean. You gotta feed the fire and then you gotta guard the fire. You live in a world that's gonna try to take your fire out if you've ever been camping or gone somewhere and someone doesn't attend the fire. The tendency of a fire is to go out. So we have to feed it and we have to guard it. But I want you to know that this really awesome word entrusted to you. This means that the message of the gospel, the keys to the kingdom. God says, I'm gonna give it to you. And how do we know that Timothy was faithful? Because here we are 2000 years later and that flicker turned into a flame and it can do so for you and for me, because when it comes to fear and faith, the fire that grows is the fire you feed. So which, which fire will you feed this week? Are you gonna feed the fear? Are you gonna feed your faith with power? Love and self control. Let's feed your faith this week and God will move. Let's pray dear heavenly Father just thank you for who you are and what you've done. You got Timothy, a leader found himself in a place of searching a place where his fire had dimmed to a flicker, discouraged and afraid. God, I pray for those that are discouraged and afraid this week that we will stop feeding the fire of fear in our lives. But instead we'll feed that fire of faith that we will trust and believe in the Holy Spirit. The same spirit that conquered death itself now lives in us and that we will feed that faith with power, love and self control. This week, we love you gone and it's in your power and love and name and control. We pray. Amen.