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Second Timothy chapter one, second Timothy chapter one, we're just going to look at verses

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one and two tonight.

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We concluded first Timothy a couple of weeks ago and we're just going to continue on.

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This is a relatively short book.

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We'll should finish it up soon, but tonight we're just going to have a little bit of an

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introduction just to kind of talk about what was going on, what had been going on.

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There was some time that had passed between the writing of first and second Timothy.

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So we're going to talk about that a little bit tonight.

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Before we get started though, we will read our verses.

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Second Timothy chapter one, verses one and two.

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We'll read through the text, then we'll pray and get started.

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Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will for the promise of life in Christ Jesus.

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To Timothy, my dearly loved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus,

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our Lord.

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Let's pray.

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God, we come to you.

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We thank you for these good words.

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I pray that as we go through the book of second Timothy that you would speak to us, that you

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would help us to see what's going on there and help us to see areas where it applies

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to our own life, dear Lord.

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I pray that tonight as we look at this introduction, that your Holy Spirit would be among us, that

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you would hide me behind the cross, that I would preach and teach in a way that brings

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glory and honor to you.

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And I ask these things in Jesus' name.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Now when we looked at first Timothy, we saw that Paul was writing a letter to Timothy

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and Timothy appears to be serving in a role of pastor or elder, overseer, kind of a pastor

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type role to the people of Ephesus.

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That's where Timothy was.

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And Paul writes this letter to Timothy and he says, look, there are some things going

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on there that need to be addressed.

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You need to hold these people accountable.

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You need to teach them the right things.

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You need to let them know that there are some false teachers out there.

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There's some false teachings that are being said, things that are not true, that are not

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biblical.

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And you need to make sure that you point these things out.

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You need to make sure that you are a good example to them.

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You need to make sure that they establish good leaders, good deacons among themselves.

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You need to make sure that people are trying to live a godly life.

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Now whenever Paul wrote this first letter, it was probably about three or four years

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before he wrote the second letter.

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Now Paul wrote several letters in the New Testament that we see.

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The earliest one probably being around 49 or 50 AD.

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And the last one here that he wrote, which is second Timothy, and it probably was around

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67 or 68 AD.

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Now Paul wrote a lot of stuff in an almost 20 year span and lots of letters to different

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people.

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And as Paul was doing the work of God, he was somewhat of a missionary, what we would

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call a missionary.

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He would go from place to place.

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And he would go and preach to people and teach to people and try to encourage people.

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And there are lots of people that Paul mentions with him along these missionary journeys,

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is what they're often referred to.

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But ultimately, Paul was going to become in prison for what he was doing, for being a

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Christian, for standing up for Jesus Christ.

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He was going to be in prison.

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Now there's a lot of things about Paul's life and about Paul's imprisonment and about the

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details of his life that we don't really know.

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It is generally believed by scholars that Paul may have served kind of two prison sentences

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in Rome.

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Maybe he was on house arrest for a while and released and then eventually put back in prison

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again.

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We don't know all of the details.

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But by around 67, 68 AD, there was an emperor by the name of Nero.

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He was a pretty bad guy.

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He was a crazy guy.

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And it was during this time that Paul ultimately was killed.

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Now we don't see in the scriptures what happened to Paul, but tradition tells us that Paul

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ultimately was in prison and he was killed during the reign of Nero.

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And the last book Paul wrote was this book that he was writing to Timothy.

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He was writing to him again several years after he had written to him the first time.

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Now obviously Timothy is still doing the work.

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He's still on mission for God.

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And Paul is writing to him, giving him some final instructions.

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Now whether or not Paul knew this would be the last thing he would write, I don't know.

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Perhaps he did.

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Perhaps he knew his time was short.

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Maybe he didn't.

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But nonetheless, he continues to impart into Timothy things that Timothy needs to know.

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I believe that Paul probably knew his life was soon to end.

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We see that in the language, maybe even a hint of that here in the first part of the

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book, in these first verses we read.

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Now you may remember when we saw in 1 Timothy that Paul gave Timothy some instruction and

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some advice and he told him to fight the good fight.

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He says, Timothy, you need to fight the good fight.

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But then as we get toward the end here of 2 Timothy, Paul applies that same idea to

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himself.

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And he says of himself, I have fought the good fight.

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And so Paul realizes, I believe, that his life is soon to come to an end.

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And with that in mind, he's writing this letter to Timothy, which is likely one of the last

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things that he ever wrote and certainly the last biblical book or letter that he ever

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wrote.

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And so he's writing these last words.

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These are, if we could call it this, Paul's swan song.

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That's a phrase we say.

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That's the last big thing somebody does.

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Maybe there's an actor and they're getting ready to retire and they have one last part.

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They're in one last movie.

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They're in one last show or a singer and they're going to put on one last concert.

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It's going to be their swan song.

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They're going on one more tour.

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The last things that they're ever going to get to say, the last place that they're ever

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going to get to perform in front of people, that they're going to have an audience.

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And this is it.

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This is going to be the end.

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And one day that's going to be true for you and I. We're going to have our swan song.

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We're going to be at the end of our life.

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And maybe we will be like Paul and maybe we'll have some idea that my days are getting short.

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And so I need to make sure what is important.

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I need to make sure that I'm imparting some wisdom on the generations that are coming

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after me.

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I need to make sure to tell my kids what's important.

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Tell my grandkids what's important.

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I need to make sure to help them to be strong, to tell them to stand firm, to give them some

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encouragement, to give them some correction, to give them some guidance.

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Okay?

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There's going to come a day for us that we're not going to have many days left.

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We're not going to have many more things that we can say.

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And so we need to realize that the things we say are important.

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And we don't need to wait until our deathbed to do that.

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We may not know what our swan song is.

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It may be something that we do today or tomorrow or next week that might be the last thing

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that we do or the last thing that we say.

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That's why it's important that we pay attention to the things we do, the things we say, the

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examples that we leave, because we're not guaranteed to tomorrow.

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So we make the most of the time we've got.

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We try to do the best with what we've got.

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So here Paul was at the end of his life and he's trying to give these last words of wisdom

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to Timothy.

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Now he says here in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 1, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by God's

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will.

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Now it's pretty clear.

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If we read anything of Paul's writing, we know that he is a follower of Jesus Christ.

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He was opposed to Jesus Christ.

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He was opposed to Christianity.

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And then Jesus appeared to him and it changed his life.

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And once Paul acknowledged Jesus, he began to follow Jesus and he became a great apostle

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for Jesus and did great work for Jesus.

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And so we see from Paul's writings that he is a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

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We see here in 2 Timothy as we continue along that Paul was in prison for Jesus Christ,

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that everyone else has abandoned Paul except for Jesus.

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He was all alone, but he knew God was still with him.

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It's a good reminder as we prepare to get into this book.

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It's a good reminder for us to pay attention to Paul's example.

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One, to know that even if everybody else abandons us, Jesus will not abandon us.

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And two, the work of Jesus is not easy.

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The work of the Lord is not easy.

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Now we might like to think that I'm a Christian, God is good, everything is going to be easy.

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And if we're a Christian, praise the Lord.

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And yes, God is good, but that doesn't mean that things are going to be easy, especially

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in this day and age.

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Now in the United States, we have it pretty easy.

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We're pretty blessed.

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We don't face much persecution for the most part.

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That's not to say that people might not mock us or might not tell us we're crazy for believing

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in God's word.

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We might encounter that more today than we would have 20, 30 years ago.

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But nonetheless, we have it pretty easy.

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But we may not always have it easy.

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There may be occasions where you and I are in a situation to where when we stand up to

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do what is right, it may lead to difficulty in our life.

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Maybe in this country, perhaps an opportunity for us to serve in another country.

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We never know where we're going to be in the future.

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We never know what we're going to be up against, but there may be a day that we are faced with

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the decision of, am I going to stand up for the Lord or not?

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Now quite frankly, we're really faced with those decisions every day.

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Maybe not in the sense that somebody's coming at us and saying, either you renounce Jesus

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or I'm going to chop your head off.

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That's what Paul was up against.

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And what did he choose?

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He chose to die for Jesus instead of renounce Jesus.

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And so Paul gives us a great example in life.

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And so when we see here that it says Paul is a follower of Jesus Christ, an apostle

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of Jesus Christ, who is one who is in Jesus Christ, he is one who lives that out to the

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fullest.

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He's ready to die for Jesus.

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And ultimately, he would die for Jesus.

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He said Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by God's will, praise the Lord for God's will,

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that it's God's will that Paul would be saved, that it's God's will for us tonight, that

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we would be saved if we would come to Jesus Christ and put our faith and trust in Jesus

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Christ.

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God wishes that all would be saved.

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He desires that all would come to Jesus Christ, that all sins would be forgiven.

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But not all are going to come to Jesus Christ.

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But hopefully tonight, that's not any of us.

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Hopefully we recognize that we are sinners.

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We lie, we cheat, we steal, we say things we shouldn't say, we do things we shouldn't

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do, we act in ways that we shouldn't act.

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And so we're not very good people.

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But God wants to make us into better people.

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He wants to transform our life.

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And so that starts with us saying, okay, God, I'm a sinner.

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I need help.

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Where does our help come from?

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Our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

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And that help comes through Jesus Christ, his son.

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And Jesus died on the cross so that knowing that we were sinners, that we can acknowledge

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our sin before him and say, I am a sinner.

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I've done evil things.

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Would you forgive me?

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And we can be forgiven through Jesus and who he is.

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And what a beautiful thing that is that God has provided a way for us to be forgiven so

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that we may be saved so that our sins can be forgiven.

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And then God can begin to do a work in us.

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Once we come to faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit indwells in us.

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And so we begin to look at God's word and we begin to come to church on Wednesday night

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and Sundays and study God's word in all kind of areas.

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Maybe we listen to our favorite preacher on the radio, whatever it may be, and we begin

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to soak up the word of God.

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And we begin to come together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

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And God begins to work in us and begins to transform us and begins to help us to see

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these areas of sin and weakness and temptation in our life.

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And God begins to make us into the men and the women that he wants us to be in.

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And we are ever work in progress here in this world.

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God is always working on us, but we want to be those who are going in the right direction.

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It is God's will that we would be saved, but we have to make that decision to put our faith

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and trust in Jesus Christ.

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And that's exactly what Paul has done.

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Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will for the promise of life in Christ Jesus.

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Now, I don't know if Paul uses this kind of greeting in any of his other letters, and

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maybe he uses this greeting in this letter because he knows his time is short.

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And so he says, for the promise of life.

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If Paul knows his life is short, if he knows death is right around the corner, he knows

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that there's still hope.

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He knows that even when we die in this world, even if he loses his life for Jesus Christ,

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to live is Christ and to die is gain.

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And so that's exactly what Paul lived out in his life.

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He lived for Christ for years.

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He went around and he did the work of God for years.

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He wrote these letters that we have in our Bible that we read today and we study today

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that we want to learn from today that we want to grow in today.

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Why?

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Because they hold the promise of life, the promise of life that comes through Jesus Christ.

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And maybe Paul uses this greeting here because he knows that his days are going to be short.

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And then he continues on to tell us who the letter is to.

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It is to Timothy.

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That's pretty obvious.

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We get that from the name.

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And so we look at a little bit of a backdrop tonight, a little bit of a background of what's

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going on, what got us here.

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Paul's been doing the work, things have gotten tough, he's in prison, he only has a little

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while left to live.

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And so he's writing these last words to Timothy.

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He's writing his swan song, what he's going to be remembered for.

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But thankfully, this is not just a one-time thing for Paul.

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It's not like Paul had lived his whole life doing what he wanted to do.

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And he said, okay, now I'm going to write one thing here at the end.

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It's going to make a difference.

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Paul had lived these last several years of his life doing the Lord's work.

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And it didn't change when he got to the end of his life.

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And that's the example that you and I need to follow.

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We need to live our life every day doing the work of God because there's no way to know

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what the last work we'll ever do will be.

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It might have been what we've done today.

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Did we do anything today that was worth anything?

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Did we do anything to count for anything?

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Did we do anything for the kingdom of God?

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Well, we need to strive every day to do what we can for the kingdom of God.

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Maybe it's something minor.

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Maybe it's something major.

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But every day we want to be those who live our life as an example, as Paul did.

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So we can be those that say, I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ.

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By his will, by his grace, by what he's done for me, I have been forgiven.

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And I want to do the work to serve Jesus.

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That's what Paul is doing.

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And that's what we need to do.

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Let's pray.

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God, we come to you.

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We thank you for your good word.

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And I pray, God, that you would just help us to try to follow Paul's example, try to

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follow Jesus's example, to try to follow the examples of brothers and sisters in Christ

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that we see here in this world.

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Dear Lord, I pray that you would help us to seek you in all that we do, dear Lord, that

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we would seek to grow in you in all that we do, dear Lord.

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We want to know you.

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We want to know Jesus Christ.

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But we don't want to just stop when we put our faith in Jesus Christ.

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We want to continue to grow.

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We want to continue to eat.

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We want to continue to be nourished.

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We want to continue to be used by you, dear Lord.

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So I pray that you would help us to do so.

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And as we read these words to Timothy in the weeks to come, that you would help us to learn

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from them ourselves, to see areas of weakness that we may need to address.

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And I ask these things in Jesus' name.

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Amen.

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Jesus Also, may the Spirit of Christ join you.