Let us turn to our Bibles to 2 Timothy.
2 Timothy chapter 1 verses 3 through 7. 2 Timothy 1, 3 through 7. Let us listen attentively to the word of God. I thank God whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers day and night, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears that I may be filled with joy. When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.
Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Let us pray. We do come before you, Lord, to pray that we would not draw back from our callings as Christians in a spirit of fear, but to move forward by the power of the spirit and of love and of a sound mind that you have granted us, and we pray that you continue to support us therein.
That we would follow in the footsteps of Timothy who was encouraged, Lord, to carry on his duties and responsibilities, and we have ours as well. May the admonition here and the encouragement by Paul be used for us as well, Lord God, that we would be swept up into the truth therein and to be equipped, we pray, for this week. Amen.
Heritage, the handing down of something from one generation to another, is an important part of a blessed life. That something handed down, of course, to us can range from natural to supernatural, to all kinds of earthly as well as spiritual goods. We often think of heritage as a good thing if indeed good things are passed down, and that’s true.
Money, land, clothing, houses, and other things to be used, of course, for righteous ends. But the inheritance is not only material, for it should include many important things when it comes to Christians. The heritage of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, and that’s what he is getting at here.
There are other inheritances that he has, a heritage that has been given by his family, including language, including expectations and culture, but it was especially, Paul is, of course, concerned about the faith, the faith, the genuine faith, verse 5, that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother and then in your mother, and now in you. That’s the inheritance, that’s the heritage that he has received. Paul’s prayer is the first point for Timothy, verses 3-4.
Paul’s Prayers for Timothy
I thank God whom I serve with a pure conscience. He thanks the Lord God, as he does often. Quick upon his lips, it should be quick upon ours as well.
He ever has the Lord’s mercies at hand in his heart, that he was so touched by Christ’s grace, of course, as you recall, he was a wicked man, and going after God’s people, even to the slaying of them, there in the book of Acts. He was quick, therefore, to acknowledge the Lord as a source of all good things upon him and for him in his life. And he does this with a pure conscience, whom I serve with a pure conscience.
Indeed, he is a great apostle in many of our minds, although not the only one. They’re all great in their own ways. And he had great authority, real authority given to him by Jesus Christ and even miracles that they did.
And so what he’s saying here, it seems to me, is an act of humility, that he’s not here to laud over Timothy or anyone else, but rather in pureness that is simplicity and truthfulness, genuineness of his conscience. He wishes to serve the Lord God Almighty, whom I serve with a pure conscience. And the word serve here is quite interesting.
A particular word can be translated worship. It is a semi-technical word for worship, as in carrying out religious duties in a spirit of worship with the intent to honor God. And in other places, such as Hebrews 8.5, it’s translated serve, as in the minister who officiates over a matter, the priest, and the like.
Matthew 4.10, in fact, we read it in the words of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, where he says, Then Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall, what? Serve. We read that in the Ten Commandments today. To worship and serve, there, in the Second Commandment.
Serve is that word. Serve is the word here Paul uses. It’s the same word here that Jesus uses in Matthew 4.10, in rebuking Satan, and in quoting the Old Testament, quoting the Second Commandment, that it’s not just worship of the intent of the heart, of the lips of the praise and the like, but worship as in doing and obeying and submitting to him and his actions and his life, our responsibilities before him.
So worship is, you may recall, is therefore described in these two words by Jesus himself, Worship and him you only shall serve, both the first and second table. Because in taking care of our neighbor and our family, you’re serving God. You should do it for the service of God.
In other words, worship and service here in Matthew 4.10 by Jesus are parallel ideas. You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve. That’s how we rebuke Satan, about submitting and falling down at his feet.
A blasphemous request by the devil himself. And Jesus says, no, all of my life is before him to serve him. So worship and serve are coordinated there.
Here when Paul is saying, whom I serve with a pure conscience, the idea is I think not only as an apostle who has this office and he leads in worship and praise of God to be sure, but like the rest of us, we are called to serve him, to honor him in our lives, not just in the first table, but the second table. All the commandments and all that we have in submission and in humility before him. So he has the sense of the divine here in his office and his responsibilities.
So in this sense, all that we do is service to the Lord for all this is what we call in theology more properly, indirect worship, because God isn’t immediately thought about when you’re taking care of your child at one o’clock in the morning. You’re thinking about your kid. But if you were asked right then and there, why are you doing this? Because God’s calling me to do this, and I want to do it for him.
That’s what I mean by indirect. It’s not immediately upon your mind. And so this is the idea here as well.
Pure conscience again reminds you he means he’s sincere and unfeigned. He’s not faking it, and we’re called there for all of us to be sincere and unfeigned and not faking it when it comes to our service, our calling to submit to God Almighty, to do what we can as a husband, as a wife, as a mother, as a father, as a worker on the job or wherever we are in God’s providence and to do it with a pure conscience. Purified of course by the blood of Jesus Christ especially, but here the emphasis is he’s doing it sincerely, genuinely.
And he ties it here, I think, God, whom I serve with a pure conscience as my forefathers did. So now he’s bringing up this idea of generational continuity, which he’ll unpack more explicitly for Timothy of course in verse 5 when he talks about his grandmother and his mother and now the son or the grandson. Now sometimes, maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s most of us, it seems there were very few believers in the Old Testament.
Story after story, as we go through 1st and 2nd Kings, Wednesday night for example, you see one king after another in the northern tribes especially. Every king was wicked in the northern tribes, the top ten tribes. You’re like, where are the people of God? How is this God’s people? Are there no one left to worship and honor the Lord God Almighty? But we see there, a little here and a little there of course, that well, Elijah, God told him I have 7,000 reserved who have not bowed the knee before Baal.
And then it was Omar, I think was his name, was a servant in the house of Ahab who protected and preserved. So you have little glimpses that there are a number of people in the background who are staying faithful as best as they are able in their particular circumstances. After being delivered from Egypt, Israel complained, in the promised land they fouled up God’s worship.
The prophets hammered them over and over again, and yet there were those who believed, even many, enough that even Paul himself says I am doing the same as my forefathers. I thank God whom I serve with a pure conscience as my forefathers did. They too served God and honored Him in their lives with a pure conscience.
And I’m following in their footsteps. And so here he is alluding to his own heritage. They too believed in what? The gospel.
That’s what’s implied in this text. Is he making the connection here with respect to a pure conscience? Because one’s conscience is not supposed to be before men more properly, but always before God. By your conscience, you say I stand before God, I stand and fall before Him, period.
I’m going to do what I’m called to do. And He judges my conscience, not you. And that is true.
All we can do is judge your actions and your words and do what we’re called to do. God judges the heart. When He says I serve the Lord with a pure conscience as my forefathers did, He’s saying they too believe in the same God I do, the same God I am worshiping here, which is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
It’s the same religion, in other words. Why else make the connection at all? And so alluding into this heritage of his, his inheritance as it were, the Jewish culture slash religion which were so closely intertwined as many cultures back then all over the place, talking about and promoting therefore a godly heritage as good and proper as it was here with Paul. He’s speaking of this matter and he’s not separating it the way we would say, oh, he just means religion.
No, he means both. They’re taught both and went together. We’re going to see that in verse 5. Now he prays for Timothy and thank God as my forefathers as without ceasing, verse 1, I remember you in my prayers night and day greatly desiring to see you and being mindful of your tears.
So he ties this all together. Paul’s very tight in how he writes a lot of things, a lot of moving parts as it were. Now, when he says he’s praying without ceasing, of course, he means frequently or constantly, not every moment of every hour or every day as such.
He’s got to do other things in life. And the prayer here for the man is for the man and the mission, I think, implied in his language and the necessity of the logic behind it. That is, when he’s praying for Timothy, he wants to see Timothy and he’s praying for him.
We’re not given a lot of specifics what the particular prayer is, although at the very least it means he wants to see you, greatly desiring to see you. That’s his desire, his prayer, presumably part of that. But more than that, as we know, he writes this letter, 1 Timothy, he writes this other letter, 2 Timothy before us, because he’s hopeful that Timothy would listen and learn for his mission.
He’s here for his mission as well. It’s the man and the mission. And that’s the same for all of us, man or woman.
You have your mission, you have your job, you have responsibility. We ought to pray to that end. Not just pray for Timothy in the abstract or Timothy because I wish to see him, but I think he also prayed for his ministry, for his work, for his responsibility, as indeed we should all pray for one another in this regard.
In particular, of course, his job as a pastor, your job as a construction worker. Whatever it is, our prayers should involve these nitty-gritties of life as well. And he has a happy occasion here, greatly desiring that I may be filled with joy.
Verse 4, he’s mindful of your tears, perhaps tears of separation. He wishes and longs to see Paul again, Timothy does. They are like a father and a son.
That’s the language of Paul. They are a mentor and a student, and they’ve grown close together over the years, I’m sure, under much persecution and the trials of the early church. He has a happy occasion here, his prayers here, and his desire that I may have my joy filled, or filled with joy.
That is the joy of seeing him in person, I think. The immediate object there, verse 4, greatly desiring to see you. You’re happy? It’s important to see one another visibly, and in close proximity in the flesh, because that’s what we are as humans.
This is how God has designed us, and the resurrection reminds us of the fact that our body is not ignored, but Jesus Christ will raise it up in the last day, but in a better form. That is, somehow, someway, it will be purified from sin, and that’s what so easily drags us down. And so, Paul is being human.
Now, Paul has a hard time here, of course, because he is far away, and back then they didn’t have, I don’t know, Zoom, a phone. We have these things, but they’re still what? Not a substitute, but being here as we are able with one another. Timothy’s tears and Paul’s joys, tears of sudden separation, perhaps, we don’t know exactly, but even so, Paul is hoping these things will change.
This leads us to verse 4, excuse me, 4 and 5, that I may be filled with joy when I call, so he’s now changing to another topic here, to remembrance, the genuine faith that is in you. So he’s hoping to be filled with joy, meeting in person, but at the same time, this brings him joy as well, that I recall, or bring to remembrance the genuine faith that you have as a teacher of God’s people. Genuine faith reminds us, on the flip side, that there are false faiths, or fake faiths, that is, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall be brought into the kingdom of God.
There are three types of faith that are fake. The first one we call miraculous faith, not that the source of that faith is miraculous and from the Holy Spirit, that’s certainly true for genuine faith, but it’s described that way because it’s a faith that’s dependent upon miracles, and seems to be alive and alert only when good things are happening, especially for themselves. Shiny and amazing things instead of Christ.
We see this often in the New Testament, in the time of Jesus himself, where many people follow him. He had large crowds. Why? Because they thought it was wonderful and great, that they’re going to be saved and brought to heaven? Apparently not! Because so many of them never followed him again, did they? John 6, 6, 6. But rather they were there for the food, the miraculous food.
They were fed on the hill there in John 6, that longest chapter in the Gospel of John. The bread of life, and Jesus turned the whole conversation from the miraculous, hey, we got free goodies, free food, this is wonderful, I know we all like free food, but hopefully your faith is not based upon that because you have fellowship meals or something like that, but rather upon the goodness of who is Jesus Christ. Temporary faith is another kind of false faith that pretends to be a faith that lasts for a season because it’s based perhaps on emotions or lies.
So it perhaps looks good for a little bit, the parable of the sow the seeds out there, and it seems to sprout a little bit and goes nowhere and dies. And then you have what’s also described as a historical faith, that is a faith that believes, for instance, that Jesus existed, but it means nothing for their salvation. They don’t believe in Jesus, it means nothing to them other than a historical curiosity.
Isn’t this interesting? And of course, that is a danger in the church of Jesus Christ. You grow up, or you become mature in a Christian church, and you’ve been taught these things, and this is kind of interesting. Jesus is a wonderful person, but what does it mean to me? That’s not a real faith.
That’s not a genuine faith. Timothy’s faith was real and sincere, and I think the way he’s speaking of it here because of the connection generationally is twofold, right?
Paul’s Remembering Timothy’s Heritage
In verse 5 he says, “…the genuine faith that is, what, in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother and in your mother.” They too were believers. But that he’s speaking generationally implies, I think, both a subjective description of faith, that is your personal faith that comes and goes, it’s weak, it’s strong, that’s true.
But objectively, as you teach and instruct other people, the faith, the word faith is used that way in the Bible sometimes, to stand firm upon the faith of God, that is, the teachings that he has given us is the object of our faith, either Christ or the instruction of the word of God, and so you say for shorthand, you just call it the faith. Right? The faith once for all delivered to the saints, for example. Not that they handed off what? Here, now you believe, here’s your belief, you’re all going to heaven.
That’s not what it means. It means objectively the teaching, the instruction, and I think both are being here described in this simple word, faith, by the way he’s using it here with respect to mother, grandmother, and now him. How did he get that faith? Because it was taught to him, it was a heritage, a godly heritage that he received by godly women, a godly line of women.
Timothy’s father was a gentile, and so his instruction of religion would have been pagan. By God’s grace, apparently the father let the mother run the show that way, and she did. And God blessed her efforts that way.
She taught as her mother taught her, and she stood firm upon that heritage, that inheritance that she received. Two generations, indeed three, counting Timothy. They were indeed blessed by the spirit of God Almighty.
People often paint the Old Testament as ignoring motherly influence. They use the word patriarchy in a bad-mouthing way, but of course that has never meant that women are not helpful, and indeed very powerful in their own ways, because it’s indeed part and parcel of the Old Testament, as we’ll see this afternoon, for example. But I’ll give you the text already.
Proverbs 1, 8, 9. Proverbs 1, 8, 9, which I’ll be preaching on this afternoon. My son, hear the instruction of your father. Oh, there’s that patriarchy.
Well, yeah, that’s how God designed it. Men are supposed to lead. And do not forsake the law of your mother.
Of course there’s a mother. You need both for the godly upbringing of a family. Study after study has shown that broken-down families have broken-down kids who grow up and have what? Broken-down families who have broken-down kids.
You can break the cycle sometimes, that’s true, by God’s providence or by God’s special grace as you are one of his people, but often that’s not the case. That’s why it’s a known pattern, and it’s a sad thing to see. But God’s mercy was strong here in this family, and they were together, although broken religiously, Roman or Greek father, unbelieving father but a believing mother.
We’ve seen households like that. And God has been good and sustained the women so they can raise up sons and daughters who love the Lord God. And they know it.
They feel that pressure upon them and that God has relieved them by bringing regeneration upon their children. So Timothy did not forsake his mother’s teaching. He fulfilled Proverbs 1 8, even though his father was not a believer.
So, humanly speaking, these things are hard to deal with, of course, and it’s hard to see from one generation to another. But parents make a big difference in people’s lives. They’re there from the beginning.
They’re there feeding them every day, caring for them, watching over them, protecting them, teaching them to live and speak in the basics of culture and life. So we have a lot of influence, a great amount of influence. Or we can throw it all away, as unfortunately we see more and more in which families just say, well, someone else can teach my kids and whatever, they can go off and do their own thing and I’m going to be happy doing my own things as I’d like to spend all my money and time on myself.
And that’s a growing problem in America. But God, we pray, will be with us in our churches and that we can speak the truth to others and they can repent and follow our Lord and Savior. A godly heritage is what we are seeing here that Paul wishes to highlight.
He’s making a point here. Why is he saying this? Verse 6, therefore I remind you because of what you grew up with I’m going to remind you that it’s still with you today, that this heritage that you have is still yours. That’s the connection.
But before I get there in verse 6, I want to unpack a godly heritage as indeed a blessing. Verse 5, which is the point of Paul here. What he has, what he passed on and handed on to him by the Lord God Almighty was a good thing.
Now, you know, faith, grandmother’s faith, the mother’s faith is not biologically transmitted to the children but rather through teaching and instruction as Deuteronomy 6-7 reminds us, you shall teach them diligently to your children, that is God’s word, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
In fact, they have dug up in archaeology little receptacles on the gates. Big enough to put in a roll of the law of God. So they took gate to mean more than just, if you’re wealthy enough, you’ve got a fence community and you’ve got your gate.
A lot of them maybe not had that but even the cities themselves were supposed to be holy before the Lord. And the picture of Deuteronomy 6-7 is clearly of living and walking and breathing the Christian life, and the kids see this, they’re with you every day. So you can make a difference.
And it’s of course going to be the fruit thereof is always in God’s timing, not ours. Now there’s two types of heritage that go hand in hand. The way I describe it is the natural heritage and the supernatural heritage.
The natural heritage is material goods, the lands, language and even culture itself is transmitted. That’s why we have these concerns that we are a different culture, we’re not someone else’s culture. They have their ways of doing things, we have our ways of doing things.
And that’s fine. And in fact it ought to be defended and protected. Otherwise it brings chaos.
They should not be downplayed. Some people like to downplay the things of this world, as you know, and Paul doesn’t. I think Paul is indeed telling us in Romans 9 for example, that I’m desirous for their salvation.
They were given many good things in their society as Jews. In a day that ignores the past and cares nothing about our parents and our grandparents and we just move off typically, not always wrong, but often it seems many people just want to run away from their family and go somewhere else. Ecclesiastes 5.18 reminds us of the importance of heritage.
Here is what I have seen. It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun and all the days of his life which God gives him. For it is his heritage.
In this case, of course, it’s God’s blessing passed down to him. Speaking of a metaphor of God blessing him to be able to eat and drink and to have the fruit of his labor as a heritage from the Lord. For as every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, right? They’re handed down by God.
It’s described as a heritage, the riches and wealth, verse 19, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor. This is a gift of God. He’s speaking of earthly things here coming from our Lord God Almighty and God describes it as a heritage.
Verse 19 perhaps describes his own personal heritage, the person from his father and his grandfather and he’s enjoying it. He’s got the house, for example. You know, historically, it takes a lot of work to make a house.
You didn’t have great, vast society and most people were poor. See what? You grew up in the same household, your parents passed away, you still own the same house. It’s now your heritage and God has given you the ability to rejoice and to be blessed by that heritage.
It’s a good thing. We should thank God that we have natural heritage and use it, of course, for what? Supernatural ends, for good ends, for his glory and for one another and that leads us to the second type of heritage. A supernatural one.
That is one that comes from God. It is a double blessing indeed to have a family, a family that loves you in a natural sense, even if they’re unbelievers. They’re like, we care for you, we celebrate your birthday, we took care of you, but it’s a double blessing to have them when they’re Christians.
And that’s what Timothy has. The good news, in other words, transmitted generationally from parent to child, who grows up to be a parent to their child, to children to the children’s children. And this is all of our responsibilities.
Directly, of course, if you have kids or indirectly as you can support those families and those kids. So, what kind of heritage is it in particular? Paul doesn’t get explicit. I will.
The Ten Commandments. God’s law. And God’s law applied, not just in general, but what does it mean? How do you live? That’s why Deuteronomy 6-7, as you rise up, as you walk, as you lay down, they see you living as a believer of the Messiah to come in the Old Testament.
It’s the Messiah who has come in the New Testament, of course, who will come again in the future. In the Gospel, the good news that Jesus paid it all. Children need to see that.
That we’re not just Sunday Christians. And not just the good news in general, but specifics. And the specifics of Christianity.
Who is Christ? What is the Trinity? What is justification? What is faith? They need to know these things. You’ve got to pass it on one kid after another. One generation after another.
And it’s not just the church’s responsibility. It’s the parents’ responsibility. As you have the ability, as you know the Word of God, teach your kids these things.
And we work together as a church, the church structure and the leadership and the like, and one another, and you yourself. This is what we’re called to do. And that’s what they did.
Lois, Eunice, their names are recorded forever now as being women who stood firm and did what they were called to do when others would shut them down. The church, the way we do this as a church, we can carry on things, not just as individuals. The other heritage besides the law and gospel, are particular applications of God’s law.
We had a little discussion about this in Sunday School class, how churches look a little different, different ethnicities and different nations and the like, and that’s okay. And they should carry on those godly traditions if they’re not wicked. And support and maintain them.
Because this is what people grew up in, and they’re comfortable with it. And that’s how God designed it, even in the Old Testament. The whole Jewish setup, you notice, it’s kind of grew up this way.
You grew up with the Messiah, you grew up with the Torah. Sure, people can throw it away and still be Jewish and lie. That’s fine, that happens in America.
I’m American, but you really find out they’re working for the Communists or something. They’re just pretending the whole time. It just took the fruits and the blessings of America over the decades.
Same kind of thing happens. You can’t stop it. We live in the fallen world.
I’m telling you, it’s better to have it this way. To have this maintaining of continuity, even within the churches, one generation after another. Small differences, to be sure, but nevertheless, real differences that are there.
And how do you transmit this godly or supernatural heritage? Through consistent teaching. Children, of course, need repetition. Over and over again.
We need it as well at times. Inconsistency? Again, that’s the picture of Deuteronomy 6-7. No matter what you’re doing throughout the day and throughout the week, you ought to do it in the light of God’s Word and instruct the children in these things as opportunity arises, as practical things come up.
Mommy and Daddy, why did this happen? Why is my neighbor doing this? Why aren’t they going to church? I don’t understand what they’re thinking. And you sit down and you explain a few things to them in the Word of God. Consistent practice, not just consistent teaching as well.
Living as a believer. Bible memorization. As a family, perhaps you can do it.
They have some programs online you can find. Catechism, of course, a summary of biblical truths. Because there’s a lot of Bible here and you can read some of it and even memorize it and you’re not quite understanding what you got, but it still shouldn’t stop you.
Memorize it. You’ll learn eventually. But the catechism is there to instruct you.
It’s a way for the church to teach you. And of course, as I said before, every day, not just Sunday. In other words, just as we transmit the various ways in which we transmit ordinary or normal heritage, language and culture and expectations and yes ma’am and no sirs, you do the same thing with the Word of God.
So there’s all kinds of different methods in other words. I haven’t even covered everything. There’s different ways you can do it, different frequencies, events or whatever else that you find that helps your children and you, even yourself, grow thereby.
Paul’s Urging of Timothy
Paul’s urging the last two verses, verses 6 and 7. Therefore, what? This remembrance of the genuine faith, this heritage that has been passed down from grandmother to mother to child, I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. Stir up the gift of God because of the godly heritage that he has already as a stepping stone to the ministry. Paul urges him to carry on his duty as a pastor.
That’s the context here. Young Pastor Timothy, do your job. That he was gifted or blessed by the Lord from his mother and his grandmother.
This godly upbringing that was brought into the context of the formation of his ministry. You don’t want pastors who have no Christian instruction. They may not have a Christian background, that’s true.
They might not have had a Christian mother or grandmother, that could be the case. But they ought to have some kind of instruction. He had so much instruction that it carried on way into his ministry.
Indeed, a double blessing. Power and love here. For God, he continues to explain why he’s also saying this, for God has not given us a spirit of fear.
Apparently, Timothy was somewhat fearful of executing his office, of doing his job as a pastor. And that’s somewhat understandable if you’re a younger man. A younger man with much humility, I would say.
In which you don’t, you’ve been taught you’re supposed to submit to your elders and not be aggressive in these things. And now he’s a leader and he’s a younger man. First Timothy describes that.
And that perhaps carried on here and he forgets, you’re also an officer. You can be a young officer in age, but have much spiritual maturity. And people therefore ought to listen to you, in fact.
So, Christ has gifted him and therefore that gifting should bring him boldness and no longer fearfulness. For God has not given us a spirit of fear. On the contrast, rather, on the contrary, power and the love of a sound mind.
Boldness, I think is implied here, because that’s the opposite of fearfulness when it comes to a church officer as what he is. Power and love that God has blessed him with. Power to do his public office and duty as a pastor.
Love to exercise that power aright with the right attitude and compassion for his people, for the church of the living God. And this is true for us. We need, and we do have, by God’s grace and our sanctification power.
We have the Spirit of God within us. And we have done and can do good things and fulfill our responsibilities before the Lord God Almighty. And God has blessed us accordingly.
And you have the gift of love. That’s the fruit of the Spirit. And to pray for that, to have more of that, more ability and more love.
And of a sound mind we read at the end of verse 7. And of a sound mind. That is, solid in the gospel, truth, unable to be unsettled or tossed to or fro, which would be the natural reaction of being fearful. You’re not sure exactly what to do.
You hesitate. You bounce back and forth. But rather boldness or what? Conviction.
This is true. I’m going to follow my Lord and Savior no matter what my family says, no matter what my boss may say. And of course it’s the seer conscious before God as part of a sound mind.
Or you’re going to be quite unstable if you’re lying. Playing the hypocrite. And this is what we need as well, to pray for one another for power and love and of a sound mind rooted in the Word of God that we not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, Ephesians 4. Godly heritage, brothers and sisters.
Heritage is important. You may not, in fact, on the other hand, not have much money or land to give kids. You may be poor, but your poverty does not stop the riches that you have in Christ Jesus.
You can pass that on to your kids and your grandkids, brothers and sisters. You have a godly heritage above all the law and the gospel. Psalm 119, verse 111.
Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart. Psalm 119, verse 111. That’s the law.
Pass the law on to your kids, your grandkids, to one another. The heritage context here, of course, is biological. It’s not always that.
We have the spiritual heritage, which we want to be biological in the sense that it goes family to family. But because it is a spiritual teaching and the truth, you can pass it on to others that aren’t in your family. Do it.
Don’t stop. Don’t let that stop you. They’re your friends.
They’re co-workers that you love and you care. Give them a heritage. The heritage of God’s law and, of course, the heritage of the gospel.
This text itself, the context here is his faith. Faith in what? Faith or trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to save him from his sins. That’s the heritage he received here from his mother and his grandmother.
And, of course, I know he received the law because they’re good Jews. He received law and gospel is the point. And that’s what you can pass on to others.
These are foundational of Christian families, both the natural heritage, but above all, the supernatural heritage of the law and gospel. We need to pass them on to our children and our children’s children. We pray and implore our Lord God above that he would give us the ability that we would depend upon him to pass on the godly heritage of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Let us pray. Indeed, Lord God almighty. It can be very hard, and as we struggle, Lord, in our lives, perhaps past problems that we’ve had, to think anew about these things, Lord.
What can we do now? Let us not get bogged down into what has happened, what we’ve not done, or the sins of our past, Lord, but how can we pass on the heritage here and now in our lives and give us encouragement and strength in this regard to pass on, Lord, through instruction and certainly through our practices, both the law and gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen and amen.