2 Timothy 4:9-22

The Final Words from Paul

The requests(4:9-13; 21)

The reminder(4:10-18)
- Pleasures Evermore - Sam Storms

The noteworthy people(4:19-22)
-Luke
-Tychicus
-Prisca (Priscilla)
-Trophimus - Acts 21:27-30
-Demas

(via etiquetteforagentleman)

2 Timothy 3

Who has made the greatest investment in your life?
Now imagine you only have 1 more conversation with that person.

Define a problem:

2 Timothy 3:1-9

1 Corinthians 5:9-11

Paul basically tells Timothy: “Don’t be naive!”

Two-fold solution:

2 Timothy 3:10-11

Paul basically tells Timothy: “Follow me as I follow Christ.”

2 Timothy 3:12-13

Paul basically tells Timothy: “You shouldn’t be shocked by this!”

2 reasons you may not be experiencing persecution:
- Spend all/most of your time with people who think/act like you do.
- Your life blends in so much with the people around you that they don’t realize you are a Christian
.
2 Timothy 3:14-17

Paul basically tells Timothy: “You are not like these imposters. You’ve seen the real thing and are the real thing.”

You should continue to follow God.

You are made wise unto salvation through faith in Christ.

Negative: If you fail to read/contemplate/use the Word, you will be like this first list : verses 1-9
Positive: If you stay in the Word : verses 14-17

Recommended for summer:
- Read “old dead guys” - because its easy to find out if they finished the race and kept the faith
- Make a plan to stay accountable in reading the Word

Jack Fisher was busily working in his front yard when suddenly over his left shoulder he noticed someone looking out at him through one of the big bay windows of his house. He looked and saw that it was this beautiful woman only a few months younger than his own age looking out at him and smiling. She must have been his wife but they must not have been married long because she was still giving him that newly-wed’s smile that just says “I love you” unlike the married-for-years smile which seems to convey the thoughts of “I love you even though I know all of your faults”. He stopped working and began to head toward the front door. As he began to turn the knob of the front door; though, he suddenly awoke.
It had all been a dream. A dream which had been recurring at least once a week every week since he was 15. He was now 22, single, and living alone in his east L.A. apartment. Well to say he was alone wouldn’t be quite accurate, he did have his 2 year old dog, Buddy, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, which he had adopted from a nearby shelter a bout a month before he had moved into his apartment nearly 2 years ago. He was now working on getting his Master’s Degree in Psychology at UCLA and was looking forward to someday getting his doctorate degree and opening his own practice hoping to help other people with issues similar to his. He had no idea why this dream had been coming to him almost every night for the last 7 and a half years.
He began thinking back again to when it happened the first time. His youth group had just been conducting a Bible study on marriage and family sort of topics and he had quickly blown it off as having been one of those dreams influenced by the discussion the previous day, but after it came back a couple of nights later Jack became concerned. He remembered asking his parents, his two older bothers, and even his little sister, who was 2 years younger than himself, if they could explain why he had had the same dream twice in one week. They had no idea. He asked his friends and neighbors but they were no help either. They gave good reasons and suggestions but nothing seemed to answer his question. The next week it occurred again. After having had this dream for two weeks, it was decided that he would begin to seek more help and eventually asked the pastor of the local non-denominational church he and his family had been attending since they moved to Phoenix, Arizona when Jack was about 3 years old. The pastor patiently listened as Jack began to explain his situation and how he had been having this same dream multiple nights a week with no understanding of what it was supposed to mean. After Jack finished, the pastor thought for a moment before responding. He told Jack that there were books on the topic of dreams and the meaning behind them and also told him about how there was a nice couple a few miles away who had spent many years studying and interpreting dreams and that maybe they could help. Thanking the pastor for his time after having acquired the list of books and the address of these so-called dream interpreters, Jack headed off for the local library.
For the last seven years he had been pouring over the recommended books in between class time, home study time, and his job at a small neighborhood grocery store, and it seemed to come to nothing. They were no more helpful then his parents and friends had been. He had even gone to see the dream interpreters, but that came to nothing. The dream, he was told, was supposedly a revelation about his future but with no more helpful information than what his friends and neighbors had given him. It seemed that he was suddenly plagued by a reoccurring dream which no one could fully explain. He decide that if it was indeed a dream about future events then all he had to do was wait it out.
He was suddenly snapped out of his trance as Buddy had jumped upon his lap happy and ready to play having heard Jack moving about in his living room. Buddy had caught Jack in the middle of his flashback, but Jack was in no mood to play at the moment. It was the middle of September, and he knew he must put his dream research aside, for now, and resume studying on the topic for his up and coming paper which would be due at the beginning of next month. He was preparing a paper on how music and mood are interconnected and was about half-done with his paper with nearly 3 weeks left.
He got up off the couch and Buddy followed him into the spacious modern style kitchen that had been designed for the apartment. Jack reached into his refrigerator and brought out a gallon jug of 2% milk he had bought last night before he had left from work. He fixed himself a bowl of Wheaties and grabbed a fresh orange out of his bowl of fruits. He figured today would be a pretty good day. Buddy then began to bark for food as he was hungry also. Jack put down his bowl and unpeeled orange and got out some food and water for his dog, washed his hands and resumed his breakfast before beginning again on that paper.
He quickly thought about the time when he had adopted Buddy. He had called this pet store asking about this dog he had seen in one of their ads, a Boston Terrier puppy, and was inquiring as to whether or not it was still available for adoption. The person on the other end of the line had told him others had been inquiring about it at the same time and that if he wanted it he would have to come get it soon or else someone else would beat him to it. He had rushed out of the overly-cramped apartment he had been sharing with his brothers when he had started attending UCLA and headed for the pet store which was only about 2 or 3 miles away. When he arrived though, he was too late, this girl who looked like she was probably about 4 to 5 years younger than he was had gotten to the store before him and was already going through the adoption process with the store manager, but as soon as he looked down he noticed this little puppy staring up at him intently and yipping at him. It was like magic, he almost forgot about that other dog completely and decided he would be adopting this one on the spot, but it had bothered him that some girl about his age had beaten him to the store and had purchased that other dog. Yet again, he was snapped out of a flashback moment. This time, though, it wasn’t the dog jumping on him or barking, it had been the sudden return of the younger of his two older brothers. He hadn’t even noticed his return until the front door slammed itself shut.
Jeff, who was about 5 years older than Jack, had just returned from his midmorning jog half out of breath and ready to fix his own breakfast. Jack’s thoughts suddenly turned toward this new subject. When Jack had moved in with his brothers so as to attend UCLA they had initially complained but once the three of them had gotten used to the idea it just seemed to naturally work itself out. Jeff would do his midmorning jogs while Jack was asleep and Brad was out at work.
Brad was older than Jeff by about 3 years and had been living on his own since turning 19. He was now a software technician for a small computer company in the area and would go to work early in the morning so that he could have his evenings free to go out and party, just chill in the apartment, or whatever else he felt like doing that night. He had recently gotten into a relationship with this girl he had met at a local computer software conference and would spend his nights talking with her over the telephone, text messaging, or chatting on the Internet, some time they would even go out on dates, this meant that most of the time Jeff and Jack would be free to go wherever they wanted and do whatever they wanted/needed to do whenever they needed to. There were few rules in the house and they were basically things like not touching the other brothers’ stuff unless specifically told to do so. This wasn’t hard to live by considering the guys mostly kept their personal possessions in their rooms and usually only had out the public-use items in the other rooms.
By the time Jack had finished recounting the time when they first began living together away from their parents, Jeff had already fixed his bowl of Cheerios and was sitting on one of the four wooden dining room chairs eating. Jack finished off his Wheaties and the orange and was ready to head upstairs to take a shower and get into some clean clothes as he had fallen asleep on the couch last night without having showered or gotten ready for bed. It was a Saturday morning so Jack didn’t have any classes that day. He had made sure never to signup for classes which would be meeting on Saturdays. He had always hated the thought of having to spend his Saturdays in class. After his hot shower Jack decided he would just put on some old clothes and just lounge around in front of the TV for a while.
After lounging around for about 3 hours it was almost time for Jack to leave for his job. He quickly disappeared into his room and after a few minutes returned wearing his work shirt. Jeff had already left for work by this time so it was now just Jack and Buddy in the apartment. Jack walked over and made sure the AC had been turned off so that he could leave the door open to the balcony where he had left his dog’s “toilet”, one of those special fake grass things they advertise on TV sometimes. Since it was an apartment they were lucky to have found one that allowed pets in the first place so they didn’t mind leaving the door to the balcony open when none of the brothers would be around to open it because a doggy doors weren‘t allowed to be installed anywhere in the apartment complex. It wasn’t like the apartment would get that much warmer since Brad would be returning in about an hour or two. Jack then finished tidying up the apartment a little bit before leaving for his job. He wouldn’t be back until around 8 or 9 when the store would be closing and he didn‘t want to make his brothers mad for having left any messes in the apartment which he could have cleaned up before leaving.
The small neighborhood grocery at which Jack had been an employee of ever since the brothers moved into their current apartment was on a street corner only about 5 blocks from the apartment complex. It currently didn’t matter to Jack that he had to walk to work and back everyday because of how close to the apartment it was. It also meant that there would be one less vehicle in the small parking lot that was beside the store. He would leave about 45 minutes before he was supposed to clock in at the store and would arrive within about 15-20 minutes unless he wasted too much time and ended up arriving with only about 5 or 10 minutes left. The store was like one of those Mom & Pop spots, which seemed to be everywhere until larger stores like Wal-Mart moved into the area.
Jack loved working for the old man who owned the store and the man didn’t ask him to do too much. The man was in his late 60s and had opened the store back when he had turned 18. He had thought it was a good deal for his neighbors to come buy produce and canned goods among other things and had been receiving steady business for the last 50 or so years. Jack was mostly there to help the man stock the shelves and help anyone carry their purchases out to a vehicle parked in the small cement lot. For all his help, Jack was paid a fair wage and was also educated in historical happenings of this small neighborhood and its little grocery store. The old man would always tell Jack stories about going off to war when he was younger and having to leave the store to his family to run for him while he was gone then he would go off onto some story about some wartime experience he had had at one time or another. He’d then proceed to complain about how the government was messed up and was getting into things it didn’t need to. He would do all of this while the two would stock a shelf full of supplies. If it was while a customer was being rung up, the customer, usually some elderly man or woman, would agree about how things used to be or about how bad things had become as of late. This would spark a conversation between the old man and his customer which would sometimes last for an hour. When this would happen, Jack would slip off to the back of the store to begin unloading the next pallet that would need stocking. Jack though of the old man as if he were his wise old grandfather even though both of his actual grandfathers were still living.
After work Jack would often stop by some small fast-food restaurant and order something to go and take it back to the apartment. This time he had decided to get Chinese. He really loved the noodles and sauces at this little corner kiosk. Although he still wasn’t very good at using chopsticks, this left him with having to use a spork, which the restaurant offered as their only alternative to chopsticks…

2 Timothy 1:15-18

2 Timothy 2:1-8

Introduction: Therefore

I. The POWER 2: 1

- Be STRONG in GRACE

- Titus 2:11-12

II. The PATTERN 2: 2

- Write down 2 people you know who don’t know Christ.
- What you shared Christ with those people and they accepted Him?
- What if they then in turn shared Christ with just 2 people each?

- Be FAITHFUL to ENTRUST

III. The PEOPLE

- Be a SOLDIER

— A. Soldiers ENDURE hardships. 2: 3

— B. Soldiers are Not ENTANGLED. 2:4

— C. Soldiers are ENLISTED

- Be an ATHLETE 2: 5

— A. Athletes compete and are CROWNED!

- Be a Farmer 2: 6

— A. Farmers work HARD

IV. The PONDER 2:7-8

- You are in a Battle!

- You can be Crowned!

- You must stay Faithful!

Fan the Flame (2 Timothy 1:1-14)

I. Farewell Discourse
-2 Timothy 4:6

II. Personal Remarks
-2 Timothy 1:1-3
-2 Timothy 1:4-5

III. Final Instructions
-Romans 3:23
-Romans 6:23
-Romans 10:13

-2 Timothy 1:6-7
-2 Timothy 1:8-12
-2 Timothy 1:13-14

-2 Timothy 4:7-8

1. What is fasting? (give some history…) (Matthew 6:1-18)
-Going without food or another item for a certain period of time for religious (Biblical) purposes.

2. Why do we need to fast?
-a. To show humility and repentance (2 Chronicles 7:14).
-b. To Express Love and Worship to God (Philippians 3:18-19)
-c. Asking for something you desire : 2 Chronicles 20:1-4
—1. Removal of God in Society
—2. So-Called Social Problems
—3. Sexual Sin
—4. Disintegration of the Traditional Family
—5. A Spirit of Selfishness

3. What do I fast from (during the week of Solitude)?
-1. This week: A week of Solitude : Tonight through next week: Pick one item that creates noise in your life: i-Pod, cell phone, texting, email, TV, music, radio, movies, Facebook, i-Phone, video games, etc.
-2. Day of Bible study (Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday) Fast from all noise and entertainment.
-3. Consider a corporate food fast for 24 hours (please drink water).
—Psalm 63

Action Steps:
-a. Take out noise/ food to focus on the Lord/ Find a quiet place in a library, a room in a church; somewhere where you will not be interrupted.
-b. Pick something that really matters in your life… that has a hold on you.
-c. Set specific goals during these times:
— “Silence and solitude without engaging the mind will put us to sleep.” - John Orthberg
—— Chapel (prayer journey, sit in silence; Memorize a verse)
—— Sing to the Lord; Think about an attribute of God
—— Pray out loud; Read the Word out-loud.
—— Write down examples of God’s faithfulness in the past
—— Listen to God.
-d. We must have a Christ-centered purpose, not a self-centered one.

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” (Mark 1:35, cf. Luke 4:42)

Catching Up
-Story 1
—Stolen Valuables
—Apostasy
—Corrupt Ministers
—Burglary
—Violence
—Idolatrous Tribe

-Story 2
—Immoral Priests
—Homosexuality
—Rape
—Murder
—Warfare
—Stupid Legislation

-Story 3
—Despair
—Tragedy
—Depression
—Impoverishment
—Hopeless
—Fear/Vulnerability

“In those days there was no king in Israel…”

Back In Bethlehem

-Ruth 2
—Laws for the poor
—God’s providence
—Under His wings
—Safety

-Ruth 3
—Go find a home
—Ruth gets dressed
—Intimate discussion
—Anxious awaiting

A Courtroom

-Ruth 4

He could Redeem the land and ignore Ruth
He could Redeem the land and marry Ruth
He could Hand the right of redemption to Boaz

Finally Home

Ruth 4:13

Your Story

Matthew 1:1

Jesus the King:
-He will fulfill your deepest longings.
John 7:38

-He will cleanse all your sin and shame.
2 Corinthians 5:17

-He will recover every loss and all suffering
Romans 6:23

Ruth 3 Precursors:
Boaz created a safe environment
Ruth gleaned for 6-7 weeks

Ruth 3

Naomi and Ruth are without Rest
Boaz is the kinsman redeemer

Naomi and Ruth form a plan; but the entire plan rests on Boaz’s integrity. (Ruth 3:1-5)
Boaz and Ruth are in place (Ruth 3:1-6)

Boaz’s prayer for her 2:12
-1) Reward
-2) Full wages from God
-3) Refuge under God’s wing

To spread the wing over someone was symbolic of marriage back in this time.(3:9)

Boaz’s Special Treatment
-1) Welcomed her and showed her favor (2;10)
-2) Provided for her in a unique way (2:10,16)
-3) Comfort kindness (2:9,14)
-4) Prayer blessing (2:12)

Why hadn’t Boaz “married up”?
-1) His age
-2) Ruth was possibly still mourning
-3) First-in-line redeemer(3:13)

Boaz’s Responsibilities
—His workplace and workers
—His community
—His family
—His reputation
—Resolving the situation with Ruth

“Let the sun come up on your purity.”

How did he know?
-He realized he was under God’s wing.

Only true if Boaz, can “settle it today”

What does this mean for our life?
-Boaz was a picture of Christ in his domain (his fields, with Ruth, his workers, etc.), so we must be a picture of Christ in our domain.

What do I need to do?
Your workplace and workers
—Ephesians 6
Your community
-Romans 13
-Acts
Your Family
-Ephesians 5
Your Reputation
-Philippians 2
Your Dating/Marriage/Purity
-1 Thessalonians 4

Be men who understand responsibility

Ruth 2

Then - Ruth’s story

Leviticus 23:22

Alone ——-> Family
Vulnerable ——> Safe
Impoverished ——> Provision
Foreign —-> Welcomed

2 Chronicles 16:9

Always - The Nature of God

Romans 8:28, 31-32

Now - You Follow God

Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Be generous.
Share the gospel.

What do you tend to stress over?
Is there anyone you need to apologize to?

To Whom can you be generous?

Name a couple of people with whom you can share the love of God.

(via etiquetteforagentleman)

What rights are you holding on to that would keep you from completely clinging on to Christ?

Are you staying or are you going?

Ruth 1

Judges 19, 20, 21.

“Right in our own eyes”
-1. Concubine treated like an object
-2. Rape
-3. Violence toward women
-4. Revenge
-5. Murder
-6. Stealing

We need a righteous king.

3 Questions to ask as you read through the Bible:
-1. What is broken (sinful) in this story?
-2. Where is God’s solution in this story?
-3. What is the Gospel connection?

-Romans 7:25

The more you draw closer and closer to Christ the more and more you’ll hate your sin.

“The gospel is not just the A-B-C’s of Christianity, but it is the A to Z of Christianity. … it tells us that we are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted than you ever dared hope-at the same time. In fact if the gospel is true, the more you see your sin, the more certain you are that you are saved by sheer grace and more precious and electrifying that grace is to you…” - Tim Keller

Background

-The Law
—Exodus 20

-The Priesthood
—Numbers 8:5-6

-The Land
—Joshua 8:33

A Sick And Twisted Story

-Judges 17, 18

3 Questions

-What’s broken in this story?
—Theft
—Greed
—Hypocrisy
—Disobedience
—Abuse
—Idolatry
—-Ezekiel 14:3

—Modern idols
—-Aphrodite (beauty)
—-Artemis (Prosperity)

-Where’s God’s solution?

—Judges 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25

-What’s the Gospel connection?
—Colossians 3:1-4
—1 John 5:21