Fan Into Flame

But if if Paul is truly mentoring this young man and knows what's going on, he's remembering all sorts of things. I remember your tears. Your tears. What was that about? Paul, don't leave me here. Don't leave me in Ephesus. This is not gonna be easy. He's like, you got this, Timothy. Stick it out. You got this. No. I don't I don't think I've got it. And Paul leaves because he's being imprisoned, because he's leaving. But I long to see you. I remember your tears. I know about your sincere faith, but remember, Timothy, god gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self control. [00:11:32] (43 seconds)  #SpiritNotFear

There's a mode there. Do you guys know that mode? Maybe you've done it personally, done it as a family. We could certainly do it as a church where you just kinda shrink back and just kinda make yourself smaller. I'm not a target. You know? Just leave leave the leave us alone, enemy. But the truth that we wanna live into today and we want to fan into flame is that it it may this is the question. It may not be that you're running on empty, but more that you're sitting on embers that need to be fanned into flame. [00:02:47] (35 seconds)  #FromEmbersToFlame

Because sometimes sometimes it's not that we don't have the resources or we don't have the fire or we don't know what's going on, it's more like we kinda know it but we're just not sure we wanna we wanna go there because it's scary. It's easier to shrink back and live smaller in a time where things are uncertain, But God has already placed his spirit in you. If if he is if he is your lord, if Jesus is your lord, if you've declared your allegiance to Jesus, then then in his in baptism and and we we know this process of his spirit coming and in filling you, and if his spirit is in you, he's already placed in you gifts to offer to the church. [00:03:22] (45 seconds)  #GiftsWithinYou

And Paul is saying, Timothy, you're not running on empty. You're sitting on embers that need to be fanned into flame. And so let's just kinda go through the story real quick and think about your story as well. Paul says, I'm an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus. Probably spend a week exploring that line. Go for it. I haven't been given permission. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. How did that happen? Well, God's will. [00:15:33] (36 seconds)  #NotRunningOnEmpty

You you and I maybe don't oversee citywide churches, or oversee disciple making movements throughout our region yet, but we still have a sphere of influence. We have an area of responsibility. We have a a area where what we say goes, influence that we have. People look up to you for for this amount of you know, maybe it's just one little kiddo or maybe it's a group of people or maybe it's a a company or maybe it's, maybe it's a community, but but we all have some area of influence. And if you're feeling thin on courage, join Timothy. If you're tempted to live small, Timothy wants to talk to you too and say, yeah, check out this letter I got from Paul. This matters to you and to me. [00:08:40] (51 seconds)  #OwnYourSphere

So Paul's writing from prison, likely facing execution at this at this stage, but he doesn't introduce himself as Paul, a victim of Rome. Woe is me. Struggling. Sorry. You know, hashtag struggle is real. Victim of Rome. Man, you know, look what they're doing to me. I I had yeah. Some of us are like, well, that would be me. Yeah. Like, come on. Help me out. Can you can you can you help me out? We'll look at the next passage. Someone does actually come and help him out. We'll look at that. But, but he's saying, you know, I'm not I'm not a victim of Rome. I'm actually here because I am on a call. [00:16:37] (42 seconds)  #CalledNotVictim

Have you ever been on a, in a car or a motorcycle, maybe just a test drive, and it had a little bit too much power for you, where you step on the gas or you crank it down, you're like, well, that's a little too much. I don't think I know how to handle that. I've done that, a few times. I have the, you know, neck sprains to prove it, you know, on a, you know, Mustang GT kind of thing or whatever. Like, that's a little bit too much. My father-in-law, he builds custom cars and stuff, he has a hot rod that if you put on the built it, he if you put on the gas, the whole back end will just kinda swing out because it's just got a lot going on. So you just slowly get it up to speed and then you can crank on it. And I think we're afraid that there's too much power. [00:27:29] (48 seconds)  #HandleThePower

There's no reason, unless if it's if it's your energy, then fear makes sense. If you're going like, well, don't think I could pull that off myself. You're like, well, good. Yay. Welcome to life. Welcome to Christianity one zero one. You can't do it apart from abiding in the vine. Apart from me, you can do nothing, period. Good. You remembered that. Now what whose energy are you gonna rely on? And this is the story of my life in the past couple weeks, couple months. I keep preaching things, I'm like, oh my gosh, but I don't have the energy. And he's like, remember you said something about that? Like, oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah. All we want is god's uncreated energy flowing through us. That's all we want. We just but but but we don't expect him to invest in our little kingdoms. [00:30:43] (46 seconds)  #RelyOnGodsEnergy