Have you ever had something major you were facing right in front of you and it seemed like there was no way out of it? It almost seemed like the end of the world. Okay, so most of us can probably agree that when we first heard the news about COVID and how the whole world was shutting down, we felt like we were in a place like…how are we every going to bounce out of this. How are we ever going to live again? Is it the end of the world?
If we’re not careful, we can start to fear.
When we look in the Bible, there are several people who felt this way. The Israelites before David defeated Goliath. Daniel when he was facing the fiery furnace just for worshipping God. Elijah when Jezebel threatens to come after him…he actually wanted to end his life, because he was so afraid of her. But the person we’re going to focus on today is Timothy. We find his story in the books of 1 and 2 Timothy.
Timothy had a calling on his life to become a pastor. The thing about Timothy, though is that he was young…just 21 years old…not much older than you all.
And not only was Timothy a young pastor, but he was a pastor of a huge church that was growing even bigger very quickly. It was growing so fast that Timothy needed Paul’s mentorship in order to navigate the challenges that they were facing.
So first Timothy is about Timothy’s growing church.
Now, let's jump to second Timothy. Timothy now has another problem. Nero, who was the crazy emperor at the time starts a fire. You may have heard of the Great Fire of Rome. Nero, hated Christians. He hated that they didn’t serve his gods and bow down to him. So, after starting the fire that burned down much of Rome, in order to not take the blame for what he had done, turned around and blamed it on the Christians.
Because of all of this, the people in Timothy’s church began to leave the faith by the droves…and not only were they leaving the faith, but they were running for their lives. All of the Christians were being scattered. I couldn’t even imagine how Timothy must have felt.
He was facing a huge problem…not only was his congregation being threatened, but his life was being threatened as well.
Since God had placed Timothy in the charge of the church, Timothy couldn’t just leave and abandon his calling in life, so he had to figure out how to not only encourage the Christians that were still there to stand strong, he also had to overcome the fear he was facing personally.
There are times in our lives when the enemy will come up against us and he will throw weapon after weapon after weapon at us and if we aren’t careful, we can find ourself in the place that Timothy was in…not sure what to do and living our life in fear.
To learn more, check out this week's podcast episode!
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