In this sermon Tim continues to unpack 2 Timothy 1:6-7 after Lani preached on it last week, encouraging us to step into the Spirit’s love, power and self-control in our lives as we consider where and how God might use us to serve his Church!
Sermon preached by Tim Giovanelli on Sunday September 18, 2022.
05/02/23 – John 12:20-33 Following Jesus & Intro – by Tim Giovanelli – The Farewell Discourse Series – Manly Life Church Podcast
- 05/02/23 – John 12:20-33 Following Jesus & Intro – by Tim Giovanelli – The Farewell Discourse Series
- 29/01/23 – The Glory of Christ – Greg Beech
- 22/01/23 – Luke 15:1-8 God's Heart for the Lost – by Lani Daniel
- 15/01/23 – 1 John 4:11 Friendship In Church by Tim Giovanelli
- 08/01/23 – Philipians 3:17-4:4 Stand Firm in 2023 – by Peter Brooks
SERMON NOTES
Well we are about to come to the end of this series on the Holy Spirit…
- And today is a Next Steps Sunday… we do these once a year as an opportunity to think through our involvement here at church, how we might grow as disciples…
- And how we might play our part in the Manly Life family…
- So at the end of the service we are going to fill in our forms and bring them to the front…
- And in one sense it is our way of saying yes to God, and yes to being a committed member of this church community!
- So what is your next step? Join a Life Group, get baptised? Use your gifts to serve in the church? Prophetic quilt making? Who knows…
Lani preached so well last Sunday and it is such a gift to have her and Dan here at Manly Life…
- Already she is having a wonderful impact on many!
- And she spoke on 2 Timothy 1:6-7… which is what I want to speak on here today too…
- You just can’t get enough of a good thing… and this verse doesn’t get much better!
- And I loved particularly her story about blessing her friend in the surf with a prophetic word that Lani felt God had given her….
- It was the perfect illustration for this passage!
- And it turned out to be so powerful in that friends life.
- And of course it would have been so easy for Lani, indeed so easy for all of us, to lack courage when it comes to being all in for our faith in Jesus and obedience in ministering for him and like him.
- But she did this…
2 Timothy 1:6-7
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
Now there is a lot in those two verses… impartation, activation…
- Fan into flame the gift of God… because the Spirit God has given you doesn’t make us timid… or afraid… or fearful…
- But this Spirit, poured into you when you become a follower of Jesus, empowers you… it fills you with love… it gives you self discipline or self control.
- In other words, what you now got in you… is amazing!
- You’ve all been given gifts from God… ways to serve and encourage others… ways to make a difference.
- Don’t pull back… don’t waver… don’t be half committed or apathetic… hello?
- But with the Holy Spirit fully alive in you… go for this new life of power, love and self control…
- Go for the new life made possible through the Spirit of Jesus, alive in you!
- Amen?
Now Paul had brought this young man Timothy to the faith and commissioned him to do the work of an evangelist and church leader.
- So Paul wrote to Timothy who was then in leadership in the church in Ephesus.
- I am actually hoping to visit Ephesus next year… can’t wait…
- And it is an exhortation to faithfulness and to stand firm in the truth in the face of opposition.
- But it also includes this wonderful promise of the gift, God has given to Timothy… and to you and to me…
- His Holy Spirit.
Now, the Spirit of God is given as a gift to all those who trust in in his Son Jesus and confess him as Lord.
- And we live in the age of the abundance of the Spirit.
- We’ve looked at that in this series a lot…
- Poured out on believers in Acts chapter 2… and available to all of God’s children.
- And because as DL Moody said, we are leaky vessels…
- We need to ongoingly be filled and refreshed by the presence of God…
So the bible makes it clear that;
- The Spirit of God, which is his presence, active and alive in the world today, does all kinds of things in God’s church and his people.
- We get the assurance of adoption into the family of God – you know you are loved.
- The Spirit in us illuminates the word (the bible) and gives us revelation.
- The Spirit produces Fruit in our lives – changing your character… making you more loving and joyful and peaceful…
- And the Spirit gives us gifts for service in the church and mission – His presence alive in you, makes you useful for great purposes.
I don’t know if you have ever read Paul’s second letter to Timothy…
- But it is such an interesting letter, written at such an interesting time in Paul’s life and the growth of the early church.
- Paul writes to his young, loyal, faithful disciple Timothy to encourage him.
- And where does he write it from? On holidays on a Greek island? From a thriving church in Jerusalem? From the emperor’s side in Rome?
- No… he writes it from prison… and in the letter he mentions that he has been “chained like a common criminal” (2:9)
- False teachings are creeping in, and there have been defections from the faith and desertions from him.
- He is facing incredible anxiety about the state of the churches he has planted in Ephesus and around the world.
So Paul charges Timothy to continued loyalty and faithfulness and purpose in his life and ministry.
- You haven’t received the promised Holy Spirit to turn you into a coward.
- You’ve received the Holy Spirit to be empowered, to have the fruit of love and to be faithful through self control.
- So it’s a super personal letter that we find in our bibles…
- Now, proceeding what we are looking at, Paul says… Verses 2-5
“I write this to you, Timothy, the son I love so much. All the best from our God and Christ be yours!
Every time I say your name in prayer—which is practically all the time—I thank God for you, the God I worship with my whole life in the tradition of my ancestors. I miss you a lot, especially when I remember that last tearful good-bye, and I look forward to a joy-packed reunion.
That precious memory triggers another: your honest faith—and what a rich faith it is, handed down from your grandmother Lois to your mother Eunice, and now to you!”
Do you sense the love and care… that’s the church friends… an intergenerational family and love for one another.
- You know last Sunday morning I was preaching up in Newcastle and I started talking about someone here at Manly Life…
- But I’m talking about one of you guys and I just burst into tears…
- It was super dignified…
- But see we are a family… and I love every single one of you… just like I know you love each other so well…
- So to be honest its devastating when someone drifts off or disengages from faith.
- So hear Paul’s heart… he just wants the absolute best for Timothy… he wants the absolute best for Christ’s church as it faces all kinds of challenges…
So what does he exhort Timothy to do?
- “Fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of hands.”
- Right? If Paul can say to the Thessalonians “do not quench the Spirit”, right, don’t put the Spirit out in your life…
- Then similarly he can encourage us to fan into flames, the work of the Spirit in you!
- So he reminds Timothy to stir up in his own heart the work of the Spirit, which every other exhortation comes from.
- If the Spirit is stirred up in you, active, empowering, alive, real… then everything else will follow!
Now just something quick on the laying on of hands…
- If you are new to church you may be wondering what this language is all about…
- And no it doesn’t refer to the Bon Jovi song “lay your hands on me”
- I think that might be about something else? Haha…
- But what we find here and in Paul’s letter in 1 Timothy 4:14 is this reminder about how the gift of the Holy Spirit was received by Timothy.
- And it came by the laying on of hands… when he was set apart for his role in ministry, the elders and Paul laid hands on him and he had leadership imparted into him.
And here is the thing… just like faith is often caught and not just taught…
- So the Holy Spirit is something that is often caught by the laying on of hands… rather than by simply being taught about…
- And we see this in the Book of Acts too…
- The Holy Spirit is often imparted from one believer to a new one by the laying on of hands. It’s almost like its contagious…
- And this is called impartation.
- On this I would simply say, it’s biblical… and if you see something of God in someone that you desire… then this kind of impartation through the laying on of hands is key!
So if I want to faithfulness in my life and my marriage and my relationships… find people who demonstrate this and get them to pray for you?
- Right? If you want to be bolder in sharing your faith or living a beautiful, holy life… find people who have this gift and get them to pray for you with the laying on of hands…
- Right?
- If you want more of the gift of the Holy Spirit, you can go to seminars… and seminary…
- Or with a hunger in your heart, you can find a Spirit filled believer and get them to pray for you!
- That’s why I’d encourage you on a regular basis to come for prayer ministry at the end of our services.
- You never know what you will catch? Haha… hopefully not Covid…
- But seriously, there is power in receiving more of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands.
Nicky Gumbel, the leader of the global Alpha Course recently retired in London. Wonderful ministry…
- Alpha has been done by well over 30 million people, and many can trace coming to follow Jesus through Alpha and his ministry!
- And I knew him a little bit when I lived in London, and he is a very shy and introverted guy.
- Not who you would expect to be probably the most effective evangelist in the world in the last few decades…
Anyhow he was a Barrister working in London and attending an Anglican church called HTB when John Wimber and a team from California came and ministered at HTB in the 1980’s.
- Well they invited the Holy Spirit to come and laid hands on people who came forward…
- And Nicky powerfully received the Holy Spirit…
- Well he must have been making quite a commotion, as John Wimber said, “get that guy out of here”
- Asking him to be taken to a side room for more ministry… and as he was being carried out John Wimber said “evangelism…” that man will be a great evangelist”
- So that is impartation… the gift of evangelism through the laying on of hands!
So what Paul had, imparted into him by Jesus, he has now imparted into Timothy by the laying on of hands…
- And so he says… this will have the opposite effect of making you a coward, or fearful or timid…
- Remember, the context is Paul is writing because others are departing the faith or being divisive or teaching false things…
- But this gift of the Holy Spirit is what is going to make you powerful, loving and self controlled!
- It is the Holy Spirit that will keep you in the game and give you longevity in following Jesus Christ.
- Like Nicky who from that moment went on to decades of faithful and fruitful ministry!
- Amen?
So let’s just finish with these three things. Power. Love. Self control.
So firstly, let us never forget that the Christian faith is a Holy Spirit empowered life.
- The Greek word for power used is du-na-moss from which we get the word dynamite!
- There is power in the name of Jesus. And there is power available from the Holy Spirit alive in you!
- Paul will say in Romans 1 “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation.
- In 1 Corinthians 4 he will say the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but power.
- In Romans 15 he talks about overflowing with hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
- In 1 Corinthians 2 he says “My preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,
- In Ephesians 1 Paul prays we may be enlightened to know “his incomparably great power for us who believe.”
- You have power, alive in you!
Secondly, the fruit of the Holy Spirit in you is love!
- Now having power leads a lot of people to control others, to selfishly look after number 1
- But the Holy Spirit’s power leads us to love… to give ourselves away for others.
- Love is the fruit of God’s Holy Spirit at work in you.
- That is why Paul is in tears remembering the faith and life of Timothy… he cares deeply about the bloke!
- The impartation of the Spirit, is an impartation to love deeply!
- If your faith is not leading you to love others more deeply… you’re doing it wrong!
And then finally the Spirit imparted into us makes us self controlled!
- And we see that in the list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:23 don’t we?
- So I’ve been thinking about this one all week… and wondering why when Paul explains the effects of the Spirit in your life, why does this get in his top 3 here?
- And I think it comes down to longevity…
- Self control, or sound mindedness as it is sometimes translated points us to what keeps us faithful
- Not just in big flashy moments… but in what Eugene Peterson calls “the long obedience in the same direction.”
- This is about character formation…
The Spirit helps you not just through days and weeks to not shipwreck your life…
- But will give you the self control to walk faithfully for the decades of your Christian life.
- I love the older guys at our church. I thought John Muys was brilliant when he shared at our Father’s Day service.
- And I want the same Spirit imparted into them that they have activated through the decades of their lives to see them through with wisdom and faithfulness
- To have the self control to say yes to God and the Christian virtuous life… and no to that which would shipwreck their lives.
- I want the well done good and faithful servant declared over my life. Amen?
Well what has all this got to do with it being our Next Steps Sunday?
- Well my hope and prayer is that you will “fan into flames, the gift of God which is in you.”
- I hope you have heard through this series that the church is not just one or two people doing all the stuff while everyone else watches on…
- It is about every single one of us getting to play our part in making this local church all that God wants it to be…
- Empowered by the Spirit to serve and use the gifts that God has given you!
So in a minute I am going to give you an opportunity to fill in your forms and then when the band comes up and plays, we are all going to come forward and put our forms in the basket here at the front!
- Don’t do so much that you burn yourself out…
- But don’t do so little that you will never grow or really live in service of others…
- There are opportunities to say you want to get baptised, or do Alpha or join a Life Group…
- And then there are ways to serve and give and to get involved!
- Some things will be your passions and your purposes… while for all of us there are also ways just to help out and make this church hum!
So don’t pull back, don’t be afraid… the Holy Spirit given as a gift to you makes you powerful, loving and self controlled.
- It makes all of us useful in the kingdom of God, as his church is established…
- And his good gospel takes root in our hearts.
- Amen… lets do our forms…