Timothy's Mothers

2 Timothy 1:1–7 NKJV

1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus, 2 To Timothy, a beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 3 I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, 4 greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, 5 when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. 6 Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

This is a letter of Paul to a young man named Timothy.

Who was Timothy?

The first mention of Timothy is in

Acts 16:1–3 NKJV

1 Then he came to Derbe and Lystra. And behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek. 2 He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. 3 Paul wanted to have him go on with him. And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was Greek.

It is believed that Timothy had heard and receieved the gospel during Paul first visit through the area of Derbe and Lystra as in his first letter to Timothy Paul refers to him as his own son in the faith.

Timothy joined Paul in his missionary work, traveling with him and is mentioned in several of Paul’s letters.

He later became a pastor in the church of Ephesus and it is believed that he served there until his death.

Extra Biblical writing tell us that at the age of 80 Timothy was trying to prevent a procession that was in honour of the goddess Dianna by preaching the gospel when he beaten dragged through the streets and finally stoned to death.

This morning what I wanted to discuss is how Timothy came to make the most important decision of his life, to follow Christ. In Acts Paul finds a certain disciple. But how did he come to be a disciple?

He was the son of a Jewish women and a Greek man. As far as we know his father was not a believer but his mother was.

But then we get a bit more information from our passage in 2 Tim

2 Timothy 1:3–5 NKJV

3 I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, 4 greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, 5 when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.

Paul first speaks of his own forefathers who served God with a pure conscience acknowledging that this was influential in his own service to God.

God works in and through families. We see this with Israel who is a family that started with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And we see it today. Often when that gospel comes to a family it impacts many generations.

But coming back to Timothy in vs

2 Timothy 1:5 NKJV

5 when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.

Paul notes that this faith was first in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice.

Later Paul says

2 Timothy 3:14–15 NKJV

14 But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

So what do we learn here? It seems that Timothy had a godly grandmother and a godly mother who taught him the scriptures from his childhood. Scripture, which Paul says, are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

So when we put this together with what we saw in Acts, it appears that Lois and Eunice where godly Jewish women who were faithful to the scriptures and taught them to Timothy so that when Paul first visited the area of Lystra and Derbe and they heard the gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time they all three believed in Jesus. The reason that Timothy came to saving faith in Christ was because he had a godly grandmother and a godly mother who faithfully taught him the scriptures so that his heart was prepared to receive Christ as soon as he heard the gospel.

There are going to be billions in heaven with similar stories.

There is probably no one in this world that we care more about than our children. We cannot save them, we cannot make them receive Christ. But what we can do is teach them the scriptures. We can live our faith so that they see Christ in us. We can pray for them.

I know many of us have children that we are not sure of their faith. God never gives guarantees but we certainly can see a pattern in the scriptures of God working in families generationally. We hold to scriptures the say “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” or maybe you have parents that do not know the Lord. God can work in both directions.

So I would like to do something a little different this morning. Lets have a prayer meeting. Lets just group together in small groups of four or five and lets pray for our children and family who don’t know the Lord. Everyone doesn’t have to pray out loud but just pray as God leads and when we are finish I’ll close in prayer before we sing our last song.