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(upbeat music) - Drive Time Devotions is a Saddleback Church podcast. We want to
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com for locations and service times in your area. Please visit us this weekend.
- Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to Second Timothy chapter two,
an amazing chapter of scripture.

It's a chapter that's filled with encouragement for how you can grow in your
Christian faith, for how God can make a daily difference in your life in the up
times and down times, whether you feel good about yourself or you feel like, oh,
it just hasn't been going well lately. God has some encouragement for you in
this chapter. If you want to grow in your faith, this is a chapter to encourage
you.

If you feel like you've been struggling in your personal growth, in your
personal faith, this is a chapter for you. If you feel like you have been
growing, but you just want to go to the next step, this is a chapter for you. It
is a chapter of scripture that will encourage your faith in awesome ways.

And we're just going to walk through this week together some of those ways that God
encourages our faith, some of the things he can do in your life to make a
difference. I call this a chapter of last instructions. Last week, chapter one
is last hope, how God gives us hope at the very last in order to last.

These are last instructions from the apostle Paul to Timothy, but also to us.
And they're last instructions about how to last in life, how to last in faith.
And they begin with verses one and two.

Second Timothy one, chapter two, verses one and two says, you then, my son, be
strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you heard me
say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will also be
qualified to teach others. When it comes to your personal growth, what God's
doing in your life, based on these verses in this chapter, let me ask you a
question.

Would you rather spring up quickly when it comes to growth or would you rather
send down roots deeply? Now, most of us, we answer that question, I want both. I
want to send down deep roots and I want to spring up very quickly.

But the truth of the matter is, and I think most of us know this, you can't have
it both ways. Growth that comes quickly doesn't last and growth that lasts takes
time. And Paul talks to Timothy in this chapter about the kind of growth that
really lasts, the kinds of things that God does in your life, in my life, that
takes time, but that we see genuine deep results for and through in the midst of
our everyday lives.

And he begins with, in verse one, this incredible truth of how you and I are
going to last in faith, last in growth. It begins with the grace of God. First of
all, he says, first thing you do is this, be strong in the grace of God.

The climate for lasting growth in your life, it's not guilt, it's not making
yourself feel worse and worse about yourself every day. If I just put myself
down enough, maybe that'll lift me up somehow, that'll never work. The climate
for lasting growth in your life is not rules.

I'll make a list of rules and regulations and if I keep them, I know I'm a
growing person. No, you just become more prideful because you kept the rules.
It's not self-sufficiency.

Look at how disciplined I am. Look at what I did for you, God. That doesn't work
either.

Lasting growth always happens in the climate of grace. Be strong in the grace
that's in Christ Jesus. That is the climate for growth.

Grace is the climate for growth. There's nothing that we can say about growth
that's more important than that. Nothing we can say about what God's doing in
your life that's more important than that one word, grace.

So what does it mean to be strong in grace? To be strong in grace doesn't mean
you just understand the word or you use the word a lot. To be strong in grace
means you are relying on grace.

I want to be a grace-fashioned person, not a self-made man. I want to be a
grace-fashioned person. And I want to remind you that you will never chisel into
your life by your works, but God can mold into your life by his grace.

A number of years ago, I read this paragraph from Juan Carlos Ortiz about the
kind of life of grace that God has for us. He compared it to a trapeze show. Let
me read this for you.

It'll take just a moment. He wrote, "Watching a trapeze show is breathtaking. We
wonder at the dexterity and the timing.

We gasp at the near misses. In most cases, there is a net underneath. And when
they fall, they jump up and bounce back to the trapeze.

In Christ, we live on the trapeze. The whole world should be able to watch and
say, look how they live, how they love one another. Look how well the husbands
treat their wives.

Aren't they the best workers in the factories, in the offices, the best
neighbors, the best students? That is how you live on the trapeze. We're a show,
we are seen by the world.

And what happens when we slip? The net is surely there. The blood of our Lord,
Jesus Christ, has provided forgiveness for all of your trespasses.

Both the net and the ability to stay on the trapeze are works of God's grace.
Both are. Of course, we cannot continually be sleeping on the net.

In that case, I doubt that you're a trapezeist, a trapeze artist. That's from
Juan Carlos Ortiz. And I like what he had to say about the fact that life on the
trapeze, life of faith, and life when I fall and God catches me by his grace,
those are both the work of God's grace in my life.

You rely on God's grace, God's grace for every day of your life. That is part of
living out the kind of life that God has for you. And then there's a second
thing you do in these first couple of verses.

You be strong in the grace of God. If you want to last in life, if you want to
last in ministry, if you want to last in faith, the second thing you do in
second Timothy chapter two is you entrust what you're learning to others. So
what verse two says, the things you've heard me say in the presence of many
witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will be qualified to teach others.

You don't just keep it to yourself, you entrust it to somebody else. Why?
Because that's part of the life of faith.

Why? Because that's what keeps you encouraged in faith. I remember reading a
long time ago, Lloyd John Ogilvie wrote, if we don't express what's impressed,
we get depressed.

And it's true. The way that God has made you, you are made to express what God's
doing in your life. And the word that Paul uses here is when God's done
something in your life, you entrust it to someone else.

Now the word entrust means you make a deposit. We talked about this a little bit
last week. You go to God's ATM machine where you're making a deposit and you
have a choice, make a withdrawal or a deposit.

You want to make a deposit in other people. It's not just about what God gives to
you. You make a deposit into somebody else's life by sharing what God has done
in your life.

It's not just about you and what God is teaching you. It's also that God wants
to use you to teach others. Now last week, we talked about the fact that God
entrusts you with a deposit of his spirit.

That's where it starts. And then secondly, I, you entrust yourself back to God.
And here is the third step of this entrusting.

The third thing I do is I entrust what God is teaching me to others. God
entrusts me with his spirit. I entrust myself back to him.

I trust my life into his hands. And here I entrust what God is teaching me to
others. And this isn't just for teachers.

This is all of us. How do I do this? What can you do today to entrust what
you're learning to other people?

Well, let me tell you three things, three practical ways you could do this
today. One way is you tell others what you're learning in your quiet time, in
your devotion time with God. When God says something to you at the beginning of
the day or the end of the day before, you tell it to somebody else.

I find myself regularly trying to do this. Just in some conversation, when God
has said something to me about how I need to change, I share it with somebody
during the day, hoping that it'll help them to see how God's at work in all of
our lives. Now, I'm talking about a testimony of what God's doing here, not a
bragamony.

A bragamony is when you say, well, I had my quiet time this morning. It was a 30
minute quiet time and God taught me these 17 things and I want to share them with
you. That's all bragging.

But instead of this bragging, you just say, you know, I was reading the Bible
this morning and God reminded me that I need to be honest. I mean, it really hit
my heart. I don't know, maybe it's an encouragement to you.

He encouraged me that through his spirit, I can bring a new kind of honesty to
my words. Here's the question. Is the focus on you or is the focus on God's
truth?

Is the focus on helping people to see God or trying to impress them with who you
are? You tell others what you're learning from God in your daily quiet time.
Just pass it along that day immediately, as soon as you can.

That's the first thing you can do to entrust. The second thing you can do is you
can pray with others. As you pray with other people, just talk about what God's
done in your life that day.

Talk together about what they're going through, what interests them. Talk
together about who God is and how his greatness can be seen in our lives. Now,
even if you can't sit down and literally pray with someone, there is a sense in
which you can pray with someone, even if they're not there, by realizing what
they're going through in their life that day and praying for them.

In fact, even now, right where you are, whether you're in your car or sitting at
your computer or you're out on a walk, in your mind right now, even as I'm
talking, just call somebody's name to mind in prayer. Pray with other people.
Entrust what you're learning to others by praying for others, by being aware of
what God's doing in their life, because what you're learning about faith is
transferred to their life as you pray for them, as you have faith for them that
God will be at work in their life.

And the third thing you can do, that I can do to entrust, is you can express
praise for God's blessings. One of the most encouraging things that I can do,
that you can do, is to let other people know that you are grateful for what God
is doing in your life, for his blessings. It is so easy.

I can do this, you probably can too. It is so easy to get stuck on what's not
happening in your life, on the struggles and difficulties of life. And if just
one person in my life that day can remind me that I have some blessings to be
grateful for, if me hearing them express praise reminds me to express praise,
that makes all the difference.

So you entrust what you're learning to others. Now, Paul says here that who you
entrust this to, it's important. Don't just entrust it to anybody, just somebody
who's going to take it in and not do anything with it.

He says entrust it to people who will then tell other people. Some people, you
may have noticed this, they're like sponges. And after a while they just suck
you dry and they never pass it along.

While other people, they are like channels. They let other people know the good
news. As you talk about it, then they spread it, they pass it along.

Now you gotta love everybody. But the people that you entrust, that you share
with on a regular basis what God's doing in your life, Paul says make sure that
some of them are channels, that they're passing it along to other people. You
want to live a life of faith day by day, making it through the life that lasts?

One of the things I gotta do is be strong on God's grace. One of the things I
gotta do is entrust what God's teaching me to other people 'cause that amplifies
it in my life. And if I'm going to do both of those things, I need God's strength
today.

So let's pray for it right now. Jesus Christ, we ask for your strength. Your
strength to, your strength to look to your grace today.

Instead of trusting in ourselves to trust in you, and your strength to realize
that what you've taught us, it is worth passing along to entrust to other
people. Father, we thank you for your love for us. And we pray today that you'd
help us to see how we can last in life and in faith and in ministry and in
serving as we trust in you.

Because your love for us lasts. The hope that you give us lasts. You'll never
fail us or forsake us.

And in that hope we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to talk
together about God's strength for hard times.