There are some who call me … Tim

Week 5 in our series on 2 Timothy was a good night! All the students that didn’t come on halloween were back and excited to be there! 

This was the final chapter. (4) The next week (today as  write this) is our “Experiential Night” Where we will have different interactive elements to engage with the Big Ideas we’ve been through in the series. The Karate Kid Clip has us near the end the movie and Daniel entering the karate tournament. He starts a bit timid, but then through self control and discipline he makes it to the finals. This clip is all to one of the all-time great 80’s rock movie themes… “You’re the Best!” So awesome!

I started with a reminder that this is a letter and we see that as Paul asks Timmy to bring him his cloak and greet some folks. It’s a letter!

Chapter 4 starts the chapter out with a big command to Timmy… “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage.” Christians who like to throw bibles at people and condemn and bang their fists love this! But, Paul qualifies this statement with the rest of the sentence “with great patience and careful instruction.” When we read that along with the rest of the chapter, we get a different picture of how Paul wants Timothy to give out his message.

I used Vinnie as an example. He does this thing now where while he is eating he clenches his fists and waves them in the air and does this battle cry kind of grunt thing. It’s very funny! But, it takes a lot of patience to deal with him, because this could mean…

• I love my food and cry out in victory!
• I don’t like my food, how could you feed this to me?
• I see you eating something, and I want to eat that!
• I am Vinnie!!!!

If you know me, you know I’m not always the most patient person in the world. The only thing that really keeps me patient with Vinnie, is that I love him. The only motivation to be intentionally patient with each other is love. The same goes with “gentle” as Paul said. Without love as our motivation, we have no reason to be gentle. Which leads to our Big Idea…

Our message doesn’t matter unless we less we love the person we’re giving it to.

I ended sharing about a former student who was on fire for Jesus when he was in Middle School. Though, he had parents who gave him the right messages “Jesus loves you, be good, etc.” but in the wrong way. (Hypocritical lifestyle, verbal abuse…) The result was that he turned away from Jesus and has never returned.

The right message without love is the wrong message. So let’s make sure we love those who need the message!

Click here to listen to the message.

The rest of the night
The students were very amped up, which can lead to lots of fun, but also a little loss of control. We were also light on leaders and felt really outnumbered out in the crowd! We played a couple of crazy games in the gym and worship was good, too. Noah played bass as Matt couldn’t be there and Ted couldn’t fill in, so we only had one electric guitar, so it was a cool little change for a week!

(I’m a bit behind on recaps… sorry!) Week 4 in our series on 2 Timothy was on Halloween. We had the lowest attendance ever! 19 students and 14 adults. (Gotta love the student to leader ratio, though! We relaxed a bit with the game (and saved a cool movie video clip thing for the next week) but continued in the series and worship.

This week was chapter 3. The Karate Kid Clip was Daniel putting all his training to use as he practiced on his own. Probably the least “cool” clip of the series, but still awesome!

I started by listing all the common excuses we give and hear every day. “He made me do it” “But I have ADHD” “Everyone else is” “I’m angry” and “It’s Halloween” I took a second with that one to say that one of the biggest issues with Halloween is that people use it as an excuse to do what they wouldn’t normaly do or what they know is wrong. Which is not good. I then read a story of looting and rioting from Chicago because the Bulls had won the championship. People used celebration as an excuse to destroy, injure and steal. All because the lost control. Which leads us to the Big Idea for the night…

We need to take control of our lives so we can give up control to God.

This is a willful decision to release our lives to God. Kinda like choosing to give candy to a trick-or-treater verses them knocking you over and stealing all of it.

Paul opens 2 Timothy 3 talking about evil desires and how people out of control are swayed by them. It’s interesting that if you read the list it sounds like it is describing and out of control child. A spoiled 8 year old fits the description of “lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God”

Jump to the end of the chapter and we get to Paul’s challenge to Timmy on how to not live like this and how to lead people to not live like this. The key is understanding is that the verse is FOR us not to be used BY us. Meaning, when I allow scripture to teach me, rebuke me, correct me and train me; then I can do “good work.” So often, we use this passage as an excuse to tell people what they are doing wrong, instead of letting it teach us. This training leads to my self control which then allows me to give up control to God. (and that is good news and good work!)

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Click here to listen to the message.

The rest of the night
The game we played was like group “rock, paper scissors” and was fun with a small group. Also, out leaders stepped up and made it a blast for everyone. Worship was good, but was probably a bit too hugh energy for the crowd we had. Looking back, I would have still done a message and worship, but maybe taken a break from the series and done something different. Still a fun night!

So, my mom came and visited us a few weeks ago and it was just about perfect!

As many of you know, mom found out she had cancer about this time last year and it was serious. At the time, she was really sick and Heather and I were weren’t even sure she would get to meet our not-yet-born baby. (Who turned out to be Vinnie!)

So, how amazing is it that she is feeling so well a year later that she could fly up and spend a long weekend with us! And we partied like crazy! (Don’t judge us… Jesus loved to party!) God is so very good!

And let me tell you, Vinnie loves his grandma! She played with him, helped him work on speaking real person words and marveled at his grunts and yells as he eats.

Lots of people have been praying and mom continues to be an example of faith, love and hope. I was sharing her story with someone at work and we came to this conclusion. Mom is living her life today the way most of us should. If you never have, you really ought to meet my mom, she’s awesome!

Current Fat Status
Goal Weight: 190
Actual Weight: 191

More Lame Excuses

• So, I’m only off by a pound, which isn’t bad.
• I was sick last week, so I missed working out.
• Still, only a pound off my goal after 10 weeks ain’t bad at all!
• I have a middle school overnight coming up on Saturday, so I need to get ahead while I can or watch the guys eat pizza while I have carrots and celeray…