Bad News in the World, Good News in Scripture - Eastern Regional Superintendent Tim Soucy
Eastern Regional Superintendent Tim Soucy visits and offers a message on 2 Timothy 1:1-14.
Transcript:
First of all, I want to say thank you for allowing Julie and I, my wife, Julie, and I to be present with you, thank Tom for the opportunity. On behalf of the Eastern region just wanna say thank you for the way that you have, not only, continued to spread the gospel through your giving, not only to different, I'm gonna say charities or things within the denomination, but also the work that is being done in and through this local body.
So I just wanna say thank you for your, the work that you're doing, not only for yourselves, but for the kingdom of God, his eternal kingdom. So we're excited about being here. You have no idea who I am, right? If we're gonna be honest and true, the only way you knew who I was is because they got a picture off Facebook or somewhere and here.
So I'm gonna just, I am, I like to tell this story 'cause it makes me smile, all right? So I'm gonna make it about me for just a moment. Julie and I started this position, yeah, there I am, that's scary. Had the opportunity, God leading, I don't know about you, but for me, God leads in mysterious ways.
Julie and I were pastoring the Bangor Advent Christian Church in Bangor, Maine, and most of our ministry has been in the south, specifically South Carolina. So I've not been known among the eastern region, more served in the southern region. And, Julie and I are both from Maine, but this is the part that I like to tell. Julie and I, I started this position on April 1st, and, I just, it makes me smile, and people have said to me more than once, don't you think you ought to start the next day or maybe the day before? And I'm like, oh no. I think April 1st is perfect because it reminds me of the Apostle Paul when he writes to be a fool for Christ. And many things in this world just don't make sense unless we are given through the power of the Holy Spirit, I'm gonna say spiritual lenses, to have hope, to have faith, and to have love in the midst of the mess that this world is in. So that's a little bit about me. My wife and I have been married for, it'll be 35 years coming, this coming February. We have two children, both born down south and one's in Maine, Guilford, Maine.
If you don't know where that is, don't worry about it. Nobody in Maine does either. It's a little hole in the wall, just, he drives freight train for Canadian Pacific Railroad, and our daughter, lives in Columbia, South Carolina and, will be getting married in, I keep saying next month, but it's November.
But we're close enough to say next month in my head. Coming really fast. So we're excited to be with you this morning. There's all kinds of things I could share with you, but I just wanna share two things that are going on in the region that we're focusing on and some exciting things are happening, some with church replant, churches who have gotten to a place where they have decided that it's a great opportunity to kind of be replanted.
They're talking with a church in Mass right now about that. There's some other exciting things going on as well. God, God is moving, and I'm often reminded of Blackaby, Experiencing God book in my head. I can remember it was a powerful tool in my life many years ago, and God is moving. God is at work in the region, in our communities, and even in our own life.
And Blackaby's challenge or exhortation for us is to join God in what God is doing now. I know that seems like a duh thing. But in many times throughout my early ministry, I did everything but that. I created programs and asked God to bless them, and then I got challenged by Blackaby and some others, why don't you, you just ask God what he's doing and join God in what he's already doing, then you really know he is in the will of God, or you're in the will of God.
So that's a little bit of who I am. If you hear I did, I, God has gifted or blessed me, I shouldn't say gifted me, blessed me with all kinds of opportunities in my life. I've been a pastor since 1997. That's when I was ordained, so that's when I say I started being a pastor, and I've never served as just a full-time pastor.
I believe God called me to be bi-vocational, a tent maker. So even in this role as the Eastern Regional superintendent, I still do serve. I work in Maine for a local hospice agency as well. If you ever hear that, you go, huh, that is true. Part of that for me is just the idea, I don't, I wanna make sure I'm still in the world and still have the opportunity to minister to hurting people.
Because there's plenty of hurting people in our world and plenty of hurting people in our churches, and that's the main reason. Well, that's not quite true. The other reason is it's where I get my health insurance from. Sorry. But anyway, enough about me. I'm just gonna pray, really just help me center myself before we go to the Lord. I am gonna be speaking from 2nd Timothy if you'd like to turn there. Yeah, Emily, I think her name is, sent me a, Hey Tim, do you have slides? And, no, I don't. So I'm gonna invite you just to kind of follow along in your Bible, whether that's one of these, or if it's on the phone, or a tablet, or one of these. But, in just a moment we'll be turning to second Timothy. Let's pray.
Our gracious God, we come before you today and Lord, first and foremost, we want to say thank you. We want to say thank you for loving us. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for the hope that we have, not only the power in this life, but the hope of your soon return, the glorious return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Lord, we're thankful that we have hope. We're thankful that you have reconciled us back to yourself. We thank you that we have forgiveness of sin. And Lord, today I just wanna say thank you for this congregation, Pastor Tom, and the work that they're doing. I pray that you would continue to bless them, you would continue to give them opportunity to proclaim the gospel and Lord that they would see, fruit of that not only for this local church family, but also for your eternal kingdom. And Lord, today we come before you and we just ask, give us ears to hear and eyes to see what you have for us this morning. And Lord, we just want to close with saying this once again, Lord, we love you. Thank you for loving us. In Christ's name, amen.
2 Timothy chapter one, the first 14 verses and I'm gonna be reading from the NIV this morning. I'm, just the Bible I happened to grab in my study. I have a bunch, and I just wanted to grab that this morning. So second Timothy chapter one, beginning in verse one, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ, to Timothy, my dear son: mercy. Excuse me, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I continually remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy.
I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives also in you. For this reason, I remember you, or, excuse me, for this reason, I remind you to fan the flame of the gift of God. And I want us to catch that. Paul is reminding Timothy, fan into the flame of the gift of God, and we're gonna focus on that phrase a little bit here in a moment, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
Verse seven, for God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about the Lord or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God who has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.
This grace has been given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but now it has been revealed through the appearance of our savior, Jesus Christ, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And from this gospel, I have been appointed a herald, an apostle, and a teacher. That I might, that, excuse me, good grief. That, this is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and I am firmly convinced that he is able to guard what has been entrusted to him for that day. The word of God for us, the children of God. Just want to thank God for his word in our world today, and I appreciated, it made me smile when I saw it.
I just wanna structure, I'm gonna tell you how I'm gonna structure this sermon or message. I'm gonna call it a message this morning. And I'm a wanderer, part of it's nerves and part of it is just me. Okay? I'm gonna structure the sermon out this way. Bad news in the world. Bad news in scripture. Good news in scripture.
Good news to take to the world. We, is there bad news in the world today? Yeah. We don't have enough time to really probably start discussing all that, do we? There's all kinds of bad news. We got everything from weather issues, from people, Christians, our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who are being persecuted, put to death today. We have turmoil, even in our own country. We have turmoil within the Church of God. And when I say church of God, I don't mean denominationally. I mean the singular universal church. We have divisions in some of our local bodies. There are all kinds. There is cancers, there's disease. When I saw the slide, you know, this messed up world that God can fix or Jesus can fix, I'm like, man, and I want, I want us to think about what is it that we're bringing today?
We live in a very anxious society, a very fearful society, and no matter how hard we try, some of that just kind of sticks to us. You know, we live life, we're out in the world. We're watching news or listening to news or podcasts or wherever, and just certain anxieties, fears and worries just kind of, just kind of jump on us.
They just kind of stick to us. I do a little bit of woodworking, so it's like sawdust, you know what I mean? You saw a while and then you go into the house and Julie kicks me out and says, go clean off before you come into my house. It just gets there. You don't really know how it really happens. You don't really pay attention, but it gets there and that's what we are facing today.
Very much. In the time of Paul, when he wrote this to Timothy, his second, I'm gonna call it letter to Timothy, the first letter in first Timothy was mainly, encouraging Timothy to be prepared against false teaching. This letter here is really an encouragement to help Timothy remain grounded and stand firm in the faith.
And when Paul talks to Timothy right there in verse six, fan into the flame of the gift of God, he's really talking about God's grace, God's mercy, and God's love. And he, and he addresses those three things later on. So we live in a messed up world, a world of pain, a world of suffering. And you may be experiencing something right now in your life.
I don't stand here today and pretend to understand what's going on in your life. You may have loved ones that don't know the Lord. You may have loved ones that have been diagnosed with a terminal disease. You may just be in flux financially, spiritually, emotionally. We can also become a mess, right?
Alright. Maybe you can't, but I can. My wife will agree to that, that every now and then I can become overwhelmed. I can get to a place, and Paul, when he is speaking to Timothy, Paul is addressing some of those same things that were going on in Timothy's life because if we had time, we could read on in that first chapter, Paul later on is just a few verses from where we stopped. Stated that many of the people of the faith have fallen away or turned away from Paul. And Paul has invested a lot of time in Timothy, his beloved, I'm gonna call him his spiritual son, and he wants to encourage Timothy, 'cause if you look, if you think about where Timothy's at, Timothy's mentor's in prison.
The church, most likely, that Timothy is serving is Ephesus, possibly at this time, and that church is struggling a little bit. We know from Revelation, the church in Ephesus was told that, Hey, this is my Soucy paraphrase version that will never come to a bookstore near you, when the Apostle John writes about to the seven churches.
He says to the church at Ephesus, you have lost your first love. I have many good things to say about you, but you have lost your first love. And so Timothy's pastoring most likely can't nail that down completely. But Timothy was pastoring at some point. Church is struggling. Timothy's struggling. Maybe I think he is because why would Paul address these things?
And I, and I want I, and when you're struggling, I want you to know this. It is okay. Paul is not condemning Timothy. What he, it begins to do is to remind Timothy of how well he was grounded in the faith because it's, I don't know about you, i'm a little bit A DHD at times in my life, squirrel, and I'm off, and Timothy, and sometimes we can get distracted in life and our eyes aren't on the Lord and his hope of grace, mercy and love, and that's what I wanted to do this morning. I just wanna remind you that your faith is rooted in God's grace, God's mercy, and God's love. Because let's face it. We're hearing today, I'm gonna ask you a question, but I'm gonna do it anyway, okay? It's, time out. Is it okay if I take my jacket off?
It is, it is smoking. I, I, I live on the coast of Maine, so this is warm.
Ah, much better. I was trying to be, you know, the good superintendent, dress up and I'm up here, just, it is, thank you for your kindness. So I just want to back up. There is Timothy, the bad news, i'm gonna call it bad news in scripture, and it's not, it's just the reality of where Timothy was at. Paul says, I'm reminded of my tears or the tears you had.
So Paul and Timothy were close. Timothy's struggling. Paul, I'm gonna call it his mentor, his spiritual father, his spiritual parent is reaching out to Timothy again to remind him of God's faith, God's mercy, and God's love. So let's just take a brief look at these three things and we'll wrap it up.
He's reminded, and I think the grace starts when Paul reminds, begins to remind Timothy of how his faith was rooted, in, from his mother and his grandmother, Lois and Eunice right there in verses five and, really just verse five, he's reminding. Verse four, I just wanna go back to verse four for just a moment.
Recalling your tears, I long to see you. Can you see this, this loving spiritual father? Paul knows that this young pastor, seemingly, is struggling, and Paul is reaching out from prison because I'm sure Timothy is shaken by that. It's not the first time Paul's been in prison, not the first time Timothy has experienced, but there's something here.
And Paul, when he writes, he writes, Second Timothy comes across to me as a letter of kind of, I'm nearing the end of my journey as an apostle and Timothy, I wanna make sure, and today I wanna make sure you are reminded of the roots that you have in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, because the world is gonna try to take those right?
The world is gonna throw things at us. And I wanna remind, I have to remind myself often of this verse, I wrestle not against people. I wrestle against principalities. I, I, my paraphrase is Satan and his cronies. And that is a spiritual battle that we are facing every day, and it seemingly is getting ramped up.
But here's the good news. The good news in scripture is Christ has given us not only grace to establish and root ourselves in the faith. In verse eight, Tim, or excuse me, Paul writes to Timothy, do not be ashamed to testify about the Lord or ashamed of my imprisonment. And oftentimes, and Paul is reminding, don't be ashamed.
Don't be ashamed of who you are as a child of the living God. The world would, tries to beat us up, does it not?
Christianity is nothing but hatred. How, how many times have you heard that? I can tell you as a hospice chaplain, I hear it at least two or three times a week. What's really curious, they have to agree to see me, so I walk in to see an atheist and the atheist just wanted to tell me that he thought Christianity, I'll paraphrase his language, he was a fisherman from the coast of Maine, all right, so I'm gonna paraphrase basically that Christianity is hate-filled lies. He had a few expletives in, mixed in there, and I said, oh, all right. He, what he wanted to do, he was trying to pick a fight, and I said, all right. I said that that's an interesting perspective.
And he looked at me and we went and talked about, I redirected the conversation to his fishing anyway, but I want to, and I, we run into that often, and Paul reminds Timothy, you're running into this, but don't be ashamed.
I would love to tell you that that conversation, I was able to win the argument, didn't. I just thanked him for allowing me to be in his presence. I tried to be as gracious as God is gracious to me and merciful to me. I try to, in turn, give that back to him and the most curious thing happened. This was just last week as I was getting ready to leave, I said, okay with you if I leave? I said, is there anything I can get for you? Nope, nope. And as I turned around and shook his hand, I started walking out of his room. He said, Hey, you, he couldn't remember my name, which is fine. I said, I turned around, I said, yes, sir. He said, you coming back?
He was baiting me. The world is baiting us to engage in their hatred and lies, and I would encourage you: don't get baited. Let the grace and the mercy and the love of the God come through you. I have no idea what will happen. He might throw me out next time I go, but it's, it's okay. One other quick story, few, we, few years ago, I met this guy.
And he said, again, we're talking about people who are coming in and at this time in Paul, in prison, Timothy, the Romans, if you remember, think that the, this idea of somebody dying on a cross, they just thought that was absolute ludic, lunacy. The Jews thought it was lunacy. So you got this Christian and I did, and Paul is reminding, even in that culture, that day, there was pressure on Timothy, and Paul's reminding him, do not be ashamed. A while back I ran in, it's, God's amazing, I'm just gonna say that. And I mean that with all sincerity. God's amazing. Had another opportunity to meet another atheist jist of the conversation went like this.
At the end of it, I thanked him for allowing me into his home and I said, do you mind if I share something with you? He goes, no. I said, are you sure? Now I have to be careful. I can't, I can share my faith in this role. I know I can share it any time, but to maintain that role, the door has to be opened. So I said, I just wanna say congratulations to you.
I said, your faith as an atheist is pretty impressive, to believe in absolutely nothing is pretty dang impressive. He goes, thank you, nobody's ever said that to me. And guess what? I got to follow him for almost a year, and he wanted me at his bedside and he asked me to pray for him at the end of his life. He go, and this, and I don't mean this to be arrogant, I promise you it was all of God. He said, I want what you have.
Now I could have got easily offended. I could have dug my heels 'cause he really ripped Christianity on many places. He was a man educated, PhD in philosophy and history. His mind was light years ahead of mine. But I just sat there and every time I would ask, God, may your grace, may your mercy, and may your love come forth through me.
And that's the difference. So Paul says that I will promise I will pick the pace up in verse nine. Whew.
It is God's faithfulness. And Paul just reminds Timothy in verse nine, who has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because anything we have done be because of his own purpose and grace.
God's grace, God's mercy. I just wanna remind you of something really that I, for my own life, I have found incredibly profound.
We all have faced trials and tribulations.
One of the things I've learned through the years, I had help to learn is that, God, I shared this earlier this morning. God does not waste any moment. So some of the things that I look back on in my life and I go, holy, Lord, forgive me. I was a teenager. I knew not what I was doing. Literally, in many ways, I really didn't.
But it, I wanna remind you that even in those times, I have seen how God has transformed those things in my life, the way I see 'em, the way I view them, because now he has, he was, he's used those to prepare me for such a time as this. To meet people, to serve as the eastern regional superintendent, to serve as a hospice chaplain and God, it, it, for his purpose and for his glory. And that, so I lay, I'm gonna call it all my garbage and sin, I lay it before his throne and I say, do, and I'm sorry I, I'm not disrespectful to God, but I'm very, I talk to God like I would talk to one of you, do your thing, God, transform this for your glory, for your purpose. And that's the beautiful thing about God. He is merciful to us. And then lastly, his love. The most important thing that can be stored in us today. It stirred up the grace of God, the mercy of God, and the love of God. In our life, we will face claims that religion is a force of hatred and darkness, and this world is troubled and we, and throughout the centuries, Christianity has been accused of that. And sometimes if we're honest, knowing our history, there is some justification for some of that. But I wanna share this with you, Paul, the past persecutor of Christians would say that God in his grace watches over his church and who is his church?
You can say me. Us's, us's. He watches over his church, he will remind us what transformed in us is by his grace and his mercy. Our call is not to win all the arguments. I know today some of us have been ramped up. I, I, I'm gonna tell you a little secret about Julie and I. Okay. We are both first born.
We've been doubly blessed with opinions, and we both want to be right at times, and in our world, we get baited into arguments and we want to be right. I want to be right. But our call is not to win arguments, but to forgive as we have been forgiven our sins, to love as we have been loved, to show mercy as we have been shown mercy, we must be stirred up for these gifts. We must stir up the gift of faith by praying and listening to God.
I am excited to know that after service you have a prayer time and I, I just want to remind you of verse 12.
Verse 12. That is why I am suffering as I am, Paul writes. I, yet I am not ashamed because I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard me. I'm gonna close it right there. Reminds me of the hymn that I will not sing to you 'cause God has not given me. Are you persuaded today that God is able to continue to, to work in you his grace, his mercy, and his love? Are you persuaded today? He is able.
I go back one more time. He is able, I today am persuaded that he is able. Be encouraged today. It may seem that God is not on the throne if we just pay attention to the news, but he is ushering in his eternal kingdom and it may be today that you will meet him in the air. He is able. He is able. He is able.
Amen. Amen and amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we worship God and hear the preaching of his word. It's our joy to welcome you into our community
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)