Week 4 – Fanning the Flame

Are we really investing in the next generation or just hoping they’ll turn out OK? Let’s talk about what it means to fan the flame in their lives. Join Kent this Sunday! EASY TO GIVE at Harmony, text any amount to (859) 459-0316 to get started (or give online @ my.harmonychurch.cc/give). Get the fill in the blank bulletins my.harmonychurch.cc/bulletins. OPENING ILLUSTRATION: I have a bad habit of trying to start a camp fire with as little kindling as possible.  I’m the guy that is down there blowing on the tiniest spark possible trying to get it to take - I’ll baby a fire for hours trying to get it to ignite.  A few years back I was at an event where I was trying to get the fire going - the wood had been a little wet and I had tried my normal of lighting a little cardboard, working it to try and build it up and ignite a full log.  I was sitting there getting super frustrated that nothing was igniting and really starting when this older guy came over and said, “what ya doing?”  I was mad and told him I was trying to get a fire going.  He asked me if he could help.  I let him, but internally was fuming.  I didn’t need any help.  He started teaching me about fire, and to be honest, I didn’t want to hear anything he was saying.  He started talking about how I was never going to get the log lit doing what I was doing.  I was like, “Oh yeah, what do you know” in my mind….  :).  He started talking about how you have to build a bed of coals first and take it slow and start small to build up to the bigger fire.   You ever tried to help a teenager with something they are sure they know how to do already?  Lol, that was me with this guy.  I was rolling my eyes inside my head as he talked.  I’d built so many fires… As he was talking he was breaking off little pieces of wood and trying to get sticks to catch, and slowly adding more little pieces of kindling and getting those to catch and in about 15 minutes he had a full fledged fire going and I was on fire on the inside.  Because I realized something about myself. I’m wired for instant gratification… aren’t you? -If I have a thought, I instantly look up the answer -If I want to eat, I get food -If I want to buy something, I buy it If I want a fire now, I just want it to work… The problem is, some things still take time and diligence. b I wanted a return with no investment.. I wanted growth with no sacrifice… We’ve been talking now for a month about “For the Next Generation”… We’ve been looking at what it takes for us to set up the next generation for success… But can I tell you a secret,  Investing in a generation takes, well, investment… I want to show you an example of this in a passage that most of us would probably not spend much time on…  Listen to it… This comes at the end of Paul’s life.  He is in prison and facing death.  As far as we know, this was Paul’s last letter and he died sometime after this.  It is an intimate letter written to Timothy who had traveled with Paul and who Paul left in charge of the church.  This is what Paul says to Timothy… Paul is remembering Timothy - he tells him he’s in his prayers night and day and that he remember’s Timothy’s tears - we don’t know why there were tears, but Paul and Timmy had the kind of relationship that was intimate and important - it was weighty… Listen to what he says about him… 2 Tim 1:5-7 5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. ILLUSTRATION: When my dad passed away, we only had 2 of our 4 kids, one of the saddest things to me is that my kids will never really know my dad.  They know him through videos and stories, but that’s it.  But that’s not really true, they know my dad because they know me.  I have his sense of humor and his laugh, I actually see lots of my dad even in my kids who didn’t know him.  Why is that?   It’s because what was in him is now in me… Paul says of Timothy that his sincere faith lived first in his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice… b Timothy’s faith was not just a product of his own intellect or desire to follow God, he was a product of people making weighty investments in his life. You might not know this, but Timothy didn’t have all the cards stacked in his favor. Timothy’s father was not a believer (as far as we can tell) what we are told about him in Acts 16 is that he is a Greek or gentile.  We do know that Timothy wasn’t circumcised even though his mom was a Jewish woman.  In Judaism lineage follows the mother - that means by all rights - for Timothy’s mother Eunice - she would have considered Timothy as Jewish.  And yet she did not perform the ceremony that would initiate the covenant upon him - it is Paul who does this.  Paul also calls Timothy his son in several places.  We can only make conjecture about this, but I think there its a reasonable conclusion to say that Timothy’s father was at the very least not supportive of the faith he had and the faith of his mother.   Timothy needed these three relationships to become the young man of God he was - he needed his grandma, his mother, and Paul (an outside influence). b I keep asking myself, who will be the 3 in the lives of each of the kids in our church? -who will be the ones encouraging them when they are struggling -who will be the ones who have invested in weighty relationships? -who will be the ones who have cared and listened and encouraged? b Who was it for you?  Who was the person or persons that you look back on and can see how they made a difference in your faith? The reason Paul can say the next thing to Timothy is because he’s earned the right through investing in him…  listen: 6 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. 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. Paul can call Timothy to blow on the fire of his faith and giftedness because he had been a part of it… What would it look like for us to invest in the next generation so that we could one day call them to blow on the coal and set the world ablaze for Jesus? b How do we do that?  CLOSING ILLUSTRATION: Years ago when I was a youth pastor I was struggling because our youth group would grow and then it would inevitably shrink back down to a certain size no matter what I did.  I couldn’t figure it out.  I took some of my interns and started having them do an informal survey across lots of churches of different sizes.  They called these churches and asked them about the size of their church and the size of their youth group.  What I found was in general a church’s youth group - teenagers was about 15% of the size of the congregation.  The bigger the church the smaller the percentage…  that’s when it hit me… If I wanted to reach more teenagers, I had to reach more adults.  I needed to change families, not just kids…. Here’s my secret.  I never left youth ministry.  My goal is to make you all youth ministers.  For you to start to see the value of investing in the next generation.   How do we do it? We give them our time We treat them like they matter We ask hard questions and call them to more (fan the flame) Who are you investing in? -it’s ok if it’s your kids or leading a small group or whatever There is a coal underneath all this wood of our church - it’s time we start to blow on it and set the world ablaze…