One Person of Sincere Faith (2 Timothy 1:3–8) 9/7/2025

Speaker: Sr. Pastor Dong C. Lee

September 07, 2025

in English

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One Person of Sincere Faith (2 Timothy 1:3–8) 9/7/2025

Starting this week, we will share from 2 Timothy, the final letter Paul wrote from prison that makes us deeply reflect on how to raise the next generation as true disciples of Christ. The letter is named “Timothy” because Paul wrote it to Timothy, his spiritual son that he raised and deeply loved. After sending this letter, it is known that Paul was later martyred by execution.

How important of a person was Timothy? Before Paul’s martyrdom, Timothy was the one Paul longed for the most. Paul poured out everything he had into raising this disciple. Timothy, who followed after Paul and the first generation, became a leader of the Early Church and continued the work of world evangelization.

Timothy was originally the child of a Greek father and a Jewish mother, a child of an international marriage. As today’s passage hints, he grew up without his father, and was raised instead by his grandmother and mother. That must have been a deep wound during his growth. Yet Timothy grew up to be someone praised by the church. Timothy met Paul during Paul’s second evangelism journey and they became lifelong co-workers (Acts 16:1–2).

For remnants, Timothy is a model of how one can grow into a worker pleasing to God even in the most difficult environment. For adults, he is a model of how to raise such a next generation to prepare for God’s future.

This is “the one person” God desires. They are the remnants, the disciples. Numbers don’t matter, nor does their situation. Too often, we make excuses about these things. Satan uses them as channels to ruin a person’s life (Isaiah 61:1). But the Holy Spirit can turn them into absolute blessings, raising them as absolute disciples who save their age. This week’s covenant is about what kind of person of God Timothy became, and our covenant is “one person of sincere faith.”

1. What is “sincere faith”?

1) Above all, what God desires from us is faith (Romans 10:10, Matthew 9:22, Mark 11:24, Mark 16:17–20). Faith in what?
① Faith in how God loves us (absolute love).
How He sent His Son as the Christ to redeem us and make us His children. Believe how tremendous the blessings (life, authority, power) Christ has given us are, and how He continues to help us now within us and from the throne of heaven. Therefore, fix your eyes on Him 24/7 (Colossians 3:1–4).

② Faith in that God will bless and use us in every problem and event (absolute plan).
There is no reason to despair because of past scars, present struggles, or future problems. In fact, through problems, God lets us know His deeper things (Jeremiah 33:3, 1 Corinthians 2:10). All we need to do leave it up to Him and wait (1 Peter 5:7).

③ Faith in that through me, God heals and saves the world (absolute power).
Jesus said that those who believe will do the works He did and even greater (John 14:12–14). If we hold to this covenant and pray, God will do abundantly beyond all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). Then all things will work together for good (Romans 8:29), and we will become witnesses of God to save people like us and the world (Acts 1:8).

2) This faith must be sincere, without falsehood. What does that mean?
① The Greek word for sincere has meanings like “without a mask,” “without calculation,” “unchanging.” This is the vessel God wants to form in us so He can use us (true spirituality).
② We must spend our whole life forming this vessel of faith.
When this faith exists, God gives His everything, even making the smallest things into His masterpiece.

2. How was this faith formed in Timothy?

1) It began in the family. Verse 5 says, “This faith first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice.”
① Faith comes through teaching (Romans 10:17, Ephesians 1:13). That is why we must plant the accurate Word of the gospel.
② More importantly, faith comes through example. When you personally believe in God’s love, plan, and power in Christ, and live before God, that faith is conveyed through your life and your family. Through your daily life, and especially during problems and crises, this faith is relayed. Even if parents lack in every other way, they can still pass down sincere faith, and that faith can raise a person who saves the age.

2) Support from the church and a pastor.
① This is why Paul chose Timothy in his youth to be a team member with him. Through their time together, Timothy heard the gospel accurately and witnessed faith in Paul’s life. Though he also saw Paul’s weaknesses and hardships, he witnessed how Paul overcame them by faith.
② Paul’s prayers and spiritual support for Timothy. One reason Paul longed to see Timothy was “to fan into flame the gift of God” that was in him through Paul’s laying on of hands (6).
③ In difficult problems or crucial moments, receive the support and blessing of God’s servant. That is the privilege of believers. Hannah received Eli the priest’s blessing when she bore Samuel (1 Samuel 1:17–18). David was anointed by Samuel to become the future leader (1 Samuel 16:13). When David prayed for the temple (2 Samuel 7:4–17), when he failed (2 Samuel 12:1), and when he was restored (2 Samuel 12:25), he received Nathan’s counsel and blessing.

3) Faith trained through pain and suffering.
① Paul suffered many hardships, but Timothy himself also suffered much while helping Paul (Philippians 2:22). Because of this, Paul sent Timothy to important but difficult mission fields (1 Corinthians 16:10, 1 Thessalonians 3:2–3).
② Even now, while Paul was imprisoned, Paul sends Timothy a message not to be afraid (2 Timothy 1:7). When facing unjust suffering, shame from failure, or deep despair, hold onto this covenant. It is not a time of injustice. It is not a time of shame. It is not a time of despair. God is forming. God is refining me (James 1:2–3). It is like when God led Israel into the wilderness. His absolute plan wasto bless and use them (Deuteronomy 8:15–16)