June 20-22, 2026 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: 2 Timothy 4:1-8 “SOME FATHERLY ADVICE!

 PENTECOST 4

June 20-22, 2026

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: 2 Timothy 4:1-8

“SOME FATHERLY ADVICE!”

1. Keep the Faith.

2. The Faith will keep you!

It’s Father’s Day weekend. Sadly, the image of father in our country has taken quite a hit. Some of it is deserved. Deadbeat dads and baby daddys don’t help. Workaholic absent fathers and boys who never became men don’t either. Neither has the entertainment world. Gone are the awesome sitcom father role models like Ward Cleaver. Somehow still in is Homer Simpson. Would a show like “Father Knows Best” get a second look today? People poke fun at dad bods. What’s wrong with it? And dad jokes. Some of the funniest I’ve ever heard! I was blest with a great role model dad. I remember and repeat some of his oft repeated advice. “Work first, then play,” to motivate boys who wanted to play backyard football to get take care of responsibility first. Great life lesson. “You wanna play, you gotta pay” to boys who stayed up too late playing cards when it was time to get up for church. This one you may have heard too, “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all” to a dinner table with 8 siblings around it who were not always nice to each other.

The Apostle Paul served as a father figure for a young pastor named Timothy. He called him his son. His two letters to Timothy were included in the Bible because the Holy Spirit wanted all of God’s people to benefit as these were God’s words, not Paul’s. So on this Father’s Day weekend we all benefit from some fatherly advice from the Apostle Paul. “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” 

“SOME FATHERLY ADVICE!”

1. Keep the Faith!

A good summary of this is Keep the Faith. Keep here means to hold on to and to guard, to protect and proclaim. The faith here means what is believed. It is to be whatever God’s word says. In season and out of season. All the time. Why? Paul said a time would come when people would not put up with the sound doctrine of Bible teaching and would instead want what their itching ears want to hear. What do itching ears want to hear? Gossip for one. That my sin is OK for another. Boy do we know what he was talking about, right? 

Here is Miriam Webster’s current definition of a myth.  A “A popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone especially one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society. B An unfounded or false notion.” Our society has in many ways turned away from the truth and toward myths. Evolution is a big one. Science legitimately applied is great. You gather data over long periods of time. You make conclusions. Then you have to prove those conclusions through carefully controlled and repeated experiments which must prove your conclusion over many years. Evolution is by definition a myth (unfounded and false) and unscientific. Yet so many have turned away from the truth of creation to the myth of evolution and the Devil laughs as he accomplishes his real goal of stealing glory from God and hiding God’s obvious existence. All this gender gibberish is another myth. A belief that has grown up embodying the ideals of a segment of society. Follow the science. XX and XY. Of course there are some one offs that happen because all creation got ruined by sin. But when you follow the science, there is only male and female. My wife would love for June to known only as her birthday month but for many in our society it is pride month. Pride in what? Pride in sinning! People have pride marches to openly defy God. “We are our gods. We set the rules. If there is a god he/she/it does not know what he’s talking about.” If anything, June should be known as shame month. In fact every month could be known as shame month. And not just by people out there. By us. Lord, we are ashamed that we too have taken your gift of sexuality and used it outside the loving relationship of a man and woman joined in holy marriage. Shame that we have let other’s abuse of the welfare system harden our hearts and close our wallets to help those who really are in need. Shame that we have let our God’s blessing us with an affluent life in an affluent country skew our values and priority of setting our minds on things above. Shame that our righteous anger over blatant sinning of our fellow citizens can lead us to forget that they are souls Jesus died for too. Some of those who take pride in sin have sold their souls to the Devil. They are dead men walking. They prey on vulnerable people. But many who have become embroiled in this moral mess we call America are prey. Taken advantage of when they felt alone, led astray. These are likely the people you know, the ones in your family that make your heart ache. We need to continue to pray for those who have been preyed on. Love them. And try to be there for them when their predators dump them to show that Jesus still loves them and there is forgiveness for every sin through faith in Him!

That why God wants us and all people to listen to this fatherly advice. Keep the faith. Because the faith will keep you! Paul gives us his testimony. “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. 7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” Timothy’s spiritual father Paul is brimming with confidence. The Lord has let him know his earthly life is nearly over. And he’s keyed. He’s pumped. He’s excited. He’s doing victory laps! Why? He knows what’s coming. The crown of righteousness. The glory of heaven. The beginning of his real life. Where is all that confidence coming from? Jesus. The faith that Paul kept, held on to, guarded, now keeps him. Paul had plenty of sins to be ashamed of. His dirty laundry is aired in the Bible. No worries! Jesus paid it all. Paul’s sins, his persecution of believers, his slate wiped clean. Jesus did it all. His perfect life became Paul’s garments of righteousness. All that remained was for Paul to stand in joy beside his Lord.

“SOME FATHERLY ADVICE!”

2. The Faith will keep you!

This faith that you hold on to, that you are keeping, will keep you too. I have seen, you have seen, others beside Paul, who long for the appearing of Christ, who look forward to the end of earthly life. They kept the faith and the faith kept them. Whether you want to picture your life as a race or a fight, while you live it and when it ends faith in Christ will keep you. My dirty laundry and yours is not revealed for others to see on the pages of Scripture. But no matter what it is, Jesus has washed it clean with His blood shed on the cross. Jesus covers you with His righteousness. With faith you can absorb and overcome whatever the Devil and this world throw at you. And then this is what is waiting for you. (PICTURE OF JESUS WELCOMING INTO HEAVEN) That’s why the faith that is revealed in Scripture and your ability to believe it is the most important blessing and gift from God that we receive. Keep it and guard it. For it will keep you. Here, Father does know best! Amen.