SERMON OUTLINE

Fan the Flame   2 Timothy 1.1-7

Hindering the Fanning

Review

1) We need a faith that is based on the work of Christ. In response to this faith God forgives sin and fills with the Holy Spirit. John 3.3-8; Romans 8.9; Ephesians 1.13-14

2) We are responsible to fan the flame of God’s gift. God wants to conform us to Jesus. Romans 8.29

3) Two stages of fanning the flame: Feeding & Following

Things that Hinder the Fanning

Competition that dampens the flame

1) Example: 2 Timothy 4.9-10

2) Natural temperament verses supernatural empowering: Which will you follow? Timothy’s problem was cowardice. Cowardice can prevent eternal life. Rev 21.8.

3) For us it might be lust, ambition, anger, pride, stubbornness, greed, busyness, pressure from another person, a relationship, entertainment, TV, etc…

4) The importance of being reminded. 2 Peter 1.12-15

Neglect that does not feed the flame

1) Example: Do not neglect, 1 Timothy 4.13-16

2) Feed the flame with the Word of God, prayer, service

3) Continually: the cross and the filling of the Holy Spirit

Conclusion        

What is competing with the fanning of the flame in your life? Are you continually fuelling the flame of the Spirit?

SERMON NOTES

Fanning the Flame (2)                  2 Timothy 1.1-7

Hindering the Fanning

*Last week my goal was to impress upon you two truths from the Bible. First of all I wanted to impress upon you that we all need to have the kind of faith the Bible teaches about, a faith that is based on the death of Christ for our sins. God responds to this true faith by making us spiritually alive by the Holy Spirit and coming to live inside of us. Let me share some verses that confirm this first truth.

-One evening Jesus was speaking to one of the religious leaders of Israel, a man called Nicodemus. If anyone could make a claim to a good life that God should accept it was Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a member of the Jewish ruling council, and one of Israel’s great religious teachers. Yet Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born of the Spirit to enter the kingdom of God”. (John 3.3-8)

-Paul writing to the Christians in Rome says, “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” (Romans 8.9) When Paul writes about having the Spirit of Christ he does not mean having a Jesus-like attitude. Paul is writing about a spiritual transformation where God has come to live inside a believer.

-Paul writes to the Ephesian church, “You also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of His Glory.” (Ephesians 1.13-14)

-All of us must be born of God’s Spirit and have God’s Spirit in us if we are to belong to God. This indwelling Holy Spirit is the flame that Paul is referring to in these verses to Timothy.

-The second truth I wanted to impress upon you last week was that we are responsible to keep on fanning this flame of God’s Spirit which God has put inside of us. One of the many reasons why God calls us to this responsibility of fanning the flame of God within us is so that we can learn to trust in God and in that trust become more like His Son Jesus Christ. It is God’s ultimate purpose to conform many people to the image of His Son that Jesus might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8.29)

*When I think of fanning the flame of the gift of God that is in me, I think of it in two stages. The first stage is feeding the flame to keep my passion for Christ burning strong, and to keep my determination to bring Glory to God foremost in my thinking. The second stage is following the flame by walking in the Spirit and living by the power of God in obedience to the commands of God. The first stage is putting a log on the fire to keep it burning bright and the second stage is warming others with the heat of the fire. The first stage is making sure the flashlight is charged and the second stage is using the flashlight to guide the path of others. The first stage is supplying the flame to keep the flame burning bright while the second stage is serving God from the burning flame.

*This morning I would like us to examine together some of those things that hinder fanning the flame that God has put within us. I want to look at what hinders fanning the flame from two sides. First of all what we allow to compete with the flame of the gift of God that is within us. In other words what we allow to dampen the flame, to snuff out the flame, to compromise the flame.

-If you turn to chapter 4 you will read in verses 9 and 10 about Demas who allowed his flame to burn down because of his love for this world, “Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.” There are things that we allow to compete with the flame of God’s Spirit within us that dampen and even seem to put out the flame of the gift of God within us.

-Second of all there are those things we neglect to do that would feed the Spirit of God within us. We do not provide fuel to the fire and we allow the fire to burn down.

-Turn back a page or two to Paul’s first letter to Timothy. In chapter 4, verses 13 to 16 we read Paul’s warning to Timothy not to neglect fanning this flame. “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching, and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you. Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save yourself and your hearers.” We need to devote ourselves to God and His service and not neglect our calling. We need to be diligent and to watch and persevere in certain disciplines to keep the flame burning hot.

-We can allow competitors in that will cause the flame to die down, and we can neglect those things that would feed the flame of the gift of God within us.

*In verse 7 of 2 Timothy 1, Paul reminds Timothy what he is naturally and what he now is supernaturally. Paul is reminding Timothy that he is a new creation in Christ, that the flame of the gift of God is in him, and because of that he now has two choices. Timothy can feed the flame and live in the power of his new life in the Spirit and serve others, or he can fall back to his old patterns of thought, to his old attitudes and weaknesses, and let the flame smolder.  Timothy can allow his cowardice to compete with the flame and allow it to die down, or he can keep fanning the flame in spite of his fears and timidity. Timothy can submit to the Spirit’s rule over his life and move forward in power and love and discipline, or he can slink back in cowardice.

-I want to mention in passing that cowardice will keep some people out of heaven. Listen to Revelation 21.8, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” (see also Matthew 25.14-30, esp v25) Some will be so afraid to offend others or to be counted as a follower of Jesus that they will miss an eternity with God.

-Paul reminds Timothy that his cowardice is not from God. Cowardice was part of the temperament that Timothy was born with but Timothy was not to allow cowardice to interfere with God’s call upon his life. With the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit Timothy received God’s power, God’s love, and God’s mind. Timothy was to use these gifts from God by faith. By moving forward in obedience to God Timothy would see the power, love and discipline of God at work in and through him. Timothy is to look to the power of the Holy Spirit within him to direct his steps. Timothy is to feed the Spirit of God within and then yield to the Spirit and not to his natural bent toward cowardice. As Timothy moves forward in obedience to God, trusting God, even while trembling like a coward, he will see God work through him.

-Too many of us Christians, know we have the Holy Spirit living within us, but we continue to live, not in the power of the Holy Spirit and by faith, but by our old powerless, faithless, self-directed, self-energized, anxiety filled, careful, calculated, old, comfortable ways. Paul is reminding Timothy that having the Holy Spirit in him should make a difference in his attitudes and actions. His life should influence other people for God. But something is required from Timothy and that is a choice to obey God at any cost to self and a choice to abandon his life to the control and care of God as he follows the leading of the Holy Spirit.

-For Timothy the hindrance to fanning the flame would be allowing his natural cowardice and fear of man to dampen that flame. For us the hindrance to fanning the flame of God’s Spirit within us might be giving in to lust, ambition, anger, pride, stubbornness, greed, busyness, pressure from another person, a relationship, entertainment, TV, and any number of other competitors for the priority of the Spirit of God within us. All of these competitors serve Self and not God and dampen the flame of the gift of God within the Christian.

-Take some time today or this week and ask yourself “what might be competing with fanning the flame in my life?” Are you so busy with the daily activities of life that your flame is quietly burning out? Are you burning yourself out physically and at the same time allowing the flame of the gift of God that is in you to burn down as well? Perhaps it is time to reevaluate your schedule and carve out the daily time you need to rekindle the flame. Once you make that time guard it as if your life depends on it.

-Or maybe you are bitter and angry at someone or even at God. That will certainly compete with fanning the flame of the gift of God in you. Time to forgive the other person and accept the Sovereign rule of God over your life and to forgive yourself and get on with fanning the flame of the Spirit. Keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit is how Paul describes fanning the flame in the letter to the Ephesians (5.18).

-Ask God to show you any competitors that interfere with fanning the flame of the gift of God within you. God will gladly show you those competitors if you are willing to put them aside to fan the flame of God within you.

*One of the important functions of a Bible teacher is to remind the disciples of those things they have learned and to challenge them to keep on putting them into practice. So here Paul reminds Timothy to keep on fanning into flame the gift of God that is in him. Peter writes, “I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.” (2 Peter 1.12-15) Gathering together each week, and midweek, and around the Lord’s Table is part of fanning the flame of God’s gift in us.

*My reminder to you and to myself this morning is to beware of allowing competitors in which will dampen the flame of the Spirit of God in you. These competitors can be sin in your life or just a focus on other interests which allow the flame of the Spirit of God to burn low. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6.9)

-My reminder to you and to myself this morning is to beware of neglecting to fan the flame of God by not pursuing God in the study of His Word, and prayer, and discipline, and sacrifice and service to God. “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” (Hebrews 2.1)

*An eternal flame is a flame that burns day and night for an indefinite period of time. There are many eternal flames around the world built to honor special occasions and people. The Jewish Temple had two eternal flames. The Lampstand was to be kept burning (Exodus 27.20; Leviticus 24.2-4) and the Alter of sacrifice was to have a fire burning on it day and night (Leviticus 6.13). The Alter of sacrifice is a type of the cross and the Lampstand a picture of the Holy Spirit. Both the cross of Christ and the life of the Holy Spirit are to be at work in us at all times. For these flames to burn at all times competitors that will put out the flame must be kept away, and the flame must be fueled. Listen to God’s commands. “The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add firewood and arrange the burnt offering on the fire and burn the fat of the fellowship offering on it. The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out.” “Aaron is to tend the lamps before the Lord from evening till morning, continually. …The lamps on the pure gold Lampstand before the Lord must be tended continually.” You are a priest called to fan the flame of the gift of God that He has placed within you. God calls you to remove the competitors for the flame of God from your life and to fuel the flame of the gift of God that is within you continually. We are called to apply the cross of Christ and the filling of the Holy Spirit continually to our lives.

-Next week I want to look at those things that God has given us to feed the flame and the week after that how we are to follow the flame.