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[0:00] Our text this morning will be in 2nd Timothy chapter 1 verses 1 through 7. Our primary text will be verse 5. My reasoning for going here is not just because of the day in which we celebrate, which is Mother's Day.

[0:17] We will pray in just a moment. We'll read God's Word together and then we will pray. But if you remember, in 1 Corinthians, we've just finished up the fourth chapter. And in finishing up the fourth chapter, Paul has settled the issue of divisions within the body as it pertained to personality types.

[0:36] How people were separating themselves based upon which personality that they really got along with better. There were divisions within the body. In the fifth chapter, Paul is going to begin to deal with the immorality that exists within the body and really get personal on a number of levels.

[0:54] But in order to address these issues, Paul wrote the letter and sent it by the hand of a young man. It tells us at the end of the fourth chapter, For this reason I have sent to you my child in the faith, Timothy.

[1:13] And Paul makes the declaration that there is no one else that is more like-minded and like-practiced as Timothy that would not only remind them of what Paul has said, but also remind them of how Paul has lived in every church.

[1:29] Timothy was going to be a representative of Paul. He was going to represent him not just by bringing the letter to the church, but also represent him in deeds and actions so that the church may know that what was contained in the letter also had truth and application that it could be lived out.

[1:46] So it does bear us a little bit of responsibility to look at this man, Timothy, to see why he was given such an important role.

[1:57] Because the church at Corinth is not an easy church. The church at Corinth is probably one of the most wicked churches that you will ever come across in all of Scripture until we get to the book of Revelation and we read the letter to the seven churches.

[2:09] We read those. But as far as the malpractice and the immorality that was transparent within the body, the church at Corinth was a hard place. And Paul could have sent anyone to that church, but he sent Timothy.

[2:24] And he sent him with a very special purpose. Now, we don't know. Some Bible scholars will say that Timothy did not accomplish the purpose which Paul set, and that's why he sent another letter to him. But we don't want to go there and read more into the text than what is there.

[2:37] But why send Timothy? Why does Paul make the astounding statement that no one else in all the world could remind you of Paul more than Timothy could?

[2:48] There are two pastoral epistles. We are in one of them, 1 and 2 Timothy, that are written to this young man. We are told throughout Scripture that he's used very mildly.

[3:02] Where I asked you to mark in Acts 16 is the beginning of Paul's second missionary journey, and it is at that place in which Timothy joins Paul. That's where he unites with him and begins his usefulness for Paul and for the sake of the kingdom.

[3:20] We will see that. But I want you to see this morning the mighty influence of the home. The mighty influence of the home.

[3:31] So if you are physically able and desire to do so, I'm going to ask if you can join with me as we stand together. And we read the word of God. In 2 Timothy, chapter 1, we'll start in verse 1.

[3:45] And we'll read down to verse 7. And then we will pray. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

[4:07] I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience, the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you even as I recall your tears so that I may be filled with joy.

[4:21] Here's our primary passage. For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. And I am sure that it is in you as well.

[4:35] For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.

[4:48] Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you for every opportunity we have to open up the word of God. We pray now, O Lord, that you would speak to your people. We would ask that you would speak to us past all circumstances, through all hindrances, through every obstacle.

[5:06] Lord, we pray that it would come to us with clarity and certainty and that we would respond to it accordingly. And we ask it all in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. The mighty influence of the home.

[5:19] Now, gentlemen, I want to encourage you. Just because and in light of the passage that we have before us, and even in light of the day in which we are celebrating Mother's Day, do not check out.

[5:29] Because I did not entitle the message, the mighty influence of the mother, but the mighty influence of the home. And we will see how influential the home is and the impact that it can have in the days ahead.

[5:43] This is an influence that is seen throughout Scripture, and it is seen more clearly in Timothy than any other individual. We could go to any number of passages in Scripture and look at the role of husbands and wives, of mothers and fathers, and we can see any number of things.

[5:58] But really, in light of what we're studying in 1 Corinthians and in light of who we have before us, when we consider Timothy more than any other, we see the mighty influence of the home.

[6:09] The first thing we see is the home has within it the potential for generational impact. The potential for generational impact.

[6:20] Stay with me because I use these words intentionally. Paul, writing to Timothy, he calls him his son. Now, we know he is not his physical father.

[6:31] He reminds him and speaks of him in all ways of his child in the faith, his son of the faith. I have a lady, and it used to be her husband. Her husband is no longer with me.

[6:42] He used to refer to me as their child in the faith. She still refers to me as her son in the faith. And she will admonish me, and she will correct me, and she will rebuke me, and she will get on to me any other way.

[6:53] As a son in the faith. And this is how Paul is writing to Timothy, his son in the faith. And he makes this declaration. I am mindful of the sincere faith which is in you, which first dwelt within your grandmother and your mother.

[7:10] And it is here that we begin to see the potential impacts. The potential for generational impact. Friend, we know it, and we understand it.

[7:21] Anything that begins has to start somewhere. One of the greatest apologetics we have for creation is that you can't get something from nothing.

[7:33] So anything that exists must have a beginning. Anything that we can see and anything that we can observe had to originate and come from something. Now, I know that you're going to go with that age-old question.

[7:43] Well, yeah, well, where did God come from? Well, God is infinite. He is unbeginning. He is the one without beginning. He is infinite from time past, and he exists outside of time.

[7:55] And we're not here to get into apologetics, but when we look around, we understand that everything that starts had to start somewhere. Any impact that is had upon an individual's life, any impact that is had upon any generation of people has to have a beginning.

[8:12] Paul brings this beginning back all the way to the grandmother. He says, which first dwelt within your grandmother and then your mother. We're going to read it in just a little bit.

[8:22] I'm not going to ask you to read it right now, but if you go to Acts 16 and you start in verse 1, you will read on down that his mother was of Jewish descent, but his father, Timothy's father, biological father, was Greek.

[8:34] And for this reason, Paul had him circumcised because of all the Jews that were in that area. We'll get in there in just a little bit. So, at least in the case of Timothy, we understand that the generational impact flowed through the matriarch, the mother's lineage, not the patriarch, not in the father's lineage.

[8:52] Timothy's father was a Greek. Therefore, he possessed all this Greek mythology, these Greek gods, all these multiple things here, and we understand that. But there was a potential for impact upon his life because of the generations which preceded him.

[9:06] Scripture is rampant. We read one this morning, Psalm 78, 4, that the generations to come may know. God has given us great truths throughout Scripture.

[9:17] He's given truths to his people throughout history. And it reminds us, even in Deuteronomy 6, the Shema, which is repeated from Jewish people, scholars over and over and over again, considered one of the most sacred texts in all of the Old Testament, speaks of the important role that the parents have in passing it on to the next generation.

[9:34] Psalm 145 says that we will declare it to the generations which follow after us. Psalm after Psalm after Psalm says this. Passage after passage after passage says this. It speaks of the reality of a generational impact.

[9:48] That is, what you are doing in your home now will impact the generations that follow. It will. It will.

[9:59] And this is why God has given such weight and such privilege to that responsibility. We have heard, over and over again, we've seen it played out for us in history.

[10:15] We've seen it possibly being played out in the lives of individuals we know. It's, oh, it seems like they just have a generational curse upon them. The sins of the generation that go before them keeps repeating themselves after them.

[10:26] The sins of the fathers are being repeated again. And we see that in Scripture as well. But what we need to understand is that the impact of the home brings with it the potential for generational influence.

[10:41] Now, I use the word potential. Because some of you say, oh, well, wait a minute now. We can go to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 22 says, Train up a child in the way that he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it.

[10:52] And we say, but I know a bunch of kids that grew up and they knew what they should have done. And now they're not doing it. Well, yeah, but we're trying to use a name it and claim it theology in the book of Proverbs, which is never the intended purpose of Proverbs. Proverbs are wise sayings, which are typically true, not sayings that are emphatically always true.

[11:08] But then we're also kind of twisting the text because that train up a child in the way he should go, the emphasis there is on the he. That is, you as a parent need to understand the wiring of your children. That's hard to do because our children aren't always like us.

[11:21] And then it's even harder to do because sometimes our children are like us. But you are to understand your children and you are to train them in the way they should go, not the way you think they should go, not the way you think or the way that you believe, but you are to take the insight and train them up in the way he should go.

[11:38] And that way have an influence upon that person's life. And you are to pour into these people. This isn't name it and claim it. This is just a reality that the home brings with it a place of potential.

[11:50] Something is impacting the generations after it. And one of the greatest places for that potential to take place is the home. What a mighty influence of the home.

[12:04] Because parents, I promise you, grandparents, we understand it as well. Every one of these sweet children that were up here in front of us just a moment ago, all five of them are going to be impacted by something.

[12:15] The home has a greater potential than any other place. And we see it especially in the life of Timothy. Because he says, I am reminded of the sincere faith which is within you that first existed in your grandmother and then existed in your mother.

[12:34] Why could Timothy, growing up with a non-believing father, a Greek father, the text tells us he's non-believing because it gives emphasis to the fact that his mother was a believing Jew.

[12:44] Why could he grow up with a non-believing father and still be so useful in the kingdom? It was because the mother was so grounded. Well, how could the mother be so grounded? Because her mother was so grounded.

[12:58] There was a beginning and a starting point and we see the potential for generational impact. The second thing we see, which is so true, is the mighty influence of the home brings with it the passing on of genuine truths.

[13:10] The passing on of genuine truths. Paul uses a very specific word here. He says, I am mindful of the sincere faith. Now, some of you do not have the word sincere in your translations.

[13:23] New American Standard gives it sincere. Some of you have genuine. And that is a good word. The sincere faith which exists in you. The sincere faith which you have. Sincere is a word that means un or non-hypocritical.

[13:37] Not playing the hypocrite. To be genuine and authentic. To be accurate. To have a faith that is a true faith. Not a faith. You want to go to the book of James and you can see that.

[13:47] Some of us in our daily reading finished up the book of James yesterday. Or if you're behind, you finished it up today. Or if you're way behind, you'll finish it up in the next days ahead. It's okay. It's not a matter of putting check marks. It's just a matter of getting in the word.

[13:58] Where the book of James came with some controversy into the canonization of scripture. That is, when they were putting the Bible together. I mean, it's like, I don't know what to do with the book of James. Even some great people throughout church history.

[14:09] Martin Luther himself. Not Martin Luther King Jr. But Martin Luther, the reformer. Had some problems with the book of James. Because it just kind of bothered him a little bit. Well, it's because the book of James is all about sincerity in your faith.

[14:21] It is about living out what you proclaim to believe. It is, you say one thing, well that's fine. But your works need to reflect what you say. That is, if it is true and if it is genuine, then faith without works is dead.

[14:35] So you cannot show me your faith without your works. But I'll show you my faith by my works, right? It's about being sincere in your faith. And being un or non hypocritical. And we see this. Paul says, I'm reminded, Timothy, you possess that.

[14:48] You have a real faith. Now that's important. And the reason it's important, because in the first letter in which Paul wrote, in 1 Timothy, chapter 1, verse 5.

[14:59] Paul says, the goal of biblical instruction. There's a number of things there. But one of the goals of biblical instruction. Now stay with me. I'm not asking you to turn there. But in 1 Timothy 1, 5, he says, One of the goals of biblical instruction is that people may possess a sincere faith.

[15:17] Same word. He says, we teach the word of God so that people will have a sincere faith. And if you go to 2 Timothy, back to 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 15.

[15:30] I know it's a lot of text, but stay with me here. In case we think that Timothy has this sincere faith because of his relationship with Paul, because he's under the wings of Paul, Paul corrects us in our thinking and says, No, this is something that took place in the home.

[15:44] Because in 2 Timothy 3, 15, Paul makes this declaration. He says that Timothy had known the sacred scriptures from childhood. And it goes on.

[15:57] You have known the sacred scriptures from childhood, which are able to lead one to salvation in Jesus Christ, our Lord. So Paul says the root of the sincerity of his faith is in the reality that he knew the word of God.

[16:13] And he says, and you've known the word of God from childhood. Now, in Acts 16, this is Paul's second visit to where Timothy lives, Derbe and Lystra. The last time Paul was there, he was beaten and stoned and left for dead.

[16:27] And then he had to get out of town, right? There was a fledgling church left behind, and Paul had to leave. He comes back later, and he meets Timothy. And it says, the very first way that Timothy is ever described, he met there a man named Timothy who was a disciple.

[16:40] He's a disciple. Disciple is a good word. But he was a disciple of whom? He could not be a disciple of Paul because Paul wasn't around long. Paul was hitting the head with a bunch of stones. They thought he was dead. They left him there.

[16:51] He came back to, you know, he was raised, came back to Lyu. He never really died. He got up, went back into the town, preached a little bit more, and then went on. He wasn't a disciple of Paul. He had to be a disciple of someone. But here it is.

[17:01] It is in the home. It is the genuine truths that were being proclaimed in the home. Because he knew the sacred text, the sacred scriptures from childhood, which were able.

[17:14] Parents, listen to me. If you really, truly, we long for our children to come to Christ, then we have to pour into them that which has the ability to bring them to Christ, and that is the Word of God.

[17:28] It is the genuine truths of the Word which will bring about that great need. The Word will make them uncomfortable. The Word will make them, it will convict them.

[17:39] The Word will stir them. The Word will break them. The Word will cut them. The Word will get to the core of their being. Because it does all of that to us. The home is the place where we pass on genuine truths.

[17:51] You say, no, pastor, I bring them here. No, they come here, and as many kids tell me, every time I stand up, all they ever hear is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I know.

[18:04] Right? They tell me in the nursery they can't keep the speaker on because of my granddaughter. One of my granddaughters is in the nursery, is not having a good day, and she hears my voice going across. All she does is walk around saying my name. She's not paying attention to anybody.

[18:15] She doesn't know what I'm saying. But she knows that's my voice. But the home is where you pass on these genuine truths. Because I can promise you, everything that comes out of my mouth is filtered by what they see being applied in your home.

[18:32] Everything. The genuineness of it is tested on the home front, not in the church building. Because the pastor is supposed to say those things, or the Sunday school teacher is supposed to say those things, or so we're supposed to have those things over here.

[18:47] The place where these things are passed on is in the home. That's scriptural, by the way. God's commanded us to do that.

[18:59] And we see it going on in the life of Timothy. Now, go with me to Acts 16. The third thing you see, not only is there the potential for generational impact, the passing on of genuine truth, number three, there is a preparation for greater service.

[19:16] There's a preparation for greater service. It tells us in chapter 16 of the book of Acts. This is the beginning of Paul's second missionary journey. Acts 15 is the great Jerusalem council where they make these decisions about what the Gentiles should be expected to do when they come to faith.

[19:31] It's really, it's a turning point in there. So Paul is now left with his great message, go tell the Gentile believers this is all we require of them. And he started his second missionary journey. And just like every other good soldier of the cross, the very first place he went was the place that they tried to kill him last time he was there.

[19:47] And so he goes and it says, and Paul also came to Derbe and to Lystra. He came to Derbe and Lystra and a disciple, it's the very first explanation we have of him. And a disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was Greek.

[20:01] And he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium. Now look at this, Paul wanted this man to go with him. And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

[20:14] Now while they were passing through the cities, they, because Timothy is now with him, they were delivering the decrees which had been decided upon by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem for them to observe. We'll stop at verse five, look at this.

[20:27] So the churches were being strengthened in the faith and were increasing in number daily. Now, many Bible scholars will tell you that Timothy was probably very young when Paul took him with him.

[20:39] Because, you know, Timothy is the one that he writes to that says, let no one look down upon you because of your youth, right? Don't look anyone despised you, don't let anyone despise you or look down upon you because you are young. Paul wrote that to Timothy 15 years after this.

[20:52] 15 years after he picks him up, takes him with him. More than likely, Timothy was still in his teens because the word youth there has some meaning with it as well when he writes that to Timothy.

[21:09] He's very young, but he's still considered a man. It says Paul wanted him to go with him. Why? We've already seen because he had a sincere faith, a genuine faith. He had this generational impact that had been happening in his life, but he had been prepared for a greater service.

[21:24] The home is a place of preparation for greater service. And now if Timothy is as young as we seem to have implied to us through scripture, the reality is his mother and father let him go.

[21:38] Timothy goes with Paul on his second missionary journey. He is there when Paul and Silas end up in prison. Many Bible scholars believe the only reason that Timothy is not in prison is because he's too young to be put in prison. He ends up joining Paul in Athens, when Paul goes to Athens after that imprisonment and Paul preaches that great message on Mars Hill.

[21:56] We have from some of the other writings of Paul that it seems like the book of Acts doesn't tell us Timothy goes back, but it seems that Timothy also ends up there. From there, Paul sends Timothy out of Athens to go minister to the other churches.

[22:07] And as he goes around, he sends Timothy back to the church at Corinth, which has all the problems. Timothy ends up being with Paul when he's imprisoned in Rome, at least on his first or some may say even second imprisonment.

[22:17] And Timothy is with him everywhere he goes. Timothy is being used modely. And it tells us that after Timothy joins him in the fifth verse here, that the churches are being strengthened, that the churches are being encouraged, and the Lord is adding to the number daily.

[22:29] Why? Because what had taken place in the home had prepared Timothy for a greater service for the kingdom. It's amazing.

[22:41] Parents, grandparents, and the home, the home is a place of preparation. It is a place of preparation.

[22:53] It's not only a place of passing on genuine truth, it's also a place of preparation. That is, we are preparing our children and those within our home for the service that they will render or not render for the sake of the kingdom.

[23:03] I'm going to say this and it's going to, it's going to, it's going to hurt, but it bears repeating.

[23:15] In our day and time, especially in America, they tell us that the ministry pipeline is drying up. We don't have anybody coming up anymore saying, I want to be a pastor. Our missionary pipeline is drying up.

[23:27] There are very few people wanting to go to the mission field and doing these things. Now, that has a grand responsibility upon the church. The church isn't calling out the called anymore. The church isn't speaking to the realities.

[23:38] But I want to ask you, how many of you around the home speak of vocational ministry? I don't want my kids to go into the ministry. Just to be at a place where that was okay.

[23:53] Because see, we prepare them for the service they will render to the world in which we live. Unfortunately, what takes place in our home is now we spend more time, more effort preparing our kids for something that will be harder for them to ever attain.

[24:09] We spend more time, more effort preparing our children and grandchildren for things that are of worldliness other than godliness. And I know that's hurtful. I heard a pastor say one time, a man that went through that men's study with me understood it.

[24:22] He was a pastor and he said, you know, I have a very busy schedule. My life's busy. He said, I had a gentleman ask me one time, three questions. He said, what do you want? He said, what is it that you want more than anything else?

[24:33] And it was in that stepping up men's thing we went through. He said, do you want your children to be stellar athletes who perform well on the athletic field and get recognition from the world? Or number two, do you want your children to be stellar scholars who get academic success and they have all of this energy and they just know so much and they get all these acclaims because of their academic abilities and their scholarship in the world?

[24:53] Or do you want your children to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength? The pastor said, well, I'll take all three if I could. He said, no, you can only pick one. He said, but that followed up with the second question.

[25:03] What do you spend the majority of your time in your home on? Of those three things that I gave you the option, he said, what do you spend the majority of your time in your home on?

[25:17] Because of what you're preparing your children for is what your preparation. Now, I'm just repeating what we're saying. They cut me. I'm just being honest. They cut me out because I went through that men's study. I took myself through it twice before I did anything else.

[25:29] Kicks you in the gut and that pastor said the same thing for him. He said, the majority of our time is spent on what? Are you pushing them academically? Are you pushing them athletically or are you pushing them godliness? If you could only choose one, you say, well, I want to choose all three.

[25:41] He said, but what if you can't? Because see, the reality is is the amount of time and the amount of influence you have upon your children and your grandchildren is very limited and what you choose to invest that in is what you're preparing them to do.

[25:55] And the home is that place of preparation. You say, well, I don't know that I would ever, I don't want to send my child off with a pall just to go traversing around the world and going places where people are trying to kill them and all.

[26:09] Well, if that's the greater service that you can envision in the world, then we would. And this is where the home is. It is a place of preparation for greater service. It's a hard thing to swallow.

[26:20] It's a hard pill to swallow. As parents, we want our children to be safe and we want them to be right here where we can keep our hand upon them and we want our grandchildren to be safe and we want everything right here where we have control. But really, as believers, we're to live surrendered and say, Lord, I'm going to pour into these lives that you've put in my home as a father and a mother.

[26:38] I'm going to pour into these children and I'm going to pour into whoever you put in my home for a greater service than self-service. Because, see, Timothy's life greatly influenced the impact of the kingdom.

[26:56] The churches were strengthened and numbers were added daily. Wow. Fourth and finally, I'm done after this one.

[27:08] I know it's Mother's Day. Number four, the possibility of God honoring lives. The mighty influence of a home is the possibility of God honoring lives.

[27:18] By the way, parents, grandparents, I'm not telling you to raise every one of your children to go into vocational ministry. Sometimes, that vocation may not be an employment with the church. More times than not, your occupation, whatever it is your occupation is, can be vocational ministry if you do it as unto the Lord.

[27:37] And that's the calling. Not everybody's going to be a pastor. Not everybody's going to go to the mission field. I was just using those as examples because that's a great deficiency that we're seeing in our society and seeing in our culture.

[27:48] And I think it's the church's responsibility, but I also think it's the home's responsibility. But we ought to raise our children that whatever it is they're doing, they're doing it for a greater service than themselves or even than the society they live in.

[27:59] They're doing it for the service of the kingdom. Churches are strengthened when believers live out their faith in a sincere manner in their daily workplace. That's when churches are strengthened. Because the church has a greater reach and a greater impact when we take it into the workplace than we do in the workplace and the marketplace and if we keep it in our own space, right?

[28:17] We don't have a my space here. We don't want you to get up in our business. We want to go to your place there. That's the way it is. And we do that because we come here to be prepared to go there. And if we influence our children that whatever you're doing, you do it as unto the Lord, then we're giving them the opportunity to have a greater service.

[28:32] But here's the last thing. You are, as a home, you have the opportunity to say the possibility of God honoring lives. This one's very clear and very easy.

[28:43] All we know about Timothy is confined to what is revealed to us in Scripture. All we know about Timothy is what Scripture reveals to us. And I say that because any of the apostles, the disciples, there are extra-biblical, that's non-biblical books that are written, there are church history books that are written, there are early church documents that are written, there are things that we can read about Paul, there's all this extra stuff.

[29:07] You can read the works of Josephus who was a Roman historian where he was a Jew that was a historian for the Empire of Rome and you can read about all these individuals, a lot of these in the works of Josephus.

[29:19] There's other historians that wrote history books, non-biblical books, extra-biblical books. It doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means they're recorded in secular writings or worldly writings. All we know about this man, Timothy, is confined to Scripture.

[29:32] I don't know anything else. All we know about him, he's not mentioned in early church writings, he's not mentioned in anything else that I know of that I've ever found. It is just here confined to Scripture. All we know is confined to Scripture which means all we know about Timothy is the part of his life that honors the name of God not the name of Timothy.

[29:52] We don't even know his dad's name, right? We're given his mother and his grandmother's name. We don't know anything else. We're given Timothy's name but it's a God-honoring name because when we think of Timothy, we have two of the greatest writings given to the church as far as pastoral letters, handbooks for pastors and how you ought to do church work.

[30:09] and it says that 1 Timothy says the church is the foundation that upholds the truth. So we're all this great stuff. We have this man, Timothy, being used all throughout the history of Paul's life but then it just stops, right?

[30:21] It just ends. It ends with Scripture. We don't know anything else of him. He's mentioned in the book of Hebrews but after that, it's it. That's it. Because the only honor that's derived from the name of Timothy is the honor of God.

[30:36] And the reality is is at the end of your life does it really matter if you've honored your name or even if you've honored your family name. Really, the thing that matters is if you've honored the name of the Lord your God. Now in our household, I tell them, if you have the last name Calvert, it means something.

[30:50] It's not because it bears any meaning. Not because it does anything that it has any standing or any stature anywhere else. It's because it's a reflection of who we are, right? It's a reflection of who we are and it is to reflect where to live in such a way that it reflects our morality, our ideals, our understanding.

[31:08] And we take that with us. We just recently found out because looking at one of our lineages that there's on the Calvert crest, there's a Calvert crest, has a saying on it.

[31:19] It's written in Latin. So we looked it up. It's amazing. You Google search it. It's the Calvert family motto. I didn't even know the Calvert family had a motto but there's a Calvert family motto and it is a strong deeds, gentle words.

[31:31] I thought, man, I should have known that a long time ago. I've been doing it wrong all these years, right? We're trying to do strong words, gentle deeds. That's not right. I've had it wrong. But it meant a lot. So we understand these things.

[31:42] It's not necessarily our name. It's because what we want to reflect as a family and what you hope to reflect as a family and we're not ideal in this and we fall short all the time. I don't mind doing that. We live in a glass house and that's fine.

[31:53] But our goal and our ambition as families ought to be we want to honor the Lord our God in all we do. Right? So we seek to live God-honoring lives.

[32:06] Does that mean we fell short? Yes, we fall short. Every bit of us because we're human. You know Timothy did. Timothy's probably like, I'm glad I didn't have this part recorded in my life. I'm glad I didn't have this and have that.

[32:17] That's fine. Our sins are cast as far as the east is from the west. Right? We're washed. But in our homes we have the opportunity.

[32:28] The mighty influence of the home is the possibility of God-honoring lives. That it would be about the promotion of the kingdom of God and the exaltation of the king who is God.

[32:43] That's what our families ought to be about. Promoting the kingdom of God and exalting the king who is God. What an influence the home has. Let's pray.

[32:55] Lord, I thank you so much for this day. Thank you, God, that you've given us your word and the truths that it contains. Lord, as parents and grandparents we realize we need so much help, oh God.

[33:09] We need your wisdom. We need your understanding. We need grace. We need mercy. We need forgiveness. Sometimes we need restoration. So we pray, God, that you would have your way in our lives.

[33:22] Begin with me. Lord, help us to see the truths of scripture as realities that can be lived out in a daily life. Lord, we pray that these things would come about for your glory and not ours.

[33:35] We pray that you walk with us, walk with these parents, these mothers and these fathers. Lord, pray your blessings upon these children. just be glorified in all that takes place and we ask it all in Jesus' name.

[33:49] Amen. so, so, so, Thank you.

[34:46] Thank you.

[35:16] Thank you.

[35:46] Thank you.