Eunice, a Mom with Faith Acts 16:1–5 / 2 Timothy 1:5; 3:14–15
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CORNERSTONE BIBLE CHURCH December 16, 2012 BEHIND THE SCENES: Eunice, A Mom with Faith Acts 16:1–5 / 2 Timothy 1:5; 3:14–15 Introduction: The Power of Parents . As I am sure you did, I hugged my children a little tighter this weekend than I did at the beginning of the week. As the news began to trickle in on Friday morning, I couldn’t wait to pick them up from school that afternoon. I wanted to see them and talk to them. If you are a parent, I am sure you felt similar feelings. There is no doubt in my mind that a tragedy like this will turn the attention of many parents towards their children. Unfortunately, I fear it might be only a season of time that the hugs are tighter; that the kisses are more precious; that the time is more valuable; and that the influence is intentional. Unfortunately, many parents will forget about his event within a few months. Don’t get me wrong; we will all still remember where we were when we found out about this horrendous act of violence. But I simply wonder if parents will continue to live with their children six months from now like they are this weekend. I wonder if parents will recognize that they are the ones that indelibly shape the heart of their children. It is their influence that will light up their day or darken their night. It is the way they talk to them, what they teach them, and how they shepherd them that will largely shape the adult they become. It is no accident that this morning we are going to talk to the parents. It is not an accident that several months ago, as I set out to plan the order of the sermons of this series, Behind the Scenes: Finding Joy As A Supporting Cast Member, that I chose this morning to talk about one woman that did more for the cause of Christ than you might imagine. She was a woman that stood behind her child and held him up, shaping a man of God. This morning I want to talk about a woman by the name of Eunice. And I think her story will be healing words for us this morning. Her life will help us orient a direction of biblical parenting towards our children. There are only a few verses in the Bible that talk about this woman, but the information are told of her is really powerful. The most direct information is found in . 2 Timothy 1:5 “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.” There are two important items that we initially learn about Eunice. First, she was known as the mother to Timothy. Timothy is one of the most beloved and important characters in the book of Acts and is foundational to the early 1 church. We see him as the key person that Paul chooses to disciple and train to pass the baton of ministry off to once he was gone. Timothy was trustworthy; he was a man of character; and he was a man that was well- spoken of by other people. And behind this man stood his mother! Illustration: Mother’s known for their children . How often is it that the mother is known by her offspring? You no longer have a name; you are simply the mother of “fill in your child’s name.” . I know that my mother used to talk about this as she would be walking through the ballgames, or see people at the store when I was in High School. People would meet her and say, “oh, your Thad’s mom” (although, she was very clear to point out to all of them that I was her son). You have probably had similar experiences. That certainly was the case with Eunice. We know so much about Timothy, but just a few things about her. And the knowledge we have is almost exclusively seen in connection with her son. She was known as the mother of Timothy. Secondly, she was known for her sincere faith. If there were one thing that you would want recorded about you in the Scriptures, would it not be something like this? Wouldn’t you like for all the generations to come to know that the one character quality that described you was that you had a sincere faith? Paul is praising Timothy for his sincere faith, a type of faith that was first in his grandmother Lois and in his mother Eunice. They paved the way for Timothy to know what a sincere faith looked like. It is a faith that is void of hypocrisy. It is a faith in which the life that is lived matches up with the words that are spoken. It means that even if persecution or problems come the way of the person, they are able to trust in God through them all, for their faith is grounded in the true God. It is what Acts 16 says concerning this woman that she was a “believer”, that she was a true Christian woman. It was a faith that was not double-minded; it did not waver; it was a genuine trust in God. Paul writes here that Timothy had this sort of faith, but that it had first dwelt in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. What does it mean that this kind of “sincere faith” dwelt in Eunice? It means that it was deep-rooted in her. It means that it was part of her being. It means that you could not speak of Eunice without talking about her faith. The two most important, two most implicit items that we know about Eunice are that she was a mom and that she was a woman of faith. She exemplifies what it means to live in relationship with your child as a person of faith. Because of this, what I want to do with our time this morning is to paint the picture of her life on this backdrop. I want us to consider what it means that she was a parent of faith. And I wan to do this by articulating 3 2 CHARACTERISTICS OF A PARENT OF FAITH. I am using the word parent, because while we will be talking about her as a mother, these are things that fathers must learn as well. The character qualities of her life apply to the men as much as the women this morning. So, let us look at what it means to be a parent of faith. 1. A PARENT OF FAITH IS CAPABLE OF HANDLING ADVERSITY (ACTS 16:1–3) Our life is filled with adversity, as you know. Watch the news, even on weeks that there is not a national tragedy and you will find out that life is filled with pain and suffering; hate and strife. If you are involved in any sort of household relationship, you know that adversity is probable. It is possible in any relationship. And part of being a person of faith, let’s say it like this, part of being a Christian is that you are able to handle yourself in adversity. Vs. 1–3 Acts 16 stands as the beginning of the second missionary journey by the Apostle Paul and one of the first places he chooses to go is to the cities of Derbe and Lystra. This was the second time that Paul had been there, and as he enters, we are introduced to a disciple named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer. But his father was a Greek. Here we see one example of adversity that Eunice had to handle. A. The adversity of a spiritually broken home We are told that Eunice was Jewish, but her husband was Greek. Most likely the way the situation unfolded was that Eunice was a Jewish woman who stepped outside of her Judaism in order to marry. We know that she still stood strong to many aspects of Judaism, like the Old Testament and sometime later, she hears about Jesus and the gospel and becomes a Christian believer. We know that her home was not completely Jewish however, for she never had her son, Timothy, circumcised, as would have been the Jewish custom. She put herself in a hard situation. On the one hand, she had sold out her spiritual background in marrying this Greek man and would have been considered by most Jews as an outsider. But on the other hand, the Gentiles would have considered her as an outsider as well, because she was a Jew. She was really put in an awkward situation socially. But that pales in comparison to her situation spiritually. She had married outside of the Jewish faith and was in a situation where she was being forced to compromise her standards of Judaism. Her husband by this time in Acts 16 is presumed to be dead, for Luke, the author here in Acts, makes mention of him in the past tense—he was a Greek (vs. 1 & 3). The repeated statement of his ethnicity set in contrast to Eunice being a “believer” makes it apparent that Luke was making a point that 3 Timothy’s father was more than just culturally not Jewish, but that he was not a believer in the religion of the Jews or what Eunice now believed—Jesus.