In 1937, King George the VI ascended to the throne of Great Britain. As glorious a position that we might think this is, it is not one that he strongly desired. Throughout his life, George the VI was prone to illness, discouragement, and fear. He did not think of himself, nor was he seen, as one with great ability. Besides his sickly disposition, he had a stammer that made it difficult for people to understand him. And the time of his ascension to the throne was not one of great prospect. Germany was building an army, tension was mounting in Europe; war was inevitably on the horizon.
Faith in the monarchy was also at an all time low. George’s elder brother, Edward, had just abdicated the throne in order to marry his mistress. The tasks George faced surely seemed daunting to him, even insurmountable. Difficulty and hardship had just been thrust upon him.
In this letter from Paul, Timothy probably saw himself in a similar position. Paul, his spiritual father, is addressing him for what appears to be the last time. Paul, the one that he had looked to for teaching, wisdom, and guidance, does not seem to be long for this world. And as he approaches his end, he charges Timothy to continue the work that he has devoted his life to; the advancement of the gospel. But the times are hard. Paul, the missionary par excellence, was being abandoned because of the suffering due to spreading the gospel, as we see in chapter 1:15. From a human perspective, everything is going wrong. Paul is in prison, facing death, his associates are abandoning him and the faith—and now Paul is calling on Timothy to continue to pass the gospel on, to continue to entrust the gospel to the next generation, just as Paul has entrusted it to Timothy.
This is our charge as well. What the Holy Spirit carried Paul along to write to Timothy is also meant for us. So what this passage in 2nd Timothy 2 is telling us is that we are to work for the advancement of the gospel in the face of suffering. Specifically what we are told in this passage is how to advance the gospel, the cost of advancing the gospel, and the motivation for counting this cost.
This is the charge that Paul gives to Timothy in verse 2, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Paul is picturing a chain of progression here: Jesus entrusted the gospel to Paul, Paul has entrusted it to Timothy, Timothy is to entrust it to faithful men, these faithful men are in turn to entrust it to others. In all of this, the message of the gospel is constant but the messenger of the gospel changes. Although I think what is being directly related here is that Timothy is to train future leaders in the church by entrusting the gospel to them as Paul has entrusted it to Timothy, but I do think we also see here the necessity of the universal charge for all believers to pass the gospel on through evangelism and discipleship. We are supposed to pass down the faith to such people that will do the same and in such a way that allows them to do the same.
In doing this, we need to keep in mind two things. First, pass the faith on by the grace of Jesus. If the thought of passing the faith on intimidates you, take comfort in the fact that it is not something that is to be accomplished by your strength, as we see in verse 1. “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. We must find our strength for service and ministry through knowing and resting in the grace we receive through Jesus, not by trying to muscle our way through it, not by gritting our teeth and bearing the difficulties that lie there in. When we embark on passing the gospel on to others in evangelism or discipleship, it is not something that we do on our own, but with the aid of Jesus Christ.
There are times when I am sharing my faith and all I can think to do is silently pray, “Lord give me the strength and ability to speak the truth well to this man.” Recently nothing has helped me realize more that I need the Lord’s grace in order to disciple than meeting with Nathan about counseling. The interns are meeting with him in order to learn how to counsel, and as we have been meeting, Nathan has shown us that counseling, dealing with people’s pain and issues, is clearly and aspect of discipleship. And as we address different problems and issues, how to apply the gospel to pains, you very quickly realize that without the Holy Spirit—without the strength imparted by the grace of God—we are in way over our head.
Second, we need to keep in mind that in discipleship, not only are we strengthened by God’s grace, but he also supplies the message that we are to pass on. Sometimes evangelism or discipleship can seem intimidating because we feel like we need to know everything or be original. But notice what Timothy is charged to pass on in verse 2, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses.” The message doesn’t need to be original with you—in fact, the message should NOT be original with you. It should be the same as all the generations before you. It should be the same message as other believers around you share. You should feel free to “borrow” what others say.
And since this is the case, we should take advantage of one of the greatest resources of discipleship that we have: the teaching we receive in Sunday School and corporate worship. Sermons are not just meant to edify you by helping your understanding, they are also meant to equip you so that you know how to study the Bible. As we come together to hear the Word of the Lord, we are learning together how to interpret and apply Scripture. As we come together, to study the Word, we do not come solely for the purpose of helping our own understanding our just merely to increase our own knowledge, but so that we can pass what we learn and know on to the next generation. What you hear and learn even tonight in this passage, with a lowly intern sharing the Word with you, is meant to equip you for passing the gospel on. What you hear in the presence of many witnesses, pass on to others.
But if the charge we now have is to pass the gospel on, then we must be aware of what will be required of us to complete it. There will be a cost. That’s what Paul shares with Timothy next.
After giving Timothy the charge to entrust the gospel to others by the strength of Jesus Christ, he turns next to addressing what will inherently come with this mission: suffering. This is exactly what we see in verse 3, as Paul calls Timothy to share in suffering. Paul knows from personal experience, both past and present, that sharing in suffering is part of advancing the gospel. He wants Timothy to be ready for it. He wants him to count the cost of it know, to know what it will take now, so that when times get hard he will be ready. So that he will not be like those who abandoned Paul and the faith when Paul was imprisoned for his gospel ministry. In order to bear the suffering that will come with advancing the gospel, we must be ready to count the cost, to sacrifice in certain ways. Paul lays these ways out in three metaphors and a call to action.
First, our priorities cannot be divided. This is seen in Paul’s illustration of the soldier. Soldiers do not set their own agendas, but follow the lead and orders of their superior. They are to stay focused on the mission and the goal. In the same way, we are to keep on minds set on pleasing God, on what he would have us accomplish and do. Our priority should be to please our Commander, Jesus, not ourselves. When we aim to please ourselves, when we aim to serve ourselves, that is when we get entangled with the world and its “pleasures,” and when we do that we cannot fulfill the mission of entrusting the gospel to others.
The soldier metaphor is perfect in getting this across. The soldier goes where he is ordered to go. He does what he is ordered to do. We too must count the cost now, being willing to go and do whatever the Lord would ask of us. That must be our top priority. Our priorities will dictate what we do when times get tough. If we desire above all else comfort and ease, then when the call comes that missionaries are needed in the dangerous and unpleasant parts of the world, we won’t even ask the Lord if we should go. Or, when times get tough, we high tail it out of the situation. We have to prepare ourselves for these events in advance so that we will be focused on Christ when they come.
Yes, we will have to deny ourselves many pleasures that the world promises, but we will have the pleasures of Christ.
So, because Jesus sets the agenda and not me, it changes the way we look at the world. If we make a lot of money we don’t ask, “What do I want do to with this?” we ask, “How does the Lord want me to us this? How can I please the Lord with the way I use my money?” If we are talented and skilled, we don’t ask, “How can I use my skill to advance my name?” But, “How can I use my talents to advance God’s name, to advance the gospel?”
Second, we must be disciplined, Paul says in verse 5 that “an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.” Cheaters don’t get the prize and quitters don’t qualify for awards.
In 1904 the Olympic marathon took place on a hilly course in St. Louis with 94 degree heat. Out of the 32 runners who started the race, 17 were unable to finish. Frederick Lorz finally crossed the finish line 16 minutes before the runner up. This was first seen as a great feat, until it came to light that spectators had seen him riding in a car for the majority of the course—he had even waved to some of them. It turns out that around the 9th mile of the race Lorz had dropped out due to exhaustion. His manager was giving him a ride to the finish line, but his car broke down just a few miles from the finish line. Apparently Lorz amused himself by running the remaining distance to the finish line and then just played along when everyone thought he was the winner. After he was found out he was banned from competing in further competitions. When the going got too difficult, Lorz quit and disqualified himself.
I can understand the desire to quit. I’m what many call one of those crazy people who has actually run a marathon, and let me tell you, when the course comes to that split where the marathon runners go one way and the half marathon runners go the other—it can be pretty tempting to say, “This is harder than I thought it was going to be. My body is just aching. I’m going to cut it short.” But if you do that you don’t get the prize. That’s why Paul is reminding Timothy that he has to push through when the going gets tough.
Unfaithfulness is easy. The world pushes us to be faithless. So, giving into our lusts is easy and encouraged by the world. What isn’t easy is denying ourselves. That’s hard. It’s easy to be obsessed with your image, to compare yourself to other people. What is hard is finding and being satisfied with your identity in Christ.
Third, We must be ready for hard work. I do not speak from experience, but from all that I can see farming is hard and exhausting work. It can monotonous. It can be heart breaking. The farmer, especially the farmer in the context that Paul is speaking of, has his whole life tied up in his work. If he doesn’t have a harvest, he won’t eat. A negative way of expressing Paul’s point would be Proverbs 20:4, “The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.” What Paul is telling Timothy is that if you want to have anything to show for your work, you have to work hard. You will reap what you sow. The hard working farmer deserves the good crop, not the lazy farmer. Passing the gospel on will take hard work.
Working for the advance of the gospel requires effort. If we do nothing, then we should expect nothing. If you neglect your own spiritual nourishment and care, then don’t expect to be able to lead someone spiritually. If you don’t spend time in your families studying the Word, praying together, taking the time to have intentional gospel conversations, then don’t be surprised when people in your family don’t seem to value the things of God or the gospel.
Finally, in verse 7, Paul gives a call for meditation with a promise of divine aid in understanding. They are inseparable from each other and necessary if we are to complete the charge to pass the gospel on to others. So if we want to receive understanding, if we want to know the Word, then we must read it and think about it, meditate on it. Yet, this alone will accomplish nothing. The Lord must bring understanding, but that will only come if we are putting it into our minds. Understanding will not come through osmosis. This is why we need to read the Word and think on the Word, but also why when we are reading and thinking on the Word we pray, “Lord, please give me understanding of what you are telling me here.” We must do both and cannot neglect one over the other.
This is how we count the cost; by making our priorities reflect the priorities of Christ, by disciplining our ourselves to endure hardship, by preparing ourselves for the hard work ahead, and by committing ourselves to prayer and meditation.
But doing this is not easy. Counting the cost is hard. It is painful. How are we to motivate ourselves to do this? That’s what Paul turns his attention to next. We make it through our suffering by remembering Christ past and future faithfulness.
In verse 8 Paul now turns from discussing the charge he has given to Timothy and the sacrifices he will have to make, to the motivation behind the charge and the sacrifice. Put simply, the motivation is Jesus Christ—who he is, what he has done, and what he will do.
What I think we can glean from these last verses is the motivation to push through the suffering that comes with faithfully representing Christ and fulfilling the charge to pass the gospel on to others. So, to endure the suffering we must…
Remember what Jesus’ faithful work on the cross means for us
When Paul declares “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel…” He isn’t just writing that because he is thinking to himself, “I better make sure Timothy actually remembers the gospel message.” Rather, what he is saying is, “when you have to count the cost, when you are in the midst of denying the fleeting pleasures of the world, when you are in the midst of suffering and are having to discipline yourself to keep going, when you are toiling with all your might in the work of the gospel, remember Jesus Christ—that is your motivation to endure. That’s your motivation to continue in the faith.”
And the two things he mentions about Jesus may seem strange, but he does so for a specific purpose. First, he says of Jesus that he is “risen from the dead.” Death could not hold Jesus. Instead, God raised Jesus on the third day; he conquered death. But, secondly, we are told that Jesus is the offspring of David, showing that this resurrection of no ordinary resurrection—if we can count any resurrection as ordinary—because it is the resurrection of the King. Because he is raised from the grave never to see corruption, then we know that he is the everlasting King. He will reign forever, as we read in Luke when the angel spoke to Mary, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Lk 1:31-33).
Paul is telling Timothy that in the midst of hardship he is to remember that Jesus is risen and that Jesus is King. Sure, sharing the gospel will be hard. People may stand against us and even persecute us, but we have every reason to endure through hardship and suffering. We have no reason to fear men. What can they do to you? Kill you? Jesus will raise you on the last day, he is King and he has conquered. So don’t shrink back when the times get hard. Remember Jesus.
Remember also that your suffering is not in vain
Our suffering is not in vain because we cannot fail in our mission. This is what we see in verses 9-10. Although Paul is chained up, although Paul is suffering pain and wrongful imprisonment, he doesn’t view his suffering as pointless. He doesn’t even really count his imprisonment as a hindrance to the gospels advancement. This is because he knows that the gospel cannot be stopped. He is bound, but the gospel cannot be bound! The Word of the Lord will not return void. This is why Paul can endure and it is why we can endure as well. We endure because we cannot fail. This is what Paul is saying in verse 10, “Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” We know that our suffering for the sake of the gospel cannot fail because God chose a people before the foundation of the world to bring to himself. It is for those that we strive to declare the gospel in the face of suffering.
Now, as we should expect, Paul has a right understanding of election here. He doesn’t say, “Well, God has chosen a people before the foundation of the world, so I don’t need to preach or suffer for the sake of the gospel.” He says the opposite, “I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. God’s election doesn’t make Paul less passionate about proclaiming and suffering for the gospel, but more passionate. The fact that God has ordained from the foundation of the world a people for himself assures Paul that his preaching will not be in vain; That his suffering will not be in vain. And we have that assurance too. If we suffer in bringing the gospel to the world, we know that we aren’t wasting our time or our lives! For the preaching of the gospel is the means that God has ordained to bring his elect to faith. Christ was able to go to the cross knowing that his work would be affective. Paul can suffer as a criminal because he knows his suffering is not in vain, and we are called to know that neither will our suffering for the sake of the gospel be in vain. By enduring suffering for the gospel, we become God’s instrument to bring his elect to himself.
In his book, “Let the Nations be Glad!” John Piper tells the story of an indigenous missionary in India who walked from village to village to preach the gospel. He did so barefoot because he couldn’t’ afford shoes. After walking many miles he attempted to share the gospel with a village but was turned away. Exhausted and discouraged, the missionary collapsed under a tree and fell asleep. When he awoke the entire village had come out to see him. While he had been sleeping, some men of the village walked by him and saw his bloody and blistered feet and concluded that any man who would be willing to do that to himself in order bring a message to them must be bearing a very important message. That missionary’s suffering served to advance the gospel. It was not in vain. Neither will the suffering we face because of the gospel be in vain.
Lastly, We need to remember that Jesus will be faithful to keep his Word
Paul ends this section to Timothy by commending to him a well known statement, calling it “trustworthy,” meaning that he can stake his life on it. It is true. The saying outlines the promises of Christ to us.
In 11-12a, the statement is one of victory and calls our attention back to verse 8. Jesus is the God-man who died and was raised, the royal seed of David who now reigns forever and ever. So, if we have died with Christ, then we will live with him in the new heavens and the new earth. Paul says more about this in Romans 6:8-9, which says, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” If we unite to Christ now by faith, died to ourselves, then we will live with Christ and be resurrected on the last day.
Verse 12 continues by adding that if we endure, then we will be heirs with him in his kingdom. This is pulling from Jesus word in Matthew 10:22, which is Jesus word to his disciples, “you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” We must suffer and identify with him, but if we do so then we will reign with him. This is talking about persevering in the faith. This calls us to look at our current suffering for the sake of the gospel as light and momentary compared to the eternal weight of glory that awaits us.
But the statement also reminds us of the high stakes of our current situation. The third statement is most certainly taken from Matthew 10:33, where Jesus says that whoever denies him before men, Jesus will likewise deny him before his Father in heaven. Those who turned away from Paul after his imprisonment fit this category. Those who would rather be at ease and peace with the world than suffer for the sake of the gospel deny Jesus. He will in turn deny them. The stakes are high. If you deny Jesus, then you are lining up as his enemy. When times get hard, we not only need to remember that Christ will be faithful to honor his Word of promise for our reward, but also his Word of promise to punish his enemies. We must keep this in view when the lusts of this world look appealing to us. We must fight back by remember that if we are faithful to unite with Christ and endure suffering, we will live and reign with him. If we deny disown him in order to get momentary comfort, he will disown us for eternity.
The last statement of the saying, verse 13, can seem a bit confusing. “If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” It is the only part of the statement that includes a reason and it is a word of encouragement. What this is saying is that even as you struggle to be faithful to Christ, Christ will remain faithful to you. Even as the church struggles to remain faithful, God will not struggle. He will remain faithful to his people and keep them until the end. If he has called you, he will keep you. For he cannot deny himself—This cause is referring to the fact that he will keep his promises to us. I’ll just list a few so we can get an idea of how he has promised to be faithful to his children.
1. 1st Corinthians 1:4-9, I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him and all speech and all knowledge—even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
2. 1st Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
3. 2nd Thess 3:3, “But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.”
4. 1st John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
This is what it means for God to be faithful. He will sustain his people. He will protect his people. He will not allow them to be crushed under a load that they cannot bear. And when you find yourself in sin, he is faithful to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. You may be struggling to suffer as a good soldier of Christ, you may think that you are completely botching the call to pass the gospel on and disciple others, you may find yourself saying right now that you are being faithless—but remember, he is faithful when you are not. And one of the greatest ways we see his faithfulness to us is in the promise to forgive us when we come to him in repentance. Sear 1st John 1:9 on your mind, so that when you are struggling in your faithfulness, when you are struggling to suffer as a good soldier, you do not lose hope but remember that Christ will be faithful---“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He is faithful.”
So, remember the prize! If we have died with him, then we will live with him—that is his promise! If we endure hardship for the sake of the gospel now, then we will reign with him—that is his promise! If we deny him, then he will deny us—That is the terrible promise that should sober us and cause us to cling to him. And if we are faithless, Jesus remains faithful to us—for he cannot deny himself. He has been faithful, he is faithful, and he will continue to be faithful.