As we continue our ongoing examination of the teaching of Paul in the pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, we come this morning to 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 8 through 13. Do turn there please, if you haven’t done so already; page 995 in the church Bibles.
You remember Paul is writing amidst what will prove to be his own terminal sufferings for the sake of the Gospel. He’s writing to help his young colleague and son in the faith, Timothy, to endure and persevere in faithfulness to the Lord and to his calling, no matter what. And in the verses that are now before us, Paul offers four powerful motives to help Timothy, to help us, endure even suffering in the service of Jesus Christ. First, in verse 8, he calls Timothy to remember the supremacy of Christ. The supremacy of Christ. Then in verse 9, he points to the sufficiency of the Word. The Word of God, he says, is not bound. Third, in verse 10, he highlights the salvation of the lost. “I endure everything for the sake of the elect.” And then finally, verses 11 through 13, he rehearses the steadfastness of God. Even when “we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” The supremacy of Christ, the sufficiency of the Word, the salvation of the lost, and the steadfastness of God.
Before we look at each of those in turn, let’s pray together and ask for the Lord to help us, and then we’ll read the Scriptures. Let us all pray.
O Lord our God, how we praise You for Your Word, and we ask that we would be enabled by Your Spirit to hear Your voice. We remember how the voice of the Lord is over the waters, the God of glory thunders, the Lord over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire; the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forest bare, and in His temple, all cry, glory! We pray that we would hear now that voice, the voice of the Lord. We thank You that Your Word is not bound. Give us ears to hear what Your Spirit is saying. For Jesus’ sake, amen.
Second Timothy chapter 2 at verse 8. This is the Word of God:
“Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! 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. The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.”
Amen.
One of the potential destructive fruits of suffering, really suffering of any kind, is the tendency it can create within us to self-absorption. Let me give you a trivial example. Gentleman, you get a headcold. You have the sniffles, and so now of course you’re dying of man-flu, right? All you can think about is how awful you feel – your achy muscles, your pounding headache, your sore throat can’t be ignored. And for a few days at least, until the symptoms subside, you fill your whole horizon. It’s all about you. Suffering has a tendency to turn us in on ourselves, make us focus on self. Doesn’t it?
Now the path of Christian faithfulness is going to involve suffering for all of us in all sorts of ways, and as we’ve seen in 2 Timothy, there is a cost to discipleship – a relational cost, an economic cost, perhaps, a reputational cost even. In Paul’s case, as he tells us in verse 9, it involved for him literal chains. He was suffering in a prison cell in Rome, and he’s writing to help Timothy endure whatever suffering providence might bring to him in the course of his Christian life and ministry. Back in verse 3, he told Timothy to “share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” But here’s the question – How can Timothy suffer, how can we suffer without falling prey to the spiritually destructive danger of self-absorption and self-centeredness that suffering can so readily engender in our hearts?
Well look with me at verse 8, first of all, and notice how Paul points Timothy to the supremacy of Christ. The supremacy of Christ. “Remember Jesus Christ,” he says. This isn’t a complicated instruction, is it? But it is pastorally so very wise. I need to be reminded every day where my attention ought to rest because the truth is, frankly, whether I’m suffering or not, I tend to loom far too large in my own mind most of the time. Haven’t you found that to be true in your own life? In the movie of our lives that’s playing in our imaginations, we are always the hero of the story, aren’t we; everybody else is in a supporting role. We are the center of attention. But Paul knows that that kind of narcissism and self-centeredness is the antithesis of Christian virtue and the enemy of faithful ministry. I need Paul to say to me what he says here to Timothy. Don’t you? “Remember Jesus Christ today. He is the real hero of the story, after all. The true center of all the action, the proper focus of all our attention. Not me, not you. Fill your gaze with Him, Timothy. Remember Jesus Christ.”
And did you notice the two truths about Jesus Christ that Paul highlights for special attention in our passage. Look again at verse 8. “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David.” We tend to focus, when we think about the work of Christ, we tend to focus on the cross, and rightly so. The cross is the very heart of the Gospel. Jesus Christ was crucified in the room and stead of sinners. “Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned He stood. Sealed my pardon with His blood, hallelujah! What a Savior!” But Paul reminds us here that the Christ who died for us is risen. And that means, as Paul put it back in chapter 1 verse 10, that by His resurrection, Jesus has “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light.” Suffering and death are stripped of their paralyzing power because Jesus Christ is alive. He has risen. I can face it, endure it, trusting Him who has triumphed over it for me.
And not only is He the risen Christ, He is also the reigning Christ. That’s the point of reminding Timothy that Jesus is the offspring of David, the seed of David. Do you see that language in the text? Jesus is David’s heir. He is the Messianic King. And now He sits enthroned in Messianic majesty and victory, having been “given the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” When you suffer as you follow Him, remember that suffering and death have been defeated in His resurrection. And now because He reigns at the Father’s right hand, great David’s greater Son, He will deliver on all His promises – promises to keep you and sustain you and bring you through. What do we need to endure, to persevere when things are hard and long and sad and sore? How can we keep the faith, stay the course, finish the race? We need to remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David. We need to see again the supremacy of Christ. Stop thinking about yourself and fill your eyes with fresh sight of Him. Remember Jesus Christ.
Secondly, notice in verse 9 how Pual points Timothy not just to the supremacy of Christ but also to the sufficiency of the Word of God. Paul says, “I am suffering, bound in chains as a criminal, for the Word of God is not bound.” How tempting it must have been for Paul as he wrote these words to descend into a deep well of discouragement and despondency. Remember chapter 1 verse 15? All who are in Asia, all the churches, including some even who were among his own ministry team – Phygelus and Hermogenes – they’ve all turned away and deserted Paul and Paul’s Gospel. And right now, there’s very little he can do about it. He is a prisoner in Rome, in chains, suffering. He’s watching these defections taking place and he is personally helpless to intervene. How does he fight off discouragement amidst all this suffering? “The Word of God is not bound,” he says. There are no shackles, no social mores, no cultural pressures, no legal limits that can restrain the Word of God. There are no such things as closed countries, no people off-limits, no hearts too hard, no minds too closed. Nothing and no one can hinder the Word from doing all that God has ordained for it to do. Not even the backsliding of ministry leaders like Phygelus and Hermogenes or mass defections like those taking place as Paul was writing in Asia. You can almost feel Paul exalting as he writes this as a declaration of faith. “I’m in chains. Everything may, to the eyes of the flesh, look dark and discouraging, but I know with the eyes of faith the Word of God is not bound.”
On the tenth of March, 1522, Martin Luther preached a sermon in which he discussed how the Reformation had accomplished so very much to that point, despite the open hostility and severe persecution of the papacy and the holy Roman emperor. The sermon contains one of his most memorable quotations. He said, “I simply taught, preached and wrote God’s Word. Otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my friend, Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.” That’s very much the spirit of Paul’s reminder to Timothy here, isn’t it? “I did nothing. The Word did everything. I’m in chains. I can’t intervene to stop people turning away, but I’m not discouraged because the Word is not bound.”
Sometimes as Christians, we talk to non-Christian friends and colleagues and family members. We feel an internal pressure – we think we have to be clever, have an answer for everything, have a compelling, personal story that will tug on the heartstrings and sway people’s minds. But Paul says, “You know all you really need to do is let the Word lose. Let the Word lose. Have confidence in the Word. Let the Word do the work. It’s not clever. It’s not fancy; just explain the Bible to people. It is the Word of God, after all, and because that is what it is, it is mightier than Roman chains, social stigma, peer pressure, the power of Satan, the enslaving dominion of sin. The Word is not bound. Let the Word lose.” The supremacy of Christ. The sufficiency of the Word.
Then look down at verse 10. Paul continues in this autobiographical mode, you notice, seeking to encourage Timothy by His own example. And He gives us a third reason to endure, to persevere. The supremacy of Christ. The sufficiency of the Word. Now the salvation of the lost. 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.” God has His elect people scattered throughout the world from among every people and language and nation. And Paul says here that he believes not only his preaching but his sufferings too are instruments that God will use to bring salvation to them. He’s saying that he has such a passion for the conversion of others he is willing to endure whatever it takes to see more of them come to know Jwwuw Christ for themselves. Faithfulness to Christ in the face of suffering and quiet service of others when you get nothing in return but dismissal or disdain, these are very often mighty instruments in the hands of God in awakening the slumbering consciences of the watching world to the truth of the Gospel.
When I was ordained to the Gospel ministry back in the United Kingdom, one of the vows I was required to take breathed the same spirit, very much, as verse 10 does. The presbytery asked me, “Are not zeal for the honor of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of saving souls your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the function of the holy ministry and not worldly designs and interests. Paul was a man consumed with zeal for the honor of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of saving souls. And it had such a grip on his heart that he thought his sufferings a price worth paying to achieve those driving ambitions. Maybe one reason we find suffering so hard to endure and can find ourselves consumed with ourselves, especially when we suffer, is that we have not cultivated sufficient zeal for the salvation of the lost all around us. Our eyes are turned inward at self instead of outward to the needs of the world. Look up to Jesus Christ. Yes, that’s first. Then look to the Word of God in all its sufficiency and power. And then, look out toward others with Gospel love and zeal for their redemption. Stop thinking about yourself. Ask yourself instead, “What eternal good can I do for her, for him, for those loved ones and friends and colleagues who do not know their need of a Savior yet alone the first thing about Him?” The supremacy of Christ. The sufficiency of the Word. The salvation of the lost. Go serve somebody in Jesus’ name. It will lift your heart from all the discouragements that suffering can bring.
Then finally, look down with me at verses 11 through 13 and notice what Paul says about the steadfastness of God. Now these verses comprise the fourth of five sayings scattered through 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus that are all introduced in the same way, with the same formula. These are the fourth of Paul’s five faithful sayings. In this case, noticing the mirrored structure and the rhythms of each clause, most scholars suggest that this faithful saying was not originally composed by the apostle Paul but is likely being quoted by him here. This perhaps had a life of its own among the congregations that both Paul and Timothy served in Ephesus. Maybe a hymn or tool for catechetical instruction.
And just as an aside, by the way, if it was a liturgical text of some kind, a hymn or a song of praise, I think we ought to take the hint and see another very practical way to keep discouragement at bay, in the fires of Christian truth burning brightly on our hearts when we’re hurting. A good hymnal is a mighty weapon in fighting despondency and self-pity and discouragement. Sing the truth of God! Sometimes, don’t you find it’s just too hard to pray? Words won’t come. You don’t know where to start. Things are so very difficult. What should you do in moments like that? Well one thing you can do is fill your mouth with the great hymns of the faith and lift your voice in praise to God and you will find, very often, that the beautiful words of others compensate wonderfully for your own lack of vocabulary in that moment. And the warm, beauty of Gospel truth framed as poetry made into song will begin to rekindle the fire of devotion in your heart and words start to come again.
Well here in verses 11 through 13, Paul appears to be quoting an early hymn text. It is comprised, you’ll notice, of four stanzas and it’s full of rich encouragement and exhortation. The first stanza in verse 11 focuses on the beginning of the Christian life, doesn’t it. It rings with assurance. “If we died with Him, we will also live with Him.” One of the principle ideas you find the apostle Paul using again and again in his writings to explain what happens to us when we become Christians is union with Christ in His death. So, for example, Romans chapter 6 verses 6 through 8, Paul says, “We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin, for one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ” – listen to how close this language is to verse 11 – “If we have died with Christ, we believe we will also live with Him.” “If we died with Him, we also will live with Him.”
The point is, when you became a Christian, you put your faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, you died with Him. That is to say, a decisive breach with the old life took place in your heart. Sin no longer rules there. He has come. The Lord Jesus has come to reside as King on the throne of your life. The old you is gone forever; instead now, “If anyone is in Christ, he is new creation.” And if that has happened to you, no matter how long and hard the road between your first coming to Christ and your final end might be, no matter the sufferings and setbacks and sorrows you will have to face along the way, if you died with Christ, you will also live with Him. Nothing can stop you, nothing, from possessing the life of Christ in the world to come. Remember Romans 8:29-30. “Those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified.”
Famously, the last link in that chain of blessings that flow from coming to Jesus, glory to come, being glorified, that last link in the chain is written in a past tense, like every other link that describes what God has already done for us and in us through the Gospel. And it’s in the past tense, you know, to make the point that if God has chosen you and called you and justified you, clothing you in the righteousness of His Son, the Lord Jesus, if God has saved you and made you a Christian, future glory is as certain for you as any of the other blessings of salvation you already possess right now through faith in Jesus Christ. It is an organic and therefore an inevitable connection between the beginning of the Christian life and its glorious end. “He who began a good work in you will carry it on until the completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” If we died with Him, we will also live with Him. Do not look at your shaky hand, your trembling heart, your worried mind, and conclude from them that you are never going to make it. Do not judge the certainty of your own perseverance by the limited measure of your own wisdom and goodness and strength. Rather, judge it by the unshakable promise of God. Those whom He called, He glorified. If we died with Him, we will also live with Him. There is a great refuge for a fearful, hurting heart right here, isn’t there? He will keep you. He will keep you. He will bring you home.
Then look at the second stanza in verse 12. “If we endure, we will also reign with Him.” A similar note of assurance and certainty is sounding here too, but this time “endure” is the key word not to be missed. Do you see it? Remember, Paul wants to help Timothy to endure and Paul said to himself back in verse 10, “I endure everything for the sake of the elect.” Endurance, perseverance, finishing the race, keeping the faith is the big idea of this whole letter. And here is a powerful incentive to do it. Endurance in this life, Paul says, will lead to reigning with Christ in the life to come. If we endure, we will also reign with Him.
And I find it immensely helpful that the first two stanzas should come together like this. Don’t you? Think about it. It is absolutely true that everyone who is truly converted to faith in Christ will be saved. None will be lost. Every one will be glorified. “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me,” John 6:36, “and whoever comes to Me, I will never cast out,” Jesus said. If we died with Him, we will also live with Him. Yes, that’s wonderfully true, but that provides no excuse for personal laziness or moral indifference or spiritual presumption. And this second stanza balances the first in precisely those terms by reminding us that the great mark and characteristic and evidence of someone who is truly converted is that she endures. She perseveres. He strives to stay the course no matter what may come. He does not say, “I have the guarantee of God that I will be glorified and I will live and reign with Christ, and so it doesn’t matter now how I live.” Not at all. He says instead, “Jesus has changed my life. I am no longer who I was. He rules my heart and all I want, my deepest desire, is to live His way for His glory, more and more, whatever happens. I am resolved to endure, God helping me, to persevere and fight the good fight and finish the race.” That’s the mark of a true convert.
If you endure, Paul says, you will also reign with Him. Now isn’t that a stunning promise? He reigns, Lord over all, and He will sweep you up into His victory. I expect one of the great joys of heaven will be the contrast that I’m sure will constantly take our breaths away between our lowly circumstances here and now as we endure hardship and suffering and stumble along, wandering down many culdesacs and dead ends, making many mistakes. The contrast between that reality that we live right now together and the glory of Jesus Christ that will engulf us and surround us and beautify us in the life to come. “How did one so lowly and unworthy and foolish as I come to live here with my Jesus, sharing His triumph?” It will be grace on top of grace fueling praise forever. And that is meant to be an incentive to us here and now to press on. Like the athlete image, you remember, back in verse 5, who competes according to the rules because he wants to win the crown. Here, we are to endure because we want to share in the reign of our Redeemer in the majesty of His presence forever.
But then notice, please, the third stanza. Look at the second half of verse 12. Here’s the other side of the helpful call to perseverance that we’ve been considering. Here’s a warning note. “If we deny Him, He also will deny us.” Now just to be clear, I don’t think Paul has in mind, for example, Peter’s threefold denial of Christ. Do you remember on the night in which Jesus was betrayed in that moment of weakness when he was put on the spot? “You are one of His disciples, aren’t you?” Three times Peter denied even knowing Jesus. But for Peter, it was a temporary stumble, a serious one, heartbreaking, grievous, wicked, but a temporary stumble from which he was restored, of which he repented.
That’s not what Paul has in view here. Rather, the denial in mind is the final rejection and repudiation of Christ after having at one point in our lives professed to follow Him. It is apostasy from the Gospel that Paul is talking about, and that is an immensely solemn thing. Jesus talked about it in very similar terms in Matthew 10:32-33. “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge in the presence of My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I also will deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” Paul wants to make sure we understand there is no way to use Jesus as a mere insurance policy. You can’t make a public profession of faith at some point in your back story and then go on to live however you please, really if not in your words by your life, repudiating all the claims that Jesus makes to rule over your mind and heart and words and works and then quickly tell anybody who challenges you, “Oh, oh, I’m a Christian. I prayed the sinner’s prayer. I made a commitment. I joined the church.” No, that just won’t do. It just won’t do. Christians endure. They do not deny Christ. They take the warnings against apostasy seriously and they tremble at the very thought of falling away and turning back. False believers, on the other hand, just don’t care.
Which are you? Which are you? When you read these sorts of warnings, what happens in your heart? Is there an alarm bell sounding? You’ve been wandering too close to the cliff edge lately. Better change course right now. Is that what’s happening when you read these sorts of warnings? Change course immediately! Danger! And you make a U-turn. Or do you just shrug at the prospect of apostasy and yawn at the warning of God? If we deny Him, He will also deny us. Who cares? If that does not stir you to keep short accounts with Christ, you are right now, today, in very serious spiritual danger. And I want to plead with you to hear the warning of God. See the cliff edge approaching before it is too late. Repent and turn back and swap your false profession of faith for the real thing. The Lord is calling you by His Word and Spirit. He is pleading with you. “As I live, declares the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back! Turn back! Why will you die, O house of Israel?” Hear the alarm and turn back.
Then finally, look down please at verse 13 and the wonderful refuge here for a tender conscience. The first stanza is about the beginning of the Christian life and the divine assurance of heaven. The second and third stanzas are about the progress of the Christian life and the call to perseverance and the warning against apostasy. But the fourth stanza is a word of comfort for every Christian with a sensitive conscience and a tender heart who is filled not with a new resolve to press on when they hear the other stanzas, but actually with a paralyzing fear that, “Maybe I’m not going to make it! What if I’m not faithful? What if I stumble and fall? Am I beyond pardon? Is it too late for me? Can I ever forfeit the life Jesus has promised? Can I sin my way out of the grip of redeeming grace?”
I was in a meeting this past week and someone suggested that we conduct a study of the congregation to gather facts about the matter that was under discussion. And then somebody else quickly chimed in and said, “Well maybe we shouldn’t do that because as soon as we let people know that we’re trying to address this particular problem, they’re going to expect us to actually address it. What if we can’t pull it off? What if we fail to follow through?” Good intentions aren’t good enough. You have to deliver! And that’s a very human sensibility, isn’t it? We shrink back from commitment because we worry we can’t keep our promises. We don’t step forward because we worry we’ll let everybody down. And then when we hear the call to follow Christ and persevere and endure, we worry we will not be the faithful disciples we’re called to be. And that worry can be paralyzing. And so Paul says in verse 13, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful – for He cannot deny Himself.” “Fearful Timothy, wondering if you’re going to fail, find your comfort here – God is faithful to us even when we are not faithful to Him.”
Remember the similar language the apostle John uses in his first letter. “If we confess our sin, He is” – what? “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That’s who God is; that’s what He’s like. He can’t do or be otherwise. He is the hiding place for a fearful heart and a sensitive conscience and a trembling faith. Not yourself, but Him. Right here in the character of God – He cannot deny Himself. He keeps His promises. He is the faithful one. You can trust in Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David. You can let the Word do the work. You can love the lost and cling all the while to the character of God who, even when we are faithless, remains faithful because that is who He is. He’s not waiting for you to fail, you know, expecting you to disappoint Him, ready and poised to condemn you. No, He is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness when you come running to Him, heartbroken and repentant. His Son has died for your pardon. His Spirit dwells in your heart. You are His beloved child. He will never let you go. Do not run away from Him; run to Him. Run to Him! He is faithful to you even in those terrible moments of failure, and there are so many of them along the way, aren’t there? But He keeps His promises. He washes us clean. He pardons. He renews. He sanctifies. He is filled with steadfast love and mercy.
How can we endure, persevere, keep the faith, finish the race? How can we go on even amidst suffering and serve the Lord? Here’s how. Remember the supremacy of Christ. Trust the sufficiency of the Word. Labor for the salvation of the lost. And preach to your trembling heart the steadfastness of God.
Let us pray.
Our God and Father, we bow before You and we pause now to pray for that soul within the sound of my voice who has all the words but does not yet know what it is to pass from death to life. For the false believer. For the one who thinks to use Jesus as insurance but who has never yet surrendered to His mastery. We pray for that soul and plead with You, Father, that he or she would see the cliff edge fast approaching, hear the alarm of heaven sounding, hear Your pleas that would turn back and live. Grant them the grace of true repentance. And likewise, we pray for the trembling heart, the true believer with a sensitive conscience, fearing that they have sinned their way out of Your amazing grace and love. Lift their gaze from themselves and all their weaknesses and failings and sins to Your steadfast love and faithfulness to save to the uttermost all who come to You through the Lord Jesus Christ. We all now together flee back to You through Him and ask that for His sake You would sustain us and forgive us and strengthen us in Your service. For we ask it in His name, amen.