Please, if you would, take your Bibles in hand and open them with me to the second letter of Paul to Timothy. We come today – excuse me – we come today to the first seven verses of chapter 2 as we work through 2 Timothy together; page 995 if you’re using one of our church Bibles. You remember that Paul’s concern in this letter, as he faces his own approaching martyrdom, is to encourage and strengthen his young colleague Timothy, so that despite his own natural weaknesses and the many trials that will come his way in ministry, he will, nevertheless, keep the faith and persevere to the end. Last time we hear Paul calling Timothy not to be ashamed of the Gospel or of those who suffer for the Gospel’s sake. This time, Paul is more positive. Instead of being ashamed of the Gospel, he gives Timothy some tools to help him fulfill his calling as he serves the church in Ephesus. And so these verses constitute a kind of toolkit for the perseverance of the church, its ministers and its members, in hard times.
Would you look at the passage with me for a moment? Let me quickly sketch the outline for you. In verse 1, Paul reminds us of the empowerment we must have to persevere. Then in verse 2, he outlines the investment we must make as we seek to ensure that not only we but the church also will persevere, long after we are gone. And then in verses 3 through 6, Paul uses three metaphors to capture the temperament we must embody as we seek to persevere right now today. So those are our three headings. Do you see them? The empowerment we must have, the investment we must make, and the temperament we must embody. Now before we unpack each of those, let’s bow our heads and ask for the Lord to help us. Let us all pray.
Gracious God, our loving heavenly Father, we cry out to You that You would hear us. We are hungry and thirsty after righteousness. May the promise of our Savior be fulfilled in our midst, and hearts and lives even now as Your word is read and preached that we might be filled. Hear us. Meet with us. Be exalted in our midst as Your Word is read and preached, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Second Timothy chapter 2 at verse 1. This is the Word of God:
“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”
Amen.
A few years ago, my wife and I took a short vacation in the southwest of the country and we rented a car while we were there. They gave us an electric vehicle, I think it was a Tesla, and it was perfectly adequate for our needs during our trip and we were getting around just fine until I realized we were almost out of power. Now I had never charged an electric vehicle before, and we soon discovered that most of the gas stations nearby did not have facilities for charging an electric vehicle. And so we were frantically googling where we could take the car to get it charged. When we finally located a place, that became our place. We knew we could charge the car there, and so that’s where we would go. We never went anywhere else. We knew there was power there.
Now keep that image in mind. Look with me at verse 1, and notice what Paul says about the empowerment we must have if we are to persevere as Christian people. “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Now back in verse 2, Paul already addressed Timothy as “my beloved child.” And here it is again – “You then, my child.” So this is a fatherly word of wisdom and exhortation. It is a command to Timothy, but it is a command borne from love. “My child, be strengthened,” he says. “I care about you, very much, and so I want you to get this piece straight, clear, because it’s really important. Be strengthened.” So the fatherly tone doesn’t soften the command so much as it underlines its importance. “You are my child. I care about you. And from this place of love and care, here is this important, vital thing that I want you to be sure to have bolted into place in your thinking and in your life.”
And look at the command itself. The form of the verb, “be strengthened,” is a present passive indicative. I’m sure that really does thrill you to hear that! A present verb. That is to say, something that is to go on right now, happening right now, and again and again in Timothy’s life, presently – “Be strengthened.” And it is a passive verb. So Paul doesn’t say, “Be strong,” as if Timothy was being asked to muster the innate strength that lay as an untapped resource, dormant and waiting already there within him. Paul isn’t saying to Timothy, “Look, I want you to really dig deep now and reach your potential.” That’s not what he’s saying. No, he says not, “Be strong,” but “Be strengthened.” This is an alien strength; a strength from outside. A strength that must be given by the hand of God. And it is an imperative verb. It is a command. “This must happen, Timothy, if you are going to make it. You must ensure that you are being strengthened. You are like someone driving a Tesla in a strange city. Once you find a charging station, Timothy, you keep going back there for the power that you need because that’s where you know you can find the empowerment to help you make the journey. Put the location in your favorite Google maps and go back, again and again and again. Make sure you go on being strengthened.”
Notice carefully the nature and the source of this strength that Paul tells Timothy he so badly needs. “Be strengthened now” – with what? “By grace.” “Be strengthened by grace.” “Be strengthened by grace.” Grace is the strength that he needs, that we need. Grace here, of course, refers to the abundant goodness of God, undeserved, freely given to sustain and preserve and keep His children. Grace is power to live the Christian life. Grace is the juice that the car of your Christian life runs on. Grace. If I could change the picture a little bit, trying to live the Christian life on your own strength, by your own resources, is like putting diesel in a gas engine. You won’t get far. You need grace if you’re going to make it; nothing else will do.
And where do you go to fill up on the grace that you need to be strengthened and sustained and persevere? Where do you find it? Where do you get it? Look again at the text. “Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” So, to be clear, grace is not a blob of spiritual stuff, a commodity, you know, that you can bargain for. “I give God the behavior that He wants and He gives me the grace stuff that I need.” No, grace is simply the benefit, the blessing, the effect of our being in Christ Jesus. Or you could perhaps put it this way. Grace is Christ caring for us, sustaining us, supporting us. So grace isn’t abstract. It is the fabric of your fellowship with Jesus.
So Timothy, brothers and sisters of First Presbyterian Church, get yourself to Him, over and over and over again. Never stray from Him. Resort to Him every day, all the time. Run back to Him. Make going to Jesus the reflex of your heart on every occasion, at every trial. His grace, He Himself is what you need in all your weaknesses. There is grace for you that you might go on today being strengthened. There is grace for you, but you can only get it here in Christ Jesus. It is blood bought, cross won. It is His free gift and it is for you, but you must go to Him to get it. Are you going every day to Jesus to be strengthened? Or do you think you’ve got enough in the tank to squeeze out another day in your own strength? If you’re not running back to Jesus every day, you are actually demonstrating that you don’t believe Him when He says, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Nothing. The empowerment we must have.
Then secondly, look with me at verse 2 and notice the investment we must make. Paul is aware as he writes these words that he is coming to the end of his life and ministry. And you remember back in chapter 1 verse 15, he mentions to Timothy that “All who are in Asia have turned away from me.” So humanly speaking, the success and the progress of the church in these moments is under very serious threats. Paul is about to be removed from the scene. People are defecting left and right. And so naturally, part of Paul’s burden here isn’t just to ensure that Timothy perseveres, but it is to ensure that Timothy will do whatever he can to preserve and guarantee the perseverance and preservation of the church of Jesus Christ from generation to generation. Paul here in verse 2 is effectively passing the baton to Timothy, urging him to be intentional now in developing a succession plan for the long haul so that the ministry of the Word and that the health of the church might flourish long after both of them are gone.
So do you see all of that in verse 2? Look at 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.” Now here is true, apostolic succession. It has nothing to do with the allegedly unbroken chain of bishops appointed by the apostles who in turn appointed bishops who appointed still others and so on down to the present day. That’s not apostolic succession. Apostolic succession is not at all about who may legitimately hold ecclesiastical office. Apostolic succession is about the passing on from generation to generation of apostolic truth. Under God, the future of the church of Jesus Christ rests not on an unbroken chain of ecclesiastical leaders, but on the faithful communication of Gospel truth across the ages.
Church government is not an indifferent matter, and the Bible has a good deal to say about the way that the church should rightly be ordered. And we ought to give careful attention to it. But let’s be clear now. No matter what system of government a church might adopt, whether it is episcopal or congregational or presbyterian, no matter how minutely a church may adhere to the teaching of holy Scripture on the way that it should be led and what kind of officers should lead it, is going to make no lasting difference at all if apostolic doctrine is lost. Apostolic church government without apostolic truth is nothing more than old dinosaur bones that bear testimony to some mighty creature that once lived but lives no longer. True apostolic succession is about passing on the truth, because without the truth, the church dies. It dies.
And that’s exactly what Paul tells Timothy here, isn’t it, in verse 2. What is it to be passed on? Not an office. What does he say? “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses.” That’s what Timothy is to pass on to faithful men. He is to steward carefully, from one generation to the next, Paul’s teaching. It is, notice, teaching communicated publicly in the presence of many witnesses. So it’s not esoteric; it’s not hidden or obscure or mysterious. There’s no secret to it. It is the faith once for all delivered to the saints, proclaimed out in the open for all to hear and know and test and verify. Nothing novel to it. No quirks. No idiosyncrasies. “Witnesses will tell you this is the same Gospel Peter preaches and James preaches and Jesus preached. Pass that on to them.”
And notice there are four generations of communication here. Did you spot that, as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 11:23, “He received from the Lord what he also passed on,” in this case to Timothy – that’s stage one – from Jesus to Paul. And then Timothy hears the message from Paul – that’s the second generation. Then Timothy here is commanded to pass on this message to faithful men – that’s the third generation. And those faithful men are to teach others also – there’s the fourth generation. The implication is that this chain of discipleship of Biblical teaching is to go on and on and on, which means that it ought to be a major focus of Timothy’s ministry in Ephesus. And it ought to be a focus of every generation after him, including for us here at First Presbyterian Church. Raise up the next generation of Gospel preachers and teachers – that’s the command. Look for faithful men who can teach others also and pour into them, invest in them, equip them for service.
I love that our congregation has, for many years now, focused on training men for the Gospel ministry. Our historic partnership with Reformed Theological Seminary is vitally important to that work. Our investment in our intern program is one of the most important things that we can ever do to invest in the future of the cause of Jesus Christ in this country and around the world. Reformed Theological Seminary did some recent study of the statistics. You remember, we’ve used these statistics before, they found that the combined graduation rates of all the major reformed and Bible believing seminaries in the United States will have to more than double in order simply to fill all the currently vacant pulpits among the Bible believing reformed denominations in this country. That is to say nothing of planting new churches or foreign missions or campus ministry. There is, let’s be clear, there is a shocking shortage of ministers confronting the church today. And we have, in verse 2, an urgent call to us from God to do what we can to address the shortage. I believe that churches make ministers, not seminaries. I think that’s actually part of the massage of 2 Timothy 2 verse 2. Churches make ministers. Seminaries provide vital help. They equip; they provide tools like the Biblical languages and advanced training and theology and church history and so on. But pastors are formed and shaped by the mentorship of Timothys as they serve together on the frontlines, an active combat zone with livefire, realworld ministry going on.
So when you get an intern in Sunday school, teaching you, or an intern leads evening worship or serves in your small group or ministers to you in some way, would you please remember 2 Timothy 2 verse 2 and do what you can to nurture them and encourage them and invest in them and cheer for them and celebrate them and value them and give them feedback and help them to flourish and grow. God is calling us to participate in the true, apostolic succession – shaping faithful men to teach the Word. It is now an urgent, pressing concern if we want the church in our own country to flourish for the generations to come. And we need to mobilize as a church to do it well. The empowerment we must have. The investment we must make.
Then thirdly, look at verses 3 through 7 and notice the temperament we must embody. Paul told Timothy to look for faithful men, but what does faithfulness look like? If Timothy is to go on being strengthened by grace, the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and if he is to mentor others in order to help them do the same, what sort of things will mark him out and mark them out? Well Paul answers those questions by means of three metaphors. Do you see them in the text? We are to be soldiers, verses 3 and 4, we are to be athletes, verse 5, we are to be farmers in verse 6. The point of the first metaphor in verses 3 and 4, good soldiers, is to highlight the necessity of endurance and avoidance. Let me tell you what I mean. Good soldiers, endurance first of all, good soldiers are to share in suffering. That is, we are not to exempt ourselves from the trials of other people. You don’t say, “Oh well, I’ll pray for you,” and then, you know, hustle right along. No, “How can I enter into this with you? Stand in solidarity beside you? Share in suffering for the cause and for the name of our Savior together?” Endurance is required. The word, “share in suffering,” is actually one word in the Greek. It’s a compound word, and if you break it down, each component means “with bad endurance or experience or feeling.” Stand with them as they pass through the trial, and if you can, don’t fail to go through it together. Endurance.
And also, avoidance, verse 4. “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” So faithfulness to Jesus Christ, perseverance in the way that we should go, demands more than the performance of positive duties only, doesn’t it? You pray. You serve. You give. You come to church. You suffer together. But it also demands that we avoid other behaviors. Paul here calls them civilian pursuits. These are not necessarily sinful things in themselves, but they are, shall we say, they are distractions. They are things the Lord has not called us to. “You have a mission, Timothy. It was given to you by your commanding officer, and you are not free to adjust the mission parameters. Stay on mission. Avoid diversions. Discipline your mind and your heart and your habits.”
Now of course that’s especially important for ministers of the Word like Timothy, but it’s true for all of us, isn’t it? We must endure suffering and we need to stay on mission and avoid distraction and diversion. Know what it is the Lord has given you to do, and train a laser-like focus in the accomplishment of it.
Then look at the second metaphor. First, the soldier. Then, verse 5, the athlete. “An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.” Now in the Greek games of Paul’s day, just like in any other sporting event even in our own day, there were strict rules. So if I invite you to come and join a group of British expats to play a friendly game of football and you run onto the field, pick up the ball and throw it down field, we’re going to stop the game because you’re doing it wrong. The clue is in the name – football! You can’t throw the ball. You have to kick it! There are rules. Football in Britain is an entirely different game than football here, right? You have to know which game you are playing. What are the rules? And if you don’t play by the rules, you are disqualified.
The focus of the first metaphor, the soldier, is on endurance, suffering together; avoidance, not getting entangled in distracting, civilian pursuits, staying on mission. The focus of this metaphor is on obedience, isn’t it? God has rules for our Christian lives and we are not free to pick and choose and select which of His commandments to obey. Run the race. Compete in the games according to the rules. We are to be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, but we are strengthened by grace for obedience. Grace never makes obedience unnecessary. Grace makes obedience natural. Grace makes obedience normal, habitual, more and more. The more of the grace of Christ you drink in, the more you’ll want to be an athlete that competes according to the rules.
And then there’s the third metaphor, the farmer. The soldier, the athlete, the farmer – verse 6. “It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.” If the soldier image is about endurance and avoidance and the athlete image is about obedience, the farmer image is about diligence. Now I’m a city boy, and I don’t know much about farming life, but I’m pretty sure if you were to talk to the Sumrall family they would tell you that a lazy farmer will not be a farmer for long. Fields need plowing. Seed needs sowing. Crops need harvesting. Animals need feeding. And there’s a cycle for each of those things and they all must happen on schedule and it never ends. It never ends. And so diligent farmers are up early, they go to bed late in order to meet the demands of the work. It’s not a hobby; it’s a life.
And that, I think, is Paul’s point precisely. You can’t follow Jesus on the side. You can’t follow Jesus on the side. Christianity is not a hobby, it’s a life, and it claims every part of you. The field of your heart needs cultivating. It needs attention if it’s going to bear fruit for the Lord, unceasing attention. You can’t live the Christian life part-time. You can’t retire from the Christian life. You can’t delegate the Christian life to someone else. Jesus is calling you to diligence and hard work and daily, resolute effort.
And before we move on from these three metaphors, please be sure to notice the motivation supplied in connection with each of them. Why does the good soldier get down in the trenches to suffer alongside his fellow soldiers? Why is he so careful to avoid civilian entanglement? Paul says he wants to please the one who enlisted him. Jesus Christ has enlisted you into His army. And you endure suffering and you avoid entanglement for His glory and His honor and His smile. You’ll sometimes hear veterans talk about that one officer who led their unit back in the day and they’ll say something like, “He was different. He got down in the muck with us and fought for us and fought beside us. He risked everything for us. I would do anything for that man.” Friends, our Jesus has fought for us and won the victory for us, though it cost Him His life. What won’t you do for Him? What won’t you do for Him?
Or think about the athlete. Why does the athlete compete according to the rules? Paul says he does it because he wants to win the crown. Likely he has in mind the laurel wreath that victors in ancient games were awarded. In chapter 4 verse 8, he uses the same image but explains it somewhat, what he’s talking about. What is this crown? Chapter 4 verse 8, thinking about the end of his own Christian life, “I have finished the race,” Paul says, “I have kept the faith. Henceforth is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day.” The point is, there is a heavenly reward promised for Christian obedience – a crown of righteousness given to you by the nail-pierced hands of the righteous judge Himself. His righteousness reflected in you, adorning and beautifying you forever.
Now, you are not, it’s a competition image, but you are not competing against other Christians for the crown, to beat them out to get it. This isn’t about bragging rights. Your opponent in the race is your own sin. Your opponent in the race is the devil who seeks to trip you up along the way. Your opponent in the race is the world who thinks you’ve lost your mind for all the sacrifice and the hard work and the cost that running the race demands of you. But for everyone who runs the race against such stiff opposition and competition, there is a crown of righteousness promised. Fix your eyes on the prize and run so as to win it.
And the farmer – why is he so diligent in all his toil? Paul says he gets the first share of the crops. The harvest of godliness in your own life, the fruit of blessing that your diligence bestows on other people around you, that brings glory to the name of the Lord Jesus. It honors God. But that very same harvest in your life and in theirs is also a very great blessing to you yourself as everyone who begins to bear fruit for Jesus discovers. There is a sweetness in holiness, a contentment that comes with obedience, a satisfaction you can have in honoring your Savior. There is a thrill in knowing that you have brought honor to the name of your God. A holy life is the happiest life. Maybe one reason you struggle in Christian obedience and saying “No” to sin is that you don’t really believe that yet – that a holy life is a happier life than a life of rebellion and sin. Who would not want a happier life? The best life, the blessed life is the life that gives itself for the honor of Jesus.
And before we conclude, there’s one last thing I want you to see. Look at verse 7. I imagine Timothy reading these words and being challenged and provoked, as perhaps you’ve been as well, as I’ve certainly been this morning, but maybe Timothy’s also struggling a little bit. “How am I going to do all of this? How do I get to Christ Jesus in order to be strengthened today for the challenges ahead of me? How can I be faithful to invest in the training of the next generation? How will I be, and how will I help others to be good soldiers and athletes and farmers?” I think verse 7 helps, don’t you? “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”
How will He give us understanding in everything? Well start here – think over what Paul says. There’s no great secret to it. It’s not particularly complicated or sophisticated. Meditate on the truth of the Word of God. You’ll be amazed at the fruit it produces in your life. Don’t let it zip in one ear and out the other. Do not be a hearer only but a doer also. Make the Word of God your careful study. That’s what Paul is saying to Timothy. “Don’t brush past my teaching, Timothy. Stop, would you? Linger for a moment. Think. Process. Digest. Apply. Press the implications down into the details of your life.” An open Bible and a teachable heart are the two indispensable preconditions for everything else that Paul has to say to us here.
So will you go home this afternoon and let the Word evaporate from your memory like morning fog once the sun rises? Will your Bible remain closed until we gather again here next Lord’s Day? Or will you take seriously Paul’s closing instruction in verse 7 – “Think over what I say.” Meditate on the Word. Drink it in. Savor it. Bring it to bear on the details of your life. There is a wonderful promise attached here if you’ll do it. The Lord will grant you understanding in everything. Everything that Paul has been talking about here will begin to make sense. It will click and start to produce real fruit. He will work in your heart and your mind by His Word. He will, if only you would obey this closing command and think over, dwell on, digest His holy Word.
We want sermons to have a lasting effect, and quite right too. We want Sunday, Sunday preaching, to make a difference Tuesday morning. And the preacher, to be sure, the preacher certainly has a huge responsibility for that, but so do you as hearers. And Paul is reminding us of our duty as hearers here, isn’t he? “What should I do now that I’ve heard what Paul has to say?” I should think over what he says as I go home. As I get into the demands of my week, look back over the passage. Read over your notes. Maybe even go back to the website and listen to it a second time. And ask yourself, “How can I put this into practice today in such a way it does in me all the things the Holy Spirit inspired it to do in the first place?” If you’ll do that, the Lord will bless you, Paul says. He’ll give you understanding. The pieces will start to fall into place in new ways.
The empowerment we must have – “Go on being strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” The investment we must make – “Pass on apostolic truth to faithful men who will do the same with still others in turn.” Invest in the next generation. The temperament we need – endurance, sharing in suffering as a good soldier. Avoidance – not entangled in civilian affairs. Staying on mission. Obedience – like an athlete who wants to win so he competes according to the rules. And diligence – like a hardworking farmer who labors and toils night and day for a rich harvest in due course. All of this you can have and you can be if you will prayerfully think over what Paul has to say to you, looking to Christ to work in you for His glory. May the Lord help us all to do it. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We praise You that it is alive and active and sharper than a double-edged sword, that it cuts and penetrates. We ask that You would help us, having heard and been challenged by Your Word, to respond with meekness and teachability and receptivity and trusting obedience looking to You. Help us to meditate on it, to think over it, to drink it in, and as we do, give us understanding not just of what it says but of how to live it in our unique circumstances and contexts, for Your honor and glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.