Now if you would take your Bibles in hand and turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter 4, which you can find on page 996 in the church Bibles. Today we come to the last section of this letter before we begin our study of the book of Titus next Lord’s Day, God willing.
In the previous section of chapter 4 that we considered last week, Paul really finished giving theological and ministerial instructions to Timothy and now he is wrapping up his letter with some personal remarks, some practical needs, and some signal warnings. As a conclusion to the letter, it is full of insight into Paul’s circumstances, into his state of mind. It would be easy to read his inspirational testimony of perseverance back in verse 7 of chapter 4 – “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith” – it would be easy to read that as a kind of romantic, abstraction, something aspirational and heroic, but not really the stuff of hard reality, certainly not the kind of thing that average Christians like me or you are likely ever to be able to say without some exaggeration. And that is where this concluding section of the letter really helps because it shows us exactly what Paul was dealing with as he penned those memorable words. It helps us to see that fighting the good fight and keeping the faith and finishing the race in our Christian lives, in Christian service, is not a matter of avoiding the real world with all its difficulties and problems and challenges, but it is rather about being kept by the power of God in the midst of the real world with all of those challenges and brought through it by God’s marvelous grace.
And to help you see some of that, let me give you three key words that describe those themes in the text. The first word is “desertion.” Desertion. Paul gives us a heartbreaking account of abandonment and desertion by key members of his ministry team. Desertion. Then the second key word is “determination.” We might expect Paul to be quite defeated by these hard circumstances, but instead what we find is a remarkable resolve to continue serving right up until the executioner’s ax parts his head from his shoulders. Desertion. Determination. And then the third key word, “dependence.” He is deserted, yet he is determined, and so how, we want to know, does he do that. How is he able to persevere like this? What gives him such hope? How does he write to Timothy of his unbowed, undeterred resolve to finish the task no matter what? How can you, how can I go on in the real world of suffering and sadness and sin till we cross the finish line? Paul is courageous and unbroken, he tells us, because the Lord stood by him and strengthened him, even when no one else did. He fulfills his calling, finishes the task, perseveres to the end because he is dependent upon and because the Lord His God is faithful to provide him with sustaining grace. Desertion. Determination. Dependence.
Before we look at each of those themes, let’s bow our heads and pray together and then we’ll read God’s Word. Let us pray.
God our Father, we come to You now and our prayer is simple and urgent. Would You take Your Word and in the blessing and power of the Holy Spirit bring it to bear upon our needy hearts that we might, by it, be equipped to live for Christ all the way to the finish line, no matter the challenges and obstacles and difficulties and trials that lie between us and the conclusion of our race. For Jesus’ sake we pray, amen.
Second Timothy chapter 4 at the ninth verse. This is the Word of God:
“Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus remained at Corinth, and I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus. Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers.
The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.”
Amen.
Statistics on loneliness, especially among young men in America today, are startling. Twenty-five percent of young American men admit to being lonely, compared to seventeen percent of the total population. That gap, by the way, between young American men and the rest of the population in America is larger than in any other country in the world. Add to this that forty-six percent of young American men say that they are worried or anxious every day, while only thirty-seven percent of other adults feel the same way – another global outlier, we are unique globally in these circumstances. If you put that together, we have a picture of relational isolation compounded by anxiety among young men, a picture that may be at once familiar to us but ought to be deeply alarming. The fact is, we are a society that struggles with loneliness and isolation.
Now Paul’s culture was far more communitarian and corporate in its sensibilities that ours tends to be. We are far more individualistic. But Paul’s circumstances as he writes these final lines in 2 Timothy, which are among the very last things he will ever write in this world, Paul’s circumstances are heavy with isolation and the pain of abandonment. And what we are going to see is that while following Jesus and engaging in ministry and service for His glory do often bring with them a heavy relational cost, there is nevertheless grace sufficient to meet us even in seasons of heartbreaking isolation so that we all, looking to Christ, can persevere to the end.
And so with that in mind, let’s consider first of all the theme of desertion. That’s the first key word, remember, as we examine Paul’s teaching. Desertion. Everyone has left Paul. “At my first defense,” verse 16, “no one came to stand by me; all deserted me.” And some of those desertions were doubtless especially painful to Paul. Look at verse 10. “Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.” Now Demas had been called a fellow worker, a co-laborer by the apostle Paul in his letter to Philemon, along with Mark and Luke who are also mentioned here. In Colossians 4:14, in Paul’s concluding words to the church in Colossae, he includes greetings to the Colossians from Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas. And so Demas was not some Johnny-come-lately peripheral member of Paul’s ministry team, a fringe participant in the ministry brought along perhaps in the hopes that being exposed to ministry, watching and observing others who are more mature and stable than he, that Demas might somehow grow up and become more faithful and reliable. Not at all. Demas wasn’t the kind of man of whom no one was especially surprised to learn that he had deserted and abandoned Paul. No one had been saying about Demas, “Well I knew he was a rotten egg all along.” No, Demas was part of Paul’s inner circle, a valued and trusted fellow laborer and close confidant and partner in the work of the Gospel.
There were others who left Paul’s side. Paul mentions them. Like Crescens who went to Galatia and Titus who went to Dalmatia. There is no suggestion, however, that they were wrong to do so. In all probability, they were going in service of the Gospel with the apostle’s blessing, much like Tychicus does in verse 12 whom Paul sends back to Ephesus, presumably to replace Timothy whom he now summons to join him in Rome. And so Paul’s isolation at this moment is not entirely the fault of sinful, backsliding or spiritual desertion among the members of his team. It is in no small part a simple consequence of men that Paul has been mentoring now going on to do the very work that he has been preparing them to do. But in the case of Demas, the departure was indeed a heartbreaking failure. Notice Paul says that he left because he was “in love with the present world.” Literally, he is “in love with the present age.”
When Paul thinks theologically about the world we are living in, he thinks in terms of two ages that overlap one another. There is the present, evil age – the age that is passing away, characterized by sin and suffering and death. And then there is another age, an age yet to come, and yet an age that has already been inaugurated and has erupted right into the middle of this present, evil age with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And Christians pass, as it were, from one age into another already in the moment they are born again from the dead by the grace of God through the Gospel. Of course we still live in this present, evil age of sin and suffering and death, therefore we see here Paul’s testimony to continued suffering in his own experience. And yet we are citizens of an age to come, of another world. And while we are waiting of its final consummation at the return of Jesus Christ when all things at last will be made new, we still enjoy presently much of the power and blessing, even here in this life, of that new age, that realm of resurrection glory as the Holy Spirit works it into our hearts and lives by the Word of God.
And so now here, when Paul says that Demas is in love with the present age, he doesn’t simply mean that Demas’ head has been turned momentarily by some of the allurements and enticements of the unbelieving society around him, that he’s been a bit worldly along the way. He means, rather, that this present, evil age has a firm hold on his heart rather than the age to come to which all true Christians belong. As a part of Paul’s team, Demas was confronted very vividly, looking at the apostle’s sufferings, Demas was confronted with the cost of following Jesus. Remember, Paul was not under the relatively relaxed restrictions of house arrest in Rome, which was his circumstance when he wrote 1 Timothy. But now, he is languishing on death row in the infamous Mamertine Prison in the city of Rome, shackled and awaiting execution. And so to be publicly associated with Paul was to risk much.
You can be in love with the world and profess to be a Christian, you know. You can be in love with the world and go on mission trips and do ministry. But if you are in love with the world, when it comes time to pay the price of discipleship and bear the reproach of the Lord Jesus Christ and suffer for the cause of the Gospel along with others who are being faithful to their Savior, if you are in love with the world, you will do just what Demas did. You will become a deserter – awol from the cause of Jesus Christ. Paul’s grief here is not the personal pain of private betrayal. It is the far deeper pain of discovering that one who appeared to be a bright, fruitful follower of Jesus, a fellow laborer in the Master’s cause, actually loves the present, evil age more than he loves the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me tell you, there are few things more painful to the heart of a pastor than making that discovery in members of the flock of God entrusted to his care. And so let me plead with you not to think that your love of the world is a harmless thing, as if the quiet indulgence of materialism, moral latitudinarianism, can sit comfortably with a nice, socially acceptable Christianity. Almost certainly there will come a crisis point one day when you will be forced to decide. You’ll come to a crossroads, as Demas certainly came to a crossroads, where you will have to settle it once and for all, whether you love the Lord Jesus Christ more than the comforts of this age. Are you prepared, as Hebrews calls us to do, to go to Jesus outside the camp to bear His reproach, or are you so in love with the present, evil age that when the choice is set before you, Jesus plus suffering or desertion plus the comforts of the world, you choose the world? May God grant that none of us may be found in the company of Demas on the day when Jesus comes to judge.
But while we are thinking about this tragic theme of desertion, the message of these verses is not entirely negative. Look again with me please at verse 11. Paul writes, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.” Paul’s talking about John Mark, who Colossians 4:10 tells us was the cousin of Barnabas, Paul’s early partner in the work of the ministry. In Acts 12:12, we learn that a congregation of the Jerusalem church gathered in John Mark’s own home. And when they undertook their first missionary journey, Barnabas and Paul took Mark along with them. But Luke reports in Acts 13:13 when they came as a team to Pamphylia, John Mark left them and returned to Jerusalem.
Now we don’t know why Mark left them, why he departed, but a few years later in Acts 15:36-39, when Barnabas and Paul are about to set out to revisit the churches that they planted together, Mark’s cousin Barnabas wants to bring Mark along with them. “But,” says Luke, “Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work, and there arose a sharp disagreement so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.” The departure of Mark, whatever its cause, left Paul so unsure about his reliability as a part of his ministry team he was simply unwilling to bring Mark along, even if it meant the tragic end to his dynamic ministry partnership with Barnabas.
What is remarkable is that as the years passed, Paul’s attitude to Mark changes. We don’t know exactly how that took place. Likely, knowing the son of encouragement, Barnabas, it was due to Barnabas’ mentorship to Mark along the way that led Mark to a place of new maturity and reliability that gave Paul fresh confidence in his continuing usefulness in the ministry. But however it happens, by the time of Paul’s first Roman imprisonment when he was writing 1 Timothy, maybe about twenty years later, Paul could write to the Colossians from his Roman cell telling him to welcome Mark and write to Philemon, naming Mark once more a fellow worker, interestingly, right alongside Demas of all people. And now here in our text, we have Paul having mentioned Demas and his heartbreaking backsliding, also naming Mark, the former deserter, and he’s asking for Mark to come with Timothy because Mark is “very useful for me in ministry.”
Do you get the point? Failure in the kingdom of God need not be final when sinners have so great a Savior as Jesus Christ to whom to turn for pardon, who freely gives grace to make us clean and make us useful. To be sure, there are some sins, some failures that might well exclude us permanently from ordained ministry, but hear me carefully when I tell you there are no sins which, if we truly repent of them, can put us beyond pardon or exclude us from some form of future usefulness in the future service of Jesus Christ. All you need to do is consider Mark, the former deserter, who went on to author what is in all likelihood the first of the four gospels. To see that very point very clearly, perhaps you have been like Demas here – in love with the present world. Perhaps like John Mark, you have deserted your post and failed for a time to fulfill your calling. We don’t know what happened to Demas after this, but we do know from Mark’s story that sin is no match for mercy. That failure is never mightier than forgiveness. And if you will repent and turn back today to Jesus Christ, no matter how far you have fallen, how far you have strayed, there is a way back to faithfulness and fruitfulness for you too. Desertion.
Then think with me about the second key word – determination. Abandoned and deserted, wounded and grieving, heartbroken, physically hurting, waiting for his own execution, you might expect Paul to signal some sense of personal defeat here. But we look in vain in these verses for any note of despondency. Instead they ring, don’t they, they ring with undimmed determination. He wants Timothy to come join him, not just because he is otherwise deserted and alone and is looking for companionship; he wants him to bring Mark along with him, notice again, “because he is useful to me for ministry.” The old ministry team – Demas and Crescens and Luke and Titus and Tychicus – they’ve all gone, Luke excepting. And so Paul wants to build a new ministry team. “Wait a minute, Paul! Look down at the shackles on your wrists and ankles for a moment, why don’t you! You’re on death row! What ministry? You’re done, Paul! You’re done!” Is Paul delusional? Unable to face up to reality? Is he done and he just can’t seem to let go? Is that the problem?
I am not a fan of the current prime minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer. You might know that Keir Starmer is currently facing enormous pressure to resign the premiership, but so far at least he is publicly refusing to do so. “I was elected to serve a full term by the British people, and that’s what I intend to do,” he is saying. Now I am not impressed by his leadership, I don’t particularly like his politics, but I can’t help admire his resolve under enormous pressure to stay the course and do his job. “Until the job is done,” he said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
And that is what Paul is saying here. “Come to me as soon as you can, Timothy. Bring useful Mark. And when you come,” verse 13, “would you get the cloak that I left at Troas? And do try to get here before winter,” verse 21. Now some have taken the mention of the cloak and the desire to get to Rome before winter as indicating only that Paul is old and broken, he’s cold, he’s daunted by the prospect of a cruel winter in the Mamertine Prison. But I think the cloak that he mentions here is actually a heavy traveling cloak, and he wants Timothy to come with Mark before winter because travel gets much harder over land and sea once winter sets in. I think Paul is planning in his head another missionary journey. “And while you’re at it, don’t forget to bring the books, especially the parchments,” verse 13. Again, it’s not that he’s fed up, bored in his prison cell and he wants Timothy to bring the latest John Grisham novels to keep his mind occupied. He’s talking about his copies of the Old Testament scriptures. Perhaps among his books there are old sermon notes, maybe some of the collected sayings and doings from the life of Jesus Christ that would become the basis for Luke’s gospel or Mark’s gospel, both of whom are associated with him here.
But the point is, yes Paul elsewhere anticipates that his life is coming to its conclusion, but until the executioner parts his head from his neck with his ax, Paul is resolved to keep studying the Word of God, keep feeding his own soul, keep preparing to preach and teach others, keep making plans for future usefulness. These books and parchments are the tools of his trade, and he’s not willing to forgo them until Jesus Christ brings his ministry to a close by bringing his life to its end. And since that’s not in Paul’s control, he will not stop, he won’t back down, he won’t slow his pace. Only Jesus, it seems, can make Paul quit.
In my judgment, this spirit of determined, undaunted, courageous perseverance is one that we badly need to recover in a soft, convenient age when many are prepared to follow the call of Christ so long as He calls them somewhere safe and pretty and personally fulfilling. We sometimes sing here Frank Houghton’s great missionary hymn, repopularized by Keith and Kristen Getty. It breathes the same spirit as the apostle Paul that we find here and we badly need to recover it today if we are to complete the mission given to us by Christ. Houghton wrote, “Facing a task unfinished that drives us to our knees, a need that undiminished, rebukes our slothful ease. We who rejoice to know You, renew before Your throne, the solemn pledge we owe You to go and make You known. We bear the torch that flaming fell from the hands of those, who gave their lives proclaiming that Jesus died and rose. Ours is the same commission, the same glad message ours, fired by the same ambition to You we yield our powers.” Are you able, prepared to sing words like those from your heart? It’s very much what we are being called to by Paul’s example here, isn’t it? Take up the flaming torch from the apostle’s hand, and go with resolve and determination like Paul himself before us to fulfill your calling till the work is done. Desertion. Determination.
And then the last of the three key words that summarize the message – dependence. Dependence. The question remains, “How can we endure such desertions, as we see the apostle enduring, how can we endure them ourselves if that’s what providence has in store for us? How do we remain determined like Paul was determined, not to back down but instead to press on, no matter the cost?” Paul said, didn’t he, back in verse 7, “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” And our question is, “How did you manage that under such, such trials, such difficulties? How did you manage it? Where do I get stickability like that, Paul?”
In verse 14, Alexander the coppersmith is said to have done Paul much harm. The word for “great harm” there was sometimes used in ancient legal contexts to mean “to inform against” somebody. So perhaps what Paul is saying here is that Alexander was the cause of his imprisonment and impending martyrdom. He is, Paul says, “a strong opponent of our message,” verse 15, and so he urges Timothy to be wary of him as he hurries to Paul’s side. Once more, Paul has been deserted by everyone, hasn’t he, verse 16 – no one stood by him. These are dark, wounding circumstances, and yet look where Paul turns with all the darkness, all the betrayal, all the desertion, all the pain. Regarding Alexander, he simply says, “The Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Justice is in God’s hands. I commit it to Him.” Regarding all of those who failed to stand with him when charges were brought against him that led to the circumstance in which he now finds himself, he simply prays, “May it not be charged against them. May God be merciful to them.”
He knows that they all must answer before a far greater tribunal than the one before which the apostle Paul himself must answer in the city of Rome. Paul has the attitude to which our Lord Jesus calls us all in Matthew 10:28 when Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” The power to execute me holds no real fear for me, but to have to answer before the judgment seat of Christ, well that’s a prospect that ought to make us all tremble. So Paul looks to God for vindication and for defense and he finds sustaining grace at the very same source, doesn’t he? He must answer to a Roman court; his enemies must answer to a heavenly one. And in the same way, he also knows that while human beings may have deserted him utterly, nevertheless, verse 17, “The Lord stood by me and strengthened me so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it, and so I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. Like Daniel in the lion’s den, against all apparent expectations, against all the odds, the Lord has kept me. Sinful human beings have left me; the Lord Jesus has never left me. He’s never left me. His strength sustains me.”
And so the Gospel has spread and shackles and chains and Roman prison cells and a sentence of death have in no way hindered it. And since this has been his past experience, his glowing testimony as this letter and his life draws to a close, is, verse 18, “and the Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.” He’s thinking about heaven in chains, waiting for the ax to fall, and he’s singing, “I can’t wait to see my Savior!” Jesus stood by him, strengthened him, till he crossed the finish line, and He will do the same for you, dear child of God. He shuts the lions’ mouths. He brings us home to glory.
Where do you get perseverance like Paul’s to fight the good fight, to finish the race, to keep the faith? It is not the fruit of good genetics. It’s not some quirk of a strong constitution in Paul or a fine, upstanding upbringing. It is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ who sustains, even as He sends His servants, no matter what. The last stanza of Houghton’s hymn that we quoted earlier captures what our response to all of this ought to be. May the Lord help us to make it our own – “O Father who sustained them, O Spirit who inspired, Savior whose love constrained them to toil with zeal untired, from cowardice defend us, from lethargy awake, forth on Your errand send us to labor for Your sake.” Let us pray.
Our Father, how we praise You, we praise You for Paul’s bright testimony that at this terrible extremity of suffering in his own life, when no one else stood by him but all deserted him, he was conscious, aware, that the risen Christ stood beside him and filled the prison cell. Grant to us in our much smaller sufferings some measure of the felt presence of Christ to sustain and strengthen us that we might not desert our post, that we might not abandon our calling, but that like the apostle Paul, we too may fight the good fight and finish the race and keep the faith. For Jesus’ sake we pray, amen.