Untitled Sermon

Before we begin, we have some thanks that are in order.

Band – They have been up here for days to lead us in song.

Tech Team – They prepare our message slides and control sound, lights, etc.

Nurses – Keeping us safe and healthy.

Small group leaders – Your small group leaders have full-time jobs. They have families, and many of them will be back at work tomorrow morning.

INTRODUCTION

Well, hey, this is it. Soak it in. This is the last session of the Wake Winter Weekend of 2023. For some of you, this was your first retreat; for others, this will be your last, and the rest of you are somewhere in between that.

This weekend has been filled with some incredible fellowship, teaching, and singing. However, like all good things, they come to an end. This morning I want to prepare you to be sent. Each of us will go back to a different home and a different city, which all present different challenges. However, we serve the same God. The same God who has not changed and will not change; for our God is faithful.

RECAP

We’ve spent this weekend looking at the life of a man named Paul, particularly the transformation he experienced when he encountered Jesus. Formerly known as Saul, who was an adversary of Christ and a quite violent opponent of Christianity, this man is transformed by the Lord Jesus into Paul, a lover of Christ and a proclaimer of the gospel.

Paul’s transformation is one from Adversary to Servant, from the Chief of Sinners to a beloved son of God, and ultimately from Sinner to Saint.

TENSION

For many of us this weekend, we’ve felt excitement when hearing about the life of Paul. We’ve seen Paul, an ordinary man whom God used in extra-ordinary ways. We have looked at a man who went from putting Christians in prison because of his hatred for Jesus to someone who is in prison himself because of his love for Jesus. As we’ve seen this weekend, Paul’s transformation is absolutely wild. Complete 180.

However, I want to take a moment to encourage those of you who may feel like your testimony may not stack up against Paul’s. You may type of student who grew up in the church. Your parents or grandparents faithfully told you about Jesus, and you look back at your life and can’t think of a single moment when you didn’t love Jesus. By all accounts, you feel that you have a “boring” testimony.

What happens when focusing solely on radical testimonies, it can lead those of you who have a “boring” testimony to fall into despair and think, “Well, maybe I’m not really saved because I didn’t have a story like that” or “Mine was nothing like that so I need to go experience life so I can have a testimony like theirs.”

I want to be the first to say that we praise God for boring testimonies. And by boring, I don’t mean insignificant, less than, or somehow untrue. But we praise God for faithful parents and churches who diligently taught you the truths of God from a young age. We praise God that He saved you before ending up like Saul. We praise God that He saved you before you endured the painful sting of sin and felt the depths of hopelessness.

One pastor uses an illustration to say that you may not know the exact time and date when the sun rose, but you can look around and see that the sun has indeed risen. You may not have a precise day and time when God saved you, but when you evaluate your life, you can say, “I love Jesus,” and therefore, we can say the sun is up.” And let me tell you, love for Jesus is sufficient. Your love for Jesus is just as real, true, and precious to the Lord as anyone else's.

Jesus in Luke 15 about how there is rejoicing in Heaven when one person comes to faith in Him. He doesn’t say what their life was like that led them to that or whether or not they remember the day and time. Heaven rejoices at an individual believing in Christ, and so do we.

Now, regardless of where you find yourself this morning, whether you’ve loved Jesus from the moment you can talk or you hit rock bottom and cried out to the Lord, the fact is, each of us must ask ourselves one very important question.

What now?

After such an incredible weekend of hearing how the Lord used Paul to bring the gospel across the world, there’s something that wells up within us that cries out, “Lord, use me!” Perhaps you’ve begun to wonder how God might use you to advance His Kingdom as you go back to your homes, schools, work, and beyond.

Nevertheless, that question of “What do I do now?” is over each one of us, like a grey cloud that follows us wherever go. We cannot get rid of or avoid it, so let’s deal with it this morning.

What now? How are you going to navigate the Christian life as you return to your home in a couple of hours? How will you show the world that you love Jesus? How will you be an effective witness at your schools, workplaces, and friend groups that the Lord has placed you in? Don’t get me wrong, the merch is cool, but God saves people and calls them to be His witnesses. He calls us, His children to go be His ambassadors wherever He has placed us.

Lest you wake up on Tuesday and realize how difficult the Christian life truly is and are surprised, let be also say that there is difficulty ahead. As we’ve seen this weekend, following Jesus will not just cost you something; it will cost you everything. Following Jesus may cost you your friend group, as it did Paul. Following Jesus may result in a life of immense suffering, as Paul experienced. Or, given the culture we live in today, following Jesus may get you thrown into prison, as it did for Paul.

However, notwithstanding that difficulty, let me also remind you that God is faithful. What you have in your bible is a record of thousands of years of God’s faithfulness to millions of His people. As Joe has always said, God has not failed yet, so don’t think he’ll start with you.

If you have your bible, we’ll be in 2 Timothy 4:1-8, and at this point, we find ourselves at the end of not only Paul’s ministry but the tail end of his life as well. Paul has lived a faithful life, and as a result of his bold witness to the Kingship of Jesus, Paul’s found himself in prison (again). Knowing he will likely not make it out of prison alive, Paul writes a letter to a young pastor who will soon carry the torch in Paul’s absence.

If you’ve ever seen a relay race where the runners have a baton, they run their race, and they pass the baton to the next runner, that’s exactly what's going on here in our text this morning. Paul had lived a faithful life as a pastor and missionary and now is writing to his friend and companion Timothy, who was a young pastor. Paul is this Wise Sage saying to Timothy, “Here is everything I’ve learned. Go and do likewise.”

TRUTH

So, if you have your bible, let’s learn from Paul, the Wise Sage, as he instructs Timothy as to how he is to conduct himself.

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I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. – 2 Timothy 4:1-5

The first thing that Paul encourages Timothy with is that...

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Faithful Endurance Requires Commitment

Just as an athlete is required to stick to strict training so they can compete well, or a soldier is to be committed to the cause they’re fighting for, faithful endurance in the Christian life also requires commitment. However, our commitment is not a diet plan or workout regimen, but it requires a commitment to the Word of God.

Paul here is charging or warning Timothy that he must do one thing, and that is to preach or proclaim the Word of God. In order for Timothy to remain faithful to God in the crazy world he was in, it required an unwavering commitment to the Word of God. This Word of God, as Paul had said just prior to this section, is “breathed out by God.”

Each one of us has spent time outside this weekend, and when you exhale, you are able to see your breath. It is what is inside of you becoming visible. In the same way, the Word of God is of God. It is the invisible God made visible. They are not the invention of man or simply a record of history, but they are God-breathed. In other words, as God is true, the Word is true. As God is unchanging, the Word is unchanging.

As such, this is what Timothy is to proclaim. He is to remain committed to the Word of God as the foundation for his life and his ministry. When he is doing public ministries, such as preaching or evangelizing, he is to use the Word of God. When he is conversing with friends about what is true or false, his foundation is to be the Word of God. Paul’s instruction to Timothy is to be committed to the word of God in season and out of season, which is another way of saying ALL THE TIME!

However, Timothy’s proclamation of the truth as it is found in the Scripture will surely be met with equal opposition. We this clearly in v.3, when Paul says, “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

In other words, Timothy must remain faithful to the Word precisely because people will try to shake him from that commitment. These people won’t want to be challenged in their ideologies. They won't want to hear the truth, but they’ll only listen to people who tell them what they want to hear. They have an itch; let me find someone who will scratch it. People will turn away from the Truth and wander off into all sorts of other so-called truths. They’ll have their own truth, or they’ll claim that there is no real truth. Sound familiar?

Yeah, this sounds quite similar to the world we live in today. Everything is relative, man; live your truth! There’s no certainty, and the only certain thing is that there is no certain thing. My truth is my truth; who are you to question it? What is “true” for Paul and Timothy is now considered outdated and doesn’t fit our society; therefore, it’s to be disregarded.

It is precise because of the opposition that Timothy was going to face that he needed to be committed to the Word of God. The Word of God must be central because all sorts of people will try and pull you from that.

In Matthew 7, Jesus compares two individuals. The first is likened to a fool who builds their life on the sand. They build their house on the sand, and if you’ve ever built something on the beach, what happens? Very quickly, the water comes and washes away. After two or three waves, there remains nothing left.

However, the other person is referred to as a wise man who build his house upon the rock. This house, though the same waters were brought against it, did not fall because of the strength of the foundation.

Now, what’s going on here? The sandy foundation is anything someone can build their lives upon that is not the Word of God. Secular philosophy, the everchanging social “norms,” what TikTok or Instagram says is true, etc. This foundation is as stable as sand- when put to the test, it will crumble.

The rock is unlike the sand. It’s fixed, immovable, and strong. It will not crumble when put to the test. This foundation is the sturdy Words of Christ. – (Matthew 7:24-27)

Friends, let me ask you, what are you committed to? What are you building your lives upon? Is it the sandy foundation of a society that will crumble when put to the test? Is your life built on what culture says is cool, what your friends say you should believe? If so, sooner or later, it will crumble.

Or, is your commitment, your foundation, the Word of God? When society says something to test your faith, your first question should be, “What does the bible say?” When the latest TikTok video comes out, trying to disprove or make light of the claims of Christianity, our immediate response should be to check to see what God says in His word. When it feels like your life has fallen apart and everyone has abandoned you, trust what God has promised in His Word that He will never leave us or forsake us (Heb. 13:5).

Our faithful endurance requires a commitment to the Word of God. Let me assure you that our lives rest upon the strength of the foundation, and the foundation of the Word of God will never fail us.

Just as Timothy was encouraged to remain faithful to the Word of God, so too you are encouraged to do the same. The Word of God speaks to every single area of our lives, and if we desire to preserver through the various trial’s life has for us, we must know that Faithful Endurance Requires Commitment.

Tragically, though, I'm sure that each of us who are Christians, at some point or another, has begun to wonder if this commitment is truly worth it. Is it really worth it to believe and live in such a way that is so counter-cultural? What value is there in remaining faithful to the Lord and His Word?

We look out at the world and can begin to think, “They’re having so much fun,” or “Man, I could escape so much hatred from my friends if I just dropped this Christian thing.” Well, Paul has words to say regarding those feelings.

As we continue in our text, we see that...

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Faithful Endurance will be Rewarded

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For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.   Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. – 2 Timothy 4:6-8

If anyone had reason to pull back, if anyone had reason to say, “You know, I’ve had some time, and I would like to recant,” it was Paul. As a result of following Jesus, Paul was put in prison twice, beaten with rods, shipwrecked, and to cap it off, he received 39 lashings 5 times. When a criminal was flogged, they would be whipped with a whip that had multiple pieces of bone in it. So, in other words, Paul had roughly 585 markings on his body as a testament to His love for Jesus.

So, what in the world would keep Paul going? After being imprisoned once or even receiving five lashings, that would be enough to make many of us seriously doubt. Paul was convinced that his faithful endurance would be rewarded. He was going to receive the crown of righteousness given to him by the King of kings. Paul was confident that his labor was not in vain. His suffering was not meaningless. His bold defense and proclamation were by no means overlooked. In other words, God would reward his faithfulness.

You may have heard before that “Christianity is not a spectator sport,” and if you haven’t, you have now. In other words, Christianity is not something you can choose to do on Sunday and forget about Monday through Saturday. You can’t be a Christian yet simply spectate. You can’t have God as the main course and your sin as an appetizer. You’re either in, or you’re out; there is no middle ground.

To use Paul’s language, we are to “fight the good fight and run the race.” As we’ve looked at Paul this weekend, we see his faithful endurance demonstrated the legitimacy of his transformation. Paul’s love for Jesus was made plain to all, not because he said “I love Jesus” or wore an “I’m a Christian sweatshirt” but because his life was lived in complete obedience to Jesus.

He went from someone who was trying to destroy the church, dragging men and women alike to prison for their face in Christ, to someone who is now himself in prison for his faith in Christ! This Sinner to Saint transformation that Paul experienced was first and foremost inward that resulted in external verification. His transformation internally was proven or shown to be genuine by his getting into the fight and fighting.

Not only that but Paul’s life was marked by faithful endurance. If you’ve ever done long-distance runs before, then you know what endurance looks like. Endurance is simply the power of pursuing through difficulty without giving in. Are there days when you want to give up? Of course. Days when you wish you were something else? For sure. But faithful endurance looks to Jesus and rests upon Him to carry us through.

We are to endure the trials before us because of the reward that is ours! This reward is not some sort of perishable trophy that is here today and gone tomorrow, but we get Christ! Christ is our reward, and He is the one to whom we are to look, the one in whom we are to trust, and the One who strengthens us to continue.

We, as Christians, are called to endure the trials presented before us. There will be days when you wake up and don’t feel like obeying God. It may even be tomorrow. There will be days when it would be so much easier to just say, “Nah, I don’t believe in that,” and avoid the confrontation. There will be days when it would be easier to just go along with the crowd rather than to stand firm on your biblical convictions.

There will be days when you look back and think, “Man, I wish I could’ve had another opportunity to talk to this person about Jesus,” or “I really acted in a way that was not a faithful representation of Christ.” But we are to press on, always looking unto Jesus as the One in Whom our hope rests. Our hope does not rest in our performance but in His perfection.

So, friends, what are we to do with this? What are we do to with such an incredible weekend filled with teaching, singing, and great fellowship? We have the responsibility to take what we’ve heard and what God has impacted us with and share it with the world.

To use the relay race illustration I used earlier, Timothy was a Christian because Paul took his responsibility seriously to pass on the Christian faith to the next generation.

Paul then urged Timothy, “what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” In other words, I’m passing this to you, now you are to take hold of it, run the race well, and then pass it on to others who will pass it on, so on and so forth.

For those of us here who are Christians, we are Christians because of the successive pass of Christianity that has led to us hearing the gospel and God granting faith. We stand on the shoulders of faithful men and women who have run their race and passed the Christian faith to others, and we, now YOU, are charged to pass it on to the next generation, to spread the hope of Christ with the world.

And, despite this difficulty that is ahead, just as a runner experience difficulty in their run, we will have tribulation. But Jesus has overcome the world! The world will test this transformation to see if it's legitimate. Our beliefs will be examined, they’ll be put to the test. You say you’re a Christian? Prove it.

Let us remember that we are not alone! God was faithful to Paul, He will be faithful to us. When Paul’s faith had been challenged to the point that he was going to die, he responds with praise to God for his faithfulness. In the depths of despair, Paul says, “this was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deathly peril, and he will deliver us.” (2 Cor 1:9-10).

This God, Who raises the dead, is our foundation. He is our hope. He is our life, and He is our King. Paul’s life was upheld by the rock-solid foundation of Christ. As a result of his foundation, he knew God could be trusted and lived His life that reflected that. He took his mission seriously; he had his eyes fixed on the reward that was soon to be his.

Paul’s life, now coming to an end, has passed the ministry on to Timothy. Timothy was encouraged to now take this message he heard and pass it on to others. This message that Timothy was to proclaim is what is found in the Word of God. And, despite the opposition that lies ahead, he was to be confident that his work would be rewarded.

Ultimately what Paul was encouraging Timothy with was that…

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A Transformed Life Perseveres Through Trials

You see, the transformation that Paul experienced was through the Lord Jesus, and it was Christ who strengthened him through His Word, and it was Christ who would reward Him for his faithful endurance.

APPLICATION

Friends, each of us has a story. Paul had a story, Timothy had a story, and you have a story. But life is not about your story or Paul’s, but God’s story. God’s story has been going on since the dawn of creation, and He is inviting us to get into His story to be a participant in what He’s doing; not just across the world in some remote village in Africa, but what He’s actively doing in Troy, Romeo, Chesterfield, Pontiac, and every city in between.

As each of you is sent now from this place back to your homes, cities, and schools, we are called to live our lives with our eyes fixed on the reward that is ours, with the foundation being the Word of God. We have a message of hope that is for the world, and we are to pass it on to the world.

Friends, the Word of God out to be our foundation. When you experience doubts, questions, and unsure feelings about your faith, run to the fixed foundation of the Word of God.

And when you experience difficulty as a Christian, you will remember that Christ has won you a crown which He will reward you. We press on through difficulties because Christ has made us his own.

LANDING

As has been said, Christianity is not a spectator sport. It’s not something that you can sit back and cheer on others without participating. God is calling us to run with commitment and to run with endurance, always trusting in His gracious provision and love as the driving force behind all of our service to Him.

Let’s pray.