2 Timothy 4
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Get back up, Keep the faith
Get back up, Keep the faith
Good evening y’all, how we doing. So we have been in the book of 2 Timothy this will be our third week. We have been talking about what it looks like to really follow Christ. In our first week we talked about how you have great power in the gifts God has given you and with that great power comes great responsibility. And then last week we talked about how following Christ is hard, and its going to cost us. We will have to sacrifice our desires and our comforts. Today we will be finishing out our time together in 2 Timothy with chapter 4.
Just to give you a recap on the context of this letter, Paul is in prison in Rome and he is writing to Timothy whom Paul has been a spiritual father to. Paul is writing to Timothy to encourage and exhort him in his faith and leadership of the Church in Ephesus.
Some of this today is going to be a bit of recap as Paul looks to finish up his letter to Timothy.
Lets go to the Lord in Prayer.
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.
There is a time that is coming when Christ Jesus will return and he will judge all people. There should be in all of us a healthy fear of this coming moment. Are we prepared for this moment? But not Just fear, we can look forward to the coming of His Kingdom for hope in the midst of suffering in this life.
For both of these reasons, fear of the Lord, and hope in the Kingdom Paul is going to call Timothy to fulfill the ministry Timothy has been Given.
Timothy has been ordained as the Pastor in the Church in Ephesus he has the gift of teaching and evangelism we will see this laid out as we continue to read.
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.
Lets pause here, remember when we talked about false teachers? How your understanding of scripture matters because you matter and you are called for a purpose. All around us are people who claim to be teachers of the word but just tell people what they want to hear, and then people who don’t want to hear the truth they want to hear what will confirm their desires and lifestyle.
Two of these most prominent teachings today are the prosperity gospel and the progressive gospel.
The prosperity Gospel says that it is Gods will for your life for you to prosper. That means if you are following Christ in the right way you will be happy, healthy, and wealthy. Meaning you will have money, health, and be happy all the time. This is a lie. This is not the gospel. Paul in this letter talks about faith being hard with suffering and perseverance. The prosperity Gospel tells people what they want to hear, but is a lie.
The progressive Gospel, is the false gospel. It sees jesus not as the son of God but as a good person to follow and be like. The progressive Gospel says that we are good people at our core and therefore don’t need saving we just need to be good people. This is not true. We are sinners who need a savior. The Bible tells us we are born into sin, for all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Jesus is the son of God and he came to earth to save us from our sin.
Instead of falling into these false Gospels, we need to
We need to know the truth that is in the word of God so we can stand firm. We’ve talked about this every week and in the passage before this Paul says:
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
We must know the word of God.
Paul is going to continue here in chapter 4 to say this:
As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Fulfill your ministry Timothy.
If you are a follower of Christ you have a ministry you are called to fulfill as well.
Your call is not the same as timothy’s. Your ministry will look a lot different that Timothy’s because you are gifted in different ways.
Remember, you have great power in the gifts you have been given and the Holy spirit inside of you and with that great power comes a great responsibility to fulfill your ministry.
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.
Paul is sensing the end of his life is near. He is going to be executed by Rome
Looking to older people, they will be gone someone will need to fill those shoes.
God could be calling you to that.
Space | So paul is nearing the end
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
May we all be able to say the same thing at the end of our life.
May we fight a good fight, may we finish the race, may we keep the faith
It is a good fight. Why is it good? We can fight for a lot of reasons in this life, but the good fight of faith, is one with eternal reward.
Both eternal reward and the reward of finding god in the fight now.
May we finish the race, may our faith not be something that is a momentary feeling and then in 10 years we are disconnected from God.
May we keep the faith.
Its work to keep the faith.
It takes perseverance.
This life is going to beat us up
What I want for y’all is to get in the ring. I want to see you fighting the good fight, I wanna see you on the track running the race. I want to see you keeping the faith.
Timothy had someone who believed in him… Paul. and I want you to know I believe in you. Not because of how great you are, but because of how great God is.
We serve a God who is making all things new and a beautiful picture of this is in this chapter.
Jump down to verse 9 you will see here starts a new section where Paul is going to say his goodbye to timothy. He’s telling timothy he wants to see him and then about who is with him.
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.
Then he says this:
Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.
Now this may not seem like a very important verse, but we need to understand context.
Paul was first introduced to the apostles after his conversion by a man named Barnabas. Paul and barnabas were early Christian missionaries who worked closely together, spreading Christianity on various missionary journeys. However, they had a sharp disagreement that is told of in the book of acts over whether to take Mark on a second journey with them. See mark had previously deserted them during their first journey. This disagreement led to their separation. Barnabas and John Mark went to Cyprus, while Paul continued his missions with Silas.
Paul was so adamant about not going with Mark that him and barnabas split over it.
And then we see this in 2 Timothy, roughly 15 or 16 years later Paul says, get mark and bring him, he is useful to me.
I don’t know what your life has looked like up until this point. Maybe you have deserted God, maybe you have deserted your calling and gifts. Maybe you have denied God. Maybe you have sinned in ways you never want to tell anyone.
Believe me when I say, you aren’t too far gone.
You will say, but I have done this, or I did that, or i think this, or I I I I I i ii I… ITS NOT ABOUT YOU, its never been about you
Its God, and its God alone.
You can never be so far gone that God can’t bring you back.
Paul’s life is maybe the biggest testimony of that.
The fight isn’t over, the race isn’t done. You may be down in the count, but there’s another pitch coming.
in keeping the faith, you are gonna take punches, you are gonna fall down, but the mark of believer is that you get back up and you keep the faith.
You keep pressing in.
You are going to have bad days, you are going to have days when you sin and sin greatly, when you fail, when you don’t read your bible, when you wake up and you just feel like garbage.
To follow Jesus is to get back up and keep the faith.
Im here to tell you its okay that you aren’t perfect and you have bad days, you are human, and there’s grace for that, but don’t you dare stay there.
Every great fighter takes a few punches, every great runner falls down from time to time, what makes them great is they get back up, time and time again.
Im begging you, get back up. The fight isn’t over, the race isn’t done.
Keep the faith, God loves you and his grace is sufficient for you.
May today be a mile marker, that when you die you look back and say, I have fought the good fight and it was hard and took alot of punches, I have finished the race and I fell down a lot, but I got back up and kept the faith.
Let’s pray