2 Timothy 4:1-8: The Charge and the Crown

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Good morning, everyone! It’s good to be back. Thank you so much for giving me and my family an opportunity to get away for the week and get some much-needed rest. Even though Kara was sick, it was one of the most enjoyable and genuinely restful vacations I’ve ever had. I even got two pet two cats, so that was a real treat.

2 Timothy 4:1–8 CSB

1 I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: 2 Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching. 3 For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. 4 They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. 5 But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time for my departure is close. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved his appearing.

As always, we’re going to go ahead and dive right in. Our text this morning divides into two sections, verses 1-4 and verses 6-8.

vv. 1-4: The Charge

vv. 5-8: The Crown

Main idea: In these last days, followers of King Jesus must make it our singular priority to proclaim the gospel and live out its implications.

vv. 1-4: The Charge

2 Timothy 4:1–4 CSB

We’re going to divide this up into two smaller sections, verses 1-2 and verses 3-4.

vv. 1-2: The Charge of the King

vv. 3-4: The Charge of the Times

vv. 1-2: The Charge of the King

2 Timothy 4:1–2 CSB

In these verses, Paul is using the strongest language imaginable to command Timothy to carry out the task at hand. We last saw this verb “charge” in 2 Timothy 2:14

2 Timothy 2:14 CSB

14 Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to fight about words. This is useless and leads to the ruin of those who listen.

where Paul tells Timothy to not tolerate word-fighting because of what’s at stake.

In this case, though, notice that Paul ups the ante.

2 Timothy 4:1 CSB

1 I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom:

Over the past two weeks, Caleb and Hayden have painted a picture for us of ministry in the last days, the final era of history between Jesus’s ascension and his return to judge the earth.

We saw in 3:1-9 that even the church is going to have evildoers in her midst, and it’s going to be incredibly difficult to tell the difference between evildoers and true believers — those evildoers have, after all, the appearance of godliness, but lack only the Holy Spirit who makes them alive in Christ instead of just moral enough to not get found out immediately.

And then in 3:9-17 we saw that the problems weren’t just going to be inside the church, but also from the outside world — everybody who wants to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted.

Perhaps Timothy would have felt up to the task as long as his mentor, Paul, was around. But Paul knew he wasn’t going to be around much longer, and he wanted his final words to ring in Timothy’s ears until his work was done.

Last week, we also saw that, starting in verse 14, Paul encouraged Timothy to continually rely on some very trustworthy resources: the Scriptures, that is, the Old Testament, and the people who taught him those Scriptures and modeled lives for him to follow.

Now this week, Paul is trading the carrot for the stick.

He doesn’t merely charge Timothy before God, but adds Christ Jesus, his future judgment, his imminent appearance, and throws in his rule over all creation for good measure.

Jesus, the king over all creation, is standing ready to return in victory with his saints to claim his throne and usher in an eternal era of peace, rest, and joy. He will cleanse the earth of everything unclean, unholy, and otherwise opposed to his rule.

In light of these things, Paul wants to make one thing clear: he will stand before that judge with a clear conscience regarding the gospel work entrusted to him, and Timothy has the opportunity to do the same thing if he will heed Paul’s words when evil abounds and the world looks darker than Timothy could have ever imagined.

Specifically, if Timothy will commit himself to one thing, he will likewise have a clear conscience.

2 Timothy 4:2 ESV

2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

Now, when we hear “preach the word”, we may immediately think that Paul is only describing what I’m doing currently, but that’s not quite the case. For us, “preaching” usually occurs in a pulpit, and the “word” usually refers to the Bible as the word of God. Another way of translating this phrase would be, “proclaim the message”, which has a really similar meaning but a slightly different flavor.

Don’t get me wrong, every week in this pulpit we do want to proclaim the gospel message, but we don’t want to make the mistake of thinking that the pulpit is the main place preaching happens, lest we restrict the call to “preach the word” to a once-a-week activity only one of us engages in at a time.

Nor do we want to think that just because we’re committed to expository preaching, we’re automatically just going to get to the gospel every single week. We’ve all heard, and I’ve personally delivered, sermons that “taught the Bible” without “preaching the word”, and it simply must not be so if we’re going to live out the implications of the gospel message as we act as heralds of the king who is returning soon and who commands all to turn from sin and death to righteousness and life through faith in him.

Of course, “preaching the word” is inextricably related to “teaching the Bible” — don’t the words “reprove” and “teaching” ring a bell for you?

2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

An equal and opposite error would be for us to just focus on “preaching the gospel” apart from the whole counsel of God, especially the Old Testament, which would have been Timothy’s main tool for discipleship, and which is God’s basis for his people to be fully equipped to whatever work he calls them to.

So, let’s ask ourselves, and be honest. What is our very first priority? What do we spend the most time meditating on? Where do we spend our best time? Who gets the firstfruits of our attention and affections? Where and how do we spend our money? If King Jesus were to return tomorrow, would we be able to stand before him with clear consciences that we have staked our lives on who he says he is and have committed ourselves wholeheartedly to the tasks he’s given us to do?

Will we be able to say that everything we say, think, and do, is in light of the fact that the Son of God came to earth to save sinners by dying in their place on the cross, bearing the curse of God against sin, and rising triumphantly from the grave on the third day according to the Scriptures?

Or will he find that we’ve gotten distracted? Or worse?

vv. 3-4: The Charge of the Times

2 Timothy 4:3–4 CSB

3 For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. 4 They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.

When we hear this, our first instinct may be to think, “ah, this is about those godless liberals over there and there’s no way this could be about me” — but that’s not only unhelpful because all it does is make us feel self-righteous; it’s also a misapplication of this passage. You ought to hear 2 Timothy 3:2-5 ringing in your ears here.

2 Timothy 3:2–5 CSB

2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people.

The people who multiply teachers for themselves that we’re actually likely to run into are those who fit in perfectly well at church until you start looking closely at their lives.

So, instead of wasting time telling you about how awful the Jesus seminar is, or dunking on the prosperity gospel yet again, I’m going to tell you a story. First, I want you to know that this story is fictional. It’s a composite of men and women I actually know personally as well as stories I’ve heard from others. Second, I want you to know that the elements of this story are not at all uncommon. Third, I want you to know that I know that this story is long, but I trust that it will be worth our time.

So let me tell you the story of Brian and his family.

Brian came to faith in Jesus and was baptized when he was 14, after growing up in a Christian home and going to church every Sunday. His parents were really strict, with his dad being especially disciplinarian, and his mom stayed at home and homeschooled Brian and his brothers. Brian got really good grades and never got into any serious trouble, and he was even a leader in his youth group when he felt called into ministry, so he went to a solid Bible college.

His junior year, he met Kelly, a really kind young woman who was everything his parents taught him to look for — she was meek, she dressed modestly, she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, and, best of all, she was extremely attractive. To make a long story short, they were married shortly after they graduated Bible college. They decided that Kelly would work while Brian went to seminary full-time so he could get his M.Div without debt and without taking too long, since he knew a lot of guys who’d been in seminary for 7 or 8 or 10 years and weren’t really any closer to graduating because they worked full time to support their families.

Once they got to seminary, they found a healthy church pretty quickly and settled right in, serving in the nursery on a regular basis and attending Bible studies and prayer meetings faithfully.

Now, since it was God’s call on Brian to go to seminary, Brian wanted to talk to Kelly about her dreams of starting a family and make sure that she was on board with working full-time while he studied. Kelly was fine with working full-time, but she wasn’t super comfortable using birth control. She ultimately accepted that it would be wisest to do so to make sure they didn’t have any children they weren’t ready for since it was God’s time for Brian to go to seminary, and Kelly really wanted to support her husband in God’s calling.

Brian worked hard in seminary for the first two years, getting straight A’s, and he really seemed to be flourishing. He even had a chance to fill the pulpit on occasion for a church nearby that was looking for a pastor, and they affirmed his gifts of preaching.

With two semesters left, though, Kelly broke the news. She was pregnant. Brian was deeply anxious and pretty upset. Had Kelly forgotten to take her pills? She was forgetful and didn’t always do things the right way. Was she going to ask him to start working so she could stay home full-time?

Eventually, anxiety gave way to excitement at the prospect of being a father, teaching someone the ways of Christ from the ground up and shaping a soul into the image of God. Kelly worked for eight months while Brian got one more full semester in, looking for jobs in his spare time, when the church he’d filled in occasionally asked him to be their pastor. They’d even pay for the rest of his seminary! The pay package wasn’t great, but it would be enough for them to get by if they were really careful about their spending. Brian had always done the budget and finances since Kelly wasn’t great with numbers, but Kelly was a quick study and eager to do her part in making a home just as she’d always dreamed.

Brian talked with the guys in his Bible study and his pastors, and they agreed that this was a God-given opportunity so it’d be foolish not to take it.

This meant Brian would have an extra year in seminary, but he enjoyed his studies and knew he was called to ministry, so he didn’t mind. The first semester went great, with Brian getting straight A’s again and the church telling him how much they loved his preaching.

Kelly did go over budget a couple times by buying organic foods instead of just regular foods, expensive bamboo chlorine-free diapers instead of just regular diapers, and getting some higher-quality products for her hair since her shampoo started irritating her scalp, which was pretty upsetting to Brian, but they had a little bit of savings they could pull from to cover the difference from when Kelly was working. Brian told her his concern, that if she kept this up, they were eventually going to run out of savings and Brian would have to get another job and not finish seminary.

The next semester went about the same, although this time Kelly was able to stay under budget and replenish their savings. Brian graduated at the top of his class and was invited to preach during the last week of chapel, and he knocked it out of the park.

His church members still loved him and his family, always remarking how his preaching was so good and Kelly must be a really good helper for him since their son was so well-behaved, but after a few years Brian started feeling like he might have fulfilled his ministry at the church; they had grown and their sanctuary was pretty full, but Brian didn’t want to go to multiple services and there weren’t really enough resources to plant a new church. Just at that time, a good friend from seminary who was an associate pastor at a bigger church a couple states away rang him up and told him their church was looking for a new senior pastor and he should apply.

Brian was still young and knew it, but his preaching was so good that everybody around him agreed it would be a waste for him to just preach in a small church for the rest of his life, so his members encouraged him to make the move.

He ended up getting the job — and a significant raise — just as Kelly was getting ready to have their second child. It was a pretty sweet gig, all things considered; he finally had the opportunity to move into a decent house in the suburbs and upgrade Kelly’s sedan to a minivan just like she wanted, but he was regularly putting in 50-60 hours a week, and Kelly started complaining she was feeling neglected.

Brian told her it wouldn’t go on for too long; he just needed to get settled in, and we all have to make sacrifices for the gospel — and besides, now she could buy all the organic foods she wanted, get the best diapers, and buy as much shampoo as her little heart desired so she really doesn’t have all that much to complain about.

As expected, Brian took the new church to new heights. His preaching filled the auditorium every week and they started to make plans to start planting a church in the poor neighborhood across town. The plans were good and the team was in place, when one week, that friend from seminary who got him the job knocked on Brian’s door and asked if he had a minute. Brian said sure, and his friend told him he was worried about him. He said that Kelly had told his wife Brian hadn’t been home very much lately, often returning after the kids were in bed, and Brian only had enough left in him to eat the dinner Kelly had made and then go straight to bed.

Brian was pretty upset that his wife had been gossiping about him, but he thanked his friend and said, “Yeah, man, with the church plant and everything going on, it’s just been a lot of work, you know? 60 hours a week is short for me, but, hey, it’s for the gospel, right?”

His friend responded, “Woah, dude. That’s way too much. My wife and I agreed that 35 hours a week was the max for me, and anything beyond that wouldn’t be good for our family.”

Brian was pretty shocked at this but kept it to himself. When he got home, he talked to Kelly and asked her concerns. Once she was done, he told her that he was really upset she gossiped about him and reminded her that everything he was doing was for her and the kids — remember the minivan — and the gospel, so she would just have to be joyful in all things and do all things without grumbling and complaining, and especially stop gossiping.

The church plant ended up exploding in a good way, and Brian was invited to a church-planting conference to be the keynote speaker, an invitation that came with a pretty sweet speaker’s fee although it took him away from Kelly and the kids for 5 days. The conference went well, and his name starting finding its way into more conference speaker’s lists. Sure, it meant less time with his family and for caring for the members of his church, but preaching the word was his calling and always had been, and we all have to carry our crosses.

He bought Kelly a nice dress and necklace with the speaker’s fee and took her to an expensive restaurant on a date, where the food was great and the conversation was pleasant. It was their first date in a while and it went well, so when they got home, Brian was surprised when Kelly said she just wanted to go to bed — he was expecting the night to end with a little more excitement after a nice date, not just going to bed. Kelly said she just wasn’t feeling it, but Brian reminded her of her responsibility to submit to him and that their bodies belonged to one another as one flesh in marriage, so she acquiesced.

The next week, his associate pastor friend was back knocking on his door asking how the latest conference went. Brian told him how it was great and he felt the Spirit of God moving as he preached and could see it in the audience. His friend told him that Kelly had been venting to his wife again, and he was seriously concerned now — maybe all this conference stuff isn’t good for you and you should pull back a little bit. Kelly missed him and his kids were starting to act out and could maybe use some fatherly influence in their lives.

Brian was incensed — how could his wife betray him like that, and how dare his lazy friend tell him how to run his family?

This pattern continued for another year or two, until his friend was called to another church — good riddance — and Brian told Kelly to find better friends since hers weren’t helping her grow in Christlikeness but dragging her down.

Brian pulled back to working 50 hours and agreed to fewer conferences after Kelly gave birth to their third child while he was out of town, which was really disappointing for him and deeply upsetting for her.

The church kept growing and planting more churches, and today Brian is the state director of church planting and still speaks at popular conferences. By all accounts, Kelly is submissive, and his kids obey him immediately just as Paul taught pastors should keep their households in order, so nobody really presses Kelly when she just says she’s tired when someone asks if everything is okay.

And this is all too often what abuse and domestic violence looks like in the church. Kelly can’t tell anybody what really goes on at home because she feels she would be gossiping. She’s still on a strict budget even though they have more than enough to get by, so that they have enough to give generously to missions and the seminary. She feels like she’s doing everything right in obeying God and her husband, but she’s absolutely miserable and sometimes, she isn’t sure she’s actually saved.

The kids are really rambunctious and disobedient during the day, but as soon as Brian gets home and sets them straight, everything’s better — she’s not comfortable with how he yells at them and threatens to “teach them a thing or two the way my dad taught me if you don’t shut up” when they talk back to him in anger, but things are so much better when they’re quiet — spare the rod and spoil the child, after all, right?

Besides, Brian’s such a superstar, and she’s just regular old Kelly, living her dream of making a home and being a good wife that Brian has made possible by being successful at work — although she doesn’t feel very good at it, and Brian always tells her that if she’d just do things his way, life would be so much easier, and all her friends just tell her she needs to do better about obeying 1 Peter 3:2 so she can win him over without a word instead of being so naggy and critical.

You see, when we think “domestic violence” or “abuse”, we have a picture in mind of the guy who physically beats his kids and wife to keep them under control — and if that kind of guy were in our church, we’d discipline him in a heartbeat and kick him out. And surely other churches would do the same, so we can trust internet preachers and conference speakers and convention leaders implicitly.

But both of those assumptions are dead wrong. I don’t have to name names, but there are guys out there preaching to churches of hundreds and thousands week after week whose stories are just like Brian’s, modeling a Christless Christianity from their lofty platforms and perpetuating these abominations instead of living out the whole counsel of God.

They’ve majored in Ephesians 5:22-24

Ephesians 5:22–24 CSB

22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.

and completely ignored Ephesians 5:25

Ephesians 5:25 CSB

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her

because, at the end of the day, while they may say they love God and their families, they really love themselves most. Did you catch in Brian’s story how his opinion and his calling and his work always mattered the most? Did you see the utter lack of prayerlessness? The pride? How he felt it was his job to impose sound doctrine on everybody around him as a stalwart of orthodox Christianity?

What do you think is going to happen to his kids? Do you think they’re going to be able to think of God as a loving Father and think, “Man, I’m really grateful for my dad,” or are they going to have to deconstruct everything they know about fatherhood in order to understand the God their father preached to thousands about? For all the biblical worldview they learned, did they ever get to meet the center of the biblical worldview, Jesus himself?

Brian made sure to teach his kids Ephesians 6:1

Ephesians 6:1 CSB

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, because this is right.

but conveniently forgot to teach himself Ephesians 6:4

Ephesians 6:4 CSB

4 Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

This is why we still need a Domestic Violence Awareness Month in our churches. Why ministries like Called to Peace exist.

DVAM application slide

And this is why we can’t just assume that 2 Timothy 4:3-4

2 Timothy 4:3–4 CSB

is about the people “out there” and not the people sitting with us in our pews, or the people in our pulpits and in our earbuds.

Brian thinks he’s teaching sound doctrine, but his life proves that he is doctrine-intolerant — when his friend approached him with a right concern and a right heart, Brian’s response was not humble repentance, but anger and pride. When he learned that his wife was struggling and their relationship was unhealthy, his response was not care and loving concern, but self-righteous indignation at her betrayal of confidence and frustration at her weakness.

For all his orthodoxy, he’s missed the fact that “sound doctrine” is inseparable from life. Notice that these people don’t just “reject” sound doctrine intellectually. They aren’t able to tolerate, or put up with, sound doctrine, because of the deep pain it causes them.

Sound doctrine is a test to be endured by the faithful to bring them into full health and maturity in Christ, not just a set of facts organized systematically to give our amen to.

In our day and age, it’s easy for us to find teachers who will tell us whatever we want — and it doesn’t even have to be the bad guys! Because of the internet, we can listen to men who have proved themselves faithful in public ministry and their private lives teach on the texts and theology we’re interested in while utterly ignoring their teaching on the things that make us uncomfortable so that we get all sugar and no bitter medicine.

This is how an entire generation of daughters in Christian households has been thoroughly trained to be meek and submissive and make sure they don’t cause a brother to stumble by how they dress, while an entire generation of sons of Christian households has been taught how to work hard to be able to provide for a family, when neither has been taught who Jesus is, what he’s done, and what it truly means to live by his holy Spirit — and we wonder why so many young adults leave the church as soon as they’re out on their own.

It’s also easy for us to be like Brian’s friend, raising concerns on occasion but ultimately letting things slide because our job depends on it, or because we don’t have time, or we’re too scared, or whatever reason. It’s easy for us to be just another no-name who had a chance to do something no matter the cost, trading our own comfort for the wellbeing of brothers and sisters in Christ who need our correction, rebuke, encouragement, and support.

Brothers and sisters, may it not be so here.

vv. 5-8: The Crown

2 Timothy 4:5–8 CSB

5 But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time for my departure is close. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved his appearing.

Because I spent so much time on that story, I’m going to be brief and get straight to the practical here. If you have questions about what it looked like for Timothy to do the work of an evangelist or fulfill his ministry, or about the Old Testament sacrificial background of Paul being poured out like a drink offering, feel free to ask me later. They’re interesting, for sure, but I want to focus on the man idea.

Main idea: In these last days, followers of King Jesus must make it our singular priority to proclaim the gospel and live out its implications.

And nobody did this better than Paul. 2 Timothy 4:7-8

2 Timothy 4:7–8 CSB

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved his appearing.

Brothers and sisters, don’t you want to be able to say the same thing here? I know I do. But it’s not going to be easy. It’s a fight. It’s a race — and not a sprint, the race I actually like — it’s a marathon. And there are hurdles, and mud pits, and persecution, and enemies, and all other sorts of trials, so it’s not even really a fair or pleasant race.

But Jesus, the righteous Judge, is king and Lord, and he is not only ready to return to destroy his enemies — he is eager to return and lavishly reward those who are his for the work they’ve done at his command.

We must remember at every turn that we live our lives in light of eternity, not just today. We are in the last days, and we’re 2000 years closer to the end of those days than Paul was — time really does seem to be running short in a pretty extraordinary way.

But no matter what’s going on within us, outside us, around us, or in the world, we will love Jesus’s appearing more and more to the degree that his appearing means freedom from suffering and persecution as heralds of the gospel and inasmuch as it means rest from the toilsome, dirty work of correcting and rebuking those caught in sin and encouraging those who are downcast in spirit because sin and discouragement will be no more on that day.

There will be no need for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, because Domestic Violence and its perpetrators will be cast into the lake of fire for eternity, precisely where they belong, alongside death and all others of God’s enemies.

But there are those in our community who are enemies of God and don’t even know it — so let us make it priority number one, Grace Baptist Church, to proclaim the gospel, whether in season or out of season, and do so with Christlike lives so that those who are caught in Satan’s snare with itching ears will perhaps be set loose from that snare and have the deeper, eternal itch on their hearts scratched in the most satisfying way.

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