En Garde!
2 Timothy • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but a spirit of courageous power constrained by sacrificial love and a sound mind.
We are not to be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.
A couple additional thoughts missed last week.
In regards to power constrained.
Love and a sound mind constrain power, but they do not emasculate power.
Power under control does not mean wimpy.
Again, it is strength born out of character and integrity.
Meekness is the balance between not getting angry at all, and uncontrolled anger.
More specifically, it is using anger and passion in appropriate measure.
In regard to not being ashamed of the testimony of Jesus. The primary testimony is Christ’s death on the cross as a payment for our sins.
Justification must be first. Without this what follows doesn’t matter.
Then it’s how He is transforming me - Sanctification
Testimony of how Jesus has and is transforming me.
How He guides me.
How He protects me.
Also, didn’t want to give the impression that being ashamed of one’s testimony is always because of a negative testimony.
It could be because of something God has done that might be perceived as weird or out of step with contemporary society.
Jonny and autism and vaccines.
We believe God led us to that.
It could be because of something that is outside one’s box of theology.
Ryan Helbling’s testimony of a witch flying over a church.
Scott’s testimony of a demon being cast out and leaving a wake on the water.
Ok. Picking up where we left off.
En Garde!
En Garde!
En Garde is a french term used to ready oneself for a fencing bout.
It means be on your guard, get ready, or be alert.
We see a similar application today, when Paul tells Timothy to guard through the Holy Spirit the good deposit entrusted to him.
Today we’re going to look at Paul’s suffering for Christ, his confidence in the Keeper, his challenge to be faithful to the pattern, and guarding the good deposit.
Read 2 Timothy 1:8-14
Suffering For Christ (vs 8)
Suffering For Christ (vs 8)
For what would someone be willing to endure suffering?
Fighting to protect a loved one.
I will go to bat for you.
Honor and reputation
Physical protection
A truth that is constantly being slandered, and the same old lie that is repeated in its place.
Something that’s been entrusted to you to protect with your life.
A knight delivering a life and death word to a neighboring kingdom.
Something extremely valuable that you don’t want to get into the wrong hands.
A treasure you don’t want plundered.
Testimony - Marturion - martyr (vs 8)
The word became associated with martyrdom.
Foxes book of martyrs.
Their testimony led to their death.
When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained;
“And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.
Be Not Ashamed
Paul found himself in this situation (vs 12)
His suffering included his imprisonment as well as whatever else he has endured.
And he was in prison for his testimony about the day he met Jesus, what Jesus had done in his life, and that this Jesus was crucified, buried, came back to life, and offers forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
Paul’s suffering is real, but he bears no shame for why he is in prison.
Why?
His Confidence In The Keeper (vs 12)
His Confidence In The Keeper (vs 12)
I Know Whom I Have Believed
The perfect tense
conveys a settled conviction.
I have put my trust, and still put it.
Oida - to have seen, perceived, apprehended.
To be acquainted with because of a relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ.
A personal relationship, not circumstances, or doctrine alone.
His assurance is not in doctrine alone, but in a Person: “I know whom I have believed.”
This confidence is rooted in personal relationship and trust in God's power.
His confidence is not in just what he believes, but in whom he believes.
Knowledge which comes from that relationship: intuitive knowledge.
There are certain things that humans just cannot intuitively know unless they become children of God.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
I Am Convinced
Full confidence.
What is he convinced of? That God is able to guard what he has entrusted to Him until that day.
Is able - the word means powerful, strong and is tied to the term Almighty God and connected with the exercise of that power.
To guard - to preserve the deposit. Something committed to one’s charge.
God has the ability, the power, and the willingness to protect from harm this deposited trust.
The deposit is 2 fold.
Paul’s own life.
Until that day. The maturation date of the investment.
So that it is not lost.
and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
Paul’s success and continuation of his mission.
This makes sense knowing this is the last letter Paul wrote before his execution.
Paul is giving his greatest treasure, the mission God gave him and the succession of it to another, back to God.
I will be faithful to fulfill my end of what you have entrusted to me, but I am giving it back to you and trusting you to fulfill your promise to me.
I am trusting you for fruitfulness for my faithfulness.
We aren’t in control of the results anyway.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.
For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.
Paul is trying to encourage Timothy here and remind him that God has our back and that no suffering we go through on account of the Gospel is wasted or against the will of God.
Paul is fully trusting that God will come through.
Why is he convinced?
He has seen God do enough to warrant his absolute and unwavering trust. Goes back to knowing whom He believes.
Paul is thinking of his conversion on the road to Damascus.
Application: When facing trials or rejection for your faith, do you know whom you believe—or just what?
Key Point: Faith is not just informational—it’s relational.
Faithfulness to the Pattern (v. 13)
Faithfulness to the Pattern (v. 13)
Retain The Standard Of Sound Words
Retain (have and hold)
Commissioned
Power and ability
Keep, maintain, and preserve it
This points to doctrinal integrity—holding fast to truth without distortion.
The Standard
To draw a sketch or first draft.
To give a base and guidance to the picture.
It directs the application of the colors and lines.
A blueprint for a building
A pattern in sewing
Highlights the outline nature of the teachings of Paul and emphasizes the principles behind what he taught.
The practical application will vary depending on circumstances, culture, and persons.
If you examine how Paul brings his doctrine to people, he does it differently depending on who he’s talking to.
To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.
So, there are precepts and principles taught by Paul.
precepts are more exact, precise, and detailed.
principles are more general and flexible in their application.
We can’t confuse the 2.
A precept - Do not kill
The principle - life is valuable, preserve it and do not harm it.
Of Sound Words
Teachings
Healthy
True
Uncorrupted
Occurs no where else in the NT, except in the Pastoral Epistles.
“Unsound” in first century idioms meant “nothing that makes any sense, but puts on airs as if they accounted for something.”
And for the Greeks it meant that which did not amount to reasonable opinions.
Which implies there is room for reasonable debate on things which might be disputable, but there are things which are just plainly way out in left field.
Left field - These are things that definitely need to be guarded against and rejected.
This also implies that there is a standard, or pattern on which to gauge one’s teachings...
This ties into sound mind/judgment from last week.
This would also connect healthy words against sick words, the latter following impulses which caused disease in one’s living them out.
Paul defined some of this already in 1 Tim 6:3
If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,
The Teachings of Jesus
The Doctrine of Sanctification
We’ll come back to this in Chapter 2.
In The Faith And Love
The method? In faith and love in Christ Jesus—not in arrogance or cold orthodoxy.
Provides for a balanced doctrine
Faith
Objectively that which is believed, or doctrine
Subjectively, it means firm persuasion or conviction
What you have been brought to believe firmly and with conviction.
Love - agape
A sacrificial love
looking out to meet the needs of others above your own needs.
A serving love
showing good will toward others and sharing resources with them.
A submissive love
doing what’s best for the other person.
Too much doctrine makes you arrogant, with a tendency towards legalism
and oftentimes puts you in the ditch.
It can make you harsh, demanding, and inflexible,
Too much love can make you squishy, with a tendency to compromise areas that should not be compromised.
This will also put you in the other ditch.
It leads to not having a backbone in important matters and can come across as having no boundaries or convictions.
Speak the truth in love.
Worship in spirit and in truth.
Some people tend towards truth and they have to rely on the Holy Spirit to balance that out with love.
Some people tend towards love and need the Holy Spirit to help them balance that with the truth.
This comes through experience and maturity, but should be taught as principles early on.
In faith and love also means that sound doctrine must be lived out in sound character. What we believe must be fleshed out in love.
Application: Are you both faithful to truth and filled with grace?
Guarding the Good Deposit (v. 14)
Guarding the Good Deposit (v. 14)
What is that good deposit?
The "good deposit" = the gospel and apostolic teaching entrusted to Timothy.
The stewardship of the truth he had received and is now passing on to Timothy.
And this teaching was not Paul’s own teaching, but he makes it clear that he is just passing on what was passed on to him.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
So Paul passes on what he has received to Timothy what has been entrusted to him and now Paul is asking Timothy to take that same trust, guard it and pass it on to others.
We’ll look at this a little more next week.
Guard It
While this trust is in Timothy’s possession, he needs to guard it
Guarding is not passive—it's active stewardship.
Keep it from being lost or damaged
Including the practice and teaching of the balanced doctrine.
Timothy’s responsibility was to preserve sound teaching from being corrupted through distortion, dilution, deletion, and addition.
Through The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit will help with this as the Holy Spirit is the true guardian of truth.
“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
Human effort combined with divine enablement.
Application: What spiritual deposits has God entrusted to you? Are you guarding them or neglecting them?
Key Point: We protect the gospel not by hiding it, but by living it out and passing it on.
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
We are to protect the Gospel and the blueprint of divine sanctification through preaching and teaching the balanced doctrine of healthy and helpful teachings that bring life and not death, freedom and not slavery, forgiveness and not condemnation, while speaking the truth in love by the power of the Holy Spirit remembering that God will protect us and carry us safely into His presence where all things will be called to account and proper recompense given for all we have done and suffered in this life.
Paul’s legacy to Timothy is a call to:
Trust confidently in Christ who guards what we cannot.
Paul can give up his life guarding the treasure because God is guarding him.
Follow faithfully the pattern of sound teaching.
Guard diligently the gospel and sound teaching through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Be willing to suffer for it.
Closing Song: I Know Whom I Have Believed.
