Have you Chained the Gospel?

Intro

May 25th, 2019 will be a day that I will never forget. It was the day when Larissa and me entered into a covenantal relationship with one another and God. We stood before our family and friends, worshipped God, sang hymns, served Communion, and promised each and other and God that no matter how hard things would/could get we would never give up on each other.

A door jam?

When our service was over and our guests were heading down to the reception I remember having this over powering sense of joy fill me. Endless possibilities for our future began relaying in my mind, and you couldn’t wipe the smile from my face, even if you tried.

Blocking a door so it can’t ope

Quickly, a new sense of excitement filled me. Not only was I excited about our new future together, I was also excited for everyone to know that we were married. I wanted to call every person who could not come to the wedding and tell them we were officially married. I wanted to post it all over social media so that everyone on there could see that we were married. We put on our car “Just Married” and I was so excited to make the drive to our honeymoon just so that strangers could see that we were now married!

I was so incredibly excited for the world to know what just happened to us, I felt that they needed to know the most exciting thing that was happening to me. I was excited to share this news!

Paul in Prison

It may seem odd how this Scripture pairs with such an exciting day in Larissa and me’s life. I stand before you and share happy news and excitement, yet our Scripture talks about something that seems so opposite. You may be thinking to yourselves, “The pastor is talking about his marriage, and the Scripture says things like ‘chains, criminals, suffering, hardship’, is he trying to tell us something?”

No, that is not the situation that I am in.

However, chains, criminal, suffering, hardship…they seem to be describing Paul’s situation. This is one of those moments where Paul is writing yet another letter while he is a prisoner in Rome. Not only is he a prisoner, but he is a wrongful prisoner. He hadn’t done anything wrong, yet there he sat, a prisoner. He was a Roman soldier, a disciple of Jesus, and he was being called a criminal.

This was difficult for Paul. When Paul was Saul, when he was persecuting Christians, he wanted his name to be famous. He wanted the high status that came with his work. Fast-forward to his post-Christ days and here he is in prison. That had to have been a hard punch to Paul’s gut, and he may have even caught himself saying, “Why am I even in here?”

But, no matter what he thought or said, he was a prisoner. What may be even worse was how he was imprisoned. He didn’t sit in a cell or jail, no, he was home. He was allowed to live by himself in a home. Which, at first may sound fine, and not much like being a prisoner. But the catch was that he would always be chained. Not simply chained to a room, but to a Roman guard. Always. The guards would take shifts being chained to Paul.

Just imagine a time that your parents grounded you and told you to go to your room and then they followed you in there, chained themselves to you, and made sure you didn’t do anything that was enjoyable. To some degree I’d almost rather sit in a jail cell than to have an armed guard chained to me for nearly 2 years of my life in my own home making sure that I was miserable. But, maybe that’s just me.

Knowing Paul’s situation now, you can see why he said, “I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal.” But, why in the world is Paul writing this to Timothy. Maybe it was because they were close, close to the point where Paul even said he felt like a father to Timothy. Maybe Paul was venting to Timothy. Or, Paul was trying to prepare Timothy. To prepare him for a life of hardship, a life that comes from following Christ.

Our Scripture starts with Paul describing what he believes in. More, who he believes in. He says, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David-that is my gospel.”

At first this may seem weird for Paul to say to Timothy, a devoted believer, but I’d say it is okay for even the most mature follower of Christ to be reminded of who He is!

Paul says to Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David-that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal.”

Paul finishes his statement by saying, “that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal.” Again, while you can read this and think that Paul may just be venting, I think Paul is setting up an important precedent here for all Christians.

Paul is saying that the gospel of Jesus Christ does not change, even when the world is cruel to the follower. He is saying that while he is being treated as nothing more than a criminal, the truth of the gospel is still truth.

But, the most important thing that Paul says is this, “But the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.”

Have You Chained the Word?

Those who believe in the message of Christ have been given eternal life, salvation. That is the promise given to us by God through His son Jesus Christ. But, what happens when we commit ourselves to following Christ?

Do our loves become easier?

Are things handed to us with no work?

Does God answer our wishes like a genie?

Or, does life seem to get harder?

You see, when we follow Christ we know that we must begin a new life. A life that is vastly different from the one that we used to live. It is a life that is now driven by the Holy Spirit, not our human flesh. And, that makes it pretty difficult.

Christ says to us that, “...

Luke 9:23 NRSV

23 Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

For Paul, Timothy, and even ourselves to deny ourselves and take up our cross it means that we must turn our backs on our sinful lifestyles and focus all that we have on Christ. On spreading the Good News to others.

Even though it is hard, even though our sinful nature fights back and tempts us to sin even more, we must resist those temptations and accept the love of Christ. But, what’s even more important, we must share this news with others.

You may think it is hard, or sometimes impossible. Maybe you feel that you will be judged, or that your job may be on the line, or that you will be viewed as a Bible thumper…but, I hope Paul’s story gives you some strength. I mean, the guy literally preached the gospel to the very guards that were chained to him! Imagine telling an armed guard over you that Christ loves them and wishes for them to follow Him!

Paul was excited to share this news to everyone that he could, and that excited is something that we should all have. I was so incredibly excited to tell everyone that Larissa and me were married. I couldn’t wait for people to ask if I was married, to see our “just married” writing on our car, to see our Facebook post, to ask me on paperwork what my marital status was....I was incredibly excited to share this news to other people!

But, why am I not as excited to share with other people the greatest news of all, that I have been forgiven and that I have salvation?

Why is it so hard for me to share the greatest news ever to have been placed in my ears and on my heart?

Yes, it’s exciting to announce that I am married to an amazing woman, but it should be even more exciting to announce that I have been saved, and that others can be saved too!

I think the problem is that we have been trying to chain down the Word of God. We cannot stop the flow of God, but we certainly can slow it down. It is what we have each done by not being the best Christians that we can be. We’ve done it by not making Christ a priority in our homes, our schools, our towns, our states, our country…the world.

We’ve done it by taking our hardships, our suffering, our issues, our problems, our struggles… and making them more important to talk and think about than our relationship with Christ.

Instead of saying, “God is seeing me through my hardship,” we end up saying, “Why is God allowing this hardship.” We question God, His motives, and His ways, and all of that slows down the movement of God. The enemy, our sin, the world, it is trying to chain down the Word of God.

But, I have more good news for you.

We serve a mighty and powerful God. A loving, graceful, and forgiving God who will not allow the enemy or our sins to win. We serve a God who wishes to be loved by that which He created, us.

He enables us to choose whether or not we want to love and follow Him, and that is why we must be zealous about spreading the goodness of God to all people, because there are many who hear the Word of God and simply ignore it.

There are many around us who, if they were to perish at this moment, would not join us in the Kingdom of Heaven. Just yesterday Larissa said to me, “when I drive home and I see all of the people around me I sometimes wonder how many of them are followers of Christ.” I told her, “I know, it scares me that there are people who are not.”

I have members of my own family who do not love the Lord, and I worry for their eternal life. I’d rather be seen as the “bible-thumper” who talks to them constantly about God, if it means that one day they turn their lives over to Christ.

I’d rather endure the hardships, struggles, and pains of spreading the Gospel, like Paul, because I know its importance.

So, today I am asking all of you and even myself, “have you chained down the Word of God?” Are you preaching to your prison guard, or are you afraid of what he might say?

Are you holding back the Good News in your life, or are you letting it escape your mouth to all of those around you?

Are you enduring so that others may “obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus,” or are you holding back the Good news of God?

2 Timothy 2:11–13 NRSV

11 The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.

Preach to others the goodness of God, like how I preached to the world that I was just married!

“

This means that we must die to ourselves. We must die to our old selves, our sins, our mistakes, and we must live in Christ! It means that if we endure these hardships, the sufferings we face as Christians, that we will also reign with Christ!

There is no other news in your life that is greater than this,

But, it also means that if we deny him, He will also deny us before His father, our God. It also means that if we are faithless, Christ will remain faithful to his promise that

“While we still yet sinners, Christ died for us. That proves God’s love towards us.”

Now, share that news with everyone!

Let us pray...

Notes

The Message of 2 Timothy b. The Experience of the Apostle Paul (Verses 9, 10)

For Paul preaches and suffers for it (literally) ‘in order that’ they ‘may obtain the salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory’. The elect obtain salvation in Christ not apart from the preaching of Christ but by means of it.

The death with Christ (v11) refers not to sin but to our death to self and to safety. Take up the cross and follow Christ

The Christian life is a life of dying and a life of enduring. Only if we share Christ’s death on earth, shall we share his life in heaven.

Written by Paul to Timothy