2 Timothy, Rules for Life 3
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Today, we are continuing our study of 2 Timothy, looking at the Rules of Life that Paul shared with Timothy. Paul, being at the end of his life, and suffering in prison while awaiting his execution, sent this letter to encourage Timothy, who was also going through trials in his ministry. What Paul shared with Timothy is relevant to us today, as we face the trials of life.
If we keep these Rules for Life in mind, and follow them, they will give us the strength and courage for everything we are facing.
The past two weeks, we looked at rules 1 & 2:
Remember who you are, and your purpose. Who God says you are, and His purpose for you.
Remember from where grace, mercy and peace come, God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today, we will look at rule 3.
Before we do so, let’s read through this entire opening section to see the context, and begin considering what God wants to show us today.
We have read through this section in the NIV, and the NLT. Today we will read it in the NASB.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus,
To Timothy, my beloved son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day,
longing to see you, even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy.
For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well.
For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.
Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God,
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,
but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher.
For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.
Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.
Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
Pray
I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.
What rule for life might we find in this verse? What did Paul have, that we all would love to have?
Have a clear conscience
Have a clear conscience
Paul said that he served God with a clear conscience.
What is the conscience? Conscience is something that every human being has.
Conscience - produces guilt over wrong, or reassurance of right
Conscience - produces guilt over wrong, or reassurance of right
When God made mankind, he made us as both physical and spiritual beings.
Genesis 2 tells us how God formed Adam’s body from the things of the earth. He was a physical being, with a material part to his make up.
Then breathed life into him and he became a living soul. What God breathed into Adam was his spiritual, or immaterial part. The part that makes a person who they are. The way we think and feel. Our inner person.
Genesis 1 tells us that God made mankind in his image, male and female he created them.
That immaterial part of us, our spirit or soul, is what was made to be like God. The conscience was that part of the spirit in man that assured him of what was right.
God gave it to us to keep us from doing what was wrong. It is internal and produces guilt over wrong, or reassurance when we do what is right.
Unfortunately, the conscience is not strong enough to stop us from actually doing what is wrong. It can convict us, and give us pause, but it cannot stop us from following through.
And so, Adam violated his conscience when he disobeyed God to get what he wanted.
Then after he disobeyed, what was the consequence? He felt guilt and shame and tried to cover up what he had done.
So, the conscience is like the warning light on the car. It lets us know that something is wrong here. And it will continue to nag us and make us feel guilty if we keep going until things are taken care of.
Everyone in the world has a conscience. Some of what we have a conscience over is influenced by the culture in which we are raised. However, somehow this conscience has some things that are nearly universal. How is it that people from all over the world, of different cultures, have this conscience?
God tells us through Paul in Romans that God gave us the conscience to enable all to know of sin, even when we don’t have the law, or the word of God.
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.
They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)
This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
Conscience makes everyone accountable to God
Conscience makes everyone accountable to God
These verses let us know that God put the conscience in mankind. God does not want anyone to do what is wrong. He does not want to have to punish people for doing wrong. So, He gave us the conscience within us to keep us from doing wrong.
No one can blame God, or say God is unfair for punishing those who have never been taught who He is.
All mankind are the guilty ones. Mankind is the one who left God. Mankind is the one who violates even their own consciences.
And everytime we violate our conscience it gets easier, doesn’t it?
The scriptures speak of this as being a seared conscience.
Paul had written to Timothy about those men who had abandoned the teaching of the Word of God, and now were opposing the truth. Because they had departed from the truth, and continued to teach others to do the same, Paul referred to them this way:
Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
Consciences can be seared
Consciences can be seared
Our consciences are like our physical nerves. When you touch something hot, you instinctively pull back. Why? Because God gave us nerves to sense the heat which will harm us.
So, you touch something hot, the nerve sends the warning to the brain, and the brain tells you to pull back.
However, nerves can be burned, seared so that they do not work. This is a benefit for some who have nerve pain, or constant pain.
Or, nerves can be naturally seared by handling hot things consistently over time.
Key making illustration
Just as nerves can be seared, or deadened, so too, the conscience, our spiritual nerve that tells us to pull back from evil, can be seared and deadened.
Do something once, and your guilt is great. Do it again, and the guilt isn’t quite as bad. Continue to do it, and your conscience is seared to where you won’t even blink an eye.
Pirate Charles Gibbs - The pirate Gibbs, whose name was for many years a terror to commerce with the West Indies and South America, was at last taken captive, condemned and executed in the city of New York.
He acknowledged before his death that when he committed the first murder and plundered the first ship, compunctions were severe; conscience was on the rack and made a hell within his bosom. But after he had sailed for years under the black flag, his conscience became so hardened and blunted that he could rob a vessel and murder all its crew, and then lie down and sleep as sweetly at night as an infant in its cradle. His remorse diminished as his crimes increased.
Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996), 267.
Truly an example of a seared conscience. But searing isn’t just for pirates. It happens to you and me. This is why we need to be on guard day and night. We don’t want to have a guilty conscience, nor do we want to have a seared conscience.
Conscience - produces guilt over wrong, or reassurance of right
Conscience makes everyone accountable to God
Consciences can be deadened or seared
Paul claimed to serve God with a clear conscience.
How could he claim that?
Think back over Paul’s life. What do we know about Paul?
Let’s look at Paul’s own description of his life in Acts 22, starting in verse 3.
“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.
Paul was trained as a Pharisee under the premiere teacher of the day, Gamaliel. In Galatians Paul says,
For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.
I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
That means Paul was in Jerusalem as a Pharisee during the time of Jesus, and the early church.
He was so religious and self-righteous. Did he do things to violate his conscience?
Think back with me to John 8, when the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery.
Illustration of men leaving, oldest to youngest when Christ said that the one without sin throw the first stone.
I imagine that Paul was there, wanting to put this woman to death. I think he was one of the last to leave.
Like Paul said in Galatians, he persecuted the church.
We see that beginning in Acts 8, when Paul was overseeing the stoning o Stephen.
And Saul approved of their killing him. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.
In Acts 22, he goes on to say,
I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison,
as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.
Paul started with wanting to put this woman to death. Christ used his own conscience to stop him.
Later he oversees putting Stephen to death.
Then, he goes onto to putting many people to death. And, though the first time his conscience got to him, after that, it did not bother him. Just like the pirate.
It’s easy to think of pirates and evil people having seared consciences. But Paul was a righteous person. He followed the law of God. He was better than most anyone else. Yet here he was, violating and searing his conscience. All of this was down out of his religious self-righteousness. Do you think religious people like ourselves can violate our consciences? Do you think we can sear our consciences?
So, in considering this, how could Paul say he had a clear conscience? Was his conscience so seared that he felt like it was clear? Or, was it truly clear?
I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.
Paul had a clear conscience, because it was cleansed.
Our consciences need to be cleansed
Our consciences need to be cleansed
Consciences get defiled when we do things that are wrong. Like we get physically dirty, our hearts, our inner person gets spiritually dirty. And just like you can feel the physical dirt on your skin, you can feel that spiritual dirt on your soul.
What do we do to get clean? Physically we take a bath, or get a shower.
Spiritually, we get cleansed as well.
Let’s continue reading what happened to Paul when he had a dirty conscience.
“About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me.
I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’
“ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied.
My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.
“ ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’
My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.
“A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there.
He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him.
“Then he said: ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth.
You will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard.
And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’
How did Paul have his conscience cleansed? He believed in the Lord Jesus who died to take the punishment for his sin, and he was baptized and cleansed CALLING ON THE NAME of Jesus.
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus
Calling on the Name of Jesus is to believe in Jesus. It is believing who He claimed to be, God the Son. It is believing what He did, died for our sins and rose again. It is receiving forgiveness that He the judge provides.
The author of Hebrews wrote of it this way.
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
And later in Hebrews 10,
let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
Paul believed in Jesus. He called on the name of Jesus, God the Son, the One who loved him, died for Him, and rose to give him new life.
What Paul believed in Jesus, calling on his name, he was cleansed from all that he had done in his self-righteousness. His conscience was cleansed. He was no longer guilty. He was no longer dirty. He was clean! Oh what a feeling!
Have you ever felt that?
Paul was not alone. Remember King David? He also had a guilty conscience that he had for over a year after he committed adultery, killed the husband and took the woman, Bathsheba to be his wife. He thought he hid it for a year. Then the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to him.
Look at Psalm 51 with me.
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on your altar.
David, too, knew what it was like to have a guilty conscience. He spoke of his guilt, and needing to be cleansed.
He knew that his only way to be cleansed was to call to the Lord, and to ask for the Lord to cleanse him.
There is another Psalm I read with my kids this week. Psalm 32. I think this Psalm, also written by David speaks of what he must have felt like for that year he tried to hide what he had done.
Of David. A maskil.
Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.
When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.
Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them.
You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.
Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him.
Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!
Forgiveness from God is the way to have a clean conscience.
Our consciences are cleansed when we come to Jesus, our Savior.
Have you come? Are you cleansed?
Once Paul was cleansed, was that the end of his conscience? No. He was still human. He still had to deal with memories of the past, and his present failings.
How do you keep a clean conscience?
How do you keep a clean conscience?
In Philippians 3:1-14, Paul speaks of his past, and how he thought he was righteous by what he did, even persecuting believers. He still remembered those things. How did he deal with the memories?
He focused on Christ!
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Concentrate on Christ!
Concentrate on Christ!
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Confess to Jesus
Confess to Jesus
to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
Cleansed by the Word of Jesus
Cleansed by the Word of Jesus
Have a Clean Conscience:
Come to Jesus
Concentrate on Jesus
Confess to Jesus
Cleansed by the Word of Jesus
Homework
Read 2 Timothy 1:1-14.
Read Psalm 51.
Read Psalm 32.
Read Hebrews 9:11-15; 10:11-25.
Read Philippians 3:1-21.