2 Timothy, Rules for Life 7, part 2
Notes
Transcript
We were looking at 2 Timothy 1:8-12 last week. We saw Paul telling Timothy to not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of me his prisoner. Rather, Timothy was to join in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.
Let’s look at the verse again.
So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God.
As we looked at that verse, we reflected on the fact that Paul and Timothy were facing a lot of persecution for being believers in Jesus. They were seen as the problem with society. What they taught was convicting, and against where the society was going. They were seen as the ones upsetting the apple cart. They were the problem. And because of that they were persecuted.
This is truly the situation we find ourselves in, today. We need to read this and understand how to live in this world.
We looked at how suffering for the gospel in this world is a part of the Christian experience. Jesus told his disciples that we will be persecuted in this world. He also said that we are blessed when persecuted for righteousness.
When facing persecution, it is tempting to be ashamed. To hide what we believe. However, we should not let persecution and ridicule deter us. We should not let the things people say make us ashamed.
We need to rely on the strength of the Lord and take our stand on the gospel, the good news that there is hope for this world through Jesus.
Paul continued to give Timothy the reason to hold onto our faith and not be ashamed:
He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
We are not ashamed, because our God was not ashamed to call us to Himself! His great grace fills us with joy as we know the truth that sets us free, and will set those around us free! We have a wonderful Savior! We have a wonderful blessing in our salvation that frees us from sin and death! And we have a great calling to live holy lives as His children.
And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher.
That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.
We are the heralds to a lost world! We are sharing their only hope, even if they do not want to hear it. Like Paul, Timothy, Jeremiah and so man others, we are carrying out a rescue mission for a world that does not like the message. However, we can trust God to care for us, our souls, our very lives!
That is where we left off. We need to continue and finish the thought. When Paul did not just want Timothy to not be ashamed, but rather suffer for the gospel, he had some specific instructions, specific ways in which Timothy was to take his stand.
How was that? How is it that we are to take our stand for the gospel today?
Let’s keep reading in the chapter.
What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.
Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
Let’s pray and then look at this closely.
Prayer
Keep the pattern
Keep the pattern
Paul gives Timothy a charge to keep and guard.
What is he to keep?
He is to keep the teachings of Paul as the pattern of sound teaching. Timothy had been shown and taught the truth. Paul wanted to make sure he did not give it up.
What is a pattern? A pattern is the plan you follow. When using a pattern to make clothing, you take the pattern, lay it out on the material, and then you start cutting. You cut away what does not fit the pattern, and keep whatever fits the pattern.
Paul tells Timothy to keep the teaching he had heard as a pattern. Much of what Paul taught through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit we have preserved for us today.
What is the pattern that we need to use?
We need to keep the scriptures as the pattern of sound teaching for us today.
Why is this so important?
Because, as persecution comes, as the message of the gospel offends, it is tempting to change the message. It is tempting to try to make the message more palatable to the hearer so as to avoid confrontation. To avoid persecution.
Paul recognized and saw it in his day. This letter to 2 Timothy has a lot to say about false teachers, and the teaching that Timothy needs to warn others about.
Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:20:
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge,
which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith.
Grace be with you all.
And again in 2 Timothy,
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.
Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus,
who have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.
Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”
Later he says,
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,
treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—
having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
There was a lot of false teaching. There were those that were just trying to be smart. They were peddling what they called new knowledge.
There were others who were peddling teaching that people could still live sinful lives, fulfilling their own fleshly desires. Whatever is right in your eyes!
That is what Timothy was facing. So Paul told him to keep what he had been taught as the sound pattern for teaching. Hold up the ideas and teaching of the day. If it fits the pattern of scripture, keep it. Take your stand on it. If it does not, cut it away. Avoid it. Correctly handle God’s Word.
What about today? Is this situation with false teaching coming into the church happening today?
Yes! And much of it is the same as when Timothy was serving.
What false teachings are creeping into the church today?
Well, lets look at the sound teaching of the scriptures, the pattern, and consider what is being spread today against the pattern.
Let’s go back to Romans, staring in verse 16.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
another instance where Paul was not ashamed, because the gospel is the power of God for salvation! It is the only hope of the world.
For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
God is a God of love; God accepts everyone unconditionally
God is a God of love; God accepts everyone unconditionally
There is a lot of teaching in “Christian” churches right now that says we need to realize that God is a God of love. He loves everybody. There is no wrathful God.
While it is 100% true that God is love, while it is 100% true that God loved the world, while it is 100% true that God demonstrated his love for us while we were sinners by sending Jesus to die on the cross, that does not mean that God does not have wrath.
God is love, and wanting to graciously give us salvation. However, the whole reason that there is a need for salvation is because He is also just! He is the one who says the one who sins must be punished. He is the one who when His creation lives in rebellion, pours out just wrath and punishment, as described here in the gospel, the good news of which Paul is unashamed.
The sound pattern of the gospel is that God is love, and shows his love in the gospel, because He does not desire for us to suffer his just wrath. However, for those who reject Him, His wrath will come.
This is not a popular message, but it is one that needs to be held onto. We need to keep the sound pattern.
Let’s continue reading,
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
We are evolving in our understanding. We now know that God permits our lifestyles
We are evolving in our understanding. We now know that God permits our lifestyles
Our world wants to change the truth of God for a lie. Too many Christians want to excuse and permit sinful lifestyles because it gratifies our desires.
However, the gospel is clear. It is because people refuse to listen to God that He gives them over to their depraved minds to live in sin. And to not only live in sin, but to approve even more and more sin.
This is what we are seeing today. Everything is being said to be done in love. Then, the reasoning which is being used by “Christian” churches is that since all of this is love, it is a good thing. Since this is being done in love it is okay.
Which is why in parts of our country, and the agenda for our country as a whole is to next approve pedophilia. It’s all love. They are looking for ways, inventing ways to make what God has declared to be wrong, as right.
Spiritual Transformation; Contemplative Prayer
Spiritual Transformation; Contemplative Prayer
Along with saying that all is now permissable, because the blood of Jesus has covered all sin, and God is loving, not punishing anyone, there is a movement toward mysticism. To find deeper knowledge. To find inner tranquility and peace.
Now in Christian churches, Spiritual Transformation and Contemplative prayer is being taught.
At the root, these teachings tell you to empty yourself, and meditate on nothing until your guide comes and teaches you. Just look inward.
The root of their teaching is that inside of each of us is purity that is untouched by sin. Pure truth.
What does the scripture tell us? Does scripture say that everyone is basically good? That inside each of us we will find purity?
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
It is actually Eastern religions and New Age teachings being brought into the church. Those who are pushing it quote from non-believing new agers.
Does this fit the pattern of the gospel?
The gospel is that :
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”
Our hearts and minds are corrupted. We need not look inward. We need to look to Christ!
We need not seek any other guide than the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit who renews our minds. Romans 12:2
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
And the Holy Spirit will be teaching us what?
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
The Holy Spirit will teach us what Jesus taught! It will not go contrary to the scriptures. In fact, it is the scriptures that He uses to transform us.
We are not to meditate on nothing. We are to meditate on His word.
The gospel of health and wealth
The gospel of health and wealth
There are many who are preaching that as Christians we should not have sickness. We should have healing, health and wealth.
They ignore the teachings of Jesus:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
They ignore that Paul had troubles, and God wanted to use them so that Paul would learn:
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Sickness is a part of this world that is fallen because of sin. Our hope is not for health here, but for our Lord who is with us. Our hope is for eternity with Him.
The reality is that there will always be those who are poor in this world that is broken by sin. However, that does not mean that they are unspiritual! Rather,
Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?
While the preachers tell them that if they had faith they would be rich, God says the poor are rich in faith!
So, does the health and wealth fit the pattern of sound teaching?
The gospel of Social Justice
The gospel of Social Justice
God has a lot to say about Justice. He is the just judge, and he condemns those who do not judge according to His standards.
We are to care for the widow and orphan.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
We need to care for those in need. AND keep ourselves from being polluted by the world.
What the world is calling justice at this point is not what God defines as justice. We need to care for the poor, and not be drawn into what is not justice in God’s eyes.
Too many Christians are jumping onto this popular bandwagon because of the trappings of justice, the trappings of caring for those in need. However, they are being polluted by what is not justice.
We need to realize that behind calls for riots and defunding police is truly socialism which roots itself in there is no God. These are the same guidelines Lenin used when he established communism in Russia. The cry for justice is that everyone should have what is right in their own eyes. This appeals to us all, to our flesh.
That is why criminals who are injured or killed while engaging in their criminal acts are defended as doing nothing wrong. They were just going after what they were denied by society. Society is wrong, therefore we need justice. We need to allow them to take what they want. That is not what God calls justice.
What God calls justice is people following his laws, and being punished when they do not. What God calls justice is judges who judge according to God’s standards, not their own, or according to what they will gain.
We need to keep the pattern of sound teaching. Care for the poor. Share the gospel. Do not be polluted by the world.
Hold the pattern of sound teaching
Hold the pattern of sound teaching
There is much in our current world that is being pushed as Christianity. Those who find the message of the gospel offensive want to change it. They want to make it more palatable to the world around us, and not stick out at different.
Not being ashamed and joining in suffering involves keeping the truth of the gospel. It means we do not change what the scriptures say to avoid persecution. It means we do not stay silent to avoid persecution. It means that we continue to carry out the mission that God has given to us, to share the only hope of the world, the good news about Jesus.
The good news is offensive because it begins with the wrath of God.
God is pouring out his wrath. He has turned those who reject Him over to depraved minds that call evil good, and good evil.
That is not a popular message.
The gospel does not teach that God loves everyone, therefore He will not punish sinners.
The gospel is that even though we deserve wrath, God does not desire that any perish. That is why Jesus died and rose again to save us from the penalty of sin, and also the power of sin so that we can live upright and godly lives in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. We need to keep the sound teaching, and guard the mission given to us by Christ.
What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.
Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
We need to keep the pattern of teaching with faith and love.
We need to trust what God says, over what people say. We need to trust what God says, even over those that are purportedly big name Christian teachers.
In this day and age, we have some who are like the opposition Timothy faced. They are teachers and preachers who will give up the pattern of sound teaching so that their message has more appeal. The world we live in does not like being told that certain behaviors are wrong. They do not want to believe that God has the right to declare things as sinful, that is wrong, and under his judgment.
So, when Christians declare that abortion is sinful, offensive to God, it is not received.
When we say that sexual perversions like homosexuality, transgender, promiscuity, pornography, pedophilia, adultery, and all other sexual acts outside of a marriage between a man and a woman as God designed are wrong, we are labeled as phobic and haters.
The fact that we would take a stand and vote on these issues makes us the enemy. The world views us as such.
Some, not wanting to be viewed this way will change the message. They will say that God is love, and that all of these behaviors are now okay because our understanding is evolving. God is love and would never condemn. Some, not wanting to face persecution will change the message of Jesus to, if anyone wants to be my disciple, he must take up claim what his heart desires, take up his wallet to be filled daily, and follow me, instead of denying themselves, taking up the cross daily and following Him. We need to not be ashamed of Jesus.
We need to keep the pattern of teaching found in the scriptures. We need to guard the deposit given to us, and do the work, the mission that Christ has laid before us of sharing the hope of the gospel with the world, even though it will hate us for doing so.
I am afraid that too many Christians are not ashamed and willing to suffer for the wrong things. If we look at posts on social media by believers, are we known for the gospel of Jesus? Or, are we known for other issues? Are we suffering for the gospel, or for other issues?
Too many Christians are sidetracked and wanting to suffer for the wrong things. They want to be known as maskers, or anti-maskers. They want to take stands as Republicans or Democrats. They want to be Trumpers or anti-Trumpers. Too many have forgotten the rule for life for Christians, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, and join in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. Peter wrote about it this way:
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler.
However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.
For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
And, “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”
So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.
We need to join in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. Not out of our own pride and arrogance. We need to operate out of love for a world that is blind to their need of a savior. We need to share the truth about what God says is wrong, and that all have sinned. We need to let them know that the wages of sin is death. And we need to suffer for sharing the hope of Christ, that God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. That God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world.Let’s be sure to not be ashamed. To join in the suffering for the gospel, and not other issues.