Book of 2 Timothy - Ch. 1, Vs. 9-12 (06/09/2002)

little handouts We're in 2nd Timothy chapter 1 verse 9 and the question this afternoon is why is it worth it?

I Have way more pages answering that question than we have time for so we'll just Go for a few minutes and save the rest for later

Let's start with with verse 8 though Because it goes into verse 9 would make sense without the at least the end part of verse 8 1st

Timothy chapter 1. I'm sorry 2nd Timothy chapter 1 in verse 8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our

Lord nor of me his prisoner But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God Who had saved us and called us with all with an holy calling not according to our works

But according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began but is now made manifest by the appearing of our

Savior Jesus Christ who hath abolished death and hath brought life and Immortality to light through the gospel

Wherein to I am appointed the preacher and the apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles for the which cause

I also Suffer these things nevertheless I am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which

I have committed to Him against that day old fast the form of sound words

Let's stop there because I want to emphasize that phrase old fast this form of sound words

There went something my lips and weights out there Take a

Oh She's bowling and all with a casserole dish. Okay sound like a strike

Okay, notice how it ends with that good thing, which

I'm sorry. Oh hold fast the form of sound words Which thou has heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus that good thing which thou has committed

Unto the keep By the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us the the good doctrine the good form of sound words

Is spoken of here in these first few verses of this chapter? And we have a lot of attack on that every age has but this one certainly does

Let's go back up then to the last phrase in verse 8 where it says But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God Why is it worth it to suffer afflictions for the gospel that the answer to that begins in verse 9?

the verse 8 points out very specifically in the Greek language I wanted to point this out that the afflictions

The Greek word for that I'm gonna try to pronounce it for you because I want to point out the fact that it's made up of at least three

Smaller Greek words. It's a very long word soon caco patheo Did you smell that one, right?

Soon caco patheo You can tell that's Several words put together

Greek is built that way a lot of English words of that way, too But what it means is this

To suffer hardship in company with all of that's in the one word

The beginning soon and in the cock k a k in our lettering anyway

Add to this word the prefix adds to the word the concept of whatever the word that comes with it

It's in accompaniment with the other things in the sentence So all that's found in the one word soon caco patheo to suffer hardship in Company with now, what is it in company with?

Look at the end of verse 8 again, but be thou partaker of the afflictions

That means of the afflictions that are in company with whatever the next word is and then it says of the gospel

So what that does when you understand the Greek is it removes any concept of this having to do with the flick just afflictions or problems like the car running out of gas or the sky raining on your party or You know the things that sometimes we complain about we say oh,

I'm afflicted You know, I have my cross to bear and and the things that just happen in life

This particular affliction is not those things. This is a Specific kind of affliction that is always and only

Attached to the gospel itself. Isn't that interesting? You wouldn't see that in the English In the

Greek it has to be attached to the gospel so that tells us that there are certain forms of affliction that come to you because of your stand for the truth and for the gospel in fact

Paul told the Judaizers he said I don't have these stripes on my back because I told people to keep the Ten Commandments He said

I have the stripes because I told him if they'll walk in Christ, that's all they need. I Have the stripes because I told him that the

Lord is risen whom they crucified I told him the gospel and so I have stripes on my back.

Those are soon cocklepitheo stripes

They came only attached with the gospel You will have some of those before you meet the

Lord. I Don't necessarily mean physical like Paul had them though. They may be

But you will have them in your life before you meet the Lord. You already do have some

So these are hardships which accompany the gospel now the question then is why is it worth it well

No, I can't ask the question yet because I'm not through with one other little phrase look at that where it says according to the power of God at the end of verse 8

What is it that's according to the power of God in that verse is it the gospel or is it the afflictions

The world doesn't understand this and maybe Christians can't understand this But God does bring the afflictions and we've touched on it in the sermon this morning

He did not remove he did not go before us and remove all the enemies. He removed a sufficient amount

Where we can live where in us he will continue to remove others

And your whole life is like you you have your own promised land with your own

Canaanites and all the I brothers all those Amalekites and some of those other ones.

They're your own Promised land in your life. It has enemies of some sort that God has not driven all of them out

Because that's what makes us grow And so when you begin to come forth with the gospel those enemies that God left in your land will come after you

Whoever they are They can be people. They're they're always driven by Satan.

That's why the Bible says we battle not against flesh and blood Satan and his principalities they are in these people moving them against God and God's children and Really, they have no effect on God whatsoever.

They don't realize it perhaps but God has is using them in his grand

Plan to form us and mold us. It's it's part of the Potter and the clay aspect of our lives

It's molding us and to be stronger and to be what we're supposed to be So therefore these afflictions are according to the power of God now, why is it worth?

Well, then we move into verse 9 as we go into verse 9 who had saved us

It's already worth it And called us Really getting worth it now because now

I know I'm saying And with a holy calling not according to our works

It could not both be holy and according to our works at the same time, could it? So we have to cut one or the other out

So what God chose to cut out was our work so our stuff doesn't add to it one bit. I Thought it was funny or actually funny not the right word, but Profound actually what brother

Otis said in Sunday school this morning when he said that the lost don't know they're lost till they're not lost

Then you can look back on it in And with hindsight, we feel like we did know it but in reality we weren't thinking about it very much now

God Does the saving and God God does the calling and it's a holy calling it has nothing to do with any works

We can add to it, but according to his own purpose and grace Is what causes this salvation in this calling

God's own purpose and grace the word according to means? That's where it came from The source is

God and only God God's purpose and only his purpose God's grace and only his grace

Are involved in the saving and the calling and this saving this salvation and this calling

Was given to us in Jesus Before the world began did

I say something funny because I got several people laughing. Did I say something wrong came out wrong? Oh You're marking up Jenny's Bible, I thought maybe

I got a word backwards I wanted to clarify it if I did sorry about that. I wasn't trying to pick on anybody especially not my wife

Okay The same God who sends the power of the gospel and it's associated affliction

Hath saved us This is the aorist active participle tense of the word

Which is very important because aorist is something we don't even have in English. Let me just give you the definition of the aorist tense

It is characterized by its emphasis on punctiliar action That is the concept of the verb is considered without regard for past present or future time

They have a Greek has a tense that expresses things outside of time now imagine that What a coincidence

God looked down and said, oh, there's a language That way it happened brother

Otis No, no. No, he says he's going back to the coffee table Hadn't got it, right yet God created this language that sound better For the purpose of expressing in our language his mind and heart.

Can you imagine that this? Word says who hath saved us and called us in the

Greek itself It means that has no regard for time because it happened as the

Bible says Before the world began it happened before the clock started ticking

You were already the salvation for you was there The calling was there the date of it the time the moment of it even before time it had already been chosen

That's what happened in the great counsel the counsel of God the predetermined counsel those things were set in place

With Jesus there in counsel with the father of course, the Holy Spirit's always there he's on that present so the aorist

Means you were saved without thought of time. It doesn't have anything to do with you did with what you did in time

It doesn't have anything to do with what anybody did in time Because it happened before time started

It's in the active voice. The active voice represents the subject as the doer or performer of the action

And Jesus Christ is the one who called us God is the one who saved as you see the subject of verse 9 is really found in the end of verse 8

That's the subject of the sentence it says God who had saved us and called us

God is the subject. So the active voice of this verb proves that it's

God that does the saving man can't save himself and Then the mood it's the participle which in English the closest thing you can get to that is if you added an

ING or an ED To the verb you can even turn it into a noun and those are called verbal nouns

But what it does is it shows continual action So not only did it happen before time started but now that we're in time

We were saved we are being saved and we shall be saved. It's a continual salvation for all eternity

Isn't that amazing? It started in eternity past We were called in time

Now we're saved in time and we go right out the other end and we'll always be saved We'll be back glorified, which is the last step of salvation for us from our viewpoint

From God's viewpoint. We're already glorified and that's proven in Romans chapter 8 verse 30 moreover whom they did predestinate

Then he also called whom he hath called him He also justified and whom he justified then he also glorified past tense.

It's already happened It's already a done deal Positionally you're already there.

That's why you can be seated at the right hand of God in Christ So positionally that is a positional truth reckon it to be so live as if you're there already the

Bible teaches us that today Want you to notice something interesting about this little passage look at verse 9

Who had saved us and called us with a holy calling. Do you see which occurred first? The word saved is first and the word called is second

Most today have been taught that it's the other way around That's the problem with Arminian salvation it has man doing the saving even of himself today, it's taught that you hear voice

God's voice calling you and Then you decide to get saved you respond to that as a lost person and you decide to get saved

So then you do the things you have to do to be saved which means come down the aisle tell the preacher make a public Profession get baptized might as well be

Church of Christ and have a five -point system You know, we're going to repent we're gonna believe we're gonna

Confess we're gonna I don't remember the fourth one fourth one and I guess I can't make it in their system

And then we're gonna be baptized if you leave any one of those out. You're not saved Church Christ style

Okay, well Baptist are no different because they say well what you have to do is repent and believe So we have a two -point

System of salvation they have five. What's the difference? No one can be saved that way So, what's the difference if your salvation didn't come from eternity and meet you one day you're not saved and Don't try because you can't get saved until it does

I Would say this if there is a person here who's not saved and they know it Are you worried about it?

If you're worried about it, that's a good sign That's a good sign because on the human side

The Holy Spirit moves in and draws a person to Jesus Christ You can sense that but who's doing that work?

the person or the Holy Spirit That's part of the calling you see the calling happens in time

The salvation took place before time in God's heart and mind

Come into time God calls through the Holy Spirit. So we have the salvation first. In fact very specifically

The Bible teaches that it was in Christ Jesus before the world began and then the calling takes place in time

And God lets you know, you're his child It's all of a sudden you sense that you have that incredible need

Not to walk in the flesh and you have that incredible need in your heart that vacuum

But you're not who you were made to be in your own mind and heart and you want to be that And so you receive the

Lord Jesus and then you're whole All of that was planned the very moment of it before anything was made

The calling is the time when you know that and it takes place in your life and in your heart

So not only have he saved us which certainly makes these afflictions worthwhile worth it to go through because we're saved

What are we saved from we don't even know? We know a little bit about it.

We know that Jesus suffered whatever it was while he was on the cross in That darkness of lone aloneness that you talked about in Sunday school that touched my heart so much and others

I know We know it has something to do with the absence of God We know that there's that it's the closest thing we have in the physical realm on our physical bodies to think about would be fire

Burning forever and never being extinguished and never able to die Physically, but to endure that fire forever

That's the closest physical thing we have in our language to describe what it's like to be without God forever

We just have a glimpse you realize we don't know much about heaven I Had one of you stand give me a testimony of everything you know about what heaven's like you do it about five words

Same is true of hell. You say well, there's fire and the worm dies not and God's not there

You just see the tip of the iceberg of how hard this is We'll never I don't think God will ever open our eyes to what it's like, but I know this

We have been saved from and we have been called from it

He hath called us In time Good old

Calvinistic salvation As God doing the saving The only reason

I call it Calvinistic not because he invented it, but he expressed it so well Calvin did

And he brought it in a time when the Roman Catholics were totally Arminian man was doing everything even the

Pope was saving and speaking God's words Calvin said no God's doing it all and here's five points to prove it

Point Calvinism, he didn't invent him. He just pointed them out. They're in the scriptures Until the 20th century the great majority of Baptists have always believed this way if you would look at the handout

If you look at the List, it's two columns. Even if from one column, that'd be a lot of people but within those names you're going to recognize several

And those who've read more will recognize more If you've never read any theology books

You're still going to recognize at least four or five of these names of great men of God every name on this list

Was Calvinistic as opposed to Arminian in their theology In fact, if you go back in the history of the

Baptists and you go back to England Where it all started

Got the name You had particular Baptist and general

Baptist and The particular Baptist outnumbered the general Baptist Tremendously there weren't hardly any general

Baptist But the particular Baptist were the by and large the the greatest group of the

Baptist and particular They meant that they mean that God Jesus Christ died for a particular elect group

The general Baptist believed he died generally for everybody And they were in the great minority in that century in the 1800s and all the way up to the 1900s and then it began to reverse itself in this country and it completely

Began to die away in England. You don't have much Christianity there God's purposes humanly speaking.

I don't see how that could have happened with people like Torrey and Finney Wesley Moody and we preached over there.

He was American, but he preached all over that continent amazing the light that they had rejected the light

But God has called us in Time it's a good thing that most of these

Baptist preachers were Calvinistic because Paul was in Romans chapter 8 verse 30.

He says whom he did predestinate Then he also called

And so there it is your salvation happened first outside of time then in time and Then it will last beyond time

This salvation is accompanied with a holy calling which by definition

Is a part from works Not according to works But it is according to his own purpose and grace

I want to give you just a few few thoughts about his purpose and we'll stop this afternoon On this lesson.

I may continue it even though you move on through there. I may continue this next time I get a chance So let me give you some verses about God's purpose.

Jeremiah 51 29 The set your own salvation is according to nothing but God's purpose

The Bible has a lot to say about God's purpose Jeremiah 51 29 and the land shall tremble in sorrow for every purpose of the

Lord shall be performed Romans 9 11 for the children being not yet born neither having done any good or evil

That the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works

But of him that call it it was said to her the elder shall serve the younger as it is written Jacob Have I loved he saw have

I hated that's why most of the Baptist preachers were Calvinistic big not because Calvin invented this but because the

Apostle Paul believed this way and he was anointed and And inspired by the

Holy Spirit to write these words. So this is God's mind on it How would we know

God is sovereign if he didn't tell us? In the world of nature you what you might know by simply looking at the great order of it all

If you had a telescope, you don't know young man. It could loan you one, but you probably have to be there He'd operate it and let you look through it

Verse 17 says for the scripture say we're still in Romans 9 If all you had on a desert island was

Romans 9 you would be a Calvinist. You would not be an Arminian It takes books written by false prophets to cause you to believe that way and bad preaching and weak preachers who don't study and they pull up sermon out of the file every

Sunday Get an old one. They wrote 20 years ago Verse 17 for the scripture saith unto

Pharaoh even for this same purpose have I raised thee up We're talking about Pharaoh a picture of the devil here.

He was a type of Satan a symbol of Satan God said for my purpose.

I raised you up Pharaoh He told faith Moses told Pharaoh this to his face because God told him to tell him this

I raised you up I gave you birth. I brought you out of the mother's womb to go to hell

And to accomplish my purposes before I throw you there That's the

God that we know Was he elect then to go to hell I wouldn't use that terminology because the

Bible doesn't use that terminology But can we infer it? From the fact that he did not go to heaven

Can we see explicitly that God says you are the way you are because of my purpose.

I Raised you up for this purpose for an evil end. I've raised you up that I might show my power in thee

It is more important that God be able to show his power than that some person go to heaven. Did you know that?

That's the way God thinks anyway, so if we're out of line with that we need to adjust our our thinking

And he says I Raised thee up for this purpose that I might show my power in thee and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth

Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will

He harden it God's will It's God's purpose God is a sovereign

God his purpose comes to pass Ephesians 1 verse 11 in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being

Predestinated according to the purpose you see we've studied predestination election, but the emphasis this afternoon is on it's it all goes back to his purpose

It all goes back to the predetermined counsel The great counsel between the father and the son before time began right before he flipped the switch

Even in the heavenlies when he made the first angel I assume you have to have time to do that Because they go from place to place and to go to move in space the way we understand it

Anyway, you have to have time also Before that switch was flipped These things were predetermined and it was all according to God's good holy purpose

So some have been predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will

That we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ In whom he also trusted after that you heard the word of truth now

We see that the means are also predestinated. You must hear the word of truth the gospel We must suffer affliction to get the gospel to others

We must suffer stripes if need be to get the gospel to other lost sheep if there are some out there lost

Who are sheep we have to get the gospel to them. Some of us may be killed doing it In our country some may be smirked at for doing it

Right now that's about as far as it goes But there are places in the world right now where they're chopping people's heads off because they're

Christian It's just the first of many It'll come to the place where the

Saints in heaven are praying saying God Why do you wait and God answered says because the rest of your brethren have to be killed

You know, it's going to get like that. It is that way now. We're here. Our children have got to be strong They are going to face a world that hates

Jesus Christ it always has hated him, but now they have better technology to hate him with and To do damage to his followers

It's all coming to pass just as the prophecy said it would In whom you trusted after you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation in whom also

After that you believe you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Why is it worth it to suffer that?

affliction We've been sealed We are safe in the ark the door has been shut

I still opened others in that sense But I mean in your own personal life, you're in the ark

Picture it open if you want to but God's gonna put a few more in before he comes back But you're not gonna get to come out

You're in the ark. You're safe You're in the salvation of God the predeterminant before time salvation.

You've already been called you're in the boat. You're in Christ No matter what happens on this earth you are safe you are in him

So it'll all be worth it many other verses, but that's all we have time for today. Let's pray father.

We thank you for These scriptures and how they comfort our hearts We thank you for the wonderful Apostle Paul that you called from his mother's womb to teach us these things and to give us the written word these portions of it

And what a life and we get to meet him someday as well and father would you work in our hearts

Cause us to fulfill the purpose for our personal lives just as Paul did in his life

We thank you that it's you working in us. We thank you that you don't leave us to ourselves

That you work in us continually we thank you that Paul said that he was confident

And he knew that he and whom he had believed was able to keep that which was started until the end

That way in our lives to father We thank you for whatever affliction because of the gospel may come into our lives and come our way

May we rejoice in the fact that we have that because we have our salvation and we have the gospel and Lord We ask you to strengthen our children help them to grow quickly and maturity and spiritual things guard them from the evil one and from this world system that attacks all the time and We pray father you help us to keep them in a greenhouse

So to speak to keep them away from as much of that as we possibly can while they're growing and while you're nurturing them