2 Timothy 1, Guarding the Guarded

Please open your Bible with me to 2 Timothy, chapter 1.

Hear the word of the Lord.

Paul’s Greeting and the Reading of 2 Timothy 1

You read the whole chapter. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, my beloved child, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you, through the laying on of my hands.

For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through 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 apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do.

But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, and the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phagellus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.

But when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly and found me. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day. And you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word.

Feeling Like You Are on the Losing Side

Well, don't you hate to be on the losing side? Wayne doesn't know how it feels, Philadelphia Eagles fan. He forgot those were old days. He's on the winning side now. Don't you hate to get that sinking feeling that it doesn't matter what you do?

Your team is getting beat. It's just a matter of time before you slink off the field in defeat, watching the other team give each other high fives. Don't you hate that? When I was about four years old, I was part of a softball game at the apartment complex we lived in in Birmingham, Alabama.

The game was like for everybody, adult and child. And it became apparent to me, even at only four years old, that our team was going to lose. So I decided to solve that problem and avoid defeat in all the wisdom a four-year-old can muster.

The only way I could, I quit the losing team and joined the winning team. Four-year-olds can get away with that. Now, growing up in Alabama, I've always been an Alabama football fan, even during those lean years when Alabama was just another run-of-the-mill team.

But over the last decade, it has been the dominant college football team, winning five national championships over the last 10 years. The result of all that success is a lot of new fans. People love winners.

They love being on the winning side. So now Alabama football t-shirts and stuff are everywhere. Mary found a shop in Singapore selling them. I have a pastor friend who found them on sale in Jerusalem.

It is not at all unusual to just be walking down the Danville Riverwalk and see someone go past with an Alabama shirt on. Of course, one day, hopefully not this season, but one day, Alabama will be just another team in the pack.

And all those fairweather fans will put away their Alabama shirts and go after whatever is the next big thing, probably NC State. Timothy is feeling threatened. Maybe he felt like he was now suddenly on the losing side.

He was overwhelmed. He's intimidated. Paul calls it fear. You have a spirit of fear. You're shamed. He's intimidated by persecution from without and problems from within, problems like false teachers and deserters.

Sure, there had always been some resistance from the religious leaders. But for a while, that resistance seemed like nothing compared to the mushroom-like growth of the movement that he was a part of.

For a time, being a leader in those early days, those glory days, being a leader in the church, it was exciting. It was rewarding, like being the founder of a corporation that's just sweeping the business world, except in this case, the rewards were eternal.

Converts were just flocking in. People were eager to learn and to grow and do whatever they had to do. In Jerusalem, the Christians there sold their property and shared everything in common. They believed in the loftiest ideals of the Lord Jesus and put them into practice.

It wasn't just talk.

They were doing this stuff. Similar things were happening in Ephesus, where Timothy was. The church was then a successful, thriving movement with apparently unlimited potential. It was thrilling to be winning, to be on the winning side.

The pagan temples, they were dwindling. The idol makers were going out of business because so many people were becoming Christians, no longer buying their idols. They were flooding into the church. Every week, you'd come, and there were more people.

Than the week before.

Had to get new chairs.

They'd have to expand.

They were tempted to think, look at all the growth. We must be doing something right. But then, for no reason they could tell, something happened. The tide seemed to turn. Persecution went from mere harassment of religious leaders to the iron fist of the Roman government.

To worship a crucified savior had always been repugnant to the philosophical elite. Now, the educated leaders were working to turn the public opinion against the church. Christians developed a bad reputation.

The way they called each other brother, sister, including their own spouses, was used to start rumors that Christians were incestuous. When they spoke, even symbolically, of eating the flesh of Christ and drinking the blood in the Lord's Supper, they were accused of being cannibals.

That's what people whispered behind their backs.

It's for real.

But worst of all, in Roman eyes, was an accusation that Christians couldn't repudiate. They could always say, no, we don't believe in incest. We're not cannibals. But the one they couldn't repudiate was that they would not worship the Roman gods, not even.

The emperor.

And in an age when many people believed that bad things like droughts or earthquakes or defeats in battle, that that happened because the gods were angry at them, then Christians became convenient scapegoats.

The gods were angry with Rome. So the explanation went, because these Christians, they weren't worshiping them. They've thrown out their idols. They're not going to the temple, and the gods are having their revenge on us.

So suddenly becoming a Christian was something to be ashamed of. It was unpatriotic, un-Roman to be a Christian. It was uncivilized. It's not, no. Educated people don't believe in this Jewish god. It was even immoral.

And for Timothy, this hit home when his mentor and close friend, the apostle Paul, was in chains and more than likely facing execution. And others, fearful of the same fate, were deserting, like Phagellus and Hermogenes, mentioned near the end here in verse 15.

So one Sunday, people come to church and wonder, where's Phagellus and his family? And then the next Sunday, where's Hermogenes and the wife and kids? People were falling away because they couldn't take the pressure.

The crowd started to dwindle. Some of the teachers they had loved before turned out to be false teachers and had to be denounced. And then they took some followers with them away. There were now empty seats where there had been standing room only before.

And now the temptation was to think, so many gone. We must be doing something wrong. Now, what would Timothy do? Perhaps you've experienced something similar, where there are times, like maybe right after your conversion, when Christ seemed so near and so dear, when the Holy Spirit seemed to be electric in the air all around you, when you were in church every time the doors were opened because you craved hearing the word of God, you craved worshiping and singing, you listened to Christian radio or podcasts and read Christian magazines and books.

Maybe you're even one of those zealots who even read missionary prayer letters, if you can believe anybody reads that stuff. You prayed expecting immediate answers. And when you got them, you expected more and greater next time.

You joined every ministry you could because you were sure the kingdom of God was going to break through. This is important. You had to be there. But over time, the excitement seemed to escape, like air leaking out of a balloon.

Some of that is natural. As you learn, some of what goes under the name Christian, some of the things on radio and podcasts isn't really very edifying. Maybe after a while, you get a little cynical. And you wonder whether these lofty ideals that people talk about in church, like the church is the family of God, about making disciples, you wonder whether all that's just empty slogans.

Is this a show we put on for the money? You learn you don't have the gifts for some things, so you drop them. You learn sometimes you need a rest from even those ministries you have a gift for. But still, you feel that something vital has been ebbing away, like you're running out of gas.

You may know some who have deserted the church or biblical worship or even the faith altogether. And you pray for and you witness to them, but nothing seems to change. Over time, that discourages you.

And you think, what are we doing wrong that is making us lose? To Timothy and to us, the Apostle Paul has a strong challenge in this chapter. And the challenge is the cure for our discouragement. Here, he tells us five things to remember our heritage, rekindle our gifts, retake our cross, recall the gospel, and retain the pattern.

Remember Your Heritage

First, remember your heritage. Even though Paul is writing to a close friend, you think about that, this is a close friend of his. Not like us, we would just send an email quick. We don't even say much of anything about who we are.

But even though that's what he's doing, he's writing to Timothy, his close friend. He reminds Timothy of his credentials, just in case you forgot, Timothy. In verse 1, he reasserts his title as an apostle.

He's an apostle. And that apostleship didn't come from a committee or a congregation or an ordination council, but it comes from God himself. That's where he's coming from. That's what Paul is saying.

We need to know that. And in verse 3, Paul even mentions his human heritage. That is, the ancestry of people who zealously sought to serve God that he has descended from. And he purposely reminds Timothy of his own godly heritage.

You too, Timothy. Your heritage. He mentions his mother and his grandmother by name. They had a sincere faith that they passed down to Timothy. So for both men, the baton of faith had been passed to them.

It was their turn now. Would they be able to faithfully pass it on to the next generation? Well, Paul is telling Timothy that these people pass on a deposit to you. Now it's your turn to guard it, to spread it.

Don't be ashamed of it. And be able to pass it on. Finish your leg of the relay race, Timothy. And that is our challenge this morning. Will we be so weighed down with discouragements, embarrassments, and intimidation?

We're afraid we'll get discouraged again. This won't work out. Perhaps even fear of being on the losing side.

We're losing.

Fear of being called bigots and haters, of being associated with a movement that is increasingly unfashionable and scoffed at. Are we so afraid of all that that we will fail to finish our leg of the race?

It helps if we remember our heritage, those who came before us and passed the baton to us. You may have a godly heritage in your families, like Timothy. He had a mother and grandmother who gave him faith with his milk.

That is as much as one person can give another faith. If you fail, you'll be failing them. You'll be diminishing what they believed and sacrificed and prayed for. But even if we did not come from a godly home, maybe your parents, grandparents, maybe they were all pagan.

Who knows? We are all recipients of the sacrifices of those who went before us in the faith. Those who, like the Apostle Paul here, were willing to lose their lives for the gospel that it might eventually get to us.

That's what he's doing here, isn't he? Thousands of martyrs, from Paul onward, forfeited their lives so that their faith might live, that it might get to us. And we live because of their faith. Later, after centuries of the church following and falling into tradition and philosophy, rather than the sound words that Paul mentions at the end there, the church reached a low point of corruption and confusion.

But the gospel was guarded. Evangelical preachers like Martin Luther were willing to declare, here I stand, and face possible death. So the church was revived and reformed. And this church exists to guard that reformation.

It's in our name. Second, rekindle your gift. Because of your heritage, the Apostle tells Timothy, you should stir up your gift. The same is true for us. Perhaps through years of discouragement or disuse, you've let your strengths in serving God become weak.

Paul would tell you, rekindle your gifts. The word there, in verse 6, for rekindle, is an image like of a fire nearly dying out. Ever started a fire, it starts to die out, gets to a point where it's just glowing embers.

But if you can stir it up, add some more wood or whatever you're burning or more oxygen, get the flame to rise higher again. You see, even though your gifts come from God, you need to attend to them like you would to attend to a fire, providing extra fuel and oxygen to keep it going.

And you do that through two ways, through prayer and through practice. First, you pray. Particularly, you pray to be filled with, empowered by the Holy Spirit. For it is the Holy Spirit who is. The spirit here he talked about, not of fear, not intimidated by, we're losing, I'm afraid to lose.

No, but of power and love and self-control. If you're controlled by fear, even just fear of being disappointed, you're not being filled with the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus said that the Father freely gives the Spirit to those who ask Him.

So we should freely and frequently ask Him. Shouldn't we? You have a promise. You'll get Him when you ask. So ask. The apostle Paul said in Ephesians 5, verse 18, he commands us there to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

So while it's true, as Paul says here in verse 14, if we have the Spirit within, all believers have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, there are fillings, there are empowerings that we can experience.

It's something that we should be continually seeking and receiving. Just like you regularly seek to be fed, probably two or three times a day, you want a meal, you want to be fed. Your stomach, seek regularly to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

That's because we desperately, we need His power for our gifts to be effective. Perhaps one of the reasons, if you're discouraged, perhaps one of the reasons you're discouraged is that you've been trying to witness or to worship or to live your Christian life, whatever you're trying to do, by your own strength.

And then you're disappointed because you don't have any power on your own. So pray for the filling of the Holy Spirit. He provides the oxygen your gifts need to be rekindled. So you can burn with power, love, and self-control.

But you need power to do things. Perhaps one reason many Christians lack an experience with God's power is that they aren't doing very much. Here, Paul is telling Timothy to rekindle the gift by putting into practice.

That's what you need to do. Apparently, he has been so intimidated, as Timothy has been so intimidated, that he was afraid to practice his gift, probably preaching and teaching. He was disappointed. He's been preaching, teaching so long.

And Hermogenes, Phagellas, they heard me so long, and look what became of them.

Forget it.

It's not working.

But Paul said, rekindle it. Keep doing it. Get the fire burning again. And the gift, though, he got discouraged. He stopped doing it. And that gift began to weaken through disuse, just like your muscles begin to weaken if you don't use them.

Paul is saying, rekindle your gift by doing it. Put more fuel in the fire. And he would say the same to us. And we need power to keep doing things. We often think of power. I think we look at that word, maybe we think of the explosive power of a power lifter.

Just a second or two of a jerk, and you get that weight up above your head. Maybe of a sprinter. 40 yards, and you're done. Or of dynamite, just an explosion of power. Maybe that's what we think. And some like to point out that the word there for power is dunamis, where we get the word for dynamite.

And that's true. But it means ability. You have the ability. You're not given a spirit of fear, but of ability, and of love and self-control.

Ability to do what?

You need the Holy Spirit to give you the power, the ability to keep doing what you're called to do. For Timothy, preaching and teaching. For you, faithfully worshiping, serving, living every day for the glory of God, like a long-distance runner.

The power of endurance. The power to keep grinding, even after you're tired. The power to push through that wall, the distance runners call it, to the end. You keep going, even when others desert, because they ran out of power.

When crowds dwindle, when people betray you, when you don't look like a success anymore, when it seems like you're on the losing side. Do you have that power? Three, we take your cross. In verse 8, the apostle tells Timothy that by the power of his spirit, what do you have power to do?

We take your cross. Rather than being ashamed because we look like losers through our suffering, he gives Timothy an odd invitation. What a weird invitation he gives Timothy. Look at that second half of that verse, in verse 8.

Come join my suffering, Timothy. Join with me in suffering. How'd you like that? Do you respond to an invitation like that? Get the one in the mail, over the internet? Come suffer with me. What an invitation.

But there it is.

And that's what the power is to do, to suffer with him. There it is, up front. Blunt as a mallet. Paul here challenges Timothy. You know, you remember all that talk? We talked a lot about the cross, take up our cross.

We sang that song, lead me to the cross.

It's so good, so emotional. And we sang it, and we preached it.

When the gospel was spreading like wildfire. The church was booming, and people loved it.

We loved it.

Remember all that?

Well, it wasn't just talk.

So don't see the scorn and the persecution, the deserters, the false teachers, the fact that we've been shrinking lately instead of expanding. Don't see all that as signs of failure. Must be doing something wrong.

No, that's that cross you said you wanted to take up. It's all part of the call. Take up your cross again. See all the trials as signs that the world and the devil and even our own sinful nature is rebelling against the gospel, against the kingdom of God, because it's true, because it's from God.

And they hate it.

Darkness doesn't like light. Well, how about your own life? Was there a time when you read the invitation from Jesus, take up your cross to deny yourself and follow him, that you read that with delight?

You said, yes, Lord, with eagerness. Yes, that's the life I want, to follow Jesus no matter what. You sang that song, not be all else to me, save that thou art. You sang it with tears. You're willing to go anywhere, to do anything, to lose anything, to bear any burden, to obey Christ.

But over time, that enthusiasm was eroded, just gradually worn down. Perhaps now you find a little boredom, maybe a little lack of recognition from others, maybe resentments toward others in the church.

You've been a little offended. Maybe an obsession with money, just a daily grind of having to make a living. That's been enough to dampen your spirit. You thought the Christian life would be all thrills, one day of glory, one mountaintop after another.

And now it seems, oh, drudgery, another time to open the Bible.

I have to go to church.

That means that now, congratulations, because now is your time to answer that invitation. Paul says it to us now, yes. Share in suffering. Take up that cross. Not for some grim act of self-flagellation, but by relying on the spirit of power and of love and of self-control.

Face that intimidation, that fear of losing, or that boredom, that feeling that you've been cheated, that discouragement. Choose to suffer wrong. Share in suffering by the power of God. After all, suffering is part and parcel of the gospel.

Recall the Gospel and Guard the Good Deposit

And speaking of the gospel, fourth, recall the gospel. The apostle wants Timothy to recall the gospel because keeping it before us is the best way to fan into flame our zeal and gifts, like Peter trying to walk on the water, but sinking as he's distracted by the wind and the waves and the rain.

Timothy is intimidated by the problems around and within the church. Perhaps he's wondering whether he bought into the wrong movement. You know, this is what I signed up for, all these problems. I thought we were going to keep growing.

He's sinking.

So Paul wants to bring his focus back on the gospel, not just on the promise. Notice Paul doesn't promise him, hang on, Timothy, I promise you just in a couple, maybe a year or two, it'll turn around again and we'll be booming again.

No, he doesn't say that. Take up your cross, look at the gospel. If you're discouraged, intimidated, if you are discouraged or intimidated or just bored, the cure for that is not just more steely determination, not for me to browbeat you, it's not even for the hope that we'll be a success again next year.

It's coming around again soon. It might not. You might have to keep going through things getting tough. The cure is to look once again at the gospel and this time look deeper. Look as deeply as you can.

Consider its beginnings, its ultimate origins. That's what the apostle Paul does here. He mentions the gospel at the end of verse eight and then in verses nine and 10, he briefly explains it, practically shouting how our salvation came from and rest on God's sheer grace.

Notice how he puts it. Paul writes in verse nine that he saved us. Interesting, that's the way Paul puts the gospel. He saved us. He doesn't just say that God made salvation possible, that it's available out there, like the way a store makes milk available, but you've still got to go out and buy it for yourself.

No, he doesn't even ask Timothy to remember how he, remember how you received Christ, Timothy, to use our current terms. He doesn't say that either. His focus is like a laser beam on what God has done.

He saved us. Now, why did he save us? Because we did something that deserved special favor? No, Paul declares not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. He saved us by his grace for his purpose.

Our works, that is anything that comes from us, our actions or our attitudes, our choices had nothing to do with it. He gave us that grace in Christ Jesus. Notice that. It's not just kind of a holy word you throw in there just to make it sound sanctified.

He's saying something important there. The grace comes to us in Christ Jesus. That is by associating us with the Lord Jesus, by seeing us in Jesus. In other words, by the father treating us as if we were Jesus.

So the father chose to see us not in our sins but in Christ's righteousness. In other words, we were put in a right relationship with the father because he saw us with his son.

Why?

Because of his grace. And in case we're tempted to think, well, God saved us because he can see the future. So he looked forward from eternity past and he saw what we would choose. He saw what we would do.

He saw we would go to church and choose to have faith in him. And so we would deserve saving. And so he saved us. No, it doesn't work like that. Paul insists that our salvation was something given to us before we were even born.

He saved us in the past. Indeed, he's so sweeping about it. Notice, we were given grace. He says, to translate this phrase in various versions, this is a different way, different versions put it. Before the beginning of time, he saved us before the beginning of time.

Before the ages began, from all eternity. Literally there, the Greek says that God gave us this grace before eternal times, or it could be before the ages. Before there were any ages, God saved us. So if you're a true believer here this morning, your salvation wasn't something you just, you picked up in church some years ago.

It was there and you got it when you made your decision. No, that may have been when it was manifested, when it revealed itself in time in our lives. But if you are truly saved, then your salvation was settled by God's decree from eternity.

So for Paul, our whole salvation was so settled, he's tell Timothy in verse 10, that Christ abolished, excuse me, notice that, he abolished death. Past, abolished, not say he's going to abolish or he's abolishing, but he abolished death and brought life and immortality to light.

Now he's not suggesting there's not still something of death to have to deal with. Near the end of this letter, he mentions that he's nearing his own death, but he is saying that the believer never has to experience all of death.

He may have to experience the death of the body, the separation of the soul from the body, but he does not have to experience spiritual death, the separation of the soul from God, and certainly not eternal death, when body and soul will be separated from God forever.

And for the true Christian, even physical death will be reversed in the resurrection. And for Paul, that is such a fact. He writes of it as if it had already been accomplished. He abolished it because Christ has accomplished it.

He has done everything that needs to be done to abolish death. We're now only waiting on the implementation. Death has been abolished. It's as good as done. Now, looking at that, this renewed vision of the gospel, this is the gospel that Paul reminds Timothy of.

Boy, if Timothy, the pastor of this church in Ephesus, needs to be reminded of the gospel, how much more do we? Now, look at that, this renewed vision of the gospel. That lifts you out of discouragement or boredom.

If you keep before you the truth that the gospel is guarded, that our salvation is settled from eternity past, that the doom of death and Satan is sure, then you'll never be tempted to think you're on the losing side.

Maybe we're losing.

This vision of a God who saved you from eternity past out of his sheer mercy will inspire gratitude, worship. Not only gratitude for what God has done in the past, but a settled gratitude for what you now know God will do in the future.

So that hope, that trust in a grace that was settled in the past, so you now know it will be there in the future. That brings both peace and assurance. You know, nothing can quiet our fears or wipe away our discouragement like the knowledge that our safety is founded in the concrete of God's eternal decree.

He saved us. Recall the gospel. Have knowledge of what it is. But not just doctrinal knowledge of what, but personal knowledge of who. In verse 12, he says, he knows the who. He knows him whom he has believed.

He doesn't just say, well, I know the doctrines about him. He says, he knows him. That's why even though he's suffering, he knows, he's convinced that God will guard what has been entrusted to him. That is, Paul says, his soul.

I've entrusted my soul to him, my life, my eternity, the gospel itself. I know him, and I know he will keep it safe. He says he is suffering because Christ called him to proclaim the gospel. You wanna know why, Timothy?

I'm in chains, about to have my head cut off. Talk about feeling discouraged, you know, like things maybe are going not your way. Why people are deserting, you wanna know, Timothy, why people are deserting you, why you're having hard times?

Not because you're doing something wrong, but because we have the truth. And Paul's able to keep going through the discouragement, through the dwindling, through the abandonment and insults and loss, because he knows him whom he has believed.

Do you?

Retain the Pattern of Sound Words

Fifth, retain the pattern. Finally, Paul challenges Timothy out of discouragement and fear by telling him to retain the standard of sound words in verse 13. The word there, standard, or it could be a pattern, is like what a seamstress uses.

You ever seen a seamstress get the cloth out and puts a pattern over it, cuts around the pattern? She carefully follows the pattern when cutting the fabric. It'll just fly off on her own whims. Well, this might be a little different.

This might be something interesting. Try something, you know, what I feel like, because it's new. No, now, if the apostle's own close disciple had to be reminded to follow the pattern, how much more do we?

For 200 years following the Reformation, most evangelical churches didn't allow anything in their worship services that was not explicitly from the word of God. They were extremely zealous that we follow the pattern of sound words that were inspired by God.

Many, like the Puritans, would only sing psalms. Like, we sing one psalm. That's all they would do. No other songs, no other hymns, only psalms. They would find us a little too liberal, yeah. But now in our day, you know, you look at our chorus books, the songs that are put out there.

Some of them are fine songs, but rarely will you see ones that are really closely following the pattern of sound words in scripture. A lot of them are just compositions, poetry. They're not following the pattern of scripture.

Now, why is that? Why is it that in our day, we're so loose with what we allow into the worship of God and the way we speak about the gospel? It's kind of, we think we can compose, or even we make up words for God.

We attribute them to God, put them on a billboard. Something, you know, Seawood Church this Sunday, quote God. Why do you say that? What gives you the right to say God said something if it's not in the Bible?

Could it be that one of the reasons we're so discouraged or so weak is because we're like someone who's gotten overweight and lethargic by eating too much junk food. We've gorged ourselves on junk teachings.

Maybe always on relationships or pop psychology, motivational slogans. Our worship is full of sugar, not protein. We're weakened with boredom, intimidated by the world, measuring success by numbers, afraid of commitment and accountability because we've not carefully retained the pattern of sound words.

We've not stayed on the diet of God's healthy words.

In scripture.

Guard the Gospel and Trust God to Keep It

And so we've gotten sick off our own junk words. So in conclusion, guard the gospel, Timothy. Guard the gospel, covenant. Don't be discouraged, ashamed, or afraid. Certainly don't be bored. You're not on the losing side.

Oh, you might have to go through some suffering. You will have to count all things loss, but you won't be in the end counted as a loser. You won't lose because God will, and most assuredly, guard the gospel and your soul.

Notice that in all that Paul is trying to say to his friend Timothy to encourage him to stay faithful, notice what he doesn't do. He doesn't lay the burden of success of the gospel on Timothy. He doesn't tell him, this is what I've heard people say to Christians today.

You know, if you fall away, if you give up, if you don't volunteer, you don't go out there and witness, if you don't help Jim Jr. or Jim this year, all thousands will be lost to an eternity of hell and the gospel will perish, falling into a black hole of superstition.

It all rests on you. You go crazy if you believe that, or you'd twist the word of God to reinterpret it. That might be in the short run, that's probably is in the short run, a useful way to manipulate people.

Maybe, you know, Paul could have usefully manipulated Timothy here with that, but he doesn't go there. In fact, he says the opposite of that, doesn't he? You know, he doesn't say success relies on you, Timothy.

You better get to work, because it's all going to fail if you don't do what you need to do. He doesn't say that. He says, I know. I know you're being intimidated, Timothy. I know you're fearful. I know you feel like you're losing, you're discouraged, people disappearing, people deserting you.

I get it.