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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/scott-barrett/metaphors-in-2-timothy-2/
2 Timothy, please, chapter 2. What's on my mind? Many battles in life that we go through. Things aren't always easy. Trials, we've heard. Sufferings, temptations. And I should tell you all, my name's Scott Barrett.
I'm in fellowship with the Christians that gather at Stout, Iowa. And this morning, what's on my mind is being that good soldier. But we pick out of 2 Timothy, chapter 2, four different things that we should be.
And especially, it's geared towards men. But I think it would fit for all Christians. This is what we should be. Through these things that we go through in life, going back to what our brother said about Eve, from the very beginning of time, these things are real.
Things that we encounter in our life. And with this chapter here, we are able to stand the ground and hold the ground for God throughout time. And the strongest of the four titles that I see here in 2 Timothy, chapter 2, is soldier.
And we're gonna read the whole chapter, but we see soldier, we see a husbandman, we see a workman, and then finally, a servant. So, 2 Timothy, chapter 2. Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses.
The same commit thou to faithful men, and who shall be able to teach others also? Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.
And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. The husbandman that laboreth must first be partaker of the fruits. Consider what I say, and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.
Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel, wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound. Therefore, I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
It is a faithful saying, for if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful.
He cannot deny himself. Of these things, put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. Study to show thyself approved unto God, O workman, that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, but shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness, or as we've heard, discontentment even, and their word will eat as doth a canker, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already and overthrow the faith of some.
Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure. Having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity, but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor, some to dishonor.
If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. Flee also, big word, youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, and them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart, but foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.
And here we get the fourth one. And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but, here's what he's to be, gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at will.
Now, I understand that's a lot of reading, but that's how it come upon me. I read the whole chapter, and it just kinda hit me, probably about a month ago, I just had opened my Bible, and I read that, and I saw those four words that should describe us.
And there's some in this gathering today that would be these faithful men. And if you're not this faithful man, and you're a man in this gathering today, and you really don't care about the things of God, which I seriously doubt, because you're here today, so you do care about the things of God.
And I can see some of these things, because I have three sons and a daughter, and neither of my three sons had any desire to come today. Well, are they faithful men? No, not yet. It tells us to flee youthful lust.
These things, when we are young, are so difficult to deal with. I'm 43, I still like to consider myself young, but I know I'm not 18 or 20, and there's a lot more fun things in this world when you're 18 and 20 than when you're 43.
You get a little more stuck in your ways. It's not as difficult. How old was Eve? I don't know. Got snared, caught into that snare. So what my desire is today is to throw out this encouragement that we be this, first of all, strong soldier.
What is a soldier? A soldier is someone that fights. Now, we don't wanna be mean fighters, but we wanna be a soldier for God. Somebody that has desire to take a stand for God. When times get tough, when we go through the trials, the tribulations, the sufferings, that we are able to stand strong and be the soldier.
Now, isn't it interesting that we see a good soldier that woreth, does not, entangleth himself with the things of the world? So one of the first things that came to my mind, and it's just gonna be us old people that are gonna understand this.
You young people, ask your parents later. So, we used to have a telephone that hung on the wall, and it had a cord. And this cord, when we bought a brand new cord, it'd be all curly, but it'd have a nice loop.
Now, pretty soon, we'd walk over here, and we'd be talking, and then we'd go this way and back, and pretty soon, that cord is all twisted up. It's entangled. Now, if we would've taken the time, at all times, every single time we'd grab that phone to come over here, don't twist it, put it back exactly the way it was.
Take care of that cord. That cord would've never been tangled up, never. But, that cord would get so incredibly tangled that this long cord that should stretch to there would stretch 10 foot out. It just got shortened, and it got more tangled, and more tangled, because we didn't care about it.
Who cares about a crazy little telephone cord? It's just a little picture here. It just got tangled up all the time. We'd untangle it, and once it was tangled, we could never get that cord back to perfection.
And, I'd like to encourage all of us today, including myself, that keep ourselves from the very beginning. If you're 15 years old here today, if you're 18, keep yourself out of the entanglements that we will find in this world.
There are many things that will entangle us. I don't care if you like to do woodworking, if you like to saw, if you like to play sports. None of them are worse than the other. Anything can tangle us up, and we will forget about God and get our eyes off from God.
And then, we are not able to be that faithful man that we've read about here. So, it says, it says, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Does it say endure the easy things of life?
The things that you enjoy and are so much fun? Endure those? Endure hardness as a good soldier. Why do we go through the hard times of life? God is taking us and is molding us into who He wants us to be.
And I stand up here like I know everything. I get so burdened down with these things in life, and I go the wrong way continuously. Continuously. And maybe there's some out there that are just that perfect person, and you do the right thing.
You never turn and twist up the cord. You never are entangled with the things of life. Endure hardness as a good soldier. I was never in the military. My dad was in the Marine Corps. He fixed A6 fighter planes, so he never had to shoot anybody, never had to kill anybody.
He had it pretty easy. No problems there. My grandpa was in the Marine Corps, World War II, and he killed a lot of Japanese people. And he was shot a couple times. Saw a lot of his friends just brutally destroyed in front of him.
And when he'd come back home, he went through a lot of difficult times. Dad remembers Grandpa being in his bedroom for a month. Just severe depression. I can't understand it, just going to kill a child or killing another human being.
But, endure hardness as a soldier. When he was there, when they were in Guadalcanal and they got no food for two weeks, he endured hardness as a soldier. Will there be times in our life that we go through something and we can't handle it?
It's hardness. It's a difficult time. There was a preacher at Stout the other day and he said something about fasting, so I thought I'd try it. I only made it a day. Too hard. Couldn't do it. I got a little bit of diabetes, my blood sugar dropped and I was just, I couldn't do it?
I was not a strong enough soldier to endure that portion. But just look at the things of God. And if we're able to endure it, and I'll keep moving because there's powerful stuff there at the end. Another example for us is, in verse six, the husbandman that laboreth must be first partaker of the fruit.
So now we have that soldier that stands for God. And I could put another verse in, but I'm gonna put that verse in with verse 15, I think. So we have this husbandman, a person that is to be a keeper of the vineyard, a farmer, protecting the land, protecting his crops.
Now here's another little example. I like to deal with analogies and examples. So that's what you'll hear from me today. I grew a little patch of popcorn. I usually get about seven gallons every year.
And this year, those beautiful, shiny Japanese beetles that were brought in by a crazy person was destroying my silk on my popcorn. So I decided to be the good husbandman. And I went out there and I collected a pitcher like this.
I took every Japanese beetle there and I stuck it in there. And you know what? My popcorn's fine. It made it. It chewed off a lot of the silks, but my popcorn was able to get pollinated before the silk fell off.
That's a husbandman. I cared about my popcorn. I wanted that to be good. But what does it say? Yes, to be the husbandman, the protector, the keeper, the helper. But what's first? You must be partakers of the fruit.
So in that analogy, I would have to have tried the popcorn and have enjoyed it and understood what it took to grow the popcorn, to take care of the land. So before we are one of those faithful men, we must have understood the fruit.
Now, the first thing that came to my mind, fruit of the Spirit. And I think it fits pretty good. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. All of those things we should be partakers of before we ever think we're gonna be a husbandman and able to be a faithful man.
All of those things. And last week I was thinking on that word joy. It says we should have joy, exceeding joy in our sufferings, in our trials. And I thought, God, you want me to have joy in my trials?
Then we're able to be a husbandman when we understand the joy in the trials, when we are able to be the gentle person. I'm not. I'm an aggressive person. And it's difficult for me to get down to that gentle level, the meek level.
But that's what we find at the end of this chapter. And we'll get to that. A husbandman, a partaker of the fruit. And we could go through each one of those fruits of the Spirit. We're not going to because all of you would know those and understand those.
And know that that is a powerful nine-fold thing that we must take into ourselves and be aware of at all times. When somebody approaches me and they're extremely angry, whether it's a fellow Christian or a coworker or somebody in the community, meek, let's have peace, joy, goodness.
Do you know anybody like this? My grandmother was a great example. Dealt with garbage in her life and yet a good, beautiful person. I know another woman in our assembly back home and I always use her as that example in my mind's eye because she fits it.
She has lived her life that way. If we can do that, we've succeeded because we're close to God, we're able to listen to God. The husbandman. And then Paul says, consider what I say and the Lord give the understanding in a few things.
No, in all things. If we're able to get to that point, humbleness is a massive thing. If we're able to be gentle and lowly and meek, God gives us all these things. There's been a few things in my life where I've told my children, I said, listen, God has shown me that he is faithful and he is true.
There's been times in my life when I have zero dollars, I've always paid my bills. Always. There's been times when I need $500 of tires and I was able to get overtime for $500. And I think, oh, I wanted to put that in the kitty.
God gave me the money. God will help me to understand all things. And I'm only beginning to get a picture of this. Some of you out here are way older than me and you understand that and you look at me and think, he doesn't know anything yet.
Well, I'm trying. We're trying to get a grasp upon these things. It's all your life, but start when you're young. Right away. 18 years old, start now. Study. We're gonna get there again. Verse 15 must be powerful because I keep pointing to it.
We're not there yet. Verse nine says, wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer. They were treating Paul like he was an evil person, doing wrong things. And I'm here to tell you, just in my little life, the better I stand for God and the stronger, the more things I come into in my life, it seems like the more trials and tribulations.
And I almost begin to welcome those things because you know that you're doing the right thing for God at that time. Because you can just see those people that are ungodly. They just push you farther away.
My coworker at work told me, you people that go to stout, you're a little weird, aren't ya? I said, yeah, I think we are. We're a peculiar people. We are set apart, as it says there in verse 20. We are set apart.
Not because I'm better than them in one measure. The only reason I would be any better is because I have the Holy Spirit within and God is with me. We're different. Don't be afraid to stand for what's right.
We don't need to go try to be different. Just be ourselves and stand for God and we will be different. He endures all things for the elect's sake. Verse 11, it's a faithful saying. For if we are dead with Him, we'd live with Him.
If we die with Christ, we're gonna live with Him. If we suffer, we reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will deny us. I got out of my pickup at work today and I went up to check the lift station numbers for the water pumped and I just, I got out of my pickup and it just hit me.
It says, don't go against God. Everything you do, go for God. Why did that come into my mind? I had no desire today to go against God, but it just hit me. God has been so gracious to be with me. Stand for God.
Do everything for God. When you're young, stand strong for God in all things, everything, stand with God. Of these things, put them in remembrance. Always remember, in charging them before the Lord that they strive not, that's a word that's coming up, strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.
Does anybody here know people that just love to stand and talk? And all they do is blab and blab and blab and they can talk all day and they've said nothing. So I said that to myself, us as Christians, if we're trying to be know-it-alls and just throw stuff out there to make ourselves look good, I think we better be quiet.
And say stuff that is profitable, that is brought from the Word of God, not vulgar and vile. It comes right back to me. These things need to be in the front of our mind. Things that are only of profit to God.
So here we go, verse 15. We get to workmen. How do we get to be the workmen? Here it is, verse 15. Study, we heard that just a minute ago. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Now, we get these words immediately after we're told, don't say these words that are to no profit. Why would we just babble things around? What do we need to be a worker? Study to show thyself approved unto God.
What is the percentage that you study your Bible? 2 of my life, probably. You say, whoa, that's pretty bad. It's true. The time that I sit down and study, and when I do, God feeds you. God pours the waterfall of information on top of you, and you can't even take it in fast enough.
It's just here to here to here. Study to show thyself approved. Approved to who? God. Should we even try to get the approval of the fellow Christians? It's just like when we go to the breaking of bread.
Those gatherings should be because I want to be where the Lord Jesus Christ is, not because I see all the elders, and oh good, they saw me this morning. They know I'm here. They know I care. They heard me pray.
No, that should never cross into my mind. It should be, I am here with the Lord Jesus Christ. I have studied, and I want to show myself approved to God. Because if I do, God will consider me a workman, a faithful man, able to do the things of God.
If we don't do these things, we can't go over to chapter four in verse two where it says preach the word, be instant in season, out of season. If we don't, we get in that little time of discussion with somebody on the street, we have no idea what to say.
Or we zip our lip and don't say a word. Kindness, love, gentleness, those fruits of the Spirit should be upon our tongue so they're able to just flow out. The Holy Spirit is very powerful, and He's within, able to guide us and direct us in all things.
So here's that workman. Study to an understanding so we speak what is correct. There's probably been times when I say something and I turn around and I say, why did I say it like that? I didn't want it like that.
Why have I been studying? Those words were not on the tip of my tongue. 16, but shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And we all know that. We get in a little gathering with our friends, it's so easy to say, did you see that person?
Oh, they had the ugliest hat on. They wore the worst dress. That man, he smelled so bad. Those are the first things that we would like to talk about. And I believe that would fall into profane and vain babblings, into ungodliness, discontentment.
It causes dissension amongst us Christians, myself included. So we all need to work on that daily. I have to learn to be positive. I would love to attack the negative. My children, I say to them, we're going to work on the bad things.
We're not going to work on the positive things because we know those are already good. This is completely opposite from all people. I say, we're going to work on the bad things. We're going to get those first, get those taken care of.
That's kind of where I come from in my life. We're going to work on those bad things. It's just the way I am. I'm different. I work at it from a different way. Shun profane and vain babblings. Okay, we get to verse 20.
And the gist there, we're talking the vessels of gold and silver, some are of wood and earth. And the main goal is that we are to be vessels set apart. If we are set apart, God is able to take us and use us.
Men and women that are able to be used for God. Have you ever seen a wife that is a bad wife? How is their husband? They're probably a bad man. It takes a good woman to make a good man. A man can only become so good by himself.
If the wife is a bad person, they are not going to be able to go to their full potential. The wife has such great power that God has given her to come alongside and help the man in the greatest that he can be.
Or to pull him down to the worst that he can be. So it says that vessel set apart, purge himself from these. He shall be a vessel unto honor for the master's use. Purge ourself from the bad things of life.
I think even good things can become bad things. If you love to build things and all you do is build things and you're consumed with that. That you are not able to study the word of God to show yourself approved.
It becomes a very bad thing. Purge ourself from the bad things. Even good things that become bad. Keep everything in moderation. Verse 22, here it is. Flee also youthful lust. Why does he say youthful lust?
There are things when we are 18 years old that just draw us away more than when we're 43. We're 43, we start to get a little more tired. We're not as good of workers as we used to be. Things just are a little different attraction.
So be careful. If you're 18, around there, be careful. Because there's going to be these things that want to pull you away. Satan's tools. He loves to distract us with the lustful things of this world.
I love woodworking and sawmilling. Well, that isn't bad. It's a good thing that could go bad. The youthful lust. But what should we follow? Here it is, it's almost the fruits of the Spirit. Righteousness, faith, charity, a form of love.
Giving of yourself to others or giving monetary to others. Giving of yourself, charity, peace. Don't be a person that wants to tear everything apart. These are the things, remember, that are to be faithful men.
23, foolish and unlearned questions and avoid those knowing that they do. Gender, strifes. Things that you're digging at. Questions that you want to just make for a dig. And you want to tear that other person apart.
They gender strifes. One strife grows and then another. And then this person's bad. Oh, I got them mad at them. That way they're on my side. I've seen deceitful, evil people like this that try to turn one against the other.
Beware of them. Show them love and kindness, but be careful. Just like somebody that's stuck in sin. Any kind of a sin, be careful of them. But still we show them love. We don't hate those people. Even somebody that's gone immorally the other way, we don't hate them.
But don't dwell with them and don't love what they're doing. We hate what they're doing because God hates what they're doing. God hates my sin. Deal with love and don't try to create strife. Now here comes the last one.
And I believe this must be the most powerful of all four. The servant. A servant to me doesn't seem to have a lot of power. If you're a true servant, you are at the mercy of the master. You're at the mercy of the one that is in control.
And you know where I'm going with this? That God is our master. And just like husbands loving their wives, if I truly loved my wife like Christ loved the church, Rachel would be able to take her place so easily as a wife.
Everything she would try to do would be to try to be for me to make me better. Obviously I don't do that. But if we would do that, Christ gives us a picture of the perfect relationship, the man and the woman.
If we are able to do things perfectly according to His will, then the man and the woman on both sides would be able to come and be a true servant to the Lord Jesus Christ. But if I don't love my wife as Christ loved the church, and if she doesn't love me in a way that I would hopefully gain her respect of, it doesn't work.
She's not able to be a good servant to Christ and neither am I then. It begins right there. Or parents, if we provoke our children under wrath, why would they wanna serve us? And serve, I mean respect us.
You can see when you treat your children fairly, people look at me and they know how I have treated my children. I've treated them hard and firm, but I'm fair with them. I'm respectful to them. They are willing to do what I say.
They don't mouth back to me. They're not doing it because they think I'm just gonna stomp on them. They do it out of respect for me. The same way, this comes all around, me to the Lord Jesus. Why would I wanna be a servant to him?
Because the Lord Jesus has never, ever, ever done anything wrong to me. Never. He has never. So why would I ever have a desire to turn to the left or to the right when he has never done anything wrong to me?
Why would I not wanna humble myself just like the Lord Jesus Christ did when he went to the cross, humbled himself unto death. He died for me. The perfect, true servant. And here it is, that's what we should be.
The servant of the Lord. Don't strive. Be gentle unto all men. There's a guy from Manchester Assembly. He told me, when you go out and you're trying to win souls, you build a relationship. I worked with this man one day and saw he was different.
He just was so loving and so kind and didn't go out and say, hey, we're preaching the gospel, you need this, you're gonna go to hell, you know. He was like, hey, we're having some meetings, some children's meetings.
We'd love to have you come. We'll have a little snack afterwards and sit and talk, it'll be a good time. Kind and loving. Well, I had to work at that to get to that point because I wanted to say, we're preaching gospel meetings and you know you must be saved and if you're not saved, you will go to hell.
Not the right approach. There would be a time maybe for something like that. But be gentle unto all men. Apt to teach. The only way we can teach is if we study to show ourself approved. Gentle unto all men.
I'm working on that. And patient. We must be patient. Some reason I have patience. I'm an aggressive person, but yet I can have patience. So I know I'm okay in that. I gotta work on it, but I'm okay. But I can build on those other things.
We're not all gonna be good at the same thing. There's another brother that comes to me and he has the perfect gentleness and goodness. Well, hey, let's work together. Or I'll tell him, you go ahead and crack me if I get a little bit out of line.
Work together. Be servants together in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves. People that oppose themselves. There's been times in my life where I feel like I'm fighting against myself. I oppose myself.
Just a little nudge. A loving word. Just a little nudge. Say, hey, why don't you come to the conference today? Just a little nudge. Nice job. That's all it takes. Just a little nudge. Or just showing some love so that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who hath taken captive by him at his will.
It's a real thing. The devil is real. He does not want us to be faithful men and women. He does not want us to be a servant. He does not want us to be a soldier. He does not want us to stand strong for him and to work for him.
He hates it when we study the Bible. And I have seen it many times in my life. When an amazing thing for God happens, you better watch out the next day because Satan's on the attack. I've learned now, somebody gets saved, I'm overjoyed, I'm in tears, I hug them, love them so much for getting saved.
You pray that the Lord Jesus Christ comes around you and surrounds you, that I'm filled in the Holy Spirit and I'm close to God because Satan is there. He just wants to tear me apart. You're at a conference?
Stay close, be in the Word. Satan is always there seeking to devour. I'm not gonna end on a negative note. Here we are, we have the opportunity to follow in these four ways. To be the powerful soldier.
To be a husbandman, a partaker first of those fruits. A husbandman that takes care of the things of God. A workman, work in the things of God. A servant, to be a servant, to do the things of God. And if you're younger, don't try to step out and be in charge of things.
Just be willing. Those of us that are not in the over, just be willing to help the elders. Be willing to help the assembly. Serve in any way that we can to bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus, not to ourself.
Nothing that we do should bring honor and glory to ourself, but simply to the Lord Jesus Christ.