2 Timothy 2:1-13, The Seed of Suffering

2 Timothy chapter 2, be reading from verses 1 to 13, hear the word of the Lord. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, and trust the faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

Share in suffering is a good soldier in Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is that the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.

Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which

I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound. Therefore, I endured everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him.

If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us.

If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, have you seen the commercials?

I think if you've watched almost any TV, you probably have, because they seem like they're on all the time. You know, eat the food, lose the weight.

Anyway, but you've seen that commercial? You know, it's not lying. You can eat food and eat the food and lose the weight, if the food is tiny portions with low calories.

Of course, they don't tell you that. Otherwise, you'll catch on that you'll have to suffer hunger. And they want you to believe that you can lose weight without suffering.

We want to believe that we can have what we want, you know, the slim, healthy body while still eating everything we wanted.

Golden corral and frequent stops at Dairy Queen without any growling stomachs, any having to tell ourselves, no, you can't have that without any suffering.

We think we can reap the harvest of a toned, energetic body without planting the seed of suffering, hunger pains or sweat.

We think we can have the harvest of good grades without suffering the dreariness of reading boring books, having to memorize stuff, doing projects without staying up late or having to miss your favorite

TV shows. We think we're going to have the harvest of a successful business without the pain of getting up early and staying up late, bending over and mopping and cleaning and driving around to get the word out, having to miss vacations.

We think we're going to have it all with no stress. Christians, of course, should know better.

I mean, if you're going to worship a crucified Lord, you know, you should get the point that there might be some suffering along the way.

But just like in weight loss or anything else, there are those telling us that we can have what we want without suffering.

I got a card in the mail sent to a church, a mass mailing sent probably to probably hundreds, thousands of churches from a place called

Christian Bible College and Seminary in Independence, Missouri. And it promises that students can get any degree, you know, and for the like for the

Bible and theology, whatever, including a doctoral degree without, quote, without, quote, any demanding coursework schedules, no final exams, no dissertation or thesis requirements, and all that for very little money.

It better be for very little money because they're not providing anything. But it sounds like something great for almost no cost.

And interesting, isn't it, that this organization can thrive in our Christian community, indeed, that they're willing to spend the money to do a mass mailing directly to hundreds or thousands of churches.

They know that there are enough people, even in churches, who will fall for the promise of a harvest without the seeds of suffering.

Here in 2 Timothy chapter 2, the Apostle Paul shows that suffering is essential for the

Christian life, that experiencing God's grace doesn't give you a license to free you from suffering. Indeed, sometimes it makes you a target for suffering, that God often requires his church to suffer so that the gospel can get out to those who will respond.

Paul is continuing the same charge of Timothy he began in chapter 1. And there in verse 8, he invited his friend, whom he affectionately calls here at the very beginning, you know, my child, very affectionate with Timothy.

But he invites his child, his friend, his apprentice, Timothy, to, remember last week, share in suffering.

And he says here in verse 1, be strong because the forces coming against you will be strong.

But, of course, it's be strong in grace, which means it's not your own strength.

That's the good news. The bad news is you're going to need to be strong in grace that comes from Christ Jesus because what's coming against you is more than you will be able to handle.

This is a saying, God will never give you more than you can handle. Totally false. God will give you the grace to handle more than you can by nature handle.

Then again in verse 3, share in suffering. Second time he's told that to Timothy.

And just in this, his child, his affection, this man he's very affectionate to, share in suffering.

Sometimes we're told, you know, if you love someone, you don't tell them the bad news. You try to tell them all these positive things.

But here, Timothy, you're going to have to suffer. You don't want them to suffer, but you're going to have to. Now, there's a call, though, share in suffering that you probably won't find coming from organizations that are trying to appeal to what is the weakest and most immature in us.

But that's the true call to Christian maturity. The German Christian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in the 1930s, his classic book,

The Cost of Discipleship, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

As a German Christian in the 1930s and 40s, that invitation to come and die became quite literal.

Now, when he wrote that, he was actually living in the US. He was living here in the United States in the late 30s and early 40s.

And he could have justified staying here. I mean, who goes back to Nazi Germany?

Think about that. But he saw it as his duty to go back to the minister. He wrote,

Christ bids a man, he bids him come and die. And here he is, a German Christian living in the

US. And he knows that he needs to go back to Nazi Germany to his people there, knowing what could indeed befall him.

After returning to Germany, being a leader in what was called the Confessing Church there, he saw it as his duty to resist

Hitler and the Nazis, knowing full well what could be the consequences. But he went and he died.

He was one of the last people executed by the Nazis before they fell to the Allies.

He shared in suffering. What about you? Have you answered

Paul's invitation to share in suffering? Or have you fallen prey to those who would tell you that, yeah, there's no need to suffer?

You can have it all. You can have all the pleasures, none of the sacrifice.

You can have a degree with no demanding coursework schedules or dissertation or anything. Now, you can lose weight, still eat the food.

So when things get a little hard, when there's not immediate success, when marriage or church isn't thrilling anymore, maybe it's boring, maybe it's a burden, you want to quit and go elsewhere.

Are you willing to plant the seeds of suffering for a harvest? Paul here wants the long -term harvest of the church to grow and to thrive into the future.

I want this church to have a long -term future, well past my lifetime, to thrive for generations to come.

To have that, we need what Paul here is telling Timothy to look for. He says to him in verse 2, we need believers who have two vital characteristics, that one, they are faithful, not that they are flashy, they are faithful, and second, they are able to teach.

Faithful is a godlike quality, one of the most godlike qualities that you can have.

Over and over again in the Bible, God is described as faithful. You know, you read through the Old Testament, his steadfast love and faithfulness, his faithfulness endures forever.

You know, it's called steadfast love, that word hesed in the Old Testament. Steadfast love is, guess what, it's steadfast, it's faithful, you can depend on it.

God makes covenants with his people, he promises he will keep, he does what he says, and so the

Lord Jesus says we should be people, his followers should be people of such faithfulness that our yes is yes, our no is no, meaning that we don't have to swear under oath, put your hand on a

Bible, or to be bound to our word. We don't have to sign contracts, we don't have to be threatened with lawsuits to keep our promises.

Now, I think we can sign contracts or, you know, make oaths if people want us to do that, but we should be so reliable that doing that, signing a contract, putting, making an oath, that doesn't increase our likelihood to keep our promise.

It doesn't make us more truthful because we put our hand on a Bible. It doesn't make us keep our word more because we signed our name on a contract that we can be sued for.

No, because we will always keep our promises, we will always be truthful.

One of the surest signs of a hypocrite is someone who doesn't keep his promises. He likes to say he'll do this or that, but he can't be depended on to actually do it.

He'll then say, you know, well, yeah, sure, I said that, but, you know, things have changed, circumstances changed, so now

I don't have to keep my word. Psalm 15 says it's the one who, quote, swears to his own hurt and does not change.

In other words, he made a promise, I'll be there to help, or I'll give so much money, or whatever, and maybe things now have changed.

The keeping the promise will hurt. He didn't see the changes coming. Things, something happened to the circumstances, they made it harder to keep his promise, but he doesn't anyway.

Psalm 15 says that the one, that's the one whom the Lord accepts. He'll keep it anyway. Mary has a friend who once went to some church service, and they, which we never try to do, they put on this manipulative, emotional thing, you need to give to this ministry, some ministry, we need, you know, we need your money.

They put on the pressure and the emotions, and she made her pledge. She was going to give so much money because the emotions caught her away, and she realized later, man,

I barely have the, I don't know if I can survive, I don't know if I can keep that promise, and Mary told her, you gotta do it.

You made your, you made your promise, you gotta keep it, and she did, and she learned to don't be manipulated, but when you make your promise, you keep it.

By the way, she's given to this church, too. His, he's such a person is willing to suffer to keep his word, just like the son suffered to keep

God's word. Those are the kind of people that Paul is looking for, to pass on the faith to in the next generation.

Next, he must be able to teach others. That's because it's the word of God. It's not personalities or programs or flashy things or, you know, props on the stage or drama or any of that.

Not necessarily wrong, but it's just not those things that grow the church, that brings life to the church.

It's the word of God, which he says in verse 9, is not bound. The word of God is not bound, even though he said,

I am. Even when leaders are bound, the word isn't, and for that word to be passed down accurately, we need reliable, faithful men who can teach others.

They know their doctrine and they can communicate it. They have both qualities.

Effective communication, though, is not just flashy entertainment, not just the ability to wow an audience and hold their attention.

There is actual God -given truth that must be protected and passed on.

So the glad -handing man who knows how to do small talk, needs attention and approval, has a great gift for the gab, but is unwilling to suffer rejection for the word of God.

Such a person is not the kind here that Paul is looking for. He's looking for suffering sharers, people who are more determined to be faithful to God's word than they are to win smiles.

So Paul gives us three pictures of the kind of people that he is looking for to pass on the faith to in the next generation.

Three models, you could say, that he wants in the church.

First, there's the soldier, there's the athlete, and there's the farmer. First in verse three, share in suffering, that's the invitation, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

Be a suffering sharer like a soldier. You know, when the soldier goes off to war, he leaves the comforts of home, lives on rations.

Have you ever had any of those MREs? I guess they're better now than they used to be, but those aren't good. Okay, that's what you got to eat.

Tastes like preservatives. Sleeps in narrow tents, perhaps on the ground. Be like that.

Don't be like the kind who thinks he can get something for nothing, that a phony diploma is the same as the real training, that you can get lose weight by eating, that you can get good grades by watching

TV, that you can be a disciple without discipline, without sacrifice.

The soldier, in particular here, he shows as a model of single -mindedness.

He knows his priorities, he knows what his duty is, and he knows he's got to do it. He has no choice about it.

Now, it may be that a lot of young men join the military to get help with their college tuition or experience for a career, but I guarantee you that the soldiers fighting terrorists in Afghanistan right now have their minds focused sharp as a razor on how to be a good soldier.

The things of God deserve at least that much attention, focused attention.

The soldier, he says in verse 4, must not get entangled, and this is a key point about being a soldier, entangled in civilian affairs.

If he's a soldier, that's his calling, and anything other than that is the civilian affairs that he'd not be entangled by.

Now, that doesn't mean that he can't have any involvement in them. You just don't get entangled by them. So soldiers can, for example, a soldier can get married.

A soldier can even have another job on the side, like, you know, the National Guard and Reserves, they have other jobs. They can get involved in clubs and have friends outside of the army.

They can have families and do all the other kinds of things that we do. But those things don't entangle them, wrap them up, encumber them, hold them back from their duty.

When duty calls, when the order comes that they have to deploy, then they pack up and leave.

There's no debate about it. There's no weighing options. Hmm, do I want to go to Afghanistan or I don't want to stay here with my wife?

No, they know. There's no trying to have it both ways. You know, call myself a soldier, but still,

I'm going to still put wife and family first. No, just so, that's what we're called to.

The Lord Jesus told us that if we love father or mother or husband or wife or children more than him, if we serve money, if we're not willing to give up all that we have to follow him, we cannot be his disciple.

So like the soldier, we can have a family. We can have a wife or a husband or children.

We can have a business or a career or money. In fact, for many of us, that is the, that is one of the ways through which we serve

God through those things, but we can't be entangled by them, restrained by them from serving the

Lord. So if ever there's a conflict, if the husband or wife, our job demands that we drop the biblical church, we stop serving the

Lord with our time and money, then we're not to be entangled in civilian other affairs by those things.

Our duty is the Lord's service and so we're not to be restrained, not to be controlled by the relationships or by the money.

So we are pulled away from the Lord. The business says, you know, I can't go to church. Well, you know, you're going to have to do something else.

We can have them, but not be entangled by them. Entangled is it by ropes, you know, the ropes of family or money or whatever.

Do those control you? No, you only hear because the ropes around you, let you, are you entangled?

The good soldier or Christian might have to suffer the pain of, of telling a spouse or a child or a friend.

No, I'm not going to go along with you with that because he's not ultimately about pleasing people.

Most of you are, most of all, you are determined to please what he calls here, verse four, your commanding officer, which for us is the

Lord Jesus. Those relationships, so marriage, family, whatever the other interests like money, career, don't tie us down like a soldier.

We can have them, but they don't tie us down. Like, like you can tie a horse down or strain a horse with ropes.

We're free. We're unencumbered like a soldier. We're free to serve the

Lord. Well, the second model is the athlete in verse five. Now an athlete, the primary thing he's focusing on about an athlete, the athlete competes according to the rules.

You're going to be a successful athlete. You've got to know the rules of your, what you're doing and you have to abide by them. You have to submit to them.

Now our sinful hearts like to do things our way, the way we're most comfortable doing them.

So we don't want to submit to some rules, but the mature Christian, like the serious athlete must submit to the rules that come from above, do things the way he is told to do them.

There is a suffering to submission. There is, you know, sometimes what is your,

I want to do that. And God says, do things another way. You have to suffer, but it's better than the long -term suffering of breaking the rules and what comes along with that.

And my senior season running track, we were at a meet in Emory University. They have a nice facility there in Atlanta.

One of our sprinters false started. And according to NCAA rules, false start, you're immediately disqualified.

There's no three strikes or anything like that. He came back to the stands, you know, he was angry, threw down his stuff and exclaimed, who made up that stupid rule?

Our coach calmly said, I did. He had been the chairman of the

NCAA rule track and field rules committee. And he made up the rule. And if you know track, it's a good rule.

Our sprinter though, didn't keep the rule and was ejected. I ran a cross country race.

And I've, many of you have heard this story before. I started out with one instruction, really only one rule, follow the white line, followed, went over the, around this campus in West Georgia.

I followed that line for miles of countryside and a hot September morning in Georgia, but I only followed it for as long as it was comfortable.

Followed it to this forest and on this trail. And then it goes, it veers off into this bush.

You know, before there'd been no obstacles, but now I had to make a decision. Do I continue down the trail?

It makes much more sense. It's nice and clear. And it's, it's obvious there's nothing to jump over.

Do that. Do I go my way or do I submit to the rule, follow the line, exert myself?

I mean, you're three or four miles into this race and it's tired, it's hot. I don't want to jump over a bush.

Who knows what's on the other side, for crying out loud. And that uncertainty. And so I, what do

I do? Do I submit to the rule? Well, I chose the comfort. I didn't submit to the rule. I mean,

I forfeited the race. In the Christian life, there are times when God's ways seem too hard, too unreasonable.

You want me to do that? That's too hard. Jump over a bush when it seems much more, to make much more sense, much more comfortable to do what we want to do.

Have an affair, get drunk, splurge all our money on ourselves, to go along, to get along, put the relationship ahead of the

Lord, break our commitments like everyone else.

It's so much easier to do. Why do I have to keep it to my hurt? Oh, but the mature

Christian must be willing to submit to the rules, jump over the bush, walk away from temptation, stay faithful to your commitments, especially marriage, keep your promises even when it hurts, seek the glory of God above comfort, even tradition.

Finally, the mature Christian must be like a farmer. Now, not a farmer like today with tractors and machines and chemicals.

As in our day now in farming, I'm sure it's still hard work. But imagine how much harder it was in Paul's day when he's writing this.

Plowing meant you holding down a plow behind an ox. Getting rid of weeds and insects meant you going down and pulling them out with your fingers.

Harvesting meant you bending down and picking up the crop with your own hands one at a time.

It was arduous, back -breaking toil. And that's the kind of suffering expected of the mature

Christian that he wants to pass on the faith to. Now, I think today we often like to think because sometimes of our theology of salvation, but we like to think of that now evangelism, church growth, ministry is like modern farming.

You know, it's on a mass scale. You have an air conditioner, you have a big air -conditioned combine, and you're just sitting behind the tractor running the controls, and you're, you know, and you're cool there, and you've got a drink beside you, and you're listening to music, and it's nice, and you steal some work, but you're driving, it's not too bad.

It's like, you know, you have a big, like, you have a big rally, you have a megachurch, you have a big event, you put it on and let the show do all the work.

You can harvest tons of crops in no time, or you can harvest thousands of souls in one invitation.

I think that's the way modern Christians often like to think of ministry today, of church growth today.

But it, that's all wrong. It is still like an ancient farming. It's ancient farming.

It's still often one at a time, sometimes with bugs, and droughts, and thorns that scratch you, or bees that sting you, and you swole an hand, and lots of hard work.

The ministry is, the church is still often like that. How about for yourselves?

Are you willing to put in some hard work? Maybe you're willing to do it to make money, maybe you're willing to do it to have a relationship, to have a family.

What about to be the kind of person that the gospel can be passed down to, the care of the church can be entrusted to?

Are you willing to put in the same kinds of hours, or the same kinds of study, or the same kind of sacrifice that you do for your business, or for your career, or for your marriage?

Are you willing to do that, that same kind of work and hours for the Lord? Are you hard working in the fields of the

Lord? If not, why not? So there, those are the three images, or the three models of the mature

Christian that we're supposed to, he says, you know, think about this, meditate on it, allow it to shape your values, let the

Holy Spirit illuminate, illuminate it. Ask yourself, am I like a soldier, unentangled from the world?

Am I like an athlete, submissive to the rules? Am I like a farmer, hard working?

Most of all, there's a fourth example, fourth model, he writes in verse 8, remember

Jesus Christ. He's the ultimate model to follow. Now, Timothy knew all the facts about Christ's death and resurrection, but he was not just supposed to know the facts, he was supposed to keep

Jesus himself in mind. Think about him, what he did, keep him under constant review, keep him before your eyes at all times, for it was the

Lord Jesus Christ who suffered most of all. The Lord Jesus was from the line of David, that meant he was a king.

He was the king who would fulfill all the promises of David, yet despite his royal ancestry, he suffered.

He was slandered and harassed and questioned even by his own family. At one point, he didn't even have a comfortable place to lie down to sleep.

Finally, he was betrayed, falsely accused, brutally beaten over and over again with fists and lashes and rods.

He was murdered in one of the most agonizing ways imaginable, and as he hung there, of all the thousands of men who had come to hear him speak and see him work miracles, do you know how many were with him in the end?

How many were faithful to him? One. And then he felt the rift between the father and himself as the father placed on him the guilt for all our sins, and one of his final words was the desperate quote, my

God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Yes, as Paul emphasizes, he was raised from the dead, but that means first he died, which means he suffered.

He was raised. He did not suffer anymore physically. He's not crucified in his blood, spilt over again and over again in the

Lord's Supper every time we take it. We are remembering that when we take the Lord's Supper, we are remembering the one time that he did that.

So he doesn't suffer anymore physically, but now the church, his spiritual body, still suffers.

Some have to endure being treated like criminals, like Paul here. It has been granted to us.

Hey, like a gift. Want a gift? Free gift, everybody. Free gift. It's been granted to us,

Paul writes in Philippians chapter 1, verse 29. We are given the great gift, not only being believers, our faith is not something we just mustered up on our own, you know, our free will.

I'm so smart, I chose to believe the truth. These other dumb people can figure it out. No, it was given to us as a gracious gift, but that's not the only gift we're given.

Want a free gift? Not only to believe, but to suffer for his sake.

Yeah, you might want to return that gift, right? You just can't. The church here and the person of the apostle Paul has to suffer, he says in verse 10, and he's suffering for the sake of the elect.

The elect are those people whom Paul mentioned in chapter 1, verse 9, those who were saved, remember, before the ages began.

For those, for those people who are out there, whom God has prepared, he's already saved them before the ages began, and who will respond when they hear the gospel, we must be willing to suffer for them.

So they heard the gospel, and so they will be safe, though they are safe before the ages began. Our suffering brings them salvation.

Now, not in the sense that we or any saints of the past add to what Jesus bought on the cross, that somehow we're purchasing something from God that earns their salvation.

No, the old hymn is right. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin has left a crimson stain.

He washed it white as snow. Jesus paid it all, but in God's plan, he works through the toil, the sacrifice, the blood, sweat, and tears, the suffering of the church to get the gospel to those that he has saved.

And who will be saved when they hear the gospel. So we need to be willing to make sacrifices to get the gospel to them, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory at the end of verse 10.

We sacrifice so that they may be saved and have eternal glory.

Now, some suffer the inconvenience of driving a bus faithfully every

Saturday or Sunday for years. You think that's not suffering? Maybe you do it once or twice, it's not suffering, but try it for 20 or 30 years.

You know, you could be sitting home. Some suffer the inconvenience going door to door, getting treated sometimes disrespectfully, maybe being disapproved of by parents, a spouse, or a child because you're faithful in worship of the

Lord and your commitment to his church, and they don't like that. You suffer some.

You might think those are small sufferings. Yeah, they are. But be faithful in the small sufferings so you can know that if you had to, you would be faithful in the big, the horrendous sufferings.

Polycarp is a great example. Polycarp was the leader of the church in Smyrna for many years in the generation after the apostles.

He was probably one of these people that Paul is looking for here, faithful men who can teach. He's telling

Timothy to look for, well, there was Polycarp. He suffered the many small sufferings for 80 or 90 years, apparently lived to at least 86 years old, until he had to suffer the worst sufferings.

At that advanced age, he's the leader of the church there. He was dragged before the Roman emperor and told to denounce

Christ. He peacefully replied that he had served. He said something like,

I've served the Lord Jesus for 86 years and he has never done me wrong. How can I renounce him?

He was then tied to a stake and burned to death. He was strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

The early church leader, Tertullian, in the third century, so about 100 or 200 years later after Polycarp, wrote that for the church, the blood of martyrs is seed.

You know, the Roman government chops off the head of the apostle Paul, crucifies Peter upside down, feeds others to lions, sets others on fire.

The blood of the martyrs pours into the ground and like seed up sprout new converts.

People who saw that if these Christians were willing to die for Christ, there must be something worth living for.

The blood of the martyrs is seed. Perhaps one of the reasons we're not seeing the harvest we'd like is we're not planting enough seed.

With our freedoms in this country now, obviously we're unlikely to be asked to spill our blood or be in chains like a criminal, as was

Paul, but there are other kinds of suffering that can be seed. We can plant those small seeds of small sufferings.

The suffering of sacrifice time or change priorities when worship and prayer and Bible study are more important than TV or sports or socializing or money -making or short -term pleasures.

Now, those things are not necessarily bad, but do they encumber you? Suffering is the seed of the church.

Through what the gospel gets to those whom God has prepared, we need more seed.

To amplify his point, the apostle Paul quotes what was probably a hymn of the early church, probably a song they sang in verses 11 to 13, and he says this saying is trustworthy.

In other words, you can believe it, Timothy. If we have died with him, we will also live with him.

If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us.

If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

If we die to self, we suffer loss, even the loss of all things, loss of pleasure, loss of friends, loss of comfort, loss of approval, loss of some money or time, loss of some short -lived fun, we will have the long -lived pleasure of living with him.

If we endure some things we hate now, maybe disrespect, insults, indignity, being rejected by people as we try to reach the elect, where's the elect out there?

We're looking for them. If we endure working like a servant, we endure looking, working like a servant for a short term now, we will in the long term reign with Christ, will be royalty for eternity.

But if we try to avoid short -term suffering by denying Christ, not taking up our cross, we're too entangled by the world, it's in our relationships and by chasing dollars, not being submissive to the rules of God's word, we're too afraid of working hard.

If we deny him, even in small denials, we will experience the long -term suffering of being denied by Christ.

He will remain faithful to himself. Now don't miss here the radical

God -centeredness of God. God does not break his own greatest commandment. Otherwise, he doesn't love or honor anything more than himself.

You think that sounds very self -centered. Well, he's God. Who do you expect for him to put first?

God does not love or honor anything, not even human free will, not people, not human approval, anything more than his own glory and were to be the same way.

He doesn't honor anything more than his own glory. Now if he did, he would be an idolater.

If he put our free will ahead of his glory, as some theology argues, if he did that, he would be an idolater.

He would say human free will is more important than my own glory, and that's idolatry.

And that fact, the radical God -centeredness of God makes him the one thing in life that is worth giving up everything else for, to die for, to endure for, to be faithful to him above all else, to deny ourselves, not him.

He will deny deniers. And now this directly assaults the view of life that you can have it all, that we're constantly bombarded with today.

You know, every commercial, eat the food, lose the weight. You can have everything. You can, well,

I won't go through that again. So you can not study and still get a doctorate. You can eat all your desserts and never exercise and still be slim and fit.

You can deny Christ. We're even told this in some churches now. You can deny Christ after you repeated a sinner's prayer.

But if you've done that, you're eternally secure. So you can deny Christ and you'll still be saved. Don't worry about it because they say

God is faithful to us, not to himself. But it's not what it says. He cannot deny himself.

The reality is the opposite. Sometimes you must choose between lesser goods and greater goods, short -term pleasure and long -term pleasure.

Sometimes you must choose to agonizingly suffer. Sometimes you have to choose to endure, even to die.

And if we don't, if we choose the short -term escape, says he will deny us.

So we will fail. We won't graduate. We'll stay fat.

We won't get the reward. If we are unfaithful to him, choosing our own pleasure instead, then

God will be faithful to himself. He will not be faithful to us.

He will not deny himself by being faithful to the faithless.

Now, am I denying the eternal security of the believer? I prefer not to put it that way, but no, I'm not for perseverance or preservation of the saints.

No, I'm not denying that. I am denying that a person though can have real faith in the Lord Jesus, real faith and choose to not suffer for him.

The person who bails out in a time of testing shows that his faith was not genuine in the first place.

The apostle John shows us in first John chapter two, verse 19, they went out from us. John's commenting, why have all these people deserted?

For like Paul to Timothy here, he's suffering people who have deserted him. John says in first John chapter two, verse 19, they went out from us, but they were never of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. There are people who for a while appear to be even to like people like Paul, the apostle

John appear to be sincere believers, but then God allows a time of testing, a trial, and rather than choosing to suffer for the

Lord Jesus, they deny him. Perhaps in our society, they don't have to openly deny him by name, but they deny him in their actions by choosing the short -term pleasure by refusing to plant the seed of suffering.

And on that judgment day, the Lord will deny them. He will say, depart from me,

I never knew you. And then the long -term suffering begins.

You see, reality is different than that diploma mill of a Bible college in Missouri or many diet advertisements would have us believe.

We must decide to suffer now or suffer later, to get our pleasures now or believe that they will be greater later.

We can't have it both ways. Which one we choose will be determined by whose promises we believe.

Do we believe the promises of our own flesh over those of God? If so, we choose immorality, whether it be adultery or promiscuity.

Which do we believe? Do we believe the promises of a consumer society, this drowning in greed?

And so, we live for that new car, for that bigger house. Or maybe we just didn't have the right career, so we get eaten up by the bitterness for what we can't have, always wanting something we can't have.

Even in church life, do we believe the bored voice in our head telling us, okay, we get it.

A little religion is all we need, but come on. Being a dutiful soldier, submissive like an athlete, hardworking like a farmer, cross -bearing like Jesus, that's too much.

Is that what we believe? On the other hand, do we believe that our bodies are temples of the

Holy Spirit, that we are to stop, that we are to store up treasures in heaven, and those are greater treasures.

Do we believe that the Lord Jesus, that He is Lord, that He is King, that God is the only appropriately self -centered being, that He is rightly for His own glory, and so He cannot deny

Himself, and so He should be. Behold our God seated on the throne.

Do you really believe that? Do you believe you are to live your life to glorify

Him and enjoy Him forever, and if you can live your whole life, every breath as an act of worship to Him, even if you have to suffer the loss of all things, all of your money and your relationships and all your family, if you had to suffer all that, live your whole life for Him as an act of worship, it still wouldn't be too much.

Is that what you believe? Is that what you're willing to plant the seeds of suffering? Is that why?

Not because you're just grimly determined, make yourself do what you hate now, I hate all this

Bible and church stuff, but I'm going to make myself endure it now so I get a better result later. No.

Are you willing to plant those seeds of suffering now because you love the

Lord? Is that why? Is it love?

Like a soldier loves his army, an athlete his sport, a farmer his crop, like Jesus Himself loved the

Father and the church. Is that why you're willing to suffer, if you are?

Are you, like God, faithful to God?