Book of 2 Timothy - Ch. 1, Vs. 1-8 (06/02/2002)

Park Meadows Church

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This letter was written around A .D. 67.

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Let me give you a brief chronological trail of just where this letter fits in and when

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Paul wrote it, some of the things he was doing, some of the things that were being done to him.

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In A .D. 58, Paul apparently was arrested in Jerusalem. In A .D.

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61 is the approximate time that he arrived in Rome.

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He spent these three years in prison going from one trial to another before different Roman rulers.

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A .D. 61 to 63, Paul underwent his first Roman imprisonment.

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We don't have this recorded in Acts. It breaks off at the very beginning of his imprisonment.

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A .D. 64 to 67, Paul was released from prison. During this period, he covered a great deal of territory.

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It was during this time that he wrote 1 Timothy and Titus. He wrote them from Macedonia.

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Then in A .D. 67, he was arrested again. In A .D.

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68, he was beheaded in Rome.

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And just before that, he wrote 2 Timothy, the last letter that we have of Paul.

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There's two verses in this letter that sound out the doctrine and tone.

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And they are these. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

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Then preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season.

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Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 2

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Timothy 4 .2 Now, you can,

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I suppose, emphasize one word in this epistle above all others.

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And that word is loyalty. Loyal in suffering, loyal in service, loyal in apostasy.

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It's well known that the deathbed statement of an individual has an importance which is not attached to other remarks that he has made.

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It leads to significance to this 2 Timothy. It is the final communication from Paul.

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It has a note of sadness which is not detected in the other epistles. Nevertheless, there is an overtone of triumph, such as,

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I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course. Written by Paul, this was his own epitaph.

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Come now to the first verse. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus.

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In spite of his imprisonment, and we cannot imagine in this day and time just what prisons were like back then.

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Dirt floor, dark, no heat, no cooling.

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But in spite of the cold and the hard facts of history, and the events of the present hour, demonstrate the accuracy of Paul.

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We're now in the midst of an apostasy. Brother David spoke of it this morning.

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It's cut to the pattern of Paul's words in remarkable detail. The visible church has entered the orbit of an awful apostasy.

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The invisible church, that is the real body of believers, is not affected.

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The invisible church today is still here, and although I wish it were a little more visible than it is, it's on its way to the triumph of glory.

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It is moving toward the rapture, and that's a very comforting thing.

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Because of the threat of apostasy, Paul emphasizes the word of God here more than he does in any other epistle.

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In fact, both Paul and Peter agree, each of them in his own swan song, we can say,

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The gospel rests upon a tremendous fact, and that fact is the total depravity of man.

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In other words, man is a lost sinner. The contemporary educator has put it something like this.

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Where education assumes that the moral nature of man is capable of improvement, traditional

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Christianity assumes that the moral nature of man is corrupt and absolutely bad.

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Where it is assumed in education that an outside human agent may be instrumental in the moral improvement of man, in the traditional

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Christianity, it is assumed that the agent is God. And even so, the moral nature of man is not improving.

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Man is in such a state that he cannot be saved by perfect obedience.

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Brother David was talking about the law this morning. We talked about it in the earlier class.

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But man cannot keep it by perfect obedience, because he cannot render perfect obedience.

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Neither can he be saved by imperfect obedience, because God will not accept it.

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So we're in a dilemma. Which way do we turn? What do we do? Well, the only solution is the gospel of the grace of God.

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It reaches down to man, saves a sinner on the basis of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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Faith in Christ transforms human life. We have a showcase today of all over this globe of men and women who have been transformed by the gospel of the grace of God.

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It actually is working. But then there's the liberal preaching.

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I hate to call it a church. The liberal church. Instead of presenting the grace of God to sinful man, it goes out in three different directions.

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Let me give you those directions. From some liberal pulpits, we hear what is really popular psychology.

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It measures in topics such as this. How to overcome, or how to think creatively, or how to think affirmatively, or positively.

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It says that we're on the way upward and outward forever. That's popular psychology.

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And it doesn't seem to be getting us anyplace. A second type of liberal preaching involves ethics.

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It preaches a nice little sweet gospel, a sermonette preached by a preacherette to Christianettes.

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The message goes something like this. Good is better than evil because it's nicer and gets you into less trouble.

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There's nothing quite as dumb as that. No wonder the

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Lord Jesus said to the church of Laodicea, I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.

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I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot,

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I will spew you out of my mouth. That'd make anybody sick to his stomach.

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As Brother Barney used to say, he has to hold his nose and wear a blind bridle when he looks at us.

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That's another reason I call these people Alka -Seltzer Christians. They're not only fizz and foam and froth.

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They'd make you take an Alka -Seltzer. Then there's a third type of liberal preaching which is called the social gospel.

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They preach better race relations, pacifism, pathos. Well, you'll have to say it.

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Social justice, the Christian social order. It is Christian socialism, pure and simple.

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In contrast, when the true gospel is preached and men come to Christ, they are become brothers.

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We don't need to need all of this talk about a better race relations.

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When you're in Christ, there is no color.

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The solution of man's problems can come only through preaching the grace of God.

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We need to recognize that God creates out of nothing. And until we become nothing, he can't create anything.

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The grace of God through Jesus Christ is the way to transform and save mankind.

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That's what this epistle teaches. That's why it's important for us to study 2

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Timothy. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God.

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Now, you will recall in the first epistle, 1

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Timothy, it was by the commandment of God. And we saw that the commandments of God revealed the will of God, but that it was not the total will of God.

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Here he says, by the will of God according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus.

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How do you receive the promise? By faith.

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That's the only way you can upturn eternal life. He gives it to us as a gift.

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David, what's the difference in eternal life and everlasting life? All right.

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It's important then that he gives us eternal life. When you believe him and come his way, you honor him.

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Therefore, the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus makes it clear that through Christ is the only way you can get eternal life.

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And I cannot emphasize that enough, that it is only through Jesus Christ.

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Now the second verse. To Timothy, my dearly beloved son, grace, mercy and peace from God the

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Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Now Timothy was not related to Paul, so it doesn't mean his son in the flesh.

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It means spiritually he took Timothy, a young man, to be his son.

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I too have someone like that. I'm expecting great things from him.

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He greets Timothy here with dearly beloved son because Timothy was a great joy to the

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Apostle Paul. And he goes on to say grace, mercy and peace as we mention in the study in 1

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Timothy. The salutation increases the word mercy, which is not found in the greetings of Paul's other letters.

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God is merciful when he does not give us what we deserve. Would you agree?

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That is judgment. Paul needed a great deal of mercy and we do too.

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Fortunately God is rich in mercy toward us. And no one can diminish it.

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From God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. The emphasis in this is put upon the

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Lordship of Christ. Three.

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I thank God whom I served from my forefathers with pure conscience.

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That without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day.

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So he had Timothy on his prayer list. Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears that I may be filled with joy.

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He speaks of Timothy's tears. It's quite obvious that Paul loved

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Timothy and Timothy loved Paul. In fact,

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Paul has been arrested, is back in prison and even faces death. Greatly desiring to see thee because mindful of thy tears that I may be filled with joy.

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When I call to remembrance the unfeigned love that is in thee.

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Which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice. And I am persuaded that it's in you also.

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Here is a boy, a young man that was raised in a

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Christian home. Did you ever give that much thought? Timothy was raised in a

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Christian home. It started with his grandmother and with his mother.

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We don't know much about his father. Whether he was saved or not. Paul come out of Judaism.

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But this boy apparently did not come out of Judaism. Six, wherefore

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I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God.

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Which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. Now the putting of Paul's hands upon this boy.

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What do you think it did? If anything, Craig. All right.

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When Paul put his hands on Timothy. That meant that Timothy was a partner with Paul.

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Now stirring up this gift. We each have a gift.

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Maybe you don't think you do, but you do. There are several ways that it can be stirred up.

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First of all, what does stirred mean, Bill? Stirring up something.

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All right. Wish I had my bottles here. But you can take those out and look at them.

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And they have set for months now. And some of them, well all of them have settled to the bottom.

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But some of them you shake and they get just as foamy as they can be. To stir up the gift of God.

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We are to do this. And it takes agitation.

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So it's not a passive thing. It's active. If you're working and not working to be working.

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You're working for the Lord. And you're in your gift.

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And it is being stirred up. That means there's somebody against you.

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And that somebody is Satan. He gets all of his people to do certain things.

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He can't make them do it, but he can get them to. And in that, your gift will rise to the top.

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This young man was close to Paul. And when Paul was in prison in Rome, he said of Timothy, I have no man like minded.

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Now, I take that literally. He had no one else that was of the same mind, same opinions as Paul.

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So here is a man who could carry on the teaching and preaching of Paul. And therefore,

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Paul made him his partner. I think Paul intended for his mantle to fall upon Timothy.

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Timothy is in a very dangerous place, more so than we are.

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In Ephesus, there was the temple of Diana. And it was one of the great sin spots.

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I could go into long detail on what they do and everything, but I'm not going to.

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Just take my word for it. Paul had spent three years in Ephesus himself, and he knew that there were many allurements and enticements in the city.

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So we can see Paul's concern over this young man and why he wanted him to stir up his gift.

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Seven, for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

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Now, for a long time, I misinterpreted this verse. The word fear here is better translated cowardice.

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God has not given us a spirit of cowardice.

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Fear is a natural thing and a good thing. For example, if there's a lion come in back there,

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I'd be a little bit fearful of him. I'd be looking to somebody to take care and control the situation, and I think

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Virge could do that. Well, fear.

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It's healthy to be fearful of the right things. He mentions sound mind.

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Now, that means discipline. In other words, God did not intend that defeat would be the norm of Christians.

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I don't think it is with any of you. We must be disciplined

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Christians, obedient Christians. Don't let your emotions control you.

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Now, sometimes that's hard to do. But it's a God -given emotion.

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Therefore, we must keep it under control. The people on television have learned how to capitalize on emotions.

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Or when they're talking about send money to me for the starving children, they'll have on the screen a dirty, teary -eyed young child to stir up your emotions.

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Just don't subscribe to that because of emotion. Now, you may be compelled to do it, and that's all right, but don't do it because of emotion.

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Eight, and we'll stop with this one. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our

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Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but be thou partakers of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.

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Don't be ashamed or fearful of the gospel. And don't be ashamed because I'm in prison.

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It is the will of the Lord that I am in prison. The Romans think they locked me up, but they didn't.

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I've labeled this as afflictions of the gospel, because there's a feeling today that the

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Christian life is a life that ought to be very easy, be very happy, nice, sweet, bright, breezy.

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A great many of us think that we have an indulgent

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Heavenly Father who is just going to put everything as a bed of roses for us.

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There's Christians that believe that. They say they're Christian, and I can't judge them.

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They think that God's going to remove every stone out of our pathway, not let anything serious happen to us.

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But the only thing that cannot happen to you is the devil can't get your soul anymore.

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A great many Christians expect their Heavenly Father to make things easy for them. I knew such a man, and it was an awful shock to him when he suddenly realized that it wasn't easy.

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The Lord Jesus made it very clear that we would have trouble. He said, in the world ye shall have tribulation, trouble.

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You shall have trouble. Christians will not go through the

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Great Tribulation, but you are certainly going through our little tribulations every day.

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If you were not strangers here, the hounds of the world wouldn't bother you.

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Our Lord warned us that the world would not like Christians. He told his disciples, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.

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There's something wrong if you become too popular as a Christian. I'm afraid that many

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Christians are thinking like a little boy in Sunday school whose teacher asked, Johnny, which of the parables do you like the best?

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That was a reasonable question. The little fellow answered, the one where everybody loafs and fishes.

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No, my friend, the Christian life is not a bed of roses. We're to be partakers of afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.

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It was ordained that you believe and suffer. We'll stop here.

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My voice is almost gone. We'll start with nine sometime, whether I do or David does.

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Is there any word from anybody? Verge, would you dismiss us, please?

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Father, I thank you for saying this. Your word,

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Lord, you say your word, giving your word of thanks to the

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Lord. You said this, you wished to say this.

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You've worked in many things. You know what that struggle organist did. Some of the Christian animals.

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It's all been through what you see, what you've worked with, what you've learned, what you've learned, as I say, through your powers.