2 Timothy 1:5-18 Unashamed of the Gospel

The speaker begins by sharing that they have given up using a wheelchair and are now able to walk, albeit slowly. They mention the presence of Gary and Teresa Phillips, former colleagues, who have returned after leaving for another job. The speaker reflects on their own work as a preacher and how it is nice to be back among familiar faces at the church. They mention a couple who recently lost the husband and express gratitude for the relationships they have. The speaker then shares a story about a black pastor and his prayers for longevity, companionship at their funeral, and avoiding shallow water. They mention feeling a bit down because they only had one preaching engagement outside of their church last year. The speaker expresses excitement about hearing John Mann speak and announces that he will be leading a study on the book of 2 Timothy. They provide some background information on Paul's situation and the purpose of the letter. They emphasize the importance of gratitude and refle Well good morning. It is a good morning. I gave up the wheelchair. So, the doctor said walking was good. I can still walk, but very slow, just like getting in and out of this chair. All right. Well there's Gary and Teresa Phillips back there. Hello. Gary was our business administrator for a number of years until he got out of the will of God. He left us and went off somewhere else, but they're back and we're glad you're back. Never should have left the first place, I always tell them that, but we had a great time working together. All right. Don't let me throw that away, Tom. All right. Anyway, good to see all of you. John Mann, I can sympathize with because his job at the seminary is kind of like my job at the Sunday school board. You work all week doing things for the seminary or the board and then you run off somewhere and preach on the weekends. And that's good. I told the trustees, I said, now I can't do this job if I can't preach. They said, well, we just don't want you to take an interim. So you can preach anywhere you want to, but we don't want you to be an interim pastor somewhere. And I said, okay. So for 15 years, I've preached Sunday to strangers every week. It's really nice to get home and know folks that we know here at the church. In fact, this week was kind of a memory trail for me because over 40 years ago, I married Herman and Lucretia Williamson. They were both in the second marriage, would be a second marriage. And they said, you asked us, what did I, what did you, I said, what do you think? Why do you think it's going to be any different this time? And so we worked through all of that, but he passed away this week and Lucretia is still living. But it brought back a lot of memories. They walked in my office and we've got a relationship. And so it's good to be back to where you know people. I'm getting tired of meeting people at funerals. But then I guess that's, you get our age. You know, I've told you this, but I think a lot about the black pastor that told me that he said, I pray three prayers every morning. He said, one, I pray that my mind will live as long as my body. And two, I pray that someone will outlive me so they can come to my funeral. And three, I pray that I'll never drown in shallow water. I thought, those are three pretty good prayers. We want to keep living as long as we're alive. And we're going to do that. I'm a little depressed this morning because I've been doing my income tax. But I found out that I only had one preaching engagement away from here last year. So people just don't want 89-year-old preachers, I guess. But you let me work off some steam and do some studying and do this, and we're grateful. And John, glad to have you slow down a little bit. It's about time. And you heard him in December at your Christmas party. I was speaking in another class. I didn't get to hear him. So I told Eddie, I said, well, John's here for a while, so I'd like to hear him myself. So let's get him up. The next couple of weeks, he's going to take us through the second chapter of 2 Timothy. And we will get through the first chapter today, even if we just have to say, that's it, and we walk away from it. So we'll get to the second chapter for you for next week. All right. We had 2 Timothy. And let me just kind of renew just a little bit. Remember that in 1 Timothy, Paul was in house arrest in London, which means that he was in a rented house. He had soldiers guarding him every day, which was an exciting thing because the book of Philippians says, Paul said, the saints in Caesar's household send their greetings to you. Well, who were those saints in Caesar's household? They were all those soldiers that had to spend all day listening to Paul preach. And many of them got saved. And so he was in house arrest and more accessible. And by 2 Timothy now, he is in the dungeon of the maritime prison. And that was not a holding cell where you just came and went. Nobody ever survived that. In the dungeon, you were there until you were executed. And so he is facing his own execution. He knows he's coming soon. In this epistle toward the end, he tells Timothy, now come before winter. Now, some translations translate come soon. But the truth is, I looked it up this week, the Greek says come before winter. Now, that does mean come soon, but the reason was it was very difficult to travel to Rome from anywhere away from the mainland in the wintertime. And so Paul knows that he's not going to make it through the winter. And so he wants Timothy to come before winter. And so he is in a dungeon. He says he's by himself now, except for Luke. Now, I think he must have had a smile on his face when he concluded 2 Timothy and said, Eubulus greets you as do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers and sisters. I thought he was by himself. Well, he obviously didn't mean when he said everyone in Asia has forsaken me. That was sort of a figure of speech. He didn't mean not everybody had. Onesiphorus had not forsaken him, and Luke was there. But he was basically by himself. But we know they did have access to him. Not sure how. Don't know about the rules of the dungeon. But he knows he's there and his life is going to be put out. He's going to be executed very soon. That's why it is so refreshing in verse 3. He says, I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience as my ancestors did when I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day. And then he remembers Timothy's upbringing with his mother and his grandmother. So in his condition of loneliness and isolation and soon coming to death, he still thanked God. And it's interesting. He starts out by saying that he, in Timothy, he tells him that he is an apostle by the call of God and by the will of God. And that's important because what he wants them to understand is that all the things that he's going to experience are in the will of God. They're not just happenstance. In the will of God. So it's encouraging, ought to be encouraging us to know that God will not let nothing come into our lives that he will not go through with us. He talks about death being defeated here in Timothy. Doesn't mean we don't die. It just means death doesn't hurt us anymore. Instead of death being something that we fear, it's like Dr. Sullivan, my predecessor at LifeWay, a Sunday school boy told me just before he died, he said, you get to the place where death is your friend. And we do. Not because death has changed and that we don't die, but because we no longer fear it. We're no longer afraid of it. In fact, Hebrews talks about that God sent Christ so that we would be free from the fear of death. So we no longer fear death. We welcome it because we know that God is prepared for that time for us. But gratitude is just good. We all may remember, we have a tendency to reflect upon our loss when a loved one dies, rather than reflecting upon our gain that they were in our lives at all. It's true, when death comes, a relationship is broken, but it's not over. We know where they are if they're in the Lord. And we are grateful for that. Instead of grieving the loss excessively, we will grieve and that's all right. I have an idea that God must have understood grief when Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? God understands that. And we know that God is not going to let anything come into our lives, that he's not with us every step of the way. And that makes it a great, great promise. Well, I'm going to back up. We're up at verse 3, down at verse 5. And by the way, as I looked at what we'd done last week, I realized we probably needed to back up to verse 5 anyway. So I've changed from verse 7 to 15 to 5, or 18 to 5 to 18. But he talks about in verse 5, Timothy's ministry as being a genuine work of God. And Paul is especially grateful and thankful for the ministry of Timothy. And then he remembers back to verse 4, he says, I remember your tears. That's probably the last time they left. Verse 5, he says, I recall your sincere faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and now I'm convinced it's in you also. So he knows Timothy's family. Timothy, he met Timothy on his missionary journey and then took Timothy with him on the second, third missionary journey and knew him well, knew his mother and his grandmother and reflected the faith that they had that they poured into him. They mentored him. They shared their faith. And it's just a reminder to us that as parents and grandparents, we have responsibility to see that our grandchildren and our children are taught in the ways of the Lord. That's a wonderful thing. You can imagine how thrilled Carol Ann and I are. We have one granddaughter who has been speaking in complete sentences since she was two and a half years old. I mean, thought out subject, verb and all of that. She doesn't know all of that, but she is remarkable. She recently quoted a passage of Scripture in the school where she goes. She quoted a passage of Scripture. She asked her teacher, she said, can I read my Bible? Well, she can't read, but she has a Bible. And so she brought her Bible and they said, yeah, you can read. So she quoted Scripture while she looked through her Bible. We're thrilled at that. She will always remember the things of the Lord. You know, children remember more than we think. I told you this years ago, maybe not that long, but many times in the past. When Bailey was seven years old, he was hit by a car. We were at a softball game and the first pitch of the game was a foul ball. And you know what little seven-year-olds do? They all chase after the ball. And it was out in an open area where there was a city park that had no fences or anything, just a country road that didn't have pavement. And a car hit him, knocked him clear in the air, passed under him, and he landed in a heap on the side of the road. And I was playing shortstop, but I was the first one there. I'm not very fast, but I was that day. And I looked at him. He had a spot about the size of a dime right here where the hair was cut off. That's how close. That was the windshield that grazed him just enough to remove the hair but not to hurt him. And here he is. We went to the hospital. Too long a story for me to get into, but we went to the hospital. And that night Carol Ann asked him, said, Well, Bailey, weren't you afraid? He said, No. I said, Why? He said, Because you remember that Scripture verse we learned last week, Psalm 56.3, What time I'm afraid I will trust in the Lord. Now, he's just seven years old. He doesn't understand all that means. But it taught me, it gave me a new insight into loving the Word of God because even though he didn't fully understand it, he understood it enough to know that when he should be afraid, he could trust in the Lord. And we all, that's a good lesson for all of us. But we have a responsibility to pass these things on to our children and our grandchildren. So now, Paul is convinced, he says here in this verse 5, I am convinced that the faith of your mother and grandmother also in you. And the word I am convinced there is a Greek perfect sense. Sense in the Greek language implying that Paul was completely convinced. He had no doubt of the faith that Timothy had because it's in the context of what his mother and grandmother had done. They taught him to love the Lord Jesus. They taught him to love the Scriptures. And it ought to be a great reminder to us to teach, pass that on to our children. Now, verses 6 and 7 have been a favorite verse of mine since I was a teenage preacher. When I started preaching at 14, that means I've been preaching 75 years. Wow, I can't believe I said that, but I can't believe it's true. But it is. Alright, he says, Therefore I remind you to kindle the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands. Now, pause a moment. The laying on of hands didn't cause this gift to be given to him. It represented that the gift had been given to him. He's referring to what we call public ordination. So he didn't get the gift of God because he was ordained. That was something else. The gift of God came as God's special gift to him, and he possessed it. And he's not suggesting that his call had been disappeared. No, he's not suggesting that at all. He's just suggesting that, because in the third chapter, he talks about the effective ministry of Timothy. So he wasn't accusing Timothy of neglecting and denying the call of God in his life. But he was reminding Timothy of what God had placed in him, and you need to keep that fire alive. Keep it burning. Example. I remember a time when I couldn't sing Amazing Grace without a tear. I can now, because it's not as real to me now as it was when it first happened. Now, that's just human nature. You know, if you leave things alone, grass is not likely to grow, but weeds will. You know, you need to keep it fresh. Imagine what would have happened in our marriage now almost 69 years if I'd have told Carol Ann when I got married to her, I love you, don't ever forget it, and I never told her again. Well, I don't know how we would have made it or if we would have made it, but I always tell people I kiss her as often as I can, and I tell her I love her every time I can. I want the last three words she hears from me is I love you, and I want to spend my life proving that. In our relationship with God, listen, we got saved, but we can't neglect our salvation. It's a work in order. Paul says that you work out your own salvation through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works in us, and I'm not near the man I used to be, but I'm not the man I hope someday to be. We are in the process of being saved and being matured and we've been justified and someday we'll be glorified, but it is a process, not just the stated fact, that we can walk off and leave. So Paul said, look, don't forget that you were called of God. I've told you, I was called to preach over a couple of years. When I was 12 years old at a camp over in East Texas, Piney Woods, some of you all have been to Piney Woods. I made a decision at a camp, and they asked me what decision I was making, and I said I believe God's calling me to special service, whatever that meant. I wasn't sure what that meant, because that night I remember sitting out in a swing long after curfew trying to figure out what God wanted me to do. And then I discovered that I didn't have to know what He wanted me to do, I just had to know what He wanted me to be, and what I did would come out of what I was to be. And I didn't have to know everything. If I had known everything God was going to do with my life when I was 14, I would have resigned. I mean, who would have thought? A preacher's kid who was mischievous? Did you know that you can put a full glass of water and cover it with a paper napkin and turn it upside down real quick and it won't leak? And when they come to clean the table and they pick it up, it goes everywhere. I did that. And we had a filling station in Jacksonville called Bird Songs. And sometimes I'd call and say, Birdy, sing me a song. You know, just little stuff. Smoked, drank, had sex or anything, didn't get arrested and all that, but I was sure a mischievous preacher's kid. Now, I've never said this publicly before, but our Jacksonville church had a place on the top, a little top of a place that had windows around it that were open. I remember listening to my dad preach sitting on the roof listening to that thing on the roof. Mischievous, yeah. Mischievous. I was nervous and I could hardly give a training union point. We used to have a training union where we'd read parts. Everybody would read a part. And I just had knots in my stomach. Can you imagine a teenage boy who could hardly give a part becoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention and president of LifeWay, preach around the world, 39 different countries, preach in Texas Stadium with Andre Crouch and the disciples and 35,000 kids for an evangelistic rally. It makes no sense at all. And when I left here to go to Sunday school, that made no sense. I never had but one math course in my whole educational process. General math in the ninth grade. I never had another math course until I got to my senior year in Baylor. And I either had to have five classes in Greek or I had to have trigonometry. Now fortunately, trigonometry is enough like a foreign language. And I had a grandfatherly ex-preacher who treated me with gentle care and answered all my questions. And I made a C. The only C I made in college was in trigonometry. But I had no business, no economics, no things that you'd expect the president of a $200 million corporation to have. I had none of it. Yet they asked me to come and be president of the school board. At that time the budget was $184 million a year. Well, I'll tell you something. I still can't read spreadsheet. Why should I do it when I've got people I've paid to do it? And they did it well. But in 15 years we finished up my time there with $450 million a year in budget. Incredible time. Wonderful time. It didn't take me any time to know that I didn't know what I was doing. But two things happened. Carol Ann prayed that I'd know things that I couldn't know. And I was even surprised at some of the things I said because I really didn't know what I was talking about. But they apparently were right sometimes. The other thing was I learned even as a pastor hire people better than yourself and you'll succeed. I know pastors that when they go on vacation and they don't have to miss a Sunday they get somebody that they hope is not too good a preacher so they won't think he's a better preacher than I am. I always wanted the best preacher I could get. And some preachers don't tell when they're not going to be there. I always told people, I'm going to be gone, but don't you dare miss when I'm gone. If you're going to miss, miss while I'm here. But don't miss while I'm gone because you're going to have a great preacher. You're going to have a great time. Well, I learned a lesson. You've got to be comfortable with who you are. I'm not A.V. Rogers. I'm not W.A. Kressel or Jerry Vines. I'm just Jimmy Draper. But I'm the best one God ever made. And all He wanted from me was to be who I am. So I'm comfortable with myself. I happen to like myself. If you knew me really well, you'd like me. I mean, I'm a nice guy. You have to be comfortable in your own skin. And a lot of the trouble in our society is we've got people running around here not comfortable in their own skin. I was supposed to be female. I'm male. That's something wrong. Maybe I can have surgery and change that. Surgery can't change that. You can't change your DNA with surgery. God never intended for you to do that. Just be who you are. And be the best person you can be. You're made in the image of God. John talked about that this morning. In the image of God. Imagine, we're like God. We have God-like qualities. We can think. We can reason. We can make decisions. We can have vision of where we ought to go and look toward the future and plan and prepare. We can do things nothing else in creation can do. Be who you are. And that's what I've always tried to be. So, I've met prime ministers and presidents and senators in 39 different countries around the world. I've met personally presidents of the United States and presidents of Kenya. I was in Kenya one time. In fact, some of you may have been there. After Claude came, he took a trip to Kenya. I was already over there. I don't remember why. But I had met President Moy several times. I've been to Kenya 16 times. I've met him several times. Been in his home. We're in a crusade out in the Uhuru Park, which is Victory Park. Thousands of people out there and black American preachers preaching. There's ten over here and there's President Moy and all of his whoever, 20 or 30 people over there. I'm sitting up at the top of the grandstand just looking down and this guy comes up and says, President Moy, I want you to come sit with him during this service. So I did. Now, that wasn't necessarily to stoke my ego, but I was happy for that. But you know what I found out? People that are important are just like us. They're men. They put their pants on one leg at a time just like I do. I may not know everything they know, but they don't know everything I know. I'm comfortable with who I am and who God made me to be. I'm not unhappy about that. A lot of the unhappiness in our world would be solved if we would decide that we're made the way God made it. We're happy with that and we want to do our best to be the best me I can possibly be. That's what we need to have confidence enough to be who God made us to be. Timothy's in the process of being mentored into what Jack Carey... When Jack, several weeks ago, remember, talked about Timothy and said he's the only person in the New Testament that is called a man of God. Just think about that. A lot of men in the Old Testament, prophets and what not, are called men of God. But Timothy's the only one in the New Testament. He must have been somebody really special. Paul knew all about him. Knew his family. Had great confidence in him. And so Paul is trying to tell Timothy, just be who you are. God's given you a great calling. By the way, the holy calling that is mentioned here really could be translated holy life. What a holy calling means is that God has given you a call that requires a certain kind of character for you to do it. You don't need any special character to be a plumber or a lawyer. You deal with what you know and what you have to do, the skills you have. But if you're going to be a minister of the gospel, you have to be called of God. And it's a scary thing. I've often said to preachers that the ministry is a terrible vocation, but it's a wonderful calling. You think you call Brother John. Some church ministers say, well, you didn't hire John Meador. You called him. You agreed with God's call. And he came because God had called him to be here. And by the way, well, I'm not going to chase that rabbit. But the calling of God. He emphasized that in Timothy. God has called you with a holy calling. And that means He expects more of you. Later in the New Testament, it says not many should desire to be teachers because they'll have a greater judgment. In other words, if sometimes you wonder how God's going to view your life, imagine how the preacher feels. Because Scripture clearly says in Hebrews that God is going to hold them a more great, stricter judgment than He's going to hold you. And I don't know what that means, except that I don't really want to find out exactly what that means. So Paul is certifying Timothy. His endorsement of Timothy. He has left Timothy in Ephesus. And Ephesus has a barrel full of problems. He's going to face all kinds of opposition. And so he's preparing him for what he's going to experience. But he's confident in the call that God has called Timothy to do this. And so he left Timothy in Ephesus. He sent Christians to Galatia. The reason he's by himself, he sent his companions off to serve somewhere else. So Timothy's gift of ministry was administration and organization in the church. First, Timothy was kind of like a church manual telling you how to do it. What kind of people ought to be involved in leadership. And second, Timothy is a much more personal epistle primarily to Timothy. And Paul expresses his love for Timothy, his confidence in Timothy. And he is reminding Timothy to use the gift God has given to him. So it's like if you want to have a wood-burning fire, you're going to have to keep adding wood to it. You're going to keep stoking the fire. I have a gas fire. All I've got to do is turn the little knob up and down. If you had a wood fire, the fire would go out if you didn't feed it. Paul is saying to Timothy, feed the fire. God's called you. Now rejoice in it. Do what He's told you to do. And I'm confident that you're going to be able to do it. This is important because Timothy is soon going to be by himself. His mentor, Paul, is about to be executed. And it's going to be a different time when Paul is gone. And what Paul is telling Timothy is that Paul will be gone, but his faith is not in Paul. His faith is in Jesus. And so he's going to be alright. But he needs to stir up. Keep close to the Lord. You know, when I was a teenager, our church sang contemporary songs. Dick Bo Baker wrote one of them. Only to be what he wants me to be. Closer walk with thee. This is what Paul is telling Timothy. Hey, don't get away from the Lord. He has called you. He has required certain things of you. And He's going to see you through. You're going to face things you never even dreamed you'd face. But He'll be with you. Be okay. Stay with the sound teachings. Stay with the Gospel. And so he has great confidence in him. And the gift of God wasn't because Timothy decided that he was going to assume this position. Paul made very clear in both 1 and 2 Timothy that he didn't assume apostleship. God gave it to him. And Timothy is going to be the leader Ephesus needs and later is going to pastor that church. And so he has great interest in this. And these are not gifts that Timothy worked for. God placed them in his life. And God placed in each one of us gifts. And we don't deserve them. We can't work for them. Nor can we do anything to get rid of them. He plants them in us. And they only operate appropriately if you have the Holy Spirit or let the Holy Spirit be the one to lead you and provide the power that you need. And that's what he's there for. The Holy Spirit is there to do one thing primarily and that's to magnify Jesus. Magnify Jesus. That's what the Scripture says. That's what the Holy Spirit is supposed to do. He'll teach you all about me and everything I told you. He's going to glorify me. And so the Holy Spirit in us is going to magnify Jesus. He's going to properly anoint us for the ministry that he calls us. I think about this often. You all remember Len Byers? I remember probably 12 or 15 years ago we did these what we call rekindle conferences. Bill Anderson preached one night and I'd preach the next night and we'd go Sunday night. If he started on Sunday night, I'd go Monday and he'd go Tuesday and I'd go Wednesday. Then we'd reverse it the next year. And so where was I going with that? His prayer. Oh, Len Byers. Okay, yeah, right. Len Byers was asked to pray one night before I preached. I'll never forget it. He got up and he said, Lord, anoint Brother Jimmy when he preaches tonight. Then he paused and he said, whatever that means. I love it because Len is the most openly innocent person I think I've ever met. But he realized he just said something he didn't know what it was. He said, well, whatever that means. The Holy Spirit in us, whatever that means. The Holy Spirit's in you. And He wants to exercise your gift through you and you will succeed as you follow Him. The interesting thing about the Holy Spirit, every time the Holy Spirit anoints or uses someone and it's recorded, it's to magnify Jesus. In fact, speaking in tongues, and we'll not get into that, but do you know that every time the New Testament mentions speaking in tongues and it's legitimate, it was to preach the gospel? Every time. They were empowered to preach the gospel as they spoke in tongues. Now, what does that mean? Well, I think it means if I'm out in the bush, like I've spent many a night on the ground out in the bush in Africa and Kenya, if I woke up speaking the languages of... They have 29 different tribes and they all have different languages, but if I woke up speaking the Kenyan language, I think I'd be legitimate. And truthfully, there have been times, I remember one specific time in Brazil where Carol Ann reported that she was sharing the gospel and she had interpreters that didn't understand English, and she shared the gospel and the person she was sharing with got saved even though we don't think she understood anything Carol Ann said. How do you explain that? I just think tongues is a language. It's not gibberish. It's just a language. And God can do with languages whatever He wants to do. And here's something that you own. It didn't say that the apostles at Pentecost spoke in tongues. It says that the people heard their language being spoken. Well, the point is the Holy Spirit lives in us and we need to give Him credit for being there. And we need to draw near to Him. He's the one who made Jesus real. And yet, He never asked for credit. And Paul is confident that Timothy has a spiritual gift that God has led him to have. God has indwelt Timothy as He's indwelt all of us with His Holy Spirit according to Romans 8 and 9. We're to be led by the Spirit. His presence provides us with the power that we need and the love that we need and the sound judgment that we need. That's what he's talking about here. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and sound mind. And so the Holy Spirit produces in us all of these things. He produces a power that would enable Timothy to exercise his spiritual authority appropriately. He was filled with love that empowers him for a strong ministry and conquers oppositions. And He also produces a healthy mind under the influence of God's presence. So God is going to equip us for every good work and the Holy Spirit is in us to allow that to happen. Verses 8 and 9, basically just reminding Timothy don't be ashamed of the Gospel. Timothy would need the full confidence in the Gospel as he preached. Paul had told the church at Rome in Romans 1.16, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it's the power of God to salvation for everyone that believes. And here he's reminding Timothy, lift your head, proclaim the Gospel through the saving grace of God by the power of God and the power of the Gospel will sustain you. When suffering comes along, it will be okay because He'll guide you through that. This doesn't imply that Timothy was ashamed of the Gospel. It just means that he needs to continue being strong and proclaiming the Gospel. And Paul is reminding Timothy that he is saved and called of the holy calling not according to our works, but according to his own purpose. In fact, he says grace was given to you before time even began. And so he's focusing in on Timothy to remind him of what he possesses in Christ and what he needs to do with it. The Lord Jesus willingly gave His life for our salvation. Nobody took His life. Nobody took His life. He willingly took our place and bore our sins in His own body on the cross. Peter said in 1 Peter 18-23. And then he comes to verse 10 here and it says, Jesus Christ abolished death. The grace of God was bringing about salvation for us through His death on the cross. And in the fullness of time, Christ came according to Galatians 4-4. And in the fullness of time, He's going to come again according to Acts 1-11. God's grace was placed in Jesus before time began and it will be revealed at the appropriate time, at the appointed time. Jesus paid sin's debt. He purchased our salvation. He bore our sins in His own body according to 2 Corinthians 5. He who knew no sin became sin for us. We who knew no righteousness might become the righteousness of God. That's a mouthful. And that's a terrific description of what happens when we get saved. If you could get saved and not know it, you could lose it and never miss it. I mean, this is a relationship with God. Christ died not just to have us embrace certain things to be true, but He died to have a relationship with us. And that's through the Holy Spirit. And the grace of God is there all the way, all through our salvation, through our lifetimes as believers with His Holy Spirit dwelling, living within us. And by His death, He's defeated death. Revelation 1, 17 and 18, Jesus said, I am the first and last and the living One. I was dead, but look, I'm alive forever and ever. And I hold the keys of death and Hades. He is our life. We now live in Christ. And Paul told the church at Philippi, we live and we die is gain. After we live, we die and it's gain. He mentions also to be absent from the bodies, to be present with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5. Believers are not released from physical death, but because of Calvary's death, death is no longer something for us to fear. And that's why Jesus came, according to Ephesians 2, 14 and 15, to free us up from the fear of death. Now, let's face it. We're going to see each other a lot more during funerals the day ahead. Why? Because some of us are really old. We've got some youngsters in here, but I'm certainly one of the oldest here. And I'm not going to live forever. But that's okay. Because I know what God's plans are. And I know He's not going to allow anything to happen to me that's not best for me. And I sure know the mess we've made in this world we live in is going to be a lot better when we get to be with Him. And we don't fear death. We're dead to this world and our life is with Christ in God. And Jesus is described in Hebrews 12, verse 1, as being the source and perfecter of our faith for the joy that lay before Him. Now think about this. He's on the cross. For the joy that was laid before Him, He endured the cross. He despised the shame and He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. He willingly went to the cross because of the joy that was set before Him. Now, you know, I'm a gospel music fan. I was born in Hartford, Arkansas. Home of the Hartford Music Company which way back in the first and second decades of the 20th century, sold over 100,000 copies of gospel music every year. I love gospel music. I love quartet music. I've told you, I lived only a half a block from the school when I was in high school, junior high school and high school. Came home every day for lunch and listened to the Stamps Quartet singing on KRLA radio. I love that music. Give the world a song each day. Man, it's a great love of mine. Well, there's a great country song. It's absolutely true. And this is what the Scripture teaches us. When He was on the cross, I was on His mind. Isn't that great? Imagine, He's on the cross and before Him march the believers of all ages, millions and billions of people. And He's dying on the cross. It was the joy that was set before Him. That's amazing. He loved us so much and He gave Himself for us. And when He died on the cross, I was on His mind. Don't get over that. Don't forget about that. It's a big deal that you got saved. It's a big deal that the Holy Spirit lives in you. It is a big deal that He has a plan for your life. It is a big deal that you don't have to fear death, that you're secure in His hands, and He'll be with you every step of the way in time and eternity. It's a big deal. Sometimes we forget about how we got saved. I remember vividly when I got saved. Never have forgotten it. It's as real to me today as it was the night it happened more than 75 years ago. Don't ever forget, the Holy Spirit lives in you. When you got saved, it was something else. And you became somebody. Not because you deserved it. Not because you earned it. Not because you purchased it. Not because you behaved for it, but because God just loved you and presented salvation to you and all you did was receive it. What an incredible truth. And the thing, when Paul got saved, he loved to give his testimony. He gave his testimony for Agrippa in Acts chapter 26. He was well educated, an outstanding Jewish leader, a member of the Sanhedrin. And when God called him and commissioned him, in Acts chapter 9, the next verse, after he is saved, says immediately, he began proclaiming Jesus to the synagogues that he is the Son of God. Acts 9, verse 20. God saved one minute, and the next minute, proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the end of his ministry, Paul hadn't forgotten that. He hadn't forgotten about the day he was saved and the day God called him to proclaim the gospel. What an incredible thing that was. And he never got over it and neither should we. Now, verse 12, he begins talking about the things that he did. The passage up to the next four or five verses, he's talking about the things he has suffered. And his faith was solid in the midst of suffering. I've had several close friends, personal preacher friends, who had prostate surgery, a cancer surgery. And I remember one of them telling me, you know, when it first happened, I thought, why me? And then he said, after I thought about it, I thought, why not me? You know, sometimes God doesn't answer our prayers the way we want Him to. I'm thankful for that. I thought I loved a little girl out in Albuquerque. I really wanted to build a relationship. She didn't feel that way. I was crushed. I thought she was the one. And then along came Carol Ann. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night thinking about that girl and what would have happened to me if I had married her. But I married Carol Ann. Sixty-eight years counting. When I was in seminary, we lived down in Iredell. I pastored First Baptist Iredell, Texas. About an hour and a half from seminary. Commuted into seminary four days a week. I left at about 536 o'clock in the morning. I never left in the morning when she wasn't up reading her Bible and praying. It's been like that all of our marriage. Whatever good God has done in my life is not because of my abilities, but more likely because of her prayers. I'm grateful for that. And I'm grateful that God has given us what will be 69 years here in July. I still love her. She still rings my bell. And when I buy her lunch, she still says thank you. Gratitude is a great attitude. If you would just bring gratitude into your marriage relationship, be grateful for the little things as well as the big things, you're probably going to make it. But when we get insensitive and uncaring, unappreciative, ungrateful, it begins to come apart. And we've never had an argument. She says, why should I argue when I know I'm right? And it takes two people to argue. She just won't argue. So, we've never had an argument. By the way, if we ever had, Mother would take her side. She and Caroline are great friends. But Paul is expressing gratitude and reminding Timothy of who he is and what God has called him to do. And the Holy Spirit has been planted in him. And now he's facing suffering. Paul suffered severe abuse, physical pain, slander, anguish, tears, and now imprisonment and soon execution. Yet he stands tall and declares that his solid faith remains in the Lord Jesus Christ and was sufficient for everything that he needed. And he said in verse 12, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to guard that which has been entrusted unto me until that day. Notice that he did not say, I know what I have believed. He said, I know whom I have believed. Genuine faith is not about rules and regulations or even doctrines. It's one of Paul's favorite expressions, Christ in you. When you know in whom you believe, you're ready to face every attack of Satan. And so he is sufficient. Verse 13, he reminds him to hold fast. We're almost through. Hold fast to sound teaching. Jesus Christ is the heart and soul of the gospel. The gospel is all about him, his person, his glory, his love, his salvation that he purchased with his own blood and the glorious return that we're going to share with him and then the kingdom. It's all about him. And Paul is reminding Timothy that. The word with faith and love, by the way, here describes the attitude that Timothy is to exercise in his leadership. You see, how he demonstrated his leadership is just as important as what he said and what he communicated. You listen to some preachers. I don't listen to preachers on television very often, but some of them just sound mad. They're angry. That is not a spiritual gift. Paul says you're to minister with faith and love. You're to demonstrate the love of God through your leadership. And Paul knew of Timothy's faith, but he said you need to exercise your faith in the appropriate way. Now, Paul is concerned about Timothy's loyalty, but I'll just remind you, Demas had forsaken him. It had to be a real blow to Paul that Demas had left him. We don't know why he left, except Paul just said he loved the world and went back to Thessalonica. But the Holy Spirit lives in us, and even though Paul is grieving over the departure of Demas, he's still trusting God that God is going to see him through it. Verse 15, he says, all the ways you have deserted them. I already mentioned that's probably an example of extreme hyperbole. It's not likely the church in Ephesus everybody had forsaken him, but it seemed that way. But we know from this fourth chapter that not all of them had deserted him. He mentions Phagelius and Hermogenes. We don't know who they were. They may have been followers of Paul and then their devotion would have been known for everybody. And so when they turned away from Paul, it would be very noticeable. And it was a great sadness to Paul. They were examples of many people in Asia who deserted Paul. No doubt that that was very painful to him. And by the way, the churches that he's talking about are the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. By the way, you probably know this, but do you know that the reference to that area was that historians recognized there was a large area and then there was a smaller area. That smaller area is identified historically as the area of the seven churches. It was not called... What are they called? I'm blank. It was not called what we call it today, Asia Minor. We had Asia Major. It was not called Asia Minor until 400 A.D. And when it was changed in 400 A.D., it represented the missionary journeys to the Apostle Paul. And so it was a great ministry that Paul had. He had some great friends there. He mentioned Onesiphorus. By the way, no other epistle names him. We don't know much about him except that he loved the Apostle Paul. He probably responded to the gospel and was the head of his family. Paul may have been in his home because he said he often refreshed me. He visited Paul in prison. Paul said he was not ashamed of my chains. His enemies may have not told him where Paul was, but Paul says here in chapter 4 that he diligently searched for me and found me. So friends like Onesiphorus are rarely, rare, and deeply cherished. There were a few of them that stood by. Friends who stayed with him. Loyal Jalsic meant a great deal to him, so he mentions these that had been especially faithful as he ended this epistle. He praised Onesiphorus for three reasons. He often refreshed me, he said. Number two, he was not ashamed of my chains. And number three, he searched for me and found me. So Paul wraps this chapter up by noting that Timothy was well aware of the many ways that Onesiphorus had ministered to him in Ephesus. The church would know that. And I would just simply say that's the way we learn things. We don't learn things by taking tests over classroom material. We learn things by seeing somebody else do them and then imitating what they did. That's why Paul considered himself worthy of imitation. Imitate me. Paul is closing the chapter with the remembrance of friends that did not forsake him. And no doubt he felt that his example was worthy of imitation. And every Christian leader needs to be a person of such transparency and integrity that his life is worth following and imitating. That's a whole other sermon, isn't it? That's a whole other study. God has given each one of us the Holy Spirit. Everybody is somebody in the church. Nobody is nobody. Everybody is somebody. The pastor has a leadership responsibility as do the ministers in the church. But they're accountable to God. They're not accountable to the whims and the changes of human gossip. They're accountable to God. He'll take care of it. So, we come to church not because we worship our pastor or our staff. We come to church because they represent God's appointed and anointed people who serve among us. And we value that. And we're grateful for that. But every one of us is of such great significance that at any point in any day, you can enter the throne room of God Himself and have a conversation and know that He's listening and voice a prayer and know that He hears it. That makes us somebody really, really special. Father, thank You that being saved is something great. Nothing we deserve. Nothing that we could earn or purchase. Nothing we could do to be worthy of it. But Lord, in Your grace, You saved us. You planted the Holy Spirit in us as a reminder to guide our consciences which can easily be shaped and can be led astray. But Your Holy Spirit is there to protect us from ourselves. And we thank You for that. And we pray that His presence will guide us day by day. And thank You for the lessons we learn from what Paul is teaching young Timothy in this book. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless.