Be Strengthened in Grace

Be Strengthened in Grace

“Be Strengthened in Grace”
(2 Timothy 2:1-7)
Series: Faithful to the Finish Line (2 Timothy)

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson

Amen! Please be seated. I thank God for your desire to fellowship with one another. And I thank God for your positive comments you have shared with me about our worship services being more meaningful to you. Thank you again for allowing God to speak to you in new ways through the order of worship.
• Take your Bibles and open to 2 Timothy, chapter 2 (page 800; YouVersion).

We are preaching verse-by-verse through 2 Timothy in a series entitled, “Be Faithful to the Finish Line.” We all want to be able to persevere in our Christian life, continuing to move forward, to “keep on keeping on,” so we can say with Paul in Chapter 4:7-8:

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and no to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

Faithful to the finish line. We have preached through chapter 1, a chapter largely about just that, being faithful and being loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul has just mentioned some who had not been faithful, had not been loyal. He calls out a couple by name. Last week we saw this. He mentions in verse 15 two guys named Phygellus and Hermogenes. And then he mentions a guy who had been faithful, there in verse 16, a guy named “Onesiphorus,” a guy who was an encourager who was not ashamed of Paul’s chain, not ashamed to be associated with Paul who is in a dungeon prison in Rome.

So all of that is in Paul’s mind as he begins Chapter 2 here with the word “Therefore.” He says, “You therefore.” What is the ‘therefore” there “for?” It reaches back to what Paul had just said. So, “Timothy, therefore in light of this, don’t be unfaithful like Phygellus and Hermogenes. Be like Onesiphorus. Be faithful to the finish line.”

Well let’s read it now in verse 1 and following.

• Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

1 You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2 And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
3 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.
5 And also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.
6 The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops.
7 Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.

Pray.

Well what pictures or metaphors would you use to describe the Christian life? Given that living out our Christian faith is often difficult, and endeavoring to be faithful to Jesus can often be a sort of rough and tumble journey, what images would describe that journey?

Paul picks three ways to illustrate living out the Christian life in these verses. He says the Christian life is like being a soldier. And then he says it’s like being an athlete. And then, and those of you who farm for a living will like this: he says being a Christian is like being a hard-working farmer.

In all of these ways, Paul’s point is well taken: Growing as a Christian can be very challenging as we live out our faith in this fallen world. I heard someone recently describe it this way. He said, “There’s this difficult season. It’s called life. For the Christian, before this season—not so bad! After this season—definitely not so bad! It’s the part in the middle, this season of life. You begin it by being born into it. And you enter naked and often held up by your feet and spanked on your backside and you cry and you begin the season.”

I appreciate that kind of honesty. Some of you may have become Christians because somebody promised you that you would enjoy this life of no problems whatsoever. “Become a Christian and everything will be great” and you’re like, “Well, that’s not what happened!” And that’s right. If anyone told you that, they lied to you.

Paul says pointedly in this very letter, 2 Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3:12, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” James says in his letter, you’ll remember this from James 1:2, that Christians will “fall into various trials.”

This week in my study I arranged my thinking upon this text in terms of three pointed actions to remember as we journey through this season called life. These verbal phrases came to mind: Power on, Pass on, and then Press on. So let’s take them one at a time. First, as we journey through difficult times, which often include facing hardships for our faith in Christ, number one, Power on:

Power on by Grace [1]

Verse one is a reminder that the Christian’s strength lies not in his or her own ability, but rather our strength comes form the grace the is in Christ Jesus. Look again at verse 1:

1 You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Power on by grace, the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Be strong, or strengthened in this grace.

Paul is writing from a hole in the ground, a dungeon prison in Rome. He is awaiting execution by the administrators of the Roman Caesar Nero, the infamous persecutor of Christians. Paul knows before long, they will cut off his head. Do think he knows something of what it means to “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus?”

He is continually being strengthened in that grace and he appeals to Timothy now, referring to him affectionately for the second time now as, “my son.” The first time was up there in chapter 1, verse 2. He refers to Timothy this way twice in his first letter to Timothy as well: “my son.” Perhaps Paul had led Timothy to faith in Christ during his first missionary journey. In any case, Paul thought of Timothy as a son in the faith and Timothy likely thought of Paul as his father in the faith.

Power on by grace. Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Don’t try to be strengthened in the wrong ways. There are wrong ways of thinking about how we are strengthened as Christians. I love the way Tony Merida puts this. Listen:

“Our strength is not in how long we have been Christians, in how much we know about the Bible, or in how long we have been in ministry. Our strength, this very moment, is in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Our strength is derived from our union with Jesus and is supercharged by our daily communion with Jesus.”

In other words, God gives you and me a strength that flows from our saving relationship with Jesus. To the degree we think about our union with Christ, to the degree we depend upon the strength that comes for Christ, we will be strengthened in grace. You and I must consciously depend upon the grace of our Lord.

Now, why be strengthened? Why be strengthened, at all? What’s the point?

Rocky Balboa in the very first Rocky movie—how many are there, like 27? But the very first one, I remember watching, you know how Rocky gets up early in the morning and cracks those raw eggs into the glass and drinks them up, and then puts on his sweatsuit, and goes outside into the cold, Philadelphia air to run the streets. Why is he doing his? Because he is training for a fight.

Christians are always in Rocky Balboa mode. You know, we don’t have to drink raw eggs, but we take in the food of God’s Word and we depend upon the grace of our Lord Jesus through prayer. We train every moment so when the fight is on, we’re in shape, we’re ready. We get ready for that day by depending upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, reading His Word, communing with Him regularly through prayer, listening to Him and being led by Him.

So when you’re weak, you “Power on” by pausing and consciously depending upon the grace that is in Christ Jesus and you will be strong.

You may battle persecution for your faith this very weak—ridicule, teasing, some avoid you, shame you, you keep depending upon the grace of our Lord. You may face some kind of personal discouragement, some health crisis or financial challenge. You may feel like the devil is after you—trying to discourage you by throwing all kinds of darts at you: fear, anxiety, worry, concern for a wayward child, a missed opportunity, a particular failure of some kind—Hey! Power on by Grace!

Look to Jesus Christ and depend upon his empowering and enabling grace to be strong and feel yourself getting stronger!!

So Power on. Power on by Grace. Secondly, Pass on:

II. Pass on the Gospel [2]

Verse 2 is a reminder that Christians are not simply to soak up truth for themselves. They are to pass it on. Verse 2, Paul writes:

2 And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

When Paul mentions “the things that you have heard from me,” he is referring primarily to the Gospel—the Gospel teachings in all their fulness. It’s much like what we read last time in verses 13 and 14 from chapter 1:

13 Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus
14 That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us

Paul says, “Be careful with the Gospel. Don’t mess with it. Don’t bend it. Don’t “color outside the lines” with it. Guard it. Keep it. But by “keep it,” Paul does not mean, “Keep it to yourself!” He means, “Keep it from being altered.” Keep it in it’s purest form. And now, Paul adds here in verse 2, see that you pass it on to others. Pass on the Gospel.

“The things you have heard from me among many witnesses,” and this may be a reference to Paul’s public preaching and teaching. There were many who witnessed that; witnesses all over Ephesus, faithful followers like Onesiphorus, for example.

So Paul says, “Commit these (things; these Gospel teachings) to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

I have an image in my mind. It’s like a runner passing a baton. You know, if you’re running a relay race, you’ve got to be careful with that baton. And you carefully pass it on to the next runner. Drop it, and just the few seconds of bumbling and stumbling around for it, may cost you the race.

So Paul is like: Timothy, I have entrusted to your safe keeping the Gospel in it’s purest form. You take it now—like a baton being passed from one runner to the next. After all, Paul writes later in Chapter 4, “I’m getting ready to die. I have finished the race,” so take the baton, Timothy!

Paul passes on the baton of the Gospel to Timothy and and tells him to pass it on to future generations. There are four generations there in verse 2: “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

So, listen: Christian leaders are not to just “take in” the teaching for themselves. They are to reproduce themselves by investing in others, by multiplying their ministries, by discipling others in the truest sense.

I am so convinced and convicted about this matter of multiplication and reproducing of ourselves that we’re going to come back to this verse at a future time and do a message on just this one verse. And we’re going to talk about passing on the baton of the Gospel as members of Henderson’s First Baptist Church; making disciples who make disciples; multiplying and reproducing ourselves, passing on the Gospel to future generations as together we build the kingdom of God.

Power on, Pass on. Power on by Grace; Pass on the Gospel. Thirdly, Press on:

III. Press on for God [3-7]

You can’t help but see this call for pressing on in verse 3 and following. And the three pictures are self explanatory. Paul uses three analogies to illustrate the call to press on when facing hardships and difficulties for the Gospel. Press on in three ways. First:

A) Press on as a Soldier (3-4)

3 You therefore must endure [NU, share] hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Just makes sense, doesn’t it? We are in a battle. We live in an imperfect word, a fallen world because of sin. And we battle all the time. We battle the enemy Satan. We battle temptation. And, especially in this context, we battle as we suffer persecution for our faith in Jesus.

Endure hardships as a good soldier. Don’t be a “bad” soldier. Don’t lay down in the face of battle. Don’t run away from battle. Don’t crumble and come apart during battle. “Endure hardship as a good solder of Jesus Christ.” Press on. Then Paul gives Timothy the main key to “soldiering on,” verse 4:

4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.

No good soldier “on duty” for his country is half-committed to the battle. A good soldier is “all in,” totally focused on the battle before him, has a singular purpose as he fights, aiming to please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.
So Paul is like, “You be like that soldier. Aim to please the Lord who enlisted you as a soldier in the Christian faith.” Don’t be half-committed, “entangling yourself with the affairs of this life.”

Don’t try to live for Jesus and live for the world at the same time. Don’t compromise. Don’t try to have it both ways—a life of purity and faithfulness before Jesus and also a life of impurity and sin.

This verse is similar to what James says in James 4:4, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

Or 1John 2:15-17:
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
17And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

Feed your soul with the food of the Gospel, not with the junk food things of this world. Be committed to Christ and the battle of the faith. Don’t give it! Press on as a soldier! Second picture, second illustrations, Paul says:

B) Press on as an Athlete (5)

We alluded to this earlier when we were talking about Rocky Balboa training for a fight. The image is here again in verse 5:

5 And also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.

So, like an athlete competing in the olympic games, remember that no one wins if he cheats. “Compete according to the rules.”

We know from our own experience, even in the most recent Olympics, how many athletes were disqualified because they did not compete according to the rules? Who knows?! A gazillion, I suppose. Athletes who were trying to “game the system,” cheating, breaking the rules by filling their bodies with steroids are trying to cheat in some other way. Well, they don’t win in the end. They are shamed in the end.

You don’t want to be shamed in the end. Press on as a good athlete. Obey the rules of the Christian faith! Obey the Word of God in every way as you run the race set before you so you can say, like Paul later in Chapter 4, verse 7: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Obey the rules of the Christian faith! The Bible is your training manual, your rule book. You’ve got to know what it says in order to “compete according to the rules.” In order to know what it says you’ve got to read it. Get real familiar with it.

Live your life according to the Word of God! Press on as a soldier, as an athlete. Thirdly:

C) Press on as a Farmer (6)

Probably the hardest working people I know are farmers. I have cousins in Nebraska and, man, they are up before dark and work through the day, the hot sun—they work from sun up to sundown, they work from dark to dark. And Paul uses this imagery to describe the Christian life:

6 The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops.

Be faithful like a hardworking farmer. And if you are faithful, there is a reward: “the hardworking farmer is first to partake of the crops.”

In fact all three of these metaphors contain a reward for faithfulness: the faithful soldier is rewarded with victory; the faithful athlete receives a victor’s crown; and the faithful farmer is first to enjoy the harvest.

YOU be faithful and God will REWARD you in due time!!

Don’t be lazy. Don’t try to take shortcuts. Be faithful and God will reward you in due time.

Now, Paul does something really cool here. He says, in essence, “I want you right now to stop and consider what I have been saying. Just stop and let the Word do its work in you.” Verse 7:

7 Consider what I say, and may [NU (no ‘may’)] the Lord give you understanding in all things.

NIV, 7 “Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.”

NLT, 7 “Think about what I am saying. The Lord will help you understand all these things.”

JB Phillips, 7 Consider these three illustrations of mine and the Lord will help you to understand all that I mean.

I love this! How important it is for us when we study the Word to just stop and think about what we just read!! Paul is like, “Timothy, stop for a moment. Put the letter down now and pause. Close your eyes and consider what I have just said about faithfulness. If you’ll do this, the Lord with give you understanding.”

See, one of the reasons many of us say we don’t understand the Word is because we don’t stop long enough to consider what we’ve read or heard! If we will stop, think, and meditate upon the Word, “the Lord will give us understanding.”

So we’re going to do that right now. We’re going to stop and think about what we have read and heard. We’re going to take time to think about all of this. We’re going to pause and think about God’s Word as we prepare to respond to God’s Word. If we’ll stop and take time to think, “the Lord will give insight and will help us understand all these things.”

• Let me invite you to do that right now. Would you bow your heads for prayer?

With heads bowed and eyes closed we move in to our time of response. This is God’s invitation to every single one of us. This is God’s invitation to us to “consider what He has said” that “He may give understanding in all things.”

Let’s consider what He has said: “You therefore…be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Are you being strengthened daily by depending upon God’s grace?

You may not be a Christian. Maybe you’re here today as someone who does not know the grace that is in Christ Jesus. You may say, “I want to know Jesus! I know I am a sinner and I want to live for Christ. I want to be saved from my sin.

You may wish to pray a prayer in your spirit, something like this:

“Lord Jesus Christ, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but, through you, I am more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I thank you for paying my debt, bearing my punishment and offering forgiveness. I turn from my sin and receive you as Savior.

Christian, power on this morning, and be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Remember what we sang earlier: “Now, Lord, I would be Yours alone; and live so all might see; the strength to follow Your commands; could never come from me.” Be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Press on.

Then, Pass on; pass on the Gospel: “The things you have heard from me…commit these to faithful men and women who will be able to teach others also.”

Are you reproducing yourself? Is there someone you are pouring into? Moms and dads, discipleship begins in the home. Are you passing on to your sons and daughters, your grandsons and granddaughters, are you passing on the baton of the Gospel?

As Christians we live for a cause and purpose greater than ourselves and longer lasting than our lives. Pass on the Gospel to your children, your neighbors, your co-workers, your friends at school this week. Talk about Jesus and pass on biblical teachings to others.

Then press on. Press on for God like a soldier an athlete, a farmer.

No one is crowned unless he or she “competes according to the rules.” There are no shortcuts to victory. You can’t cheat your way forward to the victory tape. You’ve got to be faithful. You can’t go “out of bounds.”

Remember: “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.”

Follow the rule book of the Bible. Do you know it? Do you know the training manual? You’ve got to read it to make sure you are competing according to the rules. Some of you may wish to silently commit yourselves to faithful Bible reading. Just pray in your spirit like this, “Father, I know I make time for the things that are important to me. Give me the grace to make time this week to spend 5-10 minutes in Your Word every day. I commit to doing this, best I can, at least 5-10 minutes of Bible reading.”

For some of you that will be morning—others, a break at work, and others at night time. Listen, there are a lot of voices speaking to us all the time—TV, internet, news, radio, people—there are a lot of voices I hear; I want His to be the loudest.”

In a moment we’re going to sing of our being close to the Lord. We’ll sing, “Close to Thee, close to Thee; all along my pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with Thee.” As I press on, may I press on with Thee.

Father, grant our prayers we ask, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Would you stand? If you feel you want to come forward for prayer, Marty and Ellie are our prayer volunteers today. You can come forward if you have questions about your soul, or baptism, or joining the church. They’ll pray with you.

We’ve considered what we have heard, now we’re all responding to what we have heard. Let’s sing this song of response:

1 Thou my everlasting portion,
2 More than friend or life to me,
3 All along my pilgrim journey,
4 Savior, let me walk with Thee.

Refrain 1:
Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Close to Thee, close to Thee;
All along my pilgrim journey,
Savior, let me walk with Thee.

5 Not for ease or worldly pleasure,
6 Nor for fame my prayer shall be;
7 Gladly will I toil and suffer,
8 Only let me walk with Thee.

Refrain 2:
Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Gladly will I toil and suffer,
Only let me walk with Thee.

9 Lead me through the vale of shadows,
10 Bear me o’er life’s fitful sea;
11 Then the gate of life eternal
12 May I enter, Lord, with Thee.

Refrain 3:
Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Then the gate of life eternal
May I enter, Lord, with Thee.

Amen!

Thanks for coming!

Here’s how we’re going to dismiss today: Remember the chorus “I know whom I have believed?” Comes right out of chapter 1 of 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy 1:12, a great memory verse. Let’s sing this and you can raise your hand if you want or just stand as you are, but let’s sing this as we go out and we’ll be dismissed:

“I know Whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.”

God bless you! You are dismissed!

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