After an extensive tour of the United States, the well known German pastor and theologian Helmut Thielicke was asked what he saw as the greatest defect among American Christians. He replied, “They have an inadequate view of suffering” (cited by Philip Yancey, Where is God When it Hurts? [Zondervan, 1977], p. 15).

Thielicke was right. I’ve heard many times of Christian psychologists who encourage their clients to rage at God because of tragedies that they have gone through. I’ve heard of pastors and missionaries who have left their ministries and sometimes left the faith because of burnout or other hardships. I’ve seen many in the local church quit their ministries and sometimes drop out of church altogether, because they were criticized or ran into conflict with other believers. We have an inadequate view of suffering.

I confess at the outset that I am not qualified to preach on the subject of serving Christ through suffering. I have suffered very little in my service for Christ. Sure, I’ve been hit with criticism and verbal attacks. I’ve had people slander me and accuse me falsely and try to get me fired. But I’ve never had to go through what many of the Lord’s servants in China, India, or most of the Muslim countries go through. They suffer beatings, imprisonment, rejection by their families, privation, and death because of Christ.

In writing about the life of the great Baptist missionary to Burma, Adoniram Judson, Pastor John Piper states (http://www. desiringgod.org/library/biographies/03judson.html),

More and more I am persuaded from Scripture and from the history of missions that God’s design for the evangelization of the world and the consummation of his purposes includes the suffering of his ministers and missionaries. To put it more plainly and specifically, God designs that the suffering of his ministers and missionaries is one essential means in the joyful triumphant spread of the gospel among all the peoples of the world.

Piper goes on soberly to say that if we are faithful to God’s command to take the gospel to the remaining unreached peoples, some of us and some of our children will be killed in the process. But this is clearly God’s design, as the Bible and church history repeatedly demonstrate. In fact, God has predetermined a specific number of martyrs (see Rev. 6:10-11)!

Paul was in his final imprisonment, awaiting execution. Timo­thy, timid by nature, was not so sure that he wanted to follow in the great apostle’s footsteps if it meant imprisonment and martyrdom. That didn’t sound like a fun future! He may have been wondering if there might be a little safer, more pleasant line of work to get into. So Paul pleads with him not to be ashamed of the gospel or of Paul, the prisoner, but to join with him in suffering for the gospel. Paul mentions this in every chapter of this letter. In (2:3) he writes, “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” In 3:12, he re-emphasizes, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Again (4:5) he exhorts Timothy to “endure hardship” in his ministry.

“Therefore” (1:8) points us back to 1:5-7: “Because you are saved, Timothy, and God has given you a spiritual gift to use in serving Him, therefore, join with me in suffering for the gospel.” Paul is making the point,

When you serve Christ, be prepared to suffer for the gospel.

There are five things to note in this verse:

1. You must accept the reality of suffering up front.

When I was in boot camp for the Coast Guard, a guy became the laughingstock of the whole camp because he arrived with his water skis and fishing pole! It seems that the recruiter had told him (correctly) that the boot camp was on an island in the Oakland harbor. And, the recruiter was technically correct in telling this guy that you could water ski and fish there (as long as you understood the word you in the broadest sense, meaning, “a person” theoretically could do these things).

What the recruiter failed to tell this naïve recruit was that the first day of boot camp, they issued your uniform and made you take all of your civilian clothes, including your underwear, and ship them back home. The shipment included your comb, shampoo, and all personal toiletries, except for a razor and shaving cream. You wouldn’t need your comb and shampoo after they gave you the boot camp haircut, which came next, because you would have no hair! Also, they took away all privileges. There were no TV sets, but there was one radio and they posted the front page of a newspaper on a bulletin board. But the catch was, you had to earn the privilege to have the radio on or to read that front page.

They could wake you up in the middle of the night and make you carry all of the bunk beds from the second floor down to the ground outside. Then you had to strip the floor of old wax and re-wax and polish it before carrying your bunks back, being careful not to mar your new wax job! Or, if they chose, they could make you go out and run or march in the middle of the night for a couple of hours. If you were lucky, you might get back to bed for an hour before they got you up at 5 a.m. for the day. And woe to you if you dozed off during the boring classes!

They were trying to prepare us for real battle or rescue situations, where you could be called out in the night in extreme conditions and you had to work harmoniously as a team. They knew that we would not be adequately prepared if we spent our time water-skiing or fishing or lounging around reading the newspaper. We needed to be ready to accept danger and hardship up front so that when it hit, we would not run from our duty.

Not only this verse, but also the entire Bible shows that serving God engages you in combat with the evil enemy, the devil, and that God does not promise to keep you from all suffering in the battle. Jesus sent out the disciples as sheep among wolves, warning that they would be persecuted because of the gospel (Matt. 10:16-17; Luke 21:12-19). Paul wrote (Rom. 8:36-36), “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, ‘For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’” The implication is that God’s people have to endure those sorts of trials.

Hebrews 11:35b-38 tells of men of faith who “were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.” Where did we ever get the idea that if we serve Jesus Christ, he will spare us from suffering and hardship?

So before you think, “It will be fun to serve the Lord,” consider the cost. You’re being deployed into enemy territory. There will be attacks and setbacks and even friendly fire from your own troops! You’ve got to accept the reality of suffering up front before you get involved in serving. Otherwise, you’re going to be rather shocked when they send your water skis and fishing pole home!

2. Be prepared to endure the shame of the cross.

“Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord….” The testimony of our Lord is the message of the Savior who died on a shameful Roman cross. As Paul wrote (1 Cor. 1:18), “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.” A few verses later (1:22-23) he adds, “For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness….”

Although the Jews did not practice crucifixion, sometimes they would hang a dead body on a stake or a tree as a public object lesson of shame (Josh. 10:26; 1 Sam. 31:10; 2 Sam. 21:1-9). They considered such men accursed by God (Deut. 21:22-23; Gal. 3:13).

The Romans probably imported the practice of crucifying live victims from the Persians. The cross in the first century world was an abominable horror. Roman citizens, except in rare cases, were exempt from it. It was reserved for slaves, robbers, assassins, or rebellious provincials. Sometimes the Romans would crucify thousands in mass executions, leaving their bodies to rot as a warning to others not to rebel Both the Romans and the Jews viewed crucifixion as so shameful and degrading that it shouldn’t even be mentioned (Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible [Zondervan], 1:1038, 1041).

Today we have seeker churches that are into marketing the gospel by making the message more acceptable to unbelievers. They downplay sin and judgment, because those aren’t popular among their target audiences. They play up how Jesus can help you reach your full potential, or how He can give you a happier family life. But the gospel isn’t about helping you fulfill your dreams for happiness and success. The testimony of our Lord is a testimony of a crucified Savior. He died to rescue sinners from the awful eternal judgment that they deserve. While that message may not “sell” in today’s self-focused culture, that is our only message.

Pastor John MacArthur has observed that God couldn’t have created a worse way to market the gospel than by a crucified Savior. But if you eliminate or minimize the cross to make the gospel more marketable, you eliminate the gospel. That simple message of the crucified Savior is just as powerful to convert an intellectual at the university as it is to save a primitive tribesman in the jungle. Rather than being ashamed of the cross, Paul gloried in it (Gal. 6:14). So he is calling Timothy (and us) not to be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, which is the message of the cross. Proclaim it without compromise.

But, why would anyone choose to do something that inevitably leads to shame or suffering?

3. Be willing to suffer because the Lord and the gospel are worth suffering for.

If you’re going to choose hardship or suffering, at least choose to suffer for a worthy cause. You’ll lose all your money and possessions at death. But what could be more worthy than the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior? Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord and appeals to him, “join with me in suffering for the gospel.” When we suffer for the gospel, we’re suffering to take the greatest news in human history to those who are perishing, so that they can have eternal life!

Jesus (Matt. 13:44) told the parable of the man who found a treasure hidden in a field. From joy over it, he went and sold all that he had to buy that field. Christ and the gospel are that treasure! He told a similar parable (Matt. 13:45-46) about the merchant who found a pearl of great value and he sold all that he had to buy it. Jesus and the gospel are that pearl of great price. If you’ve found eternal life in Him, you’ve got everything that you need for time and eternity. Christ and the gospel are worth suffering for!

4. Be willing to suffer because of the caliber of men like Paul—they’re worth joining in the cause.

The apostle Paul is one of the most remarkable men in history. Paul’s letters that God saw fit to put into our New Testament reveal the heart of this man, who counted everything else as rubbish so that he could know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings (Phil. 3:8-10). In addition to Paul, when you serve Jesus Christ you are joining ranks with Peter and John and the other apostles, and with the long line of faithful saints who have handed the torch down to our day. It is the greatest cause in the history of the world, because we know that one day soon, the kingdom of this world will “become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).

But back to reality: here’s Paul, chained in a dark Roman dungeon, being criticized and attacked, even by his fellow Christians. Almost everyone has abandoned the frail old man. How can he maintain any hope in this gloomy situation?

I think one key is in his comment, “me His prisoner.” It was Caesar’s government that had arrested Paul. Certainly he was Caesar’s prisoner! No, from Paul’s perspective, he was the prisoner of the Lord, the King of kings, the sovereign of the universe. One key to enduring any criticism or suffering that you encounter in serving the Lord is to remember that He is sovereign over it. He has a purpose in allowing people to do wrong things to His servants.

If you serve people, you will be their prisoner if they mistreat you. But if you serve the sovereign God, then you are His prisoner. Adoniram Judson, who suffered incredible trials in taking the gospel to Burma, said, “If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings” (in John Piper, from “Giants of the Missionary Trail” [Scripture Press Foundation, 1954], p. 73).

But there is another factor in how Paul could endure such trials with hope in the Lord:

5. The strength to suffer comes from the power of God.

“Join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.” Paul had learned to rely on God’s power to endure trials. As he describes in 2 Corinthians 12, God had sent him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to keep him from exalting himself after his heavenly vision. Some think that it was an illness, perhaps a disease of the eyes. Others have suggested that the thorn was the leader of the Judaizers, who followed Paul everywhere that he went, perverting the gospel of grace that he preached.

But whatever it was, it was a severe trial and Paul entreated the Lord three times to remove it. The Lord’s answer was (2 Cor. 12:9), “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” It is in our weakness that God’s strength is perfected in us and displayed to others. It is when you are overwhelmed by trials, setbacks, disappointments, and impossible situations in your service for the Lord that you’re forced to cast yourself on His power in ways that you’ve never done before. When you suffer in serving the Lord, endure by the power of Almighty God.

Conclusion

Whenever I am tempted to feel sorry for any difficulties that I have to endure in ministry, my mind goes back to a great hero of mine, Adoniram Judson. Born in 1788, and converted in his early twenties, Judson and his new bride Ann sailed in 1812 with a group of the first missionaries to go out from American soil. After a difficult four-month voyage, they arrived in India only to hear very discouraging reports about Burma, plus to learn that they could not stay in India. They spent the next year sailing from India to Mauritius (off the coast of South Africa) and back, to avoid deportation. Finally, against all advice, they managed to get aboard a ship going to Burma. En route, Ann gave birth to a stillborn baby and almost died herself.

They finally arrived in Rangoon, Burma, a filthy, fly-infested town, and began the arduous task of learning Burmese. They found the Burmese people to be committed to Buddhism and totally uninterested in and opposed to Christianity. The only other English-speaking couple in Rangoon left, so the Judsons were alone as they struggled with the language and the mission. The birth of a son brightened their lives, but at eight months, he grew ill. With no doctors or medicine in Rangoon, the baby died. They buried him in their yard and continued with the work through their tears.

After six years, they finally baptized their first Burmese convert. A handful more trickled in over the next few years. Then, in 1824, the British went to war against the Burmese. The Judsons were in the capital city, Ava, and Adoniram was imprisoned, falsely accused of being a British spy.

His arrest was by a “Spotted Face,” a criminal whose face bore a spot tattoo on each cheek. Some of these vicious men had the name of their crime branded into their foreheads or chests. The ears and/or noses of some had been cut off. Some had only one eye. They delighted to inflict similar tortures on their captives. To arrest a man, they slipped a small, hard cord behind the back and around a man’s arms, just above the elbow. They could yank this cord so tight that it often dislocated the arms, it could cut off the breath, and could even make blood spurt from the nose and mouth of the prisoner. After hauling Judson to the prison, they secured his feet with three sets of iron fetters that cut into his ankles.

The prison was a sweltering bamboo room, with an overwhelming stench. There were no windows, but a little light filtered through the cracks. At night, the prison ruler, with “murderer” tattooed on his chest, who insisted on being called Father, would come in with an assistant. They slid a long bamboo pole through the fetters on each man’s legs and hoisted it up with a block and tackle until only the prisoner’s shoulders and heads rested on the floor. They left them suspended in this position all night, while the rats ran around them on the filthy floor.

Ann was pregnant, but had to walk two miles each way to bring him food each day. After 17 months of this terrible torture, including a move to a farther location, where he had to walk barefoot over sharp, hot rocks and nearly died, Judson was released. The Burmese government needed his translation skills to negotiate with the British. Eleven months later, Ann, who had delivered their third child during Adoniram’s imprisonment, died. Six months after that, their little daughter died.

For a period of time, Judson almost went crazy. He moved out into the tiger-infested jungle and lived as a recluse. It took him almost three years to recover and regain the right perspective. But even during those difficult years, he continued working on his translation of the Bible and on some evangelistic materials. It took him 21 years from his arrival in Burma to complete the translation of the Bible, plus six more years to revise it.

Eight years after Ann’s death, he married Sarah Boardman, a widow of another missionary. They had eight children, five of whom survived childhood. Eleven years later, Sarah died as the Judsons sailed to America. After 33 years in Burma with no furlough, Adoniram arrived in America. While there, he met and married a young woman, Emily Chubbuck, who was a famous writer. She was 29, he was 57. She went back to Burma with him and they had four happy years together before Judson died at age 61. She returned to America and died at age 37 of tuberculosis.

I haven’t begun to describe many of the other hardships that he and his wives and children had to endure over the years. He left behind a Burmese Bible, a Burmese-English dictionary, and a small number of Burmese Christians. Today in Burma (Myanmar), according to Operation World (Patrick Johnstone & Jason Mandryk, 21st Century Edition, p. 462), there are over 3,700 Baptist churches with a total membership of over 600,000, plus many other evangelical churches. The Burmese church today, although under frequent persecution, sends out many missionaries of their own.

I would like to think that the Lord has Adoniram Judson heading up the official “Welcome to Heaven committee” when Burmese believers die. After reading about what Judson endured to take the gospel to Burma, how can I complain when I suffer a little criticism or hardship in my service for the Lord? Read his life and the lives of other missionaries for yourself and join with Paul in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.

Application Questions

1. Why are we generally so fragile when it comes to any sort of criticism or hardship in serving the Lord? Would persecution be good for the American church?
2. Why is the cross an offense? Why can’t we soften the difficult parts of the gospel in order to win people to Christ?
3. How does an understanding of God’s sovereignty help us to endure hardship in the Christian life?
4. Which is more difficult to endure: persecution from without or attacks from within the church? Why?

Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2006, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation

In his excellent book, Don’t Waste Your Life [Crossway, 2003], pp. 45-46), John Piper tells about Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards, who died in April, 2000, in Cameroon, West Africa. Ruby was over eighty, had been single all her life, and had spent her life making Jesus Christ known among the unreached, poor, and sick. Laura was a widow, a medical doctor, pushing eighty, who served with Ruby in Cameroon. Their brakes failed, the car went over a cliff, and they both were killed instantly.

Piper asks, “Was that a tragedy? Two lives, driven by one great passion, namely, to be spent in unheralded service to the perishing poor for the glory of Jesus Christ—even two decades after most of their American counterparts had retired to throw away their lives on trifles.” He answers, “No, that is not a tragedy. That is a glory. These lives were not wasted. And these lives were not lost. ‘Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it’ (Mark 8:35).”

He continues, “I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader’s Digest, which tells about a couple who ‘took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast … when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.’”

When Piper first read that, he thought that it was a joke, a spoof on the American dream. But it wasn’t. Rather, this was the dream: “Come to the end of your life—your one and only precious, God-given life—and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look, Lord. See my shells.’” Piper concludes, “That is a tragedy.” He rightly urges, “Don’t buy it [that version of the American dream]. Don’t waste your life.”

Some would probably conclude that a frail, lonely man in his late sixties had wasted his life. He was chained in a Roman dungeon without enough clothes to keep warm, about to be executed because he proclaimed that Jesus Christ, not Caesar, was Lord. He had known years of hardship, privation, persecution, betrayal, and disappointments. If he sounded a little bitter or cynical as he faced death, most of us would not blame him.

But, rather than being even slightly bitter or cynical, the apostle Paul was confident and upbeat as he exhorted his younger disciple, Timothy, not to be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, but to join with him in suffering for the gospel (1:8). Clearly, Paul believed that the gospel was a cause worth living for and worth dying for. If you live your life for the glory of God through the gospel, in line with your spiritual gifts (1:6), you will not waste your life.

This is not to say that in order not to waste your life you must go into some form of “full time” Christian ministry. But it is to say that if you don’t want to waste your life, you must live it in view of the shortness of this life and the reality of eternity. That means that you live in such a way that your life makes no sense if there is no heaven or hell. When people who do not know Jesus Christ look at how you spend your time and money, they should think, “This guy is nuts!” They don’t take eternity into account, but you do. So with Paul, you can say (1 Cor. 15:19), “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” Because these eternal truths are certain, to spend your life for the gospel is to spend it wisely. In our text, Paul is saying,

Because through the gospel Jesus Christ abolished death and appointed us to serve Him, it is a cause worth dying for.

It has always amazed me that in light of the statistics on death—one out of one people die—people are not consumed with finding the answers to questions like, “Where will I spend eternity? How should I spend my short and uncertain life here in view of standing before God some day?” You would think that every young person would wrestle with those questions before he gets out of college, lands a job, and settles into some vague pursuit of happiness, which often devolves into watching pointless and profane TV shows every night. Very few spend much time at all thinking about the crucial questions in life.

You would think that every retired person would be panicked. It’s the fourth quarter and the clock of life is counting down to the final buzzer. Very shortly, he will stand before God. You would think that he would be consumed with knowing for certain that his sins were forgiven and that he had eternal life. Yet, as I see in every issue of my AARP magazine, the focus is on how to stay healthy, hide your wrinkles, and pursue your selfish dreams, ignoring the inevitable approach of death.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only answer to these tough final questions that we all need to face. Paul here shows us three things that will help us to live in a truly meaningful way, both for time and eternity, if we will respond to them.

1. Christ Jesus personally brought God’s salvation to us through the gospel by His appearing.

Verse 9, as we saw in our last study, is a succinct summary of the gospel of God’s sovereign grace: God “saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” But how was that eternal purpose of God made known in time? It was “revealed by the appearing of Christ Jesus our Savior.” There is no salvation apart from the appearing of Jesus Christ. We get our word “epiphany,” which means an appearance or manifestation of God, from the Greek word translated “appearing.” This is the only time the word refers to the first coming of Christ. Every other time it refers to His second coming.

That Jesus Christ appeared implies that He existed before He came to this earth. Jesus asserted such about Himself. He told the disbelieving Jews (John 8:58), “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” He often referred to being sent to this earth by the Father (John 3:17, 34). In John 17:5, Jesus prayed, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” These statements of His preexistence are assertions of His deity. There is no good news of salvation apart from the truth of the deity of Jesus Christ. The cults that deny His deity do not preach the gospel. If Jesus Christ is not God, then He cannot save us from our sins.

But the fact that Christ Jesus appeared also asserts His true humanity. He was born of the virgin Mary through miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit. He fully shares our humanity, except that He was born without any sin. The four Gospels tell us of His sinless life, His profound teaching, His miracles that authenticated His claims, His voluntary, sacrificial death on the cross for our sins, His bodily resurrection from the dead, and His ascension into heaven. Many of the facts about this promised Savior were predicted in the Old Testament, centuries before His coming. The Christian faith rests upon this verifiable history that testifies to the appearing of Christ Jesus our Savior.

But the Christian faith is not just knowing these facts about the life of Jesus Christ. Rather, it concerns knowing Him personally. As Paul says (1:12), “I know whom I have believed.” Or, as he put it (Phil. 3:8), “More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.” So if we ask, “How can this frail old man who has suffered so much, who doesn’t even have a coat to keep him warm, who has no wife or children, no retirement benefits, who is facing an unjust execution, how can he be so joyous?” The answer is, “He had come to know the glorious person of Christ Jesus his Savior.”

Have you come to know Jesus Christ personally? Can you call Him “Christ Jesus my Lord”? How does this happen? It has been revealed in Scripture (1:10), but also God has to open your blind eyes to the truth of who Jesus is. He opens your eyes to see that you are a sinner, in need of a Savior. He shows you that Jesus Christ is the only Savior from sin. When Paul shared the gospel with Lydia in Philippi, we read (Acts 16:14), “and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.” If you don’t know Christ personally, ask God to open your heart to who Jesus Christ truly is. Trust Him alone as your Savior.

2. Christ Jesus our Savior abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

There are two aspects of this:

A. By His appearing, Christ Jesus our Savior abolished death.

A critic may scoff by saying, “You can believe that if you want, but the local cemetery proves that you’re believing a fairy tale.” Obviously, Christians and non-Christians all die. Believing in Jesus as your Savior doesn’t give you a free pass around death. But, of course, Paul knew that. He saw many believers die. He mentions his own impending death (4:6). He was not promoting some form of Christian Science, where you tell yourself that sickness and death don’t really exist.

The Greek word translated “abolished” means to nullify or to render inoperative. Paul uses it in Romans 6:6, where he says that “our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with.” Obviously, we still live in these bodies that are prone toward sin. Our bodies have not been annihilated. What Paul means is that the power of sin has been broken, so that we do not have to be slaves to sin any longer.

So when Paul says that Christ abolished death, he means that through His death and resurrection, Jesus broke the power of death and freed us from fear of judgment (Heb. 2:14-15). While believers are still subject to physical death (unless we’re alive at His coming), the sting of death has been removed. Note the parallel between our text and 1 Corinthians 15:53-58. Both speak of Christ’s victory over death and then talk about our service for Christ as a result:

For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”

It is because Jesus Christ took the sting of death from us that death for believers is now referred to as sleep (Acts 7:60; 1 Thess. 4:13). This does not mean that our souls sleep. The moment we die, we are consciously in the presence of the Lord in heaven (2 Cor. 5:8). But our bodies sleep in the grave until the return of Christ, when they will be raised and transformed into incorruptible bodies that are suited for heaven.

I love that scene in The Pilgrim’s Progress where Christian and Hopeful come to the final river of death. They are fearful that the water will be over their heads. But Hopeful goes first and calls back to Christian, “Be of good cheer, my brother; I feel the bottom, and it is good.” For every Christian, the bottom is good because of the word of Christ Jesus our Savior, who has promised that He will take us to be with Him in heaven (John 14:3). When you face death, trust in His promise to bring you safely to the other side.

B. By His appearing, Christ Jesus our Savior brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

“Life” refers to the new life that we receive at regeneration. “Immortality” refers to the eternal, incorruptible nature of that life. The new life that we receive from God at regeneration is eternal life. It can never be taken away from us, because Jesus Christ promised (John 10:28), “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” Eternal life is His gift to His sheep, and it is permanent. When He returns, the dead in Christ will be raised and we who are alive will be instantly transformed (1 Thess. 4:13-17; 1 Cor. 15:52). In that glorious moment, “He will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain” (Rev. 21:4).

Christ Jesus brought these wonderful truths “to light through the gospel.” In the Old Testament, there are scattered references to the hope of eternal life beyond the grave, but for the most part, they were dimly visible, in a comparative dusk, as Bishop Moule puts it (Studies in II Timothy [Kregel, 1977], p. 50). But Christ brought these truths out into the open. So as Christians, we look “for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:13-14). Note, again, Paul’s emphasis there on salvation resulting in service.

That’s the flow of thought in our text. Christ Jesus personally brought God’s salvation to us through the gospel by His appearing. He also abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. But, He saved us so that we would serve Him.

3. God’s salvation is always unto service.

Paul finishes the sentence (1:11), “for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher.” Many Greek manuscripts add, “of the Gentiles,” but that may have been added from copyists to make it conform to 1 Timothy 2:7. This repeats the flow of thought that we saw in verses 5-7, where after mentioning Timothy’s salvation, Paul exhorts him to kindle afresh his spiritual gift in service to the Lord. The point is, God doesn’t save us so that we can live our own self-centered, happy lives, ignoring the needs of others. He saves us so that we can serve in His great purpose of saving souls and conforming them to Christ for His glory.

Note, also, that we do not volunteer to serve Jesus in our spare time. Rather, we are drafted—appointed—to serve. As we saw in verse 6, God has given every saved person at least one spiritual gift to use in service for Him. You will give an account of how you used your gift, just as I will. In the parable of the talents (a talent was an amount of money, not an ability), the Lord gave five talents to one servant, two to another, and one to the third servant (Matt. 25:14-30). The man with five invested them and earned five more. The man with two invested them and earned two more. But the man with one buried it and returned it with no profit. The master rebuked him strongly and threw him into outer darkness.

One lesson from that story is that if you think that you can’t do much for the Lord because you aren’t very gifted, you’re in the greatest danger of burying your talent. The one-talent guy looks at those with two or five talents and thinks, “I can’t make that much difference, so why bother?” But that’s a serious mistake. If the Lord has seemingly only given you lesser gifts, don’t bury them! Use them! Often, when you begin to use them, you will discover that you have been given more gifts than you thought at first.

Paul mentions three offices to which he had been appointed: preacher, apostle, and teacher. Why does he use this order? It would seem that apostle was his highest role. Perhaps he is thinking in terms of the order of the gospel. The preacher (the word referred to the herald, who announced the king’s messages to the people) proclaims the gospel, getting people saved. The apostle established the saved into churches, where they could grow in Christ. The teacher equips those believers for the work of service.

The office of apostle as one who had unique authority from Christ no longer exists, because the church was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20). We have the apostolic foundation in the New Testament. In the sense of “one sent out to plant churches,” the role does exist. But for the sake of avoiding confusion, such people should not be called apostles, but missionaries or church planters.

Some have questioned why Paul here reminds Timothy of what he already knew, that Paul was a preacher, apostle, and teacher. I think that Paul was so caught up with the greatness of the gospel and God’s call to preach it that he just got carried away in amazement that God had laid hold of him, a persecutor of the church, to preach the gospel. If you’re hesitant to serve the Lord, go back to the glorious gospel that saved you from a life of futility. Whatever your gifts, God saved you to serve in the great cause of the gospel, a cause worth dying for. Because through the gospel Christ Jesus abolished death and appointed us to serve Him, it’s a cause worth dying for.

Conclusion

The day after Joe Bayly and his wife buried their almost five-year-old, who had died of leukemia, he stopped by the doctor’s office to thank him for his kindness during the nine months between the diagnosis and death. The receptionist called him to the desk, nodded toward a little boy playing on the floor, and whispered, “He has the same problem your little boy had.”

Bayly sat down next to this boy’s mother and spoke softly. “It’s hard bringing him in here every two weeks for these tests, isn’t it.” He didn’t ask a question; he stated a fact.

“Hard?” She was silent for a moment. “I die every time. And now he’s beginning to sense that something’s wrong …” Her voice trailed off.

Bayly chose his words carefully. “It’s good to know, isn’t it, that even though the medical outlook is hopeless, we can have hope for our children in such a situation. We can be sure that after our child dies, he’ll be completely removed from sickness and suffering and everything like that, and be completely well and happy.”

“If I could only believe that,” the woman replied. “But I don’t. When he dies, I’ll just have to cover him up with dirt and forget I ever had him.” She turned back to watching her little boy push a toy car on the floor.

Bayly felt compelled to say, “I’m glad I don’t feel that way.”

“Why?” This time she didn’t turn toward him, but kept watching her child.

“Because we covered our little boy up with dirt yesterday afternoon. I’m in here today to thank the doctor for his kindness.”

She looked straight at Bayly and said, “You look like a rational person.” He was glad she didn’t say, “I’m sorry.” “How can you possibly believe that the death of a man, or a little boy, is any different from the death of an animal?” (From, The Last Thing We Talk About [David C. Cook, 1973, revised edition], pp. 12-13.)

The answer to that woman’s question is, we believe that the death of a person is different because we believe the historic facts about Jesus Christ. By His death and resurrection, He conquered death. By His certain promises, He has given us hope beyond the grave and a purpose worth living and dying for.

Application Questions

1. Why is it important to emphasize the historical foundation of our faith in Jesus Christ, and not only subjective experience?
2. How would you counsel a believer who told you that he lived in fear of death?
3. Why should a Christian’s life seem crazy to a person who doesn’t believe in life after death? Specifically, what should be distinct or different about us?
4. Why should the “one-talent” Christian be especially concerned about using his/her gifts?

Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2006, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation

Stored in a safe place at the Library of Congress is a small blue box. The label reads: “Contents of the President’s pockets on the night of April 14, 1865.” As you probably know, that was the fateful night on which President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

The box contains five things: (1) A handkerchief embroidered “A. Lincoln”; (2) A country boy’s pen knife; (3) A spectacles case repaired with string; (4) A purse containing a $5 bill—in Confederate money! (5) Some old and worn newspaper clippings.

The clippings are concerned with the great deeds of Abraham Lincoln. One of them reports a speech by John Bright, a British statesman, saying that Abraham Lincoln is one of the greatest men of all time.

That is not news for us who live over a century later. We all know that Lincoln was a great man. But in 1865, the jury was still out. The nation was divided and Lincoln had fierce critics on both sides as he made decisions that he hoped would restore the Union. Remember, Lincoln hadn’t read the history books on himself!

There is something poignantly pathetic about picturing this lonely figure in the Oval Office reaching into his pocket and spreading out these newspaper clippings as he re-read the encouraging words of a man who believed that Lincoln was a great man. It gave him the courage and strength to go on. People, especially leaders, need encouragement! (From an article by Charles Swindoll in the newsletter of the First Evangelical Free Church, Fullerton.)

Shift the scene from the Oval Office of Abraham Lincoln to a dungeon in Rome. It is dark and cold. A dim ray of light filters in through the opening at the top. Inside sits an aged, weathered little Jewish man, chained to a guard. It is Paul of Tarsus awaiting execution. Keep in mind that Paul didn’t know that his life and teachings would radically change the course of world history. All he knew was that the end was near and that many of those whom he had loved and taught were abandoning him like sailors jumping off a sinking ship.

Suddenly, there was a noise above as the guard opened the hatch to his cell. The old man squinted into the light, but couldn’t see who was climbing down the ladder to visit him. But he recognized the friendly voice, “Paul, Paul, I’ve found you at last!”

“Onesiphorus! Is that you, my good friend?” The two men embraced warmly in spite of the stench of the prisoner and his squalid cell. Then Onesiphorus, whose name means “bringing help or profit,” opened his bag and gave Paul fresh bread, fruit, cheese, and wine. He stayed a long time and he came back often, bringing good news of the progress of the gospel across the Roman Empire. Each time he came, Paul was refreshed in body and spirit.

Onesiphorus could have thought, “Paul is strong. After all, he’s the great apostle, who has suffered often. This isn’t his first time in prison. Who am I to try to minister to someone like him?”

But the reality is that everyone needs the ministry of refreshment at times. Even the Lord Jesus, in His hour of agony in Gethsemane, took His three closest disciples with Him and asked them to watch and pray with Him there. If Christ needed it and if Paul needed it, then we all need it. That means that we all need to look for those in need of refreshment and minister to them.

God has called us all to the ministry of refreshment.

As you know, Timothy was not naturally courageous, able to stand against the flow of public opinion when he needed to do so. And so three times in 2 Timothy 1, Paul exhorts Timothy not to be ashamed: He does it directly (1:8); he points to his own example (1:12); and, he calls attention to Onesiphorus, who “was not ashamed of my chains” (1:16). Apart from Paul’s greeting to the household of Onesiphorus (4:19), this is the only reference to this man in the Bible. His fleeting appearance on the stage teaches us three characteristics of a refresher, as seen in Onesiphorus:

1. A refresher seeks out a person in need.

We don’t know whether Onesiphorus was in Rome on other business and looked up Paul while there or whether he went there solely on a mission to find Paul. Even if he had other business to take care of while there, I think his main reason for going to Rome was to visit Paul. He had to risk his life to do it. The Jews no doubt had gotten Paul arrested as a man who was stirring up sedition. He was politically dangerous. Visiting Paul in prison would be like visiting a terrorist suspect at Guantanamo Bay. You would make yourself a target for arrest by doing so.

Also, as one author put it, “He went to Rome at a time when every Christian was trying to get out of it” (Albert MacKinnon, cited by Guy King, To My Son [Christian Literature Crusade, 1976], p. 34). Nero was covering Christians with pitch and burning them to light his garden parties. Others were being thrown to the lions in the Colosseum to satisfy the public’s perverted lust for blood. Onesiphorus deliberately went into this dangerous situation and tracked down Paul because he had heard that his beloved friend and spiritual leader was in great need.

Before we look at the positive example of Onesiphorus, Scripture sets before us the negative example of verse 15:

A. A discourager turns away or ignores one in need.

Paul reminds Timothy, who was in Ephesus, the capital of the province of Asia, of what he already knew, that “all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes” (1:15). We do not know who these men were. They may have been ringleaders of the defection or men whom Paul would have thought the least likely to turn against him. Some think that they also turned away from the faith, but others say that they probably were just self-promoting Christians, trying to build a following for themselves by attacking Paul. Whoever they were, they acted with selfishness, cowardice, and unfaithfulness toward Paul at precisely the time he needed their support, when he was arrested.

It is difficult to interpret Paul’s statement that all who were in Asia turned away from him. Just ten years before, Paul had a tearful, affectionate farewell with the Ephesian elders. Although at that time Paul predicted that from among them, some would “arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:30), it is hard to believe that they all defected within so short a time. So how should we understand Paul’s words?

It may be the hyperbole of a depressed man, so that Paul means, “many in Asia” had not been willing to risk standing with him when he was arrested. Or, it may refer to “all those who were in a position to help” in the aftermath of his arrest. The Christians who had influence with the Roman authorities, who could have gone to them and argued for Paul’s release, had instead drawn back out of embarrassment or fear. They didn’t want to risk being implicated with Paul on the charge of spreading sedition. Maybe it would hurt their business. So they played it safe to save themselves.

Probably some of these defectors owed their salvation to Paul, humanly speaking. He had spent time nurturing them and teaching them how to live as Christians. He had prayed for them. I can say from personal experience that it is discouraging when you have ministered to people, only to have ringleaders stir up a controversy in the church. Rumors and false accusations are spread behind your back. People that you have personally cared for leave the church without even coming to talk to you. But I take comfort that the same thing happened to Paul. So why should I expect better treatment? When that happens, you need a man like Onesiphorus.

B. A refresher seeks out the person in need and ministers to him.

Onesiphorus didn’t tell Paul, “If you ever need anything, let me know.” Rather than thinking about himself and how inconvenient it would be to travel to Rome and find Paul, Onesiphorus demonstrated selfless love, courage, and faithfulness by seeking out Paul. He ministered in four ways:

(1). A refresher ministers by his presence.

He just showed up! We don’t know a single word that he said, but his presence spoke volumes. Just going to be with someone in his or her time of need says, “I care about you and I’m here to stand with you.” Sometimes when someone has suffered the loss of a loved one or some other severe crisis, we hesitate to visit because we don’t know what to say. The best thing is probably to say very little. Job’s comforters sat silently with him for seven days, but they got into trouble when they opened their mouths and tried to explain the reason for his trials. Just ask the hurting person questions and let him talk. Or, sit with him in silence.

A magazine once asked the readers for their definitions of a friend. The one that won said, “A friend—the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out.”

(2). A refresher ministers by his acceptance.

Paul writes that Onesiphorus “was not ashamed of my chains.” He didn’t cast disparaging looks at Paul’s chains as they clanked in that dungeon. Nor did he ignore them as if they weren’t there. I’m sure that he didn’t tell Paul that if he just had enough faith, God would deliver him. He didn’t share the story of how God had delivered Peter from prison, thus implying, “What’s wrong with you, Paul?” He didn’t offer advice: “Paul, next time you need to be a little more tactful in your preaching.” He just accepted Paul, stench and wretched conditions and all.

This doesn’t mean that we should allow someone to wallow in self-pity or sinful thoughts endlessly without correction. There is a time when we must help a friend think biblically and move on with life. But we all need the refreshment of a friend who accepts our chains without condemnation.

(3). A refresher ministers by his cheerfulness.

The text does not specifically say that Onesiphorus was cheerful. But based on the fact that Paul was refreshed (the Greek word has the idea of a breath of fresh air), I conclude that Onesiphorus didn’t come under a giant gloom cloud complaining, “Ooh, Paul, it’s bad out there. Nero is killing all the Christians. Many are defecting from the faith. I, only I, am left and they are seeking my life, too.” Maybe it was Onesiphorus who suggested, “Paul, you may be in chains, but the word of God is not” (2:9).

I’m not saying that Onesiphorus was Mr. Pollyanna Positive, who ignored reality. The two men no doubt talked about those who were defecting (1:15). But I surmise that the main thrust of their conversation was on God’s faithfulness and how the gospel was changing lives. When Onesiphorus left, Paul was filled with renewed hope and encouragement in the Lord. When you minister to someone in need, you don’t need to avoid reality and pretend that everything is rosy when it’s not. But your overall demeanor should reflect the joy and hope that we have in Christ.

Thus a refresher seeks out a person in need and ministers by his presence, his acceptance, and his cheerfulness. Also,

(4). A refresher ministers by his persistent focus on others.

Paul says, “he often refreshed me.” He reminds Timothy (1:18), “you know very well what services he rendered at Ephesus.” This was Onesiphorus’ lifestyle, to look for ways to refresh others.

There is only one explanation for his track record: he was focused on the Lord and others, not on himself. Many go around thinking, “I need to have my needs met.” They often leave church disappointed that others did not meet their needs. Their focus was on themselves.

On the other hand, there are those that are always thinking, “Lord, use me to minister to others.” The interesting thing is that these servants usually are fulfilled and satisfied with the joy of the Lord. When the tired disciples first served the loaves and fishes to the hungry multitude, they discovered that they each got a full basket of leftovers. So the first mark of a refresher is that he seeks out those in need and ministers by his presence, his acceptance, his cheerfulness, and his persistent focus on others.

2. A refresher bucks crowd opinion to serve selflessly.

Crowd opinion is always selfish: “Protect yourself! Look out for number one! I wouldn’t get involved like that if I were you. You’ll only get hurt!” But Onesiphorus wasn’t swayed by such notions. This brief sketch reveals three things about selfless service:

A. Selfless service is based on conviction.

To do what Onesiphorus did, you must operate on the conviction that you are called to serve rather than to be served. Sometimes this means going against crowd opinion to stand alone with those who aren’t popular. Some of the believers in Ephesus had turned against Paul or at least were ignoring him in his time of need. But sometimes even the Christian crowd is wrong. We need to follow Christ, not the crowd.

I sometimes watch the evening news while I’m exercising. There is a commercial right now that I appreciate. The scene is at a high school. A bully knocks the books out of the hand of a weaker boy, while the bully’s friends jeer. But another boy walks over, asks the boy if he’s all right, and helps him pick up his books. I don’t know who sponsors the ad, but it encourages young people to have the conviction to do the right thing.

At church, I sometimes notice people talking to their friends, while a visitor sits alone nearby. We’ve gone to churches on vacation where no one made an effort to talk with us, even though we hung around after the service. It’s not a great feeling. The golden rule would say, “Treat a newcomer as you would want to be treated.” But to do it you have to have the conviction to say to your friends, “Let’s go over and meet that new person.” Otherwise, you’ll go along with the crowd.

B. Selfless service is not convenient for the person serving.

Paul says (1:17), “he eagerly searched for me and found me.” Just getting from Ephesus to Rome was no small feat in those days. But when he finally got to that huge city, Onesiphorus had to look all over for Paul. The prison officials were probably suspicious of anyone trying to track down a prisoner, and they usually weren’t noted for their helpful customer service. But Onesiphorus persisted until he found Paul.

Some have suggested, and it may be likely, that because Paul sends greetings to the household of Onesiphorus (4:19), but not to Onesiphorus himself, that perhaps he had also been imprisoned or executed because of his association with Paul in Rome. The main problem with that view is that then it seems that Paul is offering a prayer for the dead when he says (1:18), “The Lord grant to him to find mercy from the Lord on that day.” The Catholic Church uses that verse to support prayers for the dead.

But the idea that our prayers could change the eternal destiny of someone that has died goes against all of Scripture. The moment a person dies, if he has believed in Jesus Christ as His Savior he goes instantly to heaven. Or he goes to hell because he rejected Christ. There is no such place as Purgatory, and all of the prayers in the world cannot get a deceased person into heaven if he died as an unbeliever. So we must understand Paul’s words as a sympathetic desire that the Lord will reward Onesiphorus for his sacrificial service.

But whether he died or not, it was not convenient for Onesiphorus to minister to Paul in these difficult conditions. It seldom is convenient to serve. Of course, there are times when we must say no to requests or opportunities to serve simply because we are finite and must juggle other demands. But we’ve all got to fight against the selfish mentality that only serves when it’s convenient. Usually, it’s not!

C. Selfless service is not convenient for the family of the one serving.

Both in verse 16 and in 4:19, Paul mentions the family or household of Onesiphorus. Paul’s request that the Lord grant them mercy shows that they had to pay a price by releasing Onesiphorus to serve Paul.

I do not agree with those who sacrifice their families on the altar of ministry. One of the most tragic stories that I have read was written by the daughter of the late Bob Pierce, who founded World Vision. He was gone for months every year, preaching in Asia while his family was floundering without him in California. His marriage finally broke up and one daughter committed suicide. The daughter who wrote the book had to work through many deep problems as a result of her father’s abandoning the family. The Bible is clear that a man’s family must be in order before he is qualified to serve as a leader in the local church. It requires adequate time together as a family to foster healthy relationships.

Yet at the same time, a family needs to be committed to serving the body of Christ. It’s not right to focus on the family to the detriment of serving Christ. That just fosters selfish living. I like the balance that Edith Schaeffer describes in What is a Family? [Revell, 1975]. As you may know, the Schaeffer’s raised their children at L’Abri in an open home, where many people came at all hours. In one chapter, Mrs. Schaeffer describes the family as a door with hinges and a lock. The hinges open to welcome those in need, but the lock gives the family time to grow and be refreshed for ministry. They did not damage their family by over-commitment to ministry, and yet they instilled in their children a ministry-mindset.

Thus a refresher seeks out a person in need. He bucks crowd opinion to serve selflessly. Finally,

3. A refresher will be rewarded by the Lord.

He will receive “mercy from the Lord on that day.” “That day” is the day of judgment, as we saw in 1:12. Paul was living in view of “that day.” You may wonder, “Why does a servant like Onesiphorus need mercy on that day?” Phygelus and Hermogenes need mercy! But why Onesiphorus?

The answer is, we all need mercy from the Lord on that day! Perhaps Paul was echoing Jesus’ Beatitude (Matt. 5:7), “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” It is not that anyone can earn or deserve mercy because of his good deeds. We all deserve God’s judgment, because we all have sinned. Even servants like Onesiphorus have to battle selfishness on a daily basis. So we all must cast ourselves on God’s mercy as our only hope for eternity.

I read about an 11-year-old boy who got his first job working at a garden center. His dad was anxious about his first day on the job, so he stopped by before noon to check on him. He sensed that something was wrong, especially when he saw a tear trickle down his son’s cheek. The boy explained, “When I came to work this morning, they said they’d pay me 50 cents an hour. I’ve been here three hours now, and nobody’s been around with my 50 centses!”

If you get involved in the ministry of refreshment, you need to remember that story. The rewards will be handed out in eternity. You may or may not see rewards in this life. The world may think you’re stupid to sacrifice yourself for others and the church may forget to recognize you at the awards ceremony. But the Lord does not forget. He will be merciful to you on that day.

Conclusion

In one sentence, the Bible writes the biographies of Phygelus and Hermogenes: they turned away from Paul in his time of need. Whether because of fear or embarrassment or selfish motives, they did not minister refreshment. In another sentence, the Bible writes the biography of Onesiphorus: he often refreshed Paul and was not ashamed of his chains.

How would the Bible write your biography in one sentence? Do you seek out those in need to minister refreshment? Do you serve selflessly, no matter what others are saying or doing? If so, the Lord will reward you in that day.

Application Questions

1. Is it right to focus on our own needs before we focus on others’ needs? Where is the biblical balance?
2. Where is the biblical balance between time together as a family versus time ministering away from the family?
3. Since we’re all different, how can we know whether a hurting person wants our presence or wants to be alone?
4. Is it wrong to serve in order to be rewarded at the judgment? Is this selfish?

Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2006, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation

Pastor John MacArthur (MacArthur Commentary Library [E-4 Group, CD, vol. 2], on 2 Tim. 2:2) tells about a state invitational track meet during his college years, when he represented his team as the second man in the mile relay. The first man ran a fast first leg, and John did well on the second. But soon after he passed the baton to the third man, one of their best runners, that runner stopped, walked onto the infield, and sat down.

At first the other team members thought that he had pulled a hamstring or twisted an ankle. MacArthur ran across the field and asked, “What happened?” “I don’t know,” he replied, “I just didn’t feel like running anymore.”

Understandably, his teammates, the coach, and everyone else from the college were quite upset. “How could you do that?” they asked. “Don’t you know you’re not just representing yourself, but your team and your school? Have you forgotten all the time the coach has invested in you and that your teammates have invested to get where we are? How could you, in one brief, selfish second, destroy all of that?”

MacArthur continues, “On an infinitely more important level, countless leaders in the church have simply dropped out of the Lord’s service, some with no better reason than the apathy of that collegiate runner.”

Timothy was not yet at the point of dropping out of the race. But because of his timid personality he hated conflict and criticism, which are an inescapable part of leadership. The hardship of standing for the truth in the face of many who were defecting was tempting him to draw back and not use his spiritual gifts to uphold and hand off the truth. Paul, who was awaiting execution in a prison cell in Rome, was handing Timothy the baton. In our text, he is not only telling Timothy to take the baton and carry it faithfully, but also to hand it off to others who will carry it faithfully and in turn hand it off to others after them. It is because of such faithful men down through history that we are here today.

As we saw last week, the main theme of 2:1-7 is being a fruitful Christian. Every true Christian wants to be fruitful in serving the Lord Jesus Christ. To be fruitful, there is a person that you must be: Strong in grace (2:1). There is a task that you must do: Entrust the truth to other faithful believers (2:2). There is a price that you must pay: Suffer hardship as a soldier, an athlete, and a hard-working farmer (2:3-7). The message of 2:2 is:

To be a fruitful Christian, you must entrust the truth to others who will entrust it to others also.

Before we examine this verse, let me point out that it is applicable on several levels. The primary application is to pastors and other church leaders. Our task is to hand off God’s truth to other faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. But the text also applies to every Christian in every relationship with other Christians. Christian husbands must hand off the truth that God teaches them to their wives. While the husband is responsible to shepherd his family, the communication is not just one way. Wives also must share with their husbands the truth that God teaches them. Parents are responsible to entrust the truth to their children. More mature believers must see their responsibility to impart biblical truth to younger believers. All of us who know Christ are responsible to share the gospel with those who are lost, so that they may be saved.

The idea is that if God has entrusted any truth from His Word to you, it is not to make you feel good and then keep it to yourself. He gives it to you so that you will pass it on to others. Keep in mind that verse 2 follows and is built on the truth of verse 1. To entrust God’s truth to others, you must be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. With that as a foundation, verse 2 gives us three requirements if we want to be fruitful for the Lord:

1. To be fruitful for Christ, you must be clear on sound doctrine.

Of course, we must impart to others more than mere content. Paul reminded the Thessalonians that he had imparted to them not only the gospel, but also his own life, because they had become very dear to him (1 Thess. 2:8). So our text assumes that the truth that we impart is clothed in a godly life of love for others. But the clear focus of 2 Timothy 2:2 is on the content of sound doctrine. Paul mentions what Timothy had heard Paul teach and he tells Timothy that he is to impart these truths so that other men may teach them to others also. There are two aspects to this:

A. To be clear on sound doctrine, you must affirm the existence and importance of absolute truth in the spiritual realm.

This verse implies what our culture denies, that there is a definable body of spiritual truth that can be known and handed off faithfully to others. We live in a culture permeated with the view that spiritual truth is a matter of personal preference, much like your favorite flavor of ice cream. If something is true for you, that’s nice, but don’t be so arrogant as to imply that your “truth” is true for everyone else!

As it often happens, the prevailing worldview seeps into the evangelical church. Studies have shown that one-third of America’s baby boomers identify themselves as born-again Christians, but half of those say that religions other than Christianity are equally good and true. One third of “born-again” baby boomers believe in reincarnation and astrology (Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion, Wade Clark Roof, as reported in “The Watchman Expositor,” Vol. 18, #1, 2001, p. 22).

In No Place for Truth [Eerdmans, 1993], David Wells shows how the evangelical church has largely abandoned doctrinal truth. He argues (p. 13) that “the central function of the pastor has changed from that of a truth broker to manager of the small enterprise we call churches.” Wells argues (pp. 102-103) that the New Testament contains the apostolic exposition of the truth about God and Christ and that to be a believer has always meant to believe what the apostles taught. He adds (p. 103),

This is why the apostles not only framed Christian faith in doctrinal terms but called for its preservation and protection in this form. There is no Christian faith in the absence of “sound doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10; Tit. 1:9), “sound instruction” (1 Tim. 6:3), or the “pattern of sound teaching” (2 Tim. 1:13-14). It is this doctrine, or, more precisely, the truth it contains and expresses, that was “taught” by the apostles and “delivered” to the Church. It is this message that is our only ground for hope (Tit. 1:9) and salvation (1 Cor. 15:2; 1 Pet. 1:23-25). Without it, we have neither the Father nor the Son (2 John 9). Indeed, Paul says that we can grow in Christ only if we stay within this doctrinal framework, for its truth provides the means of our growth (Col. 2:6). It is no wonder that Christians are urged not to depart from the apostolic teaching they received “in the beginning” ([1] John 2:7, 24, 26; 3:11) or from what they had heard (Heb. 2:1), for it is the “faith once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). Nor should we be amazed to read of Paul’s admonition to Timothy that it is only by adhering to this “good teaching” that he will become a “good minister of Jesus Christ” (1 Tim. 4:6). For all of these reasons, the apostles instructed believers to “guard” this faith (2 Tim. 1:13-14; 4:3; cf. Tit. 1:9; Gal. 1:9), defend it (Jude 3), “stand firm” in it, not to “drift” from it, to become “established” in it, and to transmit it intact to succeeding generations.

There is a noticeable emphasis on the themes of “sound doctrine,” teaching, and truth in the Pastoral Epistles (1 Tim. 1:3-5, 10; 3:2; 4:1, 6, 11, 13, 16; 5:17; 6:2, 3, 20. 2 Tim. 1:13; 2:2, 14-16, 18, 23-26; 3:7-8, 10, 13, 15-17; 4:2-4, 15; Titus 1:1, 9-11, 14; 2:1, 3, 7, 10, 15; 3:9). As Paul handed the baton to Timothy and Titus, he wanted them to hold unswervingly to the truth, because it was under attack. As we saw in our recent study of 1 John, which was written about 25 years after Paul’s death, false teachers were promoting serious errors in this same church of Ephesus, where Timothy was when Paul wrote 2 Timothy to him.

David Wells points out (ibid., p. 140) that, “shorn of its theology, evangelicalism has become simply one more expression of the self movement, which also includes many constituencies that do not have the remotest interest in God but with whom evangelicals often make common cause in satisfying the self.” That statement was reinforced to me this week as I read a review of Joel Osteen’s best-seller, Your Best Life Now [Faith Words, 2004]. The author, Greg Gilbert, says that although the book is sprinkled with references to God and the Bible throughout, it is not Christian in any way. He concludes (in email newsletter from 9 Marks Ministries, October, 2006, Volume 3, Issue 8, at www.9marks.org),

The really frightening thing is that 5 million people have bought Your Best Life Now, and a good portion of those have probably walked away thinking they have read the Christian gospel. They think they understand the message of the Bible, and it is me. My success. My self-esteem. My house. My car. My promotion.

If that is what is passing for Christianity today, then the need for true gospel preachers is more than severe. Someone needs to tell these people—even if they are not inclined to hear; even if it’s over the heads of their own “pastors”—that the gospel is not about collaborating with God to make yourself successful. It is not about getting more stuff and being more prosperous. It is about God forgiving people for their sin through the death of his Son, bringing them to life from the spiritual dead, and conforming them to the image of Jesus Christ. Whether Joel Osteen preaches those truths in his church of thirty-thousand, I have no idea. But he certainly has not written about them.

So to obey Paul’s commandment in our text, we must begin by affirming the existence and importance of absolute truth in the spiritual realm, which is revealed to us in the Bible. Without that truth, we have nothing to hand off to anyone!

B. To be clear on sound doctrine, you must study the truth as delivered to us by the apostles.

You can’t impart to others something that you’re fuzzy on. You must be clear about the truth to hand it off, and to be clear about the truth, you’ve got to engage in a lifetime of study and growth. We may legitimately envy Timothy’s unique place in history, because he heard Paul teach the Scriptures on numerous occasions. More than that, as they ate together or traveled together, Timothy could ask Paul any question about any subject in the Bible. But even though Timothy had such great advantages, Paul still had to exhort him (2 Tim. 2:15), “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” He still had to work hard at studying the Word!

What does Paul mean when he tells Timothy (2:2) that he had heard these things “in the presence of many witnesses”? The phrase is literally translated, “through many witnesses.” The idea is not that Timothy was taught by these witnesses, but rather that these witnesses could all affirm the truth that Paul taught. He taught the same thing wherever he went. There were witnesses in Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, Rome, and all the other cities that Paul had ministered in, who could confirm the message that he proclaimed. It wasn’t secret, inner-circle “truth” as the Gnostics would later would claim to know. It was publicly proclaimed, and these witnesses also could confirm that Timothy’s doctrine squared away with Paul’s doctrine.

Paul’s uniform testimony to the truth teaches us that we can’t bow to the pressure to soften the truth in order to be popular. Pastors, like anyone else, want to be liked. And there is added pressure, because if people get offended by what you preach, they’ll go down the road to the next church and your congregation will dwindle. Since numbers represent success, many pastors become politicians, who dodge the hard aspects of the truth so as not to offend anyone. But as we’ll see in chapter 4, Paul specifically exhorts Timothy not to fall into playing to the crowd. He is to preach the Word, which requires reproving, rebuking, and exhorting (4:2).

While it is especially incumbent on pastors and elders to be able to exhort in sound doctrine (Tit. 1:9), this also applies to every believer. There are so many winds of false doctrine blowing in our day that if you do not study the truth God’s Word for yourself, you will surely be blown off course. To be fruitful as a Christian, the first requirement is to be clear on sound doctrine.

2. To be fruitful for Christ, you must entrust the truth to FAT men (Faithful, Available, Teachable).

I’m not referring to overweight men, but to men who are faithful, available, and teachable. (I didn’t come up with this acronym myself; I got it years ago from Bill Yaeger, who was then pastor of First Baptist Church of Modesto, California.)

“Entrust” is the verb related to the noun that means a deposit (1:12, 14). It refers to entrusting your valuable treasure to a trusted friend to guard for you during your absence. Believers have entrusted their lives to Jesus Christ, being convinced that He is able to guard that deposit until the day of judgment (1:12). In turn, Christ has entrusted the precious treasure of the gospel with us, and we must guard it with our lives (1:14). We cannot compromise the truth of the gospel or we are unfaithful to guard the deposit. But not only are we to guard this deposit, also we are to hand it off or entrust it to FAT men:

A. Entrust the truth to faithful men.

“Faithful” implies that these men are believers, that they are loyal, and that they are reliable (William Barclay, The Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon [Westminster Press, 1975], p. 158). We cannot always judge accurately in advance who will prove to be faithful. Paul was disappointed by Phygelus, Hermogenes (1:15), and Demas (4:10), plus probably many more. But if you want to be fruitful, look for younger believers who give evidence of being faithful and entrust the great truths of the faith to them.

B. Entrust the truth to available men.

This process of entrusting sound doctrine to others takes time. Some people, as sincere as they may be, are just too busy with other things. In some cases, their busyness is a matter of wrong priorities. They are simply not interested in growing in the things of God. They need to be challenged to seek first the kingdom of God. In other cases, they are at an inescapably busy time in life and they can only do so much until they get through that phase. But you can only work with those who can make the time to get together to study the Word with you.

C. Entrust the truth to teachable men.

Paul says that these men must be able to teach others also. No one is able to teach well unless he also is teachable. If Timothy had not been willing to receive teaching from Paul, he would not have been qualified to teach others also. A know-it-all or a stubborn, self-willed man who wants to argue incessantly will not be able to teach others, because people will resist his arrogance. Being teachable means being willing to change your views when you become convinced from Scripture that you were in error. It means being willing to learn from other godly men and not claiming to have the corner on the truth. And, of course, it means having a never-satisfied hunger to know God and understand His Word in deeper ways. We never “arrive” spiritually in this life.

So to be fruitful for Christ, you must be clear on sound doctrine. You must entrust the truth to those who are faithful, available, and teachable. Finally,

3. To be fruitful for Christ, you must aim at spiritual multiplication.

The task of reaching the world’s more than six billion souls for Christ seems impossible! I say it reverently, but God seemingly could have devised a more efficient method. Angels could have gone to every people group on earth with the clear message of the gospel much sooner than we bumbling humans have been able to do it! Yet He chose to work through us.

His plan is that of spiritual multiplication. There are four generations listed in our text: Paul, Timothy, faithful men, and the others that they teach also. If you teach someone and he bottles up the truth and doesn’t pass it on, the process stalls out there. You are involved in addition, not multiplication. But if those you teach will teach others who in turn teach others, you’re engaging in a ministry of multiplication. While it’s slow at the start, after a few years it can reach millions.

Suppose that two boys had a very rich father. He made them an offer: they could choose to receive either $100,000 per day for 31 days, or one penny the first day, doubled each day for 31 days. If one boy chose the $100,000 per day, at the end of 31 days he would have $3,100,000. But the boy who chose the penny doubled each day would come out with $2,147,483,648!

When it comes to spiritual multiplication, the process doesn’t happen quickly or without any failures. But the point stands, that to be fruitful, look for those that you can teach who will not just study for their own benefit. Rather, look for those who will be able to teach others also. It is a great joy to see, as we are seeing today at FCF (commissioning a young couple to go to a Muslim country) young people going out to spread God’s truth to those in places where there is very little gospel witness.

Conclusion

To apply this verse to your life, ask yourself two questions: First, who is my Paul? If you are a woman, who is my Pauline? In other words, to whom do you look as a spiritual mentor? A word of caution: Don’t sit around with your spiritual umbilical cord in hand, waiting for the opportune place to plug it in. When I was younger in the faith, I prayed about this and explored a few opportunities, but everything I tried fell flat. I couldn’t find anyone to be in the role of a Paul to me. Finally, I started reading the lives of the great men of God, such as George Muller, Charles Spurgeon, John Calvin, John Bunyan, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and a host of others. They have served as my spiritual mentors. I look forward to meeting them and sitting down for long chats in heaven! But ask God first for a living model.

Second, who are my Timothy’s? I don’t know of a female variation of Timothy for the ladies, but Titus 2:4 commands the older women to train the younger women in the things of God. If you have been a believer for at least a year or two, you should be looking for someone younger in the faith that you can hand off God’s truth to. If you’re not doing that, I strongly encourage you to get involved in the lives of other believers, to help them grow and to grow yourself. Our Forums of Four are one such venue.

One further word of caution: Don’t opt for perfection or nothing. Sometimes we idealize the Paul-Timothy relationship to the point that because we can’t even come close to it (because of job or family commitments), we end up doing nothing at all. It’s not perfect to meet with some guys once a week for an hour or two, but it’s better than nothing. God can use it tremendously in the lives of younger believers. Ask Him to give you a few younger believers to entrust the truth to. Get together regularly, get into the Word, pray for one another, and share together in the things of God. He will use you to bear fruit for eternity in the lives of others.

Application Questions

1. Some say that if you insist on the absolute nature of spiritual truth, you will become dogmatic and arrogant. Your response?
2. Many say that love, not doctrine, is to be the mark of the believer and that doctrine is divisive. Discuss biblically.
3. Discuss why potential leaders must be FAT (faithful, available, teachable) men.
4. Why are many Christians not aiming at handing the faith off to others who can teach others also? What are the main hindrances in this process?

Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2006, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation