Paul’s Charge

goodness to us. Um thank you for the uh ministers that you have given to us throughout church history to build your church to grow it, to expand it. Lord, you have used weak vessels, broken men. Um but yet through your um working in them, you have raised up men that are weak and men that are broken. men that will ultimately walk um boldly for you. And we thank you for that history and we know that you will continue to do that within the church until the day that you return. Lord, we thank you for that. And as we evaluate this, Lord, may um it be something that we think on to encourage um men uh to be the right kind of minister, to focus on the right kind of things.

We pray this in your heavenly name. Amen. Well, if you would stand, I will uh I'd like to read to you our passage tonight. We're going to be in 2 Timothy chapter 4. Let me read verses 1-5. It says, "I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick uh and the end at his appearing in his kingdom. Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust they shall heap to themselves teachers having itchy ears, and they shall turn away uh their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

But thou but watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of evangelists, uh make full proof of thy ministry. You can be seated. You know, Paul as he comes to the end of his second letter to Timothy, he greatly desires that Timothy remain a faithful minister, remain a faithful minister of the kingdom. And and Paul, for himself, he knows that he's coming to the end of his. He knows his life is going to be taken soon and that Timothy and men like Timothy are going to be now leading the church after his death. And Paul desires them to be faithful. And so as he writes his uh son in the faith, Timothy, he charges Timothy.

He charges him in this passage before God and before the Lord Jesus Christ. He charges him before the appearing of Christ and before Christ's a kingdom. He's charging Timothy basically be before these witnesses. And this kind of charge is common with when there's the passing of responsibility. When young men rise up to replace faithful older men, they were giving charges with their duties to encourage them to follow wholeheartedly in what they've been called to do. Many of you know that my oldest son served in the or one of the branches of of the special forces and and um his training was very long and very difficult.

And I remember when he finally graduated at the graduation ceremony, there was a a charge that was given to him and to the other men that were graduating. And the the the charge had a witness and the and the witnesses that they they they were part of that charge were the men that had gone before them that had died in battle. And so what they did is there came a point in time where where each of those young men recited uh the men that had gone before them that had died in battle. And as name after name after name was recited uh it became very solemn. And you saw the the extent to which this job was going to call these men.

And it's that kind of idea that Paul is reaching for here as he as he reaches out to the greatest witnesses that he can think of to encourage Timothy to remain faithful in his ministry. As Timothy reads Paul's letter, he's going to see this. He's going to recognize it and he's he's going to be reminded that his service is seen by the God of creation and that his service is going to see be seen by his Lord Jesus Christ. And it is this Lord Jesus Christ who is going to judge at his appearing and and is going to rule in the kingdom. And seeing this, Timothy is reminded in us as well that our actions matter.

Our faithfulness now in our lives now have eternal consequences. There will come that time where Jesus appears and his kingdom will be fully seen and realized and for all of eternity will we live there and and how we live will be affected in how we live now. The blessings there are are directly related to how we live in our lives at this period of time. And so Paul takes that idea and he starts to bring commands to Timothy uh commands to guide Timothy in his uh leadership so that he can stand well when he stands before the appearing of his Lord Jesus Christ. And so he says in verse two, he says, "Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all love suffering and doctrine, longsuffering and doctrine."

Timothy, preach the word. As the pastors, as we got together as pastors and spoke about this passage, Pastor Peter noted that he believed that all of second Timothy is building up to this command. And to be honest, I think he's correct. Throughout both letters, Paul has been encouraging Timothy to focus primarily on the proclamation of God's word. and and we get to the end and Paul now Paul Paul now flatly uh commands it of him preach the word. You see the minister of God is to focus on the preaching of God's word. Their opinions, their personal wisdom while may have some value ultimately their focus is to be on the preaching of God's word.

For it is only in God's word is there power. It is the power to change hearts. It is the power to command us how to live. It is the power that comforts and it is the power that encourages his people. Preach the word. And really, no pastor should get himself between the word and his listeners. The pastor is simply to be the faithful servant and bring God's word to the ears of the people with with clarity. And to do it, we pick up here as often as possible. For Paul says, do it in in being instant in season and out of season. And literally what that means is to is to stand near where there are opportune times and when there are inopportune times.

This actually went against the philosophy of the day. there was a a uh set of teachings that would accompany the Old Testament teachings. And within that there was wisdom and and direction for um Jewish philosophers and Jewish teachers. And one of the one of the things that come out of that is this. It says, "Where there is entertainment, do not pour out discourse and do not display your wisdom at the wrong time." The Jewish teaching, the Jewish philosophy was wait until there's the opportune time to to preach the word and then preach it. But but that's not what Paul says. Paul says as he's led by the Holy Spirit to Timothy is is to do it at all times.

When it's opportune, do it. And when it's inopportune, do it. And what I found interesting when I was studying this is that within the Greek, it's not clear as to where Paul is addressing this this command. You could understand it in one of two ways. You could understand it is it is the is it an opportune or in opportune time for the congregation? Are they interested in listening at this period of time? So teach them. Or are they not interested? So so so still teach them. Or could it apply directly to Timothy? Could apply to his heart. Preach when you feel like preaching and and and and preach when you don't feel like preaching.

And I think God as he directed Paul to preach to to write this letter, he he intentionally leaves it vague with the with the which one undefined so that we see that it's both. There's never the inopportune time. There's always the the the looking of the pastor for where I can put God's word into somebody's life. Not simply up here, but but when he's counseling and when he's talking and when he's fellowshipping and when he's enjoying time with with other folks is how can I encourage them with God's word to preach the word? But he is also to preach the word as the word was intended to work in the lives of the people.

Look back in your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16. 2 Timothy 3:16. There it says, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." God's word is doctrine. That means teaching. uh reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. And the commands back in chapter 4:2 align with those. They reflect uh what God is supposed to God's word is supposed to do. And the pastor is then to bring that out of God's word. And so since God's word is for reproof or instruction, uh the the minister of God is to reprove with it.

Meaning he's to use it to expose error and to bring about correction or to correct, I should say. Since God's word is to is there for correction, the minister is to use it to rebuke, use it to admonish. Since it is there for doctrine or for teaching uh an instruction in righteousness, it's to be used to exhort, which means to encourage. And literally, it has the idea of being called calling to uh to to your side. And it almost has the image of of somebody coming to the side and you putting your arm around them and saying, "Hey, God's word is this way. Let's walk this way together." and bringing them along.

And so they're to use the word the way the word was was was supposed to be used and use it to grow brothers and sisters in the Lord. And these three commands ultimately they support a clear preaching a preaching of what God has given because that is what we need to know. That is what we need to know. That is what corrects us so that we can walk rightly before the Lord. And with God's word, we see that there is this corrective nature to it as it as it takes us from our lives in the flesh to being lives in the spirit. But yet, as we are confronted with the corrective aspect of scripture, often times we don't like that.

It's hard to be corrected. The reality is is folks often get ex get offended, even believers, when it the word exposes sins within their lives. People will get offended when God's word is used to expose the sins they love. And they'll also get offended when it exposes sins that they didn't think they had. And to be honest, I actually find this in my own life. I don't know about you guys, but I want I'm sure you do, too. You want to live after the Lord. You want to put sin out of your life. You want to not walk in the flesh and you want to fight off of that. And you you look at yourself and you evaluate yourself and you say, "Hey, I'm weak in in this area."

And so, you focus in this area and you're working on this area. And what what always gets me is when some brother or sister comes up and says, "John, you're messing up over here." And I didn't see that one and I'm offended by it and my and my flesh wants to fight against it, but yet they're right. And I got to take that. I got to focus off over here because God's word has now exposed it over here. But realize that for a minister of God, he's he's doing this over and over and over again. I was thinking of Pastor Wayne about how many years he's been in ministry and how many people he's taken to the word to try to correct them.

And and you can see as this is done over and over again, how a person might get jaded over time or might get hard to it after a period of time. And so Paul adds the warning here to Timothy is that he's to do it with all longsuffering and doctrine. Longsuffering. It's one of those old English words. Personally, I don't use it. I don't hear it being used, but I actually kind of like it. The Greek simply means to do it with patience. But the idea of longsuffering actually brings out that enduring aspect of of patience, which is what a minister of God is to maintain. He's to maintain, but at the same time, he's he's not to soften what he's maintaining.

He's to hold it according to the doctrine to to write teaching. And so, his patience is directly associated with the the clear continued teaching of God's word. And so there's no softening of the message. Just that constant focus on the truth, patiently waiting in the hopes uh that wherever it's being directed to that there will be growth, spiritual growth, and that there'll be repentance and turning away from sin. For ultimately is God's word where the power comes from. And it's the power that believers need. As Paul continues to encourage Timothy, he brings up a fact that makes it even more important to preach the word now because he says in verse three that that there's only going to be a limited period of time where it will be heard.

In verse three says, "For the time will come where they will not endure sound doctrine." Now, sound is is translating a a Greek word that can also be understood as being healthy. And I actually like that idea. I like the ide the the picture of healthy doctrine. Because just like just like eating, if we eat healthy, we get one result. If we eat unhealthy, we get a different result. Right. I don't know about you, but but I kind of like eating unhealthy. I like brother. I like my cookies. I like my gravy covering everything. I like my fried foods. Right. Right. But we know the consequences if we eat that way.

We're lethargic. We want to sleep. We don't get nothing done. We're weighted down. We're out of breath. We cannot make it up the steps without being out of breath. Right? And the reality is if we continue in unhealthy eating, it's even deadly. Affect it'll shorten our lives. But that picture is also applied to doctrine where unhealthy doctrine has the same kind of effect. It it tears down spiritually. It dulls spiritually. It takes the excitement out of things because you become lazy. We need the the healthy doctrine proclaimed and and Paul notes here that that they won't endure it anymore and that that pictures a person that that now lacks the desire to just put up with sound teaching.

But as Paul uses this word to endure, it also brings out the idea that there must be that intentional effort uh to listening and putting the preaching that we hear into effect. You know, at times where we sit down to listen to sound teaching, sometimes we we struggle with actually listening. We may be tired from work or there may be some other reason that keeps us from wanting to listen. But but as Paul notes here, this enduring aspect with sound teaching takes effort and and paying attention to teaching is not a passive aspect. It's not that you can uh put the uh speaker or put the radio on to a Christian speaker and then just go take a nap.

The idea is to endure, to pay attention, to to be active in our listening so that we can take in what is being taught. But there will come a time where people won't even put up that effort and instead they will choose the easy stuff to listen to and the stuff that addresses the itching of the ears. I don't know if you know anybody that that has itchy ears. I don't get itchy ears, but I know s some people that do and they always kind of crack me up because you you see them and it's bugging them, right? And so they get their finger in there and they just start right and they're just going at it, right?

And they're going at it because they can't satisfy it. It just keeps going. It's tickling them in there. And so they're just d right. And that's the idea here. It's this this they they have this this this itch and they can't satisfy it. 2 Timothy 3:7 says, "Ever learning, never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." And so what do they do then? Then they heap to themselves teachers. That's a wonderful translation of the Greek because it gives a gives that image of them just stacking on top of each other, one after the other after the other, idea after idea after idea, stacking, and it's just not satisfying.

It's not sound doctrine. It's not the truth that a Christian needs to hear. It's not going to build them up. Instead, it causes them to wander off into fables and myths, things that have no benefit, things that tear down. And this may sound some like something that's far off or in another church that we don't have to deal with, but as I was thinking about this, and to be honest, it started last week. I just was kind of poked in my heart because there's a a thing that has come up within my life that I have seen grow in popularity within the culture and has come into the church and started to get a pretty good foothold within the church today.

And it came to my mind when pastor Peter spoke last week about the sufficiency of scripture. And I greatly appre appreciated pastor uh Peter's preaching last week. And as he spoke, if you were here, you could almost feel the excitement in the room as Pastor Peter spoke about how God's word is enough for the believer. And we even had a number of amens beside Pastor Andy last week. And uh it was exciting and and and I was excited, too. But at the same time, I was thinking, gosh, there's this one aspect that just keeps coming in and it challenges that truth. But God's word is sufficient. Flip back over again to 2 Timothy chapter 3:1 17.

there says that the man of God may be perfect. Speaking of God's word, scriptures, man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Pastor Peter spoke this last week and he was right on. He said that the the word of God is there for the man as he noted not to be perfect as in sinless but in that complete aspect of everything that a a man or woman should be fully furnished to do the things that they were called to do as a believer to be fully completed as necessary to live how you were called to live. Scripture is enough and you get the same idea in second Peter 1:3. Let me read that to you.

It says, "According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, God has provided for us all things for life." God's word uh gives us what we need to do to know how to not just live godly, but how to live. Now, when it says that God has provided all things that pertain to life, it's not speaking of the God's word telling us how to set a bone or do stitches or anything like that. But what it's telling us is everything that we need within our within our spirit, within our um being to know how to live, to be full, and to be uh filled with joy and to be a person who wants to love others is given to us.

The believer has been given the Holy Spirit. The believer has been given God's word to pour over. And those two things come together to guide the believer and to encourage the believer so that there is a life of joy. And what has come out into our world that has challenged this has been this counseling idea, this secular counseling. I'm going to say a couple things here and I just if if if if you're bothered by what I say, I'd ask you just to let me finish. Um and then then maybe evaluate what I say. But we get bombarded by counseling outside of the church. They tell us that there's something else that we need.

That the Bible isn't sufficient. That science has provided additional helps for how we are to live and has the answers for our mental state, our mental health. But there's a huge problem with that. And partly there's a problem just because these secular counselor theories don't agree with each other. I had an opportunity to study them for a little bit and I went through 13 different um counseling theories and none of them agree with each other. Every one of them takes on a different understanding of the condition of humanity. But really the real issue with all of them is that none of them view sin is how God describes it.

None of them. None of them take into consideration that the new life that is in a believer sets them apart from the rest of humanity. gives them a power that that the rest of humanity doesn't have, allowing them to not be taken over by the rule of rule of sin. We've been made alive in Christ. And what this then means is then is that they're illprepared to to deal with a believer. Every single one of them lacks the understanding of sin's impact on a believer or the believer's victory of power over sin. And they do not realize or take into account that a healthy believer's life will have joy and a healthy believer's life will be expressing love to one another or to others.

And the Bible teaches that if a believer lacks this joy, lacks this love, it's ultimately a spiritual issue. Now, we can have physical issues that play over into the spiritual. We recognize that. I get hungry. I get grumpy, right? And just the hunger make drives it, right? But yet I can make the conscious effort and do things to fight against the hunger or not to not to get grumpy, I should say. And Paul was the New Testament example of this. Paul writes that he had a thorn in his flesh. He had a a painful ongoing issue, something that wouldn't go away. And and and he prayed about it. And he prayed about it multiple times for it to go away.

And instead of having it go away, God gave him his word, expressed his word to Paul and showed Paul first of all that God's grace was sufficient for him. What he had in in God was enough to overcome or to deal with this ongoing pain, but also that that pain had a purpose. It was the purpose to keep him humble. And there's no evidence that that that pain was ever taken out of Paul's life. There's every evidence that it continued on. He suffered with that, whatever that was. And yet despite that the suffering because he understood its purpose and because he understood that he had enough within God to know how to live.

He writes in 2 Corinthians 12:9 this regarding it. He says most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my infirmities. Paul confronted with the fact that he's broken and it's not going to get fixed is glad to say that he glorifies in it. Paul with the right understanding being motivated by the spirit can have joy even in the suffering. And and let me give you a second example with the book of Phil Philippians. If you read the book of Philippians, you'll find that this book is constantly referencing joy. In fact, this book is considered Paul's book of joy because of how many times he talks about it.

But realize that Paul is writing this book while he's under arrest, knowing that he may be executed. That's a stressful situation, folks, right? To be arrested, removed from your your your activities that you do, that you fulfill yourself with, uh, held down, how I think he was house arrest, if I remember correctly, constantly being watched by the guards, and at the same time realizing that your life could be taken. That's stressful. But for Paul, it was even worse because not only was this going on, he also had men that were on the outside that were preaching and preaching in a manner uh with the intention to try to make Paul's life more difficult.

The brothers that were out there that should be supporting him, that should be coming in and and and encouraging Paul in the situation were instead on the outside trying to stir things up for him on purpose. And I suspect they were su they were successful because Paul knows what they're doing. And I suspect they did make Paul's life more difficult. But what does Paul do? He he's still not not shaken. He he rejoices because the message of the gospel is still being preached with the right mindset. He he still understands and he can still rejoice within all of this. You see, as believers, we're not any different than Paul.

Paul was was very very smart. He was very very well educated. Uh but he was very fallen. He was a huge sinner and he admits that and so are we. And the power that Paul had to to be able to live and to live with joy in his life despite the difficulties is the same thing that you and I have. And we can live that way too. And I go back to what Pastor Peter said last week is that God's word is sufficient for life. Amen. Now, I realize that that we get bombarded by the counseling aspect. I realize you military guys get it and the the college people get it as well. And um everywhere you go, pretty much if you're in some larger organization, you're going to get it.

And I'm not recommending at all that you if you're seeking counseling to stop. And if somebody's put you on a program, I'm not recommending you to go off the program. I'm I'm going to tell you right now, stay on it. My point in bringing this up is to have you now start evaluating where you are and the issue that you have according to God's word. And to be honest, sometimes we can't do that ourselves. I I so often think of Hebrews chapter 3 where it speaks to the fact that that um uh shucks, I'm going to draw a blank on the verse, but basically uh that we we we need one another to be able to expose the deceitfulness of sin.

And the reality is with these struggles, we actually need others. And so if we're struggling in an area, we need to ask good godly men and we need to uh reach out to even the pastors. And to be honest, I actually did that this morning. I saw uh Loy, I don't know if you guys know Loy shows up once a year. Love that couple and saw that brother there and I was thinking about some things and I was like, "Hey, can I walk you to your car? Kind of struggling with something. I want to get your feedback." And I super appreciated his feedback and it was greatly encouraging. And that's the kind of the idea that we need to follow.

Because God's word is sufficient and he's given us one another to help us work through the issues and to identify the things that are wrong, to identify the things that are out of whack we may have in our lives so that we can live rightly so that we can have the joy in our life. God's word is sufficient. Back to our passage on verse number five. Paul continues and he and he reaches these final commands to Timothy and he says there in verse 5, he says, "But watch thou in all things." He says, "Timothy, watch yourself." Literally, this means be disciplined. Be disciplined in all things, Timothy. Not just one, not just two.

Focus in all areas of your life that you may remain disciplined. endure afflictions, suffer the hardships, Timothy, that come with ministry. You know, it's Timothy's heart and it was Paul's heart and it's every other good ministers of God's heart of of God's word. It's their heart to desire to want to see people grow in their faith. But believe it or not, that desire actually brings suffering because you want to see somebody grow and you and you you're excited for them and they start to grow and you you're praying for them and then they then they crash and they fall back into sin and you're like, "Oh."

And then you have those times where you where you want to encourage the best you can and you and you speak to somebody and you humble yourself before them and they and they walk away and then they they turn against you or then you seek in your best effort to want to follow after the Lord and to minister in the right way, but then you fail yourself and you finding that you've been too harsh or you've been too soft and you've done something and now you have to deal with the consequences of it. Paul's encouragement to Timothy is with all within all of this is to endure. Endure it, Timothy, but don't simply uh sit around and look at it, but be proactive instead.

And he says there to do the work of an evangelist. The translation here makes us think that this is something Paul has added in addition to preach the word or that they're two separate ideas, but really they're basically the same thing. to be the evangelist or do the work of an evangelist literally is just to preach the gospel, proclaim the gospel. And and in preaching the word, that's the same idea. And what Paul doesn't define for Timothy is the audience that he's to do both of these commands to. And ultimately, the the minister of God and Timothy here is to preach to preach to believers and to preach to unbelievers, but also to preach the gospel to believers and preach the gospel to unbelievers.

Unbelievers need it to come to salvation. And believers need to hear it to be encouraged that we may walk rightly in what we have been given, to recognize what we've received, to recognize what we have been rescued from, that we're motivated to live out our life as we've been called to live. And finally, in his last command, he says, "Make full proof of thy ministry." Timothy, fully carry out your ministry. Do not shrink back. Do not get sidetracked. Preach the word. Amen. May we have ministers that continue on in the church that fully preach all of God's word. May they proclaim it as meant to be proclaimed. And may we never grow weary of healthy doctrine. May we never grow weary of the doctrine that brings salvation, the doctrine that shows us how to live, and ultimately the doctrine that brings us to perfection.