Introduction
This term, our focus has been on giving our preachers freedom to discern where God is leading them.
There’s been a remarkable sense of cohesion so far.
We’ve heard strong encouragement to love one another as the church has never done before. We’ve heard a consistent message of the gospel's value and the need to share it with our friends, families, neighbours, and colleagues.
This sermon falls in that context.
Pastoral Epistles…
When I started to think and pray about what God wanted me to share, I was drawn to a set of books in the New Testament, often called the Pastoral epistles.
That’s a big posh word.
It essentially means personal letters from Paul (a major figure in the early church) to one of the people he’d taken under his wing.
The pastoral epistles are:
- Brimming with fatherly warmth
- Oozing with Godly wisdom
- Full of solid advice
This morning’s sermon is centred on Paul’s second letter to Timothy (2 Timothy)
Context of the text
Context is always important.
Whenever we read scripture, we need to ask questions about the text:
- Who’s writing it?
- Why are they writing it?
- When are they writing it?
- Who are they writing it to?
Picture the scene…
It’s the late 1st century, probably between AD 64 and 68. Paul, a Roman citizen and a devout Jew, met the risen Lord Jesus some years earlier. It changed him.
Paul dedicated his life to three things:
- Travelling
- Preaching the gospel wherever he went
- Planting and growing churches in the towns he visits
Paul completes 4 significant journeys as a Christian. We call these his “missionary journeys”.
3 of these are recorded in detail in scripture. The fourth we infer from events in scripture and secondary sources.
Pauls journeys all centre around Asia Minor and Europe.
Paul arrives in a town called Lystra during his 2nd missionary journey. There he’s introduced to a young man called Timothy.
Lystra is a small Roman colony in modern day Turkey. Here’s what it looks like today:
In the late 1st century, it would have been full of Roman Terraced houses and bustling activity.
Timothy grew up with his mum and dad. We don’t know much about his dad other than that he was a Greek. Timothy’s mum and grandmother were believers and raised him in the faith, teaching him the scriptures.
Timothy was your classic young man whose life had been changed by Jesus. When Paul is introduced to Timothy, he takes him under his wing and treats him like a son.
They travel together on Paul’s missionary journeys, preaching the gospel and building churches.
Eventually, they arrive in Ephesus (about 330 miles west of Lystra).
Ephesus has similarities to Lystra in that it was a Roman Colony.
It’s much bigger than Lystra and has a mixed historical heritage as one of the centres of the ancient Greek world.
In fact, there’s a massive temple in Ephesus dedicated to Artemis.
Paul spent about three years in Ephesus establishing and building a church. He eventually left but asked Timothy to oversee the church there.
Paul is really concerned that some of the keen leaders in this church have their own agenda to teach things that contradict the Christian faith.
Eventually, that happens.
Two guys (Hymenaeus and Philetus – 2 Timothy 2:17), stirred up a lot of trouble in the church by teaching all kinds of rubbish that caused the church to suffer divisions. Paul writes a letter to Timothy asking him to be strong and take firm leadership of the church.
He encourages Timothy to utilise that passion Paul first spotted in him to end the false teaching and unite the church under the gospel.
You can read about that in Paul’s 1st letter to Timothy.
Some years later, things are still prickly in Ephesus.
Paul writes to Timothy again. But this time, Paul’s writing for very different reasons.
He mentions the false teachers again, but there’s a more pressing matter. Paul writes the letter from prison in Rome. And Paul knows he’s about to die.
As he sees Timothy like a son, Paul is determined to do 2 things in this letter:
- Convince Timothy to come visit him in Rome before he’s executed
- Encourage Timothy to press on in his ministry after Paul dies.
And it’s this second goal of encouragement that we find ourselves reading this morning.
The Text
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power.
Introduction to the points I want to make:
Paul suggests that times will be tough for Christians.
In order to weather them and be effective Christians, I believe we are called to be:
- Obsessed with the Bible
- Convinced by the Bible
- Rooted in the Bible
What does it mean to be obsessed with the bible?
Like today, Timothy faces people who seem more confident, assertive and self-assured than he does.
And these people are stirring the church in a big way.
They’re trying to teach falsehood.
And Paul doesn’t say to Timothy – Here’s how you win:
- Come up with a clever pop culture illustration
- Learn the rules of debate and use them to convince these men of their wrongs
- Argue based on experience, gut feeling, preference etc.
No. Quite the opposite.
There’s one source of truth—the word of God.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The scriptures are inspired and literally breathed out by God to us.
And it is helpful for us and will thoroughly equip us.
→ Not partially.
→ Not a little bit.
COMPLETELY equip us.
We live in a world that would convince us of many falsehoods.
❌ There is no God.
❌ You are your own truth.
❌ A man or woman can be whoever they determine themselves to be.
❌ We are all basically good. We’re all worthy of heaven. We deserve it because we’re beautiful just the way we are.
❌ Jesus was a nice guy perhaps, but so was mohammed, so was bhuda, so was Ghandi, they all had a grasp of the real truth: Love is love and that’s all that matters.
❌ You can manifest your own reality. Just speak your truth into existence.
These things permeate the world and they permeate the church.
This isn’t new though. It was happening in the 1st century too (albeit different falsehoods).
The antidote remains the same:
All scripture is God-breathed.
It is all-sufficient for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.
The word of God will thoroughly equip us to do everything God calls us to do.
So if you feel ill-equipped to deal with what the world might throw at you against your faith. The solution is to become obsessed with your bible.
Read it.
Pour over it.
Absorb it.
Memorise it.
Let it dwell in you richly.
We are a people of the Book. We know God through the Book. We meet Christ in the Book. We see the cross in the Book. Our faith and love are kindled by the glorious truths of the Book. We have tasted the divine majesty of the Word and are persuaded that the Book is God's inspired and infallible written revelation. Therefore, what the Book teaches matters. Doctrine is important for worship and life and mission. ~ John Piper (intro to the course: Education for Exultation)
How do we become convinced by the bible?
In verse 14, Paul makes an interesting distinction. He distinguishes between learning and conviction.
In other words, it’s not enough just to learn the bible.
We need to be convinced by it.
How?
I think it’s all about prayer.
John Owen, the great 17th Century Puritan wrote some wonderful words to help us unpack what I mean.
we labour in our prayers that he would enlighten our minds and lead us into the knowledge of the truth, according to the work before described. The importance of this grace unto our faith and obedience, the multiplied promises of God concerning it, our necessity of it from our natural weakness, ignorance, and darkness, should render it a principal part of our daily supplications. ←That’s a posh word for “asking of God”.
Especially is this incumbent on them who are called in an especial manner to “search the Scriptures” and declare God's mind in them unto others. (AKA you and me, people called to share the gospel)
And great are the advantages which a conscientious discharge of this duty, with a due reverence of God, brings along with it.
Prejudices, preconceived opinions, engagements by secular advantages, false confidences, authority of men, influences from parties and societies, will be all laid level before it, at least be gradually exterminated out of the minds of men thereby.
And how much the casting out of all this “old leaven” tends to prepare the mind for, and to give it a due understanding of, divine revelations, hath been proved before.
I no way doubt but that the rise and continuance of all those enormous errors which so infest Christian religion, and which many seek so sedulously to confirm from the Scripture itself, are in a great measure to be ascribed unto the corrupt affections, with the power of tradition and influences of secular advantages; which cannot firm their station in the minds of them who are constant, sincere suppliants at the throne of grace.
The language may not be familiar, but the meaning is rich and authentic.
If we approach the Bible prayerfully, longing for God to lead us into truth and help us not fall into error, how much more will God honour his promise to do that?
Without prayer, the bible may feel closed off to us.
Charles Spurgeon once called prayer the golden key that unlocks the scriptures.
Prayer before reading allows us to block out all the external noises. The lies culture tells us, the rubbish we might think about God, the persecutions and oppositions. We can lay all that to one side in prayer, asking God to free our minds from it. Then we can read, learn and share Timothy’s experience of becoming convinced by it.
To be convinced by the scriptures, we need to read them prayerfully.
Is that our habit? Do we set aside time before we read to pray?
Or do we just read?
Finally, we are to be ROOTED in the bible.
How do we remain rooted in the bible?
Let’s look at verses 13-14 really closely.
There’s a contrast Paul is making that’s a bit tricky to see in English.
It’s much clearer when you study the meanings of the words in the original language. But it is still there in English if you look hard enough.
Let’s see if we can spot the distinction:
Verse 13: while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. And Verse 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,
We might read the words, “go from bad to worse” with the same meaning as verse 14’s “continue in”.
In our modern minds, they both might mean: progress from one to another. We might see it as advancing from A to B.
But that’s not what “continue in” means in verse 14.
It’s actually the opposite of progression and advancing in.
Stay put. Abide in. Anchor to. Root yourself in. Fixate on what you have learned.
In other words, don’t move on from it.
We’re to be grounded in the bible.
If you leave the Word, you will, in the end, just conform to the world – to the spirit of this age. This may feel freeing for a moment. But it will make you the slave of every passing fashion – and they are passing faster and faster. ~ John Piper (From article: Building our Lives on the Bible)
How do we stay rooted in the bible?
I think we have to be in it daily.
The less familiar we are with it, the less it grounds us.
We need to depend on the bible like we depend on air, water and food for life.
Does that describe us?
Bringing things down to land.
Paul ends this passage with the phrase:
So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Everything we’ve looked at is to serve a purpose in our lives.
We’re to be
Obsessed with the bible
Convinced by the bible
and Rooted in the Bible
So that we are equipped. For every good work.
in 1646 a synod of Scottish and English theologians came together to write one of the greatest documents I've ever read.
This document, known as the Westminster shorter catechism is formatted in a series of questions and answers.
The most famous of which I'm sure many of us can quote.
Question: What is the chief end of man?
Answer: man’s chief end is to glorify God. And to enjoy him forever.
We're called to enjoy an everlasting relationship with God that permeates every bit of our life.
And as we enjoy that relationship, we're called to glorify him.
By sharing Jesus with the lost.
By loving one another.
What equips us for such good works?
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.