The Faithful Church: Living to Please Our Master (Session 3) - Beacon Summer Retreat August 23, 2025

Alright, hopefully you guys are hanging in there. We just ate. I feel like all we've done so far is we just eat and then we get together for worship. So I'll take on this. It's been good. It's been good. It could be tiring. So hang on. I'm not offended if you start to examine the inside of your eyelids. I used to be offended when I was younger, and then I was reminded, as I'm often reminded of my own failings. Like I remember Seminary Chapel, and I have to confess I fell asleep on some of the greatest preachers of our generation. And uh so it'd be kind of wrong if I'm mad if someone falls asleep on me. Why is this give me difficulties? I'm interested. I did something to it. I apologize. All right.

Well, if you'll turn into Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 2, we'll kind of look at um our passage, and uh we have uh we have talked about, right? Um, a number of things, and um when we're talking about a healthy church, I mean there's so many things in terms of some of the practical implications. I mean, you know, a healthy church has preaching that is uh that is expositional, they're just explaining the scriptures. A healthy church should emphasize genuine and true conversion and not just take everyone's word for it, but we should walk that out with each other so that we're making sure that we are genuinely what we think we are because we believe the same gospel as everybody else, right? And by everyone else.

I don't just mean those in the church, but I mean those in God's right, amongst God's people of all generations. We stand on the same footing of gospel truth as all those that have preceded us. And that's what come the scriptures talk about the faith once, right? Once delivered to all the saints, meaning that that it is the same faith that's from Jude, is the same faith that that has been held generations and generations back, it is still that one faith that trusts in the Lord and in the Lord's provision alone for our salvation. So we have been emphasizing not so much biblical leadership, biblical preaching, biblical, which is all great. Nine marks of a healthy church, wonderful study if you guys haven't walked that through, but so helpful in some practical things.

I've been emphasizing like what I think is kind of the heart of the matter, right? Like what kind of church do we want to be? We want to be a church that's distinct, that stands against the things of the world, and that that is clearly marked by something that is so gospel and Christ-centered that you can walk into other houses of faith, and it doesn't feel like this, right? It doesn't feel like this. You can you can think about other philosophies, but it doesn't, it doesn't play out in the way that they think about life and how they apply things like this. It's so distinct. And then um this morning we looked about it, it should be intentional, like the way that we pursue our faith, why we pursue our faith, how we pursue our faith, and how that looks like as a community, we should be marked by an intentionality, a purposeful, a purposefulness, because that's what we're here to be.

A gathered local community of believers that are a part of each other, right? That that are so integrated that every part of us, when a part of us hurts, then we all hurt. When a part of us celebrate, we all celebrate. And uh as the church grows, one of the things that that I have had to learn to kind of appreciate is the idea of rejoicing with those that rejoice and weeping with those that weep. There have been days and weekends where I preside over a wedding of a young couple and we celebrate that goodness, and then later that evening or the next morning, I need to go and into the house of mourning because you know, someone's dad has passed away, or someone's spouse has passed away, and we go and weep with them, and then we prepare for a funeral.

And so there have been weddings and funerals in the same weekend, and this is all part of the church family. This is all part of the experience that you should be having being a member of a common group that is the church of Christ, the body of Christ here on earth. And so today we're looking at this afternoon, we're looking at the idea of faithfulness, because uh, if if there's anything that should mark uh a healthy church, it's that they are faithful to the cause, to the purposes, and to the truth of the gospel. So if you turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2, we're gonna be looking at 2 Timothy chapter 2. I think you guys read that for your quiet times this morning, which is great, right? We'll be looking at verses 1 through 7.

And as uh you get ready for that, I'll give you one more story. Alright, this one's less connected, but um, but it speaks to at least something of graciousness and the pursuit of trying to do something and not worrying so much about the success of it, but worrying about the faithfulness of it. If you guys never read R. Kent Hughes' um Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome, have you had you read that? That's so good. Like, especially for young leaders, that's so good. And part of it because he's kind of one of my heroes. I love him. Uh, he's a Southern California guy. That makes me love him even more, right? And uh he's he's just one of those cool dudes. I'll tell you one story about him, right?

Because uh he's a is a he was a phenomenal preacher, and uh, but that was all trained into him, right? Um his his father passed away when he was a young boy, and so it just he was you know, he was raised by a single mom, and then uh his his dad's two sisters, so three older women in his life that were kind of his spiritual and social base, right? And so when he went to uh this church in Whittier, um, and he met this youth pastor, like he's like in sixth grade, and that was the first father figure in his life, and the first like spiritual male who just emphasized the scriptures and following Jesus, and he gave his life to the Lord, he got baptized as a young middle schooler, and immediately said, I'm gonna become a preacher, I'm gonna become a pastor, like Pastor Day, or I forget his name, right?

But I'm gonna become like my pastor, my youth pastor. That was his intention, right? Problem was he was by far one of the shyest people that you might ever meet. He said, So in his youth group of only nine kids, and they're all friends because they've all known each other since sixth grade, right? In like seventh, eighth grade, he gets up to read the announcements and it's a piece of paper like this. He's telling us the story. It's uh I think it's in it's in liberating, but he's telling us the story in person, and he says, I'm so I'm so deathly scared of public speaking that I'm reading the announcement to people who know me, like to the nine friends that he has, right? And he says, and the the paper is shaking like this as he's reading, okay?

And then we're we're gonna meet um at the beach for our thing, like he's reading like his announcement like that. And it's amazing how God had used him to become a pastor, right? Over, you know, this huge church um in the Chicago area, and then not only that, but to write books and commentaries and to reach so many people, like you would think that this guy is polished and excellent, but that's not where he began. All he was is a man that's given over to faithfulness. And that book, Ministry uh Liberating Ministry for the Success Ministry was so good because it's his testimony about he church planted out of a megachurch with a hundred people, and that church plant died within a few years. And as it died, so was his faith dying.

He felt like Lord, you just kind of pulled the rug out from under me. I committed myself to this, I trained for this, you blessed everything along the way, and now it's crumbling. And it's like, why would you put me here? You know, and it's a book that's born out of that that that pain, right? That struggle for faith, when he felt like he was trying to be faithful and it all fell apart. And the one thing that he takes away from that is that the key in our spiritual lives is not success, not the way the world defines it. How many people come to your church, how long the church lasts, like what they think of your preaching, right? Like what they think of you, like how much they love you. None of that is the is the the lasting testimony of a healthy church.

If you can make one word for it, it's faithfulness. It's just you do what you do. It's okay, my silly story. All right. I mean, it's a true story, so it's it's silly because its impact on me is much greater than it should be, right? But um, so I was in college, and then we played I am sports. And if you guys have gone to college, you guys, you guys might have an idea of that if you played sports. But what it is, you get a bunch of friends, and then you enter into this league that's created, right? And so UCLA, a bunch of my friends, you know, a bunch of guys at the Bible study, we decide we're gonna play basketball. We can't play A's, right? Because you know, they they they let you rate out like where you want to play because it's super competitive.

The A's are all like these, the football player, like the guys I play on scholarship at UCLA, those guys are playing A's, you know, soccer players, like like these guys that are like amazing athletes. We're not A's, we're not B's because you know none of us played basketball in high school, but we were pretty decent, so we say we'll go we go and C's. And of all the years that we played, there's this one year. And I think it was either my junior or my senior year. There's one year. Our team was pretty good. Our team was pretty good, right? So I would bring up the ball. I know I don't look like a point guard, right? I usually play forward. I was telling one of the brothers, like I always thought I was athletic.

It turned out all I was good at was football. That's what I grew up playing, right? And what that meant was I played every sport like it's football. You know, like the guys taught me how to play tennis, and after a while, I'll just get aggressive. Like, man, this is boring. So I charge the net and I try to hit them with the ball. And if I hit them, right? If I go up the net and I I slam the ball and it hits like my friend, my roommate Jeff, Jeff would be like, oh mad, his eyebrows get like that, and he'd be all mad. And I'm I'm delighted, like, woohoo! You know, I'll lose the game. I don't care. Like, I got you, right? Like, that's how I play everything, including basketball. But I was the only guy that could dribble with both hands, right?

So it's like I brought up the ball, so I was the point guard. And there's one game, and it's not the championship game. I wish it was, then the story would be even better. But it was a semifinals, meaning that if you win this game, you get to play for the championship. And if you win the championship, you know what you win? A t-shirt. This is you see, it's the most plain t-shirt, but it says UCLA, and it says intermurals, or something like that, right? That's the championship. It doesn't even say championship, but you get that t-shirt, right? If you win. And so we're like, dude, this is the closest we have ever gotten to winning a championship. And so come on, guys, we gotta lock it in. It's a good game.

And the other team's pretty good. And my roommate Chris, who's like 6'4, he's playing middle, and I'm just feeding him, he's turning around, hitting every shit. He's on fire. So we're feeding him. Peter, one of the other guys is good shooting outside. So we're looking pretty good, but the other team's pretty good. We're going back and forth. And so we call time out with only about like, I don't know, 20 seconds left or whatever. So we're gonna get last possession. Call timeout, we take it up up at half court, and then so I gather the team together. I go, okay, boys, this is what we're gonna do, right? We're gonna feed the ball. I'm gonna wait until about 10 seconds. I'm gonna feed it down to Chris.

Chris is gonna turn and shoot. As soon as he releases the ball, everyone crashed the boards. Because if he misses, just get a tip in. If you need to grab it and pull it down, go up quick, right? But just get a tip. That's all we need. We're down by one, so we just need a tip in. We have not just a good shot, but man, this is like we just stick to the plan, and I'll say 80%, we're gonna win this game, right? Like, like we got this, we got this, let's go. Break. And as we're breaking that huddle, then one of the guys, I used to say his name, but then I realized that it's gonna get back to him, right? But it's one of the brothers. Um, I'll just call him JC. That's not Jesus Christ, right? Like that's that's like his name may or not be James something, but we'll just leave it at that, right?

Right? So it is James, and then you know, there's so many Jameses in the world, and you probably won't find it, right? But anyways, James is a little bit on the scrollny side, good brother, younger than us, and he wanted to be part of the team, and um, and um a little a little bit lacking in self-awareness, right? So as we're breaking from the huddle and we're about to bring in the ball, then James goes, Hey ma'am, I haven't played yet. What am I gonna play, right? And I'm like, alright, we gotta be Christian about this, right? Like, all right, James, this is what you do, man. Um, I want you to just throw the ball in. I'll go out and sub it for you. I want you to throw the ball in, put it up to Peter, Peter will be at the at the point at the top, and then same plan, everybody.

Peter's gonna feed it to Chris. Chris is gonna turn and shoot everybody across the boards. That's what you do too, okay, James. He's like, okay, I got it, man. I got the plan to say, great, great. And then I go, I go to the sideline to look, and I go, let's go, boys, let's go, because the ref's whistle, and we're getting ready to run our play. And I'm not sure why, but Peter's taking the ball out. So I did why why is Peter bringing in the ball, right? So he passes the ball in, and James is at the point. And I think the confusion might have been because he's replacing me, right? But I thought I told Peter, hey, you take the point, right? But maybe I didn't. So what happens is James has the ball and he's dribbling not well, right?

And it's clear that he's one of those that he's gonna dribble like this, like because he can't, he doesn't have a left, so he's just gonna try to guard off, you know, the defender this way. So at the top of the key, and so the defender realizes, like, all right, this guy's not much of a threat. So he's kind of giving him space, right? And looking to see where he could kind of help double. He's leaning towards doubling on Chris. This all makes sense, right? And if you're a basketball guy, you this all everything I'm saying makes perfect sense to you, right? That's what he's doing. And so James is kind of panicked and he's dribbling, and the clock is ticking down. It gets to 10 seconds, and then so I start yelling, James, throw the ball in to Chris.

Throw the ball in, throw it in, throw it in. We're just and everyone's just yelling from the sideline, like, toss the ball in. And it's like 10 seconds, and he's panicking. He's trying to, he's trying to throw it, but he's not sure that he has an open lane, and Chris has his arms up and he's like, you know, doing this and stuff, and he's dribbling, he's dribbling. It's like eight, seven, and he tries to, he tries to drive the lane. And we're like, no, no. And he dribbles it off his foot, and the ball is rolling down on the ground through the key. And it's like four, three, two, bang, and the ball goes out of bounds. And we're just all staring. Like, I can't believe we didn't even get a shot up.

And in this complete lack of uh of self-awareness, James goes, Oh, great game, guys. And you can imagine all of us are like, oh man. And then you have to go greet the other team. We're just like, oh yeah, hey, nice game. Like we're just kind of like, we can't believe what happened. Nice game. Hey, nice game, guys. Nice congratulations. Nice thing. We just all just kind of walk out of Holly Pavilion. We didn't know what to do. Like we didn't know how to react. I'll say on James's part, the thing I like is he wasn't fixated on success. We were fixated on success. That crushed us. And we wanted to crush him, right? Like we were, we were like, I can't believe it. So every once in a while, you know, some of those guys, uh, everyone's kind of spread out.

They're in other parts of the country, but every once in a while, for someone's wedding or something, we'll be all together. Someone's spirit would be out together, and one of the bros would go, hey, hey, do you remember the I am game? And we all know what we're talking about. You're like, yeah. Is James here? I tell you that story because a lot of our perspective on what is successful, what is not, um, depends on what you choose to fixate on, right? Listen, it like all the other years, if we didn't make the playoffs, we would have said, Hey, it was a good season, right? And if you're if you're a fan of a sports team, right? If your team makes it to the playoffs, right, and they and they exit, it's reasonable to go, dude.

That was a pretty good season, especially if your team wasn't expected to be there. But if you're a fan of the Dodgers and they keep losing, right? To these to these underperforming teams, it drives me nuts. Why? Because my expectation is the success part of it. It's not the grind. Christian, one of the best things you could teach yourself is about faithfulness, and faithfulness is not about success, it's about the grind. It's about doing those little things and doing them well, because that's what is true success in the eyes of the Lord. This passage comes to us, right, in the midst of Paul teaching Timothy about what it means to prioritize the most important things in his ministry. There's a lot of things that we mentioned in 2 Timothy, is one of my favorite books because so rich.

And it's one of the few books, the pastoral epistles, but in particular, 2 Timothy is so filled. I said that most, the vast majority of the New Testament commands are given to you as y'all's, right? Second person plural. This will encounter some, the second person singular. He's talking to Timothy, but there is clear application for all of us. So take a look at 2 Timothy 2, 1 through 7. Let me read it to you, and then we'll unpack it. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses in trust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first chair of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Let's pray.

Would you open the word to our souls to our hearts? Lord, even as we're talking about from Colossians 2, Lord, may we may we allow the word of Christ to dwell us richly, richly, Lord, so that it pervades our thinking and colors our attitudes.

They're not where they should be. And it's because we're feeding our minds with the wrong things, with the wrong expectations, the wrong desires, the wrong intentions. Would you would you correct us, Lord, to think better about why we are here and why this church exists and what your purposes are and how you would be most glorified in this body of believers. And Lord, the word faithfulness keeps coming up to us, and we ask that that would be indelibly etched into the fabric of our souls, into the personality of this body, so that we might stress faithfulness and not merely external success. We praise you for this gift to look to your word now in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So this is Timothy, right?

Paul's protege, his his young child in the face of, in fact, in verse one here, he refers to Timothy as his child. And in verse one, there's an emphasis, I think, this idea of being strengthened, but strengthened particularly in the grace of Jesus Christ. He says, You then, my child. Term of endearment, right? When we call each other brothers. Sometimes, like uh in moments of crisis, right? I've had uh certain sisters I can think of in the body of Christ who've gone through some some very difficult moments in their lives. And I'll I'll speak to them and I'll say, listen, sis, right? They're not my sisters. I don't even have a sister. I'd probably be a bad brother to good sisters, right? But nevertheless, I speak to them as as they are my sister, and and and some of them had said that was so significant because it's so helpful.

I I learned that from um from the hemorrhaging woman. You remember that story? I can't even remember exactly where in the gospel that is, but but remember like uh uh this this woman who's had this this bleeding that makes her unclean, right? I mean, I don't know if we really fully realize what's happening there, but she comes because this Jesus can heal, and she believes if she could just touch the hem of his robe, his outer garment, his jacket as he's passing by, she might be healed. And she does, and she's healed immediately, to the degree that Jesus says power is gone out for me. Who has done this? And the disciples like, Jesus, are you serious? Like we're walking through this crowd, everybody's touching you.

And you're saying that someone touched you, who's new touch? We don't know. And then she, in humility and in somewhat trepidation, says, you know, bows down and says, it was her. And then he calls her, daughter, your faith has made you whole. If we don't appreciate what's going on, she, as a woman who has some kind of a hemorrhaging, right? It's either like you know, she has um vaginal bleeding or some kind of her menstruation is awkward, like it just keeps going or something like that. That makes her unclean. Think about the Jewish custom, the Old Testament law concerning that. You have any kind of a discharge of blood on a regular basis, that makes you unclean. So you'd have to, you'd have to live apart from your family, right?

You you'd have to live separately. And if if it stops, you have to go get checked by the priest and all that stuff. And then when they clear you, you're not unclean, you can come back in. So she has been socially, and according to the text, she was she was seeking a remedy for decades. So the entire her entire life, the vast majority of her adult life, she'd have been separated from family, she'd been separated from community, she's kind of like amongst like the lepers, she's kind of outside, she's unclean, she's not welcome, right? She she has no part in this community, and here's Jesus, and she's convinced if I just touch his his jacket, his outer garment, I'll be here. And she is. And his first word to her, his daughter.

She has not been called daughter by a father or mother since she's had this issue because she hasn't been around them. They might have passed away by this point. She's not been called sister by even her siblings because she hasn't been around them. She hasn't been welcoming. He calls her daughter. It's like he knows. And so when Paul here is saying, my child, it's a nice thing, but it's not just, it's not us going like, hey, what's up, bro? Right? We call each other bros, that's great. But this has this intonation where Paul is saying, if there is a child that is my spiritual, this is him. He is saying something precious, and it's meant to leave an impression upon Timothy, like this. This is a spoken message of grace for you.

Because I love and I cherish you. So whatever he has to say, and whatever Jesus says after my daughter, right, that's gonna hit her. That's gonna hit Paul's gonna hit Timothy, right? Right at the heart, and is gonna leave a lasting impression. And his command to him is be strengthened by the grace that in Jesus that is in Jesus Christ. There's so many things. I I'm a student of scripture, and what I mean by that is not that I'm like this super genius about old old you know, old Testament, New Testament languages, I mean like I read something like that, and I go, like, man, what is that supposed to mean? If, like, if I if uh if an older, one of my elders, one of my older guys came to me and said, Nam, you know, I love you, and I want to encourage you with this, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

I think I'm like, uh, yeah, I'm all in for that. What exactly do you mean by that, right? It's like it's like I like like what we try to define being filled by the spirit, like it's like when I walk away from a good meal and I say, Man, I'm full. I mean that I'm satiated, I'm good, I have the energy, the nutrients I need, and then I'm satisfied with it. And it influences how I can move about and what I could do physically, is spiritually speaking, that's what the spirit's feeling should be. Well, in that same kind of way, I'm trying to think through what does it mean to be strengthened passively to receive strength by the grace that is in Jesus Christ. And I think what Paul means by this is one, your strength only comes from understanding and walking in that grace that you have received from Christ Jesus.

Let's walk this out a little bit. When we say grace, what do we mean? And the classic and helpful definition is it's it's unmerited favor, right? We can distinguish grace from mercy, and that mercy is not getting what you deserve, right? Grace is getting what you cannot possibly deserve. And here's the slight difference. And again, scripture doesn't always make that strong distinction. I'm just making a distinction so that we can think about this. When we speak of mercy and not getting what we deserve, it's kind of like, you know, if the police officer pulls me over, you know, because I'm driving too fast, and then he comes over to the window. It's been forever since I see this is one of those illustrations, Kathy's gonna say.

Say, hun, you're making it sound like you get pulled over all the time or something. So, yeah, I haven't been pulled over, I don't know, in a couple decades. But nevertheless, like as a Christian, when I have been pulled over, I know why. You know? Um, and you know, like uh, like we have police officers in the room. If you've ever had to pull someone over something, like the first instinct to go, oh, why did you pull me over? Like, like to act out innocent, I don't. Like, like I remember the last time I got pulled over by a police officer, and he's like, he's like, sir, do you know why I pulled you over? I go, Yeah, I was kind of going fast. I was going like 75, you know, and uh um that's it.

Like I don't feel like I need to make an excuse. Yeah, it's because I was probably going like 75, right? And he's like, Yeah, you're you're going kind of fast. I said, Yeah, sorry about that. Right? And then it's like that's fine, right? And then we continue from there. But but if, right, like the police officer, and this is what happened the last time, it was like 20 something years ago. But he's he says to me, he goes, Okay, can you slow down? And I say, Okay, I'll I'd slow down. And he goes, All right, I'm gonna let you go. That's mercy. Like, I deserve that ticket. I was going above the speed limit. He's he's righteous. If he writes that ticket, I could be all be all upset, but he's right, right?

That's a righteous ticket. Like, I deserve that penalty. And then, so, you know, if he lets me go, that's mercy. Grace is deeper, more costly. Grace is you having cost the life of the king's son, and then the king, not just giving you a pardon, like, I'm gonna forgive you of that. But you know, where are you staying? Why don't you come into our household? Why don't you let me look after you? See, that goes far beyond just mercy would be him saying, Listen, you're reckless and foolish, but I'm gonna give you a second chance, right? Grace is saying you don't deserve anything. You you deserve the pit of hell. But why don't you come in and why don't you find out what it's like to be in this proper family?

Grace is different. And I think what Paul is saying is that Timothy, of all the things that you find and you draw strength in, I think Timothy was pretty sharp, right? He is a prodigy of Paul. I think it suggests, like first, 2 Timothy, some of the commands suggest maybe he was a little bit on the shy timid side. That might be possible. But he was a leader, he went to the fusion church, he accomplished much, right? And he was trustworthy through and through. And so there's a lot of good things that Timothy is, and I think Paul is trying to remind him, you know where the deepest part, the well of your strength spiritually speaking, comes from. You're abiding in the grace of Jesus Christ. You're remembering what it means that his grace has been sufficient for you.

This is like us speaking to our souls and reminding ourselves of the gospel and the fact that we are his.

You guys know that book? That's a good one. Short one. You should read that. It's fantastic. And in that, Randy makes the case like, why is it that grace and truth seem paradoxical to us? They seem like on the opposite spectrum. Like if there's a church, a community that emphasizes truth, people think that they're not very gracious. And if another community of believers they emphasize grace, they tend to kind of be fudgy on truth, right? And that's kind of true. And this whole thing is the weird thing is in John 1, Jesus is described, right, as him who has his flesh. He walked among us, we beheld his glory. And he said, and grace and truth characterize that man, Christ Jesus. He was known for both graciousness and for truth.

His people should be strengthened in the power of grace and truth. Maybe another way to kind of understand this is what would be the opposite of this. In other words, if Paul didn't say, Timothy, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. What would be the opposite? If you said something that was the opposite of that, what would that sound like? It would sound like this. Find your strength in your own capacity to be righteous, to be holy, and to be an example to everybody. That is exactly the opposite of what he's telling Timothy. What do we get from that as a church? I think what we get from that as a church and as individual Christians is I think the emphasis that God would place upon us to be useful to him.

It begins with understanding that whatever spiritual strength we have, it's not in ourselves. It's not in our diligence, it's not in like how blessedly intelligent I am, right? It is in the fact that Jesus Christ has been gracious to us, and his grace doesn't end. He didn't just say, I'm gonna give you a presidential pardon so that you know you can't be charged with this crime. I'm gonna give you more, I'm gonna adopt you in as my child, and I give you everything that you can possibly need. Listen, as a church, um, I would encourage you to think of this. Uh you guys heard a theological triage? It's our molar term, it's a good term. And the idea of triage is like you go to the emergency room.

I took my son to the emergency room because uh they're horsing around, and uh my older son head butted him in the nose, and his nose is bleeding. And I was positive, well, it wasn't possible. I was almost, I was 90% positive. I'm not a medical expert, so how would I know? But I was like, uh man, it's alright, man. He didn't break your nose, it just bled a little bit, right? And he's like, dude, I think it's like it's a crooked. And I felt it, it didn't feel crooked. And I was like, oh, ah, it's still nothing, man. And then my wife was like, let me just take him to the emergency room and just say, All right, you know, I go and I drive and take him and they check him out. Yeah, it's nothing. I was correct, right?

But here's the part I'm trying to get to. You go to the emergency room, but they triage you. What that means is that you go, they take your vitals, they ask you what's wrong, so yeah, he got his nose in, you know, and it's it feels a little bit crooked and say, okay, is it still bleeding? No, it's not bleeding. On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it? It's only about three. Oh, so it's not that bad. Okay, sit down. And then these other guys come in. A guy comes in like 30 minutes after us, and he's like, hey, I'm having a hard time breathing. You know, my chest is kind of constricted, and this and that. He goes right in. And I'm like, man, what's your problem, dude? We've been waiting here.

Now I don't complain. Why? Because that guy is in a life or death situation. So I get that. That's what it means to triage something, to prioritize based on the most essential and absolute need. Theological triage is this. At level one, the highest level, the most significant level, it's what we have to agree upon for us to be Christians. Who God is, who Jesus Christ is, that he's a second person of the Trinity, the Trinity itself, right? That he died on a cross in substitutionary death, the gospel itself, right? That level, if you and I don't agree at that level, at least one of us isn't a Christian, right? And so that there is no fellowship with that. The second level, though, is the ecclesiological level.

It what divides us as a church. Things like baptism. Our Presbyterian brothers, they're genuine Christians. Or some of them, right? I mean, I'm sure there's bad Presbyterians too, but right, like I have Presbyterian pastor friends, they're my good friends. And I and I believe wholeheartedly we we preach the same gospel, right? But when it comes to baptism, we make fun of each other, right? Actually, I make fun of him, right? Because you know, I could get accepted into his membership, which I feel is so like lopsided, right? Because I believe the same gospel, I got baptized as a believer, but I got baptized, so they'd accept that. He can't become a member of my church. Why? Because he baptizes an infant.

And he baptizes infants. And in my vocabulary, that's not baptism, right? And so here's something that we both believe very strongly. We're convictional about it, right? We believe this is what the church should do or not do. It divides us as a church, but we're still brothers and sisters in Christ, right? We're still brothers in Christ. Because at the top level, we still hold to the same God, the same gospel, etc. And then level three, that's the tertiary or the or that's the level of liberty. That's you and I could disagree about something still be at the same church, right? That's like everything from like uh, you know, should should women wear long dresses instead of pants. That was, I mean, ladies, like, sisters, right now, you would think, oh, what a ridiculous question.

But depending on which part of the world you grew up in, or what part of the US you grew up in, like 30, 40 years ago, that was a legit, like solid Bible teaching Christians would say that women shouldn't be wearing jeans or pants, or you should think twice about wearing jeans, that's very worldly. Not just girls, but guys too, right? All kinds of weird stuff like that. And on that, we can like disagree about some stuff and still be at the same church and be members of one another. Now, listen, if that person presses that and pushes that up to level two, we obviously can't be at the same church. If he pushes that up to level one and says you can't be a Christian unless you stop wearing, you know, jeans, then obviously we can't we can't even call each other into fellowship, right?

But liberty, like, I don't know, like what might you do? Maybe you smoke cigars after you play around the golf. I got pastor friends that do that. I'm like, dude, that's weird, man. Like, what's so exciting about that, right? He's like, You want to pull? No. Like, that's just put smoke in my mouth. Why? I mean, okay, you know, like if you enjoy, that's fine. And we can still have fellowship. You know, if you have wine with uh with with your meal, and I don't, again, I'm not offended by that. That's why. And we still be members of the same church. Why that helps is it helps me to be gracious to all the levels. So I do run across someone that is highly charismatic, Presbyterian charismatic, right, and believes in all these things that I don't hold to.

I don't call them unbelievers. When I was a young Christian, my background is a little more fundamental, um, a fundamentalist, and so um when I when I find out Christians or meet Christians and they say they don't believe in the inerrancy of scripture, I was like, wait, wait, hold on a second. Like, because to me that was like level one. Like, like, wait, if you don't if you don't hold to the inerrancy of scripture, maybe you're not a Christian, right? There can be good Christians who don't hold to key doctrines. That's level two, as I understand it. He he can't be a member of my church, and I don't want to be a member of his church, right? But he can believe the gospel, and he can see he'll be a fellow believer, and he's welcome to take communion if you visit my church, right?

It lets me be gracious to people that are different from me, because I'm I'm thinking in ways that are about like what is it? I'm triaging that which is most significant in terms of our relationship. I think Paul is trying to tell Timothy to be strengthened by the grace of Christ and not by your own righteousness or your own capacity or your own giftedness. Find the grace of Christ to be so sufficient for you that you have capacity to be strong in any circumstance. Interpersonally, I know I'm going all over the place, right? But interpersonally, do you realize that it is the gospel and the grace of Jesus Christ that is meant to supply you with the strength to handle people that are difficult?

I have a particular um, like in my my parents are already with the Lord, um, but my dad has one sister left. Um, and uh she's kind of losing it mentally a little bit. She's in Gardena, so I go down to help her a lot. And there's times when she's accused me of calling her and saying that I hate her. And I say, really? Well, why would I, why would I do that? And she's like, No, don't you remember you said, how dare you say that to me? I said, Well, I'm, I mean, I didn't say it, but okay. Like, you know, like I feel like I shouldn't apologize to you because I didn't actually say that, Andy, but I just want you to know that I wouldn't say that to you. Like, like I don't I don't have a reason to hate you.

Do I? Like, did you do something to me? Oh, you feel guilty about that? Like we have these weird conversations because she's a little bit a little bit loopy and stuff. And the thing is, if I needed her to write to affirm truth, if I needed her to acknowledge that I'm I'm right and she's wrong, that relationship won't last, right? If I'm like, listen, I didn't do that, stop bugging me and telling lies, right? Like we could cut off that relationship. In that same way, if you need like your friend, your coworker, whoever, if you in the fear of man, if you feel like I need them to acknowledge me, I need them to respect me, I need that person to love me, then you are in bondage to that need. And in your own strength, you have no capacity to say, you know, the only capacity you might have is I'm just gonna get more aggressive, and I'm gonna demand that of them, and if they don't give that to me, then we're done.

What Paul's telling Timothy and what Paul tells you and what Paul would desire to be characterize in the leadership and throughout the church body is to be strengthened by grace. Meaning, like you know who you are in Christ. You you do need love. And you know who loves you? God loves you. How do you know Christ died on the cross for you? Right? You are affirmed. You belong to the Lord. You are you are significant to him, and no matter what happens in the course of this life or whether or not anyone else notices it, if Christ died for you, he loves you tremendously. I am always reminding myself, especially if I'm dealing with someone that's very difficult, that if that person's a Christian, I believe their testimony, as much as I love that person or struggling to love that person, I need to remember Jesus loves that person a ton.

Way more than I could ever love that person. And so if my Savior loves that person, I need to at least give him that grace to say, well, you're beloved by our Savior. And we could disagree about this, and we may not be able to get along about this area, but I should treat you well because you're a brother of Christ, because you're a sister in Christ. I think that's what he's telling Timothy to be, to be strengthened by grace. Man, if that would settle in on you as a culture as a church, that speaks the gospel in volumes greater than whatever I could preach from the pulpit, right? Because that's just what the church feels like. So we do have regularly people that apply for membership, right?

That we have to say, listen, we can't recommend you for membership here. Like, like you hold to to infant baptism. You grew up in the Presbyterian church. Um we don't believe that's baptism. And we're not, I'm not mad at you, and I'm not convincing you. If you if you're willing to walk this out in your study with us, we're welcome you to do that. But it sounds like you're convinced, and if you're convinced, man, you should find a good Presbyterian church that you love, right? That you can find fellowship in. We're not the only body of believers in the world. I'm sure there's a good one. We could recommend one to you, right? And we turn them away. Um we recently, in the recent membership thing, we have to turn away a brother that seemed excellent, but he was he was fully committed, like he prays, um, he prays in the spiritual language of tongues that he, you know, he believes that the Lord speaks to him and said, like all this stuff that we don't hold to, and we just explain to him, brother, we love you, and we believe that you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, but you shouldn't be a member here, right?

Like, find a good charismatic church that you love, like commit to them, right? And and and and and exercise your faith. Live with people graciously, be strong in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the grace that he gives you. And that means that you are, right, stronger than you should be. Because it's not about your natural influence, not about your natural talent, not about any of those things. You can be fully convictional and be thoroughly kind. So going back to Randy Alcourt and that Grace Truth Paradox, great book. Have you ever read that book? That's an old book. You should get as that's so good. It's truly short. He tells a story, he's in Portland. He does a story about how, so this is written back when it wasn't LGBTQ plus plus plus plus, right?

It's it was just it was just uh Gallup, gay and lesbian association, right? And they were gonna pick it as church because he he taught against you know homosexuality, right? That was sin. So there was this group, they organized, they came, you know, they're gonna come on a Sunday, and so they find out about it. The community finds out about it, and so Randy and his elders they meet together and say, How should we handle this? What should we do this coming Sunday? They're supposed to come and pick it. And then they decided, the elders decided, let's put out tables with bagels, juice coffee, and let's tell our members to engage them and see if they'll see, you know, hey, you live in Portland too?

Like, where do you live? Where do you work? Like, and just engage them and let them see that we're not threatened by the fact that they have chosen sin, and and we're not backing down from the truthfulness of that. We just want to let them know, like we're not the devils that you think we are, right? Like, like we are gonna speak truth to you, but just so you know, we continue. We we think of you as a neighbor in this community. So that's what they chose to do. Well, there's other conservative churches who are kind of counter-protest, these protesters, and when they showed up, and Randy and his elders sort of, hey, listen, listen, we're gonna engage with them, and this engagement was happening.

They showed up and surprised to like, you know, a welcome, welcome tables of of you know, whatever, coffee and and bagels, and and so they're just engaged and they're having these good conversations, and then these guys, these other Christian guys, they get mad, like, how dare you engage with the world and stuff like that. And so they leave all Huffy and Puffy and angry at Randy and their church, etc. The net result of that is the person that organizes this young lady. She gets together with Randy and says, Hey, can I meet you for coffee? And so he does. And he says, She just spills out like the her entire life story about how she grew up in a conservative church, how when she came out, her parents disowned her, how it's been a hard life, and she's not even sure if she believes in this cause anymore, but she's too invested.

This is what she does. And Randy said that first conversation, he just listened to her, and he said, Listen, man, I I feel like you're in a lot of pain, and I just want you to know and share the gospel with her briefly. And so you're always welcome to connect with me. In fact, if you're open to it, we'd love to invite you over. I'd love to invite you over to my home. My wife would love to meet you, and it'd be great for us. And so they began a friendship, and over the course of the next couple years, she became a Christian, and she's now a believer, married, I think, to another pastor, right? Like that, like it's like that kind of story. It's amazing. And it's because Randy is not trying to minimize truth, and that's not what Paul is saying.

He's saying, though, that where the strength comes from, where the power of the gospel comes from is the fact that you're leaning in on the grace that you have already been provided by Jesus Christ. Who you are in Christ is sufficient to take you through anything. So that's the foundational basis. That's where we start in graciousness. That's why that's why it's one one phrase, but it begins, the whole thing part two point to is to entrust this gospel, this grace to others in the body of Christ. Look at point two, and what verse two, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, and trusted faithful men who'll be able to teach others also. It's kind of I I wonder exactly what Paul is talking about in terms of what he has, what he has given to Timothy, what Timothy has heard from him.

Because at first I want to say something about like his ordination. The man, maybe it's it's it's Paul, because he says in the presence of many witnesses, like affirming Timothy, right, publicly that he should be doing the gospel ministry. That's possible, right? But he is supposed to pass this on to other men. So in that case, if that's what Paul means, then it would be that Timothy should likewise be laying on hands of future leaders. Again, that's possible. I'm I'm not mad at that, and if you hold to that, that that's perfectly good with me. But I feel like there's like the way that he says it, it sounds like there's more. What you have heard from me, not just your ordination, but the things that I've taught you in the witness of so many about leadership, and probably because again, this is the second half of one sentence, that you have been strengthened by the grace of Jesus Christ for a task, that you depend on his grace and his grace alone.

That whatever it is that I have infused into you by way of the doctrine of the gospel of God and the grace of Jesus Christ and what that means for your future ministry, all of that you need to train others in that task. I love that, because if we understand that as grace of the gospel applied to be my strength, and then its intention is to be given and encouraged in a next generation. Then that means that the church exists, not just to proclaim the gospel and to exalt the gospel, but to pass it on and pass the stewardship of the gospel on to another generation. I'm on that side of it, right? I'm 56. I think that's pretty old, right? And um, and uh, and because of health issues in the past, I assume I don't say this out loud because Kathy gets mad, but I assume I'm gonna be with the Lord somewhere like around 70.

I think that's reasonable, that's good. I'm okay with that. That's settled in my soul. Because by 70, right? That's like 14 years from now. Like, Micah, my youngest, he should be out of the house working, maybe married, right? The kids will be fine, right? Um, we have leaders in the church that should be able to take my place. So I have a plan. Like when I when I enter into my my early 60s, the point is that that as we've raised up a lot of um interns that have gone over to different parts of the world, that there'll be some younger guy that should take over by then. Maybe he's in his 40s, mature, but still young enough that he could he could like lead the church, and I would transition towards him.

That's my plan. That's my hope. And that's again, that's a that's a human being making a human plan, trusting the Lord would be gracious to it. But the whole point is that's the church. That that's that's ministry. That's how Christians should be thinking about stuff. We're trying to hand off the baton to another generation. The heaviness of that is you are this generation, right? You guys bear the gospel, right, to the world in this generation. And you might say, Yeah, but you know, like we don't we don't bear the gospel. This church doesn't bear the gospel of the whole world. That's true. But wherever the Lord has given you influence, he has sovereignly placed you there in this area, in this region, amongst these people.

You are this generation's gospel bearers. You are this generation's Timothy. And Paul's passing on to Timothy, right? The mantle of the gospel of grace, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he says, be strengthened in that grace and pass that on to other people. At the very beginning of Timothy's pastoral ministry, Paul is saying, just like I passed this on to you, you are meant to pass this on. As a church, one of the things that the biblical leadership does is it trains up other leaders. And I know Peter's good at that. That's what you guys want to invest in. That's what you want to invest in. As even your young kids kind of grow up, as other people join you, right? You want to invest in the next generation because that's part of what we exist to do.

Faithful men, though. That's the underlying word. What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust this to others, not just to any others, to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. It's the mantle of gospel ministry pass from one generation to the next generation with the eye of passing it on to the next generation. Christian parents, you have a responsibility that is so can be overwhelmingly heavy, right? But let me free you of that a little bit. Because I think Paul begins with the strengthening of grace to remind you that it's not because you're so winsome, Timothy. It's not because you are so godly, Timothy, but it's because Christ's grace is sufficient.

Your task is to encourage your kids towards the grace of Jesus Christ, right? That's it. And it means that when you fail, you demonstrate what grace looks like in failure. When they fail, you demonstrate what grace looks like in their failures. Does that mean you don't discipline them? No, of course you discipline them. A church disciplines, right? Regularly, because we care about growing righteously and and then sanctification to glorify our Master Jesus Christ. But in that process, there is plenty of grace. There needs to be convictional. This is what the Bible says. I won't change my mind on this because God won't change his mind on this. It needs to be that kind of conviction, but it doesn't mean it's seasoned with grace and a tolerance for people to be different in areas that allow that scripture allows for difference in, right?

We need to, and that's why that triage is so important. You highlight the most important things. There's a young lady whose interview I did recently who needs to get baptized. She's like a sophomore in college, and she needs to be baptized because she's never baptized. Her dad is a Presbyterian pastor. And I said, Oh, so you had that talk, right? She said, Yeah, I had that talk. It's a long talk. Yeah, it was a difficult talk. I said, okay. He's okay with this, right? Like, yeah, he's he's okay with this. And um, and I said, Well, praise the Lord, because that that's that's hard. I've had those conversations where a college kid wants to be baptized, grew up, and the dad's a presbyterian pastor, and he wants to meet with me, and he wants to chew me out, really, right?

And say, hey, listen, man, you guys get in cultic, man, like they're baptized as a kid or whatever. And I'm just like, brother, listen, you are my brother of Christ, and I love that you care about this and that you're convictional. But you realize our conviction is that a child can't express faith, so he can't be baptized. So, whatever was happened there, whatever sprinkling happened, we don't see that as baptism. I'm not saying you need to see that as I do. I'm just saying that's our conviction. And if your child, grown up in their maturity, is pursuing this and they agree with us, we're just trying to follow through with their conviction. And I apologize if that hurts. I I don't, we're not trying to hurt you.

Have another conversation with your child, but understand what we and more often than not, because he's a Christian, he'll kind of come around and go, Well, I would rather have my child love the things of the Lord and be baptized and kind of think doctrinally differently for me than to walk away from the faith, right? And to hold on to their baptism as an infant and just live in the world. So I'm okay with that. So that's that conversation's happened a couple of times over the course of like our our decades of ministry. But see, that's what I'm talking about, strengthened by grace, entrusting the gospel and the ministry of the gospel to others, so it's not about me, right? It's about faithfulness, and this is where we plunge full in to the idea of of faithfulness, starting in verse um starting in verse three, right?

Share in the suffering, um, share in the suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is a hard, it is the hard working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Three illustrations that Paul uses to emphasize faithfulness to Timothy, right? So let's get our grounding. You're strong in the grace of Jesus Christ. You're applying this for the sake of generations. So this is generationally applicable. This is, you know, transcultural, culture won't change this, right? Times won't change this. Um, media or lack of meaning, none of that changes any of this.

This is what happens in a body of believers. And he says, This is the way I would illustrate faithfulness to you. A good soldier, a good athlete, and a good farmer. A good soldier, he spends a little bit more time on. He says, share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. He begins with an idea that your Christian discipleship, your Christian following of Christ is going to be hard, right? Soldiering is probably hard. I was never in the military. Um, I think that would have been another option, right? Maybe military chaplainship or something like that, if the Lord didn't call me into pastoral ministry.

I've been glad to do that because I feel like that's cool, right? But um, if you have been through that kind of training, there's a hardship that comes with that. Soldiering is hard. Um, our police officers, they have to go through the academy, that has a taste of that. It's supposed to be hard. The training is supposed to be hard, right? And so I think that the emphasis there is on in the midst of difficulties, what does faithfulness look like? And it might, at first glance, if I said, okay, so how do you become a good faithful soldier? You might say you just obey. You don't ask, you just obey, tie up the bootstraps hard, you suffer, you suffer hard, right? You make it hard on yourselves, you make it hard on those that follow you.

That's how you you demonstrate faithfulness. I think by the way that Paul constructs this, he starts there, right? By saying that you need to share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, but then he emphasizes it this way and turns faithfulness not into a legalistically kind of regimented pursuit, but he says it this way no soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. It's an issue of devotion. Who are you here for? What do you live for? Listen, if my purpose in life was to make a great church and a great ministry that everyone remember now part four, right? The way that I would direct the things that I do would be totally different.

And the things that I would think are really good and excellent and successful looking, that would that would that would bring me gladness in the areas where we seem to be shrinking or things are getting harder, or there is the potential that this isn't gonna work well, like that would be tremendously discouraging. Paul's taking Timothy a totally different route. And he's saying there's gonna be suffering. That's just natural for Christians. But in the midst of that suffering, the demonstration of faithfulness is gonna be that you're more devoted to the pleasure of your captain than you are to your own. You're not here for civilian living. And what a good word for Christians growing up in the prosperous West.

We're not here for just a good life. You're not here just to provide your children with good experiences. If you do that, praise the Lord. I'm not mad at that. That's not wickedness. I'm just saying that's not the ultimate purpose. You have a deeper purpose, and it's to please the one that enlisted you. To know that you don't deserve any of this in Christ. And so to bring him pleasure should be by far the ultimate ambition that you have. Oh, that so many of us would take up this kind of charge and be devoted to our Savior and have this purpose to do something so much more valuable than simply getting by, providing, consuming, and living. If we look just like our neighbors, only we're just a little more moral because we're Christians.

I don't think we're we're representing the gospel well. It should transform us. You don't have to leave your jobs, you didn't have to do something drastically different, but you do have to do something that demonstrates your your distinctively right devoted purposes as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. The second illustration. He's a good athlete. He says in verse 4. I'm sorry, verse 5. He says, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. Now, on the one hand, I would think initially that means that he's not supposed to cheat. But it seems weird that Paul would have to emphasize to Timothy, hey Timothy, don't cheat, right? Don't plagiarize. You know, I've heard of more pastors being disqualified from different positions in the last year because of plagiarism than I think I've I've ever heard in in all of my ministry life.

Um you can tell I don't plagiarize because I say crazy stuff, right? Like it's like he must have made that up because who would write that, right? But I get it, right? Like, but guys are like wholesale taking something, copying it, and then selling it like it's the weirdest thing, and some of these pastors in their plagiarism, they'll tell the illustration that was this other pastor's illustration, like they'll be like, Yeah, like you know, we went on a vacation to the lake, and then we did this. He didn't do that. I think that's almost creepy weird, right? Like, like it's one thing for me to say I'm recasting this story, like I heard this great story that MacArthur told it, I'm gonna tell it to you, right?

I think that's okay. But if I say, yeah, and I did that, right? I spoke at whatever conference, uh Shepherd's conference, and I was a keynote speaker and stuff, then you guys go, wait, what? I don't remember you being a keynote speaker, right? That's so bizarre, but that stuff is happening. Now, listen, so that could be that is a possibility that he is emphasizing don't cheat, right? Don't take shortcuts in ministry. That could be it. I think he's emphasizing though, that is part of that, but I think he's emphasizing the discipline it takes to do it right. Because when he says you have to keep to the rules, here is the main rule that the Greek athletes, the Olympians were given, the Greek Olympians, right, were to take an oath in front of the statue of Zeus, and they had to swear that they would rigged rigorously practice, right?

Or actually, I think they do that before the games, that they have rigorously practiced for the last 10 months. So if he's gonna keep to the rules, one of the main rules is that he had been training for at least 10 months, right? And if that's the case, then I think what Paul's point is using an athletic metaphor, he's saying, listen, if he wants a chance at the crown, he needs to discipline himself and train within the guidelines within the rules, so that he's ready to run that race. Um, the world record for the hundred meter dash is like, what's it? Nine point nine, two? Right? Is that right? That can be totally off. Was it nine, two, nine, three? Oh, it's a little higher. These guys be slowing down, man.

No, that's crazy fast. That's crazy fast, right? They train decades to run a race that lasts around 10 seconds. And so the slow guy is running like 12 seconds. And if I'm running, it's about 20 seconds, right? But even if that's the case, a 20-second race, guys are spending decades training for. Alison Felix is the daughter of Paul, who is a really good friend. And I remember watching her in her first Olympics and being so nervous. Just because I know her, that I'm so so nervous. And I was telling Kathy, like, dude, can you imagine Paul and Marlene right now? So we asked them later after all these Olympics, and um Marlene said, Yeah, there's times when the race is going to be close because she hadn't been doing well in the in the previous you know events and stuff.

So Marlene can't even watch, she'd just be like this until it's finished, and she goes, How does she do? Right? Defoll itself, like she's so nervous, right? So I get that. Think of all the training, and I knew all the training this year. It's outrageous. The discipline required. But why? To get a chance to win a prize, to get a chance to be one of the best. That's humanly speaking. Well, Paul seems to be emphasizing here, because if we're kind of lumping this together, just as a soldier does it because he's committed to his master, then so then the good athlete illustration is that you would provide discipline for your life, a grace-inspired discipline, because we're not abandoning verse one.

We're still strengthened by grace, but a grace-inspired discipline looks like, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna sacrifice to do better at this, to grow in this, because the Lord is worth it. That's a good athlete. That's what faithfulness looks like. It looks like devotion to your master, like a good soldier. It looks like discipline in the process, like a good athlete. In the third illustration, it looks like diligence and hard work, like a good farmer. Verse 6. It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. The word ought is a good one. It suggests necessity. This is how it should work. The guy worked hard, like to care for the fields, plant seeds, you know, do whatever he had to do, right?

Water, watch over it, you know, weed, do whatever, and then the share of crops come up. Who deserves first crack at the crops? The guy that put all that hard work into it. Doesn't necessarily it, right? It's fitting that he receives that reward. In that same way, Paul is trying to tell Timothy, listen, it's a devoted soldier that's willing to put aside his civilian life for service to his master. It is a disciplined athlete that's willing to put aside so many of the normal kind of things that people look forward to in this life, so that they might be disciplined to a purpose to please his Lord. And it is the diligent, right? The hard working, the word that is used for hard working there in Thayer's lexicon says it's it's to labor with wearisome effort, it is to toil, or the way we might say it is to work with sweat and tears, like this is hard, backbreaking work, but it comes with a reward, right?

And that reward is that we become faithful to the Lord. So faithfulness looks like devotion, discipline, and diligence. And Paul's telling Timothy, listen, you start with grace. You're committed as a church to raise other men who will lead this church when you're gone. And as you do that, the things that you're emphasizing in terms of faithfulness is devotion, discipline, and diligence. Like you're trying to you're trying to get them to see the value in that, and not the value in that it makes me feel good, right? But it pleases our master. And then verse seven, just to kind of cap it off, he says, think about these things for the glory of Christ. He says this, verse seven, think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

He is leading him towards, I think, uh, in an eschatological end. He's saying that there is a prize. Just like the farmer works, and then the prize of the first fruits. The athlete runs, and the prize potentially is the crown. Um, the soldier is devoted, and because of the pleasure of his master, and you'll see that master, and the master will say, Well done, good and faithful servant. There's a prize, there's a goal, there's a reward at the end. Beyond this warfare, right? This is C.K. Barrett in his commentary, beyond warfare is victory, beyond the athlete's effort is the prize, and beyond the agricultural labor is the crop. Paul is building into Timothy that this is worth it. Because if you ever get to a point where in your Christian life and in your sacrifices, the things that you're doing, you find yourself like our Kent Hughes found himself.

See, man, this isn't worth it, right? That is not an issue of God's character. That's an issue of yours. That's an issue of mine. And I've been there where I'm like frustrated with these individuals that I've been trying to disciple and it's not going well. And I feel like, Lord, this is not worth it. That's not that's not me impugning God, like God is faithless. That's me impuning myself. Like, like, what did I what the what should this look like for me to be satisfied? I'm just like those guys become these great, you know, leaders. They they they they love everything I have to say, they almost bow down before me, like you know what I mean? Like they are patting me on the back every time I say, Is that what I'm looking for?

Because if that's what I'm looking for, I'll be sorely disappointed. But if what I'm looking for is in the celestial city, man, that is guaranteed. So I can sacrifice, and it may not seem successful here, but the Lord is pleased with what I have to do. You know what I mean? It's a hard labor to pilgrimage to the celestial city. I'm thinking it's still about celestial city because I've been recently um listening to an audiobook. Dude, did you know? Did you guys do Spotify? You know Spotify had audiobooks. Did you know that? I didn't know that until recently. And so I was listening to Pilgrim's Progress, read by this Scottish guy with a Scottish action, which which makes it so much better, right?

No, it does, because if you read Pilgrim's Progress and I have like decades ago, it's like it's kind of a hard read because it's it's like old English a little bit, right? And you're kind of like, wait, what does that mean, right? But when he intonates it correctly, I'm like, oh, that's what he means. That's awesome, right? And I forgot a lot of the story. I'm only listening to or re you know, re-thought through, recasted the first half of the story, and that's Christian's journey, right? As pilgrim into the celestial city, and then next, you know, it's Christiana and the kids. I don't know if you guys even know that. That's part two of that same volume, and then they're gonna journey, and then they're gonna go to the celestial city and join Christian.

But I love that because of all it shows how now John Bunyan is so brilliant in and not necessarily his exages of scripture. There's times when he applies a passage, and I go, I don't know about that, right? But his understanding and the depth of his understanding of things, like you know, he describes like I'll give you an example. Like they're trapped in the dungeon, all right, of the great giant despair. And there's can a Christian fall into a pattern or a period of time where they just feel under the weight of depression, despair? Apparently so. And the way he describes it, the giant comes in in the night in the morning and he just beats them near to the point of death and leaves them alone and tells them, you should just kill yourself, like everyone else kill themselves, because that's the only way out of this.

I'll see you tomorrow. And they feel the weight of that, the trappedness of that, right? In Bundan's brilliance, he says, but at some point, like, you know, um, I think it's hopeful that is with him at that point. And by the way, faithful dies. I forgot that. He is martyred in Vanity Fair. So one of his best companions, he dies along the way, and hopeful joins him, and hopeful and him are getting beat to death almost, right? And they're like, Is there no hope and stuff? And then, and then Christian says, Oh, what a fool that I am, right? His promises have been here all along. And he reaches into his jacket and he realizes that the scriptures reveal God's promises, and as I read them, all the shackles come free.

And it's just Bunyan and his brilliance, just saying, like, listen, you can get trapped in that, and you can feel like the giant despair is gonna beat you to the point of death and leave you there hopelessly, but you are mistaken. That is just your perception of it. Because the promises of God have been there with you the entire time. And if you just see that, if you would believe that, you can escape the great dungeon of despair. Like it's like, dude, this guy's like brilliant. I'll give you one more because it's so good, right? When they cross the river, right? Into the celestial city. It's interesting because him and hopeful are both crossing, and as as hopeful is going, um, Christian yells out and says, I can't, I can't find the bottom.

I'm dying, right? I'm I'm I'm I'm drowning. And so he keeps going under and he's and he's like being tossed, and he's having a hard time. And I think this is how the Lord is describing, or I'm sorry, how John Bunyan, John Bunyan is not the Lord, he's a servant of the Lord, right? I should be careful how I say that. How he's describing what it's like for genuine Christians to pass over to the promised land. For some, like hopeful. Hopefully's like, no, no, uh, Christian, hang on, hang on, because I could feel the bottom. I I am touching the bottom. I'm getting across. This is rough, but it's okay. Like hopeful goes through, like he crosses over to the new heavens and he crosses over to heaven, and it's not that difficult, right?

He feels the bottom the entire way. Christian is overwhelmed, and he says that he thinks that the Lord has changed his mind about him because of all of his sinfulness, that he's decided that I'm not worthy, and that I'm gonna drown in this river, and he's sputtering and drowning and coughing up water, and then he touches the bottom and he gets to the celestial and he barely squeaks in and hopefully is fine. And I love the brilliance and the pastoral shepherding of that. Even when we pass from this life, solid, excellent, godly Christians. Some of them will struggle with that. I'm not mad at them about that. I've been at the bedside of some of them, right? And other Christians, right? Solid, gospel believing, genuine, godly Christians.

They feel like, dude, I'm fine, you know, like uh, and you just fall asleep and they go be with the Lord, right? We'll all exit in different ways. The key is what do we anticipate on the other side? And then it's a reward of Christ and his goodness to us. And if we believe that the celestial city is ours, no matter how difficult our task is, no matter how challenging your life is, no matter the particular difficulties that you face, they're so different from everyone else's. Cling to the promises that you will be before him one day, and that means in this life, you steward this life in a way that honors him because he is awaiting you, right? In my father's house, are many mansions, and he is preparing a place for us.

Ah, that should feed our souls. Walk in grace, let that be your strength because you are already Christ, and you don't deserve anything that you have, and all that you have, Christ is giving to you grace upon grace. Look to the next generation of believers because this is your task. This church is your responsibility. And you say, Well, I'm kind of a young believer, he said, nevertheless, you're part of this family, you're part of the work. This is part of your task, and what is demanded of you is just faithfulness, it means hard work, but devotion, it means hard work. This comes from way of discipline, it's hard work, backbreaking work, but it comes out of diligence and awe with a sense that it's for the Lord.

Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding and everything. You're gonna get it. You might not get it now, right? You're teaching your kids why they need to obey, why they need to do things that are good, why they need to emphasize this and not just live for their own self-centered kind of needs, right? They might not get it now, but they need to think about these things because they will understand it one day. Could I return you to one last final thing? And that that last part of verse 7. Think over what I say, whatever else Paul would leave Timothy with, it's this notion, and we keep seeing it over and over and again in all of our passages, right? It begins in the thinking, it's how we think about these things that transforms our heart attitudes that transforms how we live.

It is always in the thinking, and we'll see that again tomorrow, right? It is always in the thinking in the use of your brains, as image bearers. That is one of the great things that the Lord has given to us, right? We think, and we have the capacity, and we have the privilege of thinking God's thoughts after him, and even if we don't get it all the time, we obey sometimes because we have to, because we believe it's the right thing to do because it honors the Lord, and then years later, maybe decades later, you look back and you go, Lord, that was a good word. I'm glad I chose that right. I'm glad I did that, right? I didn't realize it at the time. Your kids, they're obeying some of the things that you have them to do in terms of giving thanks, in terms of seeking forgiveness, saying sorry when they're wrong, etc.

They're doing that and almost out of a compulsion, like I have to, because mom and dad are making me do it. But at some point, it will be a thought process that turns to a heart process, and they'll get it. And they'll appreciate that. And it'll build upon them, Lord willing, that sensibility of what it means to be a sinner redeemed by the grace of Jesus Christ. Because that's what I'm trying to convey to the next generation. That's what you're trying to convey to the next generation. That is half the task that you are here to be, right? To raise up another generation as a church that'll be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ like you have been. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you again that as we're fed by your word, that we're encouraged to think that we might have capacities to do things that are far outside of ourselves.

Lord, we know that what you require of us is faithfulness, but not the kind of faithfulness that just looks like faithful when we feel like it, but requires discipline and diligence and devotion. Help us to be faithful to you because you deserve it. Lord, ignite our hearts so that we might desire to honor the one that has called us into service for him. You are a good God. We don't always appreciate that well. But Lord, when we pause and worship and think about these things or hear from your scriptures, help us to think about these things in a way that captivates our thoughts to give us understanding of who we are in Christ and the value of serving him all the days of our lives. In Jesus' name we pray.