2 Tim 2: Suffer for the Gospel

Sermon Outline

Text: 2 Tim 2:1-26

We are in the middle of a 4 week series through the book of 2 Timothy.

Last week: Paul gives Timothy the charge to guard the gospel
This week: Paul gives Timothy the charge to suffer for the gospel
Next week: Paul gives Timothy the charge to continue in the gospel
Easter Sunday: We will join Timothy in receiving the charge to proclaim the gospel

I believe the key verse for this chapter is found in 2 Tim 2:3. [READ]

Suffer for the gospel

What is the gospel?
2 Tim 2:8
Descendant of David – one title for Jesus is the Son of David, born in David’s lineage, Jesus was a man
Keep your attention on Jesus Christ

Now that your attention, your focus is on Jesus, your aim is the gospel, now what’s next? You got to suffer.

I would divide this chapter into 2 parts

In part one, Paul uses 3 metaphors for the Christian life: a soldier, an athlete and a farmer
So piggybacking off of the athlete metaphor, in part one, I believe God is urging us to get into the game, are you in the game? The rest of the chapter won’t make sense unless you are in the game.
In part two, now that you are in the game, how are you going to play, how are we going to run this race called life?

The thread that connects the soldier and the athlete and the farmer is this idea of suffering.

2 Tim 2:3-4
It’s pretty obvious why being a soldier is a life of suffering.
You’re in a war
First century: swords, spears, clubs and bow and arrows
Now you got bullets and tanks
This is not virtual reality, this is not a video game
These weapons are not made out of nerf
They are sharp, if these things hit you, you will get hurt and you will likely die
Paul starts with this picture–a soldier in a war–and says, this is the Christian life

Why is the soldier a life of suffering?

The obvious link is the fact that the life of a soldier is painful and may lead to your death
But I think Paul is making a different point here
The life of a soldier is a life of suffering because of the fact that a soldier is not permitted to get entangled in the concerns of civilian life
He has removed himself from civilian life
He has said goodbye to friends and family and now his life is his fellow comrades
This means, he can’t go out to the movies with his buddies when the summer blockbusters are out
He can’t eat at his favorite restaurant whenever he feels like it
He eats whatever the army gives him (oatmeal looking glob of something)
He has given up his freedom
He has given up his life
He can’t come and go as he pleases
The soldier has given up his freedom
He has given up his rights

There is a chain of command

He has to follow orders
If your commanding officer tells you to eat, you eat
If he tells you to sleep, you sleep
If he tells you to rest, you rest
You can’t take a nap whenever you feel like it
And if the sergeant wakes you up in the middle of the night, you better wake up
Lives depend on it
You are in a war
You wouldn’t be on your smartphone and updating your facebook status when bullets are flying over your head
This is suffering because you can’t do what you want, when you want
Your new mission is to v4 please the recruiter. The literal transition is to please the one who enlisted you. Who enlisted you to be a Christian? God. He is our commander in chief.

When you put on the uniform of a private in an army, it’s different from a police officer.

The police officer puts on the uniform when he’s on duty. As soon as his shift ends, he takes off the uniform.
Tae kwon do – put on the uniform, I felt powerful, esp when I put on a black belt
In the army, there is no such thing. You are never off duty. You’re in a war.
Likewise, as a Christian, we put on Christ, we put on the righteousness of Jesus, we are covered by His blood
We have been drafted into the Lord’s army, we are citizens of the kingdom of God, we are never off duty
The moment God enlisted us into his army, we live to please him, to serve him, to glorify him
This is why Paul says, the life of a soldier is a life of suffering.

The second metaphor Paul uses is that of an athlete

2 Tim 2:5
I can talk for hours about this one
Because I’m an athlete. Look at me. Isn’t it obvious?
Being an athlete like me is a life of suffering
You don’t just pop out of bed with a chiseled frame, you got to work
You can probably tell – I love KFC but do you think I can maintain this physique if I ate a bucket of KFC every day?
KFC – although it is finger licking good, for an athlete a bucket of KFC is artery clogging bad
An athlete can’t eat what he wants
Instead of KFC, you have to eat a different KFC (Kale, Fruit and Celery)
I have high cholesterol so I recently bought a juicer and I have eaten more kale juice in a week than I have in my entire 39 years of life combined
An athlete has to suffer – waking up early, running, going to a gym, constant training

Why? Because an athlete competes to win – v5 – he competes for a crown

I don’t know a single athlete who doesn’t want to win
If you want to exercise, then jog around the block, but you are not an Olympian training for the gold medal in the 100m dash
If you want to learn about teamwork, join the YMCA kids bball league, but that’s not the same as the NBA
If you are Usain Bolt or Lebron James, they are not competing to shed a few pounds or to lower their cholesterol. They are competing to win the gold medal or the NBA championship.
Likewise, for the Christian, I hope you don’t imagine the Christian journey to be like floating on an air mattress on the waters of Waikiki beach with an iced lemonade with a splash of black tea with one of those cute umbrellas sticking out of it – and eventually you plan on floating past the finished line and then Christ is there to meet you on the other side of eternity
That’s a vacation, but that’s not the Christian life
The Christian life is a war, it’s a race that you are competing to win a crown

Heb 12 also picks up this idea of running a race to win

Heb 12:1-2
The author makes a distinction between weights and sins
Weights, things that weigh us down – these are not the same thing as sin
Imagine a runner line up with a 50 lb backpack filled with exercise gear
I guess there might not be a rule against it but if you are weighed down, it’s highly unlikely that you are going to win the crown
For the Christian, there are black and white sins that you clearly need to stop if you want to win your race
In addition, there are things in your life that are not sin, but they are weighing you down. It’s between you and God. People say I have no time for God. Really? If we looked at how you spend your time, are there not huge pockets when we do things that are not blatantly sinful, but they are meaningless distractions, which if you add them up, these things are collectively becoming dead weight so that you are not running your life of faith effectively, efficiently, things that are slowing you down
And it’s likely, where there are weights slowing you down or distracting you, sin is not far behind and before you know it, you’re ensnared, your entangled, you stumble and fall and you fail to cross the finish line

Also, v5 – the athlete has to compete according to the rules

For the Christian, who makes up the rules? God does. He tells us how to live.
To love Him, to love our neighbors, to make disciples
To forgive, to serve, to consider others more important than ourselves
To show compassion to the poor and needy, to be filled with the Spirit, to glorify God
To display godly character, the fruit of the Spirit
To preach the gospel first to ourselves then to a lost and dying world
To be His hands and feet
This means we can’t do whatever we want, or live by our own rules
There is only one God and He makes up the rules and we have to obey Him
An athlete must suffer and Christians, we are like athletes and we need to run in a way to get the crown

Famous motto regarding exercise: No pain, no gain

Christian version: no cross, no crown
Take up our crosses daily

The third metaphor is that of a farmer

2 Tim 2:6
Notice, this is not just any farmer but a HARDWORKING farmer
Farming is hard work

I grew up on the East Coast, good for kids

Rake leaves in the fall
Shovel snow in the winter
Mow the lawn in the summer
These activities are good for building character – something my boys are missing out on
They think cleaning up their room or swiffering the floor is hard manual labor

In the springtime, we planted a garden

Gardening is hard work – little plot of land – 10’ by 20’
Dig up the ground, remove rocks, pull weeds, fertilize the ground (grass from the mower)
Finally after weeks and weeks, you are finally ready to plant seeds
Neighbor – mechanical claws – what took us weeks and weeks, he did in a few minutes
Proud Asians – we are not going to ask to borrow the claw, we are going to do it with our human claws
Plant the seeds – you might think, my work is done, but no
You have to water the seeds, you have to wait, a little shoot breaks forth, you have to water again, it grows more and now the fruit or vegetable is starting to take shape, but it’s still not ripe
Now you have to be the protector because there are wild animals and insects that want that fruit or vegetable as much as you do
Spray insecticides
Erect fences to keep animals out, gardening is hard, hard work

2 Tim 2:6

It’s unclear what it means when it says, the farmer is the first one who gets a share of the crops
For the farmer, it’s pretty straightforward – he worked hard and he gets to enjoy the fruit of his labors, the physical food
For the Christian, this labor could mean the harvest of souls
It’s hard work to have your schedule interrupted and share the gospel and build relationship so that trust is built up
God is a God of love so as much as we speak words about love, we need to display the love of God through our actions
When that person you have been investing in comes to faith in Christ, who’s going to be at the front of the line to congratulate them? You are. Because you have been waiting for that moment.

I think v6 also refers to a different kind of harvest, which is even harder than evangelism

It’s the growth in our hearts
This is where, I believe, the real hard work begins
Most of us are not zapped into sainthood the moment we accept Christ
We still have our old sin nature, bad habits, character flaws, addictions
Many rocks that need to be removed, many hardened areas that need to be softened
Many weeds, things that are killing us, need to be forcefully ripped out of our lives
This requires dying, suffering

Heb 12:3-11 – continuation of the verses that we read earlier

This verse describes the suffering of one who is struggling against his sin
How does the author describe this struggle – a struggle that is so intense, so severe that he describes it as shedding blood
Who wants to struggle like that?
We just want to skim the surface – we feel bad when we see, we feel guilty and we offer a quick, quiet prayer…
But repentance is deep, desperate suffering
Almost literally, repentance is dying, it’s like shedding blood physically

Why? Because our sins (plural) are just symptoms of a greater problem, a greater root problem of SIN (singular)

What’s at the root of our lust? It’s I want YOU to satisfy ME
What’s at the root of pride? Look at ME, I’m better than you
What’s at the root of a judgmental spirit? I’m right, you’re wrong
The root of all of our sin is SELF
From my testimony, I can attest to the fact that the self dies a very slow death
We need to die each die, but the self resists with all its might
Nobody wants to die
We think, we’re good people deep down, we must be able to salvage something
No, there is nothing to salvage

When you are making soup and you accidentally pour liquid bleech into the pot, can you salvage the pot?

No, you have to throw the entire pot away
For the Christian, there is a poison in us called sin, sin defines our old nature
But by God’s grace, the old has gone and the new has come
To receive the new, you have to completely get rid of the old
If you cup that is half full of old coffee and you pour the cleanest, coldest, filtered water into that cup filled with old coffee, it’s going to taste nasty

Before the Holy Spirit can fill you, you have to be fully emptied
Gal 2:20 – before Christ can live in us, we need to be crucified, dead

This is a hard battle but we must do it and we must win with God’s help

You and I will want to give up and just settle for a surface level repentance
Then you wonder, I’ve been Christian for several decades and I am still the same person, what’s wrong?
It’s because you haven’t died

What is our motivation to keep dying even when we are growing weary and losing heart?

Heb 12:3 – consider Him, consider Jesus, consider how Jesus shed tears of blood at Gethsemane at the thought of his imminent crucifixion
Consider the nails in his hands and feet, the crown of thorns thrust upon His head
He did this to show us that we, too, must suffer and struggle against the sin in us

The rest of Heb 12 talks about the Father’s love

In the same way that earthly fathers discipline their children, our Heavenly Father disciplines us because He is treating us like His kids
If you feel the hand of the Lord this afternoon and he is addressing the root problem of sin in your life, we need to thank the Lord for treating us like His kids
Heb 12:11
No discipline seems enjoyable. Who wants to struggle against sin to the point of shedding blood. Not me. It’s painful. It’s dying.
But if you keep at it, the promise of this chapter is that you will yield the fruit of peace and righteousness.

The peace of God and the righteousness that comes from the blood of Jesus are gifts

When you are saved, it is complete grace, God is showing you mercy, He is not treating you as your sins deserve
But… the rest of Christian life involves our struggle to hold onto the peace and righteousness of God through a daily dying to self
And you keep doing it day after day, year after year and you get to enjoy the harvest that is growing in your own heart
God is training you to be like His Son, Jesus is our Elder Brother and God is treating us as His children

Christian life is a war. It’s a race. It’s hard work resulting in the harvesting of souls and the even harder work of inner growth and transformation.

Is this your Christianity? Are you even in the game? This is do or die. You got to put all your chips in the center of the table and say, I’m all in

You can’t be in halfway.

Can a soldier be in halfway? Can you do a week of boot camp and think, this is not what I signed up for, the food is lousy, I don’t have freedom to do whatever I want, I’m tired, I haven’t watched my favorite TV show and they quit
As soon as they quit, they are no longer soldiers
They have returned to civilian life
Maybe they survive boot camp and they get deployed and they are in the front lines of the battle where there are real bullets and real tanks
They get scared, this is no longer a drill, I could actually die out here
And they retreat, they flee, they give up, no longer a soldier

Same for the Christian

There is no ROTC for Christians, there are no reserves
You are either an active soldier in an ongoing war or you’re at home watching TV
Either the Lord has enlisted you into his army or not
You’re either in or you’re out, there is no in between

Same goes for the athlete

You can say you are an athlete but if you line up next to Usain Bolt and you are 5ft and you weigh 250 lbs and you have a belly hanging over your running shorts, you’re not really an athlete because you’re not there to win
When you are in a race, let’s suppose you decide to make up your own rules
You line up and they say, ready, set, and before the gun goes off, you start running toward the finished line
You’re disqualified because you didn’t play according to the rules
For the Christian, you are either beating your body and straining toward the finish line to win first place while following the rules of the game or you are not really even in the game

Same goes for the farmer

If you are not hardworking and instead you are lazy, like a farmer who is unwilling to suffer, can you call yourself a farmer?
It’s time to water the crops and you hit the snooze, you think – it can wait until tomorrow
Problem is the sun – 100 degrees outside and your crop withers from a lack of water
Or the animals or insects eat it
A farmer and hard work go hand in hand
There is no such thing as a lazy farmer
If you are a farmer, you better be diligent because your life and the lives of your family depend on the food that the farming land provides
The Christian who never prays and never reads his bible and never shares his faith and never examines his heart for rocks and weeds, who is just plain lazy is not a Christian

Lazy and Christian are two words that do not go together

Hardworking and Christian go together
Dying and Christian
Serving and Christian
Carry others burdens and Christian
Evangelizing and Christian
Hungering and thirsting for God and Christian
Preaching the gospel and Christian go together
But never lazy and Christian

There are many pseudo-Christians floating around

Christianity with no suffering
Prosperity gospel – you can have your best life right now

Are you suffering for the gospel?

No pain, no gain
No cross, no crown

We suffer all the time for things we want

Grades, degrees, promotions, money
Lose sleep over video games or movies – next day, we will be suffering
But why are we unwilling to suffer for our faith?

This is why Paul says, v3 – share in suffering

Suffer in the sense of being all in, giving your very best to the Lord because He gave His very best to us, His own Son
To follow Christ will cost you everything, for some it might literally cost you your life
Count the cost – can you give up everything to follow Jesus?

Jesus is worth it – what else are you going to invest your life in?

From 2 Tim 2:1-13, God is asking us, are you in the game? Only if you answer yes should you continue to the rest of the chapter

2 Tim 2:14 through to the end – assuming you are in the game, now, this is how you are to play the game.

This is a pastoral epistle so this last half of this chapter applies most directly to Timothy and to other pastor, elders, leaders of a church, but I think we can broaden the some of the points to apply generally to all believers

This first point goes back to what I said earlier from Heb 12 about struggling with sin

Just because you’re in the game doesn’t mean you’ve arrived, or that you’re done
You might have a spot on the Olympic team – but you still have to go out there and compete and win that gold medal – no one is just going to give it to you
Students here – you made it into Caltech – that was just the beginning, from day one, suffering began
Seniors – you’re near the finish line – you’re about to get your degree – Caltech is not just going to give you the degree because of your SAT score, you needed to prove yourself and suffer for 4 years
Now what, you have to do it again in grad school or med school for another 6, 7, 8 years
That’s depressing

For Timothy, Paul knows, Timothy is in the game, but he’s a young pastor

Paul is near the end of his life – he knows the suffering he had to endure for the gospel
Paul knows the road ahead for Timothy is going to be hard

2 Tim 2:14 – Paul’s first word to Timothy, do not fight about words, don’t get caught up in all the debates

On one level, it is unprofitable in the sense that it is a complete waste of your time
On a more important level, 2 Tim 2:16-17
This fight about words, this empty speech is far from harmless
It actually ruined some of the hearers
Some listened to the meaningless chatter of brothers like Hymenaeus and Philetus and they fell away
It’s interesting that Paul doesn’t advise Timothy to confront them – they are spreading false doctrine, saying that there is no bodily resurrection when Jesus returns in glory because they are already resurrected somehow

It’s odd – instead of telling Timothy to confront them, Paul tells Timothy to avoid them

2 Tim 2:24-26
To be certain, Timothy has to teach these false brothers or these deceived brethren because they are being used as agents of the Devil to disrupt the church
But it’s not Timothy’s job to get in their face and quarrel with them and forcefully convince them of their error
They are ensnared in the Devil’s trap and only God can grant them repentance
If Timothy confronted them, he would at minimum be wasting his breath and at worst, he would risk himself getting ensnared and angry and quarrelsome

Timothy has to be gentle

From personal experience, Paul knows how hard it is to be gentle before his opponents and there were many during Paul’s ministry
He probably wanted to say so many things in the heat of the moment, but God gave him the ability, the Spirit-generated ability to be gentle
In that moment when your opponents is in your face, only a person practiced in dying would respond in gentleness

This is wise counsel from Paul – Timothy, just preach, just teach, be gentle, entrust them to the Lord

Their problem is a spiritual issue, they are blinded by Satan
Save your breath – your words will not convince them
Just teach
Pastor/elder/leader – my job and your job is v15 – to correctly teach the word of truth
Literal translation – to cut in a straight line
The good, approved workman “cuts straight” (v15). Literally, to cut in a straight line. The bad workman deviates or “swerves” (v18) from the truth
Those aspiring to be Bible teachers – we have to stay on the text
We can’t adjust the text based on our bias, our culture, our personality, our upbringing, our hangups
We have it cut it straight – this is what the word of God says and this is not what it says, this is true and this is false
Keep doing this because there will be many who will deviate from the truth and swerve around issues because they don’t want to touch difficult texts
Or over time, they end up skipping huge sections of Scripture

As preachers of the gospel, we must cut it straight

We must preach the whole counsel of God and show how each chapter of each book is connected to the gospel, to the person and work of Jesus Christ
If you make anything other than Jesus the main thing, you got there by doing some massive maneuvering in the text and you swerved around THE main topic of the entire Bible, the gospel of Jesus Christ

2 Tim 2:8

Keep your attention on Jesus Christ

2 Tim 2:7 is an important verse

Spiritual understanding is a gift imparted by the Lord
Thought and prayer
Go home – reread this text, struggle in your prayer closet
What does this chapter mean for me?
Lord, speak to me, show me, Lord, am I struggling with sin to the point of shedding blood?
Am I still alive at the core? Root of self.
Am I suffering for the gospel?
Am I even in the game?
If so, am I passing the test? Am I an approved workman?
Am I gentle before my opponents?