2 Tim 3: Continue in the Gospel

Stream from mobile phone:
[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://hillcc.org/sermons/SWS041314.MP3″]

Stream from PC:
[audio:http://hillcc.org/sermons/SWS041314.MP3]

Sermon Outline
Text: 2 Tim 3:1-16

Palm Sunday – palm branches – Misunderstood Sunday

Passion Week – passion means suffering

Two weeks ago: Paul gives Timothy the charge to guard the gospel
Last 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

2 Tim 3:1

Last Days will be marked by difficulty
So in this chapter, Paul urges Timothy in v14 to continue in the gospel
What is the gospel?

1 and 2 Timothy – filled warnings, what happens when we stop keeping Jesus as our focus?

Everything falls apart
These 2 letters filled with accounts of people falling away or departing from the faith
Cause?
Surface level reasons like money or doctrine, but deeper cause is Satan.
Spiritual battle intensifies in the Last Days.

2 Tim 3:1-5

Define the Last Days – time before Jesus’ first coming and His second coming
Last Days assumes there is an End
Jesus will descend upon the earth on clouds of fire to rapture His church and establish the 1000 year reign of Christ before the complete re-creation of earth where heaven comes crashing down to earth – new heaven and new earth
Garden of Eden 2.0 – physical and spiritual place – instead of a Garden, it’s a City
Anytime in between those two comings could be the End and the period right before the End can be classified as the end of the End or the Last Days
From Scripture, we get a sense in which evil will escalate exponentially as the End approaches. Evil infiltrates first in our minds and distorts our doctrine.

1 Tim 1:3-6

Different doctrine that leads people to myths, endless genealogies, empty speculations and fruitless discussion producing a deviation from love, a deviation from a pure heart, a deviation from a good conscience, and a deviation from sincere faith.
In contrast, Paul defines sound doctrine or sound teaching in v10-11 is a teaching based on the glorious gospel and this produces love, a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
A Christian is one who is characterized by these things.

If Satan succeeds in causing you to deviate the gospel which produces love, a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith, then it’s game over. He’s won.

It happened to Hymenaeus and Alexander in 1 Tim 1:18-20
Because they rejected faith and a good conscience, they suffered the shipwreck of their faith.
Their ship of faith was sailing along and all was fine and suddenly a storm hit and the ship was shipwrecked, destroyed

Paul tells Timothy, engage in battle strongly so that you don’t end up like Hymenaeus and Alexander

Spiritual battle doesn’t end with doctrine. If Satan doesn’t succeed in distorting your doctrine, he will go after you in other ways.

Even in the list of qualifications of church leaders–elders, deacons and deaconesses–there is mention of spiritual attack.

1 Tim 3:6
If the Devil can’t attack in your doctrine, then he will attack you by making you proud as you are serving the church.
Before Christian – pride in a worldly sense
Pride is like a wart – I’ve had a wart on my knee for 20 years
If the root of pride is not removed, you may kill pride in a worldly sense, but this pride will resurface as a Christian
Self-righteousness
Judgmental attitude
If you are a proud Christian, Satan has you right where he wants you

1 Tim 3:7

Like it or not, Christian leaders are public figures.
Jackie gets me these Christian shirts – Facebook blue – “I Like Jesus”
People don’t know that I am a Christian and I do something contrary to the Bible, nobody knows and I can
Restaurant – I am really rude, no one knows I am a Christian
Wear facebook shirt and I go into the same restaurant and the waitress knows I am a Christian and I still act like a jerk, she might say, I thought you were supposed to be a Christian
I’d be ashamed – I might start leaving my “I Like Jesus” shirt at home
How has Satan won? He has exposed my lack of integrity. I act one way at church and another way in the world.
What might that shame do to me? I’d probably be silent to the fact that I am a Christian whenever I’m outside the church.

These attacks from the devil will intensify in the Last Days and more and more people will be led astray.

1 Tim 4:1-5
In the Last Days or in Later Times, some will depart
“Depart” implies that they once had faith
What is the cause of people departing from the faith?
Wrong teaching, yes
Legalistic teaching, yes – because they started establishing rules forbidding marriage and eating certain kinds of food
This is wrong because God invented marriage between a man and a woman and he created food for us to enjoy so these are not evil things we are to avoid
More important question – where did this legalistic teaching come, what was inspiring this legalism?
The answer is in v1 – deceitful spirits and demons
Who are the false teachers? v2 – hypocritical liars with seared consciences

What is a conscience?

The inner voice that tells you right from wrong. You are about to sin and your conscience is a God-given ability to know, hey, you better not do that, you better not lie, you better not look at that website, it’s wrong
What happens if you ignore that inner voice?
Your conscience gets damaged – it becomes seared

What good is a seared conscience?

That’s like asking, what good is a light bulb with a burned out filament
Take a bulb and you shake it. It no longer lights the room.
What do you do with it? You toss it in the trash.
A seared conscience is like a bulb with a burned out filament. It’s totally useless.

Satan doesn’t stop there with a seared conscience.

1 Tim 6:3-5
There is some overlap here. Satan loves to attack our doctrine so that we elevate some teaching above the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ
The result? Instead of godliness, you get conceit, someone who understands nothing, and you get a people who love to engage in disputes or arguments over words
From there, the sins continue–envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions and constant disagreement

Have you ever met people like this?

You try to explain something and point to the Bible and they love to argue with you and their arguments are not biblical, it’s their own thoughts and after spending several hours over the course of several months, I had to take a step back and conclude, something else is going on here
I’m not fighting a person, I’m fighting Satan and the sin that is entangling this person

So far, these issues are similar to the ones we have already covered

But Paul adds one new point of vulnerability that Satan attacks–money, 1 Tim 6:5
Also, 1 Tim 6:10
A love for money causes some to wander away from the faith – this means they once had faith

1 Tim 6:20-21

Paul ends his first letter by warning Timothy against those who claim to have “knowledge” that bears the name of Christ, supposed Christian knowledge, but their knowledge is false because these people don’t know Christ
How can you tell?
Through their words–irreverent and empty speech
And through their lives–their lives are characterized by contradictions–what they profess with their mouths and how they live don’t match

Satan will attack our doctrine, he will distort our teaching

He will attack our tendency for pride, our pride in the world will change to pride and ambition in the church
Satan will attack our consciences so that they are seared and no longer function properly
Satan will attack our integrity and he will show our failures before a watching world so that instead of shining a bright light, we will hide our light under a bowl due to our shame
Satan will cause teachers to become legalistic
You might think these are just human problems
That teaching is slightly off, or that teacher has a slightly legalistic bent, or that pastor seems to proud or ambitious, or that Christian acts one way at church and another way when outside the church
Love of money
All of this is the work of Satan and his legion of demons
This battle is intensifying as we enter the last stage of the Last Days

By the time Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, things have gotten worse

2 Tim 1:13-15
As the gospel was advancing in Paul’s day, Satan was simultaneously ramping up his attacks
For those who did not hold onto the sound teaching of the gospel, what happened?
They eventually fell away
All of Asia have turned away, including presumably two prominent leaders, Phygelus and Hermogenes

2 Tim 2:14-18

Satan is causing some to focus on verbal fights and in the process, the hearers are being ruined
This irreverent, empty speech is becoming an epidemic
Gangrene – disease caused by bacterial infection and it causes an area of your body tissue to die off due to loss of blood circulation
Good visual picture of what is happening on the spiritual landscape – pockets of the body of Christ are dying off
Some like Hymenaeus and Philetus are spreading heresy, saying the resurrection has already taken place and through this distorted teaching, some brothers are being overturned in their faith

2 Tim 4:2-5

This passage describes our current generation
If you have a room full of 100 people and they have a certain, wrong desire or wrong understanding about God, they will have no problem finding a teacher who will tell them what they want to hear
100 different people will have no problem finding 100 different teachers – you will find a person who tells you what you want to hear

Everything nowadays is relative

I like my God to be tolerant of all kinds of sinful behaviors and lifestyles
I like my God to be passionate about politics and social work
I want my God to bless me with material riches, with my best life, right now
If you look hard enough, you will find a teacher to suit your desires
This approach is completely wrong
Remember who we are dealing with–God
God sets down the law and we bend and conform to His ways, not the other way around
If we determine what we want and find someone to tell us what we want to hear, we’ve just made an idol
We are not fashioning a god of our own preference

If this situation at the end of Paul’s life and ministry is not bleak enough, he adds one more source of anguish at the end of this chapter–2 Tim 4:9-10

Paul is all alone. Some left, presumably, to obey God’s call to preach the gospel.
But for Demas, he deserted Paul and ultimately God, why?
Because he loved the world
Seniors, I want you to be careful
The world will entice you to love it
We are in a spiritual battle
What’s at stake? Our souls

In light of the ever-intensifying spiritual battle which characterizes the Last Days, we find ourselves in chapter 3

2 Tim 3:1-5
Notice that Paul is talking about religious people, churchgoers
They have the form of a Christian
They look like Christians on the outside
They don’t swear, they carry around their bibles, they say with their lips that they love God
Yet, there is a huge disconnect
Despite the outward appearances, the problem is the inside
They lack power meaning the outside and the inside don’t match

In bball, we call these types of guys, posers

They are all form
The guy wearing the Kobe jersey, Lebron James headband, baggy shorts, wristband, googles (ok, maybe not the googles), old school Air Jordans
You see this guy strut onto the court and you think, this guy must be a baller
Then the game starts and he dribbles the ball off his foot, shoots and it’s an airball
What do we call a person like this? A poser

There are posers in the church

They look like a Christian, but inside, there is no Christ, no power, no transformation
Satan loves religious people because if he can get religious people to focus on the form, he’s got you where he wants you
If he can get you to focus on your attendance and your service and your good works instead of Jesus and instead of checking to see if there is any real power in your life, then he’s won the battle for your soul
Pharisees are prime examples

2 Tim 3:6-9

We see how Satanic ideas spread like gangrene
Satan gets hold of some false teachers to spread his false ideas
Satan doesn’t target the spiritually strong ones first
He initially goes after the idle women burdened down with sins
In their idleness, with their free time, what did they do?
Did they pray more or serve more or evangelize more?
No, they indulged in sin until their sin was like a thick winter jacket and sweater and thermals and a backpack–it was like a heavy burden that weighed them down
Their idleness led to more and more sin and these women were prime targets of Satan
These false teachers “wormed” their way–it’s a very visual way of thinking about spiritual attack, Satan is like a cloud of tentacles looking for a weakness, a vulnerability and when he finds it, he enters

What’s the result of Satan entering a person and gaining a foothold?

2 Tim 3:7
You can be listening to the Word of God for decades, always learning, hearing hundreds and thousands of sermons and bible studies, but never coming to a knowledge of the truth
Never encountering Jesus
Having no spiritual power
Just a form of godliness but no true godliness

2 Tim 3:8

Jannes and Jambres – these are the magicians described in Exodus 7 who opposed Moses
They had form, they could perform miracles and sorcery, but the true litmus test is not on the externals because these 2 magicians had impressive gifting
The true test of whether you really know God is on the inside

2 Tim 3:9

They will not make further progress
Ever feel like you hit a wall spiritually?
In the beginning, you started off with so much zeal and promise
Then you hit a wall
For many, it hits in college – with the freedom, they fall away from the faith
I have seen many zealous college students cool off in their zeal after they get a job and buy a home and start a family
If you have hit a wall in your faith and it seems like you are no longer making progress on the inside, maybe God is trying to get your attention
Maybe you just have a form of godliness, but not true godliness

2 Tim 3:2-4

These verses demonstrate what a FOG looks like
FOG – Form Of Godliness
Foggy person who has form but no substance, no inner power
You want to see a person who may talk a big game but who has no game, read these verses
A person who lacks spiritual power is foggy – FOG – Form Of Godliness

In contrast, a truly spiritual person, a person with true spiritual power is the complete opposite of v2-4

Freed from the love of money, generous
Humble, not boastful verbally nor proud silently and internally
Kids who are obedient to parents
Grateful
Holy
Loving toward others, fruit of the Spirit
Quick to ask for forgiveness, reconciliation is two-way
Careful with words
Self-control with words, impulses, self-interest, fruit of the Spirit
Brutal toward an enemy, reaction to someone often exposes
Loyal
Thoughtful, not reckless
Not conceited or vain, selfless – stop thinking about yourself
Not ruled by pleasure

Look at that list of sins in v2-4

The list of bracketed by two “loves” – “love of self” vs “love of God”
Self is at the core of sin
Money – powerful because I can get what I want
Boastful, proud – look at me, look at how great I am
Disobedient toward parents – teenager, my parents are so old school, they don’t understand me, I know better, this is self rearing its ugly head
Ungrateful – sense of entitlement, I deserve to get what I want and to be treated a certain way
Traitor – I’m loyal as long as it benefits ME
Grouping: unholy, without self-control, lover of pleasure – these are examples of SELF-gratification
Reckless – thrill seeker, I don’t care about the consequences, I just care about myself in the moment

We must overcome the self

It doesn’t matter how many years you have been a Christian, if there are areas of blatant unholiness, you have no spiritual power
If you’ve been a Christian leader for decades but you have a friend or family member you can’t forgive and you are irreconcilable, then you have zero spiritual power
If you preach great bible studies, yet you can’t control your tongue and you constantly slander others, then you’re all form, you’re a poser, there is no spiritual power in your life
If you are a great, visionary leader, but you are conceited, then you are denying the power of God and you are accomplishing things purely through your own talent and abilities and effort

Passion Week, Good Friday and Easter

Pattern of Christian life – death to life
Taking up a cross DAILY, deny yourself daily
Self needs to die
Spiritual power comes only when you are emptied of self
If you are full of self, you can’t be full of the Spirit
Likewise, if you love yourself and you are full of yourself, there’s no way you can love God because there is no room for the love of God to come in

Satan wants you and me to be religious

He wants you and me to focus on the outside, the form, the outward behavior to the neglect of the inside
That’s religion – clean the outside and forget about the rest

When you are in in a relationship with God, He does the complete reverse

God focuses first on the inside and then the outside comes naturally
Relationship with God – He works on your inside first, he gives you true power, he fills in the substance of your character and then he allows the outside to follow
Parenting – work on the the character of your kids and the behavior will follow

2 Tim 3:16-17

The Word of God fulfills 4 functions: teaching, rebuking, correcting, training
Teaching is important, proper teaching is critical, but we can’t just stop at teaching
Rebuke – stop
Correct – this is how you do it
Train – trainer – walk beside you

Teach, rebuke, correct, train

Math problems
Playing bball
Same goes for the spiritual life

2 Tim 3:16 – work on the inside

2 Tim 3:17 – man of God may be complete, mature, perfect, not form, not hollow in the core, but filled in with substance of godly character
Then, once the inside is filled in, the outside naturally follows
The man of God is equipped for every good WORK
The order is critical

2 Tim 3:13

These instruments of Satan, these evil people and impostors, these posers are not intentionally concealing the truth and teaching what is false
No, they are genuinely deceived and so evil people and impostors can be very sincere
They can sincerely believe they are right while being so off
This is what it means to be blind

I think this explains why Paul tells Timothy to avoid people within the church who have a form of godliness but deny its power–2 Tim 3:5

On the surface, it seems odd
That’s not very pastoral, not very Christian, not very loving
Why does Paul tell Timothy to avoid these people?
At minimum, Paul is wasting his time
You can’t win a debate against a blind, deceived person influenced by Satan and demons simply through your words
All you can do is to pray and continue to teach the Word of God
God has to break through
He already warned the idle women not to be idle in his first letter
Now in 2 Timothy, he’s like, I warned you, you reaping the consequences of your refusal to listen, now you’re getting what you deserve
So to minister to these kinds of people who have a form of godliness, who refuse godly counsel and warnings, to minister directly to them, at minimum, is a waste of time
At worst, he is opening himself up to deception

2 Tim 3:14-15

Instead of bothering with irreverent speech, instead of dealing with people who are deceived and who only have a form of godliness, you, Timothy, continue
Continue in what?
What you have learned about salvation which comes through faith in Christ Jesus and Him alone
Continue in the gospel

Continuing in anything is not easy

We easily get bored
We quit instruments, sports
We get bored at work and we want to switch jobs
We get tired of marriage or parenting and we want a change of scenery

Brothers and sisters, in this one thing, we must never quit

We must continue in the gospel of Jesus Christ
In the Last Days, the temptation to quit will be very strong

What does it mean to continue in the gospel?

Jesus died and was raised to life
Hold onto Jesus
Seek to encounter Him every day
As you encounter him and follow him, we will follow the same pattern He walked while on earth
He came, He loved, He ministered, He healed, He taught, He delivered, and He died
As Christ followers, we too must die each day and each day by the power of the Spirit we must be raised to life with Christ.
Begin each day: kill me, Lord. Lord, help me to love you more today.