Motives for Sacrificial Ministry, Part 2
2 Timothy 2:10‑14
As you know, we're studying 2 Timothy chapter 2 and looking at verses 8 through 13. I want to briefly remind you for the sake of those who haven't been with us in our study that Paul is writing this his last epistle to his son in the faith Timothy. Timothy has reached a low point apparently in his spiritual life and ministry. He is in danger of being ashamed of the Lord and ashamed of Paul. He is failing to use his gift as he ought to. He's feeling the pressure of persecution from the elders of the church at Ephesus who have defected from the faith and whom he is trying to correct. He is also feeling some animosity and rejection from the congregation at the church at Ephesus because they're living in ungodliness and he must set them right. He definitely feels the heat of the Roman Empire as it moves to persecute Christians. Paul who writes him is in prison at the time of his writing and awaiting his own execution. And Timothy knows that could come to him.
The ministry has not been easy. Timothy is young. He is naturally timid. He has his own sins to deal with. He tends to be a little bit weak in some areas of defending the faith against some high powered philosophy. And so he's really struggling. It would be a time in his life when he's looking for sympathy, a time when he's crawling into a corner and expecting somebody to come in the corner and soothe his brow and give him a cold drink and pat him a little bit and endeavor to sort of raise his sense of worth. It's a time in his life when he's licking his wounds. There may be a little bit of a "poor me" mentality, even self pity may have sort of overwhelmed him because of the difficulty.
And in that situation he is confronted by the Apostle Paul who doesn't give him sympathy at all, but rather gives him strength. He says, in effect, what you need, Timothy, is not sympathy for the difficulty of your situation, what you need is strength for the difficulty of your situation. And this is not the first time such an infusion of strength into a waning servant has taken place. In fact, as I was sitting back thinking about that, I was reminded of an amazing and beautiful passage of Scripture in Jeremiah which is a very good parallel. So let's begin by looking at Jeremiah chapter 11.
To give you a little bit of background about Jeremiah, Jeremiah was unquestionably the greatest religious and righteous personality in Israel in his day. He was the supreme example of godliness in his time. He did not have a happy life. He would have been a very poor advertisement for the prosperity gospel. His entire life was a life of sorrow and sadness and pain and persecution. He was a very unique character. He was born a priest but called to be a prophet. His sufferings were more poignant and painful and more long‑lasting than any other Old Testament prophet. His life could be characterized, really, as one long martyrdom. And, in fact, if God hadn't spared him and the text of Jeremiah says this, he would have died again and again. Perhaps a thousand times he would have died, so hated, despised and rejected was he by the people to whom he spoke.
He ministered for about forty years. The whole forty years in sorrow. The people were apostate. They wanted nothing to do with his condemning confronting message which called them to holiness and called them to repentance. They didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to listen to it. They wanted to shut Jeremiah up. At times he felt as if God had forsaken him. He cursed the day that he was born because of the unending and unmitigated sorrow that he bore. One of the kings who reigned during his tenure as prophet, Jehoiakim, was so angry with what he said that he took the scroll of Jeremiah's prophecy, cut it in pieces and then burned it. Jeremiah became a fugitive from the king's wrath. Jeremiah ultimately ended up imprisoned. He had far more opposition cumulatively than any other Old Testament prophet. He suffered greatly.
Part of it was due to the fact that his message was always a message of unconditional commitment to God. He stressed nothing but total abandonment to the service of Jehovah. He called for complete surrender. And because of that ultimately tradition says he was stoned to death. He faced persecution upon persecution. Suffering, pain, he endured incredible trials, he endured rejection, he was sorrowful all of the time so that he became known and is still known as the weeping prophet. In his prophecy he talks about how he could wish that his eyes were like a fountain so they could pour out water in weeping for the destruction of his people who were facing the judgment of God.
As we come to chapter 11 and the end of the chapter, one of the many sorrows in the life of Jeremiah takes place. He was originally from a town of Anathoth. And now we read in verse 21 that the men of the town he came from, his own friends, his own familiar friends, those who were a part of his life were seeking his life and they were saying, "Do not prophesy in the name of the Lord that you might not die at our hand." In other words, Jeremiah's own townspeople were saying if you don't stop this condemning prophecy, we're going to take your life, we're going to kill you.
And so, here is Jeremiah, righteous, godly, virtuous, faithful in proclaiming the truth and never relieved from an incessant life of trials and suffering and persecution. And now when it comes to the point where even the people from his own home town are after his life if he doesn't silence his message, he's had about all that he can take and he cries out to the Lord and his prayer is recorded in the first four verses of chapter 12. Listen to what he says. "Righteous art Thou, O Lord, that I would plead my case with Thee."
Now he goes to the Lord recognizing that God does right and says, "I want to plead my case to You, You're a righteous God." "Indeed," he says, "I would discuss matters of justice with Thee." I want to talk about what's fair, God. And the underlying attitude is what's happening to me, frankly, isn't fair. "Why has the way of the wicked prospered? Why are all those who deal in treachery at ease?" Why are all the wicked having it so good and I am so faithful and my life is so filled with sorrow? It just doesn't fit. You're a just God. And so, in a sense, he storms the gates of heaven with a holy familiarity. He's not accusing God of anything, he's just pleading with God. He's concerned that the wicked are prospering and in contrast to that he tells God about his own heart, verse 3, "But You know me, O Lord, You see me and You examine my heart's attitude toward You, You know the difference between what I am and what they are. And how is it that they prosper and I, in a sense, perish? You know my heart, You know I'm no hypocrite while they deal in treachery...as he said in verse 1 and in verse 2...You planted them, they took root, they grow, they've even produced fruit. You are near to their lips but far from their minds." I'm true and they're false, I'm genuine and they're hypocritical, but I'm suffering and they're prospering. He's really under the pain of his persecution. He's enduring with great difficulty. And what he wants out of God is some sympathy.
"The wicked," verse 4 says, "are even mocking God." Jeremiah says, "How long is the land to mourn and the vegetation of the countryside to wither for the wickedness of those who dwell in it? Animals and birds have been snatched away because men have said, He will not see our latter ending." In other words, they're mocking God...we can do anything we want, we can devastate this land, we can act in any way we want, God will never see the end of it. In other words, they're denying the omniscience of God, that He knows everything. They're mocking God.
And so, Jeremiah says, "Lord, how can You deal with these wicked mocking hypocrites and allow them to prosper while I'm in an incessant condition of suffering?" And frankly that's not a question that has not since been asked by those who serve the Lord God and endured the same kind of seeming incongruity. I mean, I think there have been times in my life when I confess to you that I've asked the same question. "Lord, why is it that I always seem to be struggling through things and other people seem to have so few struggles? Why is it that others are not persecuted while we who preach the truth are accused of all kinds of things that aren't true?" I mean, that's only a minor thing compared to what Jeremiah endured. But any servant of God who goes through the low point of suffering on a prolonged basis is going to cry out to God in a prayer not unlike this..."Lord, how is it that this fits in with Your justice?"
So, Jeremiah wants some sympathy. And he's kind of pleading for it. He's impatient. He would like his suffering to end and he would like things to be reversed. God's answer is very interesting. God doesn't give him sympathy. In fact, just the opposite. In effect God says to him. "You think you've suffered, you ain't seen nothing yet." Just the opposite of what he wanted to hear. Look at verse 5, he had just said You ought to slaughter all these wicked people, at the end of verse 3, and You ought to set them up for a day of carnage. But on the other hand, look at verse 5, God says, "If you have run...and you ought to circle verses 5 and 6, they're fascinating, put a mark by them...if you have run with footmen and they have tired you out, then how can you compete with horses?" What a statement.
You say, "What in the world is He saying to him?" Here is this poor beleaguered battered and bruised prophet who crawls up somewhere in a moment of silent meditation and cries out to God and says, "I cannot take anymore of this. I have a pure heart. I am living to Your glory. I'm trying to do it right. I'm preaching the truth and I am literally being killed all the day long," to borrow Pauline terminology. "On the other hand, the unrighteous who hate You, who use Your name, it's near their lips but who do not care about You at all, they're hypocritical and they ought to be slaughtered like sacrificial animals in a day of carnage are prospering all over the place. Lord, I'm getting a little impatient, how about some sympathy?" And the Lord's answer is...Hey, if you can't run with the footmen and not get tired, what are you going to do when you've got to run with the horses? In other words, Jeremiah, rather than being so consumed by this particular effort, you better realize that the worst is yet to come. You're only running with the footmen now.
I don't know how it would be, I've never tried to race a horse. I've raced a lot of human beings in my life, but I've never tried to race a horse. But I remember watching on television one time a man who thought he could race a horse and win. That man was a fool. And that's essentially behind this imagery here. Jeremiah, if you can't handle the difficulty of running with the footmen, what are you going to do when I bring out the horses and make you run against them? The idea is it's going to get worse. And what Jeremiah needs is not sympathy, what he needs is greater...what?...strength...greater strength.
And then He says to him also in verse 5, "If you fall down in a land of peace, how will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?" That's most fascinating. Down by the Jordan River in ancient times before the denuding that we now have seen take place throughout history that has basically skinned the land, down at the Jordan River it was thick with growth. And it was the place where the wild beasts occupied themselves and lived. And what He is saying to Jeremiah is, "Look, if you cannot stand up and hold your ground in a land of peace, what are you going to do when you get caught in a jungle?" metaphorically. What in the world are you going to do when you get in the thicket with the wild beasts? You haven't seen anything yet. You're just learning how to endure.
Boy, what a statement! But that's so instructive for us. And he talks about brothers in the household and those who are close to him dealing treacherously with him, crying against him. In other words, the people closest to you reject you and hate you. If you can't handle that, you'll never be able to handle what's to come. Instead of sympathy he gets a call to strength. And that is precisely what Paul is doing. Now let's go back to 2 Timothy.
Timothy is kind of folding up under the pressure and Paul is saying to him, to borrow Jeremiah's concept, to "Hey, Timothy, if you can't run with the footmen, what are you going to do when the horses come? If you can't stand up in a land of peace before the heat is really on, what are you going to do when you get caught in the thicket with the wild beasts?" This is a call to strength to a young man who is not unlike a Jeremiah, a spokesman for God in a time of trouble.
Timothy is facing trials. He's facing persecution. And he's whimpering like Jeremiah whimpered and he wants to be pampered and he wants to be stroked and instead the Apostle Paul calls for strength. He calls for courage. He calls for him not to be ashamed. He calls for him to be properly committed, to be a soldier and an athlete, and a hard‑working farmer. He calls for him to teach the Word of God no matter what happens. And here in verses 8 to 13 he gives him the motives that underlie the fulfilling of that call.
I was reading a sermon by Hugh Black who was one of the great Scottish preachers of a century past. He was looking at the church in this sermon and looking at its suffering. And he wrote this, "Christ's church has survived through her power to endure. She was willing to give up anything to hold her ground, willing to pour out blood‑like water in order to take root. The mustard seed planted with tears and watered with blood stood the hazard of every storm, gript tenaciously the soil, twining its roots around the rocks, reared its head a little higher and spread out its branches a little fuller. And when the tempest came held on for very life and then never hastening, never resting went on in the divine task of growing and at last became the greatest of trees, giving shelter to the birds of the air in its wide‑spreading branches. So is the Kingdom of heaven," says Black, "it is a true parable of the church. She conquered violence not by violence but by virtue. She overcame force not by force but by patience. Her sons were ready to die, to die daily. It was given unto them not only to believe in Christ but also to suffer for His sake, Philippians 1:29. They would not be stamped out. When their persecutors thought they were scattered like chaff, it turned out they were scattered like seed. The omnipotent power of Rome was impotent before such resolution. The battle not the barracks is the place to make soldiers. The church met the Empire and broke it through the sheer power to endure. She was willing to suffer and to suffer and to suffer and afterward to conquer," end quote.
Scattered like chaff but it turned out to be seed. You're here today because believers were willing to endure. And they have endured and endured and endured and endured through all the centuries. And they endure even today. I was reading yesterday about the church in Romania. The president of Romania, Nicolai Kosesque(?) who heads up the Communist government was being discussed in this article and it said the Romanian communist government violates virtually every area of human rights. Religious believers, particularly evangelicals, are targets of abuse. Churches have been bulldozed, Bibles have been confiscated pulped and turned into toilet paper. Believers are not permitted to evangelize and some groups are not permitted to assemble. Religious activists have been imprisoned, beatened, and tortured and still the church goes on because there are those godly people who will endure anything. They can run with the footmen and they can run with the horses. They can stand true in the day of peace in the land of peace and they can survive in the thicket of the Jordan. And it's on those kinds of people that Christ has built His church. All the rest are sort of along to benefit from the sacrifice of the few.
Jesus, of course, set the original example of that kind of devotion. "Consider Him," the writer of Hebrews says in 12:3, "who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. Consider Christ and what He endured without growing weary before you let yourself grow weary in the battle." Thank God for a courageous church. Thank God for those who are willing to understand what it was to be a disciple, that being a disciple as, Jesus said, meant leaving everything, facing persecution. In Matthew chapter 10 verses 24, 25, that section there, he says, "You don't expect the servant to be above his master and you don't expect the teacher to be above...the student rather to be above his teacher," and the implication is if the teacher and the master are persecuted, so will the student be and so will the servant be. Persecution is to be expected. You need to be ready for that. You need to be willing for that. You need to not lose heart. In that same tenth chapter he says, "Do not fear" three times. Do not fear. Why? Because your God knows, your God cares, your God oversees, your God will vindicate you in the end. That's your calling.
The call then to endurance is part of the call to discipleship. Jesus in the same passage says you may have to say goodbye to father, mother, sister, brother. You may be set at variance, after all I came not to bring peace but a sword, to cut a family in half, animosity and persecution may come right out of a family. You must make very personal sacrifices. They may even involve taking up a cross, they surely will involve denying yourself, losing your own life in order that you may find it. All of that kind of teaching. You read of the heroes of the faith in Hebrews chapter 11 who endured all kinds of conceivable persecution and then he says, "Of whom the world was not worthy." So that the life of the church has been built on those who were able to endure.
Now the point of all of this is to call Timothy and us to that endurance. And that has to come from deep within a person. Something has to be motivating us more than our own well‑being. If you're looking for your own well‑being, you're not going to endure any persecution. More than your own comfort, if you're looking for your own comfort you won't endure persecution. More than your own prosperity, success, reputation, fame, or whatever. If you are the issue then you will compromise whatever has to be compromised to gain whatever you want for you. That's the way it is. But those who are willing to give their life and to give their whole energies toward the service of Christ and endure whatever comes along, those people have a higher agenda. They're motivated by something other than themselves. And that's what we want to talk about this morning.
What motivates one to endure? What is to motivate Timothy? Well let's remember what we said last week. The first thing that Paul says must motivate you is the preeminence of the Lord, verse 8. "Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, descendant of David according to my gospel." In other words, remember the Lord of the gospel. Remember who you serve. Remember who you preach. Remember for whom you live. I mean, if you are self‑consumed then you're going to be compromising, you're going to be avoiding conflict, you're going to not want to get into confrontation, you won't speak the truth, you'll hedge it so you don't offend because it's you you're worried about. I mean, you're in the office and you know you ought to speak a word for Christ, the moment is perfect, it's the exact time to do it, or you're in your family gathering and they're about to do something you know is wrong, you should confront that lovingly in the name of Christ. You know it's time for you to speak the gospel in a given situation, you know you ought to tell your boss who is about to do something that's illegal and unfair and you ought to tell him