Immanuel Sermon Audio
2 Timothy (55:66)
and find the book of 2 Timothy. This is a short book. It's only four chapters and they're not long chapters. It wouldn't take you very long at all this evening to sit down and to read 2 Timothy and so I'd encourage you to do that tonight. We're not going to read all the way through it right now but we're going to read different sections of it as we work through this passage. Last week I gave you some examples of famous mentors and their proteges and all of that led up to talking about Paul and Timothy and just telling you that Paul was the mentor and Timothy was the protege and Paul trained him and spent time with him and invested in him and equipped him, prepared him for ministry and to really understand first and second Timothy because this is one man writing a letter to another man you really kind of got to know something about these two guys in the history of their relationship and so some of these things we talked about last week. I didn't put all this background on your outline like I did last week but I just want to go over a few of these things quickly. So this is a review if you were here last week but I just want to remind you of this relationship between Paul and Timothy and what that looked like. Timothy was a native of a town called Listra and you can see Listra right there in what we know as Turkey, modern-day Turkey. That's where he was from. Paul met him on his first missionary journey and that map you see right there with the squiggly line is his first missionary journey and then he picked him up and took him with him on his second missionary journey. You can go back and you can read about this in Acts but let me just remind you about Timothy's first exposure let's say to the Apostle Paul right. He's living in Listra and the Bible tells us that his dad is Greek and his mom is Jewish. So he comes from a family that sort of mixed a mixed marriage mixed faith in his parents. We know from from what Paul writes to Timothy some of the things he says that whatever his dad did or didn't do and raising him and teaching him about his faith we do know that his mom Timothy's mom and his grandma taught him the Old Testament scriptures so he grew up at least with that foundation and one day this guy comes to town Jewish guy calls himself a missionary in his name's Paul and Paul comes into town and almost immediately he heals a crippled man and the town goes completely bonkers crazy and all these guys like Timothy's dad these Greek guys and gals they think that the Greek gods have come down to visit them they think that it's Zeus and Hermes the chief God who healed him and then the spokes person who did all the talking and they think that Paul and his missionary partner Barnabas are these Greek gods come down to him and they basically start this impromptu parade and they're celebrating and they're gonna offer sacrifices to these guys and Paul and Barnabas figure out what's going on and they say no no no no we're not gods we're just men you should not should not worship us and they start to preach the gospel and people respond to the gospel and not too much time goes by just a little while after that in a group of Jewish guys come into town behind Paul they're just sort of been trailing him town to town they come in and they stir up the Jewish community against Paul trying to say that he's this false teacher he's preaching a false gospel all these things and they take Paul they're dragging through the streets of Listra where Timothy lives dragging through the streets of Listra dragging outside of town stony men leaving for dead they everybody thinks that Paul is dead he just got stoned to death they leave him there the Bible says when he wakes up he marches right back into Listra where these guys were who did that that's Timothy's first exposure to Paul he comes to town he heals a guy there's this big hubbub and big celebration and he puts it into it he preaches the gospel dragged through the streets taken outside of town stone left for dead that's his first exposure then Paul goes on you can see the line he goes on to other towns Paul and Barnabas finish this trip up and they get ready to go on a second trip and Paul and Barnabas say hey let's go check on all those churches we started like the one in Listra and they're getting ready to go and Barnabas wants to take his cousin Mark and Paul says I don't want him to go he bailed on the first trip halfway through he quit he didn't finish he didn't keep his commitment he's a wimp he's a loser we don't need him I don't want him I'm not working with that guy and Barnabas says well I'm taking him so Barnabas and his cousin Mark go on their own mission trip and Paul takes another group of guys and they go on a mission trip and one of the guys he takes when he goes on the second trip to Listra he picks up Timothy and Timothy's gonna go with him on this this second mission trip we know that when Paul picked him up okay there's been a period of time where Paul starts the church and then he comes back on this second trip by this time we know Timothy is a believer he's a follower of Jesus Christ and he's well spoken of by all the people in the community everybody looks up to him and everybody respects this guy we also know from the New Testament that he was young he wasn't as seasoned as some of the other religious leaders that he's interacting with and he was so young in fact that some people tended to look down on him and to discourage him in his ministry and so Paul tried to encourage him in that told him not to be timid we know that he had some sort of stomach problem some sort of health issue Paul gives him some instructions about how he should handle that and we also know from the book of Hebrews the last chapter of Hebrews that at some point for some reason Timothy got thrown into prison and then he eventually got released we don't know any of the specifics but we do know that he got thrown into prison so Timothy you got these two guys and they're very very close friends and Timothy travels around with Paul on this missionary trip and Paul's teaching him and he's training him and he's setting an example for him and he's showing him how to preach sermons he's showing them how to interpret the Old Testament scriptures he's showing them in teaching him how to start a church and how to plant churches all these things Paul's setting this example for him and we know that about 64 AD roughly they're on this trip they stop in Ephesus they've been traveling around and all of a sudden Paul looks at Timothy and says hey the rest of us are going but you're staying you're gonna stay here and be the pastor of this church and that's a big city and that was a really important church but Paul said you are staying here and you're gonna be the pastor of this church and so we mentioned this last week it's a really neat thing that we have a letter that Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus the book of Ephesians and we also have two letters that he wrote to the pastor of the church in Ephesus and it's really interesting to read those those things together and to see what Paul emphasized in those letters here's what tradition says about the end of Timothy's life okay we don't know that this is true I mentioned this last week when he was about 80 years old he was still preaching he was still the pastor in Ephesus and they had a big celebration a big annual festival for the great goddess there and they're marching through the streets and they're having this big celebration this parade not unlike what they tried to do with Paul and Barnabas back in Listera in Timothy the guy who struggled with being timid at one point marches out in the middle of the street stands in front of the parade preaches the gospel they're infuriated that he would disrupt their parade they take him and they kill him stone him to death and he dies preaching the gospel of Jesus that's tradition not in the Bible but that's what tradition says happened so first Timothy second Timothy and the book of Titus all go together and they're known as the pastoral epistles and they're letters that Paul wrote to pastors to Timothy and to Titus and he's just giving them instructions about what he wants these guys to do as pastors in their respective ministries I showed you this timeline last week and I'm just gonna put it up again so you can kind of get the feel of it acts chapter 28 it's the last chapter in acts that's about 59 AD okay so you're now about 30 years out from when Jesus dies on the cross 59 AD the book of Acts ends and Paul is in house arrest in Rome okay house arrest it was not the worst thing that could happen to you to be under house arrest you would be placed in a specific home somebody would put you up and they would basically say you can't leave this sort of like your trial is pending and we're just gonna let you hang out here we don't think you're dangerous we don't think you're gonna take off you just you gotta stay here until your trial and so he's on house arrest that's where the book of acts breaks off a few years later we pieced together from the rest of the New Testament that he's released and he writes first Timothy and the book of Titus in 65 or 66 and then about a year later he's arrested again and he sent back to Rome and we're gonna talk about this imprisonment this was not house arrest house arrest was not a bad deal this imprisonment that we're talking about here in 66 67 was a really bad deal and I'll show you some pictures in a minute so in 67 while he's in prison in Rome he writes the book of 2 Timothy or the letter of 2 Timothy and then probably that same year Nero the Emperor kills Paul he's Martin for his faith and then we know from Roman records that about 68 AD Nero himself died so that's kind of the timeline of what we're talking about traditionally and this is pretty strong tradition some church tradition you look back on and you say I don't know like the thing about Timothy I told you tradition says Timothy that 50 50 maybe it happened that way maybe it didn't we don't really know when I say church tradition that Paul in this second imprisonment was imprisoned in the Mamertine prison in Rome that's pretty solid church tradition there's not a lot of people who look at that and say oh that didn't happen it wasn't that way this is where we're pretty sure that he was on this second imprisonment and put this first picture up this is I'm gonna show you some other pictures but this is just sort of a drawing though that's the same thing just different artist renderings of what this prison looked like in Paul's day and on that picture on the left you can see there's the white bricks on the outside and it's just sort of a cutaway they're putting a hole in the wall it's not really there but they're just showing you this is what's on the other side of that wall and there's a chamber up on that top area and there's a hole in the ceiling and that hole up in the top goes straight down into another hole in the bottom and there's a smaller little area down in the bottom and you can see from the picture on the right about how tall that guy is that's a short person because my understanding is that bottom chamber is just right at about six feet tall just about as tall as I am from the bottom stones up to the ceiling so it's not a big area this is the mammertine prison in Rome anybody been to Rome and been to this prison been in it some of you have did you go in the prison no did you go in the prison no did you go in the prison anybody Carol did how long ago was that before 2009 okay so I'm going to show you some pictures I've never been there and I got really confused this week because I'm doing this research and I'm pulling these pictures some online some from books and I'm comparing and I'm like this doesn't match up and finally today I figured out they they did some work on on the prison some restoration right because this is a very old facility and they wanted to restore it as much as possible to what it was like in Paul's day and they had made some changes since then so some of these pictures look a little bit different it's all the same place but they've made a few little changes so this is a first picture if you're there in Rome it looks like this doesn't look like a prison looks like a church because on top of it they built the church so when you look at this white building in the middle of all that's around it there's sort of that balcony everything above that is a church and there's a little chapel in there and so you can go to that church this next picture zooms in on this front gate and that's up on the top it says the prison of the apostles Peter and Paul and tradition says that both apostles ended up in prison in this particular prison before they were martyred for their faith so the next picture shows if you wanted to go in you can go visit it this is right behind that gate you go down one of these two sets of stairs and you go into this door and the next room that you walk into looks something like that and you see that little yellow bar in each picture I just put that there so you know that's the same bar in both pictures it's just looking in different directions so in this picture you're looking that way and then you can turn around and you see that same bar on your on your right so back on that far far wall you see there's sort of a built-in little cabinet deal and you can you can find other pictures of this there's two busts two sculptures in there one is Peter and one is Paul back behind there and there's a little altar and over on the right you see there's sort of a rectangular thing on the wall that's just a plaque that lists some of the people that were imprisoned in this particular prison wasn't just Peter and Paul but lots of other guys there you understand when this was a prison okay there was no staircase going down to the lower level that was added much much later so real quick Catherine go back to that very first picture okay over on the right you see the top room and it's got this sort of semi-circular dome right there and then there's a one hole going down to this lower room where the guy standing and then there's a smaller hole that goes out that's not like a manhole to go through that's more like a spring going out into the sewage system into the river there so go back to the one we were on and you can see there's the arch in this upper room okay going from left to right imagine there's no staircase and on the picture on the left at the very bottom you see that circle okay that's a a great and lots of pictures online of people standing by that great they put a big metal thing covering there so dopey tourists don't accidentally fall through it but in Paul's day it was just a hole and you didn't take the stairs down to the lower level they either dropped you down or if they were feeling generous they put a rope around you and lowered you down but more than likely they just sort of said there's the hole jump in and originally when you look at this you say man it's it's underground it's all built out of rock it's almost like it's a cistern that's what it was originally it was originally built to hold water and when it would flood the river would back up under that very bottom hole and it would fill the whole thing up and so it was originally a cistern converted into a prison go to the next picture this is sort of what you would have seen best I can figure this is pre restoration and so you see there's some tile on the floor pretty nice tile work down there that they didn't do that for prisoners that would have been added later after it sort of became a shrine and you see there's a plaque over on the wall over on the top left rectangular silver plaque just list some of the people who were in this prison the gold I don't know what you call that relief or little picture there on the wall is a picture of Peter baptizing the prison guards of this prison whether that happened or not who knows but that's tradition while Peter was in prison there he baptized the guards and they got a little altar built and you see the little looks like a little circle right there you're down in the lower room so this is the spring right goes out to the river but then when the river floods it sort of would back up all the way up and so if you were a prisoner down in this hole and the floods came up you're in a world of trouble because it just start filling up when you look at that altered you notice anything strange about it crosses upside down because according to tradition when Peter was crucified he said don't crucify me this way crucify me this way because I don't want people to think I am emulating Christ I want it to be different so that's why it didn't just flip upside down like it needed one more nail on it it's supposed to be that way and then you see over to the left of that little altar you see it looks like just a big metal or big stone column it's got a little metal thing around it that column is what they would have chained prisoners to would have been a chain around that column probably would have gone all the way up chain around there and then chained to the prisoner so that he's locked up down in this bottom bottom cell so go to the next picture this next picture is if you just sort of turn around in that very same room and the two circles on those lights or so you just see that's the same light okay so you turn around from that altar and you see that picture on the left and then if you sort of turn to your right again see this little door and the best I can understand that door down there however old it is on the other side of that door is the sewage system and that door is there because think about this right your Romans right and you got this prison deal and you got these guys down there probably a lot of guys dying down in that dark nasty hole well who wants to be the guard that gets let down a rope into the hole in the ground and gets the dead body and tries to get it up that little skinny hole nobody wanted to do that so you got this nice little door there and you open the door throw the body out in the sewage close the door back up easy so that's what that door on the right is from so I think best I can figure about 2009 they did some like I said some restoration or some work on this area and so these next pictures are actually the same room and I know it looks a little bit different but you see the hole on the floor on that picture on the left that's the same little spring with the the concrete that had been placed on top removed and that very simple altar replaced what used to be there and you see the hole in the ceiling in both pictures okay that's the manhole cover in the grate that they would have let these guys down and you see the column right there doesn't have the big thing around anymore just shows the column that they would have chained these guys to and then put this last picture up and I just marked some things so you can kind of see I really think this is the same room after they've done some restorations you got the exact same plaque got the exact same pillar you got the exact same hole in the wall and the altars in the same spot and so many many tourists have seen that picture on the left and then if you would have been there in Paul's day it probably would have looked more like this picture on the right now all these pictures are taken with the benefit of lights see lights down there electric lights and flash photography so it's very easy to see it's very nice it was fascinating I watched some videos of people going on some tours of these and I was going to show them to you but there's no point because it's dark can't see anything it's just some guy walking in a cave for all I know he's walking around in one of our Sunday school rooms with the light off and telling you oh look this around in front of you isn't this it's just it's very very dark down there so just want you to picture these conditions okay Paul has been arrested again and previously he's been in house arrest meaning he lived in a home and he had to stay there and he couldn't leave and he gets released from that and he gets to go on about his business but now he's arrested a second time and he's down in the bottom of this hole and it used to be a cistern and now it's just a hole in the ground and part of this final portrait that you see is he's alone in a cold dungeon and he's chained like a common prisoner and it's dark down there and it's probably freezing cold down there it's probably very damp and in those pictures in the the pre restoration or post restoration pictures I didn't see any facilities down there if you know what I'm saying it's just a hole in the ground and you're chained down there who knows who else is down there with you and here's one thing to keep in mind mention this last week the Romans did not use incarceration at this point in history they didn't use incarceration as punishment that was just kind of why would you do that if they wanted to punish somebody one option would be that they would kill them another option would be that they would put them into some sort of forced labor do something productive if you're healthy enough to do that a third option would be house arrest if you weren't that bad of a guy and they weren't really concerned about you they could put you on your house arrest but that was you're you're on your own they're not taking care of you you're you're on your own to live the final option would be that they would hold you in a prison like this one until they got ready to kill you in this prison by all historical accounts that's what they used it for this was not like they're locking people up for life in that hole it's like we're gonna lock you up for a while here because pretty soon we're gonna kill you and so if you go back to that timeline just real quick put that timeline back up as you piece these dates together he's arrested and he sent to Rome he writes second Timothy and then he's martyred all of that falls within about a year so not like he spent months and months and months and months and months and years and decades locked up in the hole he's not there for very long but he's locked up in a dungeon like a common prisoner and so look at some of these verses with me in second Timothy chapter 1 verse 16 he says may the Lord grant mercy to the household of a nieces forest for he often refreshed me and he was not ashamed of my chains so we know he's chained up when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and he found me so it's not like he was on house arrest you could just go over to him he's in a hole on the ground and it took some some work for him to find him look at chapter 2 verse 9 he says he's suffering bound with chains as a criminal look what he says in chapter 4 verse 13 when you come bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas and the books and above all the parchments he wants that cloak because it's cold down there it's damp it's the conditions are miserable it's dark and so he's asking for a coat final portrait of Paul okay he's in a cold dungeon chained like a prisoner next idea is that his friends have deserted him and his enemies have hurt him and this is this is one of the sadder parts okay it's sad to be in a dark dungeon but this is this is painful as well second Timothy 1 15 he says you are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me among whom are Phagellus and hermogenes everybody turned away tradition is telling us that after he got released from house arrest he went back into Asia minor and he's preaching and that's where he got arrested again and so whatever happened he's saying look these these people betrayed me they turned their back on me it's not just that his enemies did it but it's that people who used to be his friends have turned their back on him look at chapter 4 verse 10 Demas and love with this present world has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica Cretians has gone to Galatia Titus to Dalmatia Luke alone is with me get mark and bring him with you for he is very useful to me for ministry I listened to a sermon this week that was about these verses right here and I had listened to it before it's one of my favorite sermons and the guy just talks about some of these these names Demas and love with the present world and he went to Thessalonica that's not a lot of detail did he go for a job did he go for a woman did he go because he just got upset with Paul and he got tired of the mission we don't know but Paul's description of it is that he's in love with this world and then he talks about Titus goes to Dalmatia Titus was one of his friends he wrote a letter to him and it was a very friendly letter we're gonna talk about it next week it wasn't that Titus got mad at him or bailed on him it's that Titus had work to do he had a ministry to fulfill but that meant that Paul's left all alone Luke alone is with me so his friends have deserted him look over at chapter 4 verse 14 Alexander the copper Smith did me great harm the Lord will repay him according to his deeds beware of him yourself for he strongly opposed our message we don't know all the details of this either but you remember there was one story where Paul went to a town and Demetrius the silver Smith I believe it was an Ephesus got mad at Paul because no one was buying his little gods anymore because they were all worshiping Jesus and he led this big revolt against Paul and so was this something similar where Alexander the copper Smith did that we don't know but his enemies are are hurting him the third thing when you're trying to figure out Paul's state of mind in this final picture of him is that he knew his life in his ministry were over both death was imminent okay this is not like house arrest where Paul's writing and he's saying things like I think I'm gonna come I'm making plans for another mission trip I'm gonna go to Spain I'm gonna do this I'm gonna go all these different places he knows because of the prison that he's in this is it there is no walking out of this place they pull you out of that hole and they kill you or they throw you out the side door in the bottom that's the two ways you leave you go to your death or you died down here and they toss you out into the sewer and so he knows that look at chapter four verse six he says I'm already being poured out is a drink offering and the time of my departure has come you remember when he wrote to the church in Philippi and he said it's one of his prison letters he was in prison but not this kind of prison and he said to them things like if I die and I depart I go to be with Jesus and that's good but if I stay then that's to your benefit because I can encourage you and we can work together and we can serve together and he says I'm hard-pressed which one would be better die and go to Jesus or stay here and be with you I don't know both have have have good things about him here there's no possibility of Timothy I might get to come see you again it's just this is it I'm being poured out and this is the end he knows that time of my departure has come I fought the good fight I finished the race I've kept the faith henceforth has laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will reward to me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing he has completely turned his thoughts in his own life from things in this world to the next life to eternity that's where his focus is now and he knows this is the end last thing is this he's very lonely we know that he's called he asked for a coat so he asked for his cloak and he asked for his books which is really interesting to me look what he says in chapter four verse 13 we read this a second ago when you come bring the cloak that I left with Carpis at Troas and also the books and above all the parchments a lot of debate about what are the books and the parchments and more than likely some of those are scripture copies of scripture that he owned and he wants Timothy to bring them to him so that he can study them in his final days but it's probably more than that because he talks about books plural and parchments plural and seems to make a distinction when I think about somebody on death row I don't think about somebody who's saying I want to study I want to read the word I want to read a commentary I think about somebody who just sort of says this is it this is it this is the end nothing else I'm going to die I know I'm going to die what's the point in spending time studying or reading but for Paul he understood that the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword he understood he tells Timothy in this very this very letter that it's breathed out by God it's the very words of God so he doesn't just sit in this hole talking to God and asking for God to give him some kind of vision or tell him something or help him he's saying I want to read the Bible down to my very last moment I want to read it I want to study it I want to think about it I want to meditate on it so bring the books and bring the parchments I started to give you an outline to this book and then I looked and found several different ones and kind of worked on one of my own and then I just said you know this is really not a book you outline this is not like the the book of Romans the epistle to the church in Rome where he sat down and he systematically laying things out this is a guy who knows he's days weeks away from dying and he's writing to one of his very dearest friends and he's just sort of pouring his heart out and when you read something like that you read the words of a dying man I hate to say it carries more weight than other things that Paul wrote but it carries let's just say a different kind of weight right I read a while back a book that Billy Graham wrote it's the last book he wrote called Nearing Home and I'll be honest with you he's not one of my favorite authors I don't really enjoy reading some of the the books that he's written but that one was interesting to me because throughout the book he knows he's gonna die really soon and those are his last thoughts those are his last words those are the things that are the most important to him when he comes to the end of his life and he can look back with perspective it is ministry and his life and his family and all the things that are important those are the things that really stood out to him and is fascinating to read that and that's basically what you have in 2 Timothy you have a guy who knows this is the this is the end it is time for me to depart already I'm being poured out this is it I'm not coming out of this whole alive or if I do I'm going straight to my death and these are the things that he says to one of his most dear friends and so just a couple of things I pulled out that I wanted you to notice from this letter one is the importance of generational faith and you see it first in a family context chapter one verse five he says I'm reminded he's writing to Timothy I Paul and reminded of your Timothy's your sincere faith a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now I am sure dwells in you as well and one of the things he's reflecting on here is how the faith gets passed down from one generation to the next that's how it's supposed to work grandma gives it to mom gives it to son just pass it down one generation at a time and so he talks about generational faith in a family context and then in chapter two this is interesting as well he talks about generational faith in a church context there's a sense in which your family God designed things to work so that you pass the faith down that way but the church does the same thing and so in second Timothy two two he says what you have learned for me in the presence of many witnesses and trust the faithful men who will be able to teach others also and so you got Paul I gave it to you Timothy and you're going to give it to faithful men and they're going to give it to others you're just going to pass it down and when you pass it down you're not just passing down facts but you're passing on the ability to pass it down you've got to teach them the gospel but you've also got to teach them how to teach the gospel and you do that in your family and you do that in your church and that's how the gospel gets passed down it's a generational thing from one generation to the next it happens in your family happens in your church the next thing I gave you is just a group of passages and I just called them gospel meditations and I'm just going to let you fill in these blanks and we're going to read some of these we won't read all of them we'll read some of them this is again these are the thoughts these are the reflections of a man who knows this is it these are his last words the things that are most important that he wants to tell Timothy he knows this is the last chance I'm going to get to say anything to Timothy these are the things that I want to tell him and so look what he says about the grace of God in chapter one verse eight therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord nor of me his prisoner but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God who God who saved us and called us to a holy calling not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel for which I was appointed a preacher an apostle and teacher which is why I suffer as I do but I'm not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us guard the good deposit entrusted to you I just want you to notice in that meditation on the grace of God this is a high view of the grace of God this is not Paul saying to Timothy I want you to remember that you are the one who you prayed this prayer and I want you to remember you've done this and you've done this and you've it's not about Timothy it's about what God's done for Timothy and so he says things like God called you Timothy that was according to his own purpose not according to what you've done but according to his own purpose and it says his grace was so certain it was almost as if he gave it to you before the ages began way back from before the foundation of the world God had a plan to give you this grace and it was so certain it was as if he gave it to you back then but he says it was made manifest through Jesus he came he abolished death wasn't anything you did he did it he brought life he appointed me I'm not ashamed I know the one I believe in and I believe that Paul is a good enough Christian to hang on to the end nope I believe that because I trust in him he can guard what he's given me this grace in this ministry he's the one that's going to guard it until the day follow this pattern that you've heard from me and you're going to do that because the Holy Spirit dwells in you all of these things he's talking about the grace of God second meditation is about ministry gospel ministry I'll let you read that one he compares and when I say gospel ministry one clarification he's not talking only about pastors he's talking about anybody who serves Jesus Christ okay yes Timothy's a pastor but anyone who serves in any capacity he compares gospel ministry to being a soldier to being an athlete to being a farmer and it's worth you taking time to read through and to think about to meditate on talks about the faithfulness of Christ that's another one I'll let you read chapter two talks about human depravity in chapter three and this one's a good contrast for what we read in chapter one look with me at second Timothy three one to five understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty people will be lovers of self lovers of money proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasible, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God having the appearance of godliness but denying its power avoid such people that's a guy who understood human nature and he had seen it he'd seen it in the men who dragged him out of town and stoned him in Listra right he'd seen it in Demas who abandoned him because he was in love with this present world and he'd also seen it in himself who stood by and held the cloaks of men who were stoning Christians and who went home to home and drug Christians out of their home and sent them off to prison Paul has no illusions that this is just a problem out there he clearly understood it's a problem in here but my point is coming to the end of his life he's reflecting on things he understands human nature really well there's something in us that's just broken and twisted and busted because of sin and that's how it plays out so he talks about depravity talks about the function of scripture chapter three this is one of the more familiar passages we'll read this one quickly from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus all scripture is breathed out by god and profitable for teaching reproved correction and training and righteousness that the man of god may be competent and equipped for every good work he talks about the importance of preaching the word teaching the word that's in chapter four one to five i'll let you read that one it's a great one though preach the word that's a good one if you're a pastor if you're a sunday school teacher if you're a parent if you're a grand parent you're passing down the faith to the next generation there's something in there for you so read that one talks about assurance and death he's not fearful he's not afraid he knows it's the end but he's not he's not shaking he's not upset and just one word second Timothy four six to eight okay we already read it look at it real quickly i'm already being poured out as a drink offering time of my departure has come i fought the good fight i finished the race i've kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the lord the righteous judge will award to me on that day not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing that verse gets applied to a lot of people that it doesn't need to be applied to in life situations in funerals and all sorts of settings we read this verse i finished finished the the race i've kept the faith crown of life is laid up for me and it certainly should be applied to some people but i'm just telling you paul's talking about himself here and you think about what paul's gone through and what he's going through and what he's done for the lord and how he served the lord i'm not saying you have to be paul for this to be read at your funeral i'm just saying i've been to a lot of funerals where i've heard that read and i've thought all they did is die didn't finish anything not even sure they started anything kept the faith there's no sign of of faith in their life why you're reading this verse i think we apply it too easily sometimes but it's a great meditation on assurance for the one who's following christ the last one is the power of the gospel and i just want to look at two verses this one is is worth thinking about as well look what he says in four eleven luke alone is with me get mark and bring him with you for he is very useful to me for ministry what i'm saying to you in that one single verse is that the gospel is powerful to heal broken relationships because there was a point in time when paul got ready to go on a mission trip with his best friend barnabas and they had such a big blow up about mark that they split up and paul said there is no way i'm going on a mission trip with that kid if he's going i'm out you take him and go this massive split in the very first missionary team breaks up because of mark and paul doesn't want anything to do with him and now at the end of his life we don't know how they were reconciled or when that happened but we know that his tune has changed and he says if you can bring anybody with you to see me i'd really like it if you could bring mark he's useful to me paul gave him a second chance he was mad at him he didn't want to go on that second trip with him but eventually he came to realize i gotta i gotta move on i can't hold a grudge about that i've been forgiven much i need to be a forgiving person and he forgave mark and then i want you to look over on the you know in my bible it's the other page look at verse 16 chapter four verse 16 says that my first defense no one came to stand by me all deserted me now in verse 11 he says right now luke is with me but in verse 16 he says my first defense when i had my first trial my first hearing nobody showed up nobody came he said well where was luke i don't know maybe luke was sick maybe luke was on a mission trip maybe luke was doing something maybe luke was busy maybe luke bailed on him we don't know but we know that at this first hearing he says nobody came i was all alone there's a lot of christians who would experience that and they would never get over all of their so-called friends not showing up they'd say oh i see i thought you were my friend you didn't show up no one showed up i thought you were my friend and paul says no one showed up but he he didn't hold that against luke and he's glad that luke is with him and he wants mark to come with him and i'm saying to you when you think about those verses i want you to reflect on meditate on the power of the gospel to heal relationships and when you have been forgiven much because of the gospel truth about jesus christ it should make you a forgiving person and that happened in paul's life happened with mark and happened with luke last thing i want you to see is this really simple paul has a very strong emphasis on the gospel in this last letter and that's not surprising i don't think he's writing to his protege he's writing to a pastor and he knows this is my last chance to say something to this guy and it's almost like he's saying i want you need to keep the main thing the main thing look in the last letter last letter i gave you all sorts of instructions about leaders in the church and how church ought to work and how you do this in the church all these details all those things are important but this is the last thing i get to say to you i'm not going to get in the weeds about details i'm telling you keep the main thing the main thing and the main thing is the gospel and he tells him you can look these verses up i want you to guard the gospel meaning you're going to have to fight for it people are going to come and try to twist it and change it and you're going to have to guard it you're going to have to be active in that you're going to have to suffer for it you're going to have to endure in it it's going to be part of your life and you're going to continue in it day after day week after week and then he he calls him to preach the gospel you can look those verses up later but the point there in all of those is he wants timothy to keep the main thing the main thing so let's do this let's end with prayer and pray for a couple of things as we close second timothy pray that god would help us to be a church and to be families that pass down the faith from generation to generation okay that's one thing i want you to pray about god help my family and help my church help us to pass the gospel generation to generation just like you see in second timothy and then also help us to keep the main thing the main thing help us to guard the gospel help us to suffer for it if we need to help us to endure in the gospel help us to preach the gospel and you've got all those verses you've got all those things on your outline so i'm going to give you two minutes to pray for those two things and then i'll close us in prayer