WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.639 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. 00:00:05.419 --> 00:00:10.140 ! This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. 00:00:11.040 --> 00:00:17.120 ! But God's word is not changed. Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, 00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:22.320 that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. 00:00:23.519 --> 00:00:29.519 Here is a trustworthy saying, if we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:36.759 we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us. If we are faithless, 00:00:37.219 --> 00:00:40.340 he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. 00:00:42.219 --> 00:00:48.400 Thank you, Alexis. Well, keep that passage open in front of you. If you're new or visiting with us 00:00:48.400 --> 00:00:53.900 this morning, we have been working our way through the book of 2 Timothy. We've arrived at chapter 2, 00:00:54.340 --> 00:00:59.260 verse 8, and so we're going to spend our time looking at those verses together. Let me pray for us 00:00:59.259 --> 00:01:05.679 as we come to God's word. Let me pray. Father, we thank you this morning that we have the awesome 00:01:05.679 --> 00:01:08.519 privilege of listening to what you say in your word. 00:01:11.259 --> 00:01:19.959 We live in a world full of voices yelling all sorts of things at us, and into that world you speak words 00:01:19.959 --> 00:01:27.739 of life and truth. And so, Lord, we pray that we would listen well this morning. Bless us and our time 00:01:27.739 --> 00:01:31.979 together, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. 00:01:33.459 --> 00:01:40.319 Now, I wonder if I could ask you, as we come to look at these verses, what you think makes for a good life, 00:01:40.319 --> 00:01:46.819 a good life? I think you could say, couldn't you, that the purpose of all of our lives, 00:01:47.079 --> 00:01:53.019 whoever we are this morning, our purpose is to try and live what could be called a good life, 00:01:53.239 --> 00:01:59.419 a life that's worth living, a life that you can be proud of, a life that has purpose and significance 00:01:59.420 --> 00:02:07.480 and meaning. That's what we want to do with our lives, don't we? None of us want to live a wasted life. 00:02:07.879 --> 00:02:15.259 We want to live a good life. Now, the ancient Roman philosopher, Varro, writing a century before Paul, 00:02:15.780 --> 00:02:22.740 wrote, sorry, before Paul wrote the passage that we just read, he said that four things constituted a good 00:02:22.740 --> 00:02:32.500 life. He said that pleasure, rest, a kind of perfect combination of both pleasure and rest, 00:02:32.500 --> 00:02:38.020 because one in excess of the other is bad, and then the sort of necessities of life in harmony. 00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:44.660 That's what a good life is all about. Now, I don't reckon that probably many people would disagree 00:02:44.660 --> 00:02:50.360 with Varro, would they? Varro never had a social media account, but I reckon those four categories 00:02:50.360 --> 00:02:56.580 pretty much track what people post, don't they? The pleasure of life. You know, look at the show that 00:02:56.580 --> 00:03:02.620 I just went to see. Look at the football match that I'm at. This is me in the stands. Or rest, you know, 00:03:02.760 --> 00:03:08.400 this is my view for the next few days. Or the perfect combination of the two. No one wants their 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:14.260 feed to make them appear as if they're always on holiday. They take holidays seriously, but they're 00:03:14.259 --> 00:03:21.799 also at work. You know, good health, the necessities of life. Just set a PB and park run. Look at me. 00:03:22.780 --> 00:03:29.840 Or, you know, this is me with my friends having a great time. Food. Well, everyone seems to post 00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:36.439 pictures of their food, don't they? Perhaps that sounds about right. Maybe a good life is a life of 00:03:36.439 --> 00:03:40.840 pleasure, rest, the perfect balance of the two, and the necessities in perfect harmony. 00:03:42.240 --> 00:03:47.379 But unfortunately for Varro, a few centuries later, his ideas found themselves up against probably the 00:03:47.379 --> 00:03:53.939 greatest human mind that's ever lived, an African man named Augustine. And Augustine pointed out that 00:03:53.939 --> 00:03:59.599 if those four things constitute a good life, then for most people, most of the time, a good life is 00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:05.439 just not possible. Augustine's point was that pleasure, rest, the perfect combination of the two, 00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:13.520 and the necessities of life are very quickly lost and taken away from us. We get sick, pleasure vanishes. 00:04:14.579 --> 00:04:20.579 Maybe an accident happens, poverty strikes or war strikes, rest therefore becomes impossible. 00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:27.459 Augustine said as well, we can't seem to master our own desires. We end up overeating, we end up 00:04:27.459 --> 00:04:33.519 over speaking, we end up over working, and all of a sudden, pleasure, rest, the perfect combination of the 00:04:33.519 --> 00:04:40.180 two and the necessities of life have vanished from us. Or perhaps our relationships break down, which they 00:04:40.180 --> 00:04:45.680 always do, sometimes even through no fault of our own, and then the good life has gone. 00:04:47.879 --> 00:04:54.060 Augustine's point then is if Varro's good life is not possible, if Varro's good life is just too 00:04:54.060 --> 00:05:00.339 unpredictable, then it follows that in Varro's view, life has really no meaning, or no purpose. 00:05:01.379 --> 00:05:06.840 Now think about it, if the purpose of a good life is to have pleasure, rest, the perfect balance of 00:05:06.840 --> 00:05:12.819 those two, and all the basic necessities in life in perfect harmony, if that's the purpose of life, 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:21.980 but we can't have it, then life is meaningless, purposeless. I think we probably live at a time where 00:05:21.980 --> 00:05:27.620 people are waking up to this reality. Maybe you are this morning. Maybe you have searched hard for 00:05:27.620 --> 00:05:33.379 the purpose of living in pleasure and rest and fame and wealth and whatever it is. And perhaps you've 00:05:33.379 --> 00:05:38.540 seen that those things are flimsy and unpredictable. Perhaps they've slipped through your fingers and 00:05:38.540 --> 00:05:44.520 you've noticed that they're not there anymore. I think it's why we live at a time where the biggest 00:05:44.520 --> 00:05:51.580 killer of men under 50 is suicide. Mental health amongst young people is the worst that it seems to have 00:05:51.579 --> 00:05:57.259 been ever. And I think that's in part because the good life that we have been sold has just not 00:05:57.259 --> 00:06:03.740 worked out. And because the good life is outside of our grasp, and through no fault of our own, we 00:06:03.740 --> 00:06:11.519 recognise the sort of purposelessness of it. There's a kind of despair. I think it's probably that despair 00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:18.219 which lies behind the assisted suicide bill. You know, if life has no pleasure, it has no meaning. 00:06:18.220 --> 00:06:23.960 It might as well be ended. Now bring all that back to 2 Timothy with me for a moment. 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:32.660 And here you find that Timothy is being asked by Paul in this letter to join with him in suffering 00:06:32.660 --> 00:06:37.680 for the gospel. That is word for word what Paul says. Chapter 1 verse 8. He says, 00:06:37.680 --> 00:06:43.439 So don't be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me, his prisoner. Rather, 00:06:44.180 --> 00:06:49.840 join with me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:55.639 He's then told in the verses that just immediately precede the ones that Alexis read for us, to 00:06:55.639 --> 00:07:02.620 serve Christ like a good soldier in verse 3, or to run life like an athlete in verse 5, or to work 00:07:02.620 --> 00:07:09.959 hard like a farmer in verse 6. And so if Timothy had studied Varro at school, which I think he could 00:07:09.959 --> 00:07:15.480 well have done, he certainly lived in a world that was shaped by his ideas, then Timothy would know, 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:21.139 as he reads this from Paul, he knows, doesn't he, that Paul is not offering him a good life. 00:07:21.939 --> 00:07:28.199 Not one as it's been understood by the world, at least. There's not much pleasure. There's not much 00:07:28.199 --> 00:07:36.060 rest in the suffering that Paul describes. Now, why is that? Why is Paul writing to his dearest friend 00:07:36.060 --> 00:07:42.699 and telling him to suffer for the gospel, even though that goes against every way that he is 00:07:42.699 --> 00:07:48.039 being taught to live a good life in the world, to find pleasure and rest and the necessities of life? 00:07:49.039 --> 00:07:52.539 Well, listen, this is the key for us this morning. If you don't get this, you won't understand any of 00:07:52.540 --> 00:08:00.120 it this morning. Get this, okay? Paul doesn't think that life is ultimately about pleasure or rest, 00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:06.180 or even the perfect harmony of those two, or of life's essentials. Because the good life that Paul 00:08:06.180 --> 00:08:17.960 is interested in is not the fleeting good life of now, but an eternal life. A good, eternal life. 00:08:17.959 --> 00:08:23.060 Let me try and show you how this works in the passage. Look down at verse 8. Notice there's 00:08:23.060 --> 00:08:27.899 just one instruction at the start of verse 8. Take a look at it. It's the instruction to remember. 00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:33.139 Remember Jesus Christ. Now, I've been puzzling over this for a while, wondering, you know, what, 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:39.939 you know, is Paul concerned that Timothy is going to forget Jesus, right? You know, maybe he's concerned 00:08:39.939 --> 00:08:44.259 that Timothy, like Jesus would just slip from his mind somehow. But the more I thought about that, 00:08:44.259 --> 00:08:49.059 that's crazy, isn't it? Like, Timothy is a preacher of the gospel. He's working in a local church. 00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:54.360 He is effectively a church pastor. He's committed to the teaching of the scriptures, doing the work 00:08:54.360 --> 00:09:00.019 of an evangelist, the public reading of the Bible, the ministry of visiting. You know, for Timothy to 00:09:00.019 --> 00:09:05.720 forget Jesus would be like Michael Jordan forgetting about a basketball court. It's like, wait a minute. 00:09:06.379 --> 00:09:13.059 I'm there all the time. Be like a chef forgetting what an oven is. I don't, I just don't think that's 00:09:13.059 --> 00:09:18.379 Paul's instruction. And the closer you look at it, it's not actually. The instruction is given in the 00:09:18.379 --> 00:09:24.659 detail of it. Look down again at verse 8. Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from 00:09:24.659 --> 00:09:29.799 David. This is my gospel. Now, the penny dropped for me when I realized those aren't three separate 00:09:29.799 --> 00:09:35.799 things for Timothy to remember. It's not Jesus Christ, comma, pause, resurrection from the dead, 00:09:35.919 --> 00:09:42.179 comma, pause, descended from David. No. They're actually all one thing. The commas have been added by 00:09:42.179 --> 00:09:49.059 our translators, which means that the instruction is for Timothy to remember that the gospel that he believes, 00:09:49.059 --> 00:09:56.299 that he preaches, is the gospel of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. It is the gospel of David, 00:09:56.699 --> 00:10:03.679 descended from David. In other words, the thing that Timothy is not to forget is that at the heart of the 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:11.519 the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is dying before rising. In the pattern of an ancient King David, 00:10:11.939 --> 00:10:18.899 who was promised the throne forever and ever, but then persecuted, booted out of his kingdom by a 00:10:18.899 --> 00:10:25.199 rebellious son, spending his life struggling with sin, death, war, and betrayal. And that's what 00:10:25.199 --> 00:10:30.679 Timothy's to remember. Remember, Timothy, that following Jesus has a shape or a pattern. 00:10:30.679 --> 00:10:37.120 Put it another way, my gospel, says Paul, has a very different definition of the good life that 00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:42.719 Varro sold to you. And you must remember that, keep this in front of you, that my gospel, the gospel 00:10:42.719 --> 00:10:52.179 with Jesus Christ at the center, there is an eternal life, a glorious with the Lord life. Good life is 00:10:52.179 --> 00:11:00.579 eternal life. Evil is eternal evil. And so the purpose of life is not the pursuit of temporary 00:11:00.579 --> 00:11:06.839 pleasure or rest, the perfect balance of the two, the necessities of life in perfect harmony. No, 00:11:07.639 --> 00:11:14.699 the purpose of life is to find eternal life in Jesus Christ. Augustine, in his answer to Varro, 00:11:14.759 --> 00:11:20.500 put it this way. He says, the philosophers have supposed that the final good and evil ought to be 00:11:20.500 --> 00:11:27.940 found in this life. That was their mistake. But we shall reply as follows, that eternal life is the 00:11:27.940 --> 00:11:36.860 supreme good and eternal death, the supreme evil. That's the big idea in this section of Paul's letter. 00:11:37.679 --> 00:11:42.120 He's telling us, isn't he, that the good life that we seek, the good life that brings purpose and meaning 00:11:42.120 --> 00:11:47.659 to every day, a good life that's available to the sufferer, to the sinner, a good life that's available 00:11:47.659 --> 00:11:52.799 to the rich and the poor, the good life that's available, even if you're sick and dying, that good life 00:11:52.799 --> 00:11:58.659 is eternal life. And you find it by faith in the resurrected Jesus who descended from David. 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:04.919 I want us to come on and have a look at the rest of the verses, but let me just pause there for a moment 00:12:04.919 --> 00:12:12.000 and ask you to consider that carefully for yourself this morning. I wonder whether you have ever been 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:19.039 honest enough just to think about the purposelessness of life. Maybe you have that ache in the middle of 00:12:19.039 --> 00:12:25.559 the day, that sense that there's probably more to life than a nice holiday or a big following on social 00:12:25.559 --> 00:12:31.659 media or a full bank account or a great job. Let me tell you that is because eternal life has been 00:12:31.659 --> 00:12:37.299 placed in your heart. And that is what you're really longing for. That's what you were made for. 00:12:37.299 --> 00:12:43.419 The resurrection of Jesus is not a kind of neat trick. It's a signpost to what we're all made for. 00:12:44.599 --> 00:12:47.479 And of course, it scans too, doesn't it, if you're a Christian this morning. 00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:52.240 We're not immune, are we, to this trap of thinking that a good life is about pleasure and rest. 00:12:52.899 --> 00:12:58.939 That's why Timothy needed to be reminded. Timothy, you're going to be sucked in by the world that's 00:12:58.939 --> 00:13:03.759 going to tell you that the purpose of life is finding pleasure and rest in the here and now. 00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:10.080 Remember that that's not the good life we're seeking. The good life we're seeking is eternal life. 00:13:13.139 --> 00:13:19.519 Elizabeth Elliot was the widow of a missionary who was speared to death by a remote Ecuadorian tribe 00:13:19.519 --> 00:13:24.980 in the 1960s. He and his four friends, they were young men. They were trying to reach people with 00:13:24.980 --> 00:13:30.500 the gospel who had never heard about Jesus before. They spent months and months preparing. They'd flown 00:13:30.500 --> 00:13:37.340 over, they'd dropped food and messages, and they were ready to travel. The night before they went, 00:13:37.500 --> 00:13:46.080 they sang together, we rest on thee, our shield and our defender. And then they left and they never 00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:54.960 returned. Speaking in 1976 to a missions conference, Elizabeth asked this about her late husband and his 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:59.419 friends to the congregation that was gathered. She said this, she said, what does that do to your faith? 00:13:59.419 --> 00:14:07.559 Speared to death in the course of their obedience? What does that do to your faith? Does it demolish it? 00:14:08.059 --> 00:14:15.559 Were their lives wasted? It's a good question, isn't it? I mean, being put to death in your 20s by trying 00:14:15.559 --> 00:14:18.899 to obey Christ, that would be enough to put anybody off. That's not a good life, is it? 00:14:18.899 --> 00:14:25.840 Elizabeth answers, she says, a faith that disintegrates is a faith that has not rested in God himself. 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:32.519 You have been believing in something less than ultimate, some neat program of how things are 00:14:32.519 --> 00:14:38.259 supposed to work, some happiness all the time variety of religion. You have not recognized God 00:14:38.259 --> 00:14:43.399 as sovereign in the world and in your life. You have forgotten that we're told to give up all right 00:14:43.399 --> 00:14:50.100 to ourselves, lose our lives for his sake, present our bodies as a living sacrifice. The word is 00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:59.079 sacrifice, she said, because the good is eternal and not temporary. Now in a way, that's the whole idea. 00:15:00.039 --> 00:15:05.220 The purpose of life is to gain the good of eternal life and you find it by faith in Jesus Christ who 00:15:05.220 --> 00:15:10.899 died and rose. But let's just try and scan through the rest of the verses and see three other things here 00:15:10.899 --> 00:15:16.819 which kind of contribute to this. So I wanted to show you what does not suffer, what we must do, 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:22.019 and what we must not do. Okay, so let's start with what does not suffer in the world. What does not 00:15:22.019 --> 00:15:28.659 suffer in the world? Look at verse 9 with me. This is my gospel for which I am suffering even to the 00:15:28.659 --> 00:15:35.879 point of being chained like a criminal, but God's word is not chained. Now Paul here, notice, compares 00:15:35.879 --> 00:15:41.559 the chains on his feet with the absence of chains on the gospel message, God's word as he calls it. 00:15:42.159 --> 00:15:49.360 His point is that though he suffers, the word of God is not suffering. In fact, the word of God is 00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:55.700 always achieving what it was set out to do. It is unchained. So verse 10, Paul concludes, 00:15:55.700 --> 00:16:01.480 therefore, because God's word is unchained, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, 00:16:01.900 --> 00:16:08.920 that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. In other words, 00:16:08.980 --> 00:16:12.600 this is what's going on in the world, says Paul, I am suffering, the gospel is prospering. 00:16:13.180 --> 00:16:17.640 And it's not just that those things kind of contrast one another. In fact, they go together, 00:16:17.700 --> 00:16:23.360 don't they? It's not that Paul's suffering is providing the means of salvation for the elect. 00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:29.580 Jesus' suffering does that, right? But Paul's suffering is the means of people hearing about 00:16:29.580 --> 00:16:36.279 Jesus. It's the means of them hearing the gospel and being saved. As God, through the preaching of 00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:41.919 the gospel and specifically the suffering of his messenger, saves all his people, the elect, as he 00:16:41.919 --> 00:16:48.180 calls them. The elect who then, by the gospel, obtain salvation that is in Christ Jesus, which comes 00:16:48.179 --> 00:16:55.059 with eternal glory. So Paul's life is one of suffering and preaching, while the gospel is free, 00:16:55.339 --> 00:17:01.459 unchained, accomplishing the purpose of God in the saving of his people. Now, this unchained, 00:17:01.599 --> 00:17:06.440 never-thwarted gospel, the gospel that is delivering eternal life to the elect, means all of a sudden, 00:17:06.519 --> 00:17:12.099 doesn't it? Notice, Paul has found a purpose. He's found a purpose in life. Here's a purpose that 00:17:12.099 --> 00:17:18.759 extends, that isn't thwarted, because here is an unchained reality in a world of chains, 00:17:19.399 --> 00:17:26.539 a purpose that's not insecure or unpredictable, but solid. Just think about how this works for us. 00:17:26.959 --> 00:17:33.259 Think about the things that you do in any given week. Perhaps like us this week, you went to do 00:17:33.259 --> 00:17:38.179 the grocery shopping, and then when you got home, you were so tired that you left the bags on the floor 00:17:38.180 --> 00:17:41.460 in the kitchen overnight. You know, you put the fridge stuff, you have to put the fridge stuff away, 00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:46.180 don't you? But everything else, well, that can wait till the morning. And then when you get up in the 00:17:46.180 --> 00:17:50.259 morning, you find that the mice have had a feast on the loaf of bread that you left on the kitchen 00:17:50.259 --> 00:17:56.120 floor, and you were hoping to have for lunch the next day. You know, why is that? Well, in a 2 Timothy 2.9 00:17:56.120 --> 00:18:02.480 kind of way, you could say, couldn't you, that grocery shopping is in chains, right? Grocery shopping, 00:18:02.620 --> 00:18:07.799 along with everything else in this world, is frustrated. Or maybe you spent all day waiting for a 00:18:07.799 --> 00:18:11.500 delivery, but it never came. That's because you don't need me to tell you this, do you? Delivery 00:18:11.500 --> 00:18:17.319 companies, they're in chains. They're part of this frustrated world. They're part of this world where 00:18:17.319 --> 00:18:22.440 things go wrong. Maybe you're in a hurry to get to a meeting only to find that the tube wasn't running, 00:18:22.700 --> 00:18:27.279 or the bus got stuck, or the car broke down. Or perhaps you're trying to organize accommodation, 00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:31.319 but the landlord never answers the phone or replies to emails. Perhaps you're waiting on a visa, 00:18:31.319 --> 00:18:36.779 but it's grindingly slow. Perhaps you came to London to find a partner, to find money, to find success, 00:18:36.779 --> 00:18:44.639 but all you found is loneliness, long hours, extortionate rent. Why? Well, because we live 00:18:44.639 --> 00:18:51.259 in a world of chains, don't we? But, says Paul, amidst all of that, there is one reality in this world 00:18:51.259 --> 00:18:56.779 which is unaffected, unchained. One reality that always accomplishes exactly what it wants. 00:18:57.319 --> 00:19:02.819 An unchained reality that sets people free for eternal glory, and that unchained reality is the 00:19:02.819 --> 00:19:10.899 word of God, the voice of God. And so Paul is happy to endure the chains of this life. For him, 00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:19.299 the physical chains of a Roman dungeon, because he inputs suffering, and the unchained gospel 00:19:19.299 --> 00:19:24.279 outputs eternal glory. Not just for Paul, but for all God's people. 00:19:24.279 --> 00:19:31.940 There's a story. I tried to verify this story this week, but I couldn't. So I, you know, I might have 00:19:31.940 --> 00:19:37.740 made it up. But there's a, I'm going to tell it anyway. There's a, there's a story about a company 00:19:37.740 --> 00:19:42.500 of soldiers in communist China whose job was to clear sand off a railway line in the Gobi Desert. 00:19:43.980 --> 00:19:51.139 This was like a, the definition of a difficult and frustrating task. So as soon as you, you know, 00:19:51.140 --> 00:19:55.040 were clearing by hand. And as soon as you clear the sand off the railway line, the wind just blows it 00:19:55.040 --> 00:19:59.780 back on. So each day they would get up, they would clear the railway line. Overnight, the sand would 00:19:59.780 --> 00:20:04.680 blow back on it. They would get up the next day. They would have to do it again. And you ask yourself, 00:20:04.759 --> 00:20:09.200 don't you, well, what's the railway line there for that's so important? What is going along those 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:14.620 tracks that mean that it's worth having that company of soldiers spending day in, day out clearing 00:20:14.619 --> 00:20:21.739 the tracks? Well, you're told that the railway line exists to bring supplies to the company of 00:20:21.739 --> 00:20:26.859 soldiers who spend their life clearing the sand off the railway line. It's like the definition of 00:20:26.859 --> 00:20:32.379 futility, isn't it? What do you do for a living? I clear sand off a railway line. What's the railway 00:20:32.379 --> 00:20:37.339 line there for? To bring supplies for me to clear sand off the railway line. Why don't you just stop? 00:20:37.679 --> 00:20:42.199 I don't know. I've never asked that question. And that's what life is like, isn't it? 00:20:42.200 --> 00:20:47.620 Without an eternal purpose, that's exactly what life is like. You know, you work hard, 00:20:47.660 --> 00:20:51.259 don't you, to pay for a holiday. And then you return from holiday and you're more exhausted than 00:20:51.259 --> 00:20:56.200 you were when you went. What was the point in that? You know, you go to the gym to fight for good 00:20:56.200 --> 00:21:02.100 health and you're sweating it out day in, day out, only then to go to the doctor and be struck down by a 00:21:02.100 --> 00:21:08.840 cancer that you never saw coming. You spend hours and hours researching the purchase that's going to 00:21:08.839 --> 00:21:16.359 bring you pleasure. You're on eBay or Amazon or Facebook marketplace, or maybe you're fancy and 00:21:16.359 --> 00:21:22.119 you're buying it new and you think this is going to be it. And when you get it, everything just feels 00:21:22.119 --> 00:21:28.679 exactly the same as it did before. We spend our lives clearing sand from a railway that doesn't 00:21:28.679 --> 00:21:36.419 need to exist. And Paul says in the midst of that world of meaningless futility, there's a message from 00:21:36.420 --> 00:21:43.160 God, a word from God, a message that always accomplishes his purpose, a message that brings 00:21:43.160 --> 00:21:50.920 atonement from sin, that brings rescue from death in the resurrection of the son, that's unaffected by 00:21:50.920 --> 00:21:57.840 the forces of evil. Because this message is the conquest of evil, crushing it at the cross, Satan bound 00:21:57.839 --> 00:22:04.240 and chained as the unchained gospel marches on. Live for this, live for this, says Paul. 00:22:05.199 --> 00:22:09.599 The gospel never suffers. Secondly though, what we must do in this life, what we must do. 00:22:10.359 --> 00:22:14.159 In verses 11 to 13, if you look down at them, we've got essentially what I think is a 00:22:14.159 --> 00:22:18.279 trustworthy saying, as Paul calls it, probably a hymn or something that the church used to sing 00:22:18.279 --> 00:22:25.000 together. And it's in two sets of pairs. The first pair show what we must do, and the second what we 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:31.559 must not do. Okay, so the first, what we must do. Here is a trustworthy saying, if we died with him, 00:22:31.759 --> 00:22:39.559 we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. Here it is, to live and reign 00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:47.740 with Christ, we need to die with him and endure with him, following him. This then is Paul's definition 00:22:47.740 --> 00:22:54.180 of the good life, right? Sell the good life to me, Paul. Okay, yes, it's dying and endurance. That's 00:22:54.180 --> 00:23:00.279 what he says. Doesn't sound that good, does it? But this death, death with Christ, we need to understand, 00:23:00.420 --> 00:23:05.700 don't we? In other words, what Paul is saying is that being a Christian, becoming a Christian, 00:23:06.039 --> 00:23:11.980 is not using Jesus to accomplish the desires that you have for your own life. People treat Jesus like 00:23:11.980 --> 00:23:16.420 that, don't they? You know, we pray when we get stuck. Jesus, please help me. 00:23:16.420 --> 00:23:23.580 Jesus, please get me out of this fix. But in Paul's image, becoming a Christian is not treating Jesus 00:23:23.580 --> 00:23:30.039 like that. Instead, becoming a Christian is actually dying with Christ, laying ourselves down on the 00:23:30.039 --> 00:23:37.860 cross with him. The old us crucified with Jesus. I am dead to sin, you say. I am dying to my selfish 00:23:37.860 --> 00:23:45.460 desires. That driving concern to live for my own glory is dying with Jesus on the cross. My own plans, 00:23:45.460 --> 00:23:52.100 my own dreams. Jesus take them to the cross. That's faith. You know, faith in Christ is not 00:23:52.100 --> 00:23:57.200 believing in some kind of abstract way that Jesus died for your sins. Faith is, if you like, here, 00:23:57.360 --> 00:24:05.059 it's handing over your old self to Jesus and saying, take me, kill me on the cross, that old sinful, 00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:11.700 selfish desire that I might now live resurrection life with you. Life that we experience in part now 00:24:11.700 --> 00:24:17.180 by faith but will fully experience in his presence. This is the good life, isn't it, that Augustine was 00:24:17.180 --> 00:24:24.740 talking about. A life that is dead to sin but alive to God. A life that is dead to death but alive to 00:24:24.740 --> 00:24:30.460 eternity. And then we find, don't we, that pleasure, rest, work, relationships, all those things are gifts to 00:24:30.460 --> 00:24:38.759 enjoy. Temporary pleasures, not the meaning itself. As we die to the desire to make those things God's, 00:24:38.759 --> 00:24:44.599 we are liberated to enjoy them as the gifts they were intended to be. And then in verse 12, as we're 00:24:44.599 --> 00:24:49.680 looking at with the children, we are encouraged to endure, literally stay or remain. Don't move from 00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:56.579 this hope in Jesus. Keep trusting in him. Even in the world of suffering, endure sickness and grief and 00:24:56.579 --> 00:25:03.940 betrayal and divorce, persecution and injustice. Sometimes things are even targeted directly at us 00:25:03.940 --> 00:25:09.799 because we follow Jesus. And it's not that those things are right or fair. They are unjust. They are 00:25:09.799 --> 00:25:17.880 immoral. They are unfair. But they are also, says Paul, temporary. They're a blip on the timeline of 00:25:17.880 --> 00:25:23.960 eternity. And they can do nothing to cut out our purpose in life. Because one day we will reign with 00:25:23.960 --> 00:25:30.160 Christ in new creation. I wonder if I can just ask you how this applies to you this morning. 00:25:31.279 --> 00:25:39.039 How does dying to live and enduring to reign work out for you? Perhaps this is true of you. I know, 00:25:39.340 --> 00:25:43.059 because I've spoken to lots of people, I know this is true of lots of people, not necessarily in this 00:25:43.059 --> 00:25:48.779 room, but lots of people in our community. For lots of people I talk to, their Christianity has never 00:25:48.779 --> 00:25:55.220 gotten beyond that asking Jesus to help them with their plans in life. Please, Lord Jesus, help me to 00:25:55.220 --> 00:26:00.740 find pleasure. Help me to find rest. And effectively, what we're doing is asking Jesus just to help us 00:26:00.740 --> 00:26:05.940 find what everybody else is looking for. And if that's you this morning, can I say to you, you know, 00:26:05.940 --> 00:26:10.940 as gently as I can, but hopefully as clearly as I can, and it's not me saying it, it's Paul saying it. 00:26:11.460 --> 00:26:16.059 Really, if that's you this morning, if Jesus is really just in your life to help you find the 00:26:16.059 --> 00:26:22.000 things that everybody else is looking for, you're not really a Christian, not least by his definition. 00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:30.099 You might be what you call a cultural Christian, but you're not converted. And that means that you're 00:26:30.099 --> 00:26:37.339 not yet in receipt of eternal glory, not until yet you've died with Christ. Or maybe you are a 00:26:37.339 --> 00:26:43.779 Christian this morning, and it just feels hard. The Christian life feels like enduring. It's tiring. 00:26:43.779 --> 00:26:49.039 It's not thriving. It feels like I'm persevering. We're not cruising. The Christian life has brought 00:26:49.039 --> 00:26:53.680 me trouble. It's brought me sleepless nights. It's made me sad. It's made me confused. It's made me 00:26:53.680 --> 00:27:00.019 poor. It's made me misunderstood by others. If that's you this morning, can I say that's exactly 00:27:00.019 --> 00:27:07.960 how it's supposed to be? You're not doing it wrong. The glory is still to come. There might be times when 00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:13.359 it's not like that. Let's pray that there will be. But just because it is like that does not mean 00:27:13.359 --> 00:27:18.819 you're doing it wrong. The glory is still to come. There is a day when we will reign with him. 00:27:20.139 --> 00:27:25.579 So we sing now, don't we, songs like this, and to the grave, what will we sing? Christ, he lives. 00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:32.819 Christ, he lives. And what reward will heaven bring? Everlasting life with him. Eternal good. 00:27:32.819 --> 00:27:36.599 Finally then, what must we not do? 00:27:38.599 --> 00:27:42.879 Those positive instructions are then mirrored in the second half of this trustworthy saying by 00:27:42.879 --> 00:27:50.299 the negative ones, aren't they? If we disown him, he will also disown us. If we are faithless, 00:27:50.519 --> 00:27:57.159 he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. I want you to keep your eyes on the passage and to 00:27:57.160 --> 00:28:00.640 think carefully about this because I think Christians have misunderstood these verses. 00:28:01.700 --> 00:28:08.560 Christians love to say, God is faithful even when I am unfaithful. Now in a sense that is true, 00:28:09.080 --> 00:28:15.480 but that is not what these verses are saying. Almost all the commentaries will tell you that what this 00:28:15.480 --> 00:28:23.120 verse means, that the pair are to be taken together. Okay, so if you disown God, God disowns you as a 00:28:23.119 --> 00:28:30.259 punishment for your disowning of him. If you say, I don't want you, God, God says, you won't have me, 00:28:30.259 --> 00:28:41.699 then. He disowns you. And then if we are unfaithful to him, I will not have faith in you, God, we say. 00:28:42.199 --> 00:28:51.699 I will not believe in you. I will not submit to you. Then you can be certain that God is a big believer in 00:28:51.700 --> 00:29:01.799 God. And he will be faithful to who he is. And he will bring a judgment on the faithless because he 00:29:01.799 --> 00:29:09.059 cannot disown himself. If you say, God, you don't exist, you are not real, you are not to be submitted 00:29:09.059 --> 00:29:19.000 to. God cannot say, yeah, that's right. He can't say that. He has to say, that's wrong and I will judge it. 00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:26.119 It's terrifying warning then, isn't it? That while there is an eternal good that Paul is longing 00:29:26.119 --> 00:29:31.380 Timothy would shape his life around, an eternal good that eclipses the joys of this life with an 00:29:31.380 --> 00:29:39.440 unbridled joy in the presence of God, there is also, as we end, an eternal evil that eclipses the 00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:47.279 suffering of this life with the unbridled agony of the absence of God. I think some of the most 00:29:47.279 --> 00:29:52.279 terrifying words of Jesus, and Jesus was the clearest on this, actually, when he says towards 00:29:52.279 --> 00:29:58.160 the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, he says, away from me, I never knew you. 00:30:00.279 --> 00:30:06.779 I came to church. My parents brought me to church. I called myself a Christian. I sang the songs, 00:30:06.839 --> 00:30:12.619 even the new ones that I didn't really like. I took the supper. Away from me, I never knew you. 00:30:12.619 --> 00:30:19.619 Your obedience was only ever about yourself. You were trying to earn a good life in this life. 00:30:20.379 --> 00:30:25.339 You were not looking for eternal glory through knowing me. Away from me, I never knew you. 00:30:25.879 --> 00:30:32.000 It's a terrifying prospect. And so Paul says we must die to self to live for Christ. 00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:40.799 Because if we deny the Lord, he will deny us. God will meet our faithlessness with faithful justice. 00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:49.140 So much so that it doesn't matter if the faithless life is full of pleasure and full of rest. 00:30:49.839 --> 00:30:54.500 The perfect combination of the two, all that's necessary in life in perfect harmony, 00:30:54.500 --> 00:31:03.339 it will only be temporary. It will not be enough to eclipse the agony of hell, says Paul. 00:31:04.519 --> 00:31:10.960 So can I invite you this morning to a good life? I don't mean pleasure, rest, 00:31:11.720 --> 00:31:15.440 the perfect combination of the two and the necessities of life in perfect harmony. 00:31:16.339 --> 00:31:18.960 I mean, can I invite you to an eternally good life, 00:31:19.640 --> 00:31:22.160 a good life in the glories of heaven with our Lord Jesus? 00:31:22.160 --> 00:31:28.000 And can I tell you that the way to find that is in the unchained message of the gospel, 00:31:28.400 --> 00:31:31.840 the gospel which talks about Jesus dying before rising, 00:31:32.640 --> 00:31:36.420 the message that was promised to David of an eternal throne, 00:31:36.540 --> 00:31:39.360 but was his through the betrayal of his son, 00:31:40.500 --> 00:31:43.400 that he found through suffering and difficulty, 00:31:44.400 --> 00:31:47.500 a life of enduring faith and future glory, 00:31:47.500 --> 00:31:51.579 a life where hardship is bathed with significance, 00:31:51.960 --> 00:31:55.740 where we have a purpose in life and hope in death, 00:31:56.519 --> 00:32:00.660 where hard decisions, difficult circumstances and pain drive us closer to our saviour, 00:32:01.140 --> 00:32:04.140 who invites us, come reign with me in glory. 00:32:05.180 --> 00:32:06.819 Let me pray as I close. 00:32:06.819 --> 00:32:25.099 Let's just take a moment of quiet and we can pray in our own hearts as we respond to what the Lord said to us. 00:32:25.099 --> 00:32:25.099 00:32:25.099 --> 00:32:25.099 00:32:25.099 --> 00:32:25.099 00:32:25.099 --> 00:32:25.099 00:32:25.099 --> 00:32:25.099 00:32:25.099 --> 00:32:25.099 00:32:25.099 --> 00:32:25.099 00:32:25.099 --> 00:32:25.099 00:32:36.819 --> 00:32:48.619 Heavenly Father, we pray that for everybody in this room, 00:32:48.779 --> 00:32:49.759 all of us, 00:32:51.079 --> 00:32:53.299 would find our purpose in life, 00:32:53.500 --> 00:32:56.759 in living for eternal glory and not temporary pleasure. 00:32:58.220 --> 00:33:01.259 Forgive us, Lord, that our desires have been too shallow, 00:33:02.339 --> 00:33:04.059 our hopes have been too temporary. 00:33:04.059 --> 00:33:09.179 Lord, we pray that you might lift our eyes to see that the Lord Jesus, 00:33:09.899 --> 00:33:11.799 who died, rose again, 00:33:12.319 --> 00:33:15.059 ascended into glory and is returning one day. 00:33:15.720 --> 00:33:21.259 And that life now trusting him means that good life is eternal life with him, 00:33:21.940 --> 00:33:22.819 reigning in glory. 00:33:23.799 --> 00:33:24.519 Please, we pray, 00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:26.299 might you help us to endure? 00:33:27.279 --> 00:33:28.940 Might you help us to keep going? 00:33:29.779 --> 00:33:31.659 Might you help us, please, we pray, 00:33:31.660 --> 00:33:33.580 to do all that we can 00:33:33.580 --> 00:33:35.320 to live for him 00:33:35.320 --> 00:33:37.500 in the strength that you give. 00:33:38.240 --> 00:33:39.360 In Jesus' name. 00:33:39.960 --> 00:33:40.320 Amen. 00:33:40.779 --> 00:33:41.080 Amen.