STAYING STRONG IN STORMY TIMES
Part 3
“The Final Words of the Great Apostle”
This final chapter of Paul’s letter to Timothy, the final words we have recorded from the apostle Paul, hurts the heart to read.
Paul is concluding his letter to Timothy about how to have faith during difficult times. As he concludes, he describes life as a race and wants to encourage Timothy to finish the race. So let’s look at how Paul finished his race and how he uses his running to encourage us to run and finish our race.
Preach the Word (4:1-5)
The first charge for finishing the race is to preach the word. Since it is the sacred scriptures that are able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Jesus (3:15) and make us complete (3:17), then our teaching and instruction needs to only be from the word.
To put this another way, we will not finish the race successfully unless we are in the word and teaching the word to others!
1 Timothy 4:16 “Be careful in your life and in your teaching. Continue to live and teach rightly. Then you will save yourself and those who listen to your teaching.”
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But notice what he says in verse 2. The word must be proclaimed in season and out of season. The NRSV reads, “Be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable.”
The NET reads, “Be ready whether it is convenient or not.”
We noted in chapter 3 that being a Christian would be difficult during these last days. We were told that all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
So we cannot teach only when it is a convenient or favorable time. I think this is an easy temptation to fall into. We think about serving God and teaching others about God only when it is a good time to do it. We will do something when it is convenient for us and a safe or favorable time.
Paul goes on to say that we must correct, rebuke, and encourage others with patience through our teaching. This is the goal of public teaching. God’s word is going to correct, rebuke, and encourage.
We must also be willing to share and preach the gospel to others in our community and our sphere of influence, even when it is difficult. We cannot bend to the cultural or governmental pressure to keep us from teaching the good news of Jesus.
Nor can we shrink back when the times are difficult. I believe this is what has happened to Timothy. In chapter 1:6 Paul exhorts him to “stir up the gift of God which is in you…” He then reminds him that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and of a sound mind” (Vs. 7). Timothy has not given up on God, but has been battling fear. He was stepping back a little because the times were difficult due to persecution. Paul says, Don’t do that!
I want us to notice the motivations that Paul gives. First, in verse 1 Paul reminds Timothy through his charge that Jesus will judge the living and the dead and is coming back. We cannot shrink back or stop preaching because Jesus will judge us. Jesus is coming back and we cannot take a break to teaching others about Jesus.
Further, Paul says in verses 3-4 that when the tide turns against Christians is when we need to be teaching all the more. Listen to what Paul says is going to happen in verse 3:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers…”
Out of a fleshly longing for novelty and excitement, ‘instead of receiving those teachers truly sent by Christ to instruct them, they will stray away from their pastors and sound churches and will raise up for themselves a heap of unsound teachers.
In the last days people are not going to tolerate sound teaching, and we’re witnessing this on an ever-growing scale. Instead, says Paul, they are going to gather teachers who agree with them, teaching what they want to hear, so that they can carry out their own desires.
Paul says all the more reason we must preach the truth from the scriptures because people will want to hear what matches their own desires. This is one of the most primary reasons we have so many churches today. If you do not like the message, go somewhere else where you do like the message.
People are not leaving because it is false teaching. No, in many cases people are leaving because it is true and they would rather hear what matches and affirms their lifestyle of choice.
It is easy to become a megachurch. Not all megachurches, but many of them just tell people what they want to hear. They rarely mention sin, or the need for repentance, or the price of discipleship, or the need to crucify the flesh, or the one-wayness of Jesus, and many other of the fundamentals of the faith.
Instead you hear myths and fables. “And they will turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned aside to fables (myths, fanciful made up stories)” (vs. 4).
Paul is not talking about classic Greek myths like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, or Jason and the Argonauts. Rather, myths are anything not founded in the truth of God’s word, but are presented as such.
Essentially, any false teaching is a myth. It is not true. It is a fabrication. Joseph Smith claiming to be visited by the angel Moroni who informed him that there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang, is a myth–a fanciful, made up story.
Or Mohammad the founder of Islam claiming to be visited by the archangel Gabriel who revealed to him the beginnings of what would become known as the Quran is a myth, a fanciful made up story.
Paul warned the Galatians, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal 1:8).
And then in modern times we have churches claiming bizarre things like gold dust or feathers falling during their services–a thoroughly made up story. Think it through. If real gold dust were falling on the congregation during services would you just go home, take a shower and wash it off? Do we ever hear of even one person on whom the gold dust supposedly fell going to a metallurgist or professional jeweler to have it verified?
Or would you not take one of the purported feathers that fell from heaven into the congregation to an ornithologist to see what kind of bird feather it was? And if it was truly from heaven wouldn’t it become the sensation of the world, an earth shattering sign when no earthly bird could be found to match it?
Of course, none of these things have been professionally verified because it’s a fanciful, made up story!
This is why the solution in the last days is more of God’s word and not less. When people have itching ears and look for spiritual teachers that match what they want to hear, it is an easy temptation for preachers and churches to want change what we do so that we can keep such people.
This is why so many churches now have turned to entertainment. The temptation is there to shift your focus to meet the desires and passions for exciting, goose bumpy stuff.
Jesus showed us this very problem. In John’s gospel, after feeding the 5000, we read about the crowds seeking Jesus and finding him the next morning on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. But listen to what Jesus says to the crowd when they find him:
“Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him.” (John 6:26–27 CSB)
Jesus knew that they had come to him for the wrong reason. They did not seek Jesus because they understood the sign of the multiplied fishes and loaves. They were looking for Jesus to feed them again.
People are going to claim faith and claim to believe, but really all they are doing is finding someone who will give them what they physically desire. They are going to seek teachers who give them what they want, and who validate the lifestyle they want to lead.
Here’s a principle: Never allow experience to shape your theology, rather let your theology define the experience.
Paul’s solution to Timothy is to keep preaching the word and not give into the demands of carnal, drifting Christians. He brings a second “but you” in verse 5:
“But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
Exercise self-control, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill your ministry.
Even as a pastor, Timothy was to also evangelize.
Listen to Paul’s four commands: Stay with the work. Endure the hardship. Do the work. Fulfill your ministry.
Next Time: The great Apostle announces that his time has come to go home to Jesus.
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