Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
January 25, 1987
He Is Faithful
2 Timothy 2:8-13, NIV
Friday night Celeste and I were watching TV when a commercial came on. When this happens I become the "zapper". I take my remote control and zap to another channel. I landed on CNN which was in the middle of the Larry King Show where he was interviewing Oral Robert's son. The first question I heard King ask him was, "Why does God allow suffering and sickness in the world?" (King wanted to know why God couldn't make everything perfect - poof - and put his father Oral out of work.)
It's a big question, and always will be. My message this morning is on a very similar issue. Why is it so hard to be a Christian? We mean well, but we fall down, we struggle, and we hurt. It would be so much easier if God would just rapture us the instant we became saved.
But God in his wisdom, doesn't do this. I don't know why. What I do know is that the Christian life is a struggle. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simple-minded, a liar, or very lazy. A few Christian ministries want to tell they have the secret for a blessing-filled life, with no hassles and no defeats. They will say the Bible teaches this. But they are wrong.
Christian faith is only easy if you are resting in your sins and taking God for granted. Some here today may think it's easy. At least that you haven't had to try very hard. But the real Gospel places demands on us. In last week's passage, Paul compared Christians to soldiers, athletes and farmers. Each works hard, they focus on a single goal, and eventually receive a reward.
In today's passage he continues this theme, but he points to real-life experience. First of Jesus, then his own, then the experience of all believers. He begins in verse eight by saying "Remember Jesus Christ." He continues by noting that Jesus was born in the Jewish royal line and ended his earthly stay by rising from the dead. These are not the only points of the gospel, of course, but they bracket everything he did and said in between.
It's easy to forget Jesus. Or at least it is easy to forget the real Jesus. We like the sanitized version where he preached love to everyone and promised rest to the weary. The hard Jesus who preached "whoever even looks on a woman with lust has committed adultery with her in his heart" we want to put off to the side. We want to, but shouldn't.
Remember most of all: Jesus was totally committed to God. Even to the point of dying a horrible death. He did not have it easy, but he had it right.
Paul did not have it easy either. In verse nine he says he suffers like a criminal. There's only one passage in the Bible that uses this same word. It reads:
"When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals -- one on his right, the other on his left." Luke 23:33
Paul was suffering as the vilest kind of criminal. It had a two-fold effect on him. First is showed him how powerful God's Word is. Paul may have been chained hand and foot, but God's Word could never be chained. Even with Paul in prison and the church plagued with defections, people were still being convicted of their sins and being saved.
God's word is not a thick book with old-fashioned language. It is the dynamic message of God's love for mankind. Americans buy millions of Bibles and stick them on their coffee tables to gather dust. It's only in places like Russia that you can really appreciate Scripture.
Contrary to what many think, in Russia it is not a crime to be a Christian. It is a mental disorder. So several hundred believers are now under treatment in Soviet psychiatric hospitals. They are isolated, drugged, beaten and their Bibles are confiscated from them. But God's word is not bound.
Victor Davydov reports that these prisoners order atheistic literature from the guards. The communists print tons of this stuff every year to prove to Christians the Bible is nonsense.
According to Davydov, the prisoners take this literature and cross out the propaganda, leaving only the Bible verses the Russian atheists have quoted. Then they have a Bible study. Victor Davydov accepted Christ this way! He said "Prisoners who found themselves on the border between life and insanity, heard a spiritual voice which came down from above. I witnessed numerous cases where people turned to God."
But the guards caught on and banned their own atheistic literature from the hospitals. Fortunately, God's Word is still not bound. The hospitals contain radios. And the guards tend to be very lazy. So the prisoners quietly tune in to Christian broadcasts from the West. God's Word is not bound.
Paul's suffering taught him the value and power of God's Word. His troubles also had the effect of leading others to Christ. In verse 10 he says he endures all things so the elect - those God chooses to be saved - may be led to Christ. Happy, successful people are usually not the best witnesses. It is those who have endured the tragedies, and hardships in life, yet still hold their heads high.
Jesus and Paul are examples of those who are willing to live for God, even to the point of suffering. Verse 11 and 13 show the options that are open to average Christians. These verses are introduced with the phrase, "Here is a trustworthy saying." It occurs 4 times in the Pastoral letters of Paul and each time a hymn or special statement follows. The verses here seem to be part of a hymn because they follow a meter in Greek (notice the indentation in the NIV). It is composed of 2 pairs of statements.
The first two are positive.
"If we died with him, we will also live with him."
This is not referring to Christians who die and go to heaven. Death is a past event here. In other passages Paul tells us that when we are saved, we die to our sins, and our old nature. We become new creatures, in Christ. This is the ideal. Many believers prefer to keep the old nature alive. They feed it, nurture it, let it rule supreme. There is no problem with this - unless you want to live forever with Jesus.
The second positive statement is:
"If we endure, we will also reign with him."
Endure means to plug away through thick and thin. Our endurance is one of the earthly evidences of our salvation. People who don't last may be showing they are not genuine believers. As Jesus says:
"He who stands firm to the end will be saved." Matthew 24:13
The reward of enduring is becoming rulers in Jesus' Kingdom. In heaven, all are kings, none are peasants.
The third statement is not positive but is as negative as you can get.
"If we disown him, he will also disown us."
This is not just Paul's opinion. Turn to Matthew 10:33:
"But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven."
Can a Christian do this? I personally don't think so. A phony Christian could deny Christ, but not a real one. The only way to deny Jesus is to live your life without accepting him. You don't have to curse him or ridicule him, just ignore him. Tell yourself you'll accept him - later. Do this, and you'll hear from the lips of Jesus the most chilling words in all eternity - "I never knew you. Away from me!" (Matthew 7:23).
The final statement is the most difficult. Verse 12 says:
"If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself."
There are two ways to look at this verse. The first interpretation says Paul is talking about people who have given up the faith. It's the same meaning as verse 12, where you deny Jesus. If this is true, the faithfulness of God would not be a blessing but just the opposite. It would mean he will be faithful to maintain his holiness, and condemn you. "He cannot disown himself" would mean he could not violate his nature, which he would do if he forgave people who didn't want it.
This interpretation makes sense, but I don't think it's the right one. A great theme in the letters to Timothy is God's love for sinners.
Paul is talking about backsliders here. They are lacking faith, but still have some. A lot of people fall into this category. They have accepted Christ as their Savior but they've lost their first love. When you see a Christian who is bitter, touchy and selfish, you are looking at a Christian who has strayed from Christ. This is the result.
What causes such faithlessness? The presence of sin in their lives. Spiritual indifference. How does God treat them? Paul says God stays faithful. He doesn't give up on us, because when we belong to Christ we become part of him. To deny a real Christian he would have to deny himself.
You could use this to justify backsliding, but it would be wrong. It is meant to show God's overpowering love for us. He cares for us even when we don't deserve it. [Example of the Apostle Peter who denied Jesus and then was accepted back by him...]
[Invitation]
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Typed on January 27, 2005, by Wendy Ventura of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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