“Passing On The Torch”
A Study of 2 Timothy
Sermon # 6
“The Responsibility to Proclaim the
Word”
2 Timothy 4:1-5
Paul’s focus as
he writes is his own imminent departure from this life and his some what reticent
protégé, Timothy.
“I
charge you therefore before God and the Lord
Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom.”
Verse one is a reminder to
Timothy (and to us) that although he live and was ministering in the pagan city of
Ephesus, nevertheless, he is living and ministering in the full view of heaven, in the
very presence of God the Father, and of Christ Jesus, the coming judge of living and the
dead. There is nothing more needful than for us to in the middle of pressure to realize
that what we are doing as Christians is a very important thing.
John Calvin said of
this, “He makes special mention of the judgment of Christ
because He will require of us, who are his representatives, a stricter account of our
failures in His ministry.” James also issues this word of caution (James
3:1), My brethren, let not many of you become
teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.”
“A young preacher once
complained to C. H. Spurgeon, the famous Baptist preacher, that he did not have as big a
church as he deserved. ‘How many do you preach to?’ Spurgeon asked. ‘Oh,
about a hundred,’ the man replied. Solemnly, Spurgeon said, ‘That will be enough
to give account for on the day of judgment.’”
The Bible speaks of
several distinct judgments, the judgment referred to in verse one is not the Great White
Throne Judgment (Rev 20:11-15) of unbelievers
but rather is the Bema Seat Judgment (1 Cor
3:12-15, 2 Cor. 5:10) commonly called the Judgment
Seat of Christ at which believer’s will be judged for rewards.
Although the
commission that is given (4:1-5) applied first of all to Timothy himself
Before we move on I
think that I need to establish a couple of things. First, the call to preach is just that
a calling not just a profession. The
call to preach is not a matter of preference or even our natural giftedness. It is simply
a matter of obedience. Timothy was naturally shy and reserved, not at all what might
expect for one called to preach. I can personally identify with Timothy’s plight, as a young boy I was painfully shy and I still am
naturally reserved and introvert. Yet it is the knowledge that I was called to the
ministry rather than a profession I selected that keeps me going when things get rough.
Secondly, although the pastorate is often
talked about in our day as the CEO of the church you will not find that in the New
Testament. The Pastor was to be a shepherd and teacher first and foremost. The first
priority of the pastor is to be the public ministry of the Word of God. In the early days
of the church, in the book of Acts, a dispute arose among the Greek-speaking widows over
the distribution of funds for the needy. The solution they came up with was a simple one. Acts 6:2-4, “Then the twelve summoned the
multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we
should leave the word of God and serve tables. (3) Therefore, brethren, seek out
from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we
may appoint over this business; (4) but we will give ourselves continually
to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” The principle is simple, For the pastor
the ministry of the Word has to take priority over everything else!
There are two things that Paul wants Timothy
to understand. ( Can a Baptist preacher really only have two points??)
First,
Understand That The Word Must Be Given Out(v.
2)
“Preach the word! Be ready in
season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort,
The charge given by
Paul (v. 2) is a single statement made up of five imperatives (commands).
First, “preach
the word” usually when we hear this phrase we think that this is addressed
only to preachers. No, this word is not addressed to preachers only. It includes all the
people of God, because the word translated “preach” (kerusso) literally means “proclaim.” So anywhere human hearts are open, seeking or
hurting there is an opportunity to “proclaim the word.”
Secondly, “be Ready
(in season and out of season)” (be urgent)
This is one scripture
that as a young preacher that I grew to dislike having quoted. Because at some preacher’s
meetings it was used as the vindication of for the practice of calling on people to preach
at a moment’s notice. I think that is a misapplication of the verse.
The word translated “ready” carries the “complementary
ideas of urgency. prepared-ness and readiness. It could be used of a soldier who is ready to go into battle on a
moment’s notice or of a guard who
keeps continually alert for any threat of infiltration or attack by the enemy …. Such a sense of readiness and willingness to serve
the Lord at any cost and at any time not only should characterize every faithful preacher
but also every faithful Christian.” [John MacArthur. MacArthur New Testament
Commentary – 2 Timothy. (Chicago: Moody, 1995) p. 176]
Likewise Peter exhorted believer’s in 1
Peter 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and
always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with
meekness and fear.”
Third, “convince”
carries the idea of setting forth God’s truth in a systemic and reasonable way, answering
questions and removing obstacles to belief.
I often think of the story I heard about a young preacher that went in view of call to a
new church. He preached on Sunday morning with power and conviction and the church was
suitably impressed and called him as the new pastor. That night they returned and he
preached the same message, the church was a little surprised by passed it off to “new
preacher” jitters. Yet the next Sunday he brought the same sermon on Sunday morning
and Sunday evening. He kept this up until finally the deacons got together and decided to
speak to him about it. They approached the pastor and said, “Preacher,
we want you to know we think that is a fine message, but don’t you have other
messages you can preach?” The preacher replied, “Yes, as a
matter of fact I do. And as soon as you do as I have instructed you in the first message we will go on to them.”
Fourth the command to “rebuke,” it is suggested by some that this has
to do with the heart, with bringing a person under the conviction of sin.
The Fifth command to
“exhort (with all long suffering)” literally means encourage. When
I think of the word “exhort” I think of the need an application of the word of God to be made
to the listener.
“I heard about a town many
years ago that revolved around the lumber business. The town decided that they to hire a
new pastor for the town church. One day, the new pastor saw some of his church members
dragging logs which had floated down the river from another village upstream. Each log was
marked with the owner’s stamp on the end of the log, much like a cattle brand. But to
his dismay, this pastor saw his church members sawing off the ends of the logs
where the owners stamp appeared. That Sunday the pastor preached a sermon on the
commandment, "Thou shalt not steal." After the sermon people said, "Great
sermon pastor" and "mighty fine preaching." But the next week they were
back to stealing logs. So the next Sunday the pastor preached the same sermon, but
he ended the sermon by saying, "And thou shalt not cut off the end of thy neighbor’s
logs." When he finished that sermon they ran him out of town. Now I don’t know
if that’s a true story or not, but it does illustrate the need to communicate the
Bible specifically. (Haddon
Robinson, Making A Difference in Preaching p. 93).
Secondly,
Understand That The Word May Be Rejected (vv. 3-4)
Timothy is told that
he must be faithful to proclaim the Word precisely because people will have a natural
inclination to drift away from the truth. Verse three says, “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; (4) and they will turn their ears
away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
Paul says there is coming a “time,” and “time”
here (kairos)
means not chronological time, but an era of time when the truth will not be readily
accepted. But rather individuals “wanting to have their ears tickled” with
unbiblical notions that raise their comfort
level and justify and overlook their sins
will turn to myths.
People love to hear something sensational and
different. One preacher told of how he visited in a couple’s home who told him how
they were fans of Dr. Gene Scott from Southern California, and what a great preacher he
was. When he arrived, Dr. Scott was on TV—they’d purchased a satellite dish in
order to stay current with his teaching. “After some
chit-chat, the husband turned …and said, “You’re probably wondering why you
haven’t seen us at church lately. Right then, Dr. Scott held up a book about the lost
city of Atlantis and the pyramids, and the husband looked at me and said, “This is
what we want in Bible teaching, and we haven’t ever heard this taught in any of
the churches we’ve been in!” [John
Underhill, Spokane, WA - www.bible.org/illus/2Tim]
Today people often come to church with a
personal agenda in mind:
Make me
happy.
Meet my needs.
Don’t talk about sin.
Tell me how to be successful.
Don’t be so negative.
Bible doctrine is boring.
Theology doesn’t matter.
Sermons are too long.
Make the gospel relevant.
Tell more stories.
Make me laugh.
Tell some jokes.
Help me feel good about myself.
Build up my self-esteem.
Don’t be divisive.
Don’t talk about hell.
Be positive.
I want a happy religion.
We readily see this in
our own day. Changing view on homosexuality
is one of those prevailing myths. The Episcopal Church meeting in Minneapolis in 2003,
elected its first ever openly homosexual bishop, the Rev. Gene Robinson. Even a world
outside the Church understands that this is wrong. Katherine Kersten in an editorial
entitled “The Gospel of Inculsion” in the August 8, 2003
edition of the Wall Street Journal stated that the Episcopal
Church; “ … has just tossed aside 2,000 years of
bedrock Christian teaching about marriage, the family and sexuality. It has rejected
beliefs fundamental not only to Christianity, but to Judaism and Islam. Episcopalians'
inability to defend core doctrine suggests that mainline American churches are losing
their theological moorings, and increasingly falling prey to the prevailing winds of
secular culture.”
She goes on to say, the church in doing so “… appeared to embrace a new gospel, ….. Its message?
Jesus came to make us feel good about ourselves.
She very insightfully says, “… the new gospel's disciples do not generally jettison
Scripture outright. Instead, they radically reinterpret it.” [Katherine Kersten. Wall Street Journal.
www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110003859]
There is also the myth of
But we need to understand this evening that
it is impossible to believe in the biblical doctrine of resurrection and also believe in the myth
of reincarnation. The two ideas are diametrically opposed.
There is the myth of evolution. Some Christian accept
evolution without considering the theological implications of what evolution teaches. Is
our race is descended from apes then there never was could have been a fall in the Garden
of Eden. By denying the Fall of Mankind, evolution teaches there is no need for a Redeemer.
I believe that when
people come to church they have the right to expect a couple of things.
First, they have the right to expect that
they will hear a message in which the Bible will be presented as the final authority. Many are afraid that the Bible
might be offensive to the unsaved. They are right. But the unchurched are at some level
are still interested in knowing what the Bible says about their situation. They may not
agree but but they still what someone who will tell them straight what the Bible says.
Secondly they have the right to expect that
they will hear a message based on the
Word of God. By that I don’t mean as I
have experienced a few times, a message in which a passage is read at the beginning and
never referred to a again.
This is the reason that I choose to preach
expository sermons. Expository preaching is preaching that goes through a passage or a
book from the Bible verse by verse to explain what it means and apply it
to our lives today. You see, our tendency is to focus on those verses of the Bible we find
most interesting or appealing, and to neglect those parts that are difficult to understand
or hard to obey. So if you preach through books of the Bible, we not only cover those
parts that are interesting and appealing, but we also cover parts of the Bible that are
difficult.
I have been your pastor over 20 years. That
means I’ve preached literally hundreds of sermons from this pulpit. That’s a lot
of sermons to preach, and that’s a lot of sermons to listen to. The day is coming when I must give an account
to God for everything I have said over the last 20 years. Nothing will be overlooked,
everything will come to light, and my words and my motives will be examined by the Lord.
And just as I will give an account for the
sermons I have preached, even so you will give an account for the sermons you have heard.
Verse five continues with “But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work
of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
Verse five encourages Timothy to never give
up, until he has brought his ministry to full completion
I would have to agree with John MacArthur in
his commentary when he states it worthy of notice that “Paul
did not focus on the visible success of Timothy’s ministry, but on the excellence of
his service. He focused not on Timothy’s opportunities but on his commitment, not on
his personal prominence but on his character. He expressed no concern for the young pastor’s
acceptance or reputation but great concern for his faithfulness and godliness. He did not
emphasize the size, wealth, or influence of the church at Ephesus but rather its spiritual
life and health under Timothy’s care. He did not concentrate even on Timtohty’s
spiritual gifts, important as those were, but on his spiritual life and his spiritual
service.” [John
MacArthur. MacArthur New Testament Commentary – 2 Timothy. (Chicago: Moody,
1995) p. 166]