Fulfilling Your Ministry

Alright, good job.

Second Timothy chapter 4.

2 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

Second Timothy chapter 4.

2 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

We're almost finished with Second Timothy.

Second Timothy chapter 4.

2 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

We finished chapter 3 last week.

We ended on a very popular verse that all scripture is God-breathed.

And tonight we're going to be looking at another popular verse from Second Timothy.

Second Timothy chapter 4 verse 1 is where we will start.

2 Timothy 4:1

Let's pray and we'll jump in.

God we come to you tonight.

We thank you for your word.

I pray that your word would speak to us tonight, that you would help us to hear what you want

us to hear.

I pray that our hearts would be focused on you and not the distractions and the worries

and the desires of this world, but that we would just be open to what you say, that we

would hear what you say, dear Lord.

You know what we need to hear.

I pray that we would hear it and listen to it and act on your word, that we would grow

in your word, that we would be encouraged by your word or corrected by your word.

Whatever it may be that we need tonight, I pray God that you would hide me behind the

cross and that you would do a good work in this place tonight through your word.

In Jesus name I ask it.

Amen.

These are kind of the beginning of the closing words that Paul is giving to Timothy here.

Second Timothy chapter 4 verse 1.

2 Timothy 4:1

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who will judge the living and the dead and

in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge.

So, he's reminding Timothy here, okay, we serve God, we serve Jesus.

Jesus has come.

Jesus is going to be the judge one day and I charge you in the presence of God that you

remember what your mission is, what your ministry is, what your job is.

Now we had just saw in the last chapter, in chapter 3, he talked about at the beginning

of that chapter some evil people and their evil ways, but Timothy was called to be a

godly man and to act in godly ways and here's this final charge of what Timothy needs to

do as he carries on his ministry.

Verse 2.

Preach the word.

Okay, this is a simple instruction.

What is Timothy's job in the ministry?

It is to preach the word.

It is to speak the message.

Some of your translations may say something like that.

The message is what?

The message is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That is the message.

The word of God and everything that is in the word of God.

But when we read the word of God, everything is pointing us to Jesus Christ.

Now there are certainly a lot of commands and a lot of instructions in God's word that

are good for us, but ultimately first and foremost the message is the gospel of the

truth of Jesus Christ.

So therefore, he tells Timothy, don't forget the God you represent.

Don't forget that one day you and all those that you preach to will stand in judgment

before God.

Therefore preach the word.

Preach the good news so that everybody would know what God's word says.

So that everybody would come to faith in Jesus Christ if they would just listen to and accept

the word that you preach.

So first and foremost, Timothy's instruction is to preach the word.

Be prepared in season or out of season.

Some of your translations may say something like whether it's convenient or not.

In season or out of season.

That is to say, always be prepared to stand up for God.

Always be prepared to do the work of God.

Always be prepared to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You should always be prepared in the times when you're expecting it and the times where

you think it's going to happen and the times where you're called and the times that are

set aside.

Be ready in those times, but also know there's going to be times that when you least expect

it that you're going to need to preach the word of God in season or out of season.

Right now we're getting close to hunting season.

So when it's in season, what do you do?

You prepare.

You get all your camo out.

You get your guns ready to go.

You get your ammunition ready.

You get your deer stands out.

Why?

Because it's that season.

You're ready to go kill a deer.

So you're prepared.

And what Paul is saying here, you need to be prepared in season, but really every day

of season.

You need to always be prepared.

It's not always going to be convenient.

It's not always going to be easy, but sometimes you're going to encounter people in situations

when you least expect it.

And you may have the opportunity to preach the gospel to them, to share Jesus Christ

with them.

We had an experience like that on vacation.

There was a lady that we'd sit by in our chairs every day and Michelle kind of made friends

with her through the week.

And at the end of the week, Michelle had an opportunity to just share with her the love

of Jesus Christ.

And it was a beautiful thing.

And Michelle did an excellent job of just letting this woman know the importance and

the significance of Jesus.

I hope you don't mind me sharing that story tonight, but it's a good example of what it

means to be ready to share the gospel.

Even when you're down on the beach with your feet in the sand, you never know when you

might have an opportunity.

You're ready for those opportunities if you're going out for ministry or if you're standing

behind the pulpit on Sunday mornings.

But sometimes you just meet a stranger and there's that opportunity to serve whether

or not we're a preacher or not.

There's those opportunities for us to share the word of God, to share the gospel of Jesus

Christ in season and out of season.

What does he say?

Correct, rebuke, and encourage.

Some of your translations may use some different words there, but those are similar to the

words that we see at the end of chapter three when it talks about the word of God, that

all scripture is God-breathed and is used for what?

For correction, for rebuke, for encouragement.

That same idea.

He's telling Timothy here, look, as you preach that you need to correct, rebuke, and encourage.

Based on the end of chapter three, it appears as though the ability to do that comes through

what?

It comes through the word of God.

That idea of rebuking is acknowledging that there is some sin, that there is some evil

there, but we don't just want to stop there.

It would be easy for us to look at everybody else, and we're probably guilty of this.

It's easy for us to see everybody sin and maybe even call them out for that sin.

That's a sin, that's evil.

You shouldn't do that.

Okay, well, that's part of the problem.

We need to acknowledge that in ourselves too, that there's sin there.

Sometimes the scripture rebukes us.

We read it and we say, holy smokes, I'm guilty of that, but we don't want to just stop there.

We don't want to just tell people, okay, this is what sin is.

We want to see what we need to do about that.

The Bible tells us, okay, we need to correct those things.

It doesn't just say this is the wrong way to live, but the Bible also says this is the

right way to live.

God tells us lots of things that we should do and how we should do right.

Yeah, it tells us a lot of things we shouldn't do, but God says, okay, don't hate your neighbor,

love your neighbor.

Okay, don't do evil things to your neighbor, but pray for your neighbor.

Don't hate your enemies, but pray for your enemies.

It'd be easy to say to somebody, okay, you're hating somebody, don't hate them, but you

need to tell them the correct thing to do.

Don't hate your enemy, but love your enemy.

Pray for those who persecute you.

It's a process.

We rebuke sin.

God rebukes it in our own lives.

Sometimes we have other people that speak the truth to us and it may hurt, and it rebukes

us in our sin.

Hopefully there's a heart of correction there to lead us on the right path and an encouragement.

Okay, you're living in sin, but here's the way that God wants you to live, and don't

give up.

Be encouraged.

It's hard.

Don't let sin get the best of you.

So there's this process here that we see as we read through God's word.

Hopefully we see that, and we use that process to help other people to grow in the Lord.

Sometimes we're rebuked.

Sometimes God corrects us, and we need that encouragement that God loves us, that even

though we are sinners, that God's grace is good, God is patient with us.

And what does the next thing on the list say?

Correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.

So if we're going out into the world and we're trying to reach people who don't know Jesus

Christ, and we're trying to point them in the right direction, away from the ways of

sin and point them to the light of Jesus Christ so that they can be encouraged and their sins

could be forgiven, that's not always an easy job.

Now maybe there's people you know, and maybe you know that they need to know the Lord.

Maybe you're trying to minister to them.

Maybe you've been trying to reach them for years, and maybe there are days that you just

want to give up, and you say, that's it.

I've done all I can do.

They're just hard-headed.

There's no hope for them.

But we need to have patience.

And the best way perhaps for us to remember to have patience is to be reminded of the

patience that God has had with us.

Because spoiler alert, we may not be as good as we think we are.

We may say, well yeah, God has patience with me, but I'm not as bad as him, or I'm not

as bad as her.

But God is patient with us far more than we realize, far more than we deserve.

And so there are people that maybe that we are called to minister to, and they're just

hard.

They're just hard, and their attitude is bad, and they just don't want to listen to God's

words, or they don't pay attention, or they just kind of shrug you off and don't want

to hear what you have to say.

But let God give us patience, that we would continue to rebuke, that we would continue

to correct, that we would continue to encourage those people, that we would be patient with

them, as God is patient with us, and that we are careful in our instruction, that we

carefully instruct them in the way of God, that we carefully instruct them in the love

of Jesus Christ.

Now these words are good for someone in a ministry type position for sure, but I think

they're good for us in every level, in some regards, as all Christians, that we need to

remember these things, because we're all doing the work of Jesus Christ, and we need to remember

these instructions.

Verse three, for the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.

Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers

to say what their itching ears want to hear.

They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to miss.

Okay, so there comes a time when people don't want to hear sound doctrine.

Now maybe sometimes people start out and they're okay with the word of God, and then pretty

soon they get kind of bored with it, or they don't like it because it begins to convict

them and rebuke them of things that they don't really want to hear.

And so they would rather just hear things that they like.

Who wants to hear things that they don't like?

Who wants to hear somebody say, well look, this is a sin and that's a sin, and God wants

you to repent, and God wants you to live for Him, when all the while in your heart you

say, but I like this sin, and I like doing what I want to do when I want to do it, and

I don't want to have to serve a God.

I'd rather God just save me and just let me do what I want to do.

I'd rather God just give me salvation, but just let me live in my sin.

Well that's not the way it works.

But they don't want to hear the message of the truth, and so they just find somebody

that will tell them what they do want to hear.

Just find a teacher who will soften it up, who will make it nice and pretty, who will

say, you know what?

God wants you to be happy.

Whatever you need to do to be happy.

Oh, God's not going to send anybody to hell.

They look for people that'll tell them all these things that they like to hear, and they

don't care if they're true or not.

They don't care if they're myths, if they're lies, if they're made up.

They don't care where these things come from.

They just want to hear what they want to hear.

We like to hear what we like to hear.

We like it when we think something and people agree with us.

That's what we like to do.

When we're doing something we shouldn't do, we like to find other people who will agree

with us and make us feel better about what we're doing.

None of us probably like people that tell us what we don't want to hear.

He tells Timothy here, all right, be ready.

Be ready to do this work, but know that as you try to reach people, that there's going

to be a lot of people, maybe they start to listen to you for a second, but there's going

to be a lot of people that really don't want to hear what you have to say.

They'd really just hear the good stuff.

They'd really just hear the stuff that they like and that they agree with and that they

want to hear.

But that's not for the Christian.

We can't go along with that.

We have to stand by the truth of God's word.

We have to live by the truth when it's hard for us.

We have to speak the truth when it's hard on us.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes it is hard to speak the truth because we all have friends or we have family and

sometimes they're doing things that are just not right.

Sometimes we have to say, look, I love you, but what you're doing is not right.

We don't like to hear that sometimes and those that may need to hear that truth don't like

to hear that sometimes.

It's not always convenient.

It's not always easy to stand up for the truth of the gospel, but what else can we stand

up for?

We don't want to be those who begin to cave.

We don't want to be those who just tell people what they want to hear because that's of no

benefit to anybody's soul to not hear the truth of God's word.

It's not going to benefit anyone's soul to hear lies.

It's not going to benefit anyone's soul to encourage someone to live in sin and pretend

like they're not and sweeping it under the rug.

That's not going to benefit anyone.

We need to know the truth of our life and that sin is sin and we don't want to live

in sin.

It's not good.

It's not right and we want to stand on the truth of God's word.

Some are not going to want to hear that truth, but he says in verse five, but you keep your

head in all situations.

Keep your head straight.

You hear people say sometimes he's got a good head on his shoulders.

That means he's wise.

He's smart.

He knows what he's doing.

He makes good decisions and that's kind of the advice that he's giving him here.

Look, you're called to do the work.

There are going to be some who don't want to hear the truth.

They would rather hear what they want to hear, whether it's a lie or not.

They don't want to hear the truth, but he says, but you keep your head in all situations.

Don't get discouraged.

Don't give into that, but you stay strong and you do what's right.

You're wise.

You're smart.

You know what to do, Timothy.

Paul had already said, look, you've seen my example.

You've seen the way I live.

You've been there with me and so don't forget those things.

Keep a good head on your shoulders as you're trying to do the work of the ministry.

Undeer hardship.

Now, we've already seen that throughout the ministry of Paul, throughout really most of

scripture in the New Testament.

We see this pretty common thing that those who are doing the work of the Lord experience

a lot of hardship.

And so he tells Timothy here that you need to be ready to endure that hardship.

Do the work of an evangelist.

Okay.

Do the work of an evangelist.

What does an evangelist do?

Well, the Bible doesn't really give us a super clear definition.

The word evangelist is not used very many times in scripture and I don't know that it

ever really spells out a good definition, but typically the way that we think of evangelists,

and I think rightly so, is an evangelist is one who preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ.

One who preaches a very gospel-centered, Jesus-centered message, a message of salvation, that Jesus

Christ died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven, that we are all sinners

in need of a savior and Jesus Christ is that savior and there is salvation in no one but

Jesus Christ.

That is the gospel message and that is the message of the evangelist.

The evangelist is one who's trying to reach those who have not been reached for the gospel.

Those who don't know Jesus Christ, those who don't follow Jesus Christ.

That's typically when we think of an evangelist, we think about someone who preaches in that

way.

What does Paul say to Timothy?

He says, do the work of an evangelist.

Discharge all the duties of your ministry.

I don't really like that translation.

Some of your translations will say fulfill your ministry.

That I think makes more sense.

It does to me than this translation.

Fulfill your ministry.

Okay, so Timothy has been called to serve God and Paul gives him all these instructions

through this letter.

He tells him that he's going to face opposition, but he tells him at the end of this section,

fulfill your ministry.

Don't give up.

I think that's a really important message, especially for people who are in ministry,

especially for anybody who's a pastor.

Maybe somebody listening online is a pastor.

This is an important reminder to fulfill your ministry because it's not always easy.

Ministry is not always easy.

It comes with things that, for those who've never really been in ministry, things that

you can't even really imagine or understand.

It comes with joys and sorrows and pains and difficulties.

It's a blessing, but it's difficult.

It's really easy and you see this sometimes for people in the ministry that they just,

they give up.

They don't fulfill their ministry.

What does Paul tell Timothy here?

I think what he's telling him here is, don't give up.

You need to finish what you started.

You need to fulfill your ministry.

I think that's what he's saying here based in the context of the next verse that we're

first going to look at.

Verse six, for I am already being poured out like a drink offering and the time of my departure

is near.

Now, we talked about this at the beginning of this letter, that this is the last known

writing of Paul that we have, the last letter that he wrote.

He probably died not too long after this.

Paul recognizes this.

He knows that his time is getting short.

He's being poured out like a drink offering.

That is, he's given everything he has.

Physically, he is probably really wore down by this point.

He's been in prison.

He's been beaten.

I mean, all of these things that Paul has gone through for the gospel, he's given everything

he's got.

There's not much more to give.

He has shed blood to do the work of the kingdom of God, to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He says, look, I've given everything I have, I'm being poured out like an offering here

and my time is short.

I do not have much time left.

But listen to what he says.

Some of you may have heard this verse.

This may be the most popular verse in all of 2 Timothy.

He says, I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the race.

I have kept the faith.

I think that's exactly what Paul is encouraging Timothy to do here when he says, fulfill your

ministry.

Now, Timothy was probably still relatively young.

He had a lot of years left to serve.

Paul's days are drawing to a close.

Paul had been there for Timothy.

Timothy had served alongside Paul, but there comes a time when you have to take over the

reins in your life.

Probably all have experienced that in some way, maybe in a family situation.

You got the matriarch and the patriarch of the family and they're kind of the head and

then at some point they pass away and then you move up into that role.

You become the matriarch and the patriarch or maybe you've seen it in a business opportunity.

Maybe you were an employee for a while and then all of a sudden you own the business.

You're the one who's running the business.

You're the one who takes the reins.

Sometimes you have those people in your life that were once kind of your mentors, those

who were your leaders and oftentimes they impart wisdom to you.

They say, okay, I'm handing the reins over to you, so make good choices, make good decisions,

do what's right, raise your kids right, take care of the business, be aware of these things,

don't get caught up in these types of things.

We have those people in our life that's kind of passed the baton on to us.

That's exactly what Paul is doing here for Timothy.

He's saying, look Timothy, you've been trained up, you've been called by God, you're doing

the ministry, continue to fulfill the ministry, but I'm not going to be here with you forever.

My time is getting short.

I have done everything I can do and I have served God till the end and Timothy, you need

to do the same.

Don't give up.

Then he tells him the words that we just read there.

He says, I have fought the good fight.

What about you and I?

Are we fighting the good fight?

Are we always fighting for the goodness of God?

Do not get tired of doing good, for at the proper time you will reap your reward, is

what the scripture tells us.

Don't get tired of fighting the good fight.

It is a fight.

Living for God is not always easy, but we must continue to fight.

We must continue to fight against the temptations that are in our life that are tempting us

to sin.

We must continue to fight for those who need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, who need

to know the love of God.

We do not want to give up the fight and I'm telling you tonight, it is not easy.

You know it's not easy.

I don't have to tell you.

You've all lived long enough that you know that life is not easy, that sometimes standing

up for the Lord is not easy, but we must fight the good fight.

We cannot give up.

We cannot give up.

We don't want to take the gloves off and just say I'm done.

We cannot forfeit.

This is a fight that we need to continue to fight.

And Paul says, I have fought and I have fought and I have fought and my life is almost done

and I can say that I have not quit the fight, that I have fought until I am going to leave

this world.

What about you and I?

Can we say that?

I hope we can say that, but maybe tonight is a struggle.

Maybe tonight it's tough.

Maybe you don't think you can fight another day.

We'll keep fighting.

When you don't have strength to fight anymore, then you say, God, I need your strength because

I'm about fought out.

I'm in the ninth round and I don't think I can make it another round, but we can through

the power of God.

I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the race.

Wow.

What a beautiful thing that Paul had been running the race and he's finished the race.

It's easy to start the race.

Starting the race is easy.

There's a lot of things in my life that I've started.

Y'all ever done that before?

You say, I'm fixing to eat healthy.

I'm starting.

I'm going to start.

I'm going to eat healthy.

And how long does that last?

It lasts about three days.

It's easy to start, but then all of a sudden you want that Reese's Cup and it's pretty good.

You say, I'll eat the Reese's Cup today.

It ain't going to hurt.

And then a week later you eating three Reese's Cups a day and you ain't eating nothing healthy

anymore.

It's easy to start.

I'm going to work out.

I'm going to be healthy.

I'm going to walk a mile a day.

I'm starting today.

It's easy to start.

You walk a half mile and you say, well, maybe I'll just start with a half mile.

A mile's too much.

And then you walk a half mile three days.

And then after that you get too busy because you got to go do something else.

And then pretty soon you don't finish.

Does anybody else have a problem with that?

Maybe it's just me.

You start things, whatever they may be.

It's easy to start something.

I'm fixing to start this.

And then all of a sudden we get discouraged or we get busy or we get sidetracked and we

don't finish.

But this is something we've got to finish.

This is something as brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a race that we must finish.

It's easy to start to race, but life's not always easy.

It's finishing the race that's tough.

When the going gets tough and life is difficult and we don't understand the things that God

may allow to go on in our life and they don't make sense to us and people begin to kind

of come at us and attack us and mock us for our beliefs.

And we just begin to see things in our life and sometimes things get difficult and we

say, God, I don't know if I can keep doing this.

And it's so easy.

It would be so easy for us to just stop running the race.

But nobody who quits the race is going to get the reward.

Only those who finish the race.

And what does Paul say?

I fought a good fight.

I hadn't stopped fighting.

I have finished the race.

I have run from the time that Jesus appeared to me.

I have run and I have run and I have run through prisons and I have run through beatings and

I have run through everything that has come against me.

I have run through all the people who have come to attack me and I am still standing

on Jesus Christ.

And Paul says, I have finished the race.

I did not give up.

In Hebrews chapter 12, it says run the race with endurance.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Run the race with endurance, laying aside every sin that so easily ensnares, keeping

our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

What a beautiful verse.

I think I quoted it the other night, but what a wonderful verse.

What a wonderful call to us to run the race with endurance.

Let us be those who run the race with endurance so that we may be those at the end of our

life when we are passing the baton to another generation that we can say, my time has come,

but I have stood on the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and I have finished my race.

We pass that baton down to our kids and to our grandkids and those others that we have

an impact in their life.

What a beautiful thing that Paul can say this at the end of his life.

And Lord willing, may we be those who say it at the end of our life.

He says, I have kept the faith.

I have kept the faith.

The most important thing that we could possibly do is keep the faith.

Is to come to faith in Jesus Christ and to keep that faith and to not give up and to

not turn back.

That's the whole book of Hebrews.

That's what we've been talking about is that that audience had come to faith in Jesus Christ,

but they were not keeping the faith.

They were in danger of losing the faith and going back to their old way of life.

But Paul says, I fought the good fight.

I have finished the race and I have kept the faith.

And what's the result of that?

He says in verse eight, now there is in store 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 longed for his appearing.

Well, isn't that beautiful?

Paul says, look, I have served God and one day I will stand in the presence of God who

will judge me and God will give me the crown, the crown of righteousness, the crown of life,

the crown of victory over sin and death and sorrow and pain.

God will grant me victory.

I will have finished the race.

I will have won the race through Jesus Christ.

And Paul says, and good news.

It's also for you, Timothy, and it's also for those people in 2024 sitting on the pews

in the Enterprise Baptist Church, for those who would come to Jesus Christ and fight the

good fight and run the race and keep the faith.

Paul says, God will not forget that.

God will remember that.

God will reward you when you get to be in his presence.

It's a good word of encouragement today that God has not forgotten us on the days that

are difficult, on the days that are tough, that God has not forgotten us.

So let us be those who fulfill whatever it may be that God has called us to.

Let us be those who seek him and who trust him and who learn from those brothers and

sisters in Christ who impart their wisdom in our life as Paul did in Timothy's life.

And let us be those who we can say at the end of our life that we have fought the good

fight, we have run the race, and we have kept the faith.

Let's pray.

Father God, we come to you.

We thank you for your good word.

I pray that you would help us to grow in this word tonight.

I pray that you would help us on the days where it's difficult.

Dear Lord, your word tells us that those days are going to come.

Paul tells Timothy that he's going to encounter those who don't want to hear the truth.

And God, we certainly live in a world today where we experience the same thing.

So God, first I pray that you would help us to want to hear the truth, that you would

help us to read your word and listen to it.

The hard stuff that convicts us, let us not turn a ear from it, but that we would stop

and listen, that we would repent of our sins, that we would let your work do a work in our

heart and our life, dear Lord, that we would let your word be able to take the speck out

of our eye so then we can go and help take the speck, take the, excuse me, take the log

out of our eye, dear Lord, so then we can go and begin to take the speck out of others'

eyes, God.

I pray that we would grow in your word.

I pray, God, that you would help us to be the men and the women that you want us to

be, that whatever opportunities you call us to, that we would fulfill our ministries,

dear Lord, and that we would run with endurance and not give up, that we would keep the faith,

dear Lord, and long for the day that we see your face.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.